Tim Parks - Europa

Colin was stubbing his cigarette on the fire extinguisher and with his curling lip beneath thin moustache he asks, What diseases? Wass the problem, luv?

AIDS, she says demurely.

Oh, AIDS, Colin says, climbing out of the stairs, ‘ow’s a nice girl like you supposed to get fuckin’ AIDS, fuckin’ Ada? and everybody laughs. Or perhaps around Italians one should say fuckin’ Aida, he adds. And everybody laughs again. Nicoletta in the seat in front laughs and Maura beside her laughs and Georg laughs and says, avuncular, in Italian, to the girl beside him, between us, If Colin hasn’t got AIDS it can’t be that ubiquitous, can it?

The girl laughs.

Who says he hasn’t got it? I suddenly join in. It’s the whisky speaking. And I add, in English: AIDS aids for the man who’s got everything, which is the kind of joke I crack when we’re talking tottie over billiards.

Oh speak for y’fuckin’ self, Colin says, swaying in the aisle. Oh thank you very much, Mr Jeremiah. And for stealing my seat, cunt. He winks and taps his nose. Anuwer fav’rite word.

All the girls laugh, because people in groups do laugh at this kind of thing; sometimes it seems there is nothing that people in groups will not laugh at, or rather giggle about, as on other occasions it seems there is nothing people in groups will not do to other people in smaller groups or no groups at all, and Plaster-cast-tottie, who I’ve now noticed has a low-cut sweater and generous breasts though on the kind of stocky body that could only make itself desirable between say thirteen and thirty, Plaster-cast-tottie says, unasked, that she doesn’t believe in God, but she doesn’t disbelieve, she is searching, Plottie says. This girl is very earnest, but very flirty too, with a sort of bold, glassy stare that demands to be exchanged. Perhaps she knows that her attractions are only the attractions of youth. Perhaps she knows she has to use them now. There is something very glassy and very bold and very hyper about Plaster-cast-tottie’s stare and she keeps pushing a page-boy fringe from her eyes. So then I ask her, because suddenly it seems I'm talking to people, I'm talking to everybody, I've given up all hope of hiding away in books I don’t want to read, i've given up all hope of cultivating aloofness and dignity, I ask Plottie, what does she mean, she is searching? What does it mean when people say they are searching? Where do they look, how do they look, what do they actually do when they are searching ?

Nicoletta appears from above the seat-back in front and smiles at me from her big eyes and the girl is faintly reproachful, as if to ask why I have neglected her so long, staying at the front talking to Dottor Griffiths and then not even acknowledging her a moment ago when I came back and flopped into my seat. As if there were no intimacy between us. I smile back, and I’m aware that I like this girl who cocks her head to one side and smiles reproachfully, as though at a puppy that’s misbehaved, I like her because she is so different from her , and at the same time Plaster-cast-tottie is telling me-she has a blue bead necklace she is winding round a finger- that what she is searching for is something that will give her an equilibrio interiore . She’s twenty-one and she still hasn’t achieved an equilibrio interiore , she says, and this time Georg lets a very broad smile cross his face.

You bastard kraut, Colin shouts. I saw that smirk. Don’t laugh at the little girl as if you were so fuckin’ superior. An equilibrio interiore is fuckin’ important, Colin says, standing in the middle of the back passageway right in front of us, enjoying his theatrical belligerence.

Georg only smiles the more.

Unwisely, I throw in, I'm forty-five and I've never achieved an equilibrio interiore .

Colin says: Oh, aren’t we sturm und drang! Not bad, eh, he adds, elbowing the attractive Monica of the slim jeans and the cousin who wants ex-boy-friends to feel sorry for her, Not a bad range of cultural reference, what eh? Very Euraufait, no? Euraufait. J for joke. He shakes his head. Shove up a bit, love, this sod has stolen the seat I stole from him.

Colin sits on Monica’s legs even before she has a chance to move and starts to explain his Euraufait joke for the benefit of the young Italians who haven’t understood, while I’m thinking, Why can’t you be like Colin? Would you like to be like Colin? What on earth do the girls think of him? Beating someone across the face is irremediable, I tell myself. Much worse than anything Colin does. Until with a sudden determination to participate at all costs, to escape at all costs the Furies pressing, their faces against the wet coach windows where hills are massing again now under a heavy shower surreal with doodlings of afternoon neon, I ask, Hands up those who have achieved an equilibrio interiore , come on, hands up! And of all those sitting in the back two rows, to wit Margherita in the extreme left corner, Georg, Plaster-cast-tottie, silent, pouty Veronica on my right, Graziano, Monica, Nicoletta and Maura, and Colin on Monica’s knees, of all these only Graziano and Nicoletta half put up their hands.

Explain, I say, determined now not to be left alone with myself for one more minute of this trip, determined to talk, to be the centre of attention — so that now lying here on my narrow bed in this Strasbourg suburb, whether to north or south or east or west I neither know nor care, it occurs to me that this must have been the moment when I consciously changed plan, or rather became conscious of having unconsciously changed plan, having opted in a complete and bizarre swing of temperament, not for silent reserve, but for a virtuoso performance. From now on you will perform nonstop, I told myself. For the next forty-eight hours and with the help of a little whisky perhaps and enormous reserves of nervous energy you will be deeply ironic and sparklingly witty, and she will see you being brilliant and crackling like a firework and she will imagine that you have got over her entirely and she will be intensely jealous of the young women you’re talking to and will deeply regret…

Explain, I demand.

Graziano, in the second seat from the back on the left-hand side, has an open, boyish face whose patchy unshavenness suggests how young he is. He shrugs his shoulders and smiles shyly Cost , he says.

But you feel you have achieved an equilibrio interiore?

He smiles.

Georg says smoothly, Leave off, Jerry.

I just want him to explain how he does it, I said. With the best will in the world, I asked the boy, What do you do? I mean, how do you fill the time? Let’s see if that gives us the clue.

Wanking, Colin suggests.

Only Plaster-cast-tottie laughs. That gave a naughty little girl away, didn’t it? Colin says. Don’t we know a lot of naughty words?

Colin! Georg says. For Christ’s sake!

So then Graziano tells us that he plays the guitar, classical guitar and folk songs, that he attends meetings of Rifondazione Comunista and delivers leaflets for them because he believes they’re the only political party who seriously want to help poor people. He reads a lot for his exams and helps his father on their grandfather’s smallholding near Lodi which they work Saturdays and Sundays and sometimes in the evenings in summer. They grow salad greens and aubergines and peppers.

Rifondazione Comunista! Maura, beside Nicoletta, protests, and it’s the first thing she’s said that I’ve registered. How can you support Rifondazione Comunista when it’s them prevented the Left coming to power?

But I suggest we leave aside the politics. The last thing we need is an argument about politics. No, what we want to establish, I say, is whether there is anything profoundly similar to each other and different from ourselves in the lives of those claiming to have achieved an equilibrio interiore . Something that might indicate how the rest of us can get there. No trouble with women? I ask Graziano.