Is she going to jump? I asked, not caring that she was still in her clothes, high up there, and that water is hard when you hit it from that high. I didn’t care that my mom could smash like a glass object or come out of the pool dripping wet, in her bright skirt and her shoes, her hairdo all messed up, even though when that happens Mom gets depressed, takes Lexilium, and says she’s old and already halfway gone, her best years behind her and that nothing beautiful will ever happen to her again. I wanted her to jump so bad, just as she was, so that in the pool she’d turn into something else and then climb out, or that the sleepy receptionist and desperate waiter would drag her out, that we’d call an ambulance, that she’d lie on the edge of the pool, that Dad would check her pupils and take her pulse, happy and relieved to have her back on dry land, and that on dry land you don’t need to know how to swim.
Is she going to jump? I asked louder so he couldn’t say he didn’t hear me. I don’t know, she shouldn’t, his voice sounded like he’d been hauled in front of a firing squad and he’d wanted to die bravely, but what can you do, he’d shit his pants. Why shouldn’t she, of course she should, why did she climb up there if she’s not going to jump? . . . It’s awfully high, and she’s still got her clothes on . . . So what, her clothes will dry out, why doesn’t she just jump? I was impatient and enjoying his fear; I wanted it to go on and on, that she would stand up there and spread her arms wide, that we would torment him until he burst out crying. She was tormenting him for her own reasons, probably because of a truth she’ll never tell anyone, and I was tormenting him because I was enjoying it. I was tormenting my dad like I torment ants, removing their little legs and wings, watching how they thrash around trying to walk with a missing leg as though it were still there, because they’re ashamed someone might notice, that other ants might notice they’re missing something, and that in the ant world they’re never going to be what they once were. I beg you, don’t let her jump, Dad stammered, begging me for the first time, the first time in my life, that is – it had never happened before because he was big, and I was a kid. I had already known that this day would come, the day when fathers beg their children, I knew it from the story of my grandpa’s dying, the one I wasn’t supposed to know but did because they didn’t know how to keep anything secret, because they’d always mess up thinking I was asleep or that I couldn’t hear what they were saying behind closed doors. Grandpa lay on the bed where I’d slept since we came back from Drvenik, they brought him from the hospital because he wanted to die at home. Maybe he thought he wouldn’t die if they brought him home; you can’t die among things that remember you being alive. Mom sat at his feet, sometimes he brought his middle and index finger to his lips, I beg you, give me a cigarette, he said, no Dad, you’re not allowed to smoke, she replied, though she knew it didn’t matter because when someone’s going to die, nothing can damage their health anymore. They stayed there in silence for half an hour, he’d bring his fingers to his lips, the only sound the rustling of starched bed linen. No one knew why Grandma starched the linen, maybe so our every movement, including our very last one – before sleep and before death – left a rustle behind. Then he repeated I beg you, give me a cigarette, and she yelled all stroppy don’t be crazy, Dad, you’re not allowed to smoke, because she thought she had to hide death from him. Grandpa looked at her with his blue eyes, our blue eyes. There aren’t many people in the world with blue eyes, but our whole family has them. Don’t you be crazy, I know it all already and beg you to the high heavens, give me a cigarette, he said. Mom says he said it with a melancholic inflection in his voice, but I don’t believe her because I know Grandpa yelled with all the might of the dying, and that there was no melancholic inflection because one thing he couldn’t stand was horseshitting. She lit a cigarette, took a drag, and gave it to him, his last cigarette, the cigarette for which he as a father had had to beg his child. One day I saw a young guy and his girlfriend in front of the Hotel Europa, first they kissed and then she lit a cigarette, took a drag, and held it out to him. One day when I’m grown up, if I ever see a guy and girl do that again, I’ll tell them that you’re not supposed to do that and that they should wait until they’re on death’s door before they start that stuff.
So that’s how it was then, in my eighth year of life my dad had already begged me for something. Instead of feeling grown up, fear took hold. What do you mean – I beg you, don’t let her jump. If she wants to jump, she’ll jump, what’s it got to do with me, leave me out of it, I didn’t talk her into climbing up there, I was furious with him because he was scared and so weak, and because he’d begged me in that voice I beg with when I’m scared and weak and they’re going to do something terrifying to me. But that begging never works, and no one ever pays it any mind, not even he who now expects me to make amends for the fact he never learned to swim, or me to make amends for something else, something I can’t grasp, just like he can’t grasp a single one of my fears.
Why don’t you climb up there and beg her not to jump, I suggested to him like it was perfectly normal and pretty weird he hadn’t already thought of it. Dad didn’t reply, he just stared up in the air at Mom every now and then waving her arms, her smile so broad you’d think she was going burst out laughing like she did watching Charlie Chaplin films, and that she’d fall off the board. Get up there and tell her not to jump, she’ll get soaked, and maybe she’ll smash to pieces if she jumps, I tugged at his sleeve. He bit his bottom lip and yelled Mom’s name. She made like she didn’t hear him, or maybe she really didn’t hear him, and then he headed toward the diving board, his legs shaking and knees knocking like kids’ knees when they try and jump from the fourth step. He climbed up the board itself, slowly he climbed, my terrified, non-swimming dad, the dad who was scared of heights, scared of his ex-wife at heights, she who had become so strong she was taking her revenge on him and probably didn’t know why. He’s climbing up there because I told him to and because he hadn’t managed to come up with a reason to wriggle out of it. He’d lost his mind, which until that point had got him out of ever going in the sea without me thinking it weird, always having an excuse for every attempt to get him in the water, the kind of answer only big, serious fathers were capable of.
Hey, wait, what are you doing, I’m coming down now, yelled Mom when she saw him halfway up the metal stairs. She turned around on the board as if she did it every day, like there wasn’t a great height below her. A moment later the three of us were standing next to the pool and everything began to fall back into its old familiar rhythm, one in which every fear lay sleeping at the bottom of our hearts, at the bottom of a big black cave, not coming out unless a devilish someone prodded one out.
We went back to our waiter. Are you drinking and driving? Mom was confused. The waiter brought a double grappa for Dad and cloudy juices for Mom and me. That went: cloudy, cloudy, double grappa. Dad said I don’t usually drink, but today I need one, and Mom didn’t ask why do you need one today. She just said there probably won’t be any cops.
After that we went to the spring and drank our fill of the special men’s water. Are you going to become a man now? Mom laughed, it’s a bit late for me . . . But for me it’s not, I said and drank another glass. Dad didn’t say anything, he drank in big grown-up gulps, gulps that could have swallowed the ocean if it wasn’t so salty. I remembered the sea and Drvenik, and that I’d never live there again. This life, this Sarajevo-and- nowhere-else life was very serious, and I already didn’t like it because in this life lived fears no one understood. Everyone had their own fears and loaded with these fears they collided with others for whom they meant nothing, were just a plaything. I had the feeling I knew what it meant to be a grown-up.
We went back to the car, the shirt was already dry. Dad put it on, you’re not going to puke, are you? he laughed, and I looked at the ground and didn’t say anything because I knew I was sure to puke, that’s how it had to be, and they’d be happy because of it. I couldn’t escape, there’s never anywhere to escap
e anyway, you can only lie a little, and just never in hell open your mouth when they ask you if you need to puke, or if you’re scared, or if you’re sad. Yes, and you don’t need to explain to anyone why a poor little Fićo is a poor little Fićo and why fathers aren’t allowed to beg their children.
Mom sighed like Marija in the village of Prkosi
On the last day of fall we’re going to Pioneer Valley. That’s what we agreed, doesn’t matter if it’s raining cats and dogs and the heavens themselves open, a deal’s a deal, that’s what Dad says. The three of us are going to Pioneer Valley, and we’re going to look at the lions, monkeys, and other animals. They’ll be brought indoors on the first day of winter and put in secret sleeping cages, where they’ll stay until the first day of spring. Until then only the zookeepers will see them because animals don’t like being watched while they’re sleeping. Their wanting to sleep alone needs to be respected. We’ll see them at the very end, on Sunday afternoon, and when we go, the zookeepers are going to lead them into the secret sleeping cages, Pioneer Valley will be locked up and the keys given to the mayor, who’ll look after them until spring comes. Then we’ll come back, the animals and us, and see the changes the winter has brought. I’ll never see the lions as a five-year-old again, because in the spring I’ll be six.
It’s so foggy you can’t see your finger in front of your nose, said Grandma coming back from the market. I made it there and back from memory because I couldn’t see where I was and would’ve thought I was nowhere if I hadn’t remembered the way. Now let them say I’m senile. She put her shopping bag on the floor, a head of lettuce and a leek that looked like a palm poked out, but there was nothing in there for me, and if she’d bought spinach too it was going to be a really yucky Sunday. Luckily we’re off to Pioneer Valley, and besides, it doesn’t pay to prematurely get anxious about lunch.
C’mon, wakey wakey! Grandma searched the bed for Mom. Mom always pulled the covers up over her head, hiding under the duvet so you really needed to search the bed for her if you wanted to wake her. Mom murmured something, and Grandma beat the white linen with her hand, like a blind person looking for their wallet in the snow. C’mon, wakey wakey, why am I always the youngest here, yelled Grandma, get up, it’s foggy outside, I made it back by memory, so try putting that one about my sclerosis on me now. Mom poked her nose out, as tousled as Mowgli when he was growing up among the animals, who’s been telling you you’re sclerotic? . . . I don’t remember right now, I’ve forgotten. Then they started joshing, no harm intended and not really wanting a proper fight, just a little Sunday-morning bicker, because we’re all at home on Sunday mornings and that’s when everyone gets to play their games.
Grandma’s game is called I’m not senile and what happens is that she walks around the house talking about all the things she remembers and has caught Mom forgetting because then she can say and they say I’m senile. Grandma’s other game is called I’m not deaf and is often played at the same time as I’m not senile. Mom invented both games because she’s freaking out that Grandma might stop remembering stuff and go kooky like old people often do, waking up one morning and asking things like who are you and what am I doing here. So Mom checks her sclerosis every day and gets blue and a bit pissed when she notices Grandma has forgotten something. Grandma’s the only one who’s not allowed to forget anything, because then Mom will think her sick and old, and then Mom will walk tall like a national hero, beat her fists on her chest like King Kong, and swear to her colleagues, Uncle, Dad, Grandpa, and other relatives that she’s ready to care for her mother to the death, to bathe and clean her if need be, and that she couldn’t care less if her own mother, having gone totally senile, doesn’t remember her. These stories get on Grandma’s nerves, mainly because she’s the one who looks after Mom and me, makes us lunch, cleans, and irons, while Mom just prepares herself for a heroic age Grandma thinks will come, God willing, the day little green creatures land on earth. Grandma wins the I’m not senile game because she really doesn’t forget anything, or at least she doesn’t forget more than Mom and I forget, but she always loses the I’m not deaf game. It goes like this: Mom says something, and Grandma doesn’t reply; then Mom says the same thing over, and Grandma says sorry? – at which point Mom screeches at the top of her lungs, a screech so loud hikers up on Mount Trebević could hear it, to which Grandma replies quit your bawling, I’m not deaf! Then Mom says why can’t you bloody hear me then? At which point Grandma mutters something and it’s clear to all she’s lost the game. Of course, to make the game work Mom has to screech at the top of her lungs, because if she just raises her voice a little she won’t be able to tell Grandma she’s deaf and can’t hear a thing.
Mom’s Sunday games are I’ve got a migraine or look at the state of the place, we’re cleaning under the rugs today. I like the first game better because then Mom spends the whole day lying in bed whining, sighing, and grasping for the barf bowl. As long as she keeps it up, I can go about my business building a castle for Queen Forgetful and flicking through the encyclopedia, I’m just not allowed to shout, but that’s it, everything else is okay. In our family migraines are passed from generation to generation, from head to head in actual fact, so we can’t remember an ancestor who didn’t get migraines. Mom says our ancestors who didn’t get migraines were actually monkeys, and that their heads started hurting the moment they became human. Grandma says that if she got a migraine, she’d lock herself in the bedroom, put earplugs in, draw the shades, and let the kids smash the place up, just so long as they leave her in peace. I can’t figure why I’m not allowed to smash stuff up when my mom has a migraine. You’ll see what it’s like, Mom would say, the joke isn’t going to pass you by, and after you’ve had your first migraine you’ll understand everything your mother has suffered in life.
Mom’s other game look at the state of the place, we’re cleaning under the rugs today is a pure catastrophe. The game involves shunting wardrobes around the house, taking the rugs out into the yard, cleaning floors and windows, Radojka the cleaning lady coming over and my mom playing Alija Sirotanović until Radojka goes home and Mom gets tired – which is when the game is called off. But this doesn’t mean the rugs are put back on the floor and wardrobes shunted back in place. No way! The mess lasts at least another ten days, and then we live in a state of emergency, sleeping in our beds in the middle of the room, not watching television because we don’t have anything to sit on and because the screen is covered in curtains taken down to be cleaned. Mom gets really uptight when we play this game and no one’s allowed to say anything to her because then she just starts screaming and crying and talking about the past. In the past everyone maltreated Mom. I don’t know a single member of our close or extended family who hasn’t maltreated Mom and who she doesn’t rail about because of that. Only I never maltreated her in the past because in the past I wasn’t even born, but apparently I’m making up for that now.
Today isn’t a day for Mom’s migraines. Today we’re going to Pioneer Valley. Dad’s coming for us around noon, lunch has been put back to four, which means we’ll have a whole three and a half hours for looking at the animals. God, father, look at the fog, Mom said, almost pressing her nose up against the windowpane trying to see out. But there was nothing out there, just fog and milk and the boughs of the cherry tree beneath the window disappearing into the milk rather than growing from the trunk. What did I tell you? Grandma replied. What did you tell me? . . . That it’s foggy out . . . I don’t know, I don’t remember, I was still asleep. . . Fine, play the smarty-pants then . . . I’m not playing the smarty-pants, I was asleep and didn’t hear you, Mom was getting snippy, and that was always dangerous because her snippiness could finish with us not going to Pioneer Valley. But luckily Grandma bit her lip. Grandma always bites her lip when a ring girl starts strolling around the apartment with a sign saying “Fight Time, Round One,” because she doesn’t have the strength for a fight of fifteen rounds. She’s mature and experienced, but Mom is young and
up-and-coming and would knock her out by the third round.
Maybe you should give Pioneer Valley a miss after all, Grandma stared at the foggy whiteout outside the window. I don’t know, I really don’t know, Mom drank her coffee and lit her first cigarette. Here we go, you’re going to back out on me again, I put the last block on the top of the tower where Queen Forgetful was holding her parents prisoner. No one’s backing out on you, be reasonable, take a look at the weather, Grandma wasn’t falling for it. What do you care, you’re not going to Pioneer Valley, it’s all the same to you what the weather’s like . . . Yes, yes, it’ll be all quite the same to me when you come down with bronchitis and I have to look after you.
Dad arrived fifteen minutes before noon. We’re going to Pioneer Valley, right, I got it in before Mom and Grandpa could open their mouths. If that was the deal, let’s go, he replied. The two of them looked at each other. Mom sighed like our national hero Marija Bursać when she was injured in the village of Prkosi and headed off to play the martyr. Outside there was either a light rain falling or it was the fog turning into drops of water, I don’t know, but the whole thing looked like a ginormous cloud had come down on the city, covering the roofs of the houses and the streets as if we’d ordered a giant duvet for Sarajevo so we wouldn’t have to climb out of bed.
There was no one at Pioneer Valley. The ticket seller in the entrance kiosk was dozing, and some young guy puttered by on a two-wheeled cart loaded to the brim with bluish-looking meat, singing seaman sons are always so late ashore, and poor mothers weep forever more. As he passed by he said good day, folks, make yourselves at home. Dad turned after him like he was about to cuss, and Mom gripped her handbag and said Christ, do they have to hassle me when I’m at the zoo too. Then they both shut up, and I shut up too because I already felt a little guilty.
Mama Leone Page 12