The town was silent, save for the boys in the car park of the supermarket, playing with their motorbikes; moustaches of soft sparse hair, bitten fingernails and acne scars: boys in love with their cocks, who think themselves men. Boys who have been around for ever and exist in every town, in every place in the world. I was once like them, we all were: Andro, Goran, Miro, Krešimir and me. In the end you grow out of it, or you hope you do. We grew older and the lads who replaced us hung around the Zodijak where Fabjan had had the good business sense to install a pinball machine and make money out of them.
On the bridge I stopped and looked out over the river, upon which the last of the light played itself out. I followed the trail of the water back along itself where it wound through a route five times longer than the actual distance it covered, up towards Gudura Uspomena.
Some days Anka and I go up to the pine forest to shoot birds without Krešimir. How did we begin to hunt together? I have forgotten. Probably I arrived at the house one day to find Krešimir out and Anka there instead and so it seemed natural to invite her along after the way she shot the rabbit, plus hadn’t her father bought her a shotgun with a design of a clover leaf on the stock? Soon enough I found I preferred hunting with Anka.
With Anka I shoot my first deer. I’ve taken my father’s gun without his permission. To show off, no doubt. It is an old bolt-action rifle with iron sights and we practise with it on a home-made target at fifty metres. As the gun belongs to me, or at least my father, I get most of the shots. On the way home we see a small bachelor herd feeding on the edge of the wood, drifting across the hillside towards us, and the wind coming straight up the hillside carries our scent away and into the pines. Anka and I begin to stalk them, not seriously, we’re still playing at being hunters. Sure enough the herd soon becomes aware of us and begins to move away and we, because it is the end of the day and we have time on our hands, we lie back on the grass and watch a lone crow cross the sky.
A buck, separated from the herd, appears on the brow of the hill about forty metres downhill of us. He is young, concerned principally with reaching his companions and hasn’t seen us lying in a shallow dip in the hillside between the two positions. He comes and keeps coming. Anka and I watch. Any minute I expect him to make a break for the safety of the herd, but he does no such thing. We are motionless, sharing a single thought. Slowly I train the sight on him. The breeze blows straight into my face. I aim fractionally ahead of him so that he walks straight into the bullet. The herd flees. We watch the buck: the moment of hesitation, the buckling of his back legs, the final lurch forward. Together we drag the carcass back to my house, where for the next week my father hugs me and brags to anyone who’ll listen. He couldn’t care that I took his gun, because that sin has been redeemed. And that I shot the buck out of season bothers nobody.
6
A yellow light. A surge of energy and the taste of electricity. The wind that day came from the south and arrived in the afternoon. A sudden rattling of the shutters and then the rain. I’d been watching the sky all morning as I prepared the outside walls for whitewashing. Grace was working on the fountain, Laura had gone to the supermarket and Matthew was sitting at the kitchen table eating a late breakfast, where Grace and I joined him.
Minutes passed, Grace said, ‘Well this isn’t much fun.’
‘Tell me about it,’ muttered Matthew.
‘It will be over in fifteen minutes,’ I said. ‘Maybe if you go and look out of the window you’ll see something.’
Grace stood up and crossed the room. For a few seconds she stood looking out of the window and then, ‘How did you know that would happen?’
I only knew what everybody else around here knows, like when the rain is coming and when the wind will change, when to expect snow and which winter months are best for picking rujnika mushrooms in the pine forest. The western wind is carefree and light. The northern and southern winds are troublesome. The bura is the fastest wind in the world, so cold that at Karlobag the sea freezes: white horses are turned to ice, frozen in motion like characters in a fairy story; in the streets signposts snap like straws. This southerly summer wind arrives, as always, with all the fanfare of a Gypsy caravan driving into town with a new spectacle for the townsfolk. First an empty stage. The wind dies, the sky is clear. Across the stage thunder gives chase to lightning. Up come the lights and the special effects: sunshine and transparent ribbons of rain. The Gypsy magician swirls his cloak.
‘What is it?’ asked Matthew.
‘A double rainbow,’ said Grace. ‘Come and see.’
Matthew only grunted. At that moment Laura came back from the supermarket; her clothes and hair were wet, she’d run from the car. Grace pointed to the rainbows. Laura pushed her wet hair from her face and craned her neck. ‘Mattie, have you seen this?’
‘I’m good, thanks.’
Laura insisted. ‘Come and look, before they disappear.’
‘I said I was cool.’
Laura moved to behind Matthew’s seat, she put her hand on his shoulder, bent and kissed the top of his head. Matthew pushed her hand away. ‘What’s the matter, darling?’ she asked.
‘Nothing, I’m fine.’
‘Why don’t you want to see the rainbows?’
‘Because I don’t, that’s why. Just drop it, will you, I said I’m fine.’
‘Come on, Mattie . . .’
‘Oh for fuck’s sake, I said drop it.’
Laura flinched, but persisted. ‘Not until you tell me what the matter is.’
‘Oh OK. Well where shall I begin? Um, no TV, the phones don’t work, no Internet. Nothing to do all day, every day. It’s fucking boring here, that’s what.’
‘You’ve scarcely given it a chance.’
‘This was your idea, not ours, and just because it’s your fucking fantasy to live in the middle of nowhere doesn’t mean it’s everyone else’s.’
The mood changes. The sky darkens, the rainbows are snatched away. The clouds close in, the temperature drops and down comes more rain, heavy and sullen this time. The caravan closes up, the locals drift away.
After Matthew had left the room Laura raised her head and gave a little sniff, which meant she was being brave. Grace, standing by the window, said, ‘Wow, that was a mood killer.’
‘I’m sure he didn’t mean it.’
‘I’ll go and get him,’ I said. ‘Matthew shouldn’t speak to you that way.’
‘Leave him, Duro. It’s just his age, he’ll grow out of it.’
I was silent.
‘You don’t have children, Duro, otherwise you’d understand. I’ll talk to him later.’
I breathed in, I said, ‘There is no English television channel here, but you can get Internet at the library and there is a café in town called the Zodijak where you can get it too.’ And because I needed to leave the room I went outside to bring the bags in from the car. Laura urged me to wait for the rain to finish, I pretended not to hear.
Soon afterwards I went to the outbuilding where the Fićo was parked. I pulled away the cover and began an inspection of the vehicle, something I’d been meaning to find time to do. The body was in reasonable condition, a few spots of rust here and there, along the edge of one window. Despite the day’s rain this is a dry climate, as you know. The car was unlocked, I opened the driver’s door. One of the seats was split and the foam bulged, but here again the car had survived the years and the rats well. I fetched a torch and crawled under the car to inspect the chassis; I assumed it would be sound and it was.
The rain had eased off. Back inside there was only Grace, eating biscuits from the packet along with a glass of milk; she looked up at me and smiled. I fetched the car battery and the engine oil I’d brought in a day before and returned to the outbuilding where I stowed them next to the car. I shook out and replaced the cover. Along the wall of the outbuilding wa
s a shelf where the rakija had been stored. I ran my hand along the underside, snagging my finger on the splintered wood. I searched until I felt what I was looking for: a row of hooks and keys. I shone the torch on them, inspected each one until I found the key for the Fićo.
Laura complimented my hands. She sat opposite me while I worked the splinter out of my thumb with the pin she had given me; when she offered to help I held my hand out for her. After the splinter was gone she held onto my fingers, lifting my hand to the light the better to examine it. Piano player’s hands, she said.
Piano player’s hands. I liked the things Laura had said. True, I take care of my hands. I take care of them not despite my work but because of it. My nails are trimmed to a length of one millimetre, and by the side of my tub I keep a Lipari pumice stone. My sister Daniela gave me my first manicure; she was training as a beautician and had done my mother’s hands and those of my sister Danica. I begged her to do mine next and sat with my fingertips in a bowl of soapy water. Daniela massaged my hands and rubbed in my mother’s rose hand cream, she painted my nails with a clear varnish and when it wore away I begged her to do it again, because I liked the way they looked so much. Daniela gave me a small piece of shammy leather wrapped around a matchbox and taught me how to buff my nails.
Laura’s hands were slim and tapered, with polished, almond-shaped nails. On her left hand next to her wedding band she wore a gold ring, set round with diamonds, on the other hand a small silver ring in the shape of a heart.
Laura said, ‘You don’t talk much, do you?’
I said, ‘What do you want me to say?’
She’d bought Pag cheese because she read about it in a book and wanted to try it. I told her where to go, because even though the cheese comes from the island, in fact you can buy it just about anywhere. Laura had been to the market in Gost and was disappointed. I know what she wanted: cheese and cured meats, olives soaked in oil and vine tomatoes, like in Italy. Instead she found imitation-leather jackets, mobile-phone covers and pickled vegetables. I explained that Gost market has always been like that. In years gone by the farmers sent their produce away to a central distribution point to be sold. What they didn’t send they kept for themselves. Laura invited me to try the cheese and wanted to know what I thought about it and I said it was good, though the truth is, it was only OK. While Laura enthused about the cheese Matthew rolled his eyes. Laura wanted everything to be special: the cheese the best cheese, the house she had found the best house in the best town. She was pleased there were no English people here.
We were alone in the house, the cheese between us on the table. She said, ‘Tell me about your family.’
‘I was raised here in Gost.’
Laura waited. ‘And?’
‘And what?’
‘Well tell me more.’
‘We were very happy.’
Laura laughed a great deal at that.
‘What’s funny?’ I said.
‘Sorry, Duro, but, well you’re the only person I’ve ever met who said they came from a happy family.’
‘Yes,’ I repeated. ‘We were happy.’
‘What did your father do?’
‘He worked in the post office.’
‘A postman?’
‘Not postman. In charge of the sorting office. My mother had different jobs. She helped in the school kitchens. I used to see her every day at lunchtime. When I was little I liked it a lot but when I was older I was embarrassed about it, I don’t know why. Because my other friends saw her there too maybe, and I worried she would become the butt of their jokes like some of the other staff members. She found another job, went to work in the fertiliser factory. We were five: my father, mother, two sisters and me.’
‘Do they all still live in Gost?’
‘One of my sisters and my mother moved away. My father and my other sister died.’
Laura’s smile disappeared, she said, ‘Oh.’ Her eyes slid away from me. ‘I’m sorry.’
I saw that it was up to me to put the conversation right again, to steer it back to where Laura would feel comfortable, something bereaved people learn to do. I said, ‘It was an accident. In any case they’re gone. My other sister lives in the capital with her husband, work is easier to find there, not too much of it here. My mother wanted to be around for her grandchildren when they came. There it is.’
‘Yes,’ said Laura. ‘There it is.’ She still had the olive stone in her mouth, which she sucked and turned around with her tongue while she looked at me. This and the fact I had been made to talk about myself made me uncomfortable. I was about to make an excuse and go back to work when a car drove by. Laura’s eyes followed it through the window as it passed. ‘There must be a party.’
‘Why do you say that?’
‘Hardly anyone comes down this road usually.’
Word was getting around: someone in the blue house. I said, ‘One of the roads is closed. Work on the water mains.’
‘I hope that doesn’t mean the water gets cut off.’
I reminded Laura she had a well.
I like to leave a job in a certain place, where I can pick it up easily. At the beginning of the day I set myself a goal and don’t stop until I’ve reached it. It’s just the way I am. I like to work hard and go to bed tired and begin again the next day, allocating tasks for myself in the right order and completing each one within the schedule I’ve set myself. I didn’t like my work to be disrupted or disturbed, even the school projects I laid out on the kitchen table when I was a child. I grew mad if anyone touched them. My mother complained to my father that I was stubborn. Not stubborn but single-minded, my father insisted, like him. Two men marooned in a household of women: my father always talked as though we were outnumbered, two to twenty instead of two to three. Perhaps it was because I was the youngest, petted by my sisters and my father, so easy-going; somehow we’d failed to stamp our masculinity upon the household.
Shooting was one thing we alone shared. My first shooting lessons were given to me by my father, I was barely taller than the gun, still watching Professor Balthazar on television after school. My father came into the house holding a rifle, he said, ‘Come on, chief.’ The Professor was on holiday in Switzerland, skiing and riding in trains. I turned the set off, jumped down and followed my father.
Learning to shoot is a lot like learning to play an instrument. In time I got to know my rifle the way a violinist knows his violin, every curve and line of the stock and barrel, the slide of the bolt, the pull of the trigger. From all those hours with my father I brought a single lesson. Patience, focus, control: in all things and especially in shooting. Aged ten I lost a shooting contest. It was at the local fair; I was nervous. My father put his hand on my ribcage, he told me I needed to learn how to still my heart. By the time I was in my teens I was winning every competition and I understood what he had meant: to go to a place within, to feel my heart shudder, slow and pause, hovering in advance of the next beat. To begin to beat again only after the shot had been taken.
When I was satisfied with the outside walls, I went to the courtyard and washed my brushes one by one under the tap, laid them out on a sheet of newspaper and made sure the lid of the paint tin was firmly in place. I washed my hands and splashed water over my face. I opened my eyes to find Laura standing in front of me.
‘Duro, Grace and I were wondering if you would like to stay and have supper with us.’
‘Thank you, yes.’ I dried my face on the sleeve of my T-shirt.
‘Good, we hoped you’d say that.’
‘First I need to wash and change my clothes.’
‘It’s just family.’
‘I must also feed Kos and Zeka.’
‘Bring them back with you, why don’t you?’
‘Thank you.’
It had been a while since I left the dogs alon
e for so many hours in the day; they were feeling sorry for themselves and let me know. I spent a few minutes raking their fur with my fingertips, searching for ticks, something they loved. On Zeka’s haunch I found one, already gorged with blood. He held still while I burned it off, but the damned thing burst and left a mess. I’d have to take a pin to remove the head later, now time was short. I fed them and let them follow me into the house. After I had showered I wiped the mirror and decided to shave. While I lathered my face I inspected myself as I hadn’t done in a long while. When you live on your own you forget how others see you. Overall I was not unhappy with what I saw. I had aged well, certainly compared to Fabjan and even Krešimir. I still weighed what I had at twenty and still had my hair and teeth. Every morning I performed the same exercise routine. Squats, pull-ups, crunches, push-ups: twenty-five of each. I went to the door and hoisted myself up, raised and lowered myself five or six times, counted to one hundred and let go. I shaved, found a pair of kitchen scissors and snipped at some coiled hairs growing in my eyebrows.
In the bedroom I chose a clean shirt. I dressed quickly and left the house with Kos and Zeka at my heels. It was still warm, a crane flew overhead and we followed in its path towards the blue house. I tried to think of the last time I’d shared a meal with anyone. The last family dinner I remembered was when Danica left Gost. Danica’s husband Luka worked for the railways and said the line through Gost was not so important any more, because the trains only came from one direction now. Osijek to Zagreb, Zagreb to Rijeka: that was going to become the most important. Wait and see. There were flats, he said, in Zagreb, vacated and going for cheap rents. Danica and Luka had their name down on a government list. Any tenant in social housing who left and didn’t pay the rent for six months would lose the flat and the flat would go to someone on the list, end of story. There were hundreds going spare. You had to act fast for the good ones. Some people just moved in and claimed they’d been living there for years. Sometimes it worked.
The Hired Man Page 7