Swan Dive

by Brenda Hasiuk

  Mama just got home and she says they need some help at the tailor shop, sweeping up and running errands, and she thinks since I’ve missed a whole month of grade eleven I should get out of the apartment and contribute to the family.

  It’s not natural for a healthy Slabic teenage boy to be so pale and solitary.

  I pretended I would think about it.

  I told Budgie that after Natalia, a kid named Leo played the fiddle and I crouched down beside Elle and I told her we worked so hard and we knew the song and like Amina said, I had the voice and she had the moves. I was the cake and she was the sparkler.

  And it worked. Elle rubbed my fuzzy head and hugged me like she was drunk. I don’t care. We’re ready. Let’s do this.

  And we did, and I can barely remember being on stage except for the light in my eyes and the dark gym floor stretching out like some kind of field growing cross-legged kids. It’s like I didn’t wake up until it was over and then I couldn’t trust my own body, like I might float away into the rafters. I can hear the applause, the hoots and hollers. I can see Elle out of the corner of my eye, breathing so hard and beaming so bright.

  And later, there’s Mr. Pahl saying we were a delight, that no one had ever sung an Elvis Presley classic in reggae-style quite like that before, and Natalia saying, Good job, guys, that was fun, that was a total surprise, and Amina saying I’d stepped into my rightful place as the gifted voice of the family.

  Budgie asked if I would sing her a few lines but she didn’t give me a chance. Wise men saaay, ….

  I wanted to tell her that budgies were definitely not songbirds and it was like she read my mind. You can do better? There’s a reason I majored in psychology, not music.

  So I finished the line even though I haven’t sung in forever and she kicked her feet in the air like an excited little kid. You have a very nice voice, Laz-Aaar.

  She wanted to know what happened, if the good guys won, and Amina’s voice answered in my head. Don’t be naïve, Herr Doctor. The good guys don’t always win. Back then our people were still being picked off by snipers like ducks in a barrel.

  I told Budgie Soulgroan played last and dedicated their song to Kurt Cobain, the artist and the man who had taken his own life just a few short months ago, raging against the machine. I remember Elle calling when she was still in BC to tell me how depressed she was about the news and I told her she didn’t even listen to Nirvana and she said, Correction, you don’t even listen to Nirvana. Jimmy says “Smells Like Teen Spirit” will define our generation.

  Budgie wanted to know if Soulgroan were any good and I told her I didn’t know. All I knew was that the chorus went, Get your Gucci something out of my something.

  I never made Budgie laugh before, but this made her laugh. She looked at her watch and asked if I was really going to make her wait until next session to tell me who won, and I said Nana Spaho used to say waiting is good for you. It builds strength. Budgie wanted to know if I thought that was true, and then I laughed because I had no idea, but she was going to have to wait.

  September 30, 1999

  I woke up thinking of stuff that Elle and I never talked about, or that I never thought about. Like the judges probably marked Soulgroan so high because they played an original song. But should you get extra points for originality if the song isn’t very original or very good?

  Mama won’t stop talking about getting me out of the apartment. I went with Tata to pick up some paint and he kept his eyes straight in front of him pretty much the whole time, like he’s afraid to look at the ghost.

  Budgie pretended she hadn’t been able to eat or sleep since our last session because she wanted to know who won the talent contest and I told her I knew how she felt because the judges took forever to reach a decision. They made all the performers stand up on stage in a huddle and I could make out Amina in the audience, looking like she was about ready to throw herself down, forehead to the floor like Nana Spaho praying in the mosque.

  Elle kept whispering to me, Did you hear them? I think we got the most applause. Seriously. Natalia stood beside us in her stiff duck-feet pose, pretending not to listen. Matt and Evan and Darius sat with their legs dangling off the edge of the stage, pretending they didn’t care what happened.

  I told Budgie that when Mrs. Dubé called out CristElle, Elle screamed so loud that my hearing in that ear is still sketchy. We each got a framed certificate and a $50 St. John’s Music gift card for coming in third place. Afterwards, Elle said the cheering for us was nearly as loud as for Soulgroan coming second, and Natalia’s first place only got your normal polite applause. The truth is I think there were a few boos in the cheering for us, but maybe they were for the judges because the minute we stepped down off the stage, people started swarming us. They said they didn’t know I could sing, that they loved that song, that UB40 was the best, that we were the best. Two grade seven boys tried to mimic Elle’s pretend reggae trumpet blowing but Amina said they didn’t come close to her style. I thought Elle might explode. When she went to hug Amina, her face was red and wet, like she was actually sweating with happiness.

  Right after the contest, Mindy took us out for dinner at Boston Pizza which she paid for with half cash, half credit card. Elle ordered appetizers and dessert and non-alcoholic cocktails and Mindy said some things were worth splurging over.

  The week after, just before school ended for the year, Mrs. Dubé stopped us in the hallway and introduced me to Mrs. Gulliano. She said she was director of the divisional junior jazz choir and she heard I had a great voice. They practiced Thursdays after school at Westwood United and I should join next year. Elle asked if you had to audition and Mrs. Dubé waved her off. Cris will blow them away, no problem.

  When they were gone, Elle said that was tacky and I thought she meant like sticky and she had to explain. Well, like, for instance, couldn’t they have waited until I wasn’t there to hand-pick you? They acted like I was just your groupie.

  I told her I wasn’t going to try out anyway and she asked why not and I said, What do you mean? Because CristElle comes first, and Elle said, Really? and I said, Of course.

  Budgie leaned forward like we were going to share a little birdie secret. Do you think you guys should have won?

  I told her Elle had lots to say about that. This is what picks my bum. Tons of people have told me that we were the most entertaining and isn’t that what it’s all about? That trip should have been ours.

  But I have a feeling this wasn’t exactly true because Amina was there and if there was some kind of grand injustice she’d have been all over it like a fly on butter.

  I just wanted to get back to our regular practicing but Elle said I was being a wet blanket. Like on the last day of school, she ran up all excited because some girl in grade seven whose dad played the bongos wanted to join us and I had to say, Okay, you really want to change our name to CristElle-Phoebe?

  Budgie laughed again. She said we should probably move on, maybe make it as far as grade seven this session and I couldn’t tell if she was being snarky. I know snarky because Mindy said she always had to be ready for one of Elle’s snark attacks and I wondered if maybe Mama and Tata were running out of money to pay Budgie.

  Or maybe head doctors only want you to go on and on about your childhood when it involves war crimes.

  I keep thinking about the time we got our first UN package during the siege. Mama talked about it for days before, telling me to just eat the cabbage soup without crackers or the nearly rotten tomato without salt, because very soon we’d have rice, we’d have meat, we’d have treats. And when the container finally came, everyone acted like it was Christmas Eve at Baba and Deda Ilić’s, until Tata turned to me and asked, Why the long face?

  I told him there was nothing special. No sweets, no fruit, no bakery buns. Then he patted me on the back and Mama said she would make a cake, but I already knew that war cakes were nothing
like regular cakes. And then Amina announced the package was not nearly enough for a family to live on for one month and Hana told her to not to be ungrateful and an argument started that made it seem kind of like a family celebration after all.

  But I know what it’s like to feel so disappointed that you want to — no, you have to — bite something really hard, like your own arm, someone else’s arm, the edge of the kitchen table. And I never felt so disappointed as after that grade six contest. Not even after the Sarajevo electrical station, the one Tata said was one of the most modern in Europe, stopped powering the cinema and the lamp by my bed and the hot water tank. Or after forcing down one of Mama’s stupid war cakes. Or after Arman blew up and they closed the elementary school for good.

  Elle said that we were in demand, we were out from under, we were going to rule the school in grade seven, but without those plane tickets we were no closer to our dream than we’d been before.

  Wasn’t the whole point to win that trip to Orlando? Maybe some part of dumb ten-year-old me got it that timing can be everything. CristElle would never have quite the same magic. Star Search would go off the air. The war would end before we could tell the judges I was a poor little refugee with big dreams, show them our stuff and become superstars.

  2

  October 1, 1999

  From: CristElle@hotmail.com

  To: Spaho123@hotmail.com

  Subject line: hope you’re fricking happy

  I was doing fine. Then I found that yellow T-shirt with the crystal ball logo Amina made us with her first paycheck from Robin’s Donuts. I thought I lost it but it was in the front closet behind a box of New Year’s hats Mindy said she was taking to the children’s hospital.

  I remember when I came up with CristElle you were eating Cheerios out of the box and I grabbed it and poured some on your head because I was so pumped. And your mama threw knives at me with her eyes but I didn’t care because it was so brilliant and we were going to clean up the cereal anyway.

  But here’s the thing. That shirt is as big as a fricking tent and it’s like that girl who did that, she’s a different person, and it’s like I’m jealous of her even though she had to wear a tent. So I hope you’re happy now that I’m as screwed up as u.

  October 3, 1999

  From: CristElle@hotmail.com

  To: Spaho123@hotmail.com

  Subject line: beached whale

  I fricking keep thinking of when we went to the wading pool near the community club. It was the summer before grade 7 and I wanted to go to the real one at Kildonan Park so bad but u couldn’t do your laps to get out of the kiddie area.

  It was just us and a bunch of moms with toddlers, and I grabbed a pail and poured icy pee water over your head and one of the moms took pity on u and gave u her kid’s super soaker. Back then it didn’t matter that I was still a fat piece of blubber and u were a foreign freak. U didn’t care that we were running around in freezing toddler urine or that the kiddies and moms thought we were crazy or that your bathing suit was too baggy for your lily white butt, because u never cared. It’s one of the things I loved about u. Like at the end of the summer when we went back just for fun and that whole daycare was hogging the pool. So we were lying on our towels looking up at the canker worms eating the trees clear of leaves when that guy said, WATCH OUT FOR THE BEACHED WHALE.

  I swear it must have been heat stroke or something, but u got up and went over to them and said something like, what was that? And he said, what was what? And you said, you know what. Then one of the daycare workers came and asked if there was a problem and u said, this guy is being a douchebag.

  U didn’t even know what it meant! I had to drag u away and u told me Hana’s friend always called her boss that. But not to his face, I said. And u just shrugged like that was beside the point. I couldn’t believe it. I still can’t believe it.

  Then I was thinking how we watched Titanic sixteen times and I know this because for some stupid fricking reason I saved all the tickets. Maybe I’m going to end up like Mindy, drowning in my own garbage. I think I loved that movie so much because Rose isn’t skinny, she’s luscious and round and that’s the only reason she lives. She’s like her own life raft and poor bony Jack with his sad story and big dreams sinks like a rock.

  And now whenever I dream about swimming, I’m always so happy and I’m always still fat.

  But here’s the thing. U loved Titanic, too, I know u did, but u never cried and that got me thinking, have I ever seen u cry? I don’t think so and that is fricking WEIRD since you are such a giant baby mama’s boy. How could I be so stupid?

  How did I not notice that instead of some clueless knight in shining pasty white you were actually the WORST of the worst???

  October 4, 1999

  From: CristElle@hotmail.com

  To: Spaho123@hotmail.com

  Subject line: swan dive

  When we were kids, we did not fit in. We were classic misfits. Jimmy says all good stories have misfit heroes. Where u went wrong was u took a swan dive from misfit to fricking outcast.

  I’m going to cut up that T-shirt into little strips and give it to Amanda-P’s hamster to use as toilet paper.

  October 5, 1999

  Budgie asked this morning if I’m ready to talk about more recent events, and I answered with my own question, which I know is the oldest trick in the book. Like what? She looked tired and I wondered if she might be getting sick again. She was wearing that bright green sweater and it made her pink skin look almost purple.

  Like why you’re here.

  I didn’t take the bait, so she had to keep fishing.

  Why do you think you’re here, Laz-Aaar?

  I told Budgie I wasn’t ready to talk about it. She said okay, what did I want to talk about then? I told her maybe we should go in order, like grade seven next, even though it was not exactly a banner year.

  Elle wasn’t there for the first six weeks of school because Jimmy kept her in BC to provide a hands-on education into what he called the land of the spirit bear and its mysterious ways. Amina was on a tear because another thirty-seven people were blown up in the Markale and NATO was finally flying over the mountains and bombing the Chetniks, who were saying the city’s defenders sent mortars to kill their own people to get sympathy in the West. She even started standing in the donut shop parking lot during her break, handing out flyers and trying to get people to sign a petition until her pimply supervisor told her to cut it out. She told me if I didn’t get away from that idiot tube, she was going to smash it with a hammer.

  So I joined the math club for a bit. There were only four of us and two of the grade eights just wanted to go on about quantum theory, which made it sound like the flux capacitor in Back to the Future maybe wasn’t so far-fetched and after a while it kind of felt like I was back in the projector booth with my Deda Ilić, who secretly still said his prayers at night even though his wife and daughter were members of the Party. I was just a kid watching him box films and so he could go on about the Holy Spirit in rocks and stars and turtles and how not seeing is believing, just like those guys who acted like math club wasn’t about numbers at all.

  Then when Elle finally got back all she wanted to do was tell stories about sleeping bags so wet you had to wring them out like a dishcloth, or ticks the size of peanut M&M’s, or Jimmy’s friend who chained himself to trees for a living. She didn’t wash her hair for the entire month of November because after a few weeks it was supposed to stop looking greasy and start to shine, except maybe she gave up too soon. I actually had to remind her that I didn’t try out for the jazz choir because I wanted to spend time on our own stuff and she acted like this was all news to her.

  I think after a while she figured out I was kind of mad because she made a big deal of my birthday.

  Back in Bosnia, December 24 was just a usual day because the holidays went by the old Julian calen
dar. Elle always said I got totally ripped off when I came here and suddenly had to share my birthday with a fricking god, and in grade seven, she and Mindy brought over a cake that was roughly in the shape of our logo and Elle sang her own rendition of Adina Howard’s “Freak Like Me.” She also brought a big bottle of Mountain Dew and made a toast like it was champagne even though it looked like pee. Here’s to Cris who is twelve today, but doesn’t look a day over eleven. Don’t be in a rush to get to puberty, my late-blooming friend. Trust me. Keep that soprano and stay young and hair-free as long as you can. She told Amina and me that fat girls mature early, which I know now means puberty, but then I didn’t really want to know. Mama made japrak like she’s done for every birthday since I can remember, even that freezing December of the siege. She made no fuss over the girls’ birthdays, but for mine she somehow found cabbage and meat even if it was just enough for me, and there was cake even if it was war cake, and small presents even if it was just a pen flashlight and second-hand comic book that cost the earth, and there were guests even if it was just the neighbors coming to warm up at our fire in the stove lit for the party.

  This time Elle got Mindy to make a thirty-dollar donation to Greenpeace in my name and Amina paid one of Mama’s Filipino ladies to make us black rayon shirts with embroidered silver CristElle logos. Dajdža Drago and Sharon were in Florida but they chipped in with the rest of the family and bought me a Sega console as a combined Christmas/birthday present.

  It was a pretty good night, except with the usual sniping after Elle left. Hana asked Mama if Elle looked thinner and Mama sniffed and said at least fatty’s hair was washed. I think maybe she’d toasted too much with real wine.

  Budgie said it sounded like a nice birthday, surrounded by friends and family, and I told her maybe, but then things went down the toilet. First the Dayton Peace Accords were signed in Paris, the Chetniks slunk down from the mountains and the siege was over. This meant Sarajevo was suddenly back in the news and Amina became the go-to refugee for the Winnipeg Free Press.