E-Book, Englisch, 144 Seiten
Nikolaidis Anomaly
1. Auflage 2024
ISBN: 978-1-908670-90-8
Verlag: Peirene Press
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark
E-Book, Englisch, 144 Seiten
ISBN: 978-1-908670-90-8
Verlag: Peirene Press
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark
Andrej Nikolaidis (born 1974) is a Montenegrin-Bosnian novelist and journalist. An ardent anti-war activist and promoter of human rights, especially minority rights, Nikolaidis initially became known for his outspoken political views. His previous novels translated into English include The Coming, Till Kingdom Come and The Son, which was awarded the European Prize for Literature in 2011.
Weitere Infos & Material
1
That Was Not God
The lazy eye of the camera follows the blood creeping through the maze. The crimson stream moves indifferently. Since when is bloodshed any cause for concern? What have we done in this world other than wound and distress? The sight of red flowing along the grouting between ceramic tiles is only slightly unusual, mundanely unusual – like a small, inconsequential change in the routine of a once-in-love couple, who walk along a sandy beach near, say, Ravenna, perhaps, and unknowingly count down the last days. That’s how it is: when change comes, the end is nigh. The call for change is the hope of euthanasia, the screenwriter has penned in the margin.
The camera then reveals a crow (an allusion to Auden, we think). It’s ready to swoop down from the windowsill at the young woman lying naked and injured on the bathroom floor. Her immobility implies not peace but agony. One of her eyes is open – zooming in on it will reveal the whole horror she’s faced; terror that surpasses the ultimate horizon of anthropological pessimism, a dread comparable only with that of a newborn when it’s torn from its mother and into the world, the screenwriter notes at the bottom of the page.
He suggests to the director that it’s time to acquaint viewers with the Minister. This middle-aged man, well groomed and in an expensive suit, sits on the toilet lid and follows the path of the blood pouring from the young woman’s skull with the attentiveness of parents observing their children in the playground, hovering like a swarm of helicopters over the scene of an accident. The screenwriter notes: THE MINISTER watches the scene of the crime with the attentiveness of an author looking for the possibility of correcting the image they’ve just created; the hope that they’ve reached perfection doesn’t overpower their determination to detect shortcomings.
But the hope of correction will not last. There’s no possibility of return, just as there’s none of erasing the disaster, of returning the hand of fate to the position it was in before it delivered the fatal blow. Stasis is nothing but an illusion, which at the same time simulates the sublime. The Minister’s time is expensive, while blood, as always, is cheap. He looks at his watch, opens the door to leave the flat, turns back – all this if we dare to assume the competencies of the screenwriter, in slow motion, which will emphasize the transition from contemplation to action; the point at which any remorse the Minister may have felt is aborted and cruelty is resurrected – and looks at his security guy.
MINISTER
Is she still breathing?
AGENT
Yes.
MINISTER
Put that bag over her head.
AGENT
Where should we take her?
MINISTER
The same place.
AGENT
Why not somewhere new? The lake, perhaps?
MINISTER
The same place.
The camera follows the Minister as he descends a dark staircase; his descent into the world, the screenwriter emphasizes. These notes reveal no clues as to the writer’s origin. Who is he? We know he’s read Auden: that’s no small thing. But where is he from? He might have been born into the middle class: university-educated parents, a good school, and then scraping and saving his way through his studies. Yes, he could be middle class: that vigilante militia, whose values, ethics and civil decency maintain the stability of the system, who give their lives to fill the buffer zone that prevents the rich and the impoverished from clashing; lives from which disappointment hasn’t squeezed all hope, lives spent refusing to learn from experience. Yes, he could be one of those whose primary reaction is to maintain the status quo, who doesn’t like change – except the kind they yearn for: the change that will make them rich. He could be a child of those who spent their lives in the sorry belief that if their children studied hard, worked hard and graduated from good schools they’d cross over into the upper class and wave goodbye to their family tree, which is too much like a list of servants and chores in the hands of a butler running a lord’s country house. By maintaining the status quo, the middle class has never seen its progeny move into penthouses in the capital, but it has allowed the owners of the penthouses to further enrich themselves at their expense, and of those at the bottom. Nor will he, an obedient child, live to see that mobility – the delusion of his parents.
It could be like that. Or perhaps he was born rich, in security and tedium that he combats in vain with a pose of solidarity and empathy – feelings he inserts into his texts – and his writing is sometimes interrupted by the maid who brings him Ethiopian coffee and shortbread.
‘Descent’ is the writer’s way of telling us that his hero is above the world and its laws. Down on the street, a limousine is waiting for the Minister. Its engine is running.
DRIVER
Where to, boss?
MINISTER
Wherever you want.
DRIVER
Home?
MINISTER
No. Drive.
DRIVER
Did everything go well, boss?
MINISTER
All good. Just drive.
The screenwriter emphasizes to the director the importance of this sequence, where the camera follows the Minister’s seemingly aimless drive through the city. The director implements this convincingly, but the scene goes beyond the limits of decency. We can assume that the instruction ‘See Scorsese/Schrader, Bringing Out the Dead’ will make him curse.
The text reads as follows: ‘The limousine turns right.’
DRIVER
Boss, he says the owner of the fast-food place saw them take out the body.
MINISTER
Have them pay him a visit.
DRIVER
OK.
MINISTER
Have them give him five thousand.
DRIVER
OK.
MINISTER
Have them tell him his lease has been paid for the next three years.
DRIVER
OK.
MINISTER
He has children, I suppose?
DRIVER
Two daughters: Maša and Lana.
MINISTER
Have them give him an extra two hundred before they leave. As a farewell. They should tell him it’s for presents Have them emphasize: for Maša and Lana.
DRIVER
OK.
The screenwriter then insists on the ‘silence and alienation’ that accompany the Minister as they cruise around the city he rules. It’s obvious that the screenwriter intends to humanize the man who committed a terrible crime in cold blood. This seems superfluous to us, above all because we don’t question the human nature of criminals – they’re criminals precisely because they’re human – and because we see silence and alienation as good reasons why a person would want the power the Minister has. Then his phone rings.
MINISTER
Well?
VOICE
He wants to know if it’s done?
MINISTER
Did he pay?
VOICE
No.
MINISTER
Then he hasn’t done his part of the deal.
VOICE
Where should he? The usual?
MINISTER
Zurich.
VOICE
What should I tell him? When will that be?
MINISTER
Next session.
VOICE OK.
Happy New Year, boss.
MINISTER
All the best. Say hello to Lucija.
What happens next in a text in which it seems nothing happens – one full of intimations, where what is left unsaid is more important than what is said? The Minister watches the driver in silence. He’s fidgeting in his seat and has dug his nails into the steering wheel.
MINISTER
How’s Sonja?
DRIVER
Not even morphine helps any more.
MINISTER
Drive to the shopping centre.
DRIVER
Yes, boss.
MINISTER
Go in the underground car park. Take money from the suitcase. Go and buy Sonja a...
