Rosa sets a silver compact on the soaked newspaper. It’s full of lightbrown oyster crackers.
‘For thirty years I’ve eaten only fish, no crackers,’ says Gram.
‘What’s thirty years compared with eternity?’ says Bely and shoves an oyster cracker down his throat.
A few minutes later, the New World neon sign outside turns off. Two pairs of legs, one of them staggering slightly. Trudging through the fresh snow, which comes down as if it were going to consume the city, the whole world, once and for all. The bells strike three times. Posters of red crosses on black backgrounds. A cat dashes across the empty street. Midnight is fast approaching.
Butcher
‘Mr President, the Austrian journalists have arrived.’ A secretary announces the appointment to Tine Butcher, director of Butcher Inc. meat products.
In truth, Tine Butcher is not the president of a country, he is president of the board of directors of a meat-processing company. But Tine Butcher is a practical man, so, to facilitate communication with his foreign business partners, he changed his last name. And to facilitate association with the company, which he both directs and owns a majority share in, he changed its name, too. In this way the Agricultural and Food Processing Cooperative of Upper Drava Livestock Farmers and Meat Processors became Butcher, Inc. His employees are expected to address him accordingly with the proper respect, especially at the headquarters of the company over which he presides.
‘Please have a seat, gentlemen. May I offer you a cup of coffee, tea, juice?’ Butcher asks while signing a few documents on the desk.
A bland, modern office interior: walls painted in somewhat incompatible shades of cream and rose, a tall Ficus benjamina in the corner, a gigantic plasma television, a desk with the company flag on it, leather armchairs on the other side of the president’s desk, the feeling that we could be anywhere were we not exactly where we are.
‘You’re local, aren’t you? I don’t need to tell you about the Maribor Automotive Factory and how they went under, do I? Anyway, it was on the site of that former industrial giant that we started our business sixteen years ago. Hitler himself ordered a factory to be built there, which produced aircraft-engine parts until the end of 1944. After the Second World War the same site boasted the biggest Yugoslav factory for the manufacture of truck and tank engines as well as light weaponry, mostly hunting rifles. But that’s all gone. We don’t manufacture rifles and aircraft any more, the way Hitler and Tito did. Today all we make are scrumptious local Kranj sausages,’ Butcher says confidently, as if he had trotted out the same sentences countless times before.
With a nod of her head Rosa Portero thanks the secretary for the Coca-Cola she has brought her then checks the Dictaphone to make sure it’s actually working. Despite the grey winter’s day, she wears sunglasses and seems exhausted. Every now and then, during the president’s performance, Adam Bely leans over to her and quietly recapitulates his declarations in German.
‘You’ve mentioned Kranj sausage,’ Bely cuts in politely. ‘We are talking about the crown jewel of your product line, correct?’
‘That is correct,’ replies Tine Butcher. ‘Annually we produce about 16 million hand-skewer-bound sausages, first-class sausages. We export them to over forty countries worldwide. Our sausages travelled into space with the American astronaut Nancy Sing, who has Slovenian roots; and, if we’re lucky, it will become the first sausage ever to land on the moon. Negotiations with NASA are well under way.’
‘The Kranj sausage travelling into space has been covered by Austrian news media, but what I want to know is, what made it so popular? It doesn’t come from the city of Kranj, even though it’s named after it. It doesn’t even come from the Kranj region, but all the way from Lower Styria, isn’t that right?’ Bely asks.
Pleased with the question, the president leans back comfortably. His body language indicates he is happy to be asked something in his area of expertise, his terrain, his wheelhouse. This was his question. He takes a deep breath.
‘The Kranj sausage is a typical European story,’ he continues confidently. ‘The European Union has approached us with a historical opportunity here. You know what I’m talking about? No, not the free market; we practised that back in the days of Yugoslavia. I’m not talking about Western marketing manoeuvres either. We mastered that under Communism, too. No, what the EU has given us is a once-in-a-lifetime, historical …’ the president struts his stuff, his voice filled with zeal and emotion. ‘Are you listening? Historical opportunity.’
Adam Bely stops translating into Rosa Portero’s ear. They both stop, stunned by the president’s half-finished statement, which soars before them like a soap bubble, then trembles, rises, sinks, then rises again and bursts.
‘An opportunity?’ asks Bely. ‘What sort of opportunity, Mr President?’
‘The opportunity to register our own trademark, what else?’ The president of Butcher, Inc. smiles, thrilled that yet another pair of tiny, ignorant deer are caught in his grandiose rhetorical headlights.
‘We successfully registered our Kranj sausage, and there is no one in the entire European Union who can take it away from us. Do you know what that means? There are only eleven registered manufacturers of Kranj sausage in this galaxy, and we’re the biggest of them all. We’re the best of them all, and we have the best market penetration of any of them. Are you recording?’
A little baffled by his abrupt question, Adam leans over the Dictaphone and nods.
‘Of course, it’s not true that our sausages aren’t made in Kranj,’ Butcher continues unperturbed. ‘It’s not true that the Kranj sausages we manufacture here in Lower Styria aren’t authentic Kranj sausages from Upper Carniola. Let’s take a closer look. What makes a sausage a Kranj sausage? The recipe is brilliant in its simplicity: the best pork, young elastic pig intestines, a pinch of salt, some pepper and top quality garlic. And beech tree smoke. That’s it. So, Kranj sausage is mostly pork. Correct?’
The president leans over to Bely, who hastily nods.
‘Now, please tell me what place can claim an animal, a pig in this case, as its own? If you ask me, it’s not the place where the swine was born, and it’s not the place where it was raised. It’s easy these days to feed a Canadian-born swine with Czech grain somewhere in Bangladesh and not even know it. Do you see what I’m getting at? The only thing that determines whether we’re dealing with Kranj pork or not is whether the pig was slaughtered in Kranj or somewhere else. Our first-class Kranj sausages are made of top-quality pork, which always comes from pigs slaughtered in one of the certified Kranj slaughterhouses, full stop. All our pork comes from Kranj, but it is here, in Maribor, where this certified meat is processed into sausages. And so it is entirely possible that the best-quality Kranj sausages actually come from Lower Styria.’
‘But would you say that Maribor and its inhabitants are aware of the developmental potential that the Kranj sausage holds for them?’ Adam Bely pauses before uttering the word ‘developmental’, as if he had a lump to swallow.
‘Maribor is my city. I would never want to live anywhere other than in Maribor. But, let’s face it, Maribor is a synonym for fast food. Maribor knows nothing of quality cuisine. Sure, we all sin at McDonald’s at times, and there’s nothing wrong with that. But if that shit is all you eat, then your ears will fall off, your veins will atrophy, you’ll get fat and your body will inevitably deteriorate. That’s what happened to this city mentally, too. After they chased out the Germans at the end
