John Berger - Lilac and Flag

A cap against the crap! the man joked. His eyes were wild with loss.

Everything’s good today.

How much do I owe you for the coffee?

Twelve hundred, Zsuzsa said.

The man paid her, shut the suitcase, touched with his fingertips the cap on his head and walked down towards the city.

I didn’t believe it, said Sucus. I didn’t believe it when you charged him double.

Inside they hear about prices going up, said Zsuzsa, but they lose count of what things really cost outside. They’re like babies when they come out.

Thousands of people were strolling after work beneath the massive trees, through which the street lamps looked like moons. The shop windows, whose lights only went out at dawn, displayed silver shoes, leather boots, raincoats, handbags, necklaces, document cases, bottles of perfume, cars with convertible rooves, hair dryers, bridal suites, candelabra, VCRs, and real orange trees. Above the shop windows towered buildings with glass walls as high as glaciers. Through them you could see the floors of the offices, neither in darkness nor illuminated but filled with a diffuse grey light, like a television screen has when it’s switched on without a picture.

Do you know who goes to the café over there? asked Zsuzsa.

Who?

Coglioni.

Him. He could buy up the whole café.

He doesn’t pay a sou. They never charge him.

Like that they keep out of trouble, said Sucus. Let’s sit down and order something. When they bring the bill, we’ll say we’re friends of Coglioni.

His children, we’re his children! said Zsuzsa.

He had so many nobody can count them.

How old are you? asked Zsuzsa.

Same age as your Flag.

He led her to an empty table and pulled back a chair for her, as men in white suits do on television.

Whiskey for me; what about you?

I’ll have an ice cream — one of those large ones with different colours like a hat.

With a long silver spoon?

With a long silver spoon, she repeated, putting out her tongue at him.

At the next table sat two women, wearing white lace gloves. They stared at the couple who had just arrived.

Nowhere’s left, one of them whispered, her lipstick was as red as the handle of a hammer, there’s nowhere left these days where one feels safe.

What alarmed the two ladies was the fact that the man with his studded belt and the young woman, who had been walking barefoot, were too close. Far too close. They should have been in another part of the city, not at the next table.

Supposing we order something to eat at the same time? Zsuzsa suggested.

Risky, replied Sucus.

Would you like her portrait done?

All Sucus saw when he first looked up were two thin, hairy legs, then a pair of shorts, skimpy as a loin cloth, and finally a long, bearded face.

No, said Sucus, we don’t like portraits.

It’ll only take a few minutes.

The man was already pulling a chair towards the table.

You’re wasting your time.

Your friend has a face that cries out to be drawn. Behind his beard the man had bulbous lips that were almost blue.

Look, mister, I don’t know who you are, but I’ll tell you something: we can pull faster ones than you. Leave us alone. Get!

The man sat down and laid his portfolio on the table.

I want to draw your friend because she’s so beautiful.

This one isn’t for drawing.

I’ll make you a present of it when it’s done.

Like hell you will.

I won’t charge for the drawing. Just give me ten minutes.

How much do you charge usually?

It depends.

You’re talking to a systems man. How much do you charge?

Twenty-five thousand.

That’s class. Did you hear him, sweetheart? He can sell your mug for twenty-five ribs. Supposing you unbutton a bit? Give them their money’s worth for fifty ribs.

The man took a drawing pad out of his folio and opened an old cigarette tin.

What’s your name, three-letter man?

Raphaele. And yours?

Flag!

When Sucus said this, Zsuzsa wanted to jump in the air. Instead, she bit on one of her four rings and lowered her eyes.

The man took a pencil out of the tin and began to draw.

Not so fast, Mr. Raphaele! Nothing to stop you doing a second one as soon as we’ve gone. If you press hard enough with your pencil, you can trace it out again on the page underneath. I wasn’t born yesterday. You can make a hundred drawings out of one, and at twenty-five ribs each, that’s two and a half million!

Do you know why I’m drawing your friend?

You want to get a hard-on and make money out of it as well?

She has an extraordinary face.

A model has to be paid, just like everyone else, said Sucus.

Let him draw me, Flag.

After a while the waiter came. He suffered from varicose veins and had eyes that were tired of sorting out chits, glasses, coins, people. He noticed Sucus’s hands, Zsuzsa’s feet, the draughtsman’s wrist watch, his expensive Italian sandals. Because of the last two items, he would serve them.

A coffee, said Raphaele.

A whiskey, said Sucus, and an Arctic Glory.

Take no notice of me, said Raphaele to Zsuzsa, carry on as if I wasn’t here.

It’s not the same as a photo, she said.

Don’t look at me, look at Flag.

She looked at Sucus. He was built like a peasant, with sturdy legs and a way of holding his head so that there was space on either shoulder for carrying a sack. She wondered how long he had worn a moustache.

The waiter came back with their orders on a tray.

If I eat my ice you won’t be able to draw me, Zsuzsa said, the spoon already in her mouth.

The waiter handed the bill to the bearded man with the Italian sandals. The man paid without saying a word. Sucus winked at Zsuzsa and squeezed her knee.

Now, I don’t have to give you the drawing, said the man.

You only paid five thousand, said Sucus. She gives ten minutes for that, no more! You’ve already had nine. So scribble quick, mister, or order us another round.

Keep the spoon in your mouth a moment!

She studied Flag again. Nobody would ever be able to lay their hands on him, she thought. All his features were as alert as a dog’s ears.

The man held up the finished drawing. I don’t look like that! screamed Zsuzsa.

You’ve made her look like a whore! said Sucus.

You don’t like it?

I wouldn’t wipe my arse on it.

So there’s no point in giving it to you?

You owe her eight thousand for sitting there for you.

That’s impossible, twinkie.

You’re going to pay, man, either in money or in pain.

Sucus slipped a knife out of his pocket and slid it under his hand onto the table so the man could see it.

Kill me. I love you, said the tall man in shorts.

The grey cat is sitting on my lap, asleep. He’s a strange colour. I’ve never seen another like him. He looks as if he’s wearing threadbare greyish underwear through which you glimpse a pale white skin that’s never seen the sun. In fact, he has plenty of fur. Indeed, he has two furs, one grey and one white. But instead of the two colours making a pattern, with white patches here and grey patches there, they’ve grown together like clover and grass. He was born this way. Something wasn’t decided properly.

It was then that Zsuzsa noticed the waiter. He was hurrying towards their table with a bogey in plain clothes.

Let’s run, she whispered, and snatching the drawing, she pulled Sucus towards a row of little trees in painted white tubs at the edge of the terrace. From there she hopped like a magpie to the pavement below and waited for him.

They left the big avenues and took small roads that went steeply down through the Escorial. In the district of the Escorial there were trees everywhere: magnolias, viburnums, New Red cherries, forsythia, Persian lilacs, maples. Between the flowering branches were lawns, greener in the summer than anything else in Troy because they were watered for hours on end every day. The lawns surrounded swimming pools, painted the same blue as the walls of Zsuzsa’s house. Around the pools people gathered before dinner to drink aperitifs. After dinner, when they had drunk some more, they often dove into the water naked. The water was often lit up from underneath so that the pools glowed like precious stones. Many a marriage in Escorial was decided naked in a swimming pool at night.