‘What was Aleksa like before his departure? Did you notice anything unusual?’ I asked him.
He wound a thick wire around his elbow, gloomy and concentrated.
‘He was never the same man after the war started. He withdrew into himself, kept quiet. I told him to wake up, that we needed professional people in those hard times. He only answered ‘well I’m here, if anyone needs anything’ and went off to the mine. Fuck that mine.’
‘And, the day before he left?’
‘Nothing. Well, actually there is something, I was keeping it…’
He put a large notebook on the table, with the title Observation Book of the Journalist on Duty.
‘You remember, when radio was truly radio, journalists used to write such things. Even in the war there was order, and see this now… Yes, Aleksa was orderly… He wrote down his last working day as well… He’s a serious man. Everything is in there…’
I began to turn over the pages of the notebook, but he shut it with his palm. I thought he was going to begin with his stories about how order must exist and that the notebook could not be read by unauthorised people, but he said:
‘OK, take it home, no-one needs this sort of thing here anymore. But, more important, tell me, has he contacted you?’
I did not know what to tell him, so just said, ‘No, but his daughter came back…’
He interrupted me, ‘I didn’t expect that from him. There were all sorts of deserters, they left in silence, then afterwards talked against us. But, I didn’t expect that from Aleksa. At least he could have contacted me, we were good friends – the two of us were the station…’
I waited for him to lift his hand from the notebook so I could leave.
‘Tell his daughter to say to him that Mirza is angry with him. Don’t forget… Go now, I’m busy, someone has to work around here.’
He unwound the wire and immediately started to wind it up again. I went out into the corridor, and he remarked after me:
‘Don’t keep that notebook too long. We must maintain some sort of order.’
I hurried home, almost running. I slipped a few times, but even so I managed to get the notebook into my apartment in one piece. Still in my coat and with my cap on my head, I sat down at the table and opened it. Straight away it could be seen that Aleksa had been the most hardworking commentator in it, always polite and measured.
For instance, on 25th May 1993 he had noted down:
In the main information broadcast I would single out the contribution of colleague S. M. about the spring action to clean up the town. Our young colleague succeeded in finding a fresh approach to an old theme. Congratulations.
A contribution in the news of the 30 May had not appealed to him.
The conversation with the president of the non-governmental organization Together in Crisis was tiring, totally confusing and nonsensical.
Our good Aleksa then continued with the addition:
I believe we do not need to blame our colleague because of this. We can see clearly by his questions that he had prepared himself well for this conversation, but the other speaker obviously does not know what his organisation really deals with. In the conversation he was using scientific phrases in the wrong places.
Aleksa’s colleagues were not so responsible in their observations. The commentary on the news of 2nd June was:
Mirela, I love you!
The journalist on duty had commented on the program for the 6th of June like this:
I left two slices of bread for you in the cupboard with the cassettes. That brown stuff in the paper is lentil paste.
A few pages were full of short lines from a card game, as well as simple mathematical transactions, and in large letters there was the existential wail:
Does anyone know when we will be paid? Or at least, cigarettes?
Near the end of the notebook I found Aleksa’s last message, written on the 2nd of August 1993. He wrote, in his orderly, composed handwriting:
I am sorry to be saying goodbye to you in this way, my dear colleagues, but it is the only way possible. Believe me when I say that this is not my choice and that I am bound by the demands of others. I hope you will understand me. If not, the day will come when I shall apologise to you in person and explain the problem. If I may, I would like to recommend:
Mirza can take the Uher and decide to whom he will give it. It is a sensitive instrument and there is a problem with the microphone cable so it should be handled very carefully. I am also asking Mirza to make sure the vinyl singles are upright when put away, also the LPs. If they keep getting put one on top of the other, the grooves will be worn down. Also, I would like some young journalist to take jurisdiction over the mining industry for himself. I think the theme of the open-cut mines has still enough potential for a detailed analysis.
That’s all for now, until we meet again, soon.
Regards to you all from your Aleksa.
And that was all. That was the last entry in the notebook; it looked as though Mirza had taken it out of the office. That was not enough for me to escape an encounter with the door. I had to continue with the search. To find something to make Mirna happy, some information to shed some light on Aleksa’s secret. I looked through the window and it suddenly occurred to me. In fact, it wasn’t so hard. The continuation of the story was unfolding before my eyes.
* * *
The Ant, as the miners called him, or Vernes in normal life, lived on an estate I could see every day from the chair in my kitchen. It was a small group of low houses, the eaves almost touching the ground. It was said that they were built on top of old mine tunnels, or else the tunnels were tucked underneath them; it was hard to say what came first, but either way it meant the settlement could easily sink into the earth. Every year the town authorities announce that they will destroy it, but quickly change their minds when they remember they have to offer the tenants new accommodation. And so the little houses have been creaking in the weakest of winds for years, squeezed between garages and the marketplace wall. Regardless of this lack of space, the owners try obstinately to make them bigger. They have extended the narrow rooms, opened low doors, put in little windows, dug out cellars, put up narrow terraces, and joined it all together with steep staircases and small roofs. After all these prodigious adaptations, if this word can be used to describe them, the houses have completely lost their original shape, and are now crooked, shifted from their foundations and merged with one another. Some of the doors in this settlement do not match human dimensions, and there are windows where there are no rooms to be aired. Looking at them now, it seemed as though they had shot up through the earth by themselves, that their illogically-placed roofs were actually just the tips of some big buildings extending under the earth.
I met the Ant when I was working as a journalist and he was the president of the Union. He was not surprised when I went to visit him. When I asked him if he could answer a few questions for me, he said:
‘What the fuck is wrong with you, I’m retired.’
I lied that I was writing a text about former miners. He agreed, maybe out of boredom.
I had to bend my head in the doorway, step over a high threshold and down onto a creaking floor which swayed beneath our feet. A calendar from 1983 with a photo of Biljana Jevtić, dressed as Kim Wilde, covered a big crack which distorted the wall behind a portable television. You could have pushed a few pencils through the crack, if not something fatter.
We sat on armchairs, while between us was a low table. These things, together with posters of singers, a cupboard and the television, were the only objects to be found in the little room.
‘I don’t drink either alcohol or coffee and I don’t smoke, since I retired. I can offer you biscuits and water, if you’re inclined.’
From the small cupboard he pulled out a packet of tea biscuits which we bit into together. We kept silent, chewing and brushing the crumbs from our collars every now and then, until it was time for the interview, which, if we’r
e being honest, I hadn’t surpassed even at ‘the height of my career’.
‘How much is your pension?’
‘Two hundred and eighty Deutschmarks.’
‘Can you make ends meet?’
‘We’ve put up with worse.’
‘How was it working in the mines when you were a young miner?’
‘Like it is now, with a shovel.’
‘The best memory from your mining days?’
‘The comradeship of my colleagues.’
‘A day you will never forget?’
‘When I brought out my dead comrades.’
‘What advice would you give to young miners?’
‘Good luck.’
‘Can we get into Europe with mines like these?’
‘We can’t go anywhere.’
‘Do you have anything to say to our readers?’
‘No, I haven’t.’
I folded up the paper on which I had written down his answers, which meant that the official part of the conversation was finished, so the Ant threw a biscuit into his mouth.
I asked him if he remembered Aleksa.
‘How would I not remember him? During the war he used to bring me that black Dutch tobacco. I’ve never smoked anything so fine.’ He closed his little black eyes.
He opened them when I asked him what they talked about.
‘He wanted me to tell him about the unusual things I had seen in the pit. I had nothing to tell him… I close my eyes before I go into the pit, like a chauffeur in front of a tunnel, and it seems to me I open them only when I go out again. Now when I think about it, it’s as though I never opened them during the war. It’s all in some sort of darkness.’
‘Why did you forbid him to go down the mine?’
His high forehead went red and a few strands of hair stood on end. My legs were getting cold. The cold was coming through the floorboards.
‘That’s not true; I didn’t let him go on the open cut.’
‘Wasn’t it shut then too?’
‘Yes, but there were still open pits. And I was afraid of other things. Strange things had happened there.’
‘What sort of strange things?’
The hairs on the top of his head moved, like little antennae.
‘Terrible things.’
‘What kind of things, tell me.’
‘What can I tell you? What do you want me to say? Ugly, abnormal…’
‘How were they abnormal?’ I am not usually so persistent, but these were not normal circumstances.
‘And what was normal during the war, fuck you? Tell me one normal thing!’
I thought of a few, I really did. For instance, during the war all we wanted was to survive. If that is not a normal need, then I don’t know what is. After the war came those other things. That was the most important thing I thought of at that moment. The others were too personal. I had just decided to tell the Ant what I had thought of, when he slid off the armchair and said:
‘Excuse me now, I have work to do. I might be retired, but I’m not just for fucking around.’
He saw me to the door and asked:
‘And how is Aleksa? Give him my regards when you see him. Tell him I still remember that tobacco.’
‘I will, as soon as I see him.’
This visit wasn’t enough to satisfy Mirna, either. I realised I had to prepare myself well for another new day and that the most important thing to concentrate on was a good night’s sleep.
I changed the bedclothes, had a shower, put on clean pyjamas, drank camomile tea and lay down. But as soon as I touched the bed, I knew I would not be able to fall asleep. I remember turning off the light, but the darkness did not embrace me, the room did not become a pleasant box. It became wider, ten times bigger, turned into a horrible emptiness: the steppe, the tundra, something cold like that, vast and yet full of anxiety. Or, to describe it better, it turned into the plains of Vojvodina in autumn. I was there, so I know what it’s like. I began to prick up my ears in the room, listening for the slightest sound, and driving away sleep. I got up, picked up a book, one I had read a long time ago with pleasure, which would not upset me, whose sentences should be only pleasant, calming… I can’t remember which, but that’s not important, because it didn’t help; anxiety was buzzing around the apartment and feeding my insomnia. Inevitably, I soon returned to analysing the happenings which had led to my being left alone. I tried to recall the conversations and searched for the beginning of the breakdown, and remembered one evening, while I was studying the television guide, when she said, ‘I am sure you do not love me as much as I love you.’
I was not in the mood for this type of conversation, being absorbed in reading the condensed contents of the evening’s films in the TV guide.15 She repeated the sentence, with the same tone, I recall. I understood that I still had to answer.
‘How do you mean?’
‘Just as I said. I simply do not believe you love me.’
‘So, what can I do now? How can I convince you?’
‘That isn’t my problem,’ she said, and took the remote control.
The conversation was ended like that; I went back to the television guide, and she… I don’t remember.
Even now I am not exactly sure what I should have answered or done. But, I should have done something. In one film, I forget its title, Mickey Rourke hugs a blind girl. She tells him she would be very happy if she could see his face. Mickey thinks for a short while, takes the lamp from the little cupboard and brings it up to his face. I should have done something like that. Anything. Better than nothing.
I lay awake all night. But I do remember one dream, because somehow the morning brought me memories of it. That made me conclude I had fallen asleep after all, not much, but just enough for a little nightmare.
Once again, I dreamt of the man with the big eyes. I only saw his face, leaning on the highest window of the Music School. His lips were moving. The words coming out of his mouth were making varying patterns of steam on the window. I stood in the school yard and shouted: ‘Mustafa has spoken: It is not my fault!’ In the orange sky a sun of golden paper was shining. Its rays were drilling holes into my shoulders.
I had been dreaming, for what else could have happened?
I had not left the bedroom. The place looked terrible, as though the insomnia had remained in it and blown it full of poisonous gases. The sheets on the bed were chewed up, the pillows smelled awful. They say that the sweat of a madman has an especially strong smell. Mine smelt like bad potatoes.
Later I went into the lounge and saw the tracks of muddy shoes on the floor. They were quite clear, like the marks of dancing steps. I noticed two pairs of footsteps. One was small, from an owner who had worn pointed shoes. The other muddy footprints were left by big shoes with a rounded top. They covered the whole room, and it was easy to follow them and see how they had stopped before the shelves, the pictures, the drawers… One could conclude what they had looked at, what had interested them… But I didn’t have the time to think about it. Mirna was waiting for me.
Looking through the window, I saw that nothing had changed outside. The snowman was still standing in his place, solid and strong, like the steel sky above him. A flock of tame pigeons took flight from the rooftop. They made a sharp formation and darted up into the heights, but broke into unruliness after a few dozen metres, as though they had flown into a wall.
I decided not to meet up with Mirna. After such a night, I was not ready for any further effort. I planned to tell her I hadn’t been able to, had been ill, I would think of something…16 I often used various ways of getting out of obligations, but this time I really had a good excuse to give up, I had had a sleepless night, I was tired… I promised myself that tomorrow, as soon as I felt stronger; I would knock again on the door of Aleksa’s apartment.
My eyes were burning from sleeplessness, and nausea was crouching in my stomach. I was weak, my whole body was shaking, I was disappearing like a lolly on the tongue…to treat
myself to a sweet comparison. I felt I could not confront that door again in such a weak state, much less what awaited me behind it. Instead, I had to go shopping, to get food, and strength. I had nothing edible left in the flat.
I don’t like visiting shops, particularly not supermarkets, which look to me as though they were made from Lego blocks. People wander around the shelves like tourists, admiring the packaging created according to an average conception of beauty; choosing products shining like jewels, full of colour like rare algae in National Geographic, holding contents into which it is a sin to sink your teeth, breaking them into pieces and letting them slide down the sticky horror of the digestive tract. People turn objects over in their hands, read the instructions, the advertising messages, discuss the contents, the double packaging, the ‘best before’ date, vitamin content, emulsifiers, artificial flavours, preservatives, acidity. They confer with their partners, with other buyers, seek advice from shop attendants and then listen distrustfully. They put the things they have chosen into their baskets several times, take them out again, compare them with something similar, put them back or change them, then go to the check-out never quite sure they have made the right choice. I, luckily, have no problem with indecisiveness. I had decided to eat uniform food, so as to reduce the number of daily decisions, and therefore lower the level of stress. I have chosen tea biscuits as my staple meal. I have been eating them for months. I’ve got used to them, and just the thought of any other food causes nausea to rise in my stomach. Wolves eat only meat, and cows eat nothing but grass and they feel perfectly all right.17
With packets of biscuits in my pocket I left the labyrinth of shelves and went to visit Ahmed.
‘Old rabbis used to say that a person who does not fear the glory of his Maker and who searches for that which is above, that which is below, that which is in front and that which is behind, would be better off never seeing the light of day.’ I am sure I have remembered this sentence of Ahmed’s accurately. Because then, for the first time, it occurred to me that something dreadful had happened to Aleksa.
Seven Terrors Page 7