In/Half

by Jasmin B. Frelih

  They seem satisfied. Edgar crosses his arms over his chest and nods calmly.

  ‘It’s a deal.’

  ‘Ok. Good. Grace.’

  Grace trembles. Kras notices this and raises a hand.

  ‘Calm down. I’m sorry. I wasn’t myself. Something came over me. Sorry. Can you forgive me?’

  Grace closes her eyes and nods.

  ‘It would be easier if I had the Singing Herb,’ she says with a snarled lip and a tart tone. Kras smiles and turns to look at Mila. Her belly is in knots. She doesn’t understand what they’re talking about. Maybe they know? She stowed away the goods from the tree house as soon as they got home; she was scared to death that Kras would go that same evening to see what Mitja had left there, but he didn’t. They’d all, on edge, gone right to bed.

  ‘Unfortunately, we don’t have the herb,’ says Kras and again looks over Mila’s face turning pale. ‘But I still have to ask you something. Well, I won’t ask you myself. Bernard would like you to – how should I put it? – let him call in a favour?’

  He repeats in brief what Bernard told him. Katarina puts a hand over her mouth and screams when she hears what happened to Janez.

  ‘Does Milena know?’ she asks.

  Kras shakes his head.

  ‘Who’s going to tell her?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  Grace wrinkles her brow.

  ‘Of course I’ll go,’ she says, ‘I just hope I can find them. White Wood?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Can I take your jeep?’

  ‘You may.’

  ‘Anything else?’ asks Grace.

  ‘Thank you.’

  Grace smiles at him, warmly and against her will. This disarms him. He sits at the head of the table and exhales broadly.

  ‘I don’t really understand where it all went. All of the sudden, I’m old. Don’t go thinking I’m getting soft for putting it like that. Well, I don’t know. How should I even know what you’re thinking? All these years we’ve been together. But I don’t know.’ He sizes them all up, with a sharp look which they all recognize for one that can persist to the point of hurt. He inclines his head. ‘Do I even know you, I sometimes, not often, only sometimes, ask myself. Are you really what I think you are, or have I just put something into my head and you, who knows why, just act the way I think you should act for as long as I’m looking at you. Who are you when you’re alone?’ The communal discomfort could feed the hungry. Nobody will open up. ‘Am I even allowed to ask that question? Because how do you know who I am? Who I am when I’m alone. You don’t know me. You don’t know anything. Am I also, in your heads, just some strange puppet jumping around on strings you think you know? You don’t know anything. You don’t know anything about me.’ Katarina is perfectly still, she doesn’t want to make the slightest movement since that would attract attention, but that is precisely what her perfect stillness does. ‘My wife knows me better than anybody, but even she knows practically nothing. Because she is not allowed to know some things, because some things I’ve hidden from her, and because other things, well, some things are just invisible as is. And if my own wife doesn’t know me, doesn’t really know me after all these years of living together, how the hell can I expect to know all of you? And yet I worry about you. I feel a responsibility towards you that I don’t feel towards anybody else. Because that’s the way it is. Because we’re a family. No? Am I right?’ For support he looks at Edgar, who’s staring at him the way one stares at a leaky roof. ‘I’m right. And if I take on this responsibility, without making demands on your privacy, that must be ok, no? But if I ever require your privacy, it’s not because I’m tortured by curiosity but because I need to trust. Because I have that need, for trust. Is that too much? Do I want too much?’ Outside, crickets. ‘I don’t want too much. I would kill for you. I have killed for you.’

  ‘Not for me,’ says Grace. They all hold their breath, expecting an eruption, but Kras’s voice remains steady.

  ‘Also for you. Also for you. You can’t avoid it. You can’t go off to some elite university in Berlin, and spend your days easing your conscience with petty grievances, and think that you’ve absolved yourself of the guilt for the shit that some have to do and that we all have to live with. There are no free zones, dammit, there haven’t been for decades. All this freedom you have…’ Grace lifts a hand and says quietly, ok, ok, ‘it didn’t come for free. And don’t delude yourself. Don’t delude yourself into thinking you’re safe. A ten-year-old boy wakes up in the middle of a minefield… A cruel God has led him out there to that meadow in the middle of the night, given him one more dream, one more dream, and in the morning, when we all see him, we all wave at him not to move, but he waves back with a smile and takes a step forwards into bang and horror. Nobody went to help him. Too dangerous. He’s writhing away there, no legs, fifty yards away from us, wailing to everybody who’s supposed to love him until he finds the presence of mind to crawl to the next mine and plunge himself into death.’

  ‘Why now…?’ Grace asked, horrified. All the faces are grey.

  ‘Because we are that little boy, all of us! Surrounded by mines. And you stretch out an arm, you stretch out a finger, dammit, you stretch out your tongue and bang. Is it an achievement of our civilization that people aren’t even aware of this now? That all of you think everything’s ok? Do you know how many people had to die so we could remain silent? You have no idea. So don’t think me a barbarian for wanting to know, for needing to know, what is going on with you. I have to trust you because I can’t trust anyone else. Do you understand me? I have to trust you because we depend on one another. We share a fate.’

  Grace would prefer to remain silent, but she can’t. Eyes closed, she lifts her chin, and her cold voice cuts through the silence.

  ‘Kras, this is precisely what has defeated us as a society. Each family has bound itself into a bundle of kindling and if there’s one little spark, the whole thing lights up. We don’t care about anything else. That’s why things are as they are. Because we have to watch out for our children, our brothers, sisters, parents, instead of dealing with the world. Because the threat seems so close, even though the only threat to us all is always out there.’

  ‘What the hell is it you would like to hear, Grace?’ asks Kras.

  ‘Are you aware of that fact?’

  ‘Of course I am aware of it!’ Frustration contorts his face. ‘But what am I supposed to tell you? They won! They crammed us all into half a square inch and laid landmines all around. Seriously. What am I supposed to tell you? We won.’

  Mila turns from her father to her aunt and back again. They look like each other. She’d never noticed how similar they looked. Edgar bites his lip and Katarina bites her lip. Kras stretches out in his seat and spreads his arms, as if he wanted to provoke a reply.

  ‘I’d like to hug you,’ says Grace. Katarina’s facial muscles relax into a kindly smile before returning to their former position when she realizes that Kras is offended.

  ‘Some other time,’ he says, relaxing his hands which had balled themselves into momentary fists.

  ‘Good. So that’s it. Now you know. Would anyone else like to add anything? You know, it’s full stop. Let’s put it all out there. Mila?’

  Mila immediately shakes her head and catches Grace’s look where she can, for a second, see a trace of disappointment. Easy for her, thinks Mila, because she can run back to where she came from whenever she wants. Mila doesn’t take her father at his word – she knows full well how long he can feed off even the slightest of grievances.

  ‘Ok. Good. Katarina, Mila, I’d like to talk to you alone…’

  Edgar and Grace understand.

  ‘Can you take me to the station?’ Edgar asks. ‘Sure,’ replies Grace. Katarina tosses her the keys. They leave in a curious haste.

  ‘When’s the last time you spoke to Mitja?’ he asks them. ‘And, please, it’s very important that you tell the truth.’

  ‘Why?’ asks
Katarina, terrified and immediately imagining the worst.

  Kras repeats the question: ‘When?’ He tries to encourage Katarina with just a look. She again returns her hand to her mouth.

  ‘Before he left,’ says Mila, grimly. ‘After that, yesterday was the first time I saw and heard him.’

  ‘Yesterday, on the screen?’ asks Kras.

  ‘Yes, where else?’

  Kras turns to his wife. ‘And you?’ She shakes her head, convinced she’s been left without a son, that the world is a place of ugliness and pain, and that nowhere will she find any consolation…

  ‘Katarina?’

  She snaps out of her reveries of misery and looks into the air, ‘I don’t know. I don’t know when. A month, a month and a half ago? On the phone.’

  ‘Did he call you?’

  ‘Yes. At his allotted time.’

  Katarina quickly worked out that on the day the soldiers were allowed to call home, Kras, as if by some magical coincidence, was never anywhere near the house, but she wasn’t about to make any accusations.

  ‘What did he say?’

  ‘Nothing much. That he’s fine. That he misses us. That he wants to come home.’

  ‘He said he wanted to come home?’

  ‘Ah, Kras, he didn’t mean it like that…’

  ‘No, I know, Katarina, but do you think he was serious?’

  ‘Tell me exactly what this is about, please?’

  Kras leans on his elbows.

  ‘Globus told me that Mitja’s no longer with the other soldiers.’

  ‘What? Well, where is he then?’ asks Katarina. Mila frowns.

  ‘I don’t know. He disappeared, he’s been gone for a month. That’s why I want to know if he said anything.’

  Katarina bites her upper lip and struggles to remember.

  ‘I don’t know…nothing like that…I don’t think he did… or maybe he did, no, I don’t know…’

  ‘What?’ asks Kras.

  ‘Yes, basically he asked me if I know what it means, I don’t know, it was all so strange, some acronym, I won’t be able to remember it now…’

  ‘RDR? HRC? IA? MENZO? OBI-DAU? UIGOPWTSOALSSV?…’

  Katarina chops the air with a finger. ‘That’s it!’

  ‘UIGOPWTSOALSSV?’

  Katarina nods. Kras’s skin bristles.

  ‘What did you do with the stuff I had on yesterday?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘My clothes, from yesterday, where are they?’

  ‘I put them in the laundry…’ says Katarina, quietly. She knows she’s done something wrong even though she had done exactly what was expected of her. That happens to her a lot. ‘…they were all covered in blood.’

  ‘Did you check the pockets?’

  ‘Did I…?’ She’s not quite sure. Usually she does.

  ‘Did you or did you not?’

  ‘I don’t know, Kras, there was nothing…’

  Kras jumps up and races to the room where the washing machine is churning. He presses button after button, but the spinning doesn’t stop. He reaches for the cord and yanks it out of the socket. The wretched sound would move some to compassion, but Kras hears nothing. He pulls wildly at the little round transparent door and swears as the soapy waterfall splashes over his feet. He extracts a soaking bit of fabric, like a soul from a child. Poor machine.

  Stoja had covered Po’s ears, who had covered Mira’s ears, who had covered Mina’s ears. Meslier finds the scene a little comical, but Raven’s evident nervous breakdown has made his back itch, right in the middle where your hands don’t reach. He beseeches Raven to come down from the tree, to cut it out, this childish stubbornness is unbecoming for an adult, and he should once again assume a little responsibility for his family, but Raven just keeps chuckling away to himself and quoting lines from erotic tales to Stoja, who is blushing and barely containing her laughter at the priest’s puffed-up red face.

  Po is tired of being in her mum’s arms and wriggles free. Raven’s words die on his lips. He and Po look at each other. He winks at her. She salutes him. This almost moves him to tears, but he hides his response behind a laugh. Po runs into the house. He feels a heartache in his chest. Stoja steps forwards and covers Mira’s ears. Meslier gives a muffled sigh.

  ‘Bend down and spread ’em. I want to see what you’ve got to hide.’

  Alan fell off the roof. He got dizzy, everything turned blurry for a second, there was a dark pause, a syncope in consciousness, he remembered Borut’s seizure and got even more scared, he let go of the reins over his body for just a second and slid down the tiles to the united cries of the whole family, stopped for a bit, hung over the edge, swinging from the gutter, which bent under his weight, and then lost his grip and fell some three yards into the depths, nastily wrenching his ankle.

  Now he’s in a bedroom with Olive. She has just wrapped his ankle in fresh gauze. Alan looks everywhere but at her. The poster for a dinosaur film his father once gave him has suddenly become very interesting again. The letters are losing their edges. He’ll need glasses. The shelves are sagging under the weight of never-opened books. Alan doesn’t like to read. Mila is the family bookworm. He remembers how she always complained that someone had mangled her books and looked accusingly at Mitja. But Mitja also wasn’t much of a reader.

  Olive is quiet. She doesn’t know Slovenian, which is why she’s just smiling at this poor little boy and trying to catch his eye, even though (or precisely because) he’s so obviously embarrassed. His cheeks flare red every time Olive moves. He’s embarrassed, thinks Olive, and that makes him so cute she could just pinch him. Poor child, to be born into such a family. Grace was right – after getting to know the Wolfs she’d start to think her own parents were saints, even though they knew how to employ the most complex of psychological models for expressing their resentment. Brutality trumps even the most sophisticated hatred. She gets lost in thought and strokes his leg as if trying to calm him down. Alan’s pupils dilate and his heart starts beating faster. Fear or passion? He can’t tell.

  There’s a knock at the door. Grace’s head appears.

  ‘How you doing, kiddo?’

  ‘Ah, ok, nothing major. Olive here is a master…’ Alan falls silent. In his stomach there’s a feeling of having crossed a line. He got off lightly, fairly lightly. Given the circumstances, Grace is ready to forgive him.

  ‘Good,’ says Grace, ‘good.’

  Alan nods and smiles suavely. Grace turns to Olive.

  ‘I have to go,’ she says.

  ‘Where?’ asks Olive.

  ‘I’ll be back tonight.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘To get my brother and mother. There’s been an accident.’

  ‘Oh my. Are they all right?’

  ‘They say they are.’

  ‘Why do you have to go get them?’

  ‘Long story.’

  ‘Is tomorrow still…?’

  ‘We’ll see.’

  ‘Ok. Tonight then.’

  ‘Tschüss.’

  ‘Tschüss.’

  Grace leaves, Olive turns back to Alan.

  ‘Oh wow!’ she exclaims. Alan’s face is now a ruddy scarlet. The sheet covering him has risen shamelessly just below his waist. The short exchange in German was a catalyst for his desire. He’s aroused and doesn’t know what to do about it. Olive responds with kind laughter and a wink, which helps him not one bit. She’s proud that her presence can still conjure up magic, even in a boy as cute, young and innocent as Alan. The palm of her hand is still resting on his leg. At this moment, they both realize it. They look at it. An already slightly wrinkled hand and flawless nails over a boy’s nearly hairless leg. They don’t look at each other. They stare at the hand. Tension rises. They stare at the hand. They wait for it to move.

  Grace had left the door slightly ajar. Po peaks through the crack. She sees Alan’s chest rising, sees him throw his head back, sees him fervently grasping the edge of the bed. She stays put.

  Mila
leans by the open window and takes hot, long, protracted drags from an enormous joint into which she’s sprinkled all the leftover weed. This might be her last ever. Her father’s glare might have meant something, but who knows… She sends acrid clouds skywards. There’s never anybody on this side of the house. Each puff leaves her lonelier.

  She’s already all too familiar with her brain’s associative network. First she’ll work through all the traumas, the mini-traumas and the awkward memories, the relationship with her father (they will never understand each other), the relationship with her mother (she resents her weakness, her indulgence), her relationship with Mitja (negligent fucking pig, if this brands her for life, she’ll run a spear through his back), with the whole jam of family, compote, compost, squeezed and pickled, now they’re rotting… But no! You’re responsible for yourself, Mila, nobody else can do this to you if you don’t let them. That’s the most horrific part. The awareness that, in the end, you have no one to blame but yourself, that you’re alone before your destiny. When it is so alluring to say, ‘you destroyed me’. So tempting to say, ‘you sucked out all my blood’. That’s what Alenka, after she’d returned from Africa, before she left for good, shouted all through the house. Each tug broadens the abyss. Mila! You have to swear to yourself you’ll never let yourself be a victim. Martyred, murdered, massacred, ha-ha-ha… She starts laughing, the smoke goes up her nose. What would they think if they saw you now? Now that you’re crazy… But so what! Anyway, nobody’s around! She sets the remaining half of the joint on the ashtray and starts jumping around the room. Nobody’s watching you! On a rock hurtling through emptiness, in the back pocket of space-cowboy jeans, forgotten, overlooked, we dance in solitude… When you’re really alone, when you’re really alone, when nobody’s watching you, the edge of the universe stretches into infinity on all sides. Just imagine, she thinks, next time, when you’re going to close the door behind you, the vastness of the hole you’re in. And nobody sees you. She is jumping around and letting it go, satisfied with bodily existence, satisfied with an excess of consciousness…