We lived from one special occasion to the next in a happy and ordered world, sometimes sick with feverish kids’ sicknesses and sometimes with serious grown-up ones, in a world in which everything had its place and moment in time. Don’t run before you can walk, Grandma used to say. We didn’t know what she meant, or maybe some did, but they weren’t saying, so I kept running because time passed by so slowly. I couldn’t wait for it, I had to hurry, get out ahead, skip the good-for-nothing days because they weren’t special occasions.
You couldn’t buy ice cream in the winter back then. It disappeared from the confectionaries in the first thick November fog and only showed up again in April. Why don’t people eat ice cream in winter too? Because ice cream gives you a sore throat. They were looking out for us, making sure we didn’t get sick for no reason, and that every day had its place in the calendar and time in the seasons, that we would never think that we were alone and abandoned, forsaken like the faraway countries we heard about on the radio. Young slant-eyed soldiers were dying in those countries, a little machine gun in one hand and a tiny baby in the other. That’s how they died, leaving behind little slant-eyed wives to hold their heads in their hands and grieve in their funny incomprehensible language.
I laugh whenever I see little slant-eyed mothers next to their little dead husbands on the TV. Saigon and Hanoi are the names of the first comedies in my life. I spell them out loud, letter by letter, laughing my head off. Those people don’t look like us, and I don’t believe they’re in pain or that they’re really sad. Words of sadness have to sound sad, and tears have to be like raindrops, small and brilliant. Their words aren’t sad, and the tears on their faces are too big and look funny, like the fake tears of the clowns I saw at the circus. I’m just waiting for Mom and Grandma to leave the room so I can watch Saigon and Hanoi and have a laugh. When they’re there I’m not allowed to laugh because Mom will think I’m crazy, and Grandma that I’m malicious. Craziness and malice are strictly forbidden in our house. Great unhappiness is born from malice; malicious children put their parents in old folks’ homes, never thinking that they themselves will one day get old and that their children might bundle them off to old folks’ homes too; Grandma and Mom were scared of malice and craziness because they were born old and with fears I don’t understand, but I knew one day I’d have my turn; it’ll happen the day they say I’m a grown-up, the day I run when I first meet someone who’s crazy, because craziness is infectious, just like all the sicknesses and misfortune in this city. When you grow up and have your own house and your own children, then you can do whatever you like. But in my house you won’t. Grandma loved the little slant-eyed mothers and pretended she understood them.
I get really careful in the run-up to special occasions like New Year’s Eve and my birthday. I don’t even laugh when I’m on my own; I keep my mouth shut like the angels on Grandma’s postcards, and I squint to see if I’ve already grown wings or if I still need to wait a bit. I never know what those two are going to get me for my birthday or New Year’s, only that Grandma’s presents are always better. She buys me books — encyclopedias and picture books — and Mom always gets me practical stuff. Practical stuff is stuff that they were going to have to buy anyway, but instead of just getting on with it without all the pomp, they wait for special occasions and give them to you all wrapped up in shiny wrapping and expect you to get excited. But who can get excited about socks, undies, undershirts, and winter slippers? Mom expects me to get excited about her presents. If I don’t, it means I’m malicious. There’s no such thing as everyday stuff for her, not even socks, everything’s a special treat, you have to earn everything in life, you have to bust your gut. If you listened to her you’d think humanity would go naked and barefoot if everyone told their mother that undershirts and slippers don’t cut it as birthday presents. But I pretend to be excited about her presents because if I don’t she gets angry and starts with the nurturing stuff. When she cranks up the nurture rant it’s much worse than when she gets a migraine. Mom’s kind of nurturing is out of books called You and Your Child and Your Child Is a Personality. She bought them from a traveling salesman, spent a month reading them, and then decided to put her foot down about my nurturing. Luckily she doesn’t have time to stick at it, so unless I remind her, she totally forgets the whole thing. Nurturing amounts to Mom screwing up her face and repeating the same sentence ten times, wanting something from me without ever actually saying what it is. The less I understand, the happier she is because then she thinks she’s being strict, and no strictness means no nurture. For me strict nurturing involves keeping your mouth shut, saying yes, nodding your head and not asking any questions because there’s nothing to ask because you don’t understand anything.
For special occasions Dad gives me model railway, motorway, city, and chemistry sets, all with thousands of little pieces. Then we sit down on the living-room floor and open the box. Dad puts his serious face on and starts scratching behind his ear, spreading the thousands of little pieces out on the rug. I watch him and he’s as funny as the little slant-eyed mothers, and he gives me a nod that says trust me and starts putting the thousands of little railway pieces together. He knows what he’s doing, and I like watching him put it together much more than I like the railway itself. Mom thinks he likes this stuff so much because when he was a boy they didn’t buy him toys, so he never got a chance to play his little heart out and now he’s making up for it. I don’t think she’s right. If that’s how it was, he’d buy toys for himself.
Nano gives the best presents. He’s not actually Nano, his name is Rudolf Stubler, but nobody calls him that. Nano is Grandma’s older brother and once, a long time ago, he studied math in Vienna. Today he spends his time exploring far-off cities, going hiking, beekeeping, and playing the violin. We see him in photographs: Nano in London, Nano in Paris, Nano in Berlin, Nano in Moscow, Amsterdam, Kiev, Prague, Rome, Florence, Madrid, and Lisbon. They know Nano in all these cities because their buildings and bridges, cathedrals and skyscrapers have their photos taken with him. They don’t have any pictures of their own without him, without him these cities are just postcards, and postcards aren’t real cities, they’re just letters with photos where nothing is real. Nano stands waving in front of the Trevi Fountain, a coin in his hand and a wish in the coin. We don’t believe the wish, Grandma says wishes don’t come true in water, but that doesn’t matter because the Trevi Fountain believes in wishes, and so Nano tosses a coin in and has his picture taken, so we’ll know what Rome looks like. Nano comes over before every special occasion, puts a pen and paper down on the table, and says come on, tell me what you’d like for New Year’s, doesn’t matter if it’s a sewing needle or a locomotive, leave it up to me to see if my financial means stretch. Only Nano uses phrases like financial means, because he talks to me like I’m a grown-up, so I talk to him like he’s a grown-up too: For a start I need to say that I don’t want a sewing needle or a locomotive. I can borrow a sewing needle from Grandma, and I’d need a driver’s license for a locomotive. . Very well, let’s see, how do you feel about musical instruments?. . I think I’m tone-deaf and that it’d be a complete waste of money. I’d prefer something that might stimulate my intellectual development. . What do you think would be most appropriate?. . I’m not sure, perhaps a volume on world history, an encyclopedia of sports or of the animal kingdom. . Got it, I’ve made a note. And where do you stand in regard to sporting activities?. . I’ve already got a bike, and I don’t need a ball because somebody might steal it. Don’t get me roller skates because only girls go skating, and I could fall and break my neck. . How about a chess set?. . Well, perhaps, but a wooden one. I think I’ve outgrown plastic.