The Old Geezer had come again to the shore
of the
He had found out that the barbarians in the
Balkans had been allowed to feed their eyes on some free world and he had drawn
to the conclusion that the latter’s eyes were livelier, more durable and
special because they had seen many a thing. Their eyes were well-trained. The
Old Geezer’s pension was enough to buy even one of the barbarians’ god eyes. He
could exchange it for his dead eye, to be exhibited in one of the new
Collections or eccentric museums. The notice on the glass box would read:
”Western eye in meditation”.
As usual in the last ten summers, while he
was relaxing for a month on the seashore and having his bones tenderized by
some blind masseurs, the Old Geezer was welcomed by his young lover, the best
half of the honeymoon. Samy had barely turned thirty hot summers old and she
had become more sensual and childish after her secret conversion from Sofica
into Samy. They got on very well, although Samy had a sweetheart in the army
and the Old Geezer hadn’t fallen in love for half a century. His wife had
retained a memory like an elephant, full of trifles and this and that, and she
was already bereft of any sexual passion or compassion. She resembled a wall
clock. The Old Geezer had hardly had the time to feel the lack of love
throughout a life in which to be loved often meant to be totally insignificant.
Samy welcomed him at the customs with a
bouquet of roses as crimson as the blood of youth.
“Oh, my soul,” Samy cried out, bursting
into the same tears as always. “I have been longing for you, my old sweetie,
God knows how I managed to survive.”
She was as stunning as that night in which
the Old Geezer had sat down in the hotel’s bar to have a whiskey after his
massage and she had looked at him with sad, puppy-like eyes, as if the whole
transition was deploring its misfortune in those eyes. It had been a love at
three quarters of sight, because the Old Geezer’s left eye had burnt out and
they both barely had two eyes between them, if we count the influence of her
tears.
During the first night of their
re-encounter, they made love like crazy. The Old Geezer was some true garlic:
white head and green tail. Samy must have suffered terribly in the interim,
since her screams had become richer. The Old Geezer was always thrilled by the
sensation that it was not in her hot sex that he pushed his organ but into a
stereo, polyglot brain.
Under the duvet, in the light of the three
eyes, Samy had confessed that the summer that they undoubtedly find their lost
eye. She had spoken with somebody who had made a serious promise. These Balkan
mutts had started to awaken. A couple of years before thy used to sell for a
dime their kidneys, testicles or impressive pieces of stomach, lungs or liver
and now they had found out the real prices and they did not run to corner the
market. But the Old Geezer needn’t to worry, this summer he was bound to leave
home with a baby who should be seen by the future father with both his eyes. An
eye and the medical operation cost as much as they usually spent in the first
half of the honeymoon. With some luck, leaving aside the regrets that they
hadn’t done it years before, when the prices were fairer, the Old Geezer would
go back with one and a half honeymoon.
A summer before they had given up the idea
of buying a glass or a sheep eye. It was helpless, even if that doomed land had
been overwhelmed by the desert and it could have used some blade of grass in
their imagination or hunger. The glass eye could have a negative impact on the
Old Geezer’s love, as it could foster lucidity and impartiality. A glass eye
would ruin the balance required by a mad love, and a sheep eye was in no way
needed.
In the first morning of their honeymoon,
after they had drunk their coffee and fruit juice on the balcony, the Old
Geezer suggested going to the bazaar and buy a lot of pancakes. He had a
craving for pancakes. In this country, not only the women but also the pancakes
seemed plastic-like. Samy agreed, she was mad about pancakes, she put on her
make-up, she put on her new rosy dress and went down the bazaar. The smell of
the pancakes made them feel dizzy. Husky, sleepy voices invited them in four of
five international languages to have a tour of the resort in the best carriage
in
“Not bad a drive. Me miss drive in
carriage,” said the Old Geezer.
Samy didn’t answer. The Old Geezer turned
to her and suddenly that bitter, foul-smelling jealousy fever of his went up.
Samy was watching the horses. She was holding in a fast grip the cardboard
little plate, waiting for the hot pancakes, and she couldn’t take her eyes from
the horses. To be more specific, from the horses’ sex organs.
“What you saw, baby girl?”
And because he could speak Samy’s language
better than a horse did, and because Samy could provide explanations in the
same leafless language – since it was the only language in which the Old Geezer
received explanations, without becoming suspicious – Samy kissed his cheek and
cooled down his courage of a bad foreign language speaker who wouldn’t stop
talking, by telling him:
“I feel pity for the horses, my love. Samy
loved very much horses, dogs and roses.”
The Old Geezer calmed down. The organs of
the horses were humiliatingly big, but this year they seemed huge and didn’t
aloe for pity. They may have doubled because of the poverty. The horses had lost
a lot of weight and this was probably an efficient way for your penis to grow.
It was a day to remember for Samy and the
Old Geezer. They had sunbathed in the nude, alone and in love on the hot sand,
supervised by nobody, not even by the half-starved crows and seagulls which
knitted I don’t know what unseen canvass in the sky.
They had got a tan, had drunk a lot of
draft beer, and it was only after lunch that Samy was brutally hit by the curse
of her sweetheart, the soldier, as her period came. She cried. She cried once
more. The Old Geezer tried to soothe her and to remember what year had Samy’s
native lover started his military service. He didn’t know how long the military
service lasted in this country, unless it was prolonged by some time in jail. He
didn’t know many things about the army, although he had had a most bizarre
military service himself. It was in last months of the Second World war.
According to a decree, about ninety young men were recruited in the Old
Geezer’s neighboring district, and they were sent to the front. But not to that
front on which you could leave your bones for nothing. But not to that one on
which you could leave your bones for some great ideas, either. No. The Old
Geezer’s legion had a very special mission. They were supposed to wait on the
edge of the front until a sonorous voice ordered them on the phone to put on a
certain uniform and crush the enemy. They had more than four kinds of uniforms.
One was that of today’s enemies. Another one was that of today’s allies. The third
one was that of some potential enemies or allies. And the other one was plain,
no signs, in hardly definable colors, as universal as possible. That is how the
Old Geezer had brought his share in the re-shaping of the borders and the glory
of the war.
“Samy sad?”
“No, baby. Samy moody. Samy edgy because of
period, but more because of eye.”
She was sad and hopeless because the one
who had promised to help her wouldn’t call. If he didn’t call until nightfall,
she would go to his office and take a grip of that precious eye, even if she
had to pull it out of his head.
The Old Geezer tried to soothe her. He
invited her to a tour in the carriage, in the most romantic carriage of
Samy gave him an endless kiss. They chose a
high carriage, whose seat was covered in thick, scarlet silk. They felt slightly
dizzy because of the smell of urine on the dry grass and they set off to see
again the small towns to which they felt attached through the countless
unwritten verses, which couldn’t have been defiled by dumbness, mother tongues
or the black holes of their lingua franca.
The carriage driver was an old gipsy,
shaved like a groom, wearing some cheap cologne, clean and witty. He didn’t
seem to be a swanophiliac. He led a
simple life: when he didn’t drive foreigners in his carriage, he got drunk,
made babies or swelled colorful balloons, which were sold by his children,
grandchildren and even his great-grandchildren. He loved doing that: it was
like a sort of confession.
The Old Geezer got along perfectly with the
driver – his name was Pilica* – and he didn’t feel
like giving up a longer discussion with him. A conversation started in the
carriage, continued in some pub, in that international, beatific space in which
the illiterate rapidity befriend those who don’t speak foreign languages. Samy
hardly forced a smile from time to time. The Old Geezer was interested in the
life of the people inhabiting the land, but also that of the horses and the
carriage drivers. Pilica told him that the name of the stallion was Isaf. The
name was of Turkish origin and meant enough, sufficient or enuf, as the Brits
say. It was the most beautiful, the most thoroughbred horse and Pilica had
named it Enaf, not to be harmed by
the evil eye. You couldn’t have more than that. No mare could give birth to a
nobler, handsomer, more loving stallion. Had Isaf had its foreskin removed, the
Old Geezer asked. Oh, no, laughed Pilica, he is a freethinker.
The night had fallen and Samy grew
impatient. She asked them to see her to the Eastern corner of the resort,
kissed the Old Geezer, waved and left for the left eye. There was no need for
the Old Geezer to accompany her. My girl problem health, he said to Pilica.
Woman problem. With a smile intended to be waggish. Pilica replied: We all
woman problem, esteemed gentleman.
After Samy’s perfume got lost in the night,
the night turned into a sort of drunk wheel of fortune and ages, as the old men
decided to get a big bottle of gin and wander all night long, all lifelong if
needed, until the end of our sight, if the case. Isaf held on, it deserved its
fame of the noblest horse in the whole
* Little drunker
[Translated by Monica Voiculescu]