A Spare Life

by Lidija Dimkovska

  It was Friday, September 13, 1996. “Friday the thirteenth,” Srebra said that morning. “Yes, how did it happen to land on that date? Still, the evil eye won’t get us,” I said, thinking how our superstitions had come from our childhood, when, along with Roza and the other children, we would grab our hair whenever we saw a dead sparrow, or make a wish and count to three when an airplane flew over us, leaving a white line in its wake, or we would shout, “Pu-pu, mother from the grave, serpent in the grave,” or we would say, “I swear to God,” even when we hadn’t told the truth, or we avoided utility poles and didn’t walk under the wires lest some misfortune befall us, or we took care not to step over someone’s leg because that would keep us from growing taller, or, in the village, our grandmother would tell us not to look at each other in the mirror before bed or we might be married off by a Gypsy, and we shouldn’t light a fire before going to bed, because of the village superstition that the head of a match could make you wet yourself. There were many, many habits against superstitions from our childhood. But Friday the thirteenth had never been a part of that, for the simple reason that dates didn’t interest us, especially during the summer, when time flowed like sweat in the Skopje heat, or like a village game, without end. It was September 13, 1996. Bogdan tumbled into our room, eyes aflame. How handsome he was! It was only now I noticed how good-looking Bogdan was, what sort of man he had become, his body firm under his tee shirt, which read “Love your shit as you love yourself,” and his legs firm under his blue jeans. He carried a large plastic bag. He said, “Hi, I’m sorry I’m only just getting here, but I had so many things to do.” Then out of the bag he pulled his hotel bed-warming jumpsuit and quickly put it on over his clothes. While we lay on the bed, propped up with pillows and staring at him, he hopped onto the bed. First he got in beside Srebra, pushing her over to my side, and covered the bed with his body in the jumpsuit. Then he jumped around to the other side, to my side, but I was already at the edge of the bed, so he lay down on top of me. Srebra automatically pulled her body as far away as our heads allowed. Bogdan lay on top of me, just for a second, then jumped up, saying, “There, I’ve warmed you and your bed. Now they can do the operation, and I can give back this suit because I’m not going to be a bed warmer anymore.” I was confused, but Srebra laughed and said, “You’re crazy.” Then Darko came back into the room. He had been with us since early in the morning, and he sat down beside Srebra and stroked her face, and for an instant, his fingers also touched me. I immediately touched the icon of Zlata Meglenska in the pocket of my nightgown, and once again thought about how I would have to part with the icon, because we had been told very clearly we couldn’t have anything on us, no rings, earrings, or anything. We would be under deep anesthesia and would be naked, and there could be nothing else in the room, not a scrap of fabric, nothing, not even my glasses, and when we awoke, we would already be in our room or some other room in the hospital where all our personal effects would be waiting for us. A crazy idea went through my mind. I took the icon from my pocket and handed it to Bogdan, saying, “Keep this for me until the operation’s over.” He took it and looked at it in his hand as if some image from his memory had flashed into his mind. He held it, seeming to not know what to say. “Just until the operation is over,” I repeated, and he nodded. Soon the nurses came in and began to get the room ready. Bogdan appeared perplexed; he held the icon in his right hand, and with his left, he waved and said, “Good luck.” Then he darted from the room. Darko first kissed me on the cheek, then bent over and kissed every inch of Srebra’s face. His breath smelled of Orbit gum with a hint of watermelon. Suddenly, my mind seemed to expand, and I saw Srebra and me seated in Grandma’s yard, holding big slices of watermelon, “the heart,” as the older folks called it—the part they usually gave to the kids—and the juice flowed down between our legs, between our knees. It dripped all over us; our shorts were spattered; we ate and ate the red watermelon, and the smell of watermelon floated in my thoughts. I would fall asleep to the smell of watermelon, and perhaps Srebra would too, and we would wake with separate heads, separate lives. The nurse coughed discreetly; Darko pulled away from the bed, stood up, and said, “I’ll have my fingers crossed for you.” He left the room, and Srebra and I were silent. It was as if we both wished to say something. Yet we remained silent. It seemed obviously pathetic to say, “Forgive me” or “Good luck” or to make a joke, even ironically. So we were silent, and then the whole medical team was beside our special operating table, as well as another hundred or so doctors and nurses. Our doctor said, “There are a hundred people gathered here, just because of you,” then he added, “Have you decided whom we should save, if we can only save one?” I said, “Srebra! She has a husband, she wants to have a child, she wants to be a lawyer…” Srebra interrupted me. “Zlata. Until now, she hasn’t had anything of her own. Let her have her way for once.” The nurse handed us a document to sign. I grabbed it as quickly as I could, and circled Srebra. Then I signed it. Srebra had no choice and signed it as well. Then our neurosurgeon angel stood over us and, with a smile, wagged his finger like at a child, saying, “Now don’t you go and not survive on me.” Injections followed, and a quiet, intoxicating plunge into sleep, into a state of peace, calm, blessing, nonexistence.

  I did not witness anything that happened during this time, anything that happened to us, to me, or to Srebra. I heard everything from other people—Bogdan, Darko, our doctor. For the entire two days of the operation, Darko and Bogdan waited in the hallway. Only they know how they passed the time, which must have seemed to stretch into an eternity, an exhausting and powerless eternity. They slept in shifts on the benches in the hallway, and no one reproached them. On the contrary, a nurse brought them two sheets to cover themselves and offered them coffee and water. On Sunday morning, Bogdan left the hospital for a short time and took a bus to Manette Street in Soho, to the chapel of St. Barnabas, which the Macedonian Faith Association sometimes rented for holy services and whose chapel housed a center for the poor and homeless. The church was open, and a priest was celebrating the liturgy in Macedonian inside. It was the name day of Saint John the Baptist. Bogdan took my icon, clasping it in his hand throughout the service, and, as the city clock in Soho chimed ten, the liturgy ended. He looked around to see if anyone was watching, but the few worshipers were already leaving the church, and the priest wasn’t behind the altar, so Bogdan walked quickly down the left aisle and stuck my icon under the left altar door, crossed himself, and hurried away. He had no idea why he did it. It just occurred to him. He thought that if he put the icon in a church, God would have mercy on Srebra and me, and the operation would succeed. At critical moments people do unconsidered things. I had told him to keep it for me, but he left it in the church. He couldn’t carry the weight of the icon’s might alone; he needed God’s strength, and in London it was only at St. Barnabas where God was glorified in Macedonian. When he got back to the hospital, upset and worried by what he’d done, he was vacillating between repentance and approval of his actions. Darko was waiting for him in the hallway. “They’re about to tell us,” Darko said. “A nurse came out and said, ‘It’s all done.’ We just have to wait a bit for the doctor to wash up.” Indeed, after a short time, which seemed like an eternity, the doctor came into the hallway—tired, disheveled, unshaven, dejected, forever aged. He said to them, “Srebra did not survive.” “Srebra did not survive, and Zlata is still uncertain. Her life is hanging by a thread, but the bleeding stopped half an hour ago, and we might be able to save her.” No one said, “Srebra died,” only “She did not survive.” This wasn’t clear to me when I awoke, and after avoiding the question, “Where is Srebra?” for a long time, I was told the same thing. “Srebra did not survive.” “She bled every last drop,” one of the nurses said. The doctor clouded over at the remark, and, holding my hands, he said, “We separated you. The vein was on your side. We transferred Srebra’s blood to a different vein. There was no longer any connection between you. A hand co
uld pass between your heads, but a moment later you both began to bleed. No matter what we did to stop the bleeding—and we did everything, everything—Srebra wouldn’t stop. At one point, just at ten o’clock, her heart stopped, but you were bleeding less, and slowly you bled less and less until, at 10:25, it stopped. You survived. Srebra did not survive.” I moved between states of unconsciousness—dream, or intoxication, I don’t know which—a state of falling, almost hitting bottom in a deep chasm in which all that could be heard was the echo of a word: No. No no no… Later, perhaps the next day, Darko came into my room. He wept with his head in his hands, repeating, “Srebra did not survive. Srebra did not survive.” The nurse immediately led him out. After that, the doctor wouldn’t let either Darko or Bogdan into my room for several days. He sat beside my bed, always there when I awoke from half sleep, half unconsciousness. Before he would leave the room, he unlocked the door. In a moment between delirium and reality I thought, “I’m locked in,” but, as if reading my thoughts, he turned and said, “Zlata, the hospital is flooded with journalists. There are even some from Macedonia. I have to protect you.” “Where is Srebra?” I muttered, and it was that instant I realized that Srebra did not exist, that she would never exist again. “She’s in the morgue. You will leave together. Everything is arranged. You need to get a bit stronger. Another two or three weeks.” I would fall into the delirium of a therapeutic sleep and then awaken. A blunt pain throbbed above my temple, at the spot of the operation, but it wasn’t physical pain, but spiritual, the pain of my—of our—life. For the rest of my life I would continue to feel Srebra’s head next to mine. My head was wrapped completely with a thick casing of bandages. I was dazed, only half alive, without the strength to cry or to think. But in one of those eternal seconds, I remembered the icon. I desperately needed my little icon; it was the only thing I could grab onto, like a straw. Bogdan came in, his face frantic, aged, dejected. “The little icon,” I whispered, “Did you save it for me?” He nodded, but didn’t give it to me. I was too weak to ask him any more. I fell into a delirium and awoke for just a few seconds. When he next came, he gave it to me without a word. One side was chipped. A small piece of wood had broken off, as if it had been caught in a door. But I didn’t ask what had happened, because I had no strength to ask. He told me Darko was gone; people from the Macedonian embassy had taken him away—he was at the end of his strength and had begun to fight with the journalists in the hallway. But he, Bogdan, was here, and would remain here, with me.

  I knew nothing of what was happening. Darko hadn’t gone to Skopje, but to the consul’s house. He was waiting for the airplane that would fly us all back to Macedonia—me alive, Srebra dead in a casket, and him neither alive nor dead. Bogdan decided to go with us as well. It was all the same to me, I just couldn’t believe Srebra no longer existed. All the time I was conscious, I wondered if our mother and father knew. Surely, they hadn’t called to ask how things were going; I knew them too well to think that—they wouldn’t dial a foreign telephone number on their own dime, even if it were a matter of life or death. They would wait for us to call them, after everything was finished, of course. But I hadn’t called. Srebra did not survive. Surely they had learned from the media. After all, hadn’t the doctor said that there were journalists from Macedonia? But Darko had called them. He told our mother, “Srebra did not survive.” That’s all. Then everyone cried and mourned, each in his or her own way. When I felt strong enough, I gathered my strength and called them from the hospital room. My mother’s voice was barely audible. All she said was, “Ah, child.” In the background, I could hear my father’s sobs. I dropped the receiver. It was then that I, too, began to weep. I shouted and wept, I howled and sobbed. But Srebra could no longer hear me. Had she not survived so I could survive? Hadn’t we both signed the paper saying that she was to live? “Liars!” I shouted. “Liars!” “No,” the doctor said, “the separation of your heads was the same down to the millimeter. But the vein was on your side. Her blood killed her. It gushed from the vein into which we had diverted it, refusing to flow properly; we could not stanch it. No force alive could have stopped it. No one from the entire team managed to compress the capillaries and stop the flow. But yours stopped on its own. At exactly 10:25, it seemed to just dry up.”

  My wound had been wrapped with tremendous care. I was ready to leave. Srebra’s body was yearning for its grave in Macedonian soil. Accompanied by the Macedonian consul in London, we—Srebra in her casket, Darko, Bogdan, and I—left London by plane for Skopje. Journalists from around the world were at the airport, microphones and cameras focused on the plane. I made no statement. None of us did. We were silent, not looking at anyone. My head was wrapped in a special casing of different bandages. The lights from the cameras flashed in my eyes, which filled with tears behind my glasses. I don’t know how we reached Skopje. A hearse was waiting for us. The casket carrying Srebra was placed inside and then brought directly to the chapel in the cemetery. We were ushered into a black Mercedes, and the driver discreetly asked the diplomat where we should go. “Home,” I said at once. Bogdan gave him the address. There was no one in front of the entryway. Above, on the balcony, my father stood—a twig in black—swaying as if he might fall at any moment. It was as if he wasn’t even there. Darko, Bogdan, and I climbed the stairs to the apartment. Dad stood in front of the door. Terrible scenes of pain and tears followed. My mother and father were withered, lethargic, with dark circles under their eyes. My mother still managed to say to Darko, “You’re guilty of this. You drove them to it.” Darko said nothing and shielded himself with his arms gripped tightly across his chest. At first, they didn’t recognize Bogdan. They had no idea who he was or what he wanted, thinking he was from the embassy. Then the neighbors began to gather and our relatives arrived. They expressed their sympathy to me, stroking my face. They were sorry for Srebra, and it seemed as if they were not particularly happy I had been the one to survive. It was clear in their eyes, not their lips, twisted in pain. Auntie Dobrila recognized Bogdan, who sat beside me on the arm of the couch in our parents’ room, and she hugged him, then me, then him again. Darko stood by the window. The freezer gurgled, and the sound mixed with the sobs and cries in the room and through the whole apartment. Aunt Milka threw herself on the floor and cried, “Srebra! Ah, Srebra, where are you, apple of your Auntie’s eye? Who will be the lawyer in our family now? You left a husband, a sister, a mother, a father…” and on and on. Auntie Magda and Uncle Kole also came, and they caressed my shoulder, saying, “Zlata, now Srebra’s left us, too.” When Roza died, he had said, “Roza has left us.” Do I need to say the pain I felt after losing Srebra was twice as great as the pain of losing Roza? Just as my life was now twice as long, my pain was that much greater. When Roza died, I was a child. I wasn’t fully aware of the enormity of what was happening, and never completely understood her death. It was as if she moved somewhere, as if she disappeared from my life, not into death, but to some other place. It was like when people move away, when there’s sorrow and emptiness in the souls of those close to them, but not hopelessness as well. And the world is not so big; people may meet again sometime, somewhere. That’s how Roza vanished from my life, at least when I thought about it now, having lost Srebra. The pain was similar, but not the same. I don’t know. The burial was the day after our arrival in Skopje. The scenes repeated: sobs, my aunts fainting, our mother as pale as a dried-up rag, our father completely lost. I hadn’t hugged my mother or my father even once. Everyone else embraced me, but not them. Grandpa didn’t come. He was forbidden to, so as not to upset him in his old age. And he didn’t have the strength after our grandmother’s death, exactly forty days prior. My uncle, my mother’s brother, came alone, without his wife or my cousins. What a curse had befallen us. Why had everyone in our family started dying? Still, had my grandmother been alive, we would have had to bury her alongside Srebra. She couldn’t have endured it. The burial was teeming with journalists. I said nothing. The priest, the same one
who married Srebra and Darko, didn’t stop chanting “Lord have mercy.” Darko also said nothing. Nor did Bogdan. Not a word. Bogdan was sleeping at Auntie Dobrila’s. No food was served after the burial. I won on that at least. “No one will eat or drink because of Srebra’s death,” I told my mother. “No one!” Everyone just went his own way. Darko asked me if I needed anything. He clearly needed strength and support. Evidently, his parents were able to offer it to him. I surely could not.