one
In a room shaded by heavy wooden blinds that barely let a ray of light filter through here and there, a man in his thirties carefully packs his clothes into a suitcase; patiently and meticulously placing his folded shirts over something he wants to both protect and hide. He rubs his still sleepy face with both hands, runs his fingers through his hair, straightens out his sweater and moves to the door, casting one last look to the bed where a woman is lying on her side, her back turned to him, facing the window. She seems not to be breathing, but she is just sleeping soundly, dreaming of something she most probably won’t remember in the morning. One could say that she had drunk a lot last night, and then she loosened her dress – one of those that women, well-used to their fastenings, shed easily, but men have trouble with, and after the dress, she loosened her tongue. It all happened so quickly, and ended even quicker. Afterwards, she drifted into sleep and he into a night of waiting for the dawn so that he could leave. With the first ray of sunlight, he left the room.
two
The road rumbled downhill from the hostel and then snaked toward a small square, from where the street turned right as if it wanted to escape the hill studded with small houses, balconies and shops.
In front of the first tavern in the narrowest street in the place, a drab-looking ingenuous drunk, just a bit older than him, tripped over him and they both stumbled as if they were going to fall, but they hastily straightened up, one man grabbing his suitcase more firmly, the other sending a guileless stare as if seeking a spark of understanding for what just happened in the other’s eyes. The owner of the tavern standing in the doorway shouted at the local bum, and the man said no harm done, it could happen to anyone.
“That guy is completely nuts!”
“It’s okay, I’ve always had a soft spot for crazy people”, said the man in a soothing voice with no clear boundary between the literal and sarcastic.
“Come in for a drink, not you”, said the owner shifting his eyes to the drunk who caused the crash.
“I think I might, but I insist that I sit with him, I could even buy a round, if our friend thinks he can handle one more shot. This was better than morning exercise, it’s okay, bumping into people is not always a bad thing. Then it becomes clearer just where you are headed”.
He placed a friendly hand on the drunk’s shoulder and steered him back into the tavern where they sat at the table in the far left corner, by a wall covered in strange looking ribbons and saucers, hung there to liven up the area which was at night, and quite probably during the day as well, condemned to darkness, with no windows except for the ones by the entrance.
They ordered a shot each, sitting in silence, one in high spirits, the other pretending not to be ill at ease but betrayed by his tense forehead and rigid smile which was supposed to confirm that everything was absolutely fine. If one looked deep into his eyes, his small, black irises revealed an abyss.
At a table nearer the entrance, four men sat and played cards. They were having a bitter argument about the results and he looked at them sulkily because he truly disliked being the witness of faltering patience or, even worse, fear of losing what one never truly had.
Soon after they were approached by an elderly gypsy woman who he had seen begging a couple of meters before he turned into the street lined with drinking establishments. Without asking, she approached the table and sat across from them ordering a glass of water from the owner who obviously knew her quite well and did not react to what she did.
“Dear friends”, she croaked, “some get grappa[1], some get water”.
“Want me to buy you a drink?”, asked the outsider, obviously feeling quite generous this early in the morning.
“Buy me one, and I’ll read your fortune”.
“Please don’t, let’s just drink in peace”.
“Let her, she knows everything”, spluttered the drunk, “Let her read for us, she’s good at that. We won’t ask her for anything else”, his snaggle-toothed smile was so pure and naïve that the little bit of impropriety could be forgiven.
The owner brought over her drink and she laid the cards on the table. She sized them both up with eyes dark with the combined bitterness of life and innate composure, and beauty, at first invisible, which forged its way toward those who looked at her for longer than a couple of seconds. She opened the first card for the drunk.
“Look at that – the fool!”, she said.
The card displayed a blond young man, his head held high, with a bundle over his shoulder, accompanied by a small white dog, surrounded by hills. She started to speak as if she had said the words a thousand times before, who knows when and to whom, spicing it all up with a rare look aimed first at one man than the other, to substantiate the feeling that she was certain of what she’s talking about with a sense that she is fully invested into this specific experience, as if, despite all her past experience and routine, each new case were at the same time the most important case.
I am walking through the hills with my bundle over my shoulder. I am not in a hurry to get anywhere. I whistle and sing my hellos to the passers-by. I begin in many different beginnings and end in many different endings; when I come to a cliff, I sit. I unwrap what I wrapped a day before, bite into the bread with my teeth and fill my eyes with the sky. I rest as much as I need, and then press on. I look young, always younger than I really am, and the sun sparkles happily in my hair. When I see it in the morning, I look at it and greet it, and it gladly greets me back. The whole world loves me. And if that is how I feel then it must be true. Everybody loves to have me around, because I love to love. I am naïve and I keep beginning my path anew. Transparent like the air I walk slowly smiling to the constant rhythm of my steps, turning into a mirror where you see the best of yourself when you stand face to face with me. You love yourself when you are with me. I am not a gift to give myself away, a secret to hide myself, a walnut not to open. I am a nomad and the roads I traverse are my only home, each new moment is a new beginning for me. I have only one problem: though lucky, I always lose.
“Aha!”, said the drunk, “though lucky, I always lose. Where’s the justice in that, woman, you tell me!”, he laughed as if glad that someone finally shed some light onto the dire complexity of his problem. “You are telling me nice things, but what good does that do me?” he spread his hands and laid them on the table before him, like he’s trying to justify all that he is and that he is not.
“God protects the fool, but one never knows when his carefree step will decide not to stop at the edge of the cliff but continue into the void. Being measured in everything is the only truth! Without entry there is no exit, without exhaustion no sleep, presence confirms absence, and so does health when you are sick. Remember that.”
“The only crazy people at this table are you and me”, he told her with good humour and touched her hand, “but thank you, and now read his fortune, don’t let the gentleman feel neglected, all this talking might make him drowsy”, he turned and clapped the shoulder of the man whose face alternated between good humour and worry, who seemed to want to shrink away from the touch, but couldn’t because he was sitting right against the wall.
She opened another card and raised it very slowly to the traveller. She eyed his face with a gentle stare and said:
“The hanged man.”
“And that is bad, right?”, the traveller asked giving the impression that he couldn’t care less.
“This is a special card. People immediately assume that it is bad, but they shouldn’t be so hasty…” She turned the card and started pointing things out on it. “His face is peaceful, like in a trance, he is not suffering, he is waiting! That’s crucial, mark my words. This doesn’t mean death as you may have thought, but life on hold… It might be a big turning point. Waiting for things to sort themselves out? This is a card for people who cannot do anything, except slow down and wait”.
“Life in suspension… Wonderful”, he thought that it might not be too far from the truth, but told the gypsy woman that he is grateful though he didn’t really believe that it had anything to do with him and decided to buy her another grappa. However, as if she saw through his intention to feign indifference and put an end to this conversation, she unexpectedly continued.
“For you, this might also mean letting go. You will be reborn as a new man, and new things seem to be waiting just around the corner. Do you sometimes feel like you exist outside of time?”
“On the contrary, I feel to be too much inside it.”
“Listen to me and turn off for a while. I see that is the way it should be”, she said and drained the glass in one swig. “By not doing what you think you have to, what you need will find you.”
Their eyes met, the traveller with an artificial smile, she with a shrug, moving her lips like they were capitulating before the urge to add something more.
“Where are you going, friend?”, the Fool asked him.
“Visiting some people I know… Ultimately, I’m just a tourist.”
“Yeah, tourist… okay, I am a tourist of a kind, too, only, I’ve stayed in this location a bit long! Don’t let us keep you, but let’s have one more drink before you hit the road… Okay? Come on, I can see it in your eyes you want to!”
“One more and I’m off. You?”, he asked the gypsy woman, looking at her like he wanted to wrap up her fortune telling and make her their equal again, someone who is not analyzing them, just someone sharing a drop with them, someone who can relax and share a thing or two about herself if she felt like it.
And really, the three of them stayed there a bit longer, around the wooden table, listening that she owed her firm cheeks to food and lots of lovemaking, which were never lacking in her house, she insisted.
three
He has been following her for weeks, watching her walk, where and what she ate, how she answered questions and acted in accidental and prearranged meetings.
He was watching them on that day as they ate, when her handbag was placed between her and him, on an empty chair, ready to receive the desired object. He was surprised by her calmness, he did not expect a woman who sometimes blushes when people address her unexpectedly or leans her head toward the person she was talking to, tormenting her thin neck, bending it to that persons’ laziness to address her more loudly, to be so natural and spontaneous on this, for him crucial, afternoon. The same evening he joined her at the bar, offering to buy her a drink, and then they went to have some squid and a long dance between the food tables. While he deliberately spoke to her in a lower voice than normally, amid all the colours and sounds, she bent her neck striving to understand him, he told her that she is a woman that has to be approached, one that should not demean herself in any way, she should stand tall and expect the other person to lean in if he wants to be heard. Oh to be the first to reach so deep! To notice such a thing and feel it is his duty to tell her, because he knows what a woman is and how the world treats her, and how she should be treated. With such a talent for detail, to be the provocation and the solution, to see in that bent neck an insecurity that disturbs her peace deep within, to come to her rescue… That was the critical moment and the starting point from which her trust and sudden respect for him began to grow and spread.
They stayed late the next night as well, speaking about her life and his fictional trip. He learned everything about the troubles of an art restorer and, full of understanding, listened to the difficulties and challenges of her job. He lied so vividly about the friends he was about to visit that she felt like she had already met them all, and that’s not all – she felt like she shared some of their extraordinary memories, like she was there for all the funny and incredible situations they got themselves into, now happy to have such a wealth of memories they can look back on.
The next morning she told him she was just about to finish working on a special item, one he already knew all about but he had to be careful not to let it slip, so he strove to hide his excitement when they talked on the phone and coolly suggested to take her out to dinner so that she could rest at the end of the day from the work she was yet to do.
With Polenta e osei[2] and good wine they again talked about everything. After several hours, as he walked her to her room, there was no need to invite him in; with firm yet light steps he followed her in, as if he’d always done so, as if it were the only way things could possibly go. The way she reacted to his tongue between her legs, it would seem she was one of those beautiful women who unfortunately did not know how to benefit from their beauty and were limited to a smattering of experiences, satisfied by rare and not all that successful sexual episodes, much more focused on those segments of their lives that depended on them alone and remained safe and stable, far from the outside influence of other people, their interventions, good or bad disposition and sudden mood swings. Though it was all planned in advance, for a moment he forgot why he had gained entrance into the room and gave over to the pleasure her enjoyment gave him. Maybe his morals were questionable, but he always knew how to distinguish between things, and that night he was equal parts benefactor and scoundrel. He thought that by some miracle his actions could cancel each other out. He presently felt her muscles tighten and they soon lay on their sides, and he had to twist his head away from her hair a little to be able to gulp some much needed air after so much wine and all that followed.
“You won’t show it to me?”, he asked in a whisper. “I’d like to see how it turned out, I am sure it is better than what I am imagining.”
“All right… But I have to be discreet. It is important that you be discreet too, can I count on it?”
“Of course.”
“Don’t get me wrong, maybe I always worry too much…”
“I understand, sometimes I can be the same. But that’s not such a bad thing. You are aware of the value of things. You are respectful, and few people care about anything these days, don’t you think so?”
“Look.”
She walked up to her suitcase and from a smaller bag she took out a painting packed in a box lined with a light silky fabric. She took it out carefully, as if, if she could, she would best like to move it without touching. It was The Cross of St. Peter by the controversial Italian conceptualist Luigi Tomassoni, known for his theatrical suicide and work permeated with constant provocation of the Catholic Church. The painting had been stolen on several occasions, and the painter’s last name had always added to its popularity because it was the same as that of the man the eminent Caravaggio, author of the Crucifixion of St. Peter, killed in 1606. Tomassoni’s painting follows Caravaggio’s composition but the figures are replaced by geometrical shapes and the cross does not really exist, its form is outlined by the empty space not occupied by the other bodies and shadows in the painting. Most of the painting is covered in fish scales, and part of it was painted using the most expensive caviar made from a rare species of sturgeon.
Her job was to mend the small damages caused by the thefts, after which the painting was to be returned and exhibited in Milan.
“Extraordinary…”, he said quietly, looking over her shoulder.
“Tomassoni… Genius. One of those people who no longer exist but whose work confirms that they sure did exist. No compromise, no nibbling on life… just big things.”
He tugged at her lightly, as if wanting to show her that he has seen enough and that they can go back to bed and she slowly and very carefully returned the painting where she had got it from with the naive belief that she is much more interesting to him than any painting, and sneaked back into bed on her bare tiptoes. She was obviously exhausted and though he really wanted to assail her again, he controlled himself and adjusted his position to simultaneously spoon her and let her be free to sleep in any position she felt comfortable.
With the sleep of a man who has long ago forgotten what peace is he half-snoozed monitoring his and her every move, listening to the street noises and steps of the passers-by returning home just before dawn from the local taverns or rooms that they visited in secret.
At daybreak, when he was sure she would not be able to tell between a visit to the loo and a definite departure, he dared to get up and with amazing dexterity take what he had come for, get dressed and leave, during which, it seemed to him, she did not even move, unaware that morning is near and that he is no longer sprawled behind her back.
It’s the sleep of those who have no regrets, and no desires, he thought and looked at her for the last time with a strange benevolence, as if he understood how different they are, half entranced by what he never was and never could become even if he wished it, and wishes at least, he thought, he never lacked.
four
When he left the tavern he walked to the station knowing that the next train was supposed to pass through at 10:15. It was still early, but the streets were vibrant with life, people slowly working toward bringing another May day to a climax around noon.
The key to his success was always a simple one; act like nothing is out of the ordinary. No running, and rushing is out of the question. Walk slowly, relaxed, move as one with the crowd. If you are leaving, do it gradually, never catch the first train or bus. If you believe that nothing is out of the ordinary then nothing is out of the ordinary.
He stood by the food stand and ordered a croissant sprinkled with hard grain sugar.
“Not from around here?”, asked the sales woman.
“I’d love to stay longer, but the road is calling”, he responded cheerfully. “But I am sure I will come again. It is beautiful here.”
At that moment an elderly taxi driver wearing glasses and a beret approached him and asked him if he needed a ride. Of course he did, but he couldn’t risk getting into a car with just anyone.
These are the moments when the extraordinary situation warns you, reminds you that you should not underestimate the problem you are in even if you just want to sail through it smoothly. It is difficult to keep smiling, but you have no choice. Your miserable needed not to feel the weight of the situation overpowers the common sense need to avoid danger and in the end you accept. By not doing what you think you have to, what you need will find you. He remembered the gypsy woman’s words and decided to believe that he needed this offer. Maybe this is the best solution, he thought, aware that that awful Adamoli could catch up with him on the train, the man who always sticks his fingers in and thwarts him. He thanked the taxi driver and when he saw the meter in the car he leaned back into the shabby old passenger seat with a degree of relief.
The man drove him to the next town and he decided to catch the train there, aware that he had already bought himself enough time. Nothing unplanned happened, the conversation was peaceful and periodically interspersed with longer or shorter silences. He did not really understand the driver’s random bursts of humour. When they arrived in town he was deposited at the station where he paid and they parted ways in a friendly manner, as usual he was a bit more reserved than the other person.
He sat on a bench and waited, feeling a pleasant, soft wind on his face. He took out and lit a cigarette, running his tongue from filter to tip first to make sure it didn’t burn too fast. Some told him it is a crass habit, others that everybody does it, but he never had a particular opinion on it except that in his frequent travels where tobacco was expensive and disappeared with lightning speed, this became a habit he was not sure he could shake off easily, even if he wanted to.
Two women passed by him, possibly mother and daughter by the way they moved side by side, arguing about something important just to the two of them. Then a man stopped to attach his dog’s collar, crouching before the small terrier that tirelessly wagged his tail, visibly excited to be taken out into the world. It was a really lovely day, one of those where everything and everyone seems to fit the image no matter where the eyes shift to set the frame. Truly, everything was perfect except for the fact that he carried something not really his in his bag, something desired not just by him but by many others. The awareness that he is not really free, that he could not go to buy cigarettes or to the restroom without extra attention, let alone leave the suitcase even a couple of meters away from him, where he could watch it and keep it in sight while he shops for bubblegum or newspapers, tortured him most of all. Not being free on a day like this is a real pity, he thought, turning his neck from time to time in the direction he expected the train to come from any time now.
However, the minutes went by and the train did not appear. He was starting to lose his patience, but he decided to wait a little longer. Still, 15 minutes later no train pulled in, nor did the number of passengers on the platform increase and it seemed that no one but him was waiting for the train he was beginning to suspect had either broken down along the way, which is very rare, or had already passed through which was also almost impossible. Tense and slightly sweaty he walked to the information window carrying all of his belongings, and what he discovered threw him for a loop – the train time they told him at the tavern was not correct, it was made up – the next train was due in three hours, and he was duped. He was livid, unable to understand why the gypsy woman or the drunk would give him bad information when he was so nice to them. He didn’t understand it at all and he started to feel that his palms were no longer dry. Still, the last thing he wanted was to give into panic, so he took a deep breath and looked at his watch. Watches calmed him, especially ones with thin hands showing time up to the minute on an imaginary scale between two numbers and touching, with such perfect precision, a point that does not really exist.
After several minutes, he moved to the exit and maybe they would have just missed one another if the driver that brought him had not approached him at that precise moment. He looked winded. He said he had come to pick up a passenger that never appeared, nor would he all things considered, and that he saw him in the distance and recognized him so he ran after him to see what had happened and why he was not on his way. When he heard what had happened, he offered to take him as far as he could today at a good price, apologizing that he would not be able to take him more than a hundred kilometres because he needed to return by nightfall. He accepted, looking at the man’s tiny eyes and the few wrinkles in their corners, trying to ascertain whether he believed him, feeling a kind of compassion for the driver with his stupid beret whose life was made up of doing other people’s bidding and who was always where other people’s roads led him. They struck out for the car.
He noticed that the driver had a limited number of jokes in his head which he was eager to tell so they keep spilling out of his mouth not altogether naturally, as if they have been carefully bred for this or a similar situation, but since they have failed to find the reason or matured enough to be told as a logical consequence of another statement, now they had to emerge almost bare, with no cause or consequence, crowding one after another with no rhyme or reason and causing awkwardness more than anything else in the listener, who out of sheer respect, laughed here and there so as not to offend their creator or mediator.
He took out a handkerchief from his pocket to wipe his nose and just as he started to blow he felt the car slow down abruptly and lurch uncomfortably after they had gone no more than three kilometres. The driver swore and as soon as he regained control of the car, moving to the side of the road not to block the traffic, he got out to see what had happened, raising his arms with a slew of curses. Having ascertained that it was a flat tire he approached the window and told him to feel free to get out because there was no way they can continue now. Still, he suggested that he could come to his house to get a new tire, explaining that they were not that far, just five hundred meters. The traveller had his doubts, feeling that things have gone too far already, unwilling to go into the unknown with a stranger, aware of the seriousness of his mission and that he cannot make mistakes, miss trains and go to houses he’s never been to before and which are just a couple of meters away. However, he was worried he might come off suspicious if he said no so he started to think how to best get out of the situation which was staring to dangerously deviate from the plan and the road he was on and was not following the planned route of which he should have already covered quite a chunk.
He put his hand in his pocket and with little effort found the ringing sound without even looking at the phone, so feigning surprise he pulled the phone out of his pocket and answered the fake call. He explained that the friend he was supposed to meet at the next place had just called him and there’s no worry, he would pick him up later, he thanked the driver profusely for everything he had done for him so far, took out a bill and gave it to him explaining that he would go now and wait for his buddy at the first tavern.
They said their goodbyes and just as he was on his way the driver ran after him and yelled that he had to come and have a drink on him to make up for all the aggravation caused by the flat tire. No need – yes there is – no – yes – no – yes – no – yes, the discussion was interspersed with awkward smiles decked with false kindness; the traveller’s patience was wearing thin, but the driver was persistent, just like a child, so the conversation could not be ended without striking a bargain – just one shot. He hoped to be rid of him after it. Still, he did not want to panic, so he made sure the ensuing walk was as relaxed as possible, with no hint of hurry, because after all – he was just a tourist, and tourists miss trains, accept lifts, go for unplanned drinks, forget about the time, do not dwell on the consequences of delays because time does not own them nor do they want to deal with it too much; even though time is actually a precondition of what they are allowed to live through, and the dose of carelessness and spontaneity they are prepared to approach it with often affects the validity of the trip they are on and the lasting memory of it.
A thin stone path leads them across a grassy field and twists into a narrow passage between two rows of two-story houses, corroded gutters and roofs, some of which were built from the kind of stone that remembers almost every ray of sun and every drop of rain it has come into contact with in its lifetime. A small green awning marks the entrance to a bistro. The murky light inside makes it difficult to stay awake, and blurs the line between night and the day which had started long ago.
They sit at one of four tables and the chandelier hanging from the ceiling on one thin wire almost prevents the people sitting at the table from looking into one another’s eyes; however, it lights up their mouths, renders their faces almost unrecognizable, singling out certain new features as distinct and dominant and turning ordinary and inconspicuous faces into their conspicuous, demonic reverse. The man went to the bar to order two cognacs. Everything was peaceful; the waitress was doing a crossword puzzle, two men were sitting in the corner, reading the newspaper, concentrating each on his own article, their drinks being the only common thing they shared, the table between them and the same light accentuating their sparse hairline. The driver started to treat the waitress to some of his personal brand of humour, to which she responded brusquely which in turn started an argument of which the traveller heard just look at yourself, bitch. He didn’t know whether it was all fun and games or if there were no fun or games to begin with, already quite used to not being able to tell the difference between real and fake arguments in little towns like this one.
After a minute or two the driver returned with two shot glasses in his hands and took off his beret, revealing a huge scar on his forehead.
“Last time I saw her she had more hair and less ass”, the driver sneered. “Serves me right to get into a conversation with her… Lord knows when that creature last felt a man’s hand! And this here”, he said tracing a finger over his forehead, “I see you’ve noticed it, not that it’s easy to miss… Kids’ games and running around. It’s okay as long as it’s not on the soul”, he said with a sarcastic smile, shrugging his shoulders.
“I have one too, here above my nose”, he pointed to a smaller scar, more subtle than the driver’s. “People often draw my attention to it, like they’re revealing something new or telling me something I don’t already know – You have a scar there… does it bother you? Annoyed by their stupidity I say Such is the situation. Sometimes I’d pay real money to avoid people and their inane questions. Intrusiveness is the worst kind of curiosity, don’t you think so?”
The very first sip of the cognac warmed him and he felt in the mood to tell the driver how he recently saw a man on the Internet making origami from money, mostly using dollars, and that that type of art was called moneygami.
“All these different figures… cats, fish, human heads, shirts, little ships and many more. All made from money. That very fact makes it thrice more interesting. An ostrich made from white paper and an ostrich made from one dollar bills… there is no comparison. That type of art just makes you tremble with excitement, what a curious conditioned reflex!”
He tripped over his tongue saying the last word and looked above the driver’s head in a daze, as if he were gazing at a constellation only he could see, and continued, “I am sure the power of that green is more than hypnotic. After 1929, a great many bills were printed using that very shade of green because it had proved resistant to physical and chemical change, and psychologically it was supposed to be brought in connection with the stability of the US government et cetera, et cetera… Sooner or later my conversations with people always go back to money. Sometimes I want to know what they desire and how they spend it… In a way it reveals to me who they are and where they are going.”
“Have you ever gambled? Speaking of money”, asked the driver.
“Just once on the road. With 50 euro worth of chips… Just to try it. That was the first and last time I went to a casino. When you stack some ten chips one on top of the other they are about as high as a pack of cigarettes. One man at the casino had a huge number of these little columns, but his chips were clearly different than ours. Afterwards we found out that each of the chips was worth so much more. And then, lines and lines of little columns. You couldn’t wrap your head around those amounts. They win a million, lose three, win two, go home… They revel in that kind of entertainment.
“I don’t find it entertaining in the least. It is not everyman’s game from the get-go. You and that bastard, the one who has all the fun he wants, and you who are there just to scrape the atmosphere. That is like getting into a cake eating competition with a diabetic. My friend, it is directly related to the size of your money pouch, no inspiration, no miracles… Universal entertainment, my ass!
“Well maybe…”, he said somewhat slower than before. He was not sure if he was the only one who could hear how he seemed to drawl at certain words, or if he was really doing it. He looked at the driver almost like in a mirror, but there was no reflection. “That man, he was an avid roulette player. Even if he had nothing, if he lost it all tomorrow he would still go on. People take their watches off their wrists, earrings from their ears… Worse vice than heroin. A rehabilitated drug addict is abstinent, and a gambler is not even abstinent, he’s a gambler, that is all that he’ll ever be. What he needs, let me tell you, is a situation.”
“Yeah, you’re right, everything in life just needs a situation”, the driver laughed smugly, staring at him.
“Man, it takes a special kind of mind-set to love to bet… Once you feel the rush, you start seeking it everywhere. I bet you it’s ten to two. Just anything. Any situation is a good one for a betting man. They see a betting opportunity in everything.”
“That’s it, my friend, addiction to chance”.
“Chance?”
“Well, yes… alcoholism to alcohol, drug addiction to drugs, smoking to nicotine, gluttony to that happiness hormone…”
“Endo… endr… fin”
“And gambling to chance. Or, more simply, the idea of winning money.”
The driver noticed that his fellow drinker’s hands were already in his lap, his shoulders sloping and getting heavier. His vision was becoming somewhat blurred, and his lips were turning blue and bending down at the corners.
The traveller himself now felt that there was something seriously wrong. The surface of the table seemed not to stand parallel with the floor but was bending and curving to the right, and the lamplight became ruddier, spreading into several directions, like an autonomous thing able to levitate before his tired eyes. He struggled convulsively to strengthen that image in his head. It resembled one of those dreams where some part of the dreamer recognizes the situation, figures and shapes around him as unreal and remembers what they really could and should look like, but lets the image exist just a little longer in the dream because of the sliver of awareness that morning is near and that it will disperse the anomalies; still, when awake there is no awareness of dreaming. Just the awareness of impossibility and fear. The sleeper is no longer a sleeper but a confused man repeating to himself that he must bend all that is impossible to the power of his consciousness, and then raises its level to dispel the images that do not or simply cannot exist.
It is in this part of his consciousness which he was now trying to set in motion, in the part hiding the spark of understanding that this is not a dream, that the traveller started to feel fear paralyzing him from the waist down.
He tried to sit up in the chair, to stand up, but his legs were no longer his own. He reached his hand toward the driver, like he wanted to say goodbye, but the driver stood up and rushed toward him, grabbing him like a real drunk, putting his numb arm around his neck and snatching his bag which had stood by his feet all the while. The traveller’s body weighed more than expected. They moved toward the exit. He could no longer distinguish between colours and shapes, he just saw the twisted face of the waitress, her eyes brimming with compassion, and opened his mouth to say something but at that point he totally lost control of his movements and soon plunged into the soundless and senseless kingdom of oblivion.
Leaving the bistro dragging him, the driver was already sweating a little and shouted at the waitress to keep the change, commenting that he had never met a madman that drunk more in the morning than this one, and that it was a small wonder that one drink was the end of him.
“You are naïve if you think it was his first, darling. He’d already dipped into the communal wine. Forgive the madman, he doesn’t know what he’s doing…”
“I don’t worry about him, there’s enough of people like him around, right? The mother of fools is always pregnant”.[3]
And so, what seemed like two drunk friends to the eyes of a random passer-by who knew neither of them, walked down the narrow street, one more sober and the other a comatose wretch under whose deadweight the first stumbled, attempting to get him somewhere safe to await waking, Lord knows when or in what condition. For them, this can’t be just another ordinary day like for me, thought the passer-by. They must be experiencing either great joy or great sadness.
five
The evening descended over the scenery like a liquid black mass, hugging the walls and roofs, conquering the yards and roads, leaving those who had failed to reach their homes or lit-up streets on time with a feeling of distress.
A drunk walks down the narrow street accompanied by a dog, stumbling from time to time under his own weight. People who pass him by can see that his face is younger than expected, eyes cheerful and slightly bending down at the corners, like they were trying to join the deep dimples next to his mouth. Suddenly he launches into a song everybody knows and one by one everybody he runs into as he walks turn as if entranced and start following him. The nightly procession with no head or tail moves down the narrow streets and everybody in it moves at the same time together and every man for himself, singing the well-known song. The dog walks in front of them, wagging its tail. If it weren’t for the moon in the sky, covered in its many craters, it would be easy to imagine it’s noon on a lovely sunny day.
A young woman, paler than a sheet, sits in a train and rakes the fingers of her left hand over the hangnails on her right, drawing blood here and there. She seems worried, more than worried, there’s a monstrous void in her eyes; she looks like someone who has drawn the shortest straw, been issued a parachute with a hole in it, left stuck in a pit several meters deep with her mobile battery signalling its imminent end. The traveller sitting across from her can barely tear his eyes away, but he’s doing his best not to let it show, running his gaze over the glass and staring away into the distance when he thinks she caught him. However, the truth is, she never once looked at him. He still looks at her when he thinks it’s safe, obsessed by her mood, unable to understand what could have shaken her so. He has a solution to all of her problems he can imagine, and if he were less hesitant he would talk to her, ready to offer help and consolation. Unfortunately, he is not. And she, even if she were aware of his presence in the compartment, she is one of those women who would never show it and act as if there were no one in the room, simultaneously polite because they’re minding their own business and incredibly cold because of their refusal to confirm the existence of another person in their vicinity, erecting a hard, impenetrable glass case around themselves.
In a shed at the edge of town a young man opens his eyes and, as if clearing centuries of crust from his eyes, he blinks several times to make sure he can still see. His vision is blurry and he struggles to wrap his head around what he is seeing and where he is. Wooden beams, some tree stumps and something beside them… four legs meeting a flat top that turns into two wider planks bending upward to become an arch. It’s a chair! But… standing upside down. And there’s another, and another… It is becoming clear, the little window in the corner of the room is closer to the floor than the ceiling but that is only because he is in an upside down world of some kind, otherwise the window would naturally be closer to the ceiling, as it should. He felt tension and sprains all over his body; he wanted to rub his eyes with his hand, but when it became clear what he needs to do in order to move it he realized that his hands are tied behind his back and that he is not lying down, but hanging, because his legs were also tied with a sturdy rope… He was hanging from the ceiling. At that moment he felt unbelievable panic and started thinking what had happened and how he wound up where he was. He remembered the town he arrived in, then why he had come there, he remembered the bag and started looking up, that is down, in a frenzy, searching for it. It wasn’t there. The old stove was crowned with one pipe on top, and there was a shovel next to it, several rakes and an old, probably broken hotplate. The bag was not there. Then he was inundated by the images of the previous day, his attempt to leave the region as soon as possible, the tavern… the tavern, and the drink, the bloody drink! And the driver’s tiny little eyes, looking at him all the while, aware what each successive minute will look like, also aware of what is happening now, of everything he was not aware of. Rage the likes of which he had never felt before, spread through his body like a poison and he jerked his legs a couple of times like that would loosen the rope. He moved his arms, rubbing the backs of his palms against each other, releasing his pent up breath and an unarticulated sound from deep within. He yelled out as loudly as he could a couple of times, but though he could not have known that the shed was solitary, standing about a kilometre away from other houses and storages, he felt irretrievably lost and so very alone, as if he were hanging on the edge of the universe, in a state of weightlessness, while all the other people are standing, walking and lying out there somewhere far away on the planet Earth. However, not only was he not weightless, but he felt like his head would explode with all the blood rushing to it… Who knows how long he’s been hanging like this. And the thought that he does not actually know when or even if anyone will come and untie him sent a surge of the kind of panic he had never felt before, and the rage dispersed before the slow but inescapable wave of raw fear that started to swamp him from his head up toward his feet which he could not even feel anymore. He was hanging upside down, completely helpless.
Through the small window pane he could see that the sky was getting lighter. Dawn was coming it seemed. And through the planks of the shed which now reminded him more of a large casket, he thought he heard a song he knew from somewhere.
If the situation were different, he might sing along.
[1] Grappa – Italian grape-based brandy.
[2] Italian dish of game birds served with polenta.
[3] La mamma degli scemi e sempre incita (Ital.) – Italian saying.
Translated by: Mirjana Slavkovski
VERNAKERA 