Dubravka Ugrešić - Baba Yaga Laid an Egg

As she ran her eye over the list of massages with picturesque names, Beba resolutely crossed out the ‘Sweet Gallows’, a massage in which, according to the brochure, the masseur hung from a rope, swinging to and fro and scampering lightly over the back of the client on the massage table ( As though I’m about to let some Tarzan use my back as a springboard! ). Beba eyed the Thai hot-rock massage, the ‘Sweet Dreams’ treatment – and in the end opted for the ‘Suleiman the Magnificent Massage’. She chose ‘Suleiman’ because in the ambience of Czech spa culture and post-communist tourist recreation it sounded the most bizarre. The photograph in the brochure was appealing: it showed a naked female body lying covered in a cloud of soapy foam, like a sponge-finger in cream. Pupa and Kukla approved Beba’s choice. They both also thought ‘Suleiman’ sounded exciting.

A woman in a white uniform led Beba into a not particularly large room lined with tiles of oriental design. In the centre was a stone massage table. The woman asked Beba to undress and lie face down on the table.

‘I’ll freeze on that stone.’

‘Don’t worry, it’s a special table with built-in heating,’ said the woman kindly.

Beba climbed up the little steps onto the table, but the idea of lying face down was simply out of the question. With an apologetic expression on her face, Beba pointed to her large breasts.

‘Don’t worry!’ said the woman sympathetically and disappeared. She came back with a special aid in the form of a small hill, lined with soft sponge, with two large openings in the middle. Now Beba was able to lie face down, while her breasts slipped through the openings and were not pressed painfully against the table.

Beba hugged the little hill. The position was comfortable. Soft, agreeable, vaguely oriental music trickled out of invisible speakers. Lying on her little hill, Beba felt like a gigantic slug on a mushroom.

The woman in the white uniform reached under the table, drew out a nozzle like the ones used for washing cars and delivered a cloud of aromatic soapy foam to Beba’s back.

‘Don’t worry, Pan Suleiman will be here in a moment,’ she said, and went away.

Pan Suleiman? Covered in the warm foam, Beba waited for what was to come.

A young man came into the room. He was wearing a rainbowcoloured turban, and his upper body was bare, if you did not count his tiny, extremely short waistcoat. Instead of trousers, he was wearing wide silk oriental pants, gathered at the ankle. The young man had a virile body, nicely formed muscles in his arms, a flat stomach and satin skin. His face was oriental, or at least so it seemed to Beba, with a prominent nose, fine teeth and full lips, large brown eyes and a little moustache, which struck her as a trifle old-fashioned and therefore attractive.

‘Hai, mai neym iz Suleiman. I em yor maser!’ he announced huskily, in beginner’s English.

‘Hi! My name is Beba!’ said Beba.

At that moment, Beba’s head, poking out of the cloud of foam, happened to be right beside the young man’s pants, that is to say the young man’s pants were right beside Beba’s head, and Beba came face to face with the part of them that was about eight inches below his navel. Beba’s face flushed red. That below-the-navel part of the young man’s pants was peaked like a tent. ‘Whatever is the old woman thinking of…’ Beba reproached herself silently.

‘Reeleks!’ said the young man, running his hands over Beba’s body. Beba tingled all over with pins and needles, as though she had been given a slight electric shock. Plunging his hands into the foam, the young man began to massage her body.

The space was filled with quiet. The oriental music from the invisible speakers was barely audible. Beba thought that the young man was not saying much because his English was bad.

‘Mmmmmmm,’ moaned Beba with pleasure.

At that moment the young man happened to brush against Beba’s thigh with that below-the-navel part of his pants and now there was no longer any doubt – or so it seemed to Beba. ‘Good lord! What now?’ she thought.

‘Reeleks!’ said the young man.

Beba could not remember when this had last happened to her, that a young, attractive, half-naked male body had stood before her, in full battle readiness. Beba’s face was lit up with a dreamy smile. She pressed herself into the little hill lined with soft sponge and licked the aromatic soapy foam. Her body was tingling with expectation. As he massaged her, the young man came round the table and now he was again standing beside Beba’s head so as to reach the back of her neck. Through her half-closed eyes, she could see the young man’s smooth stomach muscles. That tent-like part of his pants was still taut. ‘Shame on you! You female Gustav von Aschenbach!’ Beba silently chastised herself.

Perhaps it should be said at this point that Beba, who con sidered herself stupid – and those immediately around her did not exactly fall over themselves to disabuse her – often chose intellectual comparisons, without herself fully understanding why she did so, and when she did understand, she had no idea where that knowledge came from. No matter, we have to move on. Because in life we each have our cross to bear, while the tale makes obstacles disappear.

‘Veer yu from?’ asked the young man.

‘Croatia,’ Beba muttered reluctantly. The young man’s appalling English acted on her dreamy mood like an icy shower.

The young man’s hands stopped moving.

‘One of us!’ said the young man in his own language, gaping.

‘A fellow countryman!’ said Beba, gaping.

‘Yes, of course, what did you think I was?’

‘A Turk!’ said Beba, although she had really thought that the young man was a Czech in disguise.

‘Turk indeed! Not on your life! I’m Bosnian!’

‘Where from?’

‘Sarajevo!’ the boy burst out, with the stress on the ‘e’, evidently imitating foreign war reporters.

‘What are you doing here?’

‘Massaging, of course. As you see.’

‘I mean, how did you end up here?’

‘I was a refugee.’

‘When?’

‘A bit before Dayton…’

‘So how long have you been here? Twelve years?’

‘About that…’

‘So how old are you?’

‘Twenty-nine… Well, am I going to massage you or what?’

‘I don’t know, I feel a bit awkward now. I could be your mother…’ said Beba, trying to get off her little hill. The young man hurried to help her.

‘Why should it be awkward? I’ve had all kinds of bodies through my hands, since I’ve been doing this.’

‘But even so…’ Beba mumbled, embarrassed.

Somehow Beba clambered up and sat on the table, but the aid remained stuck between her breasts. Seeing Beba in a cloud of soapy foam, with the aid, and her breasts sticking out of the openings like two watermelons, the young man began to roar with laughter. Realising what a ridiculous situation she was in, Beba too burst out laughing. Her laughter sent the foam flying in all directions.

‘Oh, my! Now you look like a Yeti!’ said the young man, in his Bosnian accent, trying to suppress his laughter.

The young man helped Beba remove the pillow and brought her a towelling robe. Wrapped in the white robe, Beba wiped the foam from her face with a towel.

‘Fancy a fag?’ said the young man in his characteristic Bosnian accent.

‘Sorry?’

‘Shall we have a smoke?’

‘Here?’

‘Well, why not?’

‘Oh, all right.’

‘I call the shots here, love. I’m untouchable! And what kind of a Suleiman would I be if there wasn’t a smell of tobacco round me, eh?’

Beba and the young man lit their cigarettes.

‘Eh, I haven’t had a good laugh like that in years!’ said the young man warmly.