Best European Fiction 2011

by Aleksandar Hemon

  He began on the first of January at eight in the morning. He started with the North Wing.

  With his head tilted to one side, then to the other, and back again—like he was out of his mind, or at least suffering from some sort of palsy—he read each title off the spine of each book.

  To reach the highest shelves he climbed up the steps of a metal stepladder provided for that very purpose.

  Exhaustively meticulous, he dragged the stepladder along with him on his rounds so that not a single book, on whatever shelf, would escape his notice.

  Yes, he was exhaustive—he didn’t miss a single book—but it was slow work. It wasn’t until June that he reached the South Wing of the library, and he wasn’t getting any younger: he was now almost blind. At this pace he would probably never get through the second wing of the library. Death and total sightlessness were approaching side by side.

  The librarians and patrons both cheered him on during his final days, and some even helped him move his ladder.

  “I’m about to go completely blind,” the old man said again and again. But everyone understood this to mean, “I’m about to die.”

  But the old man was still able to read, albeit with increasing difficulty. He now read like a child just learning to sound out words: letter by letter.

  He arrived at the last book in the library. He read the title with extraordinary difficulty. Afterward he sat down in a chair, breathing heavily. Instinctively, people began to clap: employees and patrons of the library displayed their admiration for his incredible achievement, for his perseverance.

  The old man stayed in his chair.

  And there he remains, without moving, seated in precisely the same position. There are those who say he’s so happy, he just can’t die.

  THE DANCE

  They believed it. That dancing with someone wasn’t simply a series of movements more or less coordinated between two people. Far from it.

  Dance wasn’t a merely physical relationship, but a spiritual one, they said. Moving through dance steps with a partner was like sharing in some final, definitive act.

  It was as if, they said, at its best, that dance began a sort of osmosis between dancers, in which two were transformed into one: their substances, their minds becoming equally balanced, so that in the end no imbalance could remain. It wouldn’t be possible for a couple to dance “harmoniously,” as they say, without this intimate circulation of intangible elements taking place between the partners.

  If one person is considerably more irritable than the other, in the end this doesn’t make much difference: one partner might gain, as it were, a few grams of a negative characteristic, while the other would lose those same few.

  Thus, they saw dance as an elegant means of correcting intellectual, physical, moral, economic, cultural, behavioral, and other types of imbalances.

  The truth is, however, that when people realized the effect that their dances were having, they stopped dancing entirely. No one wanted to lose to their partners whatever uniqe admixture of qualities they believed they possessed. (People are generally so pleased with at least one part of themselves that they naturally assume they’ll be on the losing end of any such exchange, no matter who their partner is.) Some dancers were afraid of losing some of their intelligence, others didn’t want to lose any of their strength, others their money, others their culture.

  Couples no longer danced. Only solo dancing remained. One or another dancer still going through their steps, as if for old time’s sake, in front of a mirror.

  THE ANTHEM

  Five men from different countries started singing their national anthems all at the same time. Thus: five different songs, five different languages, five rhythms.

  Such chaos could only confuse anyone who happened to hear it.

  Words from one language mixed with the words of another, rhythms from the different songs careened toward one another and collided like solid objects, finally retreating.

  At times it seemed that a word from one language was actually sabotaging the words of another.

  It became clear that, deep down, this was a war of voices, rhythms, and words.

  Five songs behaving like five armies.

  Soon, other songs were added to this sonorous conflict. Passersby belonging to any other country joined the choir. They couldn’t tolerate hearing their own national anthem left out of the mix.

  We were in a fairly cosmopolitan city. In a matter of hours, more than six-dozen singers were there on that busy sidewalk, each one singing his anthem.

  For those who passed by without paying much attention, the noise sounded something like the screams that rise from the earth after an aerial bombardment.

  But suddenly all the singers all shut up. And in a few seconds the situation changed completely.

  Now silent, they could very well have all come from the same country.

  The fight was over.

  “Silence is quite calming,” thought an old woman who still liked to try and take notice of what went on around her.

  But although they were now silent, the singers weren’t still.

  Each one was moving to take the loaded gun out of their pocket. This would, they were sure, resolve the dispute.

  THE MOTHER AND HER THREE CHILDREN

  The mother walks alone, already headless and looking for her three children. She is in the backyard; her head was chopped off, and the blood that flows out creates a trail, an itinerary, which will be essential if her three children are to find her. The mother would like to find her three children herself, but she is headless—and thus this task is beyond her.

  The mother runs around headless in the backyard and a number of chickens edge away from her, look up, and fail to recognize this human being-shaped thing.

  The backyard is big and the woman who got her head cut off continues to proceed, step by step, a little like she’s been blindfolded. Yes, it is like the children’s game, “Marco Polo”—but this woman wasn’t blindfolded, as we hope to make clear, her head was cut off with an axe. She goes along calling for her children (but how can she yell?) and all of a sudden: she is lost. The headless woman is lost in what is most certainly a labyrinth, and in this labyrinth she keeps passing a wide variety of animals: goats, pigs, chickens, a horse—you know, animals. Two pigs are copulating, but the headless woman doesn’t see them.

  The three children have entered the labyrinth as well and follow their mother’s trail of blood.

  The mother knows that the blood she leaks onto the ground is also the only way she will be able to find their way out of the maze, later on. Because of this she is afraid to bleed too much too quickly, but she knows she can’t stop bleeding. Sometimes she raises her right hand up to her neck, to the spot where her head was sliced off, and scoops out, with her hand, a little of the blood, which she then trickles on the ground deliberately. The smell of blood is thick and intense; it will be easy for her to follow it back later.

  But the three children, following behind her, clean the blood off the ground as they call out to her. The youngest of the children is the last, and it is his responsibility to wipe away even the slightest trace of their mother’s blood. It’s a mess, what a shame, the oldest child had said. Shame, shame, repeated the middle one.

  They call out for their mother, but their mother doesn’t hear. She has no head, she can’t hear a thing. (Though we remain confused as to her ability to yell without a head.) Up ahead she calls out for her children; the children hear something up ahead and continue to follow the trail of blood.

  At some point the mother’s voice started to become clearer. The three children ran on. At front, the oldest; at the rear, the youngest. All of a sudden mother and children find each other. The mother has no head, and the oldest child screams, the middle one cries, and the youngest trembles.

  The mother, even without her head, tries to calm them. She asks them if they saw her head somewhere along the way.

  They reply that they didn’t.

&nbs
p; But they want to know how all of this happened.

  How was it cut off? asks the oldest.

  Who cut it off? asks the middle child.

  Why? asks the youngest child.

  The mother responds:

  With an axe.

  It was your father.

  Because he wanted to have more space on the bed.

  The children sit in silence for a few moments, but then the oldest child screams, the middle one cries, and the youngest trembles.

  While they go on in this fashion, a sudden flash of lightning, followed by thunder, right above the labyrinth, frightens them all; the light and sound are impressive.

  All of them go silent out of fear and look up, including the mother, who can’t do much more than flex the piece of her neck that’s still intact.

  Taking advantage of the momentary calm, the mother again asks:

  Did you see my head?

  How big was it? asks the oldest.

  How much did it weigh? asks the middle one.

  Are its eyes open? asks the youngest.

  This size, says the mother, her hands above her neck, miming the exact size.

  More than seven kilos, that’s what it weighed.

  And yes, its eyes are open.

  If my head sees you, it will recognize you. Please, go find it.

  The three children immediately turn around and run off to find the head. The oldest child runs the fastest, the middle one a little slower, and the youngest the slowest. The middle one looks back and thinks about returning to wait with his mother, but seeing his younger brother following him, he continues to press on.

  The youngest looks back and thinks about returning to wait with his mother, but seeing that his two older brothers are still running ahead, he does the same. Let’s go, let’s go! says the oldest, up ahead.

  The three of them run for three days and three nights, until, at the beginning of the fourth day, right at sunrise, they find themselves in front of their mother’s head, which is on the ground in the backyard. They had already left the labyrinth behind, and now introduced themselves to the head of their mother:

  I am your oldest son.

  But their mother’s head does not recognize him.

  I’m the middle one.

  But their mother’s head does not recognize him.

  I’m the youngest son.

  But their mother’s head does not recognize him.

  Their mother’s head does not recognize any of them. The oldest son screams, the middle one cries, the youngest one trembles.

  But after their sadness they become angry. The oldest insults the head of their mother, the middle one spits at it, and the youngest kicks it.

  They abandon the head and decide to return to the labyrinth and reunite with their mother’s headless body—the body that recognized them.

  They enter the labyrinth at great speed, but soon slow down.

  It’s this way, says the oldest.

  No, it’s this way, says the middle one, pointing to another path.

  It’s this way, says the youngest, pointing to a third.

  It is impossible to know the right way. They themselves, out of shame, had cleaned the blood that indicated their mother’s path, and now they don’t know which way to go. There was no sign of her trail left to follow.

  After discussing it, each one chooses to go his own way.

  The three of them decide that whoever finds their mother will yell out so that the others can hear. The others will then follow the voice—and then we’ll all end up together, they say.

  Thus decided, each one takes off on his own path at great speed, calling out for their mother.

  The oldest yells.

  The middle one yells.

  The youngest yells.

  The oldest son finds their headless mother’s body.

  She is still able to mumble: I’ve lost a lot of blood.

  She is dying.

  The oldest son tries to yell out, but nothing comes out. Not a sound. He is mute. Or is pretending to be.

  Now free from his brothers, he kneels down over the body of his dying mother.

  THE COIN

  Vass Kartopeck bent over to pick up the coin for the second time.

  “Did it again!” the young woman with him shouted.

  And laughed.

  In one sense, Vass Kartopeck was sick. Annoying blotches marred his features below his eyes and along his neck, which compelled him to constantly rub at his rash in order to soothe what he called “a disquieting enthusiasm on the part of my face.”

  On a night some time ago, a few months back, the young woman, after they had made love, began, with a certain controlled perversity, to count his dark blotches: one, two, three, four…

  But only after they made love.

  “You’re rich, sir!” she teased, “More than fourteen blotches!”

  Kartopeck wiped at them incessantly with his right hand, especially the blotches right below his eyes.

  At his last appointment, which his mother had attended as well, the doctor had told him: “They’re blotches, nothing more, what do you want me to do? If you believe that looking good is really the only sign of good health, then you are indeed sick, sir. If not, forget about it. The blotches are unsightly, of course, but there are some people without any blotches who are much uglier than you.”

  At this point, Kartopeck helped his mother out of the examination room. She didn’t understand any of it; she had long since lost the minimum faculties necessary to live on her own. A man with a scarred face is helping a senile woman cross the street, thought Kartopeck, trying to distract himself from the stares of the old men watching their progress.

  Days later, his face’s “enthusiasm” worsened: the blotches burned now, if calmly, with a gentle flame, said Kartopeck.

  Despite this, the young woman wouldn’t stop making fun of him. Though he’d remunerated her quite generously, she wouldn’t stop trying Mr. Kartopeck’s patience. First, she counted the coins he had given her, putting them in a little stack: one, two, three, four, five…When the stack fell over—which happened a number of times—the young woman started counting all over again: one, two, three, four…There were fourteen coins.

  The counting of the coins was followed—after a short break—by the counting of the blotches on Kartopeck’s face, and then by the young woman’s victorious and obscene smile.

  “Eleven blotches,” she said first.

  And then, seconds later, “Fourteen little coins!” And again she smiled at Mr. Vass Kartopeck.

  Kartopeck wore unsophisticated clothes. It was clear that he didn’t let the city have an excessive influence on the way he dressed. Other elements of his personality proceeded from this preference. Or else had caused it. Kartopeck rarely went to the city center. Whenever he did, he couldn’t help but feel uneasy. This usually led to a diatribe about the horrible demands city life makes on its citizens.

  It sometimes seemed as though the crowds were made up of people furtively making the same useless gestures over and again. These were men attempting to resist the ubiquitous disorder of their lives and likewise ignore the fact that they couldn’t control the ceaseless onslaught of time—the century and this one insignificant day both ticking along whether they liked it or not—by burying themselves in the constant tumult of the city and its myriad rituals, for instance raising their arms, fingers outstretched, in order to attract the attention of the fastest means of transportation. But no, this wasn’t a form of resistance: these were merely the movements of bodies more accustomed to acquiescing than to demanding. Thus thought Vass Kartopeck, who, in his particular little world—an insignificant sort of world to those busy people, to be sure—was accustomed to giving orders.

  The doctor saw him again. Only six months had passed, and meanwhile something had occurred that is absolutely relevant to this account: the death of Kartopeck’s mother.

  Kartopeck entered the doctor’s office with the young woman, and the two of them s
at down to wait. The receptionist recognized him. After a quick glance, she asked, “Is it worse?”

  “Yes,” he replied.

  The blotches had increased in size, and now an ashlike color—unheard of in the medical field—spread out from the center of each individual blotch. Since she was trained to deal with things that would disgust laymen, the receptionist didn’t lapse into the usual grimace that people tended to make when first surprised by that face. It had indeed taken on, let’s say, a monstrous appearance. It was as if Kartopeck’s facial abnormality had, after an initial period of hesitation, evolved into an altogether different form, one no longer fit for civilized society. Kartopeck’s face had become horrendous, indecent. It was like he was assaulting the people who saw it. Kartopeck couldn’t have caused a greater moral affront to any spectators if he had stripped naked there in the middle of the waiting room, in front of all the other patients. The ugliness of his face had become metaphysical. It was a sin, not just a physical blemish.

  The young woman who was with him certainly didn’t go unnoticed either. The way she dressed revealed two things: that she wasn’t from the city, and that she was a prostitute. She couldn’t stop fidgeting in her seat, adjusting her skirt in an absurd gesture of modesty, which in any case came across as feigned, since it was accompanied by a provocative stare that swept across the entire waiting room and challenged everyone in it. Being there made her feel beautiful.

  The discomfort that the couple caused for everyone else quickly reached a crisis point. With some made-up excuse, one of the older women who was waiting to see the doctor got up and left.

  “Where’s your mother?” asked the receptionist.

  “She died,” responded Kartopeck, who was already on his feet, ready to be called. “Two months ago,” he added.

  The receptionist lowered her eyes. Now she’d made matters worse by being indiscreet.

  Then it was finally Kartopeck’s turn. His young woman stayed in the waiting room, at the doctor’s request.