Crumbs (14 page)

‘Here, you read things like this.'

I took it, bent over the candle, and leafed through it. It was a very old Serbian edition of Rimbaud's poems. Pocket size, with a red cloth cover. Only the name of the author in the middle. It said REMBO, spelled out phonetically, in Serbian script. In the corner was Noodle's greasy thumb print.

I put the booklet in my breast pocket.

‘Where did you get it?'

‘I too sometimes take a walk through the scrap paper warehouse.'

Indeed, there were heaps of old newspapers next to the bunker wall. Useful for many things. For cigarette rolling, for a blanket, a hat, for arse wiping, apparently you can even read them.

He pulled out a crumpled matchbox. He tore a piece of newspaper, shook some green bits from the box onto it, and rolled a joint. He made a mouthpiece from the bottom of the matchbox.

He lit it and took a puff.

Silently we passed the joint to each other.

I interrupted the silence.

‘It's a good one. Is it from Hippy's plantation?'

‘Yes, his seeds are by far the best.'

Noodle often wandered around the woods and knew the area well. That's exactly why I'd come to him.

I started, ‘I'd like to ask you something.'

He nodded. There's no visit without a reason.

‘Where are Alfred's plantations?'

Even I knew where Hippy's was. But Alfred was more of a conspiratorial type. Noodle told me the way to Alfred's bliss in this life without hesitation.

‘Fuck it, that's life,' he sighed at the end. More to himself.

I looked at him carefully to see if he wasn't getting one of his attacks.

He didn't seem to be. He put the joint out against the sole of his boot. He made another one, which travelled between us. He leaned back and closed his eyes. I smoked to the end. I thought he was asleep.

I got up quietly, covered him with an opened newspaper, and went. When I got to the door, I could hear him behind me,

‘Thanks for the food.'

I looked back.

‘That's okay.'

He was sitting motionless with his eyes closed.

I waited for my eyes to get used to the moonlight. As I set off, I could still see the flickering flame of the candle in front of my eyes.

The night was fresh, but not cold. The moonlight distorted trees into shapes unknown to me. I didn't feel comfortable. I'm a city child. Neon lights and skips are my type of exterior.

On my right the dog barked. The sound of the collapsing tent mixed in with the cursing in all known languages. I ran.

The ghetto was dark and silent. I ran through looking back.

Higher up the barking turned to whimpering.

Somebody was beating the animal.

The foundry lights were coming nearer.

 

 

 

5

I still hadn't shaved. I preferred to squeeze the Cartier bottle. But it was dead. Empty. I remembered Ajsha. I went inside. I stopped in front of the block of flats where Alfred lives. I opened the main door and climbed to the third floor to see if he was at home. He worked in the rolling-mill, which, with his education, he didn't have to do. He explained to his listeners that working there was a penance, the suffering that cleansed him.

Shit.

Local Jesuses are terribly unpleasant.

I listened at the door. One of those long-winded Pink Floyd numbers from their most nirvanistic period could be heard from the flat. I grinned like a pig.

I leaned on the banister and lit up. I took slow puffs, waited and laughed.

I put the cigarette out on a metal plate on the banister. Sparks fell down into the darkness.

The music was getting louder and louder. The male choir was singing a high
AAAAA AAAAA AAAAA
. Timpani struck. The right moment to go in had arrived.

The door was locked of course. I looked through my pockets, found a rusty nail, pushed it in the lock, and
unlocked the door. I crossed the hall quietly and put my hand on the bedroom door handle. The music reached its peak. The voices in the choir had crashed apart and joined again to the rhythmic sound of the organ.

I opened the door.

‘Hi, Alfred!' I shouted from the door, terribly glad to see him.

‘I rang the bell. Nobody answered, probably because of the loud music. I tried the handle and it was unlocked.'

The scene was what I expected and wanted it to be.

Alfred was sitting on the floor with his back against the bed. There was a female figure in a colourful cotton Indian dress and with very blond hair between us, obstructing my view of him.

The girl jumped up. She didn't look in my direction. She ran into the corner and leaned on the window, as if something terribly interesting was happening outside.

Alfred was trying to quickly do up his fly.

‘If I'd known you weren't on your own I wouldn't have come in at all,' I tried to comfort him.

He forgot to say hello, he was so busy with his fly.

I stepped over to him and tapped his shoulder.

‘Well, what's happened has happened.'

He nodded and mumbled something. He looked me in the eyes. At least he wanted to. But to look up at someone from a half-lying position is very awkward. You feel inferior. He got up quickly.

His cheeks were still red.

‘Hello,' he said at last.

I nodded to him pleasantly and turned to the girl, who was still gazing through the window. An ear was sticking out from her hair. It was bright red.

I stepped forward and, with my leg in the air, noticed
stains on the carpet and stepped over them jerkily.

‘Alfred, you dripped something on the floor.'

I bent over to have a closer look.

‘Some fat or something like that.'

Alfred couldn't collect himself at all. He kept looking at the girl. She stayed motionless. Only her ears were getting redder and redder.

‘No,' he said, ‘I've just had coffee with cream. I spilled a little.'

He took a handkerchief from his pocket and started wipe the carpet.

Alfred was a fox and a half. He did certain things in his own way. He chased young girls at Sunday school or in church, took them to his flat, excited them with his words and hands until they were beside themselves. Suddenly he stopped the pretending and started talking about the sin of fucking before marriage. He let them stew in their red hot bodies before taking them in hand. Or, to be more accurate, before they took him in hand.

He always put the same record on, laid back on the carpet, and enjoyed it. I was looking at him with my back turned to the wardrobe. He was rubbing the stains with an expression of terrible disgust. He finished and held the handkerchief between two fingers, stretching his arm out in front of him, excused himself saying he'd be back in a second and went to the bathroom.

I decided to walk around the room and have a look around.

The girl gave no signs of life. Three walls were covered with a long line of still-lifes in varnished wooden frames, and the fourth wall had a bookcase along it.

Photographs of lonely trees. Streams running through the morning mist.

Pastoral idylls.

Last time I was here, not in the same circumstances, a row of images of saints, the Virgin Mary, Jesus, and God hung on all three walls.

I thought about how much effort must go into taking all the saints off the wall and replacing them with the pastoral before every hand-jerking session, and then restoring the room to its former look.

I went over to a photograph of a lonely baobab above which the savannah sun was setting and turned it around. The pope was giving me his blessing with his arms wide open. I nodded to him in a friendly way and pressed him back against the flowery patterned wall.

If an earthquake should ever destroy this building, only these well-blessed bricks are going to remain in one piece. Amen.

I took a peep at the other side of a baby deer drinking from a stream, only to see the Virgin Mary with her baby in her lap.

I concentrated on the books. One long row of cheap religious crap. In the middle of the shelf stood a box of Cuban cigars, leaning on the spines of the books. I opened it, took out one cigar, sniffed it, and put it in my pocket. Running water could be heard from the bathroom.

Reading the book titles brought me right next to the girl.

I looked at her. She was quite tall, quite a bit taller than Alfred.

I went over to her right side and leaned my cheek on the windowpane. She wore large, horn-rimmed glasses. Slowly, taking pleasure in my impudence, I studied her face. She didn't even twitch.

Neither beautiful nor ugly, conditionally interesting.
Middle-sized breasts with upturned nipples. Between the breasts a metal pendant of a dove in a shape of a cross. I bent down towards her hair and took in a deliberately noisy breath. She smelled of shampoo. Birch tree. She was dying with embarrassment. I let myself take pleasure in my power. Power is a balm. It heals all wounds and takes away pain, however strong it may be. It makes you lose reason.

Her dress had slipped off her right shoulder, revealing almost all of it.

Slowly, from close up, I observed the pores of her skin.

Oh, the eroticism of a woman's shoulder. Forgotten so many times and then again resurrected.

I kissed her lightly on the warm skin.

She trembled from head to toe.

Alfred walked into the room. Looking his usual sweet and slimy self. He'd recovered very well.

‘Be greeted, my friend.' He threw his arms open.

We didn't embrace.

I started talking in a pathetic, jerky voice.

‘Alfred, you're a man of high morals. Don't object. I know you too well.'

There was no sign of him objecting. He nodded smilingly.

I went into theatrical mode. Circled the room in both directions. Waved my raised right thumb high in the air. Alfred acted, too. He knew very well I knew of his pleasures. I hadn't come to him without a reason.

He was smiling widely and waiting for the cards to be put on the table.

‘You're the only one I can trust with this delicate matter. It's a question of morals.'

He pricked up his ears. I went on.

‘I went for a walk this morning. Up into the hills, where
you're nearer to God, if I may quote you.'

He gave his permission by nodding.

‘Just think about it. I'm walking. Threading through the thicket I come to an old, lonely, dried-up tree. An overhanging rock on the left. Another rock sticking out behind the tree.'

Alfred interrupted me with a stretched out arm.

‘Would you like some coffee?' he asked and looked at the girl.

I'd completely forgotten about her.

‘I would,' I answered.

Alfred went over to her and put his hand on her shoulder.

‘Ann, dear, would you make us some coffee, please?' he asked her softly.

She ran out without looking at me.

I continued.

‘What do you think I saw? A whole plantation of ganja.'

Alfred wasn't smiling quite so widely anymore. He didn't know I knew of so many of his little pleasures.

‘You most probably don't even know what that is. Marijuana, Alfred. Drugs.'

The smile disappeared. His look became hostile.

‘Immediately everything became clear to me. A whole plantation, can you imagine?'

I stopped talking and looked through the window. Sparks were still coming from the foundry chimneys.

‘What happened then?' he broke the silence.

‘Nothing.' I turned around.

A short pause.

‘You didn't report it?' A hint of fear.

‘No. That's the problem. I've never reported anybody. As you know, I'm not on the best of terms with the police.'

A sigh.

‘But on the other hand, a plantation like that means…'

I waved my arms in the air and spread them wide. In middle of the gesture I realised I was imitating the pope.

‘The owner must be a terrible drug dealer. A criminal leading young people astray. Getting them used to poison. Killing their youth.'

Nicely put.

Alfred couldn't hide his nervousness anymore.

I shook my head with exasperation and went to look at the chimneys again.

It didn't take long. He spoke again.

‘And what… are you going to do?'

I leaped close to his face and hissed at him, ‘I'll report him, the bastard. Principles or no principles.'

He jumped away.

‘I'm going to the police this very moment. Will you come with me so that I don't change my mind on the way?'

He undid the top button on his shirt.

He was almost sure I wouldn't report him. But with build-up like that there had to be a reason. The real matter would follow soon.

‘Let him stew in his own juices for a few years and think about it. He's guilty before the law and before God. Isn't that so, Alfred?' I didn't wait for the nodding.

‘Just what the pope said in his latest encyclical, am I right? They're giving young people drugs instead of poetry and culture. Speaking of which, you do some freelance work at the printers, don't you?'

Enough of the comedy. Enough jerking about. Cards on the table time. He too was visibly relieved.

‘Yes,' he said, ‘I do.'

‘Wouldn't they print a small book of poems for our
Poet? Some five hundred copies on good quality paper. A hundred advertising posters. So that the young people get some real food instead of narcotic illusions?'

‘That costs money,' he mumbled.

‘You're right. Why am I standing here talking about poetry? I should be at the police station.'

I stepped towards the door.

We looked at each other.

We assessed each other.

‘Yes, maybe it could be done,' he said.

I smiled at him nicely.

‘Well, you see.'

We smiled at each other. When I go through the door I must be careful not to show him my back. The dirty brown of the kitchen knife handle doesn't go with the colour of my jacket.