Crumbs (22 page)

My cum winked at me.

On the ground floor, broken bottles were rolling around on the floor, which was littered with various articles of clothing. Drops of blood everywhere, in some places whole puddles. The odd tooth here and there. Even a set of false teeth. A pair of broken glasses. The bathroom door had been taken off its hinges and smashed. I washed my face in the ice-cold water. There was no glass in any of the windows. The icy cold night breeze was blowing freely around the corridors.

Ajsha went to the door. It was locked. I led her to the gym by her hand.

The fragments of glass crunched beneath the soles of our shoes. The room smelled of cigarette smoke and sweat. The light from the foundry spotlights shone through the windows.

We waded through the wreckage. Only the metal frame was sticking out of the wall where the basketball hoops used to be. All the wood panelling had been used in the fight. The pale blueish light gave the room an eerie feel.

‘Let's get out. I'm scared,' she said and pulled me by the hand.

‘Would you dance with me?'

She looked at me with fear.

‘A slow dance. Smoochy,' I explained.

She looked into my eyes as if wondering whether I was completely mad or just slightly.

‘They'll hear us in the flats behind the school and call the police.'

I tried to calm her down with a smile.

I took a plank of wood and went to the entrance. On the right, by the arch separating the locker room from the gym, there was a light switch.

I kept hitting it until there were only two little wires left. I straightened them with a wooden stick. A centimetre apart and slightly forward.

Ajsha was watching me, not understanding what I was doing.

Holding hands, we walked back to the middle of the gym. I kissed her cheek and went to the room with the music equipment. Ibro's hat was lying on the floor, all crumpled. I threw it in the air. It flew badly.

My cassette was still in the cassette player. I turned it over. I switched off the loudspeakers and put on the earphones. Found the song I was looking for. The most disgusting sugary piece, useful for certain occasions.

That's how it is with these old hits. Each one of them has a girl associated with it. But this one didn't have one yet.

It was getting one now.

I turned on the speakers and the cassette player.

The violins screeched.

A castrated voice started singing.

I went to the gym. I could see the outline of Ajsha's figure in the light coming in through the windows.

HEAVENLY SHADES OF NIGHT ARE FALLING

I couldn't distinguish her face.

IT'S TWILIGHT TIME

We embraced.

OUT OF THE MIST YOUR FACE IS CALLING

I put my hands on her back and my cheek on her hair. We danced, sliding our feet on the floor. Pushing away the broken glass and wood.

IT'S TWILIGHT TIME

Descartes was wrong, badly wrong. You can exist even when you're not thinking. The warmth of another body next to yours. A scent in your nose.

DEEP IN THE DARK YOUR KISS WILL THRILL ME

I had my eyes closed.

IT'S TWILIGHT TIME

The song was finished. The sharp sound of the electric guitar moved our faces apart.

In the light in the corridor two figures could be seen standing in the doorway.

With hats on their heads and batons and pistols in their belts.

Ajsha trembled and squeezed my arm.

I didn't do anything. I hadn't quite come to yet.

We looked at each other without moving. Only seeing each other's silhouettes.

Then the one on the right moved.

Rock'n'roll was blasting out of the speakers.

He wanted to switch on the light. He reached for the switch with his hand and started to shake. The light in the corridor went off.

A fuse blew.

Lennon was shouting, ‘SHAKE IT UP BABY, NOW!'

The other policeman touched his colleague and joined
him.

A little choir in the background repeated, ‘OOOOOOOOOOOOOO YOU TWIST SO FINE!'

The policemen were thrown to the floor.

I grabbed Ajsha, shouted ‘Let's run!' and ran, half dragging her behind me.

We jumped over the two men lying on the floor.

Through the locker room into the corridor. Only a few metres to the exit.

The door opened.

We stopped dead on the spot. A policeman.

A patrol car stood parked outside.

In the gym door, one of the other two appeared shouting, ‘Get them!'

The one just coming in moved. His eyes weren't used to the dark yet. We were already running. Left down the corridor. Two policemen behind us. The third one on his way from the gym.

On our right were the doors to the classrooms. We were far enough ahead to open one of them. If they were locked we were in deep shit.

By the poor light coming through the windows, it was very hard to choose the right one.

I grabbed a door handle.

The next-to-last door.

It opened.

Across the classroom to the window I held Ajsha under her arms and pushed myself up. Landed on a desk. Turned around in the air. Then with my back through the glass.

Pressing her head onto my chest.

We flew onto the hedge. Bounced onto the gravel.

A policeman was climbing through the window shouting, ‘Catch them!'

It was meant for the fourth policeman, who was climbing out of the car.

We ran along the wall. Steps behind us.

All along the hedge. Through the dark.

Between the blocks of flats. Ajsha wanted to go to the first one. I pulled her onwards. The main doors were locked at that time of night.

One of the buildings had a broken lock, which could be unlocked with any key, regardless of its shape.

I pulled a key out of my pocket. Felt for the lock in the dark and unlocked it. We rushed up the stairs. There was a click behind us.

We waited but they didn't come.

We smoked, trembling with cold. Soaked through and through, we clung to each other. I put my jacket around her shoulders.

We smoked all the cigarettes right to the end.

From the windows in the roof, daylight started creeping in. Alarm clocks could be heard from the flats.

‘My father will kill me,' Ajsha moaned.

I walked her home. All the way across the town. She didn't let me go to their door. Just to the entrance of the block.

I removed a glass fragment from her hair.

The foundry siren went off.

She ran up the stairs. Looked back. She was too scared to smile.

I pressed my forehead on the glass.

My sweaty hair left a greasy mark.

I drew a line with my finger, cutting it in two.

 

 

 

8

‘I feel a bit queasy,' said Ibro, putting his hands on his bandaged head. ‘I drank too much yesterday.'

He dropped his hands back on the table again. He moaned with every move.

His bruised eyes were watching me.

He took a sip out of the bottle. Then moaned.

The waitress switched on the lights. The bar was full of bandaged heads and limbs in plaster. Hippy was dozing at the next table.

‘I made a fool of myself yesterday. A complete fool.' He tried to move a bit but gave up immediately. ‘I couldn't say a word. It's all right for you, you can certainly use your tongue.'

I remembered the tickly feeling on my tongue from the hair on Ajsha's neck.

I mumbled, ‘Yeah…Yeah…'

I sipped the beer.

We sat there silently. He sighed deeply.

‘I'm not really suitable for her. I'd already said that. It had to end this way.'

He was depressed. But not as much as I would've expected. It was the oh-fuck-it-it-can't-be-helped sort of
depression.

I looked at him with admiration. Nothing can really depress his sort of character. He'd be safe till the day he died.

‘How's Selim? Have you seen him?'

‘He was at the doctor's with me. For the sick-leave note. After that he disappeared.'

The foundry was operating with only half the workforce that day. The other half were on sick leave. They were sitting in the overcrowded bar. They didn't even feel like talking. Occasionally somebody would moan loudly. But mostly there was an unusual peace. The pensioners were laughing spitefully.

‘I'm going to bed,' Ibro said and got up slowly, stumbled and screwed up his face in pain.

We said goodbye. He staggered towards the exit and then disappeared around the corner. Hippy nudged me with his elbow.

‘Are you coming with me? To the hills?'

I nodded.

On the plateau, which confined the foundry on the right side, there was a village. Sometimes we'd go to the bar there to get drunk.

The battered yellow Citroen 2CV took a long time to start. While Hippy was torturing the car engine, two policemen walked past. They looked at me and went on. I froze, even though the probability of having been recognised by our pursuers from the day before was very small. We were only shadows in the dark. I remembered that I still hadn't thanked Karla for her undoubted intervention the last time I was held at the police station. I had to do it soon. Tomorrow.

The car struggled up the winding road, stalling and
groaning. The village started after the next bend. Hippy must have sniffed my money, otherwise he wouldn't have invited me with him. It was okay. I'm not cheap, unless I can't help it.

We put stones under the back wheels.

He pulled a tab of acid out of his pocket and offered it to me.

I said no.

‘Take it! It's strong! From California.'

I didn't take it, in spite of California, wherever that may be.

He shrugged his shoulders and swallowed it.

A bony, moustached landlord was dozing behind the bar.

We sat down in a corner and ordered a drink.

Three farmers at the other end of the room stopped talking until they'd had a good look at us. They didn't like us.

Leaning on the wall, alone at his table, the village hippy was strumming his guitar.

He was there whenever I came. The guitar's make seemed to be Mercedes, unless he'd turned the sticker the wrong way around. He'd always play the same song. And sing quietly.

The Stones'
Satisfaction
.

I amused myself by trying to calculate how many times he must have been dissatisfied. He'd been playing it for at least ten years. Every day. Thirty times, let's say. The number was huge.

Hippy was quietly mumbling along. He didn't try to strike up a conversation. His monologues about his travels around India were of no importance to me.

I ordered the second and third rounds at the same time.
The landlord was the type of waiter who makes you feel guilty for disturbing him.

One of the three farmers went to the bathroom. He tripped over Hippy's leg, stretched out from under our table, then kicked it.

Hippy didn't react. The drug was working. Calmly he moved his leg a bit further under the table and picked up his glass.

Another farmer went to the toilet. On the way back he tripped again. He had to make a long detour to manage it.

‘That's enough now! Apologise!'

He put his hands on his hips and spread his legs wide, genuine country style.

As soon as we walked into the bar I knew there'd be a fight. I was resigned to my fate. There are things you cannot escape. They come after you. Earlier, down in the valley, we were the only two without bandages. The day after, we'd all be the same.

Hippy was looking through the man. He was somewhere else.

I got up, stood to attention, and started singing
Bandera Rosa
, an old Italian fighting song. Not with enthusiasm, more with sadness.

Hippy joined me. We put our arms around each other for support and sang.

The farmer got reinforcements. All three stood in front of us, watching us with astonishment. I was waiting for them to get fed up with the singing, to strike.

I didn't know all the words. I filled the missing bits with
No Nos Moveran
.

Hippy thought we were changing the tune. He didn't quite catch what I was singing. He started droning a different song, another Spanish one.
No Pasaran
.

If we were destined to fall, at least we'd fall with a song. A revolutionary one, if possible.

Those who didn't know the words could sing
la la la
. The dumb ones should at least open their mouths to prove our unity.

I wasn't looking at them. I was gazing past them, at the window.

Suddenly I thought I could see a familiar profile outside.

I shouted loudly. It sounded like thunder.

‘Who says Nastassja is a whore?!!!'

The three men looked at each other.

‘Whoooooorrre,' Hippy sang gently, still in the Spanish mood.

The door crashed into the wall.

Selim filled the doorframe.

It was him I'd seen.

My resignation to my fate disappeared. I was filled with fighting spirit.

‘Smash their faces!!!' I shouted.

The three men launched themselves at Hippy and me. Unwillingly, we found ourselves in the backline of resistance. It was Selim who formed the front line.

Hippy, leaning on the table, was waving a bottle around. Struck whoever happened to get in its way. Under his blows I was forced to move forward. Immediately I got hit in the nose.

I collapsed and, sitting on the floor, looked at the blood running through my fingers. Faint circles were floating in front of my eyes. Somebody stood on me. I looked up but could only distinguish the outlines of bodies shoving each other. And the whiteness of the bandage wrapped around Selim's forehead.

I crawled into a corner.

Hippy still held his position. His bottle whistled in the air, drawing a semi-circle in front of him. One of the attackers ran up, let the bottle fly past him, then kicked Hippy with all his strength, aiming at his leg.