Our Man in Iraq

by Robert Perisic

  After all that, the office secretary called and told me to see the Chief. It was urgent, she said. Dario, I assumed, that little turd got up and went to Pero’s office. His feet were up on his desk.

  “Your old ones were better.”

  He was holding the latest issue of Objective.

  “I’m a little unfocused,” I said, taking a seat. “Didn’t get much sleep last night.”

  He was still staring at me as if I was an exhibition piece.

  “Could you get up for a minute, please,” he said.

  “Is this some kind of joke?”

  “No, please, it’s very important.”

  I stood up.

  “Step back a bit, please, toward the door.”

  He took his feet off the table, got up and moved about, regarding me from different angles. He scrutinized the issue of Objective he was holding. “You know? You look a bit like the guy from Iraq.”

  “I hadn’t noticed.”

  “It only just dawned on me now.”

  “What’s dawned on you?” I asked weakly, standing near the door, wanting to turn and run away.

  “Have you given me all the photos you have of him?”

  “What’s been published is all we have.”

  “We don’t have a photo of him from Baghdad—and that’s what we need,” Pero said. “I thought of Photoshopping Baghdad into the background, but we can’t do that with these photos we’ve already used. With your physical similarities it occurred to me that we could take a photo of you and sort out the background on the computer.”

  “You’re not serious.”

  “It’s good you didn’t have a shave this morning. We’re going to tan you a bit, stick on some shades, give you some headgear and field clothing—no one will know the difference.”

  “I can’t do that,” I protested.

  “Hey, who started this shit?” The eternal question in the Balkans. “Find the nearest tanning salon and do maximum exposure.”

  I was stupefied. “Can’t you find some disco bro to do that?”

  “No, you and Tosho are going to do it. He’ll photograph you and do Baghdad on the computer.”

  “Then why doesn’t he just tan me on the computer too.”

  The Chief’s tone became threatening. “You’ll play along. You’ll ‘come back from Iraq’ the day after tomorrow. You’ll walk about the office and stroll about the city. We’ll take your photo on the main square smack in front of the Ban Jelačić statue. Then let GEP try and prove you’re missing in Iraq.”

  “Are you crazy?” I sputtered. “A tanning salon?”

  “Do you realize we can sue you over this? For fraud! For damaging our reputation. For commercial damage. For endangering peoples’ lives. The boss has been cursing and swearing at me on the phone all day! Are you aware of that?”

  “No, I didn’t . . .”

  “But you act like you’re some kind of prima donna! ‘Oh deary me, I don’t want to go to the tanning salon.’ Go to the tanning salon.”

  Juliette Beauty Center: I entered as timidly as I did the first time I went to the chemist’s to get condoms.

  A tanned blonde and a tanned brunette—one of them was bound to be Juliette—were sitting and sorting lotions and creams. Tropical aromas and Eros Ramazzotti were in the air.

  “I’d like to get tanned,” I said.

  “Setting?” asked the brunette. She’s probably Juliette, I thought.

  “Um, maximum?” I said, a little intimidated.

  “What do you mean ‘maximum’?”

  “I don’t know how much is allowed?” I asked, thinking of desert conditions. “I need to get a good tan like the sun’s really given me a whack.”

  “Have you been for a tan before?”

  “No, I haven’t.”

  “The first time. What would the maximum be?” Juliette asked the blonde.

  “Y’mean you really wanna full blast?” the blonde asked me.

  “Well, yeah,” I said.

  “OK then. Put ’im on twenty-five minutes,” the blonde suggested.

  “Twenny-five?” Juliette asked the blonde. “Really?”

  “How about fifteen?” I asked.

  The blonde looked at me as if I was gutless, while Juliette seemed open to compromise. “OK then, twenty! How ’bout that? The sunbed’s pretty strong. That oughta be enough for you.”

  She led me into the next room, opened the sarcophagus, and explained that I just needed to pull it down when I was lying inside. And close my eyes.

  “You’ve got two minutes to get undressed,” she said.

  A humming began as the solar motors started. Now they were finally going to launch me in this capsule far away from everything. I’d shoot out naked into space. I felt warmth, a stream of air, and through my closed eyelids I saw a pinkish glow. Points of pink light glittered. I felt I was melting and turning into a slimy liquid like the guy in Terminator 2.

  Then pictures came to me—parts of pictures. Mixed with parts of other pictures. It was like a chaotic little film. I was with Sanja in the theater. A camera flashed and didn’t go off anymore. Then afterward, but still in the theater, we were looking up into the sky—there was no ceiling or roof, and I appeared as a parachutist, coming down out of the sky, laughing. Then the camera walked about the office—a very wobbly camera. Sanja came into the office and glided through it on one leg like a ballerina. Darkness. Applause.

  There was a knocking and ordinary white light again.

  “Still alive?” asked Juliette. Dark-haired Juliette, that center of beauty, looked down at me as I lay there naked, dark-skinned and hot. “You OK? We’ve been waiting, but you didn’t come out.”

  For a moment I thought of pulling her inside the sarcophagus so we’d be in that universe together.

  “I had a hard night.”

  “All right,” she lowered the lid so she wouldn’t see me anymore, “time to get dressed.”

  I opened the tanning bed again. The old rebel rises from the dead. I looked in the mirror. I looked a bit like James Brown. Ai feel gud, ta-na-na-na-na. I wiggled my hips in front of the mirror, and my dick waved in a semi-erection. They say tanning is a mood-lifter. See, it’s true. Besides, I’d finally got a bit of shut-eye.

  I had half an hour until the photo session and wanted to cool down but was paranoid about going to a bar where I'd be recognized, or even worse, not recognized at all. When my beer came, I called Markatović.

  “Have you finally woken up?” I asked.

  “Yes,” he said, “and you?”

  “A lot of shit’s been going down.”

  I was going to tell him some of it, but he started sobbing. He’d finally read Dijana’s fourteen-page letter. “Am I really so bad?”

  “I’ve asked myself the same question,” I said.

  “All the stuff she wrote, it all sounds true. I’ll prove to her that it’s not true if only she gives me another chance. I’m always able to explain everything when she gives me a chance.”

  “She’ll give you a chance,” I said, and it occurred to me that everyone gets to lament before me. This is a country of lamenters—you can’t get your turn.

  “I don’t know why I can’t cope with marriage. I mean, I did cope with it—out of seven days I coped with six. But it just keeps going, there’s no day off.”

  I almost laughed. Still, I tried to console him. “Come on, don’t take it so hard.”

  “There are wonderful moments too. Like, let’s say, when the kids were born,” and he burst into sobs again. “It was a miracle. Do you understand?”

  “I understand.”

  “I was so happy and couldn’t take my eyes off them—the first fortnight, the first month, the first six months. But it just keeps going, it all just keeps going.”

  “Yeah, OK.” I was waiting for him to finish this shit.

  “She says I’ve been avoiding them, that she’s lonely. She says I should devote myself to her again so she knows I love her.”

 
; “And so you should!”

  “But I can’t do all that I should do,” and more tears flowed.

  “Are you still high?”

  “I can’t. I can’t love her anymore! How can she expect that of me? But the letter says I have to love her.”

  “I don’t know. I mean, you don’t have to—she’s your wife.”

  “I have to, I have to. I used to love her voluntarily, but now I have to. That’s the difference. It’s not of my volition.”

  “How do you mean it isn’t? You married her,” I said.

  “Well, yes. And now I have no choice anymore! You understand?”

  The conversation puttered out. Markatović said farewell as if he was going to curl up and die.

  A little later Pero the Chief rang.

  “You don’t have to go and get photographed.”

  I knew it. The tanning had just been his way of having revenge.

  “Well, at least I got a tan at the company’s expense,” I quipped.

  “It’s too risky. Besides, we have to go on TV tonight. The Up to Date team called—they’re dedicating the whole program to it.”

  “Look, it’s best I don’t go on TV.”

  “We’ll go together.”

  “Listen, man, I’m tanned like a glamour puss. No one’s going to take me seriously. Who believes a tanned guy?”

  “We have to tell our side of the story,” said Pero.

  “No one will understand,” I pleaded.

  “They’ll brief us, and we’ll make our case point by point. There’ll be guests as well: Boris’s mother will be down in the regional studio. You’ll have to face up to her. We’ll have to patch things up a bit.”

  Milka? Via videolink?

  “No, no way, I can’t. I’m unfocused, I haven’t slept, and I’m at the end of my tether. Plus—I’m tanned!”

  “Take it easy. The lawyer and PR will brief us. We’ll work out every word. We only need to challenge that he disappeared, that’s all. Surely the two of us can deal with an old biddy.”

  “I can’t, I really can’t. I’ve given my all.”

  He cursed and hung up.

  There had just been an excellent review on Radio 101. Hadn’t I heard it? They praised her sky-high. She’d wanted to record it on cassette but mucked it up in her rush, Sanja reported.

  “I’m in the car on my way home but I haven’t turned on the radio. Have you not heard anything else?” I asked.

  “I heard what I heard—and you didn’t,” she said.

  “That’s not what I meant, but never mind. Have you just got up now?”

  “Come on, don’t phone while you’re driving. See you soon.”

  “Oh, by the way—I’m tanned.”

  “And I’m in heat,” she purred and hung up.

  It was bulk waste collection day in the neighborhood. Everyone was clearing out their cellars, and a jumble of oddments rose in front of the building: old mattresses, washing machines, ravaged furniture, stoves, and unidentifiable sponges. I looked at the scene and felt like sitting down on the armchair with the missing armrest or lying down on the sagging greenish couch—and being taken away with all the junk.

  Romany lads dressed in tracksuits and secondhand uniforms from the war were hanging around, sifting through the stuff and calling out to each other. “Djemo, come and give us a hand with this.”

  As I was backing in beside the heap, Djemo in his half-sporting, half-military gear showed me how much room I had. Then he signaled me to stop.

  Djemo probably mistook me for one of his people, tanned as I was, and when I said “thanks” in Croatian he looked at me a little surprised. Then a girl walking past in a miniskirt and high heels caught his attention. Djemo whistled quietly, long and drawn-out like wind across the plain. He then launched into song: Here comes the sun, little darling . . .

  How I envied him.

  “Come on, Djemo, stop fucking around,” yelled his friends, who were loading a pickup. He went over to them along a green and shining tree-lined path.

  A lady came out of the building carrying a battered picture of a shipwreck in a massive frame. She looked at me askance.

  As I was getting out of the elevator, Charly called and launched straight into a confused spiel. “Know what? You’re right.”

  He’s just got up too, I thought. Man, am I the only one around here who works?

  “What are you talking about?” I said.

  I’d already rung the doorbell for Sanja to open.

  “She’s not bad at all.”

  “Who?”

  “Ela. Who else? She slept here and made breakfast. She’s gone now. I can tell you, it was a really pleasant morning. And the night kinda wasn’t bad either. You’re right, if she lost a bit of weight she’d be cool.”

  While he was talking, Sanja opened up for me in her dressing gown, with a cigarette in her mouth. She acted as if I was a stranger. Then she casually turned, went to the couch, sat down, pulled up one leg and opened me a view of her pussy.

  “Yes, yes. Look, I have to go now.”

  “Good you came along, mister,” she said, as cold as Sharon Stone. “My husband’s not at home.”

  I gave up the idea of telling her about my day. I just stood and watched her smoke. That was our sex-theater. We liked to play raunchy scenes.

  “You sure have got a bit of color,” she said, fighting back a giggle.

  “I’m coming in from the desert.”

  “Oh, it’s very hot here too,” she said, stroking her finely shaved pubes.

  I told her to put on the costume from the play.

  “So you’re the photographer who said he’d be coming?”

  She went into the bedroom and came back dressed. White miniskirt, push-up bra, and little white boots. Cute little slut. She strutted in front of me like a catwalk model. Then she went to the hi-fi and upped the music. Massive Attack.

  I grabbed her bum under the miniskirt. “You’ve forgotten your panties.”

  “You’ve got the wrong impression of me, mister,” she replied in that feigned, uppity voice.

  I had an acute erection. We kissed. She nibbled my lip a bit. I moistened my finger and gently pressed her clitoris. I crouched down. She parted the folds with her fingers and bared her clitoris, inviting me in.

  “Gawd, you’re a photographer with a sense for detail,” she said in the timbre of a lady who admired artists.

  “Uh-huh,” I confirmed with a mumble.

  She moaned. Her legs began to tremble.

  She pulled back. “Fuck me!”

  I stood up. She shifted to the couch and got on all fours. I smacked her on the bottom.

  “Are you a singer?”

  “Uh-huh,” she moaned.

  “A proper singer or a little stage slut?”

  “I don’t know,” she admitted bashfully.

  “Sing a bit and screw around a bit?”

  “Yes.”

  I slid into her.

  “Like that?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where do they screw you?”

  “Grab my ass.”

  I gripped her firmly, raised her a bit and lowered her onto my cock.

  “Are you filming all this, mister?” she asked after we'd both been panting for a while.

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Will I look good in it?”

  “A bit vulgar,” I said.

  “I’m so, I’m so ashamed,” she grunted.

  “Why are you ashamed if you’re a little bitch?” I raised and lowered her faster and faster, breathless, incandescent, emitting the mania of that day.

  “I’m. I’m a good girl,” she gasped and then howled, jolting, as her orgasm overcame her. “Come on, just a bit more,” she begged.

  I thrust into her hard a few more times. Afterward I collapsed beside her. I kissed her shoulder and closed my eyes. She stroked my hair. We just lay there. I didn’t want to fall asleep, so I opened my eyes every now and again.

  “That was a good fuc
k,” she said. “You like the costume?”

  I put a cushion under my head as I nodded. “If I drop off, don’t let me sleep longer than an hour. Don’t turn down the music. It’s just right.”

  “I’m going to the theater now. I’ll set the alarm clock for you.”

  “OK.”

  “By the way, that review is a must. It’s on the web,” she mentioned.

  “I’ll read it. Did you know they’ve caught on to the business with the guy in Iraq?”

  “No, you’re kidding. What happened?”

  “I’ll tell you later. I’m too tired now.”

  Up to Date was a political and cultural talk show with universal appeal and a studio audience. The host was a skinny woman with a shrill voice who could cut off every guest with that vocal cleaver, so there was no straying from the topic: the Croatian reporter missing in Iraq. It was to be the final showdown between me and Milka, on the TV battlefield, like in an epic folk song.

  I was frightened, but they called me a hundred times on my mobile, threatening me to make sure I attended. In the end the big boss himself called me. By nature he was perhaps even more perilous than Milka. I tried to convince him that it would be better for someone else to go in my stead; but no, he fiercely insisted that I was the one. He told me that he would do everything in his power to make my life worse if I didn’t go. So he ordered me to go and tell my tale and make a stand against her with arguments; she couldn’t make accusations without evidence, he said, whoever’s mother she was.

  So there I was finally—Up to Date due to begin any minute. I was sitting in the studio, my nose powdered, in the black blazer I wear to premieres and funerals and which people in my village recognize me by. Beside me sat Pero the Chief in a Versace suit and glasses; he was there to stiffen my spine and protect the firm as the second line of defense in case my first line was breached, or I fled. With us sat GEP’s running dog, the little guy who penned the article (they called him Gruica), as well as two neutral commentators who’d have to make up their minds whose side they were on: the president of the Croatian journalists’ association, and a bearded sociologist, who’d written some book. And there, arriving with some delay, was a government representative, a chargé d’affaires from the Foreign Ministry. The Chief told me that if Boris had really disappeared the government would now officially have to search for him, so that would no longer be my job.