It was not the bitter wind he minded. He had one of those edgy faces, thanks to the climate of where he came from. White, but not threatening. He put up the purple-colour dominated on the wall to my left, had a quick look at me, a shy one, and decided not to disturb my peace. I would not let him put up one behind me anyway. I could not be bothered, and I did not like the ad he was putting up: The school’s beauty contest 2008.
The last time I had put up posters for an event was 4 years ago. Some gigs, some festivals and some film screenings. Back then I was responsible for the Treasury of the Music Club of my university. That was almost simultaneous with my presidency for the Cinema Club. People were joking about me transferring money from the Music Club, and that was one of the wealthiest in the school, to the Cinema Club, to which I had a much bigger affiliation. All I was doing, however, was to put up some posters for some gigs, some festivals, and some film screenings.
She was lying on my lap, and has started to shiver a little from the cold blowing wind. I went on to tell her the story of the white guy. He came from a land where almost anyone he knew could easily win this beauty contest here at this school. Only if they had the money to dress up and shine themselves. They were quite unlike the party crowd here. Back there, they were never shy of hitting on boys, maybe to receive a small kiss that they’d go on to tell their best friends in the long nights spent together in decaying housing blocks, whose walls seemed ever to topple on them like greyhounds. The girls back home, he thought, would easily kick the girls’ asses here. And they had tight asses back home.
The girls were not shy hitting on boys back home, but he was shy today, putting up the posters of the beauty contest early in the morning wind. The grey of the weather was no less disgusting then some concrete memories, but he had a different problem. Here, you could put up any posters and would only be warned to be doing so. The sheer lack of physical confrontation by someone who did not like what you did made everything look so simple but yet so unconvincing and meaningless. He had not left the grave masses back home to join the insignificants in this city. This hurt his pride.
The girls here were no prettier but made him feel uncomfortable at the cellar parties of the first Friday nights of the school term. The music sounded unreal and the masses moved only in chunks, chunks that did not invite him, chunks of girls who never touched him. A guy passed by him as he was putting the poster under the sign “Directors and pro-directors”. He could only read the word “Ich”. Germany did not remind him of a glorious past.
I bent down over to her: “Now he is getting really tired of this. As more people flock into the campus, he will already start thinking about the class, starting in half an hour. Look, he is so uncomfortable. He does not want to have any posters left in his hand. The others in the class do not approve what he is doing and this is less a reputation he is willing to make at the school. Now, he is desperately looking for an empty spot on the walls to get rid of the rest. That other Asian guy posting up Deutsche Bank ads is not helping him at all. He is disgusted. The edges of his face turn icicles”
I took the last bite of my morning sandwich. She said she was getting cold and we were ready to leave already. I dropped a tiny peace of salami onto her head. She did not mind much. The smell of the fresh morning meat blended with the scent of her coconut shampoo. On another day, it could have blended even better with the grease of her 2-days of unwashed hair. I would not mind. But today was a clean day. The boy with the posters turned the corner on to the adjacent street. I would not be surprised if he dumped the rest of the posters at the mail box of the Post Office. Beauty spread around the world. His harsh figures on his face turned a little greyish as the sun showed its face through the clouds and the shades of the impressive Victorian building fell on his face.
No comments:
Post a Comment