Crumbs (24 page)

He spat the noodle onto the floor.

‘Fuck this life,' he said. He was looking for a strip of undamaged skin for a new noodle. His whole arm was one big badly healed red wound.

I took a gulp. Used the first sip to wash my mouth.

Boxer woke up and saw Noodle. He looked as if he was going to be sick.

‘I can't stand this! I can't!' He moaned, fell on the floor, and started crawling towards the exit. He used to go mountain climbing. He thought he was climbing a vertical wall. Looking for support for his hands and feet at every move, he slowly crawled forward. Under my table he sighed, ‘How steep it is!'

But he was still making good progress.

I picked up the full bottles from the table.

There were quite a few.

A heavy battle lay ahead.

I started.

 

 

 

10

I kept waking up all night, having to either take a piss or throw up. Each time, I dozed off again, only to have another nightmare. The first ribbons of light were making their way through the windows when I finally went into a deep sleep. I woke up in the middle of the morning, very hung over and still under the influence of the nightmares. A long shower with plenty of scrubbing with soap didn't help. I brushed my teeth, spitting blood.

I went to the dentist. I inquired who worked where to make sure I queued in front of the right door. I had to wait a good hour before it was my turn. I sat in the chair and the female dentist bent over me. She had a mask over her mouth. And brown eyes.

I wanted to tell her to get the rest of my broken tooth out. I could feel with my tongue that there was still some left. But she didn't let me say a word.

She stuck a bent needle into the tooth on the other side. I jumped.

‘It hurts,' she established calmly. ‘We'll fill it. But this one has to come out. Nothing else can be done with it. It's cracked right down to the roots.'

She poked around the gum where the tooth used to be
and pulled out a small fragment of something. She held it in front of my eyes.

‘Wood.'

Another fact.

‘Veneer,' I mumbled.

She wasn't surprised.

She tapped my teeth a bit more and asked, ‘Does this hurt?'

I said no.

‘Just those two then.'

She started to get the drill ready.

The dental nurse came nearer. She whispered something about shopping, got permission, and left the surgery.

Before she left, she mixed the filling.

The dentist was watching me coldly, as if I were a fish she was just going to dissect.

‘If you ever used your brain things like this wouldn't keep happening to you,' she said.

I wanted to answer. But she stopped me by drilling.

‘Spit.'

I rinsed my mouth with water and spat it out.

‘I bet, Egon,' she said, ‘that it was over another woman.'

‘Yes,' I admitted.

‘You'd think you didn't have an iota of brain.'

I remembered her first name. Finally. I'd been racking my brain for it for an hour in the waiting room.

‘Lisa, do you really think people are rational beings?'

She pushed me back on the chair.

‘You're certainly not.'

The drill whirred. She blocked the cavity. Without a breather she went on to prepare an injection.

‘I don't know why I'm trying so hard. You deserve to
have it pulled out without any anaesthetic and the wound cleansed with molten iron. After what you did to me.'

She stuck the needle into my gums. I danced on the chair.

‘Wait ten minutes.'

I wanted to go back to the waiting room, but she told me to wait there in the chair. I obeyed.

She leaned on the wall and watched me. She didn't take her mask off.

‘Egon, you're a prick. I don't know what I saw in you.'

I didn't say anything, thinking that maybe I'd made a mistake to come to her with my tooth.

She prepared another injection.

‘Open.'

Three more jabs.

‘I really don't know why I'm doing this.'

My lip and cheek started tingling. They swelled and seemed enormous to me.

I mumbled, ‘Did you get married after that?'

‘Yes.'

‘Have you got any children?'

‘Yes.'

She wasn't chatty. I shut up and waited ten minutes.

She got the pliers.

She looked me in the eye and said, ‘I really don't know what's the matter with me. I'll get my colleague next door. He's the biggest expert in tooth pulling around here.'

She went off and came back with an older guy, bald, with glasses. He looked like a Prussian officer. Huge.

He got the pliers, grabbed hold of the tooth, and pulled.

I didn't even have time to shit myself with fear, it came out so quickly.

The tooth lay in the spittoon.

The nurse came back.

‘Shall I make another appointment?'

‘No, he'll come. When he needs to.'

The nurse looked at my health card and started to say something. Probably something about payment. Lisa shook her head. I put my health card into my pocket.

‘Rinse the wound with chamomile tea,' she said, businesslike.

She started shaking her head again. I quickly went out before she could say that she really didn't know why she was doing all this.

While closing the door behind me I heard her voice.

‘And try not to kiss anybody at least for a day if you can manage it.'

Before I finally left I caught the nurse's surprised look.

Spitting blood, I walked slowly towards the bar. I looked at the pipes between the hot air stoves – Selim's favourite spot.

He was there. He called me.

I climbed over the fence and ran to his hiding place.

‘Ibro's brothers have sent your aftershave.'

‘Really? Where is it?'

‘In our room.'

His head wasn't bandaged anymore. An ugly scar ran across the middle of his forehead.

‘Where's Ibro?'

I was burning with impatience.

‘He went to work in the morning. After lunch he set off for the doctor's surgery. I don't know where he is now.'

I looked at him pleadingly. ‘Come with me to get the aftershave!'

‘I can give you the keys.'

‘I don't want to rummage through somebody else's
room on my own. Let's go together.'

He nodded.

We let the guard go past, jumped over the fence, and ran towards the dormitory. Not because we were afraid of the wardens, but because of my impatience. This time we both climbed through the window.

‘The most fucked up of the wardens is on duty. A real spy. He'd definitely report me if he found out that I was playing hooky. He doesn't do anything but listen for who's coming and going and what's going on in all the rooms.'

We tiptoed to their door. He looked for the key and put it into the keyhole quietly. Opened the door. I peeped over his shoulder. Ibro stood in front of Nastassja's pictures, wearing his cowboy suit, masturbating. He heard a noise and looked back. He froze. His prick deflated in his hands in a split second.

Selim walked over to him slowly. Ibro's eyes widening with horror.

Selim started hitting. Slowly. Like a machine. Every blow could kill an ox, let alone Ibro. He knocked him over. Bent over him and kept on hitting rhythmically.

Droplets of blood were spraying around the room.

A bone cracked.

He'll kill him, I grasped with sudden clarity. I jumped over to Selim and tried to pull him back. He didn't even notice me.

I ran to the door, wanting to call for help.

Ibro wasn't even moaning anymore.

I looked at the bloody mess that used to be a face.

I grabbed an empty bottle from the table. I held it in my raised hand trying to decide how hard I should hit. I didn't want to hurt Selim, just stop him.

Ibro was progressively changing into ajar of red jelly.

I hit.

It seemed that Selim didn't even feel the blow.

The second time I put all my strength into the blow.

Selim collapsed over the body on the floor.

I ran to the warden and shouted to him to get an ambulance.

‘What, where?' he wanted to know. He asked question after question.

I was jumping up and down with impatience in front of the door of his office and finally told him to fuck off.

I ran back to the room.

Selim had disappeared.

Gurgling noises were coming from Ibro's throat.

I turned him onto his side and hit him between the shoulder blades. He threw up his lunch and the teeth that had been knocked out. The hair on his chest got unstuck and curled into a roll. I started sniffing the air. It stank of vomit and blood.

And sweat.

And something else.

Cartier.

I bent over and sniffed Ibro. He'd put on my aftershave before having it off with Nastassja.

I looked on the table. The aftershave was there. I put it in my pocket.

With the corner of my eye I noticed that Selim's wardrobe was open. The bottom drawer was pulled out.

I looked at it, wondering what it was that bothered me.

The bundle of letters was in there, and the documents.

The pistol.

Walther wasn't there.

I squeezed the box with the bullets. It was soft and gave in easily to the pressure.

Empty.

Shit! Ooooooooh shit!

I looked around in panic as if I was expecting Selim to be hidden somewhere in the room.

The corridor was empty.

I jumped out of the window.

Nobody anywhere.

A group of children came around the corner.

I ran towards the foundry but changed my mind. Back to the blocks of flats.

Selim was nowhere to be seen.

I stopped and listened.

I couldn't hear any shots.

Not yet.

The ambulance siren was getting closer and closer.

 

 

 

11

I got up before the alarm clocks in the other flats went off, leaned on the basin, and had a close look at my face in the mirror. I looked as if I'd been trampled on. Large circles under my eyes.

I couldn't find Selim. He wasn't in any of the bars I looked in. Nobody had seen him. I assumed he'd escaped into the hills. If he was going to kill himself he must have done it by now. If he was going to kill others, he must have changed his mind after all this time. At least that was what I hoped. There was no news of a murder or a massacre.

I waited for Selim in front of the foundry. He didn't come. Sheriff told me Ibro was going to be in the hospital for at least a fortnight. Ibro hadn't told anybody who had beaten him up so badly.

I went to sit in the bar. There was nothing I could do. And I couldn't just sit there either. The sound of Selim's blows against lbro reverberated in my head. Only now it sounded like a pneumatic drill. Mixed in with the music they'd played at the dance. And with the sound of the boxes of nails falling in front of Ajsha. The sound of stamping. The rhythm of the heart.

It was all the same shit. Boxer was asleep on a low,
wide radiator. Around midday, two policemen took him with them. He winked sleepily. Didn't try to resist them. I nodded to him, but he didn't recognize me.

The siren announced the end of the day shift at the foundry. I went out onto the road. I'd had enough of sitting. It was the right day for departure. A cloudless sky.

The wind was twirling thin dust on the pavement.

I looked around the town during the only three minutes in the whole day when this town is busy. Children were leaving school, workers were leaving the factory.

I spotted Long Legs from quite far away. I made my way slowly through the crowd and walked directly in her path.

She noticed me. We stopped and played a little game, which of us was going to the left and which one to the right. We laughed. I opened my mouth, wanting to start a conversation.

Out of the corner of my eye I noticed Selim walking down the pavement. I looked at Long Legs with regret and pushed towards Selim.

We bumped into each other. He was deadly pale. The corner of his mouth was twitching.

I felt a light poke in my stomach.

Something pointed.

The pistol.

‘Take it,' he said.

I took it and stuffed it in my pocket. I took the bullets from his left hand. I looked at the passersby. It seemed nobody had noticed anything.

Selim spoke slowly and wearily. As if he'd squeezed the last drop of his strength out of himself, then collapsed. As if it was the end of everything. When actions are finished, words want to have their turn, too.

The fucked-up body can't give them any energy or sharpness.

‘I walked past the school. Earlier. All alone on the pavement. With my right hand on the handle of the gun hidden in my pocket. The doors opened and suddenly children were all around me. My body just turned towards them of its own accord. I was pushing among them. They bounced off me like little balls. I held the heavy school door for a little girl. She was carrying a large drawing. An elephant in various shades of grey. Slowly I walked upstairs to the first floor. Children were sliding down the banister.

‘Shouting. Or at least so it seemed to me. I didn't really hear them. No sound reached me. They were just opening their mouths. At the top of the stairs a girl was turning around and around trying to reach the other strap on her schoolbag. I helped her. She said something and went. I took the gun out of my pocket and shot twice into the bag on her back. A badge in the shape of a teddy bear shattered into small crystals. All without sound.

‘Deadly silence. I went down the corridor towards the classrooms. I was completely empty. I felt nothing. A faint wondering why they were all running away from me and somewhere right at the bottom a feeling that this wasn't what I wanted. I couldn't stop myself. My body wasn't mine anymore.