TETOVIRANI ČOVEK

PROLOG: TETOVIRANI ČOVEK

PROLOG: TETOVIRANI ČOVEK	Prologue: The Illustrated Man
Kada sam prvi put sreo Tetoviranog čoveka bilo je toplo popodne ranog septembra.	IT was a warm afternoon in early September when I first met the Illustrated Man.
Idući asfaltnim drumom, završavao sam dvonedeljno pešačenje po Viskonsinu.	Walking along an asphalt road, I was or the final leg of a two weeks’ walking tour of Wisconsin.
Kasno popodne se zaustavim, pojedem malo svinjetine, pasulja i krofnu, i baš sam se spremao da se opružim i počnem da čitam kada Tetovirani čovek pređe preko brda i stade za trenutak naspram neba.	Late in the afternoon I stopped, ate some pork, beans, and a doughnut, and was preparing to stretch out and read when the Illustrated Man walked over the hill and stood for a moment against the sky.
Tada nisam znao da je Tetoviran. Samo sam video da je visok, da je nekada imao dobre mišiće, ali da se sada, iz nekog razloga, udebljava. Sećam se da je imao dugačke ruke, mesnate šake, ali da mu je lice bilo poput dečjeg, nasađeno na krupno telo.	I didn’t know he was Illustrated then. I only knew that he was tall, once well muscled, but now, for some reason, going to fat. I recall that his arms were long, and the hands thick, but that his face was like a child’s, set upon a massive body.
Kao da je samo osećao moje prisustvo, jer nije gledao pravo u mene kada progovori prve reči:	He seemed only to sense my presence, for he didn’t look directly at me when he spoke his first words:
"Znate li gde se može naći posao?"	“Do you know where I can find a job?”
"Na žalost, ne znam", rekoh.	“I’m afraid not,” I said.
"Već četrdeset godina nemam stalan posao", reče on.	“I haven’t had a job that’s lasted in forty years,” he said.
Iako je bilo vruće kasno popodne, nosio je vunenu košulju zakopčanu do samog grla, Rukavi su mu bili spušteni i zakopčani oko punih ručnih zglobova. Znoj mu se u potocima slivao s lica, a ipak se i ne pokrenu da raskopča košulju.	Though it was a hot late afternoon, he wore his wool shirt buttoned tight about his neck. His sleeves were rolled and buttoned down over his thick wrists. Perspiration was streaming from his face, yet he made no move to open his shirt.
"Pa", reče najzad, "ovde se sasvim lepo može prenoćiti. Nemate ništa protiv društva?"	“Well,” he said at last, “this is as good a place as any to spend the night. Do you mind company?”
"Imam malo viška hrane koji bih vam ponudio sa zadovoljstvom", rekoh.	“I have some extra food you’d be welcome to,” I said.
On sede teško, rokćući. "Zažalićete što ste mi rekli da ostanem", reče. "Svako se uvek pokaje. Zato tako i idem. Evo ga, početak septembra, najlepše vreme Radničkog karnevala. Trebalo bi da zgrćem pare na predstavama po svim gradovima, a evo me ovde među vama bez ikakvih izgleda."	He sat down heavily, grunting. “You’ll be sorry you asked me to stay,” he said. “Everyone always is. That’s why I’m walking. Here it is, early September, the cream of the Labor Day carnival season. I should be making money hand over fist at any small town side show celebration, but here I am with no prospects.”
Skide ogromnu cipelu i zaviri u nju. "Obično zadržim posao oko deset dana. Onda se nešto dogodi i otpuste me. Sada nijedan karneval u Americi neće ni da čuje za mene."	He took off an immense shoe and peered at it closely. “I usually keep a job about ten days. Then something happens and they fire me. By now every carnival in America won’t touch me with a ten-foot pole.”
"A u čemu je stvar?" zapitah.	“What seems to be the trouble?” I asked.
U odgovor, on otkopča svoj tesni okovratnik, lagano. Sa zatvorenim očima, otkopčavao je košulju sporom rukom sve do dole. Zavuče prste pod košulju da opipa grudi. "Čudno", reče, zatvorenih očiju. "Ne možeš ih opipati a ipak su tu. Stalno se nadam da ću jednog dana pogledati - a njih nema. Satima hodam po suncu u najvrelije dane, pečem se, i nadam se da će ih znoj sprati, sunce ih otkuvati, ali kad sunce zađe one su i dalje tu." Okrete malo glavu ka meni i pokaza grudi. "Jesu li još tu?"	For answer, he unbuttoned his tight collar, slowly. With his eyes shut, he put a slow hand to the task of unbuttoning his shirt all the way down. He slipped his fingers in to feel his chest. “Funny,” he said, eyes still shut. “You can’t feel them but they’re there. I always hope that someday I’ll look and they'll be gone. I walk in the sun for hours on the hottest days, baking, and hope that my sweat’ll wash them off, the sun’ll cook them off, but at sundown they’re still there.” He turned his head slightly toward me and exposed his chest. “Are they still there now?”
Posle dužeg ćutanja izdahnuh vazduh. "Da", rekoh. "Još su tu."	After a long while I exhaled. “Yes,” I said. “They’re still there.”
Slikarije.	The Illustrations.
"Još jedan razlog zašto držim zakopčan okovratnik", reče on, otvarajući oči, "jesu deca. Idu za mnom po seoskim putevima. Svako želi da vidi slike, a ipak niko ne želi da ih vidi."	“Another reason I keep my collar buttoned up,” he said, opening his eyes, “is the children. They follow me along country roads. Everyone wants to see the pictures, and yet nobody wants to see them.”
Svuče košulju i zgužva je u rukama. Bio je pokriven slikama od plavog tetoviranog prstena oko vrata sve do pojasa.	He took his shirt off and wadded it in his hands. He was covered with Illustrations from the blue tattooed ring about his neck to his belt line.
"I dalje sve ima", reče, pogodivši moju misao. "Ceo sam istetoviran. Pogledajte." Otvori šaku. Na dlanu mu je bila ruža, sveže posečena, sa kapljicama kristalne vode među mekim ružičastim laticama. Ispružih ruku da je dotaknem, ali to je bila samo Slika.	“It keeps right on going,” he said, guessing my thought. “All of me is Illustrated. Look.” He opened his hand. On his palm was a rose, freshly cut, with drops of crystal water among the soft pink petals. I put my hand out to touch it, but it was only an Illustration.
Što se tiče ostalog na njegovom telu, ne mogu ni da opišem kako sam sedeo i buljio, jer tu je bilo sijaset raketa i fontana i ljudi, islikanih u tako zapetljanim pojedinostima i boji da si mogao čuti mrmljave glasove, tanke i prigušene, iz gomila koje su naseljavale njegovo telo. Kad bi mu se mišići trzali, zatreptala bi sićušna usta, namigivale zeleno-zlatne očice, pokretale se majušne ružičaste šačice. Žute livade, plave reke i planine, i zvezde, sunca i planete bile su razbacane po Mlečnom putu preko njegovih grudi. Sami ljudi nalazili su se u dvadesetak ili nešto više grupa po rukama, ramenima, leđima, bokovima i člancima, kao i na ravni stomaka. Video si ih u šumama malja, kako vrebajući zvirkaju iz sazvežđa pega, ili vire iz pazušnih jama usjajenim očima poput dijamanata. Svaki je izgledao zaokupljen svojim poslom; svaki je bio galerijski portret za sebe.	As for the rest of him, I cannot say how I sat and stared, for he was a riot of rockets and fountains and people, in such intricate detail and color that you could hear the voices murmuring small and muted, from the crowds that inhabited his body. When his flesh twitched, the tiny mouths flickered, the tiny green-and-gold eyes winked, the tiny pink hands gestured. There were yellow meadows and blue rivers and mountains and stars and suns and planets spread in a Milky Way across his chest. The people themselves were in twenty or more odd groups upon his arms, shoulders, back, sides, and wrists, as well as on the flat of his stomach. You found them in forests of hair, lurking among a constellation of freckles, or peering from armpit caverns, diamond eyes aglitter. Each seemed intent upon his own activity; each was a separate gallery portrait.
"Što su lepi!" rekoh.	“Why, they’re beautiful!” I said.
Kako da opišem te Slike na njemu? Da je EI Greko kada je bio na vrhuncu slikao minijature, ne veće od šake, sa pojedinostima do beskonačnosti, sa svom njegovom sumpornom bojom, izduženjem, i anatomijom, možda bi mogao koristiti telo ovog čoveka za svoju umetnost. Boje su gorele u tri dimenzije. Tu su, sakupljene na jednom zidu, bile sve najlepše scene u vasioni; taj čovek je bio pokretna galerija dragocenosti. Ovo nije bio rad jeftinog vašarskog majstora za tetoviranje u tri boje, kome se oseća viski iz usta. To je bilo delo jednog živog genija, treptavo, jasno, i divno.	How can I explain about his Illustrations? If El Greco had painted miniatures in his prime, no bigger than your hand, infinitely detailed, with all his sulphurous color, elongation, and anatomy, perhaps he might have used this man’s body for his art. The colors burned in three dimensions. They were windows looking in upon fiery reality. Here, gathered on one wall, were all the finest scenes in the universe; the man was a walking treasure gallery. This wasn’t the work of a cheap carnival tattoo man with three colors and whisky on his breath. This was the accomplishment of a living genius, vibrant, clear, and beautiful.
"Pa da", reče Tetovirani. "Toliko se ponosim mojim Slikama da bih želeo da ih spržim sa sebe. Pokušao sam šmirglom, kiselinom, nožem..."	“Oh yes,” said the Illustrated Man. “I’m so proud of my Illustrations that I’d like to burn them off. I’ve tried sandpaper, acid, a knife . . .”
Sunce je zalazilo. Na Istoku se mesec već digao.	The sun was setting. The moon was already up in the East.
"Jer, znate", reče Tetovirani čovek, "te Slike predskazuju budućnost."	“For, you see,” said the Illustrated Man, “these Illustrations predict the future.”
Ne rekoh ništa.	I said nothing.
"U redu je dok je sunce", nastavi on. "Mogao bih da zadržim posao na vašaru preko dana. Ali noću - slike se kreću. Menjaju se."	“It’s all right in sunlight” he went on. “I could keep a carnival day job. But at night—the pictures move. The pictures change.”

Mora da sam se osmehnuo. "Koliko dugo ste već Tetovirani?"	I must have smiled. “How long have you been Illustrated?”
"1900. godine, kada mi je bilo dvadeset godina, radio sam u jednom luna parku i slomijem nogu. To me je privezalo za krevet; morao sam nešto da radim da bih bio u treningu, zato rešim da se istetoviram."	“In 1900, when I was twenty years old and working a carnival, I broke my leg. It laid me up; I had to do something to keep my hand in, so I decided to get tattooed.”
"Ali ko vas je tetovirao? Šta se desilo sa umetnikom?"	“But who tattooed you? What happened to the artist?”
"Ona se vratila u budućnost", reče on. "Ozbiljno mislim. To je bila jedna starica u maloj kući usred Viskonsina ovde negde, nedaleko od ovog mesta. Mala stara veštica koja je u jednom trenutku izgledala kao da joj je hiljadu godina, a već u sledećem kao da joj je dvadeset, ali rekla je da može da putuje kroz vreme. Ja sam se smejao. Sada više znam."	“She went back to the future,” he said. "I mean it. She was an old woman in a little house in the middle of Wisconsin here somewhere not far from this place. A little old witch who looked a thousand years old one moment and twenty years old the next, but she said she could travel in time. I laughed. Now, I know better.”
"Kako se dogodilo da je sretnete?"	“How did you happen to meet her?”
Kazao mi je. Video je njenu obojenu firmu kraj puta: SLIKANJE NA KOŽI! SLIKANJE umesto tetoviranja! Umetničko! Tako je presedeo čitavu noć dok su ga njene čarobne iglice bockale osinjim žaokama i finim pčelinjim ubodima. Do jutra je ličio na čoveka koji je upao u dvadesetobojnu štamparsku presu pa onda bio istisnut iz nje, sav sjajan i u slikama.	He told me. He had seen her painted sign by the road: SKIN ILLUSTRATION! Illustration instead of tattoo! Artistic! So he had sat all night while her magic needles stung him wasp stings and delicate bee stings. By morning he looked like a man who had fallen into a twenty-color print press and been squeezed out, all bright and picturesque.
"Lovim svakog leta već pedeset godina", reče izlažući šake vazduhu. "Kada nađem tu vešticu ubiću je."	“I’ve hunted every summer for fifty years,” he said, putting his hands out on the air. "When I find that witch I’m going to kill her.”
Sunce je nestalo. Sada su sijale prve zvezde, a mesec je rasvetlio polja sa travom i žitom. Slike Tetoviranog čoveka žarile su se i dalje kao ugljevlje u polusvetlu, kao razbacani rubini i smaragdi, sa Ruoovim, i Pikasovim bojama, i - izduženim, upolje isturenim EL Grekovim telima.	The sun was gone. Now the first stars were shining and the moon had brightened the fields of grass and wheat. Still the Illustrated Man’s pictures glowed like charcoals in the half light, like scattered rubies and emeralds, with Rouault colors and Picasso colors and the long, pressed-out El Greco bodies.
"Tako me ljudi izbace s posla kada mi se Slike pokrenu. Ne vole da vide kako se odigravaju nasilja u mojim Slikama. Svaka Slika predstavlja neku pričicu. Ako ih posmatrate, kroz nekoliko minuta ispričaju vam priču. Za tri sata gledanja mogli biste da vidite oko dvadesetak priča koje se odigravaju tačno tu na mom telu, čuli biste glasove i mislili misli. Sve je tu, samo vas čeka da gledate. Ali što je najinteresantnije, na mom telu ima jedno naročito mesto." Čovek razgoliti leđa. "Vidite? nema nikakvog posebnog crteža na desnoj lopatici, samo neka žvrljotina."	“So people fire me when my pictures move. They don’t like it when violent things happen in my Illustrations. Each Illustration is a little story. If you watch them, in a few minutes they tell you a tale. In three hours of looking you could see eighteen or twenty stories acted right on my body, you could hear voices and think thoughts. It’s all here, just waiting for you to look. But most of all, there’s a special spot on my body.” He bared his back. “See? There’s no special design on my right shoulder blade, just a jumble.”
"Da."	“Yes.”
"Kada dovoljno dugo provedem sa nekom osobom, to mesto se naoblači i ispuni. Ako sam sa ženom, izađe mi njena slika tu na leđima za jedan sat, i pokaže ceo njen život - kako će živeti, kako će umreti, i kako će izgledati u šezdeset godina. I ako je muškarac, jedan sat kasnije njegova slika mi je tu na leđima. Prikazuje ga kako pada sa neke litice, ili umire pod točkovima voza. Tako me opet izbace s posla."	“When I’ve been around a person long enough, that spot clouds over and fills in. If I’m with a woman, her picture comes there on my back, in an hour, and shows her whole life—how she’ll live, how she’ll die, what she’ll look like when she’s sixty. And if it’s a man, an hour later his picture’s here on my back. It shows him falling off a cliff, or dying under a train. So I’m fired again.”
Dok je govorio, rukama je stalno prebirao po slikama kao da im ispravlja ramove, briše sa njih prašinu pokretima poznavaoca, zaštitnika umetnosti. Sada leže na leđa, dugačak i pun na mesečini. Bila je topla noć, bez povetarca i zagušljiva. Obojica smo skinuli košulje	All the time he had been talking his hands had wandered over the Illustrations, as if to adjust their frames, to brush away dust—the motions of a connoisseur, an art patron. Now he lay back, long and full in the moonlight. It was a warm night. There was no breeze and the air was stifling. We both had our shirts off.
"I nikako ne pronađe tu staricu?"	“And you’ve never found the old woman?”
"Nikako."	“Never.”
"I misliš da je došla iz budućnosti?"	“And you think she came from the future?”
"Kako bi inače mogla znati te priče koje je naslikala po meni?" Umorno zatvori oči. Glas mu se utiša. "Ponekad, noću, mogu da ih osetim, slike, kao mrave, kako mi mile po koži. Tada znam da čine ono što moraju da čine. Više ih ne gledam. Samo nastojim da se odmorim. Ne spavam mnogo. Nemojte ni vi da ih gledate, upozoravam vas. Okrenite se od njih dok spavate."	“How else could she know these stories she painted on me?” He shut his eyes tiredly. His voice grew fainter. “Sometimes at night I can feel them, the pictures, like ants, crawling on my skin. Then I know they’re doing what they have to do. I never look at them any more. I just try to rest. I don’t sleep much. Don’t you look at them either, I warn you. Turn the other way when you sleep.”
Legoh na nekoliko stopa od njega. Nije ličio na siledžiju, a slike su bile divne. Inače sam mogao doći u iskušenje da se izvučem da ne bih slušao takvo brbljanje. Ali te slike... uzeh da napasam oči. Svako bi malo šenuo da ima tako nešto po telu.	I lay back a few feet from him. He didn’t seem violent and the pictures were beautiful. Otherwise I might have been tempted to get out and away from such babbling. But the Illustrations . . . I let my eyes fill up on them. Any person would go a little mad with such things upon his body.
Noć je bila vedra. Čuo sam disanje Tetoviranog čoveka na mesečini. Zrikavci su se meko komešali u udaljenim klisurama. Legao sam na stranu da bih mogao da razgledam Slikarije. Prođe možda pola časa. Da li je Tetovirani spavao ne znam, tek odjednom ga čujem kako šapuće: "Miču se, je l' tako?"	The night was serene. I could hear the Illustrated Man’s breathing in the moonlight. Crickets were stirring gently in the distant ravines. I lay with my body sidewise so I could watch the Illustrations. Perhaps half an hour passed. Whether the Illustrated Man slept I could not tell, but suddenly I heard him whisper, “They’re moving, aren’t they?”
Počekam trenutak. Onda rekoh, "Da."	I waited a minute. Then I said, “Yes.”
Slike su se pokretale, jedna za drugom, svaka po kratak minut-dva. Tu na mesečini, uz zveckave misli i daleke glasove mora, kao da su se odigravale sve moguće male drame. Teško bi bilo reći da li su se drame završavale za sat ili tri sata. Samo znam da sam ležao opčinjen i da se nisam micao, dok su se zvezde kotrljale po nebu.	The pictures were moving, each in its turn, each for a brief minute or two. There in the moonlight, with the tiny tinkling thoughts and the distant sea voices, it seemed, each little drama was enacted. Whether it took an hour or three hours for the dramas to finish, it would be hard to say. I only know that I lay fascinated and did not move while the stars wheeled in the sky.
Osamnaest Slika na koži, osamnaest priča. Brojao sam ih jednu po jednu.	Eighteen Illustrations, eighteen tales. I counted them one by one.
Oči mi se najpre usredsrediše na jednu scenu, veliku kuću i dvoje ljudi u njoj. Video sam lešinare kako lete plamenim nebom, video žute lavove, i čuo glasove...	Primarily my eyes focused upon a scene, a large house with two people in it. I saw a flight of vultures on a blazing flesh sky, I saw yellow lions, and I heard voices.
Prva Slika zatrepta i ožive...	The first Illustration quivered and came to life...

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