Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet No. 38

by Kelly Link

  Have your guests come back yet? Goce offers him a cigarette, leaning over to cough and spit a gob of phlegm into the water before lighting his own.

  Goran tells him no. That tomorrow, maybe, they should go and look for them. He watches the water, smoking, a few minutes. They’re back, anyway, he says, pointing to the church where Ljuba is trying to wring out her coat from one of the tower’s windows, half submerged. It looks like she can’t get a tight enough grip to be effective, but she is trying all the same, a corner of the material, gone rust-brown, sandwiched between her flat palms as she stares down at the water lapping her waist, no expression on her moss-slicked face.

  They aren’t back the next morning, so Goran and Bojan leave early to climb after them. Lidija packs them a bag with a loaf of bread and block of cheese, to which Goran adds two packs of cigarettes and a liter and a half bottle of Skopsko. He wants to bring Metchka but it is too far for her, he thinks, so she stays at home, whining at the gate. It is another dry day, hot. At first they are crowded in by trees, Goran smacking the bushes and branches out of his path, a finger of cigarette smoke forever streaming back over his shoulder into Bojan’s face. After an hour’s hiking the trees begin to thin and transition to the grasses that bring the shepherds here for months each year, the sun furious on their backs as they hike up and vaguely in the direction of the three abandoned homes. Goran finds a rock to sit on and pours two plastic cups of beer from the sweating Skopsko bottle. Bojan asks how much longer he thinks it will be, but Goran doesn’t have the map and really has no idea; he is just hoping they will run into the couple on their way back down to Mavrovo.

  The sun crawls up to beat on their heads as they continue, Goran’s eyes watering. They meet a shepherd, a Roma teenager who watches their approach and tells them he hasn’t seen anyone hiking here this summer; they are the first. Goran thinks the best they can do is to keep walking, up and slightly rightward until they have run out of mountain, and the boy walks after them. Where are you going? he asks. I wouldn’t go that way. No one goes that way.

  It is nearly dusk when they arrive. Goran stops when the dozens of structures begin to clarify themselves in the distance, rust-red roof shingles, walls of clay brick. They walk closer, Goran holding the bag tight against his back, and there is the couple, walking down the street to them. No weeds grow from the packed dirt, and as they step across the border into the town Goran sees that the houses alongside have glass in their windows. When he pulls his phone from his pocket to call Lidija it is flickering from zero to one bar, back and forth.

  We worried you were lost, he tells the couple. They assure him that they are just fine. And this, he gestures at the houses, all this, how did we miss this? This is what you expected to find?

  Again, yes, yes, they tell him. They used to live here. Their families used to live here anyway, they were just small children. It was not such a good place to live year-round, so far from the road and the only way down a hike through fields and woods. But a nice place to visit all the same.

  They don’t offer Goran to stay the night, but he assumes he’s meant to follow as they walk back into town. He and Bojan turn from side to side as they pass by the homes. Something is caught at the edge of his vision, but when Goran turns his head nothing is there, just the houses and the streets and the grasses weaving in the wind, distantly. It is quiet apart from their footsteps, but the homes look lived in, with curtains hung in their windows, here a xhezve set to dry on a front step, there a pair of boots collapsing on themselves next to a door, there a line of clothes hanging still and stiff in a courtyard glimpsed through an open gate. But how young were you when you left here, Goran asks, walking faster to catch the couple. It can’t have been long ago, it’s clear someone lives here. But they do not answer or even turn around. Goran keeps close behind them, glancing to either side for a store or a person or a cat that has set itself loose into town, but it is just their boots and their breath. The terraced fields they crossed after glimpsing these roofs were ragged and untended, a crowd of weeds; and the last shepherd they passed was an hour before, at least, a boy who would be penning his sheep and sleeping the night in a one-room brick hut.

  The couple stop finally before a black metal gate opening onto a small paved courtyard and a one-story house, just a few houses before the town blends back into the fields. The woman goes in and the man, his hand on the gate, turns to Goran. Well, we are going in for the night, he says. Goran watches him. His chest is tight with the need for a cigarette, and he feels in his front pocket that he still has maybe half of the second soft pack he put in his bag this morning.

  What do you mean, you’re going in for the night? Bojan steps forward and hooks his fingers through the metalwork, stopping the man closing the gate. All yesterday he worried about you, asked everyone if they saw you, where were you, how far was this hike, today he climbs up this mountain to find you, on his own time, and now you say, We are going in for the night? His spit fleckles against the gate. You are a guest in his home, he’s responsible for you and here you are with no concern for his worries. And now you are going in for the night, and what should we do! Wander this village until it’s light! No, you can invite us in, now we can be your guests.

  He takes a step back but does not drop his hand from the gate. Alright, says the man. Come in, join us for dinner. His wife seems unsurprised when they follow her husband into the home, shucking their shoes off before the front door. A hard brown sofa rings three walls of the main room, a low table set before each section. A lightbulb gleams overhead from its glass encasement. The man pours rakija for Goran and Bojan. Bracing himself for the burn, Goran finds none. They sip from delicate glasses with flowers petaling along their bases. He wants to take a knife and clean out the dirt from under his nails, wash his hands and his face, strip off his socks, but he is quiet and looks from the man to the woman. She is kneeling before a large plastic bowl on the floor, swirling her fingers through flour and water, puffs of white smoking around her. Goran again cannot remember their names, though he can picture the booking email. His thigh almost touches Bojan’s, their elbows bump. The man is on the sofa at the opposite wall, behind his wife. There is nothing on the walls, no TV, no books. No reception, when Goran checks his phone again. He starts at a thump in the hallway, but before he can reach the door to see who is there the man says, It’s nothing, sit back down, and he settles his unwilling flesh back on the sofa.

  How long will you stay here? he asks. Will you come down with us tomorrow? The man looks at his wife, who gives a small nod. The hair on her arms has gone white. She looks past Goran to the door and turning, he catches a motion or a hint of motion, but when no one appears he turns back to the room.

  We’ll come back tomorrow, the man says.

  Goran sips his rakija, drains the glass too fast and holds it out for the refill. Where is everyone else? There are others here, I think.

  Oh, no, says the man, it’s just us here. No one has lived here for years, not since we were small. You see it’s too far from the road.

  But someone was here to keep up the houses? I saw laundry hanging outside one of the homes.

  Again the man and his wife look at one another. She leaves the room and returns with a curled skin of plastic to pull over the bowl.

  We don’t know so much about that. It’s our first time back, you know. The man takes a cigarette from a pack on the table, lights it. Goran stares around at the walls, not even a cobweb up in one of the corners, cleaner than his own house. He asks to see the map and spreads it over his and Bojan’s laps, looking to where they had marked the three houses.

  Maybe we came off this path? he suggests to Bojan. These three houses there, did we overshoot them?

  I think you drew it wrong, Bojan says. When he speaks his cigarette ashes on the map. I think maybe those houses are over that way, tapping an inch to the left of where they’ve drawn them.

  What’s the name he
re? asks Goran, looking up. He lights a cigarette as well, between the three of them the room clouds around him.

  Gorno Selo. This from the woman kneeling on the floor.

  Just Gorno Selo? Mountain Village? Goran glances at Bojan. Ash silts down to the center fold of the map as they lean over it, he cannot make any sense of it. The room slurs and smooths around him, and no time seems to have passed when the woman is back with plates of rice and baked chicken. She pulls the knee-high tables in front of each of the men and drops the metal plates He could swear a child laughs from the courtyard, but no, the man says, we don’t have any children.

  After they’ve eaten, one more glass of rakija for the guests, the man stands and Goran and Bojan follow him back to the courtyard, where they balance themselves against the wall as they pull on their boots. Goran is nauseated and wants only to sit with his face in his hands. You can sleep in one of the other houses, the man says, walking them to the gate. You can sleep up there, pointing to a house at the end of the street, or you can sleep in the center, pointing the other way, back how they came. Where you like.

  Goran’s lips have begun to go numb and something is continually shifting at the edge of his vision, though when he turns nothing is there. The woman is nowhere in the courtyard but she has left the bowl of dough to rise on the step. Somehow they find themselves standing in the road, gate shut and locked behind them, the man walking back into the house. Goran turns to Bojan, who shrugs. Some people, he says, are not gracious.

  They turn right and walk up the street. There are no streetlights and Goran holds to Bojan’s forearm, the moon alone lighting their path. He has the sense there is someone behind them but when he turns again no one is there, just the night quiet beyond quiet. They walk to the end of the street and find no businesses, no homes with a room lit or the sound of life behind their doors. Turn left and walk to the end of that street, and the same. They walk a complete square around the town, then up and down the single streets that lead to the town square, a pump that gives no water when Goran tests the handle. That is it, the village, and he finds Bojan twisting to look behind him and holds tighter to his arm.

  It is cold now with the sun gone and they test a door off the village square, finding it open to a two-room home. Bojan uses his cell phone’s flashlight to light the room, flips a switch next to the door, and to Goran’s surprise a light flickers on overhead. Why would they lie to us? asks Goran. Someone lives here. Why not just say it? He kneels and looks in his bag for the sweaters he forgot to pack. In the other room they find blankets folded in the corner, a sofa spanning three walls with two sides that pull out to form beds. Maybe they’ll talk more tomorrow, he says to Bojan. They were tired and surprised today, that’s all.

  Maybe, says Bojan, turning off the light after Goran has folded himself under the blankets. He feels himself caught in an empty space as he drifts to sleep, a space with no smell, no noise, nothing but the slight spin of the room. His sleep is dense and uninterrupted until the morning light filters through the white lace curtain pulled across the room’s one window. Bojan is sitting up already and the room spins around Goran. Your mother is not going to be happy with us, he says. Checking his phone for a message before remembering they have not had service a whole day almost.

  They push the sofas back into position, shake out the sheets and fold them in the corner. Goran flicks the lights on and off in the two rooms, wondering. Still that ceaseless motion around the corner of the rooms. Outside, they circle the square again, knocking on doors and leaning into windows and finding no one. Patting his pocket to find no more cigarettes, Goran leads Bojan back to the house from last night, up this street and down this one, but it is not there. Or rather, it is there, but the houses all look the same without the couple to guide them. Goran rattles the gates as they pass and finds they are all locked. He thinks maybe they will find his cigarette butts outside a gate, that will be their sign, but the road is swept clean, not even their footprints register in the dirt for more than a half-second. Bojan touches his shoulder, says to forget them and let’s walk back ourselves. After one more loop around the exterior streets and no sign of them Goran agrees, but first he wants to walk through the center. Here the homes sit directly on the square and he tests their doors as they go, no longer sure where they slept. Every door is firm against his hand.

  Bojan turns back, a shimmer that Goran has caught too. But nothing there. We should go, he says.

  They walk fast from the village. Goran stops when they are in the field that led them here last night, takes off his bag and searches for a cigarette, knowing he smoked them all on the walk up and at dinner. He is looking up to tell Bojan this when he catches the village in his eye. It is as if the entire village, all twenty or thirty homes, are set on an uncertain land, shifting before him, something catching and holding the light before it hits the buildings, shadows shivering across the walls. He throws up and turns slightly, pressing his face in the grass, when he’s done. There aren’t any electric poles, he tells Bojan. Look back, is that right?

  They’re underground, says Bojan, who knows. Who can say how they manage these things this high up.

  Goran stares back at the village. A curtain in the house closest to them shifts aside, and for a moment he could swear he sees a woman looking out at them. They’re still there, he says, they hid from us. What the hell is wrong with them?

  Okay, says Bojan, forget it, let’s go, come on, grabbing him by the armpit and hauling him upright, throwing the backpack over his shoulder and holding on to Goran as they stumble down the hillside, pausing twice more so he can hunch over, holding to his knees, and retch up what remains of last night’s dinner. They do not look back again, not once. Maybe an hour later they pass a shepherd, guard dog pressed close to his side, hundreds of sheep jostling in their gaze. He holds up his hand in greeting and calls out to ask where they came from. Goran wants only to continue walking, a few more hours if they are lucky and fast. He sidesteps down the hill but his son stops next to the boy, pointing up in the direction they came. When Bojan catches him he tells him, No, the boy says there’s no village that way.

  I don’t want to know, says Goran.

  Well. His son pauses. I don’t know if I do. Let’s go.

  They stop only once more, at a fountain, to cup their hands under the frigid water gushing from the mountain into its stone basin, drinking until Goran’s stomach hurts. But his vision is clearer, the motions in the backs of his eyes are gone, the world is still again. Hours later, they reach the roadside and catch a ride in the backseat of a rattling Yugo aimed for Tetovo. They get out at the road back into Mavrovo, wave goodbye to their drivers. As if they were waiting for him, his brother and Ljuba drop into line behind them, falling over their feet and scarves dragging in the dirt as they try to keep up.

  I don’t think we should tell your mother, he tells Bojan, who does not look so certain. I think it’s better to keep this between us. Nothing happened, after all.

  I guess. Bojan turns back for a moment, shakes his head. Ljuba and Dushko listing behind him, halting steps with heads cocked.

  They continue on their way, slower. Bojan kicks a stone, tracing its arc across the path so he can pick it back up as they walk. We are never going to win the lottery, he says. Finds the stone and with the toe of his boot skitters it on. The bell tower edges into view, water settled mid-window, and a pit opens in Goran’s stomach, something he has never felt before at seeing his own town. He feels Dushko and Ljuba at his back, always with him or always waiting for his return. His friends are all at the café when they pass and they shout out to them. And did you find your guests? Where did they go? Have you left them behind again? Laughing, a deck of cards scattered and forgotten on their table, surrounded by empty glasses. Goran waggles his hand at them and does not stop, they walk home. Lidija is at the gate, watching for them.

  Finally! She has on her white stained apron and is holding h
er phone. As she pulls them in through the gate Metchka slips out and runs tight circles around them, barking, banging into their thighs. Goran bends to her level and holds her face, scratches behind her ears.

  I was worried for you, and first you greet your dog! Lidija smacks the back of his head and Goran stands, kisses her cheek, but with his left hand low behind his back for Metchka to lick. They came in the morning, she tells him, early, before the kombis started running even, and took their things and were gone. Fully paid and they left two days early with not so much as a note or a thank you.

  They eat dinner inside. Dushko and Ljuba sit at Goran’s feet. They turn their halting necks when someone speaks. Bojan looks from the spreading puddle next to Goran, up to the dry ceiling, but says nothing. In the morning Bojan and Snezhena leave, back to Gostivar, to work, to their lives, and Goran takes Metchka to the café while Lidija pins the sheets outside to air while she scrubs the guest room.

  At the café, Sasho pours him the cheap rakija. Goran says only that the couple have left, back to town early. He doesn’t tell them there is another village and they do not ask, but he makes the rounds, asking who has tourists booked for this week or next or the week after. No one, not one of them, and he feels himself slipping from the world. He counts the heads at the table, five of them, five men, and each with a wife, and Sasho as well, and then three families in Gostivar to see their children, two couples so old they rarely leave their compounds, two of the families with children, and Goce, Goce by himself in his family home. They talk around him and he counts it on his fingers, twenty-five people, twenty-five in a village with three times that many homes and also Dushko and Ljuba, does that make it twenty-seven people. How many people lived in that other village, once?

  What do you think, can we have day tourists here, take them on a tour, the church, a hike, just through the summer? He leans forward into the midst of whatever conversation is going on, he doesn’t know, he hasn’t listened. Sasho drops a beer on the table. Goran, with his big ideas! No one thinks it is a good idea, how much would someone pay to see a church that this time of year you can barely even see.