Evald Flisar - My Father's Dreams

The engineer beckons to them, and they come across the road. They climb in at the back, next to me. Helen, the blond one, sits in the middle. I sit on her right. They don’t look like girls from a farm. The dark one admits that she has two children. I try to imagine what they might look like. I decide I don’t like them. Actually it is their mother I’m not really fond of. She has too much make-up on her face. And there is something sneaky about the way she looks at me. To be honest, there is only one girl I like, and that’s Eve. But she does not feature in this particular dream.

The blond girl starts to talk. She is answering the engineer’s questions. Yes, she is employed; she works in a clothing factory. But she earns very little. Her boyfriend had left her, she cut her wrist, but the neighbour found her and she was saved. Her present boyfriend is in jail for stealing cars. But her colleague, sitting next to her, has got it worked out much better. She lives by giving men what they want. Not the sort of thing she herself would like to do all the time.

“Come on,” the black one croaks with an unpleasant voice, “next you’ll say you’re a virgin.”

“Well,” says Helen bitchily, “compared to you I almost am.”

I can hear the dark one sharply drawing in air. But that’s where it stops, nothing is said, the girls manage to avoid a fight.

The engineer turns around and asks, “Adam, do you know what these girls are talking about?”

“Of course he does,” Father steps in and saves me from trying to think of an answer. I stare out of the window, wondering why we are taking the girls with us, and where. But since it’s only a dream, guided by Father who knows what he is doing, I feel safe, nothing bad can happen to me. I do feel uncomfortable, but I’m not afraid. I distinctly remember having fallen asleep in the chair at home, and I believe that that’s where I will wake up. Father, obviously reading my thoughts, confirms this by winking at me.

“We’re nearly there,” he says as we reach the outskirts of the city.

I cannot imagine where this should be, but the others seem to know quite well, even the girls. The black one points to the left and says, “Down there, by the river.”

She is right: on the bank of the dull-brown, lazy river, close to the stone bridge which is spanning it, there is an exhibition of agricultural tools and machines, a fair combined with a circus. Father parks the car in one of the back streets and we push our way into the crowd. I don’t think I have ever seen so many people in one place. They eat grilled sausages and fat pieces of pork, wash it all down with kegs of frothy beer, queue for the merry-go-round, the bowling alley, the house of horrors, the shooting gallery, even for room on the raised dance floor, where strange looking people move around to the tune of a very strange sounding folk music.

“Well, how do you like our common dream?” Father asks, squeezing my shoulders.

I merely shrug. I dare not tell him that not very much. But Father can see that I’m tired of all the jostling and shouting.

“Not to worry,” he says. “Dreams can be speeded up.”

We join the engineer and the two girls who are drinking beer at a round wooden table. The engineer has white froth on his moustaches. He had just counted a number of banknotes on the table. In front of the beady eyes of the dark one, Helen counts them once more, rolls them into a spool which she fastens with a rubber band, and puts them into her handbag. I have never seen girls drinking beer before. I can tell from the ease with which they sip it from the tall glasses that this isn’t their first time.

“What about you two?” Helen looks at the engineer, and then at Father.

“Some other time,” the engineer looks at me. “Youth must be first.” His heavy hand lands crushingly on my shoulder. “Right, boy?”

I have no idea what all this could mean, but I’m not bothered; in dreams things are often confused, leading nowhere. As evening approaches and mist begins to envelop the river as well, we make our way back to the car. Soon we are returning along the road which brought us to the city. We are sitting in the same way as before, the only difference being that Helen is now almost squeezed against me, I can feel the whole length of her slim, firm thigh pressed against mine. Every now and then she gives me a curious and perhaps slightly sneering look. In a smallish town perched on top of a hill Father brings the car to a halt in front of an inn. We climb out and choose one of the empty tables in the garden. The men order beer. The girls, for a change, demand a bottle of the best wine. I drink apple juice. Father wants to know if I am hungry. I shake my head.

The hills are slowly disappearing in the evening mist. From the valley below, darkness is stealthily moving up the slopes, dissolving the shapes of trees, houses, vineyards and fields into a world of ill-defined shadows. The men leave the table and drive off in the car. “Don’t worry,” the engineer shouts through the car window just before they disappear. “Trust the girls, they have plenty of experience.”

Left alone, we sit at the table and look at the procession of shadows moving up from the valley. I wish that this dream would soon end. I make an effort to wake up, but then I relax. I remember Father; I don’t want to leave him alone in the dream. We must emerge from it together, in the same way we sank into it. But the purpose of the dream is no clearer to me now than it was at the beginning.

The girls drink wine. We are alone in the garden. Helen leans over into my lap and asks me to kiss her and caress her legs. But she is wearing course linen trousers. I feel no skin as I glide my hand along her left thigh. And her lips are cold, unresponsive. The grass is already covered with evening dew. Lights come on inside the inn. The girls persuade me to drink a glass of wine. My brain relaxes; my body feels a pleasant warmth. I begin to talk. First about my little brother, who lives in a bottle. And how he cannot open his mouth, because he floats in a liquid. How he transmits his thoughts to me through his eyes. Then I mention how we are really in the middle of winter because as Father and I left the house there were flames in the fire-place. I was hot. And it must have been because of the heat that my penis attacked me.

The girls, who have listened attentively, exchange glances. Finally Helen says, “Are you being treated for this?”

I tell them that I’m being treated by Father, who is a doctor, the best in the world. He was brave enough to accompany me into the dream we are now dreaming together. What other doctor would have done that? Everything that is happening now is a dream; nothing of what we see, hear, or smell is real.

“Oh you poor boy,” says Helen and gently strokes my hair.

The mist is now all around us, I can feel it on my cheeks; it is cold. The church clock delivers eleven strikes. There is no sign of Father. They are closing the inn, we have to leave. Like shadows we slink off along the road leading into the centre of the town. It’s a very small town, almost a village. I am tired and sleepy. I am beginning to worry that Father might not return. Where will I sleep? It’s a strange thought, asking oneself where one will sleep in a dream, but the night is cold and my worry is almost real. We roam around, passing houses, shuttered shops, and silent buildings. The church clock announces the time: half past midnight. And still there is no sign of Father.

Finally the dark-haired girl makes a suggestion. She will sleep in Helen’s room, where we can’t go because the neighbour hears every sound. Helen and I can go up the hill to her house. Just before daybreak they will swap again, and I will no doubt be picked up by Father. But the blond beauty rejects the suggestion out of hand. That is not possible, she says, she simply has to sleep in her room.