Shards: A Novel

by Ismet Prcic

  Despite all my efforts, this state of not belonging in the world (not just this city) persisted until I saw the cop. I was at the station early, meandering outside the bus parking lot, counting steps, walking back and forth between a bench and a wire fence through which I could see three parked buses with Bosnian stickers and Tuzla license plates. My plan was to call on the driver when he showed up to get the vehicle ready for departure and give him my letter home and ten or twenty deutsche marks, depending on his mood. I was checking the time on the big clock on top of the station tower when I noticed a uniformed cop, his eyes fixed on me, leisurely coming my way.

  The street pushed at the bottoms of my feet, hard. There was no way of sinking into it and getting away.

  Shit. What now?

  While thinking this, something took over my body. I saw myself start to walk toward the cop, smiling. The cop broke his stride a little, shilly-shallied in his step, surprised by this behavior.

  “Good afternoon, Officer,” I heard myself yell ahead as I pulled out my passport before he even had time to speak.

  “Good afternoon,” he murmured, visibly miffed that he didn’t have the element of surprise as he had hoped. His cap was pulled so far down over his head that it covered most of his eyebrows, making the flat part on the top bulge out comically. “May I see your personal identification, please?”

  As he was pronouncing the word identification my passport was already in his hand. Seeing the Bosnian emblem etched on the cover he smirked.

  “Do you have a visa?” he asked, flipping through the book, which opened to what he was looking for. His lips tightened as he read it and then the smirk returned.

  “This expired a long time ago,” the cop said, closing the passport with a motion that had an aura of finality.

  “I’m just in transit,” I said. “I’m waiting to get my papers to go to America, for college.”

  “Do you have any documents that prove this?”

  “No, not on me, no.”

  “I’m sorry, sir, but you have no papers that allow you to stay in Croatia or to corroborate your story. You’ll have to come with me.”

  He lightly touched my elbow to get me going. For a second I was thinking of driving my palm upward into his nose, shattering its brittle divider, pushing shards of it into his sinuses. I felt a tingling in my right hand. But I kept it at my side and walked toward the station building like I was told.

  We walked in and climbed several flights of stairs, past staring citizens, who all seemed to know I was up shit creek, and ended up in a big office on the top floor. It had huge tinted windows on three walls, overlooking most of the station and the parking lot in particular. I realized the cop had probably clocked me wandering around the Bosnian buses from his desk. I might as well have worn a sweatshirt with ILLEGAL ALIEN printed on the front.

  “Sit down,” said the cop and took his cap off, revealing the reason for wearing it so far down over his head. The top of his head was bald in the way a cue ball is bald while the rest of it was infested with patchy tufts of brownish hair. Hanging his cap on a coat rack he reached for the door.

  “Wait here,” he said and stepped outside just to return in a couple of seconds with another cop, a younger, pleasanter fellow who took a seat behind the desk in front of me, fed a paper into his electric typewriter, and looked up at his boss, awaiting orders.

  “We’re starting a report,” said the bald cop. “Answer all the questions truthfully, cooperate, and we’ll make this as pleasant as possible.”

  “Of course,” I said as if offended by the implication that I wouldn’t have told the truth anyway.

  “Today is October 29, 1995, 16:05. Police outpost: city bus station. Suspect . . . Name?”

  “Ismet Prci.”

  The electric typewriter buzzed and crackled under the junior’s blurry fingers, recording everything.

  “Father’s name?”

  “Osman.”

  The bald cop checked the genuineness of every answer against the first page of my passport.

  “Date of birth?”

  “March 9, 1977.”

  “Place of birth?”

  “Tuzla.”

  “Your address in Croatia?”

  “Ilica 702, 41000, Zagreb.”

  I had no idea where this believable answer came from. Then I remembered: It was Cousin Zvonko’s address with a made-up street number. The junior cop rained it onto the keyboard like it was the truth.

  “What are you doing in Zagreb?”

  “I’m in transit. I’m waiting for my papers to emigrate.”

  “You told me you’re going to America to go to college.”

  “Well, yeah. The reason I’m emigrating is to go to college. My uncle lives there and he’s gonna be my sponsor.”

  The cop made a face. He walked over to the window, shaking his head. He stared out in silence for a good two minutes, grooving on his power. I looked at Junior but his face was neutral. He was just there to type.

  “Tuzla is the largest free zone in Bosnia,” the cop said, not turning around. “Why do you wanna emigrate so bad?”

  “Better education.”

  “Oh, come on! Millions of others have it worse than you do. Shit, the youth of Croatia is over there, risking their lives and dying, defending your country, your town, and you’re hiding here like a pussy.”

  My hands knotted into fists.

  “I’m not hiding here because I’m a pussy, I’m hiding here because you’re not allowing any Bosnians to stay here legally,” I said before I could stop myself. “The reason I would want to enter legally, which I did, by the way, is because Croatia is the closest spot from which I can emigrate. In order to emigrate you need papers. Papers take time and I went a little bit over. Would you pass on an opportunity like this for your son or daughter? Free education in America?”

  I wiped the tears from my eyes.

  The cop slowly sat down on the edge of Junior’s desk and let his left leg dangle back and forth. Dispassionately, he picked up my passport again. His smirk returned but this time with undergarments of malice.

  “You’re giving me stories without any proof. All you have is this passport and this expired visa. That’s all I really know about you.”

  “But I have all the other papers at home. You cannot expect I carry all that on me all the time.”

  “Yes I can.”

  I broke into sobs. He just dangled his foot and played with my passport. Next to him Junior avoided my eyes as though embarrassed by something and pretended to look for things in the drawer.

  “I’m sorry about that, Officer,” I said, collecting myself.

  The cop shrugged.

  “I’m afraid that sorry is not going to make this visa valid. We’re going to finish this report and then take you to the main station. You can argue your case to them, although, I’m gonna tell you right now, having an expired visa is looked upon as inexcusable. All right, where were we? When did you enter Croatia and how?”

  “I came by plane on . . . I believe it was September 11. There’s a stamp in there somewhere.”

  The cop flipped through the rest of my passport for the first time. “If you were really going to America you would have a plane ticket and a visa allowing you to—”

  He came upon something in my passport and abandoned the sentence. His brow furrowed as he pulled the passport closer to his face. Finally he looked at me with disgust.

  “What is this?”

  He flipped the passport open toward my face.

  “Oh, that’s my visa for Great Britain.”

  “But you said you’re going to America.”

  “Well, yeah. That’s my final destination. But first I have to obtain my refugee status here, then fly back to England, for which I have a visa, and from there emigrate to the United States. My uncle bought my ticket from London to Los Angeles; that’s why.”

  “Wait a second. Back to England?” The cop was dumbfounded.

  “Yes. I was there b
efore I came here.”

  “Why did you come here when you were already there?”

  “To obtain my refugee status, so I can emigrate.”

  “To America?”

  “Yes.”

  The cop rubbed his eyes as the Danube of veins swelled in his temple, empurpling all its curvy tributaries up the shiny dome of his befuddled head. Then he reexamined my visa against the light, which revealed to him a hidden profile of Queen Elizabeth vouching for the document’s authenticity.

  “When does this expire?” he asked, handing my passport to Junior.

  “February, it says right on it,” I said a little too eagerly.

  “I wasn’t asking you,” the cop hissed.

  Junior looked over the visa himself.

  “He’s right,” he said. His voice was high and screechy like a parrot's. rot’s. “I’m just wondering about this stamp. This visa has already been stamped.”

  “They stamp it every time you enter or leave,” I offered.

  “That’s true,” said Junior.

  “What does this mean?” the cop asked, pointing to something in my passport.

  “I’ve no idea. I had Russian in school,” Junior said.

  “I know English,” I said.

  The cop walked up to me and pointed to a phrase stamped in black in the corner of the visa.

  “Single entry,” I said reading the words in English. “That means something like free access or free to come in. It’s a pretty common phrase.”

  The cop’s lie-detector eyes scanned up and down my face, searching for telltale signs of deceit. But I made it look honest, made it look human.

  “Why didn’t you tell us you had a visa for England?” The cop broke the silence suddenly, aghast at my stupidity and lack of concern for his time. From malevolent judge, jury, and executioner in one he became a high school principal scrutinizing a usually decent student’s bad choice.

  He gave a sign to Junior, who pulled the paper out of his typewriter, crumpled it into a loose ball, and dropped it behind his desk and out of my sight, presumably into a trash bucket.

  “I don’t know,” I whimpered. The cop tossed me the passport.

  “I’ll let you go this time but if I see you again . . .”

  “You won’t.”

  On the way back the world was all hard concrete and harsh edges, nothing malleable about it. Everything was definitely matter. You couldn’t leave a mark if you wanted to, let alone sink into the street.

  I walked, pretending to be okay, just a normal, unafraid citizen of the world putting one foot in front of the other, until the bus station tower was out of my line of sight and I knew the cop couldn’t see me anymore. At that moment I started running and I ran all the way back to Mina’s building, stopping only to exchange a bunch of money, buy a shitload of canned food, and stock up on airmail envelopes. I was never leaving that apartment again unless to go to the INS interview or take a final ride to the airport on the way to sunny California, its iridescent pools, its fake-breasted women—dreams in a jar, labeled and barcoded and all.

  FROM ISMET PRCIĆ:’S DIARY:

  October 27, 1995:

  No go.

  America, college, kiss all that shit good-bye.

  The INS officer was a fucking robot encased in a blob of doughy human flesh. His eyes were devoid of humor. His brain had the motherboard of a Commodore 64 and his thoughts were written in BASIC (IF 1, 2 AND 4 / GOTO 10, 10 being NO ENTRANCE). He was programmed not to see me as a person.

  For him it all came down to a simple question: “Do you have a place to go back to?” I didn’t want to lie. I said yes. (IF “YES” GOTO 10.) The interview was over.

  I thought of just going back home but Mina told me not to. Neda told me there was another agency, the International Rescue Committee, through which I could attempt to immigrate to the United States, so I went and dropped off all my papers there. They said to wait a month or so until the next INS officer showed up.

  November 9, 1995:

  Officially read every book in the place, including the complete works of Erich Fromm. Around 3 PM thought I was having a heart attack but the palpitation subsided after about ten minutes. Ana said it was an anxiety attack and gave me half a pill of Valium. I tried reading the newspaper but it was atrocious. Kingdom for a book. Don’t know what to do with myself.

  November 15, 1995:

  Mina went to bed early. Ana busted out a bottle of red wine and offered me some, but for some reason I told her I didn’t drink. She ended up getting quite sauced and happy and we talked movies into the night. She asked me if I had seen Pulp Fiction, “the best film in the world,” and I said no. First she screeched and then she proceeded to tell me the whole convoluted plot of it, quoting huge chunks of dialogue by heart in English, reenacting gestures and grimaces and voices. After about three sentences I realized I had in fact seen the film before, just hadn’t caught the title, but by then it was too late. She went on and on and I couldn’t bring myself to disappoint her. Truth be told, I don’t think I would have sat through the whole thing had she not had cancer. Is that bad?

  Around eleven her medication started its slow dance with the wine, and in half an hour’s time her eyes, little by little, turned into slits and she thanked me for my company and retired.

  November 20, 1995:

  Felt good and positive, like this America thing will happen after all. Made myself get out for the first time in a long-ass time and walked around Zagreb, had a cup of coffee on Ban Jelači Square, went to the U.S. embassy to use their library, got out two books on avant-garde theater, and read some on the bench in the park, watching the leaves glide to the ground and dog owners chaperone their pets’ bowel movements.

  Decided to go to a movie. Braveheart. Started crying from the opening image. Camera flying over the highlands and then those bagpipes kick in. Killed me. The Scottish accents made me giddy. The love story made me cry for Allison. All the freedom fighting pumped me up to the point of invincibility. Had a bunch of cops tried to deport me when I left the theater, I would have gone through them like Mel Gibson through a carload of wet cardboard cutouts—no contest. I walked back to the apartment like an invading general, chest out, eyes on fire, letting everyone know I wasn’t to be fucked with.

  Now I can’t sleep.

  November 25, 1995:

  No call from IRC yet.

  Ana is crying in her room. I can hear her all the way in here.

  December 7, 1995:

  IRC just called! D-day tomorrow, noon.

  It rained or snowed all morning. My broken shoe was no match for the briny slush that stuck to the city streets like a dirt ganache. I had my wet right foot parked against a lukewarm radiator that stretched the length of the wall right below the window in the waiting room of the IRC in Zagreb.

  Outside, on the sill, an old pigeon suffered his life with sagelike fatalism, standing on his one and only leg, unaware of the tragic state of his plumage, and blinking his eye against the wind. Still farther outside, on the sidewalks, citizens in histrionic winter head wear hobbled under the weight of their ex-Communist coats, looked at their shoes to hide their helpless necks from the chill. Something swooshed up diagonally into the window frame, a page from a newspaper bullied by a particularly ardent gust, and the pigeon hopped once to the left, cocked his head back as if contemplating this uncouth agitprop theatrical occurrence, then settled back, unimpressed, into his one-legged meditation.

  In the big waiting room people waited in lines they were told to wait in, holding papers they were told to bring, looking at watches and clocks, their faces scared and ready for anything. Employees smiled tirelessly and spoke in subdued, library voices. Every newcomer through the doors mechanically stomped their feet against the welcome mat to get the slush off and collapsed their umbrellas in the same déjà vu manner.

  Nobody inside or outside (not even the employees) knew that the INS officer had approved my application to immigrate to the United States. I was sitt
ing sideways on the edge of a bench blending into a group of fellow applicants who crushed their hands, popped their knuckles, bit their cheeks, paced the room, and awaited the official results of the morning and afternoon interviews. I, too, tapped my cold foot nervously against the radiator and examined my nails over and over again, all of it out of solidarity. Like I said, I knew for a fact that I was in. I had shaken on it. The INS officer had said, “Welcome to America,” stood up from behind her desk, and initiated a handshake. Unlike her fat automaton predecessor she had gentle, gray human eyes and a soft hand. Her final and most important question had been: “Why do you want to come to live in the United States?” I said I wanted to go to college, which was true. She scrutinized me for a long while, rubbing the edge of the desk with her index finger, saying nothing. Her tongue explored the cavity of her mouth as if it had never been there. A range of feelings and thoughts about those feelings walked to the proscenium of her face, posed for a moment, and then walked off the runway to be replaced by the next one. Next, she wrote something down in my file and said:

  “Be good at school.”

  The weird thing was that I had been really calm all morning. I suppose it had something to do with the pill Ana gave me the night before. I had trouble falling asleep and when I sneaked out to the bathroom I heard her in the kitchen. She was grunting, thinking she was the only one awake, yielding to her pain in private. As soon as she noticed me her left hand dropped off her bandaged arm and she smiled that big, toothy grin of hers, a little embarrassed and a little violated, like I had caught her touching herself. She wanted to know what I was doing, dressed, in the middle of the night. I told her and she gave me a pill to zonk me out, and zonk me out it did. I woke up at nine this morning, completely refreshed and calm as a cucumber.

  A healthily plump woman came out of the door marked IRC and read a Bosnian last name off a list and searched for its bearer among us, crushing her clipboard against her bosom and smiling a generally reassuring yet undecipherable smile. Looking at her you couldn’t tell if you were the winner of a contest or next in front of the firing squad. A graying man on the other end of my bench shot up desperately, dropping his documents, his face made up in hope and dread. His peasanty hands were knotty and thick and unacquainted with handling papers and it took him some time to pick them up off the carpet. Through the canvas of his face I could see exactly where his sockets were situated as his ogival cheekbones protruded, making twin pointy ledges. The woman waited for him and once he was next to her she led him calmly through a big white door. The rest of us succumbed to murmuring.