In/Half

by Jasmin B. Frelih

  He grabs the lapels of his jacket and mashes them into a ball against his chest. The fabric tightens over his shoulders and a seam creaks. He rushes to the ground floor, watched over by gazing trophies (cats, cuckoos, buffalos) hanging from the wall . All the chairs are upholstered in red velvet. All the tables are ebony and thickly layered with lacquer. Bitten by forks. The chairs have cigarette burns in them. The fan is on but is facing the wall. There’s nobody here. Stubborn, decades-old drops of blood, which have ruined the backs of generations of housewives yet remained present, lead from the common space into the kitchen, a reminder of the Battle of Gunslingers, thoroughly investigated by the police and fully covered by the contemporary press. Combat at the Union. The owner’s forefathers won. The owner’s forefathers always win. With the palm of his hand he smacks the stumpy brass bell and lets the sound eat into the air.

  Melquiades was asleep under the counter. His face is just a thin sanctuary that his lips, eyes, nose and thin moustache have made for themselves in-between the spilling circles of fat. He’s surprised to see him outside his room.

  ‘Where is Guadalupe?’

  Melquiades takes a deep breath as he comes to.

  ‘And how should I know where the nogoonblotter is, I was still draven dreamin’?’

  ‘Can you hear it?’ he asks, raising an index finger. Neither can resist looking up for a brief moment.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Silence.’

  Melquiades’s shoulders droop.

  ‘There’s nothing I can do about it,’ he says. ‘If anyone, she should do something. I don’t mind the silence.’

  ‘Good. Good. Could I, please, have a glass of water?’

  ‘Water? That’s all you want?’

  ‘Water.’

  Melquiades, with difficulty, raises his hand to the row of glasses hanging from their stems over the bar, and takes one out. When he turns on the tap, they hear the mellifluous strains of an orchestra. They look at each other, stunned. Melquiades turns off the tap and the orchestra falls silent.

  ‘Do it again.’

  When he turns it on again, all they hear is the rushing of water. They are both disappointed. Melquiades places the glass under the stream. After a moment he frowns and raises it to his face.

  ‘Damn. Look at this.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘There’s a hole.’

  ‘I’m waiting for…’ he says.

  ‘Pardon?’ says Melquiades.

  ‘Nothing.’

  Melquiades sighs unhappily when he has to raise his hand a second time. He switches glasses and checks to see if this one is ok. He throws the one with the crack into the bin. When he runs the tap, someone whispers.

  ‘Rip me in half, otherwise I can’t breathe.’

  Melquiades looks up.

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘You said something.’

  ‘That came from the tap.’

  ‘Aha. Yes, it’s quite possible, you know, the pipes are copper and very old and sometimes they snatch something out of the air.’

  ‘I doubt that very much.’

  ‘It’s true,’ says Melquiades, offended. ‘Sir, you are not going to call me a liar if I tell you that, just last week, we heard reports from the caliphate, through the tap. Can you imagine? There’s half a world between us, yet out it comes, straight from the tap.’

  ‘I changed my mind.’

  ‘You won’t have any water?’

  ‘No.’

  Melquiades puts the glass on the bar. Guadalupe rushes through the front door with a bang and a tuft of hazel branches pressed into her palm, the street hard on her heels. She doesn’t look at them, but immediately starts rushing up the stairs.

  ‘Lupe! He’s here.’

  The colours, smells and sounds from outside are fading away. Guadalupe swivels the figurine that is her head, purses her lips into a perfect O and cries through them.

  ‘Where have you been?’ asks Melquiades, his voice oozing accusation. ‘You know that sir has to write.’

  ‘Dolly came home all covered in blood! Manuel and Ricardo have sworn they will take revenge. I know I shouldn’t have left you alone, sir, but…the men were weeping with wounded pride.’

  Melquiades whistles.

  ‘Serious stuff,’ he says.

  Guadalupe starts coming down the stairs, with eyes fixed upon him.

  The hazel branches are raised in the air, ready for the lazy one to feel the lash.

  ‘Are they still out there? Are they still there?’ he asks her.

  ‘They’re just leaving. They had to wait for Mum to go into the kitchen to get some St John’s wort for the blessing.’

  All three nod.

  ‘And Dolly?’

  ‘Dolly stayed outside. She’s waiting for dinner.’

  ‘Damned canni—’

  ‘Now hold on a second, sir,’ interrupts Melquiades, underlining his sharp tone by thwacking a palm against the bar. ‘A little respect never bankrupted anyone.’

  He raises in hands in apology. Guadalupe, the girl, drops the branches by her side and finds herself in a dilemma. Her black hair is tied into a ponytail from which a few strands have escaped and fallen over the right side of her face. Her slight paleness reminds one of piano keys. Tone and semitone.

  ‘So?’ she asks him with an impatient swing of the knee.

  ‘I would like to see her,’ he says.

  ‘Dolly?’

  ‘Dolores,’ he replies.

  ‘All right,’ nods Guadalupe. ‘You can, she’s still… Come.’

  She grabs him by the arm and pulls him along. Melquiades calls out to them just before they’re swallowed by the swing of the door.

  ‘Shall I draw a bath for you tonight, sir?’

  He and Guadalupe don’t look back.

  ‘Because in that case I would have to go get…’

  The street chirps and whistles, smoky, full of smiles and red noses, good-hearted back-slaps, children at play, children on the breast, children in the air. When the fog swallows them, he instantly loses all sense of space. He doesn’t know where he comes from. He doesn’t know where he is. The colourful fireworks sketch different hues in the air and announce a bang that knots his stomach even when he knows it’s coming. He lets himself be pulled along, reassured at having someone in front of him.

  They find Dolores inside a circle of grievers who are trying, through their cries, to wrench at least a pinch of melancholy from her. The men have already done their grieving, and now they’re hunched down at the far end of the street speaking of weightier matters.

  To look at her is to look at sadness. Her stocking-cap is still stuck to her sweaty forehead. Her hair is short and getting thinner and thinner in two marked cuts over her temples. Another year and she’ll be bald. Where is her wig? Will no one ease at least some of this shame? Ashen rings surround her eyes. Tears have cut grey trenches into them. Her upper lip is curled into a sob. You could hold a party between her incisors.

  ‘…and he had a knife…and he held me, squished me… it hurt…it hurt a lot…and a whole freezer full of dead cats…’

  She thrusts her open palm into their faces, as if she wants to stop their advance, though she merely wants to show them the scabby scratch which has deepened her lifeline, and they’re already wailing away. Guadalupe lets go so she can wipe the corners of her eyes. He uses this moment of empathy to slip away. If he’s not careful, this obscene, vulgar sadness will hang itself around his neck too. The colourful strata of fog soften the edges of everything in the street. It’s all becoming less real. He approaches the circle of men, carefully, as if by mere chance, with his eyes turned to the side and down, trying not to arouse their attention. They absently wipe away tears and try to still the bobbing of their Adam’s apples by placing a hand over the neck.

  ‘…they have some sort of holiday…’

  ‘…he went there, for sure, our dentist, Curion, saw him…’

  ‘…but is t
he zone safe? I didn’t think you could even assemble there…’

  ‘…you probably can’t, but nobody told them…’

  ‘…so why don’t we just wait? Why should we expose ourselves to danger, if…’

  Ricardo (or Manuel, you can’t quite tell who’s who – they’re twins) raises his voice.

  ‘…because it’s a matter of honour! A matter of honour and pride! Nobody but the Perrada brothers is going to take revenge.’

  They stamp their heels on the ground, and they nod, and murmur, yes-yes. There used to be three Perrada brothers before the youngest one – Doloretto – surrendered to the needs of his heart and decided to become their sister, which the other two let him do on the condition that he buy off their honour with his honour, according to a payment plan. The money that Dolores now earns is not really money.

  ‘…and so what are you going to do?’

  ‘…what do you mean, we’re going to go over there and count all his bones, from the ankles to the crown of his head…’

  ‘…but he’s got a knife…’

  ‘…there’s two of us!…two!… He can’t get both of us… we can split up!’

  This puts them in a better mood. Some flee from their fates. Fates flee from some others. It’s hard to maintain a balance. It’s hard to remain impartial. It is so easy to pay attention to elsewhere. Mum is arriving at the head of a thinning procession. It seems that not everyone is interested in the affair. He never really got to know their politics. The web of demands knitted by her sons, her brothers, her fathers, seemed too complicated for a single person to follow, especially for a guest, but he could never shake off the feeling that everything might become quite clear with just a little focus. Attentiveness is a virtue, like anything else. Sometimes you have to pay for it, sometimes you can buy something with it. And what pays off? What really pays off?

  hide

  Her prayer is short and pithy. She silences the chatter of children rolling behind her back with a glance, then plucks a handful of dry leaves from the branch, crumbles them into powder and sprinkles it over the ground in front of their feet.

  ‘That you may hold on to your head, that you may hold on to our head, that you may watch over the heads of the others.’ In chorus the men rap their knuckles against their foreheads.

  ‘It is true,’ they say.

  Without thinking, he repeats after them this gesture of community.

  ‘Can we go?’

  Mum frames her face with her palms. She’s done her job. Manuel and Ricardo head down the street. The remaining faces are kept aglow by a feeling that transcends them. He envies them. They all know how. Slowly they blend back into the holiday. They know how. Not all at once, and not as if they really cared. For a moment they stay there, a slight twitch of the knee announcing they’re about to move, then they turn on their heels and bow their heads as if they were taking leave of something real, before disappearing into the orange smoke. Into the purple smoke. For a moment Guadalupe’s profile is traced in it (it’s already green). Her task is clear. She must find him. If he stops writing, they’ll eat him. That was the agreement.

  hide

  He mustn’t do it too quickly, that would attract attention. With cat-like movements he retreats to the wall, turns his face to it, and then, like a crab, slowly slips away sideways. His back makes itself sensitive to their gazes. Nobody is watching him. He holds his breath, silences his heart and silently counts the passing bricks with his lips. When he gets to the end of the street, it’s completely dark. All he can hear, off in the distance, is leather crackling in the joints of a brown-shoe quartet.

  careful

  The hazel branch slices through the dark and transforms the tips of his toes into a burning ball of pain. Guadalupe’s voice has grown used to a cold, commanding tone.

  ‘Back.’

  A conspiracy of skyscrapers rises above the rooftops of human homes. The doors lock in bursts. Graffiti drips from the walls of public buildings and discomfort crawls over the empty streets. Whoever has not locked himself in is either dangerous or crazy. At night, the Third World comes knocking on the windows of dreamers. The high volume of iron bars is not in the least surprising. It’s funny, when you think that life here used to be carefree. That women in too-high heels and too-mini skirts used to traipse about, and boys used to try their luck and remain in good spirits even if they crashed and burned. Back then, there was no fear of the possibility of coming in last. Reality blithely doled out chances and kept encouraging even the biggest of losers. On the softened edges of the squares and parks people gave vent to their souls and nobody got angry at them for doing so. Teeth bared in smiles. What went wrong? Who begrudged all those people’s children?

  Ricardo and Manuel do not heed the traffic signs but power straight on. Ignited by purpose. The dull eyes of vagrants follow them from dark corners where the streetlights don’t reach. For a moment their eyes flash with the passion of want, but fear chokes every move. Together the Perrada brothers weigh more than forty-seven stone and stand a shade over thirteen feet tall. They won’t put up with any crap. If someone wants something, let him come. There’s nobody. They stumble upon a pack of rats feasting on a corpse. The rats scatter. The heatwave did not spare a broken heart. The stench has emptied all the surrounding balconies. They are unfalteringly sure-footed.

  The path leads them past stagnant neighbourhoods where ghosts take stock of their former lives and try to determine the moment it all went wrong, past the beach, with its black sand and abandoned amusement parks, playgrounds of defeated wills, past miles of dead asphalt. In the graveyard by the church in which the old priest Mandelbrot continues to publicly battle doubt and asthma every evening, gangs of triads are robbing graves. Ricardo and Manuel are able to remember a different world, but it’s not one they miss. Even the previous world didn’t mean much to them. People like them have the easiest time surviving. Don’t attach yourself to the world. Every subsequent one will seem even worse.

  Perhaps it would be easier by train, but to get to some places you have to walk. Sometimes you have to pound the pavement, lick it with your soles, immerse yourself into space and contemplate the world rotating under your feet. Their heads are not exactly empty, but they create no extraordinary thoughts. They’re angry, but not enraged, and insulted, though not gravely so. They would never admit to being scared, although the thought of a network of machines staring, through thermally sensitive eyes and with a threat of violence, from high up in the stratosphere at the surface of the world ensuring the dispersion of the human community gives them the creeps. Sometimes a man’s spirit has to overcome the limitations of nature. That fool had better not think that he can get away without punishment. Nobody is allowed to cast magic all on his own. Especially not with their sister around.

  Among the high concrete fencing, which obscures the private worlds of the solemn people, Manuel places a hand on Ricardo’s shoulder to stop him. Something has stirred in the half-darkness ahead of them. They strain their eyes to make out the alien outline and their hearts begin to beat faster. It moves towards them, its shadow growing with each step. The emerald globes reflect the cold light of the display. When they see it, they vanish from the thermal scan. Each atom in their bodies comes to a halt. They can’t risk any sudden movements. They quickly forge an agreement in thought. All dimensions of their bodies have become superfluous, so they have to bury their courage. Their calves tighten as they slowly, slowly, drop to their knees. The rough concrete surface makes their kneecaps whimper with pain, but they don’t acknowledge it. They look at the ground, straight down. They press their lips together. If it sees their teeth, their bodies will soon be tenantless, like the thousands of run-down, sucked-out buildings they have left behind. They touch the ground with their foreheads. The concrete stings imperceptibly. They spread their arms, placing their open palms on the ground. Their rumps remain in the air, unguarded. They are of this world, they say in the language of nature. They know where their place
is. The tiger walks silently between them and lashes their hips with its tail.

  They don’t know how much time they have spent quietly bowing down before the higher force. With bated breath they listen for whether the beast will change its mind. A window fails to contain the cry of an orgasm. The fluttering wings of pigeons spoil the silence. The rocking of the skyscrapers in the high-altitude wind fills the air with the coarse grinding of foundations against rock. They rise in tandem and fill their lungs with air. It doesn’t faze them. They’re all the more convinced that they are, in spite of everything, right. In their shred of life they have to follow their own decisions. They will not give in to dispersion. They will not allow someone else to settle behind their eyes.

  They break into a run. Adrenaline pours into the space left behind by fear. They compete with each other and remain absolutely parallel. Street to street, park to park, dry hydrant to dry hydrant, everything passes and hardly gets noticed. Their steps echo louder and louder, with an ever more forceful meaning, the chopped sound reverberates off the walls and upends paper bins, they go under overpasses, over bridges, past hollow rows of petrol pumps, past watering holes for horses, the sound throwing the slaves of cardboard castles into despair, the bandits retreat from the pavements, the dealers melt into the scenery, the prostitutes finally fall silent for a moment, the night predators respectfully blink in their wake and the whole city inexorably pushes them forth into the embrace of their destiny.