Age of Skin

Dubravka Ugresic, Ellen Elias-Bursać

• Publisher: Open Letter
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781948830300
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Literary Essays
• Index: Literature

These essays are written on the skin of the times. Dubravka Ugresic, winner of the Neustadt International Prize and one of Europe's most influential writers, with biting humor and a multitude of cultural references—from La La Land and Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, to tattoos and body modification, World Cup chants, and the preservation of Lenin's corpse—takes on the dreams, hopes, and fears of modern life. The collapse of Yugoslavia, and the author's subsequent exile from Croatia, leads to reflections on nationalism and the intertwining of crime and politics. Ugresic writes at eye level, from a human perspective, in portraits of people from the former Eastern Bloc, who work as cleaners in the Netherlands or start underground shops with products from their country of origin.

A rare and welcome combination of irony, compassion, and a sharp polemic gaze characterizes these beautiful and highly relevant essays.

There’s Nothing Here!

They lowered him down. Partway he went, but was afraid of being lowered into the abyss. He tugged on the rope and they brought him up. Once they’d pulled him out, they asked, “What did you see?”

“No bottom,” he replied.

Roma fairy tale

1.

The culture of bathing has played a pivotal role in the history of civilization. Although it, the history of civilization, is rooted in wars, conquests, famous battles, and male heroics, there were those, like the old Romans, who left behind them something useful as well. Wherever they passed, Romans built public baths, Roman hot springs, and references to the goddess Minerva, whose name adorns many a hot-springs hotel. Turks, Arabs, the Islamic world, have given civilization public baths, hammams, and made affordable to all the habit of bathing. Northern Europe has saunas or banyas or baths, the folk mythology of water, legends about miraculous cures and rejuvenation, mythical beings, river fairies, a whole water-bound imaginary. The Russian banya is an inseparable part of Russian everyday life, but also a frequent motif in legends, fairy tales, and literature (Mayakovsky, Zoshchenko), and in movies as well. The plot of Eldar Ryazanov’s movie The Irony of Fate or Enjoy Your Bath! (1975), begins in a Russian bathhouse; in David Cronenberg’s Eastern Promises (2007) a London banya frequented by the Russian underworld serves as the site for brutal showdowns. Famous western European spa cities, such as Baden-Baden, were visited by Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, while Karlovy Vary was a favorite haunt for Beethoven, Liszt, Chopin, Peter the Great, Turgenev, and, again, Tolstoy. Milan Kundera wasn’t wrong when he set the plot of The Farewell Party—his little pearl of a novel—in a Czech spa.

One way or another I keep stumbling over hot springs, even when my travels take me there for non-hot-springs reasons, such as when I was invited to the University of Warwick. While there, I explored the Royal Leamington Spa, active in the nineteenth century and visited twice by Queen Victoria herself. I visit hot springs for more reasons than just my bad back. While there I limber up my perceptive capabilities. Hot springs have a sobering and entrancing effect on me, not only do they confront me with my medical needs but also with my social status, meanwhile fostering a feeling of general well-being, giving wings to the illusion that things are far better than they actually are.

Abi Wright, an expert on the fast-expanding spa industry, claims that the price of a day at the spa runs from £20 to £2000. The clientele select their place in the social hierarchy. And right here, in this zone, the dynamic is the most intense. People (shall we call them hotspringers?) travel for many miles, as do the Croatian retirees who in semi-secrecy sneak off by bus to the Vrucica baths in the Serbian part of Bosnia and Herzegovina—Republika Srpska. The retiree-traitors pay the “despised” Serbs for spa services because the Bosnian Serb spas are cheaper and better in quality than the spas in Croatia. Spas are, therefore, a test of patriotism. When it comes to spas, patriotism gives way to frugality. There you have a detail which makes sense only to Croats and Serbs. The keys for entering one’s password on ATMs in the Republika Srpska offer two language options: English or local. This, too, is something only local people understand. The language of the locals is dragon-tongue: it flicks its three equal tongues, Serbian, Croatian, and Bosnian. And the entire modern complex of hot springs, known as Banja Vrucica, is dominated by an Orthodox shrine, one in a series of recently built, standard-form Orthodox, Muslim, and Catholic places of worship scattered across the landscape of Bosnia and Herzegovina, reminiscent of standard-form Chinese restaurants.

2.

Why do I find myself drawn to hot springs? I enjoy playing the anthropologist on a clandestine mission: I watch the subtle flow of people and money where one least expects or notices it. The spas I have in mind were built on earlier Austro-Hungarian foundations (and these were raised on Roman spas), or they sprouted during the Socialist era. Most have not been recently renovated, or if they have, the renovation has been patchy. Many are now in ruins. They were occupied by war veterans from the most recent war (1991–1995) who—beset by alcohol, drugs, and troubles—vented their anger on the hot springs. Under the roofs of spas, the old communist utopia (the dream of highly professional, well-lit, and modern sanatoriums for all) stagnates and mingles with a dose of postcommunist human despair, along with mildew festering on the tiles, and the yellowed hydromassage baths. I read the things around me differently than does the spa staff, postcommunist kids, those cute humanoids whose memory cards have been erased. I’m older than they are and, though I may have no proof, I know a second level lies beneath the surface, and beneath the second there’s a third …

In the time of Yugoslavia, rivers of Slovenes, Croats, Bosnians, Serbs, and Macedonians with aching bones streamed to a sanatorium known as the Dr. Simo Milošević Institute in the Montenegrin coastal town of Igalo. Everything was paid for with wanton abandon (or so they say today) by the Yugoslav health insurance system. The institute is an imposing edifice of Yugoslav socialist architecture with probably the largest hotel lobby in the region, and a certain number of capacious hotel rooms, but the place is equipped with a disproportionately small swimming pool. Nowadays, the building excites both admiration and pity, as do all examples of neglect, especially the neglect that followed the fall of Communism and the advent of the misconstrued democracy. The vestiges of the communist era, along with the Adriatic Sea and its affordability, attract the elderly Norwegians, Danes, and Dutch, while the sanatorium staff has been holding their breath in hopes, for years, that the facility would be purchased by a wealthy Norwegian and transformed into a high-priced, classy wellness center. The character of Dr. Škréta, a spa gynecologist, (in Kundera’s The Farewell Party), who dreams of being adopted by Bertlef, a filthy rich American, is in fact a precise anticipatory metaphor for today’s postcommunist Europe. Postcommunist Europe sees itself as a swanky wellness center frequented by an assortment of rich men who have nothing better to do than satisfy the fantasies of the locals and adopt them once and for all.

Igalo is a destination not merely for Scandinavians with aching bones, but also for the poorer class of Russians. The crassly wealthy Russians have been buying up land on the Montenegrin mountainsides where they build lavish mansions with bird’s-eye views of the sea. The poorer Russians meanwhile buy modest apartments in unsightly socialist high-rises. I met a Russian woman, an elderly lady, and her son. They’d purchased one of those little apartments and spend every summer in Igalo.

After the Russians bought the Karlovy Vary spa in the Czech Republic and conquered with cash what they’d failed to conquer earlier with tanks, after they turned Montenegro into their resort and the proud Montenegrins into their waitstaff, money launderers, bodyguards, and the like—they moved on in a northwesterly direction and occupied Rogaška Slatina, a Slovenian spa. The Yugoslavs were, long ago, united by brotherhood and unity; now, or so it seems, they are united by the Russians. In vain did Tito declare his historical “no” to Stalin. Today, post-Yugoslavs are saying a willing “yes” to investments from Putin’s circle.

How do I know? In September 2016, I stayed for five days at the Rogaška Grand Hotel, which had been purchased by a wealthy Russian. It should be said that the new owner invested not a cent in renovations. The only novelty were the Russian channels on the TV sets in the guest rooms. Over my five days there I watched my fill of Russian TV and learned that the visible, superficial glow of the “western” style of life is easy to imitate. After Perestroika and the fall of the wall, even the most backward Russian “country hick,” such as Vladimir Zhirinovsky, learned that one must redesign oneself, have a good dentist, hairdresser, plastic surgeon, optician, brand-name attire, and a personal trainer, and package up one’s personal Perestroika. This is something all the offspring of postcommunists know. The Croatian president, Kolinda Grabar Kitarovic, knows it. Her sudden surge in political popularity can be attributed to the fact that she successfully shed excess pounds, and that, as far as fashion is concerned, she closely follows Carrie Bradshaw in Sex and the City. While watching Russian TV, I discovered that the hard-core, censored, Soviet Communist television program was incomparably better in quality than today’s “uncensored” variety. Today, as from everywhere else, raw uncensored stupidity seeps from Russian TV channels.

Russian guests enjoy strolling around swathed in white terry cloth robes while obediently sipping the vapid mineral water. At the neighboring hotel, the Donat (named for the mineral water bottled there), the visitors are each given their own water mug with their personal number, and then, mug in hand, they enter the glassed-in temple dedicated to the mineral water goddess, Donat Mg, known fondly as Lady Donat. The Russians enjoy this collective religious rite through which they pay homage to the anti-obstipational mineral, Magnesium the Great. One’s personal mug with its special number costs seven euros a day; outside the “temple” there are places where the same water can be had for free. In front of the Donat stands a monument to Slovenian Communist Boris Kidrić, organizer of the Slovenian anti-fascist resistance during the German occupation. Kidric is hip-deep in the marble pedestal, as if he’s sinking in quicksand. One of his arms is lowered, the other raised, exactly as if he were holding a mug of Lady Donat and toasting someone. His hand, however, is holding nothing; hotel guests often tuck a posy of wildflowers into this hand, the one clasping the nonexistent mug. The Boris Kidric statue serves as proof that the farsighted Slovenes are not as destructive toward their anti-fascist monuments as are the fervid Croats, especially if the dead anti-fascists can serve as a mug holder or a vase or stir nostalgic sentiments in potential real-estate clients or solvent guests.

3.

In April 2016, a few months before my stay in Rogaška Slatina, I’d spent two weeks at the Daruvar hot springs (formerly Roman!), which lie some sixty miles to the east of Zagreb. I went, resolved to do something for my spine, which was worn down after many years of desk-sitting. Even writing has its occupational hazards—though bone and muscle aches are not the only, nor the most dangerous, ones of my occupation.

Small provincial towns like Daruvarske Toplice, with little to offer but thermal waters and a minority Czech community, have an inspirational effect on me; when I’m short of things to keep me busy, they provide ferment for my artistic imagination. While I’m exercising in the heated pool, for instance, surrounded by “ossified” patients like me, I amuse myself by picturing an opera. I imagine the parts sung by the physical therapist, the hotel receptionist, the cooks at the hot springs restaurant, the waiters, the hotel guests, the retirees, young athletes, nurses, massage therapists, and patients.

In the pool, where every fifteen minutes powerful gushes of water spurt from the jets, I eavesdrop on the conversations of the elderly males, who have arranged themselves strategically around the jets so that nobody else can come close. They talk about the making of smoked sausages, the advantages of one kind of food over another (There’s no poultry like pork; Who gives a shit about swiss chard and potatoes, vegetables aren’t for us Slavonians), about politics and the freedom that dawned twenty-five years before with the collapse of stinking old Yugoslavia, about the Yugoslav dungeon of the peoples, the glorious Croatian victory over the Serbs, who, by the way, should all have been done away with back in the ’90s. The males thump each other on the back with their words, approving (Oh, yes, yes! So right! Like I’ve always said!), parading their own importance, especially in the struggle against the Serbs, making a point of their own political savvy and insight (damn straight, I saw this coming!)

Here—a discreet wink to my potential literary interpreters; the hot springs are a literary device, a source of defamiliarization: the shift of the ordinary into an out-of-ordinary environment where heroes, their actions, and words, acquire a new, “dislocated” significance, a different hue and tone. And while we’re on the subject of hot springs, literary devices, and the Czech minority living in the Daruvar area, the Czech writer Bohumil Hrabal was a master of defamiliarization. His greatness lies in his sincere love of humanity, the human males and the females, the losers and the winners, the stupid and the smart, the fortunate and the deadbeats. Hrabal was like a sort of literary Jesus Christ—if we can imagine Jesus Christ to be a serious beer drinker—who loved all humankind with the same love, understood them all, and forgave them. I envy Hrabal his unique alchemical talent for turning garbage into gems, and his love of mankind that sparkles from his books like an inexhaustible water fountain. If Hrabal were here now, he’d have a beer with these men; he’d chat with them about his weak bladder and taking a piss with the same high-flying enthusiasm as about the stars; he’d enjoy floating in the warm swimming pool, harkening to the layers of sound: the endearing chirp of the birds on the one hand and the doltish honk of the people on the other. All people are God’s creatures and deserving of love, and this love is what carries the diminutive waiter Dítĕ, hero of the novel I Served the King of England, through the prewar period, Fascism, and the postwar Czech communist period with the same ease. The political systems, wars, ideologies, losses, and gains—all these toy with the fate of Hrabal’s protagonist, but he survives, ever indestructible, preserving his love for life.

I lack Hrabal’s compassion for human stupidity (is there a form of stupidity other than human?). Instead of soaking in the warm water of empathy, I tend to fly into righteous indignation, as if “avenging angel” were part of my job description, though because of my aching back I’m in no shape to wield a righteous sword. What am I, therefore, left with? To “iron” my crooked spine and grumble to the point of exhaustion. True, the Daruvar spa is hardly Mann’s Der Zauberberg and I’m no Thomas Mann. Nor am I Bohumil Hrabal. Consequently, I don’t deserve the divine Czech spas.

At the Daruvar spa, where there was nothing more interesting than the TV set in my room with its three channels, I came across Mladen Kovacevic’s documentary Unplugged (2013). The unusual documentary portrays two people somewhere in southern Serbia, a peasant and a retiree, she, having worked abroad as a guest worker. The two of them are perhaps the last remaining masters of the skill of playing music on leaves. Earlier everybody knew this, nobody was mute, now we’re all mute! says the peasant, a crank and freethinker. Even the birds no longer sing, they’re all demoralized! While she selects which leaves are best suited for playing, the retired guest worker declares, with confidence: I can even play a nettle leaf!

This assertion by the self-taught artist—I can even play a nettle leaf!—chilled me and slithered like a snake it into my nightmares. Ever since then I sometimes dream that I bring a nettle leaf to my lips and try to make a sound, any sound, but I can’t, I don’t know how, I don’t have what it takes. My lips sting, they feel as if they’re bleeding, I touch them, they’re swollen, on my fingertips there are spots of blood … Occupational hazards, I think in my dream. Serves me right, I think. My lips swell up but I keep puffing away, as if hypnotized. I look around for other leaves to serve as a balm, but there aren’t any. The nettle, the one in my dream, is what I’ve been given, me in particular.

4.

Topusko is some fifty miles southeast of Zagreb, almost at the border with Bosnia. In May 2018, I spent a full two weeks there and didn’t see...