Crumbs

by Miha Mazzini

  ‘I didn’t know you were a writer,’ she said.

  ‘Well… well…’ I dithered.

  She couldn’t take her eyes off me.

  ‘I’ve never met a writer before.’

  I was beginning to like it. The editor’s revenge did have some good sides.

  ‘Well, you know how it is… we writers… blablablabla…’

  ‘Oh, really?’

  ‘Yeah, blablablablablabla…’

  ‘Oh,’ she could only sigh.

  I invited her for a drink.

  She came.

  She ordered a Coca-Cola, I ordered a beer.

  I looked around to make sure nobody I knew was within earshot and then opened all the valves.

  ‘Blablablablablablablablablabla…’

  It bowled her over, she was barely conscious anymore.

  I don’t usually do such stupid things, but when I do lose the ground under my feet. I hang high up in the air. She wasn’t a quiet sort, and yet she could only get a word in edgeways when my mouth was full of beer. She was on her way to the dentist and she was already late. She showed me the tooth that needed filling. I looked in her mouth. Very exciting tonsils.

  She went. I ordered another beer.

  I’d only just started drinking when Ibro sat down next to me.

  ‘What did she say?’ he asked even before his seat got warm.

  ‘Are you following her?’

  ‘Well… just sometimes… a little,’ he admitted between blushing and playing with his feet.

  ‘She’s going to the dentist.’

  He went over the gaps in his mouth with his fingers and sighed.

  ‘I should go, too. Where do you register?’

  ‘You’ll find out next time you follow her.’

  ‘Egon, can I ask you something?’

  ‘No,’ I said.

  He collapsed with sadness.

  He shut up and looked at the table in front of him.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘There’s a dance tomorrow. Would you invite Ajsha for me?’

  ‘No, Ibro,’ I shook my head, ‘you invite your women yourself.’

  He became sad again.

  I thought that maybe I was being too hard on him.

  ‘Maybe, I’ll see. I’m not promising anything. Okay?’

  His whole face was smiling. He ordered two beers. We toasted each other.

  ‘Brilliant, you’re a real pal. Seriously.’

  ‘Ibro, listen. I didn’t promise anything. Anything.’

  He nodded, still smiling. He winked at me with an I-know-you look in his eyes. His familiarity started to annoy me. I didn’t say anything anymore. Any future disappointments would be his own doing.

  ‘Today is a good day. All good news.’

  ‘What news?’

  ‘I got my first cheque today. Tomorrow I’ve got a day off I’m going to Italy to buy a new suit and shoes. In the evening Ajsha will come to the dance, and I’ll be there in all my new gear. And tonight my three brothers are coming to visit.’

  ‘Are they going to work at the foundry?’

  ‘No, no,’ he shook his head as if he’d heard the most stupid thing in the world.

  ‘They’re working in Germany. They’d been at home for a week and now they’re visiting me on the way back.’

  My brains rattled with calculations.

  ‘They’re going to Germany, you say?’

  ‘Yes.’ He looked at me questioningly.

  ‘Do you think they could bring something for me?’

  He hesitated.

  ‘A television set? Something big?’

  I laughed with relief.

  ‘No, something very small. A bottle of aftershave.’

  ‘The one you used to wear?’

  ‘Yes’.

  ‘No problem.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Certainly. You write down what you want and you’ll get it. Or even better. Be at the station around nine tonight, before the train for Munich leaves.’

  ‘I’ll be there.’

  ‘It’s a deal.’

  ‘But you’ll still ask them before if they’re willing to do me a favour.’

  ‘Okay, I’ll ask them, but I’m telling you, they’ll bring it definitely. A favour for a favour. Isn’t that so? That’s what friends are for.’

  I remembered my conditional agreement to invite Ajsha to the dance. Maybe I really would. If I bumped into her accidentally. I wouldn’t go looking for her.

  ‘What if she doesn’t want to come?’

  ‘She’ll come, definitely. You just ask her.’

  ‘I will.’

  I could always tell him that she didn’t want to come. Before he plucked up enough courage to go and ask her if that was a true, we’d all be old age pensioners.

  ‘Tonight, straight after my brothers have left, I must go to bed. I have to be well rested for tomorrow. But Selim bothers me. He doesn’t say anything but he still bothers me. I just can’t get used to it. I wake up in the middle of the night and I watch him.’

  He sighed deeply. As if he’d buried all his hopes.

  ‘What’s the matter with Selim?’

  ‘What? You don’t know?’ Ibro was surprised. He couldn’t believe that I hadn’t heard the news yet.

  ‘I don’t know, I haven’t been around for a while.’

  ‘True, I haven’t seen you. He’s standing…’

  ‘What do you mean, he’s standing?’

  ‘He’s standing on one leg.’

  ‘Why? What for? How? Tell me!’

  ‘He’s been standing on one leg in the middle of the room for three days and three nights, not saying anything. He eats what I bring him, but he doesn’t put his other foot down. I wake in the night to see if he’s gone to sleep. And he is asleep. On one leg. He wants to be mentioned in some book or something.’

  I understood.

  I quickly finished my beer.

  ‘Let’s go.’

  ‘Are you going to talk to him?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I was going to ask you to do that. Only you can persuade him to stop.’

  Ibro paid for all the drinks. We half ran to the dormitory. Selim, for fuck’s sake, when is your madness going to end? I always assumed he’d calm down, that he wouldn’t fall into the black hole of his obsession. But I knew that he had an explosive nature, and that I had a certain influence on him. I felt partly responsible.

  ‘Talk him into giving up,’ Ibro said on the way. ‘You know when I bring Ajsha to the room tomorrow after the dance, and like, Selim is standing in the middle of the room, not moving, not saying anything…You know what I mean? Otherwise I could ask him to stay at a friend’s overnight.’

  I looked at him angrily. He shut up and didn’t say anything the rest of the way.

  I climbed through the window and waited for Ibro in front of the door to their room.

  ‘You stay here. I’ll talk to him on my own.’

  ‘Okay.’

  I knocked and went in.

  Selim stood on one leg facing the window. Looking at the foundry chimneys.

  He didn’t turn to look at me.

  I stood in front of him, blocking his view.

  Not a twitch. He was looking through me. If he could see anything anymore.

  ‘Hello, Selim.’

  He didn’t answer. Nothing changed on his face.

  I lit a cigarette.

  ‘You want to get into the Guinness Book of World Records, eh?’

  I may as well have been talking to the wall.

  ‘You found a way of becoming well known. An equal to Nastassja. Before you go to Rome, if she’s still there, and stand before her…’

  He didn’t say either yes or no. I went on.

  ‘Think about it Selim. I’m relying on you having some brains left. You usually use them. Have you ever seen that book?’

  He remained motionless.

  I continued with the voice of an old lady telling her cat not to shit
on the Persian carpet.

  ‘Quite a large book. At least three hundred pages. A new edition every year. And thousands of mugs like you in it. Twenty per page. At the very least. In small print. You’ll still only be one of many. She won’t even hear about you.’

  The cat went on shitting wherever it felt like.

  ‘It means nothing, fame acquired with these records. Saccharin for those who can’t get real sugar. And something else. Listen carefully. To accept your achievement for publication in the next edition, I seem to think you have to have at least two witnesses who are present at all times and you have to notify the publishers beforehand of the exact date of the beginning of your endeavour. Maybe they even send somebody to witness it. And what did you do? You stood in the middle of a room like a stork and hey, bingo, there’s your record. Who’s gonna believe you? Ibro is at work in the morning. You could be lying on the bed in the meantime. In the afternoons he’s out, at night he sleeps. It could be that you were only standing there when somebody was looking at you. I do believe you. But nobody else will.’

  My voice was becoming pleading, and there was a hint of desperation in it.

  Suddenly I felt like crying, ‘There’s no point, Selim! Everything’s useless!’

  He was still staring through me.

  My desperation turned to rage.

  ‘Listen to me carefully.’ I leaned forward, face to face, eyes to eyes. ‘I’ll go out now. I’ll smoke a cigarette in front of the door. Think about it. If you’ve got any sense left you’ll come out. I’ll come back and ask you what you think. If you decide to continue with his, we’ll pack you up and send you to Madame Tussauds. We’ll leave you alone then. So it’s up to you.’

  I left the room and Ibro pounced on me immediately.

  ‘What happened, did you succeed?’

  ‘He’s thinking, let’s wait five minutes.’

  I lit a cigarette and smoked it slowly, dragging it out. I rolled every puff around my mouth three times. I was convinced he’d come. The door stayed closed. I put the cigarette out. I gave him another two minutes. He didn’t come. I looked in. He was still standing like before.

  I closed the door in Ibro’s face and stepped in front of Selim.

  Two streams of tears were running down his cheeks.

  ‘What’s the matter, aren’t you going to stand on both feet?’

  Finally he spoke. He said, ‘I would, but I can’t.’

  He sobbed.

  I went out and told Ibro that Selim had given in. Told him to call an ambulance and a doctor. They’d get him back on both feet. If his left leg hadn’t dried up completely.

  Ibro ran into the room, came back and went to make a call from the porter’s office.

  I jumped through the window and went to the bar.

  I washed away the time with beer before Poet’s presentation.

  I got to the bookstore early. Besides me and the start of the evening there was the circle of culture lovers. Both aging groupies included. The poisonous one looked at me slightly more kindly, or maybe it just seemed so to me. At five minutes before six, Poet went to stand in the middle of the circle of chairs. He was holding his book in his hands, looking at me with desperation. My eyes kept glancing at the clock on the wall and I got nervous, too.

  Exactly at six, the left and right half of the door opened with a loud bang. Sheriff entered. With his belt hanging low. Behind him one by one came his cowboys. The bookstore suddenly seemed like the O.K Corral. They sat down.

  The literary evening started ten minutes late because of the performer’s astonishment.

  Sheriff took off his Stetson and put it on his knees. The other hats followed as one.

  Poet started reading. At first he could hardly get the words out, but slowly he got into it, and by the end he was really lively. He stopped. I clapped. The cowboys stamped their boots and threw their hats in the air. I winked to Sheriff, congratulated Poet, and left. It was a nice literary evening. One of the best I’d ever attended.

  Back at the flat, I had a shower and took a bunch of banknotes out of the Bible.

  I went to a restaurant and treated myself to a meal.

  Just before nine, I got to the railway station. Ibro was already saying goodbye to his brothers.

  They were smaller than him. Stocky, like wrestlers. All three dressed in identical suits, black with narrow stripes. They were so alike they looked like triplets. Next to them, Ibro looked as if he hadn’t been quite finished.

  We shook hands.

  Ibro introduced us.

  ‘This is my friend, who’s asked me to ask you to bring him something.’

  They nodded.

  ‘Something small. Aftershave. The name is on this paper.’

  I gave the paper to the middle one. He read it out. Letter by letter, exactly as it was written.

  ‘Cartier Pour l’Homme.’

  ‘How much does it cost?’ asked the one on the left.

  I told him and gave him the money. They looked at each other.

  ‘Is it for a woman?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said with embarrassment, ‘women have to be spoiled.’

  Ibro rolled his eyes.

  ‘They have to be beaten,’ the middle one firmly corrected me and took the money. ‘All right, it’s a deal. We won’t be coming until the summer but there are plenty of our friends who go home every week. We’ll give the aftershave to one of them. He’ll give it to our brother. It could be here in a couple of days.’

  That made me happy.

  ‘Great.’

  ‘Does that suit you?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘It won’t be too late, it’s not her birthday or something?’ asked the one on the left.

  ‘Yes, but not until next week.’

  Ibro afforded himself another circle with his eyes.

  ‘You’ll definitely get it by then,’ nodded the middle one.

  We shook hands.

  ‘We’ve got to get on the train.’

  They walked in my direction. I walked with Ibro along the long train.

  Their compartment was in the next to last carriage. The end of the train was in the middle of the bridge over the road. We stopped and looked at the cars below us.

  ‘Another piss, and then we’re off to Germany,’ said one of the brothers and stood next to the fence. The other two followed.

  They stood next to each other pissing on the cars driving past under the bridge.

  Ibro and I walked on slowly. We stopped at their carriage and I lit up. A policeman came by, looked at us, and then noticed the brothers pissing.

  ‘Hey!!! What are you doing? Stop!!!’ he shouted. He ran past us to the brothers and started shouting at them. They didn’t even look at him.

  He went mad with fury. He was young, probably a beginner, the same height as them, but slighter.

  They shook their willies, put them back in their trousers, and then slowly turned around. The cop was roaring like the MGM lion.

  Suddenly, as if they’d trained for it, the brothers started beating him with their fists. The cop couldn’t even fall. The blows from all directions held him upright. When he started looking like an empty sack, they grabbed him, one by his collar, one by the trousers on his arse, and the third one by his legs, and took him to a skip standing in the bushes ten metres away. They threw him in. One of them came back for his hat, which was lying on the ground, picked it up and threw it in the rubbish, too, and closed the lid.

  We shook hands again. They noticed my surprise. It bordered on enthusiasm.

  ‘What’s the matter, don’t you treat them like this here?’ the middle one asked.

  ‘No, definitely not.’

  ‘It’s a custom where we come from.’

  ‘In Germany?’

  They looked at me as if I was an idiot.

  ‘No. Germany is something else. At home. The ticket collectors, gas and electricity metre readers, and so on…’

  ‘A nice custom,’ I had to admit. ‘It might be wo
rth introducing it here.’

  The brothers embraced and kissed and jumped on the train, which was already moving. Ibro and I waved.

  ‘What brothers I have! Did you see that?’ he turned to me enthusiastically. I had to admit they were admirable.

  ‘How’s Selim?’

  ‘I don’t know. They took him away in an ambulance. He had to lie on his stomach on the stretcher, because of his leg, you know.’

  We said goodbye.

  Ibro set off for the dormitory, and I went in the opposite direction. I felt like sleeping even though it was still early.

  On the way, I remembered the policeman’s look. He had seen me, and he must have remembered me. He knows where to find me. It’s going to be a difficult day tomorrow.

  A painful day.

  The lights by the rail track turned to red.

  In the block of flats I was walking past, somebody turned off the radio.

  7

  I got up early, had a shower, got dressed, and sat down. I didn’t have to wait at all, they came immediately. Banging on the door. I’d already unlocked it. Two of them fell in, grabbed me and shoved me down the corridor. A Black Maria was waiting outside. Maybe they thought they’d manage to get all five of us in one go. That I’d immediately give them the addresses of my friends. I didn’t. And they didn’t ask me for them anyway.

  I sat in the part of the van with mesh on the windows, surprised at how short the journey was. It could’ve done with being longer. They took me to an office and pushed me onto a chair.

  Opposite me sat an old policeman with glasses, scribbling on some paper. I had to give him my personal details.

  He didn’t ask for my rank and number.

  I was passed onto somebody else. Somebody young. He took me to wait in a room with bars on the windows. In the doorway he hit me twice in the kidneys. On the left and the right side. It helped. After a long time without it, I was reminded of the feeling of physical pain. They didn’t take my cigarettes away. I smoked three. One after the other.

  A third policeman came to take me to a room similar to the one I was in before. An empty room. This one gave me a slightly friendlier shove towards the wall before he left. Five more cigarettes. My stomach was like a hard ball. It twitched occasionally. I needed a piss. I thought about pissing through the bars when a new face came for me. Soon I’d see the whole place. This one could speak. He didn’t shove me to the next room. ‘Comrade, come with me!’ he said.