Bely says and crouches behind his black briefcase. Rosa nervously shifts in her chair, takes a sip of her Coke and readjusts her shades with her white-gloved hand.
‘Tough criticism is the only thing that may save us. That and building on the potential of this city, that’s it. That’s why we should look up to others sometimes, so we can learn something. Just look around. There’s no creature on the entire planet as durable and flexible as we are, aside from viruses maybe. The dinosaurs didn’t adapt. Coral didn’t adapt. The Tasmanian tiger didn’t adapt. But then you’ve got us, humans, who can change dramatically even within a single generation. Take the Chinese, for example. A notoriously short nation only thirty years ago, now they’re producing NBA stars.’
Satisfied, the president draws closer to the Dictaphone, slurps his chilled coffee out of a plastic cup and continues speaking. ‘Our deepest survival instinct is closely tied to what we eat. What do our bodies long for when we eat something really healthy, let’s say something homemade, a roasted chicken or a bowl of soup in a macrobiotic restaurant? They want something fatty, sweet, something heavy and forbidden. But why? Because they know that eating filth regularly is a ticket to building up immunity and being adaptable. Look at babies. They lick filthy floors, they stuff themselves with dirt and worms, and we think they’re dumb and not yet socialized. The truth is, they know what’s right because they listen to their unspoiled instinct. Kranj sausage has been labelled unhealthy and criticized by vegetarians, and it’s no secret why. But, let’s face it, no one can smell a sizzling Kranj sausage without salivating like Pavlov’s dog! We love it because of that, and that’s why it’s good for us. The person who eats Kranj sausage on a regular basis will be strong and healthy every day of his life. But it’s crucial that we eat home-made food, that is to say, Kranj sausages slaughtered and processed in the Kranj region, at home …’
Adam nods, slowly pulls a fountain pen out of his pocket and sways it like a pendulum.
‘… it is absolutely crucial for our energy intake that we …’
The president follows the swaying of the pen, his voice growing softer.
‘… eat meat butchered locally. Animals slaughtered locally are …’
The president smirks, pouts his lips and clenches his fists between his legs, like a little boy who takes comfort in wetting his pants.
‘… special animals, they have …’
The president pauses in the middle of the sentence, mesmerized by Bely’s fountain pen.
‘What do animals butchered locally have?’ asks Bely and puts his fountain pen back into his jacket.
‘Our death paradigm,’ the president of the board of the meat-processing company Butcher, Inc., says slowly, syllable by syllable.
Adam shoves the E-meter’s cylindrical electrodes into his hands, turns on the switch: the needle floats to the centre of the dial and comes to rest.
‘Repeat that,’ says Bely.
‘Our death paradigm’.
‘Repeat it again.’
‘Our death paradigm’.
‘Again,’ says Bely.
‘Our death paradigm’.
‘What is a death paradigm?’ asks Bely.
‘The moment when bodies are exchanged, Butcher replies. ‘When the paradigm is calm it is reflected in the flavour of the meat. The pigs must be as still as possible when they die. It’s best if they have no idea what’s about to happen to them. That’s the best recipe for Kranj sausages. The secret isn’t the garlic and the spices. The secret is in how the pigs die.’
‘What kinds of death paradigm do we have?’
‘Our death paradigm is different. Slovenian souls are restless by nature, especially people from Kranj. Our animals are under too much stress when they die. Not good for the sausages. That’s why we usually mix in 15 per cent finely ground car tyres, just to calm the meat down. But that can be changed. The only important thing is that we eat meat that we killed ourselves. Because in this meat we eat ourselves; we eat the levels of energy that we passed on to the animal during the kill.’
‘Who makes the best Kranj sausages?’
‘Bosnians. Nobody is as easy-going and calm as they are. But they won’t butcher pigs, only chickens.’
‘Do you also slaughter chickens?’
‘We have the Halal certification. The Nazis built the factory on two levels, the ground floor and basement. The ground level was designed so that it could be lowered underground during an aerial bombing. The orientation is perfect, and with very little renovation we were able to fix up the underground level and turn it into a slaughterhouse for chickens facing Mecca.’
‘And upstairs?’
‘Off the record, that’s where we make our sausages, although officially the space upstairs is registered as a hunting-rifle factory. Our Muslim clients would skewer us if they knew we were stuffing pork intestines right over their chickens.’
Bely observes the E-meter. The needle hasn’t left the centre of the dial.
‘Aren’t you scared?’ asks Bely.
‘I’m scared that somebody might find out about our moving the hunting-rifle production elsewhere because of the steep increase in orders. The Chinese are huge fans of shooting.’
‘Do you export rifles to China?’
‘We do, rifles and chicken claws. It’s a big business.’
‘What do you see when I say blue?’
‘I see the sea.’
‘What do you see when I say sea?’
‘I see my dreams. Black ink spilling in them. Everything is dark. But it’s not ink, it’s old oil. Hitler was a genius.’
Butcher screws up his face and grins.
‘He knew how to construct gigantic complexes,’ Butcher continues. ‘He would know how to put things in order today. But there’s oil covering everything. The old hydraulics are broken,’ Butcher grins again. ‘There’s no one who can lead us through this petroleum night.’
‘The hydraulics that raise and lower the platform in your factory?’ Bely now gestures to Rosa Portero, who slowly takes off her sun-glasses and retrieves the silver compact from her fur coat.
‘My God, can’t you see the hydraulics going down?’ Butcher grins and emits a strange, animal-like wheezing. ‘Hitler’s dead. The mechanism is broken. Help, can’t you see the platform lowering? The sausages! Kranj sausages,’ Butcher wheezes once again, turning pale. ‘Down below, there, they’ll squash the entire hall with thousands of halal chickens facing Mecca. Help!’
The president lets go of the E-meter cylinders, jumps up and starts wheezing again, as if choking on his own tongue. He’s drenched in sweat, disoriented, his eyes wandering the room. Bely jumps up and tries to get him to sit back down again.
A
