The last verses of the song disappeared in that first phase of deep sleep. When her chin touched her chest, Lujo shouted Rika, wake up, Rika, it’s Christmas Eve, but sound asleep she didn’t hear him. She slept the sleep of the just, the sleep of children and those who have endured great suffering but haven’t done others the least harm.
Today is Christmas Day, isn’t that right, Rika? Lujo sounded lost; his voice was pleading, but Nana Erika couldn’t understand why, unless he’d forgotten you couldn’t have Christmas Day without Christmas Eve. People forget all kinds of things, but how could he forget Christmas Eve; it doesn’t matter, she’s here to remind him and protect him from wild thoughts and those who would take advantage of him; naïve is her Lujo, that’s how he’s been all these years and if it weren’t for her, who knows what would have become of him and what they, these people whose names she doesn’t know, might have done to him. The world is full of Christians; she’ll think that every Christmas, but you don’t know their names.
No, Lujo dear, it’s Christmas Eve today, it’s not Christmas Day until tomorrow. Have you forgotten that they go in that order? said Nana Erika. Lujo lowered his head and let tears fall. What’s wrong old fella? she worried. It’s nothing. I just want to know if this is ever going to end. . It will, it’ll end when we go back home, to our house, she smiled, putting her hand on his chest. Strong is her Lujo, he’s always been strong, so strong he could move a mountain if he wanted. It can’t end before then? Can’t it just end before then?. . Of course it can’t, but you know what they say: sabur efendi, sabur, patience, good sir, patience, have patience and God shall have it too. We’ll go home. . And if we don’t?. . It can’t be that we don’t go home. Haven’t you noticed how they look at us here? How could we stay among these people, their names unknown to us. Yes, I know, you’re going to start saying they’re our children and grandchildren. I know why you say that. You say it to make it easier on me, that my heart endure and not break from the waiting, but your Rika’s heart won’t break before we go back to Sarajevo. Don’t you be afraid of a thing. With hope of home, the heart is strong and endures all. And quit that rubbish about our children and grandchildren. We don’t have any, we never had any. Really, who would have children in such times, who would live in fear of their son being killed by someone else’s son or having to pick him up off the sidewalk like you pick up tomatoes at the market because the plastic bag broke. We don’t have children or grandchildren and that’s a good thing too, because our suffering would be a hundred times greater if we did, and this way our only concern is going home and starting over, from the beginning. Fine, I know we won’t be starting over, we’re already old, but at least we’ll die in our own home, said Nana Erika, the tears frozen on Lujo’s face. He must know life isn’t easy, but that’s no reason for us to lie to each other and invent some other world where nothing is difficult. It’s a fine world, Nana Erika doesn’t think it’s not, but such a world has only one failing, a lone error, a single downside; it simply doesn’t exist. We can imagine one, but that doesn’t make it real.
But why won’t you accept these children as your own, as your kin, at least you could do that, Lujo tried. I like them, the same as I like anyone, but they can’t be my children because they’re not like me. Do you hear how they speak? Do think your children would speak like that, in that language? That, Lujo, is not our language, and they are not our words, just as this is not our home, but it is theirs. That’s how it is. I can’t accept others’ children as my own because these children are staying here, here on their wooden floors, in their country, and we’ll be going back to our home. What would I want with such children when I got home? And what do I want with these children if I never go home? Be reasonable, they’re no replacement for one’s home.
Lujo clasped his hands together as if about to beg her for something important, and then he slowly opened his fingers, one by one falling away and into the abyss. They intertwined under Lujo’s chin, and Nana Erika was sure he would never again ask her for something she couldn’t do for him, nor would he ever lie to her again. Lujo, promise me something, please. We’re already old, and I can barely walk and who knows what else awaits us. So promise me that every year we’ll celebrate Christmas and that you’ll never trick me and pretend you’ve forgotten.
That evening at the head of table sat Nana Erika and her Lujo. Around them were strangers. Nana Erika looked at her Lujo, and the strangers looked at their full plates. Nothing was forgotten and nothing was missing. Not even the tinsel. She knew her Lujo would be there to support her when she asked them who and what they were and why they keep saying they’re her children and grandchildren when they well know that Erika and Lujo don’t have any children because who would bring children into the world in such times. She was so happy, singing in full voice How far is it to Bethlehem? Not that far, filling with holiness the festive hour.
It was then I longed for Babylonian women
A black car pulled up in front of Mary Kentucky’s house. A man in a bellboy uniform got out of the car, glanced around nervously, whispered something to the driver, who we can’t see from here, and ran across the lawn. He skipped along on his tiptoes, as if a lover were chasing him across a meadow or the ground beneath his feet were a minefield. He pressed the buzzer, holding his finger there until Mary Kentucky appeared at the door, and then almost slid under her armpit and scampered inside. He sat down on a small three-legged stool, took a hankie from his pocket, wiped his forehead, and let out a sigh of relief. Mary Kentucky rolled her eyes, clicked her tongue twice, and walked her walk into the kitchen.
A guy came out in a vest and boxer shorts decorated with little blue saxophones, hundreds of little blue saxophones. Omer! he was surprised, what are you doing here, you’ll lose your job. Omer raised his hand like he was stopping a train: wait!. . Wait what, I busted my balls getting you that job! Omer looked up, and calmly, as if in slow motion, got up from the stool, straightened, the whole time looking the guy in his boxers straight in the eye: Osman, I have to inform you that our father is dying. Osman leaned on the doorjamb like someone choosing between apathy and surprise: where’s he dying, bro?. . What do you mean where’s he dying, in the hospital in Crkvice. . In Crkvice, Osman repeated, although he knew well where it was, they had grown up a hundred meters from the hospital, but it had been so long since he had thought of either Crkvice or the local hospital that it was as if something precious and personal had surfaced from a great depth, bathing him in light, leaving the story about his father completely to the side. Later he would come to believe that his father had sent him the word, Crkvice, as his last bequest.
Omer skipped back over the lawn the same way he came, climbed into the car, and left Osman to try and convince Mary Kentucky that their father really was dying and that he needed a thousand dollars to fly to Bosnia and see him for the last time, to bury him and lay chrysanthemums on his grave. The chrysanthemums were the critical detail because they might just soften Mary up; they’ll seem more real to her than the death of a man she didn’t know existed, and she’ll hand over the money, the last thousand dollars of her savings, which had practically melted since Osman appeared in her life two years ago. Mary Kentucky was a checkout girl at the supermarket and all her life had dreamed of becoming a country singer. She’d scraped the money together to record her first album, written her own songs, and dreamed of getting out of that small Alabama town for someplace better, someplace where she would forget her past life and finally become someone who only shops at the supermarket.