Aleksandar Hemon - The Making of Zombie Wars

At the kitchen table, there sat a huge, large-headed man, with a barbed-wire tattoo going around his neck, Bushy purring on top of his crossed legs. The man’s feet were not only large but enormously wide, like snorkeling fins. Before Joshua recognized him as Esko, the man appeared — for a split, foolish second — as a cable guy with some kind of an emblem on his chest. Next to him, in a T-shirt that read, “If there’s no God, who pops up the next Kleenex?” there was Bega, complete with an unkempt smile on his swollen, undershaven face, his blue eyes bright and watery, a cigarette in one hand, the other one on Esko’s shoulder, as if trying to keep him down. They shouldn’t have been there, the two of them, yet they were right there.

“Translate,” Esko ordered Bega and continued to mutter a relentless stream of lippy Bosnian consonants, spit particles catching morning sunlight as they hovered above the table. When he stopped, Bega uttered: “Me and my wife had face-to-face conversation.”

He stopped as if waiting for Joshua to say or acknowledge something, which was beyond Joshua’s abilities at the moment. The two of them looked horribly at home in Kimmy’s kitchen. Think, thought, thoughtful, thoughtless, thinker — the scattered ashes of the entire family.

“Maybe better to say heart-to-heart conversation,” Bega went on. “I believe it is very unacceptable that you”—he pointed at Joshua—“are putting your dick inside my woman. We were in the war together.” Confusingly, Bega pointed at Esko and himself. “We survived together in hell.”

He enunciated the words with little emotion, as though he translated threats every day of his life, as though he’d never drunk with or seen Joshua. Esko produced another bunch of consonants, stroking the cat all along. He didn’t look upset; his face was serene; occasionally, he sucked on his teeth, as if bored. There was a dime-shaped scar on his forehead Joshua hadn’t noticed before, right above his left eyebrow. Bushy was revving his little pleasure engine, apparently in the middle of an extended orgasm. When Esko stopped talking, Bega nodded and smiled, as if content that he already possessed the exact words. Joshua stared at him in disbelief, unable to utter the obvious question. Idea: he could charge out of the kitchen, through the living room, then shout for help from the porch. What would he say to the neighborhood, though? Help! The husband of the woman I slept with wants to punish me!?

“I am considering slicing your”—Bega paused to relish the precision of his translation—“prick off and putting it in your mouth until you choke.”

The minuscule portion of Joshua’s mind that was not paralyzed with mortal fear thought that that was a rather powerful translation. Bega shrugged and grinned, as though to suggest that one day they would all be laughing it up when recollecting in tranquillity this comic scene. Clearly, he did not see his trespassing presence as a betrayal. Speaking of betrayal: Bushy was kneading the top of Esko’s knee, his eyes slits of pleasure. Right over there, by the coffee machine, there was a collection of very sharp knives of all sizes. The big one was top-of-the-line Psycho quality. Joshua couldn’t move; his body had deserted him.

“However,” Bega continued, “in this country to do such things is not very acceptable.”

Without letting go of Bushy, the man put his enormously large hand gently on the table, shaping it as a gun pointed in Joshua’s direction. Oh Lord, don’t chasten me and make me a disposable character in your spec script!

“Maybe I will just shoot your knees,” Bega went on, “so that you must never walk again and touch my wife or any other woman.”

That was not me. That was not me at all. It was someone else. Saying it would increase his chances, even if infinitesimally. But there was no way for Joshua to actually utter anything. He wasn’t able to open his mouth, even if an incipient word gurgled in his throat. All of his inner passageways were crumbling like mine shafts in one of those Indiana Jones movies.

“Understand?” Esko asked.

“Understand?” Bega repeated.

“Understand,” Joshua finally spoke up.

“Very good,” Bega said and sighed — there was nothing else that could be done about any of this. Esko lifted Bushy to face him and smiled at his friend the fluffy cat. He grasped Bushy’s head with his enormous thick-fingered hand and wrung his neck in one swift move. Bushy attempted a yelp but then went perfectly limp within a blink. Esko laid him down on the table, stroked his head one more time, and stood up.

“Ay!” Bega said, nodding, as if now everything made sense.

Only then did Joshua realize that his towel had dropped to the floor and he was naked. Good news: his penis was still there, as were his knees, if trembling.

“He was in Special Police. Little crazy,” Bega said. “Sorry about that.”

He flicked his cigarette into the sink where it hissed, and he followed Esko out, glancing back at Josh before failing to close the door behind him. No sound was available for hearing. No rewind for comprehending.

The Lord had installed a huge hook for a light fixture right above the table — Joshua could climb on the table, attach the belt, and jump off, thereby stretching to the point of snapping his neck. He leaned against the counter and poured himself coffee with his violently trembling hands, spilling it and burning his navel area. All the knives had black handles; knives always had black handles: why is that? He couldn’t sit down; in fact, he couldn’t make it to the chair, as his legs were so drained of blood that there was no way to control them, even if his knees were somewhat operational. The kitchen smelled of the man’s homicidal perspiration, of Bega’s smoke and cologne, of Bushy’s death, of Kimmy’s lavender-and-papaya conditioner in Joshua’s hair. He tried to put the cup on the counter but missed by some distance and it exploded against the floor. Bushy’s eyes were glassy with mortal surprise, his neck perpendicular to his spine. There had been life there, and now there wasn’t. Everything in this house belonged to Kimmy; everything now perished. As the coffee spread into a puddle, Joshua looked outside: perhaps everything in the world was about to be taken down as well, like a spent stage set.

Out on the sidewalk, Bega was caught mid-step in watching something with a concerned frown. Joshua wanted to see; he moved shakily along the counter, along the wall, then stepped out on the porch.

Bare-chested and barefoot, indifferent to the cold, his hair in two pigtails, all the nipple studs and tattoos in place, wearing Joshua’s stars-and-stripes shorts, there stood Stagger. There stood Stagger, pressing the tip of his long samurai sword against the spot between Esko’s eyes. The Bosnian had his hands at his thighs, the right one still gun-shaped. There stood Stagger facing him.

“Want me to cut him, Jonjo?” Stagger hollered. “Say a word, I’ll slice the motherfucker!”

Esko was ninja-still, his muscles tight as violin strings, staring Stagger down. The barbed-wire choker on Esko’s neck looked much thicker now. He said something to Bega, giving him some sort of order, so Bega moved gingerly toward his red Honda, keeping an eye on Stagger and Esko all along, as if loath to miss anything. All the movement within Joshua’s frame of vision was perfectly coordinated, as if they’d all rehearsed it before. Esko spread his feet a bit, finding a better position for some inescapably forthcoming move. Everything was rushing forward, except for Joshua, who stood still, like a rock in a stream.

“Don’t move or I’ll cut you, motherfucker! Jonjo, just say a word! I’m here for you, baby!”

Bega got into the car, turned it on, and opened the passenger door. Two plush dice dangled from the rearview mirror. Joshua, stark naked, leaned against the wall, feeling the cold on his buttocks. There was a yellow rocking chair on the porch he hadn’t noticed before. The obese mailman was waddling along Magnolia, happily protected by his earphones from the Lord’s wrath and the myriad evils of the world. A man attached to a Great Dane progressed toward a vanishing point. The car engine was roaring, Bega now brandishing sunglasses. Some kind of a wan bird hovered obliviously at the empty feeder Joshua had never seen before. Please, Lord, let my soul slip free!