‘Come out and I’ll show you!’ said Kukla.
The child peered out.
‘Eighty!’ she said.
‘Not quite, actually, I’ll be eighty in December.’
‘You’re twenty times older than me,’ said the little girl.
‘Which makes you twenty times younger than me,’ said Kukla.
Kukla was alarmed again. She wondered whether the little girl was not too clever for her years. She would have to talk to Beba. Poor Beba, she must be lying in her room in despair. David was inaccessible. You couldn’t ask him anything. He was rushing about sorting out Pupa’s affairs.
‘Listen, little one, what would you say to the two of us ordering something sweet from the cake shop?’
The little girl poked her head out of the boot and nodded.
‘Ice cream or cakes?’
‘The first,’ said the little girl.
Kukla felt better. She was a child after all. A dear, sweet little girl…
‘What about Toto?’
‘Who’s Toto?’ asked Kukla in surprise.
Wawa pointed at the puppy.
‘Hmm… OK, let’s go for a walk; we’ll buy some dog biscuits for Toto, and the two of us will find somewhere to sit and have an ice cream. How about that?’
The little girl clambered out of the boot and cheerfully held her hand out to Kukla. Kukla noticed that the little girl had dark eyebrows, almost touching in the middle. On her round face they looked like a child’s drawing of a bird in flight.
3.
Everything had fallen apart, as though the cupboard in her little office in the medical faculty had burst open. The office was where she had spent her whole life drawing sketches that no one needed any more, and now those sketches, rolled up in dusty bundles, had tumbled out of the cupboard and unfurled like little rugs. Fragments scampered in front of Beba’s eyes: bones, muscles, nerves, the nervous system, cells, reproductive organs, the urinary tract, the cardiovascular system, the heart, veins, arteries, the liver, ears, the auricular canal, the spleen, stomach, intestines, large and small, the rectum, anus, lungs, windpipe, oesophagus, the eye… That was Beba’s field, Beba’s Guernica. And in that paper snowstorm a lost child wandered, Beba’s son.
Yes, Beba had a son, Filip. He had inherited her talent for drawing, and as soon as he graduated from the Academy, he had gone abroad: Italy, France and London. That was where he met his partner (‘partner?’ What a clumsy word!). According to David, at a certain moment Filip had wanted a child; he had gone rushing about, investing all his time and energy in the business of adopting one. Finally, he got lucky, and they, Filip and his partner, succeeded in adopting a little girl who was just a few months old. But then Filip began to obsess about what would become of the child if anything happened to him. And he would not rest until he had drawn up a will with David’s help, according to which, in the event of his death, Beba would take over care of the child. When Filip died of Aids, exactly what he had foreseen occurred. His partner left the little girl to David, collected all Filip’s paintings and disappeared. That was all Beba managed to glean from David. But she would ask, she would try to find out. Because ever since he left home, Filip had rarely been in touch. The occasional letter, more often a postcard, just to let her know he was alive. He had never given any address. He had never contacted his father. In truth, he had no reason to. His biological father had never shown any interest in him, and if he had done, there would have been a scene as soon as he learned of Filip’s inclinations.
It was all her fault, of course, and it would not have been right to blame his father. Because she was the one who had pushed the unfortunate father to one side, proclaiming him ‘biological’, and then ‘hypothetical’, in order to have Filip to herself. Yes, her passion had drawn misfortune in its wake. God, now that she thought about it, she had bought him clothes as though she was his lover, rather than his mother. When he was little, she had dressed him like a doll, and then, when he grew up, like the lover she had never managed to acquire. When he was not at home, she sometimes went to his little room and stood for a long time in the doorway, breathing in his smell. It was her fault. And when he left, she had spent days dreaming of his return. Yes, she had wanted him all to herself, and had only pretended that that was not the case. She concealed her feelings, she acted, she did all she could not to suffocate him. She went out with men, pretending to have her own life, to be an independent woman who lived life to the full and did not care about anything else. But still, love seeped out of her and, like the foam putty used to fit window-panes, it filled all her cracks, pores and openings. She could not deceive him, it was impossible to breathe: the air in their apartment was just too dense. She followed him like a dog, arousing first his pity, and then his revulsion.
And then one day, returning early from work, she went into his room and found him in bed with a young man. She stopped, dumbfounded, in the doorway, he shouted something, but she did not understand the content of his words. She stood there without breathing, without thoughts, without interest, without curiosity, without censure. He got up and banged the door in her face. And the very next day he packed and left, forever. At first she agonised about it; she could not understand why he had been so angry. Because she was innocent, if that is the right word, she had wronged him only for a second, for heaven’s sake, for just one single second. She had been entranced by what she saw, the image of a male body, to which she had given birth, that was her blood, her flesh. She had forgotten herself, astounded, she had disregarded human decency, and she had been justly punished. She could have shut the door, been ashamed, apologised, but she had not done that. She was to blame, she had driven him from the house. Oh, God, how come she had not thought of that then? That win at the casino was only an intimation of imminent loss.
There was a soft tapping at the door. She did not respond; she did not have the energy to get up.
Mevludin came into the room. Beba did not stir. Her lips were dry, her eye make-up had run and now it streaked her face in thin streams.
Without a word, Mevludin went to the bathroom, wet a face cloth under the cold tap and began to wipe Beba’s cheeks.
‘Poor you… you look like a chimney sweep…’
Beba burst into tears again.
‘Drink this. And stop crying, love, you’ll run out of tears,’ said Mevlo, offering Beba a glass of water. Beba drained it and felt able to breathe more deeply.
‘Here, have a smoke, you’ll feel better,’ said Mevlo, handing her a lit cigarette.
Beba and Mevludin smoked in silence.
‘Don’t be cross with me,’ said Mevludin after a while.
‘What about?’
‘For acting the fool. But then, I kept thinking it’d be more fun…’
‘And it was.’
‘It’s right for me to say it, though.’
‘I know.’
‘Then you must also know that I think you’re great. And I won’t forget you.’
‘I know.’
‘Well then, now that we’ve said all there is to say, I’m off.’
Mevlo got up and set off towards the door.
‘Wait,’ said Beba.
Beba got out of bed and took an envelope out of the safe.
‘Just in case…’ she said, handing him the envelope.
The envelope contained a bundle of notes.
‘I can’t take this.’
‘It’s a present from me. You’ll need something to get you started, to buy a ticket to America and to keep you going while you find your feet…’
‘I can’t…’
‘Which of the two of us is older and stupider?’
‘You,’ Mevlo smiled.
‘Well, then, your place is to do as I say. You’ll find my address inside. So one day, when you’re passing through Zagreb…’
‘I’ll look you up.’
Mevlo and the stout old woman hugged. Beba burst into tears again. Mevlo patted her shoulder and grumbled:
‘You
women are all made of water. The quantity of tears you have in you is unbelievable. You should all be packed off to the desert and used for irrigation.’
Mevlo took a cigarette out of his packet and stuck it behind Beba’s ear:
‘Just in case,’ he said and left the room.
4.
When he was making his new spa, Dr Topolanek had thought about his grandmother, to whose place they had always gone for lunch on Sundays. Afraid that she would not get everything ready in time, his grandmother always started cooking so early that by the time they, the Topolanek family, arrived everything on the table was cold. Every Sunday his grandmother got upset, and every Sunday his father consoled her:
‘Come on, Agneza, calm down, you know yourself that there is nothing in the world tastier than cold meatballs and – warm beer!’
Topolanek called his new spa ‘Granny Agneza’. It sounded local, but still a little mysterious, because people would wonder who Agneza was, why Agneza, which Agneza…? As well as this private justification, Topolanek had an objective one for his choice of his grandmother’s name: Agneza lived ninety- one years, which was a pretty decent age.
The previous evening, Linear had made a heap of meatballs, which were piled in a round dish on the edge of the swimming pool, while Willowy had brought gherkins and mustard. The girls moved Topolanek to tears with this gourmet detail. Now the three of them were sitting, naked, immersed in the hotel jacuzzi, which had been transformed into a vast tankard. Topolanek had had the jacuzzi filled with beer, and reduced the churning to a minimum, to ensure that, heaven forbid, they did not suffocate in froth. As it was, the froth was flying about in all directions.
It was a scene worthy of Lucas Cranach Senior, and, were he alive, he would have been able to paint Fountain of Youth ‘Part Two’. Except that, on the table, in the top right-hand corner of the painting, instead of a fish on a platter, there would have been Granny Agneza’s meatballs.
The girls were having the time of their lives. Willowy had made herself a beard of beer froth, while Linear had made a wig. Topolanek himself had gone beerily berserk. He was chasing Linear and Willowy round the little circular pool, repeating:
‘Little seals, come to daddy, little seals…’
And then the little seals came closer, slurped some beer from the pool and started rubbing their bodies against Topolanek’s. They were both smooth, slippery and agile, just like the seals in the zoo pool. Exclaiming, ‘Here!’ Topolanek tossed one meatball with his right hand into one mouth and another with his left into the other. The little seals fed from his hands. Willowy dunked her meatball in the beer froth, claiming it was nicer with froth than mustard. Then they dived under the surface, gambolled, played tag, clapped their hands in the foam, threw balls of beer froth at each other, touched each other, petted and kissed each other, from time to time chanting a little song that Linear had made up:
Merrily we swim, like little bugs in beer,
Beer is our element: clear, dear and here!
Topolanek felt magnificent, like a great reformer, like a scientist after a revolutionary discovery. If he had not actually discovered the formula of longevity, then with ‘Granny Agneza’ he had at least composed an ode in praise of vitamin B, and discovered yet another of the ways life could be merrier and more relaxed, and that, in our anxious and dismal age, could be regarded as a capital contribution, could it not?
And us? While life is often gloomy and cheerless, the tale runs on, bright and fearless!
5.
‘I can’t. I simply can’t,’ Beba kept repeating, as though in delirium.
Beba and Arnoš Kozeny were sitting in the half-empty hotel bar, sipping French cognac.
‘I entirely understand,’ said Arnoš Kozeny, puffing smoke from his cigar.
‘My granddaughter!? Why, I don’t know her at all!’ said Beba.
‘And how could you, for goodness’ sake! You only discovered a few hours ago that you’re a grandmother.’
‘And the murderer of my own son,’ said Beba bitterly.
‘Come now, don’t exaggerate, we’re all murderers. First we murder our own parents, and then our own children.’
‘I don’t know. All I know is that whoever wrote the screenplay of my life was completely incompetent.’
‘They’re all incompetent.’
Arnoš was right, they’re all incompetent. Few can boast that their screenplay writer really suits them. Who knows, perhaps the bureaucratic offices of Destiny are like Hollywood or Bollywood, perhaps instead of millions of diligent bureaucrats, there are millions of bunglers copying, rewriting, smudging the paper and scribbling. Maybe there are even different departments, and some do the dialogue, others the storyline, still others the characters, and maybe that is why our lives are such an indescribable mess. As soon as we are born, an invisible bundle is thrust into our hands and we all scatter off into our lives like Boy Scouts, each of us clutching our invisible coordinates in our hands. And perhaps that anxious race is the reason for our monstrous ignorance of other people’s lives, the lives of those who are closest to us.
‘So why don’t you intervene?’ asked Arnoš.
‘How could I intervene?’
‘Well, for instance, you could go back to your hotel room and confront the new circumstance in your life, your little granddaughter! And then endeavour to make the very best you can of the situation.’
‘How?!’
‘You’ll know, when it comes to it.’
Perhaps Arnoš was right about this as well. Perhaps intervening in the screenplay is all that is left to us? To offer our shoulder at the right moment for someone to cry on, to hand someone a handkerchief, show them the way. Because people often do not know the most basic things. Once Beba was waiting in a queue at the bank when a man asked her: ‘Excuse me, which is the right-hand side here?’ Everyone who heard him burst out laughing. It was only Beba who felt sympathy for the confused man. Showing someone which is right and which left, that is perhaps the intervention Arnoš means. We cannot do more than that, even if we wanted to. Take Pupa. Ever since she had known her, Pupa had always been reticent and restrained. If she ever said anything it was usually a comment on what others were saying. Beba had always thought that tiny little woman was as strong as an oak. Now she recalled a distant scene which she had forgotten. She had once gone to see Pupa, her door was open, and she had gone in and found Pupa kneeling on the floor, sobbing. It was a chilling scene, and Beba had wanted to tiptoe out again, to simply run away from the place of someone else’s misery. That was when she realised for the first time that we are capable of swallowing all sorts of things. After all, she had herself had her fill in hospital – of stomachs split open and guts falling out – and all that could be borne; there was only one thing that it was very hard to accept: the sight of someone else’s pain, a glimpse of a soul seeping unstoppably out of a body like a stream of urine. In the face of such a sight, we are hypnotised, like a rabbit confronting a boa constrictor. Beba sat down on the floor, without a word, spread her legs, placed Pupa in her lap, clasping her with both her arms and legs, pressing her to herself like a cushion, and who knows how long the two of them sat there like that in silence, fitted one into the other like two spoons. They never mentioned it afterwards, Beba did not ask, and Pupa never told her what it was about. Perhaps it had not been anything special. Perhaps some inner sorrow had risen up in her and stuck in her throat like a fish bone. Beba had helped her cough it out. And that was all. As we grow older, we weep less and less. It takes energy to weep. In old age neither the lungs, nor the heart, nor the tear ducts, nor the muscles have the strength for great misery. Age is a kind of natural sedative, perhaps because age itself is a misfortune.
‘How will I know? I was a lousy mother. I’ve wasted my own life pointlessly. I’m not qualified to be a grandmother,’ said Beba.
‘Just take a look around you, see how many people have placed their stakes on you!’
‘How do you mean?’
<
br /> ‘Your son, for example, he placed his stake on you! And the dice went in your favour! And your late friend, she too gave you a chance. And I, talking to you now, I am placing my stake on you. Admittedly it’s only a small coin, but I’ve placed it on you, and not on anyone else.’
‘You’re a good man, Arnoš.’
‘Perhaps, but I was a bad husband, father and grandfather. All I cared about in my life were women. I’m nothing but a scatterbrain, my dear. But still I’m lucky. There are few people my age who can afford such luxury.’
‘I don’t know. I’m seventy years old; I haven’t learned anything sensible in my life. Sometimes I think it would be best to kill myself…’ mused Beba thoughtfully.
Arnoš looked at her and said cheerfully:
If you want to end it all, do it with good taste:
You would not wish to leave a pall or a bitter taste.
Choose with care, as though it were a matter of fine wine:
Leave those who stay here with a sense of touching the divine.
If you want to end it all, do it with good taste:
Let others know you had a ball, your life was not a waste.
Choose a plaited rope of silk, in the hour before dawn,
When the air is smooth as milk and dew bejewels the lawn.
If you want to end it all, do it with good taste:
Find a sparkling waterfall, its spray spun and laced,
Scatter it with flowers whose fragrance lasts for hours,
Take something sweet to sustain you through the moment’s heat,
Baba Yaga Laid an Egg (Myths S.) Page 19
