Stillness of the Sea

by Nicol Ljubic

  For days, he waited for her to phone. It was all he did – wait, mostly lying on the bed. He didn’t eat, but when he couldn’t bear staying in bed, he walked the streets. He would pass the tree in the park where they had lain together on the grass, sit down on a seat outside the café where he’d bought her coffee. He usually stayed there for a long while before going back home. He checked the downstairs letterbox every time he left his flat or returned to it, and when he walked up the last flight of stairs to his landing, he would close his eyes briefly, hoping that when he opened them he would see a note stuck to his door.

  He can remember how fast his heart was beating the day he saw from below the outline of a figure sitting on the landing outside his flat. When he got up the stairs, it turned out to be a neighbour who had forgotten his key.

  He phoned her shortly before his first visit to The Hague. She didn’t answer. He phoned her when he got back from The Hague and, just as he was near giving up, she answered. “Ana,” he said. She was silent. “I …” he mumbled and didn’t know what to say next, even though he had thought endlessly about this call. Then he said, “It’s time we talked.” She replied, “Yes, it’s time we did.” He said, “It makes me happy to hear your voice again.” And she responded, “I’m glad that you called.” He said, “Ana, perhaps we can forget what happened.” “That’s the problem. I can’t forget.” “Ana, all this has nothing to do with us.” “But it has to do with me and that’s why it affects us.”

  To him, the silence on the line seemed to last for an eternity. And he feared his voice would take on the earnest tone he wanted to avoid. He had tried to sound relaxed to make their talk easier, but her silence unsettled him.

  Like him, she’d had a couple of weeks to think about things, time enough for her to put them into focus. He felt that by now she must surely have found a way to speak about what had happened. And that it would have become as clear to her as it was to him that the day she told him should not become their last one together.

  “I…” he said, “I’d like to know how you are.”

  He wondered if her language also had a word for stillness between two people. He could hear her breathing and could almost feel a gentle puff of air tickling his ear. He imagined Ana holding the receiver. Recalled her narrow nose, pale skin and serious eyes. It surprised him how quickly he was coming to enjoy being close to her again. He wished that he could stay on the line to her for hours on end.

  He sensed she was about to say something, a tone of voice only, half a syllable. Later he would try to work out the word she had intended to use. He played around with a thousand possibilities, but to be honest, he couldn’t even be certain that the sound she’d made was consciously articulated, that it was actually meant to begin a word. Then he heard the click as she put her receiver down. True, she had hesitated a little and he held on until the disconnection signal penetrated his awareness and he too ended the call.

  He phoned his father. It cost him to overcome his resistance and he couldn’t see why his father, of all people, should be able to help him. The old man had never taken his relationships seriously, neither with girls nor, later, with women. Earlier, he had always refused to say who he was going out with, or even to talk more generally about love. Now and then, his father would ask him about his love life and, every time, he replied, “Just fine.”

  He had mentioned Ana to his parents, but not told them that her father was a war criminal. That was something he wouldn’t even tell his best friend. He wanted to keep the secret between Ana and himself, because he thought this would help them to think clearly about it and what it meant to them.

  As always his father’s voice answered with his surname, and as always he sounded as if he had been disturbed.

  “So it’s you,” his father said.

  “It’s me.”

  “Good. I was in the sitting room anyway.”

  “I’d like to ask you something.”

  “Are you in trouble?”

  This was clearly his big worry. The kind of trouble his father had in mind included financial problems, a car accident or a broken fridge. Things he could deal with.

  What was he supposed to say? That he was in love with the daughter of a Serb war criminal? He doubted his father would even begin to grasp the implications.

  “I’d like to know why you never thought it worthwhile for me to learn Croat. And why haven’t you tried to make me feel more at home in your old country? Why be so detached from the place you came from? It’s something I’d like an answer to.”

  The line went silent. Then his father said: “You were born here, you’ve grown up here. This country is your home.”

  “But you were born in Croatia. That’s where you grew up. Doesn’t that mean anything to you?”

  “Why would you think it doesn’t mean anything to me?”

  “Because you’ve never shown any interest. Other people visit the Croatian Cultural Society or read Croatian newspapers. You didn’t even pay much attention to the war.”

  “Look here, my lad,” his father said. “I came to this country because I wanted to make something of my life. When you take a step like that, you have to make up your mind. It won’t do to try to belong here, there and everywhere, or you’ll end up not living anywhere properly. And as for the war, you should thank your lucky stars you saw nothing of it. We were all lucky. You’ve got no reason to complain. You’ve done well enough here.”

  It annoyed him that his father didn’t understand what he really meant. It wasn’t about him or his son, but that’s how the old man always managed to make it sound.

  “How’s your girlfriend?” his father asked.

  “Fine.”

  “Good! I’m glad that you’re happy. Did she like your cake?”

  He needed to think for a moment before he realised what cake his father was talking about. He hadn’t thought about it since he’d called his father to ask for his aunt’s advice on how to bake that special cake.

  “Yes, she did,” he said.

  “My sister wanted to know who you were baking for.”

  “What did you tell her?”

  “For a woman.”

  “And what did she say to that?”

  “She was pleased that you’d found yourself a lady friend.”

  “And did you mention that she’s a Serb?”

  “I told her your girlfriend is German.”

  It seemed a bizarre flight of fancy to turn Ana into a German woman, an Anna like so many others. If his father met Ana, he would understand the absurdity of it.

  “She’s no German,” he said. “Why did you say that?”

  “Because your aunt couldn’t have coped with anything different. You know, don’t you, that the Serbs were shooting at her house? Or didn’t you hear about that?”

  He hadn’t, but it seemed of no consequence.

  He has no sense of how long he has been staring straight ahead. Mr Bloom, the prosecutor, is standing at his desk. Cross-examination of the witnesses is in full flow.

  A clean-shaven, grey-suited man is at the witness seat. He appears to be in his late forties and is wearing glasses. His hand movements are restrained. Šimić is there too, just as he has been every day so far. But he seems older today, as if he has aged suddenly, from one day to the next. He looks tired, his face is pale and drawn. The light falling on him has a strangeness about it. On previous occasions, he has appeared distant, but deliberately so, as if to punish others with his disdain. Now the impression he gives is of a man who has simply withdrawn into himself, deep in thought.

  He nudges Aisha to alert her, then gestures for her to take the headphones off.

  “What’s this about?” he whispers.

  “He’s a psychologist, I think. He treated Šimić when he was taken to the clinic with his broken leg.”

  He nods a thank you and they both put their headphones back on.

  “At the time, I diagnosed the patient’s condition as psychosis type 298.9, which was in a
ccordance with the International Classification of Diseases after the Ninth Revision, Clinical Modifications. The numbers have in fact been changed since then. At the time, the 298.9 group included forms of so-called Unspecified or Atypical Psychoses. These are diagnostic categories that are frequently used when there are no specific psychopathological grounds for another classification. Generally, you observe indications of severe mental imbalance, which in this case expressed itself in disturbed, excited behaviour, profound restlessness and unstructured thought processes. When I questioned the patient’s wife, it emerged that he was a heavy drinker. Also, the death of a close relative was mentioned. Such factors may well have contributed to his severely disoriented state of mind.”

  “On the basis of what you know now, and given his mental condition, would you say that at the time of his referral to you for examination, he was in a position to understand his own actions and their consequences?”

  “His state of mind – that is, his mental derangement – was without question causing him to be extremely agitated, unable to think clearly or to concentrate. He was only capable of answering a few questions, and then more or less at random. It was hard to connect with him at all. He sang, shouted and resisted the examination. Consequently, the patient had to be restrained to calm him down. At that point in time, he was not in a fit state either to control his behaviour or be aware of his actions.”

  “Is it possible that someone who has lost a close relative would react in this way?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is it also possible that someone who has done a dreadful crime could also exhibit such behaviour when assailed by feelings of guilt and awareness of what he has done?”

  “Conceivably, various stressful situations could trigger behaviour of this kind, but the present case does not fit this category. In practice, I’d say that cases of this kind have not yet been observed scientifically. Instead, it is far more common for the patient to first develop a psychotic condition and then go on to commit a crime or a punishable offence – and I say this as someone who has experience of working in a prison hospital with psychiatric patients who have committed criminal acts.”

  The psychologist is the first witness to appear to be quite untroubled by the questioning. He even seems to enjoy talking about his work. He looks at the prosecutor while he waits expectantly for the next question.

  “Have you ever, in your personal experience, come across a patient who first commits a crime and then develops a mental illness?”

  “In my prison hospital work, I’ve never come across an instance of a patient who first commits a crime and, in connection with that crime, later develops a psychotic condition. All my patients have either become psychotic and then committed the criminal act, or committed the act without suffering from psychotic incidents afterwards.”

  “Thank you, doctor. Now, Mrs Šimić has said about her husband, ‘Ever since the war began, he has been anxious, tense and impatient.’ Are you able to draw any conclusions from this? In other words, does this statement allow you to conclude that his psychotic condition had become manifest already before his admission to hospital?”

  “No, not the psychosis. Certainly the overwhelming energy, the physical restlessness and the anxiety. I would agree that’s likely.”

  “But, sir, there was a war on. Surely normal people were also exceptionally nervous and driven and irritable? In fact, isn’t that a normal range of reactions in wartime?”

  “Such reactions depend on personality. Some people are likely to become depressed, others aggressive and yet others, like this patient, hypomanic and exhibiting an overwhelming drive to take some action. Some people flee, some develop persecution mania and others cope with their situation and adjust to it – all this depends on factors in their personality and character. There are no rules for how people will behave in extreme or intolerable situations.”

  “Thank you, doctor. I would now like to ask you the following question: at the time the crime took place, was the defendant capable of distinguishing between right and wrong?”

  “A joke has just come to mind, one I mustn’t tell in a court of law. However, it’s about two mentally ill persons discussing something and ends with one of them saying to the other: ‘I might be mad, but I’m not stupid.’ That is to say, even if he had been in a psychotic state at the time, this would not necessarily have caused him to be unaware that specific behaviour has moral implications.”

  “While he was treated under your supervision, did he ever seem to you to have lost the capacity for recognising the fundamental difference between right and wrong?”

  “It’s debatable. No one can be completely certain on this point, and besides, in psychiatry, we don’t usually address the question of whether the patient is aware of the distinction between good and evil. We try to deal with disturbed and confused mental states. Once the patient is capable of behaving in a reasonable manner and controlling his impulses, and the psychopathological symptoms have faded into the background, then he is, in our opinion, cured and hence responsible for his actions.”

  “You describe the defendant at the time of his admission as agitated and out of control. He resisted you. Can you recall him speaking of a house going up in flames, or of dead people?”

  “No, the only thing I can recall is this: he called out to someone by name. Over and over again he shouted, ‘Gordana!’ And, ‘Let her go, set my Gordana free!’ At least, this was the name he used, as I understood it. I asked him about this woman, you know, who she was and so on, but he didn’t respond. He also called out, according to my notes: ‘I’ll grind your bones to dust, and make a paste of your blood, and of the paste a coffin.’ At this point we had to restrain him physically. As I’ve said, he was very confused at the time.”

  He senses a hand touching his leg. It takes a moment before he realises whose hand it is. Aisha has taken her headphones off, points to his set and then whispers something he can’t quite catch. She looks at him as if waiting for an answer. He can’t work out what she wants.

  “Hey, what’s up?” she asks. “Are you coming or staying here?”

  He gets up and, crouching, pushes his way past the others in the row. She follows him and, when they’re both outside, asks what’s wrong with him.

  “Nothing.”

  “To me, you looked as if you weren’t there at all. I was watching you and at times you were far away. Not in the same room any more.”

  He is relieved that she doesn’t insist on an answer. While he thinks about what he can say, she turns and walks on ahead. He doesn’t try to catch up with her on the staircase and has to hold onto the banister. He is convinced that Šimić shouted “Cordana”, not “Gordana”.

  They walk towards the sea, along the road he took the first time he was in this city. He buries his hands in his coat pockets. They soon arrive at the bus stop where he sheltered on that first night. Aisha walks alongside him. Her head is slightly bowed. She is wearing a winter jacket which makes her look bulky, its zip pulled right up to her chin and her hands hidden inside its sleeves, as if her arms have been amputated.

  He tries to listen to her footsteps, but can’t hear a thing. He wonders about her ability to move so soundlessly, even though there is nothing light about her body, nothing to give her that ballerina-like weightlessness. She is hefty, unlike Ana who stepped so lightly she hardly touched the ground. Because of that silence, he turns to her and wouldn’t be surprised to find that she has vanished. She raises her head and looks at him quizzically.

  Blasts of cold wind buffet them as they come closer to the sea. He can’t understand what they’re doing there in this freezing weather. They struggle along the street until they reach the promenade with the wide beach stretching ahead and, beyond it, the sea, which is dark grey despite the blue sky.

  “What now?” he asks.

  “Isn’t there some place to sit in the warmth and look at the sea?”

  They go to the café he’d been to on the evening he went t
o the prison. They find a table in the conservatory. Aisha orders a pot of tea. “Don’t you want anything?” she asks. He hesitates, then asks for tea.

  They sit looking out over the sea.

  “Why did you want to get out of there?”

  She puts her hands on the table, one on top of the other, as if to warm them. “I just couldn’t bear it any longer.”

  “How come?”

  She stares at her hands.

  “I couldn’t take any more of the way they kept trying to find an explanation for why he did what he did. Psychosis, alcoholism, the death of his son – why try to understand what cannot be understood? It came across like they were trying to show how understanding they are. What a sad man, whose life was so thrown out of kilter that in the end they had to strap him to his bed. So what? Am I supposed to feel sorry for him?”

  “But perhaps he really did experience something that threw him off balance.”

  “You mean the death of his son?”

  “Perhaps something else, as well.”

  “Like what?”

  “The war had reached Višegrad. Surely Serbs, too, might have suffered? Anyway, how can you be so certain that he’s guilty?”

  “How can you doubt it? Are you serious? Have you ever looked him at him properly? You must have seen the contempt he feels for everything? There he sits, all neatly buttoned up in his suit and his hair combed. He must be shaving every day, and probably reeks of aftershave. That’s just perverse, when you think what he’s charged with. If he were innocent, he wouldn’t shave every morning, cool as anything, and worry about things like whether his suit is looking good. Just imagine yourself in his place, that you’re accused of having caused the death of forty-two human beings – not just caused their death, but led them, the children and the babies too, into Purgatory – and you know you’re innocent while everyone else thinks you’re a murderer. Would you have the peace of mind to shave in front of the mirror every morning? In that situation, do you think you’d check that your suit was buttoned and that you smell nice? That man is a killer… no, he’s someone worse than a killer, because he was too cowardly to do it himself and left the actual killing to others.”