by Lana Popovic
He snorted in sympathy. “She hasn’t eased up, huh?”
“I don’t think she knows how. It was even worse than usual today, there was this . . .” The white flame of Dunja’s hair blazed through my thoughts, followed by my mother’s devastation and her fear. It felt so out of place here in the sunshine, and with pragmatic Luka right in front of me, like a swarm of moths where there should have been only butterflies. I could tell him about it later, once the strangeness had the time to fade. “But anyway, old news. Tell me about Belgrade.”
He whistled low. “I didn’t think I was going to like it, you know? So much space, so many variables, too easy to get lost in. But it’s amazing, Iris, all these sleek modern buildings.” He gave a light laugh. “Even their older ones are fancier than ours—the biggest theater has this glass covering over the neoclassical facade, like a museum exhibit. It’s gorgeous, you’d love it. And they have stands where you can get a hot dog the size of your forearm, and you eat it with kefir.”
I rolled my eyes. “Understood, pretty buildings and delicious food that lends itself perfectly to dick jokes, if I wasn’t such a lady. Tell me about school.”
He gave me a lazy smile, his eyes narrowing. “Well, as we know, the mathematics are inherently sensual when done by me,” he began, and I cracked up despite myself. “But seriously, some of those kids are beyond brilliant. It’s an American international college, so it’s not even just homegrown math geniuses. My second week, one of the study-abroad students corrected the professor as he was writing out a proof, while he was still scratching it out on the blackboard.” He shook his head admiringly. “Jolie’s from Miami, but she thinks I’m exotic. And you should see her—”
“And stop,” I ordered, giving him a mock shudder. “No need to regale me with your exploits. I’m familiar with the basic concept.”
“You know,” he continued, in the fake-casual tone that always raised my hackles, “you could come visit me sometime. There are so many galleries, and sometimes I go in just to see. None of them have anything like what you make.”
“So what?”
“So, you only have one more year of school, and you can’t tell me you want to be stuck here for the rest of your life after that.” He glanced across the bay, resettling himself. “Even if sometimes it does seem like the most beautiful place in the world.”
I followed his gaze to the water, like rippled blown glass from this high up, the mountains across the bay from us looming jagged. The usual ache rose up in my throat when the blue and white refused to form a shimmering mosaic like they once had. I swallowed it back down.
“Exactly,” I said stiffly. “Why would I want to leave all this?”
“How many flowers in the world are you never going to see if you stay here?” he retorted. “And how many techniques are you never going to learn, because Jovan just dabbles in glassblowing and he’s the only game in town? How are you even going to live off that here, anyway? You know Jovan can only afford to run the gallery because he sold his real one in Belgrade to retire here, and he makes those baubles to keep himself busy.”
Anger rose up in me, tiny fizzy pockets like seed bubbles in glass. Those baubles were the only thing I had left of the gleam. And for all that I loved Cattaro, I’d spent so much of my life burning to leave this gorgeous prison, to see the places I’d only seen in books. It made me feel guilty sometimes, how badly I wanted to abandon all this beauty when other people were born trapped in deserts or slums. But our magic wasn’t the Midas touch kind. And even if I somehow scrounged up enough money to spring me free, who would protect my sister from our mother once I was gone?
I began gathering up the remains of the food, crumpling foil and snapping the tops back onto containers. “You know I can’t go anywhere,” I mumbled, my throat aching. “Mama can’t run the café without our help, and Malina won’t leave her.”
“Lina’s a pure sweetheart, but you’re not Siamese twins. Don’t you think Niko and Tata needed me after Mama died? But I still left when I had to, Riss. Because I want to be an engineer, not the future owner of a nargileh café. They understood that.”
“That is not the same!” I shot back. “I can’t leave Lina to handle Mama by herself, and even if I could, you’re forgetting that we. Have. No. Money. The café barely supports us as it is.”
“You could get another job, and then you can save up and travel. There’s backpacking, and hostels.” He fixed his bright gaze on me, eyes earnest, and I felt my usual, dumb little twinge at how symmetrical his face was, that fine, straight nose and sculpted lips, the cheekbones sharp as arrowheads. It made him annoyingly persuasive—you agreed to things just so you could keep looking. “You could see the tree, Iris.”
He meant the wisteria in the Ashikaga Flower Park in Tochigi, Japan, the one I’d told him about so many times. It was 144 years old, not the oldest in the world, but the book I’d read had called it the most beautiful. The central trunk twisted around itself like a helix, and held pink and purple blossoms that hung like waterfalls from a slim, steel framework around the trunk—half an acre of flowers above your head, like the sky itself was burning with the palest, most delicate fire. I could only imagine what it would look like to me, a riotous supernova of bloom and color.
And it was in Japan, so it came from the same earth that had made half of me.
I had never admitted to Luka how much it rubbed me raw, chafed at me like rope bound around my wrists, that I couldn’t lay any physical claim to a country that was as much mine as Montenegro. A country in which I might have real family—a father, grandparents, cousins, maybe even other siblings. Half sisters or brothers with my eyes or chin or stock-straight hair just like my own.
But even if I wanted to find them, the crumbs Mama had ever let drop were far too few to form any kind of trail. I could never tell whether it was really that she only knew so much herself, after barely a week with our father, or that she couldn’t stand the notion of losing control by letting us know too much. Our father’s name was Naoki; that, she had been willing to cede. He came from Shimoda, one of the smallest port cities, its population only about twice that of Cattaro. I hadn’t known whether to laugh or cry when I scoured the internet for it, only to find that it looked a bit like some much lusher version of Cattaro from a parallel universe, with rolling dunes of mountains steaming with hot springs.
Just like I hadn’t known what to do when Mama told us his favorite food had been uni, sea urchin sushi. Something I couldn’t imagine I would ever have the chance to taste. Since the idea of a Japanese restaurant opening in Cattaro—anywhere in Montenegro, really—was about as likely as actual teleportation to Japan, I talked Lina into hand-making a roll with me once, just to see if we could do it. I’d known we wouldn’t be able to find avocados or nori sheets for rolling, but I hadn’t been prepared for the mess of rice that crumbled pitifully apart instead of sticking, fish that sat rank in the mouth because it wasn’t meant to be eaten raw, the lack of any savory sauce to mimic the umami taste of soy.
The worst of the burn was knowing that even if it had been as delicious as anything Mama made, we still wouldn’t have had any idea how it was really supposed to taste.
“I’m sure the tree will be just fine without me,” I said, shoving the last of the picnic litter into the backpack. “A lot like you in Belgrade, actually. I’ve heard from you, what, three times since you left?”
A tiny muscle in his cheek twitched. “That’s not true, or fair. I had classes and a job and—”
I stood abruptly. “Anyway, it was nice to see you. I need to get back to the café.”
That was a lie, and he knew it. But he was quiet as I left, seething with the silent frustration I knew so well in him. Luka wasn’t one to throw a tantrum, not when he could creep up on you silently with logic. This particular argument gnawed at him especially because he could sense that, on some level, I knew he was right. I’d never know who I could be away from here until I gritted my teeth and left.
/> What he didn’t know was how deeply it cut every time he brought it up. Because I always wondered: Was what I wanted exactly what my mother had wanted, before Malina and I chained her to this place?
SIX
I PICKED MY WAY BACK DOWN THE MOUNTAINSIDE carefully, wondering what to do with myself. I’d been planning on spending the rest of the day with Luka, lounging on the beach and then walking down the waterfront riva once the sun set, past the lanky rows of palm trees and the vendors who sold crepes, salty roasted corn, and oily cones of French fries drizzled with ketchup. No chance of that now. Čiča Jovan’s studio, maybe, though he’d sniff out my off-kilter mood as soon as he laid eyes on me.
Back at the Cathedral Square, I went to unchain my bike, only to falter midstep when I realized the café door was closed—not even a flicker of movement inside. The doorknob wouldn’t budge beneath my hand. Stifling a flare of panic, I cupped my hands around my face and peered in against the glare. Two crumb-crusted plates sat on the counter, alongside a slice of Spanish wind cake with frosting melting around the yellow dough and a mound of dried-out macarons.
My stomach knotted. The store was never empty at this time of day. We were open from seven in the morning until whenever we ran out of food at night, which was never earlier than six. I couldn’t remember a single time when at least one of us wasn’t behind the counter, a counter that should have been impeccable. Those abandoned desserts, wilting and far from beautiful, worried me more than anything else.
“Lina!” I called, rapping sharply against the glass. “Jasmina!”
Neither of them answered.
My heart pounding, I swung my leg over the bike and launched myself through the streets. Some of the alleys were so narrow that, had I been walking, I could have brushed both walls with only slightly lifted hands. I’d been navigating this polished stone maze since I was little, and this time of day there was barely anyone around to slow my headlong hurtle.
By the time I skidded to a stop in front of our flowered fence, I was so afraid I was gulping back tears, panic clogging my throat. When I found Malina in the yard on the creaking porch swing, with her legs tucked beneath her and Nikoleta curled against her side, fury burst through me like a flushed-out pipe.
“What the fuck is going on, Lina?” I demanded, flinging my bike against the fence so hard the chain links rattled. “Why is the café closed? I thought—” I rested my hands on my thighs and took a shaky breath. “I thought something happened to you and Jasmina. Why the hell are you even out here? Where’s Jasmina?”
Niko leaped up like a shot, moving to stand half in front of Lina, small hands planted on her hips. I would have laughed if I hadn’t been almost hysterical; Niko had a face like a doe, heart-shaped and fine-featured as Luka’s, her silky hair parted far from the left and sweeping above sloe eyes. She was petite and dark as their Bosnian Romany mother had been, and with her head tilted and jaw jutting, she looked like a fierce, tiny lapdog defending her mistress.
“Stop it, Iris,” she snapped at me. Her voice sometimes still caught me by surprise, so much deeper and scratchier than it should have been. All that grit and smoke from such a pixie of a girl. “Can’t you see she’s already upset? Does this look like the time to terrorize?”
“I didn’t mean—”
She chopped the air with one hand. “You never do. So maybe shut up first, and give Malina the chance to use her words. They’re just as perfectly good as yours, I’m sure you know.”
“Niko,” Lina admonished quietly. “Maybe don’t?”
“Fine.” Niko dropped back down to the swing, crossing her tanned legs so that the bell charm strung on her anklet sang out a deceptively sweet little chime, but her torso thrummed with tension. If I still wanted to fight, Nikoleta Damjanac would surely proceed to bring it. “Do your snappy thing before you say anything else, go on. It’ll help.”
I ground my teeth—Niko was even more impossible than Luka sometimes, all his logic and double the fire, minus the steely restraint—and wormed my finger beneath the elastic around my left wrist, snapping it three times until the sting pierced through the panic and rage. Once I’d remembered how to breathe I turned back to Lina, and now I could see that she’d been crying, and hard.
“Mama’s inside,” she said thickly. “I tried to stay in with her—to clean her up a little—but I couldn’t take it, I’m sorry. I just couldn’t listen to it.”
“Did someone hurt her? What’s wrong with her?”
Lina gave a hoarse laugh. “She’s drunk, Riss. Stinking drunk. Like Mihajlo the Widower on a Saturday night.”
I shook my head. “She can’t be. You know Mama never drinks.”
Lina shrugged one shoulder listlessly. “Well, she smells like she’s been spending quality time with you, and threw up on herself at least once. So, there’s that?”
“I’m happy to offer a second opinion,” Niko said. “Based on the sample size of my brother and father, I can confidently concur that Jasmina’s drunk as shit.”
Malina gave a little hiccupping giggle through her tears, and Niko nudged her gently in the side. “See, that’s better, pie,” she murmured. “More of that, less of the salt.”
Despite everything, I felt a sharp gnaw of jealousy at the two of them. We’d all grown up together and I enjoyed Niko when we weren’t at each other’s throats, but Malina had always been better friends with her. Watching them, I could never tell which one I was even jealous of: Malina for having a best friend who wasn’t her own twin, or Niko for being able to both calm and warm my sister like I never could, like some sort of tiger balm.
I chewed on the inside of my lip, my mind racing in an effort to wrest everything back under control. “Tell me what happened after I left.”
“Mama left the café right after you did, maybe five minutes after,” Lina replied. “Said she had an appointment, but wouldn’t tell me what. Since when does Mama have appointments, Riss? She never leaves the café during the day!”
Her voice rose, and Niko patted her thigh, making the low bear-cub rumble that meant annoyance or concern. Lina leaned against her for a moment, taking a deep breath and releasing it in a shuddering rush. My insides folded against each other; I wouldn’t be able to tell her about Dunja yet. She needed to know, and I needed her thoughts, but she was too delicate right now. I’d have to hold that on my own for at least a little longer.
“I’m fine, really,” she said to Niko, scooching away slightly. “I’ve got it now. Anyway, Riss, she came back maybe an hour or so later, and she just looked—I don’t know. Beside herself, but all hollow. Like someone had died or something. So then she went into the larder and poured herself a glass—”
“Not a shot glass, but a glass-glass?”
“An actual glass. Two-thirds of the way up, like she was pouring water, and then she just drank it down in one go. I swear, she barely even flinched.” She giggled wetly. “After that she just swiped the whole rakija bottle, like, to hell with this. It was actually pretty funny. I told her she was embarrassing us in front of the customers and then made her come home with me.”
“You told her—you made her come home with you?”
“It wasn’t so hard. She was getting a bit weirdly lovey by then.” Her lips trembled. “It’s all dissonance, like she . . . like she doesn’t know her own mind?”
“Okay, then.” I gritted my teeth. “I’m going to go see her. Why don’t you stay with Niko, bunny.”
She shook her head. “I’m coming with you. It’s bad enough I just left her in there in the first place.”
“Are you sure?” Niko murmured. “Iris can handle this, whatever it is. You could come home with me, sleep over tonight if you wanted.”
“No, you go on, I’ll see you tomorrow?” She looked back at me, teeth sinking into the notches of her lower lip. “You’re not some conquering hero, Riss. It shouldn’t always be just you when things get ugly, you know?”
THE PUNGENT BLISTER of liquor struck me as soon as we c
rossed our threshold. It was rakija, for sure; nothing else smelled both so sharp and foul. I assumed there were expensive brands that were probably smoother than anything I’d ever sampled, but from the smell of it, Mama hadn’t been indulging in anything particularly top-shelf. Beside me, Malina nearly gagged, pressing the back of her hand against her mouth.
“See?” she choked out. “It’s like you this morning. If all the air everywhere was made of your breath.”
I ignored her. “Mama?” I called out, peering into the kitchen. Empty.
“Iris? That you?”
A wave of chills swept down my spine; I almost didn’t recognize her voice. Underneath the slur, there was something else, a note of pleading I’d never heard from Mama before.
Another “Iris?” floated out, followed by a genuinely pitiful little moan. Lina and I exchanged a wide-eyed “oh shit” look before I laced my fingers with hers and followed Mama’s voice to her bedroom, Lina trailing behind me.
I gently pushed the door open, peering around it. Mama’s room was bigger than ours, but not by much, dominated by her sleigh bed. I lifted my gaze to the nook beneath her window, and my heart gave a hiccup—there she was, back against the wall and knees drawn up to her chin, her gray sheath ridden up so high I could see the long, tempered muscle of her thigh.
I let go of Lina’s hand and slid between the footboard and the armoire, perching on the edge of the bed. Mama looked up at me wide-eyed, her face pale and salty-streaked with tears. She seemed so achingly young that I found myself suddenly overwhelmed with sympathy, a corkscrew twisting in my center. With her hair tangled and undone, dark as baker’s chocolate and so long it nearly reached her waist, I suddenly remembered that Mama—the villain and the wicked witch, the stepmother who’d had the misfortune of actually bearing her unwanted offspring—was barely thirty-six years old.