Torpor
by Peeter Sauter


"Motherfuckers!" I yelled in Russian and sprang up from behind the table.
I had a glass in my right hand and a half-smoked cigarette in my left.
Usually, it is the other way round. I leaped up to belt height, let my body
ease back along with my chair which now stood on its back legs and jumped
up.

A splash of the mix sloshed on to my knee and onto the floor. My arse had
touched the chair perfectly. I was drunk alright, but I had jumped up so
expertly that the chair hadflown backwards with a crash right across the
stone flag flooring but had remained upright. My arse has surgical precision
is what I was thinking at the time.

I bent my knees, raised my arms to shoulder level and bawled: "Giddy-up"
and stamping my feet on the floor, cowboyed my way around the table, holding
my cigarette and my glass at head height. Half-way round I came to a halt and
shouted: "Who dares to come for a race, brothers, who dares to come to town."
I took a quick swig and a dragon my fag. "Are there any fucking men in here
or not?"

Around the table sat a whole bunch of my fucking mates, plus two women.

the table, holding his glass of the mix in both hands in front of his nose
and lookingat me between his hunched shoulders.

"They shoot knackered horses on the spot," said Kati and exhaled
her cigarette smoke with a smile. She liked me to clown around. She was all
done up, not a bit like she used to be.

"But what about the cows?" I continued to ramble. "It's so sad it brings
tears to your eyes."

I felt that if I rambled too long, the spark would die out, and I bawled
once again:"Giddy-up", rode on and yelled: "Hoh delee, hoh delah, hoh hoh
hoh hoh hohhoh hoooh."

I stamped really hard and this time some of the mix flew out of the glass
and ash fell from the end of my fag.

I was standing behind M who was wearing glasses when he said: "I was
wondering why you drink like a horse, but now I realise you are in fact a
horse."

I stopped in my tracks. "Am I drinking on your money, you old shit, or what?
You could come and fight, if your cock weren't so long. I'll show you."
I squatted down and quickly put my glass and cigarette on each side of M on
the floor."Got any feeling for balance?" I took hold of the legs of his
chair and pulled.

"Nutter!" shouted Kati.

M flew onto the floor, my glass was trapped under him and his spectacles
flew off his nose.

The wind went out of my sails. I looked to see whether they were pieces of
my glass or of his spectacles. The spectacles were lying some way off, in one
piece. M looked at his wet elbow.

"You've gone and wasted a lot of my mix," I said. "Fuck, what a hen you are.
Hen go and lay me a new drink."

"I'll be fucked if I do, you shit." M was bending the sidepieces of
his spectacles and put them back on his nose.

"Shit is what I'm full of from top to toe anyway."

I went back to my seat. M picked up his own chair and sat down.

The waiter brought a brush with a long handle and a dustpan. He swept up the
glass,hardly needing to bend his back.

"Hens lay eggs through their willies," I rambled on. "Allow me to give your
willy a little tug, M. Did it hurt?"

"What's it to you?"

"Who's going to pay for the glass?" asked the waiter.

"Me," and I plunged my hand into the back pocket of my jeans, "if I've got
any money, that is." I stretched out my hand, took hold of Kati's glass from
across the table and took a quick swig. Kati looked at me out of the corner
ofher eye.

I went over to the bar. I paid for the glass. I ordered a new mix.

I got my mix and paid: "Didn't have anything against my ride, did you?"

"Nobody's been riding in here for quite some time."

"Load of weary old mares and stallions," I said sipping my drink. "I think
I'll stay over here at the bar and watch telly for a bit."

"Picture alright for you?"

"I don't care a bugger what they're showing, I just want to watch the telly."

The barman sold somebody else a vodka and let me sit on my own at the bar,
my back to our table and that's just how I wanted it to be. I looked in the
direction of the telly, but didn't look at the screen the whole time. The
piss-up was like in the ol days. Carefree infantile entertainment. There was
a little bit of tension in the air. As if we were playing the old game all
over again. I had not been sitting in the same company with Kati for a long
time. At first I thought I'd spend the evening chatting up Meeri, but Kati's
presence would have made that a pretty daft enterprise so initially I left
off. I felt it was a bit of a pity, because in due course someone or other
would start chatting her up. My brain dried up. It felt pretty OK sitting at
the bar on my own, watching the telly like, while the rest were drinking
vodka and blabbering behind my back.I was half listening to what they were
saying.

L appeared at the bar and ordered a beer. I'd seen him arrive earlier
and disappear into the other room.

I took a good swig from my glass and gazed at the telly. I got the feeling
that L would soon strike up a conversation with me. He was wearing a suit. I
had the choice whether togo back to the table, or go to the bog, go outside
for a walk or stay put. I stayed put. I thought to myself that in order to
prevent L from starting to talk about himself, I should embark on some other
topic. My cogitations had set an old Oldfield tune off in my head. I hummed
Oldfield and tried to see if I could spot in the bar mirror who Kati was
chatting with . I didn't know who she had been living with all this while or
what work she had been doing. I hadn't done anything to prevent myself
finding out, it was just that I simply hadn't found out. I was now pondering
on the matter.

L took his beer and made as if to go back. For a moment I felt sorry he
hadn't started talking with me. I looked at the telly. A medley of music was
coming out of it and I took another swig.

"Had a good ride, you did", L was on the other side of me at the bar.

It took a second for me to answer: "How do you know, you were in the
other room."

"They came and told me."

"I know you owe me, but there's no hurry, I've got enough money. Tell me, I
used to think that half of life has been lived by the time you're ten,
because at first life starts off slowly, then speeds up, quicker and quicker,
or feels so at leastand then I nudged it down to half way somewhere around
my sixth birthday - it doesn't matter how old you get, the last part goes so
quickly, and your ten or twenty last years change bugger nothing really, the
way you feel it, I mean. But now I'm beginning to think that this first half
of life does not actually exist, as you're at the end of your life all the
time. And a wise guy would say that life is what you've got in your hand at
the moment." I took a sip of my drink.

"Yes, you've talked about it all before."

"Have I told you this three times? You can talk about something three times
over, at a pinch. The fourth time the vice squad will put a bullet through
your head forsure."

"D'you know something..."

"Have you got a pistol in your pocket? Come on, Judas, own up."

"No, I haven't."

"Ah, I would like to be a bit of a hero. Even a rather old-fashioned one.
But you don't even have a pistol. Wouldn't you ever like to be a hero
sometime?"

"You know... I've got something to tell you. Do you remember that place
in that book where they travel in America, from west to east?"

"They travelled some criss-cross route. Cheers."

"No vot. But we should go and travel from east to west. What do you reckon?"

"Honest?"

"Yes."

"In a hire car."

In a hire car or our own. There's old bangers enough."

"OK. Why not. I've done enough drinking here in town, it's still the same
time and same space. A new dimension would come in handy. Satori Jorgis. Or
perhaps Cuba would be more hospitable, eh? The repetition of repetitions has
begun to repeatitself. I drink cheap brands and they coarsen me."

"OK, are we in agreement then?"

"It's really the only right thing to do."

"I'll be in the other room, if you want to talk."

"Yeah, when I want to fucking talk, you'll be in the other room."


(translated from the Estonian by Eric Dickens)