village, a melancholy village. Why is a village more alarming than a town? The smallest village is more alarming than the biggest town, isn’t it? No one locks their door for fear of burglars, but before long here comes your next-door neighbour tapping on the door with an axe. I’m not a fan of villages.
But what can you do, the heart does not ask, after I had left the village of Mitrovići behind me, on my search for Gale, I set out towards the village of Tulumbe in pursuit of my Helanka, because wherever she was he could have been too.
Tulumbe is a village of ghosts, on a mountain between clumps of hazel and meadows full of blueberries. The old Red School in the middle of the fields is concealed by wild corn, and the long burned-out houses have been taken over by plants. Here and there the occasional light in the darkness, a lantern, a generator humming, electricity never reached here, nor asphalt, nor mains water, but there is that delicious water from the forest well, and if the well dries up, there are springs in the villages down the hill. I heard all that, all that and more, my dear, some time ago, and soon I would see for myself. That was two weeks ago, a little less, at the start of my search, at the sweet start, and it was sweet, I can see that now…
I drove tirelessly across and beyond the border, deep into the deserted land of Bosnia, through glistening red and black forests and through canyons full of wild beasts’ eyes, through gigantic greens, a moist tearful landscape of magnanimous beauty and past the peeling façades of towns.
Every minaret and every gilded church bell-tower, and they were as numerous as house chimneys, reminded me of an evil phallus. Evil phalluses are always ready to thrust. ‘Oh God, wherever you may be!’ my grandmother used to say as she watched devastation on television or when she spilled coffee on the tablecloth. If he exists and if he’s worth his salt, of one thing I am certain: from the outset he avoids places of worship.
I drove, without a break, from dawn to dusk, along little by-ways that don’t exist on Sat-Nav, I got lost and then found myself, evening caught me on a road with not one single lit window and the blood in my veins had frozen repeatedly.
And then I became accustomed to the east, studded with tiny stars. The night was not yet impenetrable – soon a small town in a hollow would be revealed by the headlights and beyond it was the village I was looking for. I did not stop until I reached my goal. Such a journey ought perhaps, no, certainly, to be planned, more things and warmer clothes brought along, a different car, not to attract attention, but I had not had time for plans. Freed from plans, from responsibility, from obligations. (I am alone and therefore free, says the optimist. My dear. I am free and therefore alone, says the pessimist.)
If anyone saw me at the one traffic light or at the queue at the border, he would look round questioningly, one person even shouted: ‘Hey, there’s Clementine, the blond, the soap girl!’
I have silicon lips and perfectly whitened teeth, I have a Brazilian hairstyle, soft and expensive, if crumpled, clothes, I drive a gold Mazda convertible, but I am a black orange, inside. Full of hell.
I’m going to a melancholy village. The road devours me sullenly, but the night – the night is glad of me.
LETTER FROM AN INDIFFERENT GOD
Who’s this waking me?
I’m an old, tired God and I have to sleep, because I have to calculate, I have to arrange things, I have to do book-keeping, I have to write down everything that has come in and out of my mouth, I have to digest it all, I have to empty all those inboxes of prayers. Day and night, I sit bowed over the Earth, sorting: a prayer for health, a prayer for forgiveness, a prayer for success, a prayer for a life, but sometimes also a prayer for death. I do my work in a professional manner, the profession of God, I don’t delve into the meaning.
Well, hey, what else could I do; you’re so pathetic, so feeble: blind puppies looking for their mummy, little children for whom their father assumes responsibility. You don’t need a God, just a prosperous parent! An illusionist! A fortune-teller and lottery-drum, that’s the ideal God for you.
Who’s waking me with their sighs?
I’m a God in your image, a conformist God, an indifferent God, a God who doesn’t lose His head, and has forgotten how to fall in love, that was so long ago. When I fall in love, when I feel my body, I who am incorporeal, become a frenzied rapist, a sodomiser and pornographer god, a GHB god and drink-spiker who attacks women and boys disguised as an animal or a spirit, and men disguised as fire or a knife. I’m Achilles and Jesus’s daddy, and, allegedly also the Cyclops, they’re all my pitiful, slain bastards.
It’s true, my love is thieving, criminal, out of control – you would say blasphemous.
But I gave you that signal, finely tuned, the best of myself, a divine spark, a little gift. And what did you do with it? What does love mean to you? Did you love? You faint-hearted folk who have never felt a divine surge of the blood, you have reduced my gift to your narrow measure, you took fright: first for centuries you forbade others from loving, now you forbid it for yourselves.
While I, let me say it again, it’s a well-known fact, I am nothing other than you, your image, your prototype: if you are in love and I am the God of epiphany, your amorous sighs and your laughter are praise for me, I can hardly bear your psychopathic sufferings, hysterical sacrifices, hatreds, prayers and restraint.
I am God, creator, author! I am not a supernatural being produced in the sterile conditions of church laboratories – I am dithyramb, firework, holy heathen. The millennia were hard and repellent, but also full of inspiration for a young god, sprung from wine, dance, thunder, from thought, from a burst star, from the sun, no less! God is immoderate in love, whether he has a form or the face of a totem, a demented saint, an epileptic or wild goddess.
Whoever is waking me, is waking me at a bad moment in the century just begun which I had awaited for a long time with a trembling heart, like a lover who promised tenderness and delights, understanding and harmony, but turned out violent and obtuse.
Let them leave me to carry out my judicial tasks in the indifference which you assigned me, I have found peace here, a flat desk on which I sort out these innumerable prayers.
Should I refer to your merchant priests? Should the likes of them be my PR? Hatred is the only heresy, but indifference is worse. And here too is the hypocrisy of their golden chalices and vestments. What have they to do with the divine? A cross to cross me out with. Could a God, a creator, an artist of genius, be enthused by the dryness of bishops’ underwear and dribbling lips that preach fear and ignorance?
Why, from my finger sprang the mango, the peacock’s tail, Sophia Loren. From the clicking of my tongue fell all the languages of the world, first the tongues of Africa, then the others, including the song of birds and the laughter of small babies.
So sumptuous, mighty and tender can I be.
I no longer wish to have anything to do with scoundrels, I’m too old for such crap. I’m waiting to retire and stick seals on your uneasy consciences.
At some stage I want to be everyone’s God. A magnanimous, powerful and comical father. Until then – make your own way,
Amen.
The sea is more beautiful than cathedrals. But are rivers more beautiful than lively town streets or are streets sometimes more beautiful than rivers and streams? Some Saturday, any morning of that spring, the streets down which I made my way to the sea were lovelier than waterfalls. Full of sky, flowers, fountains and birds, full of people in sunglasses, thin t-shirts and linen trousers. My eyes were seventeen
