The Lake

II

Larva

If Nami had to describe the city, he wouldn't know where to begin. With the buildings so tall here he finds himself instinctively crouching, and his eyes constantly search for the sky in between them. The air is filled with honking horns, backfiring exhausts, and shouting. A woman in a high voice chides her child for crying. There's an odour of faeces, sweet perfume, and frying fat. Grease-stained bits of paper and dust float through the air. The people here look a little different, too; their eyes are brighter and shinier, and they move faster. Even the street dogs are in more of a hurry. Colourful posters are plastered all over the walls in multiple layers. The ones underneath come unglued and trap the dust from the air.

Someone honks from behind him and Nami gives a startled jump. A girl with sunglasses on sits behind the wheel of an abnormally clean and shiny off-road vehicle. Her hair and teeth are as dazzling as the collection of bracelets on her hand with which she's gesturing. Nami just stands staring as the girl shouts and waves at him to clear the way. She has a picture of a seahorse on her rhinestone-studded T-shirt, and two large round, three-dimensional breasts underneath. Nami has a painful erection. Somebody shoves him out of the road and the girl in the white car honks and moves on. Nami stands staring after her for a long time, stroking his sternum. A middle-aged blonde with black roots snorts derisively. She has a spare tyre around her waist and a moustache over her upper lip.

'Could you tell me the time, Auntie?' Nami asks. He has no idea what time of day it is. The sun is fairly low, and there isn't a cloud in the sky, but the gusting wind has wound a cookie wrapper around his ankle.

'Auntie?' She gives him a look over the rims of her glasses, then bursts out laughing so hard it makes her belly jiggle. The golden teeth click in her mouth. Nami tilts his head to the side and watches until she stops laughing. Finally the woman sets her shopping bag down on the ground, takes off her glasses, and wipes the tears from her face.

'It's half past eight,' she says. She picks up her bag and turns to leave. 'Eight thirty, boy.'

'Thank you,' says Nami.

The woman turns her head and smiles. 'Would you like a pirogi?'

'Yes, please.'

'Yes, please? Some man you are. Get a grip on yourself!'

'It's just that I'm really hungry.'

'Follow me.'

The woman crosses the street. The wind blows cold now. Even in his grampa's sheepskin coat, Nami is shivering. The woman enters a glass door with a red neon sign on it. Most of the letters are missing, so Nami can't put together what it said originally: C - - - - K - - - - ER - - - M. K - - K - - H.

Stepping up to the dingy counter, the woman orders two meat pirogi for Nami and a black coffee for herself. She then watches without a word, smoking and nodding her head as the food disappears down his throat. Her fingernails are bright red, like the colour of kid goat's blood. The man behind the counter, in a grubby white cap, coughs neurotically, his belly brushing against the cash register. The pirogi taste of burnt oil and keep coming back on Nami for several hours afterward, along with the taste of bile.

As he carries the woman's bag of groceries up to the third floor, his knees start to buckle. She waves wearily toward the elevator shaft, explaining that it isn't running and never has. They never even installed a car. Breathing heavily, she fumbles around in a large white purse, searching for the keys.

'Come in.'

A honey-coloured light shines in the hall on the other side of the door. Nami catches the scent of naphthalene balls, and the familiar smell makes his head spin a little. For a moment he's back in his gramma's closet, where he used to sit whenever he needed to hide from his drunken grampa, inhaling the scent of naphthalene and scratching at the lice on his head. The woman probably has warm milk and a soft bed with a fluffy duvet. She takes off her pink feather coat and changes into rubber slippers. As she hangs her coat on the hall stand, the overpowering scent of musk washes over Nami.

'Come on in,' the musk whoops cheerfully. 'What are you doing, standing there like a broken alder?'

Nami feels like he's going to faint. As a wave of weakness comes over him, he has to rest his head on the door frame.

'I need to go now,' he mumbles. 'Which way is it to the bazaar?'

'Just come relax,' says the musk, tilting her head to the side, spilling the fat beneath her chin. She reaches out her hand and takes a step toward him. Nami firmly shakes his head, pushing her away. He feels like he's choking on the musk. He starts to gag. He picks up his kit bag from the floor and bolts toward the door.

'You're a nutjob,' the woman says, shaking her head. 'Go ahead then.' Nami hears the door slam as he dashes down the stairs.

A moment later he's on the street. He sets off willy-nilly down the pavement. His step is light again, he's already feeling better. Occasionally he even jumps over the potholes in the pavement. At one point, he's joined by a dirty yellow dog, but the dog turns off to the right at the first intersection.

The air is cool and razor sharp. A gust of wind from who knows where carries the smell of diesel. Nami bumps into people as he stares into the shop windows, every so often stopping to listen to the city's noise. Several times he finds himself in the same spot where he had stopped a while earlier. And once he is startled to see his own reflection in the glass of a shoe store display; his lips are swollen and peeling. Nami engraves himself into the relief of the city. When his feet start to hurt and his fingers turn numb with cold, he sees the first stalls of the bazaar-potato crates, baskets filled with fish and red apples, jars of pickled vegetables and plastic dishes stacked with honeycombs. He smells the aroma of mutton on the grill and swallows dryly. Thundering music and high-pitched voices blast from several radios.

The stallholders at the bazaar have broad faces with deep wrinkles around their eyes, reminiscent of the cracks in the arid surface of the steppe, just like the inhabitants of Boros. Nami buys a cup of tea and a mutton cutlet. Tears spring to his eyes as the hot juice runs down his neck. He smiles like someone granted absolution.

'Where's the job market?' he asks the woman in the green scarf selling mutton cutlets. She nods in response, but her radio is on so loud he has to ask her two more times before she hears what he says. She waves vaguely in the direction of the crowds streaming into the bazaar. Nami wipes his hands on his coat, takes a deep breath, the cold air stinging his nose, and sets off.

After weaving through the stalls for another fifty metres or so, he reaches the edge of the marketplace. He can tell by the open waste containers full of rotten food. Across the street is a park. Well maintained, paths freshly swept, leaves raked into piles. A fountain stands at the entrance, apparently still in working order, though it's currently turned off in view of the low temperatures. Gracing the fountain is a statue of a water nymph holding a jug in one hand. In summer, water runs from the jug into a shallow pond where children can frolic and play in the heat, but apart from a shredded plastic bag the pond is empty now. The water nymph is garbed in a close-fitting tunic accentuating the outline of her breasts. Nami examines it with interest from every side, then throws on his backpack, noticing the sky has clouded over in the meantime.

On one side, a wall covered in woodbine forms a natural border to the park. Noticing a hole with bars along the wall, Nami goes closer and sees that it is a caged pen, apparently empty. Lying on the concrete floor are a can of Coca-Cola and a long stick with tooth marks all along its length. A dry tree trunk juts from the floor up to the ceiling. Nami looks up and sees a furry animal sitting at the top. It gazes at him apathetically, playing with its penis.

Suddenly Nami senses the presence of another person beside him. A man in a khaki hunting vest with a halo of curly silver hair.

'What is that?' Nami asks the man.

'A monkey,' the man says, dragging on his cigarette.

'Yeah, okay, but what kind?'

'Just a monkey,' the man says. 'His name's Majmun.'

'Majmun!' Nami calls, but the monkey doesn't take the slightest bit of interest in him. It just stays there on its branch, fiddling with its genitals. Then it turns around and shows Nami its red behind.

'Why is he here?' asks Nami.

'Why do you think?' the man says, throwing up his hands. 'It's a city park. When the kids come, they go first to the stone bear, then to the fountain, then to Majmun, and end with ice cream. Every Sunday.'

'Why does he keep holding his dick like that?'

The man in the hunting vest looks skyward and throws up his hands again. 'Boy. I don't know what to tell you. Because he...