Ivan Vladislavić - The Restless Supermarket

Wessels. Of all people! Riddled with plurality, liverish, toothy, thatched, thick as two short planks.

I missed the days of intimate quadrilaterality. But I would be lying if I said that I was not sucked into the maelstrom of our growing circularity.

All these new acquaintances had one happy advantage for me at least, one ‘spin-off’ — the perfectly apt Americanese, implying as it does that something is going round in circles rather too quickly and throwing off consequences like sparks. I had never before in my life been exposed to so much misuse and malapropism, so much sheer barbarism. I had stumbled upon a windfall in the least likely place. Even as I struggled to concentrate in the mounting babble, I began to keep lists of these bad apples for incorporation into ‘The Proofreader’s Derby’. It wouldn’t take long before the newest of the newcomers, in sub-standard English of one variety or another — we had ceased to attract the better sort of person — would stick a nose into my business and ask: ‘What are you scribbling in that notebook of yours?’

‘Oh, it’s just something you said.’ And I’d put the book quickly in my pocket, with a deliberately dusty chuckle. ‘Nothing important.’

Then they would insist, indefatigably, until at last I relented: ‘Don’t say I didn’t warn you … You see, a moment ago you said: “My cousin’s a computer boff.” Well, it’s not “boff” — it’s “buff”. Or “boffin”. But never “boff” or “buffin”, which I’ve also heard more than once.’

And from there it was a short step to telling them all about ‘The Proofreader’s Derby’, and a whole lot of other things besides. My ‘topics’ (Merle). Things they didn’t necessarily want to hear. Not one in ten had the foggiest idea what I meant; but they were impressed with me anyway, and proud to be part of my research. It was the index cards that did it, and the lever-arch files with the granite finish.

As far as my letters to the press were concerned, I believe the admiration was sincere. I had long since learnt to lay the newspaper down on the table in such a way that Merle would realize one of my letters had been published, and share it with the others. None of them in all that time ever earned the distinction, although several followed my example and tried their hand at it. What thrilled them most was seeing my name in print. ‘A. Tearle,’ they would mutter, turning it over in their mouths like so much melanzano or what-have-you, savouring the unexpected taste of it, while the living embodiment sat before them, sipping a tea, twirling a pencil. ‘A. Tearle.’ I served as a basic English lesson.

Once, when I’d included a covering note to explain a complicated layout and unthinkingly appended my full name, the editor took it upon himself to add it to my letter. As if that wasn’t bad enough, the imbecile rendered it Audrey Tearle. I hoped no one would notice, but the fool with the echolalia did, illiterate as he was, and started cracking jokes about ‘Little Audrey’. He was full of jokes. It reminded me of the mania for joke-telling that had seized Spilkin when Mevrouw Bonsma first settled among us, and I prayed it was just a ‘phase’ this one was going through, a nervous habit perhaps, brought on by the strain of being in more sophisticated company than he was accustomed to. But the condition proved to be chronic.

‘Who is that dolt?’ I asked Merle, when he had gone to the Gentlemen’s room, which he did at regular intervals, seeing that Mrs Mavrokordatos was plying him with beer.

‘Wessels,’ she said. ‘Martinus Theodosius Wessels.’

Perhaps that was when ‘Empty’ first occurred to me.

*

For two whole weeks, Mevrouw Bonsma poured out nothing but dirges, long draughts of ‘Galway Bay’ and ‘The Mountains of Mourne’ that had the Bohemians weeping as if they were Irishmen themselves, which they very nearly were. I said it was homesickness; the Wessels character insisted it was ‘dronkverdriet’ We pleaded for jollier melodies — ‘Loch Lomond’ was a favourite with McAllister, I recall, to restore the geographical balance — but Mevrouw would not comply.

‘I remain your humble servant, but I cannot. I feel so sad, and so does the piano. It hurts here.’ She stroked a tender spot on the keyboard and sucked a föhn off the Alibian Alps through the gaps in her teeth.

‘I feel it too,’ said Merle. ‘I feel it in my bones. Something terrible is about to happen.’

‘What do you say, Mrs Hay?’

Our clairvoyant just hitched up a region of her fallen face with her thumb and kept silent.

Whether or not the tragedy had been foretold in bone and ivory, it came to pass. Mrs Mavrokordatos acquired for the Café Europa two television sets. They were hoisted aloft on pivoting platforms attached to the walls, one over the door to the kitchen and the other over Mevrouw Bonsma’s head. Once again, I had to alert our proprietress to the perils of the course she was pursuing.

‘This will bring in the wrong crowd.’

‘You mean blacks?’

People had Africans on the brain.

‘I mean television watchers. “Viewers” as they want to be called. And sports enthusiasts in particular, fanatics of hockey, cricket, and especially football.’

I was right. The television sets brought in a lot of noisy immigrants from Glasgow and Manchester and Leeds, whose greatest joy was to watch the football teams from their old home towns, turnipy manikins with bulging legs and rosy cheeks, rushing around on lawns of the unnatural lushness usually reserved for botanical gardens. The clubs had the quaintest names, Rangers and Hearts, Tottenham Hotspurs and Crystal Palace. Occasionally there were local fixtures too, played by teams out of the Christmas pantomime, such as the Chiefs and the Pirates. I half expected poor old Noodler to take the pitch. One of the players, by the name of Khumalo, claimed to be a doctor. Probably struck off the roll for misconduct. The football fanatics were all diminutives: Robby and Freddy, Bobby and Teddy, a whole dynasty of Harries. Clientele, Mrs Mavrokordatos insisted, so long as their money is good. The phrase that came to my mind was ‘paying customers’. When they gave the attendance figures at sports stadia, that was the term they always used, as if there were bound to be gatecrashers and cheats too, who should not be counted.

After the sports fanatics, came a variety of others: spinsters addicted to situation comedies, bachelors with a passion for news or weather reports, devotees of the quiz show or the courtroom drama.

As I’d anticipated, Mevrouw Bonsma’s reign was drawing to a close. Soon she was confined to a single shift between five o’clock and half past six, a period known with cavalier disregard for accuracy on every count as the ‘Happy Hour’. By arrangement with the proprietor of the Haifa, a noticeboard spangled with chalky Hebrew Magen Dovids was secured to the railings at the bottom of the escalator in the street outside, with a photograph of Mevrouw Bonsma signed ‘Yours, Suzanna’ sellotaped to it under plastic, as if she were a piece of cheap merchandise — a disposable watch or an overripe melon. I tried to get up a petition to have more of Mevrouw Bonsma and less of the television sets, but no one would sign it, apart from the old squares, and even they thought it was a losing battle.

It wasn’t long before the television sets were being left on even while Mevrouw Bonsma played. At five to five every day, as she settled herself at the piano, Eveready climbed up on a chair and turned the volume down, so that those with the urge could follow the silent sequence of events that flickered there.