A Short Tale of Shame

[4]

It was stupid, but lately all older men somehow reminded her of her professor of façade architecture. Her professor had called her in to his office hours, I’m impressed by your work, Sirma. She was dressed in jeans and a sporty jacket, and she had made an effort to smell like cigarettes, because the professor looked like the type to rent an apartment across from a kindergarten. But he turned out to have entirely something different in mind. He offered her a job at his design agency, if you accept, he said, I believe I can teach you much more than your classmates will learn. Sirma had felt like giving him a good hard slap. All the professors here were like that: they spewed out inanities for two hours at their lectures, making very sure not to teach their students anything so as not to create competition for themselves. And they looked like people who rented apartments across from kindergartens. Sometimes she felt like blowing them all away.

Although Krustev actually looked quite a bit younger. So he must’ve become a father at their age. His life had surely passed at high speed. And now somebody had jammed a stick in the spokes: Crrrack! And he’d taken off alone in his car. And how Maya and Spartacus had jumped when she had invited him to come with them. She had done it on impulse, maybe just to see their faces. Since Maya had foisted Elena on them back then and had caused such a crisis, why shouldn’t she now be stuck with Elena’s father tagging along with them, driving them, what’s more, the man obviously was in need of company, even though he may not have realized that himself, interesting, Sirma wondered, are they all such nutjobs, the whole family, for the moment, at least, Krustev seemed far more likeable than his daughter, although when you stopped to think about it, it was precisely Elena’s craziness that had changed some things completely and in the end had brought them even closer, it was then, right, after she had finally cleared off, that they had held the first mysteries. Spartacus and Maya hadn’t wanted to, she had insisted. If things don’t evolve now, we’re lost, that’s what she had told them, now here’s evolution for you, I suggest once a month, and I don’t care who you play around with the rest of the time. It had been working well. There were only a few days left until the next mysteries.

Besides, Sirma was convinced that the way she and Maya had reacted back then, which had been more or less the same, suggested that things had already passed the point of no return and that sooner or later they would end up there. They were no longer kids, they were eighteen and they could approach things a little more thoughtfully, to a certain extent that was why Sirma was so furious with Spartacus, things were obvious and all he had to do was slightly redirect the energy from his little head to his big one, but, of course, the sudden, screaming burst of jealousy was something else entirely, something totally unexpected, Sirma was amazed at herself. Surely, she thought to herself later, that was nothing new for Maya, she was definitely jealous of them during their first year as fakes, before everything really started, but that was kid stuff, of course, yet Maya still had some experience with jealousy, and it was as if she was a step ahead of Sirma in terms of experience for the first time. But Elena herself had mucked things up. If she hadn’t rushed to sleep with Spartacus, Sirma told herself, staring at her father’s hands on the wheel, if instead she had staked her bet on Maya, on her best friend from grade school, not in the sense of sleeping with her, ha ha, but just leaving Maya to push her into the middle of their triangle, as she had done in the beginning, perhaps it would have been much harder to deal with her. Maya was very stubborn. Something had to whack her hard upside the head to change her mind, and then she would turn 180 degrees. She’s so nice, she’s so cool, she’s got great friends, okay, obviously she can’t be a part of us, there’s just no way that could happen, there’s really no way, Sirma added, it’d be like wanting her to grow a cock, Spartacus shrugged, that was before that night when they’d gone for beer, and she had been so furious then, on the one hand she had long since realized where things were heading, but how he had left them sitting there on the grass waiting for their stupid beer, that just took the cake. He, of course, called her the next morning, and after she hung up, Sirma caught herself wondering if he had called her or Maya first. And good thing she caught herself, because that would have been the result of Elena’s scheming, trying to make them all fight over Spartacus, otherwise, whatever the two of them thought, Sirma in principle had nothing against other people hanging around them, Elena seemed fun and good-natured, but she simply had to know where her rights ended, well, she didn’t know, and besides Sirma had felt some kind of instinctive animosity towards her as soon as she had seen her, she couldn’t figure out why for a long time. What about her father? It was only now that she seriously asked herself why she had invited him to come with them and discovered that she didn’t know. Just like that, a momentary impulse, perhaps just the same as when he had jumped in his car early that morning, but he had done it because he had issues, so did that mean that she or maybe they had issues with themselves? The man’s hands didn’t flinch on the wheel and that was strange, because otherwise they looked mercurial in some way, which Maya surely would have said was cute, but which Sirma found exhausting. She tried to imagine her own father picking up three hitchhikers, but her father rarely traveled, before he couldn’t stay in one place, now he just sat in his office, diffusing the depressed pride of an ex-politician. While this guy was an ex-musician and didn’t actually seem like anybody’s father at all, maybe Elena had popped up just like that in the world, having conceived herself in her mother’s belly and brashly cleared a trail to the outside with her tiny yet tough little hands, Elena didn’t fit with the idea of a family; while Sirma would have to call her own family at some point to tell them she was on Thasos and that the studio was empty, they would simply say fine, stop by for tea when you get back, always tea, god damn it, and never coffee. Her father answered fine to everything, could that be why he had gotten into politics or why he had left politics so ignobly, but he had answered fine to everything ever since she was little, she could remember how they had gone to the seaside for the first time, that was one of her first clear memories, they had gone to the beach and her parents had stripped down to their bathing suits and told the kids to strip down, too, but they didn’t put any bathing suits on them and Sirma had seen the funny little potato sprouting between her brother’s legs, now she wondered if she could really have noticed it for the first time at age three, but in any case that’s how she remembered it, she had turned to her parents and said he’s got something growing between his legs, her mother had started giggling, while her father had simply said fine and kept slathering himself with sunscreen, so why don’t I have one of those, she had asked, because you’re a girl, her brother had announced triumphantly and asked whether he could go build a sandcastle by the water, fine, her father had said, but take Sirma with you, fine.

Elena’s father suddenly asked, so where will you stay on Thasos. We’ll camp, Spartacus replied immediately, patting the tent tied to his backpack which a short while earlier had prevented him from taking out his water bottle, Krustev fell awkwardly silent. Maybe this was their chance to ditch him, she hesitated for a moment; and again Sirma, this time not impulsively but completely consciously, because she believed that when things reached a certain point you had to see them through or at least patiently leave them alone to see themselves through to the end, so she completely consciously added, you’re coming, right? Well, yeah, Krustev said. Except in that case I’ll need to buy a tent. When we get to Datum I can take care of that, too. He probably smiled, but Sirma couldn’t see him from the backseat, she only saw his fingers happily drumming out a few bars on the steering wheel. Now that’s man-talk for you, she said. I didn’t know there were campgrounds on Thasos, Krustev said, there are, Sirma confirmed, they left one next the woods and it’s really cool, let’s just hope it’s not full. Krustev asked if it had running water and electricity, it has both running water and electricity, Sirma told him, Krustev said fine. And she smiled, but Krustev’s fine sounded peppy in comparison to her father’s tired and apathetic fine, she had gradually gotten so tired of her parents’ tiredness that she had had to drink four cups of coffee a day and in a moment of enlightenment had realized that it was time to move out. Her father had again said fine, do you want the attic apartment, her mother had asked, yes, said Sirma, I can set up a studio there, in fact, the attic had been set up as a studio right when they bought it, light and sufficiently roomy, good thing we thought to buy before prices jumped, her father had said, it’s a nightmare now, thanks to those crooks… Her brother was studying in Holland and the attic awaited her alone. The contract with the renter required them to give a month’s notice, Sirma felt a bit bad about this, she’d seen the guy, she’d gone to pick up the rent a few times and he was actually quite nice, she couldn’t deny that various things had crossed her mind, but in any case now she needed to move out and live on her own, ever since her brother had left it had become completely intolerable, not that with him things had been much better, but at least there had been some pulse, now it was a complete dead zone, her father tried to stay at the office as late as he could, her mother came home from work and immediately put on CDs of classical music, Sirma had nothing against chatting with her, but she was always trying to win her over to Haydn or Couperin, sorry, Mom, Sirma would say, but this music doesn’t speak to me at all, her mother would pout, pull X-rays of teeth out of her bag and start studying them with feigned interest. So they called the renter, he obediently found another apartment, then superficial yet rather prolonged renovations began, with every passing day the studio looked brighter and Sirma would constantly give Maya and Spartacus updates about how the renovations were coming along, perfect, we can hold the mysteries there, Spartacus suggested and Sirma was taken aback because she hadn’t thought about that, but yes, it was completely logical. The renovations ended, she moved in and threw a party that nullified a good part of what had been done, she had invited tons of people, including almost her whole high school class, the ones who were still in Thrace, of course, and almost all of them came, even Petsi, poor old Petsi, he had fallen in love with her sophomore year, back then he had been a puny little guy with long arms and a cracking voice whose favorite topic of conversation was shaving. Sirma never figured out how she had suddenly become the object of his affections, as if Petsi had been sitting there for a long time, observing his female classmates and after many months of reflection had decided to fall in love with her. She realized this thanks to his persistent attempts to chat her up at recess, while she hurried to meet up with Spartacus and Maya, and thanks to the complicated seating shifts that began occurring in the classroom because Petsi was constantly trying to maneuver such that he would be sitting behind her. She found it really funny, but also felt sorry for him, the kid was a bit of a dork, the others looked down on him and maybe he had decided to bowl them over all at once by seducing her, Sirma wasn’t born yesterday and knew very well that the guys in her class were checking her out, she wondered if they thought about her when they masturbated in the shower, maybe that’s what had been going through Petsi’s head in the beginning, but he was acting so ridiculous that maybe he really had fallen in love. Sirma tried to act like she didn’t notice him. She complained to Maya and Spartacus, they knew him in passing, Spartacus, who at that time was getting busy with some girl from the German high school and who seemed to imagine that Sirma and Maya would be jealous on that account, warned her that Petsi struck him as a hardcore dreamer and surely would not give up so easily. Sirma didn’t notice anything changing. But one morning, shortly after she had gotten up, her phone rang, it was Petsi, who had never called her on the phone before, and he barked out “Happy holidays!” Sirma was confused for a second, what holiday, he doesn’t think it’s my birthday, does he, but then she remembered that it was March 8—International Women’s Day — and almost burst out laughing, but instead said thank you, Petsi, and he went on: I need to ask you a very serious question. Go ahead, Petsi, she mumbled, assuming that now he would ask her out, but on the other end of the line he busted out directly with: Do you like me? Sirma was speechless, this was the strangest line anyone had ever used on her, in fact, perhaps little old Petsi, for some unknown reason, had enormous self-confidence, and instead of talking about his own feelings, which would have again been a pathetic move, he preferred first to inquire about hers. Uh, well, Petsi, she said, actually, no, I don’t like you that way. I knew you liked me… Yeah, that’s what I figured, Petsi said coldly. You know how it is, she was getting more and more flustered. I mean, either it happens or it doesn’t, I’m sorry, but I don’t like you that way, but we can still be friends, right? They agreed to stay friends, even though they weren’t actually friends in the first place to be able to remain so, nor would they become friends later, Sirma hung up, she happened to be right in front of the big mirror in the entryway and saw that she had an exceptionally stupid grin on her face. Because Petsi has infected me with his stupidity, she suddenly steamed and considered putting him in his place by telling the whole story to the class gossips, but she quickly thought better of it; in the end the poor kid surely had no experience with women whatsoever and was just doing what he could. But on the very next day she realized with astonishment that other guys she knew took March 8 as a particularly fitting occasion for declaring their love. Snickering, Spartacus told them how a kid in another class, nicknamed Smirk, liked some chick from the new eighth grade, Spartacus knew the whole story in detail, because the chick was a friend of his cousin, and one time he made the mistake of mentioning this in front of Smirk and the latter started grilling him for all kinds of information, and not just him, Spartacus said, he built up a whole spy network to gather useful information about the girl. Yesterday Spartacus had been drinking beer with their class and Smirk, with an enviable sense of humor, had told of his spectacular flop. He had stalked her in the schoolyard and gone over to give her a rose, because, Spartacus sniggered, his grandpa had won over his grandma that way back in the day. Sirma and Maya burst out laughing, no way, he didn’t really say that? Yeah, he did, Spartacus replied, the man told it just like that and laughed a lot himself, too, what can you do — he’s Smirk, right?! So anyway, he goes over with a rose like his gramps, although surely his grandpa had cornered his grandma alone, but our man Smirk took the twins along for moral support… The twins were metalheads from the class in question, absolutely identical, on the short side, with long hair and leather jackets, the only way to tell them apart was by their T-shirts: one wore an Iron Maiden T-shirt, and the other a Manowar shirt so they called him the Manowarrior, while the other was simply the twin. For some reason, the short twins always roamed the hallways with a taller classmate between them and Sirma had long since noted that this configuration looked like a cock. So he goes over with the twins, right, Spartacus continued, ’cause she’s leaning on the railing with a friend of hers, he hands her the rose and asks her what her name is. Sirma let out a squeal. He had interrogated me, right, Spartacus said, and I had told him that the girl lives in West Park, so now he asks her where she lives and she mumbles West Park and now — Spartacus lifted a finger triumphantly — this is where the twins come in, because Smirk turns to them and roars in frenzied ecstasy: Whooooooa, man, they live in West Park, too!!! And that was supposed to serve as a topic to melt the ice definitively, however, the girl muttered in alarm thanks a lot for the rose but I already have a boyfriend, now she doesn’t have a boyfriend, of course, Spartacus said, and Smirk knows that, he’s done his homework, but he gets the message, he’s a reasonable guy, after all. But he did say that he’s not gonna work with his grandpa’s know-how from now on. And at the party Sirma threw to inaugurate the studio, Petsi showed up with a girlfriend and Sirma was suddenly really happy for him, she talked to the girl for a long time, she was a good catch, Petsi had obviously learned the ropes, sometimes things don’t work for you with one group of people, you feel smothered, and when you escape them, you suddenly blossom, she thought to herself.

Lucky we managed to hang on to these two islands, Maya chimed in from the front seat, we could’ve ended up with no islands at all. Lots of luck, Spartacus said, adding: And a li’l thrashing, imitating the thick Illyrian dialect of a certain prime minister who had made his mark on history with that phrase alone, which illustrated his style of government: With kindness, with gentleness, and with a li’l thrashing. Elena’s father again said how easy it was to travel now, they didn’t need visas, and they could hop from island to island. Island-hopping, Spartacus put in, the Swedish retirees show up and start hopping from island to island, we could hop to some other island afterwards, too, Krustev suggested, let’s go to Rhodes, Sirma said, to check out my roots at the source, oh what, so you’re from Rhodes now? Spartacus was confused, from somewhere there, Sirma replied, didn’t I tell you, from Lydia, some great-grandfather of mine came from there, he could’ve been from Rhodes, they say it’s a nice place and that knights stroll around the streets, she finished with a yawn. That’s a pretty serious hop, from Thasos to Rhodes, said Maya. Hic Rhodus, hic salta, Spartacus declared, Sirma looked at him in confusion, what? Nothing, said Spartacus, it’s a Latin saying. There might be some ferryboats, Krustev suggested, again drumming his fingers on the wheel, there must be a way to reach Rhodes from Thasos by sea, you’ve got time, right? We’ve got time, Sirma said, but money is a slightly different story, don’t worry about money, Krustev said, come on now, Maya cut in, you offered us a ride, not an allowance, Krustev shrugged and said that he was having a good time with them, that he had enough money, not that he meant anything by it, just so they knew if need be. Don’t you have a yacht, Sirma asked, now that would’ve been a catch, to hitch a ride not only from a car but from a yacht to boot, they sold off the factories and bought themselves yaaachts, her father would say in disgust when talking about his former fellow party members, well, if only you’d bought yourself one, too, she would reply, whereupon he would explode briefly, then suddenly fall silent, muttering fine. Actually, I don’t have a yacht, Elena’s father said, and I can’t even swim, we Slavs are rather suspicious of any surface that can’t be plowed and planted, I was kidding, Sirma said, as was I, he said, but it’s the truth, we’re landlubbers. You really can’t swim, Spartacus wondered, I mean, swimming is the whole point of going to the beach, otherwise what are you gonna do there, just fry in the sun or play cards? And yell at your kids, Krustev added, I’m sure it would be more fun if I could swim, but in any case I never learned, but back in the day going to the seaside and sitting on the beach for at least half a day, that was our idea of a vacation, I’m talking about when I was five or six, that was something new for my parents, I don’t know if they really even liked it or just went along with the trend, we’d rent an apartment on the seaside and go to the beach with our own umbrellas so we wouldn’t have to pay for them, that was an option back then, all this hysteria about hotels and private beaches hadn’t yet begun or was just beginning, I had fun, all kids surely have fun at the beach, and later, of course, whole crowds of us would go, huge groups with tents, guitars, girls and some more dubious things as well; we took Elena to the seaside ever since she was born, that’s how much sense we had, but be that as it may, I’ve got a fair amount of experience with camping, never mind that it was a while ago, true, back then we didn’t insist on having electricity and running water, at least not before Elena was born, so he’d seen her in the mirror, Sirma thought, he had seen her smirk when he asked whether there was electricity and running water at the campground and she felt a little ashamed, maybe this person had actually had a much wilder youth than they had. He had gotten so carried away with his monologue that he was waving his right hand in the air. Okay, we’ll teach you to swim then, she said. Krustev started laughing, it’s too late for me to learn anything whatsoever, don’t give me that, Sirma said, if you want, we can make a deal, we’ll teach you to swim, and you think up something to teach us. We really got lucky with him, she thought, and he really got lucky with us, but let’s just see what will come out of this whole lucky story. Rhodes, she whispered to herself, a name that digs into the mouth like a drill, it sounds brutally seductive and Krustev seemed serious, but there was that awkward moment again: since she had gone to college, she had often found herself talking to older men and even when one of them would pick up the tab for the whole table’s coffee, she still felt that same hesitation, now with Elena’s father it was much sharper, this person had money, he had a car, he had time and clearly needed their company, he could drive them wherever they wanted, on top of everything that was exactly what he wanted, but still, how much could they take advantage of all that, not for his sake, but for their own sake, how much would they let him spoil them, she was sure that Spartacus and Maya were thinking the same thing at that moment, but on the other hand, when else would they have the chance to go to Rhodes, plus she could call her dad and ask him about that great-grandfather, besides travelling with the guitarist from Euphoria was not bad at all. They were already entering Datum. The car in front of them was driving slowly, uncertainly, and Krustev, suddenly impatient, laid on the horn, Sirma again stared at his hands and suddenly realized why her gaze had been returning to them the whole time, she had subconsciously grasped the little detail, the tragic aberration, she remembered very clearly how when her grandfather had died, almost the first thing her grandmother had done was to move her wedding ring from her right to her left hand with a sigh, Sirma took a deep breath, as if drinking in her grandmother’s sigh: like her, the widow, Boril Krustev was wearing his wedding ring on his left ring finger.