A Spare Life

by Lidija Dimkovska

  I don’t know how the days following Srebra’s burial passed, or—even more—the first nights. I lay in our bed alone, and beside my head, it was as if Srebra’s head were there. But it wasn’t, and that fact jolted me like an electric current. So many things went through my mind… I sought the house I had imagined in childhood that magically lulled me to sleep with its warmth and comfort; it no longer existed, but I still recalled how it looked in my dreams. Now it was only an empty house, lifeless, abandoned by its own tenants. The time passed between delirium and reality, between our bed and the bench in the courtyard of our school, where, in the evening when the school day was done, Bogdan and I sat for hours, sometimes without uttering a single word. We sat and looked at the windows of our primary school, which hadn’t been renovated in all these years, at the monument no longer sporting the bust of our patron, at the fountain that Cvetko, our art teacher, had made—it had been placed in the schoolyard with great ceremony, but water never flowed from it. Also missing its bust was the half-hidden monument to Josip Broz Tito in front of the windows, where recess had been held and where our teacher Stojna gave Srebra and me a doll named Leila to play with. That’s where we made our one and only little umbrella out of matchsticks bound together with red wool thread, and our only International Women’s Day card with grains of corn and wheat glued to it, which Srebra and I then tucked under the couch in the kitchen along with an egg slicer as a present for our mother on the eighth of March. How our hearts had beat, waiting for her to come home from work. When she arrived, we poked both our heads under the couch and pulled out the present to give to her. But she just laughed, broadly, loudly, saying, “That’s just what we need—an egg slicer.” But when Srebra and I had examined the egg slicer in its little yellow box in the Slavija store, we had thought how wonderful it would be to have such a thing at home, so that when we boiled eggs for Easter we would be able to place them under the knifelike wires, and the egg would split into ten beautiful yellow and white slices. It was this school where Bogdan had read aloud his essay, “When You Hit Rock Bottom.” It was from this school that we had walked in rows of two toward Bogdan’s little house to see his dead mother. From this school, we went to see the dead parents of other classmates: Natalija’s father, Dejan’s mother. Srebra and I returned to this school after Roza died. Bogdan remembered the names of all our classmates, all the teachers and principals. He knew exactly who had sat where, with whom, what sort of winter jackets they wore, what kind of boots, if they had sneakers, who wore glasses, who had lice. Bogdan remembered everything. He even remembered the song “I wander the streets…,” which our classmate Juliana sang on every field trip and during breaks between classes. We sat on the bench, which had only two planks remaining, inscribed with names, arrows, hearts, and a variety of sayings. We looked at our childhood school, into emptiness, and Bogdan sang, “I wander the streets” in a quiet voice. I wanted to die, only that. I could shove my head in the oven or hang myself from the chandelier that had always hung from the ceiling a bit off-center in our childhood room, or drink a glass of the hydrochloric acid our mother used to clean the toilet bowl. I wanted to die instantly, for the ground to open beneath me and to simply fall, already dead, into my own grave, with no lead-up to death, no preliminaries. For the earth to close above me and for no one to think about me anymore—about Zlata with the head, the one who survived, while her sister, Srebra, did not. But I was alive, and all those thoughts and memories flooding my mind after Srebra’s burial were my organism’s self-defense. Life struggles for itself; like when your temperature rises and your body signals that it’s unwell, fighting the attacking viruses with heat. That is why I had those senseless memories and suicidal thoughts. I was battling against the pain. The left side of my head was still bandaged, which intensified the feeling that Srebra’s head was still there, bound with mine. Nothing could fill the feeling of emptiness I felt on that side. My left hand had been suddenly freed, but it didn’t know what to do in space; it had not yet learned how to extend horizontally, wave, grasp, take. I missed Srebra. I missed her body right there, right beside mine, her hair intertwining with mine, her breathing next to mine. Srebra and I separated so we could stop being “invalids,” and no longer have a “physical defect,” but now, with my body alone in the universe, without hers, I felt that the lack of her body, of her head, was a deficit. I felt I was missing an arm, a leg, a head. Now I was truly an invalid. Bogdan understood my pain, but my emptiness was something he couldn’t quite understand, the lostness, the powerlessness without Srebra’s body next to mine. “You’ll get used to it,” he said, “but I can’t guarantee you’ll get used to the fact that she died.” “Srebra did not survive,” I corrected him. “Srebra did not survive the operation she wanted so much and had anticipated since she was a child. Much more than I, she had longed for us to be separated. It was her choice. At any price. But I don’t know if she was really aware of the price.” In those weeks, Bogdan went to his mother’s grave several times. Alone. I went to Srebra’s, most often alone, but usually ran into Darko, who would then leave. He was slowly but surely distancing himself from me. He would leave me alone with my sister. He asked me if I wanted to come over and get my things. I told him I couldn’t; I didn’t want to go back there—it would be too difficult. “Please, bring me the books, all of Srebra’s and my books,” I told him. The following day, he brought me a box with the books, along with several bags of my clothes and other incidentals, such as makeup. “I’ll keep all of Srebra’s things,” he said, “in case you need anything.” He also called my parents and asked if they needed anything—perhaps to be driven somewhere—but they always refused. Our father was in no condition to drive our beat-up Škoda. His hands trembled too much, and he was constantly on the edge of tears. He had no one else to drive him to the cemetery, and it was hard to get there by bus. “I have to pay fifty denars to go, and fifty denars to get home,” I heard my mother explaining to Aunt Milka about why she didn’t go to the cemetery more often. Then she wept, sobbing into the receiver, but my aunt always talked over her. I couldn’t stand those scenes. I tossed and turned in the bed in our room. I lay there reading. Always the same things. Three books Bogdan brought me from downtown one day. “From Sonja, the used bookseller,” he said. Three thick volumes of Marina Tsvetaeva in a Serbian translation: one volume entitled Songs and Poems; another called On Art and Poetry and Portraits; and a third, Autobiographical Prose: My Pushkin; Letters. Each was inscribed, “In love.” I read the books in no particular order, without bending the pages. Tsvetaeva’s songs, her letters, her notes, her prose, everything, everything. I understood her, and she understood me. It was a different type of reading, different from everything else. I read, but from inside it, as if in sync with the rhythm of her writing. Each sentence was also mine. Everything that was hers was mine, and everything of mine was hers. With one hand, I turned the pages of the three books, with the other, I squeezed the icon. It poked me with its broken edge as my life, stretched like a corpse between Marina Tsvetaeva and Saint Zlata Meglenska, slowly revived. My life wanted to survive. Today, I know I wouldn’t have survived that period of my life without Marina Tsvetaeva and Saint Zlata Meglenska. I know. And not without Bogdan, although in the days right after Srebra’s burial, I didn’t know what I felt toward him. Gratitude, that is certain: a shoulder to cry on; support; a protector, although I don’t know from what or from whom; someone to recognize that I existed, that I had survived—something the journalists, with whom I didn’t wish to speak, wanted to document more than anything. I wasn’t ready. And never would be. Any contact with the media felt like a desecration of Srebra, as if I were becoming famous on her account, on her back, over her dead body. On television, I saw Darko give a statement about the money that had been designated for his wife’s and her sister’s operation. “Who will pay back the money, given that your wife didn’t survive?” the reporter asked. “Will you sue the hospital in London?” Darko’s face burned, and he said, “No,
I won’t. The chief neurosurgeon did everything possible, and even more. The chances for survival were very small, but both of them agreed to the operation. They signed off; each took responsibility for their separation.” The journalist ended the conversation by saying, “Their risk, but our bill.” I was stunned.

  Bogdan told me he had to leave. He had to return to London and find another job. At Auntie Dobrila’s, he just slept and gobbled down his breakfast. Auntie Dobrila would sometimes invite me for breakfast as well, usually when she was making cornmeal mush with yogurt and cheese. The day before he left, Auntie Dobrila asked, “Well, children, are you thinking about the future or not? How are you going to live with one of you in London and the other in Skopje? You’ve got to come up with a plan.” The food stuck in our throats. We were startled by the thought. It was the first time we grasped the weight of the separation before us. Having found each other by chance once, there surely wouldn’t be another chance. We left the apartment. In the entryway, on the stairs leading to the door where Roza used to live, Bogdan got up the courage to hug me. “Auntie Dobrila’s right,” he said. “How are we going to live from now on?” For the two of us, the question was of vital importance. “After all, when you were little, playing the fortune-telling game, didn’t you get a husband whose name started with the letter B?” Bogdan asked. “Aren’t I that man? The city was to begin with an S, and we’re in Skopje now. I’m not a multimillionaire, but I will be. And we’ll have only one child, although that’s a pity.” How was it possible Bogdan remembered the childish game we had played while he sat, immersed in the crossword puzzles from Brain Twisters? “Twenty-three years old,” he said. “That’s when you wanted to get married.” “That’s in the past already,” I said, and felt how true it was, how our game had been tragically fulfilled, in the most tragic way possible. Except for me. B was here; he would be a multimillionaire; he was from Skopje even if he lived in London; and it wasn’t so difficult to have one child. A wave of shame, fear, confusion, passion, and excitement washed over me, something I hadn’t felt before that moment. My God! I felt desire. I wanted to caress Bogdan. I wanted him to have me. I wanted to have him. As if I would find a balm for my wound, for my misfortune, in that gratification. The excitement was stronger than I was. I dragged him down the stairs to the basement. The laundry room was always open, and inside, there was only an old wooden table and a few pails of cheese. Everything was dusty and covered in spiderwebs. I closed the door behind us. I kissed him. And he me. We kissed passionately, stroking each other. Then Bogdan laid me on top of the old dusty table. He penetrated me as if for the last time, but it was my first, the first time with a man’s penis. We closed our mouths so we wouldn’t cry out too loud, and through the small basement window I saw blades of grass swaying back and forth. It took us a long time to regain our calm. Our hearts beat like crazy; we hugged and kissed each other some more. I think we both understood we wouldn’t be able to live without each other. And that was that, as they say.

  Bogdan left. I stayed with my parents, lost, broken, and empty, but at the same time, full of love, Eros, and a feeling of belonging. I belonged to Bogdan. I would do anything to be with him. Just as Srebra had done everything to be with Darko. In fact, even the operation had been because of Darko. I had to return to London. But there was no way for that to happen. My checkups were with a neurosurgeon at the Skopje clinic. He said the wound was healing well and I was a world phenomenon and asked whether I was aware that such operations were extremely rare and were usually failures, but not in my case. “You survived,” he said. “But Srebra did not,” I said. “Yes,” he said, “but it’s unrealistic to expect both of you to have survived. You gambled with your lives and each other’s. Russian roulette,” he said. “That’s what your operation was. That’s the reality. Didn’t you get separated so you could have a better, higher quality life? This is your chance. Now go do what you want. Be what you really are.” Yes, everything was as the doctor said, but I didn’t know who I was, I didn’t know what to do with myself. It was as if my I was inseparable from Srebra’s I and now that she no longer existed, I no longer had a singular I. The only thing I knew was that I wanted to be with Bogdan, wherever he was. I was drawn to him with my heart, my body, my life. My mother, father, and I scraped along in our sorrow, each in our own way, but most often in silence. My mother put on her blue robe. She wore it all the time, to let us know she was clearly not feeling well. Without Srebra, it was as if we had nothing else in common; her death alienated us even more. Surely, I was too harsh in my judgment, but I felt it would have been better had Srebra lived and not I. She and Darko would finally have been able to live like a real husband and wife; they could have had a child. Srebra would have become a lawyer, just as she had dreamed, and it would have pleased our parents. Everything would have been more normal had she been the one to survive. But I had no reason to live—I had just scraped through university in a field I didn’t like. It was hard to imagine myself in a law office or courtroom. I had no prospects, no boyfriend, though I was at the age when I was expected to have one. I was twenty-five years old, and I had nothing. Had I died, perhaps my parents would have started to love me. They wouldn’t have visited my grave, because it would be too complicated for them, just as it was to visit Srebra’s. They couldn’t manage to get to the cemetery by car or by bus; my mother was always sick with something; my father’s hands trembled so much that he couldn’t drive; taxis were expensive; buses were inconvenient, and so they’d remember me for their entire lives, and mourn for me, but wouldn’t visit my grave. Over time, my father would start dressing in brown again when he went out; my mother would wear her robe at home, but would occasionally put on a black blouse and go out. That’s how their lives would go on, filled with my death, as they were filled with Srebra’s now, but empty of my life.

  One day, when I returned from wandering aimlessly around the city—for the first time wearing contact lenses, which itched and brought tears to my eyes, beneath a pair of sunglasses, wrapped in a shawl, a hat, and a heavy cape, and looking down so no one would recognize me—I noticed that my mother had been in my room and had glued a calendar of naked women over the poster of the unforgettable Matevski exhibit of luminous spheres at the Daut Pasha gallery. The calendar was for 1997. One of the neighbors had probably given it to her. “Yes, I put it there, so you would know what day it is. New Year’s is coming,” my mother said, but I angrily tore down the calendar and ripped it up. Half of the Matevski poster came off with it; only one complete sphere remained on the wall. I recalled Srebra remarking that Matevski had painted us. “Our heads,” she had said, as the two of us walked, exhilarated and joyful, across the stone bridge. I was boiling with fury, rage, and sadness. I could no longer endure this home that was not a home, the non-home to which Srebra would never return, even to visit.

  It’s said that when you really, really don’t want something or when you want something very, very much, God the omnipotent takes notice. Toward the middle of December 1996, a letter arrived for me in Darko’s mailbox. Darko brought it over right away, and I noticed that he had become even thinner. He was growing a beard, and was still dressed in black. “You don’t come to Krivi Dol,” he said. No, I couldn’t go where I had gone with Srebra, where everyone would look at me with candid and sincere pity in their eyes. I went to Saint Petka every week, and there, standing awkwardly in the corner, I was alone with God. “I’m going to join the monastery,” Darko said. “There’s no more life for me out in the world.” And with that he quickly left. The letter was from the London hospital. It was a polite, formal letter from the hospital administration, and it didn’t fail to include this sentence: “Once again, we are very sad about what happened during the operation.” Then, “As a gesture of support and of our condolences for the death of your sister, we would like to return the funds to you that were spent on the operation. The entire team has agreed to give back their pay for your operation, and through this gesture, we hope the operation c
an be considered a humanitarian act that will serve to contribute to the development of contemporary neurosurgery. We ask that you send us your bank account number so we may forward you the funds.” I couldn’t believe it. That money wasn’t mine. It wasn’t ours. The Health Insurance Fund had paid, not through any regular process, but through connections. If Darko’s father weren’t the vice president of the opposition party, there would simply be no way we would have gotten the funds. Not a single doctor in Macedonia signed any form authorizing an operation abroad. That agreement was signed via some personal and party deals in which neither Srebra nor I was included. That Srebra had become a member of the party was an act she later had no time to reconsider. She left any thoughts about her connection to the party for after the operation. Surely, without her signature, Darko’s father’s party wouldn’t have helped us. Srebra had undersigned her death, and my life.

  I called the hospital in England, and told them the funds weren’t mine, but had to be returned to the Health Insurance Fund of Macedonia. I had nothing to do with it. Their answer, however, surprised me: the money couldn’t be returned to a state institution, because they wished to make the return of the funds an act of moral support for me, and for my family. It was precisely for that reason that every member of the team refused payment, and they hadn’t considered returning it to the fund. They didn’t trust Macedonian institutions and didn’t believe the fund would give it to me so I could begin a new life. The fund had made the payment, but that was the end of their involvement. What could I do? I faxed them my account number. By the next day, they had paid me 200,000 pounds. I was confused and astonished. I didn’t know what to do with the money. I called Darko, and asked him to meet with me. We met in a tea house in the Old Market. He hadn’t yet left for the monastery. He had aged a decade. Only the eyes behind his glasses were still the same. I told him what had happened. Darko said he had to think. He called me several hours later, his voice trembling. He was upset. He told me he had spoken with his father and told him about the money. His father said there was no question: The money had to be divided, 50,000 pounds for me, 50,000 pounds for the party, and 100,000 pounds to be returned to the fund. If it hadn’t been for his people, he said, the fund would have remained deaf to our entreaties. Darko added that his father said: “Zlata isn’t aware of what we did to get that money released, the pressure my men had to exert on the people at the fund. I even had to meet with the vice-premier, although we don’t get along. She isn’t aware of the sacrifices the party made for her, even though she didn’t wish to join it.” And he added: “The money has to be divided with the party. We are anticipating an election campaign, and we need it.” I was silent. Darko said, “That’s what politicians are like. That’s why I left the party. I don’t want to have anything more to do with that world. Nothing.” I had never found myself in a situation like that, involving financial machinations. The people in England had returned the funds, and their role in the process was done, but I, with 200,000 pounds in my account, felt poorer than I had ever been. I didn’t tell my parents. I told no one except Darko. Bogdan was far away. He called me once a week, and in those conversations, we mostly exchanged sentiments of love, but we rarely spoke about our everyday concerns and activities. He told me he was looking for work but it was difficult to find. He said, “I have money, though; that’s not the problem.” I didn’t tell him I also had a lot of money, too much for my needs. I couldn’t tell him that over the phone. I did not take a single pound from the bank. I didn’t know what the outcome with the party would be. But Darko’s father did not give in. He called me personally and was quite cold, as if he hadn’t been Srebra’s father-in-law, and wasn’t Darko’s father. He told me I had to go to their office immediately so we could take care of the business. That’s what he said: that I had to go. I greeted his team. The women looked at me with pity and curiosity. They expressed their condolences and offered me some juice. Darko’s father came in, and, behind him, the president of the party. “How are you?” Darko’s father asked me, but I declined to answer, shrugging my shoulders. I asked him, “You?” but he only said, “We’re getting by,” and then, professionally, he opened an envelope in front of him, took out a sheet of paper, and said, “This is all the information concerning the payment: bank, account number, address, everything. Take care of it today.” The party president smiled kindly. He said in English, “Fifty-fifty,” then added, “One hundred…,” laughing at his quip. “One hundred and fifty thousand goes to our account, and we’ll return 100,000 pounds to the fund. Don’t worry about that.” They didn’t say anything else to me. They had called me solely to give me the banking information.