Aleksandar Hemon - Best European Fiction 2013

“Leave it to me,” she said, “it might need a woman’s touch.”

I nodded to the screen. “What is it this time?”

She waved a narrow wrist. “Orcland. A centuries-long dispute between elves and orcs, border violations, mineral rights, it goes back to the dawn of time. I have to tip the balance of power toward the elves, upgrade their ordnance for the second edition add-on. Market research has shown elves’ approval rating has risen across all demographics. The gaming community has responded badly to seeing them getting their arses kicked so easily. I have to help tip the balance of power for the next add-on.”

“They’re still not going to win, the template is fixed.”

“I know, I can only help them make a better fight of it. Well, fairer at least.”

“What sort of job is that for a grown woman,” I teased.

“The type of job that puts food and rent on the table.”

I sat on her chair and gazed at the screen. Two elves were streaking toward a great forest where they would find refuge and a cache of arms. Tipping the balance of power, squaring the odds, this is the type of thing Martha did.

“Martha, how did we get to be this trivial, elves and subtitles? How did we ever get sidetracked into this shite?”

She shrugged, shook her head. “Don’t ask me. But you show me another job that comes up with rent and crèche at twenty hours a week and I’ll consider it. Till then I’ve got elves to arm.” She giggled suddenly, put her hand on my shoulder. “John,” she said, “don’t worry, his name is Jamie, not Damien.”

“Jesus, Martha.”

“Sorry, I couldn’t help it.”

Whatever way she broached the subject she made no headway with Jamie. And whatever he said to her in reply left her in no doubt that this was something between men. No, there was no drawing him out on the subject—he’d talk it out with Dad he said. So I left him to it, hoping he might put the whole thing behind him, thinking that if he needed to talk about it badly enough he would bring the subject up in his own good time. And sure enough he did. We were sitting together on the couch after a double episode of The Simpsons .

“You haven’t given my request any more thought?”

“No, I can’t say I have, how about you?”

He squirmed round to face me, tucking his feet in under him.

“Yes, I have it all figured out. Yesterday I killed a frog, I wrote it into my diary—that covers the cruelty to animals part. One beating now and I will have a complete profile, every box ticked off. Any investigation would have to be blind not to be able to track me down. But I need that beating. One beating registered with the childcare authorities and the job will be complete.” He rolled up his sleeves revealing his skinny upper arms. “You could confine your work to areas of soft tissue, my thighs and arms, places where the bruising will be obvious but not dangerous. But nothing around the head, I’d like to keep my wits around me.”

“And how’s that going to make me look, a registered child beater?”

“I’ll clear your name. I’ll say it was totally out of character, I pushed you to the end of your tether.”

“You’re a serial killer, who’s going to believe you?”

“I’m under oath, I won’t lie.”

“This profile thing, that’s an American template.”

“So?”

“I’m saying that it may not translate across the Atlantic.”

He shook his head sadly. “Dad, the world is of one mind. That’s the way it is.”

“No, it doesn’t have to be like that. These things aren’t fixed.”

I put my arm round him and drew him into my side. There wasn’t a pick on him, the bones in his shoulders dug into my ribs. “How do you know these things Jamie, where do you get these ideas from?”

“How does anyone know anything? I just pick them up along the way, same as anyone. This is all common knowledge.”

“It’s not common to me. Why don’t you turn yourself in now, before you do any damage?”

“Who would believe an eight year old?” He turned his face up to me. “Would it kill you?”

“I’ll never know.”

He lowered his face. “It’s only for your good,” he said, “you’ll thank me for this later on.”

I sat there long after he’d gone to bed, the TV on mute.

Someone told me once that you know nothing of love till you have a child of your own. You know nothing of its unconditional demands nor the lengths you will go to protect it. And this is what I’ve been feeling these last few weeks, this is what spooks me. I’ve seen enough to know that wherever there is love there are opportunities for guilt also. It has something to do with more laws and prohibitions, more opportunities for transgression and omission.

What spooks me now is that his fear will become my fear, his terror my terror. One day it might spread from him, slip through his narrow boundaries and become mine. And, as ever, being in two minds, that old sense of weightlessness comes over me when I think these things; once more I am at a remove from myself… One night, at the end of your tether, the world really might be of one mind. And because you haven’t the courage to be scared, the courage to take up the full duty of love, you find yourself pitched into a place beyond marvelling that you could be pushed this far. And because this is the age of reasoned hysterics and because you are haunted by his pale arms, you find yourself walking down the hall to his bedroom, to where he is tucked up fast in his dreams. And sitting on the side of his bed, lit by the light streaming in from the hall, you run through your reasons once more, squaring your story against the day when you will stand up and tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. And then, these things straight in your mind at last, you reach out to touch his shoulder, touch him gently, calling his name in a whisper that barely reaches into his sleep… “Jamie,” you call, “wake up Jamie, wake up, good boy…”

And that you could even think these things, that for these moments you are in two minds and so divided from the better part of yourself leaves you with this question—to whom or where do you turn to now?

I visited a most unusual music shop the other day. Actually, it wasn’t “day”; it was night and I was sound asleep during my visit. Yet in my dream I was wide-awake and walking down Vesturgata on a sunny spring evening. The air was perfectly still and all the gardens were a fresh new green. I walked almost to the end of the road, then turned off, only to find myself in a small side street. Not only had I never been down there before, as far as I knew, but I hadn’t even been aware it existed.

There was a tall, blue building ahead with a flat roof and a shop on the ground floor. The sign over the door said aladdin’s music store. I couldn’t quite see what Aladdin had to do with music but it had been so long since I’d read the story that I didn’t give it another thought.

I’m constitutionally incapable of walking past a music shop without taking a look inside, and this time was no exception, so I climbed the low flight of steps and went in. A jangling at the door announced my entrance and a young girl emerged from a back room and said good evening.

“I just wanted to take a look at your music.”

“Go right ahead,” she replied. She had a lovely voice; dark hair, dark eyes.

“You’re open late,” I said.

“We’re always open.”

I walked over to the racks of CDs. For its size, the shop boasted an extraordinarily wide selection. I flicked quickly through the racks. Beethoven’s Eleventh Symphony: I was pretty sure he’d never composed it, yet here it was, in a very fine German edition. It was the same with Satie’s Military March for 203 Pianofortes: I knew this piece had never been performed. When Satie died, three hundred and fifty-four dirty shirts were discovered behind his piano—perhaps because he’d sweated so much when composing this work.