English Wall (tz)

nedjelja, 07.05.2006.

Black Magic Woman

(Black Magic Woman)

I’m wandering the streets without any free will. Beggars and regular bummers, who know me as a melancholic, but good tipper, suddenly avoid me from far. I look odd. My T-shirt is torn at the sleeve, with ketchup stains on the left side of the chest. My eyes are glued over the rooftops, through the dirty grey clouds of our little town, far away, behind the horizon.

For days I’ve been in this weird limbo, no will power, no own mind, without need to return to my family, work, my daily routines that used to mean a lot to me once. An organized life, order in the Universe, I once held a firm grip upon. And today, I’m just a goose feather in the wind, grass bent by a weak whirl of wind.

The key step towards this doom was my going to this flea market, in search of antiquities for my collection. Fact is, I collect antique stuff and rare old books out of collector’s passion, without any plan or sense of measure; I buy them for own pleasure and my large collection I keep in the attic of the building where I live. On Sundays, you can find all sorts of odd things there from a number of weirdoes. However, that last Sunday something odd happened. I stopped by a sloppy-dressed girl in early twenties, with small hands and sad, brown eyes. She was standing by the pile of odds and ends and some books she was selling. She looked a lot like the Professor’s daughter from Krsto Papić movie ’Izbavitelj’. Something in those eyes drew me to her; I stopped and started a conversation with her. It turns out she’s not from here, with not much to offer except a few books and a little alabaster box, filled with strange-smelling herbs and odd-looking black powder. She claimed the herbs were remedies and a pinch of that powder worked magic- it can tie a loved one’s feelings and lock his or her heart forever.

Naivety and simple-minded seriousness of this girl made me smile. Her own convictions in this fairytale was clearly seen in her eyes. I felt good, so I decided to buy off these few books she was selling for pennies. While I was leafing through the yellow pages of half-decaying Vladan Desnica's book 'Proljeća Ivana Galeba', she suddenly offered to give me the box with the powder for free, with the books. I didn’t know how to decline her offer, so I clumsily reached for the books and the box. At that moment, the box was turned over, and the powder sprinkled over our hands. Startled, she jerked her hand away as if burnt, and began wiping it off on her skirt. I felt embarrassment too, for she truly looked terrified.

- Don’t worry! I’m married, my prime years are long gone; I have a well-rounded life and there’s not the slightest chance to fall in love with someone at the flea market – I said ironically, trying to make her feel at ease. Yet, my ill-conceived humor had a hollow ring to it, while she, avoiding to look me in the eye, quickly collected her items and left.

At home, I rushed to tell my wife what just happened to me. She shrugged her shoulders and muttered – In the end, our fears eventually become real! I had no idea what she meant by that.
The first signs, however, that something weird was happening to me, began the next day. Leafing through Desnica’s book from the flea market, I kept finding highlighted quotes on death, dying, transformation and fairies. I had known before the book was about illness, a man’s introspection on life through the eyes of a bed-ridden patient in a hospital. Yet, I couldn’t understand that whenever I took the book, it fell open on the same pages with the same highlighted quotes, without fail. The book itself had no odor, except for the smell of mould and dust, however, my very hands began to smell oddly. No matter how hard I scrubbed them, the smell wouldn’t go away. I became obsessed by it and started to think that the flea market girl jinxed me in some way. Maybe she put a spell on me, some voodoo curse on my hands and the book she sold me.

After a couple of days, itching became unbearable. I couldn’t focus, before my eyes the colors were spilling into each other, and the skin on my hands was burning and itching like hell. I tried washing hands dozens of times, using different solutions, liquid soaps and detergents. No luck! I was beginning to have a crazy notion, to soak them in gasoline. I tried to chase this silly idea away, knowing a small step forward - striking a match and lighting them up – led to insanity.

I soon found out there was another side-effect to this: a crazy need to call people I knew. I desperately needed to phone her, the girl I even didn’t know the name or address. Then I wanted to call friends I didn’t hear in a long time, to talk to the relatives who decades ago stopped caring about me. My need to pick up the phone and dial any number, listen to the breathing of people on the other side of the line, to say ‘hello’ into the phone and listen to the echo of my own distorted voice….. All this became so obsessive.

Finally, I couldn’t stand it anymore. A day before yesterday, halfway through the counsel meeting I chaired, I suddenly stood up, took off my jacket and my shirt, startling everyone. Only after I took off the heavy golden wristwatch, a gift from the central bank’s governor for our successful collaboration, I felt relieved and free. Without uttering a word, I just turned around and left, leaving my colleagues in awe.

From that day on, I have not slept, eaten or gone to see my family. I’m wandering the streets, walking under the bridges, watching closely the faces of passersby. I hope to find that strange girl, who sold me the book and a story, giving me a little box of superstition and a pinch of madness. I want to look her in the eye and ask her, if she feels as strange as I do? Does she too have itching in the hands, where the black powder fell on that Sunday afternoon? I would ask her if she sold me a little chunk of paranoia, or just opened my eyes. Is she trying to make a devil out of me, a well-fitted little wheel in the Grand Scheme of things? A man with stone heart? Or, just a free man at last?

I’m sitting on a bench in the park. Across the street, from a nearby coffee shop, there’s music playing and I suddenly realize it’s the old Peter Green’s tune ' Black magic woman'.

08-04-2005

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