Ivan Vladislavić - The Restless Supermarket

‘Your European affectations were always nauseating,’ Spilkin said in a threatening tone, ‘going on about the difference between “ambience” and “atmosphere”, as if every pretentious little “bistro” didn’t lay claim to “ambience”. The estate agents cottoned on to it years ago. And picking on the Americans, as if it’s their fault there’s a Hamburger Hut on Piccadilly Circus.’

‘I just happen to prefer the European way of life. I find it civilized.’

‘They hell of a civilized … when they not killing each other.’

‘Ah yes, the Europeans, you’re very big on them. But when you meet one in the flesh, like Bogey, you can’t stand him.’

‘Bogey is a poor example. The man’s a drunkard.’

‘Hey, Bogue, did you hear this?’

Bogue?

‘You’re so churlish.’ I supposed Spilkin was referring to the way Wessels mangled my name, but he went on, ‘You never have a good word to say about anyone or anything. A real Jeremiah, that’s what you are.’

‘No, no, I might own up to being a Jonah, but never a Jeremiah.’

‘Do you remember when Darlene first came to the Café? You said she was a whore.’

‘Well, you did find her in a bordello.’

‘Your bum in a drum!’

‘How dare you! I met her at the Perm. She was a cashier.’

‘I’m telling you, she used to come in here with her clients. As bold a bit of brass as you’d find in a Szechuan kitchen. I saw her with a man once, sticking her tongue in his ear.’

‘She never set foot in this place until I brought her here myself!’

‘Impossible.’

‘You have a memory like a sieve. You shake out the bits that don’t suit you.’

‘There’s nothing cribriform about my memory.’

‘If you’d stop trying to be clever and listen to what we’re saying, you might learn something for once. We should have spoken up when you started with Evaristus. It shames me that we didn’t.’

‘When I started what?’

‘Calling him Eveready.’

‘That’s his name.’

‘Nonsense. You came up with it. You said he was a bright spark. It’s a nasty streak in you. Who else would have called Mevrouw Bonsma “Crêpe Suzanna” behind her back?’

‘Spilkijn!’ The word stuck out from between her lips like a toothpick.

‘Remember when he said the blacks should have their own crockery.’

‘He said it was unhealthy.’

‘That was the dog!’

‘You’ve got a short memory.’

‘I’ve got a memory like an elephant.’ Dumbo rose involuntarily to mind. ‘You’re all putting words in my mouth, inventing things I couldn’t possibly have said.’

‘You and your insinuendoes.’

‘He never learns neither. Even tonight he called Eugene a rat.’

In the middle of this farce, who should come into focus but Quim, from the Jumbo Liquor Market, smiling at me superciliously, despite my glaring back. Could he have put them up to this? Has he acquired what they call ‘clout’ in what they call ‘the new dispensation’?

*

Enough. This inquisition went on for what seemed like a lifetime. Until the plates, twice and thrice refilled, were empty but for wing-bones in smears of tomato sauce. Then they began to subside one by one into satiated silence, and would have forgotten all about me, casting me aside like another dented trophy — some of them were already nodding off — had Darlene not stoked them up again.

‘You worked for the regime,’ she said.

‘I proofread the telephone directory!’

‘Exactly. How do you think the cops found out where people lived? When they wanted to go harass them?’

I am not a coward. In those far-off days when the world was at war, I had itched to go up north, and I’d have gone too, young as I was, if it hadn’t been for my eyes. I’ve stood up to my share of bullies along the way. But my blood ran cold when I saw where this crooked line of reasoning was leading. I remembered looking down on the plot in Prospect Road, where something lay with sheets of newspaper fluttering around it like flames.

‘Terrible things have happened in this country,’ a young woman was saying. ‘And you are as much to blame for them as the men who did the dirty work.’

‘Ja, you’ve got to stop pointing fingers. You’ve got to take responsibility.’

‘It’s your fault.’

‘Ja, Churl or whatever the case may be, it’s all your fault.’

Another wave of resentment. But just as I was beginning to think that they would actually beat me with their fists, or cast me to the wolves from the balcony, things took an unexpected turn. And oddly enough, it was Darlene who started it. In the middle of this diatribe, she suddenly waved everyone to silence and declared:

‘But in spite of everything … everything … we forgive you.’

‘Don’t worry, be happy,’ Wessels said. I noticed that he was smoking a Peter Stuyvesant in anticipation of a hangover.

Now a chorus of drunken voices rose up, a chorus of forgiveness just as vehement and unreasonable as the chorus of condemnation it had displaced, and broke over my head. Some of them were close to tears, some on the verge of laughter, yet others irate or indignant. We forgive you. We forgive you. There was clearly no room for argument. Yes, Mr T! Stop pulling faces. You are forgiven. We forgive you.

I was relieved and grateful. It would have been uncharitable to feel otherwise. But I couldn’t see what it was all about. Why the blazes were they behaving like this?

Before I could frame the question in an inoffensive way, Hunky Dory, bless his copper terminals, burst out in a tarantelle.

*

I barely had time to slip the No. 2 sign into my pocket, before hands seized the tables and chairs and whirled them away into the corners. I saw it as the final sundering of the circle.

Dancing! Choreography by St Vitus. They lurched around, waving their arms as if they were trying to stop themselves from falling over, snatching at their clothing and barging into one another. The thickness of their soles had a practical purpose after all; no matter how much they tilted and swayed, they kept their balance in the currents of noise, like deep-sea divers on the ocean floor.

Mevrouw Bonsma and Hunky Dory played another duet, ‘Shall We Dance?’ from The King and I , which may have been a reference to my head. Tit for tat, I supposed, for the crack about the crêpes.

My mind was full of the accusations that had been levelled at me. What an outpouring of ill feeling! I remembered Mrs Hay’s comment about the send-off I was going to receive. Was the whole evening an excuse to humiliate me? I could believe it. They wouldn’t let me alone to lick my wounds; they were insisting that I dance, to show that I was part of the gang, even after everything I’d done.

Nomsa, the chubby one, took my hands and dragged me onto the floor. ‘Spider! Come out of your web.’ Rolling her hips, trying to embarrass me. I stood my ground. I have the grace of a porpoise, a porcus-piscis, a pig with fins. If pigs can swim. Fly, I mean. I called for a bossa nova. No takers. I called for a lambda. The latest dance craze from Greece. Nothing doing. Nomsa went round like a schwarma machine. What did she mean by ‘Spider’? Daddy Longlegs? Stood on a fanatic’s foot, name of Arbuthnot, spelt it for him, letter-perfect, by way of an apology. Why did she remind me of vegetables? Eggplant. Her skin had a purple sheen I’d never observed on a colour chart. The sweat stood out like wampum along her hairline. Plastic pearls at the throat. Mouth improbably large, lips like segments of some sea-fruit, a creature that looked like a plant, but was really an animal, something that would snap if you touched it.

I was feeling queasy, should have had more sleep last night, should have eaten a proper dinner beforehand, should have tried the buffalo wings, resisted the whirligig. The liquor had gone to my head. Or had one of them slipped me something? Wessels, I’ll wager, spiking the whiskey with that coffin varnish of his. Flight of the Bumblebee. It was one of his life’s ambitions to see me drunk. He couldn’t bear my self-control, precisely because his own was so sadly lacking.