Crumbs (15 page)

We stood there and he gave no sign of an invitation to sit down.

‘What's happened to that coffee?' I asked.

He opened the door and shouted sweetly, ‘Annie, darling is the coffee made?'

It was. He had to go and get it himself. The girl never appeared. I sniffed the coffee first and tried it with the tip of my tongue only. It didn't taste of bitter almonds.

We sipped from our cups.

‘This is your second cup in half an hour.' I pointed to the stain on the carpet. ‘Don't let your blood pressure rise too much.'

I drained the cup right down to the dregs and put it on the bed.

‘I'm going. I've got lots to do.'

He didn't want to keep me there.

He went with me to the corridor.

‘So it's a deal. I'll bring you all the texts and the instructions. Okay?'

‘Okay,' he said.

We said goodbye and I left.

The lock clicked twice behind me.

The bar was empty. I sat in my place and stared in front of me. The Cartier was almost mine. Alfred would print the book for nothing. Poet would pay me for it. I'd buy the aftershave and still have quite a bit of money left. I could, of course, just ask Alfred for a bottle of Cartier as a reward for my silence. But there are gifts only women can give you.

Otherwise you have to earn them.

Boxer rolled through the door. Middle aged, stomach hanging over his trousers. He wasn't really fat, just stocky.

‘Hi, Egon.' He waved to me.

He didn't ask me anything. He ordered two glasses of schnapps at the bar, brought them over, put them on the table, and sat down. We shook hands.

‘They've let you out then?' I started the conversation. He was taken away for alcoholism treatment every few months to hospital, half of which was a lunatic asylum. The two parts of the hospital were separated only by some metal bars.

‘Yes, they've cured me. Or so they say.'

We toasted each other. He emptied his glass with the wonderful movement that only old drunks can make. The position of the bottom lip, so that it moulds itself perfectly around the curve of the glass. Swallowing the liquid in the position of a sword swallower, without it touching the walls of the gullet, going straight to the stomach. Or rather straight to the pelvic bones as the stomach, liver, and kidneys have all been burnt-out by the alcohol. That's
where that characteristic splosh originates, the one that younger and less skilled guys can't quite manage.

‘The doctors still remember you,' he informed me.

I nodded.

‘Those from the other side,' he added. Which meant those from the lunatic asylum. They probably really did still remember me. It wasn't that many years ago.

‘They never wanted to tell me why they had you there.'

He leaned forward and looked at me questioningly.

I smiled at him.

‘I'm not gonna tell you either.'

He didn't mind.

‘You're right. It's none of my business. Everybody's got their own prison.'

We grinned.

The schnapps had already gone from his pelvis to his prick.

‘I'm going to take a piss,' he said and went.

I slowly sipped the schnapps to the bottom of the glass.

He came out of the bathroom and waved to me from there.

‘Hi, Egon.'

He didn't ask anything. He bought two glasses of schnapps at the bar and sat down at my table.

We shook hands.

‘They've let you out then?' I asked.

‘Yes, they've cured me. Or so they say.'

We toasted each other and drank up.

He looked at the empty glasses from the previous round and concluded, ‘You're doing well today.'

I nodded and smiled.

The schnapps had eaten away Boxer's memory, too. Sometimes he'd think he was somewhere else, sometimes
he'd think he was somebody else. He usually mixed his tenses. He was often like this. It had been known for us to say hello like this five times in succession.

He took a newspaper from his pocket and unfolded it. He put a piece of bread and three slices of salami on the table.

‘Want some?'

I did. We ate up. The bread was divided in half. I got one slice of salami and he got two. He went to take a piss. He left the newspaper on the table.

This time he took a long time. I spread the paper out and glanced at the headlines. I looked at the date. It was that day's. And that was the only fresh news in these newspapers. My eyes stopped on the TV program. The clock above the bar told me I had another half an hour. Boxer came and waved to me.

‘Hi, Egon.'

He brought two glasses of schnapps.

‘They've let you out then?' I asked.

‘Yes, they've cured me. Or so they say.'

We shook hands.

‘Since when do you read newspapers?' he asked me and pointed to the table.

‘It's today's. Do you want to read it?'

‘I do.'

‘Just take it.'

I offered him the newspaper. He took it and stuffed it in his pocket.

‘Thanks,' he said.

‘That's all right' I nodded.

We drank up.

He pointed to the empty glasses on the table.

‘You're doing well today.'

I nodded.

‘I don't drink as much as I used to. I'm trying to control myself. This is my first.'

He put the empty glass on the table.

‘But I can't take it anymore. It's already gone to my head.'

‘I can feel it a bit, too, ‘I comforted him.

‘I decided to have only one a day. You've got to have a strong character to keep to that. But then at least I won't have to go to that lunatic asylum. That's what's making me stick to it.'

‘Yes, I'm sure you won't have to go back.' I got up and put my hand on his shoulder. I gave it a firm squeeze. For courage.

‘I know you'll last.'

‘You think so?'

‘I believe in you,' I added firmly. ‘I've got to go, cheers.'

‘Cheers.'

I set off to Karla's.

The critical hour when Karla's alarm clock usually went was coming near. I listened in front of the door. The fuck inducing music was already on the record player. I reached for the bell. Pulled my hand back. Hesitated. Suffered terrible torments of politeness. I rang the bell nevertheless. She wasn't expecting me. She'd put on a different face, not the one intended for me. Her features relaxed, disappeared into facelessness for a moment, and then formed themselves into the face I was used to.

‘Hi, Egon.'

I started, ‘Karla…'

She interrupted me. I was shooting negative answers to fast bursts of questions.

‘Hungry?'

‘No.'

‘Thirsty?'

‘No.'

‘Horny?'

‘No.'

She stopped. She frowned, not understanding.

‘What then?'

‘Karla…'

‘Aaaaa…' She realised. ‘Come in.'

I didn't take off either my shoes or my jacket. She opened the door of a small room on the right that the architect probably designed for a nursery. Karla, at least as far as I knew had no children. She owned a heap of old junk, mainly presents, which nearly filled the small space.

‘I didn't remember straight away. You haven't been for a long time.'

‘Nearly a year. Will I be disturbing you?'

‘No.'

She took a key off the key ring and gave it to me.

‘Lock behind you when you leave—'

‘And put it back through the letter opening, I know.'

She accompanied me to the room and turned on the light. A toilet pedestal was fixed to the middle of the ceiling. A light bulb was hidden in it, illuminating a narrow circle in the middle of the room. The heaped-up junk was lost in the semi darkness.

She didn't step over the threshold. She was going to say something when the bell rang. ‘Just go, Karla.'

We looked at each other. Smiled. She went.

She closed the door behind her.

Years before she used to mix with some modernists, as they called themselves. The room was overflowing with art objects given to her as gifts. The smell of stuffiness was
almost unbearable.

Directly under the light stood a huge red armchair in the shape of a five-pointed star, covered in red artificial leather. The back was shaped like a sickle, and the foot rest like a hammer. In front of the armchair stood an amateur copy of Michelangelo's Pieta.

Some sculpture student probably made it from plaster for practice. There was a Jesus in Mary's lap with a stomach that had been chiselled into a flat shelf, on which a portable black-and-white TV set stood. Mary was bending over across the frame towards the screen sadly. The angle stopped her from seeing anything.

I turned on the TV.

I turned the volume to the lowest audible volume. I didn't want to disturb Karla and her visitor.

I climbed into the armchair. All the remaining time before the beginning of the film I came there to see was taken up by trying to get comfortable.

Without success.

I gave up with my back curled under the sickle and my legs raised high.

The fanfare sounded.

The opening screen came on:

Ingrid Bergman and Humphrey Bogart

in

CASABLANCA

The film I'd watched over and over but always in the same place. In this room. In the middle of this warehouse of abandoned and forgotten modernist junk. In this stuffiness. With Mary, reaching forward to see what it was I stared at so intently, and Jesus, who turned his head away,
not because of death but because of what I could almost swear to be disgust. Opposite us hung Mona Lisa with headphones on.

When the film finished I just sat there. Not because I was particularly touched or because of the mesmerizing effect of images. I found it hard to move because of the paralysis caused by the shape of the armchair.

I switched off the television and quietly crept through the door and across the hall. Karla's laughter could be heard from the bedroom. The man's voice was too quiet and too deep me to be able to make out the words. I could feel it tremble in my diaphragm. Slowly, millimetre by millimetre, I unlocked door. Closed the door and locked it again.

I closed my fist around the key, wanting to take it with me. I came as far as the middle of the corridor before changing my mind. An agreement is an agreement. I pushed it through the opening.

It clinked on the floor.

Karla's laughter changed into giggling.

It was already dark outside. I stopped and leaned on the wall in front of the entrance to the block of flats. I watched the sparks coming out of the chimneys.

I reached for the cigar but changed my mind mid-movement. Cigarettes are more suitable for short stops. I took three puffs and flicked the rest towards the starry sky. I left without waiting to see it fall.

I was overcome by two wishes incompatible with being penniless. To drink beer and to be alone. I stopped in front of the bar, peeping into the lit-up interior.

Boxer had difficulty keeping his head above the table. Swayed to and fro. Somehow I wasn't in the mood for multiplied greetings. I could hear the clinking of full
bottles. After it came the noise of raised heels.

‘Hi, how are you?' Ibro shouted.

He was carting two plastic bags full of half-litre bottles of the fulfilment of my first wish.

I greeted him more pleasantly than usual.

‘Where are you going?'

‘I'm taking this to the dormitory. A whole week's supply'

I couldn't and I didn't want to hide my longing look.

‘If you come with me we could have one or two.'

I went. Took half the load. A sweet burden. I handed him the bottles through the window and then climbed in myself. The wall in the room was still divided in two. I nodded to Nastassja. I sat down on the chair next to a small cabinet separating the two beds. I took the beer out of the bag, put the lower edge of the bottle top against the wood, and hit it. I caught the foam running down the bottle with my mouth. I took a long sip. Opened another bottle for Ibro, who was sitting on his bed.

‘May I ask you something?' he said timidly.

‘About Ajsha?'

‘Yes.'

‘Are you getting anywhere with her?'

‘Yes. I sat opposite her at lunch.'

‘And?'

‘She pretended not to see me.'

I tried to change the subject. Convinced I wouldn't succeed.

‘Where's Selim?'

‘At the cinema.' Ibro rolled his eyes. ‘He watches all the performances. Alone. He's already beaten up half the dormitory.'

‘Yes, I know the story. I was with him yesterday.'

‘I worry about him, you know' He was looking at me
hesitatingly, as if not sure if I could be trusted. I helped him.

‘Why?'

‘Well, maybe it's nothing, but… those photographs he put on the wall…'

‘Yes?'

‘Those are photos of naked women, aren't they?'

‘Yes, of one woman, to be precise. And?'

‘Yes, just that one, what's her name? Not important. At first I thought Selim put them up like any other man does. To help him jerk himself off. So that he doesn't have to go through the cupboard if he needs them in a hurry. You understand?'

‘I understand.' I had difficulties hiding my smile.

‘I'll give you an example. I'm lying on the bed reading comics, when Selim gets up from his bed, stands in front of photos, and stares at them. I think, he'll do it now, so I go out to the corridor not to disturb him. I come back after ten minutes or half an hour and he's still standing motionless just like he was when I went.'

‘You mean he's not jerking himself off.'

‘Yes, and that's what's worrying me. It isn't normal. Is he sick or something?'

I nodded.

‘You're right. There is something wrong there.'

Ibro decided to tell me everything.