Literary Work
As sometimes happened, Dimitri had forgotten that he was nearby a favourite local spot of Samuel Whizgers, his exterminator, and didn’t spy his approach through the binoculars. Dimitri tumbled from his perch at the “zy” of Samuel’s sentence, but he did not let this topple his spirit. Neither felt a need to elaborate on their strange activity to the other, and indeed, that their routines had a habit of crossing over the other’s for the past few years had made them well acquainted, if not amicable. On this day, for the first time, and also for the last time, though not in any ominous sense, Dimitri accepted Samuel’s invitation to a rat-dance dinner party he held every Friday night. After the failure of his second marriage, Dimitri would only make himself seen amongst university circles; amongst those, it must be said, who were rather tired of seeing him. Dimitri thought Samuel privileged to tap his knowledge; Samuel felt pity for his strange client. Poor Dimitrovich was even estranging to the eye. It would be unkind to describe him but know that he stood out everywhere for wearing sandals. In a world such as theirs, with warm days and soft, sandy floors, even the elderly would let loose their soles. Samuel, barefoot, led Dimitri into the supermarket. “Thing I like about Coles-” (Dimitri thought that his exterminator’s skin must be hot) “- is that you only need to pay for one thing you want and everything else is free.” Dimitri gave an understanding nod, but his gaze had been drawn to a particularly two-dimensional cloud above his head and the smile perceived by Samuel was not intended for his scam. They went in: Dimitri went to find frozen gyoza to fry that afternoon at the beach; Samuel went to find the ingredients for shakshuka, enough for his mischief that evening. At the selfcheckout Samuel said he would pay: he scanned his cheapest item and clicked checkout but continued to scan, crashing the system, while everything still appeared on the receipt for the barefoot security guard to check on their way out. Dimitri, inspired by his new friend, was doing his best to relate to the background characters of his life, commenting with glee on the almost non-existent cost of their hefty grocery haul to the hefty guard. The jig was up. They ran back into the sun, the gazumped guard trailing, then went to the beach where Dimitri fried gyoza on a grill he always left in a small cliff cave. Dimitri, like wax in Athens, wished the sun would hide its beams. In the water they threw jellyfish at each other. Samuel went home to prepare for his guests, while Dimitri swam out to explore his favourite coves, losing his right sandal in a particularly strong riptide. The sun, in its daily illusion, lowered itself towards the water, now still and fresh. Samuel leant over the balcony and “shakshuka is ready,” he said. Dimitri had never tried shakshuka but did not want to embarrass himself around real people. And of course, Samuel had spent all afternoon since the beach simmering his pot. Some food historians believe that the dish spread to Spain and the greater Middle East from Ottoman Turkey, while others think it originated in Morocco. It was brought to Israel by
32
|
NEW READER MAGAZINE
Tunisian Jews as part of the mass Jewish exodus from Muslim nations. It was brought to Dimitri by Samuel. “Start go go it will get cold,” Samuel’s Israeli accent said. Samuel’s empty seat was to Dimitri’s immediate right; to his left sat a Scandinavian girl with fluorescent green hair, who was opposite a Scandinavian girl with fluorescent pink hair, to the left of whom sat a teenage replica of Samuel (his younger brother, I assume). Pink told Dimitri about the benefits of eating exclusively foraged roots. Other zany characters filled the rest of the long tableau, though only on the fringes of Dimitri’s perception. No one wanted to start eating without Samuel at the table. The power vacuum of a popular rat exterminator. Someone might gesture for a scoop but stop themselves; someone might take a bite, approve of the cuisine, and then put their spoon down to show that they were only tasting. Waiting, Green began a lecture about her research into how sleeping position, affecting how your feet interact with the mattress or sleeping mat, can cause different muscular structures in the soles of different people. In turn, this affects how one interacts with the natural world, as different muscle structures are more adept at picking up different frequencies of vibration as one walks around. Such pseudo-science was the nail in the corpse for Dimitri, and although he continued to “yes” and “of course” at irregularly spaced intervals, he instead eavesdropped on a conversation behind him. “… every word should be fat… fat as you can make it… right word…. fur… with layers, layers… various understandings… different… reader… long tale… [laughter]… efficient ink...” Dimitri was no creative writer and any significance glided over him. Thankfully, his chair at the table faced Samuel’s sliding wall of glass that grabbed and framed parts of that larger, more important rectangle. He quietly watched and waited, sagging in his chair. When Samuel came everyone could eat. It was a happy Friday night dinner, but Dimitri had developed a nasty habit of finishing too soon. He did not like eating around others and he found himself the foreigner at a foreigners’ table. He focused on stomaching rather than on conversation, and his few gags went unnoticed. He finished silently and was pleased – but Samuel was still describing his pot of imported hummus, and both of his hands were clean. Dimitri sighed; Samuel told a joke; Green and Pink harmonised their laughter in a very charming way. Samuel put one arm around the back of Dimitri’s neck and “Dimitri is a hungry boy,” he said, rubbing his friend’s stomach with his other arm, while his other arm reached for another serving for his friend who evidently loved his cooking. Samuel felt very close to Dimitri that evening; Dimitri threw up twice in Samuel’s guest-bathroom, and only a double dosage of white pills would settle his stomach. “Stop, Tommy, no! No food!” Tommy, Samuel’s cat, dangled a vibrating dragonfly from its mouth. The dragonfly escaped over the balcony but to Dimitri’s delight, at a certain point in the sunset, it collapsed itself against the inevitable
