Кристиан Новак - Dark Mother Earth

I don’t know how much time passed before somebody found me, all I saw was dusk settling in. I was lucky, because usually nobody ever came to visit Zvonko. But Pišta stopped in to borrow an extension cord for the light over the bograč stewing station. He walked right in and from the door saw me sitting, back against the wall, wearing a frozen grimace, staring at the body. I think Pišta was never the same after that.

“Oh, oh, oh,” he repeated, quavering, as if shooing evil spirits and monsters away. He grabbed me, tucked me under his arm like a puppy, and ran out.

Mom was motionless and mute in the stairwell when I appeared at the door with Stankec and his colleague. First they wanted to talk with Mom, so they said I should go and play. Bacawk and Chickichee were waiting for me in my room, as if they knew I’d lose my mind for good if I were left alone. They told me Zvonko had left everything in order, he’d written a farewell note and set out all of his documents on his desk, as well as money for the funeral expenses and the wake.

“He was very sick, the cancer ate him right up.”

He became even more isolated, because he didn’t want to tell anybody he only had a few months to live. People in the village knew he was doing poorly, but Democracy didn’t want them looking at him with pity. He did his best to enjoy what time he had left. This didn’t end up working, because he had the constant feeling he was late in getting somewhere. He’d heard earlier that those who get a terminal illness learn to live and experience their last weeks at full throttle. He didn’t understand. This was the worst time of his life, not because he was afraid of death but because he didn’t have the time to enjoy anything. When he went fishing, he’d pour brandy into the water, hoping to lure the fish to bite faster. While he’d been healthy, he used to grill slowly—he’d go to the woods to collect firewood, pop open a beer, and read the paper while the meat marinated. Now he used a hair dryer to blow air on the fire to make it burn as fast as possible, he ripped up the tongue-and-groove flooring from his summer kitchen because the boards were particularly dry, and he poured lighter fluid on the fire, which gave the meat that special bitter taste of the never-alive.

His thoughts were centered not on life but on his disease. Several times he dreamed he was shaking hands with his gall bladder. He tried to speak normally in his dream, but the gall bladder (he pictured it like a yellow sack with several big veins instead of hands) was vicious; it interrupted him and peppered him with questions he had no answers for. After several of these dreams, he realized his gall bladder reminded him of a strict teacher he’d had, the late Mr. Taradi. I didn’t know how Bacawk and Chickichee were able to insinuate themselves into people’s dreams, but I had no doubt they had.

When he’d imagined his death (as every person does sooner or later), he never thought he’d be done in by something from the inside, a pus-filled ulcer he couldn’t even see, an inflamed wound that could burst and pour its poison into his gut. He never imagined he’d be devoured by something that was part of him, that he’d fed with food and alcohol. Death for him had always been a blow. A powerful pressure inside the head, a stuttering heart, a rupture, a fall from a great height. His grandmother had told him years before about a man who’d been walking through the village when a wall from a ruined house collapsed onto him. She told him they found bits of the man’s brains all the way over on the other side of the street. The dogs licked them up, and the old women chased away the damn-blasted fleabags . That was etched in his memory, and all his life he thought that one day he, too, would take his place in such a picture. He couldn’t bear a different sort of ending. He wanted to be the one calling the shots. If he had to die, he would die on his own terms. And he was afraid of loneliness; he thought death wouldn’t dare encroach on his house if somebody was there with him, so that’s why he’d wanted me around.

When Stankec came into my room, he said nothing for a time, then he picked up a toy car from the floor and read what was written under the chassis. “An Audi 80,” he declared. “A fine car. When them Krauts make a car, they do it right.”

He was quiet a little longer, then he put his elbows on his knees as if he were about to stand and said, “Kid, you and I have known each other for a while, ain’t we? You came to see us at the station with your pal—you were looking for your daddy, remember? What was your buddy’s name?”

“Dejan. We ain’t friends.”

“Now why’s that?”

“Why would he dare be my friend?” I said and choked back a sob. Everything hit me, and I remembered where Franz was. I started crying for the second time that day. Stankec laid his hand on my shoulder and said: “I’d like to know what was going on at Zvonko’s. Your mom tells me you were going there… helping him around the house. You were the last to see him alive. He left a letter saying he was very sick and wouldn’t be getting better, he put everything in order and left some money for the funeral. But it’s a little strange that he’s the sixth person to take their own life.”

“The seventh.”

“No, the sixth.”

“Seventh.”

“No, Matjaž… Mario Brezovec was first, Zdravko Tenodi second, Trezika third…” He pulled a notebook from his file. “Mladen Krajčić fourth, Milica Horvat fifth, and Zvonko Horvat sixth.”

He called me Matija when he was serious and Matjaž when he was teasing.

“Imbra Perčić done hanged himself.”

“No, son, he just took off for a spell. Maybe he was a bit shaken by all the people killing themselves, or because the Serbs are gearing up for war. But he’s alive and well. I know Imbra, he trained as an electrician with my brother-in-law. He wouldn’t take his own life—don’t you worry, people like him like themselves way too much. He’s off in Germany or Austria somewheres, sitting in a bar, drinking a beer, and talking about how he’s the smartest and handsomest fella around.”

“He hanged himself, 100 percent. Down by the Mura, from a poplar tree.”

Now Stankec looked a bit worried, and I began thinking I’d finally found a person who would actually believe me. My hopes sank when he flashed a smile.

“Well, there ain’t no poplars down along the Mura. Wherever did you get that, Matjaž? You have one of those—how do they put it—lively imaginations, but you shouldn’t be fibbing. Maybe you’re reading too much Pixie and Dixie , or watching too much Tom and Jerry . But tell me, when did you and Zvonko leave the soccer field together today? About what time was that? And, if you remember, did you meet anybody or stop in anywhere? Anything you remember.”

“We ain’t stopped in anywheres. Zvonko was kinda quiet. Here and there he was short of breath. We left about the time Mladen Horvat took Franz.” And again I started sobbing. I couldn’t breathe, but I went on. “There’s something I have to tell you about Mladen and Franz…”

Stankec told me I could tell him everything that was troubling me, but first we had to deal with this matter of Zvonko “Democracy” Horvat. So I recounted everything. “And then Pišta came in to ask about the extension cord. He tucked me under his arm like a puppy and ran from the house like it was about to cave in.”

“And that’s all you know, Matija?” asked Stankec, looking me straight in the eye.

“No, I know all sorts of other things, I know everything, but nobody believes me.”

“What do you know?”

“I know whose fault it is that people are taking their lives. I’m to blame—it’s me. First people I didn’t like were dying, but then the folks who’d been good to me started, too.”