The Journey Prize Stories 22

by Various

  Dropping his cellphone onto the bed, following it with his body, Sander laid himself open to agony tempered by drink. Three litres of homemade wine were half gone by early evening. Everything was confused. He was on the other side of the world. The room was starting to fade in and out. He saw his wife’s face. He saw Dragana. He wasn’t one to go looking for punishment, but thinking about his wife he endured a sliver of guilt. She had moved out of the world never suspecting he strayed from her. In the bathroom he stripped naked and splashed his face, saying aloud, “Grief is a currency I refuse to deal in.” He laughed at this, and then caught his toe on the doorframe, howling. He grimaced and hopped back to the bed. There was a sleight of hand, in a backroom somewhere: even the most natural, easiest bonds of intimacy would dissolve when one wasn’t looking, and there would be no proof, ever, that they truly existed in the first place. It was stupid, dangerous, to go looking for them. He slept face down on the hotel room carpet.

  The next morning, still drunk, toe throbbing, he heaved himself up and made it to the small table in the corner of the room. His whole being leaned on the table. His forehead rested on his forearm and his heart beat through his forehead and rocked his arm so that the table quivered slightly. His heart ran dry, sputtering. He thought he might die, but in the next moment there was a knocking, and it wasn’t his heart. He limped over and peered through the peephole. When he opened the door, Vesna walked past him and sat on the edge of the bed. She shrugged happily as he stood staring at her. “I just asked for the foreigner’s room.”

  At noon they were at the front edge of the abandoned property, one lot over from Vesna’s house. It was raining again, and cold. Sander had looked Vesna’s father in the eyes and shaken his hand. Minutes later he was on the phone, moving money around so that he could get at it with ease – he knew bankers everywhere. Twin curtains of black nothingness were slowly being drawn over everything Sander saw, spoke, heard. Yet, just looking at the property, he was already attached somehow to the wild-looking field and its empty little house. Vesna translated back and forth between the men. Sander wanted to know whether they had flails to clear fields in the region yet, the big chains that would circle through the soil and trigger anything still there, even the plastic-shell mines that many handheld metal detectors would miss. The UN teams used them. They also used special dogs. Vesna said that they had neither, too expensive, and without a tank the flails couldn’t be operated anyway. But they did have an old handheld left temporarily at the property, part of some old equipment paid for by a philanthropic American couple through an adopt-a-minefield program. Vesna’s father angrily emphasized that both lots had been checked thoroughly and nothing had been found. The rain lifted a bit. There was a yellow sign down the road with a red skull and crossbones on it that said NE PRILAZITE. Vesna’s father handed Sander the keys to the old house.

  It was a perfectly square structure consisting of a main room and two empty bedrooms on one side. At one end of the main room there was a couch. The other boasted a functioning stove, a rusty sink, and orange-painted cupboards with one door missing to reveal three pots stacked inside, a packet of coffee, and a container of flour. Directly behind the cabin was an outhouse a few paces away.

  Every redeeming particle of drunkenness worn off by then, Sander became immensely hungover. He dropped his duffle bag on the concrete in the middle of the room. Then he collapsed onto the couch and clouds of dust rose up on either side of him. He owned it now, all of it. The reckless prospect of the land was an unexpected gift, a quiet exuberance welling up somewhere inside him. He sent a text message to his son. THINKING OF YOU. LIVING HERE LIKE A KING AMONG MEN. OUR EMPIRE IS EVER EXPANDING. SEE YOU SOON. Within seconds the token response arrived, the phone playing its wistful little Chopin tune, pulling Sander out of his semi-conscious state on the couch. WHERE ON EARTH IS MY FATHER. DID HE FIND WHAT HE WAS LOOKING FOR? YOUR LOWLY SERVANT, PRINCE DAVID.

  The following few days had their own logic, an internal rhythm that Sander didn’t consider or combat. There were the mornings laid to waste, waking just before noon, shivering on the couch the first time, weighed down by comforters from Vesna after that. He called home every day but David didn’t pick up and his cell was unreachable. Early afternoons Sander would walk to town for food, supplies. He also found a prod, trowel, and pair of helmets with visors. Mid-afternoons he would return for coffee at his new neighbours’ place. He and Vesna’s father conversed mostly by gestures and short words, and Sander picked up more Croatian phrases. The man winked at him now and then, as if they were in on something together. They played rummy twice, Sander winning both times. When Vesna arrived after school, she and Sander would don their helmets and prepare for the field. He carried the metal detector and she followed with the prod and trowel. At first he told her that her accompanying him was pointless and dangerous. But she had insisted on walking the field with him and her father didn’t seem to mind. After the first time, they stopped wearing the heavy helmets.

  Later in the week they had already covered two-thirds of his parcel of land. They were well behind the tiny house, making ground on the river. The hum of the detector often wavered into its high-pitched beeping as they paced across back and forth, single file from the last neon-pink flag they’d planted the day before. There were false alarms now and then: part of an old wheel, some nails. Any bit of metal in the ground would set it off.

  It was nearly six o’clock and the sun was setting. Sander concentrated on the hum, guiding the rod in a small swath and then back before each step.

  “I need one of your cigarettes when we’re done,” she said.

  A slight wind picked up and Sander paused to look at the flat plains of Slavonia all around them. The rod kept humming, as if it was the current that powered the remaining light in the sky.

  “Is your son good-looking?” she asked. “Sander.”

  He hadn’t thought how close in age she was to David. “He is, I suppose. A handsome man already – still a boy sometimes, though.”

  “Will you have another one day?”

  “Child? No.” He chuckled at the odd questions she needed answered. “No more.”

  “I will have several when I am ready. Boys first, and after them maybe a girl. A girl I only want if she could have real talent as a ballerina.”

  This made him laugh too. “Was your mother beautiful?” he said. Then, more softly: “I bet she was.”

  “I don’t remember but everyone says yes, she was. There are a few pictures.” They kept on, doubling back over the next line up. When the wind wasn’t in their ears, all that could be heard was the detector and the sound of their legs brushing through the overgrown grass – it was waist-high and higher in some places. Now and then Vesna gently bumped into him, barely, as if she hadn’t been watching.

  He looked forward to their quiet tours of duty, felt an unasked-for peace when in the field with her at his back. He was already preparing himself for the inevitability of reaching the river, which made a natural property line. He would have to render an excuse as to why they ought to start over again, that they ought to be certain. It needed to be safe and clear.

  That night he sat on the couch reading a Croatian phrasebook by candlelight, making sure his note to Dragana was competent, if not flawless. It explained that he was still around, and asked if she might visit him. He would send it to school with Vesna in the morning after getting her to correct it.

  A key turned in the door and Vesna walked in, veering a bit to one side, holding a guitar and a large plastic water bottle of red wine. “The old Serb from before hid keys all over the place,” she said by way of explanation.

  “You shouldn’t be on the property in the dark,” he said. “It’s not safe. I thought you were an intruder.”

  “I am an intruder. And if it’s not safe then I’ll stay here,” she said, plopping down beside him. “Until morning.”

  “You’re drunk,” he said. She passed him the wine and began strumming the guitar softly
, momentarily shy again. She looked at him then and he saw that she was lucid.

  “My father began celebrating with your money, so I took one of the party favours.” She nodded at the wine. “I’m an intruder and a thief.” She sang a mournful love ballad, her guitar playing smoother than her voice. Both stared straight ahead at the empty room, as if lulled. Sander tested the wine and it was good.

  They drank for some time and she said how thankful she and her father were that he’d come along. It was a formal thing to say and silence followed it. “I brought a picture of my mother,” she said.

  “I want to see it,” Sander said in her tongue, feeling the wine a bit, wanting to impress her. He didn’t realize until she laughed that the particular phrasing had carnal connotations in the language. Vesna produced the small, round-edged photograph from her pocket and handed it to him. It was old and taken in partial shadow, but he saw that her mother was attractive, yet didn’t possess the eyes of Vesna, nor whatever else made her so striking. The candle had wasted down to no higher than their toes. The guitar was on the floor. Vesna’s hand was on Sander’s chest, dragging her fingertips across it, and he haltingly lifted them to his lips.

  “We should lie down together,” she said. “If you like, I mean.”

  “Vesna, I don’t think …” he said, straightening, trying to restrain the happiness the moment delivered. “I’d like to, of course. I would.”

  In that moment they saw that they could have whatever they wanted from each other. She took off her shirt, revealing a long stomach, high breasts with small nipples. He took off his, most of the hair on his chest gone grey. She stood up then and yanked his arm so that he rose up beside her. She was tall, almost his height. “I think we should pledge,” she said, her eyes expectant.

  “What?” He laughed, but she kept his gaze where it was.

  “A pledge, like to a leader, or a country.” She pulled his hand to her left breast, flattening it, and he felt the beating like tiny wings behind the flesh. She took a breath. “No matter how old or full of garbage or battered this Vesna-space becomes, it will keep a small place in it for Sander Torbensson.”

  He spread out her thin fingers left-centre on his chest and inhaled. “No matter how old, or full of garbage, or battered, this Sander-space becomes, it will keep a small place in it for Vesna Radić.”

  She led him back down to the couch. His lips parted the hair above her forehead, then kissed her nose, each of her eyes. The wind outside was rattling loose shingles on the roof, so that he looked upward as they tossed off the rest of their clothes. He was still in a state of disbelief at the turn of events, but in the same moment thrilled by a tingle of life re-forming itself, a feeling that was nothing short of hope. She made him slow down at one point, saying she wanted to enjoy this. She also wanted his hand gently on the back of her neck. And again her eyes looked at him, continually now, in that knowing way, like the very thing of him was uncovered with ease. She slid the cushions onto the floor where it was cooler and, starting over, he returned to her there.

  Sander had given her a note to deliver and on the way to school Vesna – wanting him to herself, at least for now – briefly considered tearing the note to tiny pieces and letting the wind spread it in all directions, but she didn’t. She knew what it said, had read it several times, knew it implored Dragana to meet with Sander again, as she handed it to the teacher that afternoon.

  There had been suspicious talk of the foreigner in town for days, how he had taken land off of old Radić’s hands, picked up where a Serb had left off on property that had been Croatian all along. “I’ll keep an eye on that guy, that fucker if you want, won’t let him near you,” was Krešo’s offering when Dragana had seen him the day before. There had been a flicker of the old Krešo in his face, for once drained of all posturing.

  But Dragana was curious. She could understand the kind of man that would abandon his own life, but what kind left a son in the lurch she couldn’t imagine. At any rate, she wanted to salvage something from her visitor, this Sander, something for herself.

  On a whim she stopped at a clothing store she was riding past on the city’s main street. She picked out a sweater for him, half-price on the sale rack, but it was all she could realistically spare. It seemed silly: the sweater was striped and had patterns and nonsense English phrases partially rubbed out in a fashionable way. It was the kind her students wore, but she thought it would fit Sander’s long torso and he might like it, after all. With the sweater tucked into her satchel, she rode her bicycle on the stretch that would take her to the road past the edge of town.

  On the way past one of the last city houses, two German shepherds lunged at her from behind a fence, barking with deafening ferocity. She swerved and her foot slipped and she almost fell off the bike, scraping her ankle on a pedal. She had always feared dogs, and it was a long moment before she realized they were in fact chained and unable to reach her. There was no blood. Recovering, she rode on while they continued barking as if they would tear their own throats out.

  It was the first warm and sunny day in the entire week, and probably one of the last before winter. Dragana carefully pedalled on the gravel, yet felt more and more urgency to speed up and get to Sander the closer she got. The last few days, for some reason, she didn’t feel as if she was merely tolerating her existence. She wasn’t thinking of the physical and the spiritual. No, something was different, and if nothing else she wanted to tell this stranger her vague truth, that trying to reinvent oneself, though futile, must still mean something. She imagined sharing an awkward laugh with him, an understanding. Her period was late and she thought she might already be pregnant.

  Vesna didn’t come home that afternoon, but Sander wasn’t worried, though he craved the very sight of her. He was out back by himself, carefully going over the last strip on the riverbank. He paused and wiped sweat off his forehead with his wrist. He turned the detector off for a minute, and without its hum he could only hear the river. He looked at the plum trees, all of them heavy with unpicked fruit, some of it rotten. Maybe he could bring David over and they could really clean the place up. The boy still hadn’t returned his messages, and he thought for the first time that he wanted his son nearby more than anything.

  Dragana spotted him from the road and walked her bicycle towards the river along the fence on the adjacent Radić property. When she was almost at the water and fifty yards to the side of him, she called his name. Sander was on his belly with the trowel, scraping at a rock beneath some loosened dirt. Looking up, he saw that it was her. He swallowed hard, but then smiled easily. He pushed up off the ground with a certain grace, like a man recently restored, and dusted his shirt with his palms. He then stepped sideways and walked towards her on the uncorrupted path, ground he had secured inch by inch.

  ANDREW MACDONALD

  EAT FIST!

  The picture of Angelina Jolie in my locker stares at the Marilyn Monroe I’ve taped next to her. Angelina’s lips are puckered half-moons ready to pull the tiny brown birthmark above Marilyn’s mouth into their orbit. Whenever I close my locker, I worry I’m missing something celestial, a big bang of tongues and cheeks, hips and breasts. I look at Angelina’s lips and feel their gravitational pull. Slamming the door, I whisper, “You want to be like them, not with them, Libby. Like them, not with them.”

  When I go to college next year, I want to major in math. I like the idea of isolating variables and breaking them down. When everything’s a number, the world is a less frightening place. My lack of hips, for example, becomes just a matter of angles, of degrees or lack thereof, instead of the future C-section my mother predicts I’ll need when I come into my “womanhood.”

  Whenever my parents ask where math is going to get me, I drop something on the floor. “That’s math,” I say ominously, pointing to the split apple. “And that.” I point to the kid kicking a soccer ball down the street. “That’s math. And look there.” My finger follows a dragonfly that’s somehow broken into the a
partment. Actually, most of that stuff is physics, math’s bastard child, but I don’t tell them that and leave the room before they can ask me any questions.

  For my mother, math is the solar-powered calculator that sits in a drawer underneath the microwave. Anything beyond its monochromatic keypad is someone else’s business. Despite her innate hostility to numbers, she reduces my future into a single equation with the grace of a mathematician who’s managed to disprove the existence of God: “No Ukrainian,” she says bluntly, “no money.”

  “But I can speak it just fine.”

  “Think about your father. Tell me how he’s supposed to read the letters you’ll send us every month.”

  “Nobody writes letters anymore, Mom. Why can’t I just call?”

  “Your father likes reading letters. Besides, since you want to go as far away from us as you can, I can only imagine how expensive the long distance charges would be.”

  My father looks up from his newspaper, the special one he has imported from Ukraine, and shrugs. His expression confirms that things are out of his hands. Later he puts an arm around me and sighs. My shoulders are so narrow he can scratch his own chest when I’m in his grip.

  I retreat back to my bedroom and stare at the Tomb Raider poster I have taped to the wall above my desk. “I want to be like you,” I tell it as coldly as I can manage, “but not with you. Capiche?”

  Angelina doesn’t say anything back, but I know she knows that I know that somehow my hand has found its way into my pants again.

  Ukrainians like doing things through word of mouth. Someone sees you purchasing boys underwear at the mall, to use an example that in no way relates to my life, and all of a sudden you’re getting black lace panties and makeup kits for your birthday. All it takes is one of Mom’s casual conversations with our dentist and the calls for potential tutors come rushing in.