On the way home I found Smetana's 'Vltava' on the radio; and as usual, the
opening theme really opens the tap for my tears to pour. Why? Because of how
the stream grow into the river, and how the river grows to thunder, and from
the source to the estuary it is love, love, love, the love I know so well,
the love for the country, and the belonging.
The music trickles; the river flows; magnitude, amplitude changes, the
landscape evens out, stream grows, all is there, growing up, maturing,
dissappearing, birth to death, and such a pure symbolism, we flow like
rivers through the river bed where so much water flowed before, and that is
our identity, and as we grow we become the identity of our culture, we give
a little bit, define it further, add to ornaments.
There, in the car, driving under the speed limit in my freaking Toyota,
flowing with other moving particles on the highway; steeled faces; gliding;
faceless lumps of fat sipping their styrofoam beverages, all lanes going the
same speed, and while Vltava grows in passion and power, the flow of
everyday zombies amplifies my detachement. The juxtaposition makes me exit
the highway.
I become sad, almost desperate. Earlier I found a message on my answering
system that my little Paris apartment will be vacant as of January. My
cousin needs to know if I'll take it or shall he rent it out.
Vltava continued to flow; stream, through the country, into the river, bergs
into plains; logic and symmetry and sense everywhere. And me, here? A stream
flowing upstream? A salmon in his panicky leaps? For how long? Why this
struggle; I should be floating leisurely downstream; rubbing my belly
pleasantly against bleached oval stones.
I was thirsty; after work I went to work out and sit in sauna. There, in
that freaking club wrinkly men, carrying their miniscule penises (overloaded
with dead skin and dark in contrast with their complexion of Yorkshire pigs)
with kind of a primate pride, talk about baseball or hockey or their lazy
teacher's schedules. For three years now I observe those same empty faces
and despise them; barely ever talked to them, even common pleasantries. They
represent the vision of death to me; of empty, failed lives.
Driving slowly through the plazza I felt banging, ringing in my head. I saw
more hicks; white trash; fat pigs, bored housewives wandering Wal Mart. I
took some money from the machine; transfered to Gordana's account more than
support is; bought some tobacco; two bottles of Perrier;
and went to licquor store.
Decisions to be made. Sometimes I spend time in the licquor store, browsing
through wines, or exotic licquors, from Italian monks, from Austrian Alps.
The store is big, clean and neat. Neat people work there know me . They want
to talk. They tell me they ordered the Croatian Riesling I mentioned once,
they ask me about French wines, or we just make fun and they laugh. Tonight
I told them, guys, since you know me so well why don't you stop asking me
for the bloody air miles crap? And they say how some customers troubled them
for not asking...., and I say "well, just slap them and tell them 'fuck of
bastards'; even vendors were entitled to the basic human rights back in
communism! You must protect your sacred right to slap the piggish customer
talking too much!" I exclaim thatrically, in thick accent; and as I walk out
they laugh and giggle and repeat my words, and exiting I hear the girl
saying to another "gosh I like his accent".
Driving home with a bottle of Stolichnaya and some Danish beers I still
don't know the answer for Christian. Chopin is on every station these days,
and I savor more of that Slavic poison (the same one Rilke couldn't take,
being a sterile oversensitive German).
At home no letters, only Time Magazine. No messages. I pour myself vodka and
add some blackberry crap from France. Scenes from France go through my head;
and Smetana's music still echoes. I called Dora, not home. And Rena, dear
Rena, a woman that just might be the reason for this frantic last effort to
continue upstream. But she remains invisible.
A woman as a comfort to a lost man. A stream forcing itself upstream; a
salmon jumping another stony barrier, in his blind quest to die as far
upstream as possible. The sockeye might never reach his spawning grounds;
his white belly up, flesh falling off bones, he floats slowly back, with a
flow; back, back to where he came from; gliding, surprisingly,
like Vltava, like Danube, like Sava.
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