cotton

A COTTON DRESS, red with golden flower patterns, like the kinds they sell in the spice markets and bazaars of Hyderabad. She was wearing this dress when she called in, but I was on a bus traveling between the interior and the coast. We were somewhere near Soomaa and I had forgotten all about the interview. I didn’t even know what time of day it was. In July, it’s so light that any time could be any time. Through the window I could see the trees, a white sky.

“I can’t talk now,” I told her. “Let’s try,” she said. “Let’s reschedule,” I said. “That won’t be necessary,” she replied. “Let’s give it a try.” When I answered, I saw her sitting there, Indian style, wearing that red Hyderabad dress. The dress was loose and open at the top. The woman had straw hair, blue eyes, freckles all over. She had a childish, playful quality; a toothy smile.

Her teeth were a little crooked. I liked that.

“Maybe we should start with the directive,” I began. “No,” she responded. She reached to her shoulders. “I just want to do this.” Slowly the red cotton dress was lowered, descending like the clouds at dusk. From within them emerged softness, smoothness. She was backlit by a warm morning light, but I didn’t really know where she was. Brussels? “Do you like what you see, sir?” she asked. “Yes,” I whispered. My cheeks were red hot. “I do.” “Good,” was all she said.

When we reached Pärnu, I ambled off toward Malmö Street. Why did these things keep happening? I was certain I knew that special representative from somewhere. But where? Then I remembered a Croatian girl we had gone to school with. Or was she Czech? What was her name? She had worn white pants to school in sixth grade on the day she got her period. This turned into a bit of elementary school scandal, but later, when I had confided the story in a friend, she had remarked, “Lovely. That’s nothing to be ashamed of.” That had inverted everything about that day. Was it her? Did she work at the Commission now? It was warm and there were people out, drinking coffees. But I was stuck in the fibers of that red cotton dress.

public sauna

MY GIRLFRIEND SAID she found a new place for us to live, somewhere deep in the southeast, some place far away from everything, a place where she said the outside world would never find, touch, or disturb us. She scrolled and trawled real estate listings until she found her dream house. This turned out to be a single story cinderblock bungalow in the middle of town.

“But it has potential,” she said, clutching her fingers together. The interior of the building looked like it hadn’t been touched since about 1978. There was even an old bar in the corner that had no doubt served the likes of rockers Jaak Tingimata and Urho Guidopalu at some forgotten booze-guzzling soiree deep in the Soviet time. There were still empty bottles lying around. By its single window, there was a dusty divan, upon which my girlfriend plopped herself, happy as a bee, enthralled by the opportunities presented by this ancient wreck.

“Just look,” she said, tugging at a torn curtain. “We get good light in here. It has a wonderful view.” Behind the curtain, I saw a series of plastic recycling bins. The graywhite light of winter streamed through the window and I knew not what to think. It seemed that she was sold on the place and if she was sold on the place, I doubted I would be able to unpick her reasoning.

She was quite endearing though and attractive and wore a black skirt with girlish stockings. Some part of her was forever 18, even if she was forty-something now. Her hair had been cut à la Aniston and she danced exuberantly around the dreary interior of the cement bungalow.

“Take a good look at that couch,” she said. “We’ll be making love on it for weeks! You are never going to get off of that old couch.” She began to pull up her blouse when, just at that moment, there came a knock at the door. I went and opened it, only to come face to face with about a dozen men, all wearing towels, sauna hats, and toting wooden ladles in their giant hands. Beyond them, I only saw the white of winter, frozen over parking lots, frosty stone facades.

One of them was especially fierce. He said to me, “This is a public sauna!” “No, it isn’t,” I said. I peered back into the building and noticed there were two plumbers at work on what had once been the showers. Since the building had not been heated, the shower area was covered in mottled patches of ice. Icicles hung suspended from the ceiling of the sauna showers like in an Arctic cave. One of the plumbers said to the other, “It will take forever to fix up this old place.”

“You heard the plumbers,” I told the sauna men. “There will be no sauna today.” “Honey,” my girlfriend called out to me. “Come back to bed.” “Just a minute.” The sauna men were unmoved. A pushing match ensued, and one man couldn’t hold them all back. Soon they overwhelmed me and charged into the dingy space, their ladles held aloft, chanting, “Sauna, sauna, sauna!” “Maybe this isn’t the place for us,” I told my girlfriend. “Maybe we could find some place that isn’t a public sauna?” “Nonsense,” she said and yawned, stretching out. “I think it’s just perfect.”

linnéa and peeter

HALFWAY THROUGH THE NIGHT the hallway closet dissolved. This was more like a built-in storage space, with hooks for hanging coats and some shelving above and below. There had been too many old jackets there and too many old boots, but these had been replaced by a glowing substance, part gauze, part spiderweb, part marshmallow. Cotton candy, if you will.

Through the cotton candy door, I could see Linnéa in her bedroom.

She was trying on different dresses, standing there before a mirror. A yellow polka dot dress, a purple dress. She smoothed out the fabric, turned from side to side, singing gently to herself as she went, lyrics to songs I had never heard of, or whispering comforting phrases. Yes, the blue dress! This was the one! Her hair was a brilliant yellow. Her lashes were plump and long.

Then she noticed me watching her and climbed through the doorway. “We have to talk,” she announced, taking me by the arm. “It’s time that I told you everything.” She hoisted herself up onto my white, queen-sized bed, and stretched out as if she was doing the backstroke. She was a sight. Her long bluestockinged legs stretched out before me like soothing Atlantic horizons. “It’s been too long, it’s been too long since I told you everything,” Linnéa said.

But soon her boyfriend Peeter would be back. Linnéa was now in a serious relationship and I was expected to blend like all other men into a dim gray background, to melt into the anonymous crowds. Such bedside confessionals were strictly verboten. Peeter then entered through the cotton candy door. He was youthful and had a princely moustache. Peeter was wearing a fur vest and had white war paint across his cheeks. He said, “Hello, I am Peeter.”

“I know,” I told him. “And who are you?” He asked. “I am who I am,” I told him. We stood there looking at each other for a while. I was waiting for him to put the hatchet into me. But Prince Peeter did no such thing. Instead his eyes softened a bit. “It’s good of you, it’s good of you to be a friend to Linnéa,” he said. Then he began to talk of more trivial things, like his job, and politics and trade policy, and other things in which I had no real interest. But there was no revenge and there was no heartbreak and Linnéa had selected the exactly right-colored dress.

princess

I DON’T REMEMBER how I met the Princess. I do remember that I was in Italy, just outside of Corigliano, on my way to the Sila, when I stopped into a gas station and was nearly seduced by another woman, whose nerves I calmed in Italian. After that, I stole a candy bar from the gas station and was on my way. Later, I heard a lot about the candy bar, but at the time, I was just trying to outdo my scofflaw friends, who had never bought a train ticket in their lives. When I calmed the Italian woman, I told her she was beautiful, of course, that most men were in love with her, but for various reasons why I could not accompany her on the next part of her trip.

Then I went back to the apartment we had rented on the coast and I think that’s where I met the Princess and her entourage. She was undoubtedly the Princess of Wales, but not that Princess of Wales. She looked almost identical to Annikki, except she spoke the Queen’s, or King’s English, and had incredible, royal posture. Her hair was golden and almost alien to the touch, her skin was milky colored, smooth and flawless. The group captain assigned to protect her carried out a very thorough interview with me. This was a younger lad who could have been an ex-quidditch player. Somehow I passed the test. The night was spent watching romantic comedies on a fine couch and sharing bites of cookies. I think the Princess liked me.

And then she was off again, with her dresses and entourage, to complete her tour. Eventually, when I returned home, I heard about two things. One was the deep shame my family felt upon hearing about the candy bar stolen from a gas station in Italy (“And you know, they have it all on video! The owner is so disappointed in you, a fellow Italian stealing!”) but also the elation that their son had finally met a new woman and that she happened to be the Princess of Wales.

“Is it true that she really likes you?” my mother asked. “Yeah, we get on great,” I said. I somehow wasn’t quite sure what all the fuss was about. She was just a princess. “You know,” my father said after a turn. He was standing there dressed in sober black, my consigliere. “This could be good for you. Have you thought about asking her for a royal appointment?” I shook my head vehemently. “You know, I knew you were going to do this,” I said. My father stepped back, as if struck by a dart. “Do what? All I am saying is, she happens to be a princess, you happen to need a job. She likes you. She happens to be in a place where she could get you a gig with a high-paying salary.” “I might have met the new love of my life and all you can think about is how I can benefit financially from it?” I said. “No, no, just listen a minute,” he said. “Don’t forget, you were so desperate you stole a candy bar!” “Oh, I’ll send Mario a whole box of goddamn candy bars!” I shot back. “Same old shit,” I said. “Same old snaky manipulative shit!”

After I left the room, I could hear them argue about who had done what wrong. My mother blamed my father. My father said he was only trying to help. My brother was there in the corridor with a package, wrapped up in plain brown paper and tied with a ribbon. He was standing there patiently in a jacket and tie, like the doorman at a Manhattan hotel. “I thought I’d get you this for your birthday,” he said, then gesturing with his head, “Don’t listen to them. They don’t know anything about princesses.”

I removed the paper and saw what it was, a new Jack Kerouac book. Discovered in the vault of an old mobster, published for the very first time. There were pictures of Jack on the cover seated at a typewriter, or standing somewhere in the desert beside a cactus. The cover and the paper were smooth to the touch and they aroused a kind of tingling curiosity within me. Good old Jack. “I knew you’d like it,” my brother said. “Thanks,” I said. “Now this is a good gift.”

landlord

I MUST HAVE RENTED an apartment from a middle-aged Estonian man. He was maybe a decade older, dark tufts of hair, graying at the temples, tawny complexion. He might have been Spanish or Jewish in a previous life. He worked in some dusty corner of the financial services universe and was always dressed smart casual, with a jacket, shirt open at the collar, khakis.

His wife had recently left him, or they had separated or taken a time out. So they said. She took the rest of the children off to the Canary Islands, where she had become a poolside yoga teacher and worshipper of the Hindu love gods. The eldest daughter stayed behind to finish her studies. She was disarmingly beautiful. He was certain the girl had caught my eye. She had.

At night, her father would kick off his loafers after a long day spent shilling for the bank and watch the news on an enormous screen he had got a great deal on during the pandemic. When he saw me entering my apartment through the big glass windows on the first floor, and most of the house was made of metal and glass, he would shake his head a little and purse his lips and then nurse another sip from a bottle of beer. The apartment itself was a tranquil single room, wide and spacious, all painted white, with high, echoey ceilings, and a small kitchenette.

It had three windows and through them I would watch the eldest daughter arrive and depart on her way to or from her semiotics classes. The bob of a golden brain in the late winter sun. The lyrical cadence of a youthful, ever optimistic voice heard through the glass, concerned for her joyless, dead-hearted father. There was something to her, a kind of music so faint you could only hear it if you strained your very ears. But it was also so removed from my waking conscience that I could barely grasp at it, even if I tried. This sparkle might have found its way into a magazine article I wrote, one with sultry allusions to such inappropriate relationships.

And then one day, my landlord was there before me, clutching a rolled up copy of the magazine’s latest edition in his hand, ready to strike. I could see my face above the column, which was printed neatly in black and white “You,” he said, “are a sick pervert! I have already initiated legal proceedings, a kohtuprotsess!” I stepped back and he whacked me with my own words. I tried to defend myself. “But it was all fictionalized!” I cried. “All of it was fiction!” “Lies,” he shouted and struck. “Of course, some of it was based on reality.” “Jail!” he growled. “Jail!”

In my apartment, I let down the white blinds. Outside I could hear him howling, banging. I grabbed my things, crawled out the back window like a character in a Willie Nelson song. Then I was down the forest path, on my way, almost free at last when his wife appeared like mirage. I tumbled and there were orange leaves everywhere, so many leaves I began to swim. The enlightened landlord’s wife looked down out me, her head wrapped in a bandana. Stars flooded the sky and began circling her like little birds. They arranged themselves into a crown. She reached down and pulled me free from my leafy oceans. At long last, I had been rescued.

The landlord’s wife was a fine looking woman, very smooth features, a kind of gray-brown hair just visible beneath her turban, and she had very clear blue eyes that were skies unto themselves. She did not fear my love of her daughter, for as she saw it, all daughters needed to be loved. “Would you like honey too?” She poured me some tea on the terrace later. I mixed in the honey, watched it dissolve in the peppermint, and drank deep from the warm ceramic cup. I was still kind of shaken up and could see her husband through the windows. He was filming the whole thing. Evidence to be used at trial. He gave me the middle finger. Then he motioned to his throat and made a slashing gesture. He mouthed the words: “Pervert, pervert. Jail, jail.”

kiss

SOME THINGS ARE ALMOST SPECTRAL. You don’t see the full embodiment of reality, it’s sort of hazy, silhouettes, even auras, I’d dare say. What I can report back is that we were en route to the north coast via Tartu, the second largest city of Estonia, situated in the southeast center of the country, and a hub of rail and bus links. Within the bus station, which had taken on an almost Turkish bazaar kind of atmosphere with spice markets, et cetera, one of my companions, which might have been my older brother, climbed to the second floor of the building, which opened up on an inner atrium and leapt backwards with his arms outstretched into the blue air. This terrified me, but he landed softly on a couch, laughing to himself, as if nothing was amiss and it would all turn out like that. The people around us might as well have been made out of neon or electricity. There was a brisk trade in turmeric, ginger, and garlic.

Then, whoosh, I woke up.

It was clearly morning now and along the inside of my bedframe, I realized there was a young woman lying opposite me, face to face with me. She had very thick dark hair and white loose pajamas, she had distinct features, that were not too feminine but somehow even more attractive because they didn’t align with the norm. Her gray eyes opened, milky blue green gray in the light. Mornings are already light at eight now, maybe even at seven. I felt a kind of euphoria and agony entwined and realized, she was stroking me down there. “Shh,” she said. “Shh. Shh. Shh.” That was all she said. “I see you,” she said. “I see you, I see you, I see.” After that we kissed. It was loving, long, lingering. But who was she and how did she wind up in my bed?

Later I walked the frozen town trying to determine the identity of the mystery visitor from the morning. The sidewalks and streets were deathhard with ice and snow powdered on top, and more helpings of snow drifted down slowly, February lazily, the same as it always did. The snow toppled its way down from the rooftops, through tree branches, tumbling. Who was she? Then I remembered. It was her! It must have been her. That was her hair, those were her features. Maybe it was just a illusion, an astral projection, maybe a hologram? Projecting, projecting. The mind beams her against the wall and she comes to life, alive, fully in the flesh.

“Shh,” she says. “Shh. Shh. Shh.”

a seat at the table

I HAD A SEAT at the table, but what a table! It was a long, wooden table with smooth surfaces that were almost soft to the touch, unvarnished, the kind of table you might see as the centerpiece in a spread in the Country Living magazine. It was also unusually tall, standing two or three storeys high, at the least. The legs of our chairs also reached down the height of the table, so that if I looked to my side, I could see tiny pedestrians going about their affairs, women walking dogs, boys on bikes, delivery cars arriving. Was that Manhattan down there?

At this table in the sky, there was a kind of supernatural service. A server set down a drink in front of Kerouac. He examined its contents, taking a moment to admire the way the light split and dissolved into it and then breathing in its sumptuous and potent vapors, as if it was a medicinal or even spiritual elixir. Kerouac was wearing a blue suit, which seemed unusual for him, and he had a few white hairs climbing up his sideburns. His brown greasy hair was combed up at the top, and he looked a bit worn, a bit frayed. Kerouac beheld his chosen spirit again and then in an instant, drank the first third of it from the glass. “Ah,” he said. “Ah ah ah.”

To his left sat Riken, the lanky Japanese mountaineer, in full hiking gear. He held some papers in his hand, A7 layout, with neat rows of black printed text, Times New Roman. The title at the top of one of these pages read, “The Adventure of the Snake.” He said, “I’m not sure what I think of it. I’d give it maybe a 3 out of 10. Or maybe a 3.5 on a good day. Three point three? Somewhere in the low threes.” He sighed. “I’ll tell you what I think of it,” Kerouac grumbled. “I think it’s total crap.” “But I was inspired by you, Jack,” I protested. “I’m trying to emulate you.” Kerouac drank down the second third of the drink with a gulp. “Well, kid,” he said. “You could do a better job. You’re not really devoted to your writing. Allen,” he addressed a third man, who was lying across the table on his back, staring up at the sunlight. “What do you think? Allen?”

“What?” Ginsberg turned over on his side, and it was young Ginsberg, with the hair and the oversized glasses that made his eyes look two sizes larger than they really were. “I’m sorry, I was just talking to William Blake,” he said. “Allen, what did you think of his stories?” Kerouac said. “Oh, I loved them, they were fantastic!” “Thank you,” I told Ginsberg. “Actually, I think I was more inspired by you when I was writing them. Surely you can see echoes of Howl in my writing. ‘I saw the best minds of my generation, destroyed by madness.'” “Starving hysterical naked, dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix,” Ginsberg went on. “See, Jack, the kid was inspired by me and not by you, by me, not you!” “Your messianic robes don’t suit me,” he said. “What do you say, tomodachi?” Kerouac asked of Riken. His arms were crossed now in deliberation. His craggy, weather-beaten face bore a pensive expression. “I still say 3.3,” he said. Kerouac turned back to me. “See,” he said with a grin and a shrug. “See! Listen to the man.” Then he lifted his glass and drank the final third.

mca’s 61st birthday

THE SCENE, an industrial area, a dump, maybe both. Rory Lapp, the acclaimed Estonian writer and poet drives in first, then I follow him, our automobiles follow a set course. It’s almost like we’re rally racing. Yet there are no competitive drivers, just rusting manufacturing waste that brings to mind a mineral processing plant. At some point, Rory leaves his vehicle with a sort of industrial plant valet and I do the same. Then we head into an old building, vast and obviously post-war, with a peeling façade. It’s an auditorium. Light wooden floors. Burgundy curtains.

Inside, everything has been renovated. I can see that we’re in something like a basketball court set up for a party. This is one of those multipurpose halls. There are long tables on both sides, and on stage, an unfamiliar hip hop trio is performing. They are pacing with microphones, trading rhymes, and a DJ spins records in the corner, cutting back and forth. At the head of the tables, I see a familiar-looking man, clean shaven, with a full head of wavy hair. He wears a red button down shirt, open at the top, and looks somehow lost in thought or just unimpressed.

“Who is that?” I ask from one of the partygoers, who is loading his plate from a bowl of potato salad. “He looks just like …” “That’s MCA,” the partygoer responds. “Today is his 61st birthday. Weren’t you invited?” “I guess so,” I say. Now I can see that MCA, also known as Adam Yauch, also known as Nathaniel Hornblower, is at the gifts table, and guests are hovering around him as he unties every last big package. I look down and see I have a gift bag in hand too. It’s full of my own books. “Yauch loved Minu Viljandi,” somebody says. “He’s a great fan of your work.” “He is?” I answer. “I have to say, he looks great for 61,” someone says. “Sixty-one?” another answers. “And I thought he was dead!” “Isn’t he though?” I ask them. But nobody answers.

Slowly I make my way to the busy gift table. MCA is seated there. He still looks like he’s part alien or something. Did the Beastie Boys really smoke so much dope back in the day? Or was it all that Tibetan Buddhism that did that to him? MCA is functioning on some other plane of consciousness. He’s floating around in the Third Bardo. I am afraid to even say hi to him. He’s a big superstar, one of the greatest emcees ever. I’m just … But how did MCA even find out about me? MCA looks up as I hand over my gift. He nods in his good-natured, all knowing way. Kind, sympathetic, brotherly. The man looks as if he’s about to speak. MCA looks up and says …

linnéa sur rivage

LINNEA WAS CAROUSING with another man. He looked and dressed like a young PIcasso and called himself “Dan.” I encountered them in an ice cream or gelato joint down on the beach. Linnéa wore a crisp white blouse and her head was an abundant tangle of sun gold beach hair. She was happy and Dan was happy. They were happy together until they saw me. “Oh,” was all Linnéa said, as if she had just been informed of a terrible accident. “Oh.” Dan lifted his cap to her and, before kissing her once on the hand and whispering some passionate phrases, left. Linnéa continued on, “It’s you. But what are you doing here? How is your new book coming along?”

I said nothing and sulked off. Later, Linnéa followed me into my bungalow. She crept up to my bed in the dark and then lied on top of me. Her back was to my front, her hair draped down across my face and breath. “Please write your book,” she said both to the ceiling and to me. “Please keep writing it.” “I don’t feel like writing any more books,” I grumbled. “I think I’m just about done with writing.” “No, no, no,” she whispered to the room. “Don’t let this,” she trailed off and the line lay limp, lifeless, sad, and incomplete. There was nothing to say about it.

Later we walked into town. We came down the promenade. I was still in an awful funk after The Dan Surprise. All of the gloom and jealousy in the world couldn’t make a woman love you, enjoy your company, truly, joyfully, effortlessly. The seaside was gray, hushed. Down a street, the police were breaking up a party that went out of bounds. The official reason was that the music was too loud. A few dark, unhappy partygoers complained to me about this injustice.

“We just wanted to listen to ‘Dancing on the Ceiling,'” one lamented. “Like in the ’80s.” They had strange, purple, almost alien faces.

“It didn’t used to be this way,” I said to Linnéa. “In the old days, you could listen to Lionel Ritchie as much you wanted, as loud as you wanted, and nobody would make you turn it down.” Linnéa was silent. She knew I was talking rubbish. “Again, again, again,” she said. “You again with your silly drama.” Dusk, night, fog, and twilight. Morning beachside melancholy.

the spirit of a sad woman

I NEVER DID FEEL comfortable walking by that room. It was on the second floor of the house and faced the rising sun. I suppose the house was here in Estonia, but it could have been anywhere. I knew, in a way, that it was haunted or occupied. It had such a terrible feeling to it. Some might say it was possessed. Some might say it was a poltergeist. Whatever spirit, entity, or otherworldly presence or being was rooted within those walls, I never knew of it or saw it. Until one day, when I walked by the room and saw that the door, usually shut tight, was ajar.

“There are two kinds of people in this world,” I whispered to myself. “Those who dare and those who don’t.” It was time to confront the darkest aspects of my subconscious. I opened the door and went in. To my surprise, this off-limits, evil-feeling room was in proper order. It was furnished with Art Deco pieces, a few velvet chairs and one long green sofa. At first, I thought there was no one in the room. On the wall, I saw there were a few paintings, also from the interwar period, except of boy band stars. Robbie Williams and Justin Timberlake leered out.

Who knew they had both had careers and been so popular a century ago?

Then, when I turned, I noticed the ghost woman. She was not quite transparent and floating by the window. She had shoulder-length brown or reddish brown hair and a white dress. Her back was turned to me. The spirit of a sad woman. Was she the embodiment or origin of the awful feeling coming from this room? Her hair was cut in the old style. I couldn’t make out any of her features. “Hey,” I said, reaching out. “Who are you? What are you doing in my home?”

My hands went right through her and she faded.

Puzzled, I looked around the room again, and noticed there was another room attached, with the door slightly ajar. The sad, horrible feeling was stronger there, I felt. I needed to go and look in that room too. At the door, I peered in. This room was dismal and purpleblue. The walls were painted the same, and the furniture was also from the 1920s. There were clothes tossed everywhere, the drawers to the cabinets and dressers were half open. This must have been the woman’s room. What was strange about it is that it was rendered in a different kind of spectrum. It was if Matisse had dabbed his brush over all. The room was soaked in colors.

So that was that. I stood there looking around the messy Henri Matisse room and then went back into the hall. But I had seen her, I had at last seen her. I didn’t know who she was, but she did exist. The source of the dread, the source of the unease, floating transparently in a corner with her back turned, fading into light. What would I do the next time our paths crossed?