Marija Peričić - The Lost Pages

After only a short time Alexandr came in. He saw me and came to stand beside me at the bar. I bought him a schnapps.

‘Is your friend having another dinner?’ he asked.

I told him about the party.

‘This one will be easier because you will be in a crowd,’ I said. Although, when I considered it, this was not necessarily true. The evening would no doubt be full of people wanting to discuss the book with him. Could I ask him to read it? But perhaps this was not necessary: in my experience, people love nothing more than giving their own opinion and rarely take in what anyone else is saying.

‘My rate is a hundred and twenty crowns for the evening,’ he said. It was more than I had expected, but we both knew that I had no choice but to pay it. I had come prepared, and handed him half of the required sum with the other half to come afterwards. I arranged to meet him at the St Wenceslas monument in the Wenzelsplatz.

By the day of the party my confidence had flagged somewhat. I became sick with dread. I tried to buoy myself up by thinking of Anja and remembering the touch of her lips, the warmth of her breath, but even that could not entirely dispel the heavy foreboding that lay over me. I sat in my office at work and tried to distract myself with mundane tasks. The hours crawled past. After my lunch break a postcard came for me from Anja. She was writing to say that she could no longer come to the party with me because she was ill.

What was left of my newly acquired energy seeped out of me. I screwed up the card and threw it across the room. Without Anja, there was no longer any reason for me to go to the party either. Except that I had already given Alexandr sixty crowns and there was little hope of recovering the cash. My old apathy returned. Perhaps it did not much matter what I did. People were always going to regard me as a freak, and at well past twenty years of age, this was something that I would have to accept. There was nothing I could do about it. As for Franz, well, either I would be found out or not. I had no control over the situation. I decided to go ahead as planned. I might as well get my money’s worth.

At seven o’clock I made my way to the Wenzelsplatz. Alexandr was to be there at half past, in plenty of time for the party at eight. I arrived early and waited.

Now I was terrified of the party, envisioning the array of horrors the evening might contain. I began to walk up the length of the square to distract myself. ‘If I walk once up and down,’ I told myself, ‘Alexandr will be there when I get back.’ I forced myself to walk slowly and concentrate on each step, but my thoughts would not be quieted. When I got back to the monument Alexandr was still not there. I walked all around the monument in case he was standing on the other side. It was twenty to eight. Everything was very quiet. Above me the figure of St Ludmila was only a black shape that rose up and blotted out the stars. I glanced at my watch, which was now showing a quarter to eight. I was in agonies at the thought of Franz arriving at the party before us.

There came the sound of hurrying feet and ragged breath.

‘Herr Brod?’ came a voice, and a man was beside me. I could not see him clearly in the gloom cast by the monument.

‘Alexandr?’

‘No,’ said the man, ‘my name is Gustav. Alexandr could not come tonight. I will take his place.’

I felt the muscles on my face slacken with shock and the buildings around the square reeled before my eyes. It could not be true. I cursed Alexandr, and myself for trusting him.

Even in the dark Gustav must have seen the look on my face, for he quickly began to assure me of the similarity between him and Alexandr. He stepped away from the statue and removed his hat to let the light shine better on his face. I noticed that he was wearing what looked like the same grey suit that Alexandr had worn to the dinner. It was true that he did resemble Alexandr. He was dark and had the same upright, martial way of holding himself. But, even if I tried to imagine that it was Alexandr, it was clear to me that it was a different man. However, I had spent more time with him than Theodor, who had only seen him for an hour at the most. There was a chance, I thought, that he would not notice. If I was very lucky. By now it was almost eight o’clock.

‘Let’s go,’ I said.

The weather had turned and a light rain had begun. The lights from the lamps were reflected on the stones of the street, making starry patches under our feet that flashed up at us as we walked. The party was being held at the Hotel Europa, which was only a short walk from the monument—too short, I now felt.

With every step I cursed Franz, who was the cause of all of this mess. I felt like a man walking to his own certain death, but I could not turn away. I was propelled forward, as though swept up in an avalanche, and the weight of all my shame and anger roared at my heels. I heard my footsteps clatter along, and saw my dim shadow swinging back and forth like a pendulum beside Gustav’s gliding one. I imagined all the faces at the party turned towards me, looking with disgust at my hulking body, which revealed the true ugliness of my innermost self.

Gustav did not try to speak with me. He just walked along, quietly humming a tune, and though the rain increased he let the light raindrop beads encrust his hat and shoulders instead of putting up his umbrella. The rain had made the cobblestones slippery and my left foot kept sliding sideways on them. I was using my umbrella as a walking stick to steady myself. I was becoming soaked but I knew that if I put up my umbrella it would be difficult for me to keep my balance.

I wanted to ask Gustav to hold my umbrella over me. I formulated the question in my head: Would you mind covering me with an umbrella? Or could I take your arm? It’s difficult for me to walk in the rain. My lips mouthed the questions. Were they reasonable requests? Or were they irksome? Making another person responsible for my own inability to walk. The more I considered it, the less I was able to determine which it was. [13] This paragraph has been crossed out.

I slowed down to put up my umbrella, which had a mechanism that often jammed. Gustav walked on ahead of me. I succeeded in getting the umbrella up and immediately felt better. Gustav had proceeded quite far up the road. I could see the raindrops sparkling on his head and shoulders as he passed beneath the streetlamps.

I quickened my pace to catch up with him, holding out my left arm as a counterweight to the umbrella, but of course I had only proceeded a short way before I missed my step. My foot slid away from me and I came down heavily on the stones. My umbrella tumbled away down the street. There was nothing to hold on to and I scrabbled around trying to stand up. An image came to me of myself as Gregor, grovelling on the floor of his house.

Gustav had run away down the street to retrieve my umbrella. By the time I was standing again he was back at my side, holding out my umbrella for me to take. I wanted to cry with self-pity. My right wrist ached from where I had fallen on it and the skin had scraped away. I was too ashamed to tell Gustav that I could not walk while holding the umbrella, and the rain was now too heavy for me to do without it, so I took it from him and we walked on. He put his umbrella up also, and kept pace with me.

I desperately wanted to take his arm to steady myself. I could see it in the corner of my eye, temptingly solid and reassuring, bent in a crook like a purpose-built handle. I even reached out my fingers and brushed them against the fabric of his sleeve, but could not bring myself to grasp it and lean on him.