Aleksandar Hemon: Best European Fiction 2013

Reading and inquiring about what is outside our experience means willfully adopting another worldview, putting ourselves in a position to look at things in a way that is, shall we say, displacing or even disorienting. But, as Graham Greene said, “When we are not sure, we are alive.” Of course, there are plenty of books, writers, and readers who seek a confirmation for what they already know, who hope to cement the position from which it all looks solid, unalterable, and, therefore, bearable. If that is what you’re after, stay away from this book. The Best European Fiction 2013 anthology is proudly difficult and imperfectly translated.

Miša discovered there was something in the apartment.

It was behind the TV set in the corner of the living room. But later in the evening when she phoned Jano, who had left on a business trip a few days earlier, she made no mention of her discovery. Why make him worry? He had other things to worry about out there in the Asian metropolis. Or maybe he didn’t? Doubt started gnawing at her: only the other night she’d dreamed of her husband in karaoke bars and the things he was getting up to with sluts; though they might go by a different, fancier name in those parts—Miša couldn’t remember the exact word—she was quite sure they were just sluts, engaging in slutty practices.

After the routine call was over she sat in the kitchen until late at night, and as the light of a small lamp above the freezer illuminated her hands and fingers, and long shadows crept along the floor and the opposite wall, Miša wondered why this had to happen to her, of all people. Actually, not just to her, to Jano as well—but Jano didn’t have an inkling of it. Or did he? Was he lying in a hotel bed somewhere with an inkling? Was he on the twentieth or thirtieth floor of a skyscraper, in the middle of negotiations, with an inkling?

Miša had grown up in a family where nothing ever appeared behind the TV set. Her parents had never even mentioned such a possibility to her, though they were happy to discuss in her presence the petty scandals involving their neighbors or people at work. But perhaps they’d had it in their bedroom too. Their daughter had never been allowed to go in there. Could it have been in their bedroom? Did they take it along when they went on vacation? On one of those outings they used to go on, leaving their daughter with her grandma in the countryside?

She went to the hallway and called a friend from the landline, for she felt the need to discuss this unexpected problem with somebody. A few sentences into the conversation she replied, baffled:

– You mean I should go and see a psychiatrist?

– Of course. You’ve got to. What if you’re just imagining it all?

– You mean… hallucinating? You really think I’m hallucinating?

– But what if it isn’t there at all? From what you’re saying, it’s almost the size of a wardrobe… Could something like that even fit behind the TV set?

– Soňa, believe me, it’s there!

– I doubt it. Look, you know Dr. Monty…

– The one with the beard?

– No, the one who goes to the Irish Pub.

– Where does he sit?

– Right at the back, underneath the speakers.

– I don’t know him at all.

– Well then you know the other one, what’s his name… help me out…

– You mean Dr. Ráthé?

– Exactly.

– But he’s not a psychiatrist, he’s a psychologist.

– All right, all right, a psychologist might do for starters…

– What do you mean, for starters? It’s as big as a wardrobe and you’re calling this starters?

– I’ve already told you there’s no way it could be as big as a wardrobe. Just calm down. I’m sure it’s much, much smaller.

– So how big do you think it is?

– Let’s agree it’s the size of a matchbox, at most. It’s absolutely tiny.

– Listen… How about you come and take a look?

– That’s out of the question. I can’t.

– Why? Look, come over! Please! Help me.

– But how?! What’s this got to do with me? And anyway, I’m in a complicated situation.

– I don’t understand.

– …

– What is it? Can’t you talk?

– Uhm.

– All of a sudden you can’t talk when I need you to do me a favor. Can’t you even whisper?

– I can do that. But what am I supposed to whisper? You’d better go and check again…

– But I’ve been watching it the whole time. Actually… not the whole time, just now I was looking out of the window… and… by the door to the hair salon… you know where I mean…

– Of course I do. By the door. So what’s there?

– There…

– C’mon, what is it?

– Nothing! Nothing at all! Don’t you understand? It’s not there. It’s only here, behind the TV. Why don’t I imagine it’s out there, too, if I’m only imagining it? Let me tell you why: because it just isn’t out there, only here. And you were lying.

– How was I lying?

– When you said you could only whisper. Just now you were so curious about what was there by the door to the hair salon that you started shouting. Out of curiosity. And the only reason you found it so fascinating was because you go to that salon yourself. So the only time you’re willing to listen to me, without accusing me of being crazy, is when it involves you too?

The phone call ended on a rather uneasy note.

Miša sat down at the kitchen table, picked up a mirror, and examined the pale skin of her pale face. It shone in the kitchen night. The eyes, the nose, the mouth, the corners of the mouth. Thoughtfully, Miša went on to examine her shoulders, chest, and legs. It would have been almost impossible to distinguish the whole from other wholes of this kind. Or perhaps only sometimes, thanks to the clothes, the situations in which they were discarded, by a particular whole’s way of being naked. Way of being naked? Yes: see yourself for who you are! Step in front of the mirror, get to know yourself from the outside, but intimately! Let the inside follow. Follow the inside!

Miša stood up and sat down again.

She was sitting on her backside in the kitchen again.

Jano came home a few days later, left his bags in the hall, took off his shoes, went to the bathroom, took a shower, and, after thoroughly drying himself with a big thick bath towel, headed for the living room. She was waiting for him by the door. Thinking of the sluts and the karaoke. And also of herself, her role. Was she supposed to float up into the sky now, all dreamy-eyed and happy? Or should she let barbiturates, medication, or a psychiatrist take care of everything? She stepped back a little to let Jano pass. He sat down in the armchair and switched on the TV with the remote. The flickering blue light carved objects out of the dark.

That’s when Jano spotted it.

It was moving slowly, sinister and inevitable. Jano didn’t say anything. His face looked like a mask stretched on a rack of bone. Only when his wife whispered hysterically to him did he respond, commenting that, in his view, it made the living room even cozier than before, covering himself with his statement as though it were a precious Tibetan rug. Miša ran out of the block and called Sona on her cellphone. She was panting:

– I know everything!

– What do you know?

– It’s turned up at your place too! That’s why you can’t talk! It’s watching you! It’s listening to you! It’s growing!

–…

– Don’t you have anything to say to that?

– I told you I can’t talk.

– Well, whisper then.

– Yes, it turned up here too. But that was a long time ago. It’s stopped growing now, although, I admit, it’s not getting any smaller either. We’ve gotten used to it. As it is. Look, I know how you feel. It’s not easy to come to terms with the new situation at first… But is it really new? Okay, I know you never counted on this. You didn’t expect… didn’t visualize it quite like this. What woman would expect such a thing? I was hoping it wouldn’t happen to you—to you and Jano. Last time you called, I thought you might be exaggerating a little. Because in our place it didn’t grow quite so fast! Peto and I had been together for six years by the time we first noticed it! But times have changed, life is moving faster… I know I’m probably not putting it well, but the fact is, the world’s gotten faster, so that you and Jano… Even though you’ve only been together for two years—it’s been two years, hasn’t it? Or three? Anyway, for some reason it’s happening faster. Oh dear, I guess I am just behind the times.