Swan Dive

by Brenda Hasiuk

  I told her I was sorry about her mom and she said it wasn’t exactly unexpected, but you can never quite prepare yourself, which reminded me of what Mama and Tata used to say to people about the war. So I told Budgie that you can’t believe it until it happens and she said, My mother was an addict. She was addicted to food and finally her body couldn’t take it anymore. I think it’s one of the reasons I chose this profession.

  I didn’t know what to say, so I told her when Nana Spaho died last year, I barely felt anything. She’d always been old, as long as I could remember. Budgie said she guessed that was the beauty of outliving your generation. People said my mom was larger than life, in every way. Maybe that’s why it’s so hard to imagine her gone.

  I told her Tata probably wished Nana Spaho could have lived forever because he let Amina go back with him, and then there was more arguing about which cousin’s flat was repaired enough for guests, and what they wanted most in Sarajevo that they still couldn’t get in Sarajevo, and how it was all going to fit into the suitcases without going overweight at baggage check.

  He finally told Mama that his mother wouldn’t have wanted this, all the cost, all the fuss, and Mama snapped at him the way she usually only snaps at the girls. You don’t want to bury your own mother? What are you afraid of? The fighting’s over. After that Tata shut up pretty much for good.

  Budgie wanted to know if I thought he was afraid and I said maybe he was afraid that if he went he might not want to come back, and she said she hadn’t thought of that and it was very perceptive of me.

  Mama says I have to clear up the dishes from lunch. I want to ask her if she knows about Elle’s messages but I’d also rather die than talk about Elle with her. But it’s like the more you try not to think about something the more you think about it, like a lame chorus that gets stuck in your head. Sometimes I think Elle is larger than life, even though she’s skinny now.

  Being with her was like being with the wind.

  A few months ago, Mama and Tata got in a big fight after we’d all gone to bed. She called him a coward who’s not willing to face up to the reality of his life.

  October 26, 1999

  Budgie said it’s been two months and we’ve come pretty far, made it all the way to 1999. She asked if I was too young to know the song by Prince and I told her it was 1999, they played it everywhere all the time, plus Ivan thought Prince was a freakzoid genius and Elle said he was kind of like me, a strange little music man with crazy hair who danced to his own drummer.

  When she said it, Ivan was giving her a piggyback and her chin was tucked in his neck but somehow she made it sound like a compliment.

  Budgie asked about when Tata and Amina were away and I told her they were supposed to stay in Sarajevo ten days but that was extended because Tata’s Aunt Iva, Nana Spaho’s half-sister, kept insisting that her apartment stay in the family and it was tricky business. Amina said the building was full of holes, a regular Russian chess field, and Mama explained to me that Chetniks had launched so many random mortars and Russian-supplied rockets that people thought it looked like they were playing tic-tac-toe, or Russian chess. Budgie asked if I was worried they wouldn’t come back, and I said no because while they were gone, Ivan went skiing in Quebec with his uncle and it was almost like old times for a while.

  Elle came over on the weekend and we made popcorn and watched Armageddon and she kept pretending to freak out and I pointed out all the holes in the plot and it was just us talking about the dodgy science and crappy dialogue and how the only female role was “hot young wife.”

  Then she put her sock feet in my lap like it was the most natural thing in the world. You know what I keep thinking? This is the first time you’ve been away from Mirza. Like, in your whole life.

  I’d never really thought of that, how Tata and I had always been together — before the siege, during the siege, after the siege. He’d never gone anywhere without me.

  Elle said that Jimmy would drive her crazy if she saw him every day, and I was going to ask her about it because I’d never thought about that either, how she might miss her dad during those months between visits, only my kurac was finally noticing her feet in my lap and so I had to get up for a drink.

  Even after Ivan came back in January, Elle still kept coming over like she was worried the apartment would collapse into a black hole without her or Amina around. And Mama was Elle’s biggest fan once she looked more like Winona Ryder than Queen Latifah. It is so good to have you here at this difficult time for our family, Elle. You are such a good girl for our Krysz. Look, I made you his favorite, lepinja. Flatbread is so good no need for butter.

  Budgie wanted to know how I felt and I had an answer for once. Nana Spaho was dead and people were still fighting over her crappy flat but I was happy. I wished things could stay like that forever, or at least the lifespan of a red dwarf star. Just me and Elle like it was before, except with her lepinja breath on my neck when she pretended to be scared or the smell of her shampoo in my face when she showed Mama how ticklish I was.

  While Tata and Amina were gone, for three weeks, it was as good as the first time I watched Star Wars at Baba and Deda Ilić’s cinema. I still have no idea where Deda Ilić got his hands on it, that pirated Polish version with Bosnian sub-titles that I couldn’t read yet, but it didn’t matter. It was Star Wars, and I was in my favorite seat in my second home with my Kakao Krem watching the most crazy exciting thing I’d ever seen in my life.

  Budgie smiled, and I was going to tell her that this is the point when the story hits the fan, takes a wrong turn, heads over to the Dark Side. But I just let her smile because the session was pretty much over.

  October 27, 1999

  I almost read Elle’s messages. Now I have to go to the tailor shop with Mama and I’ve got the shakes. She keeps touching my hair and I want to hit my own mother.

  October 28, 1999

  Budgie is quitting. After all the yada-yada-yada, after all the chirp-chirp-chirping, she’s decided she needs a holiday. My colleague Dr. Latinez will meet with you over the next month. I know it’s not ideal, Laz-Aaar, but you’ll like him. He’s been at this for a long time, thirty years. He knows his stuff.

  I couldn’t get any words out. After everything, I was going to cry over Budgie?

  I’ll be back in four weeks. Even doctors need to pause sometimes and see to their own life.

  There were tears coming down my face!

  I need some time. There are things to settle about my mother, just like your tata had to.

  I was watching her skinny little fingers fidgeting in her lap, tearing at a piece of tissue like she hated it, and I was crying.

  My daughter, Jessie, is not very verbal. She should be talking more at her age. She needs some testing, Laz-Aaar. And I need to be there. She balled up the tissue in her fist and tried to smile. I shouldn’t be telling you this.

  I am not an a-hole, but I didn’t smile back. She got up to get a Kleenex that wasn’t all mauled and balled and I told her Elle has been emailing me.

  I’m sorry?

  She handed me the Kleenex, but I didn’t take it and I didn’t say it again.

  Elle has been writing to you?

  Why do people pretend they don’t hear you when they do? I am so tired of all the pretending that goes on, day in and day out.

  This is the first I’ve heard of this. What does she say, Laz-Aaar? Let’s talk about it. We still have the hour.

  Why did you bring it up if you didn’t want to talk about it?

  I can wait, Laz-Aaar. We have a few more minutes. Let me know when you’re ready.

  You’ll like Dr. Latinez, Laz-Aaar. He was one of my mentors. You should see the waiting list to see him.

  It went on like this until time was up and Tata came in his new used car, a 1994 Corolla that Hana’s husband got for a song. Tata didn’t notice that my eyes were red and there wer
e big fat snowflakes falling on the streets and the tree branches and the fire hydrants. Hana and Sara and Mama hate the winter because of the cold but Tata and I have always liked it. Summer is smelly and noisy and all about growing and thundering and burning. Winter is gray and quiet and all about sleeping like the dead.

  Budgie is not the only one who can be patient. I know what it means to wait even when you’re young and it doesn’t come naturally. They can’t make me go see Dr. Grandpa or tell him that I wasn’t afraid Tata wouldn’t come back from Sarajevo. I was afraid that he would for my sake, and that he’d hate me for it.

  I don’t have to tell him how tired I am, even though I’m young.

  Because I am, I’m tired. I’m tired of trying to figure out the mess and the messages and the yadda, yadda, yadda, chirp, chirp, chirp. I’m tired of missing Kakao Krem. I’m tired of imagining what Elle is doing right now.

  Because it was only a matter of time before Tata would come home quieter than ever, and Amina would come home louder than ever and Elle would go back to trying to get me to do something with my pot scrubber hair or drag me to sit with them while she snuck fries off Ivan’s plate. Valentine’s Day would come and Elle would send me a rose from a secret admirer and Amina would help me make Elle lepinja with no butter and Ivan would write her a heavy metal knock-off called “Elle’s Bells” and Elle would pretend to like them both the same.

  Amina would start giving me pep talks again. You just going to let that arrogant little Russian have her like that? You just going to sit there? What is it with people who sit as if they’re helpless? This is a peaceful, free country. You can do as you like. Your destiny isn’t dictated by centuries of tribalism and territory. Mama would start to worry again that I was too skinny, or too pale, or too lazy, and she would take me to the doctor again to see why such a young man should be wasting away and there would be questions and needles and more questions.

  How are you feeling these days? Ever feel like it’s hard to get out of bed? How about unusual sadness? Do you ever think about hurting yourself? Any thoughts of suicide? Do you have a girlfriend? Are you sexually active? How are your eating habits? What do you do for exercise?

  The results would come back inconclusive and Mama would start worrying for real and Tata would finally lose his temper. Don’t be such a foolish woman. He is growing too fast, that’s all. You remember what a beanpole I was at his age? It’s a stage. Take him back, test him again, you’ll see.

  Then more waiting rooms, more doctors, more needles, and I’d start to get how Arman maybe felt after the shrapnel. One day you’re a regular little shit in a schoolyard and the next you’re under the white lights of the examining room, a superstar of unluckiness because kids shouldn’t die. Hana would come home and spend the night because Mama wasn’t sleeping, until the second set of tests would come back normal, no problems, perhaps a little depression leading to lethargy.

  I don’t have to tell Dr. Grandpa that before the siege, whenever Mama worried too much Tata said, You don’t know what trouble is. Until she really did. Then when she started fretting again here in Canada, Tata couldn’t say that to her anymore. All he could say was, I told you the boy was fine, and all she could do was stop talking to him.

  If Budgie thinks she can pass me off to some other doctor who happens not to be a bird, she’s wrong. I can wait. I know how to sit and not think too hard about what’s happening to you. I’ve had practice. And it takes practice, because if you have half a brain thoughts creep in through the cracks.

  Like I keep thinking that Ivan and Elle treated me like their kid brother. Sometimes I felt like their kid brother. I was everybody’s kid brother.

  But other times I felt like they had no idea. They talked big but everything was a game, a laugh, a good story. They had no idea what life could actually do to you.

  October 30, 1999

  In September I made a deal with Mama and Tata. I didn’t have to start grade eleven right away if I went to the doctor. Now mama is saying since I’m not going to the doctor, then I have to go to school. So I took off and slept in Scottie Abrams’ garage, which I remembered is heated because his dad loves cars more than people. I came back to the apartment just as the police were leaving, and Mama hugged me like it had been one year instead of one night, then cuffed me on the ear and cried and held my hands and asked what they were going to do with me as if I might have any idea.

  Tata said nothing and later Mama made lepinja, which doesn’t remind me of my childhood anymore.

  It reminds me of Elle.

  Sara moved into a townhouse with her friend from work last week. Amina came into my room yesterday and threw a paper airplane at my head. It was a copy of her old Siege of Sarajevo flyer, the one she spent so much time laying out on our crap computer and then printing and photocopying and never really handing it out to anyone but us.

  Read it, she said, because even if you were in school, you wouldn’t be learning this shit. After that she took off for Toronto, then Frankfurt, then Belgrade, then Sarajevo.

  Mama and Tata are busy pretending the other one isn’t there.

  It’s winter in here.

  December 7, 1999

  It’s possible to sleep fourteen hours a day and still be tired. I learned that as a kid. It’s possible to stare at a crack in the window glass until the sunlight plays tricks on you, turns everything out the window and inside the kitchen into colored blobs with no meaning. Like when you rub your eyes, close them hard and let the light dance across the darkness.

  It’s possible to hear your own heart beating the way it has since you were inside your mama, to hear your blood pulsing up your arteries, swooshing around your head, draining back down your veins like a soundtrack to that diagram in biology class.

  After Nana Spaho died, Elle put her bare feet in my lap once and closed her eyes and I traced the branches of blue veins on the top of her feet with my finger. She asked me to tell her fortune and I said stupid things like, You will seek your fame closer to home than some think. You will live longer than most. You will marry someone from exotic lands.

  But I didn’t tell Budgie any of this. I only went back because I heard Mama and Tata talking again about maybe hauling me off to the loony bin.

  Budgie let her hair grow out a bit and it was kind of curly around her shoulders. She also changed it to the wheat blonde that Sara had as a kid even though she turned out to be just as dark as the rest of us.

  Budgie said I didn’t look so hot and asked if I’d been sleeping. Then she said it was good to see me again.

  Maybe we should just try and pick up things where we left them. Do you want to tell me about Elle’s messages?

  I told her there was nothing to tell.

  Okay. Last time we talked about last winter with Elle, when it was just like old times.

  Yeah, I wanted to say. I may be crazy, but my short-term memory is just fine. Elle and I. Last winter. Just like old times, but better.

  You will be loved by many and envy may haunt you. You will be betrayed by someone close to you.

  Budgie touched my knee with her little birdie claw. Then things changed, Laz-Aaar. That’s where we’re at.

  I know this is where it gets hard, Laz-Aaar. But this is why we’re here.

  Would you like another doctor, Laz-Aaar? We can do that, you know. It doesn’t have to be me. I know my absence came at a hard time.

  I don’t know why I didn’t end it there. I could have. She said so.

  What makes us keep coming back for more? How can Tata keep missing something so much when he knows it’s as dead as the dodo? How can Amina keep harping on about justice, about dreaming big, when she knows she will never get what she wants?

  All I know is that I started telling Budgie about Dajdža Drago like my brain had been on deep freeze and her chirp-chirp-chirping was the spring.

  I told her he had the heart
attack after Valentine’s Day, right when he and Sharon were landing from their vacation in Thailand. Sharon didn’t call Mama until the next day and things went downhill from there. Dajdža Drago hit his head when he collapsed in the airplane aisle and the whole time they waited for him to regain consciousness in the hospital Mama and Sharon couldn’t agree on anything. Sharon started talking with the doctors about options, and Mama said it was a betrayal to talk about anything other than hope, and Tata was in between, suddenly as talkative as Ivan after a can of Coke in the morning.

  All of us were jammed into that little private hospital room and Tata told them to be kind to each other for the sake of the man they both loved. He kept repeating to them what the doctor actually said. He reminded Mama of the letters Dajdža Drago used to send home about this amazing Sharon. He did everything but handstands to keep them from killing each other. Maybe his brother-in-law was finally quiet enough to let him get a word in edgewise.

  Budgie smiled, and I told her I remember I was just so tired and Mama said it was because I wasn’t eating enough meat, but all I could think of was how Dajdža Drago looked in that hospital bed and how much I wanted to be him, so clueless and limp and peaceful. Everyone was talking like Dajdža Drago wasn’t an overbearing seronja but the king of kindness and generosity. Even Tata.

  All the guy had to do was lie there, brain dead, and he was suddenly a hero.

  Mindy always said people can’t appreciate what they have until it’s taken away, but then the memory of how it was becomes like a movie trailer of the best bits. Budgie wanted to know how so, and I said just look at Sarajevo.

  If you weren’t a little kid caged inside like a guinea pig, if you were actually out there fighting for your life and hating your mortal enemy, it was the opposite of boring. Even if you weren’t a drama queen like Amina, even if the whole thing was your biggest nightmare, you maybe never felt so alive and afterwards nothing else could really compare. And maybe that’s why you want to see the past as a kind of hyped-up version of how it was because that’s how trailers work. The announcer comes on over an aerial view of Sarajevo and some major guitar chords play and the announcer says something like Once upon a time, in a galaxy far, far away, there was a valley city of harmony and peace among religions and peoples.