A Spare Life

by Lidija Dimkovska

  We actively sought funds: writing letters and sending requests to hospitals around the world for days on end. Our father still came to visit, and we put groceries into a bag when he left, never mentioning our operation, although he saw the brochures from hospitals, our open address book with telephone numbers, letters, and stamps scattered on the small table in the living room. Whenever we called our mother, she told us bizarre things. She said that Aunt Ivanka had come to visit and had told her, “Mirko is lying in one bed sick from all those teas of his, and Lenka is in another, neither dead nor alive.” After one of their visits to the village, she told us that, in a bedroom cupboard in the village, she found a nest with eggs inside. Now, who would have put it there if not Snežana, our unloved aunt? Our mother had fainted, and an ambulance came, barely saving her. Snežana had been at Aunt Milka’s for All Saints’ Day, and while she was there Aunt Milka lay down, unable to move for two hours. But Snežana released her, still alive. Aunt Milka said she would become anxious from time to time, and would feel like everything was collapsing. “Why?” we asked our mother. “Poverty,” she answered. Yes, poverty drives people crazy. In Macedonia, more and more people were going crazy. Our mother cried, complaining that our uncle hadn’t come to the village for the entire two weeks they were there. We defended him, saying it wasn’t his fault—Snežana was his wife; after all, he lives with her, and the time he spent living with us was too short for him to love us more than his wife.

  Darko’s mother and family rarely came, but when they did they brought full bags of groceries, saying that they had been to the store for themselves, and had picked up things for us that might come in handy. Then all we would talk about was the operation. His father always said, “It will happen, it will happen; I’m working on it.” Then one day he said, “Why don’t you become members of the party like Darko? That would help things along, and, of course, it’s easier to request money for a member of one’s own party than for just anyone.” “Everything is easier with a party membership card,” his mother said. “And it’s not only that, it’s necessary—people need to belong somewhere. It’s not like it was before 1991, when everyone could be a member of the party or not and it didn’t matter, because as long as there was socialism, there was no opposition.” That shocked me. But Srebra said, “If that’s what we have to do, we’ll do it.” “Excellent,” Darko’s father said. “Come to our office on Monday. We’ll take care of everything, and people will get to meet you and understand what I’m always talking about, and then it will certainly be easier to find the money.” That evening, the three of us argued. I argued with Srebra, because I didn’t consider it right to join Darko’s father’s party just so we could get the money; Srebra argued with me because she insisted that we join, officially. “What does it matter to us?” she said. “The most important thing is that we find the money; everything else is secondary.” “Even if it means stepping over corpses?” I asked her, but she said, “Whose corpses?” “Morals are a corpse,” I told her, but she said, “You don’t even know what you’re talking about. A corpse is the baby I no longer have. That is a corpse.” Our quarrels always unfolded in parallel—we spoke next to each other because we couldn’t look each other in the eye. This made it seem as if we were talking into the air. Our disagreements never ended or resolved. Darko argued with both of us: with Srebra, to convince her that even if she didn’t join the party, he would still do everything to get the money and that it was dishonorable to become a member just for that reason and without ideological conviction; she would be using the party, and he was surprised by how Srebra had changed. Hadn’t she been interested in politics? Hadn’t she finished a law degree? Wasn’t she the one who understood such things? Darko argued with me because, he said, I had no political convictions. I wasn’t for things or against them; it was all the same to me who was in power and what happened to us. He said, “You only think about yourself. You read novels, and that’s it.” Then I reminded him that in Bosnia there was still shooting and killing, but no one here paid any attention to it any longer and he and his party hadn’t lifted a finger to help. But he shot back immediately that that wasn’t true—many volunteers in the Bosnian refugee organizations were, in fact, members of the party. We talked about all sorts of things that evening. I even heard myself say to him, “Your Orthodox people killed children in Srebrenica.” But Srebra yelled at me, “His? So, you’re not Orthodox?” “No,” I said, “I’m of the Orthodox faith, but the Orthodox are those who ostensibly believe in God but only through their sense of national identity.” The discussion lasted the whole weekend. We shouted, kept silent, pleaded with each other, ate, and cried. What topics didn’t we cover! Whether Dostoevsky was a generally Christian writer or more specifically an Orthodox one. Was the Russian philosopher Berdyaev correct when he talked about the perfection of Christianity and the imperfection of Christians? Would it have been better for Yugoslavia to stay together? Who was to blame for the war: the Serbs, the Slovenes, the Americans, or Tito? Were young people in 1968, about whom we had heard from our parents, more engaged than today’s youth? Should there be a death penalty? Is party membership necessary? We were wrung out from these long discussions—angry, calmed, exhausted. We didn’t go to services at Krivi Dol that Sunday morning. We felt it would be a desecration to hear the holy liturgy with such thoughts in our heads. On Monday, Srebra dragged me from the apartment. She had resolved to get her party membership card, and I was also resolved—resolved not to get one. “Let’s walk through the city first,” I said, and instead of going straight downtown, we got off the bus by the National Theater. Something pulled me toward the National Gallery of Art, housed in the fifteenth-century Daut Pasha baths—its breast-shaped domes with their erect nipples poking into the air so seductive, so erotic. The cashier just said, “Go on” and let us in without paying. It was probably because of our heads; we were often admitted for free. It was usually the older women who worked as cashiers, and they, it seemed, felt pity for us, but then they would spit against the evil eye and pray that such a thing didn’t happen in their families. We entered the left wing of the baths, behind the piano. On the walls were large paintings of radiating spheres by someone named Matevski—one of ours, a Macedonian who lived in Paris. Oh, how those spheres washed over me, how their colors—red, orange, yellow, white—struck me, leveling me. I had never seen such colors before; the globes were fully four-dimensional: a saturated color, a light gathered like a dewdrop, a concentrate of light, a well of light. My blood rushed to my head and my cheeks burned. Srebra, too, was enthralled by what she saw. I couldn’t contain my delight. My heart was beating madly, and I couldn’t calm myself. I took off my glasses and I could still see all those spheres, so dramatic that I could see them even without my thick lenses. Matevski became my Matevski, the Macedonian painter of my life. Srebra laughed hysterically, saying how remarkable, how impossible it was: “Look over here,” she said. “He’s painted our heads. Look how the spheres touch and intersect one another, and inside, there, that is definitely us.” After we stood a long time in front of the paintings, we left dazed, picking up some posters that stood on a small shelf by the ticket window, and then tottered over the stone bridge, staring at them. We stumbled over each other, laughed, and almost sang, while the passersby looked at us then turned away, horrified by the sight and the atmosphere that surrounded us. “Do you still want to join the party?” I asked, when we had finally calmed ourselves and had arrived in the city center. “Well, why not?” she asked. “Come on, let’s go to London or Paris. Let’s find this Matevski, too, and let’s get separated. Let’s begin a new life.” “Then will you forgive me?” I asked, and she began to whistle, to whistle like a lark. It was so lively, so filled with energy that I just let it go. It was the first time since the abortion that she had been like this, normal. We went to the party headquarters, where they had been waiting so long that Darko’s father had been getting nervous. He presented us by saying, “This one is my daughter-in-law, and
this one is her sister.” Everyone greeted us, smiling, bright, clean-shaven, freshly combed, kind, not staring, only looking discreetly and with concern at our heads. Then, suddenly, with glasses of juice and Evropa chocolates, the forms were brought in. Srebra immediately filled hers out, but I just looked at mine, reading it but not taking the proffered pen with the party logo. Srebra signed hers and gave it to the secretary, but I said, “I can’t join now.” Darko’s father’s face turned red, but he said nothing. They served us coffee, and while Srebra chewed a chocolate, the party secretary said, “So, you are seeking funds for your operation. The country must help people like you, but look who’s leading it: former Communists. Nothing functions as it should, but we are already working on it; the money will be found.” “The money will be found,” Darko’s father repeated as he led us to the door. The others waved to us, smiling, saying, “Goodbye and good luck.”

  1996

  “The money’s been found,” Darko said one day, several months after Srebra joined the party. “We’re going to London.” “We’re going?” I asked, in surprise, not knowing whether “we” meant Darko was coming with us or only that Srebra and I were headed to London, the destination we had dreamed of for so long—not as tourists, but for the realization of our fate. “Yes, we’re going,” Darko said again, hugging both of us. “How could I let you go alone?” Srebra pulled me over and nestled beside him. She pulled his arms around her waist, while I stood within their embrace, restrained, motionless. “Everything’s arranged,” said Darko. “I’ve bought the tickets and have visas for you, well, not yet actually, because they wouldn’t give them to me without you there, but my father went to dinner with the British ambassador and told him the whole story. The ambassador already knew everything, though he’d already talked to the hospital in London. You have no idea the network that has been assembled for you, how many people are preparing for your operation—diplomats, doctors, and journalists, the whole world. I wanted it to be a surprise, and now we can really go. Tomorrow morning at seven o’clock.” Darko was speaking excitedly. We stared into space above his head, mouths open, our breaths intermingling. It was rare that Srebra and I smelled good to each other, but at that moment our throats, our viscera, emitted scents that were floral instead of sour. A warm bliss spread through our souls, as if some spirit (the Holy one?) had settled within us. Our hearts beat with excitement and a bit of fear, though we weren’t thinking about the fear. It seemed that our departure for London predestined success, as if the trip to London was, in and of itself, the uncomplicated separation of our heads. No, we didn’t feel the fear, uncertainty, or worry. All those feelings arrived later that afternoon, when we went to tell our parents the day had come for our trip to London and our separation. “What’s wrong with how you are?” our mother asked. “You’re risking everything for this stupidity. That operation is difficult, and no one is giving you a guarantee. But go, since you’re so obstinate.” “You know best,” our father said. “Do whatever you want. You’re not children.” We sat in the dining room—Srebra and I, on the chairs we had always pulled side by side, our father and Darko sitting across from us—while our mother stood at the head of the table, where there was no chair, because it was leaning up against the wall. Darko drank rakija and said nothing. However, after our mother and father said what they had to say and we sat in silence with our chests full of that well-known feeling of powerlessness and anger, Darko said, “They’re not children, and the time has come for them to be separated.” Then he stood up, and we stood up after him, and, I don’t know how, we said goodbye to our mother and father. We offered them our hands, then our faces, two for one. They quickly kissed us, me on the left cheek, Srebra on the right. They shook Darko’s hand, and we left. I don’t know why, but, as we walked down the stairs, I crossed myself just as we passed Roza’s door. I crossed myself automatically, just as my mother did before every trip, murmuring, “Oh, Lord God! Oh, Lord God!” We left quickly. As always, Uncle Blaško was sitting on the balcony, and he greeted us, as always, with “Howdy Do!” Then we ducked into Darko’s car and set off, hurrying home to pack. Early the next morning, Darko’s mother and father came over. They hugged us, wished us luck, and shoved money into Darko’s hand. He said, “Everything’s already been paid for, right? The hotel, hospital, and operation?” They replied, “This is to help you get settled and to see a bit of London. You’ve never been there before.” Our passports were stamped with three-month British visas—tourist visas—and Srebra laughed. I said to her, “Wouldn’t you rather have a work visa?” and all of us laughed in the taxi as we drove to the airport in Petrovec with ecstasy, optimism, and high spirits. But as we passed our primary school, on the road to the airport, something tightened in my chest—sharp, like pincers. Srebra likely felt it as well, because both of us fell silent, and within us grew a kernel of worry and uncertainty mixed with a feeling of transiency, of nostalgia for our small pale red school, where, with conjoined heads, we had spent our childhood days. Now we were driving along the road we had gazed at through the school windows and from the schoolyard for eight long years. It had seemed to us then, as children, that this road led somewhere far away, to a brighter future, that we could flee along this road from home and into the world. Here we were, traveling along this very road, toward a brighter future in which each of us would find her own life, with her own head. “Will you ever forgive me for what happened?” I asked Srebra in my mind, while pressing the icon in my pocket. “God will forgive you; he’s your friend,” I heard her voice say in my head with its familiar cynicism. Then I imagined her voice asking, “Tell me this, at least: Was it good for you?” “I don’t know,” I responded in my head again. “You can believe it or not, but Darko and I didn’t have sex, not the way you think. Just with our hands,” I thought, cheeks flaming. “Ah, hand jobs. What a good idea. When we’re separated, I’ll have sex with him like that too.” That is how Srebra’s inner voice spoke to me, while in the car it was quiet, Darko’s hand resting on Srebra’s shoulder. I turned my left shoulder away, as far as my head would allow. The radio was playing some psychedelic song by the group Dead Can Dance. Had Darko chosen the seventeenth of August 1996 for our flight to London on purpose? It was our birthday; we were turning twenty-four. For all twenty-four of those years, Srebra and I had carried our heads together. She had a husband and a dead child; I didn’t even have that. We were living at the wrong time, in the wrong place, in the wrong bodies.

  On the plane, Darko was in front of Srebra and me, seated beside a passenger holding a briefcase on his knees. Darko must have looked at him inquisitively, because the man turned and told him he was going to London to see how things were progressing with the Macedonian denar. He told him how, at any moment, the Royal Mint would be producing a gold denar with the crest of Macedonia on one side and storks on the other. “To commemorate the fifth year of our independence,” he said. Darko said this was the first time he had heard anything about it. “Is Macedonian money really made in London?” he asked. “We don’t have a mint or a printing facility for money,” the man with the briefcase said. “London is the best place for that.” It seemed that London was best for everything—for money and for separating heads. Heads or tails, the flip of a coin could settle the fate of a life, a country, or a person. Srebra swallowed a lump in her throat. I said nothing, though I suspect we were thinking the same thing. I immersed myself more deeply in Sabato’s novel The Tunnel, and she into Seneca’s Letters from a Stoic. Darko didn’t mention his conversation with the man beside him, who, when we landed, immediately disappeared in the crowd. In London, a black taxi brought us to our hotel in Kensington, the Golden Star Hotel, a tall, modern hotel, nothing like the old architectural style of London. It felt familiar, resembling the Hotel Continental in Skopje, on the outside at least. Inside, however, the conditioned air suspended between the red velvet armchairs and couches was lapping against us. Everything inside sparkled: the elevator doors, the small hallway tables, the neckties o
f the men working the front desk, and the women’s neatly pinned-up hair. The black skin of the porter’s face shone like a diamond, completely in keeping with the sparkling chic of the hotel with its red carpet and silver plates piled with red apples. We were given rooms on the eleventh floor, one with a double bed and one with a single.