Mama Leone (31 page)

For half an hour the five of them didn't budge from their chairs. The girl held her hands in her lap, looking at the floor. She didn't move, she almost didn't breathe, she was tense and looked like she was remembering a song she had heard long ago, one she'd start singing the second she remembered it, she'd just start singing, out loud, not concerned with who was around or where she was. The two Russians really were Russians, and motormouth Russians at that; first they whispered stuff to each other, past Vukota who was sitting between them, then they started laughing and talking real loud, one second Vukota was taking
spray on the right cheek, the next on the left. He stared straight ahead, as lost as he would ever be in his life, as far from home as anyone had ever been. He thought how perhaps it would've been better if he'd never remembered Grandma Rina, if Grandma Rina had never even existed, and that if it had occurred to him to leave couldn't he at least have done it the way other people did? How did other people leave? He didn't want to think about it, but he was sure they must've left better than he did, because if they'd left like him, no one would have gone anywhere, everyone would've remained in the city waiting for their grenade or bullet.

To keep from bursting into tears at the terror of his fate, Vukota did what was always helpful and healing in these kinds of situations: Out of the corner of his eye he started spying on the girl; you know, the standard drill – I'm a man and I'm looking at a girl. She really was beautiful, one of those ones you didn't have the guts to fall in love with, but you never got the chance anyhow, because you only ever met them in passing and never got to introduce yourself, but you would see them and ache, that real deep-seated ache somewhere in your chest. You try thinking about them and you always think, they can't be someone's girlfriend, because you only see them when they're on their own, and you can't imagine anyone who's deserving of such a girl.

It was like she couldn't hear the Russians; she focused on her spot, trying to remember her song, wound tight as a string on a guitar – not on a guitar! – maybe on some other instrument, one Vukota had never laid his hands on, maybe a string on a zither. Yeah, she was as tight as
a string on a zither, and under a spray of Russian spit Vukota tried to work out what country she was from, but God help him it was really like there was no such country in the whole of Eastern Europe. Frankly, there was no such country in all the Europes of this world, eastern, western, whatever. Christ, what kind of country lets a girl like her end up number 678 in some distant Israel.

He stopped thinking about his fate, in fact, he was ashamed his own fate had even crossed his mind. From the get-go he should've been playing the role of the hero, saving this blond beauty – this daughter of Samokovlija's imagination, this one-off blond Jewess – from general servitude, not to mention this audition. He thought how good it would be were he to get up right now, go over to her, take her by the hand, and lead her out, but in his head there was this pathetic little Vukota, a little scared monster, all panicked, telling him for God's sake don't do it, you don't go up to any woman like that, she won't stand up, you don't pull her by the arm like you want to rip it out of her shoulder, like you'd pluck a star from the ceiling of a kid's room that's not your own. Vukota understood what the little monster inside was telling him: You go up to that girl and grab her by the arm – you'll end up in the nuthouse. Crazy, and not even a Jew.

He tried to look away from her. The Russians kept the spray coming and he faced the other direction, hey, the little Romanian, he'd completely forgotten about him. The Romanian had his mouth open like he was a bit retarded, gazing transfixed at the beauty.
Have a good gawk, numb nuts
, said Vukota. His own voice gave him a fright, but no
one had heard it. The Romanian definitely hadn't, he was in a daze, zoned out to everything happening around him. Thank God we didn't have that kind of socialism, thought Vukota, and thus comforted, turned back to the girl. Left and right it rained and thundered, the Russians not quitting for a second, but it was like in those songs from after the Second World War, rain or thunder couldn't stop Vukota: He stood there in a drenched raincoat in the middle of a destroyed city, a city of which there was nothing left, the rain just poured down on Brest that day, as it once had, and Vukota wanted to know her name, to speak it right now, and hell, loud! He wanted her to finally turn around, he wanted to know where she was from, and to tell her:
you got it, sweetheart, that's where we're going. I'll tear up my number, you'll tear up yours, and we're off to your whatthehellwasthenameofit country. There in your hometown, we'll meet again as total strangers
.

The fat secretary came in squawking
silence over there!
The Russian precipitation cleared, and the director and assistants took their places.
Number 675
, said the assistant on the left. The little Romanian jumped up and finally closed his mouth.
Where are you from?
the assistant asked.
From Albania
, replied the little Romanian, who, no shit, wasn't even Romanian.
From Albania
, the three of them were surprised, Vukota too. They've got Jews in Albania nowadays? It didn't matter anyhow, the kid didn't know the first thing about singing and ten seconds later the director had cut him off and the secretary showed him the door, soft-soaping him with
we'll call you if we need you
.

It was Vukota's turn.
Bosnia and Herzegovina
, he replied to the assistant on the left.
Take it away
, the secretary squawked. Not thinking too much about it Vukota started singing the first folk song that popped into his head.
Look at me, Anadolka, I offer my heart, with almonds that you may smell so sweet, with sherbet that you may long for me
, he looked in her direction, she looked back, gripping her chair,
oh my, your locks so red aglow, do they fill you with such sorrow so
, she kept watching him, her eyes shining as if someone had mistakenly let the ocean into the room,
were I to suffer such sorrow so, I'd never let you see such woe
, Christ, she knows the song, she's opening her mouth like she's singing, but so that no one else sees her, so they think she's just yawning a bit, it's easy to hide words, every word can be hidden, remain unspoken, but when you sing – that's hard to hide . . .
Oh my, your face so white, is it sorrow or is it fright
, no, it's not possible, he would've seen her, he would've seen her in Sarajevo, but he hadn't seen her, no way, the ocean flowed from her eyes and rushed down her face and over the whole room, it washed over Vukota and everyone else, but they didn't notice, they didn't have the eyes to see, they didn't know what it meant when an ocean gushed over deserts of dust and thick foreign tongues.
Enough
, said the director, Vukota wanted to sit down,
no, you're done, someone will call you tomorrow, you're through
, the fat secretary signaled toward the door. Vukota turned around, wanted to say something, but what could he say now he was on his way?

Hello
, he looked at her for the last time.
Hello
, she said quietly in
their language, but so that Vukota didn't hear her voice. He wanted to turn around just once more, to tell her
we don't have time to talk, we gotta get out of here right now
, but he didn't turn around, and he didn't say anything, because if a man were so quick as to in every moment do what he knows he must, he would never have left, nor would he have anywhere to return. There were still a dozen or so guys and girls in the waiting room. Vukota leaned against the wall. Russian numbers 677 and 679 were quickly out the door. The fat secretary called the next group in, but the girl didn't appear. Vukota kept waiting anyway; he waited until the last group came out, and then worked it out that for some reason the girl had gone out the back door, the one for the directors and the secretary.

He went back to the apartment, it was hot, definitely way hotter than it could ever have been in Sarajevo. Time dragged by so slowly, much slower than his footsteps. Vukota roamed Tel Aviv like in those pictures where there's no one except a kid rolling a steel wheel between high buildings where nobody lives. Maybe the streets were in fact full of people, and he didn't notice, because she, who he believed was of his tribe and thus his destiny, she'd gone out the wrong door, the one that led out to the other end of the world, out into a reality Vukota would never set foot in.

He was nineteen when he came home from soccer one Sunday; his mother put her hand to his forehead,
Nešo, you're sick
, she said. He put his pajamas on and lay down, from the bathroom he heard the gurgle of water; his mother was cleaning his soccer cleats; he closed his eyes, fell asleep, and dreamed hot feverish dreams.

The doctor came the next day, the fever hadn't gone down, he listened to Nešo's heart and looked him long in the eye.
I don't know
, he said,
we're going to have to run some tests
. Later his mother brought him some chicken soup. The soup had the taste of illness; Nešo will remember it, and more than anything else the soup will remind him of 1967, the year he was supposed to have died. Its comforting mild taste will irritate him and sometimes induce rage; how is one to understand
healthy people eating chicken soup, eyeing each other empathetically, like they belong to a society of local pedophiles who meet once a week around a pot of dead naked birds, all gleaming white.

The waiting room at the clinic was full. Nešo and his father got the only two free chairs left. It was to be the last stroke of luck for the next six months. Everything that happened next would be a long mute nightmare.

The nurse came by and gathered the health-insurance booklets. Hours went by, Nešo closed his eyes and dozed; every now and then he fell forward in his sleep, his father catching his shoulders.
I'm not in any pain
, he told the doctor, who sat behind a big black desk.
Sit yourself down
, the nurse came over, the bed covered in a green rubber sheet; she set a rubber tape around Nešo's upper arm and tapped him on the veins with two fingers; everything looked like it was made out of rubber, the doctor not getting up from his chair; the jab was unpleasant, dark blood flowed, Nešo took a look and his head began to spin, he thought he was going to tip over onto his back and the needle stay sticking in his veins.

The results weren't ready for another three days. His temperature stayed up around 100.4 degrees. His father went to collect the results and returned ashen-faced.
Everything's fine
, he said to Nešo. That night his father and mother sat in the kitchen, smoking in silence until the morning. The results showed their son had leukemia and only a few months to live.

For days he looked at his ashen father and his mother's swollen eyes.
Am I dying here?
he asked the doctor.
You don't die when you're nineteen
, he lied. Once a week the nurse came and took Nešo's blood. Now he would look at the ceiling. He had learned his lesson. Accustomed to his sickness and the muddle in his head lasting the whole day through, his temperature never below 99.5, already he had a score of experience. Nature has seen to it that those suffering from serious illness have no fear of death, he thought, believing that when the moment came he would greet it with serene indifference.

And then, after three months, the fever disappeared. He still felt weak, and his blood count was catastrophic, but his mind had completely cleared, his appetite had returned, and with it all those human fears, not least the fear of death. His father's face retained its ashen hue, but his mother had stopped crying, the red gone from her eyes. To her, that Nešo's temperature had dropped was more important and far stronger than the word leukemia. She thought that sometimes you shouldn't put too much stock in obvious truths, results, and diagnoses, it was better to just outrun them, behave like everything was normal and everyone happy, and then at a given moment everything would indeed be normal again, and besides, happiness comes of its own accord, when no one expects it but everyone is ready to welcome it with open hearts.

When the weakness began to recede from his muscles and bones, Nešo got up out of bed.
Is he allowed to walk
, his father asked the doctor.
He can if he's able
. It was another Sunday, now in the early spring, when
Nešo left the house for the first time. The news about his leukemia had spread all over town, everyone knew he was going to die; friends smiled at him overenthusiastically, their girlfriends hugging him, hugs that made their skin crawl, as if their hugs were comforting death itself. Nešo sat down on a bench and watched the match with the girls.
In a few weeks you'll be playing too
, he heard them say. They were lying, and he felt like a fraud. It was a feeling he would never forget and that would haunt him for the rest of his life. He knew he wasn't going to die, but he couldn't tell anyone. They knew he was going to die, but they couldn't tell him. They could only sit there in silence, smiling at each other, people on different sides of the same wall: them, beauties in a sun-baked city, and him, a dead man walking, whom you hung out with out of a particular sense of social obligation. Not knowing it, they tried to buy their own deaths from Nešo.

At the beginning of summer, sitting again behind the big black desk, the doctor said to his father:
it wasn't leukemia. We don't know what it was. The main thing is that your son is healthy now
. His father ran out of the doctor's office as if he had lost his head, as happy as a man whom they had told nothing else bad would ever happen to him in life. Nešo played soccer again.