Diary of Interrupted Days

by Dragan Todorovic

  NOW wanted an article about her immigrant experience, to publish in the Canada Day issue. July 1 was just a week away, and they needed it yesterday. Their art director envisioned a “before and after” sort of thing—one photo from before she knew what was in store for her, and one fresh, now that she knew how generous the store had been.

  She rummaged through their closet, and just when she was about to call Boris at work, she found their pictures in the large cardboard box their printer had come in. She was surprised to find them there—the last time she checked they were in a shoebox, as all normal pictures are.

  She made a coffee, sat on the floor next to the box, and started taking handfuls of pictures out. At first she flipped through them quickly, trying to stick to her purpose. She liked the art director’s idea, and envisioned a picture of herself confused and oddly dressed next to a snapshot of her now. The first handfuls were all of something she wasn’t looking for. But then she slowed down. With surprise, she soon realized that although she could remember the general details about where and when each picture had been taken, the minutiae were lost to her. Almost every image was a revelation. Using pictures as doors was fine: she was able to open them, look behind them, see who and what was there, hear the sounds, retrieve the smells—but the doors closed again as soon as she put the picture back in the box.

  If you want to forget something, take a picture of it. It’s as if the brain, at the moment when the shutter is pressed, gives up its responsibilities and leaves the task of remembering to the emulsion on the film.

  Niagara Falls in the background. The three of them are standing by the stone wall. Sara is on the left, all in black—black leather jacket, black jeans, existentialist turtleneck. Boris in the middle, legs wide apart, hands in pockets. In a fighting mood. The man on the right—he was the reason they went there. He is not handsome, but there is a sense of confidence in the way he fills the space. He is posing nonchalantly, his right elbow on the wall, his long hair revealing his profile.

  He was an old friend from Fine Arts. He and Boris had once worked together. He had moved to New York some time after Sara and Boris had left Belgrade. He was doing well in Manhattan, had his gallery, and was just preparing a new exhibition. Oils. Perhaps that was why Boris looked so aggressive in the picture. “He sold out,” Boris said after the friend was gone. “He’s painting now because he can’t sell his installations.”

  When was this photo taken? About a year ago? More—it must have been the early spring of 1997. A young Asian woman had been passing by, alone, and they asked her to take the shot. Then they invited her to join them for a coffee across the road, on the patio. The picture is sunny, but as soon as they sat, the clouds had moved in from the south, and the wind became unpleasant. “Heavy industrial wind, shears like steel. Must be from Detroit,” Boris had said, and Fumiko laughed. That was her name. Why did Sara remember the girl’s name? Why not the friend’s name?

  A month after this picture was taken, Boris changed jobs. There was a big layoff at his agency, but he had already secured a position with Silver Canada. He took the severance pay, and they went to Cuba for two weeks. Varadero, of course. One day they took a minibus tour to Havana. A good-looking boy of about fifteen sat with them on the stairs to the old cathedral. Curiosity, nothing else. He talked about Hemingway, about poetry, recited Yesenin for them, in Russian. In the end he hustled them for five dollars. Sara gave him ten. Buena Vista people in every joint they entered. You walk in, five guys in the corner get up and start playing. They must be learning music at schools. Sing when you’re poor, play hunger harmonies—your government loves it. When they returned, Boris bought a new car, and then started the new job.

  This one, what year was this? She and Johnny, interior, many people around them. They are both holding glasses. Johnny’s face is shiny, it must have been after a concert. She is much younger. This must have been after the big concert at Tash Stadium—1986, the year they got together. She was still studying, but already working as a freelancer with state television doing offbeat reports on underground culture. Many naked legs in the back. Pretty women. It was difficult to defend her territory next to him. Women and public men. So predictable.

  His right hand around her hips. Their sex at that time—madness. She was exploring, and he held the compass. Anytime, anyplace, anyhow. Was he in love in this picture? She still wasn’t. She loved being with him, but not more than that. Well, yes, more: she was already buying clothes thinking of him. And he was clearing the place for her: there were still calls from other women when she was at his apartment, and he told a few of them not to call anymore. But was he in love? Johnny. Johnny.

  She remembered when Boris stopped carrying the Pentax. “Tourists take pictures of a city,” he had said. “And Toronto is our town now. Pointing your camera at a city means that you’re leaving soon. It is distancing yourself, excusing yourself. We don’t need picture postcards of our den. We have arrived.”

  The one she found next was closest to the “before” thing: Yonge Street. Mr. Satt’s store in the background. The street is covered in snow—only the tops of Sara’s boots are visible. Luz and Sara are both laughing. It must have been during that big snowfall in the winter of 1993. Sara and one other girl went out to shovel, and since there was no one else around Luz came out to keep them company. Mr. Satt appeared, returning from somewhere. He took out his camera, and just when he was about to take a picture, the other girl slipped and fell into a big drift. That’s why Sara and Luz are laughing. In spite of the snow, its calmness, its shroud, it is not a static picture. The two of them are caught in motion, their knees slightly bent, their bodies—in black coats—leaning against each other. Almost like sisters.

  Later that same afternoon, that nice woman came in again—she purchased cameras for an independent production house and would regularly drop by to check on the new models—and she talked to Sara about coming to Toronto. She, like all the others, asked the same questions: Why did you choose Canada? Why did you come to Toronto? They wanted to hear praise for their country, for their city, they probably wanted you to say something they could take away and share as a moment of beauty or inspiration with their friends, but it was the wrong question—it has always been the wrong question. Because most of the time, the answer was banal. You had come to Toronto because someone you knew had come before you and said it was nice. Or the Canadian embassy in your country was the only one still giving immigrant visas. The right question was, and still is: Why have you stayed? But that’s a hard one. Always a hard one.

  No, here was the one she needed: She and Boris in front of their first building on Isabella. They are in their faded jeans and sweaters. There is no snow but it looks like a cold day—her hands are clenched into fists in front of her mouth and she seems to be blowing into them. Boris holds a cardboard box from which a teapot is protruding. They smile awkwardly at the camera, unsure whether to pose or not. Their neighbour took this picture. He was a transvestite from their floor, a large man who wore size 12 shoes and complained of trying to find a pair of heels to match his new skirt. He had just bought a camera that day, and wanted to honour Boris and Sara by shooting them on the first frame of the first film.

  It must have been early November of 1993, just a month after they arrived. They had bought something, perhaps another piece of junk furniture, their hands were full and it was heavy, but it was sometime after five, a line of tenants in front of the elevators. A few people ahead of Boris and Sara stepped away when the door opened to wait for the next elevator. Sara and Boris did not think about it, got on, and saw that there was a man already standing in the cabin: he was in his early sixties, or perhaps younger because he was ill. He was leaning on a cane with some difficulty, and he asked them to press the button to his floor, which they did. They noticed that his face was covered in sores. The man asked, hesitantly, if they could help him from the elevator to his door. After they unlocked the door and led him to his bed, he thanked them profusely. Lat
er, they overheard some other tenants: the old guy was dying. His lover had left him when he had first been diagnosed with AIDS, took off with their money, disappeared. In late November, a small note was pinned up on the tenants’ board next to the mailboxes: the old man had passed away and, not being able to locate any friends or next-of-kin, management had decided to leave all his possessions in the recycling area. Tenants could help themselves. Boris and Sara picked out his china. The plates, cups, everything. They remembered something warm about the old man’s appearance, something they wanted to keep with them through the winter of early immigrant days. That’s when the transvestite shot that picture.

  A summer photo next to the fountain in the Square of the Republic under a row of large square parasols. Sara is sitting at a table with Vesna and Gordana, the same women she was with when she met Miki. In fact, it was he who took this photo—he had come around the corner and taken the picture before they were aware of him. There are many empty glasses in front of them—they’ve been sitting for some time. One of them is holding her hair above her head with one hand. The heat. Sara is in a white tank top, leaning forward, the umbra is dark red, she is holding the tip of her nose with the thumb and index finger of her right hand, her mouth is open, she was saying something when the shutter clicked. Her left hand is on her temple. Together, her hands are hiding the better part of her face.

  It was August of 1993. She and Boris had their Canadian papers, and she was starting the last circuit in that exhausting race towards their exit: saying goodbye to her friends. Yet, she wasn’t doing it. When this picture was taken, it was very hot, a weekend, and Sara didn’t feel like going to swim with about a million other baked bodies. She called her ex-colleagues from the television station, and they decided to visit the bookstore, maybe pick out something to read, and later cool off by the fountain, with some iced coffee and chat. But she wasn’t saying goodbye, although she knew she would be leaving in a month, a month and a half. She did not mention her departure at all. Her fingers touching her nose, the other hand at her temple. Anyone who had ever read something about body language would read her pose easily: she was hiding something.

  Her friends talked about the usual stuff that afternoon, about books, about politics, the latest city gossip, swim-suits, prices—standard nibbling of a hot summer afternoon. Around them, people lined up on the shadowy side of the street, shuffling their feet, pretending to look at the windows, careful not to expose any limb to the sniper of the sun. Only children ran out into the blaze, withdrawing immediately, their wounds now in need of an ice cream.

  This was the city that Sara loved: smart, lazy, informed, misguided Belgrade. Gossipy, benevolent, slow-rocking city. This was what she knew she would miss someday. Still, she didn’t talk about leaving.

  Now, looking at that picture—Miki did not stay, he just wanted to say hi on his way to do something urgent, and later sent the print—she asked herself why. Her reflex answer was that she didn’t want to draw attention to herself, she didn’t want to hurt someone. It was her decision, and her suitcase to bear. But there was a deeper answer, and she had to face it now: she must have thought it was a temporary thing. Leaving for Canada was temporary—she would stay until the war rolled over into another country, then return to her proper place, her sun, her shadow. Words make something legitimate, they tend to drill into your memory. She didn’t want to say the words.

  If you want something to be forgotten, take a picture of it. If you want something to be remembered, tell it as a story.

  Right, sister Luz? Is my world revolving around me now?

  I’ve listened to you, I’ve found my mirror—my writing. My work changed everything, and they want me everywhere now. I don’t even have to look for the news. I am the news. People love to hear a confession, everyone wants to be a priest of someone else’s temple. Fine, I give it to them, I take my clothes off and I dance naked on the page. But was that such good advice?

  When I stand before my mirror, when I read my articles, I see that the pages I have written are now writing me. I have nothing to confess anymore. I am empty now.

  THE PATIENT. October 30, 1998

  The ambulance stopped in front of the Emergency entrance, and the two men waiting there opened the back doors of the vehicle. The gurney was hurried through triage, the scans were done, and the unconscious patient was taken to the intensive care unit and hooked up to a respirator and a heart monitor.

  The policemen who arrived a few minutes later gave the doctors the bare details. The patient was mounting his bicycle on the street when a car lost control on the slippery road and ran into him. The man hit his head against a lamppost when he fell. The driver and the witnesses thought that he was dead, so he must have fallen immediately into a coma. The man had no ID on him and the police were trying to establish his identity.

  The results of the scans came in. The unknown man had had his skull fractured on the right side. There were some cloudy areas in his brain, and the scans had to be repeated.

  “This will probably make your life more difficult,” said the doctor.

  “Why?” asked one of the policemen.

  “It could mean that his temporal lobes are damaged, at least the right one, and that almost always causes some form of amnesia.”

  For the next few days, the nameless man lay motionless. The nurses periodically checked his pulse and other vital signs, but there was no change. In the morning, groups of students would stand at the door while their professors talked about coma and types of brain injuries, moving nonchalantly around the bed, pointing at the numbers on the monitor.

  His clothes had been searched in the meantime, yielding no identity papers of any kind, no membership cards, no bank plastic, not even a shopping list. There were a key chain, several banknotes, a few crumpled receipts from cafés and one from a shoe store, but visits to those places did not produce any leads. Only when searching the pockets again did they find another piece of paper. It was old, crumpled, and the handwriting was faded, so they suspected that the nameless man probably forgot he was carrying it around. It had found its way through a hole in his inside jacket pocket and was stuck between the pocket and the lining. It looked like a letter written in a foreign language, but it did not have any signature or date. The inspector photocopied the letter and sent it around, and the next day someone recognized the language as Serbo-Croatian. The inspector called the Yugoslav consulate, and a policeman in charge of security confirmed that the language was Serbian, and then translated it. It mentioned that its author was coming to Amsterdam, so the inspector presumed that the victim had written it. It seemed to be a love letter, a bit rambling, but it did contain something of importance—it referred to an event that the Serbian cop had heard of. In the end, he agreed to send a copy of the letter to his colleagues in Belgrade.

  On the afternoon of the fifth day, a signal sounded at the nurses’ station, and the nurse who ran in first saw the patient looking at the ceiling.

  “He’s awake!” she yelled over her shoulder as she went close. “How do you feel?”

  He looked at her, his eyes dark and slow. “Non capisco.”

  “He’s a foreigner,” the nurse said to her colleague who just entered.

  “It sounds like Italian,” the other woman said. “I’ll get Ornella.”

  The first nurse stayed in the room, waiting for the doctor and wiping the patient’s forehead, rearranging the wires around his body.

  “Dove sono?” the man said.

  “It’ll be all right now. The most important thing is that you are awake, and that you rest. You have been in a coma for almost a week now, but you are going to be fine, nothing to worry about. Can we inform someone? What is your name?”

  The man stared at her, then said, “Coma?”

  “Yes, yes, the doctor will tell you more, I’m sure. Are you hungry?”

  “Dove sono?” he repeated.

  The other nurse arrived with the third woman, who smiled at the patient encouragin
gly and said, “Io sono Ornella. Come sta?”

  “Dove sono?”

  “In un ospedale, in Amsterdam,” she said. “Come sta?”

  He paused, sighed, and said, “Come un albero di trenta piani.”

  She smiled. “Le piace Celentano, no? Anche a me. Come si chiama?”

  “Non ricordo,” the man said.

  “Ma bene. Ora viene il dottore,” Ornella said, pointing somewhere behind the curtain.

  “Bene. Sono stanco. Ciao bella.”

  “Arrivederci.”

  The doctor pulled aside the curtain. “Is he awake?”

  “He is, Doctor,” the first nurse said. “But he does not understand English. We thought he spoke Italian, so we called Ornella.”

  “And?”

  “He doesn’t remember his name, Doctor,” Ornella said. “He speaks Italian, but—” She giggled.

  “What?”

  “Every other sentence is the title of a song.”

  THE REVERSE MAN. November 9, 1998

  Tomo the Croatian nurse had a nickname at the hospital: the Reverse Man. When he came to the hospital looking for work, the first thing the woman who ran Human Resources noticed about him was that he uttered each name in reverse order—family name, then the person’s name—as if reading from a telephone book. The social services had sent a letter of recommendation with him, saying that he was a refugee suffering from traumatic experiences. The head of HR took pity on him and hired him as a patient hygienist on the night shift. It was a smooth title for the rough job of cleaning toilets, changing sheets, and disinfecting bedpans. When he started working, the nurses noticed that he did other things backwards, too. Instead of pushing his trolley, he pulled it behind him. Instead of stretching a sheet over a bed first and tucking the ends in afterwards, he would straighten the bottom part, tuck it in, and then work towards the head part, as if a patient were already in bed and he was covering him.