Best European Fiction 2012

by Aleksandar Hemon

  I let the traffic lights set my course: I go wherever I see green. I walk along the botanical garden’s fence: I glance at the sad, dried-up puddle that in May will become a small romantic lake, like on a tapestry. I walk over the asphalt strip of a grass-covered schoolyard, a path swelling over the chestnut-tree roots. The school’s cafeteria oozes the smell of fried chicken into the morning—the smell of hot oil floating all over the place, sticking to rusty garbage bins and the benches on the far side of the hedge.

  I walk into a coffee shop in a small plaza. I’ve been here before. I nod to a sinewy waiter with hairy arms who’s fishing for dirty glasses in a foamy sink, sponging them vigorously. I say, “Espresso, please,” and then take the wooden stairs to the gallery upstairs. There’s no one there. I sit by the window and watch: a flower shop, a kiosk, a hot dog stand, a garbage man who’s stopped his tricycle in front of a bakery to eat his bagel in peace. On the wall behind him someone spray-painted “IGOR” in red letters, put a frame around it, and pierced it with an arrow.

  Then my eyes hit on a street clock. It stands above the monument of a war hero, himself standing on the tips of his toes with a machine gun in his hand and a wince on his face. The clock reads five to noon. But it can’t be that late.

  “Excuse me, what’s the time?” I ask the waiter who’s just brought me coffee. With his chin, he points to the clock on the wall across from me. It’s just after nine.

  I stare at the broken clock on the plaza and then at the brass soldier’s face. That’s my cue, it occurs to me, those frozen hands. I quickly finish my espresso, grab my scarf and my bag, and then go down, pay, and leave. The garbage man is no longer in front of the bakery, he pedaled away. The sky is gray, the air colder than it seems, and the plaza livelier than before.

  “It might snow,” I hear some woman say into her cell phone. I pass by her, head back toward the botanical garden, toward the train station, I walk quickly, rushing. Trams, people, cars. I rush through the city’s images so quickly that they have no time stick to me. Later I’ll remember nothing, not even the way I raised the legs of my pants as I crossed the rails and hopped across as if at a dress rehearsal for a folklore dance group, nor how I was already out of breath by the time I reached the switchman’s box, but I’ll remember how I went even faster because it was clearer to me than ever, than anything, that it was five to noon, it was high time—for anything.

  ■ ■ ■

  At Rin Tin Tin, I saw through the window, there was no one but Zlatka. Trying to catch my breath, I watched her lean close to the mirror and trim her bangs using a small comb. She was so engrossed she didn’t look outside even once, and perhaps she didn’t even blink. When she was done, she stepped back and blew her hair away from her forehead. Then she disappeared behind a small door where the restroom had to be.

  My heart was pounding in my ears as I fished for a lipstick at the bottom of my bag. I opened it and pressed it against the glass. My hands were shaking a little. My ears pounded. I hadn’t planned it, the lipstick slid across the glass on its own: I wrote a large Z, shaky, the color of a rotten cherry. It felt like I’d been freed from something. Then I wrote L-A-T-K-A. Zlatka. She was still behind that door. My breath was shallow and irregular. I had a little lipstick left. I drew a heart around Zlatka’s name and an arrow that pierced it. I put the lipstick back in my bag and went home.

  ■ ■ ■

  On my way home I imagined her surprise as she approached the window, opened the door, and ran her fingers across the grains of lipstick stuck in the letters. I imagined a smile rising ticklishly at the corners of her mouth, making her face soft, those raylike wrinkles around her eyes. This made me laugh, at first silently, warily, but then I couldn’t hold it anymore: I shrieked and laughed out loud, happily. In front of a small store the drunks looked at me in amazement, squeezing the bottles in their hands, frowning dully.

  TRANSLATED FROM CROATIAN BY TOMISLAV KUZMANOVIĆ

  [SPAIN: GALICIAN]

  AGUSTÍN FERNÁNDEZ PAZ

  This Strange Lucidity

  The time comes not to wait for anybody. Love goes by, silent and fleeting, like a train in the night. [JOAN MARGARIT, FIRST COLD]

  Every night we return to the same place, like puppets directed by an invisible hand. He takes up position under the magnolia, except on rainy days; when it’s damp, he seeks shelter in the doorway of the hardware store, as if still afraid of catching a cold or getting a migraine, as he always used to whenever he wet his feet or head. I’m not blaming him, routines end up sticking to the skin as if they were part of us. When I think about it, everything I do is a routine. If you could see me, you’d realize, after standing by his side for a few minutes, that I always grow impatient and start running up and down the pavement, without ever leaving the area between the corner shop and the greengrocer’s. Sniffing here and there, at tree trunks, lampposts, garage corners, building walls . . . My snout permanently pressed up against things in an absurd attempt to pick up a scent, since I can’t smell any more, odors have disappeared for good and all that’s left of them is memory.

  He stays on his feet all night, indifferent to the world going by. He only has eyes for the building opposite, more specifically for the windows on the sixth floor, which is where the Woman lives. We always arrive around dusk, so at least one of the windows is normally illuminated. If it’s the right-hand one, I know she’s in the lounge, possibly having dinner in front of the TV; if it’s the middle one, I imagine her sitting at the desk in her study, staring at the computer screen; if it’s the one on the left, which is always the last to go dark, I suppose she’s in the bedroom, lying in bed and reading a novel, the way he used to.

  Her lights go out early, they’re rarely on any time after midnight. Some days, though, they stay on late and then he starts to get worried, you can see it in his expression. But that doesn’t happen often, the lights are normally off at night. He never takes his eyes off them, as if the world were nothing more than those three dark rectangles. Meanwhile I pass the time wandering about, never going far, not that I have anywhere to go, anxiously pacing up and down the pavement, still unable to accept I can’t pick up the wealth of scents that used to excite me so much. I know they’re there, covering every inch of the ground, and I’m the one who’s lost the capacity to detect them.

  The first few days, I found it difficult to accept this change. I was vaguely aware of what was going on, but couldn’t understand why the channels through which I received the sensations that made up my picture of the world were suddenly blocked, while another dimension I hadn’t noticed before became open to me. This strange lucidity, this ability to fathom what was previously unfathomable, this way of relating things and drawing conclusions, this putting into words everything I experience. I didn’t realize this would happen, I’d never even stopped to think about it. Perhaps it was better not to imagine anything before the time came, it would have been too terrible. It’s better like this. Now that the end is coming and the final night is almost upon us, I can appreciate how the only good thing about this sentence is its expiration date, the fact it will all be over in a matter of hours.

  This is how we’ve spent every night of the last year, the hours slipping slowly by until the darkness begins to disperse and the air fills with a clarity that obliges us to withdraw to this desolate spot where we pass our days. Him sitting on the sofa, me resting on the rug, both of us motionless, occasionally exchanging glances, possibly to confirm we’re still there and not alone. A routine like that of some winter afternoons before my sentencing, except that now all we do is wait. We both know everything’s changed and, while we may be surrounded by the same furniture and familiar objects, this is no longer our home, but a no-man’s-land we occupy, waiting for the night to return, so we can take to the pavement again and renew our vigil opposite the Woman’s building.

  Sometimes, especially on dark winter even
ings, we’re lucky enough to witness her coming back home from work or one of her walks. These are the best moments, because his face lights up and he focuses all his attention on her every movement. I also get excited and try to attract her attention, though I know there’s no point, since there’s no sound coming out of my mouth. We both watch as she pauses in the doorway, searches for her keys, sometimes turns her head and stares in our direction, as if she could see us or otherwise detect our presence. Normally, though, she just puts the key in the lock, opens the door, and disappears inside the building. That’s when I start counting slowly, not stopping until one of the windows becomes illuminated. I can reach 120 or 150, though sometimes she takes longer to go upstairs and, since I don’t know how to count beyond two hundred, I end up getting bored; by the time I realize I’m bored, the lights have finally gone on.

  I remember the first day we saw her, it was at the beach. She was sitting on a bench, reading a book with a yellow cover. I stopped beside her and she started stroking me. The truth is I hadn’t stopped for her, but for the extraordinarily strong odor emanating from one of the bench legs. He was a little farther behind, at the beach he always liked to let me run free, and stopped when he reached us. They started talking about me and the book in her hands. After a while, she invited him to sit down and they stayed like that for ages, totally oblivious to me. Rarely had I seen my master so happy, he was positively radiant. I don’t mean he was normally a bit sullen, it would be wrong to suggest such a thing. I just mean there was a special happiness about him that day which I’d never seen.

  They talked and talked, until the sun was swallowed by the sea. Then, after they’d said good-bye and the two of us had returned to the car, he put on some livelier music than he generally listened to while driving and didn’t stop singing all the way. Back home, having eaten dinner almost without noticing me, he took out a green notebook and started scribbling all over it. He must have carried on doing so for quite some time because that’s the last image I have of that day, before going to bed and falling asleep.

  After that, they started seeing each other almost daily. First they met at the beach, but we soon began to visit other places. She was very talkative and I quickly grew fond of her, since she treated me well and paid attention to me. And also because she made him happy and this put me in an excellent mood. Happy days! Most of the time, we went on long walks in places I’d never been to. I particularly remember a path between some oak trees, with the sun filtering through the leaves and lighting up small spots on the ground, so bright and warm I had to keep stopping at them. What a feast of unfamiliar fragrances! I was used to city smells, which while pleasant were always predictable, and was confused by these wilder, more piercing odors, traces of animals hiding not far away, in among all that silence. I remember another afternoon by the river, with the water bubbling along and me desperately trying to catch the butterflies that alighted on the flowers in the riverside meadows. It was the first time I’d seen so many, with such different colors, and I didn’t know which one to chase. I spent half the afternoon wasting my time, since they always flew off just as I was about to reach them. I also remember from that day the hum of the crickets and grasshoppers that leaped away as I raced toward them through the tall grass. Meanwhile the two of them sat on a log, holding hands, smiling tenderly, as if they were alone in the world and nothing else mattered. I remember another morning, climbing a hillside along narrow paths between wild gorse and broom, the three of us panting from the effort. Then, at the top, my amazement at the vastness of the world stretching out over valleys in a patchwork of fields, woods, and farmland. Happy times! I would feel a twinge of nostalgia right now, if it were possible for me to feel such a thing under these conditions.

  One day the Woman came to our house for lunch. From early that morning, our routine was smashed to smithereens. The only thing that didn’t change was our brief walk around the neighborhood shortly after we got up. On our return, the tranquility we normally enjoyed on his days off simply vanished. The artificial flowers in the vase in the hallway disappeared to be replaced by a bunch of freshly cut white roses. The lounge was cleaner than it had ever been, and that included my favorite rug, where I often used to doze. The table was covered in a light blue cloth I’d never seen. Two places were set, plates and glasses carefully arranged, together with a small jar holding a yellow rose. The aromas emerging from the kitchen, the scent of meat that used to drive me so crazy, had me on edge the whole morning.

  I wasn’t expecting to go out again before lunchtime, but quickly recovered from my surprise once I was in the open air and realized we were heading for the park with the yellow benches. I always liked going, especially on days like this, when there were fewer cars and everyone seemed to have agreed to take their dogs for a walk. As we wandered between trees and bushes positioned to protect the flower beds, I kept an anxious eye out for the brown-haired bitch I liked so much. There were setters, spaniels, mastiffs, westies, but that morning she wasn’t among them. I was very sorry, I rarely had a chance to sniff her and run around with her, but I soon got over it and started playing with every dog I came across, that’s how spontaneous I was back then.

  I was panting by the time we got back home, it had been a very long walk. We’d just come in when she arrived, with that happy expression that made her different, a happiness that always influenced my master. I soon discovered the treasure in the oven was not for me. Having placed the meat tray on the kitchen surface, he began to cut thin slices, which he put in a serving dish and proceeded to drape in thick, golden gravy. He then took the dish into the lounge, while I got meatballs as usual. I wolfed them down, I was that hungry, and, as happened most days, soon fell asleep.

  When I woke up, the lounge was empty. The remains of the meal were still on the table and I had to resist the urge to jump up and take a piece of meat, I knew he wouldn’t like it. Besides, my attention was drawn to the noise and muffled laughter coming from my master’s bedroom. I ran toward it, but found the door closed. This surprised me, the doors in our house were never closed. “Off you go, Argos, back to the lounge.” His order was obscured by the Woman’s giggles. I left with my tail between my legs. I’d never felt so humiliated, he’d never done this to me before. It took them some time to emerge. When they did, they both had a strange glazed look on their faces and were clearly sharing something that didn’t include me.

  There were many days like this. On others, having taken me for a longer walk than usual, he would leave me alone at home. I shouldn’t have minded, I was used to him doing this whenever he went to work, but I was sad it happened on precisely those days we used to spend together. It wasn’t difficult to guess where he’d gone, the look on his face when he came back was the same he had when the two of them spent the afternoon shut up in his bedroom. So, although it hurt spending so many hours without his company, my pain was softened by the great joy in his eyes when he returned, a joy that drove him to play with me as when we were first together.

  Now that I have a better understanding of things and can reflect on my previous life, I recall the many hours I spent alone at home. They struck me then as boring, I waited anxiously for my master to return, but now I realize they could have been just as interesting as the hours we spent out walking, despite the fact they all passed between the four walls of our home.

  In the mornings, we always got up early, however dark it was in winter, and quickly headed outside. We’d go for a short walk in the neighboring streets, never going farther than the entrance to the park. I loved these walks. The streets would be crawling with dogs, since lots of other people took their dogs out at the same time. This was my chance to see the brown dog with the attractive scent. Some mornings, depending on whether they let us off the leash or not, we could sniff each other to our hearts’ content and even race along the pavement. But these moments were fleeting, or so they seemed to me, as if happiness in life were always limited to small doses
guaranteed never to satisfy our longing.

  After that, we’d return home. He’d soon head for work and I’d be left alone. As the doors were normally never closed, I could come and go as I pleased through the different rooms. Some mornings, the cleaning lady would arrive and then, for a few hours, everything was much more fun, she was like a whirlwind and never stopped moving and singing. “Goddamn dog,” she would complain at times, “your hair is all over the place!” But I knew she didn’t really mind, you could tell from her tone of voice. I would run along behind her, from one room to the next, clinging to her skirt until I grew tired and flopped down on top of the rug. It calmed me, knowing she was there, dogs of my breed aren’t used to loneliness. Maybe that’s why I found the mornings the cleaning lady didn’t come so hard to endure. Too many hours spent in silence, when time itself seemed to grind to a halt.

  It occurs to me now how silly I was, there were plenty of things to occupy my attention. The house was silent, okay, but not the rest of the building. Noises came from other apartments, which I learned little by little to recognize. The child above us crying, the muffled sound of the television that was always on in the room next to our lounge, the trills of the canary downstairs, the music coming from one of the interior windows . . . I could hear these things clearly if I went into the kitchen or spare bedroom, both of which looked out onto the light well at the back. Light well! That’s ironic. Light was the last thing to reach this confined space, which may have been why I preferred to stay in the lounge, listening to the monotonous sounds of the street outside. The cars, their horns, sudden braking. The rumble of a machine, the hustle and bustle of people. Noises that in winter would sometimes be silenced by the raging wind and rain beating against the windows.