Absolution. Aleš Šteger

members gather in the city theatre for the premières. Maybe you should ask the theatre director?’

      Dorfler utters these last words with unusual contempt. The banging against the wall comes faster. Screaming. Soft death metal.

      ‘Pass me the oyster crackers.’

      ‘Schön jetzt?’ asks Rosa.

      ‘Give them to me.’

      Rosa pulls out her silver compact.

      ‘Not those. Give me the dark ones,’ hisses Bely excitedly. ‘Are you sure? Wouldn’t you prefer …’

      ‘Just do it!’ shouts Bely.

      Rosa nods and opens up a special compartment in her compact. The oyster crackers there are like the rest, only a shade darker.

      Bely picks one up. ‘Let your souls be absolved,’ he utters and slips the cracker under Dorfler’s bloody lip. His body starts shaking uncontrollably. For a moment Rosa feels as though she can see shadows that scatter through a thick curtain of smoke hanging in the room. Dorfler catches his breath again. He looks like he is about to fall asleep, when suddenly he opens his eyes, gets on to all fours and starts licking Rosa’s boots.

      ‘We must leave as quickly as possible,’ says Bely.

      They slow down only once they are halfway across the bridge. Snowfall sparkles by the lights of the Marx city gallery. Rosa points straight ahead. Beneath them, swaying from a long rope, inflatable human-sized dolls with the mayor’s picture on their faces.

      ‘They were put up by Dorfler’s activists while we were in there,’ comments Bely.

      Back and forth, the plastic dolls rock in the breeze like human beings, eerily yet effortlessly.

      ‘Swinging souls,’ says Bely.

      ‘You shouldn’t have had all those drinks. You don’t take alcohol well, let alone cocaine,’ Rosa says.

      He doesn’t reply. After a few minutes’ silence, he says to Rosa, ‘As a student Dorfler had a special fetish for the ashes of dictators’ dead wives. One night he stole the fresh contents of the urn that belonged to the wife of a former head of the Slovenian Communist Party. He loved to cook. We often went to his dorm for dinners, and on special occasions he would whip up his special dish with a pinch of his sacred spice, the ashes. Then, one evening, we’d drunk a lot, he accidently spilled the precious content of his small saltcellar and, to save some of the ashes, he threw himself on the floor and licked up as much as he could.’

      Rosa lights up a cigarette, the breeze blows away a few sparkles, tiny ghosts, into the darkness.

      ‘Adam, why did you decide to give Dorfler a black cracker? How is it different from others?’

      ‘The black oyster crackers take effect right away; there’s no delay. In terms of their final effect they’re no different from the lighter version,’ says Bely. ‘The souls get informed regardless of the colour, and it’s only through being informed that they can move up a level. The body shell preserves its physical functions, but without the souls it’s caught in a mental programme that’s formed in early childhood, if not before, and is specific to each individual body.’

      Bely stops talking. A gust of freezing wind steals the scent of Rosa’s hair in a twirl of snow. Fatigue slowly seeps through every sinew of his body. Newly whitewashed empty streets unfold before their eyes, as they carefully tread the slippery pavements back to the hotel.

      European Approach

      There’s no one in this city who doesn’t know about Laszlo Farkas, the famous prosecutor, who made a career for himself with a number of very widely discussed anti-corruption proceedings. His name is a fearsome metaphor for all convicted criminals who ran schemes involving the illegal privatization of public property during the time of transition to Slovenian independence, who laundered money, who intentionally debilitated firms, trafficked fictitious equity certificates and shares or who, in any other way, very quickly and illegally accumulated a significant amount of wealth. Farkas. Directors on trial tremble at his name. Farkas, renowned for cases such as Patex, Botox, Pimpex and many others that resulted in long-term prison sentences for the cream of Slovenian management. He’s also wellknown to the wider public because of his physical appearance. For many years Farkas has suffered from glaucoma, which contributes to his slightly insane appearance. A glance at his red, unnaturally bulging and puffy eyes, eyes that never blink, might send shivers down your spine. He left Lendava, a small town on the Hungarian border where he used to practise law, many years ago. He gave up his private practice upon moving to Maribor, where he assumed the position of prosecutor in the State Attorney’s Office, in the department specializing in serious economic crimes.

      It’s around 2.30, early Friday afternoon. Farkas walks out of the court. His white BMW is parked just around the corner. As he does every Friday, he drives across the Tito Bridge, past the hospital to the Ball Bar at the foot of the Pohorje Mountains. The head of the Volley Football Fan Club is already there. Fifteen minutes later Farkas leaves the bar and drives back to his house at the foot of Pyramid Hill in Maribor. He opens his garage door with a remote control, parks the car.

      Once at the front door he notices that the house alarm has once more been disarmed. ‘I’ll have to call the maintenance crew again,’ he sighs and unlocks the door.

      ‘Vila, where are you, Vila?’ Farkas calls out.

      Nothing. Farkas is surprised not to see his poodle, who usually greets him at the front door.

      ‘You lazy little slug, are you asleep again? Vila, come!’

      Instead of the dog he is greeted by a horrible sight: on his living-room floor Vila lies motionless. Open drawers, things scattered across the room. On the table, a bottle of whisky. On the sofa, Rosa Portero, revolver in her left hand, unlit cigarette clenched between her lips.

      ‘Finally! I thought you’d forgotten about me,’ she says in German and lights up. ‘You don’t mind, do you? Relax. Vila’s asleep. She’ll wake up in a few hours, probably with a horrible headache from all the sleeping pills she’s had with her food. A very greedy little thing, that dog of yours.’

      A door bell.

      ‘That’ll be the flower delivery. Come on, let’s open the door.’

      Farkas, his hands in the air, slowly walks to the front door, Rosa behind him.

      ‘Ask who it is,’ orders Rosa.

      ‘Flower delivery,’ resounds from beyond the door.

      ‘Maribor doesn’t do flower deliveries, except to the cemetery,’ says Farkas abruptly.

      ‘We call this the European approach,’ says Rosa.

      Farkas opens the door to Adam Bely. A couple of minutes later Farkas sits tied up on the living-room floor, holding the cylindrical electrodes. Deep snoring of Vila the poodle next to him.

      ‘Is this his personal trick, or is it some common Maribor folk tradition to paint a poodle’s tail purple?’ Rosa addresses Bely as he frisks Farkas’s coat and bag. He finds an envelope and counts out at least thirty thousand euros.

      ‘What’s this?’ he asks as he turns on the E-meter device. Rosa turns on the Dictaphone and lights another cigarette.

      ‘We don’t smoke in this house,’ says Farkas quietly.

      ‘Where has this money come from?’

      ‘I lent it to a guy, and now he’s paid me back.’

      ‘I see, says Bely’, keeping track of the E-meter needle.

      ‘You come from Lendava, is that correct?’

      ‘From the way you speak, you could be from Maribor,’ replies Farkas. ‘Do you have any idea how long you’ll be put away for this? You’re good for ten years, and you’ll beg me to call in a favour with my prosecutor colleague when they tear you apart in court.’