I pulled the wool over his eyes for as long as I could: in addition to my high-school books I ordered books on the basics of electronic engineering and read up on the subject just enough to be able to isolate the problem with a broken lamp or television, a computer or mobile phone, and to fix them. Everything else was straightforward—after all, my father didn’t particularly care how or where we spent our time. As long as it looked like we were doing what he’d said, he was happy.
A few months later I moved away from home. I slipped a piece of paper into a pile of bills and managed to get him to sign it. The school is too far away and I won’t graduate in time. I’ll become an electrician if I can live in the school dorm. You need to sign this consent form, then I can get a job and give you part of my monthly salary.
My older siblings had already moved to different towns and had nothing to do with him any longer. But he continued lying to me, telling me he was still in touch with them. I saw your sister today. She hates you. That’s what she told me, to my face. What do you think of that?
I carried the final box of stuff to my friend’s car, and in a deviation from my original plan I went back up the stairs to the top floor of our apartment building to destroy his dream and see it come crashing down. I wanted revenge, wanted to hurt him so much that he would turn in his grave for all eternity out of sheer bitterness. I wanted to say something so appalling that my words would scratch and bloody his skin.
I’ve tricked you, I began. All this time I’ve been tricking you, getting you to believe my lies. Now he was listening, his ears pricked. He looked at me, his eyes prowling and predatory, his body backing up as though he were getting ready to attack. There never was a technical college. I asked for money for those two books, but I spent it all on cigarettes and clothes, wasted it on tattoos and piercings and alcohol. How does that feel? Tell me. I want to know how that feels.
He said nothing but leaped toward me in two enormous steps before I had time to take a step backward. He pulled his arm back to gather as much force as possible.
I fell to the floor and gripped my jaw. It felt somehow detached, dislocated, warm, and it smelled of his strong aftershave. I stood up and tried to dive out of his way, to run out to the balcony, swing one of my legs over the railings and slide down the gutter, anyhow, anywhere, but my father grabbed me. He laughed at my indecision: Why had I stopped to ponder the best way to get down from the third floor? Not that smart after all, are you?
He closed the balcony door after dragging me back inside. He had always been like this, I thought. He’ll never change. He flicked the venetian blinds shut. Then he walked up to me, pressed his forearm against my throat, and stood in front of me huffing and puffing.
—
For the majority of my childhood, I’d wished my father would die. I prayed. Whenever I saw him thrust his empty plate in front of my mother’s face without saying a word—she was supposed to realize this meant he wanted more food—or whenever he threw his stinking socks in her lap, when I listened to the unpleasant comments he spouted, saw how judgmental and opinionated he was about everything around him, I knew he would never bring happiness to anyone.
Don’t you ever bring Finnish people into my home.
Don’t you ever tell anyone that we don’t have money.
Don’t you ever call me a liar.
I wanted him to suffer for as long and as painfully as possible. I wanted him to choke underwater, suffocate in an airless wooden box, thrashing like a fish on dry land. I wanted him to take his last breath in a coffin that reeked of his own sour, tobacco-stinking breath. His bones would shrivel inward, he would split like a watermelon dropped on a concrete floor, collapse like a house of cards. They’d find him frozen to death beneath a snowdrift, naked, without any identification, and nobody would ever know who he was or what had happened to him because nobody would ask after him.
“You’re mad!” he shouted, shook his head, and finally threw me to the ground. I took a few croaking breaths as though a sheet of tissue paper had been held up against my mouth. “Mad! Do you hear me?” he raved and punched the wall.
I’d fallen in front of him, propped on my knees, which had thudded to the floor like a pair of iron bars. The trickle of blood oozing from the corner of my eye had reached my jaw. He was about to leave when he decided to take a step toward me and look at me one last time.
He laid his hand on my head and stroked my hair, and for a moment I thought he might be about to apologize to me. Instead he wrenched my head back with such force that I heard something crack in my neck, and all I could see were his yellowed teeth and red face as he spat at me.
“Get out of here, o qen, you dog, o gomar, you donkey.”
That was the last time I saw him; after that we were both free of each other. I returned to my friend’s car, smiled, and said that everything was finally all right. As for my father, I never saw him again because he soon returned to Kosovo and never came back.
—
As a child the first emotion I fully recognized was the feeling of shame. When my parents asked for driving directions in mangled Finnish I sank into the backseat and tried to make myself so small that nobody would see me and felt utterly ashamed. When they asked whether there was any pork in basic groceries, the storekeepers glowered at them like criminals and didn’t understand a word. I hid beneath the counter and waited until they had walked a short distance ahead. Only then did I follow them, careful that no one accidentally thought I was with them.
When they were forced to come to parent evenings at school, I prayed that they would be quiet, that they wouldn’t speak to anyone. When they had an appointment at the social-security office, I prayed again and hoped they wouldn’t ask me to come along and interpret for them.
For a long time, I believed that they simply didn’t understand how other people saw them, why people gawped at them or why talking loudly in a foreign language elicited such reactions, stares, and shakes of the head. Only much later did I realize that they only pretended not to understand, because it made living that bit easier.
We were allowed to come and go as we pleased and we didn’t have curfews. There were only two rules in our house: we weren’t allowed to make a racket and we were certainly not allowed to challenge our parents.
Sometimes, not often, my father talked to us about God—as if every now and then he awoke to the thought that it had been a while since he last wondered what God would say about the choices he’d made. He would stand behind us to make sure we were praying, though he wouldn’t pray himself. He told us that everything, the whole universe, humans, animals, and all their movements, deeds, and words, were foretold in the word of God. He drew the globe in the air with his fingers and said, “He is everywhere, he who will save us, he who will show us mercy and forgive us our sins. Right now he is sitting up there with a pen in his hand writing out the future of everything in the universe. Your future, and yours, and yours.”
He took a breath as though he was moved by his own words.
“You should be afraid of God because he has an eraser too, and he’ll use it if need be. Though he might have written out a glorious future for you, he can just as easily take it away. Your belongings, your health, your family and friends. Then there will be nothing you can do but cause pain to those around you, because there will be nobody up there to forgive your sins.”
Spring 1980
FIRST REVELATION
It was half past four when I heard the sounds of my wedding, the incessant tooting of car horns. Everyone must hear and know that somewhere a bride was about to be fetched. A moment later a white Zastava swerved into the yard. Before long there were five cars, and soon the yard was filled with the clamor of cars.
A man stepped out of the white car, straightened his tie, slowly turned his head toward the front of the house, took off his sunglasses and looked around, then slammed the car door shut with a resounding thump.
When people realized that the man was Bajram, time seemed t
o stop. For a few seconds not even the clocks ticked and nobody moved; not even the wind blew. It was as though everyone had been asked to stand still and pose for a photograph. We were an empty blackboard and Bajram a wet rag splatted right in the middle. He turned and began slowly walking up to the house like drops of water trickling down the board.
Why is he here? What on earth is he doing here? I asked my mother. The groom wasn’t supposed to fetch the bride; that was a job for the men of his family. But now here he was. He waved a greeting to my father, sitting in his chair in the yard, and walked up to him.
“I don’t know,” answered my mother as my tearful sister Fatime whispered something in her ear. “I truly don’t know,” she repeated and a strange expression came across her face, as though she had just heard that someone had died.
—
She had never heard of a man who arrived with his wedding entourage. The groom was supposed to wait at home and the entourage would bring his bride to him. Why wasn’t he afraid of what people might say about him? she asked herself in disbelief and gripped the hem of her wedding dress. Why is he going around causing a panic like this?
Bajram shook hands with the girl’s father and quickly exchanged the customary greetings. After being given permission, Bajram sat down next to the girl’s father. The two men looked serious. A moment later Bajram took a cigarette out of his pocket and lit it with his left hand, while sheltering the lighter from the wind with his right. His head leaned to one side as though he had pulled a muscle in his neck.
“Sunny day,” he said eventually, sucked on his cigarette, and blew the smoke out of his lungs. “I absolutely wanted to come along, zotëri. I couldn’t stay at home. Not on a day like this.”
“I understand,” said the girl’s father, though he didn’t know whether to be flattered or offended by Bajram’s audacity.
Her father was taken aback that the man struck up conversation with such ease, as though he were taking care of everyday business. He looked at the man’s leg, which was stretched out into his personal space. Was the man insane, thought her father, or did he simply want to give a certain impression of himself: here is a man who carries himself lightly and does not take matters too seriously. Or could it be the case that the man had joined the entourage on a moment’s whim? After all, on a day like this anybody could lose his sense of judgment or even his mind.
Her father lit a cigarette in a show of friendship and cleared his throat. The cars parked outside were like mosquitoes seeking out a trickle of blood, she thought as she stared at them through the window. The men stepping out of them smoked cigarettes and slowly made their way toward the food laid out on the table.
“Have the festivities here gone well?” Bajram stretched his leg out even farther and put one of his hands in his pocket. “Ours have been excellent.”
“Yes, indeed,” her father said, cleared his throat again, and shifted position in his chair, as though he were talking to Bajram with his body.
“Back home my grandparents and my mother are eager to see Emine. My parents know your fine family well. They have no reason to doubt my judgment, because your name is unblemished and highly regarded. I am a very happy man. Allow me to assure you that Emine will be every bit as happy. She is in good hands. I am a good man, of that you can be sure,” Bajram said in a single breath before filling his lungs once again with smoke.
People gathered round the tables, foremost among them the men of Bajram’s family, for whom the girl’s siblings poured juice, coffee, and tea. But their speech was quiet and expectant, not nearly as brash as she had expected.
About an hour later Bajram suddenly stood up. This made everybody stop in mid conversation. His confidence was like a wave the size of an entire building, thought her father. He too stood up, wiped his dirty trouser leg, and held out a hand to Bajram.
“Thank you. Your words are music to my ears. Your parents have raised you properly. Emine is inside. We can fetch her together. I wish you both well and hope you will enjoy your life together, enjoy each other, your children, your riches.”
“Zotëri,” Bajram began. “May I fetch her alone?”
The girl’s father looked at him in bewilderment. Then he looked around and saw that nobody was speaking. People were sitting quietly in their chairs; everyone had stubbed out his cigarette and now sat staring at the two men. Eventually her father smiled.
—
I was sitting in my parents’ bedroom and waiting. I could hear his steps making their way indoors, clacking against the concrete floor, the creak of the doors. At the last moment I straightened my skirt and hid my face behind my veil.
Bajram appeared in the room alone and immediately fixed his eyes on me as though he hadn’t noticed my sisters in the least as they stood looking at me and Bajram in turn, as though they were looking for answers, waiting to know what it was natural to feel in a situation like this. We had all assumed that my father and little brother would take me out to the car driven by Bajram’s relatives, but now Bajram was leaning carefree against the doorframe, his black sunglasses dangling from his fingers, and looking at my dress.
He was wearing a neat, snugly fitting dark suit. His brown hair was thick, wavy, and attractive; it was shaped with quality hair products and finished off with a shiny lacquer. He had a white shirt and a black tie, which together with the black suit jacket and his black leather belt made for a stylish and carefully preened overall effect.
Bajram began to smile. His cheeks lifted up into a broad, handsome curve. His teeth were every bit as white as they had been a few weeks ago by the boulder, and they sat neatly in his mouth like glittering diamonds. Judging by those teeth it was hard to believe that Bajram chain-smoked just as much as my father.
At last he held out his hand. A strip of sunlight glinted from behind him like a halo.
“Shall we?” he asked and stood up in the doorway, moved forward a fraction.
His sculpted arm pointed at me like a rifle. His skin looked taut and firm. That was an arm that would protect me, I thought, one that would build a strong, lasting home, wrap it around our shared life, our children, and our world of happiness. Gently I reached out my arm like another rifle, gripped his soft skin, his fingers, smooth as satin, and left everything without so much as glancing behind me.
We finally arrived at his white car. The drivers threw their cigarettes to the ground, stamped them out, and climbed into their cars. The fug of gasoline hung in the air, a cloud of gas built up above the yard, and the swirls of cigarette smoke slithered toward it like leeches.
Bajram’s car was decorated with bows and flowers. I was supposed to be in the backseat with his relatives, take hold of the headrest in front of me to keep myself from falling over, and bow my head until my parents’ house had disappeared from view. If the bride sat down and made herself comfortable in front of her family and the local villagers, this was a sign that leaving her family behind didn’t cause her great anguish after all. And that, in turn, meant that the bride was haughty and lazy.
And then, with everyone watching, Bajram asked me to sit in the passenger seat. I was standing in front of him, rigid, and didn’t dare look behind me. I thought I was going to die. Really? I wanted to ask him. You really want me to sit down? What will the others think when they see there’s nobody else in the car but us?
Bajram began to laugh, repeated his invitation to sit down, and gestured toward the passenger seat. Don’t think about them, he said as though he were able to read my thoughts. After this I obeyed him; what else could I do but obey my husband? I began to settle myself in the car. Bajram held the door open, carefully folded the pleats of my skirt inside the car, and asked whether I was comfortable. I didn’t answer him because I was not comfortable. I tried to wiggle myself forward slightly, gripped the dashboard with my right hand, and stuck the nails of my left hand into the back of the seat. Right, said Bajram, gave another laugh, slammed the door shut, and walked round to the other side of the car.
&
nbsp; He winked at me and started the engine. The other drivers swerved back out onto the road and last of all we drove out after them, a convoy of ten cars and the gray sky ahead of us, to the sides the rows of closed windows along the road, and behind us the battered, rickety asphalt and the unfinished house, which eventually disappeared from view. Once we were farther along the road the horn tooting started up again. It was relatively warm for the time of year, May at its most beautiful.
My breath felt like warm steam beneath my veil. I could feel drops of sweat pulling the powder from my cheeks and getting it stuck in the gauze of the veil. I slid my hand beneath the fabric to give myself more air, but the car was baking hot, quiet and empty, like a shuttle sent hurtling into space.
It was only once the landscape slowly became less and less familiar that I realized Bajram and I hadn’t said a word to each other in almost fifteen minutes. I looked away from the landscape, where the mountains rising in the distance turned to gently sloping forest, and looked at him. Through my veil I could make out the contours of his muscular thighs, where they started and where they ended. The suit fitted him just the way a suit should fit a man. His posture was upright as a pistachio tree; he even sat upright in the car.
I wanted to place a hand on the hand resting on his thigh, because he had tensed his thumb and stretched his other fingers out straight as if to make room for my hand, but I didn’t dare touch him. I unclasped my own hands and laid them on my thighs. Bajram took the hint and took off his sunglasses. He began to smile.
“Could you put these in the glove compartment?” he asked and held out his right hand, the sunglasses dangling in front of me.
I took the glasses without saying anything. I smiled back at him and hoped he wouldn’t notice how such a small gesture seemed able to numb my entire body. He was closer to me than at any time before, and this was the first time we were alone together. I took his glasses and put them in the glove compartment.
My Cat Yugoslavia Page 9