The President Shop, page 7
She used to think that Ruben’s words and Rosa’s organization were her stable ground; also that the President’s image protected her. Since Rosa lost the baby, the little baby boy, lost him to sleep—went to pick him up one day and he just wasn’t breathing—Rosa mainly ordered things and watered the plants. When Mona saw the image of the Virgin Mary at her grandmother’s house, she recognized Rosa’s face in it, in the months following the baby’s death. He is with God now, said grandmother, and Rosa just shook her head. There was talk of God’s mysterious ways. Mona had been six years old. There were no more babies after that.
She did not understand if she fit into the picture of the order that had been presented to her; man—woman—child; school—university—marriage—child. She saw Clarice and she felt dizzy; she saw boys and felt nothing at all. She could not speak to her mother about it, felt ashamed to speak to her of such things, of bodily things, and matters of the heart.
Perhaps only when she was curled up like a fetus in the warm uterus of her duvet, did Mona feel an inkling of order. Only then did the body feel like it fit somewhere safe and familiar.
Chapter 17
DIOGEN SPENT THE morning trying to fight off the wasp nest of his thoughts: angry, boiling, stinging, relentless. He had walked home from the station finding more of the handwritten notes, only to discover when he arrived home that his room had been occupied by Great Uncle Robinson and that a large oil-drenched machine occupied most of the room.
“What on earth is this?” he yelped.
Rosa and Ruben explained that Robinson had become too old to look after himself so that he was now living with the family. Robinson was reclining in an armchair, mid-snooze, his wooly hat firmly on his head. He stirred awake when he heard Diogen’s exasperated yowl.
“We are trying to make him move The Invention to the shelter but he can’t go down the stairs easily and it’s the only thing that gives him some joy,” Rosa said.
“Have you seen the notices all over town?” Diogen said.
Rosa and Ruben looked at each other; they had not. Robinson had sneaked out at the crack of dawn—his hip was not too bad that day—and stuck up the notices from the train station all the way to the house. He’d come up with the idea of The Museum of the Future, which he thought ingenious, for it had imbedded in it an appeal to the tourists who arrived in town from the station, as well as the local folk.
“He’s asking 500 dinars!” said Diogen.
Robinson looked sheepish, though an air of defiance suddenly washed over him and he exclaimed, “You are all too stupid to understand its potential!”
He walked into his room, slamming the door behind him. Rosa and Ruben shook their heads and went around town ripping down as many of the notices as they could find. They had been written in Robinson’s unsteady, old-fashioned hand. He was indeed offering local produce in addition to the experience of The Invention, though he had not specified what the produce entailed.
Diogen’s feet reflected his disquiet. After the shock that met him at home in the form of Robinson, he went to the river, hoping that he might bump into Ivan Ivanovich on the way. He walked down Ivan’s street and past the place he knew Ivan went to for his morning coffee. Ivan was in the face of every seated patron, he was every man walking down the street. Diogen walked back to the river, hoping to be calmed by its murmur. Ivan’s body was a sparkle on the water or a curl of a wave. Diogen saw him swimming across. He gasped, made a step toward the cliff’s edge. It was December, it was impossible, of course. He knew that Ivan would never swim in December.
He walked up the hill that overlooked the town, hiked up the steep cobbled streets to the east; his thighs were only slightly strained, for he had worked hard at the Youth Action and felt fit. He crossed the big road that cut between the town and the hillside and moved up the gravelly soil. The beauty of this hill was that once you were at the top, you could walk a little down the other side and not see the city at all. It’s why Diogen liked it. Pine trees and oaks and bushes grew here, and shepherds and shepherdesses sat on the ground with their herds scattered around them like fluffy clouds. Diogen had a good pace, kicking the gravel before him as he walked. The air felt fresh on his face and in his lungs, and he thought, What do I care for love, for Ivan, for any of it? He sang. A song of cherry blossoms and snow falling on them, a spring song. It was winter but he wanted to feel that spring was on its way. His voice flew across space, followed by silence. A wind blew. He looked back, the town sparkled under the white sunlight like a galaxy; the river slithered through the valley. The further up he got, the colder the air, until it felt like his ears were being slashed by the gusts of wind. Snow gripped the rocks; as the sun hit the snow, it crackled like a fire, and dripped.
Diogen walked toward a shepherdess reclining on the ground. She had spread out a plastic sheet, then a blanket, and covered herself with a sheepskin rug. She rose as he approached her.
“Don’t get up,” he said.
She sat up. “Oh I’m so glad to see someone, anyone,” said the woman.
“It’s so peaceful here.”
“Hm,” said the woman, looking around. “You find it peaceful. I think it’s fucking boring.”
The old woman’s hair was wild, her mouth a gap. She looked at him and picked up a rock from a pile she had gathered before her. She threw one of the rocks at the sheep.
“I hate these motherfuckers,” she said. “All day, every day, herding them, running after them. They scatter in all directions and you don’t know which way to go. I wish they’d all die.”
She threw more rocks and made the prrrr sound that is used to summon sheep. Diogen just stood there.
“Whatever you do every day, in the same way, you come to hate it,” said the woman, lying back down. “Even the lover you once had. You think the sun shines out his ass, but he becomes boring if you live with him every day.”
She hissed at the sheep and closed her eyes.
Diogen carried on across the green field. He kept turning around at the sight of the old woman.
Did she really happen? What is happening to me? My whole world is disintegrating!
He walked down the hill in a hurry.
Chapter 18
IVAN HAD SEEN Diogen that morning. He had stood at his window and stepped away. Diogen’s copper hair was slicked back like the wave of the sea against the setting sun, the brown searching eyes, hands in pockets, wide strides. He knew where Diogen was going, and he knew that if he wanted to find him, he’d be at the riverbank. He turned and caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror. The uniform clung to him like unfamiliar armor, a stiff olive wool with lapels that almost reached the shoulders. He started to undress slowly, and removed the uniform piece by piece, folding the trousers, vest, jacket, as he had been taught in the army. The red star was always to face up. The blue, white, and red of the flag too. Nothing should cover them.
Ivan had returned for the weekend, after a month away in the barracks. He was in the artillery unit, and the first month had been all about learning the rules, singing the anthem for the flag, and training. The other soldiers were each stifled by their own homesickness and the mundane nature of the extreme routine. Several enjoyed the formulaic life; they found comfort in the repetitive duties, some said they almost felt purified by the daily hard physical exercise. Some were depressed by it, and sat smoking at night alone in the dark outside. The superiors were harsh and superior, as Ivan had expected. He felt as if his insides were clenched by the metal jaws of a bear trap. But he knew that he had to endure, for there were another eleven months ahead of him.
“Coffee is ready,” he heard his mother say through the door.
“Coming,” he said.
The fire burned in the stove and everything was in its place. He noticed a new picture of the President on the wall.
“Where’s that from?” he asked.
“Ah, I walked past the President Shop, went in to say hello to the family, and then I saw this picture. Isn’t it lovely?’
Ivan nodded. “How are they?”
“Oh, very well. The younger brother was at the Youth Action. Ruben said it would be good for him, now that his military service is coming up.”
“Yes?”
“It’s true. He’s quite unprepared for that sort of thing, that much is clear. He’s always in some dream world, humming to himself, fishing at the river. Well, you know him. You know how he’ll fare in the army.”
Ivan said nothing.
“They said they are having a welcome back party for him, and that maybe you could go over, speak to him about life in the army. Say something positive about it. He’s apparently very afraid to go.”
Ivan nodded as a current went through his body at the thought. Diogen’s slightly hooked nose, his strong lips, the freckles that the spring sun coaxed out on his face and on his arms and shoulders. Ivan remembered that Diogen had freckles on his elbows, that once, as Diogen was showing him a particular spot where wild strawberries grew, he caught a glimpse of Diogen’s freckly elbow as his arm bent and brought the fragrant strawberry up to Ivan. He shook off the memory.
“When are you meeting Milena?”
“In half an hour.”
“You have to choose a ring, my dear, it won’t choose itself. The poor girl is desperate to see it.”
Ivan said yes and got up. Slightly irritated. He knocked over the coffee cup and apologized.
“Groom’s nerves,” his mother said and wiped the spilled coffee with a red, white, and blue tea towel. “Don’t you worry, it will all be all right, you’ll see.”
He went to his room, picked up his cello, and felt it for a while, its familiar form comforting in his hands. He played, twenty-five minutes exactly, and then the doorbell rang.
“Hello, Milena, my darling,” he heard his mother say. “Come in, he’s right here, playing his music, you know him, haha, what a dreamer he is, our Ivan. Ivaaan! Milena is here!”
His heart sank. He put the cello away and walked to the door with concrete feet.
Milena had glistening straight hair the color of the night sky, and eyes full of light.
“Shall we go?” she said shyly when Ivan appeared.
They went. Ivan in his navy coat, and Milena in a crimson one, and he put his hand on her shoulder as they walked down the street to the jeweler’s.
“It’s such a beautiful day,” said Milena.
Ivan nodded, realizing that he forgot to ask his mother what time the party was at the President Shop. A simultaneous sense of turbulence and delight filled his gut as he remembered Diogen’s face and the perfume of a wild strawberry on a January morning.
Chapter 19
“WHY AREN’T YOU here? Oh, why aren’t you here?” Diogen sang as he walked down the hill, his voice gliding through the air. “When new wildflowers are adorned with the pearls of midnight, my chest swells up with desire, oh why aren’t you here, before me?”
He looked at the town beneath him. He loved it, he hated it. It was his home, he had no place there. Only the river, only the river was without conflict for him, and as soon as he thought of the river he remembered Ivan and his beautiful face, his coal hair that looked like granite in the sun, each hair a sparkling galaxy. All Diogen wanted was to bury his face in Ivan’s hair and breathe. He would even eat that hair, he thought, and he couldn’t bear to think of his lips upon Ivan’s without almost doubling over with pain, those corals upon his face that he would never part from.
“A bluebell peeks out from under a dew drop, a fragrance sings from the blossoming tree, but to me all is sorrow, a whine and pain and tears.” He finished the song and then said, “Oh dear God, I have to go to the army on top of it all.”
The truth was that Diogen had tried everything he could, after finishing his degree, to get out of serving in the army; tried claiming insanity, being unfit, you name it. Nothing had worked. Partly, Diogen suspected, because Ruben had told the officers who’d examined him that Diogen was trying to get out of his duty, that there was nothing wrong with him. He hated Ruben for it.
“I know you saved me, brother,” he had told him, “and that had it not been for you, I’d not have lived. But I breathed and survived because I wanted to be free, not to serve in some stupid army, following orders like an idiot!”
Ruben was exasperated. “Every man in this country has to serve, if he can. It’s our duty. Don’t you see? If we were to be attacked tomorrow…”
“Attacked? Who is going to attack us? We don’t need anyone to attack us from the outside. Look, it’s already happening here, in this bloody shop that is like some temple to that man,” Diogen shouted, pointing wildly to the President’s pictures. “We, in this temple, are attacking each other!”
Ruben shut his eyes, trying to block out his younger brother’s blasphemous ingratitude.
“You’re attacking me, I’m attacking you, we don’t need an army, we can just kill each other here, right now!”
Ruben opened his eyes and stared at Diogen in shock. “Kill each other? Whatever for? What do you mean, dear brother?”
“I want to be free! To breathe as I like, to live my life as I want to. Not to spend an entire year obeying absurd orders. Left! Right! Stand! Sit! Like a dog!”
Diogen seemed to be on the brink of tears.
“But it trains you. It forms you. It disciplines you. It teaches you to learn that you can’t do as you like, not always, mostly not, life isn’t like that,” said Ruben just as Rosa walked in. “We should always be grateful for what we have.”
“Not that shit again,” Diogen said under his breath, for his love for his brother stopped him from swearing directly at him.
Diogen threw Ruben a glance so frustrated and lost and alone that Ruben’s heart broke in an instant. Diogen stormed away and slammed the door, and the next thing they could hear was loud singing from his room.
“He has never felt the unity of the people,” Ruben said. “The loyalty and dedication to the cause of preserving our liberty.”
Rosa said, “Can’t you leave him alone, really,” but she knew she was saying it to herself mostly.
Ruben shook his head. “Some creatures need to be broken in. He doesn’t know what’s good for him. Apart from any loftier ideals, he should serve, get a job, get married, have children. He doesn’t know what’s good for him.”
Diogen’s singing got louder. Rosa sighed and went into Mona’s room. Mona was at school. Rosa sat on her bed. She had found a pack of cigarettes in Mona’s drawer the day before, one had been smoked, and she’d also found a love letter to a Clarice, sealed with a lipstick kiss. Rosa remembered Ivana, a girl from her village, who was caught kissing Ana, and when word got out, both were beaten so badly by their fathers that they could not leave the house for a month. She knew that Ruben would not do such a thing, but she worried about her daughter.
Ruben had sat down on a chair in the living room, next to the gramophone, and put the needle on a record of the President’s speeches. It was an early one, from the beginning of the republic. Its rhythm was staccato, at first, the President emphasizing every word: “Dear—Citizens—of—the—Republic.” And then it went into a flowing discourse on the virtues of the Nation’s Way. Rosa knew the words by heart. And she knew that Ruben was in need of calming down, for this was the speech he played to himself when he needed to breathe, breathe, breathe.
Rosa wondered what to do about Mona as she casually opened a desk drawer. She could not approach Ruben about it, and she couldn’t talk to Diogen while he was in this state.
There was a diary in Mona’s drawer. Rosa took it out and held it in her hands.
To open or not to open?
Chapter 20
MONA HAD BOUGHT a packet of cigarettes. She wanted to see if smoking was any good. It must have been, if Clarice was doing it.
Maia watched her. “You look ridiculous and it smells disgusting.”
Mona puffed, and choked, coughed and coughed. Whose fresh healthy lungs embrace poison without resistance?
“You look like those five-year-old gypsy kids who smoke.”
“Shut up, you’re being racist,” Mona said.
‘You really don’t look cool, plus your mom and dad are going to kill you.”
Mona tried a few more puffs and crushed the cigarette against the soil. They were hiding in a bush.
“Not cool,” said Maia.
“Yeah, okay, I get the point.”
“Why do you even want to smoke?”
Mona shrugged; of course she couldn’t say. To impress your sister, she would have said, and that would have sent Maia into shock, she was pretty sure. She had also written Clarice a letter, declaring something like her love. I love everything about you, she had written, your lipstick, your nails, most of all your soul. I also love the name you gave to yourself. Rosa, having found it inside Mona’s diary, had read it and smiled, and also her heart felt heavy at the prospect of her daughter’s heartbreak, or longing, all the confusion coming to her, the years of confusion, the getting, the not getting, the wanting what you want, then getting it, then not wanting it any longer.
Dear Fluffy, I tried smoking today. It was kind of cool. Disgusting too. I want to do something that Clarice does, so that we can maybe do something together; I think if I smoke with her, I won’t appear so young to her, so irrelevant.
