In/Half
Page 35
The young man breaks into sobs. Someone with a bloodied mouth escapes from the opening and his rapturous scream triggers an avalanche of naked bodies all coming out into the air with bloody faces and shiny, happy eyes. Among them is also Mitja. When he sees his father, his head drops for a split second and then immediately pivots up again. He moves towards him. All that nudity is arousing. When they’re standing a yard apart, eye to eye, they wait for a word.
‘Aren’t you going to cover up?’ asks Kras.
Mitja spreads his arms, palms outwards.
Kras takes a step. Mitja takes a step.
They fall into each other’s arms.
Evan, with a sunken face, directs his gaze right into the aperture from which people are still emerging. Every female body takes his breath away and he presses his hands together until they hurt.
‘She’s not coming, is she?’ he asks the driver, who is sitting on the hood of the limousine and staring at him with sad eyes.
‘I’m sorry, Evan.’
‘It’s ok. I didn’t really think…’
‘I’ll get you home.’
‘You don’t have to.’
‘They have water in Edo too. Don’t worry. I’ll get you home. I promise.’
Marjorie’s head peeks out from the entrance. Zoja waves to her and Marjorie waves back. She doesn’t dare enter the light. She’s ashamed to be looked at. After all this, shame’s still around. Zoja looks at the driver. Her expression is slightly hostile.
‘Come with me,’ she commands, and the driver obeys.
They walk together, slowly, to the opening.
‘That wasn’t very nice of you.’
He takes his hat from his head and throws it on the ground.
‘I never stopped loving you.’
‘Does that matter now?’
‘Yes.’
‘Loving someone is not a state of consciousness but a state of action. Daily, constant, unimaginably small acts. A wink and a held breath and a chin slightly tilted into a kiss. A smile when you meet, an honest smile, again and again and again. It’s a matter of how you listen and how you touch. How you look. How you recognize. Loving someone is hard work. It’s a search for contact, a tireless search for contact. Hard work that insincerity can’t pull off. That non-love can’t pull off. Words and thoughts cannot. Only acts. An endless series of the tiniest of responses. Goosebumps, again and again. A whiff of fragrance, again and again. A touch. And another touch. And so many touches that the body runs out of free spots. And again. And yet again. Years and years and years of touches. Not even an inkling of greed in-between. Not even an illusion of desire. Just hard and constant bodily work. You, unfortunately, aren’t capable of that.’
He doesn’t say anything.
‘When I’m alone, I can love the whole world. Not only can I like it. I can love it, you understand? Actually love it. But only for as long as I’m alone. Until the body comes into play. For as long as I’m satisfied with the illusions in my head, I have enough love for twenty worlds. But the body is reality. You’ve forgotten that. You shouldn’t have forgotten that. Matter is energy, that’s true. But energy is only matter. Only matter. Will you come back? Will you ever come back? Because just by expressing you have done nothing. I can’t help myself with your text. Bring your body and dare to love. If you think that courage and will are to be found beyond the sphere of the body, you’re mistaken. There’s nothing beyond us. Emptiness lies within us, not outside. You can fill that emptiness, you can really fill it. But you have to be there, entirely. Do you dare? Do you dare to fill the emptiness?’
He doesn’t answer.
‘Where were you?’ asks Marjorie.
She doesn’t answer.
‘Anwar told me to drink water and I drank, but now I feel so strange. Like I’m dying. But I’m not dying, even though I am completely sure it’s the same feeling, only now I am bursting with energy. Do you know what happened?’
‘Your boyfriend told me.’
‘Where is he?’
‘Outside. Crying.’
‘Oh, hell,’ she says, collects herself, and is gone.
They step together into the darkness.
‘Do you know what I wanted to tell you before?’
‘I know.’
‘And?’
‘After all this, now you want from me precisely that which means nothing. For me to tell you something.’
They walk in silence. On the way they encounter a few lost souls who are slowly working their way towards the light. A strong odour of burnt hair hangs in the air. The hall is almost empty. Anwar, sitting on a chair and with his hands over his knees, is smiling, eyes closed. Brian and Rupert are lying on the floor, staring at the ceiling with eyes as wide open as possible and poking each other in the sides between salvos of hushed laughter. Semyona is sitting on Guadalupe’s body, sliding her finger along the blood-covered floor and dipping it into her mouth at short intervals. Max and Mr Ž—are sitting in the corner and trying, with an air that brings to mind a bickering married couple, to determine at least the most fundamental theoretical and historical context for what they have just witnessed. Zoja’s gaze locks itself onto the unfortunate countenance of a being that is squatting below the stage and pressing the cup in his hands against the edge of the boards that are dripping streams of blood mixed with water. The being is completely wrinkled, white cataracts cloak his eyes, he has no teeth and on his bones is a barely noteworthy measure of flesh. He senses that he’s being observed. He turns his head in their direction, lifts his nose and sniffs the air.
‘My little pot cracked,’ he says. ‘Everything’s running all over the floor.’
Silence.
‘Is this what you wanted? Is this what you really wanted?’
‘…’
‘I’m asking you. What are you doing?’
‘Waiting.’
‘Hoping?’
‘Waiting for it to go in
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A Oneworld Book
First published in North America, Great Britain and Australia
by Oneworld Publications, 2018
This ebook published 2018
Originally published in Slovenian as Na/Pol
by Cankarjeva založba, 2013
Copyright © Cankarjeva založba – Založništvo, d.o.o., Ljubljana, and Jasmin B. Frelih, 2013
English translation copyright © Jason Blake, 2018
The moral right of Jasmin B. Frelih to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events or places is entirely coincidental.
The European Commission support for the production of this publication does not constitute an endorsement of the contents, which reflects the views only of the authors, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.
Published with the financial support of the Slovenian Book Agency and the Trubar Foundation, based at the Slovene Writers’ Association, Ljubljana, Slovenia.
All rights reserved
Copyright under Berne Convention
A CIP record for this title is available from the British Library
Hardback ISBN 978-1-78607-390-7
eBook ISBN 978-1-78607-391-4
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London WC1B 3SR, England
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