SUK, DR. ISAILO

(March 15, 1930-October 2, 1982)--Archeologist, Arabist, university professor in Novi Sad, woke up one morning in April, 1982 with his hair under the pillow and a slight pain in his mouth. Something hard and jagged was pressing against it. He inserted two fingers, like slipping a comb out of his pocket, and extracted from his mouth a key. A small key with a gold top. Human thoughts and dreams have their own horned, impenetrable exteriors, which protect the soft inner core from harm, like a shell; thus mused Dr. Suk as he lay there in bed, holding the key up before his eyes. But these thoughts expire on contact with thoughts. Our portion is only what survives this mutual bane. In short, Dr. Suk blinked with eyes that were as hairy as testicles, and could make no sense of anything. It wasn't they key in his mouth that surprised him so much. After all, think of all the things in a lifetime that a person stuffs into the only mouth he has (if he had more he might pick and choose)! Once, after a binge, he had pulled the whole head of a sow, complete with muzzle, out of his gullet. No, he was surprised by something else. He estimated the key to be at least one thousand years old, and Professor Suk's estimates in archeology were seldom questioned: his professional reputation was uncontested. He put the key into the pocket of his trousers and bit at his mustache. Whenever he bit at his mustache in the morning he would remember what he had for dinner the night before. He would know right way, for instance, that he had eaten ajvar and liver smothered in garlic. Sometimes, however, his mustache would quite unexpectedly smell of oysters and lemon or something else that Dr. Suk would never have put into his mouth. Then he would remember whom he had discussed dinner with in bed the night before. And this morning, he remembered Gelsomia Mohorovichich. She always thought she had three Good Fridays until dinnertime. Her smile was well seasoned and her eyes slightly slanted so that her nose wrinkled every time she blinked. Her small hands were lazy and so warm you could boil and egg in them. Dr. Suk would tie up his New Year's gifts with her silky hair and women would recognize it even when is was cut off.

With these thoughts in his head, his ears freshly shaved and his gaze well honed, Dr. Suk prepared to go out. He was currently in the capital, where he still went to visit his family home. It was in this house that Professor Suk had started his research thirty years before. Since then, his studies had taken him father and father away, and he could not help feeling that his journey would end in some distant land where hills stood like a sliced loaf of black bread with the odd fir tree sprouting out. Yet his archeological research and his discoveries in Arabistics, especially the study of the Khazars, an ancient people who had long ago vanished from the stage of world events and had left behind the saying that the soul has its own skeleton made of memories, all were associated with this house.

The house had once belonged to his left-legged grandmother, from whom he had inherited his left handedness. Here, in the home of his mother, Mrs. Anastasia Suk, Dr. Suk's writings now held the place of honor on the library shelves, bound in the pelts of old fur coats, the kind that smell of currants, and read with special glasses, used by Mme. Anastasia only on formal occasions. Freckled like a trout, Mme. Anastasia carried her name in her mouth like and irritating coin; not once did she answer to it, not, until the end of her days, did she ever utter it. She had fine blue eyes like those of a goose, and her son often found her sitting with one of his books in her lap and a fragment of somebody's name (probably his father's) stuck to her lips, speckled with blood.

Impenetrable and as thick as porridge, the years that Dr. Suk had forded in the last decade, collecting archive material, photographs of old coins, and fragments of salt pitchers to build the pillar of truth had made it increasingly clear that his mother was returning to him from a great distance, coming back to life. She was returning through his advancing years and through his wrinkles, and the older he got, the more she settled into his face and body, dislodging his late father's traits and features. He was manifestly growing out of him and into her; now that he was compelled to live alone and do women's work, less and less of his father's dexterity was left in his hands, and more and more often, he recognized his mother's gestures in his slow clumsy fingers. His visits to the family home, which were rare and usually on the occasion of birthdays (as was the case now), also began to change. Now, his mother would meet him at the door, kiss him on the nose, and lead him to the corner where his baby walker had once stood and where there is an easy chair tied to the door handle like a pig.

"Sashenka, you always neglected me so,: she would say to her son. "The finest and happiest hours of my life were connected with such excruciating effort that I remember them still. I remember them, which means I remember you too, not as a joy but as a joyful, almost intolerable effort. Why was it so exhaustingly difficult to be happy? Never mind, that has long since passed like the wind through the willow. Now that I am no longer happy, O have settled down. And yet--look--there is someone who still loves me and still remembers me!" And she would bring out a bundle of letters he wrote for her. "Imagine, Sasha, they're from Professor Suk!"

The mother would tie the letters with the hair of Gelsomina Mohorovichich; she would then kiss them and read them to him triumphantly, like songs of war, almost forgetting to see him off the at the door when he left to go back to his hotel to sleep. Or she kissed him goodbye so hastily that he accidentally felt her breasts, like a compote of pears under her dress.

Now, when Professor Suk was entering the third decade of his research work, when his eyes had become quick and his mouth slower than his ear, when his books had been accepted by archeologists and Arabists, there was yet another reason for him to come to the capital. There, one morning, in the huge pretzel-shaped building, Dr. Isailo Suk's name had been placed for the first time in a hat. Although his name had not been drawn then or the next couple of times, now Dr. Suk was being regularly invited to meetings in the building. He would go to these meetings wearing yesterday's smile stretched on his lips like a cobweb, and he would loose his way in the building's corridors that were circular and in which you could never find the point where you had started from. He thought of how this building was like a book written in an unknown language he had not yet learned, how these corridors were like the sentences of a strange language, and the rooms foreign words he had never heard before. He was not in the least bit surprised when one day he was told he was to take an ordinary exam in one of the first floor rooms, which smelled like a rancid keyhole. On the second floor, where the names were drawn, his books were held indisputable esteem, but one floor down in the same building he felt short-legged, as though is trousers were getting longer and longer. The people here were subordinate to those up there on the second floor, but here his books were not taken into account, and every year, he was subjected to exams, after his identity was carefully checked. The first time he went to take his exam, Isailo Suk was relieved to see that the heard of the examining board was an instructor from his facility, who had recently taken his doctoral orals before a commission Suk himself had chaired, and whom he often saw through the window sitting at the Third Boot Tavern. Dr. Suk was not told his grades after the exam, but the head of the examining board spoke highly of the examinee's potential.

And so was a feeling of relief that Dr. Suk finished his exam that day and went to see his mother. As usual, she led him into the dining room, where eyes closed, she held clasped to her breast Dr. Isailo Suk's latest endeavor, with a handwritten dedication by the author himself, and showed it to him. After he had looked politely at the book and at his own signature in it, his mother placed him on a footstool in the corner of the room, with the words Dr. Suk remembered from childhood--"Just sit there for a while!"--and she explained to him the gist of the scientific undertaking described in the book. She spoke with a joy that was less like the sadness of a clown and more like the cheer of some figure from a tragedy. With considerable accuracy, she explained to her son how Professor Suk had established that they keys found in a jar from the Crimea had silver, copper, or gold barbarian imitation coins for handles. A total of 135 keys had been found (Dr. Suk believed that there may have been ten thousand in the jar), and on each he had discovered a small sign or letter. At first he thought it was the mark of the locksmith, but then he noticed that other samples of the coin, of a somewhat higher denomination, had a second letter, the silver coin had a third and the gold, he presumed, a forth letter, but not a single gold-handles key had been found. And then he had a brilliant idea (at this momentous point she asked him to stop fidgeting and interrupting her with his questions): he laid out the coins in order of denomination and read out the secret inscription or message formed when the letters on the coins were put together--"Ate"; there was still one letter missing (from the gold coin that had not been found). Dr. Suk believed that the missing letter could be one of the holy letters of the Jewish alphabet, perhaps the letter "he", the forth letter of the lord's name. . . . The key bearing it augers death.

"Think of the brilliance of it!" she cried, and then seeing that his glass was empty, added, "One glass is enough--two are not!"

Meanwhile, every second spring, Dr. Suk's name was placed in the hat behind the doors with their smell of rancid keyholes. He was never notified of the fact, nor did he ever know the outcome. He was coughing at the time with the feeling that a cluster of tendons had sprouted from their roots, cutting so deeply into his shoulders and neck that he could barely break free. The exams came more frequently now, and there was always someone new heading the examining board. Dr. Suk had a student, a girl who had gone bald at an early age, but at night a dog licked her scalp and thick, colored fur grew on her head. She was plumb and could not remove the rings from her fingers; she had eyebrows like small fish-bones and wore a woolen sock as a cap. She slept on he mirrors and combs, whistling in her dreams for her little boy, who was lying in bed beside her, kept awake by the whistling. Now she was examining Dr. Suk. . . . Wanting to get through the exam as quickly as possible, Dr. Suk answered the boy's constant questions. Finally, when it was all over, he went to his mother's house and sat down to eat, but he was so preoccupied with his own thoughts that his mother said worriedly, "Be careful, Sasha, your future will destroy your past! You don't look well. You should find a child to walk on your back."

It was true that unknown varieties of hunger had been lately growing and blossoming inside him, and a viscid, undefined hope would quickly ripen like a fruit only to die when his hunger was assuaged with the first bite he swallowed.

"Do you know how many mouth holes the Jews have?" his mother asked that day as he ate. "I'm sure you don't. I read about it recently somewhere, probably in Dr. Suk's book; at the time he was studying the spread of biblical beliefs in the steppes of Eurasia. On the basis of his findings, 1959, at the Chelarevo site by the Danube, he established that the area had been settled by a people unknown to us, a people considerable more primitive and anthropologically older then the Avars. He believes that this is the burial site of the Khazars, a people who came from the Black sea to the Danube in the 8th century. It's late now, remind me, when you come from Gelsomina's birthday tomorrow, to read you the exciting page in which he describes it all; it's extremely interesting. . . ."

It was after this promise that Dr. Isailo Suk woke up and found the key in his mouth.

When he stepped out into the street, the afternoon was ailing; a plague of light was blighting the radiance of the sun; an epidemic of boils and rashes spread and erupted across from the sky, infecting the clouds, which wilted and sagged in their faltering progress.

The week had received its monthly wash, and Sunday was already a reek in the air, breaking wind like a cripple on the road to recovery. And there in the distance, along the scabby skyline, Suk's spent days shone blue, small, and healthy, devoid of calendar names and the happily vanishing heard, free of him and his worries, leaving dust in their wake.

One of the children who had been playing in the street, swapping pants with the other boys, stopped in front of the newsstand where Dr. Suk was buying the paper and peed on his trouser leg. Dr. Suk turned around with the expression of a man who notices in the evening that he has been going around all day with his fly unbuttoned. Just then, however, an utterly unknown man slapped him in the face as hard as he could. It was cold outside, and Dr. Suk felt the warmth of the assailant's hand through the slap; for all the pain there was something just slightly pleasant about it. He was about to argue with the malapert when he felt the wet trouser leg stick to his calf. The he was hit by another man, who had been standing behind the first, waiting for his chance. Dr. Suk now realized it would be better for him to move away, which is what he proceeded to do, not understanding a think except that the second slap had smelled of onions. But there was no time to loose, because other passers-by were converging on him. There seemed to be something perfectly natural about the way the blows began raining down on him; Dr. Suk started to feel that the hands behind some of them were cold, and this he found curiously agreeable in the entire disagreeable affair. He had warmed up now. There was yet another fortunate circumstance in this scene. While he had no time to think, because one can do very little thinking between one blow and the next, he did notice that the slaps were sometimes sweaty and that they were driving him from the Church of St. Mark toward the square, along the road he had intended to take in the first place, the road that lead straight to the store where he wanted to shop. So, he submitted to the blows, which were bringing him closer to his destination.

Then he came upon a fence behind which nothing had ever been seen of heard. And since he was now forced to run under the relenting rain of blows, the slits in the fence merged before his eyes and he saw for the first time (although he had passed there before) that there was a house behind the fence, and that a young man was standing at the window playing a violin. He also noticed that music stand and instantly recognized Bruch's Concerto in G minor for Violin and Orchestra, but he heard no sound, although the young man was playing fervidly. Surprised, the pelting rain of blows still upon him, Dr. Suk finally ran into the store that had been the object of his sortie that morning, and he breathed a sigh of relief as he slammed the door shut behind him. Inside it was as still as in a cucumber jar: only the corn smelled. The shop empty, except for a hen nestled in a cap in the corner. She cocked one eye at Dr. Suk and saw everything edible in him. Then she switched to the other eye and saw all the indigestible parts. She thought for a moment, and finally Dr. Suk appeared in her mind's eye, composed once again of digestible and indigestible parts, and at last she knew who she was dealing with. At for what happed next, let him tell the story himself.

On his way back from the shop, Dr. Suk worried for a while about being attacked again on the street, but all went well. He was thinking about this when the rain caught him in front of the fence where the boy had been playing the violin that morning. As he ran, the slits in the fence merged again before his eyes and once more he saw behind the fence the boy playing violin at the window. Again he heard no sound, although the window was open. To some sounds he was deaf, to others not. He ran on, nearing his mother's house. His hands fingered his skin like those of a blind man feeling his way; the fingers recognized the direction and the well-trodden path. In his pocket were the key that augured death and the egg that would save him from a deadly day. . . . The egg was marked with a date, the key with a small gold handle. His mother was still alone; she liked to take a short nap in the late afternoon, and she was sleepy.

"Pass me my glasses please," she said to her son, "and let me read you that bit about the Khazar cemetery. Listen to what Dr. Suk writes about the Khazars in Chelarevo. . . ."

Just then all the doorbells started ringing and guests streamed into the house. Gelsomina Mohorovichich came in, wearing sharp boots, he lovely staring eyes like stones out of a ring. In front of everyone, Professor Suk's mother presented her with the cello, kissed her between the eyes (leaving there a third eye traced by her lipstick) and said, "Who do you think this present is from, Gelsomina? Guess! It's from Professor Suk! You must write him a nice letter and thank him for it. He's a handsome young gentleman. And I always save the best chair at the head of the table for him!"

Pensive, her shadow so heavy she could kick you with it like a boot, Mrs. Suk sat her guests down to dinner, leaving the chair at the head of the table empty, as though she were still awaiting her most important guest; her thoughts elsewhere, she hurriedly seated Dr. Suk next to Gelsomina and the other young people; the leaves of the well-watered rubber plant standing behind them perspired and wept so that you could hear them drip on the floor.

At dinner that evening, Gelsomina turned to Dr. Suk, touching his hand with her burning fingers, and said, "A person's acts in life are like meals, and his thoughts and feelings are like seasonings. Whoever puts salt on cherries or pours vinegar on sweets will fare poorly. . . ."

Dr. Suk was slicing the bread as Gelsomina spoke, and he thought how she had some years for him, and others for the rest of the world.

When he returned to his hotel room after the party, Professor Suk took the key out of his pocket and examined it through his magnifying glass. On the gold coin that served as a handle, he deciphered the Hebrew letter "he". He laughed, put down the key, took out of his briefcase the 1691 Daubmannus edition of The Khazar Dictionary, and before going to sleep read the entry on The Wet Nurse. He was convinced that this was the poisoned copy, so he never read more than four pages at a time, just to keep on the safe side. He thought to himself, "One should not needlessly embark on a road that brings rain."

The entry he chose for this evening was not long:

The Khazars, wrote the Daubmannus dictionary, had wet nurses who could make their own milk poisonous. They are to believed to have hailed from on of the two Arab tribes that Mohammed had expelled from Medina because they worshipped Mahat, the fourth Bedouin deity. They probably came from either the Khazarai or the Auz tribe. They would be hired to nurse (just once was enough) some undesirable princeling or a rich heir whose fellow heirs wanted him removed. 'Poison-milk tasters' were established as a result; These were young men who would sleep with the wet nurses and suck their breasts just before they were to nurse the children entrusted to their care. Only if their lovers passed unharmed were the we nurses allowed into the nursery. . . ."

Dr. Suk fell asleep just before dawn, thinking how he would never learn what Gelsomina had said to him that evening. He was totally deaf to her voice.