Absolution. Aleš Šteger

smiles and lights up a fresh cigarette.

      ‘I’m all right, no worries. What about you? It seems that the revolutionary Eros hasn’t left you even after all this time.’

      ‘The people you saw outside, they’re a wonderful group. Intellectuals, very erudite, proactive youngsters who are fed up with this neoliberal shit. Have you heard what’s going on in the city? Huge deals, that’s what’s going on. All while people are starving. We must put an end to it. This city is rife with discontent; every other person here is unemployed. And all they do is show scorn for us and steal from right under our noses. Do they think we’re stupid, that we’re blind? The group you saw is the core of the organizing committee in charge of protests against the corrupt city administration. No politician in the entire country is as corrupt as our Mayor Voda, if you ask me. He cut money for social support to build this art palace down the street from us. Have you been? A useless gallery with an enormous hall at the top, a private elevator, an office and a private Jacuzzi. All for the price of a hospital. Do you know what that means? You know how things are built around here, what public money is spent on. A truck full of bricks, potholes strategically located in front of every politician’s house, the truck bounces and hop, one by one, the bricks disappear into their courtyards until finally the truck arrives at its destination empty. They deserve nothing but the gallows. They’re crooks. We’ll let them have their carnival.’

      ‘I see you haven’t changed at all,’ Bely smirks at Dorfler’s fiery speech.

      ‘Of course I have! Last time we saw each other I was only a teaching assistant, and now, now I’m a dean,’ grins Dorfler. ‘I’m not kidding. We must put an end to this neoliberal theft. The worst is yet to come. Just today the city council confirmed the “rebalancing” of an investment worth two hundred million euros, which exceeds the annual city budget. And for what? For a wastewater treatment plant in a protected water area, which is right next to the old city centre. According to our calculations, such an undertaking should cost no more than one tenth of their estimate. But no, in order to clean shit they plan to release wastewater into the ground under Calvary. They’ll burrow into the hill and, oh-by-the-way, they’ll also erect a garage for the mayor at the bottom, near Pyramid Hill, and an apartment building or two for all of his sweethearts. And since the porous ground can make building into a hillside unpredictable, the investment will rise and rise until its value outweighs all the souls that still live in this city. No. We need revolt, we need change, and we need it now.’

      ‘Nice to see the intellectuals of Maribor taking pleasure in such activist ecstasy. So, you’re done with 2 × 2 × 2?’

      Dorfler smirks.

      Rosa notices an unusual expression on his face. ‘Was bedeutet zweimal zweimal zwei?’ she asks.

      ‘That was a traditional game played by the young intellectuals of Maribor,’ explains Bely. ‘It requires two players. They get locked into a room where they have to stay for two whole days. Their goal is to assume the mental age of a two year-old as quickly as possible, not only in terms of their speech but also behaviour, from walking, crawling and thumb-sucking to floor-licking. Sooner or later the players relax so much that they fall into some sort of state of regression, taking off their clothes, looking at their genitalia or chewing on each other’s bibs. Jostling for toys and the pooing of pants is normal. They’re allowed to do everything, as long as they stick to the purpose of the game. They’re being filmed the entire time, so that they can see themselves in action once the game is over. If they recover, of course.’

      ‘Some people still play the game, although it’s lost its popularity. Internet’s a bitch these days. The recordings began slipping into the wrong hands and were easily used for blackmail.’

      Dorfler pulls tobacco and some cigarette papers out of the desk. A big piece of hash licks the lighter flame. Dexterous crush and roll. Dorfler fires it up, inhales deeply and passes it on to Bely. He holds it for a while without taking a puff and hands it back to Dorfler, but Rosa’s white gloved hand intercepts it. She inhales. She passes it on to Dorfler, who studies Rosa from above his round spectacles.

      ‘Adam, you’ve got an interesting young lady here. Where do you come from, Rosa?’

      ‘From Graz.’

      ‘I mean, originally?’

      ‘My father is from Havana; my mother is Austrian. I never got to know my father. We came to Austria when I was five, but my father left us soon after that. My mum always said he’d gone back to Cuba to dance salsa. I never saw him again,’ she smiles scornfully.

      ‘And you work as a journalist?’

      ‘Yes. I’m working on a radio piece for Austrian radio about Maribor as the European Capital of Culture.’

      ‘This is the European capital of nepotism and neoliberal manure, not culture. All the people hired to put together the European Capital programme are, as you’d expect, hirelings from elsewhere, from Ljubljana, who came here only to rechannel European money. If they were at all impartial, they would distribute the funding equally among every Maribor cultural worker. A thousand, fifteen hundred per head. At least that way we’d know where the funds were going. That would be the only fair model of democratic culture, not these golden plumes in operatic performances for élites. Although it’s also true that culture should become more democratic and show more solidarity. The true cultural workers and intellectuals these days are proletarians, nothing like these self-professed art élites, these self-complacent, capitalist arse-licking cliques.’

      Dorfler sways gently, stands up, scours through a pile of paper on the desk and pulls out a newspaper.

      ‘You journalists should be the voice of the people’s conscience, and not the herald of capital. Look at this! Look at the today’s front page. “Mother sent to court because she had her one-month-old baby tattooed without the father’s approval”. What’s this world coming to? Seriously, is this a headline that deserves the front page? As a progressive democratic society, you’d think we’d be enlightened enough to protect not only human rights but also the autonomous parental rights to a liberal upbringing. The Mother tattooed her baby with the Maribor football-team logo. What in God’s name is wrong with that? Do we really have to call the fire brigade for something like that? Do we not label our children from birth onwards? What about personal rights? And what, a tattoo of Jesus on a cross would be fine? You two will say that this is just a matter of nomenclature. Very soon we won’t be able to name our own kids any more. I’ve got a son. But there’s nothing I’m allowed to say to him. He doesn’t so much as look at me when I say something, he’s glued to his iPad, firing away. Pirates, militiamen and sometimes Martians. All day long without interruption, shooting. Boom, boom, boom. For real? Are we really supposed to worry about a purple stain on a baby’s butt, oh please! Shouldn’t we instead focus on the wastewater treatment plant that’ll gobble up babies’ shit, not to mention our money, for the next five or six decades and mess up the entire ecosystem of Calvary? Or on money that was lost to the construction of the Marx Centre? Talking about your friend Andreas, the dream vendor, we just got rid of him, we threw him out of this city, and before you know it he’s back with this developmental-cultural centre of Maribor called Marx. You get me, Adam. You worked alongside him for so many years, or at least you tried to. And do you know where he drew inspiration for this name, Marx? The name that defines this city’s culture? From his wife’s skunk. You don’t know about the skunks? Yes, three. He’s got three. Marx, Groucho and Harpo.’

      ‘OK, but as far as I know there’re many people here in Maribor who have skunks as pets,’ says Bely.

      ‘I’ve got nothing against them, don’t get me wrong. My sister owns them, too. She had their glands removed, but they still stink. They make me sick to my stomach when I step into her apartment. They’re all over you, those creatures, they crawl under your trousers, your shirt, they climb onto your head. Horrible. And what’s even worse is that you have to trim their claws so they don’t destroy your furniture. It takes at least two to trim the claws of a stinky-arsed skunk. You cut, while the other person holds the animal down. I love my sister, there’s no question about that,