Doppelgänger E-Book

Daša Drndic

• Herausgeber: Istros Books
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018

Seitenzahl: 232

Beschreibung

Doppelgänger consists of two stories that skillfully revisit the question of "doubles" (famously explored by Stevenson, Dostoyevsky and others), and how an individual is perpetually caught between their own beliefs and those imposed on them by society. 'Arthur and Isabella' is a story of the relationship between two elderly people who meet on New Year's Eve — a romantic encounter which turns into a grotesque portrayal of the loneliness of old age. The second story 'Pupi' — a strange mirror of the first — centres on the life of a man who ends up on the streets and associates only with street-sellers the rhinoceroses in the zoo. Together these tales crate the highly original atmosphere that Drndić is famous for in all her works.

Leseprobe

Table of Contents

DOPPELGANGER

ARTUR AND ISABELLA

PUPI

THE AUTHOR

THE TRANSLATORS

DAŠA DRNDIĆ

DOPPELGÄNGER

Translated from the Croatian by S. D. Curtis and Celia Hawkesworth

First published in 2018 by Istros Books

London, United Kingdom www.istrosbooks.com

Copyright © Daša Drndić, 2018

First published in 2002 by Samizdat B92

The right of Daša Drndić, to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988

Translation © SD Curtis and Celia Hawkesworth , 2018

Cover design and typesetting: Davor Pukljak, www.frontispis.hr

ISBN

Print: 978-1-912545-13-1

MOBI: 978-1-912545-14-8

ePub: 978-1-912545-15-5

This publication is made possible by the Croatian Ministry of Culture.

ARTUR AND ISABELLA

Translated by S.D. Curtis

Oh. He shat himself.

An ordinary day, sunny. Soft sunlight, wintry. A view of the railway tracks. A view of the customs house, people in uniform. In the distance, a bit of sea, without any boats. A lot of noise: from the buses, from the people. This is what is called a commotion. Beneath the window – commotion. The panes quiver, the windows of his living-room. They’re quivering, like jelly, quivering like a small bird. The glass trembles impatiently. He watches. He listens. He’s very still while he listens to everything trembling. He places the palm of his hand on the glass. To check what is actually trembling: whether it’s a little or a lot, whether it’s trembling gently or violently, just the way it trembles – or might it be him that’s trembling? He watches what’s happening outside, down below. Beneath the window it is lively. His window-frame is peeling, the wood is coarse, unpolished. Women neglect themselves, become unpolished, coarse. Especially their heels. Especially their elbows. Especially their knees. Men less. Less what? They neglect themselves less. They take care of their heels. Take care of their heels? How do they take care of their heels?

There are three rubbish containers under the window. That’s where poverty’s gathered together, below his window. Drunken women gather, cats gather. Life gathers down below, beneath his window. HE is above. Watching. All shat up. His penis is withered, all dried up. The panes are loose. The wood is bare and rotten. Between his buttocks – it’s slippery. Warm. Stinky. It stinks. Sliding down the leg of his trousers. Down both. He squeezes his buttocks, he walks and squeezes, à petits pas. He puts on a nappy. Looks through the window. Here comes darkness. There goes the day.

Nappies. Incontinence, incompetence, incompatibility. He watches grey-haired ladies weeing in their nappies and smiling. They smile tiny smiles and they smile broad smiles. When they give off big smiles, old ladies quiver. Old ladies in aspic. In buses they piss and smile to themselves. In coffee shops, in cake shops, in threes, in fives, sitting at small marble tables nattering, some are toothless, nattering over cakes, secretly pissing and smiling. Great, happy invention. Nappies. Each one of them is warm between the legs. Just like once upon a time. In their youth. In joyful times. Long ago.

HE looks at his bulge, it’s bulging. Like huge artificial genitals. Inside the bulk there squats a tiny willy, his willy, all shrivelled. Dangling. Everything is little. Little meals. Little solitude. Solitude – decrepitude. When the rash appears he powders it with talcum, one should do that, yes, and baby-cream rubbed-in gently. He strokes the rash between his legs, the inside of his thighs, in circles, tenderly, his willy stands up. (He pomades his wee-covered sons on the island of Vis. Little willies). His hairs have grown thin. He has very little pubic hair. He’s no longer hairy. Transparent skin. All shrivelled. Bald. That’s your portrait.

Look at yourself.

Such silence.

As thick as shit between the buttocks. Dense.

He’s got his features, they have remained. They’re there. Look.

He’s happy.

Everything is so tidy.

SHE steps into the bathtub cautiously because she’s old. The tub is full of bubbles, the water is warm. She runs her hand over her flabby skin, she’s got a surplus of skin, with her hand she runs over her flaccid stomach, her tits are in the way, her tits are a bother, capillaries break, let them break, ah, she wees in the tub. The water is warm.

SHE has a collection of earplugs. The earplugs lie on the edge of the bathtub, neatly, in a little box. She plucks them out with her index finger and thumb. She takes the wax ones, the tiny round ones, dappled with yellow from frequent use, no, with dark-brown earwax. Yuk. This is my earwax. It’s not yuk. It’s my insides. That’s how she thinks. She kneads the earplugs with her thumb and her forefinger, moulds them, sticks one into her left ear, another into her right ear. Like when they push into your bowels, into your arsehole. Plugs for this, plugs for that. SHE is a carapace. A shell is all that’s left.

She leans back in the tub, the edge is cold. She shuts her eyes. She can’t hear any noises from outside. Outside there’s nothing but a white void. A hole. A white hole with a dot on the right. The dot is a passageway, an entrance to her head. A tight entrance. A narrow entrance, small. Through it her days wriggle out. In her head there is a rumbling, a silent rumble like the rattling of a 4 HP ‘Tomos’ motor bought on credit for a plastic boat bought on credit thirty years ago, oh, happy days. There’s music in her head, her head is full of tunes.

Astrid is a nice name. Astrid is wholesome and fun, Astrid is capable and not very spiteful.

Ingrid is like her, Astrid.

Iris is a nice name. Iris is strange and not very pretty, but she ischarming, yes, definitely.

Sarah is pretty and clever. Always lands on her feet. You could call her a loose woman.

Lana is short and bright. She has a wicked tongue. A sharp tongue.

Adriana is stupid.

Isabellas are good and gentle. Isabellas are special beings. Isabellas are sad because there are terrible people in the world. Isabella, that’s me.

Isabella likes to paint. Isabella loves colour. She doesn’t like brown. White doesn’t exist for her. Isabella has talent. Being an artist for a living was not something to be taken seriously.

Isabella loves acting. Isabella has been acting her whole life. My real self I keep only for myself, thinks Isabella.

Isabella loves photography. She believes that photographs are frozen memories. Isabella never smiles on photos.

Isabella loves running. She runs whenever she is in a bad mood. Running allows her time for thinking. When she runs she has the impression that she clears away her problems. She runs fast. Recently, since she turned seventy-seven, she isn’t as fit as she once was because she doesn’t have so many problems. That’s why she hasn’t run recently.

Today Isabella did some drawing. There was a lot of black. The water’s getting cold. Isabella adds warm water. She must get out; she’s all wrinkled.

The mirror’s misted up.

The old woman asks herself, what’s that? What kind of distorted image? From now on I’ll dream of garden gnomes, from now on I’ll dream fairy-tales, Isabella decides. Isabella is drying her heels. Her heels are soft and smooth. Isabella is proud of her smooth heels. She never scrapes them yet they’re always smooth. The skin of her heels is thin. Fine.

Isabella has never told stories to anyone. Isabella is alone.

HE and SHE will meet.

They don’t know it, they don’t know they’ll meet while they’re getting ready to step into the night, into the night of New Year’s Eve, bathed and old and dressed up and alone, as they are preparing to walk the streets of this small town, a small town with many bakeries, an ugly small town.

It’s New Year’s Eve.

It’s now they’ll meet, now.

He’s seventy-nine and his name is Artur.

***

FROM POLICE DOSSIERS

SECTOR: SURVEILLANCE OF MILITARY OFFICIALS – MEMBERS OF THE (FORMER) YUGOSLAV PEOPLE’S ARMY

SUBJECT: ARTUR BIONDI(Ć), RETIRED CAPTAIN OF THE YUGOSLAV NAVY.

FILE: 29 S-MO II a/01-13-92 (Excerpt)

Artur Biondi(ć), born in Labin, 1921. Extramarital son of Maristella Biondi(ć) (deceased) and Carlo Theresin Rankov (deceased). The father of Artur Biondi(ć), Carlo Theresin Rankov (deceased), was born in 1900 on the shores of the river Tanaro, as the extramarital son of Teresa Borsalino, co-owner of a hat factory in Alessandria, and the Serbian military officer of the Austro-Hungarian army under Ranko Matić (deceased).

Artur Biondi – widowed since 1963. Father of two (legitimate) sons, now adults. Retired captain of former Yugoslav Navy. Stationed on the island of Vis until 1975. Citizen of the Republic of Croatia. Inactive since 1980. Lives alone. Constitution prominently asthenic. Height – circa 190 cm, weight – circa 80 kg. Asocial. Suffers from epilepsy. Diagnosis: grand mal, epilepsia tarda. Behaviour occasionally bizarre. Owns a rich collection of hats and caps. Never leaves his house bareheaded.

***

Artur is wearing a black hat. The brim is broad. Artur is walking behind Isabella. He’s looking at Isabella’s hair from behind. That’s pretty hair, curly. That’s black hair. It’s swaying. Her hair sways lazily, sleepily. He has no hair. Isabella doesn’t know that, she doesn’t know his name is Artur and that he has no hair. She’ll find out. Artur’s walking behind Isabella. He catches up with her. My name is Artur, he says. With his right hand Artur touches the brim of his black hat as if he’s going to take it off but he’s not going to take it off, he just brushes it: that’s how it’s done. Elegantly. He touches the woman’s bent elbow, bent, because she has thrust her hand into her coat pocket, that’s why it’s bent. His touch is like a fallen snowflake. But there are no snowflakes. There is only the black sky. Happy New Year, Artur.

My name is Isabella.

***

FROM POLICE DOSSIERS

SECTOR: SURVEILLANCE OF CITIZENS

SUBJECT: ISABELLA FISCHER, MARRIED NAME ROSENZWEIG.

FILE: S-C III/5-17-93 (Excerpt)

Isabella Fischer, born January 29th, 1923 in Chemnitz, Germany. She had an elder brother and elder sister (Waller and Christina) both transported in 1941 to the concentration camp Flossenburg where all trace of them is lost. In 1940 Isabella Fischer, with her mother Sonia Fischer, née Leder, flees to her relatives in Belgrade. Her father, Peter Fischer, co-owner of the shoe factory BATA, remains in Chemnitz. In Belgrade, Isabella Fischer obtains false documents and with her friend of Aryan extraction – Juliana Vukas – leaves for the island of Korčula on April 8th 1941. The mother returns to Chemnitz. In 1943 both of Isabella’s parents are transported to Theresienstadt, then to Auschwitz. Isabella Fischer remains with hundreds of other Jewish families on the island of Korčula until September 1943. At the height of attacks on the island, she crosses to Bari by boat. In Bari, Isabella Fischer is taken care of by American soldiers. Isabella Fischer speaks German, Italian, and English. In Bari she meets her future husband, Felix Rosenzweig, co-owner of a chocolate factory in Austria. After the war, she learns through the International Red Cross that 36 members of her close and extended family have been exterminated in the concentration camps of Flossenburg, Auschwitz and Theresienstadt. Until her husband’s death in 1978 she lives in Salzburg, after which she moves to Croatia. She has no children. By profession a photographer, she opens a photography studio under the name Benjamin Vukas. In 1988 she becomes a citizen of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and sells her shop to the Strechen family. She owns a substantial collection of photographs dating from World War II. Pension insufficient to cover living expenses. Receives a regular annuity from Austria of 4.972 ATS per month. Each monetary transfer is accompanied by a box of chocolates and – quarterly – by a pair of women’s seasonal shoes. No relatives.

Applies for Croatian citizenship three times. Application rejected twice. After the intervention of Swiss Government, the request of Isabella Fischer, married name Rosenzweig, is granted on February 1st 1993.

***

My name is Isabella, says Isabella, and then she smiles so that he, Artur, can see her full set of teeth. Artur notices at once that she has her own teeth, and therefore doesn’t have dentures, he thinks, running his tongue across his small left dental bridge starting from the back. Isabella smiles, she smiles, he sees that she, Isabella, has her own teeth. How come? Artur wonders. My teeth are nicer than his, thinks Isabella, because they’re real. My hair is nicer too. I’m nicer all over. And so, without many words, they stroll along. Artur and Isabella, next to each other, trying to walk in step, because they don’t know each other and their rhythms, their walking rhythms, are different, but they are trying discreetly to walk together on this deserted New Year’s Eve, when all the festivities have ended, the street festivities. It is four o’clock in the morning. January 1st.

Those are your teeth? Artur asks anyway. Are those your teeth? he asks nervously, and without waiting for an answer he decides: I’ll tell her everything about myself. Almost everything.

They are walking. Along streets empty and littered from the New Year celebrations. Artur says: I’ll tell you everything about myself. We’re not children. The night is ethereal.

You don’t need to tell me everything, says Isabella.

Artur says: I used to work for the Yugoslav Navy. I was stationed on Vis. That’s where I met my wife.

Isabella asks: Were you a spy?

Artur thinks: That’s a stupid question. He says nothing.

I adore spy stories, says Isabella, and skips like a young girl.

My wife had a heart condition. She was confined to her bed. Alongside the Yugoslav Navy I used to do all the housework. I became very proficient. Today I do all the housework without a problem.

How do you iron? asks Isabella

I have two sons, says Artur. My wife died, Artur also says.

How do you cook? asks Isabella. They are still walking. Strolling.

I cook fast and well. I like cooking. Slow down a bit, Miss Isabella. Shorten your stride.

They walk. Artur glances quickly at Isabella, askance, and then at the tips of his shoes. The shoes are old. She glances quickly at him, and a bit at the tips of her shoes. She has pretty shoes, she has pretty shoes, new ones, his are cracked, old.

Isabella says: Why do you have such big hands? You have unexpectedly big hands.

He really does have big hands. When he left the Navy, he worked as a salesman for years.

He says: I really do have big hands. When I left the Navy, I worked as a salesman for years. Listen says Artur and stops. Artur cannot walk and pronounce serious thoughts simultaneously. The woman sits on a stone step of a stone building, next to a shop window. They are on a promenade. The promenade is crowded with shop windows. The promenade is actually crowded with shop windows, one next to the other. There are illuminated shop windows. Illuminated shop windows flooded with light that spills over the stone promenade, so that the promenade shines. The shop windows are lit because it’s New Year’s Eve, otherwise the shop windows and stores are mostly dark at night because here poverty reigns.

Dark shop windows. Closed stores. Father’s shoe shop is dark. Isabella would like new shoes. New shoes, black patent leather shoes because Isabella is twelve and they’re giving a school dance and she has to be pretty for the dance. Father teaches her, for days on and off. Father teaches her to waltz, they practice listening to an old record of ‘The Blue Danube’, they spin, Isabella and Father, Isabella in Father’s arms, it’s safe and warm. Father’s store is called BATA. There’s a poster hanging in the window of Father’s shop, a big poster. The huge poster covers the window. Isabella does not see which shoes she would like to buy. She can’t see. The poster hides the shoes. There are no lights. The letters on the poster are black and big. Isabella reads and secretly peeks behind the poster, she searches for black patent leather shoes. For the shoes she’ll never buy.

On the 21st day of December 1935, in this shoe shop, Ilse Johanna Uhlmann, typist at AEG, purchased footwear from the Jew Peter Fischer.

On the 23rd day of December 1935, Arno Lutzner, a salesman for AGFA, bought a pair of slippers from the Jew Peter Fischer, co-owner of the BATA store.

On the 29th day of December 1935, Johannes Weichert, Head of the Isolation Ward of Chemnitz Hospital, bought three pairs of shoes.

In compliance with Act 2 of the Decree of Prohibition of the Purchasing of Goods in Jewish Stores, issued September 15th 1935, the above-listed citizens are to report at the local police station by noon of December 30th 1935, at the latest.

Citizens are informed that Jewish stores are under constant surveillance by photographers engaged by the local government. Whoever enters a Jewish shop will be photographed and will suffer all the consequences specified by law.

W. Schmidt, Mayor of Chemnitz

Isabella sits on the yellow bench in the park, opposite her father’s BATA shoe shop, singing along to ‘The Blue Danube’. Singing. The bench has been newly painted. The dance is cancelled. The dance has been cancelled for Jews. The school is closed. The bench is yellow. Isabella doesn’t go to school any more. Isabella goes into her father’s shop and sits there, she doesn’t want to sit on the yellow bench, she wants to sit among her father’s shoes. In the dark shop. In the deserted shop. It is the winter of 1935.

They cut off Doctor Johannes Weichert’s beard in the main square. People watch and say nothing. Dr Johannes Weichert wears a board on his back. Dr Weichert the sandwich man. On the board it says: Ich habe von den Juden gekauft. In big black letters.

Artur watches the woman sitting on the stone threshold of a house on the promenade with shop windows, the woman’s name is Isabella, he looks at her from above. He says: I’m rich but lonely. I have houses, three of them, I have land, I have money. We’re grown-ups, there’s no sense in equivocating. We could give it a try.

In what sense? asks Isabella.

Artur slides down next to the woman. Now both are sitting on the stone threshold, gazing in front of them at the littered promenade. There’s paper, there are coloured ribbons, there is confetti, there are glasses and bottles and tin cans. There are two tall fir trees decorated with paper bows, because baubles get stolen. Isabella and Artur are seated, leaning on a heavy wooden door. Behind the door is a long dark corridor. Behind the door it is dark. They sit leaning against the entrance in the dark. Outside. Sitting on the stone threshold, in the middle of the promenade. Their shoulders touch. Barely. Their legs are bent at the knees.

The woman lays the palm of her hand on Artur’s knee, Artur has a bony knee. Isabella’s hand drops between Artur’s legs. You wear nappies, says Isabella. You wear nappies, she says, and stretches out her legs. Then she spreads her legs apart; she spreads her outstretched legs apart. Touch, she says.

Artur touches. Nappied ones, says the woman. Slide your hand under.

Under where? asks Artur.

You have a nice hat, says Isabella. Slide it under the nappy.

The night is moonless, says Artur and slides his hand under Isabella’s skirt, he fumbles, he rummages, he muddles. This is a strange town, whispers Isabella, her heart missing a beat, she sighs, ah, and breathes deeply. Isabella sits in her nappy, her legs apart, she sits on the stone threshold and waits. Through the nappy Artur fights his way (somehow) to Isabella’s skin. Isabella has a long neck with a tiny Adam’s apple sliding up and down as she watches what Artur is doing. Isabella says: I’ll take hold of you too, Mr. Artur. We’re adults, there’s no point in beating about the bush. Isabella adds: This town is full of boredom.

The old lady is dry. Down there. All dry. I’m dry, says Isabella.

Mr. Artur, you have a fat finger.

Isabella’s hand is in Artur’s trousers. (Artur moans.) In her palm Isabella holds Artur’s small penis, his small, shrivelled penis. The nappies are – thank god – dry. Both hers and his are clean and dry. In her closed hand Isabella holds Mr Artur’s penis, she holds his penis and rubs. Up and down.

“A”

Abwehr

down

Adolf

up

Anschluss

down

Appellplatz

up

Arbeit macht frei

down

Aktion

up

Arier Rasse

down

Aktion Erntefest

Aktion Reinhard

Anschluss

up

Auf gut deutsch

Antisemitismus

Auschwitz

Isabella’s hand hurts. Isabella slows down.

A bit faster, please, a bit faster, Miss Isabella.

“B”

Blut und Boden

down up down

up down

“E”

Einsatzkommandos

Endlösnung

Eugenik

Euthanasie

“G”

Gestapo.

down-n’-up-n’-down-n’-up-n’-down-n’-up-n’-down

Genozid

“H”

Herrenvolk

Häftlingspersonalbogen

“J”

Jude

Judenfrei

Judengelb – yellow, yellow

Juden raus!

Die Juden – unser Unglűck

Judenrat

up

Judenrein

up n’ down n’ up n’ down when will he come?

“K”

Kapo

Kommando

KDP – Thaelmann

Krematorium

Kriminalpolizei

Kristallnacht Chemnitz

up-and-down

“L”

Lager

Lagersystem

Lebensraum

Lebensunwertes Lebens

Hitler under “H”

we’re almost there, up n’ down n’ down n’ down n’

“M”

Mein Kampf

Muselmänner

“O”

Ordnungspolizei

Ostministerium – Rosenberg.

“P”

Pogrom

“R”

Rassismus

“S”

Sonderkommando

“T”

Thanatologie

“U”

Übermenschen

“V”

Vernichtung

down n’ up n’ down n’ up n’ down

“Z”

Zyklon B

Done.

A one-minute wank, ten years of history, ten years of Isabella’s life. Isabella’s hand is full of Artur’s lukewarm diluted sperm.

Isabella has small hands. Artur hasn’t got much sperm.

Artur’s finger, which finger Isabella asks herself, the middle or the index finger, Mr Artur has big fingers, his finger finds its way, enters, and inside it twists and turns it turns and goes a bit in and a bit out, in and out and in and out.

You’re no longer dry, says the old man, I’ve turned you on, says Artur. Yes, says Isabella, I haven’t been turned on for a long time. Now I have to pee.

And so, on the stone step they sit and gaze straight ahead with glassy eyes, with dead eyes, like fish, no one passes by, they touch like children.

Where do you buy your hats?

I have a rich collection of hats, says Artur. I have a distant cousin through whom I get my hats, Artur adds. He says that quietly.

***

FROM POLICE DOSSIERS

DOCUMENT: A.B./S-P IVc 31-10-97

A DEBRIEFING INTERVIEW BETWEEN THE INVESTIGATOR TITO FRANK (HENCEFORTH REFERRED TO AS ‘THE INVESTIGATOR’) AND THE HATTER, THOMAS WOLF (HENCEFORTH ‘WOLF’) ON 31 OCT. 1997

Investigator: You are a hatter?

Wolf: I am a creator of hats. There is a difference.

Investigator: How long have you been working in this profession?

Wolf: Sixty years. I inherited the store and the workshop from my father.

Investigator: Where was your father from?

Wolf: Lombardy.

Investigator: You also create hats for the president. How did that happen?

Wolf: Excuse me. I created hats for both presidents.

Investigator: What kind of hats were those?

Wolf: Black. The model is called ‘President’. They are always called ‘President’ but they are never the same.

Investigator: You only made hats for the presidents?

Wolf: No. Due to market pressures I had to widen my range.

Investigator: Who are your customers?

Wolf: We are a successful family firm. We have many customers. Ask if the great author Krleža bought from us?

Investigator: Forget Krleža. Who buys your hats nowadays?

Wolf: Krleža was a special customer. He didn’t often order in person. He had the use of a car, I think it was an Opel, and his chauffeur would take the hats. We would make the hats according to the rules of the trade, but Krleža would squash them, distort them a bit, and only then put them on his head. Today lots of different people buy our hats. Politicians and ordinary people.

Investigator: How do politicians take to your hats?

Wolf: Obediently. It doesn’t occur to them to knead them into shape.

Investigator: Who else?

Wolf: What do you mean who else?

Investigator: Who else buys them?

Wolf: The writer Marija Jurić Zagorka bought them. She had a large circumference: 61 cm. After the Second World War women covered their heads with scarves, they didn’t frequent our store.

Investigator: Is it true that you created the first officers’ hats?

Wolf: In which period are you referring to? When our business first opened, my father created hats only for women. I am the best hatter in this town. And further.

Investigator: You also provide a dog-training service? For police dogs?

Wolf: In my youth, I was also a boxer. Right now I am a member of the local mountaineering club. I climb the lower heights. Mostly on Sundays.

Investigator: Were you in the war?

Wolf: Which war are you referring to?

Investigator: What is your opinion of our politicians?

Wolf: They are all bigheads. They all have circumferences bigger than 60 cm. My hats have a soul.

Investigator: Do you create hats from your own imagination or do your customers tell you what they’re looking for?

Wolf: Some people need advice. Presidents don’t like to change models. They stick to one style. Always the same.

Investigator: How often does the president change his hat in a year?

Wolf: The president isn’t a big fan of hats. He has maybe four or five hats, and those are the ones we gave him as presents. He didn’t buy new ones. Sometimes he sends his hats to be brushed. He keeps them well. Those in his entourage who take care of his wardrobe have a problem: his hats would always get destroyed during travel. That’s why we sent him a hat box. Good job the president doesn’t travel often.

Investigator: Does the president pay by card or with cash?

Wolf: The president doesn’t pay. We wouldn’t allow that.

Investigator: Who else wears your hats?

Wolf: Members of the Senate. Mostly those of the right-wing party. They are the majority.

Investigator: Do you have a favourite head of state?

Wolf: I made a Slavonian hat for Genscher.

Investigator: You once said that big heads were cleverer than small heads.

Wolf: There are always exceptions.

Investigator: Does the making of women’s hats differ in any way from the making of men’s hats?

Wolf: Women’s hats are considerably more pliable. For men’s hats you often need physical strength to work the material. Women’s hats take more time; they are not made in multiple copies.

Investigator: What opinion do you have of the Croatian people based on their choice of hats?

Wolf: I don’t have an opinion.

Investigator: Do you know Artur Bondić?

Wolf: His surname is Biondi. He is the greatest wearer of hats in this country. We are distantly related.

***

Isabella lifts her left hand (the right hand is still in Artur’s trousers), touches his hat, takes the hat off the old man’s head, puts it on her own head, puts it back on the old man’s, on his hairless head, the old man is called Artur.

Why? Why do you collect hats?

This town has no class, says Artur. My grandmother was Italian. From Alessandria. Her name was Teresa, he adds.

Once upon a time Artur’s mother tells him, once upon a time, Serbian officers in the Austro-Hungarian army were stationed in barracks in Lombardy. Alessandria is in Lombardy, says his mother. Serbian officers go out in Alessandria looking for women, because the town is full of pretty girls, yes. Later, the town was full of hats, says his mother. I’ll tell you a story she says.