Auntie Doležal clapped her hands. I was surprised: In the end nothing happened in her story. There was nothing about what happened to Forgetful, whether she was alive today or whether she grew up and stopped her forgetting. There was no end to the story because it just got bigger and bigger like the circles around a stone thrown into the sea; there’s always another circle around the other circle, and inside one thing forgotten there was always another and no one can count all these forgotten things because forgotten things can’t be counted. It’s like they don’t exist and they never existed, but if you’re Forgetful and everyone knows that you of all people are the forgetful one, then you start to count and write all the forgotten stuff down.
I looked at the wall, Auntie Doležal asked did you like the story? but I couldn’t answer because I was trying to remember something that I knew yesterday but had forgotten today. I didn’t know what it was, but I’m sure there was something and that I had forgotten it. Did you like the story? Auntie Doležal repeated. Wait a second, Auntie, and again I tried to remember. Okay, I’m waiting, she said.
You forget things because they’re all different. If they were the same, you wouldn’t be able to forget them. If her mom had sent Forgetful to the store to buy the same things every day, if Forgetful had to take the same books to school every day and take the same wool to her grandma’s, then she wouldn’t have forgotten anything. I’ll build a castle for Forgetful!. . So, you liked it then?. . No, I didn’t like it, but I’ll build a castle where she’ll live by herself and it’s all going to be the same and she won’t be able to forget anything in it and no one will remind her of her forgetting.
There was a ding-dang-dong. Grandma was back from the podiatrist. Uff, my Micika, that’s a relief. You have no idea how much of a relief that is, she said, and Auntie Doležal made another coffee, I wolfed down the last biscuit, and then we went home. I don’t remember how Grandma and Auntie Doležal parted, I don’t remember if it was sunny when we left and I don’t remember if Auntie Doležal watched us from her window and if we waved to her from the tram stop. I’m sorry I don’t remember because we never saw her again.
The ambulance came for Auntie Doležal on a Monday. That morning the neighbors had found her on the ground floor, a bag of groceries in her hand — bread, milk, biscuits, and lettuce — just standing there. They said hi, and every time she’d startle but not say hi back. Then she climbed the stairwell, going from door to door and then back down to the ground floor. It was afternoon by the time she rang the Kneževićs’ bell and said to Snježana, the girl who was my father’s intern at the hospital, I’ve lost my way! Snježana was confused and asked where did you lose your way, Auntie? Auntie just smiled and said I don’t know, and then Snježana called the ambulance.
First the doctors thought Auntie Doležal had had a stroke and that’s why she had forgotten everything, and then they figured out she was perfectly healthy and that there was nothing wrong with her. So they thought Auntie Doležal had suddenly gone senile, but you can’t go senile overnight; yesterday you remember everything and today you can’t even remember where you live. Then they made some inquiries about whether Auntie had any relatives and discovered that Jucika was dead and that Auntie’s daughter, Vera, was also dead and that Auntie’s brothers and sisters were also dead, and in the end it turned out that we were all Auntie Doležal had left.
Mom went to the hospital and Dr. Muratbegović said to her madam, I’m afraid we don’t have any reason to keep her in, and given she doesn’t have any family the only thing we can do is put her in Jagomir. Mom bawled Dr. Muratbegović out because Jagomir was a nuthouse, and Auntie Doležal wasn’t nuts, she’d just forgotten everything. Forget it, I’ll take care of her, she said and took Auntie Doležal back to her apartment.
Auntie, do you remember me? Mom asked when they were in the tram. I won’t lie to you. I don’t remember. . And do you remember Olga, Auntie? Olga’s your best friend. Auntie just shrugged her shoulders and turned away. She looked out the window, rain was falling, and her eyes became moist and she was ashamed about being so impolite that she couldn’t remember her best friend.
From that Monday on Mom visited Auntie Doležal morning and night. Auntie sat in her armchair the whole day through, reading the newspaper and doing the crossword. No one could ever figure out how she’d forgotten absolutely everything about her life but hadn’t forgotten anything she needed to know to solve the crossword. She’d forgotten her Jucika but in crossword clues she knew that a bay was a horse.
Do you want to come to Auntie’s with me? she asked Grandma just the one time, and Grandma said she didn’t because all that mattered was that Auntie Doležal wasn’t hungry and that she’s clean, and that everything else was last year’s snow and would never come back. She wasn’t sad about it, but she would have been sad if she’d gone to Auntie’s and Auntie didn’t recognize her. That’s my grandma for you, she lets things take their course, but she remembers everything Auntie Doležal has forgotten. Every time Mom comes back from Auntie’s, Grandma talks about her Micika; she talks about lots of stuff Mom and me never knew. For example, right after the Second World War, when Grandma and Grandpa lived in Yugoslav People’s Army Street next door to Auntie Doležal, there was an earthquake in Sarajevo, not a big one, only the black chandeliers swayed a bit, and Grandpa was taking a shower. When he felt everything shaking around him, he ran out of the bathroom, and with everything still shaking he ran out of our apartment soaped up and birth naked, hopping down the landing yelling what’s going on, what’s going on. Auntie Doležal stood in the doorway of her apartment and clasped her hands together, because to her Franjo was stranger than the earthquake. It was days before he could look her in the eye, and days before she could look my grandma in the eye. When the shame had passed and the earthquake was just a funny memory, Auntie Doležal said to Grandma goodness gracious your Franjo’s hung like a horse!