Nero wasn’t out in front of his kennel. He wasn’t inside either, nor was his chain. I found him dead, hanging over the neighbor’s fence. He was stiff, eyes half open. I lifted him up, a cold, furry object. I tried to close his eyes, but it didn’t work. They stayed open. I saw the empty and vacant eyes of death, nothing there, nothing of the world or hope; everything that had once lived there gone, never to return. This is what the eyes of all the dead look like. I didn’t ever need to see them again, because every man or woman who had ever lived and now lived no more had Nero’s eyes.
It took me three hours to dig a grave in the frozen earth and bury my dog along with his chain. Why with his chain, like he was a galley slave! said Mom. She wasn’t wrong actually. Nero really was our slave; he appeared at the wrong time, to people who didn’t deserve him and who he couldn’t save. Sometimes there really is no hope for us until we’ve strangled the very last thing we have left, that which will haunt us more than any horror or suffering to come.
If you can see it’s a car, tell me
That there in the picture, that’s a toy box, but when I want it to, it stops being a toy box and turns into a car. I wake up early when all the others are still asleep, wrap a sandwich in a checkered napkin, and write a letter, even though they haven’t taught me to write yet. The letter’s for them, but they don’t have to read it. I’m leaving one because it’s the thing to do, because everyone who suddenly goes off somewhere leaves a letter behind. I write how I’ve had enough of them, that I’m never coming back and that I’m going to a place where there aren’t any other people, and I’m going to stay there forever, and be rich, with a real car and a real train, a real pistol and real cowboys and Indians, and Partisans and Germans, who I’ll play war against and beat whenever I want, and when something needs rescuing, like when Sava Kovačević saved the high command or when Chief Big Bear sent smoke signals to the world so that stars might fall to the earth, but the Gold River would never fall to the white man. I’m going because they tricked me again, I don’t know how, but they tricked me, just like they do every time they know I don’t want to go somewhere, and I’m going to cling to the table leg with all my might and scream my head off, and no one’s going be able to tear me loose, because I know that wherever they’re taking me something’s going to hurt like hell, or something else is going happen to make me sorry I ever let go of that table leg. I leave the letter behind for them and on top of it the big key to the cellar. That’s my key and they can give it to whoever comes to take my place.
I sit down in the box, there’s not much room with all the toys, but I’ll manage because I’m big and by myself. I turn the car on and drive off. Brrmmm, brmmm, mmmmmmm, I drive far away, and my lips vibrate and go dry. I can’t even lick my lips because then the brrmmm, brmmm, mmmmmmmmm will stop and the car too, and then they might catch up with me and take me home or turn the car back into a box. Once I’m off and driving I don’t stop until lunchtime when Grandma comes to get me and says c’mon you little moppet, you’ll wreck your throat screeching away in that box. Then my car vanishes, and all the kilometers I’ve driven too, France, Germany, and America vanish, all the countries I’ve traveled, the cowboys and Indians vanish, and so does Sava Kovačević and the high command and the Sutjeska canyon, which smells of darkness, menthol candies, and explosives. I’m back in the yard from which I set off into the world, in the toy box I turned into a car, a car that vanishes the moment someone who can’t see it comes along, like Grandma or Mom, because for them a box is always just a box, and nothing ever turns into something else.
What’ve you been doing? Mom gives me that look moms give their little boys when they’re a bit peculiar but aren’t allowed to know they’re a bit peculiar. Maybe the look’s got a different name, I don’t know what it is, but I know when I answer I’ve got to really be smart to make it go away. I was playing driving . . . That’s nice, and how does playing driving work? . . . You just sit in the car and drive . . . And what’s this? . . . It’s a letter, I left it for you so you wouldn’t get worried . . . And what does it say? She was looking at the wavy inked lines that looked like the ocean or a doctor’s scribble. How can you ask me that, you’re the one who knows how to read, not me. You should know what it says . . . It looks to me like it doesn’t say anything, there aren’t any words . . . There aren’t any words because I was playing. When I’m playing nothing’s for real, because I don’t have a real car and I don’t know how to write . . . Why don’t you play with other children? . . . Because they don’t know how to play driving.
Mom gives Grandma a dirty look and I know that tonight, when they think I’m asleep, they’re going to spend hours whispering and stinking up the cellar with cigarettes, arguing about whose fault it is and why I spend every morning in a cardboard box, snorting and spluttering like – ohmygodsorry – a dimwit. I’m not exactly sure what the word means, but I figure it’s really bad to be a dimwit because I’ve noticed they only say it when they have that look reserved for little boys who are a bit peculiar.
The photo where I’m in a cardboard box, I mean, in my car, driving to America, was taken by a German guy last summer. Back then I was afraid of having my picture taken. Actually, that wasn’t what I was afraid of; I was afraid of injections, and every week they’d trick me into having an injection, so I started pretending I was scared of having my picture taken too. As soon as I spotted someone with a camera I’d burst into tears and run for my life. Put a camera in front of me and I was even prepared to jump into the sea, and I was only three and a half and didn’t know how to swim, that’s how much I pretended about being scared of having my picture taken. I kept it up for months, and they all tried, Mom, Dad, even Grandpa, until one day this German showed up, because Grandpa used to translate tourist stuff for them, and the German crept into the bushes and hid there until I got into the car, and just as I was about to turn the ignition he jumped out and snapped. I let out a howl but it was already too late.
The German sent the photo from Germany, and Grandma put it in an album to show guests. Some aunties from Sarajevo who I didn’t know, but were important and had gray hair as blue as the sea – I didn’t get it how something could be gray and blue at the same time – said uuuu, what a sweet little boy, he could be in a fashion magazine, and I was so embarrassed that I’d lower my head, shrug my shoulders, and hide my eyes. So they’d see I was a dimwit and leave me in peace. When they gave me a hug I’d go all floppy like a chicken just come from the butcher’s, and let them pinch my cheeks with their thumbs and fore-fingers, all the while their gray heads blue like the sea smelling of pickled paprika, roses, and high fever.
It was hard for me to hit the road after the photo, because it got tougher and tougher to turn the box into a car, because that photo, where it was clear as day that I wasn’t in a car but an ordinary cardboard box that used to have little packets of cookies in it, was always in front of me. Photos are like grown-ups because they show everything in a way that can only make you get all worried; in photos everything looks like it’ll never change, like it’ll never turn into anything else. Nothing is as you imagined and it never will be, the only thing you can be sure of is that in the picture you’ll look confused, confused smiley or confused angry, because your eyes see everything differently to how the camera sees it, and now they’re there in the photo without all the stuff you’ve imagined, and the whole world appears exactly as it would if there were no one who played and no one who made anything up, there’s just the eyes that once saw other stuff and now are confused because that stuff’s not in the photo.
I lie in the dark and can’t stop my breathing, I can’t sleep, and I can’t be here when morning comes. Tomorrow I’m going a long way away and I won’t be back. I’m never coming back, and I’ll never again look them in the eyes, nobody who knows, not Grandma or Grandpa, not Mom or Dad. It’s all finished with them. I said to myself if only they were dead, but I know they won’t die and that they’ll grab my head and force me to lo
ok them in the eyes, and in my eyes they’ll look for me, their child, the one they can do anything to if they think it best for him. I don’t like them doing what’s best for me because everything that’s best for me makes me cry and turn into something I don’t know the name of, but it looks like a box that turns into a car and then back into a box; I’m that box when they do what’s best for me.
In the morning I’ll hop into the car and go far away. I’m going to screw my eyes shut tight and then open them and take a good hard look. If it’s still a box and not a car I’ll set off on foot, taking only the essentials, just the stuff I won’t be able to do without when I get where I’m going: my little yellow spade, my teddy bunny, and my winter sweater. Everything else I’m leaving behind for them, for the child they get to take my place and who won’t be called Miljenko, because from tomorrow on they’re going to cry whenever anybody says Miljenko. I know they’re going to cry; they’re going to cry like they do when someone dies, but I’m not going to die, I’m simply going to leave. But I’m going forever, and when you go forever it’s like you’re dead for those who remain.
It all started on a Saturday. Mom and Dad arrived from Sarajevo, and Grandma said the kid hasn’t been on the potty for three days. Dad raised an eyebrow – three days? – and I was already scared, but I pretended I couldn’t hear anything and continued building a castle for Queen Forgetful, my heart pounding hard. I thought they were going to grab me by my hands and legs and cart me off to the hospital or some other place, some big toilet where nurses, paddles in hand, scare little boys into pooping. But nothing happened. Dad gave me a hug and said my little man, and Mom said you’re not having any more chocolate ’cause chocolate blocks you up, giving Grandma another dirty look like she was about to scream at her for stuffing me with chocolate, but Grandma hadn’t, and we all well knew that. Grandma says that bananas and chocolate are luxuries and that we should eat spinach and carrots because spinach is good for the blood and carrots for the eyes, but best of all, they’re not luxuries. A luxury is something you should be ashamed of because Mom and Dad work from morning until night and we can’t indulge in luxuries and eat bananas and chocolate, because Mom and Dad could lose their jobs because of bananas and chocolate, and then we’d die of hunger like those black people because we’d all have to live off Grandpa’s pension.
On Sunday Dad went to Makarska but came back before lunch. They were really good at the medical center. Not a problem, what are colleagues for, how about a cup of coffee, how are things in Sarajevo, just a minute, the nurse will bring it out to you. And they didn’t charge me a thing, he said. I slunk under the table thinking: if he calls me to come out in that wouldn’t-hurt-a-fly voice I’m gonna yell and get ready for a fight because that wouldn’t-hurt-a-fly voice always means one thing – an injection’s coming my way. If he calls me to say I’ve got to take a pill, then I’ll come out because it’s beneath his dignity as a doctor to lie to a patient and be there waiting with an injection instead of a pill. That’s what he once said and I took him on his word.
I waited anxiously, not letting out a peep. And they knew I was waiting and were all silent too. Dad got up from the table, took a glass, and filled it with water. He crouched down next to the table, but I was already pressed up against the wall. Here you go, this is a pill for constipation, you gotta take it, you gotta drink up, he said as if he were scared of me. Actually, I think he was a little scared that I was going to start howling, and I was sure he’d spent ages dreaming up that word constipation, which didn’t even exist, he just dreamed it up so I’d believe he was talking to me like I was a grown-up.
Anyway, I took the pill and drank up. Grandma asked when it should start working and Dad said if nothing’s happened after twenty-four hours and six pills, then . . . I froze, because he didn’t say what would happen then, and I already knew it was going to be something terrible and that’s why he interrupted himself, so I wouldn’t hear. They’re going to take me to the hospital to see the surgeon and he’s going to cut my tummy open and take all the poop out.
Grandma asked you want to go potty? But I didn’t. A bit later she brought the potty over, c’mon, sit down, maybe you’ll go poopoo, so I sat down, but nothing happened. C’mon, squeeze a little, she said. Mom rolled her eyes, and Dad said it’ll all be fine, and Grandpa sat there the whole time chuckling to himself, trying to keep it down so no one would hear him and Grandma wouldn’t call him an old hillbilly. The thing is, for Grandpa everything to do with farting, the toilet, and going to the shittery, which is what he used to say when someone – usually me – needed to go poop, was the funniest thing ever, and he’d laugh like he was retarded because he thought nature invented these things to give people something to smirk about and make women get embarrassed.
I spent all day yesterday sitting on the potty, and the whole day again today, right there in the middle of the room, trying to make the impossible possible. I didn’t feel like going poop because I just didn’t feel like pooping, and it didn’t help any that I was so scared of what would happen if the pills didn’t work and I wouldn’t be able to poop even if I wanted to.
Things went downhill after the TV news when Dad got his doctor’s bag out. As soon as I saw it I was on my way under the table but ran straight into Mom’s lap. Her skirt didn’t smell like lavender anymore but fear. Mom was as strong as a villain and I fought her, kicking and screaming, but someone lifted me up in the air. I didn’t see who because my eyes were shut and I was screaming. First I howled let me go, let me go, then I tried I need to poo, I need to poo, where’s the potty, but they didn’t believe me or say anything. I kept howling, but they went quietly about a business they’d agreed on in advance and there was no change of plan, not even if my bones started breaking and all the color ran from my face and everything broke into the tiniest little pieces, into Lego blocks you could build a whole new person out of, someone who could go poop every day and who you didn’t have to catch in the air like a butterfly and get that colored stuff all over your fingers. They got me down on the bed, Dad said what’s the matter, there’s nothing to worry about, it’s not going to hurt and I was sure that something terrible was going to happen. As soon as they say it’s not going to hurt, it only means one thing: it’s going to hurt like hell, because whenever he or some other doctor says that something’s not going to hurt, it always does.
They took my undies off and flipped me on my tummy. Mom was holding me so tight I couldn’t move. I turned my head to look at the injection, but then I saw that Dad didn’t have an injection in his hand, there wasn’t a needle in sight; he was holding something red, which looked like a pear, a rubber pear, and instead of a stalk it had a little thin see-through tube. It looked way scarier than an injection, so I screamed my lungs out. Mom turned my head back the other way, and I felt someone holding my bum, pulling it apart and sticking something up there inside me. Though there were no bombs, cities silently crumbled in my pounding heart, they’re sticking something up there, but why? Stuff’s only supposed to come out of there, don’t they want me to poop? Why are they putting more stuff up there? And then the stuff they were squirting up my bum expanded, hot, wet, and strange. It burned and stung and kept expanding, and I was full of this strange stuff, and there was more and more of it, and I thought it was never going to stop and that I’d just keep getting fuller and fuller with that stuff until I burst or admitted something they hadn’t even asked me yet.
Grandma came over and said now be a good boy and sit on the potty. If you get up on the potty we won’t ever have to do this again. But this wasn’t my grandma, it was a German telling a member of the resistance that he’ll quit the torture if he betrays his comrades. I spat at her, but she didn’t hit me. I sat on the potty and looked at the floor. Something gushed from me onto the tin pan below, gushing out of me against my will, the same way it went in. Are you done? someone asked. I bit my lip and looked at the floor. He’s done, someone said. I kept staring at the floor. Someone lifted me off th
e potty and wiped my bum. I didn’t say anything, just looked at the floor, and when the floor wasn’t there to look at anymore I shut my eyes. They sat me down on a chair. I looked at the floor. Go play, someone said. Put him to bed. Everything will be fine tomorrow, said someone else. I just sat there looking at the floor.
Now I’m lying in bed and waiting for the morning so I can finally get going. You can’t leave at night because it’s dark, which means you can’t see where you’re going, and my car doesn’t have any headlights. I’m going to have another good look at that photo and see if I can see me sitting in a real car and not a cardboard box that used to have packets of cookies in it. If you can see it’s a car, tell me. If you can’t, I’m going to have to take my spade, my teddy bunny, and my winter sweater and set out on foot. If I stay, I’ll have to look at the floor for the rest of my life, never say anything, not telling apart the voices talking to me.
When someone gets really scared
Donkeys sleep at Profunda, that’s what we whisper so the old folk don’t hear, because if they heard, then we’d be in for it. Profunda is out of bounds, because that’s where little Vjeko went and fell and broke his neck and there was a big funeral, the procession went from one end of Drvenik to the other, from Punta to Puntin, and then it went up on Biokovo, where the cemetery is, and everyone cried because the body was a little one, and when the body is a little one, really everyone cries. When it’s a big one, the only people who cry are those who loved the dead person or those who love those who loved the dead person. No one had been to Profunda since then, no one even knows what’s there anymore, but by the time three years had passed since Vjeko’s funeral, the wonders of Profunda had gotten bigger and bigger. Then the big gest rumor of all started going around, the one about the donkeys sleeping there at night.
Mama Leone Page 7