Читать книгу Absolution - Aleš Šteger - Страница 6

Butcher

‘Mr President, the Austrian journalists have arrived.’ A secretary announces the appointment to Tine Butcher, director of Butcher Inc. meat products.

In truth, Tine Butcher is not the president of a country, he is president of the board of directors of a meat-processing company. But Tine Butcher is a practical man, so, to facilitate communication with his foreign business partners, he changed his last name. And to facilitate association with the company, which he both directs and owns a majority share in, he changed its name, too. In this way the Agricultural and Food Processing Cooperative of Upper Drava Livestock Farmers and Meat Processors became Butcher, Inc. His employees are expected to address him accordingly with the proper respect, especially at the headquarters of the company over which he presides.

‘Please have a seat, gentlemen. May I offer you a cup of coffee, tea, juice?’ Butcher asks while signing a few documents on the desk.

A bland, modern office interior: walls painted in somewhat incompatible shades of cream and rose, a tall Ficus benjamina in the corner, a gigantic plasma television, a desk with the company flag on it, leather armchairs on the other side of the president’s desk, the feeling that we could be anywhere were we not exactly where we are.

‘You’re local, aren’t you? I don’t need to tell you about the Maribor Automotive Factory and how they went under, do I? Anyway, it was on the site of that former industrial giant that we started our business sixteen years ago. Hitler himself ordered a factory to be built there, which produced aircraft-engine parts until the end of 1944. After the Second World War the same site boasted the biggest Yugoslav factory for the manufacture of truck and tank engines as well as light weaponry, mostly hunting rifles. But that’s all gone. We don’t manufacture rifles and aircraft any more, the way Hitler and Tito did. Today all we make are scrumptious local Kranj sausages,’ Butcher says confidently, as if he had trotted out the same sentences countless times before.

With a nod of her head Rosa Portero thanks the secretary for the Coca-Cola she has brought her then checks the Dictaphone to make sure it’s actually working. Despite the grey winter’s day, she wears sunglasses and seems exhausted. Every now and then, during the president’s performance, Adam Bely leans over to her and quietly recapitulates his declarations in German.

‘You’ve mentioned Kranj sausage,’ Bely cuts in politely. ‘We are talking about the crown jewel of your product line, correct?’

‘That is correct,’ replies Tine Butcher. ‘Annually we produce about 16 million hand-skewer-bound sausages, first-class sausages. We export them to over forty countries worldwide. Our sausages travelled into space with the American astronaut Nancy Sing, who has Slovenian roots; and, if we’re lucky, it will become the first sausage ever to land on the moon. Negotiations with NASA are well under way.’

‘The Kranj sausage travelling into space has been covered by Austrian news media, but what I want to know is, what made it so popular? It doesn’t come from the city of Kranj, even though it’s named after it. It doesn’t even come from the Kranj region, but all the way from Lower Styria, isn’t that right?’ Bely asks.

Pleased with the question, the president leans back comfortably. His body language indicates he is happy to be asked something in his area of expertise, his terrain, his wheelhouse. This was his question. He takes a deep breath.

‘The Kranj sausage is a typical European story,’ he continues confidently. ‘The European Union has approached us with a historical opportunity here. You know what I’m talking about? No, not the free market; we practised that back in the days of Yugoslavia. I’m not talking about Western marketing manoeuvres either. We mastered that under Communism, too. No, what the EU has given us is a once-in-a-lifetime, historical …’ the president struts his stuff, his voice filled with zeal and emotion. ‘Are you listening? Historical opportunity.’

Adam Bely stops translating into Rosa Portero’s ear. They both stop, stunned by the president’s half-finished statement, which soars before them like a soap bubble, then trembles, rises, sinks, then rises again and bursts.

‘An opportunity?’ asks Bely. ‘What sort of opportunity, Mr President?’

‘The opportunity to register our own trademark, what else?’ The president of Butcher, Inc. smiles, thrilled that yet another pair of tiny, ignorant deer are caught in his grandiose rhetorical headlights.

‘We successfully registered our Kranj sausage, and there is no one in the entire European Union who can take it away from us. Do you know what that means? There are only eleven registered manufacturers of Kranj sausage in this galaxy, and we’re the biggest of them all. We’re the best of them all, and we have the best market penetration of any of them. Are you recording?’

A little baffled by his abrupt question, Adam leans over the Dictaphone and nods.

‘Of course, it’s not true that our sausages aren’t made in Kranj,’ Butcher continues unperturbed. ‘It’s not true that the Kranj sausages we manufacture here in Lower Styria aren’t authentic Kranj sausages from Upper Carniola. Let’s take a closer look. What makes a sausage a Kranj sausage? The recipe is brilliant in its simplicity: the best pork, young elastic pig intestines, a pinch of salt, some pepper and top quality garlic. And beech tree smoke. That’s it. So, Kranj sausage is mostly pork. Correct?’

The president leans over to Bely, who hastily nods.

‘Now, please tell me what place can claim an animal, a pig in this case, as its own? If you ask me, it’s not the place where the swine was born, and it’s not the place where it was raised. It’s easy these days to feed a Canadian-born swine with Czech grain somewhere in Bangladesh and not even know it. Do you see what I’m getting at? The only thing that determines whether we’re dealing with Kranj pork or not is whether the pig was slaughtered in Kranj or somewhere else. Our first-class Kranj sausages are made of top-quality pork, which always comes from pigs slaughtered in one of the certified Kranj slaughterhouses, full stop. All our pork comes from Kranj, but it is here, in Maribor, where this certified meat is processed into sausages. And so it is entirely possible that the best-quality Kranj sausages actually come from Lower Styria.’

‘But would you say that Maribor and its inhabitants are aware of the developmental potential that the Kranj sausage holds for them?’ Adam Bely pauses before uttering the word ‘developmental’, as if he had a lump to swallow.

‘Maribor is my city. I would never want to live anywhere other than in Maribor. But, let’s face it, Maribor is a synonym for fast food. Maribor knows nothing of quality cuisine. Sure, we all sin at McDonald’s at times, and there’s nothing wrong with that. But if that shit is all you eat, then your ears will fall off, your veins will atrophy, you’ll get fat and your body will inevitably deteriorate. That’s what happened to this city mentally, too. After they chased out the Germans at the end of the war the city only got intellectual fast food, cheap sugar, fatty steaks. And fifty, seventy years on, that’s the new norm.’

‘You’re being quite critical of your city,’ Bely says and crouches behind his black briefcase. Rosa nervously shifts in her chair, takes a sip of her Coke and readjusts her shades with her white-gloved hand.

‘Tough criticism is the only thing that may save us. That and building on the potential of this city, that’s it. That’s why we should look up to others sometimes, so we can learn something. Just look around. There’s no creature on the entire planet as durable and flexible as we are, aside from viruses maybe. The dinosaurs didn’t adapt. Coral didn’t adapt. The Tasmanian tiger didn’t adapt. But then you’ve got us, humans, who can change dramatically even within a single generation. Take the Chinese, for example. A notoriously short nation only thirty years ago, now they’re producing NBA stars.’

Satisfied, the president draws closer to the Dictaphone, slurps his chilled coffee out of a plastic cup and continues speaking. ‘Our deepest survival instinct is closely tied to what we eat. What do our bodies long for when we eat something really healthy, let’s say something homemade, a roasted chicken or a bowl of soup in a macrobiotic restaurant? They want something fatty, sweet, something heavy and forbidden. But why? Because they know that eating filth regularly is a ticket to building up immunity and being adaptable. Look at babies. They lick filthy floors, they stuff themselves with dirt and worms, and we think they’re dumb and not yet socialized. The truth is, they know what’s right because they listen to their unspoiled instinct. Kranj sausage has been labelled unhealthy and criticized by vegetarians, and it’s no secret why. But, let’s face it, no one can smell a sizzling Kranj sausage without salivating like Pavlov’s dog! We love it because of that, and that’s why it’s good for us. The person who eats Kranj sausage on a regular basis will be strong and healthy every day of his life. But it’s crucial that we eat home-made food, that is to say, Kranj sausages slaughtered and processed in the Kranj region, at home …’

Adam nods, slowly pulls a fountain pen out of his pocket and sways it like a pendulum.

‘… it is absolutely crucial for our energy intake that we …’

The president follows the swaying of the pen, his voice growing softer.

‘… eat meat butchered locally. Animals slaughtered locally are …’

The president smirks, pouts his lips and clenches his fists between his legs, like a little boy who takes comfort in wetting his pants.

‘… special animals, they have …’

The president pauses in the middle of the sentence, mesmerized by Bely’s fountain pen.

‘What do animals butchered locally have?’ asks Bely and puts his fountain pen back into his jacket.

‘Our death paradigm,’ the president of the board of the meat-processing company Butcher, Inc., says slowly, syllable by syllable.

Adam shoves the E-meter’s cylindrical electrodes into his hands, turns on the switch: the needle floats to the centre of the dial and comes to rest.

‘Repeat that,’ says Bely.

‘Our death paradigm’.

‘Repeat it again.’

‘Our death paradigm’.

‘Again,’ says Bely.

‘Our death paradigm’.

‘What is a death paradigm?’ asks Bely.

‘The moment when bodies are exchanged, Butcher replies. ‘When the paradigm is calm it is reflected in the flavour of the meat. The pigs must be as still as possible when they die. It’s best if they have no idea what’s about to happen to them. That’s the best recipe for Kranj sausages. The secret isn’t the garlic and the spices. The secret is in how the pigs die.’

‘What kinds of death paradigm do we have?’

‘Our death paradigm is different. Slovenian souls are restless by nature, especially people from Kranj. Our animals are under too much stress when they die. Not good for the sausages. That’s why we usually mix in 15 per cent finely ground car tyres, just to calm the meat down. But that can be changed. The only important thing is that we eat meat that we killed ourselves. Because in this meat we eat ourselves; we eat the levels of energy that we passed on to the animal during the kill.’

‘Who makes the best Kranj sausages?’

‘Bosnians. Nobody is as easy-going and calm as they are. But they won’t butcher pigs, only chickens.’

‘Do you also slaughter chickens?’

‘We have the Halal certification. The Nazis built the factory on two levels, the ground floor and basement. The ground level was designed so that it could be lowered underground during an aerial bombing. The orientation is perfect, and with very little renovation we were able to fix up the underground level and turn it into a slaughterhouse for chickens facing Mecca.’

‘And upstairs?’

‘Off the record, that’s where we make our sausages, although officially the space upstairs is registered as a hunting-rifle factory. Our Muslim clients would skewer us if they knew we were stuffing pork intestines right over their chickens.’

Bely observes the E-meter. The needle hasn’t left the centre of the dial.

‘Aren’t you scared?’ asks Bely.

‘I’m scared that somebody might find out about our moving the hunting-rifle production elsewhere because of the steep increase in orders. The Chinese are huge fans of shooting.’

‘Do you export rifles to China?’

‘We do, rifles and chicken claws. It’s a big business.’

‘What do you see when I say blue?’

‘I see the sea.’

‘What do you see when I say sea?’

‘I see my dreams. Black ink spilling in them. Everything is dark. But it’s not ink, it’s old oil. Hitler was a genius.’

Butcher screws up his face and grins.

‘He knew how to construct gigantic complexes,’ Butcher continues. ‘He would know how to put things in order today. But there’s oil covering everything. The old hydraulics are broken,’ Butcher grins again. ‘There’s no one who can lead us through this petroleum night.’

‘The hydraulics that raise and lower the platform in your factory?’ Bely now gestures to Rosa Portero, who slowly takes off her sun-glasses and retrieves the silver compact from her fur coat.

‘My God, can’t you see the hydraulics going down?’ Butcher grins and emits a strange, animal-like wheezing. ‘Hitler’s dead. The mechanism is broken. Help, can’t you see the platform lowering? The sausages! Kranj sausages,’ Butcher wheezes once again, turning pale. ‘Down below, there, they’ll squash the entire hall with thousands of halal chickens facing Mecca. Help!’

The president lets go of the E-meter cylinders, jumps up and starts wheezing again, as if choking on his own tongue. He’s drenched in sweat, disoriented, his eyes wandering the room. Bely jumps up and tries to get him to sit back down again.

A knock on the door. The secretary enters the room.

‘You called, Mr President?’

Bely whispers into Butcher’s ear, his back to the secretary.

‘Repeat after me. Everything’s fine, you may leave.’

The president whispers, ‘Everything’s fine. You may leave’.

‘What was that, Mr President?’ asks the secretary.

Bely whispers, ‘Repeat it, louder’.

‘Everything’s fine. You may leave. Repeat it, louder!’ The president shouts out each word individually, as if slicing the sentence to pieces.

The secretary takes one last glance at her boss and haltingly closes the office door on her way out.

Bely breathes a sigh of relief. ‘Sit down, Butcher, sit down and stay calm.’

Tine Butcher takes a seat. Rosa Portero slowly opens up her silver compact with its yellow-tinged oyster crackers.

Tine Butcher stares deliriously into the air in front of him and continues hallucinating. ‘At the last minute the catastrophe was averted. Hitler has come back; our Führer is back. What good luck!’ Suddenly Butcher’s eyes become very clear and wide. He wheezes again. ‘The mechanism stopped, and now the platform is rising again, just as he ordered. My Bosnian butchers, my Halal chickens, all my machines in the slaughterhouse down below! Finally, they can breathe again. And the platform is still rising,’ Butcher grins. ‘The shingles are falling off the roof, and the Kranj sausages are creeping out from under it and through the windows. Nothing can stop them. Only I, Tine Butcher, can stop this river of pork that is heading towards the city, burying the houses. People are suffocating under the oppressive weight of intestines and pork,’ Butcher cries out and raises his arms as if to block the river of pork with his bare hands. ‘Some people take refuge higher up, in skyscrapers or church belfries. They look down at the river of pork as it inundates the city of Maribor, coming to a halt only at the slopes of Calvary. Only I was chosen to change the direction of this city’s fate.’ Butcher wheezes, shoots up and with all his might rears up into the air above him.

Bely puts his hands on Butcher’s shoulders and sits him down again.

‘You,’ wheezes Butcher, staring blankly up into the air. ‘Do you know what this city needs?’

Bely shrugs his shoulders.

‘A scourge of God! Or, even better, what Maribor needs is a chainsaw of God. One with a long, long guide bar; the sort my Bosnian butchers use to cut the biggest Kranj pigs in half in a single pass.’

Butcher stands up again. Bely hurriedly pulls him down into his chair and places the E-meter electrodes back into his hands.

‘Sit down, Mr President, sit. Tell me, are you part of the Great Orc?’

‘I am the Great Orca, and I will devour all this pork off the streets of Maribor.’

‘Tine Butcher, I will ask you one last time, are you part of the Great Orc?’

‘We must let Calvary sleep in peace. May the men and women of Maribor sleep in peace. May all Slovenia sleep in peace. I will save you from the pork.’

‘Tine, do you know what the Great Orc is?’

The president turns his head and looks past Bely vacantly. His jaw shudders violently and drops open. The E-meter needle begins swinging left to right and back again. Butcher clutches the cylindrical electrodes and bangs them against his forehead until it oozes blood. Rosa lunges at him and prevents him from injuring himself further.

‘The hypnosis hasn’t kicked in,’ hisses Bely, caught among the jostling elbows.

‘It’s kicked in too much, that’s the problem. He’s lost his bearings, and I’ve got no idea how to bring him back,’ says Rosa Portero, kneeling on the president’s chest. Butcher’s entire body is overcome with convulsions.

‘Give it to him; let’s absolve him,’ says Bely and looks at Rosa.

‘Now? He’s given us nothing.’ Rosa grabs hold of Butcher so he won’t tumble off the leather sofa.

‘You think there’s still a chance he might give us something useful?’ asks Bely.

The president manages to shout, ‘Attack the undulating mass of Kranj sausage!’ before Bely is able to cover his mouth. Bely groans with pain and pulls back his hand, now perforated with the president’s teeth marks.

‘It’s seized the entire city in its tentacles and suctioned itself on to Calvary. Can’t you see? We need a saviour!’ screams Butcher.

Rosa reaches for the silver compact.

A few minutes later the secretary knocks on the door and cautiously enters with a reminder that two business partners from Abu Dhabi have been waiting for over twenty minutes at the reception. As she opens the door, she sees Rosa Portero in a black, unusually shiny fur coat – it must be made of chinchilla or sable or something like that? – and Adam Bely putting a device away into a leather bag. The secretary notices that Bely is holding a bloodstained handkerchief.

‘Mr President, your guests from Abu Dhabi are waiting for you.’

‘Have them come in,’ says the president in a strangely quiet voice, wheezing slightly. He has a plaster on his forehead and stares absently into space.

Bely and Rosa Portero say goodbye. The president doesn’t respond to their words, but from the foyer the thick musk of the Arab business partners’ perfume creeps in and settles around him.