Best European Fiction 2011

by Aleksandar Hemon

  The fat saleswoman led him in the opposite direction from where the girls were changing.

  What are her vital statistics? She asked. Is she the sporty type or more feminine?

  She talked nonstop and showed him underwear without him even managing to affect interest. Finally he just said thank you and that he’d think about it a little. He had to think it over a little. He’d think about it a little more.

  He waited for the girls outside the shop. Several women passed by while he stood there. He watched them with that melancholy that always came over him when he saw beautiful women walk through a city: Look at her, she’s so beautiful, she’s so beautiful, and I am never going to see her again. But he felt sure about the two girls. He’d made a good choice.

  Ten minutes later they both came out with one shopping bag each. Out on the street they hugged one another and stood talking for a moment before they each went their separate ways. The dark one disappeared down Fredsgatan. The blonde one was preparing to cross the street in the direction of the canal.

  This was a situation he hadn’t considered. He had thought of them as a unit the entire time, not as two individuals who could suddenly part company. He had to decide quickly before he lost both of them.

  He chose the blonde.

  He nearly lost her too, but ran down the street so that he caught up with her again at the canal. She crossed Gustav Adolf’s Square and then walked along Harbor Street East. He wondered if he had made the wrong choice. Maybe the dark one was better looking after all, but the blonde one had stood waiting for a green light, so all in all it was easiest to follow her.

  They walked down streets where the sun had disappeared. Soon it would be dusk. There was something wistful about the girl when she was alone, something vulnerable that hadn’t been there when she walked together with her friend. She walked as if she had some kind of secret. Now that he had gotten used to it, he liked this turn of events. He had made a choice. He had chosen the blonde.

  At a set of traffic lights he came so close to her that he could see the freckles on her arms. He looked at her in profile and thought she was perfect. He had definitely made the right decision. She turned for a moment and looked right at him. He knew from the glance that she knew he was there, she knew what was going on. He felt his heart beat faster. Now it was just him and her.

  It’s a lovely evening, he said.

  Yes, it is, she said nodding.

  They continued down toward Queen’s Square and he almost felt happy. He could walk like this all evening, all night, he could walk all day tomorrow, he could follow her to the ends of the earth.

  He lost her down by the main railway station. A group of tourists got between them at the front entrance. The tourists were dragging a load of suitcases behind them and he really had to restrain himself from cursing at them. He turned and ran in one of the other doors. When he finally got inside, the girl was out of sight. He looked for her at the ticket counter, in the café, at the newsstand, and on the platforms.

  She was gone.

  She was perfect and he had lost her. She was the most beautiful girl he had ever seen, and now she was gone. A sense of disappointment flared up inside him. He felt that the day had let him down. He had invested in this day and he hadn’t gotten anything in return.

  He bought a beer and sat down at the pub in the concourse. Every day was a series of these kinds of losses, some more serious than others. He knew that someday his luck would change. Someday he’d follow someone who knew the game as well as he did, a girl who after a while would stop and look at him: You’re following me, aren’t you?

  And then she’d say that he should follow her all the way home.

  He noticed how hungry he was. It was half past eight, and he hadn’t eaten since lunch—he had just sat and watched the girls eat. He glanced at the placard for the Evening Post at the newsstand: Rude, nude, and wild. He wondered what he was going to say to his wife when he got back to the hotel. There was nothing to say.

  Every man’s life is a mystery, he thought, it’s as simple as that. That’s what he could tell her. That’s what he’d say. Where have you been? she’d ask. Every man’s life is a mystery, he’d reply.

  He went to the toilet to take a leak. It was the kind where you had to pay five kroner to get into the cubicle. He usually put off going to public toilets for as long as he could. When he was ten, he had been on a trip into the city with his mother, and when they were going to take the train home, he had gone into the men’s toilets while she waited outside. When he was finished, he hadn’t been able to open the door.

  The panic still flared up inside him, the fear of closed doors, anxiety about anything that was locked; the fear of never being able to get out again. He had hammered and kicked but he hadn’t gotten out. Finally he had stepped up onto the toilet seat and climbed over the side of the cubicle. As he had climbed over he had looked down into the other stalls. He could still picture all those grown-up men lined up with their trousers around their ankles.

  Out in the concourse he found a phone and rang directory assistance. He got the number to the hotel. He rang up and asked to be put through to room 207. The receptionist asked him to hold the line. He stood looking at what people had written on the phone box.

  Someone had scrawled in blue marker: Håkon 4 Ever and My liddle puddy cat.

  Yes? she said on the other end.

  It’s me.

  Hello?

  It’s me.

  Hold on.

  She was gone. He heard her turning down the volume on the TV. Then she was back again.

  What’s happened? she asked.

  Nothing.

  You said you were going down to reception to buy cigarettes. That was seven hours ago.

  They didn’t have the brand I wanted.

  They’ve got that brand everywhere.

  He heard her breathing into the receiver. He said nothing. He could picture her, standing in the hotel room in the same slip that she had on when he went out.

  You know what? she said. I can’t take this anymore.

  What?

  This.

  What do you mean?

  I don’t want to know any more.

  What do you mean by more?

  I don’t want to know any more, do you understand? I’ve tried to help you.

  You can’t help me.

  I don’t know what else I can do.

  There’s nothing to do.

  He realized that this was developing into one of those telephone conversations that he’d always remember, like some sort of curse, a catastrophic moment in which everything is reduced and bent into sentences he wouldn’t forget.

  Are you leaving me? she asked.

  I don’t know, he said.

  You’re not coming back, are you? It hit me when you left without a coat. If you had put your coat on, you would have come up again.

  Why’s that?

  Because that would have been you. If you had put on your coat, it would have been you. It was another man who went out the door.

  It went quiet. He waited. He thought he heard the sound of a train going past, but he wasn’t sure if the sound was coming from the telephone receiver or from the station around him. He pictured her again: her face, her mouth, her shoulders, her breasts, her thighs. All the things that were beyond his reach now.

  What happened to us? he asked.

  I don’t know.

  Yes, you do.

  Nothing in particular happened.

  Didn’t it?

  No, something in particular doesn’t always happen. Things don’t always break or fall to pieces.

  Why’s that?

  Maybe it’s just something that fades and becomes something else, like the seasons. Do you know what I mean?

  Yes.

  Are you coming back?

  He didn’t answer at first. He swallowed. The line was quiet.

  Are you waiting for me? he asked.

  I’m here in the room, she said. />
  He hung up.

  Afterward he bought cigarettes and sat down on a bench. He’d finish his cigarette and then go back to the hotel. They were going back home tomorrow. Everything would be like before. He stood up and felt a white twinge in his head. He sat down again. He’d just sit a little longer and then he’d go back to the hotel.

  He caught sight of the blonde girl in a line over at the newsstand. She’d bought a Coke. He had lost her, but now she was here again. Now she’d returned. In some miraculous way he had gotten another chance. His eyes welled up with tears as he stood and followed her down the steps to the railway track.

  The girl disappeared into one of the trains.

  He waited a few seconds and then he got on as well. He managed to find a seat three rows behind her. He didn’t know if he needed to have a ticket or if he could buy one from the conductor. Maybe the girl would get off before the conductor even turned up. He’d see how it went; in any case he couldn’t get off and buy a ticket now.

  It was almost dark outside, the kind of darkness that comes in late summer, when the warm days end in a soft, black moan. It was that time of the day when parents had put their kids to bed, when the TVs were turned on, when people poured themselves a glass of wine and leafed through the newspaper. He wanted to be inside those bright, blurry rooms on the other side of the carriage window. He wanted to be there doing ordinary, everyday things.

  Like the salesman he had seen the first night at the hotel, a man in one of the other rooms who had been unpacking wedding dresses. He had stood at the window and seen the salesman unpacking one dress after the other. The man had spread the dresses out on the floor and on the bed, had hung them up and then let them unfold, like it was snowing in the room. This sight had moved him to tears.

  There was a little jerk and the train started to move. Now it was too late. The girl sat there reading a magazine. He studied her and realized that he liked everything about her. She hadn’t noticed that he was back. It was quiet in the carriage; he only heard the muffled sounds that come from people being squeezed together, face to face, back to back.

  He looked down at his hands. His right hand still held the pack of cigarettes, his left hand rested on his pants. It was odd; he thought his hands looked very young, as if they belonged to another, younger man. Yet another mystery, that he had such young hands.

  The train had picked up speed now.

  He wasn’t sure what direction it was going in, but he thought they’d soon reach the area near the hotel. He leaned toward the window and shielded his eyes from the interior light so he could look out. Everything disappeared behind them at high speed. When they passed the hotel, it went so fast that he couldn’t see if there was anyone standing at the window in their room. It didn’t matter. In any case, she’d feel the tremor from the train as it thundered by, out in the darkness.

  TRANSLATED FROM NORWEGIAN BY SEÁN WILLIAM KINSELLA

  [NETHERLANDS]

  MANON UPHOFF

  Desire

  The winter was cold, with frost on the pane. The chill forced its way in through cracked window frames. The girl, quiet by nature, had just turned fifteen. A lot was happening to her that winter. Sometimes she sat in the bus and picked at her cuticles till the skin tore. Then she stared at the slowly welling, thickening drop of blood as it trickled down at an angle.

  She liked fairy tales, but not the ones with happy endings. The Little Mermaid dissolving into foam amid the waves, the Snow Queen who kissed a child’s heart to ice, and the Red Shoes, which forced Karen to dance upon her mother’s grave—these interested her.

  But that winter she read no fairy tales. In her older brother’s room—where it was warmer than anywhere else in the house—she pored over a book called The Geisha. The cover had a charcoal drawing of two young women: Lucille and Amaryllis. The writer wanted to make love to both of them, preferably at the same time. Lucille and Amaryllis weren’t upset by this. The girl was sure she’d think that was terrible—you can only surrender yourself to one person.

  On a Saturday night in January, at the club where they only let her in because she’d made herself look years older, an Oriental-looking man bought her a drink. She’d been standing under the disco ball for hours, in a white blouse and tight jeans, but he had just come in. He was much older than she was. His hair shone, and the girl thought his narrow eyes were mysterious. The way he gave her the drink, his hand momentarily brushing the back of hers, frightened her. She couldn’t take her eyes off him.

  A little later, when she saw his nails, gleaming dimly like the inside of a shell, she knew she would go with him.

  At two o’clock they left the club. Cars drove off honking and girls collapsed giggling into their boyfriends’ arms. The doorman tapped his gold-braided hat and watched as they turned the corner.

  The strange man and the girl walked through the center of town without a word. With each step her curiosity grew: not so much about this man, but about herself.

  They crossed a bridge and walked out onto a lawn. The air was cold. It’s not true that someone else can burn you with their heat, but the touch of his soft palm against hers burned anyway. In the grass, wet from melted patches of snow, they lay down. Up close, her nose buried in the worsted of his coat, she tried to find her way past all his strange smells to a smell she knew. Water was soaking through her clothes. Her teeth started chattering and the blood drained out of her face. She worried that her lipstick would dry and her mascara would run, and he’d think she was a child.

  “It’s too cold here,” the man said. He helped her to her feet. Her hair was wet. There was grass on her coat and jeans.

  He asked her to go home with him, and she said “yes,” following the same urge that drove her to tug at the translucent skin around her nails in the bus and watch the lines of welling blood. The excitement grew in her. She felt she was swelling and drawing the darkness of night up into her, like a flower does sweet water. On the town square she imagined she was no longer in any normal city—she was in a world of glass and stone, where she and the man were the only two warm animals. The thrum of distant cars sounded like bumblebees. Drops of rain began rolling slowly over her cheeks, down her neck, and the walk went on and on and on.

  “Have you been in Holland long?” the girl asked at last.

  “No,” the man said. “Only two years. And I don’t know if I’m going to stay.”

  They turned down a side street. The girl thought about her parents’ house, her brother’s room with the book about the geisha lying on the bed. How there, in that room, you could hear her mother’s breathing. About her little sister, who would be asleep now, thumb moistly in her mouth—and the Barbies and the horse on the floor.

  “Do you live by yourself?” she asked.

  “No.” A smile crossed the man’s face. “Here we are.” They stopped in front of a blue door and he pulled a key ring out of his pocket. There were colored cords of silk hanging on it.

  “I don’t live by myself. There are a lot of people upstairs—we’ll have to be quiet.”

  She followed him cautiously up the dark stairs.

  The cloth of coats scraped against her cold cheeks. The man put a key in the lock.

  The girl stood behind him. Over his shoulder she looked into the room and the light. Rows of metal beds stood left and right, with men sitting on all of them, except one. There was laughter and mumbling, and faces turned toward her. With narrow eyes they looked at her.

  “Welcome!” one of them said. His skin was yellowish and dry. He had a magazine in one hand. On the glossy cover lay a naked woman, legs spread, eyes closed in ecstasy.

  He read from right to left and slapped the page teasingly as she walked past.

  The man held her hand and led her into the far corner of the room. In front of his bed was a black curtain attached to metal rails—like in a hospital.

  “Don’t be afraid,” he said, pushing the curtain aside carefully. Little tufts of grass fell from her coat onto th
e gray blanket. He closed the curtains and fastened them with a safety pin. The laughter from the room grew louder.

  “They won’t do anything,” the man said as she sat on the bed and counted the beats of her heart. He played calmly with her fingers.

  “Before long they’ll sleep and leave us alone. Women almost never come here.”

  They waited until it was quiet and they could hear the soft snoring of people in peaceful sleep. A little lamp was burning. It was so low that the shadows it cast on the wall were large and wide.

  “How old are you?” he asked. “Fourteen? Fifteen?”

  She didn’t answer.

  “You’ve made yourself look older than you are.”

  She felt his lips approach her throat, and then a sudden hard bite that made her list sideways, like a boat after a hard gust.

  “Girl,” he said. His hand was a fish gliding up under the cloth, across her skin. He pulled the blouse up over her head, his nails ticking against her nipples. His mouth searched for hers and his tongue slid in like an oyster. The saliva in his mouth tasted sweet and warm.

  He pushed her under the blankets and pulled on the zipper of her pants, which jammed until he broke it.

  “I’ll do it,” the girl whispered. In a panic, she pulled the stiff material down as fast as she could.

  “Soft,” he whispered. He held a little fold of her belly in his mouth, rolling it between his sharp teeth.

  “I don’t know him,” the girl thought. “He’s a stranger. I don’t know him.”

  A few times that winter, in the warm city bus to school, she had pushed the stop button too early, on purpose. One time she’d been with her father. When the doors opened with a hiss, he made her get out—because the driver would expect her to.

  That’s just how it would be with this man.

  “You’re soft, still. A real girl.” He petted her breasts, almost in surprise. “I think it’s lovely that you’re white.”