Unterstadt
Unterstadt

Summary/Abstract: I don’t know why on that Friday, having returned home from work around three p.m., I started to pack hurriedly, throwing my clothes at random into the suitcase on wheels, which had been sitting in the dust under the window sill since my last visit to Vienna. I don’t know why I finally decided to take that train from Zagreb to Osijek, which leaves from platform one at exactly five-oh-five, according to the age-long timetable. Only an hour, an hour and half earlier, I was attending to a plump, doll-like baroque angel from a parish church in Zagorje, I was gluing its fallen, thin skin which was peeling on all sides and revealing the wooden base that irresistibly reminded me of the dried muscles of mummies. While I was caressing its round, plump buttocks, my Mum and Osijek didn’t even cross my mind, not for a second. Really, I don’t know why I finally did it. Just as I didn’t know why, some ten years ago, I popped a handful of sleeping pills down my throat. I do, however, remember the mild and calm, almost effeminate doctor Risjak, who was leaning into my face as if I were a small, irascible child, and urging me repeatedly to open up to him and tell him what was wrong.

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