Seven Terrors

by Selvedin Advic

  The biggest number of males were jostling each other around the bar and watched the dancing. I noticed that they weren’t talking to one another, so happily joined them.

  ‘Double vodka, with lots of lemon,’ I asked a thin waiter in a pink singlet.

  Briefly, but with withering cynicism, he measured me up and down and then turned to the shelves with the glasses. From there he sent word back to me, ‘We don’t serve guests who are already drunk.’

  His reaction was totally unexpected; especially since I was in a den where not one person was in his right mind. I told him this, but it didn’t seem fluster him in the least.

  ‘True. But, they all got nicely drunk here with us. And you have come from who knows where and who knows whose pockets you have filled until now. You planned to drink one drink here, look at the birds, make some sort of trouble and then throw up in our WC. And then I would have to clean it up. Well, you fuckin’ won’t!’

  I was once a respected person in town, not so long ago. Restaurant owners were happy when they saw me, waiters were deferential…

  ‘Where are your bosses?’ I asked him seriously.

  ‘Maybe you have a complaint?’

  ‘I have to see them, I came here because of them.’

  ‘The bosses are in the VIP room.’

  ‘Tell them I’m a journalist.’

  ‘Really? From Express?’

  I could see he was beginning to like me, so I lied.

  ‘Yes, that’s right.’

  ‘We like you people from Express. Next week Seka Aleksić is going to sing here. Feel free to write that.’

  ‘I will; and the bosses?’

  He thought for a little while and then decided.

  ‘They read Express too… Let’s go to the VIP room.’

  We went from behind the bar into a narrow corridor. The walls were covered with the stuffed heads of animals. The horns were crossed at the ceiling and made a thorny vault.

  The room into which we went reminded me of a jewellery box. It was perfectly round and from floor to ceiling lined with red velour. In the centre of the room was planted a golden pole, and enclosing this was a red plush sofa. A naked girl was dancing around the pole, even though I heard no music; even the bass from the discothèque could not reach us here. A huge red-haired man was sitting on the sofa, dressed in a dark business suit with a tie, surrounded by four girls who of all the different clothes they could have been wearing had on only red shoes with high metal heels. The man was saying something to them, and they were listening to him carefully. Like a moment in nature. Behind them, another man, much thinner but with much more luxurious red hair, like cotton candy, sat in front of a huge computer screen playing a game – one of those games where the player has the role of an omnipotent being who creates and destroys worlds.

  The waiter went up to the large man, briefly whispered in his ear and left. No-one from this unusual company paid any attention to me. The dancer was smiling at the ceiling. I approached the sofa, coughed and asked, ‘Are you…’

  The giant did not turn around, he just said, ‘Please address me correctly, we do not know each other.’

  ‘Sorry, sir, but are you…’

  He interrupted me again, but this time he looked at me with shining eyes.

  ‘Excuse me, sir, I just need to finish my train of thought,’ and he turned back to the girls.

  He expounded this ‘thought’ to them, I remember it well:

  ‘You don’t consider things, and men don’t like stupid women. For instance, you don’t know how to listen to poetry. The most important things for you are to get drunk and to dance. You must know, music is an art; in song you have to look for meaning hidden to ordinary people. And we are not ordinary people, or ordinary women. Isn’t that so? I’ll take as an example the song ‘Mejra in Her Coffin’. You think you know it well. You’ve heard it a million times, but you don’t know what it is really all about… Isn’t that so? That’s why I am here and I’ll tell you what the problem is. We’ll start with the first verse which says, The water is coming from hill to hill. The song-writer wants to say that a flood has burst out and that the water has filled the valley. He continues, It carries Mejra in her coffin. This means the flood has caused a landslide and thrown Mejra, who was probably buried not long ago, out of her grave. Then the song says, if I am not mistaken: Come with us, Mejra, have dinner with us, That means the water carried the girl through the village or settlement, we can’t know; that her friends and maybe her relatives saw her – the poet does not tell us this precisely either – and that they asked her to come to dinner. Continuing, the poet says, in a fantastic way, because how can a dead person speak, but that is poetic licence, Have dinner, don’t wait for me, dinner is waiting for me in Paradise with the Houris. So, Mejra is informing them that they cannot be her company, because they are alive, and she is dead, and that because of that she would prefer to eat something in Paradise with the Houris. In this verse we also find out that Mejra, during her life, was a true believer and so can count on a place in Paradise, or Heaven, whichever is to your liking, depending on your religion. Is it clear to you now?’

  The girls did not answer, so he turned towards me.

  ‘Am I not right, journalist?’

  The gaze from his little eyes danced across my face like a sniper’s target.

  ‘He’s not a journalist, it’s a long time since he was a journalist. Now he is a depressive idler.’ The man in front of the computer had a squeaky voice, as though it were broadcast from a tiny radio.

  The giant pursed his lips. It seemed to me that his big teeth were moving behind them.

  ‘Stay a little longer with us,’ he said to me and then turned again to the girls. He continued his lecture.

  The giant said: ‘You have to educate yourselves, and the easiest and quickest way to do that is by watching television. You have televisions in your rooms, and digital aerials which can get as many as 800 channels for you. But you have to carefully choose content which will be useful.’

  The thin one continued to play his game: he sent a group of workers into the forest to cut the wood necessary for building houses and farms.

  I imagined morning coffee in a nice little café beneath the trees. A spring morning, leaves of a delicate whispering green, newspapers rustling, some woman’s hands opening the window of the house over the road.

  The giant: ‘You have to follow all the news programs. If an exceptionally important client comes in, someone who demands special treatment, you don’t have to watch the entire late-night news right to the end, but you must unfailingly watch the headlines. I’m the only one who stipulates who those important clients are.’

  The thin man: He built a barracks for the soldiers and turned a few peasants into archers and spearmen. He increased their rations of meat and cheese.

  Me: I remembered fish dinners on the island of Hvar, boats lit up with white Chinese lanterns, pastry-cooks juggling scoops of ice-cream, water roaring in my ears.

  The giant: ‘I recommend all the programs about nature and animals. You can learn more about people from them than about animals. Circle popular science programs in the television guide, especially the ones about space, black holes, stars, the Milky Way, comets – he who doesn’t know how things are in space, doesn’t know about the earth either. Watch programs about culture too, you have to know what is being written about, but it isn’t necessary to know how and why; remember the names of painters, see what is the modern way of showing the world today.’

  The thin man: He formed two troops of soldiers, strengthened the walls of the trap, littered pitch on the approaches. He put up huts for the woodcutters. Made extra storerooms for the weapons.

  Me: It’s afternoon. Summer. The window shutters are down. It’s quiet and the whole town is resting. I am lying in bed with my wife and caressing her breasts. She has shut her eyes.

  The giant: ‘Soap operas should also be considered regular viewing. They will help you to exercise y
our emotions. You are as cold as ice, and the clients don’t like that. In just one episode of a soap opera you have the complete scale of emotions: happiness, passion, desire, ecstasy, maybe a little jealousy, sadness, anger, but just a little bit… No need to overdo it, fuck your ancestors.’

  The thin man: ‘Don’t swear!’

  Unnaturally quickly for such a large man, the giant turned towards me.

  ‘Have I spoken truly, sir? If you are not a journalist, you certainly watch television. I don’t know even one man who does not have a television in his home.’

  The thin player puts the spearmen around the king’s castle and makes the remark:

  ‘He has a television, but he hardly ever watches it. He is not a journalist, but he poses questions.’

  ‘And so what?’ The giant was looking at me, yet asking his brother.

  ‘I know what, but I would like him to tell us.’

  ‘He can, he will relate it all to us. Without fail. As soon as I finish this meeting with the girls. He will wait.’

  Once he uttered this, his eyes turned completely white, I was sure. He turned again to the naked students.

  The giant: ‘I noticed that the hygiene in your rooms is not to a satisfactory standard. You must fix that at once. I abhor rubbish, surely you won’t make a rubbish tip out of our motel?’

  The thin man: The enemy was coming closer to the trap. They had sent a unit to attack. With catapults and spears they showered the enemy army, and the infantry burnt everything before them.

  Me: I could not get rid of the picture of crunching teeth squeezing a walnut.

  The giant: ‘Have you ever been to the rubbish tip?’

  All at once I realised the girls had left the room. The question was directed towards me.

  The giant: ‘Imagine how much rubbish a man leaves behind him before he dies. We can estimate the daily amount, let’s say yours. I’m sure you smoke at least twenty cigarettes a day – so, cigarette butts and ash, packets, newspapers, milk cartons, plastic bags, boxes, cellophane, food remnants, peelings, stubs, some tins…’

  The thin man: He aimed the spearmen at the little hill, bombarded the enemy cavalry, and immediately after the word ‘tins’ he joined in:

  ‘He doesn’t eat tinned food or milk. He only eats biscuits, and the only dietary supplement is Ultra ABC Plus vitamin tablets.’ (I really do use these tablets, at least until I get my organism used to a meagre diet.)

  Me: I thought nothing. I tried to withstand the gaze from the white eyes.

  The giant: ‘Okay, but faeces are there too, all sorts of discharges that his body lets loose from time to time, I don’t have to list them… He needs clothes, shoes, fuel. All of those needs pollute or mutilate nature. Besides that, the man doesn’t spare nature, he’s extravagant and leaves a lot of waste that could be used.’

  The thin man: ‘Yes, truly our dear guest leaves a lot of rubbish behind. He is asking about Aleksandar Ranković, he’s been to the Music School…’ (He looked at me, beaming, in raptures because I was standing before him. I was like a toy for which he had waited a long time. There was something carnivorous in his gaze).

  Me: Into my mind came the sight of an old fig tree, even though I do not know exactly what a fig tree looks like. Under the fig tree was a pile of stones with numerous dark openings from which were inching the tails and heads of red snakes.

  The giant: ‘Except for a small amount of faeces, animals leave nothing behind them. In nature they behave in exactly the right way, like a good host. They even hide their bodies carefully. Has anyone ever seen any graveyards of animals, pigeons, deer or cats?’

  The thin man: ‘His wife left him and since then he has suffered greatly because of that. For a whole nine months and three days he was masturbating in bed. During that time his wife went over the limit. How old is she, thirty-five if I am not mistaken? Interesting, I think she is more beautiful than ever, her breasts are fuller, and she has covered those ugly bones on her hips with meat.’

  Me: The room had become a digestive tract, the walls were pulsating.

  The giant: ‘Our towns are surrounded by cemeteries. The oldest cemetery in France is no older than the end of the eighteenth century. Until then, when a cemetery became full, in order to make room for new corpses, the poor people’s bones were dug up and used to fill up walls in castles. They believed human bones made good insulation.’

  The thin man: ‘Tell him you can’t sleep’ (squeaky voice).

  Then I realised I could go no further. Or more exactly, go no lower. I should have been grateful to the red-haired rat for giving me such a clear picture. I should have been grateful to him for the final realisation that I can control absolutely nothing. Neither around me, nor inside me. Whatever I do, I can’t change anything. Fear, wailing, running away, hiding – none of them have any sense any more. I have nothing to protect, nothing to be afraid of, no reason to evade people and wrap myself away from them. And my co-inhabitant seemed to have come to the same conclusion, for he straightened his body, grew tall, roared and filled me with hissing fury. Like my neighbour’s pigeons, the two of us went into attack formation, rose on our hind legs, pulled tight all our bones, muscles, nerves. Our joints snapped, veins squeaked, blood gushed. Everything around us was red, shining, neon-lit. We jumped into the redness, without any plan or goal, just full of the desire to pulverise everything in front of us. It seems to me we were flying, for at least five seconds, I think I succeeded in swinging my fists a few times… And then I hit something hard, something quite impenetrable. A terrible pain cramped me, suddenly redness gushed into my head, a million tons of crimson colour exploded in geysers, a billion little eruptions… After the last drop of red had gushed, everything became black.

  All things are actually black in their own nature; they change only when you expose them to light. Because of this, Leonardo began every one of his paintings with a layer of black colour. I was lying plunged into black colour. From the blackness one piece broke off, trembled, swayed and turned into the Man with the Bloodshot Eyes. He bent over me and said,

  ‘You’re sleeping, and you told me you couldn’t.’

  ‘Help me to get up,’ I asked him.

  ‘I can’t, I have to go. I won’t stay here any longer,’ he said and went into a whirlpool of darkness which closed behind him.

  Blackness embraced me again. I don’t know how long I was lying in it before I heard a soft song and the deep voice of the giant who was reciting above it.

  Who stole from the night the blackest colour and pressed it into your eyes and gave them lustre, Romana?

  Who forces the birds to give up their voices, to become dumb and lose their breath before you, Romana?

  What is the fire of a volcano, compared to the volcano of ardour whose blaze you throw at us in your dance, Romana?

  And all eyes want to yearningly pursue you and all hands wish at least to touch you, Romana.

  One night for you, I was your song, a song already forgotten tomorrow, Romana.

  Because your restless love which belongs to a world apart from me is stronger than passion, Romana.

  Better I never saw you or wanted you, better I pay with my life, if I were to lose you.

  ‘Songs like this are not sung any more, there is no longer any real art. In it all is as it should be, unrequited love truly and rightfully described. Isn’t that so, journalist, or whatever you are?’

  ‘He doesn’t work as a journalist, but people still think that is his job,’ I heard the squeaky voice explain.

  I decided to come out of the dark; I clenched my teeth, pulled my head into my shoulders and tried to push through the membrane, to stand up. The membrane became tighter, it squeezed my head, pain filled my eyes… I did not succeed. I heard loathsome whistling.

  ‘A man is made up of his terrors. The more terrors you have, the more man you are. Unless I am mistaken, you only have seven. And I, without meaning to boast, I have none at all. That says a lot about me.’

&n
bsp; I had to get rid of the voices. I gathered all my strength, closed my eyes, clenched my teeth, turned every little part of my body into a spring. And I succeeded. The membrane broke with a strong explosion. And everything around me was white.

  ‘Do you want some Caffetin?’ The same squeaky voice was waiting for me. ‘Only that can help you, isn’t that right?’

  * * *

  I awoke in clean whiteness. I have always imagined a nun’s room would look like that – clean, narrow bed, white bedside cupboard, small hand basin, a narrow table with two white chairs. Now when I think about it, it must have been one of the rooms in which the girls received clients in the motel. I was lying in the lap of one of them. She was very attractive, although, if I were to be a bit fussy, I did not really like her hairdo. She was holding a cold towel to my head, and her large-nippled, naked breasts dangled over my head. The Pegases were sitting on the small chairs. Both of them had interlaced their fingers and had one eyebrow held up in a mark of attention, like a board of examiners. The thin one smiled sparsely and said,

  ‘He is Albin; I am Aldin, older than he by eight minutes.25 We are brothers, we have the same surname – Pegasus. Like the winged horse. My name means “the sublimity of faith”, and his does not mean anything. Your name means “smiling”, but it is not appropriate for you, because you have not truly smiled for at least ten years. You could certainly find some meaning in that, but it is not the theme of our conversation.’