Absolution. Aleš Šteger

      ‘Do you also slaughter chickens?’

      ‘We have the Halal certification. The Nazis built the factory on two levels, the ground floor and basement. The ground level was designed so that it could be lowered underground during an aerial bombing. The orientation is perfect, and with very little renovation we were able to fix up the underground level and turn it into a slaughterhouse for chickens facing Mecca.’

      ‘And upstairs?’

      ‘Off the record, that’s where we make our sausages, although officially the space upstairs is registered as a hunting-rifle factory. Our Muslim clients would skewer us if they knew we were stuffing pork intestines right over their chickens.’

      Bely observes the E-meter. The needle hasn’t left the centre of the dial.

      ‘Aren’t you scared?’ asks Bely.

      ‘I’m scared that somebody might find out about our moving the hunting-rifle production elsewhere because of the steep increase in orders. The Chinese are huge fans of shooting.’

      ‘Do you export rifles to China?’

      ‘We do, rifles and chicken claws. It’s a big business.’

      ‘What do you see when I say blue?’

      ‘I see the sea.’

      ‘What do you see when I say sea?’

      ‘I see my dreams. Black ink spilling in them. Everything is dark. But it’s not ink, it’s old oil. Hitler was a genius.’

      Butcher screws up his face and grins.

      ‘He knew how to construct gigantic complexes,’ Butcher continues. ‘He would know how to put things in order today. But there’s oil covering everything. The old hydraulics are broken,’ Butcher grins again. ‘There’s no one who can lead us through this petroleum night.’

      ‘The hydraulics that raise and lower the platform in your factory?’ Bely now gestures to Rosa Portero, who slowly takes off her sun-glasses and retrieves the silver compact from her fur coat.

      ‘My God, can’t you see the hydraulics going down?’ Butcher grins and emits a strange, animal-like wheezing. ‘Hitler’s dead. The mechanism is broken. Help, can’t you see the platform lowering? The sausages! Kranj sausages,’ Butcher wheezes once again, turning pale. ‘Down below, there, they’ll squash the entire hall with thousands of halal chickens facing Mecca. Help!’

      The president lets go of the E-meter cylinders, jumps up and starts wheezing again, as if choking on his own tongue. He’s drenched in sweat, disoriented, his eyes wandering the room. Bely jumps up and tries to get him to sit back down again.

      A knock on the door. The secretary enters the room.

      ‘You called, Mr President?’

      Bely whispers into Butcher’s ear, his back to the secretary.

      ‘Repeat after me. Everything’s fine, you may leave.’

      The president whispers, ‘Everything’s fine. You may leave’.

      ‘What was that, Mr President?’ asks the secretary.

      Bely whispers, ‘Repeat it, louder’.

      ‘Everything’s fine. You may leave. Repeat it, louder!’ The president shouts out each word individually, as if slicing the sentence to pieces.

      The secretary takes one last glance at her boss and haltingly closes the office door on her way out.

      Bely breathes a sigh of relief. ‘Sit down, Butcher, sit down and stay calm.’

      Tine Butcher takes a seat. Rosa Portero slowly opens up her silver compact with its yellow-tinged oyster crackers.

      Tine Butcher stares deliriously into the air in front of him and continues hallucinating. ‘At the last minute the catastrophe was averted. Hitler has come back; our Führer is back. What good luck!’ Suddenly Butcher’s eyes become very clear and wide. He wheezes again. ‘The mechanism stopped, and now the platform is rising again, just as he ordered. My Bosnian butchers, my Halal chickens, all my machines in the slaughterhouse down below! Finally, they can breathe again. And the platform is still rising,’ Butcher grins. ‘The shingles are falling off the roof, and the Kranj sausages are creeping out from under it and through the windows. Nothing can stop them. Only I, Tine Butcher, can stop this river of pork that is heading towards the city, burying the houses. People are suffocating under the oppressive weight of intestines and pork,’ Butcher cries out and raises his arms as if to block the river of pork with his bare hands. ‘Some people take refuge higher up, in skyscrapers or church belfries. They look down at the river of pork as it inundates the city of Maribor, coming to a halt only at the slopes of Calvary. Only I was chosen to change the direction of this city’s fate.’ Butcher wheezes, shoots up and with all his might rears up into the air above him.

      Bely puts his hands on Butcher’s shoulders and sits him down again.

      ‘You,’ wheezes Butcher, staring blankly up into the air. ‘Do you know what this city needs?’

      Bely shrugs his shoulders.

      ‘A scourge of God! Or, even better, what Maribor needs is a chainsaw of God. One with a long, long guide bar; the sort my Bosnian butchers use to cut the biggest Kranj pigs in half in a single pass.’

      Butcher stands up again. Bely hurriedly pulls him down into his chair and places the E-meter electrodes back into his hands.

      ‘Sit down, Mr President, sit. Tell me, are you part of the Great Orc?’

      ‘I am the Great Orca, and I will devour all this pork off the streets of Maribor.’

      ‘Tine Butcher, I will ask you one last time, are you part of the Great Orc?’

      ‘We must let Calvary sleep in peace. May the men and women of Maribor sleep in peace. May all Slovenia sleep in peace. I will save you from the pork.’

      ‘Tine, do you know what the Great Orc is?’

      The president turns his head and looks past Bely vacantly. His jaw shudders violently and drops open. The E-meter needle begins swinging left to right and back again. Butcher clutches the cylindrical electrodes and bangs them against his forehead until it oozes blood. Rosa lunges at him and prevents him from injuring himself further.

      ‘The hypnosis hasn’t kicked in,’ hisses Bely, caught among the jostling elbows.

      ‘It’s kicked in too much, that’s the problem. He’s lost his bearings, and I’ve got no idea how to bring him back,’ says Rosa Portero, kneeling on the president’s chest. Butcher’s entire body is overcome with convulsions.

      ‘Give it to him; let’s absolve him,’ says Bely and looks at Rosa.

      ‘Now? He’s given us nothing.’ Rosa grabs hold of Butcher so he won’t tumble off the leather sofa.

      ‘You think there’s still a chance he might give us something useful?’ asks Bely.

      The president manages to shout, ‘Attack the undulating mass of Kranj sausage!’ before Bely is able to cover his mouth. Bely groans with pain and pulls back his hand, now perforated with the president’s teeth marks.

      ‘It’s seized the entire city in its tentacles and suctioned itself on to Calvary. Can’t you see? We need a saviour!’ screams Butcher.

      Rosa reaches for the silver compact.

      A few minutes later the secretary knocks on the door and cautiously enters with a reminder that two business partners from Abu Dhabi have been waiting for over twenty minutes at the reception. As she opens the door, she sees Rosa Portero in a black, unusually shiny fur coat – it must be made of chinchilla or sable or something like that? – and Adam Bely putting a device away into a leather bag. The secretary notices that Bely is holding a bloodstained handkerchief.

      ‘Mr