By now he’d noticed Nora, and out of the corner of his eye he watched her for a few seconds, and then wrapped up his conversation and came over to her.
“Lovely evening?” he asked, smoothing his beard.
“Chilly,” answered Nora absently; she didn’t have it in her. No longer could she stomach conventional chats with people like him.
“Like to go in? Warm up? Have a drink?” Velimirović hopped about, rubbing his hands. Applause could be heard inside.
“No, thanks, on my way out. I’m done.” She tried to step around him.
“You’re not refusing your host’s hospitality, are you?” He leered, hyenalike.
“Well, I suppose I am. Yes.” Nora was already at the gate. “Nice place!” she called back as she shut it behind her. Seldom did she muster the courage for such brash repartee, and all the way to the center of the city her hands were still trembling. She didn’t feel like going back to her hotel room. Too early. The adrenaline had warmed her, so she thought she’d sit on one of the heated terraces in town and have a drink—maybe a stiff drink.
ÄÄÄ
Blue and green
how do I protect myself
from change?
by changing
As she came up to a crosswalk in the center of town, she wondered whose idea it could it have been to install equipment for clicking away the seconds in this impoverished city with its handful of traffic lights. She watched the seconds melt away on the digital display and wondered how much this must have cost, and whether somebody laundered money on the project, and then mused whether her perspective had become so warped that she saw malfeasance whereever she looked, unable now to enjoy even the smallest facts of life, like knowing how many seconds she’d have to wait to cross the street. Just as the pedestrian light turned green, Nora glanced at the first car waiting at the crosswalk and spotted the familiar face of the cab driver. He noticed her. She waved, relieved when he raised his hand and smiled, and then he gestured to her to cross the street. Nora stepped into the crosswalk and then stopped and leaned to his car window.
“Still here?” he shouted over the rumbling motor.
“Well, yes, I am,” she answered and smiled. “And so are you,” she added.
“Well, yes I am”—he nodded—“going nowhere but in circles.”
The display showed she had another eleven seconds before the cars would have the green light.
“Up for something . . . ?” She surprised herself, offering something to a cab driver she’d only met twice in her life. He raised his eyebrows, surprised, and repeated:
“Something?”
“Well, I was thinking, coffee, or a beer . . .” she said, though she looked a little tentative.
“You bet.” He was quick. “Find a place to sit over there at the 032. I’ll join you once I’ve parked”—the rest of his sentence was interrupted by the cars behind him honking, and Nora was going to have to wait for another forty-five seconds. She’d never done that before, but for some reason she felt no anxiety, nor that she was out of line. She was grateful for a familiar face this evening, for someone she didn’t know from a courtroom, the media, or the war. Caffe Bar 032 was right by the crosswalk, with nylon sidewalls around the terrace and waitresses wearing tight-fitting skimpy green dresses. She sat in the half-open section as one of the waitresses materialized at her side.
“Up for today’s special?” she asked in a shrill voice, with a broad grin. “Pelin bitters and cola, only seven kunas!” Jaw jutting, she waited for Nora’s answer.
In high school Nora had once nearly been through alcohol poisoning with bitters and cola, and she’d never tasted the stuff since, but there was something about the young woman, the hostess, and her earnest manner that made her decide to go along with it and give the bitters another chance.
“Sure, I’ll go with the special,” she said.
“Fabulous! And now you’re automatically entered into our contest!” Her euphoria seemed almost out of control, and Nora hoped the waitress wouldn’t ask anything more of her. She saw the taxi driver approaching the terrace, looking for her. He was wearing the leather jacket and jeans he’d been in the day before; he looked tired, and had a slight scowl, but when their gazes met, he smiled with his eyes.
“Excellent choice of table,” he said solemnly, though they were all the same, cramped and wobbly, organized so they took up as little space as possible.
“I’m choosy,” said Nora, shooting him a sideways glance.
He extended his hand over the table, looking her straight in the eyes.
“I’m Marko.”
“Nora,” she said. “Once again, though you knew that.”
“Have you managed to uncover anything for your story?” he asked, sitting across from her; apparently, he remembered every detail from their two brief encounters.
“Not much.” She stopped, and then chose to be sincere: “What is there to uncover? A tragic story people are getting off on, the mob who think they’re better, smarter, more ethical, that it could never happen to them. All in all, miserable people.”
“Yes, I agree.” He sounded as if he could see everything clearly. “But why, then, write about it?” He really wanted to know.
“Well, I have to. I work for the press”—she smiled—“and the real stories, the ones with something real to uncover, aren’t assigned to me.”
“Annnd heeere cooommmes the pelllin!” crooned the hostess in screechy tones, and leaning over the table, she shoved her overexposed breasts in Marko’s face, smiling flirtatiously. He moved back, with his chair, to make room for her.
“And for the gennntlemaaan? Will you try today’s little special?” As he moved away, she moved toward him.
“No, thanks; I’ll take an espresso.” He did what he could to look around, not at, her, though this was nearly impossible.
“Whaaat a shaaaame; what about a selfie with the two of us?” She flung her arm around his shoulders and reached into the pocket of her apron for her cell phone.
“Oh, no, truly no need.” He was polite but firm, although she was already pressing up against him. A smile escaped Nora, which he noticed, and it softened him.
“Hey,” began Nora, “so, you drive a cab, and this is a place you like.” She was teasing him a little and that made him smile. She realized her tone was perhaps a little too familiar, and that stopped her for a minute. “Sorry, I’m talking to you as if we’re old friends; but then again, we’re about the same age. Are you from around here?”
“More or less,” said Marko, smiling. “A childhood in a boring city nobody ever heard of until the war, then a go at being a student, then the army, then the black-hole time, then the cab in what is once again a boring city. The story of our generation, one you probably know.”
“Yes, for the most part.” Although he seemed like a straightforward, self-possessed man, Nora had the feeling there was a lot more there than just boredom and the story of their generation, but she was reluctant to press. She just wanted them to keep talking; it felt good.
“Well, fine; what do you think?” She switched the focus to what she was currently dealing with. “From the perspective of a boring cab driver, what was actually going on among the three of them?”
“Nobody except the three of them can know for sure, but as you said, the story is tragic. No point in turning this into an interethnic conflict, though unfortunately it will, clearly, be used for that by all sides.” He was deeply aware of where he lived.
“Where were you during the war?” Nora couldn’t stop herself from asking. She assumed he was in the army, and then maybe, like she, a refugee at a hotel on the coast.
“Here,” he answered plainly, and then looked her in the eyes. At first Nora didn’t get it.
“What do you mean, ‘here’? During the war?”
“Yes, during the war.”
“And afterward, too?” She was still groping to understand.
“Afterward, too.”
“Oh, I see.” Only then did she get it: Marko had been here the whole time, and yet she’d been thinking he was a Croat. She couldn’t have said why; in fact, there was no reason to have taken it for granted that he wasn’t a Serb. She drank down a big sip of her bitters and cola—every bit as disgusting as when she was in high school—and struggled to come up with what to say to keep the conversation going. She was afraid of what he’d say. She felt sure he’d come up with something along the lines of Is that a problem for you? and then things would get all awkward, but he didn’t. For a time both of them were quiet.
“So, what was that like?” she asked him. For the first time she was talking with someone who’d spent his youth in the city when it was razed to the ground.
“Bad. Thugs everywhere, people shooting guns all the time. The inflation devoured everything, the bread tasted like a kitchen sponge. We could see the lights of cities in the distance—Osijek, Novi Sad—and dreamed about what it must be like where there was electrical power, while here we were being fed the line that we were finally free.” He smiled gently. He was showing no restraint in responding to her questions; he wasn’t evasive or pretentious, his answers—candid. Nora listened, and then asked more questions. She couldn’t remember when someone’s story had so engaged her, when someone had so engaged her, and Marko was talking as if he were saying these things for the first time. About the city he hadn’t moved from, except to go around in circles. He said little about himself and mostly talked about the mood and the time, the people who’d disappeared. Nora talked about the coast, her recollections of the apartment they never came back to, her father who was killed in the war. Marko didn’t ask for more than she was willing to say; he just listened, especially to what she wasn’t saying. The hostess hovered near them several times, but neither of them noticed her. The terrace soon cleared out, and then they were the only guests left in the café. They didn’t feel like going, but there was no particular reason to stay, except for their conversation which was unfolding outside of the time and context in which they found themselves, and there was still so much to talk about. Closing time was near; the waiter had already begun threading the cord through the table legs of the tables near them, hurrying to finish his shift.
“We really ought to be moving along . . .” she said, not entirely convinced.
“Yes, it’s late; nobody works after eleven here.”
“I’m guessing the party I was at before we ran into each other is still hopping, but there’s no point in going back there.” She smiled at the very idea.
“What party?” Marko asked.
“Oh, a reading from an awful book of poems at the Serbian consulate. A madhouse. Really,” she said with a conspiratorial nod.
“How did you end up there? Poetry lover?” he teased.
“Well, more a case of phenomenological research. A real vampire’s ball—with City Councillor Velimirović leading the charge.” At her mention of the name, a shadow crossed Marko’s face, and his mood changed to serious.
“Not the best company, Nora,” he said seriously. “Watch out for guys like him.”
“Why, do you know him?” His remark interested her, especially considering that Marko was a Serb.
“I know them all, far better than I’d like,” was all he’d say.
“Oh, they’re all the same. On both sides,” added Nora.
Marko looked in silence at the table in front of him; he seemed dark again, as he’d been when he arrived. He reached for the cigarettes, quite close to her hand and the lighter she was holding, and asked, with his eyes, if he might use it. Until then he hadn’t been smoking. With the edge of his palm he brushed her fingers and Nora thought how warm his skin was against the night air which was turning brisk. He exhaled smoke, looked at her, and said:
“There aren’t two sides. You must know that.”
She looked at him, her eyes questioning.
“Here in the city, as nowhere else in the world. There aren’t two sides. You’re either with them on the inside or you’re out, and then you’re outside of everything. Alone, mostly. The political parties here are merely an illusion which has reached the point of seeming to be real. And that’s why all of this is as it is.”
She understood him, though he wasn’t speaking of any one public figure or party in particular; the clarity of his thinking worked its way into her mind, through her skin, under everything. She had the feeling that he was dragging behind him two tons of something dark, heavy, and fierce, out of which he spoke. She had the sense that he knew much more about the people and goings-on in the city than he let on. During the evening she noticed how his way of speaking was a combination of the words and phrases used by both sides. He sounded so natural, she thought, maybe that was why he was easier to understand than the others; his language hadn’t been broken. When the entire world they’d lived in collapsed, the language they’d spoken collapsed, too, and after that, thinking was no longer as easy. With your language broken, with all the words that are now out of bounds and proscribed, how is it even possible to think? Marko took what he needed and was unfettered in doing so, speaking softer or harder as the moment suited him. All this went through her head as she listened to him talk.
“Velimirović and Ilinčić are sustaining an illusion? Is that what you want to say?’ she asked, nudging him to be specific.
“Stay away from those men, Nora.” His voice went deep and quiet.
“I can’t,” she blurted. She hadn’t meant to say that. She’d told him nothing about her father except that he’d been killed, nor how Ilinčić’s name had long been associated with the case of the murder of the Osijek policeman. Nor how she’d been circling around all these people, trying to persuade even herself that her trajectory was random, while at the same time inching closer to them, step by step.
“They’ve destroyed everything,” she said.
“I know. So don’t let them destroy you,” he warned her gently. “Shall we?” He stubbed his cigarette.
“Let’s,” she agreed. “Thanks for your company.” She felt a need to say something like that, though nothing of what they’d exchanged this evening fit into usual conventionality.
“I’ll see you to the hotel.” This didn’t sound conventional; it sounded natural. The waiter, already in his coat, was waiting for them to leave so he could lock up. There was nobody left in town, the rutted main street under the streetlamps looked like a fresh scar on deeply creased skin. They walked along side by side, their steps loosely coordinated, occasionally losing the rhythm when stumbing over the chunks of broken pavement. Marko walked with his hands in his pockets, but then all at once Nora slipped hers into the empty space between his body and his elbow. She was tired of losing the rhythm, and this was a simpler way to walk. Marko didn’t say a word, he didn’t look at her, he didn’t betray that anything had changed, but she felt him press her arm to his body. They no longer noticed. The walk to the hotel took no more than five minutes in real time; the other dimension eluded calculation. They stood in front of the entrance to the hotel building, where not a single light was on.
“Will you give me your number, if I need a cab?” She glanced at him out of the corner of her eye.
“Of course,” he nodded, and added: “I’m here for you any time.”
She entered the number in her phone and put it back in her backpack.
We Trade Our Night for Someone Else's Day Page 8