Lojze Kovačič - Newcomers

The train was overflowing with drunk and happy men and women … There were so many of them that they sat on the floor between benches, in the corridor, outside the lavatory … All of them were carrying bags, suitcases, backpacks, bundles, and wicker baskets … with corn, beans, barley, sausage, and chickens … “Well, boy, I’m going to need to empty my bladder here in a second,” an excited little man kindly put his hand on my head. I drew in my legs so he could shove his way through to the toilet … People were singing in the compartments … including the women, flushed red, their shiny faces with necklaces that got lost in the fat folds of their pendulous dewlaps … I had never before liked people so much as I did on that train. Every compartment had its own song, or several compartments would share one … The luggage racks practically shook from the basses and sopranos and things fell down in our laps … In the compartment next door people were of course talking about that … the willy and wee-wee. That was interesting … “Me, no longer able to do it?” cackled a man’s bass. “Even after three score years she isn’t satisfied … Now when I get home, she’ll start whining … like you wouldn’t believe. I’ll tell her, look, here’s a news flash. When I leave in the morning, you get one kiss, so in thirty days that’s thirty kisses and after dinner I’ll slap your bottom, another thirty per month, so that’s thirty kisses and thirty slaps on the ass all together … whoever wants more won’t get any, that’s bolshevism, skinning a man alive …” … “Ha ha ha!” … “Score, one-zero, my favor!” On the platform of the last car where you had a good view of the tracks as they narrowed on the gray granite ballast the farther away they got, the happiest people on the whole train were shouting and playing an accordion …

*

People have no understanding, no sense of truly beautiful things anymore. They don’t appreciate fine hand-made things anymore the way they ought to … They’re only interested in cheap, machine-made junk.

SEVERAL TIMES when I came into our room I found Mrs. Hamann standing in front of the table where mother, Vati and Clairi were sewing. One time there was even one of those gentlemen in the black neckties and green hats with her. The next time there were two of them, a short one and a tall one, both dressed identically … Barely had I come in when they fell silent … Sometimes a servant would ring the bell and Vati or Clairi or mother, and sometimes all three of them, would have to go upstairs to talk to her … “Ich will mich nicht in die Politik einmischen,” *mother complained … They were sitting around the table, downcast … “Sie werden uns glatt in ein Lager stecken, wenn wir nicht eintreten,” … I heard Clairi say. “Andererseits, wenn wir beitreten, bekommen wir eine Unterstützung …” †I didn’t like it when they sat like that, made worried faces, mumbled to themselves … that usually meant we were facing yet another misfortune or some decision that would propel us into even more hopeless circumstances … a move … no money … even worse poverty. “Wo sollen wir eintreten?” ‡I asked … The mere fact that I’d entered the room caused mother unspeakable irritation. “Geh spielen …” §she said abruptly … she still saw me as a stupid, frivolous, heartless child who was not to be trusted. But at school they all took me for a full-blooded German. The classrooms at Graben were ugly. They were full of stupid mama’s boys and spoiled brats from Trnovo. There was no point in having anything to do with any of them. Just one boy in my class, Miki, the son of a drunken painter, small for his age, even came close to being likable. At least he didn’t laugh at me. Otherwise the whole class would grab at their bellies guffawing whenever I was asked to write a conjugation or declension on the blackboard. The teacher, whose name was Marija Sajevec, seemed bright and pretty to me. She had reddish-blond hair that looked like a huge blossom, pretty legs, a nicely made-up face, and eyes between her blond lashes that looked like aquamarines among onions … But her prodding, silly questions exposed me to even greater mockery. It was in her nature … The class got stomach cramps from laughing and I stood on the platform, as dumb as a log … Then with her finger or facial expression she sent me packing back to my bench and recorded a big, fat F for me … I didn’t understand how such an elegant lady, who put me in mind of perfumes, dance dresses, and great beauties, could be so indiscriminately hard-hearted and rude … And yet our form master, Mlekuž, was even worse. His huge, naked, white head with its shiny crest reached all the way up to the black frame of the heir apparent’s portrait … while under the table the orthopedic shoe on one of his feet rested there, big and black, as though it were some sort of old-fashioned photograph camera … He walked with a cane. He was a confirmed Falcon and patriot. On the first of December, with fifth grade teacher Sirnik, leader of the Youth Organization of the Adriatic Guards, standing at his side, he delivered a speech in the gymnasium, which had been decorated for the occasion. He spoke about the twenty-first anniversary of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, about King Aleksandar the Unifier and about the Germans who were threatening Slovene territory. He spoke briefly, clearly, not one bit loftily, while the one next to him in his white trousers, blue jacket and captain’s cap on his head looked like a crooner straight out of a musical … From the first day I knew that my classes with Mlekuž were not going to be easy … From the very beginning he gave me sinister looks. Without the tiniest trace of a smile. He had bulging eyes and plump African lips. Otherwise he was quite emaciated, with the sunken cheeks of a fanatic … Even when he spoke Slovene with Vati, his eyes would bulge pronouncedly and his fat lips would strain and contort, as if they were one of the most disgusting amphibians … And his big red ears, with which he could hear everything, even a pin hitting the floor … His voice was penetrating and harsh. He could have delivered a sermon in the cathedral and everyone out in the market would have heard him … He would swat you with the rubber on the tip of his cane, but you’d also catch a good length of cane … Once I had to read aloud what I’d written in my notebook … He simply exploded. He shoved back from his desk and came limping toward me in his faded smock, swinging his cane, with which he smacked me across the shoulders so hard that I literally sank down into the bench … To top it off, some of the boys would wait outside for me every day. I was still safe as far as the main door of the school’s disgusting entryway, which was painted all over with brown crawlers. But as soon as my foot came off the last step, I had to be on my guard … They would leap at me from behind … get me in a double Nelson … they even knew the holds!.. so that all I could do was kick with my heels … or they dropped on me from above, from the threshold, the steps, causing my school bag to fly across the sidewalk into the street, my notebooks, erasers, some arrows … Two or three would hang onto me … they didn’t just use holds, they beat me furiously, which was even worse. I had to defend myself and retreat long enough for some adult to show up on the sidewalk, but they usually weren’t any help, sometimes they just egged on my assailants … They also ripped my school bag so many times that I had to sew it back up with a big needle in the afternoon. They were born brats, Hitler was just an excuse … I would have liked to see him there. Or King Peter II. Or an efendi, or the Aga Khan! There was another ambush waiting for me behind the Zois pyramid … That’s where that miserable Firant sometimes lurked, who was always opposing me, as if it went without saying … allying himself with whatever side was the strongest … Now and then the blowhard was even the ringleader of the ambush … but he was never alone. My voice almost changed from the fury I felt when I saw him. They were all around me, two, three, four of them. Still, I kept heading straight for the pyramid. But I also began to get ready … With a stone that I always took with me to school that served as brass knuckles … I whaled at Firant’s bony gourd, at the bocce ball heads of the other falcons and the knobs of the eagles … I threw him an undercut, a regular knockout punch with my helper, which made his gums bleed and his two bunny teeth up in front start to wobble … Not one of them was my equal. I promised Firant I would deal with him that afternoon when he came to the riverfront … When I got there, he would sometimes be crouching by the cart. He’d steer clear if he didn’t happen to have an inner tube full of stones with him. Sometimes he’d ask from a distance, from the edge of the bridge, if we could be friends again and he’d walk toward Kolman’s on the embankment with his hands up … Sometimes I’d wave for him to come, because I felt sorry for him as he kept circling a pump on the bridge and looking our way … I knew all too well how rough it was to be on your own, without any friends … But at other times I’d be unbending and wouldn’t relent until Karel put in a word or Franci came running to report Firant’s request that we make up … I knew that none of it would last very long … at most until the next day after school … School was one world for us, but the embankment was a completely different one … Sometimes he came up to me all excited to report what he’d just heard on the radio … that eighty German paratroopers had taken Fort Eben-Emael in Belgium, which was defended by three thousand soldiers … Or that the Germans had advanced into Luxembourg … The rat, devoid of any force of character or will, the parasite! I felt like telling him that if you’re going to talk up the Germans so much, speak German, otherwise you’re just a traitor … Now of course there was no way I could think of a war on the Castle … No exploits were possible with that clever and treacherous Firant, who could attack me from the rear … It wasn’t just the Germans in Belgium, the Russians were beating Finland. They had broken the Mannerheim Line, against which they’d fired three hundred thousand rockets in a single day … They had also taken a fortress and waved with their rifles on top of it, like the Germans did from the Belgian fort … strange friends.