Danilo Kiš - The Attic

“That is the only thing in the world, ma’am, that’s worthwhile,” I said. “Smoking.”

“There’s some great disappointment in your past. .”

“No, no,” I said. “But I prefer a bitter cigarette to sweet coffee with sugar. It’s simply. .”

Then she said suddenly: “Listen, it’s not nice of you to make your café latte sound even sweeter than it is, just so I’d end up coming across as all the more insipid . You reporters are all the same. It goes without saying that I’m mentioning this in your interest. And in the interest of my girls. It could have unpleasant consequences for them. .”

“Don’t worry about anything, ma’am,” I said in comforting tones. “There are people who really like a lot of sugar in their coffee.”

“Nonetheless,” she remarked, “don’t mention my girls’ names in that thing you’re knocking together. And move the plot over to another part of the city. Say, for instance, ‘by the Bridge.’”

“But why, when you don’t live by the bridge but rather by—”

“But I implore you—”

“Oh, forgive me,” I said. “Next time I’ll be more considerate.”

Igor suggested these names: “Salvation Harbor,” “Last Chance,” “Dos Desperados,” “Chez Orphée,” “The Broken Lute,” “The Two Pistols,” and a few others that we rejected out of hand as too banal: “The Shore,” “At the Sign of the Three Palms,” “A Summer Night’s Dream,” “The Bay of the Dolphins.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, “for not contributing anything to all of that. Nonetheless, Igor, you will admit that I myself could have thought it all up as easily as you. You just happened to be the first to start listing them. Just say so: that’s the way it is.”

“You’re welcome to consider yourself the first one to say them,” Igor countered. “By the way. .”

“I know. You want to say that I’m making all this up anyway. But, you see, I won’t admit that to you. Well, maybe just the pistols. They were my idea. But one could just as easily assert that you anticipated them yourself.”

This conversation took place at the end of summer, on the coast, as the sun was going down. We watched as the waves pitched the sodden seaweed onto the beach, giving the smooth-faced quartz a red beard. We were seated in front of a small taverna on which we had just put down a deposit. We were supposed to start renovating at the end of autumn, as soon as the previous owner had moved out. He was an old man who was hard of hearing and sold only beer and absinthe, and nobody frequented the place except for longshoremen, worn-out, pockmarked sailors, and various old salts. The old guy griped to us that he’d had to fire a sixteen-year-old girl he’d hired because the sailors had slapped their hands against her rear end so much that her buttocks were soon bruised the color of a sailor’s undershirt.

“Would you agree to stay on as maître d’hôtel ?” I asked the old man. “You’d earn more than in the past. And, who knows, maybe later on. .”

“Nope, nope,” the old man said with a sardonic smile. He had watery, suppurating eyes and he sprayed saliva as he spoke.

I wiped my face with a handkerchief and asked him once more if he would stay with us as a waiter, or headwaiter, if that suited him better. In view of the fact that he spoke Italian and various dialects, he could act as our interpreter.

“No,” he said sadly. “Everybody patted and groped her, everybody except for me. And some of them were even older than I. That’s why I fired her. I couldn’t stand to watch the way they all fondled her.”

At that point, Billy got right in his face: “Will you stay with us? Stay here! With us!”

“Nobody prevented me. But I couldn’t. I simply couldn’t do it,” the old guy said. “And they were all slapping her. ‘Leontina, a spritzer!’ and then a deafening smack on her buttocks.”

“It’s super that you were actually able to hear that!” said Igor with irritation in his voice. “So is that how you went deaf?”

“For sure!” said the old man, glumly. “I couldn’t keep watching that. That’s why, one evening three or four days ago, I said: ‘Leontina, in case you. .’”

“Let’s leave him alone,” said Igor. “It doesn’t seem like he’s spoken with anybody about this till now, and he wants to serenade us strangers with it like an old frog. . Nevertheless, we will have to look for this Leontina.”

Our idea for a little taverna was truly outstanding. Since we were disappointed with everything, and as incapable of love and unqualified for life as we were, we resolved to withdraw from the world. But because we weren’t able to take off to some deserted island, as we had intended at first, we decided to open a restaurant and bar in a small town along the coast. Both Igor and I like the autumnal peace and quiet in these isolated little towns with their narrow streets. Therefore we had resolved to sell all our stuff and save all the money that we earned from giving private lessons to the girls and whores of the city, and then we would rent a little taverna and dedicate ourselves to our studies.

“This is the only way that one can study life,” said Billy Wiseass. “ Books are an invention. Stories for toddlers. But we will gather around us all kinds of desperados (we especially liked this word in those days) and listen to authentic stories, authentic life experiences. Only that will constitute the true school of life,” Billy explained excitedly.

I joined the game with enthusiasm:

“It is not we who will have to go out into the world; the world will come to us. Bringing the best that it has to offer. Ships will provide us with sailors, in whose eyes we will discover continents and climates, landscapes and horizons. . Everything, Igor, everything! We will only accept those people who have seen as much of life as a living person can! Only the ones bearing scars. .”

“The ones with callouses. .”

“The ones from the streets. .”

“The ones from distant lands. .”

“The ones who lowered their colors. .”

“The ones with no future. .”

“The ones with colorful pasts. .”

“The ones without love. .”

“The ones who have already experienced everything. .”

“Seen everything. .”

“And desire nothing more. .”

“Nothing. .”

“Don’t you think,” I said, “that it would be good for us to accept women as well? Raunchy harbor chicks? The kind who carry profound mourning in their eyes.”

“Provided, of course, that they have remained chaste. Without hackneyed tales of infidelity, betrayal, misery, rape. .”

“The ones who have sought love. .”

“And not found it. .”

“The ones who have loved, body and soul. .”

“Body and. .”

“And with their whole Body and. .”

And they wandered through the world so wide

embracing everything they did find.

Then Igor picked up where I left off, or vice versa:

And now they pursue their requiems

for their white bodies

“For their white bodies.”

The specialty drink at the Two Desperados restaurant — a specialty that Billy Wiseass especially envied me for inventing — had the very prosaic (and, incidentally, blasé) name “The Desperados’ Pistol.” On our menu, it was located right after the Wiener schnitzel and it cost the same .

I couldn’t blame Igor if he was jealous; it was really a devilish idea!

We got an order for it right away, on our first night of business.

The customer had a red, puffy face with bags under his eyes. He stared at the menu for a long time with his beady, watery eyes. The menu was bound in golden-green snakeskin and the letters on the cover were emeralds: