It was shameful and sad, and it had taken until this sorry moment for him to admit to himself why he’d done that. They were all feeling sorry for Franković, but when Matija’s dad died, no one felt sorry for him. It’s way tougher to lose your dad when you’re small than when you’re almost grown, thought Matija then, and we were left on the verge of poverty. Who cared how things were for me then?
This must be the key Mr. Shrink was talking about, thought Matija.
That evening more tangles unraveled, and he crept closer to his misery. The alcohol had begun heating him up, and he was starting to probe the warm, silty river bottom. He let himself sink. This was the only way to delve into it without caring. Instead of seeking a victim in the mirror, he felt himself craving someone else’s pain. He fell asleep, eager for morning, wanting to catch a glimpse of the golden boy who was condemned to die. Don’t forget Stjepan Hećimović. Please, how could I possibly forget him?
He was burning to see this man before Hećimović learned he was doomed, to soak up his every gesture, to see how carefree he acted, thinking he’d have another forty years. They might even meet, and Matija could ask him, innocence incarnate, how he was feeling. If the chance came up, he might just give the man the worst news he’d ever hear. Matija could watch him as his face changed when he learned he had only three months to live. The thought that he might witness another person’s downfall made Matija grin. He stopped waiting, passive and frightened, for the forgotten stuff in his head to spread across his sky. Once he’d broken the news to Hećimović, he’d be prepared to look at the disturbing drawings of that kid he’d buried in his memory so long ago.
He googled Stjepan Hećimović and found him listed on the website of the Faculty of Science at the University of Zagreb. Hećimović’s field was inorganic chemistry, and he’d be teaching the next day at nine thirty in the morning. This suited Matija because the next day was Friday, and Fridays at his state agency were the days when the staff ran errands, met with people at government ministries, and drank countless macchiatos, chatting sourly about their likelihood of landing another job.
Stjepan Hećimović was an unusually tall, gaunt young man with a boyish air. His stubble, the shaggy hair that hung over his ears, a few zits, and his well-worn jeans made him look even younger. There was hardly anything to suggest this was a person who was deathly ill—only the dark circles under his eyes, which reminded Matija of slices of bologna kept too long in the fridge. But it was there in the way he moved. First Hećimović couldn’t decide whether to place his materials on the desk or the lectern, so he put some on the desk and the rest on the lectern. Then he realized he’d rather stand and switched the piles. He started, “Today we’ll…” and then realized the room was a little too dark, so he went back to the door to turn on the lights. He spoke quickly, but would often stop midsentence to take a labored breath, and then enunciate the rest of the sentence slowly, speaking clearly. He started listing chemical compounds, with six in mind. When he’d twice listed only five, he stopped, turned to the board, and counted, whispering, on his fingers. After a long moment, he turned back to his class with a triumphant grin and gave them the sixth. The students’ anxiety could be cut with a knife. They didn’t laugh, Matija noticed. He was really looking at a person struggling with disease, his complexion sallow, his ears red. He’d try to draw a straight line, and against his will his hand would trace a curve, but this was not, for Matija, enough proof of the tumor. It would have been much more gratifying if Hećimović had, for instance, clutched his head and moaned in pain, if he’d vomited, if white foam had bubbled from his mouth, if he’d lost his balance, or, say, gone suddenly blind. Nothing like that happened, and Matija began feeling impatient. He sat in the last row and doodled in a notebook he’d bought at the bookstore. He thought about how Hećimović would spend his last three months. Matija should go up to him today, while the man didn’t know how sick he was, while he was still unaware. Štef, can I call you Štef? You may be wondering what that odd feeling is, that tension in your temples? Well, my friend, you’ve got this lump in your head, and it’s inoperable! It might be time to set up one of those Facebook support groups, reach out, raise money… and maybe… maybe he’d offer to write a book about Hećimović’s farewell to this beautiful world! Matija would follow Hećimović to the bitter end as his ghostwriter, registering every deep thought he had about death and life and all that shit. He’d follow him while the young scientist slowly faded. It would be the most intense near the end. His sister said Hećimović would lose cognitive functions. He’d start saying things, babble nonsense, lose his memories, not recognize members of his family. Hey, now that would be bringing harsh reality to writing, something no one has ever done before! I can already see myself shedding a tear on Oprah.
He was woken from his mental masturbation by a sentence that seemed totally random.
Hećimović was trying to speak from memory and read at the same time, so he interspersed definitions among his stutters:
“…and other compounds, such as… um… butanediol… and… well… um, well… ahem… are used industrially for manufacturing certain kinds of plastics, elastic fibers, and… um… plastic fibers and so on… not um… and polyurethane! And besides… heh heh… for kids like you… um… well… I’m not so old myself… heh heh… may result in disorders in the neurotransmitters, changes in mood like depression and anxiety… so people who work with chemicals like butanediol have to take precautions… the problem is probably because the compound is… um… soluble in water, so it can easily permeate groundwater in greater quantities, but usually factories have built containment systems… and so on. So, as I said 1,4-butanediol, also referred to as BD, um…”
Butanediol rang in Matija’s head a few more times. Loidenatub.
He started so intensely he lifted the desk in front of him with his knees. He was on the verge of blacking out, he could see little more than the outlines of the world around him, so out of the lecture hall he staggered.
11.
He crouched over the first bench he saw and began scribbling in the notebook, then went sprinting toward home. Whenever he ran out of breath, he’d lean for a moment against a wall. It was freezing cold, the sky went dark, and rain began to fall. It would have been reasonable to expect everyone to lean forward and hurry along. But they all seemed hopelessly slow to Matija.
In the center of town, he jumped into a cab and alternated between urging the driver to go faster and scribbling like mad. Sobbing and laughing, hunched over behind the passenger seat. The tidal wave of information surging from this one word he hadn’t heard in over twenty years was unbearable. He wiped his sweaty forehead with his sleeve.