Evald Flisar - My Father's Dreams

But the strangest of all was Mother’s reticence, so unlike her that I often wondered what could have caused it. Her habitual nagging and scolding had become a memory; even the disorder I left behind in the bathroom every morning no longer moved her to tell me off. Whenever our eyes accidentally met, she would avert hers as if suddenly noticing something that demanded her instant attention.

At school no one believed that I had been ill. In a small village like ours it would have been impossible to hide the fact that we had gone on holiday. But no one had the courage to say anything. Everybody knew that sooner or later they would have to knock at the door of Father’s surgery; either themselves or their children, parents, aunts, uncles or distant cousins. No one was in a hurry to upset the only doctor for miles around. Only my language teacher asked me, as if in passing, when I would write a composition about my latest dream: would that by any chance be a dream about seasickness?

Grandpa Dominic had refused to come back with us; he said he wanted to stay a few days at the sea, now that he was there, and besides, he had a return train ticket anyway. Every day while returning from school I would take a longer route to walk past his house, to see if he had come back. After five days I started to worry that something had happened to him, or that he had decided to make one more sea voyage, his last. Then, two days later, as I walked up the road towards the house, I noticed that the main door was wide open. I ran the rest of the way and stormed into the house, calling out at the top of my voice, “Grandpa Dominic, Grandpa Dominic!”

Silence greeted my words. The air in the house was less stuffy than during my previous visits; a window must have been opened somewhere at the opposite end, with the draught filling the rooms with the fresh smell of an October afternoon. Perhaps, I thought, he had fallen asleep in the big chair in the living room. But the chair was empty. In the beam of sunlight entering through the gap in the drawn curtains I noticed that three of the African gods were missing.

Perhaps there were burglars in the house, looting Grandpa Dominic’s valuables! I followed the stream of fresh air to its source and discovered that it was coming in through the bathroom window which was wide open. The door was ajar. As I tried to push it open I felt resistance; something heavy on the other side refused to yield. I hurled all my weight against it, to no avail. In the end I managed to push the door open just wide enough for my head to squeeze through the gap.

At first I refused to believe my eyes. Lying on the wet floor of the bathroom was Eve, her head resting on the edge of the bathtub, her legs outstretched and pushing against the door. She was wearing a short blue-grey frock which had curled up under her into a wet mound of material impregnated with something dark. I realised that the wetness on the floor was not water; it was a large thin patch of diluted blood. Then I saw blood seeping from a severed vein on the wrist of Eve’s left arm, which lay, together with the right one, in her lap as if neither belonged to her. Her eyes were closed, and her body was shivering.

“Eve!” I yelled.

She raised her eyelids and watched me through the narrow gaps as if trying to remember who I was. The pallor of her sunken cheeks gave her look a piercing edge.

“It’s you,” she finally breathed. “Come, join me on my way to a beautiful dream. Are you afraid?”

She closed her eyes again and the puddle on the floor was slowly spreading. I knew what had to be done; I had seen such scenes in Father’s surgery often enough. I ran to the kitchen and grabbed the nearest dish cloth. It was filthy and had a stale, sour smell, but there was no time to look for another. I pushed my head through the gap into the bathroom and shouted:

“Raise your legs, Eve! Pull them up, bend your knees!”

She half opened her eyes but immediately closed them again; she failed to understand what I wanted. I hurled myself against the door and managed to push it open another ten inches, but Eve’s legs immediately straightened out again and pushed the door back. I tried again and this time wedged my body into the widened gap. I managed to squeeze through. I knelt down in the puddle of blood and tightly bandaged her wrist with a dishcloth.

“Adam,” she breathed and half raised her eyelids. “Make sure you don’t die a virgin. Sinning is sweet.”

I pushed my hands under her arms and tried to lift her, but she was too heavy, her body limp. I stepped into the bathtub, from which the dripping tap had already washed away most of the blood, and pushed my hands under her arms from behind. This didn’t work either, I simply wasn’t strong enough.

“Adam,” I heard her say, “leave me, I’m okay, I feel fine.”

I climbed out of the bathtub, grabbed her legs and pushed them up by bending them at the knees, just enough to open the door.

“Wait here,” I told her, as if this were at all necessary. “Don’t move.”

I knew there was no phone in the house, so I decided to run to the health centre and ask Father to jump in the car and get straight back to save Eve while there was still time. But just as I came out of the house I saw a tractor with a trailer bouncing past on the rough road, with the driver sitting on the high seat and staring ahead as if the rest of the world did not exist. I ran alongside the huge wheel, shouting and waving my arms until the man noticed me. Even then it took more than a minute before he decided to believe my story, and another minute for him to reverse the vehicle back to the house.

We brought Eve, who in the meantime had become unconscious, out of the house and lifted her onto the empty trailer. I climbed in with her and held her head in my lap, so that during the drive down the rough road it wouldn’t roll around. I felt her pulse; it was weak, but the heart was still beating.

“Faster!” I yelled at the farmer. “Faster!”

“Next time stop a Mercedes,” was his reply. After that he remained stubbornly silent until we reached the health centre. I asked him to sound the horn.

Nurse Mary was the first who came running out. She was followed by Father, and all three of us lifted Eve from the trailer and carried her up the stairs into the surgery. I was more in the way than of any help, so I just ran along, every now and then pushing away a stray lock of hair that kept sliding over Eve’s eyes. As soon as Father and Nurse Mary brought her into the surgery and placed her on the examining table, she opened her eyes and looked straight at me.

“Adam,” she said, “why didn’t you let me go? I wanted to go to the place where everybody is loved by at least one other person.”

But I love you, Eve, I wanted to shout, I will always love you, I am that other person, the only person who really loves you. But I had to keep the words inside me, I couldn’t let them come out in front of Nurse Mary and Father. Especially Father, who was already measuring Eve’s blood pressure.

“Adam,” he said without looking at me, “out.”

“But Father…” I tried to object.

“Nurse,” he snapped, “get him out of the surgery.”

Nurse Mary placed her hands on my shoulders, turned me around, and pushed me towards the door and out into the waiting room. She slammed the door behind me with such force that the waiting patients looked at me as if it was my fault that Eve had decided to cut her wrist. Maybe it is, I thought. Maybe I don’t love her enough.

I ran out into the courtyard and round the corner. I climbed the fire-escape stairs to the wooden hatch and climbed into the loft. I crawled as far as the chimney and peered through the gap in the ceiling into the surgery. The examining table was right below. The blood-soaked dish cloth from Grandpa Dominic’s kitchen lay on the floor. Nurse Mary was dressing Eve’s wrist with disinfected surgical gauze. Father was sitting at Nurse Mary’s table, leaning on it with his elbow and supporting his head with his hand. He looked as if the sudden event had exhausted him.