Crumbs (11 page)

I wrapped a heavy asbestos coat around my shoulders and put on a hood that covered most of my face. For eyes there were two little windows made of darkened glass.

I looked around the hall. Somebody was poking the fire with a long metal stick. Two other workers were shovelling coal into the furnace. The fourth one was pushing a trolley along the narrow tracks. I helped him push. We tipped the trolley and emptied the contents into a heap. I turned away from the fire and lifted my hood. The guard was already in the hall. He turned right by the door and went up the metal stairs to the gallery, which ran along the whole wall to the stairs leading down to the exit. I pushed the hood back onto my face. We pushed the trolley to the two workers who started filling it with their shovels.

‘Is that you Egon?' said my temporary co-worker. He lifted his hat. It was lbro.

I did the same. A quick look around. The guard wasn't there anymore.

I took off the hood and put it under my arm.

‘Hi Ibro. How did you recognize me?'

‘I smelled you.'

I hadn't had any Cartier on for two days now. The scent that had been absorbed into my skin must have been brought out by my sweat, which was flowing profusely. I was too used to the smell to notice it.

Ibro looked shocked.

‘Do you work here, too?'

I grinned widely.

‘No, oh no. Let's say I'm just passing through.'

The trolley was full.

‘Are you in a hurry?'

‘No'

‘Wait for me then. I'll just take this and then I can go and eat'

‘Okay,' I nodded.

He pushed the hood back onto his face and shoved at the trolley.

‘l've got to tell you something,' he added before he concentrated on flexing and torturing his muscles.

I stood by the exit and leaned on the fence along the stairs from the gallery.

The two who were filling the trolley put their shovels against the wall and left. Ibro was hanging his coat and hood on the hanger. I joined him and took off mine.

The cold outside made me shiver. I felt my back with my palm. My clothes were soaked.

Ibro offered me a cigarette and lit it with a match. He looked around as if to make sure there'd be no witnesses to our conversation.

‘I've fallen in love,' he said.

Damn the southerly wind, damn the spring. It'll fuck up each and every one of us.

‘I saw her today. In the morning. When I was going to work'

In these situations I never know what sort of expression to put on my face. Even if I'd had a crocodile's face lbro wouldn't have noticed it because of his enthusiasm.

‘I already know her name!'

He leaned towards me and whispered, ‘Ajsha.'

‘Beautiful, yes,' I said.

‘A beautiful name, isn't it? If you could only see her. How beautiful she is.'

I nodded.

The sweat drying on my back was making me feel colder and colder.

‘You are going to the canteen, aren't you Ibro?'

‘Yes.'

‘Me, too. Let's go.'

We walked slowly towards the brick building. More and more people were going the same way.

‘I'll point her out to you,' he exclaimed enthusiastically. ‘You'll see, she's terribly beautiful. Even you'll have to admit it. You who knows everything about women.'

I looked at him.

‘Who told you that?'

He was embarrassed. He wasn't sure whether he'd said too much. He admitted.

‘Selim.'

He was looking at me with the eyes of a dog asking for forgiveness.

I nodded. It was all right. In the years of sitting quietly in the bar, alone with his beer, Selim must have seen me
with many women. In many different circumstances.

We went into the canteen and lined up.

Ibro kept jumping up to look around. I felt very unpleasant. He was like a pupil who was taking his teacher to see something he'd made and was impatiently anticipating his praise. A rebuke would break his heart. I decided to praise his chosen one without any reservations. If you try you can find something worth praising in every woman. White lies are like small, empty cushions. But lying down on them is still more comfortable than lying down without them. He started hitting me on the back as if he were trying to break into me.

‘There! There she is. She's eating. Can you see?'

He pointed to the long rows of tables. Body after body. All in blue coats.

All similar faces. The ones coming and the ones going, all juggling with their trays. I couldn't see her.

‘Can you see her?' he asked again.

‘Yes, yes,' I nodded and looked around more to please than out of any real interest.

‘She's a real beauty, isn't she?'

‘Yes, yes,' I kept nodding, still not seeing Ajsha.

The crowd moved, and for a moment I caught a glimpse of the girl I'd flirted with the day before. The one from the nail packing department. She noticed me, too. We smiled at each other. I fell into her eyes.

Other people hid her again.

I became aware of Ibro trembling as if he was just about to throw all his clothes off.

He turned towards me and grabbed me by the collar. Shook me.

‘Did you see? Did you see that!?'

I didn't get it.

‘How she smiled at me,' he finished his sentence.

Ooooooh, damn spring. Damn shit.

Ibro's face was radiant. Shining like the sun. He was floating. He put his arm around my shoulder and whispered in my ear, ‘You see, I've got every chance…'

I didn't know what to say, what to do with myself.

‘Yes, yes…' I mumbled.

There's no greater confidence than that brought on by the smile of a beautiful woman. Ibro suddenly seemed taller.

‘Tell me honestly. Is she beautiful or not?'

‘She's beautiful,' I admitted.

‘Like a picture?'

‘Like a picture.'

A new admission.

‘Have you ever seen eyes like that? Eyes so deep you could drown in them?'

I agreed. With all my heart.

And felt more and more awkward.

At last it was our turn to get the broth with ribs. I got three portions and a kilo of bread.

Ibro was surprised.

‘How can you eat so much and not put weight on? You're as thin as a skeleton.'

I smiled and waited with the answer until we sat down. Ibro tried to push nearer to Ajsha without success. The only two empty chairs were right at the other end, next to the counter. I broke the end off the bread loaf and started chewing it. I took the ribs out of the broth, shook off the sauce, and wrapped the ribs in paper napkins. Then I put them together with the bread into a plastic bag I had brought with me.

Ibro was looking at the three bowls and the bag. I
explained before he asked.

‘It's not for me. I've got a friend who doesn't eat anything. Unless people bring him something. When he's by himself he just forgets about food. Because people visit him rarely he doesn't often get to eat. I'm going to see him tonight.'

He looked at me to see if I was serious and then he mumbled, ‘Whatever next.'

He pulled the ribs out of his broth, wrapped them, and gave them to me. He was a good soul. I was even more embarrassed.

I offered him the three bowls of broth.

‘Have these if you want.'

‘Don't you want them?'

‘No.'

He pulled the bowls towards him and started to spoon up the food.

‘The work made me very hungry. It was gruelling.'

‘Yeah,' I said emphatically and nodded.

‘At least I'll sleep well,' he added.

The type who always finds something positive in everything. An incorrigible optimist.

Nothing can screw up a person like that apart from a woman. Probably. I didn't know him enough to be able to determine that yet.

Suddenly he stopped eating. He looked towards the wall on the right and beamed a terrible smile with his whole mouth towards Ajsha, who had just pushed her tray through the hatch and was leaving the canteen. She was looking in our direction. I smiled at her.

She returned the smile.

‘Oooooooh,' sighed Ibro. Three beans flew out of his mouth and rolled on the table. Ajsha had gone. I
concentrated on chewing the bread crust. Ibro twisted in his chair and couldn't take his eyes off her.

‘What's the matter Ibro? Did this one forget to put on her arse and tits before she went to work, too?'

I really shouldn't have talked about her behind. The loose coat didn't show any more than the fact that it couldn't have been disproportionately large. And you could only imagine her breasts under the heavy material.

He blushed and started fidgeting.

‘I was only joking. I didn't mean to hurt anyone.'

I nodded understandingly.

‘I was only joking, too.'

He couldn't eat any more. He was looking towards the door through which his beloved had left.

‘Let's go!' I said.

I pushed the bread in my pocket.

We took the trays back and went out.

She was leaning on the fence, warming herself in the sun. She undid her coat. She was wearing jeans and a grey blouse with a barely visible floral pattern. It didn't look bad. She was that type of woman. With a wonderful figure. Ibro was whining. I stopped at the other end of the yard, and he was forced to stay with me. We lit up. Ajsha pulled a cigarette out of the packet and held it unlit between her fingers. I went over and offered her a light. She thanked me.

‘It's your turn again tomorrow.'

She laughed. A beautiful laugh, just a trifle loud and hollow.

‘Which department do you work in?' she asked.

‘Nowhere. I just come here to eat.'

She didn't understand.

‘I get free vouchers from some acquaintances. When
I'm hungry I put on borrowed work clothes and come to eat..'

Laughter again. ‘I thought I hadn't seen you before. I noticed you straight away yesterday.'

It was said as a fact, not a compliment.

She went on.

‘You know, I look at a man's shoes first.'

‘His shoes?!'

It was my turn to not understand and to laugh.

‘Yes, his shoes. Look!'

I looked at my tennis shoes, tied with scraps of shoelaces. Then I looked around and saw only winkle-pickers with raised heels clunking everywhere.

‘When I see footwear like that, it's a real turn off. I don't bother looking at anything else,' she said.

I looked at Ibro's feet. Winkle-pickers with raised heels We chatted until she looked at her watch and said she had to go back to work. I went back to Ibro. He was all eyes.

‘What did she say?' he pounced.

‘We chatted a bit, about shoes.'

‘Shoes? You start a conversation with an unknown woman talking about shoes?!'

‘Not me, her.'

‘And what did you say about me? I saw you looking at me.'

‘She likes your shoes.'

‘Oh, these are nothing. You just see the shoes and clothes I'm going to get when I get my first pay-check.'

I knew precisely what he'd get. I said goodbye and left. He had to return to his trolley, too. I walked towards my flat through the foundry. In a tangle of huge pipes beneath the hot air stoves sat Selim. He looked deep in thought. I wanted to go past unnoticed, but he saw me and called to
me. I said hello.

Whenever I talked to Selim I always had an unpleasant feeling that repelled and attracted me at the same time. Something where under the deep layers of material, a knife was hiding. It was edging out through his eyes. I always look at a person's eyes first. They determine whether I'll get to the shoes at all.

Selim was a ponderer. Somebody who doesn't talk much, who's always chewing something in his head and from time to time surprises those around him with a birth. And an occasional abortion, of course. Or a birth to something deformed. I sat next to him. The hot pipe warmed my ass.

‘I'm going,' Selim said, ‘today after work.'

‘Where?'

‘To Italy.'

‘To get some jeans?'

He looked at me as if I was an idiot.

‘To Rome.'

‘Are you going to convert?'

The same look again. I decided to drop the sarcasm and let him finish.

‘I'm going to Nastassja's,' he said.

‘Is she in Rome?'

‘Yes, I went to the hairdresser's today. To have my hair cut.'

His hair really was a bit shorter.

I couldn't see the connection.

I waited for the explanation.

‘They've got some German magazines there. I saw her picture in one of them. Rome was mentioned a few times.'

He pulled a page torn from a magazine and gave it to me.

‘Can you translate it please?' he asked me.

I read it.

Gave him a short summary of the gossip.

‘She's living with her new man in a rented apartment in Rome.'

Selim nodded.

‘That's where I'm going.'

We were silent for a few minutes.

‘Selim, listen. There's a million guys like you out there. You won't be able to even look in through the fence and the bodyguards. They'll smash you up however strong you are. And who do you think you are? A nothing and nobody. In Rome even more than here. Even if Nastassja was in a very generous mood you'd only get her autograph, maybe an original or maybe just a copy, from her PR. Are you sure you really want her signature? If it were on a check, I'd take it. Now think about it.'

Selim nodded.

‘You're right. Nothing and nobody,' he repeated and again drowned in his own thoughts. I lit a cigarette and finished it.

He was sitting next to me motionless. My arse was boiling hot.

Quietly, I said goodbye. I didn't want to disturb his thoughts.

He didn't say anything, probably hadn't even heard me. He was staring in front of him.