Singer in the Night. Olja Savicevic
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art cannot give them. That’s how one producer flattered me (not Kalemengo, Kalemengo is a decent guy), but one who wanted to have it off with me, in which in the end he succeeded, probably because at that stage of my life I was denied all of the above: good-looking lovers, emotions, falling in love among other things.
And to make matters worse, that poor dreary slob of a producer who produces productions was right.
People needed a lot of cheap, quick emotion, they needed it in greater quantities than it was possible to produce, teams of typists banged away on keyboards, churning out total nebulousness, without investing an iota of passion in it, just angry typing slaves’ sweat, but out of that sweat germinated and bloomed abundant, copious magnificent gunk which in turn generated laughter and tears, loves, fears and passions and moved people like the best works of art.
Let’s face it, gunk has moved the vast majority of people and filled their thoughts probably more than the best work of art ever could.
Oh no: oh yes. That’s the way it is.
At the end of that day, my mobile showed twenty-four unanswered calls (a dozen from Kalemengo, two from my brother, and – to my surprise – two from Bert), but not one I felt like replying to. When it rang again, I wondered how it would be to throw the phone into the sea and watch it sink, dumb and deaf. It would be like a small victory. However, that momentary relief would have brought existential complications, and I had already decided to return to Ljubljana as soon as day broke. So instead I switched the mobile off until morning (sleep, sleep little master).
When I finally unlocked the door of the boat, moved aside the hatch cover and slipped under the prow where I was to spend the first night of the journey I am writing about, things changed: Although I rummaged through everything, I didn’t find the boat’s log in the boat either, but under the mast, on the table, carefully laid in a box, those letters of Gale’s awaited me (I shall read some of them here).
The difference between Gale and a lunatic lies in the fact that Gale is a worker, truly Japanese in his craft. Had he engaged in any slightly more lucrative occupation with as much zeal, who knows, my dear, he would be a wealthy man. So, I crawled in under the prow and read until my torch battery gave out – since I didn’t have a clue where the electricity cable was.
LETTER FROM A WISTFUL DOG
Distinguished people, canine friends and others,
I believe you are familiar with the little acoustic scandal that has been rocking our neighbourhood in recent days, or perhaps you are the very ones who have been filling our silent nights with decibels of passion – whatever.
Whether you make love quietly like dogs or loudly like cats is not the main issue, I am addressing you with the desire, prompted by the aforementioned events, to share with you a dog’s thoughts about love. In this appeal, I ask just one thing of you: that, caught up in a vortex of passion or exasperated or astounded by feverish cries from the darkness, you do not forget that as well as feline love that screeches there is also canine love that whines. Remember that at least in the morning, when the common sense and innocence of a beginning briefly reign, toss a bone or two to those genuinely hungry for love and meat.
This letter is also a study of unrequited loyalty – it is well-known that loyalty is inherent in canine love. But loyalty, contrary to widespread and superficial conviction, is not always monogamous, just as monogamy need not always be loyal or devoted, with either humans or dogs.
You may remember, perhaps, the handsome mixture of schnauzer and who-knows-what dog from our street, whom you called Shakespeare-in-love? That shaggy fellow (we’ll go on calling him Shakespeare, so there’s no confusion), at the time of the banishment of a certain little bitch Gara from the district of Mertojak, would run away from his comfortable home in Šimunović Street, to settle himself outside her gate. For three years in a row, he exposed himself to peril by dashing through the busy streets, for two weeks he would be without a roof over his head, hungry and thirsty, dependent on charity; he sat outside her courtyard resolutely, like a hairy monument, waiting for Gara to show her little tail.
Barking intrepidly and baring her teeth, she drove all other dogs from her hindquarters, which was not easy, because, we all remember, when her mistress took her out for walks, she would return at a run, with her little dog in her arms, accompanied by insatiable Alsatians, Labradors and Dachshunds which had broken their chains and, driven by their senses, roamed through the streets wordlessly and furiously pleading for a partner.
But only one, outside that hypnotised pack, made a suitable mate for her and as soon as her mistress looked away, little Gara would leap over the fence, lift up her tail, and Shakespeare-in-love would readily lock on.
Once, when they were locked like that, blinded like an amorous Janus, the unfortunate happy couple spent hours outside the back entrance to the building, and your children tugged at them and threw stones at them – but they were unable to part. That can even happen to humans, sometimes a timorous heart can block the nether regions, let alone to dogs whose brains are full of moonlight and adrenalin.
When, for the second spring in a row, Gara’s young mistress was surprised by a damp heap of puppies in her laundry basket, that marked the end of Gara and Shakespeare-in-love’s romantic liaison.
After the procedure, Gara was no longer up for anything, uninterested in mating, she gave herself up to food and melancholy, while Shakespeare transferred his amorous vigil a few streets further away to Luna the spaniel and remained hers faithfully for ever more. After Luna came Hani the pug. His affair with the pug resulted in some interesting offspring of the canine genus, and, consequentially, the dog’s master reined him in, so that he was no longer seen without a leash, starry-eyed and frisky.
But before and after these serial monogamies, canine erotic romances, golden ringlets and defiant bristles, excavated bones and painful balls, Shakespeare always returned to his human. The dog did not resent it even when he had him castrated. Indeed, it focused his faithfulness and he was in a way grateful that he had been freed from sexual tension. Now he was able to adore his dear human friend with his whole being, with the unconditional, unrestrained, platonic, mad and pure love that only dogs bestow. His unalloyed devotion did not end even when his man abandoned him, leaving him in the street, why yes, like a cur, as people rightly say.
Only a dog can have such a stupid heart. A dog like me, a religious fanatic.
You know me? Shakespeare-in-love, the tailless ragamuffin, from a Schnauzer mother and unidentified terrier. Maybe you yelled at me when I was rolling a beef bone I’d stolen from the butcher down the street, maybe you kicked a stone in my direction or threw a bunch of keys at me when I sniffed your coiffured pup’s backside.
Towards the end of spring, my best friend left me in the wood beside the slaughterhouse, over there by the motorway, I walked for seven nights and six days, got home, with a bloody nose and torn paws and in the morning, in front of his house, when he was leaving for work, I threw myself at his feet, crazy with joy. He stopped in surprise and then said: scram!
And that was all.
I still wait for him in the morning, outside the building. I don’t throw myself at his feet, I stand to one side and wait, I only whine when he has gone.
Neither dirt nor poverty have dimmed the shine of my humiliation. Is there anything more dignified than being humiliated in love? It is a spectacular fall and the further you fall, the deeper is your sorrow, and the more magnificent your pain. You who skirt around me in the street, fearful and disgusted, should know that whenever you kick me you send me to the sky, along with your contempt, my love-luff-uff-uff that no one needs becomes ever more beautiful, this suffering could make a holy dog of me.
I’ve seen this too: a few days ago, my human bought a new dog. I don’t despair and I don’t hope, but I still wait. Besides, where could I go with this invisible chain with which I was born.
So, I ask you again, because I am a scrounger and beggar and skinflint if necessary – caught up in the vortex of passion or exasperated or astounded by feverish cries from the darkness, do not forget that in addition to feline love that screeches, there is also