Ukulele Jam

by Alen Meskovic

  ‘Have you got those lyrics for me, Emir Pozder?’ Mauro asked.

  He was not expecting me to have them. I could tell. For months he had asked the same question and always got the same reply. So his eyes widened when I said:

  ‘Yes, but they’re not very good! You have to read it when I’m gone.’

  ‘My arse!’ he said and grabbed the piece of paper. ‘There’s no time for that. I’m reading it now.’

  ‘What do you mean, “there’s no time”?’

  He did not answer. I looked at Fabio, who looked at his brother. He was still picking at the edge of his trousers.

  Mauro unfolded the paper and read the text a few times.

  ‘THIS, THIS IS TOO COOL, MAN!’

  'You think so?’

  ‘Yes! It’s wicked!’

  ‘Where did you get “I feel the sweat break on my brow” from?’ Fabio asked. ‘I don’t know that.’

  ‘Of course. It’s from Maiden, ‘The Clairvoyant,’ first line.’

  ‘Oh yeah: “Feel the sweat break on my brow. Is it me or is it shadows that are dancing on the walls?”’

  ‘“Is this a dream or is it now? Is this a vision or normality I see before my eyes?”’

  We start to head-bang a little, but Mauro waved the piece of paper and interrupted us:

  ‘Hey, what should we call it? I mean, what do you want to call it? There’s no title.’

  ‘Empty song,’ Fabio broke in.

  ‘Predictable! Unsexy!’ Mauro branded his suggestion. ‘I would call it Wrong.’

  ‘Nah, I prefer Easy Rotting,’ I said. ‘Now that’s cool.’

  ‘Or Dreams of Home, ‘Fabio said.

  ‘Or Fear Again,’ I suggested.

  ‘Stop! Stop!’ Mauro shouted. ‘Maybe we should wait till the music is done. A lot can happen when the tune comes in.’

  For a moment I forgot about Igor and Jelena; I was ecstatic. Me, Emir Pozder Miki, songwriter for Mauro Marinelli’s future band. I could already see my name in parentheses after the song title. Pozder/Marinelli or Marinelli/Pozder, it would read. Then the scene shifted to various stadiums around the world. Fabio, Mauro and I backstage. Surrounded by groupies – and cases of beer. My role was convenient and twofold: songwriter and crew member. Head of the electrical department or something like that. I was in charge of ensuring the lighting was top notch. That the speakers worked. That I got my employees to do the heavy lifting so I could write super cool lyrics.

  Then Fabio and Mauro’s parents came home, and the mood changed. They rustled the shopping bags and asked the boys for help. I politely said hello to them, as usual.

  ‘Do you feel like staying for dinner?’ their mum asked with a weary voice.

  I saw that her eyes were red and swollen, too. She looked like she had just been crying.

  ‘No, thank you,’ I said. ‘I should probably head home.’

  We went into Mauro’s room, and I chose a bunch of tapes from his many drawers. Including some early eighties’ Yugoslavian Rock and new wave. I purposely avoided the bands that I had left at home. I could not deal with nostalgia right now.

  Fabio walked me to the door and we flashed the sign of the horns.

  ‘See you, old man,’ he said. ‘Take care of yourself!’

  ‘You too.’

  Then something very strange happened. He gave me a hug. The fucking moron gave me a hug!

  It caught me completely off guard. We only hugged when we were drunk. Never when we were sober.

  I said goodbye from the stairs, heard him lock the door and I started down. Only two floors down I felt like turning back and asking him point-blank.

  He did not usually act like this. And he was not in a good mood.

  Mauro’s “no time” and his mother’s red eyes. Cardboard boxes! Fuck, yes!

  The bright afternoon sun blinded me when I stepped outside. A guy wearing Bermuda shorts and rubber sandals was checking the front wheel of his freshly washed car. I stopped.

  Fabio is leaving. That’s what’s happening. He just doesn’t want to tell me. They’re both leaving!

  I turned around and ran back inside. Without stopping once, I raced up the stairs to the ninth floor. I buzzed, my heart in my mouth. I was gasping for air.

  Luckily he was the one who opened the door. I must have looked like shit when he saw me.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ he said. ‘What’s going on?’

  I could not speak yet. I signalled for him to give me a couple of seconds.

  ‘Did you forget something? ... Or …’

  ‘No … Well, yeah … I forgot to ask you something really important.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Are you’re really coming back?’

  ‘Back?’

  He made a face:

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Are you’re sure you’re not just taking off? … To Italy … you know … That you’re going to stay there?’

  ‘Eh?’

  His expression alone at that moment made me regret my trip up the stairs. It was so stupid. It was pathetic, panicky, and idiotic!

  Of course they’re coming back. They’re just going on holiday.

  ‘What’s going on with you, man?’ Fabio said. ‘I’ll be back next month! I just told you that.’

  Mauro and their dad appeared behind him. I hurried to give Fabio an affectionate pat on the shoulder:

  ‘Be sure to come back in good form, old man! And be sure to get that room painted!’

  He shook his head, not understand a thing. I turned and left.

  THE MAGICAL PATTRESS BOX

  Boro’s business went bad that June, but Marijan’s did not. One day he picked me up by the Muscle Market with Boro’s blessing. I hopped in and we drove out to an old hacienda in the vicinity of Grozvin.

  Marijan was chipper as hell that morning. He was annoyed that Fabio had gone on holiday so early, and thanked me for wanting to help.

  I was in a terrible state that morning. A strange frailty was lodged in my body and refused to leave.

  Sometimes I thought it had to be because I had dreamt something sad, something I could not remember in the morning. Other times I gave myself a merciless diagnosis: chronic sadness. I lay on the bed and practised my new signature – Sad Micky, Micky the Sad – page after page. But not even the irony helped.

  We reached the old stone house, whose interior was wonderfully cool. Outside hell was already beginning to form. The cicadas hissed like hidden alarm clocks. Their insistence grew in strength as the sun crawled higher and higher up in the sky.

  The owner, a small tubby man with short arms and a shiny crown, showed us around. He breathed heavily and wiped sweat from his brow, as if someone was constantly at his heels. Never in my life have I seen a man so stressed.

  The furniture in the house was in the middle of the rooms, covered by transparent dust sheets. In the bedroom I saw a painting of a crying child. I got a little sinking feeling in my stomach, and Marijan’s and the man’s voices quickly faded out.

  We had one like that in our sitting room once. Mum was crazy about it. Dad could not stand the child’s big eyes.

  ‘They’re staring at me, like I’ve done something wrong,’ he said. ‘It makes me sad!’

  He got rid of the painting at the first possible chance and hung a landscape painting on the same nail.

  The stressed homeowner suggested a few manageable wishes, complained about the heat and drove off in a metallic green monster of a car. Marijan and I rolled up our sleeves.

  The house was going to be renovated. Our task was to swap out the old wiring before the bricklayers set to work in earnest. We started upstairs and took one room each. We clipped the wires and pulled out the old cables. It was easy enough.

  When we reached downstairs and I had to take care of a small kitchen niche, I realised that my wire cutters were upstairs. I went into the sitting room and towards the corridor. Marijan stood whistling an unfamiliar melody, while he fiddled with the cover of
a pattress box.

  ‘I’ve …’

  I’ve forgotten my wire cutters upstairs, I was about to say. But then I spotted an extra pair on the coffee table behind him. It was a normal set, without insulation.

  ‘I’ve never seen such a stressed-out man,’ I said.

  ‘He isn’t stressed,’ Marijan said. ‘He’s fat.’

  I grabbed the cutters, went back to the kitchen niche and pulled the bundle of wires out of the box. It was quite low in relation to the ceiling. A chair was not even necessary, I could just stand on my toes and stretch my arm a little.

  I clipped one wire. Then the second. The third. Fourth...’

  The last one was a little thicker than the others.

  I squeezed.

  Light.

  A distant light in the bottom of the wall box.

  That was what I saw.

  It approached through the semi-darkness of the niche like a car driving towards you on a road at night. Just much faster and more than once. It poured over me like a gigantic, flashing signal light. Silently. Like in a dream.

  My breathing stopped. My thigh muscles froze. I felt a pressure in my chest, as the current pulled me up. It was as if someone had shaken my hand. As if I stood in a dark hole in the ground and the person in question was helping me out of it.

  I don’t know why people say that electricity gives you a shock. That it hits you. Strikes. No, it does none of those. It sticks you to the copper wire and pulls you forward. In my case towards the open wall box.

  Marijan did not notice anything. I did not utter a sound while the surreal experience lasted. No moaning, no sighing. Only a single thought managed to cross my mind, while I stood with the cutters in the wall socket and my lungs in convulsion:

  I’m dying.

  Without fear. Without complaint.

  This is it.

  At the same moment the wire cutters fell out of my hand and down on a roll of old carpets. I took a step back and breathed.

  In the sitting room, Marijan was whistling the same tune. I had missed at most one or two notes. He stood with his back to me winding up a cable.

  Without saying anything I hurried past him, into the corridor and up the stairs.

  ‘What are you doing with that?’ he said when I came downstairs with the toolbox.

  ‘I’ve got a bad feeling about this,’ I answered. ‘I’m worried there’s electricity in the kitchen.’

  ‘Not in the entire kitchen. Like the fat one said: only in that one box there. In the niche.’

  Fuck! Had he said that? I ought to have been paying attention and not just standing there nodding. It must have been that stupid painting in the bedroom. Damn!

  ‘But it’s a good thing you’re vigilant,’ Marijan smiled. ‘That’s the sign of a good electrician.’

  ‘Yes, obviously man. Thanks!’

  Good electrician? My arse.

  Before I started pulling the leads out of the wall, I found a plastic cup in the cupboard and drank some water. I stood with the cup in my hand and looked up at that box. I had seen and opened so many of them, but this one was another matter. It was magical in its own way.

  The plastic cup of water was shaking in my right hand. There was no stopping it. I took the insulated cutters out of the toolbox, stood on my toes and simulated a clip. Then I pulled the cable out of the wall with a series of short, determined tugs.

  In the car back to Majbule, Marijan asked if I was okay.

  ‘Yes, I’m fine. Why?’

  ‘You're not saying anything, man. I have to draw the words out of you with a pair of pliers!’

  ‘I slept quite bad last night,’ I explained. ‘Have to lie down for a bit when I get home.’

  Of course that was a huge lie. I had slept like a rock at the bottom of the sea.

  I looked out the window and thought about what would have happened if I had not lived. Marijan would have finished whistling his song and discovered that I was lying on the floor. Then called for help. Gone out to the camp and called on my parents. ‘Your son is dead,’ he would have said. The others would find out later, one by one. Kaća would have cried, Fabio would regret his trip to Italy. Gogi, Zlaja and Fric would all shake their head and repeat that they did not understand. Of all people, I had not deserved it.

  I thought about all kinds of things. About everything that still would have been in the world, moved and made a fool of itself and continued like nothing had happened. Just like the rest of us continued as if Igor was not dead. As if we had never experienced war, had shells launched at our heads and seen people die.

  The car kept driving. The evening sun reddened in the west. It was gentle and beautiful at that time of the day. It was as round as the magical wall socket in the niche.

  Marijan gave me twenty kunas for a whole day’s work. Now I know why he suggested picking me up at the camp. He had deducted my bus ticket and multiplied it by four.

  But I did not care. I just smiled, said thank you and waved goodbye. Had he played the fool and not given me anything at all, I would not so much have said a word. The only thing I felt like doing was having a shower and lying down in bed. Face the wall and shut my eyes. Hope to wake up in a better mood.

  ‘Hey, Pozder! Pozder!’

  I looked up.

  It was Sergio, shouting from behind the counter in reception. He had seen me through the window, and now I could see him in the doorway.

  He waved for me to come inside.

  Oh no, I thought. Not him now. It was probably a complaint from the neighbour or something along those lines. Can’t I just be allowed to go upstairs and lie down?

  The bag with my work clothes bumped against my leg as I dragged myself through the reception. Only when I got right up close did I notice him holding the telephone receiver

  ‘It’s for you! Take number one!’

  ‘Who is it?’

  ‘How the hell would I know?’

  That bastard! One day I’ll hook up your chair to electricity, you fascist!, I would normally have thought when he treated me like that. But now I just walked into booth number one and waited for him to connect me. I did not have the strength to feel offended.

  Booth number one, unlike the rest, had a large window facing the Muscle Market. I stood looking at a parked Zastava when the device rang.

  The clammy receiver stuck to my hand. It had not seen a cloth in years, and the lower part stunk of bitter saliva and nicotine.

  I kicked a couple of cigarette butts aside, coughed and said:

  ‘Yes, hello.’

  Nobody answered. It was quiet as a graveyard on the other end.

  ‘Hello!’ I repeated a little louder this time and suddenly heard the most beautiful sentence anyone had ever spoken in this entire shitty world and region:

  ‘Miki, is that you?’

  ACROSS THE TERRACE

  It was a shock. Shock number two that day. I stepped out of the booth and did not know what to do with myself. Cry, laugh or run over to Sergio. Go behind the counter and embrace that stupid, ugly oaf. Forgive him for all the rude remarks he had subjected me to over the course of time. Forgive him for all the times he had slapped Damir.

  I did none of the above. I just nodded, said thank you very much and let him chew on that for a little while I hurried out.

  Nobody knew.

  Nobody in the entire world knew yet.

  Kaća’s mum stood shaking the crumbs off a tea towel on the balcony. Two elderly people, whose names I did not know, played chess on the terrace between D1 and D2. The weak-sighted Dario caught a ball. A little girl applauded and called for it.

  None of them knew. They just continued as though nothing had happened.

  And everything had happened, everything. My war was over. My only soldier had won his battle. Pounding in my chest was a different heart. It counted the first seconds of my new life. Made me into a stronger Miki, Micky the New.

  I looked up at our balcony. Mum and Dad! The thought of them suddenly made me vuln
erable.

  The magical wall socket, the flashing light, booth number one and ‘Miki, is that you?’ – all of it poured down on me. I could neither contain it or push it away. And the two of them sat up there and knew nothing about it. I just had to go up, place two words in a certain order, and their sufferings would be over. They would no longer look so obstinate. Mum would thank God for having heard her prayers. Dad would brighten up and send me to the shop for beer. We would celebrate the news with a small glass after having squeezed into one of the booths. After having taking turns to speak to him – relieved, terrified, happy and confused.

  What was I waiting for?

  The bag of work clothes dangled from my right shoulder. I raced across the terrace and into building D1. I did not break down when I entered the stairwell. Nor when I flew up the stairs. It only happened when the door was shut behind me and Dad asked in surprise what had happened.

  LETTER READING

  Eight days later a letter arrived. A thick one. The receptionist who handed it to me, looked suspicious. The letter was all of sixteen A4 pages.

  It was the most beautiful letter anyone had ever written. The handwriting was a tiny bit plump; he wrote some very strange d’s. The circle of the stamp could only partially be made out; the date and city name were completely greasy. Two perfectly placed stamps had cost five Swedish kroner each. On one of them a thin, elongated fish swam in bluish water above a brown sea bottom. On the bottom of the sea it read SVERIGE 5 KR, in the water Cobitis Taenia and above the water Nissoga with two dots above the o. The drawing on the other stamp depicted a powerful, aristocratic woman sitting in an armchair, surrounded by a semi-circle with white stars on a dark-blue background. SVERIGE 5 KR was written along the left edge, while EES-AVTALET 1994 could be read at the bottom under the woman’s chair and feet. The sticker on the left side of the envelope was also dark-blue and perfectly matched the colours of the stamp:

  PRIORITAIRE

  1:a-klassebrev

  His address was written on the back of the envelope – he was far from Stockholm, south of Gothenburg – and two other words I could not decipher were also written: MILJÖKUVERT, again with two dots above the O – I wonder why they put those dots there? – and LJUNGDAHLS, such a wonderful and difficult word!