The Son. Andrej Nikolaidis
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kitchen in shoes of strong-smelling leather (maybe even dog-leather?), hugged his mother and him, slipped some money for sweets into his pocket like uncles do, and in the evening told them tales of his adventures. What an uncle, what a man!
He made it good in America but died of a broken heart, my grandmother told my father, who later told me: ‘He never married and therefore died unhappy. “Everything I’ve done and all the roads I’ve travelled have been in vain because I’m dying without a son”, he said before he died.’ My mother, while she was alive, maintained he would have lived longer if he’d stayed in America: ‘But he came back, saw your father and fretted for the son he’d never had – that’s what killed him in the end.’
He slaved away all his life, only to die in misery. But he left all his worldly goods to his sister-in-law. That saved her from the penury she faced after her husband’s death and would have had to raise her child in. ‘All my young years I ate the fruits of my uncle’s labour; I fed on his sweat and suffering,’ my father used to say.
The man from Crmnica laboured, suffered and died. That’s the whole story about each and every one of us: the complete biography of the human race. He was buried fifty years ago, and what’s left of him is going up in flames tonight.
Now it’s all over, I thought as I watched the flames rising into the night sky. The hill was burning for the third time in ten years. The fire would be my father’s final defeat. He no longer had the strength to raise the property from the ashes again. After my mother died, the enforced loneliness he was ill-prepared for exacerbated his depression. He hardly ever left the house anymore. He would just sit in the darkened living room all day. I asked myself what he was thinking about, but in fact I didn’t really care. I just hoped he was thinking and that at least his thoughts might manage to break through the tall, smooth walls of depression which surrounded him.
That night the hill was on fire, but he didn’t go out in front of the house even to watch the flames which were swallowing up all his labours. From the balcony of my house I watched his terrace, without hope that he would appear or maybe even step through the door he had decided to die behind. His wife had died, and mine had left me. Two men, each in his own house, whom not even a fire blazing a hundred yards away could unite; not even to watch the spectacle of it devouring their property.
The burning hill sounded like the crackle of an old record. Or the hiss of a cassette. Something you could get rid of by pressing the Dolby button. But now the flames spread out of control down the slopes of the hill. I turned on the local radio and learnt that the first houses had been evacuated. Behind the first houses, of course, were more houses. And then mine. I was horrified by the thought that the whole neighbourhood had again pooled its efforts and was doing its utmost to stop the fire, and in doing so was obstructing the fire brigade in doing its job. I could just imagine the neighbours gossiping about me. ‘He’s the only one who’s not here,’ I could hear them whisper to each other. ‘It’s their property that’s burning and he’s not here. Why do we have to put out their fire?’ they asked themselves, ignoring the fact that they were out there protecting their own houses, not my olive grove. They were only fighting the fire in my olive grove because they feared it could encroach on their houses. ‘My olive grove’ wasn’t mine anyway.
They said on the radio that the government had sold all its Canadair aircraft to Croatia because it had assessed that the country didn’t need a fleet of water bombers. That was in the springtime. The coastal area had been set alight in the first days of June and was still burning – from Lastva above Tivat to Budva, Petrovac, Možura and all the way to Lake Skadar. Now Ulcinj was ablaze too: the flames had spread from my great-uncle’s hill to the first houses in the suburb of Liman. The walls of the Old Town were also at risk, the radio reported.
Since the government had sold the aeroplanes, the fire was being fought with helicopters. They were hauling up water in what looked like sacks and dropping it on the fire. The instant the water fell on the ground, smoke and steam obscured its elemental beauty. Everything vanished momentarily in grey, but the flames only needed another minute or two to re-establish their reign over my father’s property.
I soon tired of the scene. Three helicopters were now in operation, and it was plain to see that they would defeat the fire in what would be one more triumph of technology. Once technology and nature were pitted against each other in this way I felt there was nothing left for me. And yet I simply couldn’t make up my mind as to which was more monstrous: nature itself or the methods people employ in order to dominate it. Before turning and going back into the room, I glanced over to my father’s house. The lights were off, but I knew he wasn’t asleep.
It was at that point that I heard the bleating of goats. The neighbour must have been herding a flock along the road towards the house. ‘Eh, mate!’ I heard him call, and that sound made the blood freeze in my veins. I wasn’t prepared for a conversation with him. I wasn’t in the state of mind to thank him for saving my father’s goats from the fire, or to invite him in for a drink and have a good talk like good neighbours and real men are supposed to.
But he was already standing at the gate, which I always kept locked, and waving to me. Great: now there was no escape. I put on my boxers and went down to open up for him.
‘What a tragedy, eh mate?’ he droned. Fortunately he didn’t expect me to answer. As he drove the goats in through the gate he continued: ‘Everything your father did has burnt down. I only just managed to save these ones here. I got them out when the barn caught fire. There was no saving it. Such a great shame, ain’t it mate? But that’s life for you – people slave away, and sometimes you wonder what for. You slog and sweat, and then everything goes up in smoke in a flash. It was destroyed by the flames, they say. But it wasn’t the flames – it was God.’
With this kind of attitude, he was bound to be considered a wise man by those who knew him.
Finally all the goats were in the courtyard, and I realised I was already sick of the situation. The goats themselves immediately set about what they do best: surviving. These creatures, which had only just eluded death, now grazed indifferently and stank to high heaven. The billy goats were the most accomplished in that; they stank even worse than my neighbour, who doggedly came up behind me every time I tried to move away from him to get a breath of fresh air.
‘You know, old son –,’ he schmoozed, determined to get some reward for his good deed, ‘I always tell people there’s no better rakija than yours.’
‘Let’s go upstairs,’ I said, too weak to fight against the kind of incivility where people invite themselves into others’ houses.
But I hadn’t set one foot on the stairs when I was compelled to turn around abruptly, feeling as if someone was watching me. And sure enough, my paranoia was justified once again: the black he-goat was looking at me intently. His yellow eyes were staring at me in the dark. Their slit-shaped pupils looked like cracks in the earth, ready to swallow me up. He threateningly flared his nostrils, from where a gleaming trail of saliva trickled. His sharp little teeth chewed the grass I’d just walked on, and he kept his eyes on me. I was sure we were thinking about the same thing: he about how to eat me, and me about my flesh disappearing into his mouth, his teeth sinking into my body and tearing off piece after piece.
‘You all right, mate?’ I heard the man say behind me. I turned back and saw my neighbour, whom I’d completely forgotten. For the first time in my life I was glad to see him. For the first time I found comfort in another human being, despite his gap-toothed smile and half-witted gaze set beneath a low brow and red lopears. Away, away from the animals! I thought as I rushed up the stairs. My neighbour ran after me in surprise.
‘Whoa, easy does it, mate. You look a bit pale,’ I heard him say.
I led him into the house and cast one more glance at the he-goat. He was still standing in the same place and staring at me. It was as if he wanted to make it clear to me that I’d opened the gate of my house for him, that he’d entered and that he’d never leave. He’d stand there and wait for me until the end, whenever my end would be.
‘I don’t have any rakija. Do you drink whisky?’