chapter 7

The sky had turned the familiar, sickly, mid-afternoon color, the result of the sun being ambivalent between shining brightly and fading into a sunset. Nina was walking down Portmanteau Street, a chocolate mouse melting slightly around her fingers as she gazed onto the road up ahead. Frank had maintained that Nina took one more mouse to eat on the way while he was seeing her off insisting that she visited him again whenever she felt like it and suggesting that she made her way up towards Modigliani Road. Nina had given him a big hug and promised to come back. She had given him her newly acquired book as a present as well saying that she did not need it any more, though she was now beginning to doubt the logic behind her action. After brief consideration and lament she settled into her previous carefree mood again. “What’s done, is done”, she murmured to herself coaxingly. “Just go with the flow.”

Modigliani Road was in an afternoon-siesta kind of mood. It had a small dirt-road with a thin pavement made out of terracotta tiles covered lightly with ochre dust from the street. The mid-afternoon light filtered through the thick clouds up above as well as the dirt from the road giving the street a sickly yellow color. The houses and shops overlooking the road had tiled roofs and slender balconies with gilded, iron bars. No one was sitting out onto the balconies at that time though. The wooden shutters on the balcony-window doors were all closed firmly.

All of the buildings along the expanse of the street were constructed to look exceptionally elongated and slim. Each of them was barely 2 meters wide and three or four stories tall, with each building standing side by side and painted in Indian red, burnt sienna or light yellow paint. Some of them were still under construction with heaps of broken and piled stones lying in front of the construction sites and in parts of the pavement, where tall pine trees were also sprouting from in between broken or removed terracotta tiles.

Flimsy shop constructions were sprinkled in-between the houses. Nina could make out a dingy café with dark, wooden surfaces and empty tables as well as a shop selling ready-made stretched canvases and rolls of primed canvas-linen. Next to the canvas shop was a tavern with tables covered with red and white checkered tablecloths that a waiter had been laying lazily and after that another store where Nina peered into in order to establish its exact utilization.

The undersized, dingy shop had a single-glass-pane window and a glass door opened widely to reveal the establishment’s shabby interior. The walls were painted in the color of pale green earth and the wooden planks covering the floor were devastated and missing altogether in some places. Next to a lopsided, wooden counter a middle-aged man was sitting on a wicker chair tuning a ukulele. There was no sign outside the store but as the only items hanging on display all over the walls were various handmade, string instruments Nina easily assumed as to what the shop was selling. She could instantly identify the acoustic and classical guitars and the acoustic base and cello, though it took her a little longer to classify the bouzouki and sitar resting on the wall next to the counter. The man on the wicker-chair kept on tuning the petite musical instrument while the cigarette he had hanging from his mouth rushed firmly towards burning the tip of his lips. Strangely enough he seemed adamant in his attempt to render the ukulele in tune before making any kind of gesture towards removing the spent cigarette. The instrument was beginning to give out melodic sounds in the hands of the man but as he was preparing to start playing the melody of a well-known lullaby that Nina was particularly fond of by practicing the first notes in repetition, a huge ruckus came drifting up and down the previously silent street.

Two teams of closely clustered protestors were proceeding to meet in the central part of the road, with one group coming from its northern end and the other from the southern corner leading to Albino Avenue. The protestors appeared to be in opposing groups and had prominent, hand-painted signs that Nina assumed stated their proposals or issues of concern and cause of the uproar, though she couldn’t be quite sure as to what all the randomly assembled people were protesting about because the sound of their shouting and chanting was muffled and the signs too far away for her to read. As both teams approached each other she could finally make out the sign held by two old ladies in the front of the northern procession. It said ‘BAN MEATBALLS’ in large, red letters and it was the exact same citation that the group of thirty-odd, meatball-opposing citizens was singing out angrily. The antagonistic team approaching from the south was yelling out ‘MEATBALLS ARE BEST – DOWN WITH KETCHUP’ and holding signs stating that very fact proudly.

As scary and unsettling as those kinds of manifestations of blind hate and enmity can be, all that Nina could think about was the nonsensicality of the situation. What can exist in condiments and meat preparations that can ignite such rage and fanaticism in people? Now that I think about it though, looking back, probably all occasions for fanaticism are as rationally based as the one exhibited right now. It seems like most branches of human scholarship and invention have become teams or groups we belong to behind which we hide in order to feel safe, she thought we bitterness.

In order to escape the escalating noise of the meeting of the two groups outside the checkered tablecloth tavern, Nina raced up the pavement in search for shelter. Her sprint though was hindered by the appearance of a little girl right in front of her, dressed in a light-blue dress which was the same color as her eyes, with a red ribbon tied on her head and brown, leather lace-up boots on her feet. Her cheeks were flushed and her nose was sunburned and freckled. The girl looked up at Nina solemnly and gave her a piece of paper with ceremonious attention. Nina accepted the colorful flyer curiously and took a look at its printed pictures and letters that turned out to be advertising a party taking place at a nearby club later on that night. The name of the club was ‘The White Knuckle Watering Hole’ and it boasted a ‘live band’ and ‘enjoyable service’.

“The ‘White Knuckle’ has the best live music in town”, the pretty, little girl squeaked in a thin, joyful voice and giggling happily she ran down the street towards one of the houses.

Children seem helpless but at the same time we admire them. They are brave for abandoning themselves to chance as they do. They are also very ill informed of the ways of the world, Nina thought following the little girl with her gaze as it disappeared inside the house. She then folded the flyer in two and shoved it inside one of her pockets.

The protest was still at full force and very noisy. Nina looked up above her where a sign on top of an open building entrance leading to a staircase publicized the ‘Poet Maudits - Second-Hand Clothes Shop’. A single, slender, deep-red line initiated from the shop sign above the opening, ran down the side of the exterior wall, reached the pavement and rushed inside the building and up the stairs, all five flights of which Nina climbed up in pursuit of the end of the line and the ‘Poet Maudits’.

The line ended outside the wooden floorboards of an attic, boasting the same sign above its door as the one overlooking the street. The space inside was very colorful and pleasantly overflowing with fabric creations of all forms, texture and color. Pictures of primitive drawings from Oceania and Mesopotamia were hanging on the walls along with African fertility-god sculptures and photographs of the artfully decorated faces of the Omo River people in Ethiopia.

Red paper lanterns on the ceiling were producing a smooth, tangerine hued illumination that mixed with the sickly, yellow light coming from the attic windows gave Nina the feeling of floating in watery orange-juice. Next to a coat rack filled with hats a heavily pregnant lady sat on a rocking chair adjacent to a weighty oak-wood desk, eating canned sardines and drinking black coffee, dressed in a maroon, long dress and a crimson scarf. Empty bottles of wine sitting on the desk were used as vases for yellow roses, some of which were shedding their petals on the surface of the desk and floor.

The lady was rocking back and forth and reading a poetry book by Ana Akhmatova. She had a prominent nose and deep-set, dark eyes punctuated by curvaceous, honey-red lips. She also had steady, admirable hands, very sure of themselves in the way that they moved or held steadfast to the coffee cup or furniture as she pushed herself up to greet Nina. The lady had a certain noble radiance as she beamed a warm smile and patiently waited for Nina to make her way up to her.

Nina was wasting no time with misunderstandings so she straight away asked as to what currency the shop accepted. “I have been invited to a party at the ‘White Knuckle’ and this is hardly a good look for asocial gathering, so I will need to buy some clothes”, she said matter-of-factly, gesturing towards her soiled garments and shoes.

The pregnant lady laughed an elegant, musical laugh and stroked her round belly lovingly as she sat back down in her rocking chair. “We can trade things of equal sentimental value if you want”, she said rocking back and forth for a while and continued; “Though sentiments are a bit tricky to match in value between two people. Nevertheless we are going to have to risk it. What look were you hoping to achieve?” she asked Nina who was rummaging through the hanging outfits.

“I’m in a very serious frame of mind. I need something to reflect that”, she replied.

“That sounds seeeriously boring”, the pregnant shopkeeper replied in a mock-childish drawl.

“No, you don’t understand”, Nina offered apologetically. “I am in a serious frame of mind in the sense that I am ready to seriously commit to a playful approach on life, and I mean business.

“In that case I’ve got just the thing”, the lady said, slowly getting up again. She walked up next to Nina and pulled out a black and white outfit from the coat-rack, lifting it up to demonstrate to Nina with aplomb. “It’s an orchestra-conductor’s tuxedo and it is exactly your size”, she told her.

“Where did you find such a small conductor?”

“Actually, I acquired this from a ninety-year-old famous orchestra conductor who was by then very withered and small. He told me that he had shrunk 20 centimeters in the last 10 years.”

Nina gave out a sigh of sympathy for the poor shrunken man but the shopkeeper stopped her with a light gesture of her hand and explained. “He said that he was very happy with the way that his body had turned out. Apparently, as he claimed, it was coordinating with the rest of him. He said that as you get older you remain essentially the same only you learn to ‘tone it down’. Those were his exact words. ‘Tone it down’. He told me that you no longer needed big gestures and you no longer needed to impress anyone.”

“So, that’s what it’s like to grow up”, Nina murmured, awed by the narration.

“Here you go. Try it out”, the lady instructed Nina while giving her the outfit to try in the dressing room at the back of the shop.

Once inside the dressing room, Nina stood in front of the changing room mirror, not ready to change into something else just yet and looked at her reflection. There was the familiar red sweater, the black and white sneakers splotched brown and green and the light-blue, worn-out jeans with recently acquired patches of blood, grass, caked dirt and potato juice all over them. She wore very little in the way of accessories; a thin, charm bracelet and a black, plastic, electronic watch. The bracelet was a gift from her grandmother and very dear to her. The watch was just a watch. Nina took in the image in front of her, saying her goodbyes to it properly and unsentimentally. The girl on the other side said her goodbyes back.

Nina removed all her grubby clothes carefully, trying to get the least amount of dirt to immigrate to the dressing room floor and looked at her bruised, purple-splotched knees in the mirror. They looked like minute abstract paintings or purple-dye Rorschach tests. As she slipped on the smooth, black trousers, the crisp cotton shirt and the black tuxedo jacket she felt a little like a new, better person and most definitely a cleaner one than before. Stepping out of the dressing room she made a small twirl for the shopkeeper to admire her attire and express her assurances that this was indeed the right look for her, with the addition of a pair of black, leather brogues that Nina obligingly slipped on. The lady asked for her to leave her old clothes behind as payment to which she more than thankfully agreed.

“Well, you are all set now”, the shopkeeper exclaimed. “Would you like some coffee before you go?”

“Yes, please”, Nina said sitting on a short stool next to the desk, brushing some yellow rose petals aside to make space for the shopkeeper to rest a coffee cup in front of her. “Can I ask you something?” Nina asked sweetly. The lady nodded emphatically.

“What world is this exactly? What is this place called?” Nina asked while the lady poured her some steaming, hot coffee.

“We all live in our own little worlds so it’s only fair that we get to name them. I’ve called mine ‘Poet Maudits’. What would you say the name of yours is, then?”

“Ohm… Claudia?” Nina replied with delight.

“Oh, excellent!” the lady cried out matching her amusement at naming our - imaginary to others, real to us – world, silly girls’ names.

“Only problem is, I think that I might have gotten to this world by mistake from another one and I would like to know if there is some way for me to get back.”

“Define mistake, dear.”

“Well, I got into an elevator with a huge man wearing a top hat whose name is Frank – and is a sweetheart by the way – on my way out of my dentist’s. I never intended on ending up here. I got lost. It was mostly the elevator’s fault, though.”

“Elevator?” the lady asked raising her eyebrows. “You’re going to need a fountain then.”

“A fountain?” Nina asked surprised, but then the cover of ‘Alternate Universes’ immediately popped in her head along with the famous water feature on the cover of it and the woman’s statement started to sound as quite sane and practical.

“What you need to do is find a fountain and place yourself into it while thinking of where you want to go. Make a wish to get there and the fountain will take care of the rest.”

“That sounds pretty straightforward. Thank you, I appreciate your help”, Nina told her with gratitude.

“Oh, don’t mention it. Anything else you would like to ask?”

“Actually, it seems like I have a couple of hours to spare before the party”, Nina said consulting her watch. “Is there an interesting place that you suggest I visit in order to kill some time?”

“Have you been to the Botanical Gardens?”

“I can’t say that I have.”

“The northern entrance is just up the road. I would suggest you pay them a visit and this is also the best time to do so. The view of the volcanic lake from the Gardens during sunset is magical”, she exclaimed.

Magical, Nina repeated in her head. Her brand new, leather brogues squeaked happily in agreement.