Osman gave Mary a hug, they were standing there on the lawn and she was crying, he tried to comfort her, at his feet two suitcases, in his pocket a round-trip plane ticket for Europe. A month at the most, he told her, but she wasn’t sure whether to believe him. Somewhere deep inside, Mary Kentucky sensed that Osman didn’t actually love her and was only with her because of her money and her house, and that some day he simply wouldn’t come home. He’d vanish without saying goodbye, he’d return to his Europe, because sooner or later the war would be over, or he’d find some other girl who’ll also have money and a house, but the house will be bigger and she’ll have more money, or, as opposed to Mary, he’ll actually be in love with her. The mere thought of all this made Mary Kentucky weep. While Osman slept, she’d clean his white socks, his precious white socks that he wore when he went to play soccer with other Europeans, and afterward they’d be so dirty you couldn’t put them in the washing machine, so she’d scour them forever with a brush and she’d weep, because one day these socks wouldn’t be here, and neither would Osman. Afterward she’d kiss his sleeping forehead, and he’d frown, smack his sleeping lips, and turn over. Standing there on the lawn, all this raced through the heart and mind of Mary Kentucky, and she couldn’t stop her weeping. Osman was anxious; he was in a hurry and still had to stop by the hotel and say goodbye to his brother, but he can’t go until she’s stopped her crying. He can’t leave her like this.
Omer looked at his watch for the third time. His brother had said he was on his way forty minutes ago, and he still hadn’t arrived. Whenever Osman was late or vanished for a few hours or days, Omer would nearly have a panic attack. If it hadn’t been for his brother, he would have never made it to America. He would have probably stayed on in Sarajevo until he got killed or some great force had lifted him from where he stood, but he would never have gone this far, never all the way to Alabama. You have the heart of a hawk, he the heart of a pigeon. You’re twins, but it’s as if you’re not brothers, that’s what his father had said back when they were fifteen-year-olds off to school in Sarajevo, and ever since, Omer had been an eternal burden for Osman, a precious piece of cargo borne on the road to happiness, a reason for everyone to forgive his stronger brother his idiocies and incivility, because to have Omer in your life was like having four hands instead of two and two heads instead of one, and all the while two hands twiddled their thumbs and only a single head did the thinking. Osman’s every trait was reflected in Omer like in a mirror, a copied image, but turned the other way around. Osman was decisive about succeeding in life, Omer eternally scared that nothing would roll his way; Osman believed everyone had their uses, Omer scared that everyone had it in for him; when they went to the movies, scenes Osman found funny would bring Omer to tears; Osman loved women, Omer preferred men. . And of course, Osman had found Mary Kentucky, and Mary Kentucky had got Omer the job at the hotel.
Osman left his things in the taxi and ran inside the hotel. Omer opened the doors of the elevator and Osman stepped in, the hotel had six floors, a minute to the top and the same back down to the bottom, they hugged, everything okay? Osman nodded, I’ll miss you, Omer looked at him angrily, say hi to father for me if you see him alive, and the elevator was again on the ground floor.
His brother was at the exit when Omer broke hotel rules and hollered: bring me back something from Zenica. The reception clerk roused himself as if pricked by a needle, the gentleman reading the paper in a leather armchair glanced up at the bellboy, the little boy playing with a model Volkswagen Bug froze. . The sounds they heard from the liveried young man formed words they would never be capable of repeating or recognizing, not even on a quiz show for the million-dollar question. Osman pretended he didn’t hear anything and got into the taxi, the gentleman in the armchair returned to his paper, the little boy to his car, only the reception clerk kept his eyes pinned on Omer whose own eyes shone like glycerin, as if angels with cameras were clicking away with their flashes right in front of him.
The plane flew to Chicago, then Osman changed for Paris, then again for Zagreb. He sat in the empty airport hall, looking out through the glass at airplanes in the rain and tiny blond stewardesses, their umbrellas plastered in advertising slogans. He had no need for words of comfort, but had he sought them, he wouldn’t have found words more consoling than those written on the yellow, blue, and red umbrellas: a little white birdie boasted — it’s quiet and warm under her wings, Colibri Airlines. Osman was sleepy but afraid of closing his eyes in an empty hall that could suddenly fill with people whose every eye would be on him. He thought about his brother and about Mary Kentucky. The two of them would be lost if he didn’t come back. It’s weird to be so important to someone in life, yet not feel the slightest responsibility, not be in the least proud that you’re their first and last hope. Omer was Osman’s twin brother, but you couldn’t say the same in the other direction. The stronger brother had been born so the eldest would have someone to guide him in life, just as the war had only erupted so Osman would go to America and save Mary Kentucky, who if it hadn’t been for the war would have remained a lost soul, even if she had realized her dream and become a singer. Her singing was damn awful, but in the whole of Alabama there wasn’t a soul who would tell her that because there wasn’t anyone willing to listen to her until Osman came along and became her shoulder to cry on and ear to burn. He bitterly regretted being the one who could fill hearts and guarantee a peaceful sleep, and wished that at least sometime he might get to be a Mary or an Omer to someone, to be loved, powerless, and pathetic, someone who is helped because he knows how help is sought.
Two hours passed before the first passengers for Sarajevo started arriving. Osman didn’t want to look at them. He didn’t want to recognize anyone, or anyone to recognize him. It pays to remain anonymous when you’re on an unwanted journey; it’s not a return home anyway, and he’s not going to Sarajevo to establish just how much he isn’t from there anymore, he’s going because his father is dying, sick and old, and you can’t let yourself get too cut up, but he is dying and a son should see his father one last time, bury him as God commands, and then leave again, the same way he’d arrived, as a foreigner. He reached into his jacket pocket for his passport, a compact American passport in which not even his family name was written how he had written it his whole life, from the time he had gone to school. This family name was proof he didn’t have to recognize anyone here and that no one should recognize him. The Croatian customs officer bowed to him courteously, and it was then he remembered how once, long ago, at the entrance to Maksimir Stadium before a Dinamo—Čelik game, a cop had sucker punched him just because he had a Čelik scarf on. That couldn’t happen now. They don’t beat up Americans around here, thought Osman, and he doesn’t even have that Čelik scarf anymore. He can hardly remember what it looked like, just that it was black and red.
On the seat across from him there was a girl with a Walkman on, next to her a bright green carry-on with Benetton written on it. She closed her eyes, rocking discreetly to the rhythm of the invisible music. The music wasn’t inaudible though, a distant melody made its way to Osman’s ears, but apart from what you could see on her face it definitely was invisible. She had short red hair and one of those noses you would say was ugly if you looked at it in isolation from the whole, too wide and totally masculine, by no stretch the nose of a beauty. Her lips were also a bit big, and her auricles uneven, but Osman thought he was looking at the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. He stared at her, trying to catch every movement on her face, like a man who had made a long journey north wanting to see a deer, though a deer hadn’t appeared for years, and he’d set up camp there in the north, and one day a deer appeared, but by that time he had already headed south, reconciled to the fact he was never going to see one.