Fužine Blues Page 22

  “Okay,” she says suddenly. Yesss! This is a turn up for the books. Irena doesn’t pull her hand away, she leaves it there where I put it. For once, she says yes.

  Then things move very fast.

  We walk away from the others, very discretely. They’re still there by the plant holders, with Zlato, watching him perform. We slink back past the cash machine, over the crossing, across the road. No-one sees us. Few more steps and we’ll be there, where we can’t be seen, behind the cars and the trees. There we are, hidden.

  I look back for a moment. I can see Zlato’s head and I know that Trič, Bertl, Vasja and Flint are round the corner, though I can’t see ’em. Bye, Trič. Keep on keeping on, stay off the drugs, just say no.And you, Flint. You’ve been tryin’ hard, you really have. Thanks, Flint. Look after yerself. Vasja, Bertl, see you. Vasja, do well by those kids. I mean, good on you. Bertl, good luck with the course, and with business and everythin’. You’re great guys. I’m proud of you. Zlato? Hey, they don’t make ’em like that no more. Why did he have to freeze like that? God knows. You can’t blame him for it. You couldn’t blame Zlato for anythin’. Don’t worry. We’ve got to go. Not ’cos of you. We’ve gotta be quick.

  Seems it was alright what I did. I’m a bit sorry about the guys, but it seems okay. A good move. We’re hurryin’ towards the entrance, towards the lift. Irena’s completely different from how she was before, sort of playful, skippin’ along.

  This could finally be the big breakthrough. I mean my big breakthrough. Before, Irena always said no. Irena’s goin’ upstairs with me. What’s she got in mind? She always thought things through. A cold-hearted female. The only thing she ever did on impulse was to move away. To remove her hand. Has she changed? Isn’t she the same underneath? Metamorphosis, like. Metamorphosis my arse. We’re all the same underneath.

  But all the same, all the same, she’s goin’ up with me. She’s like she always was. Irena. She’s goin’ up with me. Seems it’ll turn out to have been not a bad idea after all, calling people, askin’ ’em to come. Hm, where’s this leadin’ then? Sex? Sod sex. It ain’t all about sex. Not if she’s goin’ upstairs with you for the first time in fifteen years. There’s other, more important things involved.

  Irena and me are stretched out on the couch, I’ve got my feet up on the armchair. There’s a CD playin’. Björk, Yoga. Don’t really know why I like Björk so much. She’s certainly no rock’n’roller. But there’s somethin’ about her. An energy — you feel somethin’ behind it, somethin’ that —

  I’d really like to talk. Yeh, I really want to. That’s odd. Maybe I’ve changed underneath? Not possible.

  “So, Irena,” I say. I’ve got a lump in my throat. Where’s this gonna lead, where’s it gonna lead? “What’s it like bein’ married for seven years?”

  Irena’s quiet. Doesn’t say a word, just stares into space. Stares into space. Just

  Coincidence makes sense

  Only with you

  I feel emotional landscapes

  They puzzle me

  “I just don’t get it, Irena,” I say. “I just don’t get what’s goin’ on. Do you?”

  You stare into space. Starin’.

  Then you suddenly turn towards me.

  You’re laughin’

  “Stop rabbitin’ on, will you?” you say, and you put your hand on my chest, your hand on my chest. So that I won’t be cold. So I won’t be cold. In this fuckin’ impossibly hot summer — it ain’t even summer officially, but you know — it’s suddenly strangely cold. I dig my fingers into this soft, fucked up couch. This old, filthy couch. Bought from a small ad. Three cheers for the small ads, three cheers for two-seater, ten years old, bargain. Then we’re quiet for a long time. Just the music.

  All that no-one sees you see

  What’s inside of me

  4.

  And if looks could deceive

  Make it hard to believe

  I’m only human on the inside

  The Pretenders, Human

  When I walk home my feet are all over the fucking place. All those whiskies. All those beers. A to tally weird evening this, totally weird. How’s it possible? Three-nil. How’s it possible? It can’t be. No, it really can’t. Fucking unbelievable.

  So? You’ve got to have vision. You need vision and that’s all there is to it.

  Mira’s probably in a stinking mood. Probably that dog’s half crazy with the firecrackers and she’ll be a bag of nerves.

  Someone’s going along the path towards the river. He’s not looking too well. But I don’t give a toss. I really don’t care. There’s nothing but drug addicts round here anyway.

  Why does Mira lose her nerves so quickly? These broads are strange. She’s got everything. Not like Zoki’s Fani. What’s missing, eh? She’s got a kid, a husband, a dog, money, she looks damn good, she’s got enough clothes. You think she could be satisfied with that. And her husband has vision. Yeh, damn right, he’s got vision. He’s going to be the boss of an estate agency, and everyone else can go fuck themselves. That Erjavec woman and Rottweiler Pašković and such. Zoki can fuck off too. Look at his Fani. But no. Actually no. I shouldn’t talk about Zoki like that. No. Where would I be without Zoki? Everyone needs someone like Zoki, you know? But why does he have to come out with things like they screwed up most when they gave you a flat here? What have I done to him? Eh? We were always a good team. Yeh, a dream team — he always had his head in the clouds, I always had my feet on the ground. I thought things through soberly, he knew how to get things moving. When I ordered a whisky, he ordered a whisky. Where had he seen that before when he was just a bleeding doorman?

  Why is there any need to be jealous? It’s the likes of us two that make the world go round, it is — not those bleeding yuppies who just deal with money on paper and who are disgusted if anyone grabs them by the tie. We’d shove our hands in shit if needs be — including Mrs Erjavec’s and Iršič’s and any other crazy bastard’s. Whatever you throw at us, no problem. That’s the way to get on. It just takes time. Just a matter of time.

  That guy’s standing down on the path by the river. Seems he doesn’t know what to do. Should I go after him? It’s so late, but in Fužine there are still lights in the flats. Fužine doesn’t go to bed this early. Should I go after him? As long as the bugger doesn’t do anything to himself. Throw himself in or something. But, you know, say I go after him and say something and he sticks one on me. Why should I stick my neck out? He may think I’m stalking him in the dark. He’d have every damn right. Anyway, why should I give a toss if he does anything? Who gives a toss — if he wants to do himself in, why shouldn’t he? Let him. Who cares?

  Which one’s the whore, the one who does or the one who doesn’t?

  We’re going home, going home. See what the girls are doing.

  Manja’s been asleep for ages. Lying there, breathing. She breathes like some animal. Soon she’ll be able to talk. She already says in for chin. Or she says ippas for slippers. That’s so great. Soon she’ll be there. Then she won’t be an animal any more, she’ll be able to tell us things.

  Yeh, she will.

  * * *

  Take me to the river and drop me in the water

  Dip me in the river, drop me in the water

  Talking Heads, Take Me to the River

  “Ivan, I don’t know where you take them from,” I muttered. I then I recall two things: the genuine look of shame on Drevenšek’s face when he realised that he’d gone too far, that he’d forgotten himself in every respect; and the feeling of total absurdity with regard to what he said, the idiocy of which was greater than all the mountains that ring Bovec. Please, dear colleagues, please don’t connect my relationship with Goran in any way with my oral abilities. And any other relationship is in one way or another totally impossible, either in this universe or a parallel one. Please, gentlemen.

  Sexual innuendo? How could I have made any kind of indecent proposal to Adam back then? What could I have done? I couldn’t
even have hinted — not then. Nor, when it comes to it, this afternoon. No. Did I really need this analysis to come up with even the slightest move that male thick-headedness was capable of recognising? Perhaps tomorrow? Shall I call Adam again tomorrow? After all, why not?

  Were all his jovial stories back then hints? Today, before I left home, should I have practised some such sort of move in front of the mirror? Oh yes, of course! So what could I have done — what could I have done then? Goran, what did you have in mind when you accused me of all that you accused me of — without saying anything, with your every gesture, every look, the very tone of your voice? What would you have recommended?

  Could I have woven some hint into our chat over a glass of wine as I sat there that afternoon on the living room couch and stared into space, my hands — my hands, without my knowledge, my awareness — I squeezed my hands between my legs, both of them at first, I squeezed both of them between my legs, it was terrible, I had to. You’d been gallivanting about the flat with another woman. I squeezed both my hands between my thighs. Then, after a while, squeezed only one. Then I no longer squeezed.

  I sat on my flat rock and warmed my you-know-what, the hair between my legs trembled in the breeze and from your gaze.

  How could I have made any kind of move like that? It’s absolutely impossible to say, that’s for certain. There is no word for it in Slovene. Perhaps in Polish? In Wasik’s nasal Polish?

  For example, that time when Adam winked at me through the window, could I have simply stepped inside, a smile on my face, and joined him and his mystery woman? Shrugged off my spring skirt and quickly slid into bed — into bed with a strange woman? Or what if I’d found myself in bed with him and Jolanda? Hm. What would the title be? Hot Professors? That would be a good theme for a blue movie. Even Goran could be jealous then. But don’t worry, Goran, it would be intelligent porn, interdisciplinary copulation, everything would follow the strictest logic. No, Goran, you lab technicians don’t understand, go and dig the garden.

  I’m sorry, Goran, I keep making fun of your anxieties. I should be able to take them seriously.

  Basically, you believed in me more than I believed in myself. You believed in my — femininity, is that what it’s called? My capability. The whole time I thought that you were just stupidly jealous of our education, of the level of discussion that unfolded before you overčevapčiči and cucumber salad and Štajersko wine, outside your own house. But in reality you believed in me. But I didn’t do anything. Sitting that afternoon on the couch was nothing, no-one knew about it, even I didn’t know about it — I didn’t even tell myself. I had no word for it, so it was nothing. And you believed in me: you believed that I was capable of something that you could never be a part of. I should be grateful to you for that. Part of a debauched relationship between two professors. Not only to be a professor, but to be alive as well. To do something, something crazy, something daring. You knew. You believed in me. I didn’t. Grateful — but I wasn’t.

  I couldn’t believe it when you hit me — my whole world, the world in which I’d lived, fell apart with one blow, it shook and split from top to bottom — everything I’d built suddenly hung in the air, like in some stupid cartoon, and then, after hanging there for a moment, crashed to the ground. You seemed to me like some helpless, grotesque puppet. Unnamed. Your face was no longer yours. Why had Adam done something like this to you? To you who had believed in me? To my hand between my thighs — unnamed.

  He shouldn’t have done anything like that. It was Adam. It was me. Poor Goran.

  Why didn’t I — why didn’t —

  I take a sip of coffee and suddenly the whole world goes hazy, the sweltering Ljubljana outside, the power station chimney, the mountains in the distance, Mount Triglav, Šmarna gora hill — the haze hovering over Ljubljana spreads and embraces everything. My eyelids are starting to squeeze together. The whole world is turbid, like warm, stagnant water. It’s in my eyes, in my bladder, in the air over Ljubljana. Suddenly, it’s running down my legs — I feel something fall on the material of my robe on my thighs, then I feel how the warmth spreads over my skin. I start to move, painfully — I quickly start to wipe my eyes with my hand, with the other I try to find the saucer so I can put my cup down. When I look down I see on the dirty white material of the robe a brown stain. I’ve spilt my coffee. I have spilt coffee down me.

  I get up from the table. Ljubljana is a little clearer now I’ve wiped my eyes, but not a great deal. I go towards the bathroom. It’s best to wash coffee stains out straight away, while they’re still fresh. Although I have various fluids that make stains miraculously disappear, and then the husband is satisfied and doesn’t kill the wife on the spot. I put the bathroom light on. I take my robe off and sit on the edge of the bath. It is cold and feels unpleasant against my skin. I reach out to the tap.

  At that moment, when I turn it on, I remember that I did this a quarter of an hour earlier, and the tap had merely gurgled. To hell with it. It gurgles again, but the sound is somewhat different. It’s louder.

  I turn the tap full on.

  The gurgling becomes louder still. For a moment it seems as if the tap is coughing like some heavy smoker, before he spits out a thick, slimy gob of phlegm; perhaps something will happen. And something does. There emerges from the tap a thick short gush, then a brief gurgling interlude, then a rusty brown trickle. More gurling, then it settles down.

  The bath begins to fill with the murky, rusty liquid that is gushing from the pipe. I sit on the edge, one hand on my thigh, my gown in the other, and watch it flow: the metal rim cools my bottom, and I know that I only have to wait a little. All things come to he who waits. I only have to wait a few more seconds, and then this brown filth will end and the water will run clear again.

  * * *

  Will the scaly armadillo

  Find me where I’m hiding

  Pink Floyd, Julia Dream

  What this world needs is a bit more mindless violence.

  I stretch my arm across yours as it rests on my chest, pressin’ its full length. Our arms, mine sleeveless and hairy, yours in a thin pullover, entwined like two ropes. What takes hold of me? I don’t wanna frighten you. What takes hold of me? No, I don’t wanna frighten you, it’s just the resistance to that pressure suddenly — can’t understand it — causes a kind of spasm inside me. Yeh, a spasm. With one movement I’m above you, like some android, I swear I dunno how, it all happens of its own accord like, as if one of those entwined arms felt an urgent need to escape, just like that, my arms tense and push me above you. I suddenly press my face against the skin of your neck and take in your scent, deep into my lungs, right down to my diaphragm.

  And then, I dunno, it’s a weird mix of different scenes. I run my nose over your skin, run my tongue over you, let your bitter-sweet taste sink in — it’s so strange. Then my face is in your hair, back-combed, no scent at all, no shampoo, no gel, nothin’. Grows straight out your head like that. Smells only of you. I think to myself that I like nothin’ more on earth than this taste, this smell, and your hair brushin’ against my closed eyes. I think how great it would be to cover you and wrap you up and I’d spread over your black top and the bra underneath like water so that your clothes stuck to you. I’d pour from your hair, run down your skin and over those warm, hairy folds between your legs, I’d drip off your toes, not one part of you would escape me, I’d quench you completely so you wouldn’t burn at all. I wanna say somethin’, really, but I can’t ’cos my mouth is full of your taste. But then it all changes completely.

  Then the riddle gets solved and you push me up to this:

  How do I know what happens? I move from your face to your hair and in the moment when I see just the left side of your face I catch sight of your eye, poisonous and green, starin’ into my left eye above it. It ain’t movin’, it’s starin’, so I get the feelin’ that I’m gonna freeze, turn to stone, like some object, totally different from anythin’ I’ve ever been. What a dumb feelin’, I th
ink, I’d rather come straight down on top of you, carry on, but I suddenly feel it won’t work, I can’t, that it’s all impossible, out of the question, stupid, grotesque. Your face ain’t your face no more, I dunno how to tell you. Around that hard eye it’s no longer your usual pale, slightly freckled skin — it’s rough, as if it’s scaly, feathered, I dunno. Yeh, I suddenly get it, you’re lyin’ beneath me completely covered in feathers, dirty white feathers, with small dots or spots or somethin’ scattered over ’em, and this strange smell gets up my nose, it’s comin’ from this curved, wide-open beak juttin’ from the middle of your face. I’m as stiff as a seventeen year old’s prick when this beak opens even wider and a crowin’ screechin’ shriek comes out of it and the beak jerks right towards my face, so for a moment I’m convinced I’m gonna lose an eye. I squeeze my eyes tight shut and somehow move out the way, then I feel a sharp blow to my temple, as if the beak only just missed, and I’m totally blinded by blood, spurtin’ over my eyes and my whole face, thick and sticky. My arms and legs come alive again so I’m suddenly aware of this extreme pain, such as I’ve never felt before. My bones are fuckin’ heavy, like steel girders, but I still somehow manage to scramble to my feet and cover my face with my hands, still with my eyes squeezed tight shut, coverin’ ’em with my hands, not this, oh no, not this. I’m totally lost, my ears are ringin’, I feel the blood run down my chest, down my forearm and sleeve. I know there’s nothin’ in the world as bad as this, nothin’ more screwed up, nothin’ crazier than what’s just happened to me, that it’s all totally impossible and mad and that this is it, this is definitely it, that nothin’ in the world is ever gonna be the same as it was, never.