Bring Your Own Bog Roll, a short story from Slovakia.

Bring Your Own Bog Roll, a short story from Slovakia.

In September 2002 I rocked up in Bratislava with a couple of bags and just enough cash to last until my first pay check. And so unfolded one of the great years of my life…

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‘‘No, this one also doesn’t work’’ growled Zuzana, beating her gloved hands together. ‘‘Oh well… we keep on looking’’. 

It was a chilly October afternoon and I was accompanying a beleaguered Goldblum on what was fast becoming a wild goose chase. 

‘‘Vadim!’’ barked Zuzana, rattling the metal handle on yet another locked door. She then threw out some exceptionally harsh sounding sentences in Slovak that had Vadim jogging further down the road, towards another beaten up old door. 

“You ok?’’ I asked, as we stood shivering helplessly in the cold.

It must have been the fiftieth time I’d asked, I really didn’t know what else to say. ‘‘Yah’’ rasped Goldblum quietly, eyes to the ground. I tried not to look too concerned, despite the fact that he clearly wasn’t ok. Pretty fucking far from it.

It had been just a couple of hours since I’d learned of the attack and Goldblum’s recollections remained hazy. It had been late at night, Goldblum said, and he’d been waiting at a tram stop.

Suddenly, out of the shadows, came brisk footsteps from behind. Then a swift, vicious blow to the face from an indeterminate weapon. Slumping to the floor, all he could remember was a brief moment of watery vision, streaming blood… and then… blackness.

‘‘It’s here!’’ sang Zuzana happily. ‘‘This way!’’  The four of us entered what appeared to be a disused building, certainly nothing that resembled a hospital of any kind. Zuzana led the way with long, purposeful strides, Vadim dragging his feet from the rear in his hunched shoulders, Hammer Horror way. Where the fuck are we? I longed to ask. But I held back, not wanting to sink Goldblum’s spirits any lower.

We came into a hall with a large metal desk, a cold, stone bench and overflowing wastepaper basket. A beaky girl behind the desk exchanged a few words with Zuzana before leading us down a musty corridor to an X-ray room.

Bring Your Own Bog Roll, a short story from Slovakia.

Zuzana and Goldblum disappeared inside, while I waited in the corridor with Vadim, who instantly lit up yet another cigarette. He silently offered me one but I declined and we just stood there in silence, cut adrift by our incompatible tongues. 

Inwardly cursing the fact that there was nowhere to sit, I’d just begun to wonder what was going on when they re-emerged. Peering in through the open door, I spied a stout, balding doctor bundling Goldblum’s money into a rusty old till.

‘‘Well…?’’ I asked, as we made our way out. ‘‘Broken nose’’ croaked Goldblum with a sardonic smile. ‘‘We need to see dentist next!’’ announced Zuzana. ‘‘But maybe not possible today, I will make appointment for tomorrow’’.

Thankfully, the dentist’s turned out to be much less ghetto. Housed in a sad-looking two hundred year old building, the initial signs were not good. However, once inside it was all shiny white surfaces, modern equipment and actual chairs to sit on while you waited.

So unexpected was this that I felt Goldblum palpably perk up. Not least when the curvy receptionist waltzed over to take down his details on her clipboard. ‘‘Minx’’ said his sideways glance to me, as she flitted back to her station.

‘‘Broken jaw’’ mumbled Goldblum as we left, ‘‘new place tomorrow’’. Christ, this is turning into musical hospitals I thought, as Zuzana cheerfully chatted away about logistics. ‘‘Damn, I gotta teach’’ I realized, glancing at my watch. So off I went, catching a lift with Vadim back to Obchodna Street.

‘‘What the fuck happened?’’ asked Myles.

The news of Goldblum’s attack had begun to spread like wildfire across the teaching community. Everywhere I went, people stopped me to ask how Jon was. And, it seemed, for a few snippets of the grisly details. 

That night, at The Slovak Pub, the atmosphere was subdued. Our first weeks in the city had been all fun and games, an ever-accelerating treadmill of new faces and fresh experiences. We were young, far from home, virtually commitment free and making more money than we could possibly spend. We’d been having a blast!

But Goldblum’s attack served as a stark reminder that we were outsiders in an unfamiliar land. That we needed to keep our eyes open, look out for each other. We’d been told about Bratislava’s dodgy neighbourhoods and the gangs of skinheads who targeted ethnics and foreigners. Or simply anyone they didn’t like the look of. Was this what had happened to Jon? I thought to myself, on the tram back to Dlhé diely.

Bring Your Own Bog Roll, a short story from Slovakia.

‘‘Broken nose, broken jaw two places and fractured skull’’ confirmed Dr. Hirjak, his finger hovering around a series of x-rays. The latest stop on our tour of Bratislava’s medical establishments was Univerzitna nemocnina, a gloomy facility located right in the centre of town. Goldblum didn’t flinch when he heard the skull part, which like myself he hadn’t seen coming. Even Zuzana had stopped smiling.

Dr. Hirjak explained that he would operate on the jaw later that day, but that the nose and skull injuries had to heal naturally. A handsome man with a prominent nose and kind eyes, he went some way in reassuring everyone that ‘‘Mr. Jon’’ was in good hands.

‘‘Sorry… but you have to buy your own toilet paper’’.

‘‘Keep your phone and passport with you at all times’’ explained Zuzana, with an urgency that made me feel uneasy again. Then came a brief whispered conference with Dr. Hirjak. ‘‘Oh yes!’’ she stammered, with a nervous laugh and flushed cheeks. ‘‘Sorry… but you have to buy your own toilet paper’’. Goldblum and I looked at each other. ‘‘Bring your own bog roll eh?’’ he mused, and off we went in search of a nearby store.

When my friend eventually emerged from the operating theatre, I wasn’t even surprised to see him brought out on an actual stretcher, an orderly at one end, Dr. Hirjak himself at the other wearing a bloodstained vest. If I hadn’t been so terrified for Goldblum, I could have burst out laughing.  

They carried him outside across a shabby courtyard towards a dormitory building where I imagined we’d find rows of wailing soldiers, a pretty nurse, flickering candles and a gramophone playing Vera Lynn. In contrast we entered a small, nondescript room with a forlorn potted plant drooping away in the corner.

Dimly lit and utterly silent, there was an eerie feel to the place. A sense that we’d been dropped into an outtake of Don Corleone’s hospital scene from The Godfather. Which I suppose put me in the role of Michael, anxiously anticipating the imminent arrival of an unwelcome visitor. 

Bring Your Own Bog Roll, a short story from Slovakia.

Goldblum blinked groggily as they lowered him onto a bed across from another man. A corpse-like figure who remained hidden under layers of blankets whenever I came to visit. In fact, I don’t recall ever seeing him move.

“Jon has two plates in jaw’’ whispered Zuzana, as we watched him doze off. ‘‘Maybe six weeks before he can eat solids’’.

‘‘Time to go now’’ said Dr. Hirjak, placing a fatherly hand on my shoulder. ‘‘Your friend needs rest. Will already feel better tomorrow’’.

‘‘Porn! Just what I was hoping for’’ joked Goldblum, slurring through his wired jaw. ‘‘I’ve been assured it’s Slovakia’s finest rag’’ replied Citizen Kovacs, an affable Canadian with a desert-dry sense of humour. It was a few days after the operation and Kovacs was the latest in a steady procession of well-wishers.

Ben had come too, bringing cigarettes that he and Goldblum smoked through the bars of the corridor window. Sladjana and her flatmate Carol arrived bearing flowers, while Big Katka’s clicking high heels and overwhelming perfume proved so conspicuous the mystery man in the other bed allegedly rose from his cocoon to check her out. 

‘‘Maybe we should ask Jon if he wants to move in”. 

When Rich swung by one afternoon, it struck me that I’d never seen my flatmate look so downbeat. Sitting quietly on the guest stool, there were no ‘‘faaantastics’’ and nothing even approaching ‘‘Good times!’’ 

Back on the hill that night, I presented Rich with something that had been on my mind. ‘‘Maybe we should ask Jon if he wants to move in. You know, when he gets out of hospital’’. Rich, working through one of his famous veggie stir-fries, didn’t hesitate for a second. ‘‘Dude, I don’t see why not’’.  

The third bedroom in our apartment still hadn’t been claimed, despite playing host to several visitors. First up was James, the school’s Canadian head teacher, who shacked up with us for a week while he and his Slovak girlfriend looked for a place of their own.

Then came a one night stay from an ex teacher known as Crazy Jason, whose rapping on the door late at night woke us both up. Sadly, sleep was not to be reclaimed as I lay there listening to him stumbling around doing god knows what.

Bring Your Own Bog Roll, a short story from Slovakia.

I knew it was just a matter of time before somebody claimed the room permanently. And I was also aware of what a lottery such a placement was. Thus I put my idea to Goldblum the next day at the hospital. ‘‘I appreciate that kid’’ he said, looking up from Joseph Heller’s Catch 22. ‘‘I’ll give it some thought’’.

Later that evening we were in the corridor, Goldblum smoking out the window with an amused smile as I gave him the latest news from Roger, Adminx and the McDonald’s crew. After a while a hush fell between us as we stood listening to the buzz of the city traffic.

The wind rattling against the shutters, Goldblum let out a deep sigh. ‘‘I still don’t remember much’’ he said, stubbing out his cigarette in the little silver tray he kept on the ledge. ‘‘But I do recall hitting the floor and bracing myself for a pretty harsh kicking. You know, the kind you don’t get up from’’. 

I nodded as it suddenly dawned on me how much worse this could have been. A premature end to the party for everyone that year. Goldblum sensed it too, and for just a moment I felt his resolve waver. But I couldn’t be sure whether he was damp around the eyes, or if it was just the light playing tricks. “Anyhow, it never came’’ he continued, closing the window and making his way back towards the room.

‘‘I lay there for a while and when I finally sat up and cleared the blood from my eyes, they were gone’’.  

Settling into bed, Goldblum switched on the little table lamp. The flowers had begun to wilt, while he was also down to the last few sheets of bog roll. Through one of the half-open drawers, I caught sight of the busty blond from the cover of the adult magazine. She was grinning at me psychotically with her pearly white teeth.

It was approaching midnight and I had to be up in seven hours for my Obchodna morning classes. In the neighbouring bed, Jon’s mannequin neighbour lay as dormant as ever. ‘‘Well… I’m heading back to the hill’’ I yawned, stretching my arms as I made for the door. 

‘‘Night’’ he said with a raised hand. Grabbing his book, Goldblum flicked through the pages to his hospital card bookmark, before diving back into the soothing escapism of Catch 22.

‘Bring Your Own Bog Roll’ is the fifth chapter of my short story series The Slovak Files.

You can also check out my extended travel report on Bratislava.

Access my other short story collections here.

I’ve been living, working and traveling all over the world since 2001. So why not check out my huge library of travel reports from over 30 countries.

Leighton Travels is delighted to feature as a guest blogger for Global Grasshopper.