Crumbs

by Miha Mazzini

  ‘You’re doing well today.’

  I nodded.

  ‘I don’t drink as much as I used to. I’m trying to control myself. This is my first.’

  He put the empty glass on the table.

  ‘But I can’t take it anymore. It’s already gone to my head.’

  ‘I can feel it a bit, too, ‘I comforted him.

  ‘I decided to have only one a day. You’ve got to have a strong character to keep to that. But then at least I won’t have to go to that lunatic asylum. That’s what’s making me stick to it.’

  ‘Yes, I’m sure you won’t have to go back.’ I got up and put my hand on his shoulder. I gave it a firm squeeze. For courage.

  ‘I know you’ll last.’

  ‘You think so?’

  ‘I believe in you,’ I added firmly. ‘I’ve got to go, cheers.’

  ‘Cheers.’

  I set off to Karla’s.

  The critical hour when Karla’s alarm clock usually went was coming near. I listened in front of the door. The fuck inducing music was already on the record player. I reached for the bell. Pulled my hand back. Hesitated. Suffered terrible torments of politeness. I rang the bell nevertheless. She wasn’t expecting me. She’d put on a different face, not the one intended for me. Her features relaxed, disappeared into facelessness for a moment, and then formed themselves into the face I was used to.

  ‘Hi, Egon.’

  I started, ‘Karla…’

  She interrupted me. I was shooting negative answers to fast bursts of questions.

  ‘Hungry?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Thirsty?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Horny?’

  ‘No.’

  She stopped. She frowned, not understanding.

  ‘What then?’

  ‘Karla…’

  ‘Aaaaa…’ She realised. ‘Come in.’

  I didn’t take off either my shoes or my jacket. She opened the door of a small room on the right that the architect probably designed for a nursery. Karla, at least as far as I knew had no children. She owned a heap of old junk, mainly presents, which nearly filled the small space.

  ‘I didn’t remember straight away. You haven’t been for a long time.’

  ‘Nearly a year. Will I be disturbing you?’

  ‘No.’

  She took a key off the key ring and gave it to me.

  ‘Lock behind you when you leave—’

  ‘And put it back through the letter opening, I know.’

  She accompanied me to the room and turned on the light. A toilet pedestal was fixed to the middle of the ceiling. A light bulb was hidden in it, illuminating a narrow circle in the middle of the room. The heaped-up junk was lost in the semi darkness.

  She didn’t step over the threshold. She was going to say something when the bell rang. ‘Just go, Karla.’

  We looked at each other. Smiled. She went.

  She closed the door behind her.

  Years before she used to mix with some modernists, as they called themselves. The room was overflowing with art objects given to her as gifts. The smell of stuffiness was almost unbearable.

  Directly under the light stood a huge red armchair in the shape of a five-pointed star, covered in red artificial leather. The back was shaped like a sickle, and the foot rest like a hammer. In front of the armchair stood an amateur copy of Michelangelo’s Pieta.

  Some sculpture student probably made it from plaster for practice. There was a Jesus in Mary’s lap with a stomach that had been chiselled into a flat shelf, on which a portable black-and-white TV set stood. Mary was bending over across the frame towards the screen sadly. The angle stopped her from seeing anything.

  I turned on the TV.

  I turned the volume to the lowest audible volume. I didn’t want to disturb Karla and her visitor.

  I climbed into the armchair. All the remaining time before the beginning of the film I came there to see was taken up by trying to get comfortable.

  Without success.

  I gave up with my back curled under the sickle and my legs raised high.

  The fanfare sounded.

  The opening screen came on:

  Ingrid Bergman and Humphrey Bogart

  in

  CASABLANCA

  The film I’d watched over and over but always in the same place. In this room. In the middle of this warehouse of abandoned and forgotten modernist junk. In this stuffiness. With Mary, reaching forward to see what it was I stared at so intently, and Jesus, who turned his head away, not because of death but because of what I could almost swear to be disgust. Opposite us hung Mona Lisa with headphones on.

  When the film finished I just sat there. Not because I was particularly touched or because of the mesmerizing effect of images. I found it hard to move because of the paralysis caused by the shape of the armchair.

  I switched off the television and quietly crept through the door and across the hall. Karla’s laughter could be heard from the bedroom. The man’s voice was too quiet and too deep me to be able to make out the words. I could feel it tremble in my diaphragm. Slowly, millimetre by millimetre, I unlocked door. Closed the door and locked it again.

  I closed my fist around the key, wanting to take it with me. I came as far as the middle of the corridor before changing my mind. An agreement is an agreement. I pushed it through the opening.

  It clinked on the floor.

  Karla’s laughter changed into giggling.

  It was already dark outside. I stopped and leaned on the wall in front of the entrance to the block of flats. I watched the sparks coming out of the chimneys.

  I reached for the cigar but changed my mind mid-movement. Cigarettes are more suitable for short stops. I took three puffs and flicked the rest towards the starry sky. I left without waiting to see it fall.

  I was overcome by two wishes incompatible with being penniless. To drink beer and to be alone. I stopped in front of the bar, peeping into the lit-up interior.

  Boxer had difficulty keeping his head above the table. Swayed to and fro. Somehow I wasn’t in the mood for multiplied greetings. I could hear the clinking of full bottles. After it came the noise of raised heels.

  ‘Hi, how are you?’ Ibro shouted.

  He was carting two plastic bags full of half-litre bottles of the fulfilment of my first wish.

  I greeted him more pleasantly than usual.

  ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘I’m taking this to the dormitory. A whole week’s supply’

  I couldn’t and I didn’t want to hide my longing look.

  ‘If you come with me we could have one or two.’

  I went. Took half the load. A sweet burden. I handed him the bottles through the window and then climbed in myself. The wall in the room was still divided in two. I nodded to Nastassja. I sat down on the chair next to a small cabinet separating the two beds. I took the beer out of the bag, put the lower edge of the bottle top against the wood, and hit it. I caught the foam running down the bottle with my mouth. I took a long sip. Opened another bottle for Ibro, who was sitting on his bed.

  ‘May I ask you something?’ he said timidly.

  ‘About Ajsha?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Are you getting anywhere with her?’

  ‘Yes. I sat opposite her at lunch.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘She pretended not to see me.’

  I tried to change the subject. Convinced I wouldn’t succeed.

  ‘Where’s Selim?’

  ‘At the cinema.’ Ibro rolled his eyes. ‘He watches all the performances. Alone. He’s already beaten up half the dormitory.’

  ‘Yes, I know the story. I was with him yesterday.’

  ‘I worry about him, you know’ He was looking at me hesitatingly, as if not sure if I could be trusted. I helped him.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Well, maybe it’s nothing, but… those photographs he put on the wall…’

  ‘Yes?’

 
‘Those are photos of naked women, aren’t they?’

  ‘Yes, of one woman, to be precise. And?’

  ‘Yes, just that one, what’s her name? Not important. At first I thought Selim put them up like any other man does. To help him jerk himself off. So that he doesn’t have to go through the cupboard if he needs them in a hurry. You understand?’

  ‘I understand.’ I had difficulties hiding my smile.

  ‘I’ll give you an example. I’m lying on the bed reading comics, when Selim gets up from his bed, stands in front of photos, and stares at them. I think, he’ll do it now, so I go out to the corridor not to disturb him. I come back after ten minutes or half an hour and he’s still standing motionless just like he was when I went.’

  ‘You mean he’s not jerking himself off.’

  ‘Yes, and that’s what’s worrying me. It isn’t normal. Is he sick or something?’

  I nodded.

  ‘You’re right. There is something wrong there.’

  Ibro decided to tell me everything.

  ‘Egon, don’t take this personally but… how shall I put this… you two are somehow similar—’

  I interrupted him.

  ‘You mean I don’t jerk myself off either?’

  ‘Don’t be like that, that’s not what I meant… I’m sure you do…’

  ‘How do you know that?’

  ‘Well… I don’t really… I…’

  He got confused and waved his arms. The breeze they made couldn’t blow away the redness on his cheeks.

  I savoured his embarrassment for another second and then stopped his torment.

  ‘It’s all right. I do understand what you’re trying to say. Just relax.’

  The last sentence was intended for his toes, which were waiting in readiness by the edge of his shoes, slipping in slowly.

  He did as told and took off his winkle-pickers.

  A terrible stench.

  ‘Are you angry?’ he asked.

  ‘No. Why?’

  He was watching me with fear, as if expecting me to bite him any minute. I took a sip from the bottle.

  ‘Just wondered… Maybe you’re not comfortable talking about this.’

  ‘No less than talking about anything else.’

  Ibro stood the empty bottle by the bed. He opened another one.

  I followed his example.

  ‘Egon,’ he started, ‘you don’t mind if I lie down, I’m so tired.’

  I shrugged my shoulders.

  Ibro sprawled on the bed. Bent the pillow over to raise his head, holding the bottle on his stomach between his hands.

  ‘The work tires me out,’ he apologised once more.

  ‘It’s all right.’

  I switched on the lamp on the cabinet and turned off the light.

  We emptied the bottles. Third round.

  He broke the silence.

  ‘What do you think of Ajsha?’

  A sudden attack of honesty even though it was of no interest to me. It wasn’t my problem.

  ‘I don’t know if you’re the right one for her.’

  ‘You think so?’

  ‘You’d better give up.’

  Silence fell.

  We spoke again during the fourth round.

  First he gave a sigh, long and sad.

  ‘You’re probably right, but I can’t help it. I’ve fallen in love.’

  ‘That’s true, too.’

  ‘She’s my first love.’

  First loves hurt most. I felt sorry for him.

  ‘There was another woman. A middle-aged widow. I thought I loved her, but that was nothing compared to this.’

  Ibro stared at the ceiling and talked, clutching the bottle.

  He wasn’t drinking anymore. I opened another one for myself only.

  ‘She always smiled at me when she went to work in the fields.’

  He stopped talking. I took the cigar out of my pocket and lit it. This was the right moment. I had plenty of time. Ibro was at that stage of talking when he didn’t need a listener anymore.

  But it’s still nice to have somebody there so that you don’t talk to the walls.

  He sighed again. I was watching the smoke curling in the light from the lamp.

  ‘I’m still a virgin,’ he said.

  I didn’t say anything.

  ‘Ajsha must need somebody with experience. What can she do with me? I don’t know how to approach her. What to say, what to do.’

  I looked for an ashtray and remembered that both he and Selim were non-smokers. I shook the cigar into the empty bottle and managed to get half the ash on the floor. Ibro talked without a break. I pulled the Rimbaud out of my pocket, read a few poems, and put the book back again. I opened another beer.

  ‘I was grazing sheep at granddad Mehmet’s one day…’

  My tongue started burning. I wasn’t trying to get the ash in the bottle anymore. I just shook the cigar over the floor.

  ‘I liked it really. After that I did it every day.’

  Another beer. I stared in front of me. If I moved my head quickly the room lost definition. The view multiplied.

  ‘Once my granddad caught me. I nearly died with embarrassment…’

  I bent forward. Put my elbows on my knees. Smoked the cigar. Belched. Ibro wasn’t disturbed.

  ‘Everybody found out, the whole village. Granddad told them.’

  I’d smoked two thirds of the cigar already. Blue smoke was floating around the room.

  ‘And that widow laughed at me. She shouted after me whenever we met. Little boy! Do you still let the sheep lick your willy? That’s exactly what she used to shout. I was dying with embarrassment…’

  The factory siren went off. Slowly, risking the failure of my sight, I turned my head towards the window. It was night outside. All I could see was the reflection of the room in the window. A guy lying on the bed, talking in a monotonous voice, just about to fall asleep, and another guy sitting on a chair next to the top of the bed, bent forward, leaning his chin on his palm. A fortnight’s stubble. A cigar in his mouth. I started shaking. I went to the window and opened it. I was convinced that I would see the streets of Vienna from the turn of the century. Coaches on the roads. I was looking at the foundry but couldn’t recognise it. I ran my hand over my forehead, wondering where and who I was. When I was. Were my visions returning? Was I floating again, into the worlds of stories I’d heard, or read, or written? I was losing myself. If I didn’t hold on, I’d be lost. Again, like all those times before. The doctors called it issues of identity. Loss of the self. I had to hold on. I threw the cigar down and vomited over the windowsill. There was nobody on the road. The sound of a crane moving helped me to catch the space and time. I looked at Ibro asleep on the bed.

  I closed the window and stepped into the corridor. Most of my strength was taken up by trying to control my legs. I had to take a shit. I stepped inside the bathroom and nearly drowned in the sea of sewage on the floor. Balancing on the tips of my toes, I made my way to the toilet. There was no toilet paper, of course. I went back to the sleeping Ibro, fumbled through the cupboard, and went back with a packet of toilet paper. I splashed back to the shitting position.

  It was difficult. Bloody difficult.

  Standing on the tips of my toes, I pulled my trousers and my underpants down to my knees, sacrificed the right hand for holding them there, while lifting my jacket up with my left hand so as not to shit on it. I was clutching the paper between my lips as I pushed my arse back. My head was nearly on my knees. I was just about to start. With my right hand I just managed to catch the Rimbaud, which slid out of my pocket. I saved my trousers from falling into the flood by quickly spreading my knees. I pushed the book back into my pocket and grabbed hold of my trousers. I leaned forward and again only just caught the poem collection. I nearly lost my balance and fell into the stinking mess on the floor. The water had already gone below deck and wet my socks. At last I realised why all the inhabitants of the dormitory wore shoes with raised heels.


  My bowels were letting me know they wouldn’t stand for this messing around, delaying things much longer. I wanted to stick Rimbaud in my mouth, but was afraid to open it and lose the paper. I was beginning to panic.

  ‘Think,’ I said to myself. Quietly, of course, because of the full mouth.

  And I thought. I pulled my trousers up again and waded to the corridor and put Rimbaud on the radiator. I turned the front of the book up so that REMBO could be seen. So that nobody would think it was a pulp with the adventures of Wyatt Earp. I ran back to the toilet and took my shit.

  There was no soap. Only cold water came out of the tap. I rubbed my hands and shook the drops off my fingers and stepped out, leaving wet footprints behind me. On the way to the exit window, I reached for the book. It wasn’t there.

  With both hands I felt the whole of the top of the radiator ribs, looked behind the radiator and under it, I even knelt down to see better.

  Finally I grasped the indisputable fact. The Rimbaud wasn’t there anymore.

  It had disappeared.

  I searched all around the radiator. Ran up and down the corridor looking for the book. It wasn’t there.

  You adjust your expectations to the world around you. Everything around you depends on constants that are so ordinary and unchangeable that you pay no attention to them. It took some time before I dared say it out loud and even longer to grasp it:

  IN THE MIDDLE OF THE DORMITORY SOMEBODY HAD NICKED RIMBAUD’S POETRY.

  The world had collapsed. As if a stone dropped from a hand had hung in the air. It was unimaginable. I was struck by terror. Panic. All drunkenness disappeared in a moment. My brains were rattling in a hellish rhythm.

  There was no logical explanation. None.

  I knew most of the inhabitants. There wasn’t one poetry lover among them. Those who would take a book like that have never even ventured into a dormitory. I thought about the cleaner. I ran to the end of the corridor and looked around. The bin was full of rubbish and paper, but no book.

  Maybe somebody took it to put it under a rickety table or wardrobe. The probability of that was very small.

  I was in the bathroom for three, maybe four minutes. And just then somebody needing a book of that thickness would walk past.

  My brain was trying to patch up the logical world, which had fallen apart.

  It you remove a little stone, the whole sphere around you collapses.