Seven Terrors

by Selvedin Advic

  I placed my head in my hands, carefully, as though it were not mine. I sat down and waited for Mirna. I felt as though I were naked in an icy wind. Like a father in the waiting room of the maternity ward. Like the person executing the decisive penalty. Like a man expecting a ghost.

  Outside the snow had stopped falling.

  I listened. Silence. Complete. I could not hear even the smallest sound. Even the refrigerator was not humming. The walls were quiet: all six sides of my box. As though the flat was out in space, or under the earth, and not in a multi-storey building with cardboard walls, busy water pipes, squeaking mechanized lift… As though I were not stuck in a building with eighteen floors each with four apartments full of people on each of them. If the apartments were arranged into small houses and placed in a field, next to a stream, near a forest, under some hills, there would be a village of quite considerable proportions which would deserve a dot on the geographic map. The residents of my multi-storey building could have in that village their own customs, celebrate strange saints or keep the secrets of some traditional skill – fascinating embroidery, horse-training or wine-making. They could even have a special language; maybe even squeal while they laugh. The women could sing lascivious songs together while they beat their washing in the stream, and the men spend their evenings in ancient and moronic little games… In a village like that silence would be impossible, even in the middle of the night; dogs would be barking, their chains would be rattling, the animals in the stables would be mooing, neighing or whatever they like to do, chickens would be quaking in front of predators and under roosters, lovers would jump fences, there would be fortune-tellers casting spells, children whispering under the covers… A complete and utter silence like this would mean that the village was deserted, that there was nothing alive in it, that some misfortune had swooped down on it and smothered it.

  As I sat there, it suddenly crossed my mind to doubt whether they had all gone to work? It was impossible to imagine that every neighbour had some sort of job to do outside, that in the apartments there was not one housewife, pensioner, or child… Or some idler like me, who lived off the collection of rent for inherited business premises? Where are all those hordes of bill collectors, tax men, burglars and beggars? Is it possible that nobody is entering into our apartment building, that no-one is using the lift? That all the inhabitants of the seventy-two boxes had been struck dumb at the same time and decided not to move from their own territory? Impossible, of course, everyone cannot possibly be sitting in their rooms and sifting through their lives… Someone has to be filling up the days about which others will be thinking. Someone has to fight, so that others have enough room for complaining and doing nothing.

  I was waiting for Mirna, and yet I did not know when she would come. I also did not know how I would spend the time until she came. Normal people would have breakfast, eight o’clock in the morning being the time for a methodical civilian meal. But I could not eat; because of Aleksa’s notebook my stomach was cramped, I could hardly even swallow air. I had to think of something, something to do, anything. Otherwise, I knew with certainty, I would pick up the telephone. The last time I had done that I had been confined to bed for exactly nine months and three days. Even thieves in our country get a lighter sentence than that, and I had even prescribed solitary confinement for myself. I begin to sweat when I remembered that conversation.

  I remember, very well, how I begged her to return to me. In the beginning I put on a firm voice, acted as though I were a reasonable and mentally concentrated person, I even brought forth arguments… As soon as I felt her cold, and until then unknown to me, inflexibility, I started to become hysterical, to list everything I had ever done for her, all the times she had hurt me… I switched to abusing her, accused her of being unfaithful during our whole marriage, of leaving me because we were having a financial crisis, counted all the women with whom I could have slept but did not because of her. She put down the receiver and turned off the telephone… It was only then that I remembered that, while I was preparing the conversation, I had planned to use the sentence that John Malkovich said to Debra Winger in The Sheltering Sky – ‘To love for me means to love you’. I thought that sentence could help me, could soften her… Now I am sure it would not have done so, it would only have made my entreaties more pitiful. Not long ago in Lolita I found the part where Humbert Humbert pleads with the girl to come back to him. I shall write it for you:

  ‘Are you completely sure that – all right, it’s understood, not tomorrow, and not the day after tomorrow, but – well, one day, whenever, you won’t come to live with me? I shall create a completely new god and thank him with piercing cries, if you give me just that microscopic hope’ (or something like that).

  ‘No, she said, smiling, no.’

  I had read Lolita carefully, twice I think, but I had not noticed this part. When I accidentally came across it, it shocked me completely. Nabokov was surgically precise – an unreasonable entreaty and a rational reply. One of our conversations evolved just like that; I did not mention creating a god, but I pleaded for a grain of hope. And that is the same.

  I could not allow myself another telephone conversation like that. I could not go through the same tunnel again. Aleksa’s story was a much better way to go. I did not know what Mirna wanted from me, but I yearned to become a part of that story, to immerse myself completely in it, to learn the ending. It was not just idle curiosity, at least not only that… I was looking for some meaning in life, something to occupy me…and I felt that the black notebook had come into my life at the right time.

  In order to shed light on the secret completely, I decided to search through every day of Aleksa’s diary.

  Mustafa was shouting under the window. I could not hear clearly what he was saying, because the motor of some car in the car park was coughing like a dying person. I made out only: ‘We are the inspiration’… Knowing he would repeat it, I jumped up out of the chair, I quickly opened the window, in one moment the cold air dried the sweat from my forehead, and I heard: ‘Mustafa has spoken’, and then the motor let out a roar again. Mustafa went away to the next building, and I desperately watched him go.

  The first time I saw him was just after the war. He worked at the town marketplace, emptying the crates from trucks at dawn. After his work, at exactly 8.30, he made a circuit of the area around the marketplace. He walked in front of the apartment buildings, quickly as though on important business, then stopped suddenly, raised his head towards the windows and shouted: ‘Mustafa has spoken’. After that announcement a message would follow, a different one every day. For three months, as I was lying in bed, I did not miss one. Some I can still remember: ‘There was not enough accommodation during the war’; ‘Everyone is to blame, no-one is innocent’; ‘Many things happen and it is hard to pay so much attention just to one’… Once he said: ‘The world is making a new arrangement and everything remains the same’. If I had had the energy and the desire, I could have written down the messages, to analyse them and find in them principles, meaning, motive… Unfortunately, I did not. I was told that once Mustafa went up to the market, customers slowly aimed his index finger at the head of each one of them and said: ‘You, you, you and you, you will end up in Hell.’ They burst out laughing, and one of them said: ‘What, me too Mustafa? I bought you a meat pie a little while ago; you could have left me out of it.’ Mustafa looked at him seriously and calmly replied: ‘I can’t help you. I don’t ask questions about that.’

  Until then I had taken no notice of his messages, but that morning it seemed to me that he spoke only to me.

  I can’t remember how much time passed until Mirna arrived. I know I was sitting in front of the notebook and studying Aleksa’s handwriting. I had once read Ludwig Klages’s book on graphology so I thought I could come to some conclusions. Of course, I concluded nothing, except for the fact that I liked the way Aleksa wrote his flowing letters – correctly and decisively, with thick ink at the beginning of the stra
ight part and just a touch of blue at the end. Simple, and yet decorative. Stylish. I tried to remember the image of Aleksa, to recall him from memory. I was surprised how well I succeeded, seeing him almost as though he were standing in front of me. Like a holograph projection in a SF series. He was tall, half a head taller than I, a little stooped, yet he always looked people in the eye. I don’t remember ever seeing him run. Someone told me that in his youth Aleksa had been an amateur actor and that he was the first Hamlet in our town. I believe that, for he had a dignified bearing, almost humorously stiff, like people who have never met a nobleman expect a nobleman to be. His hair was cut short, and was coarse and completely white, as was the thick moustache which covered his lower lip. He smoked strong cigarettes, without a filter, but his moustache was always a sterile white, without any touch of nicotine yellow. What else? When he sat down, he gently lifted the legs of his trousers with his fingers. So that the material would not stretch at the knees, I presume. While he talked he would finger the big Adam’s apple at his throat, and when he was thinking he would pinch the skin of it.

  I tried to remember all those details about Aleksa’s person, and I succeeded unexpectedly well. And yet I cannot now remember how Mirna arrived. All I know is that she was suddenly standing in the hall, quite serious, and that she was looking directly into my eyes. Just like her father did. She nodded her head, presumably satisfied with what my troubled gaze could tell her, and asked:

  ‘Will you help me to find my father?’

  All at once, I felt a strength. At last. It was a good feeling, to be strong, self-confident and manly, like the leader of the National Party. I said, with an admirable, steady voice:

  ‘Of course.’

  With a wide movement of my arm I indicated she should come into the apartment. Into the lair of the awakened badger. I squeezed her shoulders with my hands, looked into her eyes and made sure to keep my voice steady while I promised I would do everything necessary to help her. Mirna fitted perfectly into this scene from a television series. She was elated; she hugged me around the neck and leant her breasts against me. I found it pleasant. Soft. Warm. Alive. Looking up at me from below, under my chin, she asked me when I would start.

  ‘Tomorrow, straight away tomorrow, there’s no time to lose. Actually, tonight, I’ll start tonight,’ I announced decisively. And basked in her admiring gaze.

  I was hoping we would, after everything, in the tranquillity following the utterance of the promises, sit and open that bottle of wine. And that then, radiant with awakened masculinity, I would outline the strategies of the search. But, Mirna kissed me on the cheek, said she would contact me very soon, and left me standing in the middle of the room. Confused. And perhaps this was a better way; because I actually didn’t have any plan at all.

  First of all, I had to find a way to get through the night. It seemed to me that the best thing would be to continue to try to regain my strength and train for my return to society. I showered, found clean clothes, waited until there were not too many people in the street, and went then out. The sky was dark, like fresh asphalt. Wrapped in a scarf and with a cap pushed down to my eyebrows, I wanted to look like the Invisible Man.6 That was the best way; I had got to know that role very well.

  * * *

  During our five years of marriage, I had firmly believed that my wife was stifling my freedom, and considered that my life, without marriage vows, would have been much better and more exciting. Often at night I stood by the window, while she was sleeping, and observed how the town was living. Without me. I counted all the lighted windows, imagined those exciting sleepless people, who surely had not put on pyjamas and then watched the evening film. I listened to the clamour from the kafana, enjoyed bits and pieces of songs and laughter. By day, even while she was holding my hand, I sneaked looks at pretty women in the street and imagined they were sending me secret signals. In my head I made lists of beauties with whom I would never sleep. I kept in mind those who were not accompanied by men, and especially those who looked at me. I thought about the fact that the whole country was full of exceptionally beautiful beings, in every canton, on both sides of the inter-entity line. I was sure that sad, lonely women were just waiting to hear my story and to delight in the jokes which had made my wife laugh with such gusto at the beginning of our relationship. And what about the female situation in the neighbouring countries? They seemed to offer complete luxury; debauchery in the pool of culture we once used to share. In the rich and continually peaceful states were many women who would surely translate every silence of mine as the consequence of war trauma and unselfishly try to console me. In my imagination, beauties from exotic countries were also dancing, some of them wild and aggressive, some because of their traditionally submissive roles, others genetically gifted with figures conforming to men’s most ardent desires. That’s how I used to daydream.

  When my wife left me,7 everything changed. Beautiful women still walked by me, but they no longer noticed me. I tried to catch their eye, yet when I succeeded I wasn’t happy with their reaction. They understood my staring as an attack, an insult. Some of them arrogantly returned my gaze and disdainfully wrinkled their pretty little noses. Most of them just looked straight through me. As though I were not there. Or more accurately, as though I were transparent. An invisible man, as I said before.

  I needed to meet a woman. I decided to start going out regularly, to the very same bar I used to visit before I was married: The Sevens.

  It looked the same. The walls were still decorated with posters of The Magnificent Seven, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, The Seven Samurai, The Seventh Seal; the same chairs; the same ashtrays. The clients were the same too. Most of them were those of my generation who were still left alive. They came every night, though I couldn’t imagine that one man would have been ready with the appropriate arguments to explain why he liked that place. The owner was overbearing; behaving as though he was running a multinational corporation, not a small café-bar. I remember once when one of my friends (former friends of course), asked him how he managed to choose precisely the worst songs from the record collection, and he very seriously replied:

  ‘I don’t put music on for fools like you. I choose songs that girls might like. And you, whatever I put on, you will come because of them.’8

  And he was right.

  It was because of women that I too returned to that wretched place. Remorseful. Because for years I had tried to lock people out of my life. Deliberately. I couldn’t bear social obligations, any sort of responsibility. I could hardly bear the physiological needs with which I was forced to comply. It was not hard to detach myself from the world; I only had to get rid of a handful of friends and a few relations. A touch of arrogance, a few broken promises and failed expectations was enough to do the trick. The telephone was struck dumb. I was happy.

  But that evening, when I peered like a weasel into The Sevens, I desperately needed company. It proved successful, even that first evening, with me sneaking myself into some quite attractive female company. I began a conversation with a few remarks about the other customers and they answered admirably, laughing while throwing out their chins; seemingly alone for too long, they seemed to appreciate old-fashioned courtship. After that, I decided to show that I was not only witty, but also clever, so I talked about literature, purposefully mentioning writers whose books I presumed they had not read, with such comments as: ‘Céline best described the comedy of despair’ or ‘Džamonja was the only one who knew the essence of the short story’.

  As soon as I noticed their attention was wandering I hurried with drinks so as to reduce my nervousness and loosen my tongue. Indeed, my brain relaxed, but my tongue tied itself up in knots. My observations became most unusual, but at the same time incomprehensible. After a couple of drinks and fifteen minutes, everything became vague. The girls started looking around the kafana, while I took their hands and tried uselessly to gain back their attention. Another booze-filled half an hour passed, until I fin
ally began to cry. Yes, I did, profusely… My tears fell onto the table while I talked about my wife and explained how I had been brutally left alone, deserted, totally helpless without her, miserable, useless, invisible. I murmured through my tears and when I wiped them away I saw that the girls had left the table. In a friendly manner, the waiter whispered in my ear that it would be good if I rested for a while at home. I obeyed him.

  The next day I decided I would drink much more carefully and sit by myself. However, that didn’t turn out to be a good idea, either. I had the feeling that everyone was looking at me, retelling the scene from the night before and whispering to each other how terrible it was that in so many years I had not succeeded in making even one friend.

  The following night I found a place in the corner… No, that was not how it was, I tried once more. I found some old acquaintances and went out with them. I thought that with them I would gain self-confidence and restore the rhythm of going out. It turned out to be a mistake, it was an uncomfortable experience. It seems they were bitterer than I and had understanding only for the relationships at the betting shop. They despised all the customers, especially the ones they greeted most warmly, made fun of every weakness, belittled every attempt to succeed. I realised I didn’t have the strength for them.

  So, after that I found a place by myself in the corner. I sat in the esteemed position, from where the regular customers could see the whole scene, while at the same time keeping an eye on the street and monitoring the entrance of new customers. There I was, installed like a security camera, drinking slowly and watering down the alcohol, to ward off drunkenness and tone down the hangover. In that crowded room, I was completely alone. I don’t think I even need to explain; the relationships in such places are understood: people come in because of their need to be with other people, and then they pretend not to notice one another. The night passed without any major unpleasantness. In fact, it was almost pleasant.