The Noodle Maker(6)

‘You’re a beast,’ the writer replies, peeling the shell from a steaming-hot egg.

The blood donor shoots him a disparaging look. ‘When we were sent to the countryside, you talked about the “Sublime”. You even went on about that man Jesus. But now look at you! You’ve spent the whole day just waiting for me to turn up and put meat on your table. You can’t buy much food with the money they pay you for your deep thoughts, can you?’ The blood donor grabs an egg then pushes the plate back towards the bottles in the middle of the table. He takes a pinch of salt from the jar beside him, removes the hot shell and rubs the salt onto the gleaming white surface of the egg. ‘I get three times your monthly salary for just one blood donation. When you look at what you put into your work and what you get out of it, you’re not doing too well, are you? Or to put it another way, just because I’m a professional blood donor and you’re a professional writer doesn’t mean you’re any better than me.’

The writer stares in disgust at the blood donor’s mouth, at the egg yolk moving inside it. He often adopts this disapproving look when his stomach is full. ‘If everyone were like you,’ he says, ‘this country would be ruined.’

‘Don’t be so sure. You’re a blood donor yourself. The reason I’m better off than you is because my blood saves lives, and earns me money and respect. But what have you got for your sweat and blood, for all that expended grey matter? Nothing. Your salary is only just enough to keep you breathing. You depend on the smell of your neighbours’ cooking to get you through the day. What kind of life is that? You talk about God, and your need to find the truth, but what help has your God ever been to you?’

‘You’re only interested in food. What do you know about truth?’ The writer’s expression is now calm and composed. ‘I will spend the rest of my life in quiet meditation. The sages live on one meal a day, the average man on two. I will survive on …’

‘Everyone needs three square meals a day.’

‘Only animals eat three meals a day,’ the writer says with conviction. ‘I’m not fussy about what I eat. We didn’t have fish-head soup tonight, but I didn’t kick up a fuss, did I?’

‘In fact three meals a day aren’t nearly enough for me. What does that make me then?’

‘A beast,’ the writer replies. He inhales a gust of fragrant air, and says to himself: That smells like smoked mushrooms. Maybe if you add them to fish-head soup you can leave out the ginger. ‘You live off your body fluids,’ he continues, ‘so you must be a beast.’

‘If you don’t start eating properly, you’ll turn into a lump of dried tofu.’ The blood donor observes the writer’s hunched shoulders and his sallow, palsied face. ‘Very soon, you will weigh less than a sheet of manuscript paper, and then you will disappear altogether.’

The blood donor’s eyes sparkle with life, in stark contrast to the writer, whose energies are slowly failing him and who has lost the will to write. The blood donor’s face is free of wrinkles and flushed with blood. His thick lips are moist and red. No one would guess he gives blood on a weekly basis, unless they heard him faltering up the stairs. His small, narrow body seethes with fresh young blood and gastric juices. At mealtimes he can finish every scrap of food on the table. Before he gives blood, he can swallow two thermos flasks of water and keep it all in for half an hour without having to relieve himself. His body is a blood making machine, every part in fine working order.

The writer, however, has a weak heart, and a troublesome pair of lungs which spew out globs of phlegm at inopportune moments. None of the organs below his stomach are quite right either. He has to rush to the toilet as soon as any food reaches his intestines. Years of sitting at a desk have contorted his guts, causing him to suffer from perennial haemorrhoids. His feeble kidneys absolved him from having to take part in the Writers’ Association’s annual blood donation, and although his liver is now behaving reasonably well, it was nearly the death of him during his years in the camp.

But despite his relentless blood donations, Vlazerim is looking more suave and relaxed by the day. He doesn’t have to tax his brains, so never experiences the dizziness, insomnia and disturbing dreams the writer suffers from – the afflictions of intellectuals. His imagination is only engaged when he’s daydreaming about recipes. During his time in the re-education camp, he stole a chicken once and took it up into the hills. He rubbed it with spices, roasted it over a wooden fire and gobbled it down all by himself. When he was finished, he buried the feathers in the ground. Had the guard dogs not sniffed out those feathers and dug them up, he would have got away with his crime without a beating.