Evald Flisar - My Father's Dreams

“And those others dreams,” he finally asked, reaching for the box of matches, “about Father and Eve, are you still having them?” He shielded the match with his hand, so that the light breeze which rustled the leaves above us wouldn’t extinguish the flame.

I said that obviously I had been cured of those dreams. The last one I had was on the day of Eve’s departure, when I dreamed about her and Father saying good-bye to each other in the bushes behind the health centre. Since then there’s been nothing. It must have been the delayed effect of the dream in which my Father joined me that finally cured me, just as Father had predicted.

“Are you sure of that?” Grandpa Dominic suddenly spoke in a tone he had not used before, almost with a touch of impatience and anger. “Suppose you’re having these dreams only when Eve is here? Maybe we should try to find out. What do you think? Dreams like that shouldn’t be taken lightly.”

He looked at me, but I merely shrugged, not knowing what to say.

“Shall I ask her to come for a weekend?”

“Yes please,” I breathed, avoiding his eyes.

She came four days later. It was Saturday. My dreams returned the same day, about midday, just as I had slid down the chute into the basement to say hello to Abortus. Suddenly I heard a key in the door. I climbed behind a dusty chest of drawers which was full of out-of-date medicines. There wasn’t much room, I was wedged between the drawer and a damp wall, and there were cobwebs everywhere. But it was dark in that part of the basement, no one would see me.

As the door squealed open, Father entered first. Then he stepped back to let Eve follow him in. He closed the door and bolted it. He was wearing a white coat; he must have come straight from the surgery. Eve was in jeans, the first time she wasn’t wearing a skirt. She seemed to have lost so much weight that the jeans kept sliding off her hips, and she kept pulling them up. In the beam of light coming in through the window her face looked gaunt and exhausted, with black rings under her eyes.

She paused in front of Abortus and exclaimed: “What stuff did you give me this time? Something awfully good. I can see things I could never imagine!”

Father put his forefinger across her lips. “Not so loud, there are people upstairs.”

“Where did you bring me?” she wondered, looking at the shelves which were not in darkness. She stared at the jars containing an excised tumour, a severed thumb, an amputated penis.

“My God,” she said, “you can’t be normal.”

“No,” Father said, “you’re normal. A perfectly normal fifteen-year old, doing perfectly normal things. Come on, I haven’t got much time. Where is this door to hell you keep offering me?”

With a practised move, Eve pulled her jeans and panties off and let them curl around her feet. She bent forward, leaning against the wall with her hands.

“Sometimes you’re really nice to me. But sometimes you treat me like a slut. And do you know what? I like it. I may decide to become one when I grow up. Thanks to you. Does that make you happy?”

“Shut up,” said Father and stepped behind her. From his movements I could tell that he was trying to enter her, but couldn’t quite make it.

“Move your legs apart,” he became impatient.

“I can’t,” she grew angry, “unless I step out of these stupid jeans. Since when have you had problems, you never had any before.”

The next moment Father succeeded. She gasped and stifled a moan; the she relaxed and, paying no attention to Father’s thrusting movements, looked around at the shelves, commenting on the contents of the jars. “I know what these are. They’re embryos, aren’t they? That’s what we’re like before we enter this beautiful world. That’s what will grow in my womb if you’re not careful with that dick of yours. Will you then cut it out of me? Put it in a glass jar, like all these? I wouldn’t be surprised if they were all yours.”

“Shut up,” Father panted, “this is science, you know nothing about it.”

“If this is science I’m glad I failed my entrance exams for the grammar school. Very glad. Because I don’t want to learn anything. I know too much already. Will you be much longer?”

“Don’t you like it?” Father asked.

“Not in a place like this.”

My dream ended as soon as the door of the cellar was pulled shut and locked from outside. The only thing I couldn’t quite understand was how I could have fallen asleep in such an uncomfortable position, wedged in behind the chest of drawers so tightly that one of my legs had gone completely numb, while my knees grew so stiff that I needed some time before I could move normally.

But the dream was so vivid that I decided to record it at once, every little detail, every thrust of Father’s body, every Eve’s sigh or subdued moan, as well as her feigned indifference to what she was engaged in. It took me an hour to write it all down, and when I did I read bits of it to Abortus. Although everything took place in front of his eyes, he couldn’t have seen anything, since it all happened in my dream. When I pushed the diary back behind the jar I thought I saw a grateful smile on his face. The dream must have been a great shock to him, but he obviously enjoyed it as much as I did.

Toward the evening I ran into Grandpa Dominic in the village shop, where Mother had sent me to fetch a carton of milk for Father’s coffee.

“How are the dreams?” he asked me as we came out.

“They’re back.”

“I was afraid of that,” he said, looking straight ahead. “Yes, I was very much afraid of that. Will you let me know when they stop again?”

I promised I would, but I never got the chance because the next day, quite unexpectedly, Mother finally managed to convince Father that we badly needed a few restful days at the sea. She had been trying to talk him into this great adventure for over a year, claiming that not going on holiday for more than three years simply wasn’t normal for a normal family. No, Father would always reply, it isn’t normal, but it is normal for an abnormal family, which is what by all accounts we were. But his main excuse had always been that he was unable to find a replacement, someone reliable to look after his patients while he was away. That’s why Mother and I were so surprised when suddenly he announced that a certain Dr. Nachtigal, longing for fresh country air, had decided to stand in for him for a week, and that we were leaving the following morning.

“What about Adam’s school?” Mother asked, suddenly worried, although nearly fainting with excitement.

“Adam?” Father gave me a long searching look. “The author of mad compositions, the dreamer of salacious dreams?” I was gripped by a terrible fear that he would decide to leave me behind. Then he winked at me and said, “Adam will get chicken pox. I shall write him a note.”

The next morning we drove to the seaside. But we soon regretted Father’s sudden decision, for the events which began to take place immediately upon our arrival could hardly be thought of as usual for a seaside holiday. It started at the hotel: as soon as we filed through the door, the receptionist looked at us as if he’d seen a ghost. Quite evidently we had not made him happy with our arrival. But he was sitting behind the reception counter, so it was natural to assume that he would carry out his duties regardless of his personal feelings about the guests. Although we were somewhat taken aback by the man’s reaction, Father quietly and without hesitation ordered a room.

“With a view of the sea,” he added.

As we walked up the creaking stairs to the first floor, I looked at the wobbling movements of the receptionist’s huge behind, which, because of a torn trouser pocket on his right hip, reminded me of a malicious, derisive grin. I suddenly felt that we shouldn’t have come; in the rhythmic movements of the grinning pocket I felt a disguised reproach. Just then my nostrils were assaulted by a violent smell of naphthalene, so strong that I almost lost my balance. If Father, who walked behind me, had not caught me, I would have tumbled down the stairs and struck Mother, who made up the rear, and then both of us would have ended up at the bottom of the stairs with broken necks. I felt dizzy at the thought; I gripped the banister as hard as I could.