Danilo Kiš - The Attic

“Don’t you like them?”

“They’re beautiful,” she said. “But my doctor prohibits me from having them. I’m allergic to flowers. I always break out in a rash. .”

“Sorry,” I said. “I didn’t know. If I had. .”

“It doesn’t matter. It’s okay,” she said.

“How are your teeth?” I asked, in order to break the silence.

“Fine,” she said. “I put in my spare dentures. The other ones were worn out anyway.”

As soon as I had paid that visit, I felt terribly hungry, but I couldn’t eat. My hands disgusted me, as did my mouth. That’s why I went and bought a small bottle of alcohol and a bar of pink soap. I bathed and scrubbed myself with a sponge all morning long, until they threw me out of the bathhouse.

“What’s wrong with you?” asked the woman at the counter, when I handed her the money for my visit to the hammam .

“Nothing,” I said. “I’m just a little scorched.”

My hands and face, and indeed my whole body, were one giant scald and blister, in which the lymph wobbled at my every motion. The strong alcohol solution I had rinsed with chewed up my mouth.

For several days I was unable to eat anything. As soon as my temperature had fallen a bit and I could move again, I popped into Pygmalion’s and ordered myself a bottle of gin.

“Shall I wrap that up?” the waiter inquired.

“No,” I replied. “Just bring me a big glass.”

Then I drained the whole glass at one gulp. Afterward, dear Igor, I vomited, vomited so beautifully, so passionately.

Igor, my brother — my eyes were clear, my hands were innocent like those of a maiden. My hands, comrade Igor—

“ See to it that you get them dirty ,” came Igor’s response.

“What?” I said. “How’s that?”

“Well, you know,” he said. “How long do we intend to remain sleepwalkers?”

“I don’t know, Igor. I regret what happened to my hands.”

“Cleanliness has infected you the way syphilis does,” he said. “It’s messed up your head. I still maintain that the only medicine is prostitution and lust. Physical therapy.”

“I know, Igor, I know. But I’d prefer to kick the bucket this way. And, by the way, I’ve already tried it all.”

“You have not,” he said.

“You have not.”

“For instance?”

“Yellow Fever!”

“Give it to me immediately!” I said. “Infect me!”

Igor called the waiter over and ordered two pomegranate juices, two cognacs, two maraschinos, two glasses of palm wine, two gins, two shots of whiskey, and some other drink the name of which I forget. Then he shook it all up and stirred it with the little silver spoon he always carried with him. Next he put in a little mint, rhubarb, vanilla, and clove, and then squeezed in several drops of essence of violet.

“Down the hatch!” said Igor.

“Down the hatch!” I whimpered. “To the spirit of Eurydice!”

The taste of vanilla reminded me of her mouth.

“It’s already been a light year since you sang anything,” Igor remarked. The fever had dulled his eyes.

“Not since I sold the lute.”

“So start up again,” said Igor. “Say: ‘I don’t give a shit about the lute.’ Say it.”

“I don’t give a shit about the lute.”

“Thaaaaat’s it. . And now sing something,” he said, twirling the little silver spoon inside the empty glass.

I launched into a song, bellowing:

A rose petal will be your pillow,

and tulips will mourn your footsteps. .

“Lute-meister, Lute-meister!” exclaimed Igor. “The same old song again.”

“Sorry, Billy. Forgive me.”

Then Billy Wiseass chimed in with his silvery voice:

Your pillow will be a petal that rests on thorns,

And Lute-meister will forever grieve over you. .

Then I intoned:

Tulips will blossom in your footprints,

And you will fall into the arms of a blockhead!

“Bravo! Bravo, Lute-meister,” Billy screeched, clapping his hands hysterically. “Now that’s what they call ‘therapy.’ Long live yellow fever! Long live the blockheads! Down with sleepwalkers!”

At dawn we regained consciousness under a table, in a condition beyond excruciating. Between the two of us some naked, grungy body was sleeping the innocent sleep of a child, hands stretched out above her head. Her eyes were half open, dark violet. Her breasts sagged down onto the filthy, spit-covered floor, their tips poking into the dust. Slowly it all dawned on me. I remembered that Igor and I had wrenched her away from some sailor types in a quayside bar. The ache on the top of my head and Igor’s black eye reminded me of that much. At first it was a fistfight, until a red-headed sailor raked a beer bottle across my head. But Igor and I managed to reach the bar. At first she was rooting for the sailors, but when we got hold of the bottles and started toppling the drunken seamen, she began laughing so hard she bent double and started cheering for us. In the end she gave the victors a big wet kiss on the mouth and ordered herself a Yellow Fever. On our tab.

“To the conquerors!” she said and raised her glass.

“Whore!” snarled Igor, fingering his eye.

Then I broke in: “The only medicine is prostitution and. .”

“Whore!” Billy repeated. He hurled his glass to the ground.

She was bent double with laughter.

“She’s a bitch,” said an offended Igor. “At the beginning she was rooting for the sailors. .”

“But later she was for us,” I said. “Right?”

“She’s a sneaky bitch,” Igor repeated as he started crying. “They’re all alike. Even whores are dishonest. Even whores!”

“You haven’t tried everything yet, comrade Igor,” I said, moved by the emotion of it all.

“Everything. I’ve tried it all,” he said. “Whores were my last hope.”

“You haven’t tried Red Fever yet,” I said. “Isn’t that right?”

Igor regained his composure. “Do you know the recipe? For real?”

“Waiter, waiter!” I panted.

“What can I do for you?” said a new character as he executed a bow.

“Mix us a cocktail with everything imaginable. . And put a dash of vanilla in it. And some window-box sage. . And don’t forget the shot of primrose bitters either, and, to top it off, a spot of delirium from poppies and henbane.”

“And three glasses,” interjected Igor.

He held up three fingers in front of his eyes, as if in amazement. Then he repeated: “Three.”

In those days I was hideously bored in the attic. Maybe I missed my lute. That silly, idealistic clamshell. To pass the time, I started prac- ticing jujitsu. Then I acquired boxing gloves and a punching bag.

“You’ve gone crazy,” said Igor.

“I’m amusing myself,” I replied.

“Why don’t you read something?” he suggested.

“Nonsense,” I said. “You should’ve just read those sailors some poetry that night at Pygmalion’s to try to get that Mary Magdalene away from them.”

“Don’t tell me you mean to imply that I didn’t kick enough ass that night?”

“No, you fool. That’s exactly the point. You kicked ass all right and. . you earned Mary Magdalene.”

“So that’s why you’re practicing your boxing? To win Eurydice?”

“ She does not exist ,” I said, irritated, and launched a series of punches at the bag.

“Who are you hitting?” Bill Goat asked maliciously.

“I’m beating the Lute-meister on the head. I’m knocking some sense into him,” I said, gasping and pounding myself in the mug till the blood flowed.

Then I began learning Sanskrit and Polynesian dialects, but I soon realized that there was no point to this, so I switched to English. Soon I was giving private lessons to the sluts of the port. Never before had I had pupils who were more diligent and compliant. And they paid me regularly. In kind, to be sure. How else? Then I stopped giving lessons to those girls who lived by the Bridge of Sighs, as we referred to them. Every day their madam had brought me coffee with a great deal of sugar and milk, just because once I’d said that I liked it. She was convinced that I was a good boy, even a good pedagogue; she did say, though, that I should smoke less and not study so much. She especially recommended that I not smoke before breakfast, on an empty stomach.