Aleksandar Hemon - Best European Fiction 2013

The snoring and the deep sighs that came from the passengers on the floor mixed with other bodily sounds, until the entire group sounded like a small, joyful band. Some of them bumped their heads together accidentally, or pushed aside their neighbor’s belongings, but overall there was no hostility, no angry shoves. This temporary respite didn’t last long, however: their peaceful dreams were interrupted by a jarring bang. Almost everyone jumped to their feet, save for the artist and the man in the suit, who—as if stuck to each other—didn’t budge. With messy hair and bleary eyes, they rose toward the light of the elevator’s ceiling; this time they looked at each other not with suspicion, but terror. Now several of them mentioned that they had to answer the call of nature. For a while they were wondering just what to do about this, until the tall historian came up with the idea to use the empty water bottle while the rest covered their eyes or turned their backs. Then they all fell asleep for the second time.

There were no outbursts of desperation come morning, only the gurgling noises of their empty stomachs, like abandoned kittens mewling on someone’s porch, permeating the car. Their shared vulnerability had turned into a mutual compassion and softened their lonely hearts. The woman in red went on and on about some recent events in her neighborhood. Reminiscing remorsefully about her lack of sympathy for a stray dog that had been playing in front of her building, she promised she would mend her ways once they got their lives back. Now they all started to evoke similar poignant memories from their lives, as if standing in front of some invisible adjudicator who would soon make a final decision about their destinies and allow only a few to go back to address their errors. Through these recollections they felt they were somehow guaranteeing their futures, giving evidence of their own worth—or their pretentions to superiority. After the soldier explained what had brought him out to the building the previous day, his companions concluded that he shouldn’t have been there in the first place—he’d gotten the wrong address. But squeezed between the bodies of the father and the woman in red, who every so often was taking out a book and pretending to read attentively, the soldier didn’t regret his mistake for a minute. The businessman, on the other hand, suddenly turned toward the old man and his wife, saying that he’d never liked old people and almost never let them cross the road, when he was driving—he’d zoom right into the crosswalk and cut them off. He demanded then that the old couple apologize in the name of their entire generation.

After they’d all purged their souls, they went silent again. The painter dozed off, snoring loudly. When they began to stir again, they noticed that the heat coming from the ventilation system had been replaced with cool air. It was blowing steadily from above and now everyone started to put their clothes back on and lie closer to each other. Some of them switched their seats, depending on their ability to tolerate the chill. Some time later, you could hear a sort of chewing sound coming from one of the elevator’s corners, shortly enough followed by a loud smacking of lips. Those who were closer to the old man and woman could see for themselves, and those who were farther could simply sense that they were chewing candies without sharing. The woman in red crawled closer to them and begged for some. At first the old woman held tightly to her bag and wouldn’t give in. She relented soon enough and opened her bag to give the woman a single nicely wrapped candy. This only served to reaffirm dislike of the old couple, especially given the way the doctor’s young daughter was staring with watery eyes at the woman eagerly munching her prize.

A new ray of hope emerged when the elevator suddenly restarted, moving down one stop. And yet, they were all certain that—if, for some reason, the elevator resumed its travels—it should go up, not down. Still, this development reassured them that their ordeal—which had lasted more than twenty-four hours now—was nearing its end. The well-dressed businessman and the tall historian jumped to their feet and again started to yell out to their invisible saviors and bang uselessly on the doors with the soles of their shoes. This time no one complained. This supposed glimpse of light at the end of the tunnel made them increasingly impatient. For a while now, the painter had been scribbling lines on the smooth walls of the car, using a pencil he’d taken out of his pocket. He claimed to be an artist, but, in fact, his drawings seemed more like imperfections being introduced onto the surface of the hitherto spotless elevator, which, until then, had been shining like a crown jewel. But such purity was lost on the car’s current inhabitants, who were staring at the painter without complaining or criticizing his sketch. The painter was scrawling from the floor to the ceiling, slowly turning their dungeon into a sort of scribbled whirlwind that they all felt they were being drawn into as time went by. To them it seemed that these lines were the only thing expressing their situation—cold, hungry, thirsty, tired—forced to contend with all the fallacies that their current ambiguous state brought into relief. It was because of this that the painter—who hadn’t said a word since beginning his drawing—became an object of renewed suspicion, since the passengers would have dearly liked to find someone to blame for their predicament. Spitefully, though with curiosity as well, they began to question the bearded man. The old woman accused him of stealing her misplaced glasses when she’d been unable to find them on the floor. The historian, who’d previously blamed everything on the inevitability of history, questioned the painter’s decision to keep his water bottle a secret for so long. And the old man concluded that only the painter seemed as though he’d been fully prepared for this incident. The soldier, the woman in red, and the father and daughter all refused to take part in this new trial, only mumbling quietly on occasion, as if trying to douse this fire. It was the father who eventually succeeded in calming everyone down by saying that it was useless to worry about who was responsible for the accident, and how it would make more sense to do so afterward, when they got out. But—they realized he’d said “when” instead of “if.” This was somehow the final blow. Exhausted and tired, they all gave up on the idea of being rescued. The soldier and the woman in red were hugging each other; he was playing with her belly-button ring while she was tracing the tattoo on his left forearm. The little girl finally calmed down and sat in her father’s lap, while the painter gave up on his drawings and dropped his blunt pencil onto somebody’s shoe, without checking whose.

The old man was exhaling into his wife’s hands to warm them up—the least he could do. Although it was cold in the car, the man in the suit had already begun to make himself a bit too comfortable; he’d dropped his suit jacket onto the floor, loosened his tie, unbuckled his belt, and even taken off the expensive watch that he’d been staring at so often in the dusky elevator light. Almost half-naked, he then leaned back, stretched out across the elevator’s door like a gatekeeper. They were all petrified, just waiting for his performance to end and the curtain to fall.

The following morning, the elevator finally moved up. As if some mysterious crown wheel had finally loosened, the elevator cut silently through a thick layer of air. At first, the passengers who were awake— or who were only half-asleep—thought that they were imagining things, that they were hallucinating, and that this meant they were on their last legs. Soon enough they realized that they were actually moving, but they couldn’t decide if the elevator was simply moving up to the next floor, where they were initially supposed to stop, or if it was headed for the very top of the skyscraper, or if perhaps it was about to drop back down into an eternal abyss. Regardless of what was happening—as the elevator rapidly accelerated—no one had any intention of detaching themselves from one another; their bodies were more or less glued together. Likewise, they had no intention of preparing themselves to make their long-awaited reentry into the civilized world with dignity. All they did was sit still, with no expectations at all, just sitting quietly and breathing heavily.