Best European Fiction 2012

by Aleksandar Hemon

  So I can stand right next to you, I know exactly what’s coming; you don’t like that, do you, someone else being in the apartment? Don’t worry, I won’t do anything. What interests me is, where did you get the funnel from? I mean, who has a funnel in the house nowadays? I haven’t got one. And when I went around to dinner at my mother’s place the other day I asked her if she happened to have a funnel, a—is that what you call it?—a kitchen funnel. I remember us having a funnel, but we used to live somewhere else back then. I used to play with that funnel, it was blue, I think, and there’s plenty of things you can do with a funnel: I put it on my dolls’ heads like a hat; the tin man in Alice in Wonderland, no, The Wizard of Emerald City (that’s the Russian version of The Wizard of Oz) had one of the things on his head too, but that wasn’t a kitchen funnel, it was a metal one for oil and petrol and all that; if I put the funnel on the floor between my Indians and knights it was the roof of a mystical temple where an evil spirit lived, who could rise up and down through the pipe, depending on what mood he was in, and if he had to kill knights and Indians dead outside he’d go in, out, in, out; and the best thing was to hold that multi-purpose funnel in front of your mouth or up to your ear, and everything sounded strangely clear but with an underlying sound of static, and with the funnel up to your mouth you could shout and yell like hell! “Ladies and gentlemen, here come the champions BSG Chemie Leipzig, a big round of applause for Captain Manfred Walter as he holds the cup up in the air with the trainer Alfred Kunze! And the 30,000 people in the audience are singing, their voices rising in a joyful chorus . . .”

  CAUSE OF DEATH: SUFFOCATION. You’d got the packing tape ready beforehand, I know that: brown adhesive tape, maybe you even bought it at the stationer’s by St. Martin’s Bridge, or at Schlecker, they have that kind of thing there too, I think. Or maybe your mother had it at home anyway, it always comes in handy: Christmas packages, cleaning and mending; she had a funnel too, didn’t she, it was a well-run household, you can’t say a word against her on that front. HE PLANNED TO SEAL HER MOUTH WITH TAPE TO SMOTHER HER CRIES FOR HELP. And this is where you start losing me, no matter how hard I try to understand you. Because there are a hell of a lot of dead ends in your planning. You got so greedy for her body, I’d say, that you could only keep your eye on a certain area, you could only concentrate so far. I mean who hasn’t been through it, not that I mean to compare the two: you meet a woman at a club or wherever, and even though you’re in a relationship, happily married if you like, you end up at her place or your place, and all you think about is all the exciting stuff coming up and what it’ll feel like, not all the dominoes that go clack, clack, clack, tipping over one after another and making a mess of everything. Not meaning to compare the two though. Clack, clack, clack. You had enough time, mind you, you spent days watching her, imagining over and over what it must be like, how it must feel, but when you’ve done what you’re planning with her, what then? And where do you put her? You didn’t think of convincing her to keep quiet, like some pedophiles do, did you? No, you came straight out with the tape when she’d only been sitting on the sofa for two minutes. But I’ve said already that you’re a special case, not a real pedophile I assume in the scientific, medical, and whatever else sense; I suppose we’d have to dissect your mind and poke a long thin needle in there to really get a look at your thought-streams . . . and look, I’ve got something, an image, or more like a sound, “Granny and Mommy, Granny and Mommy, Granny and Mommy, Granny and Mommy!” Jesus H. Christ, does it never stop, let’s pull that needle out quick, sever the contact; and look, just because you grow up with your granny and mommy, have a slight genetic problem, are sexually frustrated and don’t know about the birds and the bees . . . no, let’s stick to the facts. Facts. Facts, facts, facts. ISOLATED EVEN IN JAIL.

  You wouldn’t last a minute; the murderers, thugs, and thieves would beat the shit out of you, and maybe even worse than that. A friend of mine told me how they showed a rapist what’s what in Torgau, I mean in the prison there, Fort Zinna it’s called; a rapist who raped women like normal, the ones who rape children CHILDREN ARE DEFENSELESS INFO@LEIPZIG-CHILD-PROTECTION.DE get sent somewhere else to be on the safe side, like you now. You’ll be out in ten years if you’re lucky, you can get tried as a minor up to the age of twenty-one if need be and you’re only nineteen, but you’re retarded enough—sorry, I didn’t mean it like that, I wanted to stick to the facts, I really am interested in how everything works inside of you, looking over your shoulder a little, having a little chat . . . Weren’t you scared, by the way, when they set up that kind of vigilante group in our neighborhood, just after they found her body out by the pond; death penalty for child molesters it said on the T-shirts, in old German typeface; someone offered me one but I said no. One evening they marched through the neighborhood with flaming torches, there were candles as well and a couple of normal enraged and grieving citizens, death penalty for child molesters. The stupid thing was that her uncle, on her father’s side I think, is a well-known neo-Nazi around here. And then the NPD was on the case pretty quick, drinking beer on the torch-lit march through the neighborhood, starting at the school and then out to the pond you chose. Did you know I used to play there a lot as a kid? It’s in a little wooded area, isn’t it, that pond, it’s called Stötteritz Copse; we didn’t like walking through it once it got dark. And believe it or not, right by the lake was a wooden playground, it’s not there anymore and it was pretty rundown already back then, the drunks used to hang around there; believe it or not a man showed me his dick there once, I must have been eight or nine, maybe ten. He was standing by a bush to have a piss, and I came past with my friend J. H., who I wanted to live with in a house in the forest back then (but not in this wood, we were thinking more of Mecklenburg in the countryside), remember? We had a cart with us and we wanted to go up the hill, you must know it, and race down it in the cart. We used to do that a lot, I was usually the pilot and he just pushed us off, and I used to have awful accidents with that cart, it’s a wonder I never broke any bones. And this dirty bastard comes along and blocks the way, standing right on the path, his tool hanging out—it didn’t look healthy, I remember that—dangling out of his trousers. Grinning at us, and us standing there with our cart and not knowing what to do. It’s a narrow path, so the two of us back up and run away from him quick. It was an autumn afternoon, dark. You must have passed by the spot, that night when you took her to the pond.

  So all sorts of paths crossed there, between the years: yours, mine, the torch-lit march, the police bringing up the rear. No, I don’t want to insult the grief of ordinary people, that’s not my style. You know what I said to them when they wanted to push one of their death penalty for child molesters T-shirts on me? I said I think it’s better if they lock people like that away—I wasn’t thinking of you in particular—because that’s when an animal suffers most, isn’t it? But don’t worry, I only said that so I didn’t look like a wuss—take my word for it, most people around here want to see you dead, now more than ever, and they didn’t even know you back then, didn’t know about the funnel. DEGRADATION OF THE VICTIM.

  And you know what, they’ve got a point, it’s hard for me to deal with too, no matter how much sympathy I can find for you. I DIDN’T SEE ANY SIGN OF REGRET. The teddy bear, the teddy bear, he’s on the brink of deep despair . . . I’m scared if I turn around there’ll be two little girls standing hand in hand in the middle of my study, staring at me wide-eyed. Like in that film, you won’t know it: The Shining. Do you know what it is, the “shining” in the film? It’s not unlike what I did before with the long thin needle . . . images and sounds, telepathy, you get it? But the two of us don’t have that gift, I hope. And me in the apartment, and you in the apartment, and her in the apartment. Why two little girls, you’ll ask me, when you only had room in your heart for that one girl and got so attached that everything else . . . I can’t tell you why exactly. There’s this little bar inside the station, Leipzig
Central Station, where the dead sit; I saw her there once and there was another little girl with her . . . but no, you must know her too, her creator was inside with you; I mean, creator just means it was his fault she was in the bar. Back to the beginning. And you met him in jail; well, met might not be the right word, but the guy was the only person they dared to put you together with. Because they have to stop you from getting lonely and going stir crazy—there’s a medical term for when people go mad in solitary confinement and deteriorate mentally but I can’t think what it is right now. So they let you have a little chat with him now and then, eat your meals together and that kind of thing, because he’s just as much at risk as you, when it comes to loneliness and getting beaten to death, or let’s say getting assaulted at least. The two of you weren’t all that different after all, even though the guy was in his late thirties; I mean, you were probably as different as night and day but there’s that one thing that changed everything, everything there is . . . Especially for the girls of course, the ones I saw in the bar where you see things you’re not supposed to see; but that’s not why I’m here today, is it? THE CHRONOLOGY OF THE DRAMA.

  I have to admit it: I’m a gambler. A betting man. I like putting a little on the horses. I like to try and back a winner, and the second and third place too. It’s all a matter of probabilities, you see. Calculations, that’s what we tell ourselves: calculations, statistics, and probabilities. But in reality it’s also a matter of something as profane as Lady Luck and coincidence. I was at a race not long ago, the horse bolted and threw the jockey just before the start, and this trusty steed galloped and galloped because it couldn’t do anything else and it didn’t know anything else . . . but I meant to tell you about the race where my favorite horse—mind you, that’s going too far, I’ve got a couple of favorite horses, Mharadonno, Overdose (the wonder horse from Hungary), Secret Affair, Dream Star, Deep Sleep, Westphalian Storm . . . NOW SHE’S A STAR IN THE SKY. Children like horses.

  But the one I’m talking about is my favorite horse, Califax. I really like him because he once won a race called the “Clemens Meyer Cup.” I’d backed the old boy on the nose a few weeks before, two hundred euros; oh yeah, that’s a lot of cash, isn’t it? And then he only came in second. He didn’t quite make it that time around. And then there’s this other race I want to tell you about, he was in with good odds on that one. Looking at the probability, he might have—it was pretty likely actually because he knew the track in the city of L. and he liked it—he might have been first past the post. And then: WHAM, the horses come out of the starting boxes, and my boy falls back instantly. Something’s not right, I think. And that’s exactly it, he gets stopped, something wrong with his bones and his tendons, the race goes on without him; those are just the Ifs, the Ifs, the Ifs. What’s that got to do with you, you ask? With her and with you? I don’t know what made me think of it either, it’s just that those are the things that go right through and through you, and you have to, you just have to react to them, I mean talk about it. Because here’s me standing behind you, well not right behind you, you’re still in the other room and I’m quite a way back in the hall of this place where you live with your mother, who’s not here now. No, you can’t see me; the spool runs and runs, the projector clatters, flashes of light on the edge of your vision, and I’m the man who makes the odds, who weighs up the probabilities, and hopes for Lady Luck.

  And she’s out of the room while you’re still fumbling with the tape. And for someone whose motor skills are . . . let’s say “limited,” you’re up out of your seat pretty damn fast. Starting box: WHAM. Throw the good expensive tape away. (Don’t forget to tidy up before Mother comes home!) Maybe she didn’t run all that determinedly (wasn’t sure if she had to run or just say “I want to go home”). And even if you can’t hear it, I’m screaming back in the hall: “Go, go, go!” and “Just the last few yards!” and she really is almost out of the front door by the time you come toddling up. Now I have to turn around, my face to the wall; I don’t know if she had her hand on the door handle. Probably did, I think; when a teddy like you turns into a grizzly all you want to do is reach out for the door handle, and she must have noticed, now at the very latest, that the teddy who was always so nice at school . . . but I can’t watch anymore; I’m turning away at the back of the hall, my face to the wall, even though I promised you before I’d look over your shoulder, but my favorite horse, Califax—he was dead too soon after. You start to stutter, “I-I-I-I . . . i-i-i-it j-just ha-ha-happened, I didn’t me-me-mean . . .” (“Granny and Mommy! Granny and Mommy! Granny and Mommy! Granny and Mommy!”) If only she’d gotten out into the corridor somehow, luck and probability, and you’re not the fastest mover, are you? But then I hear the sounds, pretty muffled and dull, and no screaming, just a gurgling, something crunching and breaking, and I don’t dare to turn around in my study, and her face in the photo next to me, a grin I have to hide between my books. And when I do turn around everything’s empty, and I hear you fumbling around in the kitchen. They’re sounds that go through time and space. Something crunching and breaking. Was that in the hall just now or not until the kitchen? There’s a clanking and a jingling; you’re going through the kitchen cupboards. The funnel. TEETH BROKEN, LOWER JAW DISLOCATED.

  What on earth were you thinking? I don’t mean in general, just in that situation. I’m asking you very carefully, putting two fingertips on your shoulder just as carefully. You twitch because you don’t want to think about it. You know, there was alcohol involved with my first girls, but not that way, you know, not that way at all . . .

  Left, right, left, I have to get my strength together and march around the hall, back and forth, back and forth, boots slamming against the ground, death penalty for child molesters, while you, while you . . . Jesus, I need a drink, and I’d like to ask politely, and I do ask you politely, but the wine bottle’s empty now, half empty at least; and I don’t want to drink from it anymore, even though your mouth wasn’t even on it. All right, I say, all right, if that’s the way it is I’ll go then. But there’s no way out, no way out . . . and you don’t see me, and you don’t hear me, and because I’m there where I am I have to see everything, and I do see it, even if I turn away, my face to the wall: The Shining. 0.083 PERCENT BAC.

  There’s not much left for us to tell, is there? You couldn’t even get it up, just used your fingers once she was already dying, after the funnel and the wine and the beating and the strangling. It’s not that easy, is it? When sex was always so far away, in the mind and in the flesh. And then everything was spick-and-span again by the time your mother came home; how quickly a person can be propped up in the closet down half a flight of stairs. And a quick kick of the fallen tooth under the fridge. Did you ejaculate? They didn’t say anything about that anywhere, you see, not even in court . . . but I was only there the one day, and I was a little distracted at times, I have to admit. By you, some of the time, I mean, the way you squatted there, the two cops behind you, arms folded, not that you could have held them any other way, what with the cuffs around your wrists—