Seven Terrors

by Selvedin Advic

  * * *

  Here is the first good news.

  The sky finally broke apart and allowed the sun to come out. I didn’t manage to see that happen, because I finally slept last night. After I don’t know how many days. Under the dining-room table. Fast asleep, without any dreams. If I did have any dreams, I was lucky enough to have forgotten them. To return to that morning: when I opened my eyes, the sun had already entered the room and sucked the damp right out of it. The snow melted quickly, so you could even see with the naked eye how the layer was thinning out. Streams were running down the street, roaring and gurgling, meeting at the marketplaces and forming little whirlpools and waterfalls topped with a dirty scum made up of the filth that had been peeling from the town for days.

  And then I saw them…

  The terrors! And I learnt something about them that you may not have known: when they are separated from people, terrors look like wreaths, woven out of thorns, teeth, and dirty nails. The water was carrying them. Little ones buzzing like mosquitoes, and heavy ones wallowing like lava or a river of tar. They are as fast as trained dogs when they grab someone’s throat, those toothy ones that bite the nape of the neck, the treacherous ones which knock the air out of stomachs, the icy ones that make hoar frost grow on bones… They are unimaginably many, it is impossible to imagine them, even to predict them. Many, many terrors…33 I watched them floating in the immense torrent, swaying with menace, but still obediently following the waves. They were leaving… I would have liked to hear some beautiful music then, so that my pleasure could be complete.

  A hand fell down onto my shoulder. Small, narrow, it reminded me of the little hand I had seen on the cover of a Dead Kennedys album. I turned around and saw Aldin. He looked different from usual. His hair was held in place with gel, he wore a metallic grey suit and shoes with a bent tip. That is how the local businessmen – read war profiteers – dress up for trade fairs or religious processions. He was serious, perhaps even a little formal; frowning, coughing a bit and pulling at the lapels of his jacket. His rather strange demeanour made me stand up alongside him, to get myself into the role. We stood facing one another, looked each other in the eye, and yet I managed to calmly endure this encounter with those predatory pupils. Slowly, the blue eyelids slid over them and Aldin, through his sharp teeth, offered me that which cannot be refused. Something which a person whose loneliness has caused him to lose the shape, borders, figure and colour of reality cannot refuse. I accepted and did not ask the price. Apparently, the samurai used to believe a decision should be made only after seven sighs. I did not wait that long.

  It was as if we almost hugged at the door. When I closed it behind me, I realised I was completely wet. The sleeves of my jumper had been stretched by so much sweat. But it was not the sweat which breaks out through fear. Because, quite peacefully I heard the cosmos pulsating behind my bedroom door. It was the reaction of my organism to the fact that I could save my life. All I needed to do was to wait for three days.

  It was at that point that I decided to write everything down. I wrote without pause, for two days and two nights.

  I don’t want to forget even one detail, because I feel that each part is important for the whole. I have included unfounded suspicions, unfinished happenings, all those things I cannot explain to myself, nor do I know what purpose they serve… I don’t know what’s important, and what isn’t, because I neither created the story nor can I influence it. I think that it had been waiting for me for years, completely formed and clear. That it had been floating in some place, where the files of events are kept, where they make up the directories of fate, and that in that secret warehouse it was vibrating with impatience for me to set it free. When I finally activated it (through who knows what involuntary action), it completely surrendered itself, it let me peel off its packaging. I feel all the incidents are tied tightly together, that the parts I do not understand are gesticulating around me and waiting to be tied in. I am frightened by the thought that it depends solely on me whether this story will stay tied up or whether it will be unfinished forever, through laziness, ignorance or cowardice, and that with time it will close again. But maybe, I console myself, it will wait for someone else to complete it…

  I was writing for that other person. For my unknown reader, be it man or woman. I am sure I do have a reader, because everything written must be read, every sentence is formed in order to seduce the reader, not one letter in the whole world is written for any other reason. I hope my readers will be well-meaning and that my notes will help them. I have bound the pages together, wanting to preserve Aleksa’s notebook and his original handwriting. Perhaps in the notebook, the page numbers, or the scratches on the cover there is something I have missed. Maybe some detail of Aleksa’s handwriting uncovers more than I have discovered. I am not afraid that I am paranoid. Actually, I am paranoid to such an extent that I don’t believe in paranoia.

  I did everything carefully, I hope that can be seen. All for that other person. It will be easier for him than for me, if he can endure until the end. I was as careful as I possibly could be, to interest him and thus urge him not to give up and to finish reading the story to the end.

  While I am writing this, I don’t know what more can happen. I know I am not the hero of this story, its all-knowing narrator. That one has still to come.

  And here I am now. Waiting. I no longer feel any terror. Not even the least of them. On the dawn of the third day, like a self confident despot, I am sitting in my favourite chair. The Irish believe that a house symbolises the emplacement of a man against the unlimited power of the other world. For me, that is what my chair is for.

  While the silence pulses calmly, like my heart, I delight in the rhythm of the steps coming closer to my door.

  ________________________________________

  ENDNOTES

  1 When I read the description of a room, it is not enough for me to know what the furniture is like, the colour of the curtains at the windows, whether there is fresh fruit in a bowl, whether the walls are decorated with oils or watercolours, whether the table is round or square, in which corner the bookcase is to be found, and where the heater is… I want to be told what sort of music is playing on the radio, or at least what sounds come in from the street.

  2 I feel silly for giving up on my own demands, but as you will see, that won’t be the first time, I can’t boast of being consistent.

  3 At that time my wife used to wear her hair up a bun.

  4 Paracelsus studied the apparitions of elementals, but also the ways in which mermaids and mermen were formed. He wrote of his visits to mines from Lapland to Ethiopia, from Salamanca to Moscow, where he was a guest of the Russian Tsar. He travelled with a group of Gypsies through Hungary and visited Sinj in Croatia. He tried to make a magic mirror – composed of seven metals, fused into ‘electron’, a metal only to be found in Hell. Paracelsus believed that only with the help of this metal could one pronounce an exact diagnosis for every illness, because the mirror showed each patient, their illness and the remedy.

  5 Mark Twain visited a hospital for the dead in Munich, whose clients were people who during their lives had been afraid they would be buried alive. In the hospital wards, he found bodies with bells attached to their toes. In front of the door stood nurses, listening for the slightest sound from any ‘patient’.

  6 The feeling of being invisible came to me for the first time while I was doing my National Service in the Yugoslav National Army. Anyone who has completed this service, which is an excellent name for this obligation, knows how impatiently the recruits await their first outing into the town; how much they want to see again the until then unnoticed charms of civilian life, to feel the air of freedom, to look at people who are free; note details of their clothes, the patterns on the curtains at the windows, the luxury goods on display in the shops; to choose for themselves whether they will turn left, right or round in a circle. But their biggest desire is to see the opposite sex. I remember how sad
it made me feel when the girls did not notice me, even though I had cleaned my uniform properly and tightened my belt. They didn’t see me even when I stood in front of them. That uniform completely hid me, like Frodo’s cloak in The Lord of the Rings.

  7 She did not leave, she left me. That’s how I thought then and how I think now. She began a completely new life, in other rooms with unknown furniture. I remained in the same place, to continually meet with the emptiness she left behind. I am solitary and depressed. A man with no-one to look after him.

  8 Later, I read that Hitler also used similar tactics to conquer the masses. I shall transcribe his theory for you, as recorded by Glenn B. Infield:

  Did you know that the circus audience is actually just like a woman? Anybody that fails to understand that the masses have, in essence, a woman’s character, will ever become a good speaker. Ask yourselves: What do women expect from men? Clarity, decisiveness, strength and action. What we want is for the masses to go into action. As with women, the masses move between extremes. Crowds are not only like women, but women also make up the most important element in any audience. The women usually lead, then come the children and at the end, when I have won over the whole family, the fathers follow.

  9 And what would I do there, in that City of Light, in the Promised Land? Work as a journalist? Maybe my ability to precisely transcribe words directly from the Dictaphone, without thinking about their meaning, could be considered by some an indispensable skill? I began to think about the uselessness of my job for the first time when I was left by myself; in peace, I made an inventory of my life and listed all the absurd things I had to put up with every day. The list was very long. When I finally drew a line under it, I left my job and began living solely from business rental. The rent money is quite enough for me. I have learnt to live within my means.

  10 I still wonder what people think of me. Is it possible for someone to be completely indifferent?

  11 During the war, I watched some politician visit a unit of the Army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina. In his honour, in front of the former factory directorate which had been transformed into a headquarters, soldiers were lined up in ceremonial formation. First out of the expensive car were the overweight bodyguards with their walkie-talkies at their ears and their hands on their pistols. Then came the politician in his immaculate suit. A former basketball coach turned brand-new war officer came up to the politician with an amusing marching step, and bawled at him that the soldiers were ready for inspection. The official pulled in his stomach, did up the buttons on his suit, tightened his double chin by lifting his jaw, and like an old penguin waddled in front of the unit. The soldiers lifted their rifles in his honour and followed his comical walk with sullen stares. The politician turned on the heel of his salon shoes, strolled to the middle of the unit on his toes, once more unnecessarily straightened the ends of the fine-quality material of his jacket, became straight as a statue before them and yelled: ‘Hail to the homeland!’ And the unit in one voice shouted back: ‘Hail!!!’ The parade was watched by workers whom, for alleged safety reasons, the police had not allowed to leave the factory. They stood, longing for sleep and their families, at the fence near the factory gates and waited patiently for the comic ritual to end. By contrast with the actors in the ceremony, the workers did not indulge in unnecessary movements. Tired and hungry, they tried to lean against the fence or to sit down on the asphalt.

  I don’t know even one satisfied worker. I know several people who have become rich since the-war, crazed by unimaginable power, sudden luxury. Almost overnight their lives changed into a cocaine flash. The only thing to be afraid of is that their memories of these days of wildness will pale in their old age.

  12 In my town, I know with certainty, everyone has some sort of connection – a family member, cousin, friend, godfather, half-brother, lover or debtor, in some important place. Everyone has someone who can support them, say a good word for them, let them go to the front of the queue. It’s strange that any queues exist at all? But, as long as there is still at least one, I am quite sure that I will proudly stand at the end of it.

  13 Who was I kidding?

  14 Before I went into the gloomy routine of daily newspapers, I had my own music show on the radio. I enjoyed it, I played songs I liked and I didn’t care how the listeners reacted to them. I once dedicated a whole program to a girl, as her birthday present. I played only her favourite songs. I remember some of them even now – Lou Reed’s ‘Sweet Jane’, but the Cowboy Junkies version; ‘Like a Hurricane’ by Neil Young, and ‘Fuzzy’ by Grant Lee Buffalo; the Tindersticks played the song ‘Kathleen’ by Townes van Zandt – she liked the part where the strings ‘glide’ on the recording; ‘Famous Blue Raincoat’ by Cohen, and Nick Cave sang ‘Into My Arms’, Tom Waits ‘Yesterday Is Here’. But I promised I wouldn’t lie. So I will tell you that the girl was my future wife. You could have realised that yourselves. Why else would I remember these songs for so long?

  15 In my opinion this is interesting literature. I appreciate the people who write it and think they shouldn’t remain anonymous, because sometimes these little texts are written in a truly masterful way. In three sentences they can summarise the most complicated family drama, historical epic or complex murder mystery.

  16 All my life I have avoided obligations, postponing them until the last possible moment. Serious people have no hesitation about how their life should be. They always knew their path, even as children they were gathering their strength. And then with the first signs of maturity they set off into action:

  Education for a lucrative profession – A few experiments with soft drugs, nudism and sex – Employment – A search for the appropriate, healthy, mature and budget-conscious girl – Marriage – Buying a comfortable apartment – Choosing furniture and appliances – Birth of the first child, if possible of the male sex – Buying a car – Birth of the second child, ideally of the female sex, in order to complete the portrait of the ideal family – Building a holiday home – Finding a discreet mistress – Getting a dog, so that the devised family portrait has a more likeable nuance – The fight for the appropriate education for the descendants – Employment for the descendants – Advisory help in choosing their marriage partners – Happiness when the first grandchild comes – Pension – Looking after the grandchildren – Acquisition of a beehive for the holiday home – Preparations for death – Death.

  I would need three lives to fulfil this sort of plan. At least. The plan is dynamic, the timetable filled right up, no pauses, no looking back, thereby ensuring that there would be no depression, melancholy. Everything is precise and clean, like a scalpel. Healthy and relentless.

  17 They go crazy only when people decide to mess around with their menu. The poor cows, which have always been vegetarian, are pumped up with animal protein in only six months to a size their normal menu would take them two years to reach.

  18 Ahmed was quoting the words from a poem by the Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa. The poet stated that he had ethereal eyesight with which he could see the magnetic aura reflected in a mirror and radiating from his hands in the dark. He related how in one of his best ethereal visions he had seen a man’s ribs through his coat and skin and that, at night when he closed his eyes, he saw strange shapes, drawings, symbols and numbers.

  He lived in constant fear of madness. He noted:

  One of my mental problems – so terrible it can’t be described – is fear of madness, which is itself madness.

  After Pessoa’s death, 25 thousand notes written on little pieces of paper, old envelopes, on the back of letters… were found in a chest.

  19 Empty rooms and, inside them, people as alone as fingers. How do we even find one another? Maybe by smell? Maybe we smell of stale air because we seldom leave our hideouts? Or do we know one another by our clothes, by the yellow collars on our shirts? Or by our eyes? By our voice, hoarse from the silence?

  20 People are always complaining they have no time. They moan t
hey can’t accomplish anything and yet they have at their disposal every possible technical aid for making life easier – cars are faster, plane tickets cheaper than ever before, sneakers have air cushions, with mobile phones and emails all business can be arranged quickly. Yet no-one has any time. Neither do I. Admittedly, I don’t have a car, or a mobile telephone, a computer, or even a watch, but I feel as though time is running away from me, sometimes it seems to me I can see the sun moving across the sky with my naked eye.

  21 Once, years ago, I could escape from a dream before it became a nightmare. As soon as I had a presentiment that the dream would change, when I felt that something from its misty edges was beginning to threaten, I escaped. I remember that my escape from sleep was like being covered with wounds. At the top of the dream or on its surface, I don’t know what is more precise, some sort of thick membrane was waiting. I pushed my head vigorously through it, the membrane stretched, covered my face and then broke. I awoke with a headache, which hurt the most on the part that had pushed through the membrane. Then, in the apartment with the strange man, I realised that the time for escape had long gone.

  22 The editor of Vogue, Anna Wintour, has been abusing women for decades. She has a poker player’s face and no-one can surmise what she really thinks. But everyone knows she hates women. When she was just 14, she was regularly going for cosmetic treatment and to the hairdresser’s, and from early childhood she has chosen her girl friends solely on the basis of the quality and expensiveness of their clothes. Her colleagues in the office say that she is a completely untalented writer, almost half-illiterate, insolent and given to lying, that she takes from people only that which she needs and throws them away when she feels they are no longer necessary. Like every dictator… Environmentalists are in despair at the continual promotion of fur in Vogue. As a sign of protest, they threw a dead raccoon on her table in a restaurant. But the cruel ruler of women just covered the body with her serviette and ordered another espresso.