Sokal (Part III)

The large table was set for two people, from a white vase steamed sour zurek soup, and in a salad bowl potatoes with greaves awaited us. The dogs from behind closed doors wailed like a trio of wolves.

Out of service bowls we drank the zurek and had at the potatoes, which were served on medium sized dishes from the same service set. The delicious zurek soup did not fill the stomach up at all, only sharpening the appetite for more food. 

Waiting momentarily for the second serving, Sokal, not drinking himself, poured me red wine. I noticed he wasn’t drinking and when he saw my amazement, he told me that even though he liked alcohol almost as much as anyone else, in his own home he would never take to his lips even a drop. 

He was already so set in his ways. 

Suddenly from the direction of the kitchen we heard a horrible ado and in a second, like at the races, the pack of wolves entered forcibly, finally managing to negotiate the purposefully constructed safeguard. 

Again the greetings were without end, and to the attempts at relegation they resisted, pleading to remain here, and promising that they would be very well behaved now. 

Finally Sokal waved his hand and the dogs remained. It was possible to tell that he was very happy to get to host me at his house. 

During his escapades three or four times he crashed and stayed with me, so he’d probably felt obliged for some time. 

The second serving was revelational. Filet mignon with garlic butter and thickly ground spicy white pepper, delicious toast and salted, and actually pickled, milk mushrooms. After the completed battles I was horribly hungry, and everything tasted so great to me that several times to the joy of the host, with no control over my gluttony, I piled up my plate. 

Sokal constantly encouraged me to eat, and to my objections that during the present troubles with acquiring goods I would eat his whole supply of meat, laughing, he said that when it came to filet mignon, then he had no problems with buying it. 

This cut of meat in the whole town was eaten only in his house and by one other woman, and the rest of the rabble that lived here delectated itself rather with pork chop or giblets. My unrestrained appetite was also heightened by the dogs wandering under the table and soliciting, contributing to the table’s aching atmosphere of hunger. 

The most gluttonous was of course the dachshund. To get something she even simulated attacks of weakness, passing with shimmies and a certain kind of fainting, which immediately went away when she was finally able to fish something to eat. 

The Alsatian in turn nuzzled me, letting it be understood that she was also counting on something. 

Only the pointer decidedly to the food, and actually to anything else, preferred sex, to boredom repeating his copulating tricks. Both bitches were unyielding, because whenever he directed his erotic interests to one of them, both of them as if on command with exposed teeth immediately caught him by the throat. 

The bitches were the same age. When five years ago the last Germans returned to the Fatherland, some crying older German woman by blind choice brought the dachshund to Sokal and with tears in her eyes begged for him to take care of the dog. T

he Alsatian at the same time he found in front of his doors, wrapped in a blanket in a basket with a note “Bitte.” 

Only the pointer was a newer acquisition and came from the woods courtesy of the in-laws. When we returned upstairs, we were brought coffee and a piece each of freshly baked, even warmer yeast-raised cake. 

Sokal of course immediately set his radio wheel. Louis Prima sang and played CHINATOWN MY CHINATOWN, and when with Kelly Smith they began ANGELINE, something creaked and snapped and fell complete silence. 

“Again, fuck, one of the lamps burned out. Over, the music’s over, we’re all going to the factory,” with a sour face Sokal joked. 

We sat still in his strange room, nothing on the ship, which as a result of the total break-down of the steer drifted slowly in some unknown, dangerous zone. 

“My woods girl Crissie won’t arrive until almost ten, and on this day it’s an embarrassment to show yourself anywhere, and anyway there isn’t even anywhere here.” For some time we sat in silence and suddenly Sokal began his story.