On the way home David wondered whether he was doing the right thing. Perhaps Irena needed her handbag to get home (wherever her home might be now) - perhaps her trainticket was in there. He should have left that hand-bag somewhere for her to find or waited for her at the entrance of the disco. He had no business taking that hand-bag with him. On the other hand, he couldn’t bear dealing wit h his security-guard colleagues for even one second longer, and he had to escape, go back to his comfortable little flat and forget about all those assholes.
Now he began to wonder why he had become so angry. He didn’t understand why he was accused of looking asleep. He wasn’t at all asleep. He was doing his job just fine. Why were they bothering him?
But now that he started thinking about it more deeply, he DID in the end understand why he was accused of looking asleep. It wasn’t at all true that he was doing his job just fine he wasn’t. The obvious part of his job was looking after those billiard-tables and making sure no squabbles were going on among the customers - he was a security-guard. But he was also, in some sense, a representative of the discotheque, of its manager. His appearance, his behaviour gave the discotheque a certain image. It was logical that the manager would want him to look a certain way.
Of course David could claim all indignantly that he was doing EXACTLY what he was told and pretend that he didn’t at all understand what he was being criticized for (and that’s what he was going to do in case he had to defend himself). But in reality he knew full well that he wasn’t doing his job properly. It was true that his heart wasn’t in this job, and employing him had been a mistake in the first place.
And why had he taken on such a job at all? Well, the reason was mostly that the “Monte Verdi” school hadn’t given him a full-time job (but was his heart in THAT job any more than in this one, actually?), and he needed some extra odd jobs to get some extra money. That’s what this security company offered.
In spite of these two jobs he was still on the dole part-time. In order to go on cashing unemployment money, he had to show good-will in looking for work and do odd jobs even outside of his domain of specialization(well, actually he didn’t even have any domain of specialization).
So maybe that was the only real reason why he was working as a security guard. He lived in a society where everybody needs money, because that’s how the society works. And you get money for working, so you need a job. That’s why David needed a job everybody needs one.
But for the security business, things with respect to David looked quite different. They didn’t give him a job because he needed one - they gave him a job because they thought he would be useful to them and fit into the function they would assign him. And since he didn’t fit in, they had made a mistake, actually.
David was a kind of person who didn’t really fit in anywhere. It wasn’t exactly laziness he could force himself to do things even if he didn’t specially like them, namely, he could force himself to look after those billiard tables the whole night. He could even force himself not to lean against the pillar or the wall while he was on duty. But he couldn’t force himself to look bloody enthusiastic while doing all this. He didn’t look part of it all because he WASN’T part of it all...
The reason he kept doing (or trying to do) such jobs was because society demanded it. Why couldn’t society realize that there simply isn’t enough work for everybody? Machines have replaced a good deal of manual labor. Why not enjoy this fact and work less? Why should everybody continue working eight hours a day like hund reds of years ago?
Many thousands of years ago, those who wouldn’t work probably starved. But at the same time the work was probably simpler. Those with a good team-spirit could join together and go hunting. The more dreamy ones could pick fruits or design clever devices for opening nuts or traps to catch animals or who knows what. There was something to do for everybody.
But now society has taken care of all those basic needs, and the only way to keep everyone busy is within society itself, within its social web. Society has taken away the self-sustaining work from the individual and has compensated for it by inventing new jobs for him. The problem is just that these new jobs, invented by society, grown out of society, necessarily have to be social jobs that require social skills. Selling and buying various kinds of merchandise, including oneself, that’s what all these jobs are all about (even ideas, scientific discoveries, even art - it all has to be sold, else it dies with its creator). People like David who don’t have too many social skills are obviously in trouble. But they have to play the game too. They can draw the dole, but in exchange they have to keep trying (and failing) to fit in somewhere. Those like David necessarily become losers, because they are forced to play in a game they can’t win, a game that isn’t their kind of game.
On the other hand, how could society cater for such extreme cases?
Maybe the first step would be to let go, at last, of the idea that everyone should have a full-time job. Nobody should even want a full-time job! Of course, if the salary goes down by the same occasion, then working less will be unacceptable for most people. But the salary wouldn’t necessarily need to go down, because all those people working less would leave more space for the unemployed, so that there would be some work (not too much!) for them to do as well. What society spends on the dole could be spent on shortening working- hours without lowering the salaries.
On the other hand, if people generally had more free time, all kinds of new hobbies would have to be catered for, which would in turn mean new jobs. But since the general tendency is that there are less and less jobs (less and less work to be done), this wouldn’t be a problem. In the meantime, those people who are dreamers and don’t need entertainment by society, they would gladly go horse-riding or walking their dogs in the forest without having to feel guilty about “not fitting in” anywhere and being “losers”! Ah, good old David! Why didn’t he study economy at the university if he wanted to make theories like that? Then somebody might even listen to him! Maybe his problem wasn’t any of this, after all, but just pure, dumb laziness!
The next day he wrote the security business a short letter explaining about the hand-bag and also that the habit of saying "tu" (instead of the polite form "vous") to each other among superiors and subordinates doesn't help to stay polite in situations like this. He didn’t explicitly write that he still had the hand-bag, and he wondered how Irena would ever get it back. On the other hand he hoped that this hand-bag would be an excuse for seeing her again. He suddenly had the enlightening idea that the hand -bag itself might help him find her again (some addresses or phone - numbers might be in there)! Of course it wasn’t nice of him to search it, but, on the other hand, if he didn’t search it, who would ever know that he didn’t and appreciate that he didn’t?
So he did. And what he found in it surprised him pretty much. It was a black, mediumsized, heavy and metallic device with a hollow snout: it was a gun!
Apart from that gun there wasn’t anything of much interest in the bag: lipstick, a comb, a mirror, some other make- up accessories, but not a single piece of paper with any information on it. Furthermore, all the stuff looked brand-new, without a smear, unused. David didn’t know what to make of all this. He held the gun in his hand, gazed at it, turned it around in his hand, sniffed at it, unloaded it, loaded it again. What the hell was Irena doing with THIS?
But even when such monstrously unfitting things happen in an ordinary life, somehow the ordinary stuff still has to be taken care of too. Namely, David had an appointment at the mechanic’s to get the exhaust-pipe of his car replaced. They had agreed that he would bring the car on Sunday evening and leave the key in the letter-box so that the mechanic could start working on it first thing the next morning. So, some time after having munched down his dinner, David took the car from the garage and drove it to the mechanic’s whose workshop was walking-distance from David’s flat. He walked home slowly, enjoying the cool evening air, watching the lights go on in the houses one by one as it got dark and stroking a fearful little cat who lived nearby and whom he had gradually tamed over the months of walking by. He wondered if he ever thought of this cat before or after crossing its path. He concluded he didn’t. In some sense, up till today, he hadn’t even been properly aware, in a truly conscious sense, of knowing this cat. If he had moved to another town yesterday and was later asked about things he missed in Montreux, this cat would never have come to his mind. But now, because of all this musing he was doing right now, he might remember this particular cat even in ten years time. Strange how the human brain works...
He went home, read a bit in the book lying on his bedside table before going properly to bed, then made himself comfortable and fell asleep easily.
But he woke up with a start in the middle of the night. There seemed to be some kind of scratching sound at the door to his flat, and since it was a one-room flat, he could hear it close at hand. Yes, someone seemed to be trying to fit a key into the lock! Someone must have gotten mixed up with the doors or was at the right door but on the wrong floor (something like that) and was slow realizing it. Damn you, move on now! But the noise wouldn’t stop. How could that asshole insist so much? Wouldn’t he ever get it that this wasn’t his door?
And what if it were a burglar, patiently working on getting in? David resisted the temptation to switch on the light and yell through the door. He quietly got up, found his way through the dark to the door, put his hand on the lock and...
He unlocked and opened the door wide in one flow of a motion! His messy, slept-on hair formed a crazy mane around his head, his eyes were closed to slits in the sudden light of the corridor and his chin was thrust forward in anger. His naked, hairy legs were slightly braced and the muscles of his upper body showed clearly through the pyjama-shirt he was wearing.
He was facing a youngish guy dressed in an elegant black evening suit, holding some kind of fine screw-driver. There was a sophisticated tool-box stand ing on the floor next to him. He was sort of taken aback, and he even flushed a little. He bent down quickly to take his tool-box and was going to bolt off. “Sorry, sorry!” he said.
“Wait!” said David.
The guy seemed to come to his senses, straightened up and tried to look tough. “You were going to break in here.” said David. It was a statement.
“You certainly know why I’m here.” said the guy.
“The gun.” said David.
“The gun.” agreed the guy.
David switched on the light in his room and said: “Come in.”
The guy came in. David made him sit at his table full of crumbs and a dirty plate or two. “Well?” said David.
“The gun.” said the guy.
“Uh-huh.” said David. “I locked it up in a locker at the railway-station.”
“Give me the key.” said the guy.
“Not so fast.” said David. “How do I know this is your gun? Why didn’t Irena come to pick it up? Are you a friend of hers?”
“Look,” said the guy, “I don’t want any fuss. How come you’re home at all? You were supposed to be away.”
“Who said I wasn’t home?” asked David, surprised.
“The guys watching your car. You took it out of the garage and haven’t driven back since. We thought you were off to work or something.”
“At night.”
“Yeah, at night. You’re a security guard, aren’t you?”
“Just part-time, but that’s not the point.”
“Yeah, that’s right. Just give me that key and let’s leave it at that, okay?” “No, no, it’s not that simple. I want to know what happened to Irena. I’m sure her parents are looking for her.”
“What is she to you?”
“Yeah, that’s what I’d like to know: what is she to YOU?”
The guy was getting uneasy. This certainly wasn’t going as planned. He was thinking of taking out his pen-knife and threatening David. But David didn’t look like that was going to impress him all that much. He would make a bigger fuss, start raising a row. He didn’t look all that dangerous, but he didn’t exactly look harmless either. Maybe he knew how to fight. Maybe he’d had some training...
David sensed the hesitation of his opponent. It was like with the pupils at school when they were acting contrary. There is always a moment when you have a chance to win them over in exchange of not being angry with them anymore.
“Really, what became of her?” asked David. “I don’t want any fuss either. I don’t care about that gun, really. But I care about Irena. I was her teacher, I liked her, and one day she just didn’t turn up at my lessons anymore.”
“Well,” said the guy, “my boss offered her a job.”
“A job? What kind of job?”
“Well, you know, a hostess for our guests.”
“You mean a call-girl, a prostitute?”
“Well yes, a call- girl.”
“She accepted to work as a call- girl for you?”
“Yes.”
“She accepted? She wanted it herself?”
“Yes. Why do you doubt it?”
“It doesn’t fit in.”
“What do you mean it doesn’t fit in? In what?”
“It doesn’t fit in with what I know of her.”
“What do you know of her?”
David became angry: “She’s a young, intellectual girl full of dreams and ideals! How could she want to be a call- girl!?!!”
“Well she does.”
“Who hired her? Or rather, - what’s the word? - who recruited her?”
“I did.”
“You just went to her and told her: come and be a call- girl for my company!” “No, of course it’s not that simple...”
“You tricked her, then.”
“No, of course I didn’t trick her. How could she do such a job against her will?” David became even angrier: “Why, all over the world women are doing this job against their will!”
Now the guy became more vehement himself: “Always the same story of the poor, poor victims! Always the same brainless feeling of collective guilt in which our whole society is wallowing! I tell you, we’re not the ones starving the poor children in Africa, we’re not responsible for ethnic cleansing, and we’re not the ones who make poor girls into prostitutes, because these things are NATURAL!!!”
“WHAT!?!!!”
“Yes, they are.” The guy became calmer. He was ready to explain. “Believe me, they are natural. Every girl dreams at some point of becoming a prostitute, of giving herself to each and everyone without choosing, of just letting herself go and taking all men at once or in a row.”
David became more thoughtful too. “At some POINT, maybe, that’s what she dreams. But all in all, on the long run, that can’t be what she wants...”
“Why not? How do you know? Are you a great moralizer, or what?”
“Yes, maybe. Giving her love to one man, living with him, not just fucking with him, having a family, isn’t that so much richer an experience, so much more personal?” “Sure.” said the guy ironically. “That’s why all these married couples are soooo happy, and such interesting people too...”
“You don’t believe in anything, do you?” asked David.
“Well, I certainly don’t believe in monogamy.”
“Have you ever tried it?”
“No.”
“So?”
“So what? Who are you to come and tell me that my life is wrong? Is yours so much better? Are you so much happier? You’re just like all those other moralizers brandishing their Bibles. You make me sick!”
“The Bible survived for two thousand years, you know. How could it all be shit?” said David quietly.
There was silence for a while. Then the guy said: “Okay, explain it to me!” “I can’t explain the Bible,” said David, “but I think that people who believe in something, monogamy for example, they stick around, having their little lives, minding their little business, while the likes of you, they just appear from time to time and then go under.” “Everyone goes under at some point. You can’t escape death.” said the guy. “You might as well have fun while you’re here. Who are you to tell me that that’s wrong and that what you do and believe is better?”
“Oh, that’s simple,” said David, “when you’ll be too o ld to have the kind of fun you’re having now, I’ll still be around having MY kind of fun, and I’ll come and see you in a museum where they keep old, run-down objects such as you will be.”
“You mean you’ll have a longer life than me? Could be... You’ll have a long and boring one, while I’ll have a short and intense one. Why do you think yours will be so much better?”
“Well,” said David, “which life is better won’t even be a question by then, because you simply won’t be THERE anymore.” But he knew he was splitting hairs.
Indeed, the guy said: “We’re talking about NOW. I don’t care about you dragging yourself through museums in a hundred years and taking pride in still being alive.” David had a last fling at it: “No, but we don’t even need to take your attitude towards life into consideration at all because it’s destructive, it’s anti- life! It’s a goner! You’re already dead! How can you even compare it to REAL life?”
“We all have to die one day,” said the guy calmly, “even you. You don’t convince me at all.”
David knew that he had lost, for the time being. He would have to think it over for himself. He didn’t really know what to say, but he wanted to know more about Irena. “So that’s what you told Irena?” he asked, finally.
“More or less.”
“You told her to make the most of life here and now.”
“Yes.”
“And that meant becoming a call-girl?”
“Well, why not? It’s an experience!”
“And her studies, that wasn’t an experience?”
“Yes, but she herself said that she wasn’t doing them just for their own sake. She was doing them for something to come. She was preparing herself for who knows what kind of great life. She didn’t know herself what that great life could or should be. She was full of doubts. I showed her that a great life can be right HERE and NOW.”
“How on earth did you do that?”
“I seduced her.”
“You what?!?”
“I seduced her. She was sitting alone, all lost, in a pub here in Montreux, nipping at a drink, feeling out of place but nevertheless desperately waiting for something to happen...”
“In a pub? She was in a pub? ”
“Why not? In pubs there’s noise and people, and those people don’t just come and go. They sit down and they have time. That’s where they meet and exchange ideas, all kinds of people, not just the members of some club, and all kinds of ideas, not just the authorized ones. There’s alcohol to help you let go of conventions. Pubs are the crossroads of mankind. Poets and composers have written their finest pieces in pubs.” “So she was just sitting there, waiting, and you went there and seduced her?” “Yes, that’s pretty much how it was. You see, I know the signs. As you said, I’m a recruiter, after all. I sat down with her, chatted with her, bought her another drink, took her home with me, made love to her all night... She was very happy!”
David couldn’t believe it. “And then you told her to become a call- girl, and she accepted straight away?”
“No, of course not. We took our time over everything. I let her discover my philosophy of life, and then it didn’t even come as a surprise when she heard what I do for a living. She asked me if I had in mind to recruit her too, and of course I told her that I live for the present moment, that the present moment was pretty good, and that’s all that was on my mind, and I kissed her, and we made love again, and then she said she wanted to be recruited too. You see, I was the living proof that someone who just appears out of the Blue can suddenly make everything else in life seem meaningless. If you stay with that person, you get clogged with responsibilities again. So why not make sure that you will never be bogged down again? Why not make sure that you will never be short of ephemeral meetings? Why not live like that on purpose, make a living of it?” David was flabbergasted. “But that’s disgusting!” he said, “I would never have thought that a girl like Irena could fall for a trick like THAT!”
“It wasn’t a trick, that’s the trick.” said the guy.
David was sick to the heart. He couldn’t say anything.
“What about that key now?” asked the guy.
“Which key?” David asked back feebly, lo st in gruesome thoughts.
“The key to the railway-station locker where you left my gun!”
“What were you doing with that gun anyway? Why did Irena give it to me at all?” “Oh, that’s a long story.”
“Let’s have it.”
“Yeah, well, there was a fight, someone got killed. Irena and I felt we were being followed by plain-clothes policemen. The whole thing must have been a set-up anyway. So we went into that disco to lose them, but they came in too, so we had to get rid of that gun before they checked us out. That’s all.”
“You mean someone was killed with that gun?”
“Yeah, someone got shot.”
“You shot him?”
“Yeah, I did that.”
David remembered the shiny and sexy Irena he had seen in the disco. So that’s how she looked just after witnessing a murder. What kind of a mons ter had she become? “How come they let you into the disco with that gun? Didn’t they check the hand-bag at the entrance?”
“No, no, they know us there.”
“Yeah, well here’s the key.” said David and took the spare key from his old bicycle lock from a cupboard in his desk. “The number of the locker,” he added as an afterthought, “is hundred twenty three.”
1-2-3, hell, couldn’t he think up anything more original?
The next day David mostly slept. He just woke up once to go to the toilet. When he woke up the second time it was past midday. He got up, ate some corn- flakes, hanged around. Finally he rang up the garage to ask if his car was ready. They told him to come in an hour. So he hanged around some more, got dressed, went down to his letter-box (which was empty), came back up again and hanged around some more and finally put on his shoes and left the flat to go and get his car. He was walking on a small path along the railway-line, watching out for snails that he didn’t want to squash. There were some guys ahead, three of them, sort of blocking the path, and they had a dark look. David wasn’t too happy about having to brush past them. As he came closer he said “Bonjour” all noncommittedly, and he saw that the first one gave him a pretty strange look... That’s all he seemed to remember. Now he was lying on a bed, looking up at the ceiling that was gradually coming into focus. There was a spider web leaning against the cord of a strange, purple lamp. The lamp was hanging from the ceiling, but actually it might as well have been the floor, and he was floating above it, and that lamp was growing out of it like a strange flower...
He had a terrible head-ache. It was as if some drummers were continuously beating against the inside of his skull, and the echo of it, a dull pain, never had time to fade before the drummers hit again.
He had no idea how long he was hovering above that purple flower. He was wondering if maybe the drumming in his head was just an echo of the beating of the insect-wings he must undoubtedly have on his back. He felt like throwing up. Maybe that way those wings would run out of juice, and he would gently settle down on that white surface below him...
He heard some noise of a door opening up, some footsteps, light and graceful, and then a face was above him. It was a nice face, caring and sweet, a female face. Actually it was Irena.
“So, you’ve finally woken up.” she said kindly.
He tried to clear his throat and coughed a bit. The face went out of focus. He wasn’t sure anymore that it was Irena. “Where am I?” he whispered.
“It’s okay,” she said, “you’re a guest here.”
“But where, where?”
“You don’t need to know. Just relax. And if there’s anything I can do for you, anything at all?..”
“Bring me some water, please.”
“Okay...” she said all sweetly and left.
When she came back he was sleeping.
He woke up much later. It was dark in the room except for some blue light coming in through the window. He sat up in bed. His head was still hurting a bit, and it hurt when he touched it. Otherwise he felt pretty fine, but he was bloody thirsty and even sort of a bit hungry. He got up and went to the door. Of course it was locked. He found a light-switch, though. The light from the purple lamp was yellowish and none too bright. He looked around. It looked like some kind of hotel-room, although it was a bit Spartan for that. There wasn’t even a wardrobe, nor even any kind of table except the small one on which the TV was standing.
He sat down on the bed again and put his hands to his face. Then he got up again and went to knock on the door, pretty loudly, hoping that someone outside would hear him. It only took a moment and Irena appeared again. She was wearing a black miniskirt and a white blouse leaving her belly-button uncovered. Her shapely legs and her feet were naked. She had plenty of make- up on. She came in and put a cool hand on his forehead. “How are you feeling?”
“Not too bad, but I’d like a glass of water. And I’m a bit hungry too!”
“A chicken sandwich would be okay?”
“Yeah, that would be great!”
She kissed his cheek and left. He heard the lock in the door.
She came back a moment later. He wondered what would happen if he smashed his way through the door as soon as she opened it, but he didn’t quite feel up to it. Besides he really wanted that glass of water she was undoubtedly bringing.
Really, she handed him a tooth- glass full of nice, fresh water, and he gulped it all down and asked for more. She gave him the chicken sandwich and went in the other room to get it, leaving the door open. Obviously there was n’t really anywhere to escape to from here.
He finished the sandwich and drank the second glass more slowly, then he put it down and said: “I guess it’s about the gun.”
“Yes, of course,” she said and sat down on the bed beside him, “but there’s plenty of time.” And she took his hand and put it on her naked thigh.
He felt something strange happening in his pants. It was a coming erection. She was just playing her call- girl tricks on him. How come that they worked? He had gone to see prostitutes before, and his dick had always shriveled up to nothing in their hands. How come that now it worked? Maybe because he hadn’t come here by himself and hadn’t paid anything. He hadn’t set it up like this and he wasn’t here to want anything from her. At other times the reptile-beast within himself had been shooed into the spotlight, and since it was a reactionary beast, it had always refused to perform. But this time it came out in the spotlight by itself, and he could shoo it away from there just as little as he could shoo it onto the spot at other times.
Irena’s hand wandered to his groin, and her palm surrounded the bump there in just the way it felt best, and a bit of tugging and squeezing was just right to encourage it to grow further.
At the same time he could feel her breath on his face, and her nose came to touch his nose...
“All the time in the world.” she whispered. Then she abruptly stood up and went to the door. There she paused and said with shiny eyes: “If you’d like anything, just call me!” Then she turned on her heels, her hand casually brushing aside the skirt so that the whole length of her legs would be shown, and left.
David collapsed on the bed and waited for his throbbing erection to subside. The next time she came he started talking before she had a cha nce to sit down next to him and work on his body.
“What are you doing here, actually?”
“I’m looking after you.”
“No, but I mean more generally. You work here?”
“Yeah, it can be called like that.”
David got it out: “As a whore.”
Irena smiled, and there was something like pity mixed with a bit of mockery in her eyes. “Yeah, as a whore, if you like!”
“That’s the point,” David said. “I don’t like it, not at all. I’m sure your parents are dead worried about you. You just disappeared!”
Irena, still standing, looked straight into his eyes: “My parents are not at all worried about me, not about ME! They are worried about the little girl I played for them and whom they let go to Switzerland all alone for a treat. That’s what they’re worried about!” “Well,” David asked, trying to be calm,