by Miha Mazzini
I refused to get in. I preferred to walk. Selim didn’t want to get in either.
Hippy drove off, wobbling above the precipice.
We turned off the road onto a shortcut through the woods. Just in case the losers come back with reinforcements.
We got lost even before our eyes could get used to the moonlight. It didn’t matter. What mattered was that we went down all the way. We kept tripping over tree roots. Trying to keep up with our legs, which were overtaking us.
The forest thinned into a small clearing. I lit a cigarette. Selim sat down. I felt the grass. It was wet. I sat there, feeling the dew creep into my ass.
Far below, the foundry lights shone like a long snake.
‘I needed a walk,’ Selim said. ‘To think.’ It sounded like an introduction. I didn’t say anything. Waited for him to go on. He was silent for a long time before he spoke again.
‘Fucking hell, it’s all very badly designed, very badly.’
I looked at him with surprise. His bandage shone against the outline of his face. He’d realised it very late. At his age he should have realised that a long time ago.
‘I don’t believe in God. But I’ll have to start, if I want to find the one responsible for fucking me up like this. I have no talent and no gift. No chance to pull myself out of this shit. I’m condemned to the foundry till the day I die. There are many like me, you’ll say. I look at lbro. He’s happy with everything. Some others, too. Their only worry is football. They think I’m crazy because I can’t recite the names of all the football players off the top of my head. Something’s bothering me all the time. I think. I can’t stop thinking. I want to get away. Out. Away from the foundry, away from myself. I’ve already worked in Germany.’
I didn’t know that.
‘A factory just like the one here. The same shit. Better pay. That was the only difference.’
He got up and started walking in small circles. His voice was very clear in the silence of the night.
I covered my cigarette with my palm and took a puff. I saw my palm tremble in the orange light.
‘Sometimes it seems to me that I’m the only one at the foundry with any brains. Too little to get myself out of this shit and too much for what I am. Just enough to be dissatisfied. I’m loading the furnace and I can’t see any sense in it. Any monkey could do it better.’
Selim was in a late puberty stage. Without a shadow of a doubt. He was asking questions we all ask at a certain age. Then forget them and become numb. Some of us with a bang, others just moaning.
‘They say to me, you’re a free man. Resign and fuck off. It’s easy to be free with pockets full of money. If you can just go to Rome on a whim, buy a Plane ticket.’
I started feeling cold and got up.
Selim had set off down the slope. I caught up with him. Walking one behind the other we got to a path.
Suddenly he stopped. I walked into him.
He turned around. His eyes burnt into me.
‘I don’t want to be like the others. I don’t want to. To just die with nothing left. I don’t want that.’
His eyes sparkled in the night. They seemed to be on fire. I trembled.
There was nothing I could say to him. There are things everybody has to sort out for themselves.
I looted through the treetops. The sky was half hidden by the hill opposite. I remembered Noodle, leaning on the wall of his bunker. With little fragments of shit all around him.
Selim had already walked on. We got to the valley without saying anything else. Dogs were barking.
Across the allotments and into the town. The flats were in darkness.
We stopped on the pavement.
Looked at each other.
Walked away in opposite directions.
I stopped and looked after him. The wide shoulders going farther and farther away.
Maybe he felt my look on his back. He turned around.
‘Oh brain, oh brain, you cause me such pain!’
I don’t know if he’d heard me. He turned his back to me.
The mesh of the foundry fence threw a shadow across him.
A crane whirred.
9
The postman was putting letters in mailboxes. We said hello and exchanged a few polite sentences. No, I didn’t intend to return to the post office. Maybe we’d have a drink another time. I was busy. He laughed meaningfully. Looked upstairs towards Karla’s door. Nothing can be hidden from the postman.
I rang the bell. And again. She wasn’t there.
The door at the opposite end of the corridor was opened by a grey-haired, plump old woman with a hairnet. She’d probably been waiting for me.
‘She’s gone,’ she said.
I went closer.
‘You mean out?’
‘She’s gone for good.’
I was expecting it. But these things still hurt, even when you’ve prepared yourself for them.
‘When?’
‘Early in the morning. I can’t sleep, you know—’
‘Yeah, and?’ I hissed.
‘Half an hour ago some men came with a van and loaded everything from her flat. They said they were taking it to the dump. She’d only taken a small suitcase with her.’
I put my hand on the fence and squeezed it. My knuckles turned white. I was just about to leave when the woman spoke again.
‘She left a message for you.’
She stopped talking and cleared her throat. Small tortures bring great joys.
‘She said, I quote, “The same place as the jacket.” That’s all. Nothing else.’
She looked at me questioningly, dying with curiosity.
I banged my fist against the electricity metre cupboard.
She jumped back. Ready to close the door.
The cupboard door opened with a creak.
Inside there was an envelope. Sealed with sticky tape. I tried to open it neatly. Lost my patience and tore it open. A thick bundle of folded sheets. At the top there was a small sheet of paper that slipped between my fingers and fell to the floor.
I bent over to pick it up and read it as soon as I lifted it off the floor. It said GOODBYE.
Without a signature.
I opened the folded sheets. The old woman stepped forward. Hoping she’d manage to catch something.
I recognised my writing. In blue ballpoint pen. I didn’t know this writing was in her possession. I’d searched for it desperately for a while. Later I calmed down, thinking it had got lost. That it didn’t exist anymore, like most of the people from that time.
I lit the paper with a match, loosening the bundle to make it burn better.
The light went off. I didn’t turn it on. I ran downstairs past the frightened woman. A ribbon of flame trailed behind me, illuminating the stairs.
The flame burned my hand. I threw the sheets over the fence. The burning fragments slowly landed on the cellar floor.
I felt like a drink. I ordered five beers at the bar, arranged the bottles into the Olympic circles, and emptied them one after another.
I was missing Karla desperately. The stability of the world was gone.
Ajsha sat down opposite me and words started pouring out of her.
‘My father won’t let me go out until further notice. I can’t go anywhere. I ran away from work. I wanted to see you. How are you?’
I gestured to the waitress for a new round. She brought five beers and a fruit juice.
Ajsha’s voice rang in my ears. Half the words escaped me. I wasn’t answering her. It didn’t bother her.
I leaned my head on my palm and watched her. Like a beautiful doll. A few spots on her cheek. Probably from the food at the foundry. Her mouth kept opening incessantly. Her teeth were showing, and sometimes her tongue.
Every change of subject was accompanied by a slap on my elbow. Once she nearly took my head off with her hand.
‘I’ve got to do something with my figure. It’s nearly time to go to the seaside. Do you think I should start body
building? What do you think? I could do with some muscles. Would you like me to?’
Slap on my elbow. She thought I nodded my head in agreement. ‘Oooooh holidays! I still write to all the guys I’ve been out with at the seaside. Well, occasionally. Last year I said to myself, this year there’ll be nobody. I put on completely black sunglasses. I didn’t want to see anybody. I lifted them just a little bit to look at my watch to see if it was time for lunch when I saw him. He was so good looking. Tall. With black hair curling behind his ears. Very muscular. You haven’t got curly hair or muscles, but nevertheless. Well. I met him again in the evening. Walking along the seafront.’
I spoke. My tongue went its own way. I could barely control it.
‘He was playing a guitar. By the full moon.’
She looked at me with surprise.
‘How do you know?’
I emptied the bottle with one long gulp.
‘I’d wanted to leave all my makeup at home. Then the next two weeks putting it on just for him. We still write to each other occasionally, you know.’
I groaned. Ooooooh Karla, where are you now? And Magda? The poet from that literary evening? The small army of girls?
My elbow received a new slap.
‘I’m very unlucky. I always fall in love with gigolos. How is that possible? Only men like that fall for me and me for them. Don’t you think bodybuilding might help me?’
I didn’t think anything anymore. Nothing. I wanted to be alone. Listen to silence around me, interrupted only by the sound of the drink going down my throat. A little bit of peace. I couldn’t take it any longer. Her voice echoed around my head as if it were made of tin. I felt sick. I had to get rid of her. Quickly. I spoke. With a nasty voice. Malicious. With my lips pressed down together. I looked into her eyes for the first time since she sat down next to me. I knew where that depth came from. All that empty space behind.
‘Hey, why are you telling me all this? I don’t care. I fucked you. It was fine. Now fuck off. I don’t want to see you anymore.’
She shut up. At last. I knew I was making a mistake, that I’d regret it later.
Her eyes widened. Only then I noticed what beautiful brows she had. She puckered her mouth.
‘Do I have to tell you again? Fuck off!’
A tear came down her left cheek. Sparkled in the light coming through the window.
Ajsha got up slowly. Her eyes were foggy with tears.
Another tear ran down her cheek. More and more.
She ran towards the exit. I stared in front of me. With the corner of my eye I caught the last swing of the door.
I ordered another round.
Looked around.
The bar was full. In the corner was Sheriff with his gang. Boxer was dozing at his table.
I concentrated on the bottles. Ajsha’s tear wouldn’t disappear from my eyes. I could see it on Karla’s face, on the beer bottle stickers.
I was ashamed. An action I would like to wipe out, but it was done and it would stay. There was no way back.
Noodle sat in front of me. It took me some time to recognise him. I could see the tear even on his cheek.
‘A case of beer!’ I shouted to the waitress.
I took all the money out of my pocket, rolled it into a ball, and threw it over the bar. The waitress brought a whole armful of bottles.
Noodle was saying something. We drank.
‘Fuck this life!’ he sighed.
Once more I realised in horror what I’d done to Ajsha.
I howled, turned around and slammed my fists on the empty table next to ours.
I bent over and banged my forehead on the wood.
I opened my mouth and bit.
I could feel the tearing of the plywood between my teeth. I squeezed with all my strength. There was a creak. I could taste blood.
Somebody grabbed my shoulders and tried to pull me away. More and more hands were on me.
All I could see were belts and jeans. Sheriff and his friends.
They pulled the chair from under my arse and pulled. The table slid with me. Two of them went to hold it.
They pulled.
I hung in their arms.
They sat me on a chair. I spat out veneer, plywood, a tooth, and blood.
Sheriff bent over me.
I lurched forward wanting to bite into the table again. Somebody moved it away at the last moment.
They pressed me against the back of the chair. Sheriff hit me twice. From the left and the right. He bent over again looked me in the eyes.
‘What beautiful boots you have,’ I said.
In spite of the circumstances, he couldn’t hide his pride. Snakeskin and silver spurs.
‘Cowboys used to die in these,’ he explained.
‘From shame,’ I added, ‘because they didn’t have other footwear.’
I expected a blow. It didn’t come.
He looked at me with contempt and grinned through his teeth.
‘I can see you’re all right again, Yankee.’
He went to sit at his table. His cowboys followed.
I really was okay. I spat on the floor. Felt around with my tongue.
The tooth on the floor was from the top right. I expected it to be from the middle.
It was probably because of the carvings on the table.
Noodle had his left sleeve rolled up. He cut a narrow ribbon of skin from his arm. He pulled it away a bit, then held it in his teeth while slowly moving his head away and cutting along the stretched skin with the razor.
He spat the noodle onto the floor.
‘Fuck this life,’ he said. He was looking for a strip of undamaged skin for a new noodle. His whole arm was one big badly healed red wound.
I took a gulp. Used the first sip to wash my mouth.
Boxer woke up and saw Noodle. He looked as if he was going to be sick.
‘I can’t stand this! I can’t!’ He moaned, fell on the floor, and started crawling towards the exit. He used to go mountain climbing. He thought he was climbing a vertical wall. Looking for support for his hands and feet at every move, he slowly crawled forward. Under my table he sighed, ‘How steep it is!’
But he was still making good progress.
I picked up the full bottles from the table.
There were quite a few.
A heavy battle lay ahead.
I started.
10
I kept waking up all night, having to either take a piss or throw up. Each time, I dozed off again, only to have another nightmare. The first ribbons of light were making their way through the windows when I finally went into a deep sleep. I woke up in the middle of the morning, very hung over and still under the influence of the nightmares. A long shower with plenty of scrubbing with soap didn’t help. I brushed my teeth, spitting blood.
I went to the dentist. I inquired who worked where to make sure I queued in front of the right door. I had to wait a good hour before it was my turn. I sat in the chair and the female dentist bent over me. She had a mask over her mouth. And brown eyes.
I wanted to tell her to get the rest of my broken tooth out. I could feel with my tongue that there was still some left. But she didn’t let me say a word.
She stuck a bent needle into the tooth on the other side. I jumped.
‘It hurts,’ she established calmly. ‘We’ll fill it. But this one has to come out. Nothing else can be done with it. It’s cracked right down to the roots.’
She poked around the gum where the tooth used to be and pulled out a small fragment of something. She held it in front of my eyes.
‘Wood.’
Another fact.
‘Veneer,’ I mumbled.
She wasn’t surprised.
She tapped my teeth a bit more and asked, ‘Does this hurt?’
I said no.
‘Just those two then.’
She started to get the drill ready.
The dental nurse came nearer. She whispered something about shopping, got permission,
and left the surgery.
Before she left, she mixed the filling.
The dentist was watching me coldly, as if I were a fish she was just going to dissect.
‘If you ever used your brain things like this wouldn’t keep happening to you,’ she said.
I wanted to answer. But she stopped me by drilling.
‘Spit.’
I rinsed my mouth with water and spat it out.
‘I bet, Egon,’ she said, ‘that it was over another woman.’
‘Yes,’ I admitted.
‘You’d think you didn’t have an iota of brain.’
I remembered her first name. Finally. I’d been racking my brain for it for an hour in the waiting room.
‘Lisa, do you really think people are rational beings?’
She pushed me back on the chair.
‘You’re certainly not.’
The drill whirred. She blocked the cavity. Without a breather she went on to prepare an injection.
‘I don’t know why I’m trying so hard. You deserve to have it pulled out without any anaesthetic and the wound cleansed with molten iron. After what you did to me.’
She stuck the needle into my gums. I danced on the chair.
‘Wait ten minutes.’
I wanted to go back to the waiting room, but she told me to wait there in the chair. I obeyed.
She leaned on the wall and watched me. She didn’t take her mask off.
‘Egon, you’re a prick. I don’t know what I saw in you.’
I didn’t say anything, thinking that maybe I’d made a mistake to come to her with my tooth.
She prepared another injection.
‘Open.’
Three more jabs.
‘I really don’t know why I’m doing this.’
My lip and cheek started tingling. They swelled and seemed enormous to me.
I mumbled, ‘Did you get married after that?’
‘Yes.’
‘Have you got any children?’
‘Yes.’
She wasn’t chatty. I shut up and waited ten minutes.
She got the pliers.
She looked me in the eye and said, ‘I really don’t know what’s the matter with me. I’ll get my colleague next door. He’s the biggest expert in tooth pulling around here.’