Jorge

von Marcus Krug

He was sitting on the old worn out leather chaise longue across from me. I sat in his comfortable armchair. There was only a small coffee table between him and myself. Black coffee for him and a cup of green tea for me. He leaned back, seemed relaxed. His left arm rested comfortably on a cushion, which he had placed next to his leg.

“You are not responsible for what happened up there on that building!” I said, trying to comfort him, because he was shaking, just a minute ago.

“Uh-huh, what do you know? Let me tell you something! I don’t care what you think or even know, I know that I am! I am responsible for it! I was her therapist!” he looked bashfully at his left hand, which was clenching the cushion, again.

“You know, that day when I got a call for a jumper. It was her, Siddhi, the young girl, pregnant, and probably infected with some awful and incurable sexual transmitted disease. Completely strung out, she was. One of the truly doomed, after all what happened to her in this country. She asked me why she should even bother living.” he stopped, took a sip of his steaming hot coffee and mumbled “Cual es el punto de vivir?” and then put the cup with his, again, shaking right hand noisily back on the saucer.

“They train you to tell people all sorts of nice things. For instance, to ask them about their dreams, and to remind them of all the other people who would miss them – as a last resort, of course. But then with her, I hesitated, only for a second, and she saw it. Within that second I honestly couldn’t think of one optimistic thing to say to her. So she spread her arms and jumped.” He fell silent for a couple of seconds, lowering his head, lost in thoughts.

“What is wrong with this world? Honestly, what is wrong with that fucking planet?” he started agitated anew.

“There is nothing wrong with it. It is just that you need some rest. And you shouldn’t let things get to you.” I said.

“I can see what happens when people have too much rest and don’t let anything come near them at all. Then others take over and things get way too nasty and we are all fucked!” Again a pause. But this time he didn’t let me even open my mouth. As I was just about to say something, he simply raised his hand and shut me out, while he himself was still brooding about something in ruminant silence.

“You are right, the planet is all fine. It is just the overbred human race that has gone raving mad. We act like we own the place. We deprive this poor blue planet of all its natural resources and leave deep scars on and underneath its skin. We drive all animals into extinction like we own them too. But the worst we do to our own species. Chasing the idea of the one true thing has brought us to a point where we massacre ourselves about believes and superstition. We neglect knowledge because we have surrendered all responsibilities to non-existent deities. In the name of the fucking father, I can’t stand it anymore! It’s not that I don’t like people; I am just physically repulsed.” he said, leaning back and staring at the chandelier.

“You went a bit too far here with your judgement, don’t you think?” I said frowning.

“No,” he went on, very calm “not at all. Let me tell you a story, will you?” I simply nodded and he continued “There is this village somewhere here in India. And there lives this guy, let’s call him Pramod, okay?! Pramod seems to be a nice guy, but also a bit bored and so he engaged himself in extramarital activities. For those he had chosen the village headman’s daughter. They met in secrecy, but were found out eventually. To restore the headman’s family’s honour and to punish Pramod’s family the village elders decided that a gang rape would suffice. Apparently a common practise in this region and in absolute conformity with the villagers’ gods. Soon, Pramod’s younger sister – female and therefore an inferior and expendable member of the family – was chosen to function as the scapegoat in this collective punishment. The retribution was carried out without delay. The both physically and spiritually broken creature was then abandoned by her family due to the desecration she had brought upon her family. What an absurd logic!” He paused, waiting for me to let it sink in.

“See where I am coming from?” he asked. And if you wanted, you could have seen a strange look on his face, grimly satisfied. But only briefly, because then he lowered his gaze again and one hand clenching the other he went on.

“A friend of mine, Miguel, found Pramod’s sister in the streets of a town close to the village she came from and brought her here to this hospital. He asked me if I was able to help her. Yes, I said in all my gullibility.” he stopped, swallowed hard, then stared at the ceiling, blinking he tried to hide his watering eyes.

“I failed him. And I failed her. Especially her!” he said.

“No, you didn’t fail anybody. It was not you who did this to her. It was them, the villagers!” I said, trying to make a point.

“Huh,” he laughed dryly “if I was not responsible for Siddhi, then we all are responsible for this! Somebody has to do something about this delusional extremists! We cannot let those fools take over the ship!”