That morning they had breakfast together. Her father brought three soft-boiled eggs in porcelain eggcups. It was snowing outside. They sat at the table, covered with a cheery and colorful tablecloth decorated with motifs of harvest scenes. They lifted their spoons almost simultaneously, tapping the tips of their eggs. Three taps was enough to break the shell. Nine taps in a gentle morning snow that would blanket all the dust. They remained there in silence like people who from here on in would always, every morning, sit in silence together around the same table. All three were relieved to have quit their thinking, each for his own reason. Saying their goodbyes at the airport in Surčin, they will remember this breakfast. Maybe they should have talked after all. When the plane finally takes off, her father will hug her mother, wiping her tears away with his left arm, waving to Marina, who won’t see a thing, with his right. He’ll be waving to the plane that is Marina. In that instant Marina will think how Astor was missing from the breakfast scene, a sign and an explanation of the dream. She knew she’d never see him again.
That’s how it will be when she goes. Now she’s still here, looking at the veins popping out of her father’s neck as he tries to slurp up the contents of the egg. Only living creatures, precious creatures, could endure such torture while doing the ostensibly simplest things. He could smash the egg, be done with it, and eat in peace, a spoonful at a time, all the white and yellow. Later he would have forgotten all about it, but this way he’ll definitely remember, he definitely won’t forget slurping at the egg and the egg not wanting to come out. It could have all been so much simpler, done with so much less humor for those looking on. Marina wanted to laugh but didn’t want to break the silence of the morning. Both sky and clouds are gone now. Outside everything is snow-white like under the wing of a drunken angel.
Bethlehem isn’t far
Nana Erika is sleeping poorly. It’s almost Christmas, their first since coming to Zagreb, but she can’t go out to the market to buy butter for the cake, codfish, baking chocolate, a three-month-old suckling, dates, almonds, walnuts, tinsel, rose oil, that transparent plastic wrapping, and all the things she used to buy that meant winter was upon us, the snow quieting every voice, and a celebration was in order because we were still alive, we and all our loved ones, in the house in Bistrik, in Sarajevo, and all over the world wherever Potkubovšeks and their children might be. Nana can’t remember exactly when that time ended; the festivities and preparations, the fingers freezing under the weight of shopping bags, but it seemed to her long past, maybe a few lifetimes ago, because in this life, one she still remembers well, the war continued apace, and there was no market, no Christmas, no festivities, nor would there have been any today had they not moved to Zagreb, to this apartment from which Nana has never ventured out because her legs can no longer carry her, even the journey to the bathroom she can’t make alone.
It’s a big world out there and there are many Christians in it, too many for one to ever meet them all. Nana Erika had always known this, but how could a regular three-room apartment be so big that she doesn’t even know all the Christians within its walls? A strange girl brings her coffee and asks do you need anything, Nana? Then a kid, probably a high-school junior, pinches her cheek, puts his cold nose to her forehead, and says I’m frozen, Nana, it’s a thousand degrees below zero outside. Nana Erika just smiles, giving them the ready answer she gives everyone: yes, yes, my child, it’s all misery and woe. And then the girl, playing angry, says I didn’t ask you for the state of the nation, but if you needed anything.
Uncivilized are these young folk: You don’t who they are, let alone what they are, yet they pinch and tease you, talk to you when the mood strikes them, not even introducing themselves. It wasn’t like this in Nana Erika’s day. You knew the rules and your place. The first rule was that strangers — young, old, doesn’t matter — weren’t welcome in her house, and if you came knocking, you had to introduce yourself, announce your purpose, say whether you were a guest, the postman, or after a particular number or street. And now look; her Zagreb apartment is full of them. Maybe that’s the custom, the done thing here, she won’t protest if it is, but then they should tell her so, not leave her to linger alone among so many strangers.
Only Lujo’s her own. Sometimes late at night he comes to her, takes her hand and caresses it, like back when they locked eyes as kids at the source of the Bosna’s waters, and at such times Nana Erika discreetly, so no one hears, asks Lujo, for the life of me, who are all these people, all these young folk? Instead of telling her the truth, Lujo’s eyes well with tears and he grips her hand and starts fumbling. Nana Erika knows Lujo’s fumbling, they’ve been sixty years together, and she doesn’t miss a beat, but she doesn’t interrupt. She lets him go, every sentence leading him ever further into a lie: Rika dear, they’re our children and grandchildren, your Tvrtko and Katarina, and Klara and Josip. Don’t you remember: a big snow had fallen when Klara was born, and you and I had been in Teslić and were on our way home. The train was stuck the whole night and the telegram just said “Katarina’s given birth,” so we didn’t even know if it was a boy or girl. Do you remember us waiting the whole night through and the conductor bringing us tea and saying, “Fear not, madam, every train arrives sometime, and so shall this one too.”
Her Lujo is dear to her, but even so she can no longer forgive his not telling her the truth (what kind of truth might she dare not be told?), and as he moves to kiss her good night, she turns her cheek to him, like she has never done before, and he knows something’s not right with his Rika, he knows Rika doesn’t like it when they fumble their lies, least of all when they’re Lujo’s lies. What children, what grandchildren, who knows who they belong to and what they’re doing in her apartment, if this is indeed her apartment, and if you are allowed to have two apartments in your old age: one torched in the war, and a second here in Zagreb, a city she’s never even seen, yet where she now has an apartment. She would need to plumb the depths of her brain, not to mention her morality, to figure out whether this might be possible or allowed, or whether it’s something else. Maybe this isn’t her apartment, maybe she and Lujo are just staying with these young folk and their parents until the war is over, until they go home, draw down a loan, and roll up their sleeves to rebuild what is given to be rebuilt, starting life over from the beginning. But then why didn’t he just tell her this, that they were among strangers, she could deal with that, she’s dealt with worse things in life, but she can’t stand a lie.
All shall be revealed on Christmas Day, and that’s the day after tomorrow. Everyone will gather around the tree, it’s already decorated, when Nana Erika will ask them who they are and whose are they, and if she’s in their apartment or they’re in hers. They won’t be able to lie, there’ll be too many of them, and people don’t know how to all suddenly lie the same lie, and how would they dare lie beside a tree so decorated, on this a holy day when every dishonesty and hypocrisy, every dirty look and vile thought count a hundred times more and are entered somewhere in heaven’s ledger.
Nana Erika is sitting in the armchair in front of the television, her legs covered with a big Russian shawl. The shawl is black, scattered with whopping red roses, as whopping as her Lujo’s lies. She runs her hand slowly over the roses, caressing them, imagining they are the night sky above Treskavica light-years ago, the flowers in place of stars, the sky reflected in two mountain lakes as if in two eyes in which everything might drown. Nana Erika hasn’t forgotten anything; she remembers the roses instead of stars and the lakes on Treskavica, and if she thought of Lujo’s words now, she’d burst into tears. You’ve forgotten this, you’ve forgotten that — she hasn’t forgotten anything under the sun, nothing worth remembering, not even those things it would have been better had never happened.