He said, “I was never going to tell you. I made a deal with myself. If I ever saw you again, I wouldn’t tell you. But then I got shot and was really scared. I’m really scared.”
I feel such knots in my stomach even telling this now, Rose. It was so hard. So hard!
I got him to come back to the house with me, and we talked for a couple of hours, but when we were exhausted and there were long silences between us, he said he wanted to go back to his place. I pleaded with him to stay—in the living room, the guest room, with me if he wanted—but he said no. I had no right to insist, so we woke Minnie and walked the half mile down to the Gasthaus in silence. We held hands, but I was the one to take his, which lay completely dead in mine. I wouldn’t let it go for an instant.
When we got there, he brought my hand to within an inch of his lips and kissed the air near it. Then he thanked me for being so kind. The tears started down my face again. There was nothing else to say, so I lamely asked what he’d like for breakfast. He tried to smile but couldn’t. “Bacon and eggs again, if you still have some.” He moved toward the door but turned back to me and said quietly, “Be sure to wash your hands as soon as you get home. I don’t know anything about this disease and who knows how you can get it.”
Back at the house I sat down on my front step and, with Minnie sniffing around, looked up at the stars. A story he had told me came to mind. It struck some chord I couldn’t name, but still it gave me a feeling of hope and possibility.
He and a bunch of other journalists were in Rumania a year before the fall of the government. The living standards were horrible and it was impossible to get a decent meal, even in the supposed best restaurants in Bucharest. But one guy had heard about a place, and they all went. They almost fell over backward when they saw what was offered on the menu. The most exquisite French cuisine—escargots, white truffles, and a wine list that was amazing. What a find! Was this the end of the rainbow? Whatever it was, first they feasted on the possibilities the menu offered, then very carefully made their selections. The waiter nodded and disappeared. They were the only customers in the place but thought that was because the food was obscenely expensive by Rumanian standards. An hour passed but nothing came. They hadn’t even seen the waiter in that time. By then they were getting suspicious. Finally he reappeared, very upset, and said unfortunately none of the things they’d ordered was available tonight. What else would they like? He offered menus and they chose again—lovely second choices. Another hour passed and the same thing happened—no food, no sign of the waiter. When he appeared he told them again he was sorry, but these things were also unavailable tonight. They were on the verge of killing him by now. What was available? He said pork. Pork? That’s all? Yes, that’s it. Why? Why hadn’t he told them that two hours ago and spared them the wait, rather than offering the menu that had them all drooling with anticipation?
After much hemming and hawing and throat clearing, he admitted to being both waiter and cook. In fact, he owned the restaurant too. As soon as a customer gave an order, he ran out the kitchen door to scour the city for the necessary ingredients. The man really could make all the dishes offered on the menu, but it was more a question of what was available at the markets that day. Which usually meant next to nothing in that desperate city. So each night he had to return empty-handed and, as waiter, go through the charade of telling the customers such-and-such was “unavailable.” What else would they like?
I told Leland I’d always believed a good story is better than a good time, since you have the story to tell again and again but the good times tend to be forgotten. When I asked if the pork was good when it was finally served, he said terrific.
Thinking through what had happened that night and over the past days with him, waves of different emotion poured over me. But in the end, that story kept coming back. It seemed the moral was, Look, we don’t have escargots but we do have pork, so let’s make it the best goddamned pork ever cooked. I couldn’t decide whether the waiter’s refusal to admit to an empty kitchen was good or not. At first all that pretending looked sweet and optimistic, but there was also something pernicious about getting people’s hopes up, then, after making them wait hours, serving only pork. And not just one night, but every night. So there’s only pork. So what? If that’s all there is, then admit it and do magic with it. Make it the best pork ever eaten.
As far as Leland’s health was concerned, he lived in his own Rumania now but that shouldn’t stop us. In the morning I’d go down and tell him even if we only did have this and this, we’d do whatever we could to make it work. Simple as that. I’d invite him to come stay with me as long as he liked, or whenever he liked. Then we’d work with the materials at hand, whatever they were, from day to day. If AIDS developed, I’d try to help and comfort him as best I could. He was a remarkable, heroic man. It would be a privilege to be his friend and support.
I went to my desk and spent a long time making lists of things to do, questions to ask, people to call or see. I knew next to nothing about AIDS or HIV. How had he gotten it? Was he bisexual? Did he do drugs? Did it matter? There was only the disease now and however we could deal with it. Only the “pork.”
I woke early the next morning though I’d gone to bed very late. The moment I opened my eyes I was ready to get ripping. Take Minnie for her walk, prepare the bacon and eggs so the minute he walked through the door I could get him going, make more lists… How would I ask him to stay without making it sound like pity or the wrong kind of concern? What would I do if he said no? I didn’t want to think about that. Get books, get information on living with someone who has AIDS. But he didn’t have it yet! Don’t even think in that direction. There’s all kinds of things that can be done, looked into, tried out, before that actually happens. That was the absolutely worst way to think. Just the other day I’d read an article about a virologist who said he was convinced there was no genuine link between those who were HIV positive and those who had full-blown AIDS. Over coffee, in between articles, I found the piece holding my attention for a few minutes, but then I turned the page. Now it was the most important article in the world. Where had I read it? Who was the scientist?
I raced around the house trying to do everything at once, trying to figure out what I could realistically do and what was in the hands of the gods. The gods? God? No time to think about that, GOD, now. There’d be plenty of time later. As that thought crossed my mind, I half-raised a hand, as if asking for His patience and understanding.
I waited two nervous hours before beginning to worry. Where was he? Why hadn’t he come or at least called? Leave him alone. Let him do things his own way, on his own schedule. But maybe he thought he couldn’t face me after what he’d confessed last night. Too bad, Arlen, leave it alone. It’s his decision. I waited and talked to myself until I couldn’t stand it anymore. Then I hooked Minnie up again and hotfooted it down to the Gasthaus, hoping to meet him coming up. No such luck. When we got there, we stood outside a few minutes while I tried to decide what to do next. I finally got up the nerve to go in—and was told the gentleman had checked out earlier but left no message.
I went home and sat like a stone, most of the time blank, but now and then something inside me bellowed, “Do something! Get up and find him!” But putting myself in his place, I realized why he’d taken off. The shame, embarrassment, the doubt that any person can help in a calamity. Still, why hadn’t he said anything this morning before leaving? Had I been so unsympathetic last night? I carefully ran through what we’d talked about ten times but came up blank.
As the despair was peaking, the phone rang. He said, “I’m at the airport. I’m going back to Yugoslavia. Thank you for being so kind—”
I asked him, please, just let me talk a few minutes, but he didn’t want that. There was too much going on inside him. He asked for some time to think and said he’d be in touch.
I took a deep breath and closed my eyes. I wanted to yell, “I think you’re wrong,” but there was nothing I
could say except please call me. Please come back whenever you want because I’ll be waiting. Whenever you want.
I’m going to stop here, Rose. You understand.
I worked in the garden, walked the dog, kept the television tuned to CNN day and night. I don’t remember many details of those days except that whatever I did, I did as hard as I could, completely concentrated, so as not to think too much about the silent phone or the frightening reports from the battlefront in Yugoslavia. I knew he’d go straight there and was afraid this time he’d be killed. Or would try to be killed rather than die the ghastly slow death of AIDS.
I went to the children’s hospital every day and spent more time there than ever before. I remembered the woman on her knees in front of the hospital screaming that it wasn’t fair. One night I saw an igel crossing the road and immediately took it as a good sign. I wanted to call Leland and say only that—ten seconds in his ear: “I just saw an igel and I know it means something good.” Then in one of the few happy moments since he’d left, I realized I could call him—in London and leave messages on his answering machine. The idea was so exciting that I spent the better part of a morning in the garden on my knees, digging and thinking about exactly what I’d say if I got up the courage to call. I wondered how long his tape was and how many times I’d be able to leave messages before the thing was full.
Small things, hedgehogs and answering machines, were the tiny shots of light and hope across the horizon of those days.
Sarajevo got worse. Thousands of people were dying. I cringed at the television footage, but was always alert for his face or anything that might have to do with him. I bought a map of Yugoslavia and studied it, trying to say the names of towns and cities. Where was he today: Trebinje? Donji Vakuf? Pljevlja?
You and Roland called and it was the first time I’ve ever been disappointed to hear your voices. I wanted to get off the line so that it’d be free, just in case. The things we talked about were all background noise to me, whereas any other time I would have cherished our conversation.
Immediately after that the phone rang again and it was he. He was in Sarajevo, conditions were desperate, but he’d called to say he was all right and still thinking about things. Most of all, don’t worry. Don’t worry? Was he nuts? But you’d be proud of me; I held my tongue. I didn’t push him about anything—not to come back, not to know what he’d been thinking. I treated him like… like the igel that had allowed itself to be held. I was so glad to hear his voice that I let him talk and asked only questions that might make him talk more and stay on the line. When he hung up, I put the phone down but kept my hand on it, as if to get whatever echoes of him it still might hold.
Coincidentally, Standing on the Baby’s Head was on TV that night. I watched it because I’d never seen one of my films in German. The woman’s voice they chose for mine was eerily similar, making me sit way forward in the chair and pay complete attention. Listening, I could understand some of what she—I—was saying, but it was like having the oddest German lesson ever, with me both as teacher and rapt student. Was the story the same in translation? Was it better or worse with Weber’s original words inverted, emphases altogether different? Could a story ever be the same in another tongue? I thought about Leland telling his life story in a language I considered my own, but I wasn’t a man, wasn’t HIV positive, hadn’t experienced what he had, although the way he told it brought it vividly to life. So is there any language common to all of us? For a while I thought the language of the human heart, but no way. That’s the most complex and diverse, you know? Is there any way to fully grasp another’s story without actually being that person? Doubtful.
When I’d almost gotten used to those strange anxious days, almost gotten used to worrying and wondering and not hearing from him, I got a telegram from someone in Yugoslavia saying Mr. Leland Zivic was coming to Vienna. His train would be arriving early the next morning and could I possibly meet it.
Rose, I folded and folded the piece of paper until it was impossible to bend anymore. I put it on the table and watched it slowly try to uncurl itself and tell me the blessed news again. Minnie was asleep on the couch. I lay down next to her and put my arms around her warm body. She lifted her head and looked at me to see if everything was okay. We lay there a long time: she snoring gently, I knowing tomorrow was going to be the beginning of something extraordinary.
What I didn’t know was the way he’d chosen to return. In one of the innumerable cease-fires that had been negotiated by Lord Carrington, it was agreed by all the warring factions to allow those who wanted to leave Bosnia-Herzegovina to go to other countries. Hungary, Austria, and Germany agreed to accept most of these poor people, but there were so many who wanted to leave that not even the experts knew what to do with them once they’d made their way to safety. It was the largest exodus in Europe since the Second World War and no one had any idea of how to handle it.
In keeping with his adventurer’s way of doing things, Leland chose to ride back to Austria on the first refugee train out of Sarajevo. There were literally thousands of people on that train, and being in the Südbahnhof when it arrived was one of the most harrowing and electrifying sights of my life, so help me God. It was like hell on earth.
I got there half an hour beforehand. Since I didn’t then know anything about the significance of the train, I thought because it was so early in the morning few people would be around. But the platform was overflowing. Large families, singles, old, young, well dressed, tattered… every type you can imagine had gathered.
The mood of the crowd was just as mixed. From what I could see, half of them were carnival-happy, festive; the others looked worried or terribly, terribly sad. What was going on here? Children were everywhere, darting in and out, wrestling down on the ground and being shouted or laughed at by their families. Old women wrung their hands and rocked back and forth as if praying. Men with two-inch-thick mustaches looked down the tracks with thousand-yard stares.
Amazed and utterly baffled at both the turnout and variety around me, I stopped a railroad workman and asked why they were all here. He smiled and touched his head in the familiar Viennese gesture that says everyone is crazy. “The war train from Yugoslavia’s coming in. They’re all waiting for their families. As if we don’t already have enough damned Tschuschen in this country!”
Hearing him call them “niggers” made me frown and pull back. He sneered and slowly looked me up and down as if I were for sale. I walked quickly away. When the loudspeaker announced the train’s arrival, I found a place to wait that wasn’t too crowded.
Slowly the locomotive came around the last curve and moved toward us. When it was closer I could see all these heads sticking out the windows, lots of hands waving, faces beginning to take shape as the train loomed larger. The crowd on the platform drove forward, some of them waving back, others talking excitedly and pointing as if they’d already seen the person they’d come for. The engine gave two short hoots and came hissing into the station, brakes squealing.
If I’d been shocked at the turnout at the station, that was nothing compared with what arrived. Long before the train stopped, passengers were leaping, dropping, pouring out of the cars. If you’d just arrived, you’d have thought there was a fire on the train and these poor people were trying to escape. But no, they were only getting off. There were businessmen in suits, women in high heels, peasants, farmers with dirt all over their clothes, women in babushkas with babies strapped on like backpacks…
Window after window passed me, and the faces still on board were another show of every emotion possible. Flat-out, hand-waving joy; one whole compartment was holding hands and dancing; hysterics—Happy? Sad? Who could tell?—crying. The last thing I saw go by was a young woman slapping a man so hard that his head hit the window with a big thump. All passed in seconds. One picture after another, a living mural of humanity.
When the train finally stopped, people spilled out in a riot of shouts, gestures, flying colors. In an instant
I was engulfed by at least a thousand people. Workers wearing Red Cross armbands and speaking different languages at the top of their voices tried to organize them, make some order out of the chaos, but it was nearly impossible. These people had been through months of war, praying for a way out of it and a chance to live another day. Then suddenly they were all cramped into a train with nothing to do but think about what they’d lost, what little they had left, what they’d do now so far from what could never be home again.
I looked for him from face to face, around heads, bundles… but everything was all right up in my face; everything was too much for me to be able to see clearly and make out one man in that great explosion of people. Panicking, I pushed forward into even more. No luck. There were so many eyes and smiles, arms, words, packages, children… I pushed harder and was pushed right back.
This didn’t work, and the crush scared the shit out of me. Maybe if I returned to the gate, I’d find him there. He knew me and knew I’d come for him. But how could we find each other? I turned around and bulled my way back. At the exit I stood on tiptoe to look for him in a mob that never stopped or thinned, so many of those people looking lost and scared and totally alone. God, it broke my heart.
At last, after about three lifetimes, things did get calm and only small groups were still on the platform, most of them sitting forlornly on their bags, talking among themselves or to the Red Cross workers. But no Leland. Had he missed the train? Had something happened to him before he left Sarajevo?
But then there—oh, God, oh, God—way down at the front of the train, walking slowly, carrying that big red knapsack over his shoulder and waving when he saw me… Oh, Rose, I started running. But then immediately I dropped my purse, and everything spilled across the whole ground. I bent and scooped as fast as I could, looking up constantly to check that he was still coming. I finished, zipped up the bag, and tried to run. Then my left leg buckled and I wobbled, but straightened out and was off. He was much closer now and was smiling. He was smiling at me! At me! At me! Ten feet away he dropped his bag and, throwing his arms out, shouted my name so loudly that it owned the whole station: Arrrrlennn Everybody looked at him and then at me and started smiling. One little boy screamed it out too, and their voices hung together for a few seconds, and it was the most wonderful sound.
From the Teeth of Angels Page 18