(Excerpt from a novel)
She entered the room more violently than she had imagined, her hand slipped on the resisting handle, the door creaked muffledly, she wished she could take back the rough movement, to undo it, she couldn’t stand the creaking of the door hinges, all those years, decades, the little things which could be removed, but which were still there, stubbornly, the little things that made life more unpleasant, the malicious details, as Wojto says, which seem to be just waiting to grab someone, to make his days miserable, the malicious details.
The movement could not be taken back, nor could the sound that it had caused, the man in the armchair flinched, turned his head towards the door, the book fell from his knees to the floor, and the blanket that had been thrown over his legs fell down with it.
You walk like a wind, he muttered in a sleepy tone, a real whirlwind, what is happening that is so important so a man can’t even have an afternoon…
Nothing special, she smiled bitterly, nothing at all, just this… she shoved the open Bratislava newspaper into his hands, here, take a good look…
He turned to her in surprise; he hadn’t held that newspaper in his hands for a long time – is something written about an acquaintance?
She energetically jabbed her finger in the middle of the open page – he seems familiar to both of us, or rather, it writes about unknown acquaintances, let’s finally read it, they have the right description, quite precise, even the wardrobe, down to the smallest detail.
The man is engrossed in reading; his eyes once again run over the lines that his wife showed him with her finger; he remains silent.
You are reading for a long time…
Hmm, it’s heard a little later, so everything is black and white here… come to think of it, it was expected…
Expected, she repeated in the same sarcastic tone, now you say expected, she raises her voice, come on, I knew that, from the first moment, I immediately assessed them, I was so sure but you were like deaf and blind.
A low murmur again, and what we can do, he said, it’s over now, and she was right again.
Well, it’s not about whether I was right or not, she said, what makes me angry the most is that you ignored my opinion, you didn’t listen to me at all and you immediately started to make agreements with them, even though I was against it… so many things from the beginning were so suspicious… once he the oldest of them started to list all the services they offer, masonry, chiseling, removing old trees, digging, repairing fences, practically everything.
The man nodded thoughtfully, still staring at the newspaper.
What should we do, he asked raising his voice, we should report to the police, here they are calling the impaired… even though I don’t think that will solve the matter, we let them in ourselves, they didn’t enter our house by force, we agreed with them what they should do, we voluntarily gave them a down payment for the material, and that was not a small one… we bear the blame equally ourselves… obviously, more people let them in when the newspapers already write about it… it’s a shame that even now…
Finally, he took his eyes off the newspaper, looked at her, propitiate as one of the culprits, maybe even worse, then he bowed his head again, you know when they rang and made all those offers, I thought, what a coincidence, because I was just thinking how to do everything I need to do… I mentioned to you that I’ve been advertising for months, but no one called me, only one company responded to my email saying that if it’s a larger volume of work, they’d be happy to come; no one is interested in small things, that’s how our entrepreneurs are, they are only attracted by big earnings, to get rich as quickly as possible, and with small things it’s impossible… and with us, in fact, they accumulated… well, yes, and I was happy when they came with the offer, I’m a fool… and I have no courage anymore to climb on the roof, to change the cracked tiles, and there’s no one to do that for us, so you know…