Best European Fiction 2017 Page 2

  I’m sitting now with Jean and the others underneath Jean’s canopy of pictures, and we all scoot closer together, Jean sits in the middle and is pelted with questions. Having sat down next to Jean before, I’m almost sitting far away from him now, another three people have squeezed in to the narrow gap between us because they want to be close to Jean. I think what a dope Jean was when he cannonballed into that pool in the countryside, just a few weeks ago actually, and how magnificent he is now. I also think that his name isn’t Jean, because no one’s really called Jean where we come from, but I decide not to say anything for now. Then let it be that way, Jean, nobody knows how to pronounce it here anyway.

  Jean is called up and they take him right away. He doesn’t have to go through any more interviews or hand in any sample work. Jean can simply go home and pick up his oeuvre where he left off. When they call me up and I lay my portfolio on the table and pull out my studies of little fish in a water glass, I notice that something’s not right. I notice it at precisely that moment.

  They’re correct, they’re accurate, they’re true-to-life, and I was still very proud of them when I mounted them in passe-partouts and sorted them into a portfolio. A homemade portfolio! I told myself, yep, that’s just what a fish looks like, as my father slapped me on the back appreciatively. We even chose the colors of the passe-partouts together. I’d just learned the word for them.

  In the city I realize, almost too late, that no one here paints little detailed reproductions of fish on paper in pastel colors. I stand before my pictures, and the school of fish looks at me from its hundred eyes, and he, too, like all the others, shakes his head in disappointment: Boy, wake up!

  For one whole year, I walk the streets of the city crestfallen. When I look up to the sky, I see Jean’s unfurled picture above me, covering up the sun, for an entire year. I’m ashamed of my fish, that I didn’t have the presence of mind to leave them at home in my boyhood room. What I’m capable of is not what they want anymore. I look at the streets and the paths before me, thinking: I’ll never catch up to Jean. His lead is just too big.

  The following year I join him. In the months of waiting I’ve prepared myself, I’ve painted my pictures on rolls of paper and gotten rid of the fish—actually, I gave them to my neighbors. I attend every class I can now, I want to learn everything. I have twelve new arms and a hand on each one, each of which is doing something different. I want to make up for the year I missed, and I see Jean way ahead of me.

  Jean has made a lot of progress. He even has a space with his name on it. Everyone calls him Jean here, and if there’s something someone doesn’t know, everyone just says: Ask Jean.

  I knew nothing, so I looked for him, was planning to ask him everything, but Jean wasn’t there. I took my thermos and sleeping bag and camped one day and night outside his door, waiting for him to come. Everyone passing by had something to say about Jean, but still Jean never showed up.

  He was already the talk of the town. I think I said something about Jean too, in order to be a part of it; I called out his name, waved to him, then cupped my hand like a telephone, as if he were standing on the other side of the street, barely visible, and we’d call each other later.

  I imagine making an important date with Jean.

  We meet at the lake, at the hotel bar of Eden au Lac—no, wrong direction, we stay in our town and go to the seediest dive on the wharf. At Eden au Lac with Jean, that would come later, when we’re older and money is no longer an issue.

  For now, I imagine, we sit at the dive on the wharf and Jean tells me about his adventures. Jean has affairs befitting his name, or he claims to have had them, and I hide the fact that I never so much as kissed someone, back when there were girls, when they hadn’t yet turned into women like now. Still, I do my best to keep up the conversation with Jean.

  We order something alcoholic, and I imagine Jean is the one who decides what we’re worthy of at this point in time. Pastis maybe, if a little sip weren’t so expensive. But with a jug of water it’s enough for a feast. Two more pastis, and then another two. Staggering home drunk together, Jean sees me off with an embrace and says: You’re mon ami.

  Now I’m his friend and Yankee. I imagine my name is Johnny.

  Surely no one here is called Johnny, and back in the countryside, too, no one went by the name of Johnny, but I use the name to make a start in the city. Johnny, the quiet one, is not the best of roles, but it’s better than no name or no face at all. It would certainly suit Jean to have a pallid admirer running behind him with a portfolio full of fish pictures, all of which he’s given away.

  Jean is working on his oeuvre.

  Whenever there are dumpsters on the street, he climbs inside and digs through the bulky refuse. For several weeks straight, wherever you look, you see Jean climbing and digging all over the place. I see him by chance, several times a day, at distant parts of town. He’s always at it, heart and soul. I don’t even dare approach him, not wanting to distract him from his work.

  I’m sure that Jean has multiplied himself, there must be four of him at least. A whole gang of Jeans is climbing and digging in time, second by second: tock-tock-tock-tock-tock-tock-tock.

  Sometimes they drive Jean away, and sometimes the passersby shout something at him; but other times people even let him into their homes, and Jean is allowed to climb up to their attics to see if he can find something usable.

  Those young people with their ripped jeans, the older home-owning ladies say, and sometimes one of them serves up coffee and cake to Jean.

  No one knows what Jean does with all the things he finds. I can’t get any work done myself, because I’m always asking myself what Jean must be up to.

  We all wait for Jean and gradually get to know each other. I’m Johnny, I say to the others, and they call me Johnny.

  Sometimes they talk about Jean. He’s very busy, they say, and they talk about the places he hasn’t been; they say that Jean is only a phantom.

  When I go to sleep at night, Jean appears to me as a phantom. He yanks me out of bed and wants to repeat our pastis evening. We go back to the dive on the wharf, I’m wearing my black-and-white-striped pajamas, Jean orders two glasses and a jug of water, we smoke and Jean tells me about a young woman. It’s Denise, or by her Indian name: Denise-who-broke-your-heart. Jean draws his heart on a napkin and shows me where it’s broken. We call it the predetermined breaking point and patch it up with pastis. Pastis-that-patches-up-your-heart. Temporarily, says Jean.

  I decide to buy three dictionaries for my nightly rendezvous with Jean. The first one will be Native American. I would have loved to have told him something else. Me, I don’t like anise.

  Then the day comes when Jean puts up a poster. We should all come to his place, it says; it’s taking place in his room, same day next week.

  L’art, c’est une chaise, Jean wrote on it, from Deleuze.

  One week later we ring Jean’s bell, but no one answers. We wait, then go up the stairs to the apartment where Jean’s room is.

  The door of the apartment is barricaded. We stand in front of it and no one says a word. All we do is look. It’s completely blocked. Then finally somebody takes away the first board, someone else tears through the barrier tape.

  But we don’t make any progress. We deliberate what to do next. Some just want to go home. Some don’t want to destroy Jean’s work. Some say we should just stick to it and fight our way through the barrier.

  They pull out their pocket knives, saws, screwdrivers, scissors, whatever they can get their hands on. One of us sets his laptop up—maybe there’s a digital solution.

  I sit down on the stairs and watch. Johnny, you’re such a good cigarette roller, they say, and I’ve found my task, as long as the tobacco lasts. Johnny-who-rolls-the-cigarettes.

  None of us has been watching the clock, everyone just keeps digging. The city’s bulky refuse has all found its way into Jean’s apartment. He’s screwed and nailed together furniture, boards, car tires, eve
rything. Everything is spray-painted, everything is polished. At first they carefully pried each piece from the next, but now they break out the electric saws.

  A cloud of sawdust and a new pile of debris has formed behind the sawers, and I have to dig my way though it to get closer. I keep on rolling cigarettes, and sometimes a few of them sit down with me, drink a beer or eat a bologna sandwich to help them regain their strength. As long as our cigarettes don’t set the sawdust on fire, we say, keeping an eye on each other. Joyful hours pass, and it’s funny how everyone here is busy trying to get to Jean’s room.

  And at some point we actually make it. Jean needed six whole days to set up his collection, from the apartment door to his room. He did it all: glued, welded, soldered, painted—colossal! On the seventh day he seated himself on a giant plywood throne, had the last barricades erected and painted, said it was good, then he waited for us.

  Hello Jean, the people call out to him from below, and the only thing they can see up there are his feet dangling in stylish shoes. Jean looks down and smiles. Did you film it?

  What do you mean, film it? We saved you! they shout.

  What a bunch of morons, says Jean, spits at them from his throne, and doesn’t move till everyone is gone.

  I thought you were all gone, says Jean to me at daybreak, when he climbs down from his throne. Only now do I notice that he’s wearing a costume. He climbs down to me dressed as a faun in platform shoes, slow and proud, stripped to the waist, face painted white, and with a giant wig. Then he opens his left hand and produces a bright, slimy substance, a mass of pellets made of glue or cream. It’s as if his hand were a blossom, opening fresh and dewy, lusting for the new day.

  All for nothing, says Jean, and smears his moist pollen on his tartan kilt. If you didn’t film it, it’s useless. Tant pis, you assholes.

  I’m not really one of them, I say softly.

  He leaves without even asking for my name. I dreamed about you a couple of times, I could say, but he’s already gone. Not even a thank-you for not torching him along with his sawdust.

  Jean doesn’t know me. But still I like to imagine that, along with all the old furniture, he also found my pictures in the trash, the ones I gave the neighbors. They threw them away, but Jean salvaged them from the rubble: Jean-who-fishes-for-fish.

  When I moved to the city from the countryside a year ago, it was supposed to be a glorious new beginning. I was counting the years, oh yeah! until this new beginning. Every New Year’s I made an X on the calendar with a silver paint pen—discreet fireworks is what I call it. Later I started counting the months, and finally I even allowed myself to count the last 365 days. One X at a time.

  On day 365 I packed my suitcase early in the morning and painted a whole calendar page in the colors of the rainbow. If I’d had it my way, I would have had my breakfast in an anorak and cap, just so there’s no mistake about it: I’m leaving.

  My suitcase contains the pictures, my leather jacket and boots, cigarettes and the usual paraphernalia.

  The suitcase is opened one last time. A pair of pajamas is smuggled inside. The boots are taken out and polished, oh crap. When I’m gone I’ll have to try and make them dirty again. The side pockets of the suitcase are searched:

  Good heavens, child, you look at this kind of smut?!

  Merely for research purposes.

  It’s the first time I don’t turn red but stay pale. I’ll be out of here before long.

  Just one last hurdle left to go. Before I leave, they want me to run across the yard to the neighbors. Then I’m supposed to run to the neighbors’ neighbors. They want me to let the next village know. They want me to down a farewell schnapps at the county office too. I have to take the train after the next, because the stationmaster wants to sell me an annual ticket so I can come back home any time. When the train after the next pulls in, a brass band marches past and plays me a farewell song.

  I finally board the train, and the musicians wave their handkerchiefs in a well-rehearsed choreography. Oh, Johnny! If only back in those days I’d had a way with words, like a rapper! And if only I’d told the cornet player to stuff it! And if only I didn’t let people hold me up all the time!

  Or maybe my obstacle course was like this. They force me to put on my gym clothes one last time: a pair of red short shorts and a white undershirt. A headband and knee socks. I run and jump, do the floor, beam, and pommel horse. Then the high bar: upswing, backswing, up and over. Land on both feet, arms outstretched. I almost lose my balance. The judges blow the whistle.

  My father holds up a three, my mother a six, my sister a five. I don’t know how, but I managed to get away. Almost for good.

  We’ll meet again, what a stupid song, says Jean in my head, just so you don’t feel the pain of departure.

  How was it, I ask him, when you packed your bags at the end of the summer and said your good-byes?

  Ah, pouf, says Jean, no one really cared. We were so many kids they didn’t even know my name.

  Hmm, I say. When we run into each other in town in the daytime, you don’t know my name either. I would have liked to ask you if you also dream at night that we’re friends.

  Johnny, Jean says in my dream, I don’t have stupid dreams like that.

  Then Jean talks about Angélique, whom he met after his barricade project, when they put him on an IV for an hour, dehydrated and sticky-fingered.

  Huh? One more time: Jean had worked a whole week on his throne made of shelves and boards. He’d wanted us to videotape our attempts to reach him, and then he’d descend from his throne, dressed as a faun and in slow motion. Logical, in retrospect, I suppose. But when it didn’t work out the way he’d imagined, Jean had reached his breaking point. That’s how he ended up in the hospital with Angélique. How the heck does Jean always manage to meet women with French names in a town like ours, I wonder. That’s what I call luck.

  And that gave me ideas for my next project, says Jean.

  The nurse, Angélique?

  No, the IV.

  Drip painting, Jean?

  No, no, no, shouts Jean, it’s got to be something new! As Franz always says: timelessly brilliant. Anyway, I’m opposed to the Americans and their painting.

  I’m an American, Jean.

  I don’t count you, Johnny.

  Angélique was supposed to assist me, because that’s the way to do things. And everyone knows that the female assistants of great masters of the avant-garde always run around naked. Angélique didn’t want to at first—but she’d do it for my oeuvre, she said.

  Or was it like this: Angélique herself said it’s not an oeuvre if she’s not naked? Of course that’s what she said. She tore the white gown from her body and the buttons began to fly, shooting at me like a hail of bullets; with her left hand she pressed the blood bag against her chest, and with a sweeping gesture of the right, she stabbed it right in the middle with a scalpel. Explosion of color! Yves Klein blue, adds Jean, would have been more appealing to me than blood, but I took her the way she came.

  Right there in the hospital? I asked.

  In the hospital, says Jean: in the nurses’ lounge, in the emergency room, and in the cafeteria. We left a red trail on light-green linoleum through all the corridors. Red on green, Jean repeats: complementary colors! Of course, when I saw it, I had to leave Angélique on the spot in order to get my camera. She took it the wrong way, and stuck the knife right in my chest. Missed the heart by an inch, the surgeons said.

  Jean unbuttons his shirt even more—it’s already wide open—and shows me the bandage.

  It suits him well. A subtle contrast between the white gauze bandage and the ivory tone of his skin.

  Ivory Jean, I say.

  Are you crazy, Johnny? It’s chamois. Or a kind of very light beige. Off-white with a touch of yellow, sandy, seashell, eggshell. Okay, I say, baby powder, corn silk, not too much cream. And this Angélique has no clue about art?!

  White is not only the color of Angélique’s gown befo
re it became a splatter painting. White is the color of paper and canvas.

  White, titanium white, is what Angélique’s gown became again once she put it in the washing machine.

  White is a so-called achromatic color, but no less popular with artists because of it. All the galleries have been white, for example, ever since someone painted a black square. Because of the light-dark contrast, says Jean.

  And that’s why the employees in galleries are always dressed in black, and sit behind those white lecterns, right when you enter the room. The lecterns are tall so the gallery employees disappear behind them, since the color of their faces wouldn’t fit the black-and-white principle. If an employee is too tall or his lectern too low, he has to open a laptop—white, black, or silver-gray—in front of his rosy-cheeked face.

  Makes perfect sense, I say.

  Absolutely, says Jean.

  I’m drawing a blank, don’t know where to start.

  Does anyone know that song? Don’t know where to start: that’s the beginning of a song. And then?

  I go to all the classes Jean never attends in the daytime and still there’s a blank sheet of paper staring at me. I distract myself by learning how to prime a canvas with bone glue. The end result after three days of work: blank. Stinky and white as a sheet.

  How do you make a canvas? You nail together the stretcher, crouch down on the floor, and stretch the canvas over the frame, always starting to staple in the middle of each stretcher bar: center top, center bottom, center right, center left. You practice, or so I’ve read, the politics of proper stretching. You work the staple gun from the center to the corners, always tugging firmly on the cloth to make it as taut as possible.