Evald Flisar - My Father's Dreams

I crossed and re-crossed the town from one end to the other, but there were no bananas; the few greengrocers who were open looked at me as if I had fallen on my head, and everywhere my departure was followed by laughter and snide remarks. As I walked back I felt that even houses were leaning after me and sneering, creaking with their doors. I didn’t want to return to the hotel too early; I paused on the pier and looked at the sea. I decided to think everything over and come to some sort of decision.

Moored on both sides of the pier were fishing and sailing boats, creaking and rubbing against each other as they rose and fell with the undulating sea. Watching them without any particular thought I suddenly felt that someone was watching me. As I turned I saw, standing a few steps behind me, a gaunt man who was wearing a loose thin cape. His face, elderly but smooth, looked impassive, as if carved from a piece of marble. He wasn’t looking at me but straight ahead. Then he began to close and open his eyes in rapid succession, as if irritated by a piece of dust behind his eyelid.

He stopped doing that as abruptly as he had begun. He turned his face towards me. His eyes looked as if made of glass, filled with hard, dim ice. He moved closer and without saying anything grabbed me by the sleeve of my shirt. His cape smelled of a mixture of mould and cheap after-shave. He looked me straight in the eyes and pulled me closer. With his other hand he pointed across the sea.

“Can you see it?” he asked in a deep, rumbling voice. “Can you see the island? You can’t. And why not? Because it’s the same colour as the sea and the sky. It blends in with them, it’s invisible. But it’s there, I tell you. I can take you there with my boat, would you like that?”

Without letting me answer he continued, and his voice gathered speed as if rolling downhill. “I’m a boatman, a fisherman. I ferry tourists to little coves. And the islands. Especially that one. No one lives there. You can swim naked, walk around, shout at the top of your voice, swear; whatever you want. Total freedom. Shall we say tomorrow morning?”

I opened my mouth to answer, I moved my tongue, but suddenly it occurred to me that I don’t know what to say; the only thing that came out of my mouth was a strange, animal-like squawk. The man winced, let go of my sleeve and took a step back.

“Are you all right?” he asked, trying to sound concerned.

He moved closer and reached out to touch me again, but as he did so my right hand flew in the air and hit him in the face. It was more of a stroke than a blow, but the man staggered back as if I had pushed my whole weight against him. The last thing I saw was the look of astonishment on his face, and then I was off, running as fast as I could, afraid that he might come after me. I was too scared to look back, I just ran along the promenade, with the houses swinging around me like giant see-saws, and the sea on the left gaping at me like the jaws of a giant shark. I couldn’t remember how I made my way back to the hotel; the next thing I became aware of was Mother leaning over me as I woke up in bed.

“Adam,” she was saying, “what happened?”

“We must leave, Mother,” I said. “We must leave this place at once.”

“Don’t be silly,” she said and withdrew.

The next day we were already closer to our ruin, which I felt, was inevitable. It wasn’t clear who struck the deal with the boatman: whether Mother, who fell for his spiel about the uninhabited island, or Father, who early in the morning brought the man to the hotel’s dining room and treated him to a sumptuous breakfast. They chatted like old friends, exchanging jokes and fishing tales. In the end they ordered brandy and clinked their glasses as if drinking to a secret agreement.

During the journey on a puttering old fishing boat it became clear that Mother and Father had known the man from their previous holidays, from the days before I was born or was too small to remember. Talking to them, and with a rudder in his blistered hand, he looked almost human, much more so than during our meeting on the pier. Perhaps he was quite normal, after all, and the problem was once again my “hypertrophy of the senses”.

“Don’t you remember Simon?” Mother asked me with a touch of reproach.

“No, I don’t. Can we go back now, please?”

“What’s the matter with you? You’ve been acting strangely ever since we arrived. Is it those dreams again?” she turned to Father.

Father shrugged and looked at the island which suddenly emerged from the slight mist ahead. It was bare and rocky, just as Simon the boatman had described it. It lay before us like the exposed back of a large underwater animal, waiting quietly for unsuspecting holidaymakers to land on its surface. It was half past eleven when we pulled into a little cove on the southern end of the island. As soon as we disembarked, the boatman announced that he would carry on to the next little island, where he had to pick up a load of bricks; he would collect us on the way back some time in the afternoon.

Then it happened. Father suddenly waded into the sea and scrambled back into the boat. He said he would accompany Simon to the next island, where he would need help with the loading of bricks. As for Mother and me, we should be all right, what with the sun and the sea, and the whole island to explore.

“Don’t you dare,” Mother shouted. But it was too late; the boatman had started the motor and the boat pulled away from the shore as if pushed by an invisible force. Within minutes it was out in the open sea, bouncing on the waves and drawing away, with Father waving good-bye.

“He’ll live to regret this,” was all Mother could say.

For the first hour we swam in the clear waters of the bay. Then, stretched out on the pebbly beach, we allowed our bodies to be cooled by a gentle breeze and warmed by the weak sunshine. Mother fell asleep and started to snore. At first everything seemed normal, without any signs that something unusual may be afoot. Then, gradually, nature began to draw closer, silently, like a stalking animal, and I could feel the weight in the pit of my stomach growing heavier.

It started as I began to listen to the sounds of the sea. The waves would crash against the shore, fold in on themselves and retreat, but leave just enough water to come rushing up the beach to my feet, touch my heels with tentacles of cold and then slowly recede, rolling a few pebbles along into the depths, where it cowered until the next wave threw it back on the shore, spitting out the pebbles like undigested seeds. As it receded again, it dislodged others and rolled them to the edge of the beach, to the shallows, and some even further, swallowing them forever.

The thrusts of the sea varied, water did not reach my feet every time, occasionally it only dragged pebbles along, and now and then it would sink into itself, pausing as if the sea were taking a deep breath. But such intervals were not silent, they were filled with the sounds of the sea crashing against the rocks far away, for the waves were attacking the rocky shore in staggered forays, assaulting here and withdrawing there, causing a dissonance of thunderous splashes, sloshes, sprays and sprinkles which increasingly filled me with an awareness of the presence of evil, of something getting ready to harm either me or Mother, or both of us.

I looked at Mother. She was resting on her towel not far away, lying on her stomach in a yellow swimsuit, with her head in the crook of her arm and with her loose blond hair covering most of her shoulders, with the skin on the back of her legs the same hue of blue as the sea water before it produced white sprinkle and folded in on itself. Blue cold was creeping up her legs and slowly devouring her body. Eventually, her heart would freeze. And then she would stop worrying about me, berating me, sneaking after me, examining my bed sheets, checking my reading matter, double-checking my homework, barging into the bathroom while I was showering… Then, yes, then it would only be Father, Eve and me. United in my dreams. Living happily ever after…