‘I mean, how did you end up here?’
‘I was a refugee.’
‘When?’
‘A bit before Dayton…’
‘So how long have you been here? Twelve years?’
‘About that…’
‘So how old are you?’
‘Twenty-nine… Well, am I going to massage you or what?’
‘I don’t know, I feel a bit awkward now. I could be your mother…’ said Beba, trying to get off her little hill. The young man hurried to help her.
‘Why should it be awkward? I’ve had all kinds of bodies through my hands, since I’ve been doing this.’
‘But even so…’ Beba mumbled, embarrassed.
Somehow Beba clambered up and sat on the table, but the aid remained stuck between her breasts. Seeing Beba in a cloud of soapy foam, with the aid, and her breasts sticking out of the openings like two watermelons, the young man began to roar with laughter. Realising what a ridiculous situation she was in, Beba too burst out laughing. Her laughter sent the foam flying in all directions.
‘Oh, my! Now you look like a Yeti!’ said the young man, in his Bosnian accent, trying to suppress his laughter.
The young man helped Beba remove the pillow and brought her a towelling robe. Wrapped in the white robe, Beba wiped the foam from her face with a towel.
‘Fancy a fag?’ said the young man in his characteristic Bosnian accent.
‘Sorry?’
‘Shall we have a smoke?’
‘Here?’
‘Well, why not?’
‘Oh, all right.’
‘I call the shots here, love. I’m untouchable! And what kind of a Suleiman would I be if there wasn’t a smell of tobacco round me, eh?’
Beba and the young man lit their cigarettes.
‘Eh, I haven’t had a good laugh like that in years!’ said the young man warmly.
‘Eh, my Suleiman…’ Beba sighed cheerfully.
‘My name’s not Suleiman!’
‘What is it?’
‘Mevludin.’
‘Muslim?’
‘Hardly, love! I’m like the former Yugoslavia, like a Bosnian stew, I’m a bit of everything. My dad was Bosnian and my mother half-Croatian, half-Slovene. And there were all sorts in the family: Montenegrins, Serbs, Macedonians, Czechs… One of my grandmas was Czech.’
‘Eh, Mevludin…’
‘You can call me Mevlo. I’m known as Pan Mevlička here. Suleiman is my professional name. It was the Czechs who dressed me in these pants, they say Turkish massage is great for tourists. They haven’t a clue, it wasn’t them who had the Turks breathing down their necks for five hundred years.’
‘You strike me as something of an actor.’
‘Sure, I’m an actor. But I’m trained as well, as a physiotherapist. People say I have golden hands.’
‘It’s true, you do,’ said Beba solemnly.
‘What good are they to me…?’ sighed the young man, frowning.
‘What do you mean, what good are they?’
‘What’s the use if I don’t have anything else?’
Beba didn’t know what to say. As far as she could judge, the young man was fine in every way. More than fine.
‘This thing of mine stands up like a flagpole, but what’s the use, love, when I’m cold as an icicle? It’s as much use to me as a cripple’s withered leg. You can do what you like with it, tap it as much as you like, it just echoes as though it was hollow.’
‘Hang on, what are you talking about?’
‘My willy, love, you must have noticed.’
‘No,’ lied Beba.
‘It happened after the explosion. A Serbian shell exploded right beside me, fuck them all, and ever since then, it’s been standing up like this. My mates all teased me, why, Mevlo, they said, you’ve profited from the war. Not only did you get away with your life, but you got a tool taut as a gun. Me, a war profiteer? A war cripple, that’s what I am!’
The young man looked dejected. Out of the corner of her inquisitive eye, Beba observed that the relevant part of his anatomy was still just as perky.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said.
‘I’m hiding here in these wide pants. I act the part of a Turk, and keep waiting to get better. I’ve asked some doctors. They’ve examined me; they laugh and say there’s nothing wrong with your tool, Pan Mevlička. That’s how it is in life, love, everyone wants to push and shove, but no one to cuddle and snuggle… I’d go back to my Bosnia, I felt really great in Bosnia, even during the war, but they’d all make fun of me there. Mevlo the Superman, Mevlo the Golden Tool, you know what our lot are like. That would really do my head in. I can’t go back like this, I’m not a man, or a woman, I’m nothing… I’ve had some women after me here, actresses, all sorts, you know what working in a hotel means, you’re on room-service twenty-four hours a day, everyone thinks they’ve got a right to pester you. Some people tried to talk me into making a porn film, some Germans, Russians, Yanks… I gave one of them a proper hammering, I broke all his bones, I got a bad reputation, but at least that means people leave me alone. Maybe it would be easier if I was gay, what do you think?’
‘The main thing is that you have a good heart,’ said Beba gently and at the time she sincerely believed what she said.
‘I’ve got a heart as big as a mosque, but what’s the good of that!’
Beba smiled.
‘And I’m sure you’ve got brains as well.’
‘Well, now, that’s something I haven’t got,’ the young man brightened up. ‘I’m a fool, love. And once a fool, always a fool.’
‘It’ll all get sorted out somehow, I’m sure,’ said Beba compassionately.
‘Well, if only this boa constrictor down there gets sorted out. I’m sick of the sight of it! It’s as though that Serbian shell put a spell on me, fuck it to hell!’
The young man looked at Beba and a gentle smile spread over his face.
‘Hey, sorry for swearing like that.’
‘It doesn’t bother me.’
‘And sorry for all the stuff I’ve offloaded on you. If only someone could unwitch me, the way the shell bewitched me. That’s what I dream about every day, love…’
There was a knock on the door. The woman in the white coat came into the room.
‘Pan Suleiman, there are two clients waiting for you outside.’
The young man helped Beba to get off the table and accompanied her to the door.
‘How long are you staying?’ he asked.
‘I don’t know.’
‘Will you come again?’
‘For sure.’
‘Do. Don’t forget. Call by after work, and we’ll go for a beer… You’ll find me easily, I live here in the hotel. Just ask for Pan Mevlička. Everyone knows me.’
‘I’ll do that!’
And then in eloquent Czech, he turned to the woman in the white coat:
‘Napište masaž teto damy na muj učet.’[1]
And what about us? While life gets tangled in the human game, the tale hastens to reach its aim!
2.
Dr Topolanek was standing in front of a colour photograph projected onto a screen. It was the portrait of an old woman sitting in an armchair, dressed in a suit, a white shirt with its collar and cuffs emerging from the jacket sleeves, and with a brightly coloured pullover thrown youthfully over her shoulders instead of a shawl. The old woman had curly grey hair, blue eyes sunk deep into their sockets and lips that were completely sucked in. The most striking things about her were her hands, with their fat, misshapen fingers, exactly like claws.
‘They could at least have put lace gloves on her,’ thought Beba, looking at the photograph.