When I got home last night, there were two cats recalling their human past, just outside the door of my building. They were talking in melancholy and relatively deep voices - like those of forlorn toddlers - perhaps about the days when people had been happy to see them and let them into the warmth.
It's a windy place, Petrzalka. We have several trees, but large areas with only wide roads and tall square buildings, the latter making for brutal sideswiping tunnels of time-is-money, capitalist air in a hurry. (It was quieter before.) On days like today, I feel extra sorry for these chilled felines, although I don't see why they don't hunker down in the trench that has been dug around our building and left. (This illustrates the Petrzalkan way of doing things - in functional stages rather than by area, so we decide to cut all the grass in town over the course of one hellish weekend, and I suspect they have fewer people capable of laying the cable (or whatever) than they have capable of digging the holes. Needless to say, we have got used to it.)
This afternoon, no sign of the cats (one orange), but I shared the small lift with two gentlemen, one lame and becrutched, the other smiling, helpful and siniste (both orange). They were having an animated, friendly conversation, but stopped when we were in the lift, picking it up again as soon as they left two floors up (one was lame, it's okay). I can't decide if this was because they didn't want to share their conversation with me, or if they didn't want to impose it on me. It's a small lift with a charming, sweet-bitter scent, amply filled by the three of us and considerably less scented than usual, most of the air being taken up by bodies; or maybe I was holding my breath in the awkwardness. People don't look one another in the eyes here, even when they're bellying one another in the hips. (So in that sense, at least, it is like being in England.)
My computer has started behaving horribly slowly, so I will curtail this indulgent gaze at my navel (also orange). Good luck to all those who have exam results soon, and I suppose to everyone else as well, since good luck is quite important in general. I'll write about Fateless (previously published as Fatelessness, previously published as Fateless, first published as Sorstalanság) when this aged hunk of poo has cooled off.
4 comments:
I'm smiling about the cats and the orange men.
that first paragraph is pure beautiful... sadly I don't have time to read on at present. But in a way I'm glad cos that paragraph was all I needed.
ah, the sweet smell of your lift was mine for a short period of time, i'm glad to see it has been recognised in writing...i thought i smelt it recently, an old carpet in the bricabrac shop on lewisham way had a simlar odour but lacked whatever makes your lift unique...it is reminiscent in some ways to the production of jamon,the environment in which the meat is hung up to air dry is very important to the final result, the breezes and scents that hang in the air in the andalucian hills gently infuse into the meat over time, a unique microclimate that simply can't be recreated in a laboratory....your lift, with its vents at the top and bottom collects air from throughout the building and yet the air flow is not stagnant resulting in the wondrous scent you experience upon entry. I suggest you do an experiment with a leg of pig, cured and then hung unobtrusively from the celing of the lift..18 months should do it by which time you may have captured the essence of your lift within the meat..make sure you apply for a certificate of authentic geographical denomination , that way, no one can use your title on an inferior product. Production may be limited to one leg every 2 years, forget albino caviar or civet poo coffee.. yours would be the rarest and most sought after ingredient in the world!
I imagine it would be served with a very mild vinegar, and something based on fennel.
When I came back to I's flat on Saturday, M's family were there and gave me food. They - the source of all the wonderful ex-pig products you ate when here - are my best chance of a pig leg. I'll ask when they invite me to a pig killing, which should be any day now.
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