Nikola opened his bag and found a pill for his headache.
He went to the restroom.
Šeila noticed.
She was afraid of how he’d react. She understood this had all happened fast, but up until that morning she was caught up with the uncertainty of the exhibition, fully focused on him and the world back there. She hadn’t been thinking about anything else. Then all of a sudden this morning she’d realized the whole thing was over; she’d managed to turn everything around, and now felt this other world calling to her; she was already in it.
How strange, she thought. A cut.
But, yes, she’d worked with the factory because of the debts hanging over Nikola, because of her hometown, because of a sort of cosmic justice, and now, she’d done her part. She had no interest in the factory as a factory. They would have to either keep it running or not. She felt like a revolutionary whose revolution had prevailed and now had nothing more to do.
She knew she was smashing Nikola’s idea of home. No, he would never even dream of leaving there for good. He’d embraced the story now, strong-armed into it perhaps, but eventually it wormed its way under his skin. He wasn’t even thinking about escape, to ditch these people and Oleg’s accounts. And he was great at it. Šeila recognized this about him. How strange that he’d become more of a denizen of the town where she was born than she was. The town had become a real town again, she thought, because he’d come, an outsider who chose to live there. But now she had chosen something else, and it was clear to her she’d shaken up his soul.
She thought of Michael, that she was like him. When he told her they were going to Tbilisi, it was like that; he was a man without a home, a global man. She followed him, and later understood she shouldn’t have. It wouldn’t be okay if Nikola hung around waiting for her in London the way she’d waited for Michael in Tbilisi. Nikola would become the one who’d think love could replace all other stories. But she couldn’t tell him all this.
What’s the solution? A long-distance relationship? A thousand miles separating them? That sounds so global, she thought. What have I become overnight? But it was all reasonable—choices had appeared, unfortunately. Or fortunately, she thought, though she wasn’t feeling the least bit fortunate. If it weren’t for Nikola, she’d be feeling fortunate. Had their relationship overnight become a burden? Fortunately? To hell with that kind of fortune. But . . . She now had a choice, which hadn’t been the case the day before. And this was disturbing in a way.
We’re here, she thought, at a turning point. I’m Michael, Nikola is me. And I might be betraying him. Or am I betraying myself? If I—once it’s too late—if I realize this was the wrong choice and that I’ve ditched everything for an illusion, then I’ll be the traitor. But if I realize this is the way it should be, then I’ll know I’d have betrayed myself if I hadn’t tried.
One thing she knew—she couldn’t sit idly down there. And there was, in fact, nothing she could do about that. Her fingers were damp with sweat as she pondered all this.
This is the end, thought Nikola. He swallowed the pill over the sink and stared into the mirror. The image shrank and grew.
What were you thinking, he said to himself, that this would all end up happily-ever-after? You yourself think those movies are silly; how the hell did you buy this?
What did I think would happen after the exhibition? he thought.
He’d had no idea what was going to happen, nor had he realized that this story that had changed him was drawing to a close. He still had no sense of where he was supposed to be.
He stared into nothing while a man waited for him to finish with the hand dryer, but Nikola never even saw him.
“It’s over, I’m free,” he said out loud, and looked at the man, wondering where he’d come from. The man shrugged and proceeded to dry his hands.
I can give Šeila the freedom to go her own way. Or do the same for the workers down there?
For the first time he became aware of something: he no longer had to stay there.
The truth is, he wasn’t essential.
Should he even be there? he asked himself. Do they need him? Branoš could take over, he’d be better at it anyway. The manufacturing needed to be modernized or refocused. . . . What would his role be anyway? Director? Oleg’s successor? Oleg never even counted on a future, which he realized when he saw there were no customers out there.
What a morning, he thought. He’d embraced the life there, but maybe he was redundant there as well.
And where wasn’t he? he thought.
He went over to Šeila and leaned on the table while she clicked through the sites. He kept his silence and looked at the apartments, opening up like secret caves in adventure films.
The tips of her fingers sweated, while she was thinking: I’m Michael.
“Go ahead and rent an apartment to your taste. I still have to go down there after a few days. To see to everything . . . Debts need to be paid. . . . I need to think about what to do and where to go, I really don’t know.”
“I didn’t want to screw up, I’m sorry.”
He pressed his lips against hers.
“How long is this clicking going to take?”
“Give me a few more minutes, we need to find something today.”
“Okay. How about afterward we go to the movies, and then to the nearest apartment? You know, pretend like you live very close to the movies.”
“To the movies with our luggage, huh?”
“These are small bags. I’d like to get away from the light for a little while. Maybe a matinee . . . About two kids on a Pacific island, something like that . . .”
She smiled, her eyes sparkling, realizing how much she’d miss him.
“I might even take a nap through a childish romantic lie, if they still make such films. . . . I need some sleep.”
“Yeah. Me too,” said Šeila.
Although the sun had already hidden behind the clouds, he took the sunglasses from his bag and went out to the curb to light a cigarette.
His headache subsided. He watched the passing of people and cars. He imagined himself taking a long walk down those streets, anonymous and alone.
He could give Šeila the freedom to go her own way, as well as the folks down there.
He could settle up all his debts, walk away, and leave it all to them. He could work everything out with them, throw a big farewell bash at the Blue Lagoon, get staggeringly drunk to Turban-Rap, sing “Those from Here Who’ve Gone Away,” and leave tomorrow with a hangover. They would see him off as a hero and a brother, and he could take the same road back along the river in a Japanese SUV through the fluttering plastic bags. He could stop at Café Strada, order one for Oleg, say—Here, buddy, one for the road—give the waitress a big tip, cross the border, and keep on moving, farther and farther away, and all of this would eventually fade in color and appear to be distant and unbelievable.
Is this how it’s all supposed to end? he wondered.
38
AROUND ME THERE’S nothing but a flat line, this is a no-signal area, but I guess today somehow a satellite bumbled into something. and a signal appeared, maybe Allah, maybe Yahweh, maybe Buddha, and or it’s that they need to bomb us from above, so they need the signal, so here I am writing you an email, because it seems too late for me to be joining facebook now, although it’s a revolutionary tool, and it came in handy for them, or so I hear, in tunisia, and egypt, and here this whole revolution did nicely to get rid of our old client who commissioned the turbine. Fuck ’em all, they picked the perfect moment to oust him after all these years, just when I arrived, because he asked to see me—to see if I was lying or we’d really made the turbine . . . he could read people. I guess the old cocksucker must have known immediately I wasn’t lying as soon as I walked in. I wouldn’t have come here if I was lying, but it took a while for me to get to him, the rebels had
had their first attack by then, no one could get in to see the boss and I had to wait, so I missed the last bus out, goddammit, first went the last plane, then the last ship, and the last bus has already become a legend, who knows whether there even was one, I guess there was, there had to be a last one, at least across the Sahara, I should have been on that last bus, that would have been an adventure, but I missed it, and afterward there was no one left, so I couldn’t even hitchhike. I couldn’t get in touch because they took my laptop and phone straightaway, in case I was a spy, so I wouldn’t call you or anyone else and describe the situation, and my situation was bad, there is no fucking alcohol here, I went through a serious crisis, I think my liver has convalesced quite well, but what good will that do me when I won’t have the time to use it. I was in some kind of friendly custody, in this fucking military hotel; I could sit there in the garden in the inner courtyard, so that’s what I did, I didn’t have anything else to do but think about my life. I was trapped, like I’ve always been trapped ever since I can remember, only some traps are roomier than others, but still a trap and we lived in it lured by tomorrow it is a fucking trap, always harnessed, like horses . . . you know they killed the colonel, you probably saw that, too, they say the crowd posed around the dead body; that’s been broadcast, I hear, around the world, people see it as the death of a gladiator, maybe even spartacus . . . okay, not spartacus, his body was never found and he never held power, too bad, I don’t know how crazy he was, but I know how his men were killed, spectacularly, so everyone could see, they lined them up on crosses along the road, and now the internet is serving as the crosses along the road, to show what awaits the enemies of the empire . . . so you see them on the screen, as they die in misery, humiliated and spat upon by your gaze . . . I’m stuck with them but don’t think I bought into the legend of the colonel, because I know those faces, though his was a little vague at first, until I realized he’d had botox injections, it took me a minute to figure this out, but I saw he was on cocaine, and I know what that means when you have no corrective, when you’re the boss of the universe on coke, boss my ass . . . but the guys on the other side, I don’t get why the west would like them so much, unless they were trying to breed worse enemies than the colonel, because he was kind of a jester as he teetered along the edge, so it makes a weird kind of sense that I ended up with him. at the audience I told him we rebuilt the factory and he even promised to pay for it because his accounts were about to be blocked anyway, so it would be better for him to give the money to us. he started laughing uncontrollably, so I thought this was because of something I’d done, but a guy recently told me that his accounts had already been blocked by the time of my audience, only they hadn’t told the colonel because he couldn’t handle reality all that well. as you know, he was whacked, and I’m still fighting, I mean, I go around with the last of them, with a gun, I’ve got one, because you have to have a weapon, otherwise some of them might think I’m a prisoner and whack me too . . .
now I’m faced with a dilemma—to fire at them when I see them coming and kill myself with the last bullet; or wait and sell them the story that I can find them a small atomic bomb, they could be interested in that, the ones who catch me, if they speak languages, but I think they are unlikely to forget whose side they found me on, they’ll think me a mercenary, and if I introduce myself as an arms dealer, they might torture me for a time, I better not tell you the stories going around. or they’ll pick me off with a drone in a few minutes and I’ll be freed of my dilemmas by some guy who’s several thousand miles away bombing us, a guy who is employed, I mean, he has a job, sits in front of a computer, bombs me from nine to five, goes home to his family, okay, maybe he stops for a beer with friends and, if I’m lucky, maybe he gets drunk and is hungover the next day.
Nikola, brother, I’m just fucking around. such are the times. it’s over, for real, I know . . . man, what a stupid story, same as with my ukrainians, those idiots who were anti-communists, pro-nazis, and the last to become Commies, and I, I got here because I’m an entrepreneur, prone to risk-taking, as you know, so it turned out I’m fighting here for the colonel’s socialism, though I don’t fully get it, but hey, what’s here is here, I’m out at the front lines in my last days, here until the end and all through the final credits with the folks who’ve been smashed in retreat just like the cossack from a hundred years ago, everything’s the same, only I’m on the other side. if uncle Martin could see me now he’d have a fine time laughing at me, you know I dream of him sometimes, we’ve made plans for spending a little time out at the cottage. I might stop by, I say, and now I really could. fuck it, the truth is I was a bare-assed pauper and proletarian, I just wanted to earn some real money, but what can you do, it didn’t fly; so remember me as a revolutionary, feel free to lie about me, say I was better than I am.
you know, I only shot a gun for real here once, you won’t believe me, when the cat I was feeding was killed, it’d show up, come and go, sometimes it was with me all day long, sometimes it wouldn’t be back for ages, and then one morning it could barely walk, I saw blood above one of its legs, I guess from shrapnel, a small piece of shrapnel, why the cat, man, I thought shrapnel couldn’t hit a cat, but it did, something tiny, and the cat just lay down beside my legs and died within an hour, goddammit, this dying cat, it looked at me and meowed, as if it wanted to talk, as if it’d been carried away by its story, as if it were summing up its feline life—stupid, but that’s the feeling I had—as if I were a cat, a bigger cat, with this little one who’s closing its eyes and leaving the world, and I thought about what I’d done in this world, why everything turned out so lame, I started feeling sad, thinking about my life. I was no better than the cat, who’d been struggling to survive until it was hit; I was nothing more than a cat, hiding and jumping back and forth, I never knew god, I don’t mean god-god, but light and peace, and now somehow I know it exists because sometimes I see it in the early morning, when I watch the desert and the peeking sun, who’s been my friend ever since that cat closed its eyes, and I must be crazy because I talk to the sun at early dawn and I tell it, ’Sup, sun, buddy, how’s it going, what’s new, how’re my friends, how’s home, and when I say home, you won’t believe it, Nikola, I think of you out there in the middle of fucking nowhere, and of no one else in all the cities I’ve been to, but of you there in that misery and nothing—if you’re still down there, and I somehow feel you are—but it’s not misery and nothing, I mean, none of that matters, it’s moot, because misery and nothing are over, everything’s the same, it’s moot where you are and what you are when you’re talking to the sun and when you know death is knocking at the door, and darkness is waiting; and I wasn’t in the light enough, I was in my fogs with other people in their fogs, it may seem to you that I’m suddenly mysterious, but it’s not that, I’m the same old me, and I could joke about all the shit like I used to, and I am joking about it, I don’t hide from the shit, but when I say “light” I know what I have in mind, a nice feeling, nice and bright and warm and noble, I have in mind the whore who didn’t know she was a whore, the one from Tobolsk, who knows where she ended up, where she was kicked, where a car ran her over; and she was bathed in light, it was with her, she had the light under her skin, some women have it, they’re unprepared for life because they don’t know how to defend themselves, and you can’t, you can’t have the light if you’re defending oneself, if you clam up like I did; you have to stay open to have the light, and I don’t know how I’ll stay alive, that’s the question, whoever finds a way to stay open and survive the poisons of people is a wise soul because everything gets under your skin when you’re open, what can you do, it must be weird for you, me talking like this, you must be thinking, death’s nearing so he’s rambling about the light, poor old Oleg, but that’s how it is, I wouldn’t talk like this if I didn’t feel death near, I’m rocking it and soothing it like a baby, before it twists into a howl of the universe—what a nice word, universe
and so
here I sit at early dawn, and these are the good days, too bad they’re my last . . . it’s calm here now, for ten days now, seems like years, since we got away from the crossfire, until they find us again, I can’t tell you where we are, just in case, and I could hardly even explain, this is all nowhere for me, and that’s good, as a prelude to nothing, because all my life I thought I knew where I was, technically I mean, since we have geography and maps so you locate yourself, but this is a different feeling, and when you think about it, this is how people used to feel, without this business of locating ourselves in the world, on a map, on earth, in states, in the stories that rule countries, broadcast by television, so you think—I’m here—and you always think you’re in a place ruled by a story, a stupid story of the moment and place, and you don’t see you’re under the sky, you’re on the ground, you’re at a place you know nothing about, and you don’t need to know about it, it’s fog; because you’re on the earth and under the sky and under the sun and this is where you are, this is what people used to know, I see that now; when there were no maps and when they didn’t know what the earth was like, where washington or the himalayas were, or where they were except beneath the sky, because that’s the main thing, and you forget about it when you see a map and those borders drawn and the cities and you locate yourself using your GPS and you’re completely in the human network, in the language of the world which has covered the planet with names you think are real, and you forget you’re beneath the sky, same as the cat that was hit by shrapnel, so small and fast, and your piece of shrapnel will find you and all you can do is live beyond the stupid stories, walk on the ground until a piece of shrapnel gets you; and it’s a different feeling when you know this, brother, when you know this, the feeling is different, it’s not much of a mystery, not any great enlightenment, not a truth you need to ponder on much or solve difficult equations, it is, brother, nothing more than removing the excess from your head, putting two and two together, and the latter two mean you count on death and you immediately know where you stand . . . it’s funny, when you think about it, every day you hear how someone was killed somewhere, died, a bomb blew up one thing or another, and you think how far away it is, beyond your world, it’s funny, because even if you think it’s right here, close by, you don’t know how to handle it, instead, you scratch yourself nervously and talk shit until you forget what upset you and what you can’t forgot, so you’re scratching yourself nervously and are afraid of your thoughts and you’re scared by the stupid small shit that takes you back and you’re restless and furious . . . and if you’re furious just because of that, this means it hasn’t sunk in yet, if it makes you nasty, that’s just rage taking over . . . for me, brother, the rage is gone, I’ve put everything down here for you, I’m just sorry how I spent my life—it’s true I didn’t have much choice, but still, I did have some . . . then I remember all of you there, and I wonder if there was any use to it all . . . did Lipša get back, did the guy here actually manage by some miracle to pay you the money . . . or am I stuck here for no reason . . .
No-Signal Area Page 38
