Hospital farewell

In a suppressed, earnest, somewhat conspiratorial tone, aunt Jane asked the three of us to meet her behind the house, in the backyard. She said she had something important to tell us. As I saw Susie going downstairs, we exchanged glances: we knew what this was about. This was about uncle Matthew. Uncle Matthew was paralyzed, and we were about to go see him at the hospital. We knew all that, even Sam (though he probably was clueless as to what ‘paralyzed’ actually meant), so I was failing to see what aunt Jane was getting at. Preventive scolding? Pep talk?

- Your uncle is not going to make it, – aunt Jane said as we stood there in the already chilly August wind. Leaning against the barren, threadbare apple tree, Susie was shaking visibly, maybe deliberately, as if to let everyone know she wouldn’t mind getting back inside the house. However, the sad, humourless woman that aunt Jane was, she was of course determined to speak further.

- You’ve heard about the accident. You know uncle Matthew is very sick… He is paralyzed.

- What’s paralyzed, aunt Jane? – This was Sam, obviously. He was at the age when asking ridiculous questions felt like the best way of establishing good rapport with the outside world.

- Well, Sam, it’s when a person can’t move. The muscles in his body won’t respond. Your uncle is dying.

Thankfully, Sam fell silent. My right foot might have had something to do with that. If he asked what ‘dying’ meant, he knew there would be heavy beating afterwards. So he fell silent, and aunt Jane continued.

- Now I know what you think of your uncle. Particularly you, Philip, – she looked at me, and for the first time that day I paid attention to her oily cheeks, like something a particularly fastidious rain could do. Distant tears, they made the area around her eyes look like dimly shining fish scales. I thought that looked repulsive. Also, why me. Why not Susie. She had her reasons, too. – You really hate your uncle, don’t you?

- No, aunt Jane, I can assure you…

- Oh please, drop it. I’m talking to you here because I don’t want your parents to hear this. You know how they are. They will get upset. – She waited ten seconds, as if anticipating some challenge from me or from Susie. This time, however, we knew better. – Well, anyway, I guess I just wanted to tell you that you will probably see your uncle for the last time today. The very last time. He is not going to make it.

That’s it, I thought, she has gone full circle.

- I want you to be nice to him. He deserves it. – She gave me a hard look, her voice quivering. – He will not be able to move, but he will hear you. Say something nice. He will see you. He will understand.

- Okay, – Susie said. – Okay, aunt Jane. Of course. We get it. Can we go now? I’m cold.

Aunt Jane nodded, her desperate ‘I give up’ gesture. I was in awe of Susie’s seemingly boundless cynicism and felt like a child, bewildered schoolboy, hopeless neophyte at moments like that. I could not go that far, I was bound to choke on something. Like a nasty fishbone, a bad dream would come, a feeling. Feeling!.. Sometimes Susie’s attitude seemed so relentless, so disgustingly overwhelming that I wanted her to shut up. However, I could not kick her ankle. Susie was not Sam. She was 16. She was two years older than me.

Hated him? Sure we did. However, not before both of them started regularly coming to our house for summer. At first neither Susie nor I could see any reason for that (after all, they had a perfectly normal house themselves), but it was not like we could do anything about that. The first time they came, we disregarded the two bulky suitcases and thought this would be a short-lived hello-goodbye sort of thing. A matter of two days. But – no. Like bad habits, like painful memories, like your worst splinters, they had to stay.

While they both seemed like a nasty, unwelcome contrast to my parents (who suddenly revealed themselves as two flimsy, invisible, listless entities whose authority could only extend to Sam, and even that could be questioned), we still thought that for all her fussiness aunt Jane was okay.

- It is just that she doesn’t have kids of her own, – Susie said once. Interesting how she excluded uncle Matthew from that thought. And then she would always add: – I bet they never even had sex.

Sex was where you could trust Susie. Judging from her own stories, she could have been pregnant numerous times. If all those names of her male classmates and her peculiar size gradation were anything to go by.

But with uncle Matthew it was different. There was hate, yes, but part of it came from fear. Fear that one day he would tell everyone, fear that he has already done that. However, I didn’t see why aunt Jane had to include Sam in all that. Sam didn’t mind uncle Matthew. Sam didn’t mind anyone. Sam wouldn’t have minded the end of the world if he was still allowed to drink milk-shakes and play shooter games. Susie and me, though, we certainly had our reasons. I still shiver from the memory of him entering the kitchen right when my hand was under her summer frock and in the delicate process of rolling her panties down her legs. I imagine my father standing there. No, he wouldn’t have said sorry – he would have probably frowned, blushed and made the kind of disgusted face that could send us both muttering lame excuses… Uncle Matthew, though, made a scene of it, and didn’t let us go away until he told me I could grow up a pervert and (he did say it, though I still find it hard to believe) a pedophile. He then asked us what we thought would become of our parents (or, indeed, Sam) if they saw us. Also, we had to make a half-hearted promise to never do that again. Only then he let us go. We felt slighted, embarrassed, ashamed. The thing was, you could not challenge that depressing, dwarfish man. You could challenge aunt Jane on just about anything, but you could never challenge uncle Matthew even on watering the goddamn flowers.

Of course we did that again, numerous times, but this would always be accompanied by an edgy sense of frustration. Susie would never let me touch her as often as before, and I myself would only do that if time was right and the door was locked. Lest uncle Matthew should feel like entering the room.

It was odd, but it appeared that he never told anyone. Though strategically that must have been the clever thing to do. This was something we always had to be aware of, and when he told me to go outside help him wash his car, I did exactly that. As for Susie, I remember one instance when one look on his face made her change her skirt next time she went to a party.

- He just wants to get laid, believe me, – Susie told me afterwards. – It’s not you who’s a pervert.

- Yes, – I said. – But do you think he might have told someone?

Though speaking of ‘tell’, it no longer seemed so desperate after that car accident. Of course, there was no way he could tell now, but the day Susie got into what she called her first the relationship, the whole thing stopped. She never said anything, but from now on I had to think of a damn good excuse to even enter her room…

So what could we tell him as he was lying there paralyzed in his hospital bed, unable to speak or move a muscle? “Something nice”, – aunt Jane suggested. “Nice”, – I thought. Sorry about the accident. Love you, uncle Matthew. Won’t do that again, uncle Matthew. God, I could hardly say any of that.

- Susie, – I knocked on my sister’s door. It was time to go.

- What? – she called out. – I’m going, I’m going.

- Susie, please don’t put on that purple skirt of yours. Just please don’t do that.

- What?!? – she exclaimed, blowing the door open, hitting me on the shoulder and almost knocking me off my feet. – Are you out of your fucking mind?

Part of me was bewildered, another part relieved. She was standing there in front of me in that dress mom had given her for her birthday two or three years ago. The one she was supposed to feed to the moths. I wondered whether she was taking the piss.

However, nothing about the look on her face could help me detect any falsehood.

- Susie, – I said as we were about to get inside the car. – What should we say to him?

- Just say goodbye, – she whispered blankly. – That’s the only thing to say, really.

Oh okay, I thought, pushing Sam to the other end of the car seat. Now it looked like we were all ready to go.

I don't like the clown

You see, I don’t have any particular claims here. Nothing. I don’t own the place. I wasn’t around back when it first appeared. Hell, I don’t even love it all that much. I only have my working hours to declare, and it has recently dawned on me that I have 36 years of those. No small thing.

Where do I work? Circus. And I don’t say that in any indirect, conspiratorial way. I do mean ‘circus’, the very one: kids, clowns, cotton candies. I’m an illusionist, and have been all my life. I can make your watch disappear and be suddenly found around the wrist of an old lady sitting at the opposite end of the circus. I can take up to sixteen eggs out of my mouth and then break them in front of your very eyes. I can do it with cards, rabbits, hats, anything. I can do it with anything. I can do anything. But that’s onstage. 


Offstage there’s this clown.

Coulrophobia, ever heard about that one? It means fear of clowns, and apparently many people have it. Mostly kids. In fact, up to some point I strongly believed it was only kids. But I was wrong. The moment he came to our circus, everything changed. Like I say, I’ve worked here for 36 years, so I can’t fuck anything up onstage, not anymore, but in a way and after thirty it’s the heavy pull of the offstage that gets you. Offstage hits me like a cold ocean wave. Coulrophobia. We all have it. We are all afraid of the clown.

It somehow pains me to admit it now, 6 years later, but I think I felt it from the start. When he swept past me on his way to our director's office just two days after Mitford’s heart attack – I felt mocked and humiliated. His erratic hair, his sickly breath – we would all have to get used to it, and act as if it was all right. What else would have to be all right? Well, many things: his lewd jokes, his misogyny, his fingernails.

As a kid I loved circus because of clowns. I adored them. The loose motley trousers, the stuck-on noses, the silly jokes – it really couldn’t and shouldn’t have worked. It had to fall apart and be written off as one vulgar and ridiculous non-sequitur. And it did fall apart, of course, but in a most weird and transfixing way. I was amazed. Oh it worked so well that my father had to resort to bribery and intimidation trying to dissuade me from becoming a clown. I was born a family of illusionists, you see, so I had to become one. I had to give in and follow the tradition. For the record, I have never really regretted it. Because you don’t want to be a clown. You can admire him, love him, be amused by him, but you don’t want to be like him. That said, I could always establish a good relationship with a clown. Mitford used to be a good friend of mine. There was this rapport. He would teach me a clumsy, hilarious gesture, and I could always teach him a card trick or two. But that was before the terror began. 

Terror is not in the actions or what your eyes do. Terror is in the presence. Terror is abstract, it has to be rationally inexplicable. We all had classmates whose occasional absence could spark a sedate feeling of calmness and joy. With them around, raising hand, smoking outside, mocking teachers, – it was edgy and strained. Why? You don’t know; it just was.

Offstage – it’s him, the clown, who’s the illusionist. He can say something stupid, nonsensical, and still make you fear for your life. He can put on a freak show, effortlessly. Really bizarre stuff: like a giant bloody hole in his forehead, razor-sharp teeth tearing through his cheeks, multiple nostrils. I could never understand just how he does all that, but it surely has a sickening effect on my senses. You feel desperate, nauseous. And it’s not only me he feels this way. I’ve talked to everyone, in hushed whispers, after work. We are grown up men, but that’s the only way you feel safe mentioning those sinister wigs, that childish gait. For when the clown is about, you just get splashed flat against the wall, prison style, and feel eager to do anything he might ask you to do. Yesterday I brought him a glass of water. He took it without even looking at me. Which makes me think: I shouldn’t have spared the spit.

If he needs it, the clown can have the circus ring all to himself (he usually performs alone). Doing his juggling, dragging his pants down. And the thing is, he is a really crappy clown.

So yes, I hate him. I despise him, I wish him dead. But it seems like there’s nothing we can do. We don't have any claims. You see, when you’re in a circus, you are entangled in this odd camaraderie. You’re one team, you fake bonhomie. Onstage, offstage, on tours. You’re in it together, you’re all alike: animal tamers, clowns, jugglers, illusionists, acrobats... I should know: I work with mirrors.   

Looking for traces

The first thing he did as he closed the door behind him, stepped forward and dragged the snow-powdered coat off his shoulders and onto the floor, was grope for the switch. It was dark, and there was his heart to consider. Light could fix it, light could settle his breathing. Also, light could let him examine the room: slowly, carefully, searching for any traces she might have left. A hair, a favourite book, a picture from Vienna… There were so many traces he could think of.

The books. Oh yes, like his own disheveled hair and thoughts – they were everywhere. 18^th century novels, hard-cover anthologies, cookbooks, children’s books, scientific monographs, expendable travel guides… But he knew this was all wrong. Like a good sleuth he never was, he knew this was not it. For it was Italian poetry she loved. Those amorous stanzas overflowing with passion, she would recite them whenever she was depressed or suffered from a bout of insomnia. Italian poetry, of all things. He could never understand this obsession of hers (for it really was an obsession), but then he could never read Italian.

Whenever she travelled to Rome, on business or for pleasure, she would always bring  back a new collection of poems, a new anthology of verse. All in Italian and always something anacreontic (her word). And then of course it became a lot easier. Through the Internet she could order any number of books she wanted. It didn’t even take weeks – it took days. Or that’s what he heard anyway.

However, as his eyes kept running over mushy paperbacks and glossy dictionaries, he was growing more and more frustrated. For in the whole of this place there was not a single book in Italian, to say nothing of Italian poetry... The numerous shelves of this vast living-room did not contain a single trace of her. Maybe other people. Maybe her ghost. Maybe really her – but seen through the eyes of strangers, aliens, enemies, distant acquaintances…

Her clothes. He knew there was no time to go upstairs and examine her room thoroughly and with due attention to the detail. This living-room really was his lot, and he had to make the best of it. He inspected the low, rather excessively pillowed sofa and three enormous red armchairs, but all he could find amid the teddy-bears and a crude, formless pair of men’s gloves was a pretty ordinary hat of deep red. There was no style about this hat, no personality, no taste. He winced. Who could have been so blind and pathetic as to give her this sorry thing? She, who could spend long hours studying fashion magazines and making relevant pencil marks, she would never put on anything like that!.. This was not her, this was a bad joke, and no wonder it was stuffed so deep into the corner of the sofa.

He smelled the room. Her scent. Her perfume. But soon he realised how pointless that was and gave it up. This was like trying to distinguish the smell of strawberries in the midst of the roars of market vendors – selling fish, melons, dogs, flowers, tomatoes, pastry… He could not scent her, and neither could he scent those two small Siamese cats she used to have. Instead, there was the thick, gruesome smell of some old and gruesome Labrador, there was a distinct smell of rough tobacco (yes, she did smoke, but surely not something this cheap, sickening and repulsive) and even (though he was not too sure about this one) alcohol, there were millions of other smells – but there was nothing in the air that could help him trace her.

Next he carefully observed the mantelpiece and that ugly, overcluttered array of pictures it contained. Tamed memories: so many families did that. Well, he did recognize her face on most of the pictures, but all the blurry and burry figures dangling annoyingly next to her or in the background – those he couldn’t recognize. And it had a bizarre effect on his perception of her face. Oddly, it no longer looked like she really was there – rather, it looked like she was cut out of a magazine or maybe another picture and then pasted here, on this beach or under this tree. Vienna? There was no Vienna anywhere in sight. 

His eyes ran through the walls around him in search of a clock. Yes, there was one, but it did not tell him the time. It told him that soon it would be time to leave. Or perhaps not leave – but flee, escape, or maybe something even worse than that.

And speaking of walls. There were pictures. Many pictures, but not something you could get your teeth into. Random patches of paint, this was like looking at street slush suddenly made colourful by a child’s hand. And this, he thought, was coming from someone who couldn’t stomach abstract art. She really couldn’t, and when somebody had the audacity to offer her a visit to a gallery exposition of modern paintings, she would laugh it off. Or maybe she would give it a go, and then be found dozing off on one of those rigid banquettes placed at the centre of museum halls. So these splashes of someone’s laziness and self-confidence didn’t make any sense. He looked away, as if embarrassed.  

Music? Films? Well, there were CDs and DVDs and even some old-fashioned video tapes he could look through, but she was never into those things. No traces to even look for. As everyone else was going to the movies or camping at rock festivals, she was more likely to be found wandering through the streets, dreaming and having long, abstract conversations with her friends.

However, she could play music. Her father (who was the kind of father who had these ridiculously overblown thoughts about the future of his children) even forced her to take piano lessons. The first piano, that huge black casket. At first it intimidated her so much that she was reluctant to enter the room for the purpose of watering flowers or watching TV… Her music teacher, that long-nosed, crumpled, uptight man who demanded too much and who probably believed that in terms of cultivating a true classical celebrity she was his very last shot. Her playing was good, but she was never particularly diligent. Having learnt the basics, she struggled to understand why she should study the faded music sheets encoding works of Mozart and Liszt, and kept trying to come up with her own stuff. Some thought it clumsy and amateurish, but of course it was all down to envy. She was young and talented…

He didn’t notice it at first, but now, full of hope and suppressed anticipation, he approached it. It wasn’t easy: in order to sit on the stool and open the lid, you had to throw away books, pens, empty vases and even a small children’s globe. When he finally managed all that, he placed his dirty, horny fingers on the white keys…

There was a heavy sound of the front door opening so wide as if to let the whole world in. But it wasn’t the whole world. Just four of them: a man, a woman and two little girls. And the dog, too. They were all looking at the strange man sitting behind the piano and pressing its keys – deliriously, indiscriminately. The scene was hypnotic. When the stranger finally realised that he was no longer alone, he nervously stood up and started muttering something unintelligible. Something none of them could understand. They saw the black teeth, the baggy clothes, the coat crouching under their feet… She told the girls it’s all right, and they let him go.

It was quick, they all wanted it to be quick.  

When the girls were upstairs and sleeping, and the two of them were alone in the living-room, he asked her:

- My God, so weird. And playing the piano, of all things… Do we know him? I seem to vaguely recognize the face…

- Oh yes, – she said. – I think we do. Beggar from around the corner. I’ve seen him many times when walking Kyle.

- Ah, – he said. – That’s it. Spooky. Do you think we should do something about it?

- No. I guess we should just be more careful about closing the front door. He obviously didn’t steal anything. Besides, he will never come back.

- Yeah, I guess you are right. Maybe he fell in love with you or something.

- What utter bullshit, – she seemed angry.

- I’m sorry, – he said. – Just being silly.

As he poured himself another drink, she approached the piano and tried to play some rudimentary melody.

- Will you play something? – he asked.

- Well, – she smiled. – The truth is, I don’t remember anything. Besides, the girls are sleeping. Besides, – she then added, – the piano is so badly out of tune.

In the meantime, the man was limping away through the invisible slushy streets. Everybody would be limping through weather like that. He was confused, and he was still muttering incoherent excuses, but deep down there was a comforting thought, memory to get him through another night: those sounds, those beautiful piano notes, it was as if he finally found the traces he’d been looking for. 

Вдоль Сены

Мы стояли на мосту и смотрели куда-то вдаль. Вид был довольно красивым, но все же не настолько, чтобы мы оба так долго и томно молчали. Молчание казалось неправильным и слишком многозначительным. Особенно на легком, сумеречном фоне домов, башен, музеев. Я все время порывался что-то сказать, но с каждой новой секундой терял интерес. Мы продолжали молчать, и с какого-то момента это уже было делом принципа.

Я был рад, когда к нам подошел какой-то мерзкого вида старик и начал что-то оживленно рассказывать. Быстро, по-французски и пережевывая сигарету: мы не могли понять ни слова. Ситуация казалась нам необычной, но мы ничего не предпринимали. Мы продолжали слушать его, вдыхать его прокуренный голос – почти влюбленно, почти с интересом. Цепляясь за обрывки знакомых слов (но больше звуков), я в какой-то момент попытался объяснить ему, что мы всего лишь туристы, и денег у нас нет и быть не может, но внезапно почувствовал странную неловкость. Словно вдруг осознал, что ни на ней, ни на мне не было никакой одежды. Но дело было в другом: просто так оказалось, что моя левая рука лежала вокруг ее талии, и все могли это видеть. Конечно, в вечернем потоке парижского моста никому не могло быть до этого никакого дела (равно как и до того, стояли мы там в одежде или нет), но все же мне было не по себе.

Я отдернул руку, старик продолжал говорить.

Было совершенно очевидно, что он пытался нам что-то объяснить. Но ни она, ни я не знали языка. До поездки я успел купить какой-то бессмысленный разговорник, но он был навсегда забыт в одном из пригородных поездов еще неделю назад. Возмущенный нашей невероятной тупостью, старик стал энергично показывать на воду и бить себя по карманам. Он что-то потерял? Он хотел, чтобы мы прыгнули в Сену и достали его ключи, кошелек, любимую собаку, фотографию жены? Я не понимал. Поняла она. И радостно закивала в его сторону.

- Он говорит, что нам нужно бросить монетки в Сену. Чтобы вернуться.

Когда мы наконец дали ему понять, что знаем об этом и непременно это сделаем, он наконец отошел – продолжая что-то объяснять. Но уже не нам, а парижскому воздуху и сотням туристов, сновавших здесь, возможно, в первый и последний раз.

- Ты веришь в весь этот бред?

- Не знаю, – сказала она. – Но я хотела бы вернуться. Я хотела бы загадать желание. Давай бросим?

- Ладно, давай. Все равно скоро уезжать.

Я достал ту мелочь, которая накопилась у нас за время поездки. Мы взяли по монетке и через небольшую паузу бросили их в воду. Это было примерно так же унизительно, как фотографироваться на фоне пизанской башни с выставленной в сторону рукой.

Естественно, я загадал вернуться сюда снова. В этот город, к этой реке. Но не с ней. С другой. Я не знал еще с кем именно, но точно не с ней. С ней было покончено. Я попытался поймать ее взгляд: да, как я и думал. Она даже не пыталась этого скрыть. Она загадала вернуться сюда снова, и вернуться без меня. Со мной тоже было покончено.

Я предложил ей пройтись по берегу. Помня про то, как она ненавидит опаздывать, я думал, что она откажется. Но она посмотрела на часы и сказала, что время еще есть. Я был рад, что она согласилась. Все эти две недели мы прилежно и бездумно сновали по церквям, улицам и площадям. Несколько раз терялись на Монмартре и в этажах и переходах Лувра. Лувр!.. Что с ним делать, когда находишься в нем впервые? Запоминать, записывать, фотографировать? Как и все остальные, мы не знали ответа и на следующий же день отправились гулять по коридорам Орсе и Версаля… Мы были всюду, но все это время мы не принадлежали себе. Все это время мы словно были кому-то должны, и вот оставался только этот вечер. И три часа до поезда.

Мы шли вдоль Сены и понимали, как не хочется уезжать. Я отчего-то всматривался в лица прохожих (наверное, таких же туристов, как мы) и пытался запомнить их черты. Я знал, что непременно забуду их через час, как забыл уже картины Ван Гога и комнаты Наполеона III.

Мы отчаянно махали и кричали проплывавшим мимо лодкам и корабликам. Мы здоровались с людьми, которых не знали. Мы пытались навсегда сохранить расположение камней и скамеек. Мы шли очень долго, пока не стало и темно и немного страшно оттого, что поезд уходит уже совсем скоро. 

- Смотри, – сказала она. – Там кто-то есть.

- Где? – спросил я. Мы остановились.

- Дальше, на берегу.

- Да, вижу.

На берегу спиной к нам сидел какой-то парень. Его ноги свисали над самой водой. Но это было не то, о чем мы сначала подумали. Он не собирался прыгать. На нем были наушники, и он слушал музыку. Он был полностью поглощен процессом.

- Господи, – сказала она. – Как он не боится?..

- Чего именно?

- Ну, слушать музыку вот так. Не зная, что происходит за тобой. Мало ли кто может подойти, особенно в такое время. Он даже шагов не услышит.

Я понял, что она имела в виду. Это было действительно довольно удивительно. Но в этот момент какие-то дети закричали нам что-то по-немецки с одного из корабликов, и, сквозь свет бесконечных вечерних огней, мы помахали им вслед.

В какой-то момент я понял, что моя левая рука по-прежнему обнимает ее талию. Я проклинал себя и проклинал эту глупую привычку. Но на этот раз у меня не было оправдания. Я не мог отдернуть руку, как сделал это час назад на мосту. Рядом не было никакого причудливого старика, оживленно рассказывающего что-то важное. Пережевывая сигарету. По-французски.  

MY TEACHER’S WATCH

I just thought it was interesting: Jeremy coming up to us after classes to say something about our history teacher’s wrist-watch. So odd, so out of order.  

- Honestly. I fucking checked it. I’ve been checking this whole fucking month now. – His swearing seemed exaggerated even for a place as formless and scrappy as a school playground. You could see right away how badly it bounced off his lips. Some people are just useless at it: I’ve seen many actors and rock stars betrayed by close-ups and intonations. This was no rock star, though: this was Jeremy. And in his case, it sounded like his swearing was the only thing that could make us believe him. Maybe he was right: as far as we were concerned, Jeremy was ruining the game.

The memory is distant, but it comes with props and embellishments: fags, lipstick, condoms. They might not seem like much of an embellishment, but they certainly help evoke the scene: four of us scruffy thirteen-year-olds smoking near the shrubs behind the playground. And playing that silly game of ours, like we so often did.

- I sometimes want to wear lipstick.

This was Peter. I think we all had a feeling Peter was lying about those things, but it’s not as if you could check. Our laughter was forced, as was our teasing. After all, saying you wanted to wear lipstick didn’t really amount to much. Did it? Who doesn’t have thoughts of that kind? Particularly sometimes? It’s not even like you steal lipstick from your mother or from your sister and wear it for real. You just want to wear lipstick, you just have these dreams. So what, we all have dreams. It was obvious that Peter was playing it safe, but neither me nor Owen had the presence of mind to expose him; not least because we were not too keen on facing his two elder brothers (both studied at our school and would have no doubt eagerly bullied the shit out of anyone who dared to offend their younger, somewhat frail-looking sibling). I guess we never particularly liked Peter, but it was handy to have him around. As your friend, that is.

- I’m not sure how to put a condom on.

This was hotter. This reeked of truth. Also, this was Johnny. The problem with Johnny was that he couldn’t lie without getting himself into trouble or at least some kind of minor embarrassment. And now that I think of it, it was Johnny who was responsible for the game’s preposterous longevity. Johnny and his painfully honest confessions. Some day he would tell us he kissed his mother before going to bed. Another day he would admit to experiencing an arousal when Julia was around. I bet you could say those things about most of us, but we were either too cowardly or full of shit to admit as much. Johnny, though, was taking it seriously – somebody had to. “I’m not sure how to put a condom on”. It was as if he feared that we would check it and then beat him up in case it wasn’t true. Still, this was interesting. After all, it was more than saying you were a virgin – this was saying you had never even tried. Surely we couldn’t let it lie and were bound to exploit his sorry fit of honesty for about a week or two. Still, we liked Johnny. Johnny was like an amusing pet you can kick and stroke – quite often at the very same time. Also, we felt some kind of fatherly responsibility for him: after all, it was the irresponsible us, Owen, Peter and I, who had turned him on to smoking.

The game? We thought it was our invention, we honestly believed we had the copyright. I’m not sure, though, that this was the case. Apparently many kids played it – or at least something similar. Maybe they still do. There was no rule book, but it was all fairly simple: every Tuesday (it didn't have to be Tuesday, of course, but it had to be something) after school our circle of four would gather at our spot near the honeysuckle shrubs, smoke together and utter the most painful confession you could think of. Humiliating habits, odd desires, things like that. All very silly. I’m afraid of cockroaches (pretty tame, now that I think of it). I take my pajamas off before getting into bed. I haven’t changed my socks for ten days (one of mine, I’m afraid). I’ve masturbated to a picture of Miss Swinton (our maths teacher). Things like that. Keep in mind that you couldn’t get away with something random: it had to be painful, preferably risqué. Something one could tease you about. The major flaw of the game, and perhaps the reason why we couldn’t stop playing it, was that there was no prize at the end. No special award, no jealous glance, not even a congratulatory slap on your shoulder. No, the only thing you were supposed to get at the end was all that ensuing humiliation.

We really did call it our circle (as opposed to ‘gang’), though it makes me wince now. We occasionally hung out together after school, camped once or twice in Peter’s backyard, smoked together and once a week played a silly game that didn’t even have its own name. And that was it. We never discussed the endless family run-ins we were all going through at that time. We never invited each other to our birthday parties. And during our Physical Training classes we didn’t play in the same volleyball team. So it was not the kind of unforgettable, fateful friendship you might find in a children’s adventure novel. But since the whole thing was limited to the four of us, we did indeed call it our circle. Between us, of course, when no one was listening. We tried to invite a few others – mostly our classmates. But they were either too confused or intimidated by the rules of the game to fit in. And there wasn’t supposed to be any initiation without at least a couple of rounds of dirty, honest confessions. I remember the day Owen brought Susie. (Physically, though only physically, Owen was probably the most impressive exponent of our age, and his easy success with girls testified to the fickle nature of the latter.) At first we were all very excited about the arrangement, because we were dying to hear what she had to confess. Also, her presence was electrifying – though that probably came down to her being a girl. But the moment she said yes, she agreed, we all suddenly realised that it was about us, too. That she would listen up when you would say something about your last wet dream or give the particulars of the pornographic pictures you had seen a day or two before. And then she would no doubt tell everyone about it, and in glorious detail, so you would be embarrassed for eternity (we made a good point of keeping all the confessions between us). So it was all very tense, and never really worked out.

One thing about the shrubs. The place was not chosen randomly. No, I guess we were making a point: you see, our spot could be easily seen from a number of school windows. And there we were, smoking. This gave it an edge.

None of us liked short and ginger Jeremy all that much, but we pricked our ears. Jeremy was one of those precociously smart boys you just don’t envy. His precociousness was like an odd and cruel joke on the part of nature: seemingly, his brightness owed it all to his excessive clumsiness. Still, I didn’t really mind seeing him that day. It was my turn to confess, and I couldn’t think of anything good (or bad) enough. And most probably neither could Owen – who I think was desperately running out of his unlikely sexual failures. Jeremy was standing there like a dog that’d done something wrong and came to make peace; slightly afar, slightly confused. He didn’t try to force himself upon us, but even if he did, well, we badly needed some new blood. However tenuous, however infected.

And in the meantime he was muttering some nonsense about Mr Stetson’s wrist-watch. It seemed interesting – but only vaguely.

- His watch never works. Never. Isn’t that odd?

We didn’t answer. We feigned apathy and indifference – like we were already fed up with that lie going around our class, our school, our town. Apathy and indifference – not something a teenager can’t do.

- Okay, we’ll check, – said Owen. – But it’d better be the way you are telling us…

- I promise, – said Jeremy, his mouth quivering doggedly. – I fucking promise.

- And hey, – I said, as he prepared to turn his tail, – stop saying ‘fuck’.

You know how sometimes you are in the middle of something, like reading a book or watching the latest news, and then something insignificant happens. It starts drizzling outside or your cat softly, silkily paws his way into your room. Suddenly you stop whatever it is that you’ve been doing: you put away your book or switch off TV. And go do something else, or maybe stay exactly where you are and do nothing. Jeremy made us stop playing the game that Tuesday, and leave the sickly paling of November shrubs. It wasn’t really his words that made us stop, for there was little to his words - it was just like that rain starting to tap outside, or your cat gently meowing under your sofa.

As we were walking home, Owen and I, we didn’t discuss the incident between us. It was not really much of an incident, and yet we didn’t share a word. I think we were more speechless than silent. It was as if Jeremy’s surprising appearance touched a nerve of some kind. I’m sure we were both thinking about Mr Stetson at that moment. Interestingly, while we had a strong and most likely unfavourable opinion about everyone we saw at school, we still had no idea what to think of our history teacher. He seemed all right; he was not too demanding and was able to tell a good story to keep our minds on the track of the subject. That was basically all I could think of – that and some vague impression of his pleasantly measured tone and his brown suit that was elegant yet dull and inconspicuous.

Funnily enough, the day he suddenly entered our classroom in the middle of October for the first time, we were all convinced he would be just like his predecessor, Mr Bailey. Mr Stetson was a huge man with a soft, sad, unmoving stare - it felt like you would never know what to expect. But after just two weeks we realised that nothing would come out of that stare. Nothing. No one would be told off, no one would be embarrassed, no one would be given extra homework. On the face of it, this might seem like a schoolboy’s ideal incentive to start making his teacher’s life hell: half-whispered obscenities, pins, blackboard inscriptions, blotches all over his desk papers… But perhaps Mr Stetson really was the first person in our lives (besides bullies and movie stars, of course) for whom we felt genuine respect. Which didn’t seem natural, considering what cruel and incorrigible cynics we all were. When we were told at the end of September that Mr Bailey had been taken to hospital after suffering a severe stroke, we didn’t even try to hide our vulgar, rapturous joy. And only hoped that our next history teacher would not humiliate us for not knowing the dates or the outcome of The French Revolution.

The next day was Wednesday, and on Wednesday we didn’t have a class with Mr Stetson. However, Mr Stetson was very much on my mind. But one interesting thing: while I could easily spend hours dreaming of Julia or Susie or basically any girl I fancied, thinking about Mr Stetson made me feel ashamed. I suddenly came to realise that there was something about that man, about his tone, about his ways and about his suits, that told you, in a most polite way possible, to stay away and mind your own business. So that I felt uneasy even while I was merely thinking about him. Still, even Miss Swinton’s latest dress swirling right through my wistful gaze kept returning me to our history teacher and his wrist-watch. Which, in the words of our new friend Jeremy, never worked. Hunched under nondescript figures and equations, I was wondering how long it had taken Jeremy to pluck up his courage and face us. Because it seemed like he dreaded the sight of everyone – and that included Johnny.

Still, the best I could do was wait a day longer and keep myself from wandering through our school looking for Mr Stetson and asking him what time it was. Another thing I could do (and this I did) was corner Jeremy in the corridor and tell him that if he decided to spill the whole thing out, Peter’s brothers would come and get him.

- Okay, okay, Vern, – I didn’t even have to finish my account of what might happen to him then. – Of course I won’t tell anyone. I told you guys…

Poor Jeremy probably prayed that night and asked God (or whoever he prayed to) for his words to be true. For Mr Stetson’s wrist-watch to be permanently stuck, non-working, dead.

And it was. At first it seemed slightly amusing and mildly intriguing, but minutes, hours and weeks made it confusing and even maddening. Yes, of course Jeremy was right: the watch didn’t work. The watch was dead. It showed the same time day in day out: sixteen or seventeen minutes to five. I remember a couple of fiery arguments we had about that; it somehow seemed a big deal, that one minute. Owen and Peter were convinced it was seventeen, while the rest of us insisted it was a minute less.

When you are thirteen, you don’t really need a lot to make your judgements. Everyone looks like a blurry non-entity with one ridiculously overblown feature sticking out. In Miss Swinton’s case, it was her young age and everything that went with it; in Mr Ashby’s case, it was his nose that never stopped running (which we so mercilessly abused with a dozen handkerchiefs going off simultaneously during his literature classes); etc. Thanks to Jeremy, we finally managed to find that one feature in Mr Stetson and were ready to exploit it. Seventeen minutes or sixteen minutes? (“Sixteen! Are you fucking blind?!”) Right hand or left hand? (Left hand.) Same wrist-watch or did he change it occasionally? (The same one – all the time.) There was one big difference though: this time we badly needed to go deeper than that one feature. Suddenly Mr Stetson’s wrist-watch was not enough. We needed more: for once, we needed the whole thing.

But what was there to it? A pleasantly average, nice looking man with his watch as the only thing that made him different from the rest. Clearly we weren’t getting anywhere. I wouldn’t say that I lost my sleep over it, but I did get carried away with the whole thing. But what could you do: following Mr Stetson home or spying on him was useless; questioning him during our school break or after classes was simply inconceivable. And as for things like anonymous notes and expressive synchronizing of watches during our history class, that was absolutely out of the question. It’s weird, but I think the knowledge made us feel protective of Mr Stetson. So much so that the only point that gave me some slight relief was that at least Mr Stetson would never look at his wrist-watch. If he did, it would have surely been too much. Instead, when he thought it was time to let us go, he would look at the huge boring clock hanging above the blackboard.

And by ‘we’ in that last paragraph I happen to mean the five us, for our circle now included Jeremy. Jeremy seemed more tolerable on closer look, and he brought a new dimension to our game. That first Tuesday behind the playground he told us that he probably was a gay. Needless to say, we were all duly stupefied. Jeremy and his fucking grades? Jeremy and his smelly home-made sandwiches? Jeremy and his cartoonish, multi-coloured rucksack? Jeremy and his baggy, ill-fitting clothes? Jeremy was a gay? None of us felt comfortable with that word, but, strangely enough, Jeremy’s confession didn’t make us kick him out of the circle. Also, he said ‘probably’, which of course might have seemed as superficial as Peter’s bullshit. One thing about Jeremy, though: Jeremy couldn’t lie; he sincerely believed that he probably was a gay. Johnny rebelled at first, but we quickly silenced him. The whole notion felt exotic and bizarre, and those were some of our favourite words. All of a sudden Jeremy got the edge he so badly needed. He could have said he was an alien or his father was Adolf Hitler, but I’m sure it wouldn’t have worked. What he said was that he was homosexual. The line we assumed went something like this: well, as long as he isn’t going to drag us into that shit…

But speaking of the game, it no longer interested us all that much. We got a new one, and this time it didn’t feel like a game at all. It was like suddenly witnessing the actual crime away from the safety of your TV screen. Now that I think of it, the game was soon abandoned. Kind of naturally; there were other things to discuss or keep silent about – after classes, at our spot behind the shrubs.

- You know, – Owen said once. – I read somewhere that it could be about blood. Apparently some people have it. It makes the watch stop. Or maybe it was about skin…

We all gave it a good, but disbelieving thought. Like it was too easy and needed to be shaken off immediately.

- Come on, – I said. – It still makes no sense. Why then would he keep it on his wrist all the time?

Everyone seemed to agree with my reasoning, but we were none the wiser.

Certainly there were lots of ideas about Mr Stetson's wrist-watch, and I remember that one of mine ran as follows: Mr Stetson was a sad and lonely man who had recently got dumped by his cheating wife. Suffering from depression, he cut his wrists and now had to wear a watch to cover the bruises.

In my eyes, the theory was extremely beautiful and uptight, but everyone else dismissed it.

- Weak argument, – said Jeremy, holding a cigarette (yes, we did that to him, too, though it must have taken us at least a month) so squeamishly as if it was not just a phallic symbol, but actually the real thing. – It doesn’t explain why the wrist-watch doesn’t go.

- Maybe he doesn’t need it.

- No, – said Peter, – it makes no sense.

- No sense?.. Ah fuck it, – I said. – Maybe he just forgets to wind it.

- Every day?

- Yes. Every day. Have a better idea?

Nobody had a better idea.

The popular opinion was that Mr Stetson lost his wife (alternatives: his daughter, his son) in some accident and the stopped watch indicated when exactly that happened. Minute for minute. Whatever the case, the general pattern was more or less clear: Mr Stetson surely had gone through a tragic past.  

Imagine your alarm clock goes off in the morning, and you wake up. You then proceed to your bathroom to have a shower, shave and get dressed. Then it’s time for your breakfast, so you go to the kitchen to make your omelette and drink your coffee. This might be accompanied by the crusty leafing of a newspaper that you don’t so much read as gape at. Well, doesn’t matter. You put on your wrist-watch, take your briefcase and go out. Or something like that. In any case, it must sound pretty natural. Now how about this: doing all those things I’ve just listed, but the watch you put on doesn’t actually work. Never works. It’s stopped. Face it, it’s so preposterous that you can’t even put it down to routine or general carelessness (yes, at first Mr Stetson did have certain difficulties trying to remember our names, but that can hardly amount to much). This is simply bound to have some undertones. Some deeper meaning, if you want.

That there was a woman involved was something that we never doubted. Mr Stetson was certainly a man women could fancy (he had the looks and the sort of fading charisma middle aged men have to face) and yet there was no ring to be seen. It’s rather embarrassing to admit, but at that time I was convinced that this was the kind of contradiction nature could not allow.

And as far as our other classmates were concerned, they never noticed any of it, not to our knowledge. We didn't mind. Somehow – it made us special. Surely if a snotty idiot like Andy learnt about the watch, in an hour or so the whole school would be drowned in gluttonous fits of cruelty and cynicism. Like I said, we felt protective. We cared. Imagine a kid from your school gets beaten by a gang of older kids from another part of town. What would you do? Odds are, even the last coward wouldn't let it lie. I can swear that if Johnny learnt that Peter had let it all out, he would have emerged fists up. Never mind the two elder brothers.

It was not like we were amused on-lookers, though. We did try a thing or two. For instance, I remember one particular incident that involved Owen. It all came completely unexpected, I’m sure we hadn’t discussed it beforehand, though admittedly we barely even talked at that point (this was already after Christmas holidays, I think) – certainly not behind the shrubs and certainly not every Tuesday. Our circle remained, but more like an idea than the real thing.

It was a break before our history class, and Owen was standing with his face turned towards the blackboard. Mr Stetson was sitting at his desk reading something. I can’t remember now what that was, but I’m pretty sure it was non-fiction. Autobiographies, history books, those were his things.

Anyway, pretty soon Owen began nodding fervently, as if his head was the head of a china doll that had just been touched or, worse, shaken up. He was nodding so expressively that I quickly realised what he was up to: he was actually synchronizing his watch with the clock on the wall. And then he said, as loudly as to be heard by everyone who was in the classroom at that moment.

- I’m sure the clock is actually wrong. Look at my wrist-watch, it’s four minutes late.

- How do you know it’s not your watch that is wrong? – said someone.

- Well, mine is always right. I’m telling you.

Since by the point I knew exactly what Owen was getting at, I looked in the direction of Mr Stetson. Mr Stetson was looking at Owen. Or maybe not actually at Owen – but through him. That was the thing about Mr Stetson: his eyes were piercing through you, though never in a shrewd, fact-finding sort of way.

- Johnny, – said Owen. – Look at your watch, please, and tell me what you think.

The bastard! It was pathetic: he knew perfectly well that Johnny didn’t have a watch. And when Johnny, shaken and confused, told him exactly that, Owen (but of course) turned to Mr Stetson:

- Mr Stetson, what do you think?     

Well, there was a pause. I was sure at that moment that the moment this would be over, I would have to beat Owen to death.

- Owen, I’m sure the clock is correct. I checked it yesterday.

- Yes, Mr Stetson, but what about today? What about your watch? You have one, right?

I swear that at that moment I was close to coming up to Owen and stabbing him with the nearest pen or pencil I could find. But I was in fact watching Mr Stetson – intently, almost carnivorously. Mr Stetson smiled vaguely, but seemingly didn’t even consider looking at his wrist-watch or shuffling it deeper into his sleeve.

- Yes, Owen, I have one.

Yeah, and the full stop. Just like that. It was pointless to push him any further, and I felt greatly relieved when the bell rang.

It might seem strange today, almost thirty seven years later, but I was actually terrified of the possibility of coming one day to Mr Stetson’s class and seeing that his watch indicated the right time. Or that the watch was not there at all. Somehow I just didn’t want that to happen. And this is why I was so furious at Owen and rang him that evening and told him to ‘shut the fuck up’ next time he felt he had anything to say.

But all the same: in May it was over. In a snap. I guess it is fitting that it was Jeremy who told us about that. That he had seen Mr Stetson in the corridor and caught a glimpse of Mr Stetson’s watch.

- It works! – Jeremy seemed exhilarated. – It actually works! Imagine that?..

- The same one? – I asked angrily.

He nodded.

I was angry and disappointed – not because I hadn’t seen it first, but because the whole thing was over. Just like that. And just to ease the tension a little, I promised Jeremy to beat him up in case it wasn’t true.

Jeremy nodded again. In fact, I wasn’t fair to him. I mean, there’s a great possibility that without Jeremy we wouldn’t have known about Mr Stetson’s watch in the first place. We would have been as blind as our classmates. Somehow there was a lot to thank Jeremy for.

I’ve no idea about the four others, but I approached the next class with Mr Stetson with a sense of muted, subdued inevitability. Interestingly, it felt natural. The watch worked, like it should have. Mr Stetson’s face was the same as ever, and the sound of his voice hadn’t changed either. Had I dreamt it perhaps?.. Had we all dreamt it?..

Jeremy looked as shattered as myself, and the stirring image of his long face is actually the only proof I now have that he didn’t delude us with all that wrist-watch stuff. As for Peter, Owen and Johnny, they weren’t at all disturbed about any of it. Miss Swinton hadn’t become a nun, Mr Ashby’s test was cancelled, and Mr Stetson wrist-watch was fine (so no more thinking about that). And me, I felt like a cellist left the band – and that cellist had been the only reason why I cared for the band in the first place.

Next Tuesday I summoned everyone at our spot that had already become cold and unfamiliar. The full-bloodied May shrubs looked nice, but it was also evident that they didn’t have anything to do with us.

We were silent for a while. Everyone was looking at me, their eyes asking: “What is this all about?” I proposed a round of the game. After a pause of genuine confusion I could sense a slow, forced flurry of recognition. Someone said it was a great idea, but I guess there was no enthusiasm.

Anyway, it didn’t work. Johnny muttered something silly about the group sex in his latest dream, and that was it. No one could be bothered, and minutes later the spot was abandoned for good.

- Jeremy, – I said. Jeremy was the last one to stay. – Tell me, you’ve been here with us many times. Have you ever felt anything strange?

- How do you mean?

- Well, like something is around. I’ve just realised that it’s always been here. Something…

- Something is around?

- Ah never mind.

- Vern, are you all right?

- Yeah yeah. Fuck off. See you tomorrow.

Jeremy left – slowly and for good, like everyone else. For the record, by the time we graduated from school, it had long become widely known that Jeremy was a gay.

But in the meantime, I was still standing near the shrubs, motionless. Something was around. I brusquely turned my head and faced the dull, identical rows of school windows. A tinge of odd, unsettling sensation ran through me like a shiver of nippy Northern wind. I could swear (though not anymore) that a face had just been withdrawn from the glass one of one of the windows. There was something chilling about it, an element of an old horror story. Oddly, I knew exactly which window that was, and was quick to place the classroom. That strange man? Looking through the window, watching us? Seemed too incredible, and I decided not to give this one too much thought. After all, how was I supposed to get to the bottom of it? I suddenly felt extremely tired, and kicked the shrubs with both of my feet. It felt pointless, like catching the air, and so I dropped that too and went home.

There’s very little left to write. My school hasn’t changed much, certainly not from the outside, though I doubt that I would recognize anyone there these days. I heard somewhere that Johnny taught biology there for some time, but I may have heard it wrong. The truth is, I’ve forgotten most of it. Actually, that one year with Mr Stetson (he only worked that long at our school) is the only thing that has more to offer than a disjointed array of small, unintelligible bits and pieces.

That wrist-watch. I actually do that sometimes. I’ve done it multiple times: stopped my watch, let it show the same time for a week or two. Just for the hell of it, I guess. But I must have gotten it all wrong – for nobody ever notices.