Chapter One
They invited me on television after Andraž Božič won the time trial at the World Championship. He and the head coach were supposed to be on Odmevi that evening, but the national team got held up in Frankfurt because somebody had threatened a terrorist attack. It turned out it was just a disgruntled teenager, but they still cancelled several flights, including the one to Ljubljana. The planned reception in front of city hall was scrapped, and the presenter was suddenly left without a guest.
“The head coach suggested you. He said that you’d be best able to answer some of our questions,” said the woman who called me about two hours before they went on air.
The call came as a surprise to me. I did work with the cyclists a little bit, but surely there were plenty of people better qualified than me to talk about the time trial. Apparently, the coach thought that I’d make for a suitable guest.
At first, I hesitated, but then I took them up on it.
As I hung up, I started wondering which presenter it would be. I was used to speaking in a lecture hall in front of students, and I was used to sitting in front of patients, but I’d only been on TV once or twice. And I hadn’t felt particularly comfortable there. On TV there’s no time to think, you have to serve up quick, simplistic answers immediately. Would the show be hosted by a former sports journalist who actually let the guest speak? Or by the young guy with the moustache? I forgot to ask the woman who called me, and she herself didn’t mention it. I didn’t have enough time to go for a proper ride, so instead I hopped on the bike trainer in the corner of my room.
When I entered the make-up room, I saw that it was indeed the guy with the moustache who’d be hosting. The time trial victory was the news of the day, the first on the programme, which meant I was the first guest.
“You’ve often said that in sports it’s all in the mind,” he said when, after a brief press report on the victory, he introduced me as the national team’s sports psychologist. “What makes Božič’s mind better than the others’? As a psychologist, please explain this to us.”
Head held high and arms folded, he stood with his legs slightly apart to lend his body more stability. He was carrying a few extra pounds, which at his height didn’t matter, and he had a moustache like the one Brad Pitt had for a while. He was self-confidence personified.
“Well, I myself never claimed it was all in the mind,” I said. “About that …”
As soon as I started speaking, it became clear to me that I had gotten off on the wrong foot. “Of course, as you said, it’s all in the mind, you’re absolutely right…” I should have nodded then pivoted, but it’s always interesting to look at things from another angle …
He cut me off. “How isn’t it? We were just watching the commentaries of our colleague from the sports editorial office, and the head coach used exactly these words: it was Andraž’s mind that won it for him.”
I instantly regretted acquiescing to be on the show. After I’d agreed, I began to wonder whether the presenter, if it turned out to be the one with the moustache, would turn aggressive after a question or two, as if he had the smarmiest of politicians opposite him. He was famous for his aggressiveness. As I was pedalling and pondering in my room, I realized he probably wouldn’t go on the attack – after all, this was a great moment, a moment that unifies a fractured country, as the press likes to say every time there’s a big win. The public always collectively triumphs at victories, grievances and disagreements are at least temporarily forgotten, the intoxication of victory, our victory, functions like a sedative, at least for a while.
That hour on the bike trainer didn’t do me any good. I had to catch my breath. Opposite me was a guy who was spoiling for a fight the second he saw me.
What happened to me was what happens when I come into contact with people who have, as they say, a big ego – and this guy had an especially big one. He had a loathsome need to exhibit his superiority. He stood before me, tall, maybe a centimetre taller than me, a moustache versus my beard, and despite his youth and all the prizes he’d won for presenting, he seemed to think that my profession granted me sight into his mind and soul. It still surprises me how often people think like this when they come into contact with a psychologist. It makes them feel threatened and they turn aggressive. Maybe he didn’t feel particularly threatened, but he definitely wanted to dominate. The person opposite him, namely, me, instead of employing diplomatic guile, started answering like he wanted a confrontation.
“Perhaps we can talk about victory being in the mind when there are different heads on two equal bodies…” is what I said, this time avoiding a direct answer, “… so to speak, not every word needs to be taken literally.”
“Our world champion’s mind is certainly something extraordinary,” he said, looking at the computer screen in front of him.
“That mind certainly is something extraordinary,” I agreed.
I waited in silence as he perused the questions he had on the computer. My being used to silence came in handy. He raised his head above the screen and looked at me to see if I had anything to add.
“And how did you help make that mind so extraordinary that no other body could defeat the one that that mind controls?” he asked, breaking the silence. He didn’t even bother trying to hide his annoyance and sarcasm.
“Thank you for the question, but I can’t take any real credit for it,” I said. “I taught Andraž Božič a few techniques – just like I did the other team members – for how to concentrate, breathe properly, and relax. They may have helped him, but not necessarily. He’s won before. We all know he’s an extraordinary athlete and he has an extraordinary will to win. His personal motivation is off the charts. That’s evident when he races, and it’s the same when he trains. His teammates and coach could tell you a lot more about that. The psychological tests we carried out confirmed this, of course.”
“Sure, sure, but what exactly is his psychological advantage? People see wins, but we don’t know the inner world of athletes,” he said, a shade less crustily.
“Božič has an exceptional ability to analyse circumstances as he goes and measure his condition as he is racing, as well as the ability to look ahead. Sometimes, when we feel like he should chase down an attack, he doesn’t. Because he feels that it would sap his strength, and that would later cost him, because the sudden effort would drain his legs and he wouldn’t recover in time for the next acceleration. That’s why he sometimes prefers to catch rivals bit by bit. I think–”
“Of course, of course, I’m sure what you’re saying is all true. But we’re talking about his victory in the time trial.”
“That’s exactly what I wanted to say. The situation in a time trial is similar in many ways to a regular race. Even if the competitor is not racing side by side with others, he can still monitor the speed, how many watts he’s pedalling, how many beats per minute. The radio keeps him informed about what’s happening, and perhaps even more importantly he has to constantly monitor his own condition. In the heat of competition, Božič is able to keep a cool head and analyse everything as he goes.”
“We had a few more questions prepared for the guests who couldn’t be in the studio today, but we can’t ask you them. But let us ask you a question as a psychologist that we couldn’t ask them: What would Freud have to say about this victory?”
The question was stupid, but so commonplace that it didn’t catch me by surprise.
“You’d have to ask him, but I hear he’s hard to reach these days,” I said, trying for some levity.
“As a psychologist, how do you view doping? There is a lot of it in cycling,” he continued.
“I don’t know if this is a psychologist’s point of view or not, but I think that the awareness of the long-term health detriments of doping is very limited. Young people who want to win at all costs are looking for immediate success. What will happen to them in thirty or forty years is hard to imagine at their age.”
“Some say that the temptation could be avoided if they made the sport less gruelling. For example, the Tour de France should have shorter stages. What do you think about that?”
“I don’t buy it. According to that logic, no athlete competing in the 100 or 200 metres would dope. If the stages were shorter, the speeds would be higher and, in the end, just as exhausting.”
“Sounds convincing,” he said, surprising me because there was no irony in his voice. “Our athletes have already won medals long after the fact because it turned out that they were beaten by competitors who had doped. Stored doping samples, which were analysed over the years with newly developed tests, showed abuses. But we have also experienced the opposite – our athletes have been stripped of their medals. Are you afraid that something similar might happen in this case, after all this euphoria? One of our viewers pointed this out on our online forum.”
“I don’t think that’s going to happen,” I said.
“You don’t believe it?”
“I do not believe it.”
“Why don’t you believe it? How sure are you? Can you assure us that something like this cannot happen?’
I couldn’t help but smile.
“A consultant who has had a few meetings with the national team and taught them some exercises to help them in their training and competitions cannot give guarantees of anything. He can only offer his opinion.’’
“And what if it turns out that we got that medal by cheating?”
He was really getting carried away. There’s nothing wrong with him talking about the delusions of sport, but he didn’t pick the right moment to do it.
“Then we’ll all be sad,” I said.
“Then we’ll all be sad,” he repeated.
That seemed to be the end of the conversation.
I could breathe easy. How often have I had insightful, breathtaking answers to odious questions? – but of course in my mind, because in the meantime the train had already left. My answers hadn’t been brilliant, but I’d somehow managed to cut through the conversation’s nastiness. After agreeing to the interview without really thinking about it, I got nervous. I overcame my nervousness by jumping on the trainer and doing exercises I’d recommended to cyclists for overcoming jitters and preparing for a race. Eyes closed, belly breathing, inhaling deeply through the nose, exhaling slowly through the mouth, focussing on what you can be justifiably proud of in life … Once, when I was still a beginner, I swore by the necessity of insight, entering the world of the unconscious and the psychoanalytic method, would cringe at such a CBT approach.
“You, too, as my sports editorial colleagues told me, were a talented cyclist in your youth. Why didn’t you attain the level those guys have?” asked the presenter unexpectedly and pointing to a clip that was now being played for the viewers. On it was one of the younger cyclists who won a medal at the finish in the junior road race. He came from behind and won it at the finish line. If Božič had not become world champion, that fellow would have been the main star.
“I, I…” I said, almost stuttering, “I simply wasn’t talented enough for such great achievements.”
“How do you know that?” he asked. And inadvertently gave me a moment to think, before he added ironically, “Who told you that?”
My cycling past was the last thing I wanted to share with anyone. Not in public at all, and not with a guy like that.
“There are quite a few tests in sports that you can use to find out what kind of natural disposition you have,” I said shakily. “Mine were not bad, but they were probably too modest for top achievements.”
“Your natural dispositions were too modest for top achievement,” he summed up.
There was no irony in his tone, nothing patronizing – and that’s exactly why, when the conversation was over, he was the undisputed winner.
Chapter Two
“And how did that make you feel?” I asked. “What thoughts and feelings were going through your mind?”
“What was going through my mind?” The woman stared at me in bewilderment.
The week had started as usual. For years, I have been scheduling patients every other Monday from nine o’clock onwards. On Mondays after weekends, I had Ajda, I’d drop her off at kindergarten for eight o’clock and, later, when she started going to school, to classes, and then I’d go to work. Otherwise, I was usually already at the clinic by seven, sometimes eight.
Maybe I really should get a couch. The proverbial couch which I guess some therapists still use, although I don’t know anyone who has one. I knew that, like me, they have ordinary chairs, more or less comfortable armchairs, some kind of recliners, but I’ve never heard of anyone actually having a couch the patient could lie on.
“Everything, no matter how small, triggers certain reactions, thoughts and feelings in us,” I said in a calm, almost lecturing tone. “They are conscious or unconscious, so sometimes we are aware of them, sometimes not. Some feelings we become aware of soon, others much later, some never. Becoming aware of unconscious feelings leads us back to their origin. Awareness is the key. And saying them out loud. We are trying to get to the bottom of this. I am your guide, your guide and companion, your assistant, if you will, and you hold the levers. That’s why I’m asking you about your feelings.”
That seemed to calm her down. The bewilderment mixed with suspicion disappeared from her face.
“How did I feel?” she asked, looking out the window.
Her silence didn’t bother me. Back when I was new to my profession, silence did get to me – even though all the books mentioned it, and all the guest lecturers who, on rare occasions, entered the lecture hall from out there, the first time I encountered long pauses, it threw me. When it seemed that the person sitting opposite me would never speak again, I was almost frantic.
I ended up in a vocation for which I thought I was destined, but in fact I found myself in the role of a person to whom people should open up and pour out their deepest, most buried secrets, even those unknown to themselves, but they don’t want to open their mouths at all. They stare out the window, into a corner or at the floor, stare intently into space, straightening the hems of their clothes, smoothing and picking at spotless handbags, busily stare at some spot on their hand, wrinkle their nose … and don’t utter a single word. Although I break the silence after a certain amount of time with a question, so as not to leave too big a gap, still they remain silent. I was confused – they keep quiet because they don’t want to tell me what’s on their mind, but they’re still sitting opposite me. They sit, stare into space, or wander off somewhere in their minds, heads down, but still don’t get up to leave. Their departure would be a defeat, but also the end of agonizing uncertainty.
“I think,” the woman said without turning to me, before pausing. “I think that…”
“There’s no rush,” I said. “Just take your time.”
I’ve been thinking about the couch more and more lately. I would sit behind the headboard so they couldn’t see my face, look out the window and listen with half an ear. And perhaps ask that eternal question about feelings – a question that might mean all or nothing. Or, in the echolalia method, which I now used almost as often, I echoed her words. You think … In any case, a couch would do me good. However, if I really thought about, there was no room for one in the office I had rented for a long time on the outskirts of the city. At least not enough room. I could have squeezed one into it, but then the feeling of security, to which I still attached great importance, would have been lost. Even though there were more and more people coming to me, clients, customers.
“Can you imagine? She ran away with Manolo Blahniks from right under my nose” is what I heard her say.
My clinic was becoming less and less of a clinic and more of a salon. A salon where I provided services. Pretty soon, I sometimes thought, manicures, pedicures, foot massages, hours of peaceful meditation in a darkened room with a salt lamp and soft Eastern music in the background would also be on offer. There’d be fewer and fewer patients and more and more clients. Fewer and fewer people who had real problems, and more and more people who came to me the same way they used to go for pedicures, to the hairdresser or to the gym, where their pedicurist fixed their feet, their masseur massaged their backs, their personal trainer made sure their thighs and asses were toned.
Maybe I should hire someone, an at-least-somewhat competent person, anyone, to do it for me. He could spy on my sessions a few times, then sit in my place, ask cliché question here and there, about feelings, let’s say, maybe say something ambiguous, cryptic, issue the bill, open and hold the door, nod encouragingly, and smile diffidently as they took leave. I might hire myself a decently trained monkey.
“Pardon?”
I should have said: Why did the fact that Manolo Blahnik was taken from right in front of your nose upset you so much? Or at least repeat it as an echo: … Manolo Blahnik from right under your nose. And all I could manage was: “Pardon?”
“You don’t spend much on clothes and shoes, do you?”
The tone of her voice indicated that she knew I had drifted off. I could feel her annoyance, bordering on anger. Her psychotherapist wasn’t listening to her with commensurate concentration.
Why do you think I don’t pay much attention to clothes? What importance do you attach to dressing? How important do you think clothing is for the people you deal with? I didn’t say any of that.
“You’re wrong,” I said.
I stood up and rose to my full height. I smoothed my jacket and took a few steps around the room. The position was unusual, I would usually look face to face with my patients, clients or whatever they were, in a different way, always at the same height.
“Sorry, I meant to say you don’t put much stock into brand names,” she said apologetically. It worked.
“That’s true,” I said curtly. Everything I had on, dark jeans, a shirt and jacket, was bought on sale and none was really an established brand. But I felt good about it. I took a few more steps while she rummaged through her purse.
I sat back down in my chair. A moment later, she was thrusting a phone across the table. On display were elegant black stilettos. I put on my glasses and realized they might not be stilettos but some kind of ankle boots. The shoes also had an upper part, but since it was made of transparent plastic, I couldn’t see it right away.
“Extravagant,” I said.
“Yes, extravagant, you said it well, they really are extravagant.”
I returned the phone to her.
“But already on the way home – you can imagine, already on the way home! – I saw that Monika, my best friend Monika, bought precisely these. We stopped near Venice for an espresso and a slice of panettone, and I looked at what she posted.”
Again she thrust the phone across the table. I leaned forward to see what it was she was showing me. On the screen was a photo of a woman sitting on a chair, cross-legged and wearing the shoes she’d shown me a little earlier.
“And how did that make you feel?”
So now I go to the shops in Milan. When was the last time I participated in an agonizing, belated attempt of separation? When did I last wade through the confusion of dreams and try to extract their symbolic meaning? When did I last sit opposite someone who was killing himself over his sexuality and feelings of guilt about it? When was the last time I descended into the darkness of a cellar or ascend to a gloomy attic where, amid the screeching of claws of fleeing rats and the loud cooing of excited pigeons, things happened that, pushed away and locked away deep in the subconscious, destroyed lives? An example I presented recently at the annual psychologists conference was the same ol’, same ol’.
The woman glanced at me, as if checking to see whether I was still there, but said nothing. Perhaps there was a faint smile of gratitude on her face. Or maybe not. No matter. She should sit there and remain silent. I was in no hurry. If she was silent, the most I could think about was what her silence meant. But there were not many answers to this question. She was thinking about what to tell me and what to keep silent about. If she said something, I should at least try to reflect on, if not understand, what she was talking about, what her words were telling me. But this way I could only wait calmly.
If there was a person sitting across from me who didn’t say boo, I didn’t have to think. The metre was running the whole time. At a speed several times faster than normal. At least there was that. Many things can be solved if the price is right, said Primož, when I told him once what was getting on my nerves. Take the money and spend it on something smart. Once upon a time, I’d have rejected such a proposition with disgust. When I desperately needed money after my divorce, he sent me the first such client.
Whereas I used to rack my brains, obsessively trying to grasp the hidden meaning in every spoken word, in the intonation and cadence of what was being said, in the pauses between words, in every small gesture, expression or barely perceptible emotion, now I was at a completely different end – I had to force myself to at least half listen to see if anything that was said was worth the mental effort. Or that I was at least feigning interest.
Sometimes, when I wasn’t feeling so lazy, I would get angry. More and more of the people coming to me annoyed me. The woman in the chair opposite me was also angry; she was often furious.
“I was angry, hurt. I felt the way I often felt when I was a little girl,” she said, this time as well. “Monika, my bestie, betrayed me!”
Well, good, I said to myself and looked at her. She was no longer a little girl, she was a grown woman, a well-turned-out grown woman. With long, brown hair, a beautiful face that had already seen a little plastic surgery, but not too much, with manicured hands and nails, in a designer dress that fit her right, and elegant black shoes with not overly high heels. No one could accuse her of a lacking taste.
After years of seeing, in everyone who came to me, only problems that needed to be solved at any cost, my perspective began to change. I began to look at people like the woman in front of me differently. What kind of panties is she wearing? Are her breasts really that taut, or is she wearing, as Primož used to say, a bra made of reinforced concrete? Does she already have cellulite she’s trying to shed any way she can, does she develop rashes after uncompromising waxing and shaving? Does she have stretch marks from giving birth, ones you can’t not see even when the lights are low? I was thinking, as many would say, like a typical chauvinist pig.
But now even that had almost ceased to interest me. One time I transgressed against one of the main rules of my profession and convinced myself. It was just as I feared it would be – worse than what I had pictured in my imagination. And I felt guilty about it. The guilt of the husband who has cheated on his wife. Even though I no longer had a wife. Then I could easily have ended up with a busted head or busted legs; some of the female clients I dealt with moved in such circles. Fortunately, some fitness instructor appeared on the scene and his muscles proved to be more attractive than the psychotherapist’s intellect.
But now I didn’t care, I didn’t think about anything else. Well, I’ve been thinking about a lot of things. Often about whether a midlife crisis, whether or not it was just something Elliott Jaques invented or something real, will pass me by. That I will slip much too soon into a lack of any interest, into complete indifference, an old man’s lethargy, a numb waiting for the end. Just allow me some peace. Let them just sit quietly, ponder, look out the window and be silent. Otherwise, I will not be a senile lethargic, but a senile misanthrope.
“What was it like when you were still a little girl? How did you often feel then?” I asked.
My question may have been on the mark this time. She didn’t look as shocked as before, when I fumbled with a general explanation of the meaning of emotions, and when that didn’t help, with my standing height. She did not burst out accusing her friend, but sat with her head slightly bowed and reflected.
Another minute or so passed in silence, and just as she was about to speak, a silent alarm came up on the phone. The appointment lasts three quarters of an hour. Would you mind if I set an alarm to go off two minutes before the time runs out? I still followed some rules.
The woman reached into her purse for her phone, looked at the time and sat there for a few moments. I waited to see if she might say something else, but she got up and straightened her dress. Now she’ll pay, leave, and when she returns next week, we’ll spin in another fruitless round. Just as I have spun in fruitless rounds with many others in recent years. Others who came, spoke, complained and frowned, engaged in banalities like the one about the shoes, condemned and accused, went back to their lives, came back to me again without changing a thing. Because change isn’t what they wanted, because they were actually comfortable. And every time, for those three quarters of an hour, when I listened to them even less than half, they paid.
It has been ages since I was someone who takes his work seriously and responsibly. I was, as they mockingly called it on the other side of town, a governess, a paid listener, a money collector. Who, after the client left, only wrote w. c., without any changes, in a folder named BC, battery cage.
I escorted her to the back door through which my clients left, where I detained briefly, then nodded in greeting with restrained politeness.
Chapter Three
Two hours later, I was sitting at my desk again, but in a different shirt and without a jacket. In the meantime, I’d ridden my bicycle to the other end of town, where I had my office hours. As always, I was in a hurry, I ran a red and a little further on I almost ran down some pedestrians who had swayed onto the bike path. I rang my bell, but they were staring at their phones and had buds in their ears and didn’t notice me even when I swore loudly and avoided them by a hair.
I got around the city mostly by bicycle. With it, I somehow managed my daily schedule, which was torn into different pieces in different parts of town. Because I was rushing about, I’d arrive at the clinic in Bežigrad and my office on the other side of the city with sweat stains on my back and under my armpits. I always had a small towel, deodorant and a few fresh t-shirts or smart shirts in my backpack, which I changed into in a hurry. I used to think of this rush from one end to the other as a dynamic life, but now it’s getting more and more tiring for me. After the divorce, the apartment I rented on the outskirts of the city was added to the list of locations I was torn between. At the other end of town, just so life wouldn’t be too simple.
I walked up to the door to call in the next patient. There was no one in the waiting room, so I stepped out into the hallway. Those who were here for the first time sometimes waited right in the hallway, even though I’d hung a sign on the door telling them to come in and wait in the waiting room. Some didn’t notice it in the dark hallway. I’d tried to convince the owner who was renting me the space to put a proper light in the hallway. Each time he’d always nodded understandingly and said he’d fix things up, but he also always had a handy explanation as to why it wasn’t possible. I finally gave up.
At the end of the hallway, where there was a small window facing the city entrance, stood a man. His back was turned to me, I could only see his outline in the dim light. He was tall and slim, wearing jeans and a sports jacket.
“Mr. Lavtižar?”
The man turned, came closer and said hello.
“Stane Lavtižar,” he said as we shook hands.
He surprised me. He surprised me even more when he stepped into the office and I could see him better. From his voice on the phone, I’d assumed we was a little older than me, and that was exactly the impression his silhouette in the hallway gave. As soon as I saw him in the dim light of the hallway, it was clear to me that he was much older. When I took down his information a little later, I was even more surprised. He was actually old, pre-war old, ten years older than my late father.
“Would you like some coffee?” I asked.
“Thank you, no. I don’t drink coffee.”
“Maybe some tea? I have English, herbal, green, hibiscus, mint.’’
“Mint? You have mint?”
“I do,” I said.
“Then I’ll have some mint.”
I walked over to the electric kettle I had on the small counter in the corner and turned it on. The water soon boiled. I also made some tea for myself. While I was preparing it, I said that this was an introductory meeting and that in the future, if he came to my place, he could not expect tea, coffee or anything else. I’ve always told people at the first appointment that this is a professional meeting and that they can count on me but they should not think of it as a chat over coffee with a pal.
I chose my words carefully, to sound polite. I did it easily with the woman who was with me in the morning, but I didn’t want to simply throw the rules in the face of the old man who was sitting opposite me. He didn’t say anything, just nodded briefly.
I sat down and asked why he had come. When he’d called me a few weeks ago, he hadn’t told me. I was no longer accepting new patients as I had almost all my appointments booked, but there was something in his voice that made me find a free hour.
“I saw you on television,” he said.
“Yeah,” I said vaguely, not knowing what he meant. He’d called a day or two after I’d been a guest on Odmevi.
“When I saw you on television, I remembered you. Korošec, Bojan Korošec, already told me about you. Several times.”
I flinched. Bojan Korošec was a name I did not like to be reminded of.
“We were colleagues for a long time. When he ended up alone, we became close,” he said.
I nodded and waited to see if he would add anything else. But he looked past me through the window and remained silent.
“What seems to be your problem?” I asked after a while.
I had to wait a long time for his reply. He looked out the window and remained silent. Our entire conversation was punctuated with long pauses.
“I don’t even know where to begin.” Then he turned back and looked at me.
“Anywhere. You can begin anywhere.”
“I’m afraid I’ll get the bag again,” he said after a while.
“The bag?”
“Last time it was a neighbour who brought it to me. She’s sending you this, he said. He took it out of the car and put it in front of my door.”
“You got a bag. Who sent it to you?” I asked.
“A green bag, a big green bag. I couldn’t even touch it. I don’t like bags, I don’t like green bags. I left it outside the door for several days, anyone passing could have nicked it. But no one even touched it. I left the gate of the fence open at night, but no one took it. They broke into my house and walked right past that bag in front of the door.”
“Did you take it inside in the end?”
Instead of answering, the man continued to stare past me. I wished I could see through his eyes. I knew the scenery beyond the window well: the treetops that surrounded the parking lot, a few pointed high-rises, smaller apartment buildings, the roof of the kindergarten a little ways off and the outline of the sports centre behind it, and in the distance, when the weather was nice, low hills, overgrown with forest hills.
When I was furnishing the office years ago, before the first patient walked through the door, I sat down in a chair and looked at what he would see when he sat in front of me. But it soon became clear to me that the eyes of the people sitting opposite me usually did not see all this, that they were looking somewhere else. Martians could be hovering in front of the window, squinting through it with one or three eyes, and they wouldn’t even notice.
“A jay! Look, a jay!” he said with unusual vivacity, getting up and walking towards the window.
I turned in my chair and looked in the direction he was pointing. But unlike him, who despite his age didn’t need glasses, I had to reach for them if I wanted to see anything clearly. I got up and looked out the window.
“I’ve never seen a jay in town this early,” he said. “It’s on that tree by the streetlight.”
I stood by the table and tried to detect any movement among the increasingly autumnal brown leaves.
“Sometimes they come to the city in winter, but only if it’s a really cold winter, and even then only rarely and mostly on the outskirts of the city.”
“Are you into ornithology?” I asked.
“Perhaps this year will really be, as they’re predicting, a cold winter. I often see blackbirds in the garden. They may have already come from the north. Did you know that in the winter we also have blackbirds that migrate from the north of Europe?”
“No, I didn’t know that.”
“Blackbirds are also migratory, but people don’t know that. Many of them come to us from Germany and Scandinavia, probably also from the Czech Republic and Poland. Our blackbirds, at least the young ones, move further south. To the coast, some go to Italy, others to Croatia.”
“I didn’t know that,” I repeated.
“Did you know that European storks take two routes to Africa?”
I shook my head.
“Storks are gliders and make use of warm air currents. That way they can save energy. That is why European storks travel to wintering grounds in sub-Saharan Africa along the eastern and western routes. Central and Eastern European ones go through the Bosphorus and the Suez, and Western European ones go through Gibraltar. For the journey across Gibraltar, they congregate in large flocks and wait for thermals.”
In the years since people with problems started sitting in the chair opposite me, I have heard of many things, but I have never been party to a lecture on the basics of ornithology. The man who had been talking about green bags a little earlier – which had obviously unnerved him – was suddenly talking about birds.
“Have you ever heard of Otto Lilienthal?”
I thought for a while, then shook my head.
“He was a glider. He saw a photo of storks in flight and made a sort of kite.’
“How far did he fly with it?”
“Do you see it now?” He pointed towards the tree we’d both been looking at. He was engaged and composed, I a little less.
Indeed, there was a jay on one of the branches, where there were not very many leaves. I was no particular bird connoisseur, but I knew more about them than the average Joe on the street did. A brown bird with a black tail, dark wings and unmistakable white-blue stripes on the side feathers alighted on the branch for a few moments. Then he jerked, and perhaps shrieked loudly, but through the closed windows, which barely let in the sound of the road and streets below, nothing could be heard. In a moment he flew away. The old man was still looking out the window, and I sat back in my chair.
“Everything was inside,” he said. “My stuff and all the gifts I gave her. A watch, a gold chain, pictures … Even the will.”
He turned away from the window and dropped into his chair. Suddenly, I had a tired, hunched old man with a gloomy look sitting in front of me.
“It was before the wedding. We were engaged a year before that. We started redecorating the house, buying furniture, I also redesigned the garden.”
“What went wrong between you two?” I was blunt. “Why did you break up?”
“What went wrong between us?” he repeated mechanically after me.
“Are you ready to talk about it?”
We sat in silence for a long time.
“I’m afraid I’ll be in the canteen again. I was in the canteen as a child, and I will be in the canteen again as an old man.”
I didn’t know what he meant. Discreetly, the clock announced that the meeting was almost over.
The man caught the sound and looked back at me.
“Green bags and canteens have been with me all my life. In the meantime, I thought I got rid of them, but I was wrong. I thought I couldn’t get any more bags. But now I’m afraid I’ll get it again, the bag.’
If he showed a desire to talk, I’d send the next client, one of those I had in the BC folder, a message saying I have to cancel our meeting. No matter that he might already be sitting in the waiting room.
“Are you afraid of getting the bag?” I said.
From what I’d heard so far, I wasn’t able to discern why he was actually here. But often people who had real problems only talked about them after a while, sometimes after a very long time.
He didn’t reply. He tucked his legs in, leaned forward a little, paused for a moment as if pondering something, then stood up.
“Have you ever been in therapy before?” I asked.
“I was, I was in therapy years ago.”
“Were you satisfied with it? How come you came to me?’
“The therapist retired. She no longer works. Health problems.”
“Would you like to meet again?” I asked.
“I’d like to come once a week.”
I suggested an appointment time and he just nodded briefly. However, I would have to head to Bežigrad from the faculty after the lecture, for the second time that day, but I didn’t think for a moment that I wouldn’t do it. I just wouldn’t sacrifice my time with Ajda.
“Are you on any medications?”
“You mean antidepressants? No, I don’t take them. They wanted to prescribe them to me many times, but I always refused them. I won’t take anything. I want to make use of the time I have left as a human being.”
The old man, who had been engrossed in himself just a few moments ago, now stood straight in front of me.
“How much do I owe you?”
“Nothing. The first hour is free.”
I accompanied him to the door. He paused for a moment.
“My mother used to make mint tea for me,” he said.
I sat in the chair for a few moments, then turned on the computer and made some notes.
Fragments translated by: Jason Blake