The sins of the bitten
(Mëkatet e të kafshuarit)

1.

It was in geography class, the first lesson on a Monday morning, when the classroom door opened. I was sitting at the front bench near the entrance. This was the only class where I sat up front. It was a rather chivalrous gesture on my part, as if to tell the teacher and anyone else: "Here I am and I ain't afraid of nuthin'!" Geography was a subject I really liked and I had already learned most of the map of the political world by heart. On that Monday, I was almost looking forward to the teacher calling out my name and summoning me to the blackboard, when the door flew open.

It was an extremely rare event for the classroom door to open during a lesson, so it made an impression. In came the vice-principal with a man dressed in a white jacket. The former, a tall and portly fellow with a flabby chin and a long, thin moustache, whispered something to the geography teacher and then turned to us:

"The dentists have come to visit our school. They've brought their instruments with them and are going to check all of you, one after the other!"

Showing off his false teeth, he added: "Mens sana in corpore sano" which he hastened to translate as: "A healthy mind in a healthy body."

I was petrified and cowered behind my desk. I don't know what happened to me, but I was completely absent-minded from that moment on. The man dressed in white turned into a phantom.

The vice-principal took the register and read out the first five names. I was number two on his list. He smiled briefly, twitched his whiskers and continued:

"Those of you who heard their names read out, go with the doctor right away. The others will go later, one after the other."

I got up. The others rose, too, and we proceeded into the narrow corridor, passing the phantom.

Aleks, the boy next door who I always played with during summer holidays and who was the third on the list, gave me a look. I glanced back at him.

"They brought their instruments with them," whispered Aleks to me. "They're going to kill us."

While we were shuffling down the long hallway, I took a deep breath and uttered:

"Let's run away!"

"OK," said Aleks and we took a sudden turn left, the way you took to go out to the sports field and to the girls' washroom.

The phantom did not notice, nor did the three girls who blithely surrounded him. All we had to do was wait until the geography class was over and then return to the classroom. Aleks had an apple in his pocket which we took turns biting into. Maybe we had been saved.

2.

I had been chosen to hold the main speech at the National Debate on Cultural Policies, to accompany delegations of foreign experts, and to organize dinner parties and the minutes of the meetings, in short, to do everything. In the midst of all the stress, as I was gobbling down my combined lunch and supper at home, a disaster occurred. Both of my bridges, which a country dentist had painlessly installed some five years earlier, fractured. I was paralysed. I could not open my mouth and was thus in a rather tragicomical situation. Most of my teeth - front and back, upper and lower - had fallen out.

I was in despair and had a terrible night, hardly sleeping a wink.

"Get to the dentist, right away!" ordered my wife the next morning, as the children giggled in the corner of the room.

I phoned a colleague who had just had his teeth done, telling him of my misfortune. We arranged to meet at a coffee shop near the office and, from there, to go together to his dentist.

"She is a real master of the trade and she won't hurt at all. She tries her best not to cause any pain," the colleague assured me.

I kept my mouth closed all the way to the dentist's office, greeting acquaintances with a nod and an odd grimace which tried to be a smile. I looked like a fool while my companion chewed his gum with all his sparkling, white teeth.

We arrived. The silhouette of a thin woman appeared at the smoked-glass door.

"That's her," murmured my friend, as we entered without knocking. I stood at the doorway, my limbs numb.

My companion presented me in lavish, baroque terms which degenerated into rococo. I blushed at what he'd said and thought to myself: "Why do I feel like this? Why couldn't he have taken me to a male dentist, even some brute with loutish hands?" But I had no time to ponder. I shook her hand, giving her a crooked, almost toothless smile.

"Have a seat," she said in a low voice.

"I sat down and endeavoured to speak. "I am in a real predicament. I mean, like Hiroshima and Nagasaki!"

She laughed, washing her hands in the nearby sink.

"And he's a real chicken!" exclaimed my companion, trying to break the ice.

"Yes, I can see that," replied the dentist. "Otherwise he would not have come at such a late hour."

The words "would not have come at such a late hour" rang in my ears, but I had no time to reflect on any ulterior meaning.

3.

When we got back to the classroom, after the first lesson of the day, the vice-principal, the home-room teacher and the geography teacher were all standing there waiting for us. Three wrathful faces, ready for the attack, as if some natural disaster had occurred.

"Aleks we know. But we did not expect such behaviour of you. How did you dare disobey the vice-principal's order?" screamed the home-room teacher.

How we'd dared to disobey the vice-principal's order, neither Aleks nor I could supply an answer.

"You disappeared during class?" added the geography teacher.

Aleks and I were in deep trouble and felt the huge hands of the vice-principal tugging at our ear lobes, as he hurled: "I'll get them to rip all your molars out!"

He dragged both of us by the ears down to the dentist's office, his false teeth glittering in satisfaction. "You deserters! Now see where you've landed! Give 'em hell!"

The dentist looked at us in disgust as if we had come from a mule pen or from another planet.

"Sit down," he shouted. "Open your mouth! Cavities in two premolars and in one canine tooth. You are going to need large fillings."

Oh Lord, take pity! What were premolars and canines, and what did he mean by large fillings? I could make no sense of it. Suddenly I heard the whining of a motor and felt a metallic sphere spinning in my open mouth.

My brain went numb and I remember nothing else, aside from Aleks' screams as he sat down where I had been sitting, that is, in the dentist's chair, and the wad of cotton stuck up my nose.

4.

"Let me introduce myself. I am Anna," said the dentist in a soft voice.

I mumbled my name in reply. She smiled and sat down on the little rotating stool in front of me.

"Now, open your mouth so that we can see your Hiroshima," she continued, smiling again and sticking her instruments into my mouth.

I was totally embarrassed and did not know which way to look. My glance was fixed on the my companion whose neck was also craned to study me, as if he were examining some old watch.

"They did a bad job on you. Really bad, but I will see what I can do... So, what do you mean 'chicken', eh? You're not really frightened, are you?"

She asked all the questions while I had my mouth open and could not answer.

The panic did not last as long as I had suspected. I began to calm down, especially when she leaned over me to get something out of the drawer on the other side. I don't know. It was probably by accident, but her breasts slid across my chest and gave me an erotic sensation I had never experienced before. Damn! There I was with my mouth open, terrorized by the calvary awaiting me and, in the midst of it all... lust!

She smiled once again and told me that I would have to come back the next morning. I was confused. I wanted to reveal to my companion what I had felt, but decided not to. I was afraid that he would repeat his famous remark about biting only being a sin for those with no teeth.

5.

I told you the story of my childhood experience with dentists simply to clarify that I do not believe what people say about early experiences influencing you for the whole course of your life. Only people who are real conformists adhere to that belief, and I dislike their sort. My experience has taught me the opposite. I began enjoying the visits to my dentist, Anna.

She continued to give me appointments at odd hours of the day, at times when no one else was present at the clinic. She cleaned all my remaining teeth and massaged my gums. I cowered at the sight of her needle. Once, she used a full three ampoules of anaesthetic for one tooth. The only thing which Anna refused to do was extract the molars.

"For the extractions, I will refer you to another doctor. He is experienced and has done that sort of thing all his life. Don't worry, he's a real pro." "Alright," I replied. "You're the expert." I had put my entire soul into her hands.

She continued to touch me more and more during subsequent appointments, but she changed her tactics. Not only did her breasts slide over my chest with increasing frequency, but she would raise one leg while mixing the amalgam, and her thigh, firm but fleshy, brushed against my shoulder. I began to tremble every time she came near me. But nothing came of it. I had to sit there with my mouth open and try the best I could to keep my teeth dry of spit. The torture continued.

During another appointment, when she had verified that the freezing from the needle had taken effect on my lips, Anna bent down to get something from the other side of the chair and I felt her thighs touch my knees ever so briefly. She smiled, and I grimaced tastelessly from the freezing.

6.

We went to the elder dentist the next day. The moment I saw the old man with the grey hair, I was convinced that he was the one who had been my first dentist at school. I was sure I recognized him and began trembling at the doorway.

"Here he is, doctor. This friend of mind needs to have a molar extracted. It's this one," she said, pointing to the x-ray.

"Hmm," he snarled, and then whispered something to Anna in a low voice. "Have a seat," he said, turning to me.

I sat down. The same ritual. Me with my mouth wide open, and the dentist wielding various instruments in his hands. He glowered and took out a long needle with a thick point, the thickest I had ever seen.

"Open wider," he growled. I opened as wide as I could until my jaws began aching. He thrust the needle somewhere into my throat and I felt a mind-boggling pain. I groaned as he removed it and cast the needle into a receptacle.

"It is going to hurt. The tooth is infected, so it has to come out," he snarled again.

Anna, who was still with me, came even closer. She was gentle. She took my hand as she would a child's, and gave me a small, white handkerchief. "I am here at your side," she whispered gently. "We are here together..."

I had trouble comprehending, and could not react. My sight dimmed, even though I was staring at Anna. I looked up for pity and... the moment of truth arrived. He thrust his pincers into my mouth and began yanking at the molar. I thought I would die. He pulled and pushed, but the tooth would not budge. The pain was unbearable. I was quaking. He seemed to be yanking everything out of my being - my head, my heart, my stomach... everything. He stuck his thick arm with all the veins into my throat, my esophagus, down into my guts. I screamed and cried, yet my voice was feeble. Then, a little bit of something spewed out of my mouth.

"Shit!" he hissed loudly.

I turned pale. I was growing numb and started shaking, having convulsions. I could no longer control my limbs, in particular the lower ones. They were bobbing around. I was lost.

"It must come out!" he cried like a savage beast, and repeatedly thrust his pincers into my lacerated maw.

Incoherently, I drifted in and out of consciousness. I shivered and shook. My legs were twitching electrically like the cut-off tail of a lizard. It was a cataclysm. Then I dimly saw Anna mount me. She positioned her ass somewhere down below my lifeless belly. Spreading herself over me, she seemed to squeeze me and spasmodically contorted in one final act, and then... it was over