Best European Fiction 2013

by Unknown

  Joachim Kaiser now has the undivided attention of this small town’s citizens. From time to time, a head shakes in the crowd, indicating disagreement, but then again it’s likely that more agree than don’t. Joachim is enjoying the performance, his big day. Enjoying his consternation, which he throws off like a mountain shedding sheets of snow in an avalanche. He removes his jacket, his shoes, socks, and trousers, and throws them, to the astonishment of all present, on the ground. He no longer cares to wear them. Plenty of people look terrible without their trousers, socks, shoes, and jacket on, wearing, in other words, only their shirt, tie, and underpants. Joachim Kaiser does, too. But he doesn’t mind, since he now thinks that only idiots would mind. The boy, still sitting there, watching the show, suddenly giggles out loud. It is not the giggling of ridicule, but the innocent giggling of a child pleased by a prank that had been successful beyond his expectations.

  “We must strip off the ties by which Society binds us. That’s an order, ladies and gentlemen! You may think to yourself, oh but Society is a swell thing. Why free yourself when we all stand to benefit? Intoxicants, it just so happens, have the effect of increasing one’s momentary sense of well-being. And why, may I ask, has this ‘swell Society’ banned drugs?”

  He himself can’t really say. Well, drugs are bad. They wreak havoc upon body and mind. That’s why they’re illegal. This is confirmed by several voices.

  “You might argue, and rightly, that such substances are addictive, they are harmful, both psychologically and physically. But Society? Who among you could claim not to be addicted to Society and its morals? Hobbled, even, by its social mores! I wouldn’t believe anyone here who says he’s remained untouched. Because in that case you wouldn’t stand around here conforming. You’d be like me, half-naked, on this little square, in this little town, in this little country, running around and saying just whatever came into your head without thinking. But I know I can’t ask that of you. Because if you did something like that, what would everyone think?”

  He pulls off his tie and shirt and throws them into the garbage can. Now he has nothing on but his underwear. He touches the cotton fabric and thinks a moment. No, he won’t do it. He doesn’t quite dare. The bystanders know their own minds, but no matter, they want to see what he does, and above all, if he’ll really do it.

  “Starting now I will call myself a refugee. I’d like to live. Really to lead the life I would have had without Society: run to India barefoot, dance naked on the Champs-Élysées, tear up train tracks, smoke weed on an airplane, be Napoleon.”

  He laughs and enumerates the other feats he’d like to carry off. Now a man steps forward from the fifth or sixth row, where he’d been listening. It’s Julius. Joachim’s colleague in the small town’s well-respected law firm and beyond.

  “Joachim? What are you doing here? We’ve been getting worried about you. Shouldn’t you have been back at work hours ago?”

  “Leave me alone, Julius. I’m not coming back.”

  “What’s that, Joachim? Why don’t we forget the whole thing and you come along with me.”

  “Don’t you see that you’re one of them?”

  Julius thinks about it. Joachim wants to tell him something, apparently, but Julius doesn’t understand what he means.

  “One of who? Joachim, what are you talking about? And why are you practically naked?”

  “Because I don’t care anymore what your sort thinks of me. I’ve spent long enough in your little club and I’ve played along with your game. But now I want to do what I want with my life, whatever I feel like.”

  “Joachim, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “Of course you don’t, because you haven’t perceived the game.”

  “What game?”

  “You’re a puppet of Society. Can’t you see that?”

  “Cut this out. There’s no such thing as ‘being a puppet of society.’ Society is nothing but a social construct that eases the task of collective living.”

  “Society is a cult. Yes, that’s right. And you’re one of them.”

  “Don’t make a complete fool of yourself, Joachim.”

  Julius stands very close to Joachim and tries to placate him. Joachim, though, goes dancing around Julius, and mimics him, and won’t be reasoned with. He laughs, apes Joachim’s movements, and produces indefinable noises.

  “You’re one of them. You’re so good about doing your job. You’ve got a wife, and a family, and on Sunday you go off to Church, just like you should. Now tell me: Why do you do all that? Because you really want to? Or because Society has you completely conditioned?”

  Julius is at a loss. He’s lost his connection to Joachim. And Joachim, in turn, has lost his connection to Reality.

  “What are you getting at, Joachim? Of course there are days when I don’t feel like going to work. But all things considered, I’m satisfied with my life.”

  “That’s not what I mean. Is the content of your life what you want it to be?”

  “Yes, I think it is.”

  “Wrong!”

  “Wrong?”

  “Wrong! You only think it’s what you want it to be, but really you have no free will at all. Your actions and your will are determined by Society. The only escape is to break free altogether.”

  “We’re born into society. It’s not something you can just undo.”

  “Not just like that, maybe, but it’s possible.”

  Julius doesn’t know exactly how to handle this talk with Joachim. You can’t force someone to understand. It’s just not that simple.

  “I don’t believe in the predetermination of my life by society. I feel like I’m a free individual.”

  Joachim laughs. Julius has stepped into a trap he seems not to have recognized.

  “Because Society wants you to feel that way. Everyone feels like a free individual, but tell me—really—is that so unique?”

  Joachim pulls off his underpants and throws them in the trash, cheered by the looks on the bystanders’ faces. A few think it’s funny. Others are outraged. Julius most of all, because it’s up to him to deal with Joachim. What’s more, he is now visibly uncomfortable in his role, and wishes he’d never gotten involved. But it’s too late for that.

  “Joachim! Pull yourself together. You can’t do this, just running around naked.”

  “Oh yes I can. I can and Society can kiss my ass. Not my ass with powder and pants on it, but my bare-naked ass, shitty and hairy and tooting at all of you.”

  “Joachim, I’m sorry—I can’t condone this.”

  Julius goes running off. A middle-aged woman fights her way through the crowd and pulls the boy from the circle that’s formed there. Disappointed, he allows himself to be dragged off. For him it was an outstanding show, a rare sight on the little square, in the little town. Joachim, visibly moved by the departure of his former friend Julius, turns naked to the crowd and begins his victory speech.

  “Julius can’t take it: he can’t take freedom. Hardly anyone can. But even if they come and get me, even if they lock me up, even then I’ll still be freer than all of you.”

  Joachim runs in a circle, whoops, giggles, enjoys the attention of the embarrassed onlookers, whose interest has yielded to disgust. Who should be the one to pull the plug? More and more embarrassed glances cast about for the hero who has yet to arrive. No one wants to be the hero. But the catastrophe is stopped midstream by Julius, returning in the company of two policemen. Julius indicates Joachim, still shrieking, spewing more testimony in favor of freedom. The policemen take hold of him and lead him away. Julius turns and faces the throng.

  “His name was Joachim. Joachim Kaiser. He was a lawyer. Twenty-eight years old. His whole life he was perfectly average. He was trained to be that way by society. Always eager to do what was asked of him. Just don’t stand out, that was the accepted slogan, something to live up to.”

  At the pauses in his speech he gathers the items of Joachim’s clothing scattered on the ground.r />
  “Joachim never understood that one can be happy and know society is a cult. Even conscious of that fact—one can enjoy the advantages of society. Do I believe society has predetermined my desires? Perhaps, but as long as it’s possible to call oneself free, I don’t really care.”

  Mumbled agreement. Still, this scene with its average lawyer has made an impression. The people have been made to think. Even Julius is no longer so certain. He tosses a lit match, and the pile of clothing springs up into cheerful flames.

  The next morning, the front page of the small town’s small-time newspaper carries the story of a little boy who used his toy truck to rescue imaginary people from the blaze of an imaginary house fire.

  TRANSLATED FROM GERMAN BY AMY KERNER

  [SPAIN: BASQUE]

  BERNARDO ATXAGA

  Pirpo and Chanberlán, Murderers

  Neither of them knew what “carte blanche” meant, but if, during the Spanish Civil War, someone had bothered to explain it to them, they would both have replied in unison: “That’s us! That’s what we’ve been given!” And they wouldn’t have been far wrong. These two friends— famous for their robberies and for the raids they used to make on village fiestas, picking up villagers in a truck and carrying them off to the city’s brothels—were capable of killing a person purely on the say-so of some Don or Doña. In fact, they killed as many people as they could, because they were murderers and because there was always someone to give them a good reason for murdering.

  Pirpo had the slender build of a dancer. Chanberlán looked more like a lion-tamer. Whenever they chanced upon some hapless clown, the three of them formed a charming circus act, whose motto was: “One performance only. See it and never live to tell the tale.” It was said that among those who had attended such a performance were Portaburu, a farm-worker from Obaba kidnapped in San Sebastián, and Goena Senior and Junior, killed in Obaba itself, near the house where they lived. It was also said that when Chanberlán shot them in the head, Pirpo had been only a few feet away practicing the steps of a waltz.

  However, after 1940, it suited the Dons and the Doñas to act with more discretion. By then, Pirpo and Chanberlán’s circus had become old hat; they had put on one performance too many, and, besides, their act, it seemed, did not go down very well in other countries. “We’ve had enough of dances and tricks with lions,” said the Dons and the Doñas. “Now it’s the turn of the courts; mind you, they put on a pretty good show as well.” From then onward, Pirpo and Chanberlán’s situation changed considerably, and they began to feel rather worried, as if they had lost something. “We’ve lost our carte blanche,” Pirpo tried to say to Chanberlán one day, but, since he did not know the expression, he had to keep quiet, and the worm—that sense of unease—remained inside him. For a while, he even lost the desire to dance.

  Pirpo loved champagne and dining on lobster and crayfish and on seafood in general at tables adorned with linen cloths; Chanberlán, on the other hand, spent most of his money in dimly lit clubs and brothels. Women did not, as they did with Pirpo, succumb to him because of his pretty face. Because there was nothing pretty about it.

  In this new situation, a shortage of funds soon became a serious problem. They had no talent for business, whether underhand or aboveboard; they had no training or experience, and so could not take up respectable posts in government enterprises; they found it hard to imagine themselves working in a tobacconist’s or driving a taxi and unhesitatingly rejected the offer of such employment from one of their former sponsors.

  They resumed their circus act and took up smuggling Portuguese emigrants into France. They would collect ten or twelve of them on the Spanish-Portuguese border, usually in the Salamanca region, and having stowed them away in a truck and driven them as far as the Pyrenees, would drop them off while they were still on the Spanish side, in the valleys of Ansó or Hecho. “This is France,” they would tell them. “Just follow that road and in a couple of hours you’ll reach the town of Tarbes.” Two hours later, the Portuguese would find themselves instead in a Spanish police station, and three days later, they would be back in Portugal, in Trás-os-Montes or the Alentejo. Back where they started, but minus their money.

  Occasionally, there would be some hitches in the performance, and the Portuguese emigrants would give voice to doubts, would protest or else demand proof that they really were in France. Pirpo— for he was the more communicative of the two—protested as much or more than they did and bemoaned their lack of trust. Then he would turn to Chanberlán. “If you don’t believe me, ask him,” he would tell the emigrants. And when they saw the gun in the hand of that man who looked like a lion-tamer, not only would they stop complaining, they would lower their eyes and apologize.

  Time passed and 1944 arrived, and Pirpo began to grow bored and to miss the old days when, without any need for all this hassle, fortune had smiled on them, and they had enjoyed comfort and wealth and the freedom to do as they pleased—“carte blanche,” he would have said, had he known the expression. He didn’t want to spend the rest of his life travelling from Portugal to the Pyrenees and from the Pyrenees to Portugal. They had to do something. Otherwise, they would have no option but to close the circus down. But if they did that, how would they pay for the champagne, the crayfish, and the lobster? How would Chanberlán pay for the love of women?

  Then, out of the blue, one of the Dons or Doñas sent them a message. An elderly couple in France, in Lourdes to be precise, were in need of a guide. They wanted to cross the Pyrenees into Spain as soon as possible and would pay handsomely for any help they were given. As soon as he got this message, Pirpo began to dance: he had a good feeling about this new job. A day and a half later, when he went to Lourdes and learned more details, he not only danced, he skipped and sang. If he could, he would have leapt into the air and flown.

  In the dingy hotel at which they were staying in the holy city, he set out the details to Chanberlán: “Do you know what they call this old man who wants to cross into Spain? Le Roi du Champagne! The King of Champagne! And he’s loaded. If what his maid told me is true, they’ll be traveling with a suitcase stuffed with jewels and money …”

  Chanberlán did not like to be rushed. “If he’s so rich, why does he want to escape from France?” he asked. Pirpo explained that France was now in the hands of a general called De Gaulle, and that the King of Champagne had collaborated with the Nazis and with Pétain, De Gaulle’s enemy, and that his collaboration could now mean him facing either the gallows or a firing squad. “And how come the maid told you about the suitcase?” Chanberlán wanted to know. “Because she liked my face,” replied Pirpo, executing a few waltz steps. Chanberlán shrugged. It was always the same with women. Him they asked for money, but they happily gave it to Pirpo or else told him where to find it. “Oh, great! It’s snowing!” exclaimed Pirpo, looking out of the window. “What do you expect, it’s the end of November!” said Chanberlán grumpily. “But you do see what good news it is, don’t you?” Pirpo said. “Of course I do. We take the suitcase off them and then we kill them.” They had worked together in their circus for a long time and knew each other intimately.

  Pirpo thought deeply and that night—the night before they were due to set off—he was worried. They had to take the suitcase from the old couple and kill them, but how? He was aware of the situation they were in: it wasn’t 1936 or 1937, it wasn’t even 1938, 1939 or 1940, and they lacked something that had been most useful to them during the war, something he could not quite define. Anyway, the fact was that they could not kill as they had in the old days. Still less someone as important as the King of Champagne.

  When it grew light, he got out of bed and went over to the window. It was still snowing. And the snow was getting heavier and heavier. All the paths in the Pyrenees would be blocked, impassable. He suddenly launched into a very merry dance and went bounding over to the room where Chanberlán was sleeping. “Eureka!” he would have cried had he known the expression, but, as with “carte blan
che,” he did not, and so had to make do with ordinary words. “I’ve got a plan!” he said to his companion. Chanberlán was still half-asleep and didn’t want to waste his time on silly stories. “So have I!” he retorted angrily. “We whack them over the head with a stone and that will be that!” “Listen to me, you idiot!” said Pirpo, grabbing his arm and shaking him. “Don’t push your luck, Pirpo!” warned Chanberlán, opening his eyes, and Pirpo immediately apologized for calling him an idiot. He and Chanberlán may have worked for years together in their circus, but Chanberlán’s eyes still frightened him.

  Pirpo’s idea was an excellent one and very easy to carry out. They would set off into the snowy mountains and would lead the King of Champagne and his wife along the wrong path. “Oh, sorry, this isn’t the right way,” they would say after a couple of hours, when they had already walked a fair distance. “It’s easy to get lost in weather like this. We’ll have to turn back.” And so they would turn back and take another path. And once more: “We’ve got lost again.” And off along another path and another few hours in the snow, uphill. Frozen and drenched. And once more: “Oh, no, this is the third time we’ve gone wrong!” “I’ve seen them, Chanberlán,” explained Pirpo. “They must be getting on for seventy. Eight or ten hours of walking in the snow will do our work for us. They’ll die of exhaustion.” “But why the big performance? Why don’t we just bump ’em off as soon as we’re out of Lourdes?” insisted Chanberlán. “They’re French. They’ve got money. If we kill them ourselves, someone might come asking questions. And in France we have no protection.” He didn’t use the expression “carte blanche,” but he came very close.