But he didn’t. He went on and on and on. I don’t know why he had to talk so much, while he beat me. Or whether it was the twinkling stars I saw after his last blow, or if it was just light on the balconies of D2 that were switched on here and there. I heard new and more distant voices echo in my head – maybe someone complained about the noise in the late hours – and then it went quiet. Quiet and dark.
FAST FORWARD STOP
I did not come to myself until I was a little ways outside the camp. At the side of the road diagonally across from D1. Zlaja, Fric and Dad had dragged me there. There were too many eyes on the terrace, and two of them were quite likely Pero’s. Who else would have shouted ‘Hit him again! Give him one for me!’ while they dragged me away? Only one of the fascists in the camp could have screamed ‘A new fashion!’ in that situation.
I sat on a white, square block of stone near a fig tree, where the locals occasionally gathered. My neck hurt like hell when I moved it. My face was swollen on the right, but I was not bleeding. They were straight cuffs to the ear that the psychopath had given me.
‘Are you okay?’ Zlaja, Fric and Dad kept asking.
I nodded, but said nothing. I had withdrawn. Dad’s, Zlaja’s and Fric’s presence bothered me. I just wished that they were not there! That they had not seen all that.
‘What did you do to him?’ Dad asked.
I looked at his shoes. His feet were bare.
‘Not many people saw it,’ he said. ‘We’ll talk to him tomorrow. No matter what you had done, then …’
I raised my eyes.
He understands nothing. He never had. He was never going to.
The moment I thought that, the disappointment disappeared, and I felt bad for the old man. So bad that I felt like hitting him, deleting him, removing him from my sight.
‘Go upstairs and take care of Mum!’ I said. ‘I’ll be there in a bit.’
‘Come with me.’
‘No,’ I growled. ‘I’ll be there in a bit!’
He placed a hand on my shoulder:
‘Let me see your face.’
I removed his hand. Zlaja and Fric looked on. But I did not care.
‘Go inside now,’ I said and looked at him one last time.
He turned and left.
The light from the terrace struck him in the back. He rubbed his temple, while he cautiously walked behind a pine tree. Short-sighted and without his glasses, he held up his left hand against the front of D1. He was afraid of tripping.
Then he disappeared around the corner of the building.
Fric coughed. We sat in silence for a moment.
‘Where is he?’ I asked.
‘Reception,’ Zlaja said. ‘He’s gone inside.’
‘I’ll kill him,’ Fric shouted. ‘He ought to be fucking locked up!’
‘I’m going in to get some sleep,’ I said and looked at the ground. ‘I’m tired.’
‘Are you sure?’
I nodded.
‘Sure you don’t want to come over to my place?’ Zlaja asked.
I shook my head. Tried to stand. They helped me up.
My head hurt like hell. I was a little dizzy and felt nauseous.
‘It’ll be alright,’ I said and walked across the road. ‘Just let go of me.’
‘I’ll come by tomorrow,’ Fric said. ‘We’ll make a plan. We’ll pound him, dammit! We’ll tear his brain out!’
‘Yes. Obviously, man. It’s settled. See you!’
‘See you!’
I walked along the wall and out on the terrace. In through the same entrance that Mirko Parasite took the time he returned to the camp with blood on his Hawaiian shirt. The lights in reception and on a few balconies of D1 and D2 were still lit, but I saw nobody anywhere. On our balcony and in our room the light was out.
Mum. Had she seen it? Was she standing on the balcony while the whole thing happened?
I went into the building and noticed the familiar smell of synthetic material and rubber – a smell that had never disappeared from the stairwell. In a way it was the smell of D1.
I walked up the carpeted stairs, slowly and absent- mindedly, and the more steps I took, the heavier my footsteps got.
A few steps before the second floor it happened. I started to think about what kind of night it had been. A brief summary of the evening’s events rolled across my mind’s eye – Mauro, the citadel, Suzi, Ukulele – and I abandoned the last step and stopped.
Seventeen.
It’s my birthday today.
It was quiet in the stairwell. The light I had turned on was still burning. I was three, four, five steps from the second floor and could hear a coughing down from one of the rooms on the first floor. I could see that someone had spilled gravy on the floor and had not cleaned up after themselves.
Seventeen.
Of all the days of the year it had to be this exact one he had to give me a thrashing. Could he not have chosen another one, that fool? Now he is stuck to this night for good.
The light went out.
The electrical socket glowed in the dark in front of me.
The thought of going up to the second floor and laying down next to Dad seemed perfectly impossible to me. It was as though a glass wall had risen between me and the next step. I could not just go up, lie down and sleep and wake up in the morning as though nothing had happened, as Dad obviously intended to do.
How was I going to get through the day tomorrow? I thought. What was I going to tell people? What was I going to do when I see that idiot, that ox, that stupid fascist again?
I stepped onto the next step with one foot, but quickly moved it back. I turned around. For a brief moment I remained on the same step, now with my back to the second floor and room 210 and Mum and Dad.
Something yielded, quivered and lumped together in my stomach. I was both angry and confused and had no idea what I should do. The only thing that was clear to me was that I could not go the rest of the way to room 210 and lie down and sleep. Because then that moron out in reception had won.
I took a first step down the stairs.
Then another.
A third …
Before I really realised what I was doing, once again I stood outside the entrance to D1.
Still nobody on the terrace.
Still a light on in reception.
He’s awake, that fool. In an hour there is a shift change. It has to look like he was awake the whole time, the parasite!
Behind the fig tree and the stone block by D1 there was a private fence with red and white wooden paling. I remembered that several of the stakes were loose. A couple were even missing.
I hurried across the road and grabbed the first stake but it was stuck. I tried the next one, then the next.
My neck was still hurting and I could feel a heat stinging on my scalp. But the hate and the anger made it hurt less. I already saw myself walking to reception, standing over the moron with a stake in my hand, while he lies down and pleads for mercy.
But just like the one of the two roads towards the camp I had chosen in Majbule, and the gypsy, who had just run into me of all people, again something happened that led me in another direction. Just like back then with the war, the birth certificate and the secondary school. Just like back then with Nina and the shell fragments and all kinds of other possible small and big things that had led me to Majbule and this fence and this stupid far-out situation, again something happened that changed everything anew.
I raced along the fence with my face smashed in and fresh murderous thoughts and tugged at a number of railings, which to my great surprise all turned out to have been repaired and nailed to their stable, horizontal boards. The owner had at long last got his act together and nailed them in place, and this little everyday detail, this incontrovertible fact, that became clearer and clearer to me, while I raced along the fence and tugged on it like a madman, muddled my plan and led me away from the reception. Because when I reached the end of the fence, I continued walking and c
hecked the neighbour’s fence, whose railings were made of metal. The next one was a wire fence, so I skipped that one, while the fourth one was just as stable as the first.
‘AAARGH!’ I shouted and fenced with my arms and was close to crying, but clenched my teeth and spun on my heels.
I took a couple of instinctive steps in the direction of the camp, but stopped restlessly and turned around again.
The roofs of the houses and the trees in the gardens could now be glimpsed. The sky seemed a little brighter out by the peninsula. Before long the dawn would cut into my birthday for good, and I stood there and had no clue what I should do.
I wiped the tears off my face and looked back. The street curved ahead, and I could no longer see the reception, only the corner balconies of D1.
It felt good to establish this. It was the first positive thought since the attack. The forty or fifty metres, or however many there were now between me and the camp, meant that I felt a shade better.
I slowly walked forward a few metres. Thought one last time about finding a railing or an iron pole, but stowed that thought for good. Mum and Dad sat up there waiting for me, but that no longer played any role for me. They could just wait, they could. They were very good at that.
I continued to walk. Passed the gate to the complex out by the bungalows. Passed the bungalows too.
I had no intention of going anywhere specific. It just felt nice to walk, look back and establish that neither D1, D2 nor D3 pursued me. That reception remained where it had always been. That there was greater and greater distance between me and the camp.
It felt good to know that the night was not over. That the final word had not been spoken.
No, there will never be such a cool night at Ukulele again, I thought. I’ll never turn seventeen again. The psychopath has ruined this night once and for all. He has placed his filthy hand on an unforgettable summer, and nobody can wash it clean again.
But I am the one who has the last word. I am still the one who decides. And that is the most important thing.
The restlessness and the confusion were decreasing. I grew calmer and continued to walk. I had no plan, and still I felt that I was doing the right thing: taking one step at a time and not looking back. I stopped under a cypress tree by the marina. The spot where Samir and I had bought sardines for my fifteenth birthday party an unfathomably long time ago. Once more I saw myself standing and explaining to Mum and Dad what had happened. I stowed the thought away once more.
It’s not going to happen. I’m not going back. Not tonight!
Fabio! I thought. I’ll nip over to his place. He is the only one who has heard about the psychopath. He’ll understand everything.
A defiant resolution filled me while I walked past the roundabout and on towards Vešnja. It had got a little brighter. I started to think what I would do, who I should ring from Fabio’s phone, when a green Fiat with headlamps on came driving towards me.
I stuck out my thumb, but the car just whizzed past.
The hair, dammit! I do look like a zombie – a zombie that has been beaten to top it all off.
I searched for a hairband in my pockets, but only found some coins and the note with Suzi’s phone number on it. Should I cancel our date on Monday? Yes? No? Maybe? Aargh, I could not take a stand on that right now!
I gathered my hair and tried to straighten it with my fingers, so it did not look so crazy and airy. I unbuttoned my checkered shirt, pushed my hair behind my left ear and let if fall down over the swollen right cheek.
The evening at Ukulele was definitively over.
I had already left Majbule and realised I was going to Vešnja, when a car stopped. The man behind the wheel was grey-haired and bearded, and I recognised him at once. It was an older guy who ran a souvenir stand with small paintings of local beaches and other junk in Adria.
I was a little unsure whether he recognised me. He asked:
‘Where are you going?’
‘How far are you going?’
‘I’m going to Grozvin.’
‘Great. Me too.’
How and why those words came out of my mouth, I had no clue. I said it with such brashness and naturalness, it caught me unawares. But it felt good. It felt like a defiant, masochistic joy. A pure enjoyment at doing something completely stupid.
Inside the car it smelled of cold ashtrays, and I made myself comfortable in the back seat. I did not want him to see my tender, swollen right side. That was where it hurt most. The moron was left-handed. That was why I could not see the first blow coming. Not just because I was drunk.
I leaned back. Felt strong and free. I felt like I was the one making the decisions.
Thought: I’m not bloody well going to Grozvin! I’ll hop out at the ring road in Vešnja. What the hell am I going to do in Grozvin? I know nobody there. I’ll go to Fabio’s. He’s probably sleeping now, but I’ll wake him up.
So Vešnja it was, and that was fine by me. But when we reached the crossing by the ring road, where the old man should turn right and I would get out, I again got an enjoyment from not doing as planned.
I said nothing. I just let him keep driving.
Leave, dammit! I thought. Let’s go to Grozvin! Let me see what happens!
I leaned my temple against the cold window and looked out. The old man drove in silence, luckily. He must have smelt that I had been drinking, maybe even noticed my swollen cheek. But he asked no questions, did not say a word, and I loved him for that.
The car glided quietly and calmly along the coastal stretch towards Grozvin. The surface of the Adriatic reflected the nascent sunlight, which forced down through the hovering greyish-blue clouds.
‘They’re calling for rain,’ my driver said.
‘Yes, I heard,’ I answered, even though I actually had not. We drove through the village where I got an electric shock, the day Neno rang. The day I was equally happy and equally sad like over the past twenty-four hours, just in the opposite order.
The first raindrops hit the windscreen when we passed the stadium in Grozvin.
‘Where should I let you out?’ the old man asked.
‘It’s not important. What’s your final destination?’
‘To the post office. I’m actually going to Zagreb, but not for another hour. Right now I’m going to …’ he said and continued with a story about his daughter, but I was no longer paying attention.
Zagreb! I thought. Of course!
The new idea really got me going. I stepped out of the car, breathed in the fresh air and waved goodbye to the nice man behind the wheel.
Zagreb! I’ll go to Zagreb, find the Swedish embassy and show them all this swelling and bruises. Tell them all about what happened. Tell them all about the bros I have up there. About everything I know about their country. All about the population count and the lakes and the average temperatures. Everything I have read up on at Vešnja’s library. Tell them that I know that parties are called kalas and beautiful girls vackra flickor. That I very much agree with their ideas, especially about music libraries. It is no surprise that both Ace of Base and Roxette are Swedes. Yeah, that’s not my taste, but okay, what do I know, I’m just a stupid little Bosnian and just declare: They are after all international bands!
‘Mr Pozder, tell me what you would like, sir?’
‘Sorry, Mr Nilsson! Sorry to come barging in here like this, but there are some first-class psychos living in that camp in Majbule! There are a lot of them and they don’t like me. I know that sitting in the shade can also be dangerous, that you can’t really be safe anywhere. They are dangerous, the ultraviolet rays, and all basements have a door, if not a window or very thin and fragile walls. But can’t you help me all the same? I can’t just go on like nothing happened. I can’t just say, ‘Yellow!’ or sit waiting for the war to end, or pray to God to win the lottery. I have no ticket, this is not serious, this is, I have to do something myself, I have to get away, you have to help me!’
‘It’s difficult to follow y
ou when you speak so quickly and wave your arms about, Mr Pozder. Could you please be a little calmer and more specific?’
‘Yes, sorry! Sorry! Well … I was born by a river, and there some psychopaths, some other ones, not the ones from Majbule, chose to establish a front line. The shells fell. The space around us closed in … But … had I lived a little further away … or many, many kilometres away … like some … yes … But I lived there, and so did my friend Adi! Adi was a nice guy for the most part … I don’t know what he’s like now … We were crammed into buses one day, the army’s buses, and you see Mr Nilsson: I have never liked riding in buses! Nor has my father. He is …’
One dark sentence replaced the next. I fantasised about this visit to the embassy, went to town, and amused myself with it, while I walked towards the main road that led out of town.
‘… And when you have finally got a little air … a little bit of calm … when you finally think that you are on the other side of the minefield, then they arrive … the psychopaths … They tip over and smash things … and you live side by side with them and you keep your mouth shut and tread carefully and try to ignore them, and the most you get out of it is a cool night at Ukulele, unless of course they come and destroy that too … these are the conditions out here, Mr Nilsson, and look for example at my friend Igor … Look!’
Igor lay dead in the Slavonic fields and Gogi snored and dreamt about nothing and Zlaja and Fric dreamt but did not sleep. I strolled down an uneven pavement in Grozvin, trudged along in a growing rain talking to myself.
To Zagreb or not? Zagreb. Definitely. Where can I find the road leading to that city? A good spot to hitchhike? A female driver? Preferably!
Goodbye, Fabio! Goodbye, Kaća! I’ll return one day. With a big band, I promise. You can come backstage, no, dammit – up on the stage! You can play with me. You can tour with me. We’ll see the world, do entire continents. Show all those fascists our worth! We are going to …’
Smack!
The pavement was uneven, and I struck it with my chin. My hands saved my nose and forehead, but my chin pounded into the asphalt. I got up quickly, as quickly as I possibly could, and checked. There was a cut on my chin, it was bleeding and it stung. The rain ran down my back. I stood for a while, completely motionless, with soaking hair, dirty clothes, a swollen face and a soul in shreds.
Ukulele Jam Page 30