Evald Flisar - My Father's Dreams

When Nurse Mary finished and began to tidy up, Father said, “Nurse, go to the dispensary and bring some iron tablets. And tranquilisers, I recommend diazepam.”

Nurse Mary tried to explain that she would do that as soon as she tidied up, but Father cut her short, “Now, Nurse, this very moment.”

Nurse Mary dropped everything she held in her hands on the floor and demonstratively walked out of the room. Father, Eve and I were alone now. For a while there was silence.

Then Father asked, “Why did you do it?”

Eve did not move. The bandaged arm lay next to her limp and lifeless, as if she had disowned it. In her eyes, too, there was hardly any life; she was looking straight up, not at the gap, through which I was peering into the surgery, but past it through the ceiling, through the roof, through the sky into eternity which we had not allowed her to enter. How sincerely she wanted to enter it I could not tell. Even less clear was what could have happened to her to make eternity tempting. This wasn’t clear to Father, either, for after a pause he repeated his question.

He got up, approached the examining table and looked at Eve with an expression of deep concern, almost fear.

As soon as Father came close enough for Eve to touch him I felt a familiar thud in my head. I knew that I had crossed the boundary from the waking state into a dream. The surgery became misty and unfamiliar, as though it had been moved from the health centre to some other building. I expected the dream to continue in the usual way, with Father slowly sliding his fingers under Eve’s skirt, or with her reaching out and unzipping his fly. But Father merely stood and watched her, while Eve turned her head away as if unwilling to face him.

“Why?” Father repeated less harshly, in a tone which was not far from despair. “And why are you here? Why aren’t you at home, with your parents, where you should be?”

“You know why I’m here,” she turned her face towards him. “Because of you.”

“Certainly not because of me,” Father said. He turned away and made a few steps around the surgery. “You’re here because of what you need, but that I can’t give you any more.”

“Why not?” demanded Eve in a weak voice. “Why can’t you give me what you’ve been giving me for the last three months? You don’t like me any more. That’s why. No one likes me, not my parents, not you, not the friends I used to have. I’m alone. Where can I go? You must give me what I need, I have been good to you, I will continue to be good.”

Father, who had been staring out of the window, abruptly turned and half shouted, half hissed, “Stop it!”

He went to the door and turned the key in the lock.

“Stop,” he continued more quietly, “playing on these worn-out sentimental strings, because I’m not going to fall for it any more. Do you realise what you’ve turned me into? And my family? You’ve turned me into a monster that shivers at the thought of what he could’ve done if it wasn’t for your grandfather. A monster that lives in daily dread of being found out, and will do anything to prevent that. Does that make you happy? I’m responsible for five hundred patients, do you realise what that means?”

“That means you’re also responsible for me,” Eve replied, “because I’m one of your patients. You agreed to treat me; you can’t just throw me out when it suits you. Or stuff me into one of those jars in the basement. Is that what you’d like to do?”

For a moment Father disappeared from my area of vision and returned with a syringe in his right hand.

“You could’ve bled to death, do you realise that?”

He looked for a vein in the crook of her arm and slowly injected the clear liquid into her bloodstream.

“This is the last time,” he said. “I can’t go on. I’ll take you back to your grandfather’s house. Pull yourself together, go back to your parents, go back to school, go and kick your habit somewhere they take care of people like you. If you carry on like this, you’ll die.”

“We’re all going to die,” she said. “You as well. Death is the only beautiful thing in the world. Do you want your reward now or later, back at the house?”

“Keep your reward,” Father said and removed his white coat. “Shall we go?”

“I wonder,” said Eve, carefully placing her legs on the floor, “how long you’ll be able to do without.”

“I’ll castrate myself, if that’s the only way,” Father said and pushed her toward the door.

As soon as they left the surgery I expected my dream to end. But nothing happened, I could feel no movement or switchover inside my head. Was it a dream? Or was it all real? I was no longer sure. In the end I decided that it was a dream, all I had to do was catch up with it. Losing no time, I scrambled out through the hatch, tumbled down the fire-escape stairs and ran in a straight line across the fields and orchards toward Grandpa Dominic’s house. I was almost sure now that the dream would continue, and I wanted to be there in time not to miss any of it.

At one of the farms I passed I was nearly frightened to death by a huge growling dog that came bearing down on me with his teeth showing. Just before reaching me he was held back by the chain. His growling and barking followed me until I reached the edge of Grandpa Dominic’s orchard. At that moment I realised that I was too late; Father’s car had just turned onto the road and sped back to the village.

The main door was closed but not locked. My first destination was the bathroom; I was afraid that I would find Eve on the floor as before, in an even bigger puddle of blood. But the bathroom was empty; the spots on the tiles had already dried. I ran up the stairs to the first floor and to the end of the corridor. The door to Eve’s room was open.

I found her lying on the bed with eyes closed. Her arms were stretched out by her side. She looked rigid, like a drowned person who had just been pulled out of water and laid out on the grass. In the corner of the room I noticed a little knapsack with which she must have arrived from the city. I knelt down beside the bed and watched her. I suppressed the sudden urge to touch her, but in the end I couldn’t resist it; I gently placed my forefinger on her knee and slowly moved it up towards the hem of her dress. She winced, opened her eyes and looked straight at me.

“My knight in shining armour,” she said with relief, barely audible. “The hero who defeated the dragon of eternal darkness and brought me back to the world of beauty and meaning.”

Suddenly she sat up and drew me toward her. She put her arms round my neck and pressed her pale cheek against mine. She was all cold and limp. But her breath, which I felt in my ear, was hot and sweet.

“Adam,” she breathed, “you’ll have to help me, you will, won’t you?”

I shrugged; I hadn’t the slightest idea what she meant.

“You must, you simply must do something for me,” she said.

“I can, in a dream,” I said. “In a dream everything’s possible and allowed. It’s impossible to do anything wrong in a dream.”

She pushed me away and looked at me sternly as if I had said something she disagreed with or could not understand. Then she nodded, as if concluding that my words were of no consequence after all.

“Adam, you’ll have to bring me, and keep bringing me those things I used to get from your Father. Really, Adam, you’ll have to. Because your father won’t give them to me any more. He keeps them in little ampoules somewhere in his surgery. You will find them, won’t you?”

I said that this would be quite impossible, since I did not have a key to the surgery.

“Adam,” she pulled me back to herself, almost embracing me, “you’ll find a way, I’m sure you will, promise you will. And then we shall dream together. Just you and me. And what I used to do with your Father, I will in future do only with you. Would you like that?”