Absolution. Aleš Šteger

case out of his black briefcase. In it is a metal box with a few buttons and a gauge, which he connects to a pair of wires that end in cylindrical metal electrodes. He hands them to Gram.

      ‘Squeeze hard,’ orders Bely.

      Gram obeys. He gazes absently, clasping the electrodes.

      ‘Start recording,’ says Bely.

      Rosa retrieves a Dictaphone from her fur coat. She presses the record button.

      Bely bows his head and softly asks Gram a question.

      ‘Who are you?’

      ‘Samo Gram,’ answers Mr G.

      ‘What do you do for a living?’

      ‘I’m a customs officer.’

      ‘What else?’

      ‘Depending on the situation, I’ve had a number of names, real and fake.’

      ‘Who do you work for?’

      ‘Myself. Now I work only for myself.’

      ‘Who did you work for in the past?’

      ‘For customs. Also for Yugoslav intelligence, then later for Slovenian.’

      During the interrogation, Bely keeps track of the E-meter needle, which floats consistently in the middle of the dial.

      ‘I see you’re telling the truth,’ says Bely.

      Rosa gets up and disappears behind the door.

      ‘Nothing but the truth,’ says Gram.

      ‘What comes to mind when you hear the word “lie”?’

      ‘My kitten. One day he went missing. I searched everywhere, all around the farm where we lived. I searched the fields, even the nearby hills. I cried inconsolably, and Mama promised me he would come back. I knew right off that she was lying.’

      ‘What’s the first thing that comes to mind when you hear the word “happiness”?’ asks Bely.

      ‘I remember. The slaughter at the border.’

      ‘What was that?’

      ‘I was a young customs officer then. It happened in Koroška, at the border between what used to be Yugoslavia and Austria. I walked the woods all day long, I made good money and there was lots of messing around. Today when I look back, I know I was happy then, but back then I didn’t know it.’

      ‘Go on.’

      ‘There was a farmer who had a house right on the border. It ran right through his kitchen. Technically he needed to use his passport to get from his kitchen, which was in Yugoslavia, over to the other side of the Iron Curtain to take a dump, since his toilet was in Austria. Anyway, this guy wanted to slaughter a pig. To slaughter a pig in a restricted border zone! He asked us, the customs officers, if we could find him an illegal butcher. First, we brought him a butcher and then, a few hours later, when the pig was already open and chopped to pieces, we showed up with some Austrian customs officers and scared the hell out of him. Not only because he had organized the slaughter under the table but because he could have been accused of attempting to help the butcher cross the border illegally, which at the time was punishable by twenty years behind bars. The farmer begged so hard he fell on his knees out of sheer terror and pissed his pants. Jesus, we laughed like crazy, along with the Austrians. But the farmer, he didn’t feel like mucking about. He was kneeling in his piss and just kept pleading. In the end we split the pork between us in exchange for not denouncing him. All we left him was the swine’s head, which lay right on the border. It didn’t make much sense to argue over whether it was Austrian or Yugoslav.’

      ‘That’s what made you happy?’

      ‘You have no idea. I also became quite rich. Well, I earned enough after ten years of working in customs to be able to buy this restaurant.’

      ‘What’s the first thing to cross your mind when you think of something sad?’ asks Bely and stretches in order to see what Rosa is doing. The sound of clattering glasses from behind the bar echoes across the empty space of the restaurant.

      ‘Football.’

      ‘I mean, what hurt you on a personal level?’

      ‘My mother used to beat me up because I would bring home bones. Supposedly they were human. They were all over Pobrežje, where I grew up, sticking out from the ground. Us kids, we would pull them out and play hockey with them in the fields. But I wasn’t allowed to bring them home. I still remember her taking me over her knee and the crackling sound of the bone she hit me with.’

      ‘That’s as sad as it gets?’

      ‘I don’t know.’

      ‘You don’t know?’

      ‘There’s something worse than that. But I don’t know if it happened to me, I mean, me in this life.’

      ‘Who else then?’

      ‘It happened to my mother. I can hear her screaming. Everything around me gets tighter, it’s smothering me. I feel something fleshy pushing against my little head.’

      ‘Where are you?’

      ‘I’m in my mum. I haven’t been born yet.’

      ‘Is it your father?’

      ‘No.’

      ‘What happened to the man later?’

      ‘I don’t know. I never found out who he was.’

      ‘Why not?’

      ‘It’s a good thing I didn’t, otherwise I would’ve had to kill him.’

      ‘Who are you?’

      ‘Samo, Samo Gram. The kids at school were teasing me. They said I’m nothing but a gram. Who’s nothing but a Gram now? I showed them.’

      ‘Who were you before that?’

      ‘I see green light. I’m blinded by the meadows. They’ll go up in flames, can’t you see?’

      ‘I will ask again. Who were you before you were born as Samo Gram?’

      ‘Many.’

      ‘For instance?’

      ‘I’m a rafter, here on the Drava River. The river, its current, my life. Those were wonderful years, but I didn’t know it. I just missed my family too much, my four sons and my wife. We love each other.’

      ‘More,’ says Bely.

      ‘I can smell a damp darkness. My bloody cough eats through my lungs and nostrils. I see a small lamp that flickers down the tunnel where I work as a mercury miner. Yesterday three miners were killed when the tunnel next to this one collapsed. While I dig I keep seeing the images of those disfigured bodies that I helped to carry out. They were so cold, even though we dug them out right away.’

      ‘Go on.’

      ‘I was also a nun in a convent. It was before the First World War.’

      ‘In a convent?’

      ‘I healed lepers in Bavaria.’ Gram giggles.

      Bely looks at the dial. The needle is still floating in the middle. ‘Why are you laughing?’

      ‘I was a lesbian, but fortunately nobody ever found out about it, except for Anna.’

      ‘Anna?’

      ‘She was another Benedictine sister, my lover.’

      ‘What are you truly afraid of?’

      ‘Calvary.’

      From behind the bar comes the sound of rattling bottles. Rosa flings a bottle on to the floor so it shatters. Then she brings one over and places it on the table before Bely. Jack Daniels. Bely looks sternly