26

“I AM ANGRY, I’m so angry there are no words to describe it,” I told Erol in the Blue Lagoon. He was gazing somewhere past me.

The bar was empty. Other people have no money, and I’m spending Afghani savings.

“I will not let this slide,” I said. “Those were Ragan’s men, couldn’t be anyone else.”

Erol looked at me as if he had only now started paying attention.

“You’re sure? What about the seven billion others—”

“So you’re defending him?”

“You have to be certain about these things.”

“It has to be them. This cannot stand!”

“No offense,” he said, “don’t think you’re going to take care of it, because you won’t. Other things are in store for you.”

Erol seemed strange. As soon as they heard about the attack on Sobotka there were people who wanted to go to where Ragan lived, armed, but he talked them down. So did Nikola. Admittedly, who knows what would have happened, but still.

“Sobotka would’ve told you the same thing. You can take his place.”

“It makes me angry, too. Nikola won’t explain anything, not where Oleg is, nor why there’s no money. He’s closed himself off. They say we did things differently, the newspapers rant on about self-management. . . . It’s nothing. As soon as money is involved we’re in the dark.”

“I asked him the same thing. He told me he can’t say anything. Maybe he doesn’t know. He looks clueless.”

“He always looks that way.”

“Yeah. But I think he’s sincere.”

“Sincere or not, if we continue working without money, that means they owe us for our work. And we don’t know if we’ll ever get it back. Why grant them credit? It’s not ours to grant. This would only make sense if we’re all co-owners, and that’s what I told him today.”

“That’s why we need you. What did he say?”

“He shrugged and said, ‘Come up with a plan. I’m for it.’ So I told him, ‘I will. But what will Oleg say?’ He looked at me and said, ‘Maybe nothing.’ He sounded comatose, like Sobotka.”

• • •

I know, I’m stupid, that is, I don’t know how to behave, around men, I mean. Nikola was scared of me, I guess he thought I wasn’t all there, because when I start falling for someone, I can’t stop. Men tend to gasp for breath around me. I can see them struggling for breath and their eyes wander, because I skip something, a phase. I don’t know, I generally don’t know how to stop once I start, and then because of that, I’m stuck more or less all the time and hold back, like someone on a chain, and I have to tie myself down or I’ll break off and end up all over the place. This is my problem, I know, I have no boundaries, although you can’t tell this at first, because everything around me and on me is so shipshape and tidy. My museum is also totally in order, clear, organized, everything spotless, like at my house, and there is order everywhere, but then when someone like him shows up, where you can tell he needs me, he needs order, then hope arises and I lose control and can’t stop. I see myself plunging in, everything goes too fast, and I make a muddle. The order all turns into mess and everything goes to hell, because as soon as you destabilize me, I don’t know how to take things slowly. I mean, easy and cool, so he doesn’t realize how important he is, or feel pressured. And things are like that every time, every time over the last million years since I rush and stop only when I see I’ve gotten myself nowhere, into my own story, I didn’t ask anyone, no one knows where I’m going. I just keep going on my way in my head, and I hate myself for it, really. I’m missing a few marbles, and I keep waiting for someone to fill in the gaps. I wasn’t angry at all when I saw he was looking at me like I was missing a few marbles, but I thought—Go ahead, do something, fix it, you’re the master, you’re the man for me. Well, I really am an idiot, because he’s looking at me like I have a few marbles missing, and I say yes, to myself, because you can’t say that out loud, although it would be, as they say, cool, maybe fun and easy. But I don’t say it out loud and he has no idea what I’m thinking. But I need someone, someone to fix me, and it’s all wrong, I know it is, and I shouldn’t be thinking like this at all. I’m better than that, because I’m smart, even though I may act stupid, which keeps happening, and it takes me by surprise each time, because I freeze in situations—after every hope and after I realize I’ve been rushing, I freeze for a time, a long time. I guess until I forget. And I’m gone, I don’t go out, and again I’m always surprised that I’m like this and I keep rushing like someone who doesn’t know how to drive. Then I see everything all at once and feel angry at myself. I need someone, that’s what I thought, someone like Nikola, someone who’s polite and pretends he doesn’t see. I saw he has the emotional room for my confusion. I need to be handled slowly, I don’t need short-tempered idiots. When it comes to macho types, I’m in charge, I can put them in their place, there’s no doubt that I’m stronger than they are, because I have them in plain view, but I’m not interested, absolutely not interested—if I were even a little interested, I’d have been saved—but I need someone who understands, who will fix me, so parts of me and him fit together like puzzle pieces, and this man seemed like one, but I screwed this up because I couldn’t stop, and then he hooked up with the woman named Šeila. I’m explaining this to show how generous I am, and above all that—I know everything’s ruined, I’m no maniac—I just want to help somehow, because I see they’re in trouble. They don’t come to the Blue Lagoon as often anymore, there’s no money for rounds, you can tell. But I didn’t want to ask Nikola. I get it—we’re down to a quick greeting—but I ran into Erol and Branoš that Friday in the empty Blue Lagoon and asked Branoš, because I see he’s like the new Sobotka around here, but he didn’t say anything specific, so I introduced my friend from the town hall, Jaka, who was with me. I suggested maybe she could help out.

I told them how she stepped forward to handle the paperwork for Slavko’s house, and Jaka nodded. She’s modest, so she said it wasn’t difficult, because the guys at town hall were scared of trouble when his daughter showed up, when Sobotka was attacked, because they thought this might lead to something more, to even more trouble. They can hardly wait to be done with it, they’re scared of Slavko’s daughter, though she’s not doing anything.

Branoš asked Jaka what they could do, what she could do to help them, and she said she’d check some documents; the factory’s vacation resort on the coast was lost when the former country was broken up into several smaller ones, so they could possibly ask the country that took it over for compensation, they could initiate a legal process. She also said there are government funds for underdeveloped municipalities, and there is also a chance they could get money from abroad; they could apply for funding to modernize the factory, but that needed to be carefully prepared, because the funding is limited and there are many applicants. “This all sounds pretty long-term,” said Branoš, and she nodded. “Long-term” didn’t look so promising to him, but, he said, he’d pass this along, good to know these things, but the situation was looking hazy in the short term. Eventually, I guess to lighten the mood, he added more loudly, “And I’m also a bit worried about the Blue Lagoon!”

Rafo, the owner, worked alone and he squinted as he stood behind the bar, which was, I don’t know why, funny to us.

“Anyway, thanks, ladies, for thinking of us,” Branoš said, and brought us each a drink.

“Karma Chameleon” was playing at the bar, and it was kind of silly, like the old days. We must have looked funny when we started dancing.

Then Rafo treated us to a round of Angebot rakija, which is a strange name for a rakija, but it wasn’t bad. He took a shot himself, and said, “While eighties music is still playing at the Blue Lagoon, the factory will not fall!”

He can be funny, I thought, even though I can never tell if it is on purpose.

We toasted, and then once more. This time it was my round, and little by little we got pretty drunk, and hardly being able to describe how, I was making out with Branoš over there by the toilet. No one came across us, but I had the feeling everyone knew when we came back, which was a little embarrassing because I’m older, after all, than he is. He can hardly be right for me—but fine, I kept thinking while we continued drinking—it’s better I’m aware of this, better than if I’d rushed things. The museum will always be there, and it would be better, I thought, if I didn’t care about anything.