The Ministry of Pain (19 page)

“You one of us?”
he asks with a shrewd look and a grin that shows a gold tooth. His pal has a moist cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth.

“Yes, I’m one of us,” I say. “Where are you two from?”

“I’m from Smederevo, and this guy here’s from Kumanovo. You?”

“Me? I’m from Mars,” I say.

Now both are grinning.

“There ain’t nothin’ like our guys,” the Gypsy said to his pal. “It’s the lip on them.” Then he turned to me. “Want us to play somethin’ for you?”

“Why not.”

“Somethin’ from home how’s ’bout. From Mars.”

“Great.”

He picked up his clarinet, and his pal slung his accordion around his shoulders and threw down his cigarette.

I pulled a hundred-guilder banknote out of my bag and dropped it in the hat.

The accordion player glanced down at the banknote and
wailed, “For God’s sakes, sister. You crazy or somethin’ throwin’ away money like that? Keep it for a ’mergency, for one of them rainy days. Sure, leave us a guilder or two, but this? Aaaii! Don’t be crazy, man. Money don’t grow on trees!”

I dismissed his concern with a wave of the hand and moved off into the crowd, feeling the painful Gypsy shrapnel—
“Set, O golden sun, go down. Make the sky dark for the moon…”
—explode in my heart and lodge there. And suddenly my heart was bathed in blood, and the ice coating its walls started to melt, and I staggered through the marketplace dripping blood.

The Albert Cuyp Market is the largest and most famous in Amsterdam. It is located in the Pijp, a former working-class district. Its scales, of which there are said to be over three hundred, come out every morning and don’t come down until late in the afternoon. The idea of buying fish, fruit, or vegetables was only a rational cover for the vague magnetism that would draw me toward the market, engulfed as it was in a mist of pollen and the strong scents of spices from beyond the seas—cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg—shot through with wind and salt. The air fairly sparkled with the bolts of rich silk and thick plush, of exotic jewels, of gold and beads, of the mother-of-pearl of immodestly open shells, of the glittering silver of fresh fish. The apples in my marketplace had a golden luster all their own; each grape glowed like a tiny lantern; the milk was as rich and white as a Vermeer woman’s skin.

There were times, however, when the magnetism lost its force, when a dead fish lay heavy on the scales and the apples, though still red, and the lettuce, though still green, had lost their sheen. Not far from the scales were seedy vendors of cheap clothing, the air around them electrified by the synthetic fabrics; not far from the scales were vendors of bric-a-brac one would be hard put to find names for: cloths that might be dusters, plastic brushes of
various shapes and sizes, nylon chignons in all colors, wooden backscratchers with plastic fingers, packaged snack foods. Not far from the scales were vendors of soap, shampoo, face cream, shabby handbags, artificial flowers, shoulder pads, patches, needles and thread, pillows and blankets, prints and frames, hammers and nails, sausage and cheese, chickens and pheasants, moth-eaten scarves…

Wandering among the stands, my heart full of Gypsy shrapnel, I chanced upon something that immediately caught my eye: a plastic tote bag with red, white, and blue stripes—Ana was right; I paid only two guilders for it—and like a wound-up mechanical toy, I made for the butcher’s called Zuid (South), a code word to the local Yugos, who were its principal patrons. The butcher’s window proudly displayed jars of pig’s knuckles, and the shelves were lined with a modest selection of Yugonostalgic delicacies: Macedonian
ajvar
, sausage from Srem, olive oil from Korcula, Plasma Biscuits (whose ridiculous name made them an instant cult item the moment they appeared on the market), Minas coffee (which of course came from Turkey), and Negro Chimney-Sweep toffee (also a cult item because of the name). I bought a jar of
ajvar
and some toffee. It was a ritual purchase, purely symbolic: I hated
ajvar
and the toffee was bitter.

Thinking of the thousands and thousands of émigrés who leave their countries for countries like this one, who buy
ajvar
they hate and toffee they know is bitter, carryalls they will never use, ludicrous plastic-fingered backscratchers, and nylon chignons, I proceeded on my mechanical-toy journey, now heading toward the side street off the Oosterpark where a Bosnian café by the name of Bella was located. There I found a group of sullen, tight-lipped men playing cards. The looks they gave me were long but completely expressionless: not even a woman entering their male space could throw them off guard. I took a place at the counter, ordered “our” coffee, and sat there, penitent, so to
speak. Before long I began to feel the invisible slap on my face and noticed I had hunched over like the men.

Having finished the coffee, I picked up the relics I had gathered on my pilgrimage—the Macedonian
ajvar
and Negro Chimney-Sweep toffee in the plastic carryall with red, white, and blue stripes—and set off for home. The Gypsy shrapnel had dissolved in my heart in the interim, and I was no longer bleeding, but I was confused as to whether I had just bid farewell to something or filled in an invisible application form. “For God’s sakes, sister. You crazy or somethin’?”

I knew it was
Igor the moment I heard the doorbell ring. I knew he’d be coming for an explanation. He came in, walked around the room as if it were too small to contain him and he wasn’t yet sure whether to stay or not, but then he put his backpack on the floor and said, “Hmm. So this is your pad.”

“Yes, this is my ‘pad.’”

“Living room–bedroom, kitchen facilities, and bath,” he said ironically. “‘Tight quarters, two meters by three.’” He was quoting a Yugoslav TV commercial.

“I hope your place is better.”

“So you’ve made your little nest in the basement.”

“Let’s just call it the lower level.”

“Don’t have many books, do you,” he said, glancing around the room, “considering your profession, that is.”

“Would you like something to drink?” I asked, ignoring the remark.

“Coffee will do. I don’t see you stocking anything else in this place.”

While making the coffee, I thought of what to tell him. Although the cups were clean, I gave them another wash. It took me forever to find the sugar bowl. I did everything I could to buy time.

It was an excerpt from šenoa’s
Branka
, that classic of Romantic prose in which a young teacher, imbued with the ideals of the Croatian national revival movement, leaves Zagreb for the remote village of Jalševo to teach the village children. Pouring the coffee with my back to Igor, I listened to him read from the copy I had taken out of the library. I could feel my chin trembling. I was afraid I was going to cry. It was a childish way to provoke me, but I sensed it was no more than an introduction to the extravaganza he had planned.

“So you’ve been spending all this time staring at people’s
legs,” he said, putting down the book and nodding in the direction of the barred window.

“You can cope with anything if you know it’s temporary,” I said in as calm a voice as I could muster. “Besides, I’m leaving in a few days.”

“What makes you so sure it’s temporary?” he asked, either unconcerned about where I was going or feigning lack of concern.

I took him his coffee on a tray. I knew what he’d come for and decided to take the bull by the horns.

“Look, Igor, I’m terribly sorry…” I began, putting the tray down on the table.

“Great. You’re sorry.”

“Sit down,” I said, and sat down. He remained standing. He had turned his back on me again and was staring out the window.

“I know you’ve come because of the grade.”

He turned and trained those dark, slightly crossed eyes on me.

“And if I have?”

“I don’t know,” I said. I heard my voice crack and felt my chin tremble again.

He turned again and crossed the room to the basket I used for various knickknacks including the presents I’d received for my birthday. Igor started going through them.

“Everything was so good at first, wasn’t it?” he said, picking up the two pairs of handcuffs.

“Yes…” I said cautiously.

“
By the way
, Comrade, have you ever tried these on?”

“What for?”

“Oh, out of curiosity. Didn’t you even wonder how they open?”

“No.”

“And I thought scholars were supposed to be inquisitive,” he said.

The sneer in his voice made me blush, and again I was on the verge of tears.

Igor came up to me and took the cup out of my hands. He put it down on the tray.

“What do you say we give it a whirl?” he said, taking my hand and placing his lips on my wrist. They were cold and dry.

Then he lifted the wrist and skillfully handcuffed it to one arm of the chair.

“There,” he said sweetly. “Now you’re my slave.”

“What kind of joke is this?” I said, mouthing words that didn’t sound like mine.

Igor drew his chair up closer and took my free hand. “That was quick, wasn’t it? Bet you were impressed. I practiced for hours.”

I pulled my hand away. “Come on now. Take this thing off, will you? You shouldn’t have any trouble after all that practice.” I was doing my best to smile.

He took back my free hand, put it up to his cheek, and gave it a few strokes.

“Ah, Professor,” he said, “you’ve got a nineteenth-century hand.”

“A what?”

“Your hand is like the descriptions of hands in nineteenth-century novels: a dainty white hand.”

He put my hand in his and turned it over like a glove.

“Only you bite your nails. Like a little girl.” Then out of the blue he buried his head in my lap and said, “Help a poor student, won’t you?”

I tensed up, wrenched my hand free, and started stroking his hair. For a while he stayed where he was, but then raised his head, took my hand, and, giving the palm a lick, snapped the
other pair of handcuffs around my wrist and the other arm of the chair.

“There,” he said, satisfied. “Now you’re mine, all mine.”

“Let’s stop this stupid game, shall we?” I said, blushing again.

“So you still hope it’s a game,” he said ironically.

“Enough of your antics, Igor. If you think you’re getting back at me, bringing me to justice…”

“Justice! You don’t have a clue, Comrade. I don’t give a damn about justice.”

“The reason I failed you is that I was certain you’d denounced me to Cees Draaisma.”

“Me?!”

“After the first semester somebody complained to Cees that we hadn’t done a thing in class, that it was a big waste of time, and that I forced you to go to cafés with me.

“You don’t say!”
he said in English, his scoffing language.

I had the feeling he wasn’t the least bit surprised.

“Cees told me all about it.”

“And you really think it was me?”

“Well, it was one of you. You or somebody else.”

“So what?”

“So what! You lied about me, you informed against me, you didn’t have the nerve to tell me to my face what was bothering you; no, you ran to Cees and told him behind my back!”

“So you decided to get back at us.”

“I wasn’t getting back at you. I was doing my job.”

“But what if nobody did complain? What if Draaisma dreamed the whole thing up?”

“Why would he do a thing like that?”

“For the fun of it. Or to show how easy it was for him to manipulate you, manipulate all of us.”

“I don’t think so. It had the ring of truth, what he said. He seemed to have reports on each and every class.”

“Know what I think, Comrade? I don’t think Cees is the problem, and I don’t think we’re the problem; I think the problem is you. You were itching for it to happen. Even if we had complained, you could have ignored it, forgotten it. Or you could have dealt with it. We’re all in this together, after all. You could have forgiven us. You could have pitied us shitheads. You could have talked it over with us. You had all kinds of options. See? And the one you chose was to wage an
angry little war
against the class.”

“What are you talking about? I don’t understand.”

“Tell me, why did you give me an F?”

“I don’t know,” I said. It was the most honest response I could come up with.

“You know perfectly well, you fucking bitch,” he said calmly, touching my knee, “only you’re embarrassed to admit it.”

“Don’t you dare use that language with me! And remove these handcuffs immediately or I’ll call the police.”

“You’re
pathetic
, Comrade.”

“Pathetic?”

“How do you propose to dial the number?”

He had me there.

“What do want from me anyway?”

“You sound like you get your lines from some B movie. What do I want from you? I don’t know what I want from you the way you don’t know why you gave me an F. Let’s just say I want to make you squirm a little. I want to hear what you sound like when you sound the alarm. I want to hear what’s really going on.”

“What’s really going on?”

“Oh, I read you like a book. I know how scared you are. But there’s something keeping you from taking off that Teacher mask of yours. I feel like I’m at a
fucking
course in
fucking
territorial defense.”

“I’ve had enough of this. I’m going to scream.” I couldn’t believe how stupid I sounded.

“Scream and I’ll give you such a slap…”

“You wouldn’t dare,” I said.

“Wanna bet?”

Before I could open my mouth, he slapped my face, slapped it hard. All the breath went out of me.

“You’re out of your mind!” I managed to come out with.

“And you?”

“How dare you!” I said, catching my breath.

“I’m a daring kind of guy. And now that I’ve slapped off your mask, you can drop the airs and graces bit.”

“Look, Igor, all I have to do is dial the office and report a grade change.”

“You’re being pathetic again, Comrade. I’m an A student. One F doesn’t mean a thing.”

He had me there. I had no means of defending myself. Nor the will to do so. I took a deep breath and said guardedly, “Forgive me, Igor. Forgive me. Please.”

“I can’t seem to get it out of you,” he said calmly.

“Get what out of me?”

“What needs to be said.”

“You can’t and you won’t, because I haven’t got it! I’ve been trying for months now!”

I was trembling with fury. Once more I heard myself sounding like a student in a Croatian for foreigners course. I tried jerking my hand free, but yelped with pain.

Igor took in my protest as if watching a bad stage production. Then he dug a hand into his pocket and pulled out a roll of adhesive tape.

“Where do you keep your scissors?”

“On the shelf,” I said through my tears.

Igor snipped off a piece of tape and placed it over my mouth with the skill of a pro.

“There! Now you’ve got what you were after:
a movie of the week
. You’re a proud one, you are. You’ve got a high opinion of yourself: you know you’re up shit creek, but you’re sure you’ve got a paddle, you’re sure you’ve got status, assets: a man (though he’s run off to Japan), a flat (though it has strangers living in it), a library (though the books are yours no more), a Ph.D. (though a lot of good it does you). In some far-off corner of your brain you’re sure life will go back to the way it was before. The life you’re living now is just an outing, a little outing you thought you’d go on. All you have to do is snap your fingers and—hey, presto!—everything will be back to normal.
Am I right
? And even though you’ve spent months counting feet through the window, even though you’ve seen B movies galore, you’ve never pictured yourself in another scenario: standing in a shop window in the red-light district luring clients to your mini-room, mini-basin, and mini-towel, or humoring gaga geezers like Meliha, or scrubbing toilets like Selim.

“Has it ever occurred to you that your students might be better than you, better people? Well, has it? You’re no insensitive lout, Comrade. Something of the sort may have occurred to you. But has it occurred to you that your students might know more than you? Except they’ve been schooled in humiliation and don’t throw their weight around. Experience has taught them that things are relative. And things
are
relative. Until yesterday distances were measured in centimeters: you could be hit by a grenade. Sure you felt sorry for the people who suffered, who actually were hit. But—not that you’d ever admit it to yourself—somewhere in the recesses of your brain you think a grenade chooses where it lands. And if it does, there must be some fucking reason for it. Something keeps you from making connections,
from grasping that your being our teacher is only a matter of chance. It could just as easily have been the other way round: you could have been sitting with us and, say, Meliha could have been the teacher. That grenade—it reduces us all to shit, human shit, but you seem to think you’re a little less shitty than the rest of us and you’ve raised your momentary feeling of superiority into a law of nature.

“Tell me, has it occurred to you that all that time you may have been torturing us? Has it occurred to you that the students you forced to remember were yearning to forget? That they made up memories to indulge you the way the Papuans made up cannibalistic myths to indulge the anthropologists? Your students aren’t like you. They love this country. Flat, wet, nondescript as it is, Holland has one unique feature: it’s a country of forgetting, a country without pain. People turn into amphibians here. Of their own accord. They turn the color of sand; they blend in and die out. Like fucking amphibians. That’s all they care about: dying out. The Dutch lowlands are one big blotter: it sucks up everything—memories, pain,
all that crap
….”

Igor paused. He seemed tired. He took down the šenoa again from the shelf and leafed through it absentmindedly.

Suddenly I felt tears running down my cheeks. I couldn’t make out what had caused them. Humiliation? Self-pity? The tragic nature of the situation I found myself in? Or its comic nature? Christ! I thought. I feel closer to this man at this moment than I’ve felt to anyone in my life, and I have no way of letting him know. And I wasn’t referring to the fact that my lips were sealed with tape; they would have been just as sealed without it.

Igor must have read my mind. Turning to face me, he read out the following passage: “‘The barometer of your heart is falling, and your eyes are brimming with tears.’”

I was on the other side. We were separated by an invisible
wall of ice. Could he also tell that I had only one desire at that point, namely, to knock my head against that wall? I needed help. There was something wrong with my heart, but I was unable to determine how serious it was. I desperately needed a refuge, a warm lap to curl up in, somewhere to wait for the pain to pass, somewhere to come to, to return to myself.