“But they would still have some say over Austria if they enter the EU.”
“So what? It’s only around two million people we’re talking about here.”
“Very well.”
The three of them nod their heads.
Sir Jonathan fumes. “I strongly urge you to reconsider this. The United Kingdom…”
I cut him off. “Does not need to be consulted about a decision which does not concern it, according to the principle of subsidiarity. If the UK has that much of a problem with this, bring it up in the Committee of Permanent Representatives and see how many takers you get.”
Sir Jonathan’s features darken. “I am incensed that you think you can order the United Kingdom around like this. An organization like the EU is lucky to have a country as exceptional as the United Kingdom as a member. We should be treated…”
“Goodbye,” I tell him. “Don’t let the door hit you in the butt on the way out.”
He huffs, then he turns and leaves. I go on with the meeting, wondering if the UK leaving would really be a bad thing, after all. At least I kept my cool and did my due diligence this time. It feels good to have finally accomplished something.
Drago
We walk away from the Avenue de Diane, onto a dirt path. The yellows, oranges and browns of the trees’ leaves fall around us. A slight chilly breeze blows. My hand grasps Emilija’s as she walks next to me along the path in the Bois de la Cambre, the forest just to the south of the ULB Solbosch campus where we just got out of our respective classes.
“Have you been here before?” I ask her.
“No, first time. I didn’t even know this was here.” Our arms brush against each other’s. There is a moment of almost comfortable silence between us for the first time since we were in jail together. Finally she admits, “I’m sorry I got mad at you while we were in that police station. I think I just was a bit freaked out by the idea that you thought I didn’t care about you at all, like maybe it meant you didn’t care about me.”
I squeeze her hand tighter. “I do care.”
We pass a group of Belgian scouts, maybe about eight or ten years old, led by a few more in their teens.
I whisper to her. “If I have trouble relying on you—trusting myself around you—it’s not your fault. When I was no older than some of those kids I had to shoot at a bunch of Serbs who were older than I was, just because they were hostages in this mine that my unit of the UÇK took over. If I didn’t, the Middle Eastern guy who was bankrolling us would have shot my brother and probably me, too. Afrim never found out. I never wanted him to know those things. That was always the arrangement I had with the Mujahedeen. He was younger and I had to keep him shielded. I always did what I had to. If I seem distant sometimes it’s because I know what I’m capable of. I feel like because you were a refugee when you were little, I can tell you these things, some of them at least.”
“I’m sorry,” she whispers back. “I don’t think I could imagine what that would be like. Compared to you, I was lucky. At least my father got me to Sweden during the Bosnian war. Especially after he started his company, I grew up wanting for nothing—except the mother who got cut down by the Seventh Muslim Brigade right before my eyes. It’s like my childhood ended at that moment.”
She fingers the scarf I took from my dad’s dead body; I let her feel it. She understands. She’s suffered—and she has gotten through it with relatively few scars.
“I know exactly how that feels,” I whisper to her. I point up ahead of us, trying to change to a lighter subject. “You’re about to see the best part.”
We come around a bend in the dirt path. It leads down a wide, grassy hill that has more scout kids playing on it. There’s a pond with a fake Swiss chateau on an island. A Swiss flag hangs from the porch. All of its three stories are a restaurant.
“It’s beautiful,” Emilija breathes.
I’m about to walk to the bench that looks out over the pond.
She tugs on my arm. “Where do you think you’re going?”
I point to the bench with my free hand.
“Oh come on, I’ll treat you.”
“I don’t want your money.” A pang of guilt niggles at the back of my mind. Is this the life that the girl who died for me back in Kosovo would have had if she’d gotten out? I can’t help but think that it is.
“That’s not why I’m doing this,” Emilija explains. “I want to spend some time with you in that restaurant. You’ve never been across to the island, have you?”
I hesitate for a few seconds. “No, I haven’t.”
We walk over to the small barge that ferries people to the restaurant on the island.
“It’s fifty cents one way,” the driver tells us. Before I can disentangle myself from her arm and search my pockets she hands him a euro for both of us. We walk on board.
“You know I can manage fifty cents, right?”
“Yeah, but it’s easer giving him one coin, rather than having both of us scramble for change.”
We’re ferried over to the island. We walk from the barge to the steps of the chalet and sit down next to each other on the wide porch. Emilija orders a couple of mimosas. When they arrive, she takes out a thin cigarette and lights it with the tea candle on the table. We sip our drinks in comfortable silence, wondering what our lives must have been like since we got displaced—mine so hard and hers so easy.
Eventually I say, “We should probably get back to reality. The guild has to start decorating the truck for Saint V’s Day.”
Emilija rests her head on my shoulder. “Just stay here with me for a while. For some reason, when you’re around I feel safe.”
I try not to flinch as I sit there with her, thinking of the girl from my past. I already have enough on my conscience. Maybe sitting here with her is just the latest offering I must make to the scars of war that we both have.
Eleven:
Friendly Competition
Elena
Erika sticks her head in my room. “Wow. Did you know your room is a mess? You know that if mine got that way Mom would make me clean it up.”
I look up from where I’m lying on my stomach on the bed surrounded by textbooks, course outlines and treaties. Rada walks up from where she was sitting, taking up all the space under the writing desk.
“This isn’t a mess, Erika, I’m studying.”
“Shouldn’t you be helping to get the truck ready for that student protest day? Why aren’t you at school? You’ve been spending so much time there lately that I get to walk your dog half the time in the afternoon. I like having a dog. Why aren’t you there now?”
I look at my cousin’s willowy frame petting a dog that’s so big she could probably walk the both of us if she wanted to. “I have a lot to catch up on at school. You don’t mind looking after her when I’m not around, do you?”
She hunches her shoulders. “Not much, my dad would never let me have a dog otherwise. Especially not one this big.”
She stops petting Rada, looks up and asks out of the blue, “You know that Croat scarf guy who’s come over a couple of times, is he your boyfriend?”
I jerk my head back. “Who? You mean Drago? No. He’s already with someone else.”
“So you do like him,” she enthuses like I’ve just given her the juiciest piece of gossip in existence.
I roll my eyes. “Well, no. I mean, why would I? I’ve got my studies and my mission to focus on and he’s always treated me like I barely exist, except for when he’s got nowhere else to turn.”
“But when he does, you still help him,” Erika points out.
I fall silent for a few seconds. Erika keeps looking at me; I know she’s got my number.
“Okay,” I finally say, “even if I did like him, I’ve been raised in a compound for most of my life; it’s not like I’d have any clue what to do about it, except sit here and study and try to ignore the fact that he’s already with this rich girl who’s saving our student guild from running out of money.”
Erika smiles and starts laughing. Lara walks into the room with my laundry. “Seriously? You’re asking my ten-year-old daughter for relationship advice? Asking Rada would probably be more constructive.”
“Hey,” Erika yelps.
I shrug. “Well, she does seem to be knowledgeable on plenty of other subjects.”
Erika nods decisively. Then she says. “Wait a minute, me or your dog?”
“Both, honey,” Lara tells her daughter, and lets her go back to playing with Rada. “The situation seems simple enough to me,” Lara goes on without my asking. “Does he know?”
“What? No. He thinks I think he’s a jag-off. And I kind of do, but it’s kind of like he’s the anti-me or something.” I catch myself. “Please tell me none of this will get back to Hristijan.”
“Relax, my lips are sealed. It sounds to me like step one is: Tell him that you have feelings for him.”
“Can it really be that simple, Mom?” Erika asks, as I’m wondering roughly the same thing.
“It almost was with Hristijan and me. We met when he had just been sent to Brussels as the chief negotiator for the accession of Croatia to the EU. I was working in the Croatian embassy as an administrative assistant. His wife—Lucija’s mother—was acting like an obsessive shrew, because he wouldn’t go after war criminals he couldn’t go after. Yes, I think it was something like that. After a while, I couldn’t take watching it anymore, so I finally just confessed my feelings to him. At about the same time, his first wife left him over the war criminal thing and here we are.”
It takes me a second to process what I’m hearing. Suddenly, Lucija’s constantly sullen attitude makes a lot more sense. Not that I really mind Lara. She’s perfectly nice.
“That’s it?” I blurt.
“That’s it. I hope it helps,” Lara says. She walks out of the room, followed by Erika and Rada. I sit on my bed, reflecting that it is just about time to start decorating the truck the guild rented for Saint V’s Day—using Emilija’s money. The worst that can happen is that he says no, I tell myself. Maybe it is worth a go after all. Still, for some reason, arguing with world leaders makes me less nervous.
***
“It’s been great, having you around the institute so much,” Afrim tells me.
“It’s good to be here,” I say back as we stand in one of the two main hallway rooms on the ground floor of the European Studies Institute, an old white building that almost backs up to the Bois de la Cambre. It must have been a villa back in the day. The old Italian professor, who I think should have retired already, walks down the stairs. He gives the two of us a funny look as we speak to each other in Albanian. I point to the room where Afrim usually helps me with my studies. “Why is the Kant Room full again?”
Afrim shrugs. “Today is Tuesday, remember? There’s some doctoral formation thing going on in there. Besides, you’re caught up enough on your studies and exams aren’t until January. Now, come on, we need to decorate the truck. Drago should be there already.”
A chill shoots up my spine. We walk down a few steps and out of the institute. Afrim pulls its heavy wrought-iron door open for me. We chat easily about stuff, until we reach the road that goes to the main part of campus, across from the Iranian embassy. I stop to wait for the light.
Afrim tugs on my arm. “No, not bus seventy-one. It’s easier if we take the tram down Avenue Louise.”
“Whatever.” We keep walking and then catch tram eight at a stop called Cambre-Étoile. It glides past this valley with a church and really nice-looking gardens. The tram turns onto a wide tree-lined street with tunnels that go up and down in the middle of it. I remember it from the first day I got to the city, when I was on the run from the cops.
“What is the name of this street?” I ask Afrim.
“Like I said, this is Avenue Louise. It’s one of the biggest streets in the city. You don’t know it?”
“Not really.”
“We get off here,” he instructs me. The stop, unsurprisingly, is called Louise. Ahead of me I can see this building with a gilded crown-like dome. It has scaffolding all around it. I think that this might be another part of the same ring road that the Croatian Residence and the Croatian Permanent Representation to the EU is on. I start to walk down it.
“Um,” Afrim starts behind me. “Maršal Elena, we need to take the metro now. He points to some steps that lead underground, toward the building with the scaffolding.
I point at that building, if for no other reason than to distract myself from what I’m planning with Drago. “What is that?”
“That’s the Palais de Justice. It’s never been out from under the scaffolding since I moved here, like by the time they finish refurbishing it, it’s time to do it again,” Afrim says as we walk down the stairs into the metro. I press my Mobi card against the red and white touch pad on the machines with the barrier. It opens. Afrim looks around. Then he climbs onto the top of the machine and jumps over the barrier before he continues, confused. “The Palais de Justice is one of the main landmarks in the city. You’ve never seen it, either?” He pauses for a moment, scrunching up his face.
“Nope. Unless it’s the area right around the Residence, the ULB and the VUB, the EU institutions or some random streets in Molenbeek, assume I’ve never seen it.”
There are another few seconds of silence between us, as the bustle continues in the metro corridor. Realization comes over Afrim’s face. “Wait a minute. You mean you’ve never even seen the old town, even though you live right next to it?”
“I guess not.”
We get into the metro car and grab hold of the railings. We take it all the way to what I guess are the outskirts of the city, then we walk to a really big parking lot. Truck after truck is lined up on the pavement. There are students, a lot of whom I recognize from the cargo containers, affixing a bunch of decorations to them. Most of the decorations look like they were made after a few cocktails. They have anti-war messages, which is the theme for this year’s Saint V’s Day parade. I see Drago on one of the big rigs near the middle. I assume it’s the truck we rented.
I get to work with the decorations. Afrim moves off and helps load the kegs of beer into the bed. I’m handed some beer in a plastic cup and I drink it, working alongside Drago. I still don’t say anything. I finish the beer and refill my glass from a watering can.
I’m about to turn to him, when I hear a vaguely familiar voice behind me. “So, this is the Social and Political Sciences Guild’s pathetic excuse for a float.”
I turn around to see Tone, the dipstick who almost hit me for touching his hat, right after I started class. He has a bottle of cheap champagne in his hand and takes a swig from it.
Drago slowly turns to him. “It’s not going to be so pathetic this year. You may have tried to screw us over, but we’re going to beat you and your Solvay people.”
“Oh really, and what makes you think we’re going to let that happen?”
“I don’t know if you heard, but this year we’ve got Swedish money.”
Tone rolls his eyes. “Yeah, I heard all about it. It’s making us all really nervous over at Solvay.” He takes a ripped piece of paper out of his pocket and walks over to the side of the truck where I’m sitting. He gives it to me. “Here’s my number. Give me a call if you want to hang out with someone your own age. Unlike these čefur street urchins, I actually know how to show you what a good time looks like.”
His voice has this weird cadence that I don’t like. “Just shut up and leave us alone,” I snap down at him.
He raises the bottle of champagne again, like I just paid him a compliment. “Whatever you say, Maršal. The sparkling wine may kiss the glass, but you, my dear…” he pauses for effect “…farewell.” Tone walks away. I stick his number in my coat pocket, wonder what that last part was all about and forget about it after about three seconds.
“What a prick,” I say under my breath, looking over at Drago, who is staring at Tone’s back. “Just ignore
him.”
Drago shakes his head as he gets back to work. “No, I’ve known him for longer than you have. Tone is many things but he is not stupid. He wouldn’t be acting this cocky unless he was up to something. I just don’t know what it is.”
We keep working for a few more minutes. I take another swig of beer. It finally gives me enough courage to look up at him and blurt what I assume is the most efficient, clear way of doing what Lara told me. “Look. I really like you and I think that after Saint V’s Day, we should get together.”
Instead of saying, ‘yes,’ like Lara said he might, Drago freezes, like I just stuck him with a livestock prod for some reason.
“What? Where the hell did that come from? Emilija and I are together, happily. You know that. Why would you even suggest otherwise?”
I hunch my shoulders. “Admit it. You’re only with her to get the money for the guild.”
“What? No. That’s not it at all. How could you say that?” He sticks a finger out at me. “You’re just making this up because you’re jealous.”
I look away, going from cocky to ashamed in about a second, not least because I realize he’s right.
Like she’s right on cue, I hear Emilija behind me. I look back. She is standing in front of her black luxury SUV, having just pulled up.
“Hey guys, am I interrupting something?”
“No,” I say quietly. “Nothing at all.”
Drago jumps down from the truck’s bed, which has the plastic tarp on the side, rolled up. He walks over to her. They hug.
She looks back at him, gazing into his eyes. “I just came to check on how things are going.”
“Pretty well,” Drago says.
“Great, want to grab dinner? There’s supposed to be this really good restaurant at the top of The Hotel, back in town.”
Battling Brexit Page 11