remembered how once, after years, a childhood friend who had emigrated to Canada in ’68 came to visit. He stared out the window of the Petržalka apartment for a while and never returned to his birthplace. “So this is how you live now,” he said. He clapped Ian on the shoulder and left for home without a trace. He never called again. Petržalka had taken his Canadian breath away.
I’ve never liked tattooed people. They remind me of criminals and pirate ships. And a drunken worker on the summer tram. Mama and I were riding home from the swimming pool. “What are you lookin’ at?” a worker boomed at Mama. He had a mermaid, a heart with an arrow through it, and the word ‘Carmen’ tattooed on his arm. “I’m not looking at you,” said Mama and we moved to another section of the tram.
Sometimes I think that Ian didn’t go blind for Petržalka. Maybe it was for me. He couldn’t stand to look at our life anymore. Like looking at a tattoo. He went to the other part of the tram.
And his Canadian friend never came back to Slovakia because he realized that he couldn’t save anyone from Petržalka. Not even his first friend and former commander of their child army.
After Ian got his sight back, he hated things that reminded him of blindness. Slippery stones at the bottom of rivers, lakes, and the sea; mud; the films Dancer in the Dark and Ray; swimming goggles; and dark-colored groceries (beef, Chinese mushrooms, turkey legs).
He could only see out of one eye, though.
The pancakes are worshipers of the cult of death. Bald skulls are a sign of necrophilia. They hate everything that seeks the light, that sprouts, springs forth, breaks out of its shell. They are impressed by a naked, shining bone, a skull, pure calcium. Pancakes’ hair gets a chance to grow only when they’re already six feet under. Then, for the first time, it timidly sprouts from their skulls like feathers.
“Aha! Look, what’s this?” shouts a little boy on the terrace in Petržalka and waves his arms in the air like a bird.
“Nothing,” his friend answers.
“It’s called Heil Hitler,” says the boy and continues to wave his arms.
He takes off a bit.
Elza and Ian were Bratislava desperadoes. They didn’t work for an advertising agency and weren’t trying to save for a better apartment or car. They sat around in posh cafés. They ate, drank, and smoked away all the money they earned. Like students. (Slogan: only genuinely wasted money is money truly saved) They joined that carefree class of people who buy only what they can pee, poop, and blow out—recycle in 24 hours.
It was because of those desperate people that the cafés and restaurants in the city, where everything costs a hundred times more than it should, could stay open.
Once in a while, they would happily enjoy living in other places— in B&Bs or hotels. It didn’t matter which city. It was a pleasure to live somewhere other than Petržalka. When they came home from traveling, they were always afraid to open the apartment door again. What could be waiting for them on the other side?
Elza. Some people get the runs when they go to Egypt. We always got it when we came home. To Petržalka.
Elza and Ian were making love. The voices of child führers playing their games in front of the building wafted in. Shouts. Cursing. It was autumn. Almost dark. The pleasure of man and woman mixed with the vulgarity of the children’s shouting. They made love quietly and modestly. Gazing into each other’s eyes. Like Jews hiding in a cellar.
Every famous city has views. You look out and suddenly it’s lying at your feet, you see it as if in the palm of your hand, everything squeezed together. At some panorama points there are cafés where you can buy the most expensive bottled water and wine in the city.
At every lookout point there’s an old man. Usually with white hair. He stands stealthily in the corner watching those who come to look. He has them in the palm of his hand, everyone squeezed together.
He approaches the defenseless ones, looks into their faces for a moment, and quickly his hands fly into the air as he begins to fire off names of well-known structures and monuments. He points from building to building, as if he were playing chess with the city and subtly moving them around. He continues despite your signaling that you know the city well. All the buildings and monuments too. That you’re not a tourist. That you were born there and you only leave the city during the hot summer months.
Then he holds out his hand and asks for three euros for coffee.
Elza. I’m the Bratislava old man. I wait up on the castle hill. Here you get the best view of the tourists. I look around and choose. Then I approach my victims, look them in the face for a moment, stretch my arm out far in the direction of the other bank and point to the white city beyond the river: Petržalka, Petr-žal-ka.
As if I were an exact copy of old white-haired Freud at the moment the Gestapo summoned him. They moved in directly opposite his apartment, Berggasse 19. Their windows looked into his. Before they let him leave the country, he had to sign a paper saying that they hadn’t done him any harm. The old man signed and added a sentence. “I can only recommend the Gestapo.”
Voices were approaching. They thudded from the other side of the wall, came down from above, throbbed in the soles of our feet. The rhythmic singing of the Petržalka muezzins. They woke Elza up early in the morning. Before dawn.
In the apartment below lived an old woman with her invalid mother. They were always home and both were nearly deaf. Their never-ending conversation started before sunrise. They woke up early, couldn’t sleep. Every morning the two old ladies examined existence—theirs and that of other people. From the beginning. They clung to their gossiping as if to life itself.
Elza lay in bed. The voices rising up from the apartment below disturbed her. She felt like the old women were croaking right inside the pillow under her head. They were there every morning. Since forever. Their old-woman household pulsed under her head.
“Mama, you are a really grumpy patient,” screeched one old lady at the other.
“You’re always nervous. You complain—about the doctors, nurses, the dialysis. You’re horribly dissatisfied all the time. And in that room too—the other grandmothers just lie there quietly, not saying a word…”
“Because they’re stupid,” quacked the second old lady back. And as the sun rose, others joined in.
I can only recommend Petržalka.
The shrieks of a girl brought up on porn films, who screamed while she was fucking as if they were slicing her open. From the apartment to the left the monologue of a disappointed woman. “You got me drunk and then you secretly sold my antique watch, vultures. But this apartment is my property. I’ll kick your asses. Get out of here, bastards. They keep everything from me, steal towels, bang up the pots. The main issue is that none of their stuff is damaged!”
The apartment was filled with loud music. Piercingly loud. The furniture and Elza shook. Someone ran out onto the balcony: “That’s it! Do you hear me? The two of us are done! I loved you very much, but you’ve really offended me this time. But this time you don’t have to deal with it anymore. I love you, but I don’t need your involvement anymore. And it shouldn’t matter to you at all how many dicksinmycunt!”
Elza ran out of the apartment and thought she would never come back. Home!
She walked around town for eternity, making loops around the posh neighborhood. Looking into lit-up windows. The streets echoed with the sound of her own muted steps. The silence radiated. Her breathing was deep and regular.
As soon as she crossed the threshold of her own apartment, it involuntarily quickened. Her belly was bloated with a mountain of muddy, slippery stones. It was quiet in the room. She waited. Like a deer in headlights. Like a rabbit ready to bolt.
The muezzins reminded her of bats. Blind mice with wings always making noises. They find their way, set their azimuth, their position, know where