[8]
Sirma was lying on the bunk of the ferryboat from Thessaloniki to Rhodes, bored. The others were bored up in the fresh air, looking out at the sea, but she was already sick of that. The sea didn’t change much. From time to time they would see some larger island, or else just naked rock, carelessly tossed in the middle of the watery desert, but the islands, too, looked so much alike that after the first few, gawking at them wasn’t particularly interesting. At first, Sirma had imagined that the twenty-four-hour voyage at sea would be exciting. Maybe it would be exciting at the end: the gradual approach towards their goal, maneuvers for entering the harbor, the shrill siren; but until then there wasn’t much to do. But then again, there hadn’t been much to do on Thasos either, despite the beautiful sand, which so unexpectedly flowed into the dry soil beneath the pines, their asses had started itching from the sand and they had wanted to hit the road again, Krustev in any case had suggested they go to Rhodes, and with their already weakened resistance, they had let him buy the tickets and explain that he wasn’t doing it to flaunt how much money he had, but simply because he felt like traveling and he liked the company, which still didn’t sound so great, because it turned out that he was buying himself fellow travelers, but how could you get mad at the guy, he was too sad to get mad at and besides, he was cool, in his own way. Maya ducked into the cabin, raised her eyebrows when she saw Sirma lying there and asked her if she felt seasick. She wasn’t seasick, the ferry was big and steady. I was just lying here thinking, she said, and at one point I realized: I’m just lying here. Maya had come back to get her camera to take pictures from the deck, Sirma admired her enthusiasm. She went out, leaving Sirma alone again. Always the three of them, just the three of them, but a person still needs to be alone from time to time. And perhaps there wouldn’t even be that three of them, if she hadn’t insisted on it back then, if she hadn’t stubbornly and purposefully woven their shared garment out of myriad opportunities and occasions, because it could also be otherwise, because they could have each set out on their own path, which, at the end of the day, is the custom among people, and they could have started living like everyone else. Yes, all three of them wanted to be a threesome, but someone had to make the effort so it would happen, and she was that someone. Two incidents had convinced her that that was the best variant, that they would do well in creating such solid ties that no one could come between them, first that stupid incident at the seaside, when she’d lost her virginity, she laughed out loud remembering Maya’s bewildered look when she’d said we fucked, the truth was she had gotten almost no pleasure out of the sex itself, the satisfaction came from what she was inflicting on her body, from grabbing it and offering it like a piece of meat to that idiot to poke and jab, she liked that supremacy over the body, the pain, the greasy stream of blood that trickled between her legs and she was even sorry that she would not be able to inflict the same thing in all its glory on herself a second time. Maybe she didn’t actually like sex. And maybe, not maybe but surely she was frightened by her masochistic pleasure, which had nothing to do with the nerve endings in the clitoris that she had read about in books with titles like I’m Becoming a Woman, and, in fact, she had run away to Maya and Spartacus, set them up around herself for protection, so as to be part of something bigger and thus to be less herself, because the truth was she didn’t like herself, didn’t know herself and didn’t know what she was capable of inflicting on herself.
At the end of her second year in high school she had experienced something similar and that categorically confirmed her decision. Her parents suddenly got after her to see her cousin, it was really strange, the two families were in vague contact at best, they got together a few times a year and she had no opinion about her cousin whatsoever. She let them convince her and called her on the phone. Chloë, that was her cousin’s name, didn’t sound particularly enthusiastic, this was clearly some idiotic parental conspiracy to bring their daughters together, but in the end why shouldn’t they see each other, so they set up a time and Chloë brought her to a darkened café with a pool table that reeked of cigarette smoke. She offered her a cigarette, Sirma lit up, she had started smoking in elementary school, trying to be cool, but actually didn’t like it at all and waited impatiently for her clique at the time to fall apart so she could quit smoking, but she’d mastered the mannerisms — with a cigarette in her hand she could pass for a dyed-in-the-wool smoker and that sometimes came in handy, she was more adaptable than Spartacus or Maya who had never smoked a cigarette in their lives and often earned themselves funny looks because of this. As it was the afternoon, the café was half-empty, they were all friends of Chloë and they looked as if they lived there. In the greenish light two boys were expertly playing pool and she was staring at the table, she liked the rhythmic clicking of the balls, her cousin was smoking silently and anxiously chewing the cigarette between her lips, Sirma looked her over carefully, she was heavily made up, her hair was bleached platinum and for the moment, despite her anxiousness, she seemed relieved not to have to walk, because she was wearing shoes with monstrously high heels that were clearly wrenching her ankles. Sirma had presciently left her army-surplus backpack and worn-out jean jacket at home, but she still sensed that she looked out of place there, her cousin had wrenched her feet from her shoes, they were clearly digging into her, her toenails were painted purple. Sirma had never gotten a pedicure. She and Spartacus and Maya made fun of the girls at school decked-out like poodles, who made fun of them in turn. She felt ridiculous. She had no reason for being there. The drinks were expensive, there was no one she could talk about music with, she was used to sitting on the grass in the park and though she still liked the rhythmic clicking of the billiard balls and the boys with their skillful, confident movements, she started feeling smothered. At the other end of the café, beyond the pool table, there was something like a raised upper level with a single solitary table, from which several older boys were contemplating them lazily. They were good-looking guys, and with their absent-minded expressions, with the apathetic superiority that radiated from their table, they seemed to lift it even higher, into some cloud-filled dimension from which they watched the mortals’ games with the distant, languid interest of Olympians, or perhaps it only seemed that they were watching, when in fact their divine minds had wandered off somewhere else entirely, into the unseen and the unfathomable. The glass door of the café opened and another girl came in, with tight jeans and a leather jacket, she was pretty, with blonde hair and soft features, everybody livened up at her entrance, her cousin straightened up and puffed on her cigarette more energetically, one of the boys lazily slapped the newcomer on the ass as she walked by the pool table, and she made as if to kick him. The girl came over to them, Chloë pointed at Sirma, this is my cousin, but she didn’t say her name or the name of her friend, the girl sized her up with a smile, but didn’t say anything, she sat down by Chloë and they started a conversation that Sirma couldn’t understand at all, they were talking about some guys with funny nicknames, about scag and A-bombs, about Nero and how an eighth kept him floating for three days, you know, and about some other guy who was probably a narc, so if Chloë saw him she should keep her distance. Then they started murmuring quietly and Sirma guessed they were talking about her, her cousin frowned when the new girl turned to her and asked her if she wanted a jay. Sirma gaped at her. A joint, man, you know. Aaah, why didn’t you just say so, girl, she tried to get into their style. She had only smoked a joint once, Spartacus had scrounged it up somewhere, dug it up from the bottom of his backpack, hidden among the little plastic figurines and dead pens; and since unlike her friends, she had experience with cigarettes, she had managed to not cough while they smoked it, but nothing happened to her at all, nor to them, either. The girl in the leather jacket took out a joint and handed it to her cousin. You guys can have it, she said, my throat is killing me, I can’t smoke right now. The others saw the joint and started milling around them. Are we gonna smoke it here, Sirma asked incredulously. Of course, her cousin replied, the bartender is down, so don’t freak. She lit the joint and took a drag, the sweetish scent of weed wafted heavily in the air, they passed it around twice and it was gone. Sirma waited for that mellowing she’d heard about, but after a long time she still didn’t feel anything and decided that she must not have smoked it right again. Her cousin, however, had mellowed out, it was as if the shared weed had lowered her guard a bit. Looks like Chopper’s gone horse-riding, the girl in the leather jacket said and nodded towards the raised table at the other end of the café. Yeah, looks that way to me, too, her cousin replied, seeming impressed. They fell silent for a while. C’mon, let’s go hunting, said the girl with the leather jacket. Her cousin took a deep drag off her cigarette. But now I’m feeling all peaceful and shit, she said, from the weed. Don’t give me that, the other girl said. You need the money. True, Chloë said, but still, you know. She had her back to Sirma so she couldn’t see what kind of gestures she was making to the other girl, but she figured that again they had to do with her. But her friend just kept smiling, completely calm. Chloë turned to her and looked at her carefully. Sirma, I can count on you, right? How about making some money, huh? Whatever you say, Sirma shrugged. Whatever you say, she mimicked her, and Sirma suddenly realized that her cousin was drunk, she had obviously been drinking before she met up with her, she was slurring her words and looking through her towards something, so much so that she herself was tempted to turn around to see just what was so interesting behind her back. C’mon, said the other girl, come with us and we’ll show you how it’s done.