They told us at school that we shouldn’t greet each other with the commie “hail” anymore but instead say the new Croatian greeting, “Good day,” and that our teachers were now just “Teacher,” not “Comrade Teacher,” like we’d been told to call them before. I knew something big had changed when the priest came to our school play, sat in the front row with the principal, and then later went to the teachers’ lounge for coffee and cake. I was happy they’d finally made their peace. Everybody said Croatia had to start being its own country. In the spring of 1991, a month or so before the suicides began, a Serbian singer named Bebi Dol won a contest. She was competing to represent Yugoslavia at Eurovision, but we were convinced that a Croatian singer we’d never heard of before, Tedi Spalato, was way better. He dressed in robes like a friar and sang a song in which he prayed to God for a girlfriend. Some joked that it was good to see a priest interested in women: “It’s refreshing, honest t’ God, to see that not all priests are pansies.”
Others were a little more serious, saying they were happy to rub Serbs’ noses in the fact that we were Catholics.
“Damn-blasted Serbs.”
“They’re shooting at police.”
“And putting up barricades.”
“Enough already with the bad-mouthing.”
Even the kids in school began talking about Serbs, Croatia, democracy, and especially Franjo Tuđman. There was a sternness about him. He spoke with his sizable mouth practically shut, his upper lip would twist, and when he talked about how we had to love Croatia, he lost control of his voice and he’d do this yodelly thing. He wore big square glasses with thick frames and had wavy hair. His hair first swelled up, then flattened down, then swelled up again. I wanted to love him, but I just couldn’t. He didn’t have a dog to protect him from a bomb, like Tito’d had, and he hadn’t sent the Germans packing, either. And besides, I was worried he might do something buffle-brained. All those democracy honchos looked like they had no idea what it was they were supposed to be doing. The Special Police officer reporting to the president on TV fumbled halfway through and forgot what he was supposed to say. When Tuđman went to the United States, the president there didn’t receive him. We saw on TV that they stayed at an ordinary hotel and took taxis, like tourists in suits, and the passersby stared at them like they were nutcases. We missed out on the pomp and circumstance, the red carpet and brass band, and all the soldiers wearing white gloves. I was afraid nobody would want to recognize us and take us seriously. That would be bad, because we’d begun taking ourselves very seriously indeed.
The new story had appeal. I was happy to believe we were descendants of the Tomislav royal line, a much different and finer people than the uncouth Bosnians or Serbs. Closer to the Germans and Americans than to the Russians and Turks or any other such sorry folks. A brave and noble people.
I wanted us to eat sandwiches on triangular slices of bread like in the US of A, and have a hundred different kinds of salami and chocolate like in Bad Radkersburg, and drink Coca-Cola from a can. I wanted to wear Bermuda shorts, bright-colored T-shirts, and white high-tops like the kids in California wore. I was sick and tired of stories about the partisans, wartime couriers, bombers, clowns, and persnickety girls; about how the Adriatic Sea connected us to the whole world; and about how Tito was kind to children and loved to hunt. I wanted to be the BMX Bandit and Karate Kid. I began to imagine being capable of great things, and that when I did something in front of everybody, they would all leap spontaneously to their feet and applaud, first slowly, then louder like they do in the American movies, when an old veteran stands up from his wheelchair and salutes with a tear in his eye. I believed this was possible, that people in the village would change, and that I wouldn’t always be met with discouragements like “All right already,” “No, no, no,” or “Come now, come now, come now.”
“All right already” is what people said when somebody who’d been taking dancing lessons came to a wedding and danced differently than the other folks who’d been stitching a two-step across the floor. Somebody would say, “All right already,” and everybody would know that what came next was “Cut the crap.” When somebody on Vujčovo Hill knew how to ski proper-like and started zigzagging left and right instead of going down straight like everybody else, somebody would mutter, “All right already”… and everybody knew that next came “Knock it off.” It was the same when somebody said, “Come now, come now, come now”… They all knew that next was “Get over it.”
It had been over two years since I’d gone to the forest and nearly died of exposure. And for half a year after that, I went once a week to talk to the lady at the Čakovec medical center, and told her stories about my good friends, about how we had camaraderie and played with Legos. There wasn’t actually much of that. Mom once told me to invite kids over to have soda, sandwiches, and cake for my birthday, but nobody would come, and once she was supposed to take Granny for a checkup in Čakovec, but she didn’t have anybody to leave me with because none of the parents wanted me around. I had to lie to the lady at the medical center so she wouldn’t send me to the big woman and little man with the dumb questions. I drew pictures for her: people, animals, dogs, trees, tanks and planes, imaginary beings, the earth and the sky. She didn’t know I was drawing the sites of my hidden remorse because I couldn’t make the world better for me and others.
I left some drawings and messages on Dad’s grave, though I wasn’t sure he really read them. Somebody was probably taking them. I corresponded with my buddies from the hospital for a bit. Eventually I stopped writing Viktor and Sandi because I got bored. But Biljana stopped writing me. She didn’t usually write much about her sickness, but she said once that they were moving her to Zagreb and that she’d ridden in an ambulance. She wrote me about the pony they’d promised her when she got better and the pop band Novi fosili. She included stickers of singers and actors, the kind that came with chewing gum. I stuck them on one side of my bed to remind me of her. I prayed to God she stopped writing to me because she got bored and not for some other reason.
The children in my class hadn’t forgotten what I’d tried to do to Dejan Kunčec; word got out about it, maybe he told them himself. I’d have given my eyeteeth to be like the others, but I knew even then that I’d lost that chance a long time ago. On the other hand, I was unappealing enough that they left me alone. I sat by myself. At least that’s how it looked to everybody else. Bacawk and Chickichee were still around, lurking in my peripheral vision. I was strong enough by then to ignore them, and I’d become good at that. Now and then, at lunch break, one or the other would dart out from under the table and wing a gob of phlegm into my soup or spit into my mashed potatoes. I went right on eating just to spite them, though this did turn my stomach. Sometimes they watched me through the window at night, but I was no longer afraid.
And besides, things weren’t like they used to be at home. When summer came there was no trip to the seashore. We ate the same food for days: dishes made from offal and buckwheat groats. The water pump kept breaking, and the roof leaked during summer downpours. This at least gave me some amusement, scampering around the attic with pails and bowls, thinking about how I could become a consultant for households with leaky roofs. The only truly upsetting part was having to wear a Yassa tracksuit with foot straps, which I was ashamed of. I wanted one of those bright-colored tracksuits that made a slithery sound, like the other kids wore. Mom was looking for a job, but all she could get was part-time work on the weekends. She’d help out in the kitchen and as a waitress for weddings at the Međimurska hiža, and sometimes bring home leftovers.