Mama Leone

by Miljenko Jergovic

  Bingo! shouted an old man in a beret who looked like Zaim Muzaferija and got up to meet fatso, the caller. Congratulations Mustafa, with a hearty swing fatso shook the old man’s hand. The old man smiled sheepishly as if his luck had all been a set-up. Osman crumpled the card up and stuffed it in his jacket pocket.

  Darkness had already fallen over Zenica. He headed toward the bus station kicking a can in front of him. The can rang hollow on the asphalt, and Osman felt like a fifteen-year-old who still believed it was possible to cheat his own life but couldn’t remember how. Maybe a man needs to be careful not to let life cheat him. What would happen, for example, if tomorrow – actually, the day after tomorrow – he turned up at Mary Kentucky’s house and caught her in bed with Omer.

  If it were possible to believe something like that, if only for a moment, a moment as fleeting as the flap of a hummingbird’s wings, Osman would never return to Alabama. But as things stood, his brother’s present was going to be a marked card from the Zenica bingo hall with just one number missing, an inconspicuous seven that Osman will remember for just a short time, before it disappears along with the flame that burns and leaves no trace.

  Look at me, Anadolka

  Vukota remembers his grandma Rina only vaguely, if he indeed remembers her at all and his memories aren’t just from his mother’s stories. The first image is of Grandma warming herself in front of a grand wood burner, her palms outstretched toward the fire, a glimmering white cap on her head, the kind he had only seen in cartoons, on Olive Oyl’s head from the Popeye cartoon when she went to bed. In the second Grandma Rina is holding a candlestick holder, wiping the dust from it, her fingers trembling, flitting about as if each were soon to turn into a sparrow and disappear beneath the high ceiling of the living room. In the third Grandma is furious, her little cap now crooked, and she’s yelling, barely audibly, if as someone has muffled her every word with a mountain of feathers. In my time a man and woman met under a canopy, not under the covers. That was it, that was the sum of what he knew about his grandma Rina, she had died when he was three, and he had almost never thought of her until the summer of 1992, when the first Jewish convoys left the city, and Vukota remembered that Grandma Rina had been a Jew, and so that made him a Jew too, and under the terms of a new agreement he could leave this war behind.

  His mother looked at him, pale and empty, and said you’ve got to be kidding, what do you know about all that. His father, Savo, just shrugged his shoulders, lit one cigarette after the other, and shut up, nothing to say since the first grenades had weaned him off the habit of starting every sentence with “we Serbs.” I don’t know anything, but I’m going to Israel, Vukota replied, his thoughts wandering back to the three images of Grandma Rina, now certain he’d be able to see something, decipher something that had hitherto remained hidden, something that would turn him – who had never been anything – into a Jew.

  I am the grandson of Rina Mantova, he said, holding up a yellowed card with his grandma’s picture on it. In different circumstances a membership card for La Benevolencija wouldn’t have cut it as proof of Vukota’s ancestry, but in the mayhem of the present, the people at the Jewish Community offices weren’t particularly interested in who was a Jew and who wasn’t. They put everyone who registered on their lists. As soon as they got out of the city, people would have to settle questions of their Jewishness on their own, there could be no harm done. They had saved lives, and there’s no deception involved there.

  When the bus arrived in Makarska, Vukota asked and how are we going to get to Israel? Mr. Levi was surprised: you really want to go to Israel? . . . Well, I don’t know where else I’d go. Vukota didn’t want to go to America or Canada; he was afraid of a life among strangers, and if Grandma Rina had been a Jew, then presumably there was something Jewish in him, something that might burgeon and bloom in Israel, magically making a real Jew of him, at home in his own skin among the locals. When you leave home, you have to be something, you need a document and a name on it to protect you. At home you could be Nothing, now you have to become Something. Vukota was worried he lacked the talent for being Something. If alongside his father, Savo, he didn’t know how to be a Serb, perhaps he was incapable of being anything except Vukota, and if he was just Vukota, then it was curtains for him.

  He arrived in Israel two months later. At the airport a pair in uniform came out to meet him, escorting him to a third uniform who interrogated him and certified he wasn’t dangerous. This uniform passed him over to a fourth who gave Vukota a five-minute lecture on the State of Israel, handed him a key, an ID card, and a check to get him through the next month or so. Welcome, get yourself sorted, he said, placed his hand on Vukota’s shoulder, and sent him out into the world.

  I can sing and play a bit of guitar, he told Albert, who on the second day after his arrival had already asked when Vukota intended to get a job. Albert was from Zrenjanin and had been there three months. Vukota had been assigned to him as a roommate and Albert was supposed to assist with his socialization in their free time. That won’t help you none here. You know how to do anything else? . . . Maybe I’d be okay as a waiter . . . Be a waiter then, but get down to it on the double. That’s my advice to you. Otherwise it’s curtains for you.

  Vukota spent weeks trying to find a job waiting tables, but at the time no one seemed to need staff. Albert grinned, ha, you Bosnians, making life even tougher. When Albert was around, Vukota couldn’t forget for a minute that he was on the edge of destitution, that little by little the ground was being pulled out from under him, the day not far off when he wouldn’t even be able to buy food. He wasn’t capable of becoming a waiter, but worse still, he hadn’t even become a Jew, or he had never been that for longer than the moment it had first occurred to him that Grandma Rina might save his neck. In any case, Albert’s ha, you Bosnians, already sounded like a grenade exploding in the distance, and with every new ha, you Bosnians, it drew ever closer and louder. One day it would go off right here, beside him, and that ha, you Bosnians, would then require an appropriate response. And what might an appropriate response be? Vukota didn’t know, except that if there wasn’t one, he increasingly had the feeling he’d rather smack Albert’s ears than find a million dollars in the street.

  This could be something for you, Albert put the newspaper down in front of him. It was open to the Help Wanted page, there was an ad, something about a musical comedy, a film studio looking for young men and women who could sing, preferably from Eastern Europe. Vukota silently took down the number, making out like he didn’t care, while in reality his every muscle was dancing with joy. He hadn’t even called and was already imagining himself pulling up in front of the Hilton in a sporty Mercedes, making his way through a cordon of chicks who were passing out all over the place, like young birches felled by Jehovah’s breeze. Then he’d come visit Albert in this dank room, take a fat wad of dollar bills from his pocket, slap him on the forehead with it, and say, ha, we Bosnians.

  The voice at the other end of the line had already picked up, and Vukota hadn’t even got around to being surprised with himself because, hell, for the first time in his life he’d become something, and it was because of Albert; in a fleeting flight of fancy he’d become the worst a man anywhere on the face of the earth could be – he’d become a Bosnian, he’d become we Bosnians. Luckily he wasn’t aware of it, and calmly answered their questions: yes, he’s from Eastern Europe, from Bosnia and Herzegovina, you know, a country in Eastern Europe; yes, he was an excellent singer, he used to have his own band, what do you mean where did he have a band? Eastern Europe of course; it was a punk band, but he knows how to sing Bosnian songs too, no problem at all . . .

  A few hundred guys and girls were there waiting outside this upholstered green door. Everyone was given a number and got called in according to some system, at first one at a time, and then someone worked it out that the audition would never end, so they started going in five at a time. Listen to those numbers will you, the number 676 surrea
l to Vukota, all of a sudden everything seemed different from how he had imagined. Instead of hustling his way to becoming a Jew, he had hustled his way to a number.

  Fourteen hours later, a fat black-haired secretary squawked in English: 675 to 679, if you don’t get in here now, you’ve missed your chance. He pushed his way to the door, holding his number victoriously above his head. Three guys went in with Vukota, two of them were Russians, no doubt about it, the other one looked like a Romanian, and then there was a girl who was really tall, blond hair and blue eyes like in that story by Isak Samokovlija. At a table sat three men, the one in the middle looked like the director because he was wearing glasses like Steven Spielberg’s, at least that’s how it seemed to Vukota. The director pointed to five chairs, they sat down, he looked at them, rolled his eyes, the fat secretary squawked break time! Vukota started to stand up, sit down! Vukota sat back down. The director and his assistants headed out the back door. The fat secretary followed them.

  For half an hour the five of them didn’t budge from their chairs. The girl held her hands in her lap, looking at the floor. She didn’t move, she almost didn’t breathe, she was tense and looked like she was remembering a song she had heard long ago, one she’d start singing the second she remembered it, she’d just start singing, out loud, not concerned with who was around or where she was. The two Russians really were Russians, and motormouth Russians at that; first they whispered stuff to each other, past Vukota who was sitting between them, then they started laughing and talking real loud, one second Vukota was taking spray on the right cheek, the next on the left. He stared straight ahead, as lost as he would ever be in his life, as far from home as anyone had ever been. He thought how perhaps it would’ve been better if he’d never remembered Grandma Rina, if Grandma Rina had never even existed, and that if it had occurred to him to leave couldn’t he at least have done it the way other people did? How did other people leave? He didn’t want to think about it, but he was sure they must’ve left better than he did, because if they’d left like him, no one would have gone anywhere, everyone would’ve remained in the city waiting for their grenade or bullet.

  To keep from bursting into tears at the terror of his fate, Vukota did what was always helpful and healing in these kinds of situations: Out of the corner of his eye he started spying on the girl; you know, the standard drill – I’m a man and I’m looking at a girl. She really was beautiful, one of those ones you didn’t have the guts to fall in love with, but you never got the chance anyhow, because you only ever met them in passing and never got to introduce yourself, but you would see them and ache, that real deep-seated ache somewhere in your chest. You try thinking about them and you always think, they can’t be someone’s girlfriend, because you only see them when they’re on their own, and you can’t imagine anyone who’s deserving of such a girl.

  It was like she couldn’t hear the Russians; she focused on her spot, trying to remember her song, wound tight as a string on a guitar – not on a guitar! – maybe on some other instrument, one Vukota had never laid his hands on, maybe a string on a zither. Yeah, she was as tight as a string on a zither, and under a spray of Russian spit Vukota tried to work out what country she was from, but God help him it was really like there was no such country in the whole of Eastern Europe. Frankly, there was no such country in all the Europes of this world, eastern, western, whatever. Christ, what kind of country lets a girl like her end up number 678 in some distant Israel.

  He stopped thinking about his fate, in fact, he was ashamed his own fate had even crossed his mind. From the get-go he should’ve been playing the role of the hero, saving this blond beauty – this daughter of Samokovlija’s imagination, this one-off blond Jewess – from general servitude, not to mention this audition. He thought how good it would be were he to get up right now, go over to her, take her by the hand, and lead her out, but in his head there was this pathetic little Vukota, a little scared monster, all panicked, telling him for God’s sake don’t do it, you don’t go up to any woman like that, she won’t stand up, you don’t pull her by the arm like you want to rip it out of her shoulder, like you’d pluck a star from the ceiling of a kid’s room that’s not your own. Vukota understood what the little monster inside was telling him: You go up to that girl and grab her by the arm – you’ll end up in the nuthouse. Crazy, and not even a Jew.

  He tried to look away from her. The Russians kept the spray coming and he faced the other direction, hey, the little Romanian, he’d completely forgotten about him. The Romanian had his mouth open like he was a bit retarded, gazing transfixed at the beauty. Have a good gawk, numb nuts, said Vukota. His own voice gave him a fright, but no one had heard it. The Romanian definitely hadn’t, he was in a daze, zoned out to everything happening around him. Thank God we didn’t have that kind of socialism, thought Vukota, and thus comforted, turned back to the girl. Left and right it rained and thundered, the Russians not quitting for a second, but it was like in those songs from after the Second World War, rain or thunder couldn’t stop Vukota: He stood there in a drenched raincoat in the middle of a destroyed city, a city of which there was nothing left, the rain just poured down on Brest that day, as it once had, and Vukota wanted to know her name, to speak it right now, and hell, loud! He wanted her to finally turn around, he wanted to know where she was from, and to tell her: you got it, sweetheart, that’s where we’re going. I’ll tear up my number, you’ll tear up yours, and we’re off to your whatthehellwasthenameofit country. There in your hometown, we’ll meet again as total strangers.

  The fat secretary came in squawking silence over there! The Russian precipitation cleared, and the director and assistants took their places. Number 675, said the assistant on the left. The little Romanian jumped up and finally closed his mouth. Where are you from? the assistant asked. From Albania, replied the little Romanian, who, no shit, wasn’t even Romanian. From Albania, the three of them were surprised, Vukota too. They’ve got Jews in Albania nowadays? It didn’t matter anyhow, the kid didn’t know the first thing about singing and ten seconds later the director had cut him off and the secretary showed him the door, soft-soaping him with we’ll call you if we need you.

  It was Vukota’s turn. Bosnia and Herzegovina, he replied to the assistant on the left. Take it away, the secretary squawked. Not thinking too much about it Vukota started singing the first folk song that popped into his head. Look at me, Anadolka, I offer my heart, with almonds that you may smell so sweet, with sherbet that you may long for me, he looked in her direction, she looked back, gripping her chair, oh my, your locks so red aglow, do they fill you with such sorrow so, she kept watching him, her eyes shining as if someone had mistakenly let the ocean into the room, were I to suffer such sorrow so, I’d never let you see such woe, Christ, she knows the song, she’s opening her mouth like she’s singing, but so that no one else sees her, so they think she’s just yawning a bit, it’s easy to hide words, every word can be hidden, remain unspoken, but when you sing – that’s hard to hide . . . Oh my, your face so white, is it sorrow or is it fright, no, it’s not possible, he would’ve seen her, he would’ve seen her in Sarajevo, but he hadn’t seen her, no way, the ocean flowed from her eyes and rushed down her face and over the whole room, it washed over Vukota and everyone else, but they didn’t notice, they didn’t have the eyes to see, they didn’t know what it meant when an ocean gushed over deserts of dust and thick foreign tongues. Enough, said the director, Vukota wanted to sit down, no, you’re done, someone will call you tomorrow, you’re through, the fat secretary signaled toward the door. Vukota turned around, wanted to say something, but what could he say now he was on his way?

  Hello, he looked at her for the last time. Hello, she said quietly in their language, but so that Vukota didn’t hear her voice. He wanted to turn around just once more, to tell her we don’t have time to talk, we gotta get out of here right now, but he didn’t turn around, and he didn’t say anything, because if a man were so quick as to in every moment do what he kn
ows he must, he would never have left, nor would he have anywhere to return. There were still a dozen or so guys and girls in the waiting room. Vukota leaned against the wall. Russian numbers 677 and 679 were quickly out the door. The fat secretary called the next group in, but the girl didn’t appear. Vukota kept waiting anyway; he waited until the last group came out, and then worked it out that for some reason the girl had gone out the back door, the one for the directors and the secretary.

  He went back to the apartment, it was hot, definitely way hotter than it could ever have been in Sarajevo. Time dragged by so slowly, much slower than his footsteps. Vukota roamed Tel Aviv like in those pictures where there’s no one except a kid rolling a steel wheel between high buildings where nobody lives. Maybe the streets were in fact full of people, and he didn’t notice, because she, who he believed was of his tribe and thus his destiny, she’d gone out the wrong door, the one that led out to the other end of the world, out into a reality Vukota would never set foot in.

  I want you to go, now

  He was nineteen when he came home from soccer one Sunday; his mother put her hand to his forehead, Nešo, you’re sick, she said. He put his pajamas on and lay down, from the bathroom he heard the gurgle of water; his mother was cleaning his soccer cleats; he closed his eyes, fell asleep, and dreamed hot feverish dreams.