I don’t know what happened next, just that in the end they got married, and that Commandant Joža Beraus was their best man. At the wedding they sang “All men will be brothers” and began the life that came after the one where Hans had been a fascist and Staka a Partisan who wanted to write his death sentence. I don’t quite know how all this came to pass and neither do Grandpa and Grandma. Grandma says they’re both crazy, and Grandpa says they’re not crazy, it’s the times. They philosophize like this after Hans has drunk all the beer, given us our hugs and kisses, and gone off with Staka to sleep in their camp trailer.
It’s not actually a camp trailer because Hans has concreted around it and built a little hut alongside. In front of the house Staka has planted a lemon tree and an oleander tree and roses and marigolds. It’s such a motley mix that Grandma says it’s as ugly as Hans himself and I say it’s as funny as Hans himself. Their weekend house is the strangest place in Drvenik and the building inspectorate has twice come from Makarska to demolish it because they think it’s an eyesore scaring off tourists, but they didn’t demolish it because Hans has a building permit. They said signore, don’t yell at us, and then they left. Grandpa says they’re just looking for a loophole in the law and that in the end they’ll demolish Hans and Staka’s little hut, and Hans says that much worse things could happen, and it would just mean he and Staka would have to start a new life. Hans thinks there’s only one thing for every misfortune or unpleasantness suffered: to begin a new life. Grandpa says this is brave, and Grandma says that it’s dumb.
It’s such sorrow we don’t have children, says Hans, everything is peachy, but that’s so sad. Then it’s like the cat’s got Grandma’s and Grandpa’s tongues, and they look at their hands laid out on the table as if they’re somehow guilty or have done a number on someone because they’ve had three children. There’s joy without children too, says Grandpa. Of course, of course there’s joy, but there’s so much sorrow without children, Hans howls back. You know, children grow up, get married, and leave, you end up on your own again, Grandpa tries to get Hans to quit it. You can be happy on your own too, but without children, without children, there’s such sorrow, Hans nods his head. You get older and forget you brought them into the world, Grandpa sticks to his tune. Whether you forget or not, there’s still joy, but Franjo, buddy, there’s such sorrow without children, Hans howls back, and I know that all hell’s going to break loose any minute. Grandpa’s getting edgy – his asthma, according to Grandma – and boy does he go for it when he finally blows his top.
He bangs his fist on the table knocking over Hans’s beer. Grandpa’s bellowing in German, Hans grabs his hand, I’m crying, God what’s wrong with me, why am I crying. I’m crying because I’m scared, I’m scared because Grandpa’s knocked Hans’s beer over, and Hans is cute and funny, he’s Grandpa’s friend, and now Grandpa’s yelling at him, Grandma’s hugging Staka, Staka is smiling like someone who’s misplaced their smile, no one notices me, and Grandpa just keeps yelling, Hans grabs his other hand, saying something to him softly in German in a voice much quieter than Grandpa’s now hoarse one, and I don’t understand anything, not a thing.
Grandpa’s breathing heavily and I’ve hidden myself under the table from where I’m sneakily looking at Hans. Hans has his head in his hands and his elbows on the table in the puddle of beer. His face is serene like he was dead, just his droopy bottom lip quivering sometimes, like a tamarisk leaf in the wind. Grandma’s gone into the yard with Staka. Nothing happens for a while: It’s just the two of them, one who’s breathing, the other with a lip quivering in the wind. I want to slip outside, but they’d see me. They must think I’m not here. And it’s better I’m not here. Sometimes it’s so good you’re not here that you really wish you weren’t there until everyone starts to smile again.
A tear runs down Hans’s face, turns at the nose, and descends on his plumpy tamarisk lip. Then there’s a second drop on the other side of his face, again turning at the nose and falling on his lip. Then a third and a fourth. Hans is funny even when he’s not making a joke, like something sweet and dear that makes you smile. I’m sorry, Franjo, I didn’t know, I just wanted to say how sad it is without children, I didn’t know I’d upset you. It seems Hans can actually speak our language quietly. You didn’t upset me, it’s just the southerly, and that I can damn hardly breathe, said Grandpa, and you, little man, out from under the table, scram. Eavesdropping on your elders’ conversations, you’re a bloody disgrace.
I ran into the yard. Grandma was showing Staka our bougainvillea. Staka was stroking a leaf with her index finger, the same finger she’d wanted to kill Hans with. I’m going to play, I said, and ran out onto the road. Grandma whispers lucky the little one doesn’t understand German. I heard that because I always hear her when she’s whispering. She doesn’t know how to whisper so I don’t hear. However quiet or far away she is, I can always hear her whispering, and when you whisper it’s because there’s a secret to be kept, it’s just that this time I don’t know what the secret’s about, what I wasn’t supposed to hear, why it’s lucky I don’t understand German, what Grandpa yelled at Hans and why he got so mad at him just because Hans said how sad it was without children. I can’t make head or tail of any of this, but one day I’ll find out and then I’ll tell everyone.
The next year the building inspectorate demolished Hans’s weekend house. I mean, they demolished the hut, the camp trailer they hauled up on a big truck and carted off to Makarska. The concrete foundation, mangled roses, and uprooted oleander and lemon trees were all that was left. Grandpa phoned Hans and Staka in Smederevo. He said don’t cry, my dear, and then switched back to German. I only understood two words, Kamerad and Freunde. The first he said coldly, the second warmly, so I thought the second word sounded lovely and meant something like see you soon, and the first word sounded cold and meant something like they found a loophole in the law and demolished your house. But Hans wasn’t afraid of cold words, just like he wasn’t afraid of the cold sea. Hans is never cold. He’s not even cold when crabs freeze in the February shallows.
Hans and Staka never came to Drvenik again. Idiot Kraut, he says you can never go back where they demolished your house, said Grandpa, sitting down to write Hans a letter. What do you want to say to Hans, dictate it to me, and it was then I had to compose my first letter: Dear Hans, thank you for not killing Sava Kovačević, it’s cold here like the cold when you sit with your bare bottom in an empty bath. We’ve all caught colds without you. You’re funny, be funny for us again.
When I die, you’ll see how many better people there are
The almond trees bloomed in February and Grandpa said here we go again, spring in midwinter. He said that every February, never getting used to winters finishing so early at the seaside, the rules of nature of a lifetime no longer applied. The rules didn’t apply because he wasn’t in Travnik, where in February the snows fall on Mount Vlašić, and he wasn’t in Sarajevo, where they cover Trebević, Igman, and Tolmin, the whole world a whiteout. He was in Drvenik now and the only things to go white were the blossoming almond flowers, which he called the buds of spring. He’d sing snow falls on the buds of spring and we’d all think nostalgia had got the better of old Franjo, and that he was summoning his native soil to leap the Biokovo range and cover the sea in snow. Do you think the sea will ever freeze over? I ask. I don’t think so, but it’s possible . . . Does something that’s possible ever happen? . . . Of course such things happen. That’s why we say it’s possible . . . So the sea will freeze over? . . . I don’t think so, but let’s say it does. What’s it to you? . . . Well, then we could walk across the sea to Sućuraj. You could buy a newspaper and then we’d come back . . . We can buy a newspaper here . . . Yeah, but it’s not the same. We’ve never walked to Sućuraj, but if the sea froze over we could . . . That wouldn’t be a good thing. The fish wouldn’t have any air . . . But they don’t need air. What do they need air for when they don’t breathe? . . . They need air. You’ll learn thi
s stuff at school. If the sea froze over the mackerel would die, and then what would happen to the dolphins, it’s not worth thinking about. Dolphins are like humans, they come out of the water to breathe . . . Where do they get out, on the beach? . . . No, they jump up above the surface, breathe, and then dive back down again. They’re very practical . . . Why don’t they come right out, wouldn’t that be better than all that jumping? . . . They’d die if they were always out in the air. Their skin needs the sea, their lungs the air. They don’t live in the sea or out of it, they live somewhere in between . . . Like we do? . . . What do you mean, like we do? . . . You know, we don’t live in Sarajevo or in Drvenik, but somewhere in between, because you’d die of asthma if we were always in Sarajevo . . . You could put it like that. I’d die because I’d be breathing fog and smog . . . And do dolphins feel sorry they’re not always out in the air? . . . Why would they feel sorry about that? . . . Because you’re always sorry about not being in Sarajevo and that you don’t get to see the snow fall or the whiteness of the mountains anymore . . . I’m not sorry about that . . . Then why do you start singing about snow falling on the buds of spring the minute the almond flowers blossom? . . . Because that’s my song and I’ve got every right to sing it, even if it doesn’t snow and the sea never freezes over.
Grandpa tells everyone he doesn’t fear death. When he’s coughing away in the morning thinking he’s never going to catch his breath again, he murmurs oh death, sweet death, as if he were wooing it because he’s fallen in love with it, but death’s not interested. Does death hurt? I ask. I don’t care if it hurts, just as long as it doesn’t suffocate. Grandpa doesn’t believe in pain and so nothing ever hurts him. Any kind of pain is something strange, like it’s got nothing to do with him. When he had a tooth out he told Leitner the dentist, our neighbor, take it out, but no injections, and Leitner said to him but Mr. Rejc, it’s not the Middle Ages. Grandpa ignored him and said I don’t care what age we’re in, so Leitner took his tooth out just like that and Grandpa didn’t even clench his fist in pain. My Franjo’s no hero, said Grandma, he’s just scared of the anesthetic. . . I’m not scared of anesthetic, I just want to know what’s happening to me.
But Nikola, who’s from Ćmilj, he’s afraid of pain and dying and anesthetic. He comes over to see Grandpa and says Signore Franjo, I’m a dead dog am I, and Grandpa replies Nikola, buddy, get yourself off to the doctor, and Nikola mopes: I can’t, I don’t know if I’m more scared or more ashamed. After that Grandpa doesn’t say anything, just pours him a rakia and they just stare at each other until Nikola drinks up and leaves. Nikola comes over to our place so someone actually looks at him because in the village people have been looking straight through him for years. They go by him looking at the tips of their toes or out to sea, giving Nikola and his fears and his shame the widest berth. Some people say hi and look away at the same time, but most just make like he’s not even there, like he’s committed some terrible crime and you can’t forgive his just being alive.
Nikola’s got tuberculosis, and in Drvenik tuberculosis is a disgrace. He doesn’t go to the doctor because he’s ashamed and because his family won’t let him out of the house in any case. Everyone knows what he’s got, but it’s still better the doctors in Split don’t find out, that way at least the story doesn’t spread all the way there. When someone has tuberculosis in Sarajevo or in other cities, they aren’t ashamed and neither are their families, they just go to the doctor, stay in the hospital for a while, and go back home happy and healthy. A disgrace in the city is different from a disgrace in the countryside. In Drvenik it’s a disgrace Nikola’s got tuberculosis, but in Sarajevo it’s a disgrace when someone pees in the building hallway and they catch him.
There will be heavy rains this spring, that’s what Grandpa reads in the newspaper. That’s not good news for people with sick lungs. He and Nikola have both got sick lungs, but Nikola’s problem is infectious and Grandpa’s isn’t. His asthma is his business and he can’t give it to anyone else – except I could inherit it because he’s my grandpa – but Nikola could give his tuberculosis to anyone, especially if they blew their nose with his handkerchief. Once Nikola took his hankie out of his pocket and I got shivers up and down my spine. I wanted to grab it and blow my nose so bad. I’m scared of pain and the doctor and I don’t like being sick, but I wanted that hankie, and if Nikola had accidentally dropped it I would have grabbed it and got sick. It’s like when I’m standing on a really high balcony. I always want to jump, even though I wouldn’t like to be dead. Putting your nose into Nikola’s hankie is an adventure, but I know that I won’t because we’re not daredevils, we’re people quietly and politely getting on with our lives, and we don’t go looking for the real devil; he shows up on his own account. Daredevils spend all their time daring the devil, trying to catch him by the tail, but he gets away, and they just laugh and that’s why they burn bright and die young and are always a burden to everyone.
It’s really been raining a month now. Grandpa’s finding it hard to breathe and he’s always real pissed. Grandma says it won’t be his heart, asthma, or kidneys that kill him, but his impishness. Only Grandpa and I have impishness, but everyone yells at me because of mine and I have to scram so I don’t get it on the snout, but they never say anything to him when he’s being impish, they just stay out of his way, everyone except for Dad when he comes from Sarajevo. He’s always testing Grandpa for something, holding his hand and checking his pulse, tapping him with his finger, looking him up and down, and even though Grandpa answers all his questions he’s even more pissed when Dad goes. He’s pissed because he’s kept something to himself and now he feels guilty about it. Asthma is for Grandpa what a cake-baking disaster is for Grandma: It’s something that chanced upon him one day and made him sick, but it didn’t just happen to him all willy-nilly but because he’d done something wrong and because in life in general he didn’t know the ratio of flour to milk to eggs or something else you make life with, so that’s why he got asthma, to torture and suffocate him and it would always be his own fault. It’s always worse when it’s your own fault because then you’re even more pissed with everyone else. And there’s something more besides: Grandma can hide her baking from guests and no one ever knows about it, but Grandpa can’t hide his asthma from anyone because we all hear him wheeze when he breathes. There was a time when roosters woke people in the morning in Metjaš and Drvenik, but now my grandpa’s cough does the job. He coughs away and all the while fathers are tying their ties, mothers are getting ready for the office, and fishermen are returning to shore.
It looks like Nikola died, said Grandma when she came back from the store. What do you mean – it looks like he died, Grandpa asked. That’s what it looks like, nobody wants to say anything but they’ve all gone to Lučica, the whole village is there. The road to Zaostrog has probably collapsed . . . Can we go to Lučica too, I asked. No, we can’t, looking at a dead man isn’t like going to the circus. It’s always like that, the minute something interesting happens in Drvenik I’m not allowed to see it and they always tell me it’s not a circus, that it’s not for my eyes and it would be better if I put a sock in it and quit asking my questions. I’m going to miss all the important stuff, so when I’m in Sarajevo and they ask me what’s up in Drvenik I’ll only be able to say I don’t know because my grandma and grandpa didn’t let me see if there was anything up.
The next day I found out what happened to Nikola. All the kids were talking about it so I just made like I knew it all already and hung on their every word. He took ill where the highway makes a sharp bend and sat down on a rock even though it was raining. He felt so bad he preferred getting wet to walking. Then he started to cough up blood. There was more and more blood and it rained harder and harder. In the end he coughed up all the blood inside him, but the rain was so hard it washed the blood away and half the highway turned pink like someone had melted the Pink Panther and poured him all over the road. Blood goes from red to pink in the rain and that’s
why it’s better to bleed in the rain because then you don’t scare anyone. Nikola wouldn’t have been scared, or at least less scared than if he’d bled on a sunny day when all the colors would have been brighter and there would have been nothing to make the red blood go Pink Panther pink.
He was dead when they found him. He sat on the stone, his face as white as lime and smiling like an angel. I don’t know how angels smile, but that’s what Granny Tere said Nikola’s smile was like and she always goes to church so she knows how angels smile. Nikola was smiling because he was dead and wasn’t scared or ashamed anymore, so he could finally smile again, like back when he didn’t have tuberculosis. People smile when they think something’s funny but it’s nicest to smile when it’s nothing to you. Something was up, you were in pain, suffocating and worrying, and then it’s nothing and it’s funny because it’s nothing and you think there was nothing there to start with, you just got a bit anxious and thought you were in pain, suffocating and worrying.
The next day they took Nikola up into the mountain and buried him in the cemetery on Biokovo, out from which you can see the whole vastness of the sea; the sea beyond Hvar and Pelješac, beyond Korčula, beyond Vis, all the way to Italy. In the end, beyond everything there is still the ocean, but out there it gets round. When you’re up on Biokovo, when you’re at the cemetery, you understand why once upon a time people thought the earth stretched out flat: that’s because they’d never climbed Biokovo and couldn’t see the ocean is round, and if the ocean is round, then the earth is round too. I think the cemetery is built so high, right up there on Biokovo, so when the living bury the dead they can take comfort that they know what the dead didn’t. When someone in Drvenik dies, you learn that the earth is round.
Mama Leone Page 10