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Panza is sitting, listening to Andrič and nodding, or rather, he’s not listening, only nodding, his eyes and his whole face make it clear that he doesn’t understand, and how could he, since he’s not listening, it’s not that he is stupid, he just can’t be bothered to listen, he’s had bad experiences in the past when he used to listen and got nothing in return, so now he professionally and routinely doesn’t listen, especially when a sentence begins in a complicated way.

Because how could such a sentence possibly end?

The assumed complexity of the ending puts him off listening, so all he does is sit there nodding and, strangely enough, the nodding doesn’t give him a pain in his neck and besides, it’s

courteous to nod, so people talk and Panza nods.

When his friends are talking, Panza also smiles.

When his clients in the office are talking, he nods more slowly and smiles less because clients must be kept at arm’s length.

This situation has become so routine for him that an uncomprehending, absent expression is the only one that is truly his, this is what makes Panza truly Panza and not just a Panza-mask.

He follows the sounds, using them for orientation like trail marks: ah, this is the beginning of a sentence, he ascertains from the intonation and the fact that before the sentence began there was silence, which he manages to recall with nostalgia for a fraction of a second, the beginning of a sentence is always followed by various things, Panza is on the alert for the sound of a full stop at the end of a sentence, because a full stop, too, has its own characteristic sound or rather, its own opposite of a sound, that’s when you have to nod and then it’s over, you can start talking about yourself, except that Andrič won’t let him and just goes on holding forth, yet believes that he’s holding forth not just for himself but also on Panza’s behalf.

‘Everything in our office is beginning to rot,’ he says to Panza who, on hearing the word ‘office’, looks around in panic even though they are walking along a mountain path far from the

hotel and no one can hear them.

Noticing Panza’s panic makes Andrič aware of his own, because he too is scared, but now his fear has intensified, since it’s out of the question for a bureaucrat with the ageing Panza’s experience to be scared for no reason, it’s more likely that the experienced bureaucrat hasn’t allowed himself to be deceived by the illusion of freedom and the illusory turn to freedom that followed the collapse of the communist system. An experienced bureaucrat won’t let himself be deprived of totalitarianism so easily and carries it with him wherever he goes, never stating anything openly and with no opinions of his own, convinced that you must be scared in a very sophisticated way, whereas in the old days you could be scared openly and

‘officially’, so to speak, fear was something that was officially accepted, sanctioned and went without saying, in the previous regime it would have been odd not to be scared, as even the

officials at the very top were scared and they were in the best position to know that fear was justified because scheming was rampant, especially among those at the very top and indeed

directed chiefly at those at the very top – the experienced Panza knows very well to what extent you had to be scared and how important it was to let your superiors know that you actually

were scared – not in so many words, but in a covert, yet unambiguous way, while at the same time he imagined – and he wasn’t the only one to imagine this in those days – that anyone

might be his superior, including any passer-by in the street, you never know, he used to imagine, and treated every passer-by as his superior, just as he later began to treat as his superior every statue ideologically and theologically linked to Jesus on the cross, because after the fall of the totalitarian regime Panza automatically embraced another totalitarianism in the form of

the Catholic Church, which is hardly surprising since in most people’s minds totalitarianism is linked not only to fear but also to boundless hope and trust and the certainty that everything is, and will be, fine for evermore, totalitarian power not only metes out punishment but it also protects, and maintains the untenable, and so Panza genuflects before the chapels of the

Holiest of Holy Trinities as well as the most garish, baroquely bloated sculptures and statues of the Virgin Mary and the infant Jesus, he crosses himself by the book, doffs his cap and bows

his head, there is something studiedly slavish about this, it is normal, totalitarian behaviour, a cultural veneer; in other words, genuine subjugation. Panza knows that there is no way you can

avoid bringing fear and servility out of the cupboard again or bringing it down from the attic, should you have been so rash as to have temporarily stowed it away, you have to dust it off and

recast it pragmatically as unofficial fear and servility vis-à-vis the new power structures, having to render unto Caesar that which was once Caesar’s and only directed chiefly at those at the very top – the experienced Panza knows very well to what extent you had to be scared and how

important it was to let your superiors know that you actually were scared – not in so many words, but in a covert, yet unambiguous way, while at the same time he imagined – and he

wasn’t the only one to imagine this in those days – that anyone might be his superior, including any passer-by in the street, you never know, he used to imagine, and treated every passer-by

as his superior, just as he later began to treat as his superior every statue ideologically and theologically linked to Jesus on the cross, because after the fall of the totalitarian regime Panza

automatically embraced another totalitarianism in the form of the Catholic Church, which is hardly surprising since in most people’s minds totalitarianism is linked not only to fear but also

to boundless hope and trust and the certainty that everything is, and will be, fine for evermore, totalitarian power not only metes out punishment but it also protects, and maintains the

untenable, and so Panza genuflects before the chapels of the Holiest of Holy Trinities as well as the most garish, baroquely bloated sculptures and statues of the Virgin Mary and the infant

Jesus, he crosses himself by the book, doffs his cap and bows his head, there is something studiedly slavish about this, it is normal, totalitarian behaviour, a cultural veneer; in other words, genuine subjugation. Panza knows that there is no way you can avoid bringing fear and servility out of the cupboard again or bringing it down from the attic, should you have been so rash as to have temporarily stowed it away, you have to dust it off and recast it pragmatically as unofficial fear and servility vis-à-visthe new power structures, having to render unto Caesar that

which was once Caesar’s and only after that can you render unto God what is left, because only whatever is left – and there mustn’t be too much – can still be God’s, but if anything is indeed left over, it must be His.

Andrič devoted more time to Panza than to Laura.

He always tried to integrate his current girlfriend into the circle of his closest friends, as if valuing her for the contribution she made to the collective, not for being his big love. His

friends were welcome to take his girlfriends to the cinema or on days out, leaving him more time to be on his own.

Not every woman would put up with that.

As they walked around the hotel grounds Andrič forgot all about Laura and concentrated solely on Panza:

‘I motivate my collective to get on with their work. But it’s pointless and unfair. You might not be working very hard, but then again, why should you work harder? Your activity is as

meaningless as most other activities. Your fate is at the mercy of outside forces, it depends on how the manipulated mob votes in elections. The mob is no longer manipulated by the idiotic media, these days it is manipulated by the idiotic views people post on idiotic internet forums. In this way sooner or later idiocy will prevail. No longer does anything depend on historians, political scientists, economists or sociologists. And the authoritarians who have failed to notice that the clouds are gathering and a thunderstorm is brewing, a storm of total dickheadedness,

continue to scheme and plot to accumulate even more wealth than they have already, expecting that eventually, after their defeat in some future election – because there always

comes the day when the winner of a previous election loses the next – will retire to the villas in upmarket neighbourhoods that they acquired by wheeling and dealing and there they will find

a way to live out their days, dying in ideal circumstances of old age, because otherwise the deranged online revolutionaries will rip them apart with real – not online – teeth! For the moment the high and mighty are still under the impression that they will have the last laugh. Because who can their victims appeal to and where? To what authority? A revolutionary tribunal? Fine, but this tribunal will, in a totally senseless and chaotic way, make

fucking mincemeat – excuse my language, my dear fellow, but fucking is the right word – it will make fucking mincemeat out of everyone! Of the high and mighty as well as their victims.

For the time being all is calm. The other day I saw the villa of a local politician with sticky fingers. Colossal! For the time being! For the time being every city has its sticky-fingered politician

neighbourhood. But once the fierce storm and monsoon rains arrive, the landslide will sweep them away like everyone else!’

‘My needs are modest. I don’t steal, I’m happy with just a bed, an eiderdown and some Turkish coffee,’ mumbled the frustrated Panza.

‘Idiocy is universal but at the same time it comes in all shapes and sizes and it’s full of internal contradictions. So the members of the tribunal will sooner or later kill and consume one other. But first they will consume you,’ Andrič went on unrelentingly, ‘they will deprive you of that miserable little cubby-hole of yours and you won’t even get a cup of coffee!’

Nature crackled and rustled beneath their city shoes.

Squirrels scampered about overhead.

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Translated by Julia and Peter Sherwood

Jantar Publishing, London

October 2019

122 pages, paperback

ISBN 978-0-9934467-8-8