ADONIS

(Adonis)

My father passed away in July, of perfectly natural causes. At his age - he was over eighty - any little thing is enough to kill you. In my father's case it was the heat wave that year, which did away with quite a number of people younger than he was.
Because it was so hot, the people who had come around to pay their respects advised me not with good reason not to leave my dead father in the house overnight up until the funeral the next day. "Put him somewhere freezing cold because otherwise..." my distant cousin left the rest of her suggestion open. In fact, this very logical advice came as a surprise to me.
"Where am I supposed to put him?" I asked.
"What do you mean, where?" she replied."You put him where the dead are supposed to be put - in the morgue."
"But," interrupted my stepmother, who had lived with my father for the last thirty years of his life, "how is the boy going to get into the... what do you call it... the morgue? I mean, how is he going to take the body? We have no idea about the regulations and don't know anyone there at all!"
The discussion did not last long because a doctor, who had arrived to pay his respects, recommended that I contact Adonis, the keeper at the morgue.
"It is only a question of one night," advised the doctor, "and it might be a good idea to give him a little something."
"Sure," I replied, relieved.
That evening, we lifted the coffin into a car which my employer had put at our disposal, and I drove off alone.
The morgue was a one-storey building separated from the hospital. It had cream-coloured walls and was patchy-looking from the fallen plaster. It was surrounded on all sides by weeds, most of which had withered in the heat. The windows were fortified with rusty iron bars. The only thing which added a hint of life to this dreary picture was Adonis.
Adonis was slouching around the grounds, smoking a cigarette. His stubby fingers were stained from tobacco or from the solution used to disinfect the corpses. I was surprised at the extent to which he resembled the rigours of his profession.
His unkempt hair rose vertically and his eyes were deeply entrenched in their sockets. He was thickset, had bushy eyebrows, and his white shirt was covered in yellowish stains. His jacket hung loosely from his shoulders and his trousers were mis-buttoned.
I introduced myself and explained my problem to him. He sighed and replied:
"I have great respect for the doctor, but it is rather difficult to find room at the moment. Who is the deceased?" he continued, in a low, respectful voice.
"My father."
"Oh, I'm sorry to hear that," he went on in an official tone, "but, as I said, it is a real problem. We have been getting a lot of bodies over the last few days, not only from the hospital, but also from poor people like yourself."
I remembered what the doctor had told me and took out a five-thousand-lek banknote. The gesture did not go unnoticed, and Adonis hastened to add:
"But we can give it a try. We'll find some solution."
"Thanks," I replied.
Adonis was right. It was very difficult to find a free space. He opened the freezer and began shuffling the bodies around. This he did in a quiet, reverent, almost ritual manner and noted earnestly:
"I am not the type of person who likes to take money for nothing. I don't just pretend to freeze the bodies and then have them melt on you like ice before you get home. I am accustomed to doing my work properly. What I mean is, I freeze the bodies to perfection."
To prove his point, he again opened the freezer door and pulled out a wooden tray on which was lying the corpse of a young girl whose face was pale either from death or from being frozen.
Adonis grabbed the body by the shoulder and, suddenly, as if he were checking the ripeness of a watermelon, gave it a whack on the forehead with his hammer. There was a strange metallic vibration.
I was stunned. Adonis invited me to give her a whack, too.
"Go ahead, she won't bite you."
No thanks, it's alright. It's obvious she's frozen. But, tell me, how did she die?"
"The girl? I'm not too sure. She probably committed suicide."
"Why?"
"How should I know?" he answered coolly and switched to his favourite subject:
"The best thing is to clarify things from the beginning so that there are no problems. Your father is going to be as well frozen as this girl by tomorrow morning."
"I am quite convinced of that," I stated, hoping that the discussion could be brought to a swift conclusion.
"Bring your father on in," said Adonis in a resolute manner, once he had made room.
"Here's a spot for him," he added, pointing to a rusty freezer. It was not clear whether it had been cream-coloured from the start or had paled with age. It contained three shelves.
"There's an old-age pensioner here that they brought in a week ago, who they still haven't picked up, and there's woman they brought in this morning."
"That's alright," I said, and we loaded my father into the freezer. As I was closing the door, my eyes fell upon my father's hand. As a child, I used to stare at his hands when I was trying to get money out of him. He never refused me. He suffered his whole life long for having left me without a mother.
Touched by Adonis's kindness, I took another five-thousand-lek note out of my pocket and passed it to him without saying a word.
Lurching towards me with the expression of someone about to make an historic decision, he grinned and said: "You know what, lad? I'm really touched. Look, we are going to store your father in a special freezer. It's actually full, but we'll find a solution. What do you say?"
"I'm not sure. You know better than I do."
"One thing is certain," he added, "you freeze to the bone once you're in there. Your relatives wouldn't even recognize you."
I thanked him, although I was not too happy about his detailed explanation.
He shuffled over and opened the special freezer. It had four shelves, all of which were occupied.
"I'll remove the one on the bottom. He's frozen solid. Not even a furnace could melt him," muttered Adonis, speaking more to himself than to me. I'll then stick this other fellow on the bottom tray and..." He stored the second one on the bottom shelf and, having taken a deep breath, looked at me and said, "Or do you think I should move the agronomist they brought in yesterday and put him on the upper shelf so that it'll be easier to get him out tomorrow? Let's see. Alright. Give me a hand, will you, and we'll shift the old-age pensioner. He's been here for a whole week and no one's given a thought to picking him up."
Within five minutes there were four bodies on the floor, spread out stiffly in different directions. Adonis lost his train of thought for a moment and turned to me:
"Where'll we put this one?" He was referring to the old-age pensioner.
"I really don't know," I hesitated, with a hint of guilt in my voice.
"Alright, alright" he said. "I'll put him in with someone else. It's better to get 'em into the other fridge rather than leave 'em out here."
And so it was done. We snagged the pensioner and heaved him onto another body in another freezer which, it seemed, was not functioning particularly well.
"Listen," he then suggested resolutely, "I think it'd be a good idea to put your father on the bottom shelf because you are going to be back tomorrow morning, whereas they're going to come and pick up the agronomist in the afternoon."
"Fine," I agreed.
Thus, we were forced to lug the agronomist around again, me grasping his head and Adonis his feet. But the head was frozen so firmly that the moment we had raised him above us to slide him onto the upper shelf, he slipped out of my hands and, as a result, out of Adonis's, too, despite the latter's skilful attempts to hold onto him. The body of the agronomist crashed to the cement floor, causing a terrible thudding din. He was now lying face down, and one of his arms was out of joint.
"Sorry," I gasped ruefully.
"Why've you gone so pale?" he inquired calmly. "It's nothing serious. Don't worry about it. If you knew how many times this has happened to me! And you know why? It's because I really freeze them properly."
"What about the arm?" I ventured.
"Which arm do you mean? I'll get it back into place in a minute. No one'll know about the fracture." Adonis set to work. It was not an easy task. At one point, he had to stand with one foot on the fellow's chest in order to wrench the arm back into place. I could hear the agronomist's bones creaking and cracking as Adonis huffed and puffed.
"Can I help?" I asked.
"No, no, just stomp on it for a moment, will you, so that it doesn't slide away. It's no problem. Such things happen," he continued. "And do you know why?"
"Because they are frozen solid," I replied.
"Bravo, that's it," he affirmed, breathing heavily.
"I think we're finished," he added.
To raise the agronomist this time, he seized the head himself.
I was shaken to see that the corpse's nose was misshapen. Adonis noticed my shock and asked impatiently:
"What's wrong now?"
"Look at the nose," I stammered.
"So what's wrong with the nose? Maybe it was like that from the start. There are lots of people with crooked noses," he declared, "but, I must admit I don't remember the agronomist's being quite that out of keel."
We finally hefted the agronomist carefully onto the right tray.
I felt completely empty.
I went over to my father's body. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Adonis fiddling with the agronomist's face. As soon as he noticed that I was watching him, he smiled reassuringly at the corpse as if to say "Everything will be alright now," and then leaned towards me, saying:
"I think we're done."
I had the vague impression that in his mind he was straightening out my nose, too.
After much struggle, we hoisted my father onto the second shelf of the 'special freezer.' As the door was closing, I had a final look at his face. I was leaving him all alone in that cold, dark chamber, in the company of persons unknown.
While I was pondering on the eternity of our separation, Adonis, holding the door ajar, gave me an inquiring look and asked an unusual question:
"Who did your father?"
"Who what? I don't understand the question."
"Your father, who did him?" he repeated, trying to make himself clear.
I was confused, and replied:
"My grandmother. She gave birth to him."
"I don't mean who gave birth to him. I mean, who made up the body?"
I finally grasped what he was getting at and recalled how young girls were made up with cosmetics as brides when they got married.
"Oh," I replied tentatively, " probably the women... I don't know."
He stared at me gloomily for a moment and added in a brusque tone:
"Because they didn't do a very good job. In fact, I don't think he's even been made up. Of course, it's your decision. I'm not forcing you. It's your father after all, but to show him proper respect and not to do him up... but it's your choice..."
I now realized what he was driving at and handed him another five thousand leks.
"It would be kind of you if you could do it."
"As you wish," he said, pacified. "You go and get yourself a cup of coffee and I'll finish the job. Come around afterwards and give me a drive home, will you?"
I returned an hour later. He had finished with my father and had put him back into the freezer.
Adonis lived on the outskirts of town in an apartment on the second floor of a grimy, dust-covered tenement building. He insisted that I drive him right up to the entrance and he did not get out right away. Having made certain that the whole neighbourhood had noticed his arrival, he emerged from the car with great commotion and shouted, "Come around and pick me up at tomorrow at seven. Right here!" Then he lumbered up the stairs under the respectful and no doubt jealous eyes of the neighbours.
I drove back home utterly exhausted and did not sleep well either. Every time I woke up, I thought about my father lying in that freezer, slowly turning to ice.
The next morning I went to pick up Adonis. I had to honk several times before he appeared at the window in his underwear. After surveying the entire street, he hollered: "Oh, you're already here! I'll be down in five minutes, as soon as I've finished breakfast."
He slumped into the car with a "how are you doing?" and spoke not a word all the way to the morgue. When we arrived, Adonis glanced around the yard, and I had the impression that he was on the lookout for bodies.
Of a passerby he inquired:
"Have you come to see me?"
"You? Who are you?" asked the man.
"I work here at the morgue," replied Adonis.
"No. I have nothing to do with you. I am here to repair the walls."
"Oh, sorry," retorted Adonis, turning to me. "Let's go and get your father."
He yanked open the freezer door in a casual manner. My father was inside, completely frozen.
Adonis broke my silence, saying matter-of-factly:
"Well, what do you think?"
"What can I say?" I asked, dazed.
"Go ahead, touch him."
I did so. The body was terribly cold. It had lost all its human warmth once and forever. Adonis waited for my reaction.
"It is very well frozen, I must say," I mumbled and requested that he help me carry the body out to the car. At that moment, however, another corpse arrived, so I had to ask the mason to assist me. I thanked Adonis once again as we were departing, with my father's coffin on our shoulders.
He gave me a cursory wave, as if to say, "come around anytime!" and went on explaining the merits of his character to the relatives of the newly-arrived deceased, stressing that he never took money without doing a proper job, and would never cheat anyone. As he spoke, Adonis led them over to the freezer which contained the body of the young girl, ready to confer the same demonstrative whack he had given her frozen face the previous day.