Seven Terrors

by Selvedin Advic

  Aldin raised his hand and the girl went out, conspicuously wiggling her naked bottom.

  ‘You survived a collision with Albin. That’s an unpleasant experience even for people much stronger than you. But, don’t worry, you only have a headache, it could have been a lot worse. We are at your disposal and will answer all your questions. What interests you?’

  I could not of course have supposed that this would be so easy. I never dreamt the Pegases would ever concern themselves with me, want to converse with me, even let me ask questions. Even though I was completely surprised, I said, unceremoniously, ‘Aleksa,’ and the sound of every letter, it seemed to me, made a scar on my brain. Even though I am a veteran of migraines, I had never met a headache like that before.

  ‘Aleksa. So that’s the first question. All right. We know him. Aleksandar Ranković is a good man. Our mother loved his programs. She was always listening to them. I remember, once she said that Aleksa was the only person in the whole town who spoke with her. I did not understand that then, but now it is quite clear to me. I don’t want to talk about that any more. It is enough to say that, in remembrance of our mother, we helped him during the war.’

  I continued with my interrogation.

  ‘So, where is Aleksa? The last trace of him says that he was to meet with you…’

  Albin widened his eyes. Aldin calmly replied, ‘You read that in his diary, didn’t you?’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘I know, I know everything, get used to it… With time I have forgotten about Aleksa. You see, only now do I realise I haven’t seen him for years. War is an interesting time, lots of things happen and it’s hard to concentrate on one thing.’

  ‘So?’ I think that is how I asked, bravely.

  They paid no attention to my mustering of courage.

  ‘He wanted us to take him to the open cut.’

  Aldin suddenly interrupted the sentence. The brothers looked at one another, briefly. Albin spoke,

  ‘Rest a while, we’ll take you home. Your dear neighbour Ekrem will take you.’

  I didn’t want to go. I wanted answers. I don’t know what answers I expected, but I thought everything would be better if I asked, if I knew and understood.

  ‘Why did you send that poor prison camp inmate to Aleksa’s door?’

  Again they looked at one another. Aldin nodded, Albin answered,

  ‘Even though during the war more people died than in normal times, there were not enough vacant apartments. Probably because houses were burned, I don’t believe it was because of procreation.’

  Aldin continued, ‘The man needed a place to stay, and Aleksa was spurred to go. I told you, we are the inspiration.’

  They smiled at one another. I continued with my questions. I am not brave, and I am not trying to hide that. But, sometimes in life there comes a time when a man breaks faith with his nature.

  ‘Did you torture Aleksa in the Music School?’

  ‘You’re full of questions, but don’t be nervous, we’ll tell you everything. The Music School is indeed an interesting topic.’

  Aldin was now quite serious, his annoying smile was gone.

  ‘That’s where we met Aleksa. He tried to get in but the guard wouldn’t let him. He was shouting that he wanted to see what was happening, that he wanted to find out for himself. I went out and told him that his life would not change in the least, neither could he change the lives of others, no matter what he saw.’

  Albin added, ‘He asked us if we were killing people inside.’

  Aldin continued, ‘We told him the two of us had not even killed one person. Just as we told you, too.’

  Albin again added, ‘Except that he was satisfied with the answer.’

  ‘But you are not; you are fascinated by death. Fuck death. Like it’s some particularly special thing. People die every day and they die easily. It’s unbelievable how easily, that’s interesting. They disappear so quickly and with them everything that was only theirs, that they thought was special, different, things because of which they valued themselves, things they were ashamed of. They take everything with them. A huge part of the world. And the world makes a new arrangement and everything is again back to the beginning.’

  I had more questions, I had a thousand questions… ‘Why did you do that, I can’t understand? Why did you torture people? What did you want from them?’

  ‘Can’t you imagine? You really don’t know?’

  I don’t know which of the two asked me, maybe both of them, but I remember the answer. I remember the answer perfectly.

  ‘The Music School is our gift to the town. After all the awful things that have happened there, the town is no longer innocent and won’t be ever again. Whenever a lot of people are together in the same place and they start to talk to one another about how lovely the town is, how civilised, how gentle, and the people in it good people, someone is going to remember the Music School.’

  ‘That’s stupid. And pathetic, ‘I said. ‘I can’t believe everything you did was because of that.’

  They looked at one another.

  ‘Okay, maybe it wasn’t only that. There was money; gold, beautiful women and fast horses.’

  They laughed. Gruesomely, of course. All at once, Aldin jumped up from the chair and was right in my face. Eau de Cologne, a little sweat, hair lacquer and anger. He shouted,

  ‘What do you think, do you think you are innocent? You knew about the Music School, you must have heard what was happening! You’re also guilty if you didn’t hear, guilty because you weren’t worried about other people, you were thinking only about your own head. You’re guilty too!’

  His anger was growing. He threw his arms apart as though he wanted to move the walls.

  ‘Everyone is guilty, no-one is innocent. Everyone is looking for the easiest way to get to nice things. They don’t care at all that the people who fulfil their desires work like slaves, die of strange illnesses, that chemicals eat them up, polluted air suffocates them. They knowingly pay so that others kill for them, torture, humiliate people. No-one is innocent, no-one. Fuck all your mothers! Those who hear and those who don’t!’

  And then he calmed down. Suddenly.

  ‘You know what, maybe it wouldn’t be bad if you asked Ahmed where Aleksa is. You know, he called us to help him.’

  He saw that I was surprised. That made him happy.

  ‘Well, well, you didn’t know. I’m telling you, no-one is innocent, no-one. And now pull yourself together. Ekrem is waiting, our old comrade-in-arms from the Music School.’

  He delighted in the expression on my face.

  ‘You didn’t know that either? What sort of journalist are you? You’re a dickhead of a journalist. Go on now, so he doesn’t have to wait. He has a soul too, even if he is a taxi driver.’

  Ekrem was silent in the car. I was holding my head in my hands, trying to think.

  ‘I told you you didn’t need this,’ he said, finally.

  ‘And did you need the Music School?’

  I was looking at him, directly into his eyes. It wasn’t easy, because his gaze was quivering in the depths, ready to hide. But I succeeded, I caught him and held him tightly. The smile left his face.

  ‘Get out of the car!’

  I got out.

  I had only been able to take a step when he opened the door. He could hardly calm his anger while he said through his teeth, ‘I live from driving people wherever they want to go, from this world to the next, if needs be and if they can pay. I don’t choose who gets into my car, neither am I interested in why someone goes wherever. Is that clear? If it’s clear then get in the car and tell me where you want me to drive you.’

  I got in. It would have been stupid not to agree. I was in the middle of the forest, in the middle of the night. It was cold and obviously I had used up a few decades’ worth of obstinacy.

  Crushed by fatigue, I slowly unlocked the door of the flat. I was ready for the worst. When a person has met the Pegases there ar
e very few things left which can surprise him. I would not have been surprised even if the door of the flat had lead into the most terrible apparitions of fantastic zoology – into the three throats of the monster Aheron and in them tears, gnashing of teeth, unbearable scorching heat, biting cold, dogs, bears, lions and rattlesnakes.26 But the door opened unpretentiously into my bachelor flat. Stale air. I turned on the light in the corridor and… Nothing. The usual thing. I stepped onto the parquet and it groaned. As always. I sat on the chair next to the window and listened, though I am not sure what I really wanted to hear. It was pleasant. I thought my restless subtenant had at last left me. That I was quite alone. Alone in my own skin, comfortably tucked into my cosy skeleton. I planned to sleep for a month, but in a healthy way, like an industrious worker. Before that I would take care of a few more important jobs. The first was to visit Ahmed, and then to inform the police. To denounce the Pegases and put an end to their stupid revenge. I did not even want to think about what sort of evil could satisfy them and finally calm them.

  On the wall of the bedroom I found a long crack. It looked like the varicose vein on an old hairdresser’s leg. I wondered what could have caused it to appear. Perhaps the town had suffered an earthquake, and I had slept through it. It was a bad crack; but a good plasterer could easily get rid of it.

  * * *

  The telephone was ringing frantically.

  ‘Are you okay?’

  Even though the previous days had been full of surprises, I had not expected this call. I stopped breathing, my mouth was dry, and my brain was revolving numerous combinations of possible answers at the same time, completely undecided as to which one to choose. It was the voice of my ex-wife. Full of love and anxiety! Like it had used to be. I think I could have achieved an orgasm from it.

  ‘Yes, I am,’ I whispered excitedly, panting like a dog on a hot day.

  ‘A friend of yours called me. He said you were in terrible trouble and that you needed help.’

  ‘Which friend?’

  ‘I asked him that too. He laughed and said: from the Music School. He laughed in a horrible way. Like a madman… Who is that man?’

  Nothing was pleasant any more. The Pegases had telephoned her. They had known that I truly cared about only one person in the world. My wife (I know, my ex-wife…)

  ‘Don’t be afraid, Romana. Everything will be all right,’ I said.

  She was silent.

  ‘Truly, this time everything will be all right.’

  ‘We’ll see…’she said very, very quietly, and put down the receiver.

  I went back to the chair. I felt like an extra heart was beating in my chest.

  I couldn’t allow anything to happen to her. Everything that used to be good rested in her. I couldn’t imagine her face next to the Pegases. As if they are living in parallel worlds, made up of different materials, which nothing can bring together. Beings of light and darkness must always be separate, otherwise the balance of the world would be disrupted and everything that was worth anything at all would be fucked.

  I had to give up, forget about the police, justice, revenge. I couldn’t bring her into this dirty story. I was horrified even at the thought that she had spoken to them. I could not allow the horrible brothers to come into her life. I could not do that to her. Not for anything in the world.

  Before going to sleep I enjoyed remembering that short sentence of Romana’s: ‘Are you okay?’ I thought about what wonderful things could be found in it. It seemed clear from those three words that she still cared about me, because why else would she be worried? She had not whispered, she had spoken fairly loudly, so where then was her new man while she was talking to me? Maybe she had not called from home or maybe he had not been in the flat? For pleasant dreams I chose the third, most agreeable variable – he was there, but she phoned regardless of him, she didn’t care what he thought. She had realised that I was the most important thing in her life. Phenomenal.

  * * *

  Mustafa’s voice woke me. Quite clearly I heard the morning message, ‘Better that I pay with my life, if I lose you’. All the skin on my body tightened. Immediately came the thought that something must have happened to Romana. Even though the verse could be interpreted in more than one way, I chose the worst. I had to do everything I could to protect her. At first, a terrible nervousness overcame me, I could have slid out of my skin, like soap from a fist. I rushed out of the apartment building and began to run through the streets. Then I realised I did not know where she now lived. After this realisation, I still ran for another fifteen minutes, I don’t know why, perhaps hoping I would somehow come across her. In the end, completely wet and without even one decent molecule of oxygen in my lungs, I stopped. I stood there up to my knees in snow and tried to think. I remembered I had not seen her since she came for her things. Maybe she had left town; surely she had, for she never liked it, I thought. And then I again played over in my mind the short track of our last conversation and stopped at the very end. It was quiet, maybe I had not heard properly; maybe she said ‘Be seeing you’ and not ‘We’ll see’.

  I’m like that. I’m able to interpret everything to my liking, even when everything points quite clearly to the fact that I am mistaken. This talent is justifiably called ‘hysterical blindness’.

  * * *

  I found Ahmed in his office. He was not happy when he saw me. He was sitting gloomily at the table. There was no chessboard in front of him, and on the wall above his head was just a clear rectangle. He could see that I was looking at the place where the blind horse had been.

  ‘If you’ve come to talk about ghosts, that stupidity doesn’t interest me.’

  I sat down, put my elbows on the table, looked him directly in the eyes (he turned his gaze away) and said, ‘I’ve come to talk about Aleksa…’

  ‘I said I don’t want to talk about ghosts!’

  He got up, took his coat and went out. I knew he wanted me to follow him.

  The waiter brought our drinks without asking anything. That nice herbal brandy. It smelt like the whole Mediterranean. I poured it down my throat. It didn’t deserve to be treated like that.

  Ahmed did not touch his glass. He was rinsing his mouth with a sip of water. When he had finally swallowed it he said, ‘If you really want me to, I can tell you how I used to morbidly envy Aleksa.’

  I let him know I agreed by asking the waiter for another brandy. His confession, like everything until now, I have reconstructed from memory. I think I have remembered very well; he spoke evenly, without pausing, stuttering or repeating himself, as though he had been preparing the speech for a long time. This is what he said:

  ‘Yes, I envied him. I envied him for having Andela and Mirna. Because they loved him as they did. While I was sitting in their flat and while they tried to make me feel like a member of the family, my stomach was prickling with envy. Because of that I stopped going to see them. We met mostly in my office; in the library it was not so obvious how much happier he was than I. I was terribly ashamed of my jealousy; I was happy when over time I felt it was slowly giving way. When they left, I was annoyed by his continual wailing about how he was now alone, how he missed his wife and daughter, how he thought he was going slightly mad. How could he have been so blind, how could he have been so cruel? He knew I had been alone all my life, he knew I had no-one that I could have missed… And still, he continued, every day… Every God-given day he came to my office and snivelled. It was harder for me than the war.’

  He spoke softly, almost whispered. He was breathing heavily, his ears were red and I even thought he might become ill.

  ‘Everything became even worse when he told me he had seen Perkman… Just like that… He saw him without any effort at all, without research, without the indispensable dedication. The spirit actually found him. My envy returned once more, worse than ever; I couldn’t look him in the eyes because of it. I had devoted my whole life to searching for spirits, and never saw even one. I gave up everything for that, n
othing else interested me. I don’t know modern literature, film, sport, theatre, painting, except if it has something to connect it to my obsession. I don’t watch television, I don’t understand what is modern or what the difference is between political parties. Most of the time I’m alone. Who can put up with such a man for long? Yet that didn’t bother me, not while I believed I still had a lot of time ahead. But, the time comes when a man starts to count the years and works out that he has forgotten more years than are left to him. It was only then that I was crushed by the knowledge that I would spend that wretched remainder alone. The worst thing is that I know I have wasted the years. I squandered everything in a search for something I have never seen, something in which I have no reason to believe. And Aleksa… That one got everything without any effort at all. I called the Pegases because of that, I told them to take him somewhere, to hell and back if they wanted to, as long as it was far away from me.’

  I got up from the chair; the waiter came up to me, helped me into my coat and saw me to the door. I got out my wallet, and the waiter waved his hand.

  ‘No need, my shout. This evening is the last night, we’re shutting the bar for good.’ He inclined his head and danced away.

  He went up to Ahmed’s table and turned off the light. Darkness swallowed up the old man.

  * * *

  I really don’t know any more if it was night, day, morning. The crack above the bed in the bedroom was clearly visible. It had become wider, so that now a pencil could have passed through it. I tried… I put my hand over it and felt a slight movement of air. Impossible, it was not an outer wall.

  I shut the door, sat on my chair and decided not to think any more about that or about anything else. To just sit there, like in that joke. I succeeded quite well in keeping a big black blotch in my head. Darkness.

  Right up until I heard someone knock very lightly on the wood of the door, maybe with the nail of an index finger. I was in such a state that I could have heard ants’ legs scraping in their narrow tunnels under the parquet.