JANA POLAN
Jana Polan was German and had once been Dabo Joanàs’s lover. She was a photographer and a war correspondent in the Balkans and in Belgrade, where she met Dabo Joanàs, who was working as a translator at the time. Their relationship didn’t last long: Jana Polan was also keeping company with a dentist from Stuttgart, a fact she confessed to Dabo Joanàs, after which—knowing then that he was only sharing her affections—he stormed into the hotel she was staying at and beat her up in front of whatever guests happened to be in the bar at the time. Jana Polan had known that her relationship with the dentist wasn’t going anywhere. He was married and didn’t have any intention of destroying his social status by cutting himself loose from his “ball and chain”—though, as tends to happen in such situations, he had indeed promised Jana Polan that he would separate from his wife and move in with her.
She hadn’t counted on her affair with Dabo Joanàs going any further than a few intense but sporadic rolls in the hay. She hadn’t counted on Dabo Joanàs reacting so violently to her confession. This incident ended up being a definitive push toward a decision she had already half made in her mind: to leave the Balkans.
Back in Germany, after taking a few days off, she decided that she’d do a report on the lives of truck drivers who take on international routes. She got the green light from her boss and joined a driver who was delivering oranges to Valencia. The driver was actually the owner of a small fleet he’d christened with a rather pretentious name: NO TIES TRUCKING. He thought it gave an impression of competence, let people know they could handle any freight or travel any distance. Nevertheless, his entire empire—if we can use this expression, since it was really a rather small and modest empire—had been founded, naturally enough, on loads having been tied down in the back of his trucks…and he accepted this contradiction with conviction and ignorance in equal measure. The driver’s name was Nam Plujao: he was from Hong Kong. He hardly knew a word of German, and even less of anything even slightly resembling a Romance language.
Jana Polan saw all of Europe at Nam Plujao’s side. After submitting her article, with its photographs of highways and truck stops, of the restaurants and hostels where they’d eaten and slept, of Nam Plujao’s Chinese customs, of the cab of his truck, of the kilometers they’d crossed, Jana Polan continued to hang around Nam Plujao. She rode with him a second time—this time for sport, like a game. It was the worst decision of her life.
THE POLICE
“The identified vehicle, a Mercedes-Benz Atego 1223 L, 4×2, white, Dortmund plates, was discovered unoccupied at the 735.6 kilometer mark on highway N-II. The vehicle was on the highway meridian and showed no evidence of having suffered an accident or any type of violent intervention. The following items were found in the truck: a cargo of tin toys, one mustard-green backpack, and a scribbled note reading: JUA REME PSO D. Said vehicle matched data previously received from the Criminal Investigation Unit, which intervened at this stage, ending the involvement of the Highway Patrol. This report will be incorporated into file 9/foundry/07.”
“Excerpt from file 9/foundry/07: Two bodies, both Caucasian, were found in the forested region of the township of Mediynà. Two females: one of the women approximately forty years of age, the other approximately twenty, the first wearing a white T-shirt and jeans, the second a black leather mini-skirt and a top with straps, also black. Evidence of violence and probable cause of death in both subjects: deep wounds in the front cranial regions, severing of spinal cords.”
THE TIN TOYS
Jana Polan was sure that the purpose of Nam Plujao’s current trip was to collect a shipment of tin toys in order to take them to Belgium. And it actually was. She saw for herself how they loaded the toys into the truck and how Pim Jo Saleveros, a Vietnamese employee whose mother was from Brazil, checked over the order. Once all of the paperwork was done, the three of them got in the truck for the return trip. Jana Polan found something magical about these long hauls—they soothed her. She’d had plenty of experience with complicated situations and so wasn’t in the least bit anxious about whatever unexpected problems might crop up on the trip. She was more interested than ever in the kind of life that truck drivers led. She was even thinking about expanding her original article into a novel. A documentary novel, a verisimilar one filled with real faces and protagonists made of flesh and bone—not a historical novel full of bizarre museums where nonsensical characters dig out medieval mysteries thanks to the help of just-as-bizarre archives; not a novel full of political conspiracies and corrupt lawyers; not a novel stuffed with the kind of literary detritus that a common reader wouldn’t even be able to follow…No. A novel about a truck driver. Jana Polan honestly thought that writers shouldn’t be people who stay at home being quietly astonished by the perplexities of the world, but out in the world, wading through it themselves. What she didn’t realize was that it was just as possible to be preoccupied with all those perplexities when you were on the move. She’d heard noises in the truck on their way to pick up the toys. They sounded like groans. She didn’t pay any attention. The two truckers had the radio on, and the music was always up loud. They screamed over it when they talked to each other. On the way back, she heard the moans again. She decided they were coming from the tin toys rubbing against each other.
She had no way of knowing that there was another passenger inside the truck.
CHARLEMAGNE’S RING
The real shame of it all is that Jana Polan was never able to write about all the things she experienced that afternoon: it would have been exactly the real-life story she wanted; the violence with which the Vietnamese with Brazilian roots (or was it the other way around?) forced the other girl out of the truck; how he dragged her by her hair and told her that she had no rights whatsoever, that she’d do whatever she was told, and that she’d better keep her mouth shut. But the girl fought back. That’s when Jana Polan came on to the scene, and became another victim of Pim Jo Saleveros.
The last image that Jana Polan’s mind retained, the last image of her life, was the serene visage of Nam Plujao. She would have put an excellent description of it into her novel.
At the brothel, Dabo Joanàs didn’t usually get into conversations with other clients. One night, however, he asked Nam Plujao and Pim Jo Saleveros whether they’d ever heard of Lake Constance. “It’s not in Romania,” he said, “it’s at the border between Germany, Austria, and Switzerland.” Then, he told them about the legend of the lake.
It was when he was telling them that Charlemagne had fallen in love with the lake, and that he’d stayed there gazing into it forever and ever, that two police officers entered Chez J. Sussane to ask Papà Cess and Reis Pequés if they had ever heard of NO TIES TRUCKING and Jana Polan; they wanted to know if they might somehow be able to connect the murder of the two women with that piece of paper, tossed like a ring into a lake, that read JUA REME PSO D.
AN EPILOGUE
Dabo Joanàs asked one of the prostitutes if she was Romanian. She said yes. He made another reference to Constance and wondered what type of foundry made rings like the one that still rests at the bottom of that lake.
TRANSLATED FROM CATALAN BY ROWAN RICARDO PHILLIPS
[SWITZERLAND]
PETER STAMM
Ice Moon
It wasn’t until I locked up my bike that it dawned on me that something had been out of the ordinary. I went back on foot to the entrance of the industrial compound and saw that the blinds of the gatehouse were closed. I had forgotten in the Christmas confusion that Biefer and Sandoz would go into retirement at the end of the year. At the beginning of December somebody had collected money for a good-bye gift. I had thrown in some money and signed two cards and then thought no more about it. Now I was sad that I hadn’t said good-bye to them.
A map of the complex was glued on the glass door of the gatehouse. Under that was a list of emergency telephone numbers. The fire department, the police, the ambulance, and the number of the administrator. He’d written tha
t he wished all his renters a Happy Holidays and a Happy New Year. The notice was decorated with a clipart picture: a Christmas tree branch and candle.
Formerly, hundreds of people had worked in this factory, but after production and, later, development were both outsourced overseas, the complex emptied until only the two gatekeepers remained. The business itself became a holdings company and moved into offices near the train station. The old brick buildings on the lakeshore stood empty for a long time before being rented out room by room. Artists, architects, and graphic designers now work in the development lab. In the weighing office, a former factory worker had opened a small bar where we would meet at noon for a sandwich or coffee. A violin maker and a cabinetmaker had set up shop in the production wing, and a few start-ups too, though no one really knew what they did. A number of rooms, briefly rented, were already empty again.
The complex had a spectacular location, being on the lake, and every few months there was talk in the newspapers of huge projects in the works, of luxury apartments, a casino, or a shopping center. But they never found the necessary investors. We all had short-term leases that were regularly renewed whenever one of these projects fell apart. The administrator still occasionally showed up with a group of men in dark suits, and we would see them standing around outside, leveling and re-building whole structures with flamboyant gestures. The gateman who was on duty at the time would follow the groups through the complex at a distance and only approach when there was a door to unlock. At first these tours had always led to wild speculation and rumors among us renters, but after a while no one seemed to believe that anything would ever change.
When I came to work in the morning, one of the gatemen would already be there. Biefer mostly sat in the gatehouse, glassed-in on three sides, smoking his pipe and reading the paper. Sandoz would stand outside even in extreme cold, his hands in his coat pockets.
In the early days, the two would hand out the mail, but after we got our own mailboxes, they only received the occasional large package or told a bicycle courier how to find our studios. They took down the numbers of improperly parked vehicles, and sometimes you’d see them walking around the complex, a massive key ring in one hand and a stick for picking up trash from the disused tracks in the other. Still, they were mostly stationed at the gate, which was now always left open, observing silently who entered the complex and who left.
You never saw Biefer and Sandoz together. One relieved the other around noontime and they seemed to be careful not to run into each other. At first I couldn’t tell them apart, though they couldn’t have been any more different. They were only physically similar, both being short and stocky with thinning hair. They both wore a blue uniform. When the weather was bad Sandoz would also wear a black coat and hat made out of synthetic leather. He originally came from French Switzerland, and though he’d already worked here for more than thirty years, he spoke with a strong accent. He was moody: some days he would talk nonstop, but then he would hardly say a word the next, and, when you greeted him, he would act as if he didn’t know you. Biefer, on the other hand, who was local, was almost too friendly. Whenever I ran into him he inquired about my children, whom he’d seen once or twice. We would talk about the weather, about soccer, about local politics. He rarely spoke about himself or his family. He occasionally mentioned his wife in some passing remark. Only once did he tell me about his sons, who lived abroad.
On a cold, foggy morning maybe two months ago, Biefer stopped me. From a distance I had only seen his dark silhouette next to the gatehouse and I’d assumed it was Sandoz. It took until I was very near for me to recognize Biefer. I was waving to him when he raised his hand like a police officer. I stopped my bike next to him, and he asked if I could help with something. I asked what he needed help with. “Not here,” he said in a conspiratorial tone, turning around.
I’d never been in the gatehouse before. In spite of the big, inward-leaning window, the room had a cozy feel. The little oil heater gave off a dry heat, and it smelled sweetly like pipe smoke. Biefer sat down at his console and opened a drawer. He took out a beat-up briefcase and laid it in front of himself without opening it. Then he stood up abruptly and poured two cups of watery coffee without first asking if I wanted any. He handed me a cup and pointed to a plate with rolls on it in front of him.
“Honey cakes,” he said, “if you like those.”
There was only one chair. Biefer had sat down, so I stood behind him in the shadows and looked down at his wide head, at the stringy gray hairs between which the rosy skin of his scalp could be seen. He filled his pipe but didn’t light it. He seemed not to know where to begin. More than once he started speaking, got muddled, coughed. In between he would wave to the people driving into the complex. He said he’d originally been a baker but had had to give up the profession because of an allergy to flour. He always loved to travel. Sports, on the other hand, didn’t interest him. Outside of soccer, of course. He said he’d married young. At the time that was the custom. He didn’t regret anything. He said that several times. He didn’t regret anything.
After a few minutes of talking like this, I finally understood what it was all about. At the end of the year, when he retired, Biefer wanted to emigrate to Canada and open a bed-and-breakfast there. I asked, why Canada, of all places?, but Biefer didn’t reply. He talked about the visa application he’d sent in months ago, about a points system: in addition to education and knowledge of French and English, age and financial assets played a role. Not long ago he’d received a letter from the Canadian embassy in Paris that he didn’t understand. He said that he hadn’t spoken any French since school, and that was fifty years ago now. He’d been taking English courses for a few months, but he was just too old to learn yet another language. He opened the light brown briefcase, took out the topmost sheet, then closed the briefcase again. He handed me the letter. In complicated French legalese, the applicant was requested, further to the completion of his dossier, to send an up-to-date list of all his assets as well as the appropriate documentation, which would all have to be sent on the same date. When I explained what it meant to Biefer, he seemed relieved. He asked me not to tell anyone about his plans, least of all Sandoz.
I had nearly forgotten about it when Biefer stopped me again a few weeks later. He made a conspiratorial face and motioned for me to follow him into the gatehouse. It was shortly before Christmas and on the console was a sparse arrangement of Christmas tree branches, two silver ornaments, and a thick, unlit candle. Next to this was the light brown briefcase. Biefer opened it, took out a sheet, and handed it to me, beaming. His visa application had been accepted. He thanked me for my help. I said that it really wasn’t worth mentioning. He hesitated and then opened the briefcase once more and left it lying open in front of us. Inside was a red envelope from a photo lab. Biefer took out a stack of pictures and laid them slowly and carefully next to each other on the desk. The photographs hardly differed from one another. A forest could be seen in all of them, short trees and scrub, and sometimes a gravel road in the foreground. Biefer’s hands hovered over the photos, making him look like a fortune-teller trying to read the future from cards. That was his land, he finally said, in Nova Scotia. He took some papers from the briefcase and spread them out in front of us—a deed of purchase, a passport, a plane ticket, a tourism brochure, and some post cards. At the bottom of the briefcase was a land survey on which an irregularly formed lake and a few tracts of land were plotted, all covered over with handwritten notes. One of the tracts had been circled carefully in red marker. In the middle of the property two rectangles had been drawn on in pencil, under which I saw the traces of previously erased attempts. He would build his house there, Biefer said, a cabin with ten guest rooms and a large lounge, with his apartment on the floor above. The small rectangle would be the garage.
Though I was standing next to him, I couldn’t see his face while he explained the project to me, but his voice sounded enthusiastic and full of energy. He said he’d bought t
he property years ago: ten thousand square meters for thirty thousand Canadian dollars. True, he wouldn’t have direct access to the lake, but the property was on the main road, which would be good for business. At the end of the year he’d fly to Halifax. From there it’d be two hours by car. He’d already been there a year ago. The area was absolutely beautiful: sure, a little secluded, but there was a lot of potential. A paradise for hunters and fishermen.
I couldn’t imagine Biefer in the Canadian forests. He was pale, his face was bloated, and he didn’t seem very healthy. But he kept going on and on about his land and about Nova Scotia. The area was as far south as Genoa, he said. In the summer it could get warmer than thirty degrees Celsius. The winters, however, were cold and snowy. He said that building permits were easy to come by, and gas cost only half of what we paid for it here.
I asked him why he wanted to move away in the middle of winter, whether it wasn’t cold enough for him here. He said it was because he wanted enough time to prepare everything for the tourist season in the summer. Of course the forest would have to be cleared first thing and then the house would have to be built. There was a lot to do. He said that the moving company was coming after the holidays. The contents of his entire house would be loaded in boxes and shipped off. Until the new house was built he would have to store the stuff. I asked him where he would live until his departure. He looked at me as if he’d never thought about that. “And your wife?” I asked. What did she think of these plans? He said that they weren’t plans, they were done deals. Before I left, he asked me again not to tell anyone.
As I exited the gatehouse, I saw Jana, a young artist who had her studio on the same floor as me. She rode her bike over, braking at the last moment and coming to a stop a few centimeters in front of me. She grinned at me and asked if I was playing gateman now. Why not, I said. It wouldn’t be the worst job. “Not stressful. And you get a fixed income.”
Best European Fiction 2010 Page 34
