A Swarm of Dust Read online

  After the dry, hot sunshine a wet period set in that was reminiscent of spring. What Janek noticed most or almost exclusively were changes to the weather. The atmosphere affected his every move and he treated it the way you would a blanket. Along with the weather, the structure of his feelings changed. With the wet weather he felt as if a south wind was blowing inside him, something thawed, became softer, juices flowed from the depths and circulated through his veins. When he lay in the long grass by the stream, he was often aware of the air above him, of the wind, the waving grass, the buzzing of bees. Of course, the weather was not completely spring-like since it was July, but the pleasant coolness, the freshness of the earth and the wind, were reminiscent of that season. It was summer, but Janek wanted to feel spring and its freshness, and because that was so, that’s what he felt. As often before, his senses latched onto nature and drank it in, thus suppressing the thoughts seething inside him. His mind kept reviving various memories, making him relive old events, usually in a revised form; some nuances became more intense, stronger, others were shrouded in mist.

  But the movement of nature did not flood him so thoroughly that certain objects did not protrude from the dark surface. One in particular became ever sharper. It had the shape of an axe. When he became almost convinced that it was not an axe, it appeared in front of him in a very distinct way. It floated in the air at different heights, it came closer and receded, sometimes the blade was towards him, then the blunt edge replaced it. The sudden presence of the axe seemed odd to Janek, since he had no memory involving an axe, he saw it merely as an object, not as a part of some previous events. At certain moments it hung right in front of his eyes, so clear that he could see the blunt edge of the blade and the colour of the steel, which was light near the cutting edge and darker at the top. Then, when the image had disintegrated a number of times, it began to trouble him that the bothersome axe kept reappearing before his eyes, as if demanding an explanation for its presence. It kept assailing him for so long that associations began to spring up. They were not connected in any way, merely flashes.

  In the end, he felt he had no choice but to succumb. The scene of the storm when he and his father had been cutting down trees to build the house appeared. On that occasion the axe had danced before his eyes for hours and no doubt imprinted itself on his retina. With this realisation he felt relief and the axe disappeared. But it soon returned, as if unsatisfied with the explanation of its presence, as if it was demanding more, and this forcefulness aroused fear in Janek, while at the same time lessening his resistance to the associations that were assailing him. The dike weakened and a swarm of memories splashed across it. Because it happened so suddenly, it was seething and unclear. But certain shades were clearly discernible. The axe no longer hovered in the air, it was hanging on a nail on the wall of the house. Beside it shimmered the bed by the door that his father was supposed to lie on … then his silent footsteps, the swing of the axe … or did he swing it? But the bed was empty … the axe struck nothing … there were only rags and old sacks … so then it was nothing … it was only an intention … or wish … or a recognition that it would be a good thing to do … sometime … in the future. It hadn’t actually happened.

  He was flooded with an unfamiliar sense of joy – like a man who has seen an apparition before him and then discovered it is only a tree. Now the memories drifted in a relaxed way towards each other, came together, arranged themselves in a sensible order and then once more flowed through him. After that evening when his father had returned and beaten his mother, the idea was born within him that mother was happy when father beat her. But he had been surprised by her gasping, crying, suffering. Long into the night he clung to a tree and was washed by the rain. He thought about everything, new feelings bubbled up within, the horizon became lighter, closer, the sense that he could make decisions grew within him. Of course, he did not realise that his new knowledge was not strong enough to shake his existing attitude towards his mother. That reached its peak when he began to respect Geder, because he assumed that he beat her when they had sex. Then he began to worship and respect everything that brought his mother joy, everything that gave her pleasure, and to hate everything that brought her disappointment and suffering. But there was still one thing he could not understand: why she seemed to enjoy some blows and not others.

  The puzzle was solved the next morning by his mother. ‘Janek,’ she said, with a benign look, ‘you are a child and will always remain a child who understands nothing. If someone beats me, it is nice only if he loves me … If someone who hates and wishes to punish me beats me, then it hurts … it hurts terribly … ’

  The difference thus took on sharp edges, two colours appeared that had no intermediate shades. And his attitude to his mother became the basic outline of his inner world. Between these two poles there appeared and disappeared all his other feelings, it became a physiological law that subjugated his instincts, subjugated his nerves, and redirected them parallel with its strength. The cause of his inner tension was his mother, for she was the only palpable object in the incomprehensibility that he surrendered to out of fear and the desire to overcome it. In these moments Janek’s inner world was highly complex and ephemeral, constantly changing shape. This was undoubtedly because a kind of disgust was growing within him for anything that brought his mother suffering. This filled him with extreme hatred for his father.

  But it had not happened. The axe stayed on the nail by the door. He ran outside, into the woods, to the earth, the trees, the air, the sky. In the face of his inner confusion he always latched onto nature, which saved him. Once again there was a storm: he didn’t know how it had arisen so suddenly, it seemed recently that storms were coming ever more often, as if the sky was making amends for the previous drought. It crashed and crackled, it swept across the valley into the distance, the lightning fading, the darkness creeping in behind it and swathing the diminished woods. It felt as if the storm was passing through him, washing him, and with the final flashes that were already beyond the hills, the spasms of pain inside him also passed. Now he floated, he was empty but fresh, like the air is fresh and empty after a storm.

  His father was no longer there, he had vanished, his mother said he’d gone for good, following his own path, and rightly so, she said. He was happy his father had gone, but at the same time he grieved for him, for his mother’s tormentor had thus become more distant. And the urge to destroy him had not subsided within him. But in spite of that, now, when he recalled everything, at least one thing was clear: the action had not been carried out, the intention had not been realised. He felt a kind of freedom, a double freedom: he felt his mother’s relief and he felt joy because nothing had happened. Because everything had remained as it was before, he felt almost happy that he had not done what he intended.

  When the memories trickled away, he began once again returning to nature, to the valley, to things. The grass by the stream had not been cut and was standing high above him as he lay, the grass blades waving in the southerly and swaying past him, now and then one tickling his cheek. The wind also blew through the alders by the stream, making them rustle. The stream bed was now full of water. Higher up, on the steep slope, young beech trees gave way to chestnuts and spruces with the occasional birch; they reached to the ridge and across it, spreading to the south further than he could see. On the other side, on the hill, was the village just above the gypsy settlement. On the slopes to the north and south were fields of wheat and stubble. The wind sometimes carried from there the sound of laughter or the piercing song of a blackbird. He felt satiated, at peace, satisfied.

  Something suddenly stirred him, he felt that someone was close, crouching in the grass. He turned his head, raised himself on his hands and opened his mouth. Emma was in front of him, laughing. The awareness of her closeness banished the previous sense of victory. Once again he shuddered.

  He never thought about Emma, but whenever he saw her he felt paralysed. Once he tried to connect this
feeling to an unusual incident, and remembered once walking up towards the village and seeing an animal lying in a nearby field. He could not make out what it was and this led him to draw nearer to find out. But he was annoyed that this would delay him, since he wanted to be in the village as soon as possible. But although he felt like going over to the animal, he resisted the impulse, since it would divert him from the direct path. And the whole time he also felt afraid that he would find out what kind of animal it was. This was a step he did not want to risk. But then, when he went forward with mixed feelings, he suddenly turned, convinced that he had seen Emma in the fields. A moment later he wondered how he could think something like that!

  Her behaviour seemed very intrusive, although it may not have been so. He had the feeling she wanted to take him somewhere he didn’t want to go, so he struggled not to think about her and avoided her presence. Of course, he didn’t realise that he wasn’t struggling against her and her presence, but against his own burning desire to be near to her. This desire sneaked to the front of his mind and lay in ambush for him. Now, when he saw Emma beside him, he burned with a confused mass of feelings. He could clearly recognise the flames of joy and it was this joy that scared him most, so that he froze and wished to flee. He thought she was bothersome, that she was stalking him and gave him no peace, but he was paralysed; although he was convinced he had already reached a decision, his body would not obey him. More confusion flowed through him. When it subsided, he was left helpless and resigned, without will, nature once again collided with him, his mind became cloudy.

  Emma laughed. She flicked her wet hands at his face. She had been by the stream, and the hem of her skirt was wet.

  ‘You’ve been lying there a long time!’ she said. ‘I saw you from higher up. I thought you were asleep. Or dead!’

  She sank to her knees and rested her round behind on her bare feet. Janek looked at her without replying. He unwillingly asked himself where she had seen him from, for he had been lying in the long grass. Maybe she had been on the other hill, above the stream, in the wood. But he didn’t ask, for he felt his voice would be strange and would scare him even more. As if reading his thoughts, she said:

  ‘We were harvesting up there!’ and she pointed to the hill above the stream. ‘I saw you run down here ages ago and then lie down. And when I came down I saw you. I washed my feet in the stream and I’ll dry them here. The sun’s nice here and no one can see.’

  She leaned back on her elbows, her legs slightly bent at the knees, then she pulled her wet skirt to the top of her thighs. Her brown skin held drops of moisture that the sun began to soak up. Her head sank into the long grass and she watched him from there. He turned to the left, towards the settlement. He thought he could hear Šubi barking. Examining the path that led upwards, he felt sure that he could quickly run up it, but he felt a tingling in his limbs, as if he was being pricked with hot needles, and his eyes once again slid towards Emma and he saw that her skirt was now round her waist, almost above her navel, and that she had unbuttoned her thin blouse. The skirt and blouse were all that she was wearing. The tingling flowed to the end of his toes, he felt it in his scalp; the sensations sometimes crawled slowly, at other times seemed to be racing round his body. Her skin was bronzed by the sun, it was firmer than his mother’s; he could feel something different in her, with her raven black hair. Her legs were slightly apart and open to the sun, he could see the curve of her pudenda, drops of moisture glistened in the tousled black hair; she was slightly swaying her knees and her gaze held his. He had never seen his mother naked in daylight, he had never seen a woman’s sex before, The tingling changed into larger shockwaves …

  ‘Janek, will you bring me a little water from the stream,’ she said with a careless, sleepy voice, ‘in your hands and pour it on me … ’

  An invisible force pulled him to his feet and took him to the stream, where he dipped his hands in the water, cupped them and came back. Now she was stark naked, the blouse and skirt had gone. ‘Here, pour it on my stomach … ’ she pointed.

  He knelt beside her and poured the water on her navel; there wasn’t much, as most of it had escaped from his hands: small trickles ran down the curve of her stomach, she inhaled so that the curve grew more pronounced … ‘Massage me a little with the water, with your hand … ’

  His hand slid down her wet stomach, she took hold of it and pulled it down further, to her sex. ‘Here, a little,’ she said … He held his hand between her legs, while she raised herself on her right arm. ‘Will you do it to me, Janek … ’ she whispered, ‘I’d like you to. Get undressed … ’

  She helped him, his shirt flew into the grass, she pulled his trousers down, grabbed his penis and squeezed it: her hand was hot, he lay on her, and she placed his right hand on her left breast, the left behind her neck … ‘You need to squeeze here … ’

  She was a big woman, bigger than his mother, his thin body melted between her hot thighs, the tingling was replaced by tongues of flame, the fire was roaring; and then, when he became dizzy, she shoved him away.

  ‘Wait, I haven’t said you can yet!’ she said harshly.

  He lay in the grass. The blood had rushed to his face and he felt tears in his eyes. He was licked by flames, but the astonishment had started to douse them.

  ‘If you want to do it to me, there’s something you have to do for me first.’ Her voice was brusque, commanding.

  He shoved his face into the grass, overcome with dark despair, a sudden bitterness appeared, but soon changed into humility. He felt her hand on his naked back.

  ‘This evening, wait for me at the edge of the woods. I’ll tell you what you have to do.’

  He heard her slipping her clothes on. Then beating grass from her skirt. Then she walked off. ‘Get dressed, in case anyone comes,’ he heard her say when she was already a few steps away. The grass was calm beneath her feet.

  He leapt up, hurriedly put on his shirt and trousers, and once more threw himself on the ground and buried his face. Tears poured from his eyes and he was shaken by sobbing. He felt he had taken the step that he had so feared, that he had not successfully defended himself and that he was being assailed by things he could not grasp. Emma was new; she came after his mother. And she was different. Although he guessed that relations between them would be like that between him and his mother, he still felt a difference, and that difference filled him with horror. The relationship between him and his mother was the basis of it all, he went to her to calm his fear of what he didn’t understand, in her hands he felt safe, because she kept showing him that it was pleasant, that there was nothing to fear … Although he felt no pleasure, but only indescribable horror at the act itself, he was convinced that he was sacrificing himself for his mother’s pleasure out of his gratitude to her. But now that feeling, that had almost become fixed, had acquired a hint of the unknown.

  And now there was Emma! Her body, her sex, her bold openness and insistence, all filled him with indescribable repulsion and fear. He felt as if this was the cold snake that had once scared him. In Emma’s behaviour there was no gentleness, no trust, no warmth or safety. With her it was all horror. But a horror that drew him in.

  They were walking across the mown field on the hill. Sharp moonlight poured across the earth. They could see their shadows in front of them. His was angular and long, it moved its legs in time with his, and he felt as if he had short legs and an enormous body. He looked up at Emma, walking in front of him. Her shadow fell to the left, it was less distinct, it broke as the ground rose and fell to the left of the grassy path on which they walked. When the path widened into a grass strip where the plough had turned, the shadows disappeared. The grass was darker than the light grey stubble, and the shadows sank into it.

  He looked past Emma into the valley. It was carved out like a trough, stretching into the distance towards the south, rising on the other side to dark heights. The moon was so clear that he could see the road winding along the valley. Around it gathered c
lusters of roofs, which formed the villages. For a moment he thought the road was a long snake-like animal with dark swellings along its body, the tail becoming lost in the plain and the head embedded in the hills that closed the valley. The thought of the snake surprised him unpleasantly as soon as it appeared and he wanted to repel it. As he looked at the dark swellings along its body, those villages, it struck him that they could be legs, protruding to right and left, and that the road might be more reminiscent of a lizard than a snake. But then the thought of a lizard was as unpleasant to him as that of a snake.

  Emma was walking in front of him; she did not look back once. Because the grass was wet with dew and they had been walking on it for some time, his bare feet were starting to feel cold. His soles did not feel the sharp stubble since he always went around barefoot and they had hardened, but the coldness of the dew ate into his skin. After a while, though, the tingling became burning and it felt as if the dew was hot. When he thought about this for a while, he decided that what he was feeling was the warmth of the blood in his veins. The slope was ever steeper and in some places the fields were carved into the hillside like terraces. Here the grass strip narrowed to steep steps. To left and right grew alders and acacias. Emma disappeared into the dark trees. Slowly and cautiously, so as not to slip, he entered a hollow. Beneath his feet the hill began to level out as it ran towards the village and the road.

  Emma gestured to him and put her finger to her lips. He leaned his left hand against the trunk of a large tree. They stared at the cluster of houses about a hundred and fifty metres away. The barking of dogs could be heard briefly. They were not barking fiercely, but negligently, out of habit. Then there was silence. In some houses lights could be seen, others were in darkness, as they had windows on the side away from them. Emma looked around as if weighing up the evening quiet that lay over the settlement. Lower down to the right, beside the road, stood a house on its own, illuminated more than the rest. There was also a light in the yard, so that the entrance door could be clearly seen. That door opened a number of times, a person emerged, moved around at the back of the house and then returned across the yard. The sound of a door slamming reached the alders. Then there was silence. No one was moving around. In the upper part of the village the dogs barked again, but soon stopped.