Читать книгу Absolution - Aleš Šteger - Страница 5

The New World of Mister G.

Some people, strangers to us, forgive in order to help others. Most of us forgive in order to help ourselves. Others forgive solely out of a belief that they will save the world by doing so. But what inspires their belief? Who assigns them their unique role? Who whispers those thoughts into their ears? Dangerous thoughts that always strike at a specific place and time? We don’t know, but does it matter? Would knowing change anything at all? Isn’t it just the thickly woven, brocaded stage curtains, the weight of the fog that falls through the dusk, the moisture, the cold that matters? Silence. Darkness. The stage curtains open, and all we see is a man. He hunches behind the high collar of his winter coat, hands buried in its pockets, black briefcase dangling off his right wrist. He sways a little. The pavement has not been shovelled. The man tries to balance his way along a narrow, already beaten track. He nearly falls. Behind him stretch unkempt art nouveau façades, and in the pallor of the streetlights drizzling rain turns into snow. The few passers-by are quietly spat out by the dusk, only to be swallowed again a moment later, just as quietly. The whole time the silhouette of a woman has been at the man’s heels. A figure draws near them, and it looks much like the Devil. And so it is. He staggers a metre in front of the man. The ice, the narrow snowy path and the bottle, emptied of its contents and held in his claw-like hand, did the trick. His feet sail high into the fog. For a moment the wet cuffs of the jeans the Devil is wearing under his costume slip out. A chain jingles against the curb; the bottle rolls away across the dirty snow. The Devil tumbles over. Cursing.

A church bell strikes ten. The man hears the woman, still close behind him, say, ‘Der arme Teufel.’ A sign burns faintly through the frozen fog: NEW WORLD. Strange how surprising a small neon sign can be on such a night. It feels like an epochal discovery, even though the restaurant has been tucked into the same street corner for over thirty years. The man turns around and gestures to the woman behind him. They have arrived.

The automatic door closes slowly behind them.

‘After all these years nothing has changed,’ the man says quietly in German.

The silhouette behind him takes off the hood of her coat. Instantly, the room submits to the sway of her long, black, curly hair.

‘Das ist gut,’ says the woman in coarse voice, looking around the inn.

Wooden pillars, fishing-nets entangled with corals and shells, anchorshaped chandeliers, dusty wicker fish traps, a wall clock with a mermaid on the pendulum, a pastel-coloured marine sunset on the wall. The restaurant is empty. The sound of frying from the kitchen, the air heavy with fish and oil. Pasted on the wooden bar is a poster of a red cross against a black background from under which the words AND PEACE peak out. It is partly covered by another poster of four happily smiling sailors announcing a Dalmatian a cappella musical performance.

‘The kitchen is closed!’ echoes through the sultry air. The waiter vanishes through the swinging doors. Held out before him, two crystal goblets of ice-cream and sweet cream on two flying plates pull him across the room. The restaurant is empty except for an elderly couple seated in the back corner. The crystal goblets land on the table in front of them. The woman raises her spoon and buries it deep in the cream; the man counts his money and places it on the table.

‘We’re closing for the night, I’m sorry,’ the waiter says again without looking back.

‘We’re looking for your boss, Mr Gram,’ says the man in the winter coat. The waiter points to three shallow wooden stairs leading up to a booth. The black-haired woman looks in that direction and follows the man with his black briefcase. The creaking of stairs.

‘Good evening,’ says the man.

Samo Gram, also known as Mister G., the owner of the New World restaurant, sits alone behind a big table, hunched over a newspaper. Lush white brows rise over a pair of grey spectacles perched on the tip of his nose. Drops of sweat bead up on his forehead. Gram is evidently the sort of person who is always too warm, and the overhead light hanging low over the table only reinforces this. His presence permeates the surroundings with an unusual obtrusiveness. Despite the years he’s spent in a fish restaurant, Mr G. doesn’t smell like fish; instead he gives off the unmistakeable odour of pig – and the more he sweats, the more he stinks.

‘Good evening,’ says Gram, visibly tired, and sizes up the two newcomers. ‘May I help you?’

‘You probably don’t remember me,’ replies the man. ‘My name is Adam Bely, and this is my colleague Rosa Portero.’

Gram gets up and shakes their hands. They all sit down behind the newspaper-covered table.

I’m from Maribor originally, although I haven’t lived here for sixteen years. Back in the day, I used to be one of your regulars. Now I work as a journalist for Austrian national radio. Well, actually I’m just an assistant. My colleague here would like to do a portrait of the city. Austrians are very interested in Maribor now that it’s the European Capital of Culture. We figured it would be best to start with a place that is well-known among the locals and can serve as a good departure point for our report. After all, it’s the restaurants that keep the history of this city alive, and I’m sure yours must be well-known among our Austrian listeners.’

‘Of course, of course,’ mumbles Gram. ‘Are you hungry? Would you like something to eat or drink? A glass of wine? Peter!’ Gram shouts before they can reply.

‘That is most kind of you, but we’re not hungry. Thank you,’ says Bely.

At that moment Peter walks in with a plate of dinner and cutlery for one.

‘Please forgive me, I’ve been on my feet all day long and haven’t eaten yet. Please, let me offer you something. It’s on the house, of course,’ adds Gram.

Peter sweeps his hand across the newspaper-strewn table and places the plate before Gram.

‘Thank you very much. We’re not hungry, but I’ll have a glass of mineral water if you insist,’ says Bely.

‘You can’t be from Maribor if all you drink is water, although your accent sounds like you could be,’ replies Gram. ‘Don’t you know that mineral water isn’t good for the teeth? And you, madam?’ He lays his eyes softly on Rosa and the dark orchids weaving diagonally up her crimson dress.

‘Ein Viertel Weisswein. Riesling, bitte,’ Rosa places an order, her voice surprisingly coarse, like that of a man.

‘You know, Ms Portero doesn’t speak Slovenian, only a few words, but she understands a lot,’ Bely explains.

‘Of course, of course,’ replies Gram, noticeably startled by her voice. He tucks a napkin into the cleft of his unbuttoned shirt, into the dense outgrowth of silver hair on his barrel chest.

‘Please, don’t let us disturb you. Bon appétit,’ adds Bely, and glances at his companion.

‘Guten appetit,’ adds Rosa in her deep voice.

Gram looks at his grilled octopus, its legs hanging over the edge of the plate. Roasted potatoes surround the cephalopod’s body along with half a lemon.

‘I love octopus, don’t you?’ Gram asks and continues eating, as if his question wasn’t meant as a question. ‘Did you know they have three hearts? Three!’ Gram cries theatrically and wields his knife like a knight brandishing a lance before battle. ‘And that they’re incredibly agile? Even giant ones, like this one, can squeeze through crevices as small as my thumb.’

Gram raises his right hand, gripping the fork and extending his thumb toward Rosa.

‘Not to mention how intelligent they are!’ he says.

Peter comes in with mineral water and two glasses of wine, white and red.

‘Boss, you want anything else? If not …’

‘I’m fine. You finish up, and I’ll close,’ says Gram, relieving the waiter of his duties by waving him off with the knife.

‘So, where was I? Right. Octopi and their intelligence. Do you think that intelligence has anything to do with our brains? Think again! We believe that we wouldn’t be able to think if we had no brain, but just look at octopi. Their brain is tiny, and yet they’re intelligent as hell. Do you know why? Because they have intelligent bodies; their whole damn bodies are intelligent, not only their tiny brains. Now look at us, brainwashed by our blind faith in science, which sells us a skewed view of the way things really are.’

Gram wipes the sweat off his forehead and leans back on his squeaking chair, visibly upset.

‘That is a rather interesting line of thought,’ says Bely peacefully and takes a sip of his mineral water.

‘Look, man created computers,’ Gram continues, ‘but, instead of taking the computers as a largely simplified approximation of human functionality, we take them as a model for us to look up to. We imagine the brain as some sort of a hard drive. Wrong, it’s all wrong!’ Gram cries out and lays down the knife and fork, which, just a moment before, he held pressed into one leg of a beautifully grilled octopus. ‘The chicken doesn’t come before the egg. Do you get me? The truth is, nothing is stored in the brain. Nothing! The brain functions only as a converter, a transformer, a switch, a current that flows, the current that doesn’t flow, that’s all. You don’t believe me? Just look at the octopus. It’ll tell you everything.’

All three of them direct their attention to the plate. For a moment, they can hear the ticking of the wall clock next door.

Gram grabs hold of his fork and knife again and picks up where he left off in a whispering, almost conspiratorial voice.

‘There’s something else for which octopi serve as an example of how things are in reality. Just look at how they die; they don’t die of old age, they always die after mating. Either they’re killed, or they die on their own because of fucking. Male octopi die a few months after they detach their penis tentacle; while females, meine liebe Dame – Portenyo, right? – female octopi starve themselves to death while guarding their eggs.’

Gram finally makes a cut across the centre of the octopus. A big chunk of juicy meat perched on the fork drifts into his mouth. Chewing with delight, Gram nods to himself. The guests say nothing. Shamelessly he eyes Rosa Portero’s beautiful hair. Her black curls fall thickly across her right cheek. Seductively he smiles into her dark-brown left eye so that it softly and bashfully closes then immediately opens again, while her right eye remains hidden behind a cascade of thick black curls. Gram winks at her and takes a sip of his wine. Rosa smiles warmly. She is still wearing a pair of thin leather gloves. The left one clings to her glass of Riesling, which she drains in two infinitely long, deep gulps.

Adam Bely pulls a fountain pen out of a buttonhole in his jacket and shifts it around on the newspaper.

Rosa puts down the glass, a red crescent from her lipstick plastered on its rim. She fingers the corners of her mouth and brushes her hair out of her face.

Is it only Gram’s imagination, or is there really a green glass eye glaring at him? He feels as if any moment it might strike, like a snake, and devour him. He feels as if he could fall right into the green eye, deeper and deeper, so deep he’ll never come back, never surface again. Bely picks up the fountain pen and slowly waves it back and forth; ticktock goes the clock in the next room, tick-tack goes the pen. The eye, there’s the eye, which is also a mouth, a glass voice within it. Mr G. can be as brave a little boy as he wants, running barefoot across the meadow going who knows where away from home – but he can’t escape. A sharp stabbing pain in his feet, the soft vertigo of fear and surprise at himself.

Gram chokes. He coughs. Bely leans forward and hits him hard across his back. The chunk of octopus shoots out of his mouth back on to the plate and fuses with both halves of the cut octopus. Its limbs stir and curl up around the edge of the plate. The octopus on the plate suddenly comes back to life. Its tentacles tremble, begin to move, and a moment later it darts under the table. All that remains on the plate are a few potatoes and the damp meandering tracks of the octopus’s suckers on the newspaper.

This can’t be happening, is Gram’s last thought as he tumbles deeper and deeper. That thought is the last crumbling stone he clings to as he falls through the green vitreous haze. The entire landscape falls deeper into greenness, tick-tack, the meadows keep getting brighter, the hayracks and the trees and the peaks of green mountains in the distance seem to be sucked into the vortex. No, now there is no way back, no home any more. Now Gram can no longer gaze at the grass that trembles and sways in the wind. As if it were alive, as if it were growing all around him, enveloping and submerging him deeper and deeper with no possibility of escape.

‘Listen to my instructions, and you’ll be fine,’ says Bely and removes the plate, the glasses and the cutlery from the table.

Rosa stoops and clicks her tongue twice in Gram’s face.

‘He’s in a deep state of hypnosis,’ says Bely. ‘There’s no way he can lie, but I’ll still plug him into the E-meter.’

Rosa nods in approval.

Bely pulls a leather case out of his black briefcase. In it is a metal box with a few buttons and a gauge, which he connects to a pair of wires that end in cylindrical metal electrodes. He hands them to Gram.

‘Squeeze hard,’ orders Bely.

Gram obeys. He gazes absently, clasping the electrodes.

‘Start recording,’ says Bely.

Rosa retrieves a Dictaphone from her fur coat. She presses the record button.

Bely bows his head and softly asks Gram a question.

‘Who are you?’

‘Samo Gram,’ answers Mr G.

‘What do you do for a living?’

‘I’m a customs officer.’

‘What else?’

‘Depending on the situation, I’ve had a number of names, real and fake.’

‘Who do you work for?’

‘Myself. Now I work only for myself.’

‘Who did you work for in the past?’

‘For customs. Also for Yugoslav intelligence, then later for Slovenian.’

During the interrogation, Bely keeps track of the E-meter needle, which floats consistently in the middle of the dial.

‘I see you’re telling the truth,’ says Bely.

Rosa gets up and disappears behind the door.

‘Nothing but the truth,’ says Gram.

‘What comes to mind when you hear the word “lie”?’

‘My kitten. One day he went missing. I searched everywhere, all around the farm where we lived. I searched the fields, even the nearby hills. I cried inconsolably, and Mama promised me he would come back. I knew right off that she was lying.’

‘What’s the first thing that comes to mind when you hear the word “happiness”?’ asks Bely.

‘I remember. The slaughter at the border.’

‘What was that?’

‘I was a young customs officer then. It happened in Koroška, at the border between what used to be Yugoslavia and Austria. I walked the woods all day long, I made good money and there was lots of messing around. Today when I look back, I know I was happy then, but back then I didn’t know it.’

‘Go on.’

‘There was a farmer who had a house right on the border. It ran right through his kitchen. Technically he needed to use his passport to get from his kitchen, which was in Yugoslavia, over to the other side of the Iron Curtain to take a dump, since his toilet was in Austria. Anyway, this guy wanted to slaughter a pig. To slaughter a pig in a restricted border zone! He asked us, the customs officers, if we could find him an illegal butcher. First, we brought him a butcher and then, a few hours later, when the pig was already open and chopped to pieces, we showed up with some Austrian customs officers and scared the hell out of him. Not only because he had organized the slaughter under the table but because he could have been accused of attempting to help the butcher cross the border illegally, which at the time was punishable by twenty years behind bars. The farmer begged so hard he fell on his knees out of sheer terror and pissed his pants. Jesus, we laughed like crazy, along with the Austrians. But the farmer, he didn’t feel like mucking about. He was kneeling in his piss and just kept pleading. In the end we split the pork between us in exchange for not denouncing him. All we left him was the swine’s head, which lay right on the border. It didn’t make much sense to argue over whether it was Austrian or Yugoslav.’

‘That’s what made you happy?’

‘You have no idea. I also became quite rich. Well, I earned enough after ten years of working in customs to be able to buy this restaurant.’

‘What’s the first thing to cross your mind when you think of something sad?’ asks Bely and stretches in order to see what Rosa is doing. The sound of clattering glasses from behind the bar echoes across the empty space of the restaurant.

‘Football.’

‘I mean, what hurt you on a personal level?’

‘My mother used to beat me up because I would bring home bones. Supposedly they were human. They were all over Pobrežje, where I grew up, sticking out from the ground. Us kids, we would pull them out and play hockey with them in the fields. But I wasn’t allowed to bring them home. I still remember her taking me over her knee and the crackling sound of the bone she hit me with.’

‘That’s as sad as it gets?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘You don’t know?’

‘There’s something worse than that. But I don’t know if it happened to me, I mean, me in this life.’

‘Who else then?’

‘It happened to my mother. I can hear her screaming. Everything around me gets tighter, it’s smothering me. I feel something fleshy pushing against my little head.’

‘Where are you?’

‘I’m in my mum. I haven’t been born yet.’

‘Is it your father?’

‘No.’

‘What happened to the man later?’

‘I don’t know. I never found out who he was.’

‘Why not?’

‘It’s a good thing I didn’t, otherwise I would’ve had to kill him.’

‘Who are you?’

‘Samo, Samo Gram. The kids at school were teasing me. They said I’m nothing but a gram. Who’s nothing but a Gram now? I showed them.’

‘Who were you before that?’

‘I see green light. I’m blinded by the meadows. They’ll go up in flames, can’t you see?’

‘I will ask again. Who were you before you were born as Samo Gram?’

‘Many.’

‘For instance?’

‘I’m a rafter, here on the Drava River. The river, its current, my life. Those were wonderful years, but I didn’t know it. I just missed my family too much, my four sons and my wife. We love each other.’

‘More,’ says Bely.

‘I can smell a damp darkness. My bloody cough eats through my lungs and nostrils. I see a small lamp that flickers down the tunnel where I work as a mercury miner. Yesterday three miners were killed when the tunnel next to this one collapsed. While I dig I keep seeing the images of those disfigured bodies that I helped to carry out. They were so cold, even though we dug them out right away.’

‘Go on.’

‘I was also a nun in a convent. It was before the First World War.’

‘In a convent?’

‘I healed lepers in Bavaria.’ Gram giggles.

Bely looks at the dial. The needle is still floating in the middle. ‘Why are you laughing?’

‘I was a lesbian, but fortunately nobody ever found out about it, except for Anna.’

‘Anna?’

‘She was another Benedictine sister, my lover.’

‘What are you truly afraid of?’

‘Calvary.’

From behind the bar comes the sound of rattling bottles. Rosa flings a bottle on to the floor so it shatters. Then she brings one over and places it on the table before Bely. Jack Daniels. Bely looks sternly at her but continues to interrogate Mr G.

‘What Calvary?’ Bely continues. ‘Calvary.’

‘Do you mean Christ’s Calvary?’

‘You must be kidding me. Not that Calvary. I meant Calvary, the hill above the city of Maribor. I thought you were from around here, but I see you know shit about it. I’m scared of Calvary and the power of the Great Orc.’

‘What’s the Great Orc?’

‘Great Orc, the thirteen guardians of secrets.’ Gram giggles again. ‘What’s so funny this time?’ asks Bely.

‘Some people don’t even know they belong to the Orc,’ replies Gram seriously. ‘Most of them don’t know who the other members are. The thirteen of the Great Orc run this city. They run it, but they’re clueless as to the whys and wherefores …’

Rosa tilts back the bottle, takes a swig and places it back on the newspaper. Her cloudy brown eye hangs at half-mast.

‘You know a lot,’ says Bely.

‘That was my job, to know a lot. If I hadn’t known a lot I wouldn’t be here today.’

‘Namen. Wer sind Sie?’ Rosa cries out.

‘I can’t, the Great Orc, they’ll kill me,’ screams Gram, terrified. He begins to tremble, and the oppressive stench of pig emanates from him.

‘Don’t worry, we’ll save you,’ says Bely.

‘The Great Orc will kill me. No one is powerful enough to escape the Great Orc!’

‘Do you believe in absolution?’

‘I don’t know what absolution is. What do you mean?’

‘It doesn’t matter,’ says Bely. ‘Just keep in mind that you’ll be leaving here absolved. You’ll be alive, and the Great Orc won’t be able to harm you.’

‘I’m too old to escape abroad. Besides, there’s nowhere I would be safe.’

‘Don’t worry, we know of a place where you’ll be perfectly safe. You won’t have been so safe since the day you were born. Now, just tell me their names.’

‘I don’t know all of them. I only know a few.’

Bely watches the needle on his measuring device. Now and then it swings violently to the left.

‘Namen. Wir wollen Namen!’ shouts Rosa. She dips her left glove into the drink stain feeding on the newspaper headlines, text columns and photographs and draws a big circle on the paper.

Gram lists six names. ‘Tine Mesarič, Dorfler, Laszlo Farkas, Pavel Don Kovač, Anastasia Grin, Magda Ornik.’

‘More. We need all thirteen.’

‘That’s all I know.’

The needle on the E-meter leans heavily to the left.

‘How can he be lying when he’s in such a deep trance?’ mutters Bely. Rosa pulls a cork out of a bottle with her teeth, spits it out, then tilts the bottle and smashes it against the table so the whisky splashes all over Gram. Gram remains motionless. Vitreous shards lie scattered across the drenched newspaper. Rosa sweeps them off and points at a photograph.

‘Ja. Him, too.’

‘What do you know about him?’

‘Too much. We used to play together as kids. Later on he was my room-mate at cadet school, which I failed to finish because of him. Somebody stole the director’s wallet and slipped it into my locker. We haven’t been able to stand each other since. When he was appointed mayor he tried everything to drive me out of the city. But I’m no easy target. I have my own information, which is why he lets me be now. He knows very well I could harm him or even bring him down.’

Rosa looks at Adam.

‘Is he telling the truth?’ she asks in Slovenian.

Adam examines the needle and nods. ‘Any more?’

‘That’s it. I don’t know any other names.’

Bely and Rosa look at each other.

Rosa turns off the Dictaphone and wipes it against the black orchids on her dress.

‘We’ve got something for you, old soul. Take it, and you’ll be absolved of all your pasts,’ says Bely.

Rosa sets a silver compact on the soaked newspaper. It’s full of lightbrown oyster crackers.

‘For thirty years I’ve eaten only fish, no crackers,’ says Gram.

‘What’s thirty years compared with eternity?’ says Bely and shoves an oyster cracker down his throat.

A few minutes later, the New World neon sign outside turns off. Two pairs of legs, one of them staggering slightly. Trudging through the fresh snow, which comes down as if it were going to consume the city, the whole world, once and for all. The bells strike three times. Posters of red crosses on black backgrounds. A cat dashes across the empty street. Midnight is fast approaching.