Aleksandar Hemon - Best European Fiction 2013

each speaker would leave the podium and sit down behind the long table, pour some mineral water from the plastic bottle into a paper cup, raise it to his mouth, clear his throat; he would watch the audience from the distance of his half closed eyes as people moved, dared to change the position of their bodies, cough, whisper a few words to their neighbors, sneeze, smile, shake their heads or simply stand up and leave the room, go to the bathroom or out for a cigarette break, disturbing the others, saying hello to acquaintances, friends, sometimes distant relatives whom they would meet only at such places,

ah, you’re here too, isn’t it interesting?

sure, indeed, certainly… certainly…

meanwhile, the Chair was inviting the next speaker, standing ceremoniously behind the podium with the orderliness of a pontiff whose main mission is to guard the economy of time, making a few appropriate, polite remarks about the previous presentation, noting that it was indeed a truly important work in the context of the conference, leaning toward the audience with the feigned intimacy of a salesman, as if conversing with each individual person,

everyone in the audience certainly agrees with me, bon, without exaggerating… we can say, very… important claims… we are most… grateful to the Professor… or esteemed Counselor,

there were variations in his tone, a few minor observations, which could have been easily dismissed despite the obvious effort to complicate the speech; he would slightly raise his neck with the persistence of someone who has valiantly agreed to carry a heavy burden, gesticulate a greeting with his hand to someone familiar, smile indulgently, the solemn smile of a national benefactor,

hey , là bas,

there is a crack of alcohol, a greasy hiccup in his voice,

please, turn off your… cell phones!

he would raise his right hand, tired as if from repeating, pointing to the greenish board, wasn’t it written there, please turn off your cell phones? some people would lower their heads, their hands searching for their phones, checking the settings, while the Chair addressed the group of people who had been crowding in front of the door at the back of the auditorium, those who were standing, helping them find seats, over there, to the right, come near, come closer, proposing that some of them go up to the mezzanine, there’s lots of room, there are seats, always the same old confining seats made of oak with backs that have faded, lost their varnish;

we were required to follow the analysis for several years, one or two hours per week, happiness, according to… , creation and its forms—thought and space, the happiness, hic et nunc , that, which every… will refer to,

the scholar sat in the dark cell, partly illuminated by the light coming from the narrow window, his head bowed, thoughtful, while the winding staircase next to him spiraled up, as he continued his meditation, heading to new places, the screen would turn into a mental stage that widened as we learned how to connect, moving beyond all the axioms, pieces of evidence, proofs, conclusions, in order to enter another world, completely different from the one that I had entered when I heard, for the first time, the sound of the metro in the labyrinths of an underground station;

and there was still the end of History, after which everything returned to the beginning, a kind of recorded fairy tale, which every living person would read, and the events? they were more or less colorful incidents,

the bald man was elucidating it, coloring it with contemporary hues; a system of sound beneath the city—the endless, continuous process that had its own course and that had undergone a gradual inflection, a thesis, an antithesis that had been repeated in the previous century, had drowned already; he was collecting his papers, the unopened books that he had produced from his worn satchel, rare, heavy books that made an impression, as would a hermetic Hegelian sentence; as soon as the noise erupted, the almost invisible door at the front, to the right, would open and the custodian in his white apron would appear, examining those who were present through his myopic glasses, moving back and letting the professor disappear with thundering footsteps in the hallway; then we would hurry, a few of us would fall behind—tying a tie, filling a tobacco pipe—we would all head to another hall just like this one, but slightly different, a colonnade with a row of statues of forgotten philosophers at the entrance, windows that opened into collateral yards but that were always shut tight, an idyllic fresco on the ceiling above the pushing and jostling crowd, the same smell of mice, of antiseptic, of knowledge, the smell of a place that has been kept locked, a thick, oily smell that lingers on in every corner and that goes deep into the crevices of the same seats and stairwell, the wide, amphitheater-style stage, on which one day a student—an imposter—would jump and make noise with his feet, friends..! a heavy smoker’s cough, a fist banging on the table asking for attention, comrades..!

according to an unprecedented decision made…

the girls on their feet had taken off their coats a long time ago, they were whispering, beautiful, sometimes really beautiful girls, with very little makeup on; an imbecile who was wasting a seat, emptying his pockets, taking out a small notepad and throwing it on the table, people crowding in,

the banging fist,

…by the Ministry of Education…

the same banging again,

…the University… is closed, the Student Council… has organized a demonstration, the situation… is serious,

he would come down and start disseminating leaflets, black on white, big black flags, explosive slogans…

GENERAL STRIKE / REVOLUTIONARY ORGANIZATION / POLITICS / IS IN THE STREETS

now, a few people, following the proposition, were going obediently up along the narrow, spiraling stairwell, looking like medieval pupils ascending the stairs; it was very different from our wooden, terribly slanted stairwell that went up to the roof, the steps of which were mostly dislocated and cracked, rotten from rain and dampness, ready to collapse under anyone who dared step on them, but still working with a strange durability, and with the agility of a tightrope walker I would step on the most stable parts, at times leaning over the banister to peek into the window of Set Janet, who would yell curses in Arabic as if frightened, while I’d jump two stairs at a time, playing with my anxiety, flying up to watch the neighborhood from above;

the street branched off from the main avenue into a small triangular square, or more exactly a place that for a moment belonged to no one, as the people who had paved the street had left it open by mutual agreement, where the slanting shadow, like an umbrella, stretched up on the hill, here—the roof of Arev’s house, the pergola, the strings of pepper, dried eggplant, and across, under the eastern white pine, Mr. Garbis who sewed trousers, a headscarf tied around his head like some Arab woman, was tying the vines to reed stakes so that they’d climb up to Simon’s clothesline, a little lower Nano was sitting on the edge of the balcony, the eucalyptus that shimmered under the sun right in front of her would extend, as it were, and touch the olive trees and the empty houses on the hill across from her, partially covering the gardens on the river bank, the sea in the distance, and in the evenings, when the sky turned a deep azure blue, when the last airplanes descended into the city from the east, on the far mountains, the embers in the ashes would slowly grow into flames;

the banisters, two of them, formed a helicoid labyrinth, they turned, as if you were approaching an inaccessible place, an open area, a vaulted sky, and here were women with small handbags, men out of breath who emerged at the entrance of the mezzanine, moving to its edges and conquering the hall for a moment, above its confusion and noise, catching their breath, wiping their foreheads and temples with handkerchiefs, scanning the audience below;