First Cycle - Spring Read online

  “Dad, I want to play the harp,” said Viktor while his father finished cutting up his schnitzel.

  “Of course. Now come on, eat.”

  Viktor took a piece of steak, chewed it, and repeated: “Papa, I want to play the harp.”

  His father paused. “What?”

  “The harp. I want to learn how to play the harp.”

  “What does your mother say?”

  “She said yes.”

  “All right, Viktor. Finish your plate and we’ll talk about it later.”

  After lunch they always went to the roof of the tower, where his father could smoke a cigarette and Viktor examine the sky and the surrounding city through a large, mounted telescope. As Viktor was still too small to look through the lens of the telescope unaided, his father had designated him a chair on which he could climb, even writing on the chair with Tippex ‘Viktor,’ turning the I in the name into the company logo: an eye in the middle of a white flower.

  After his father had polished off two cigarettes and Viktor had satisfactorily examined both the cityscape of Hedera Helix and the cloud formations overhead, they rode the elevator to the basement where Immanuel Abies left Viktor in the guard room of the security department.

  At 4pm Viktor always had his ‘date’ with Gerald van den Berg. Gerald van den Berg was the supervisor of the CCTV throughout the building. For half an hour Viktor would sit with Gerald and they would watch the screens. Occasionally Gerald would take out his radio or press a button on the console and say things like ‘115 to 438, guarding floor 23’ or ‘115 to 574, Park E deck, blue Golf at 159, authenticate’. Gerald van den Berg came from a country where there were lions and giraffes, where women wore golden rings around their necks, balanced large baskets on their heads and you could supposedly get the best food in the world: cassava with smoked fish. Once, when Viktor had asked why his skin was black, Gerald had replied, “When God was baking people, he was distracted by an emergency call and forgot about me. When he remembered, I was a little bit burnt.”

  More often than not such afternoons proved to be quiet affairs as no one threatened the safety of the employees, no mysterious cars lingered in the parking deck, and no suspicious machinations in the corridor caught Gerald’s attention. As these periods were so often quiet, Viktor and Gerald occupied their time exchanging football stickers. Gerald always had three large packets of cheese triangles under his desk and after they had engaged in long arguments about who keeps which sticker, the two of them would often munch the triangles, using the technique of biting the corner off the triangle then squeezing the cheese into their mouths like toothpaste. Gerald would always enlighten him with endless facts and titbits related to any footballer you may wish to know about. Viktor had therefore learnt from Gerald such expressions as “he should go fuck himself” or “they run like they have sticks up their arses” or “even his mother couldn’t kiss that face.” Then one day Immanuel informed Viktor that Gerald had been suspended from work for two weeks and, when he returned, Viktor never again heard such expressions leave his lips. Even with the absence of such colourful expletives however, the 4pm date was still a highlight of Viktor’s week, especially seen as Gerald had once made him his own placard which read, ‘Viktor P. Abies – Associate Chief Inspector and Master Professional Football Sticker Swapper.’ Years later, when Viktor no longer went to the company after school, he still kept the sign in a box under his bed.

  At 16:28 pm Gerald and Viktor always watched a young man walked into the lobby on the monitors. The young man’s name was Marco and he was Viktor’s homework tutor. Marco always had a slight cough, giving off an anaemic impression that worked in unison with his shyness and his awkwardness. He had once held an internship at Bresolino Views and, once the internship had run its course, Immanuel Abies had hired him as a tutor for his son because of his outstanding marks in electrical engineering, and the meticulous care he took to always convey his constant obedience. Marco had proved to be such a success as Viktor’s tutor that the latter had risen to top of his class and even achieved the rank of school’s best in first grade. Such achievements had led Immanuel to double Marco’s salary and furthermore award him with a new mountain bike, the result of which was such a show of gratitude, humility, subservience and respect that Marco was akin to an ice cream melting in the sun, an ice cream whose level of commitment to Immanuel, Viktor, and Bresolino Views, simply couldn’t be measured. Although the time spent in an empty top floor room with Marco pouring over homework was never fun nor exciting, Viktor had long learnt to see both the worth of Marco’s assistance and the wisdom of his patient presence, a view that lead him to adopt a fairly collective stance toward any sticky note with some observations or explanations from Marco on it.

  At promptly 6pm the session would end. At the very beginning, when Viktor was still in the first grade, Viktor’s homework would never stretch through the whole 90 minutes for which Marco was paid and, seeing as Immanuel insisted Marco be paid for 90 minutes regardless of how much there was to do, Marco never idled but instead invested his intellect in the creation of numerous educational games and tests solely invented to help pass the time. When such a session would fall on a school holiday – even during school holidays Viktor, for some incomprehensible reason, had homework – Marco would always take Viktor on an educational trip. They’d so far visited a soap factory, an ice cream factory, various farms and garages in the area of Hedera Helix, the Natural History Museum and furthermore every event organised by both Amnesty International and Greenpeace. His father of course had to approve all these trips, and would often do so with a generous allowance given over to ice cream providing that Viktor be able to relate later all he’d seen and learnt on the trip.

  When Marco finally left come 6pm, Viktor was then obliged to sit beside Emilia, the secretary of his father. Emilia was always very busy in her capacity as secretary. When she wasn’t on the phone or scribbling notes in her calendar, she was tap tap tapping away at the keyboard or running after Viktor’s father brandishing papers or lists. Thankfully though the period he spent with her, from 6 to 7, was ‘the end of the business day,’ and so after twenty or so minutes of frantic chaos she would finally have time to turn her attention to Viktor and, not really acknowledging the fact that he was a little boy, she would relate to him all manner of anecdotes related to clients or business matters. Viktor never understood what she was saying, but he listened politely and attentively and nodded when he thought that such a sign was expected of him. He found Emilia very pretty, her long brown hair and glasses catching his eye in a way he found deeply intriguing, a sensation added to by her wonderful smell and the sense that, with her office always full of fresh flowers and chocolates, she was quite liked by everyone. In addition to incomprehensible tales of Bresolino Views’ business, Emilia from time to time shared with Viktor certain things that he could understand. As a result, from an early age Viktor was aware of which handbags were the must have accessories of the month, that a mixture of egg yolk, olive oil and nettle tea gave you very healthy hair, and that the addition of a shot of pickle juice to a pasta salad makes a wonderful dish. Today, he learnt the importance of retaining receipts post sale, especially seen as some sales assistants can prove quite bitchy should you wish to return an item without a receipt. Viktor made sure to make a mental note of the importance of storing such paperwork carefully.

  7pm always brought about the end of Emilia’s workday, an event signified by her pulling on her jacket, slinging her bag on her shoulder, hugging Viktor with a kiss on the cheek before throwing a shouted ‘Bye, sweetie!’ over her shoulder as she ran to the elevators.

  Once Emilia had left, Viktor had forty-five minutes to himself as his father was occupied with either meetings or video conferences. In order to help him pass this time, a small desk had been set up with crayons, paper, books and a small microscope. It was this latter addition that would then distract Viktor for the majority of those forty-five minutes, a hobby that had begun once wh
en he’d seen his own fingers under the microscope. Though to be honest this first encounter hadn’t done much to prophesize the fun he would have later, as the sight of his fingernails’ deep grooves and furrows and mud brought about in him a fright so terrible he stayed away from the microscope for days. Once this first encounter had faded in its horror, he found a growing fascination with the device blooming within him and a new desire to inspect everything he could find overcame him: chewing gum, dust, soil from the pots, erasers, Emilia’s earrings, boogers, scraps of paper or hair. Each and every one ended up under that powerful lens and the inquisitive eye behind it.

  At 19:30 the cleaning lady always came with her wiping, vacuuming and emptying of the rubbish bins. This lady came from an exotic country, something constantly reinforced by the fact that she only spoke some incomprehensible language. The first occasion Viktor had met this lady was one that had filled him with fear and suspicion, both born of his lack of understanding as to what she was on about. Such feelings soon wore off however as Viktor learnt to see past the foreign words and hear in their intonations a soft, almost peaceful tone that, as the office was quite empty and therefore creepy in the evenings, worked to avail him of his other fears. Sometimes the cleaning lady would sing a song from her native country or gesture wildly with flailing arms and jabber angrily about an elderly man whose photo she always had in her purse. Viktor, having grown accustomed to these strange displays, had learnt to nod his head vigorously and always put forth the pretence that he understood, even though his jaw more often than not hung low in a giving sign of his ignorance.

  Viktor loved Bresolino Views, and Gerald, Marco, Emilia and the cleaning lady were his best friends for years.

  Today he informed all those he met about his new ambition to learn the harp, stressing as he did so: “Please let papa to say yes, please! Tell him to say yes,” as if, being adults, they all had such power.

  The responses he’d gotten were as follows:

  Gerald had looked at him funny and asked: “Are you a small angel in a white dress with wings or what?”

  Marco had been nervous and said he couldn’t, wouldn’t, shouldn’t be the one to say something like that to his boss.

  Emilia had laughed and said, “Oh, how sweet, my darling!” before adding, “Harps are expensive and very hard to learn!”

  Finally, the cleaning lady had listened intently, blinked her eyes, shrugged her shoulders and given Viktor a piece of candy as way of a response.

  In the car when his father was driving him home, Viktor once more mentioned the thorny issue.

  His father switched to fourth gear, overtook another car and asked, “Viktor, where on earth did you ever pick up such an idea?”

  “Just like that. I want to learn it.”

  “But a harp! Why a harp?”

  “I want to play the harp.”

  “Wouldn’t you prefer to learn the guitar?”

  Viktor shook his head, adding an additional “no” due to the darkness of the car’s interior and his father concentrating on the road.

  “You could join a football club instead. Playing football is fun! After all, you already collect the stickers. Think, you could even be the next Battigól!”

  Viktor thought about it, then shook his head and stressed: “I need to play the harp.”

  His father looked unhappy. “Tell me a compelling reason why I should agree?”

  Viktor thought for a moment and then replied: “I think that it will do my brain some good.”

  “How?” His father exclaimed, startled.

  “I don’t really know. But I know that I have to play the harp.”

  His father looked quite worried after this exchange, so much so in fact that the next day he had a neurologist spend four hours examining Viktor, his results being summarised in twelve pages that stated Viktor was perfectly healthy and his brain completely in order.

  His father relented, buying him a small harp. He warned his son that it had cost him almost as much as a new car and that, as such, Viktor was to not only see that not even a scratch marred its surface, but also that he would learn under the guidance of a professional.

  Viktor therefore began visiting a harp teacher and, though he took his lessons seriously and practiced carefully, he soon decided that playing the harp was not only difficult, but also boring; two realisations that led him to give it up.

  Gynoecium

  Viktor had been sick again.

  Helena Abies carried him his to bed and admonished him: “Don’t scratch so much!”

  In addition to gastrointestinal flu, he had lice. In this latter affliction he wasn’t alone, however, as his whole class had been suspended from school while the parents had received the order to completely rid their children of the lice infestation.

  “Viktor, I can’t stay next to you all day.” His mother said as she placed a bucket next to the bed. “I’ll come up again in an hour. If you have to be sick, please don’t do it in or behind the bed but in the bucket. Do you understand?” Viktor nodded. “And stay away from your hair! I’m sending Oded to the pharmacy and he’ll buy you something for it.” She kissed him on the forehead, drew the curtains, told him that he should sleep a little, and went out. He heard her open the door, close it again, and then her footsteps as she went down the stairs.

  Viktor and his mother lived in a small apartment above the tailor shop and Viktor was infinitely pleased with this living situation. Of his friends and classmates he was the only one whose parent lived above the place where they worked. Viktor couldn’t imagine life without the tailor shop nor without his mother always being so near by. Having the staff also live in small one-room apartments above the tailorshop made them feel like family as well. His mother often took business trips, theatre performances where she created costumes or galas where she made gowns, but she was never away for more than a few days. Helena Abies was one of the most famous personalities in Hedera Helix. She’d been mentioned in many acceptance speeches, her studio was often in the newspaper, and once she’d even been on television, though Viktor had been so small at the time that he didn’t remember any of it. Helena had even been permitted to organize a fashion show once in a palazzo in Venice. Viktor had been allowed to go with her but Venice had creeped him out. Maybe it was because on each of the four days they’d been there he’d fallen in the canals. His mother had been very angry, swearing that she’d never take him anywhere again before giving him the silent treatment on the flight home. Looking back, however, maybe her anger on the plane had had more to do with the fact that Viktor had knocked lasagne all over her lap before accidentally covering the other passenger next to him in coke.

  He had also accompanied his father on several business trips. Helsinki he found boring, Abu Dhabi too warm, Shanghai scarier than Venice (he’d gotten lost there and spent three hours in a police station surrounded by outlandish sounding and looking people who stared at him the whole time while he wailed like a baby and simply couldn’t stop himself from crying). As for Caracas, he couldn’t remember a thing and finally Canada had been so cold he’d spent two weeks in the hospital with pneumonia. His father, strangely enough, never asked him on a business trip after that.

  Now he lay there, trying not to think of his scalp, and instead inspected the linen. There were green monsters on a dark blue background who, all over the place, drove red tractors and had very crooked eyes with their tongues hanging out. He was terribly bored, but he was too tired to get up and do something, so he stared at the ceiling and heard the humming of the sewing machines below. The business area consisted of Helena’s peach reception room, the couch and the peach-coloured armchairs, a table with scattered catalogues on it, and a reception desk. The customer came in, got tea or coffee or on warm days fresh lemonade, studied the dresses, suits or other garments in the catalogues till they found what they liked, then Helena would take their measurements and lead the customer into the two storage rooms in the basement where they could choose the fabric for their gar
ment. When the customer finally left, Helena brought the fabric and the dimensions back to the workshop. There, three women from the Philippines and two men from Bahrain got to work cutting the fabric, sewing on beads, embroidering by hand or working on the incessantly rattling sewing machines. After that Helena would often sit alone in the studio at night in order to work by hand and give each item her own personal touch.

  Viktor had several boxes under the bed with costumes that Helena had made for him over the years. He had Superman, Batman, Sherlock Holmes, Robin Hood, several pirate costumes, a Tyrannosaurus Rex, Pikachu, some military uniforms and He-Man. These costumes were his greatest pride and he wore them whenever the occasion offered itself.

  Right now, however, he felt like a dog on a dump. He forced himself to get up, open the curtains and then open the window. It was a sultry afternoon. He saw Kennedy in the courtyard bathed in sunlight. “Kennedy,” he called softly. The cat looked up, meowed and then went back to sleep.

  When Viktor was younger, he’d been firmly convinced that Kennedy’s father was an admiral and had a huge fleet, and that Kennedy, when the fleet had once docked in Hedera Helix (Hedera was terribly landlocked, not even possessing a river), had jumped ship and decided to stay because it was not as scary as other cities. Furthermore, she’d then chosen the Fourth District to be her home. For Viktor this made perfect sense. His father lived in the Ninth, a District filled with large apartment blocks with doormen and valets who parked their cars and lifts that led directly into homes where each apartment had a terrace that was bigger than Helena’s entire apartment. Viktor didn’t like this District. Everything was too clean, and when he stayed with his father the maid would always peer disapprovingly over the toys he left scattered around the apartment. Once, while eating chocolate in bed, he’d fallen asleep. The next morning he awoke to find the chocolate had not only melted under him, but spread all over the sheets as he’d tossed and turned at night. The two maids had been so disgusted, thinking he’d pooped in bed, that they had cast such dark looks over Viktor that he could still see their faces now.