‘…no sense, no heart, nothing human, nothing kindly, nothing warm, and above all no story…’
‘But!’
‘…entire generations of our artists are rolling over in their graves, regretting having died before they could prevent such a mess…’
‘But!’
‘…such an insult to the universals, the foundations of our culture, you think I’m stupid, that I don’t understand the criticism of reproduction, extraction of the essence, the carving out of the superfluous and seeking the essential, you vulgar Westerner…’
‘But!’
‘…what you’ve done to my text? You’ve misread it on purpose, you miscreant, I wanted to show that from the atom of a family you can create, ultimately, something beautiful, and you abused that to serve your perverse fantasies, filled up a relationship with utter buffoonery, you’ve stolen my dialogue just to mock…’
‘That wasn’t the whole thing. You don’t even know how it ends!’
‘Well, how does it end?’
Evan was indignantly silent. Junichiro was standing close to him, too close, staring at him with clenched fists at his sides.
‘How does it end?’ he yelled.
‘She plans a military putsch in the name of love, he makes a mockery out of it and drives her to suicide.’
Koito reacted immediately, but she was too late. Junichiro’s fist was headed straight for Evan’s jaw, making tiny vibrations in the air as it travelled through space; Evan’s eyes managed to perceive this movement just before he was blinded by pain, by a sudden, all-consuming, pure pain that was simple in its nature, unambiguous, clear, understandable to all living things, and as his consciousness collapsed into the forceful contact foreign knuckles made with his skin-covered bones, there was but a single note, a single canvas, jittery cheeks, a wobbling chin, a head that snapped back, dragging Evan’s body behind it as his soles quietly took leave of the floor, thus propelling his entire body into a horizontal levitation, a magic trick of sorts, with a solitary thought residing in the pain, a singularly selfish thought, ow, ow, ow my
ABRAHAM!
You were born in the land of the unburied. Think about that. That’s probably why this land has never forgiven anyone for anything. They burned down the trees on that land, not for the first time, not for the last. The land is hard. In some places it’s fertile, in others barren. Surrounded by hills. Beyond the hills, mountains. Beyond the mountains, nothing. The plough blades cut long, black furrows into the land. Sometimes it swallows them up.
The ruins of transmission towers are scattered all about. Defeated by rust. Now they’re crumbling under the claws of birds and humming in the moonlight with a gentle finish me off. Nobody has removed them. They’re not bothering anyone. On sunny days the old look on them with nostalgic eyes. Nostalgia doesn’t reach the towers.
Once upon a time men of words found a name for this land. The name has been lost through the years. Now they just say – Land. Nobody mistakes Land for some other place.
Between the hills and Land, long rows of houses form villages. Hard people live in the villages. It is not the land that has made them hard – they did it to themselves. Over long years of trials and turbulence. On the wings of misfortune and danger. Under fire. Under rain. But above all, under one another. The skin petrifies when coarse eyes are fixed on it. The eyes fare no better.
On this land, in a village whose name you know, stands a big house full of disappointments. The disappointments have filled up so much space that everyone feels cramped, though it really is a large house. The largest in the village. The envy of the other villagers makes it slightly larger.
A walnut tree rises in front of the house. It’s been here forever. Hidden near its crown there is a little tree house, invisible to the eye, even when the tree sheds its leaves. Kras and his son Mitja built it one summer, many years ago, when Mitja was just a boy. They never finished it. The tree house has only half a roof and it’s missing a wall. Mitja, for the first time in his life, underestimated his father’s attentiveness. Things did not turn out well.
Autumn slyly squats in the hills. In its bear claws it holds brushes of yellow, red and brown. Last night, as the Wolfs were frolicking about in the Soča valley, it crept down and callously plucked off a few leaves, doodled on them and crumpled them and threw them to the ground.
Kras is standing on leaves, looking up. Moisture has caused the beams to rot. He’s not sure whether it’s safe. The footholds that the two of them nailed into the trunk have wriggled out. He grabs hold of the first one and pulls it away effortlessly. How to get up there? He looks around to see if anyone happens to be watching. A grown man climbing a tree looks pretty funny. There’s no one. The second hold seems a little firmer, but it’s just out of his reach. He’ll have to jump for it. The bark scratches against his belly. He pulls himself upwards. Quickly. A passing cyclist thinks he’s just seen a pair of legs up in the air, but a follow-up look yields nothing.
‘Hey there, brother Wolf.’
He’s so surprised that he almost loses his grip. The branch shakes perilously as he tries to catch his balance.
‘How did you get up here?’
Po is ensconced in the corner and sketching in chalk on drawing paper.
‘I climbed.’
‘What are you doing?’
Kras sits at the edge of the wooden floor and turns towards her. Po looks at him, as if to say, isn’t it obvious?
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