Absolution E-Book

Aleš Šteger

• Herausgeber: Istros Books
• Kategorie: Abenteuer, Thriller, Horror
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 398

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018

Beschreibung

It's Carnival time 2012, and the Slovenian city of Maribor is European Capital of Culture. In an attempt to maximize profit, local politicians and showman peddle every possible art form. Amidst the hype, dramatist Adam Bely and Cuban-Austrian journalist Rosa Portero pursue a secret mission: to track down and overthrow the sinister octopus of thirteen selected persons that seems to be in control. On the way, they encounter a variety of important citizens, all entangled in a web of corruption and lies. In the tradition of Bulgakov, Gogol and Kafka Aleš Šteger lets the forces of good and evil collide in this grandiose literary thriller. This is a debut novel filled with striking personae, haunting images and a grotesque plot. It proves, in the end, to be a journey into the heart of a European darkness.

Leseprobe

God forgives ordinary people but severely punishes the high and the mighty.

– Wisdom of Solomon 6:6

Dear ReaderThis is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Only Maribor is real.

Dramatis Personæ

(In order of appearance)

Adam Bely, a former dramatist and a Scientology leader

Rosa Portero, Bely’s ally and a radio journalist

Samo Gram, also known as Mister G., an innkeeper, a former customs officer and a secret service collaborator

Peter, a waiter

Tine Butcher, an administrative director of Butch, Inc.

Tine Butcher’s secretary

An old beggar with death in her mouth

Ivan Dorfler, manager of Off and dean of Maribor University

Laszlo Farkas, a state prosecutor and a member of the Twin Cult

Pavel Don Kovač, Director of the European Capital of Culture (ECoC) and a former theatre director

Miran Voda, mayor of Maribor

The Hungarian, member of the Twin Cult and Rosa’s lover and abductor

Aleš Šteger, head of the ECoC Terminal 12

Anastasia Green, a theatre director and Bely’s former girlfriend

Maister, a renowned Maribor attorney

Lady with the brooch, a typical Maribor citizen

Magda Ornik, a funeral home director

Maus, a police inspector, Miran Voda’s former schoolmate and his greatest opponent

Gros, an assistant to Maus, the police inspector

Electrician in the Blue Night strip club

Sister Magda, a nun in the Archdiocese of Maribor

Nameless poet, a former broker at the Trieste stock market

Father Metod Kirilov, the chief financial officer of the Maribor Archdiocese

Disinfectors and specialists in city pigeon removal

Three drunken clowns

Franci and Lojs, workers at Maribor’s public service department

Dolores, secretary to the Director of the Maribor National Theatre

Gubec, an investigative journalist and owner of a news agency

Hostesses in the Maribor Theatre

American and British military attachés Waiter in the theatre bar

Janez Maher, a Maribor businessman

Nana Numen, a fortune-teller

Chirping black swine

All quotations from the play War and Peace originate from its theatrical adaptation by Darko Lukić.

The New World of Mister G.

Some people, strangers to us, forgive in order to help others. Most of us forgive in order to help ourselves. Others forgive solely out of a belief that they will save the world by doing so. But what inspires their belief? Who assigns them their unique role? Who whispers those thoughts into their ears? Dangerous thoughts that always strike at a specific place and time? We don’t know, but does it matter? Would knowing change anything at all? Isn’t it just the thickly woven, brocaded stage curtains, the weight of the fog that falls through the dusk, the moisture, the cold that matters? Silence. Darkness. The stage curtains open, and all we see is a man. He hunches behind the high collar of his winter coat, hands buried in its pockets, black briefcase dangling off his right wrist. He sways a little. The pavement has not been shovelled. The man tries to balance his way along a narrow, already beaten track. He nearly falls. Behind him stretch unkempt art nouveau façades, and in the pallor of the streetlights drizzling rain turns into snow. The few passers-by are quietly spat out by the dusk, only to be swallowed again a moment later, just as quietly. The whole time the silhouette of a woman has been at the man’s heels. A figure draws near them, and it looks much like the Devil. And so it is. He staggers a metre in front of the man. The ice, the narrow snowy path and the bottle, emptied of its contents and held in his claw-like hand, did the trick. His feet sail high into the fog. For a moment the wet cuffs of the jeans the Devil is wearing under his costume slip out. A chain jingles against the curb; the bottle rolls away across the dirty snow. The Devil tumbles over. Cursing.

A church bell strikes ten. The man hears the woman, still close behind him, say, ‘Der arme Teufel.’ A sign burns faintly through the frozen fog: NEW WORLD. Strange how surprising a small neon sign can be on such a night. It feels like an epochal discovery, even though the restaurant has been tucked into the same street corner for over thirty years. The man turns around and gestures to the woman behind him. They have arrived.

The automatic door closes slowly behind them.

‘After all these years nothing has changed,’ the man says quietly in German.

The silhouette behind him takes off the hood of her coat. Instantly, the room submits to the sway of her long, black, curly hair.

‘Das ist gut,’ says the woman in coarse voice, looking around the inn.

Wooden pillars, fishing-nets entangled with corals and shells, anchorshaped chandeliers, dusty wicker fish traps, a wall clock with a mermaid on the pendulum, a pastel-coloured marine sunset on the wall. The restaurant is empty. The sound of frying from the kitchen, the air heavy with fish and oil. Pasted on the wooden bar is a poster of a red cross against a black background from under which the words AND PEACE peak out. It is partly covered by another poster of four happily smiling sailors announcing a Dalmatian a cappella musical performance.

‘The kitchen is closed!’ echoes through the sultry air. The waiter vanishes through the swinging doors. Held out before him, two crystal goblets of ice-cream and sweet cream on two flying plates pull him across the room. The restaurant is empty except for an elderly couple seated in the back corner. The crystal goblets land on the table in front of them. The woman raises her spoon and buries it deep in the cream; the man counts his money and places it on the table.

‘We’re closing for the night, I’m sorry,’ the waiter says again without looking back.

‘We’re looking for your boss, Mr Gram,’ says the man in the winter coat. The waiter points to three shallow wooden stairs leading up to a booth. The black-haired woman looks in that direction and follows the man with his black briefcase. The creaking of stairs.

‘Good evening,’ says the man.

Samo Gram, also known as Mister G., the owner of the New World restaurant, sits alone behind a big table, hunched over a newspaper. Lush white brows rise over a pair of grey spectacles perched on the tip of his nose. Drops of sweat bead up on his forehead. Gram is evidently the sort of person who is always too warm, and the overhead light hanging low over the table only reinforces this. His presence permeates the surroundings with an unusual obtrusiveness. Despite the years he’s spent in a fish restaurant, Mr G. doesn’t smell like fish; instead he gives off the unmistakeable odour of pig – and the more he sweats, the more he stinks.

‘Good evening,’ says Gram, visibly tired, and sizes up the two newcomers. ‘May I help you?’

‘You probably don’t remember me,’ replies the man. ‘My name is Adam Bely, and this is my colleague Rosa Portero.’

Gram gets up and shakes their hands. They all sit down behind the newspaper-covered table.

I’m from Maribor originally, although I haven’t lived here for sixteen years. Back in the day, I used to be one of your regulars. Now I work as a journalist for Austrian national radio. Well, actually I’m just an assistant. My colleague here would like to do a portrait of the city. Austrians are very interested in Maribor now that it’s the European Capital of Culture. We figured it would be best to start with a place that is well-known among the locals and can serve as a good departure point for our report. After all, it’s the restaurants that keep the history of this city alive, and I’m sure yours must be well-known among our Austrian listeners.’

‘Of course, of course,’ mumbles Gram. ‘Are you hungry? Would you like something to eat or drink? A glass of wine? Peter!’ Gram shouts before they can reply.

‘That is most kind of you, but we’re not hungry. Thank you,’ says Bely.

At that moment Peter walks in with a plate of dinner and cutlery for one.

‘Please forgive me, I’ve been on my feet all day long and haven’t eaten yet. Please, let me offer you something. It’s on the house, of course,’ adds Gram.

Peter sweeps his hand across the newspaper-strewn table and places the plate before Gram.

‘Thank you very much. We’re not hungry, but I’ll have a glass of mineral water if you insist,’ says Bely.

‘You can’t be from Maribor if all you drink is water, although your accent sounds like you could be,’ replies Gram. ‘Don’t you know that mineral water isn’t good for the teeth? And you, madam?’ He lays his eyes softly on Rosa and the dark orchids weaving diagonally up her crimson dress.

‘Ein Viertel Weisswein. Riesling, bitte,’ Rosa places an order, her voice surprisingly coarse, like that of a man.

‘You know, Ms Portero doesn’t speak Slovenian, only a few words, but she understands a lot,’ Bely explains.

‘Of course, of course,’ replies Gram, noticeably startled by her voice. He tucks a napkin into the cleft of his unbuttoned shirt, into the dense outgrowth of silver hair on his barrel chest.

‘Please, don’t let us disturb you. Bon appétit,’ adds Bely, and glances at his companion.

‘Guten appetit,’ adds Rosa in her deep voice.

Gram looks at his grilled octopus, its legs hanging over the edge of the plate. Roasted potatoes surround the cephalopod’s body along with half a lemon.

‘I love octopus, don’t you?’ Gram asks and continues eating, as if his question wasn’t meant as a question. ‘Did you know they have three hearts? Three!’ Gram cries theatrically and wields his knife like a knight brandishing a lance before battle. ‘And that they’re incredibly agile? Even giant ones, like this one, can squeeze through crevices as small as my thumb.’

Gram raises his right hand, gripping the fork and extending his thumb toward Rosa.

‘Not to mention how intelligent they are!’ he says.

Peter comes in with mineral water and two glasses of wine, white and red.

‘Boss, you want anything else? If not …’

‘I’m fine. You finish up, and I’ll close,’ says Gram, relieving the waiter of his duties by waving him off with the knife.

‘So, where was I? Right. Octopi and their intelligence. Do you think that intelligence has anything to do with our brains? Think again! We believe that we wouldn’t be able to think if we had no brain, but just look at octopi. Their brain is tiny, and yet they’re intelligent as hell. Do you know why? Because they have intelligent bodies; their whole damn bodies are intelligent, not only their tiny brains. Now look at us, brainwashed by our blind faith in science, which sells us a skewed view of the way things really are.’

Gram wipes the sweat off his forehead and leans back on his squeaking chair, visibly upset.

‘That is a rather interesting line of thought,’ says Bely peacefully and takes a sip of his mineral water.

‘Look, man created computers,’ Gram continues, ‘but, instead of taking the computers as a largely simplified approximation of human functionality, we take them as a model for us to look up to. We imagine the brain as some sort of a hard drive. Wrong, it’s all wrong!’ Gram cries out and lays down the knife and fork, which, just a moment before, he held pressed into one leg of a beautifully grilled octopus. ‘The chicken doesn’t come before the egg. Do you get me? The truth is, nothing is stored in the brain. Nothing! The brain functions only as a converter, a transformer, a switch, a current that flows, the current that doesn’t flow, that’s all. You don’t believe me? Just look at the octopus. It’ll tell you everything.’

All three of them direct their attention to the plate. For a moment, they can hear the ticking of the wall clock next door.

Gram grabs hold of his fork and knife again and picks up where he left off in a whispering, almost conspiratorial voice.

‘There’s something else for which octopi serve as an example of how things are in reality. Just look at how they die; they don’t die of old age, they always die after mating. Either they’re killed, or they die on their own because of fucking. Male octopi die a few months after they detach their penis tentacle; while females, meine liebe Dame – Portenyo, right? – female octopi starve themselves to death while guarding their eggs.’

Gram finally makes a cut across the centre of the octopus. A big chunk of juicy meat perched on the fork drifts into his mouth. Chewing with delight, Gram nods to himself. The guests say nothing. Shamelessly he eyes Rosa Portero’s beautiful hair. Her black curls fall thickly across her right cheek. Seductively he smiles into her dark-brown left eye so that it softly and bashfully closes then immediately opens again, while her right eye remains hidden behind a cascade of thick black curls. Gram winks at her and takes a sip of his wine. Rosa smiles warmly. She is still wearing a pair of thin leather gloves. The left one clings to her glass of Riesling, which she drains in two infinitely long, deep gulps.

Adam Bely pulls a fountain pen out of a buttonhole in his jacket and shifts it around on the newspaper.

Rosa puts down the glass, a red crescent from her lipstick plastered on its rim. She fingers the corners of her mouth and brushes her hair out of her face.

Is it only Gram’s imagination, or is there really a green glass eye glaring at him? He feels as if any moment it might strike, like a snake, and devour him. He feels as if he could fall right into the green eye, deeper and deeper, so deep he’ll never come back, never surface again. Bely picks up the fountain pen and slowly waves it back and forth; ticktock goes the clock in the next room, tick-tack goes the pen. The eye, there’s the eye, which is also a mouth, a glass voice within it. Mr G. can be as brave a little boy as he wants, running barefoot across the meadow going who knows where away from home – but he can’t escape. A sharp stabbing pain in his feet, the soft vertigo of fear and surprise at himself.

Gram chokes. He coughs. Bely leans forward and hits him hard across his back. The chunk of octopus shoots out of his mouth back on to the plate and fuses with both halves of the cut octopus. Its limbs stir and curl up around the edge of the plate. The octopus on the plate suddenly comes back to life. Its tentacles tremble, begin to move, and a moment later it darts under the table. All that remains on the plate are a few potatoes and the damp meandering tracks of the octopus’s suckers on the newspaper.

This can’t be happening, is Gram’s last thought as he tumbles deeper and deeper. That thought is the last crumbling stone he clings to as he falls through the green vitreous haze. The entire landscape falls deeper into greenness, tick-tack, the meadows keep getting brighter, the hayracks and the trees and the peaks of green mountains in the distance seem to be sucked into the vortex. No, now there is no way back, no home any more. Now Gram can no longer gaze at the grass that trembles and sways in the wind. As if it were alive, as if it were growing all around him, enveloping and submerging him deeper and deeper with no possibility of escape.

‘Listen to my instructions, and you’ll be fine,’ says Bely and removes the plate, the glasses and the cutlery from the table.

Rosa stoops and clicks her tongue twice in Gram’s face.

‘He’s in a deep state of hypnosis,’ says Bely. ‘There’s no way he can lie, but I’ll still plug him into the E-meter.’

Rosa nods in approval.

Bely pulls a leather case out of his black briefcase. In it is a metal box with a few buttons and a gauge, which he connects to a pair of wires that end in cylindrical metal electrodes. He hands them to Gram.

‘Squeeze hard,’ orders Bely.

Gram obeys. He gazes absently, clasping the electrodes.

‘Start recording,’ says Bely.

Rosa retrieves a Dictaphone from her fur coat. She presses the record button.

Bely bows his head and softly asks Gram a question.

‘Who are you?’

‘Samo Gram,’ answers Mr G.

‘What do you do for a living?’

‘I’m a customs officer.’

‘What else?’

‘Depending on the situation, I’ve had a number of names, real and fake.’

‘Who do you work for?’

‘Myself. Now I work only for myself.’

‘Who did you work for in the past?’

‘For customs. Also for Yugoslav intelligence, then later for Slovenian.’

During the interrogation, Bely keeps track of the E-meter needle, which floats consistently in the middle of the dial.

‘I see you’re telling the truth,’ says Bely.

Rosa gets up and disappears behind the door.

‘Nothing but the truth,’ says Gram.

‘What comes to mind when you hear the word “lie”?’

‘My kitten. One day he went missing. I searched everywhere, all around the farm where we lived. I searched the fields, even the nearby hills. I cried inconsolably, and Mama promised me he would come back. I knew right off that she was lying.’

‘What’s the first thing that comes to mind when you hear the word “happiness”?’ asks Bely.

‘I remember. The slaughter at the border.’

‘What was that?’

‘I was a young customs officer then. It happened in Koroška, at the border between what used to be Yugoslavia and Austria. I walked the woods all day long, I made good money and there was lots of messing around. Today when I look back, I know I was happy then, but back then I didn’t know it.’

‘Go on.’

‘There was a farmer who had a house right on the border. It ran right through his kitchen. Technically he needed to use his passport to get from his kitchen, which was in Yugoslavia, over to the other side of the Iron Curtain to take a dump, since his toilet was in Austria. Anyway, this guy wanted to slaughter a pig. To slaughter a pig in a restricted border zone! He asked us, the customs officers, if we could find him an illegal butcher. First, we brought him a butcher and then, a few hours later, when the pig was already open and chopped to pieces, we showed up with some Austrian customs officers and scared the hell out of him. Not only because he had organized the slaughter under the table but because he could have been accused of attempting to help the butcher cross the border illegally, which at the time was punishable by twenty years behind bars. The farmer begged so hard he fell on his knees out of sheer terror and pissed his pants. Jesus, we laughed like crazy, along with the Austrians. But the farmer, he didn’t feel like mucking about. He was kneeling in his piss and just kept pleading. In the end we split the pork between us in exchange for not denouncing him. All we left him was the swine’s head, which lay right on the border. It didn’t make much sense to argue over whether it was Austrian or Yugoslav.’

‘That’s what made you happy?’

‘You have no idea. I also became quite rich. Well, I earned enough after ten years of working in customs to be able to buy this restaurant.’

‘What’s the first thing to cross your mind when you think of something sad?’ asks Bely and stretches in order to see what Rosa is doing. The sound of clattering glasses from behind the bar echoes across the empty space of the restaurant.

‘Football.’

‘I mean, what hurt you on a personal level?’

‘My mother used to beat me up because I would bring home bones. Supposedly they were human. They were all over Pobrežje, where I grew up, sticking out from the ground. Us kids, we would pull them out and play hockey with them in the fields. But I wasn’t allowed to bring them home. I still remember her taking me over her knee and the crackling sound of the bone she hit me with.’

‘That’s as sad as it gets?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘You don’t know?’

‘There’s something worse than that. But I don’t know if it happened to me, I mean, me in this life.’

‘Who else then?’

‘It happened to my mother. I can hear her screaming. Everything around me gets tighter, it’s smothering me. I feel something fleshy pushing against my little head.’

‘Where are you?’

‘I’m in my mum. I haven’t been born yet.’

‘Is it your father?’

‘No.’

‘What happened to the man later?’

‘I don’t know. I never found out who he was.’

‘Why not?’

‘It’s a good thing I didn’t, otherwise I would’ve had to kill him.’

‘Who are you?’

‘Samo, Samo Gram. The kids at school were teasing me. They said I’m nothing but a gram. Who’s nothing but a Gram now? I showed them.’

‘Who were you before that?’

‘I see green light. I’m blinded by the meadows. They’ll go up in flames, can’t you see?’

‘I will ask again. Who were you before you were born as Samo Gram?’

‘Many.’

‘For instance?’

‘I’m a rafter, here on the Drava River. The river, its current, my life. Those were wonderful years, but I didn’t know it. I just missed my family too much, my four sons and my wife. We love each other.’

‘More,’ says Bely.

‘I can smell a damp darkness. My bloody cough eats through my lungs and nostrils. I see a small lamp that flickers down the tunnel where I work as a mercury miner. Yesterday three miners were killed when the tunnel next to this one collapsed. While I dig I keep seeing the images of those disfigured bodies that I helped to carry out. They were so cold, even though we dug them out right away.’

‘Go on.’

‘I was also a nun in a convent. It was before the First World War.’

‘In a convent?’

‘I healed lepers in Bavaria.’ Gram giggles.

Bely looks at the dial. The needle is still floating in the middle. ‘Why are you laughing?’

‘I was a lesbian, but fortunately nobody ever found out about it, except for Anna.’

‘Anna?’

‘She was another Benedictine sister, my lover.’

‘What are you truly afraid of?’

‘Calvary.’

From behind the bar comes the sound of rattling bottles. Rosa flings a bottle on to the floor so it shatters. Then she brings one over and places it on the table before Bely. Jack Daniels. Bely looks sternly at her but continues to interrogate Mr G.

‘What Calvary?’ Bely continues. ‘Calvary.’

‘Do you mean Christ’s Calvary?’

‘You must be kidding me. Not that Calvary. I meant Calvary, the hill above the city of Maribor. I thought you were from around here, but I see you know shit about it. I’m scared of Calvary and the power of the Great Orc.’

‘What’s the Great Orc?’

‘Great Orc, the thirteen guardians of secrets.’ Gram giggles again. ‘What’s so funny this time?’ asks Bely.

‘Some people don’t even know they belong to the Orc,’ replies Gram seriously. ‘Most of them don’t know who the other members are. The thirteen of the Great Orc run this city. They run it, but they’re clueless as to the whys and wherefores …’

Rosa tilts back the bottle, takes a swig and places it back on the newspaper. Her cloudy brown eye hangs at half-mast.

‘You know a lot,’ says Bely.

‘That was my job, to know a lot. If I hadn’t known a lot I wouldn’t be here today.’

‘Namen. Wer sind Sie?’ Rosa cries out.

‘I can’t, the Great Orc, they’ll kill me,’ screams Gram, terrified. He begins to tremble, and the oppressive stench of pig emanates from him.

‘Don’t worry, we’ll save you,’ says Bely.

‘The Great Orc will kill me. No one is powerful enough to escape the Great Orc!’

‘Do you believe in absolution?’

‘I don’t know what absolution is. What do you mean?’

‘It doesn’t matter,’ says Bely. ‘Just keep in mind that you’ll be leaving here absolved. You’ll be alive, and the Great Orc won’t be able to harm you.’

‘I’m too old to escape abroad. Besides, there’s nowhere I would be safe.’

‘Don’t worry, we know of a place where you’ll be perfectly safe. You won’t have been so safe since the day you were born. Now, just tell me their names.’

‘I don’t know all of them. I only know a few.’

Bely watches the needle on his measuring device. Now and then it swings violently to the left.

‘Namen. Wir wollen Namen!’ shouts Rosa. She dips her left glove into the drink stain feeding on the newspaper headlines, text columns and photographs and draws a big circle on the paper.

Gram lists six names. ‘Tine Mesarič, Dorfler, Laszlo Farkas, Pavel Don Kovač, Anastasia Grin, Magda Ornik.’

‘More. We need all thirteen.’

‘That’s all I know.’

The needle on the E-meter leans heavily to the left.

‘How can he be lying when he’s in such a deep trance?’ mutters Bely. Rosa pulls a cork out of a bottle with her teeth, spits it out, then tilts the bottle and smashes it against the table so the whisky splashes all over Gram. Gram remains motionless. Vitreous shards lie scattered across the drenched newspaper. Rosa sweeps them off and points at a photograph.

‘Ja. Him, too.’

‘What do you know about him?’

‘Too much. We used to play together as kids. Later on he was my room-mate at cadet school, which I failed to finish because of him. Somebody stole the director’s wallet and slipped it into my locker. We haven’t been able to stand each other since. When he was appointed mayor he tried everything to drive me out of the city. But I’m no easy target. I have my own information, which is why he lets me be now. He knows very well I could harm him or even bring him down.’

Rosa looks at Adam.

‘Is he telling the truth?’ she asks in Slovenian.

Adam examines the needle and nods. ‘Any more?’

‘That’s it. I don’t know any other names.’

Bely and Rosa look at each other.

Rosa turns off the Dictaphone and wipes it against the black orchids on her dress.

‘We’ve got something for you, old soul. Take it, and you’ll be absolved of all your pasts,’ says Bely.

Rosa sets a silver compact on the soaked newspaper. It’s full of lightbrown oyster crackers.

‘For thirty years I’ve eaten only fish, no crackers,’ says Gram.

‘What’s thirty years compared with eternity?’ says Bely and shoves an oyster cracker down his throat.

A few minutes later, the New World neon sign outside turns off. Two pairs of legs, one of them staggering slightly. Trudging through the fresh snow, which comes down as if it were going to consume the city, the whole world, once and for all. The bells strike three times. Posters of red crosses on black backgrounds. A cat dashes across the empty street. Midnight is fast approaching.

Butcher

‘Mr President, the Austrian journalists have arrived.’ A secretary announces the appointment to Tine Butcher, director of Butcher Inc. meat products.

In truth, Tine Butcher is not the president of a country, he is president of the board of directors of a meat-processing company. But Tine Butcher is a practical man, so, to facilitate communication with his foreign business partners, he changed his last name. And to facilitate association with the company, which he both directs and owns a majority share in, he changed its name, too. In this way the Agricultural and Food Processing Cooperative of Upper Drava Livestock Farmers and Meat Processors became Butcher, Inc. His employees are expected to address him accordingly with the proper respect, especially at the headquarters of the company over which he presides.

‘Please have a seat, gentlemen. May I offer you a cup of coffee, tea, juice?’ Butcher asks while signing a few documents on the desk.

A bland, modern office interior: walls painted in somewhat incompatible shades of cream and rose, a tall Ficus benjamina in the corner, a gigantic plasma television, a desk with the company flag on it, leather armchairs on the other side of the president’s desk, the feeling that we could be anywhere were we not exactly where we are.

‘You’re local, aren’t you? I don’t need to tell you about the Maribor Automotive Factory and how they went under, do I? Anyway, it was on the site of that former industrial giant that we started our business sixteen years ago. Hitler himself ordered a factory to be built there, which produced aircraft-engine parts until the end of 1944. After the Second World War the same site boasted the biggest Yugoslav factory for the manufacture of truck and tank engines as well as light weaponry, mostly hunting rifles. But that’s all gone. We don’t manufacture rifles and aircraft any more, the way Hitler and Tito did. Today all we make are scrumptious local Kranj sausages,’ Butcher says confidently, as if he had trotted out the same sentences countless times before.

With a nod of her head Rosa Portero thanks the secretary for the Coca-Cola she has brought her then checks the Dictaphone to make sure it’s actually working. Despite the grey winter’s day, she wears sunglasses and seems exhausted. Every now and then, during the president’s performance, Adam Bely leans over to her and quietly recapitulates his declarations in German.

‘You’ve mentioned Kranj sausage,’ Bely cuts in politely. ‘We are talking about the crown jewel of your product line, correct?’

‘That is correct,’ replies Tine Butcher. ‘Annually we produce about 16 million hand-skewer-bound sausages, first-class sausages. We export them to over forty countries worldwide. Our sausages travelled into space with the American astronaut Nancy Sing, who has Slovenian roots; and, if we’re lucky, it will become the first sausage ever to land on the moon. Negotiations with NASA are well under way.’

‘The Kranj sausage travelling into space has been covered by Austrian news media, but what I want to know is, what made it so popular? It doesn’t come from the city of Kranj, even though it’s named after it. It doesn’t even come from the Kranj region, but all the way from Lower Styria, isn’t that right?’ Bely asks.

Pleased with the question, the president leans back comfortably. His body language indicates he is happy to be asked something in his area of expertise, his terrain, his wheelhouse. This was his question. He takes a deep breath.

‘The Kranj sausage is a typical European story,’ he continues confidently. ‘The European Union has approached us with a historical opportunity here. You know what I’m talking about? No, not the free market; we practised that back in the days of Yugoslavia. I’m not talking about Western marketing manoeuvres either. We mastered that under Communism, too. No, what the EU has given us is a once-in-a-lifetime, historical …’ the president struts his stuff, his voice filled with zeal and emotion. ‘Are you listening? Historical opportunity.’

Adam Bely stops translating into Rosa Portero’s ear. They both stop, stunned by the president’s half-finished statement, which soars before them like a soap bubble, then trembles, rises, sinks, then rises again and bursts.

‘An opportunity?’ asks Bely. ‘What sort of opportunity, Mr President?’

‘The opportunity to register our own trademark, what else?’ The president of Butcher, Inc. smiles, thrilled that yet another pair of tiny, ignorant deer are caught in his grandiose rhetorical headlights.

‘We successfully registered our Kranj sausage, and there is no one in the entire European Union who can take it away from us. Do you know what that means? There are only eleven registered manufacturers of Kranj sausage in this galaxy, and we’re the biggest of them all. We’re the best of them all, and we have the best market penetration of any of them. Are you recording?’

A little baffled by his abrupt question, Adam leans over the Dictaphone and nods.

‘Of course, it’s not true that our sausages aren’t made in Kranj,’ Butcher continues unperturbed. ‘It’s not true that the Kranj sausages we manufacture here in Lower Styria aren’t authentic Kranj sausages from Upper Carniola. Let’s take a closer look. What makes a sausage a Kranj sausage? The recipe is brilliant in its simplicity: the best pork, young elastic pig intestines, a pinch of salt, some pepper and top quality garlic. And beech tree smoke. That’s it. So, Kranj sausage is mostly pork. Correct?’

The president leans over to Bely, who hastily nods.

‘Now, please tell me what place can claim an animal, a pig in this case, as its own? If you ask me, it’s not the place where the swine was born, and it’s not the place where it was raised. It’s easy these days to feed a Canadian-born swine with Czech grain somewhere in Bangladesh and not even know it. Do you see what I’m getting at? The only thing that determines whether we’re dealing with Kranj pork or not is whether the pig was slaughtered in Kranj or somewhere else. Our first-class Kranj sausages are made of top-quality pork, which always comes from pigs slaughtered in one of the certified Kranj slaughterhouses, full stop. All our pork comes from Kranj, but it is here, in Maribor, where this certified meat is processed into sausages. And so it is entirely possible that the best-quality Kranj sausages actually come from Lower Styria.’

‘But would you say that Maribor and its inhabitants are aware of the developmental potential that the Kranj sausage holds for them?’ Adam Bely pauses before uttering the word ‘developmental’, as if he had a lump to swallow.

‘Maribor is my city. I would never want to live anywhere other than in Maribor. But, let’s face it, Maribor is a synonym for fast food. Maribor knows nothing of quality cuisine. Sure, we all sin at McDonald’s at times, and there’s nothing wrong with that. But if that shit is all you eat, then your ears will fall off, your veins will atrophy, you’ll get fat and your body will inevitably deteriorate. That’s what happened to this city mentally, too. After they chased out the Germans at the end of the war the city only got intellectual fast food, cheap sugar, fatty steaks. And fifty, seventy years on, that’s the new norm.’

‘You’re being quite critical of your city,’ Bely says and crouches behind his black briefcase. Rosa nervously shifts in her chair, takes a sip of her Coke and readjusts her shades with her white-gloved hand.

‘Tough criticism is the only thing that may save us. That and building on the potential of this city, that’s it. That’s why we should look up to others sometimes, so we can learn something. Just look around. There’s no creature on the entire planet as durable and flexible as we are, aside from viruses maybe. The dinosaurs didn’t adapt. Coral didn’t adapt. The Tasmanian tiger didn’t adapt. But then you’ve got us, humans, who can change dramatically even within a single generation. Take the Chinese, for example. A notoriously short nation only thirty years ago, now they’re producing NBA stars.’

Satisfied, the president draws closer to the Dictaphone, slurps his chilled coffee out of a plastic cup and continues speaking. ‘Our deepest survival instinct is closely tied to what we eat. What do our bodies long for when we eat something really healthy, let’s say something homemade, a roasted chicken or a bowl of soup in a macrobiotic restaurant? They want something fatty, sweet, something heavy and forbidden. But why? Because they know that eating filth regularly is a ticket to building up immunity and being adaptable. Look at babies. They lick filthy floors, they stuff themselves with dirt and worms, and we think they’re dumb and not yet socialized. The truth is, they know what’s right because they listen to their unspoiled instinct. Kranj sausage has been labelled unhealthy and criticized by vegetarians, and it’s no secret why. But, let’s face it, no one can smell a sizzling Kranj sausage without salivating like Pavlov’s dog! We love it because of that, and that’s why it’s good for us. The person who eats Kranj sausage on a regular basis will be strong and healthy every day of his life. But it’s crucial that we eat home-made food, that is to say, Kranj sausages slaughtered and processed in the Kranj region, at home …’

Adam nods, slowly pulls a fountain pen out of his pocket and sways it like a pendulum.

‘… it is absolutely crucial for our energy intake that we …’

The president follows the swaying of the pen, his voice growing softer.

‘… eat meat butchered locally. Animals slaughtered locally are …’

The president smirks, pouts his lips and clenches his fists between his legs, like a little boy who takes comfort in wetting his pants.

‘… special animals, they have …’

The president pauses in the middle of the sentence, mesmerized by Bely’s fountain pen.

‘What do animals butchered locally have?’ asks Bely and puts his fountain pen back into his jacket.

‘Our death paradigm,’ the president of the board of the meat-processing company Butcher, Inc., says slowly, syllable by syllable.

Adam shoves the E-meter’s cylindrical electrodes into his hands, turns on the switch: the needle floats to the centre of the dial and comes to rest.

‘Repeat that,’ says Bely.

‘Our death paradigm’.

‘Repeat it again.’

‘Our death paradigm’.

‘Again,’ says Bely.

‘Our death paradigm’.

‘What is a death paradigm?’ asks Bely.

‘The moment when bodies are exchanged, Butcher replies. ‘When the paradigm is calm it is reflected in the flavour of the meat. The pigs must be as still as possible when they die. It’s best if they have no idea what’s about to happen to them. That’s the best recipe for Kranj sausages. The secret isn’t the garlic and the spices. The secret is in how the pigs die.’

‘What kinds of death paradigm do we have?’

‘Our death paradigm is different. Slovenian souls are restless by nature, especially people from Kranj. Our animals are under too much stress when they die. Not good for the sausages. That’s why we usually mix in 15 per cent finely ground car tyres, just to calm the meat down. But that can be changed. The only important thing is that we eat meat that we killed ourselves. Because in this meat we eat ourselves; we eat the levels of energy that we passed on to the animal during the kill.’

‘Who makes the best Kranj sausages?’

‘Bosnians. Nobody is as easy-going and calm as they are. But they won’t butcher pigs, only chickens.’

‘Do you also slaughter chickens?’

‘We have the Halal certification. The Nazis built the factory on two levels, the ground floor and basement. The ground level was designed so that it could be lowered underground during an aerial bombing. The orientation is perfect, and with very little renovation we were able to fix up the underground level and turn it into a slaughterhouse for chickens facing Mecca.’

‘And upstairs?’

‘Off the record, that’s where we make our sausages, although officially the space upstairs is registered as a hunting-rifle factory. Our Muslim clients would skewer us if they knew we were stuffing pork intestines right over their chickens.’

Bely observes the E-meter. The needle hasn’t left the centre of the dial.

‘Aren’t you scared?’ asks Bely.

‘I’m scared that somebody might find out about our moving the hunting-rifle production elsewhere because of the steep increase in orders. The Chinese are huge fans of shooting.’

‘Do you export rifles to China?’

‘We do, rifles and chicken claws. It’s a big business.’

‘What do you see when I say blue?’

‘I see the sea.’

‘What do you see when I say sea?’

‘I see my dreams. Black ink spilling in them. Everything is dark. But it’s not ink, it’s old oil. Hitler was a genius.’

Butcher screws up his face and grins.

‘He knew how to construct gigantic complexes,’ Butcher continues. ‘He would know how to put things in order today. But there’s oil covering everything. The old hydraulics are broken,’ Butcher grins again. ‘There’s no one who can lead us through this petroleum night.’

‘The hydraulics that raise and lower the platform in your factory?’ Bely now gestures to Rosa Portero, who slowly takes off her sun-glasses and retrieves the silver compact from her fur coat.

‘My God, can’t you see the hydraulics going down?’ Butcher grins and emits a strange, animal-like wheezing. ‘Hitler’s dead. The mechanism is broken. Help, can’t you see the platform lowering? The sausages! Kranj sausages,’ Butcher wheezes once again, turning pale. ‘Down below, there, they’ll squash the entire hall with thousands of halal chickens facing Mecca. Help!’

The president lets go of the E-meter cylinders, jumps up and starts wheezing again, as if choking on his own tongue. He’s drenched in sweat, disoriented, his eyes wandering the room. Bely jumps up and tries to get him to sit back down again.

A knock on the door. The secretary enters the room.

‘You called, Mr President?’

Bely whispers into Butcher’s ear, his back to the secretary.

‘Repeat after me. Everything’s fine, you may leave.’

The president whispers, ‘Everything’s fine. You may leave’.

‘What was that, Mr President?’ asks the secretary.

Bely whispers, ‘Repeat it, louder’.

‘Everything’s fine. You may leave. Repeat it, louder!’ The president shouts out each word individually, as if slicing the sentence to pieces.

The secretary takes one last glance at her boss and haltingly closes the office door on her way out.

Bely breathes a sigh of relief. ‘Sit down, Butcher, sit down and stay calm.’

Tine Butcher takes a seat. Rosa Portero slowly opens up her silver compact with its yellow-tinged oyster crackers.

Tine Butcher stares deliriously into the air in front of him and continues hallucinating. ‘At the last minute the catastrophe was averted. Hitler has come back; our Führer is back. What good luck!’ Suddenly Butcher’s eyes become very clear and wide. He wheezes again. ‘The mechanism stopped, and now the platform is rising again, just as he ordered. My Bosnian butchers, my Halal chickens, all my machines in the slaughterhouse down below! Finally, they can breathe again. And the platform is still rising,’ Butcher grins. ‘The shingles are falling off the roof, and the Kranj sausages are creeping out from under it and through the windows. Nothing can stop them. Only I, Tine Butcher, can stop this river of pork that is heading towards the city, burying the houses. People are suffocating under the oppressive weight of intestines and pork,’ Butcher cries out and raises his arms as if to block the river of pork with his bare hands. ‘Some people take refuge higher up, in skyscrapers or church belfries. They look down at the river of pork as it inundates the city of Maribor, coming to a halt only at the slopes of Calvary. Only I was chosen to change the direction of this city’s fate.’ Butcher wheezes, shoots up and with all his might rears up into the air above him.

Bely puts his hands on Butcher’s shoulders and sits him down again.

‘You,’ wheezes Butcher, staring blankly up into the air. ‘Do you know what this city needs?’

Bely shrugs his shoulders.

‘A scourge of God! Or, even better, what Maribor needs is a chainsaw of God. One with a long, long guide bar; the sort my Bosnian butchers use to cut the biggest Kranj pigs in half in a single pass.’

Butcher stands up again. Bely hurriedly pulls him down into his chair and places the E-meter electrodes back into his hands.

‘Sit down, Mr President, sit. Tell me, are you part of the Great Orc?’

‘I am the Great Orca, and I will devour all this pork off the streets of Maribor.’

‘Tine Butcher, I will ask you one last time, are you part of the Great Orc?’

‘We must let Calvary sleep in peace. May the men and women of Maribor sleep in peace. May all Slovenia sleep in peace. I will save you from the pork.’

‘Tine, do you know what the Great Orc is?’

The president turns his head and looks past Bely vacantly. His jaw shudders violently and drops open. The E-meter needle begins swinging left to right and back again. Butcher clutches the cylindrical electrodes and bangs them against his forehead until it oozes blood. Rosa lunges at him and prevents him from injuring himself further.

‘The hypnosis hasn’t kicked in,’ hisses Bely, caught among the jostling elbows.

‘It’s kicked in too much, that’s the problem. He’s lost his bearings, and I’ve got no idea how to bring him back,’ says Rosa Portero, kneeling on the president’s chest. Butcher’s entire body is overcome with convulsions.

‘Give it to him; let’s absolve him,’ says Bely and looks at Rosa.

‘Now? He’s given us nothing.’ Rosa grabs hold of Butcher so he won’t tumble off the leather sofa.

‘You think there’s still a chance he might give us something useful?’ asks Bely.

The president manages to shout, ‘Attack the undulating mass of Kranj sausage!’ before Bely is able to cover his mouth. Bely groans with pain and pulls back his hand, now perforated with the president’s teeth marks.

‘It’s seized the entire city in its tentacles and suctioned itself on to Calvary. Can’t you see? We need a saviour!’ screams Butcher.

Rosa reaches for the silver compact.

A few minutes later the secretary knocks on the door and cautiously enters with a reminder that two business partners from Abu Dhabi have been waiting for over twenty minutes at the reception. As she opens the door, she sees Rosa Portero in a black, unusually shiny fur coat – it must be made of chinchilla or sable or something like that? – and Adam Bely putting a device away into a leather bag. The secretary notices that Bely is holding a bloodstained handkerchief.

‘Mr President, your guests from Abu Dhabi are waiting for you.’

‘Have them come in,’ says the president in a strangely quiet voice, wheezing slightly. He has a plaster on his forehead and stares absently into space.

Bely and Rosa Portero say goodbye. The president doesn’t respond to their words, but from the foyer the thick musk of the Arab business partners’ perfume creeps in and settles around him.

I’m Not Cold When I’m with You