Barbi Markovic: Superheldinnen (Superheroines)

Excerpt

We'd tried so hard, so that everything would be OK, while cities and countries flowed past us. Alongside us flowed the garrulous diversity of Viennese life, life flowed in Zagreb and Graz in a remote tributary, and life also flowed in Belgrade in an attempt to bite off its own tail. The pink skin itched around the scars from the self-inflicted wounds we got trying blindly to pull ourselves out of the mud we had fallen into by way of birth and migration. We were discontented. We emerged from the dirt, but we didn’t come to run forever from one lousy job to the next. On that count, you got us wrong. We came to live life as seen on TV. I tried my very hardest to think about something positive. For example, I loved animals that depended on me and people who laughed at my jokes. Effective communication motivated me, as did success in general. But that was small comfort in light of the many horrors that existed. People fell down stairs and puked all over them. Pigeons took the opportunity to eat their fill of the yellow acid. They were exactly the same stairs that Mascha, Direktorka, and I were slowly climbing, up to the middle class, but the end was not in sight. We wanted to get to the very top, to the surface of the earth, to suddenly become completely different people – like larvae that on the earth’s surface lost all the organs they needed to push through subterranean tunnels and in their place grew kitschy, banal, multicolored wings. We could hardly wait for the day when we would shed our cocoons and emerge as content optimists. Our stairs were in Vienna. We knew there was no way around ascending them, but the steps were dangerous and their pitch steep. We were careful. If you are a pigeon, you can never let your guard down. Ditto if you are human and no one’s got your back. We could lose our lives at any moment. We could lose our lives at any moment. That was the mantra that besieged me the whole ten hours from Belgrade to Vienna. It was the same mantra that accosted me as night fell over Saturday and over the Sette Fontane.
We returned to our booth before the concert even ended. Looking at my papers, I realized I was a little bit drunk.
Depart from your daily routine one time and the consequence is wild improvisation – that is the highest art of living, but also the greatest danger. There was so much cigarette smoke you couldn’t see anymore. Mascha said that on the way to the bathroom she’d heard the Sette Fontane had an air filter, but the ventilation and heating system couldn’t both be on at the same time. "That’s exactly how life is," I thought. None of us were looking at a rosy future. It’s hard to be a waitress, but it’s even harder to be a waitress who’s getting on in years. If Direktorka continued like this, at some point she would no longer be able to explain to herself how she ended up that way, and she’d be even less able to explain to herself why she stuck with it. Mascha would burn out from stress sooner or later. I would deteriorate more and more. I wasn’t brave enough to think to the end of the story. It was time for me to get out of this dead-end situation. The moment I'd been waiting for all evening had come.
"I’ve been waiting all evening for this," I said. Outside, the wind tossed the injured bodies of birds. I looked Mascha and then Direktorka straight in the eye, searching for traces of possible prejudice or decisions already made, but their faces were soft with beer, and the Belgrade pouch on Direktorka’s neck was in a relaxed state. "Ask yourselves the following question," I said, "Why do people like us cower at the bottom of our souls? Why does everything we do only serve to dig ourselves deeper into the mud we’re already stuck in? By now we’ve got mud up to our necks! How should we explain our hungry, nervous lives?" "No idea, what’s the answer?" Direktorka replied. "Have you ever looked a pigeon in the eye? Have you seen the way they devour everything with those insatiable red and black buttons? Eating up houses, people, and dogs, when in truth they’re not doing anything but picking at wet breadcrumbs. We’re the same way. Our eyes are greedy, our lips are small, our legs scrawny, our arms almost non-existent.… I know your first impulse will be to reject my proposal, but I beg you, let me finish and then think first about what I’m about to say. Mascha and Direktorka sat up and leaned forward with their elbows on the table so they could hear me better. "You’ve probably noticed I’ve been abnormally nervous recently." "I guess, more or less," Direktorka said, "a little more than usual." "I’m stuck. Nothing works out anymore. A couple of days ago I had a job interview, and when the guy asked me to tell him something about myself, I burst into tears. But it’s not just my personal bad-luck streak or feeling sorry for myself. I’m a walking catastrophe; whatever I touch short-circuits. At this point, I’m afraid to use public transportation…" I had the feeling their attention was starting to stray, so I got to the heart of the matter: "I’m saying that Marija’s curse is taking hold, and I think I pose a real danger to my wider surroundings."
[…]
"That’s why," I said, "I am asking you to obliterate me."

English translation by Laura Radosh

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