***
She walked in smiling. If he could have noticed, he would have seen that she was slightly embarrassed. She wore a démodé bathrobe and walked across the room to the closet door, to the mirror. She stood there, her legs slightly apart. She moved her hips slightly, leaning from one leg to the other. Victor licked his dry lips, biting his lower lip. His heart was racing. She untied the knot on her bathrobe and opened it up.
"That’s what I’m talking about!!!" he thought. He fixed his eyes on the lace and the nylon. Everything else seemed to cease to exist. His heartbeat beat the world record.
Victor took a deep breath. He seemed to have inhaled all the air in the room.
His fascination interested Maya and she again leaned on one leg, then the other, watching his stare, which meandered like a hypnotized cobra. She felt the excitement. Her breathing became heavier. She put one hip forward seductively. Victor watched her. She felt warmth on her lower stomach. She let the robe fall to the floor.
Victor caught a glance of himself in the mirror.
It wasn’t him. Someone else was watching him through his eyes. Someone that looked very much like him, but was totally unfamiliar to him. The Victor he knew never looked like this. Obsessed, confused, and distorted. He looked at Maya, then at the garter, then at Maya again, then at himself. The floor creaked under his weight.
"What… What is it?" she asked insecurely.
"Nothing," he replied as he stood behind her.
He fiddled with the clasps and finally took off the garter and the stockings. She stood there, confused.
"Did I do something wrong?"
"No," he replied as he threw the handful of rags into the garbage.
The Gloves
The gravel crunched beneath their sneakers. A giant paper bag occasionally brushed against their lower legs. The swans on the man-made lake looked in opposite directions. Ricky and Mouth sat down beneath an ancient cedar. Bozo approached them with a huge smile on his face.
"Hey!"
"Where have you been, you old giant?"
"I’m right here."
"Holy crap, we haven’t seen each other in so long."
"It’s been ages!"
"Really?"
The shaking of hands, the patting of backs, hugging.
"So? What’s new? How are things?"
"Everything’s great! If things were any better, it wouldn’t be good!"
Laughter.
"Here," Bozo put his hand in the bag. "A fresh beer for each of us."
"Oh! Nice one!"
"What else do you have in that bag?" asked Ricky.
"What’s it to you?" He placed the bag behind the bench. "Shall we make a toast?"
"Come on!" insisted Ricky. "What’s in the bag?"
"Get lost! Take your beer and piss off!"
"But I really want to know now!"
"For fuck’s sake, we haven’t seen each other in forever and now you don’t want to toast with me but care about what’s in the fucking bag instead! I can’t believe it!"
"Okay, okay. Let’s do it," agreed Ricky.
"Cheers!"
"May we live to be a hundred years old!"
"Well, perhaps not that long!"
Sips, a scratching in the throat, bubbles in the nose.
"Goddammit, that’s good!"
"It sure is!"
They were all looking at each other. Then they burst out laughing.
"Well, peeps, what’s up? What’s going on?" asked Ricky merrily.
"Not much. You know how it is – work, the house, the mosque," replied Bozo.
"The mosque?"
"Really? The mosque? I have tears running down my face," Ricky said as he wiped his cheek with his hand.
"No, really," said Bozo with a straight face.
Their jaws hung open and their eyebrows were raised. Mouth looked down and scraped the label off the bottle. A crowd rolled by from the nearby kindergarten.
"What’s wrong with you? There are no mosques in Rijeka!"
"Come on!" said Ricky raising his arms in the air. "You scared the shit out of me!"
"What an actor!"
Bozo was smiling and nodding his head. "And you? Do you still work for that stupid local television station?" he asked Ricky.
"I do."
"And how is it? You’re probably making good money."
"Yea, right! I haven’t gotten paid in six months."
"That’s not so bad. It could’ve been seven months!"
Mouth laughed loudly.
"Have you quit yet?"
Ricky lowered his voice and said, "Not yet. I’m looking for a new job. Then I’m going to quit."
"Any family yet?"
"Oh!" he sat up straight. "I’ve been with a girl for a while now!"
"Oh, yea? Good for you! How did that happen?"
"She came to work at the station as a journalist and one thing lead to another… You know how it goes."
"How long have you been together for?"
"Almost two years now."
"Nice! And what does she do?"
"She’s a final year student at our university. That’s why she came to work as a journalist."
"Awesome. Speaking of university, what’s going on with your studies?"
"Don’t even ask. I haven’t taken any courses since we had taken that midterm together and I don’t think I’m going to either. I don’t know. My parents are on my case, but I just don’t have the motivation. I can’t seem to force myself. I tried studying the other day and as soon as I saw all that crap I got sick to my stomach. I mean really, why do I need to know the dialect of every single village? Total bullshit! I’m never going to need that crap in the future!"
"Maybe you should go for it anyways. Professors sometimes sympathize with students."
"I don’t know," he said waving his hand.
"What about you?" Bozo motioned with his chin towards Mouth.
"I still have to write my final undergrad essay."
"I heard that your mentor passed away."
"Yea. That totally sucks."
"Your thesis almost died, too."
"Yea." They all started laughing.
"Let’s hope that this final essay doesn’t outlive you as well."
"The way things are going…" interrupted Ricky.
"What’s taking you so long anyways," asked Bozo.
Mouth was staring at his shoes. "I’m going to…"
"What are you waiting for? Really."
"I’ve gathered all the literature I need and I’ve started reading it…"
"What have you started reading? Soon enough you’re going to lose your student rights!"
Mouth downed some beer.
"Why are you procrastinating? Sit down, write the damn thing and get it over with," barked Bozo.
"My mom keeps saying that once I graduate she’s going to get me a job at her school. I don’t like that idea one bit."
A sparrow landed on the trashcan. Mouth drew a thick line in the sand with his heel.
Bozo was watching him. "Why don’t you like the idea?"
"I don’t want to get a job that way…" he paused. "Through connections."
Ricky was silent.
"Cut the crap." Bozo took a few gulps of his beer. "Would you rather that some retard got the job instead and taught the kids literature? Stop procrastinating, get your degree and take the job."
"I can’t. I couldn’t go in there and face all those people. Everyone would know that my mom got me the job and I’d feel like a total loser."
"I get it," said Ricky placing his hand on Mouth’s shoulder.
"What do you get?" asked Bozo taking another sip of his beer.
"That’s okay. Fuck, man."
"What’s okay?"
"It’s okay to refuse a job through connections! It’s moral, man! In today’s world, when everyone gets jobs through connections, it is an act of morality! And I get that and support it! And that’s fucking okay!"
"You??
?re as much of an idiot as he. What’s so moral about it?"
"Everything!" shouted Ricky.
"Our moral friend has just stated that he doesn’t want to take a job through connections because he would be embarrassed that everyone would know and would stare at him. Which means that he’s not embarrassed to take the job itself, but that he’s embarrassed about the fact that everyone would stare at him. That’s one thing. Another thing: our founder of new morality, Mr. Moralist Doctor Mouth, just said that he doesn’t want to accept his responsibility as a teacher because it would make him feel bad, thus enabling someone less competent and less moral than he to take his spot. Which means that his own ass and how it feels is more important to Mr. Moralist than who’s going to teach the kids literature. I don’t see anything moral about it."
"What’s wrong with you? Fuck! Stop bullshitting! You’re always going on about something. You’re never satisfied! Fuck! No matter what anyone does, it’s never good enough for you! You’re fucked!" Ricky swung back his beer.
Gulps. A ring of white foam. A wiping of the upper lip. A silence.
Mouth spoke up, " He’s right."
Chests raising. The gentle touch of the air in the nostrils.
"I’m just making excuses not to graduate. I have no interest in it, but I can’t tell my folks. They’d ask me why I’d studied it if I didn’t care for it, what I was going to do now, how much time I had wasted on nothing, how much money they’d spent on me, my old man would start giving me shit about how when he was my age he had a job, an apartment, a car, a wife, a seven-year-old child, he would tell me I’m no good… He might even try to find me a job at the shipyard, and that would be even worse. I don’t want to live like my folks. I don’t want to do what they do."
They were silent again.
"Well, what do you want to do?" asked Bozo.
"I don’t know," he paused. "I’d like to write for a living, but I know that’s impossible."
"Well, do you write?"
"No."
Mouth took another sip of his beer. Ricky pulled out a pack of cigarettes. "Anyone want one?"
Their dry fingers fiddled with the filters. The sound of the lighter. Three puffs of smoke headed into the sky.
"And? What’s new with you?" asked Mouth, shifting the conversation to Bozo.
"I moved out, I’m living with my girlfriend in her apartment, I drive her car, she works, brings home the bacon, I cook, do the dishes, clean around the house and I go to the employment office once a month. Great, isn’t it?"
"Well …It’s not bad…" attempted Ricky.
Bozo looked at him.
"Well… I don’t know… At least you graduated! That’s something!"
Bozo remained quiet.
"You know whom I saw the other day?" interrupted Mouth. "That girl Barbara who had classes with us."
"And?" Ricky interrupted excitedly, as though he had won the lottery.
"You know what?" interrupted Bozo. "I don’t give a fuck about Barbara who had classes with us. I really don’t give a fuck!"
They swung their beers back again and took another drag of their cigarettes.
Ricky was looking at the swans. "You’re such a dick, buddy. You totally fucked this up. We’re just hanging out. You really fucked it up! I thought we were going to meet up, talk about the good old days, have a beer or two, have some fun…"
"Yea," agreed Mouth. "I was totally looking forward to meeting up."
"Me too," continued Ricky. "I was looking forward to this until Asshole here fucked it all up…"
"It’s probably because you two were dying to see one another that you’ve spoken three times in the last two years. Also the fact that I had to call you both to meet up confirms just how much you wanted to hang out. Yea, you’re both totally dying to hang out. You’re total assholes."
Bozo took out a pair of new boxing gloves from the bag.
"I was going to kick the shit out of you. Fight Club style."
He was examining the red faux leather.
"As if that would solve anything. Lame." He put the gloves away. "Totally lame."
Beloved
"You frogave me,
Gran"
Kullturshock "Nano (1920 – 2002.)"
I’m the grandson and she’s the grandmother. She calls herself Gran because that’s what they call grandmothers in the region where Grandfather comes from. In the region where she’s from, they call grandmothers granny, but I’m not from her parts nor am I from Grandfather’s parts, so I don’t call her either of those names. I call her by a name that means beloved, dear. I used to tease her that her name was Milica1, that she was exactly like my other grandmother whom she hated.
She is no longer from her parts, because her parts disappeared in the war along with the people who made those parts hers. She had left there twenty years before the war and moved to a town that was six hundred kilometers to the west. She came to the seaside, which she had never seen before, she heard church bells that she had never heard before, she lived amongst people she couldn’t understand. She would say to me, "Gran came because of you. You had black hair and blue, blue eyes. Gran felt bad that they woke you in the morning when you were so little to take you to Milka’s house. Gran couldn’t leave you alone." That’s when I used to tell her that I loved her from here to eternity.
She prayed a few times a day. She was well disciplined in this exercise, even if it meant just sitting there and whispering words of prayer in a language that none of us could understand. When she first arrived, I was curious as to what she was doing, so for a while, we would pray together, until one evening, my mother caught us.
She would continue on her own, and I was pulled away from the magical and into the rational.
She always fasted when it was required, without skipping her schedule, although she spent a good portion of her life hungry. For a long time, I couldn’t understand why she uttered words she didn’t understand and why she fasted. Thus, for hours on end, I tried to explain and prove things to her, but reason can only explain so much to magic, much like authentic spirituality can explain so much to reason.
She would take me to kindergarten and walk on the sidewalk behind us children until, one morning, she fell in front of a bus that was slowly coming up the hill. The driver realized what was going on and hit the breaks on time. The bus stopped right in front of her hand. When my parents asked why she was walking on the edge of the sidewalk, she replied, "Surely the children know where to walk."
During my primary school days, she would wake up every morning after my parents had left for work and go to the store to get bread and milk. She would strain the remainder of the coffee into a shallow metal cup, stir her coffee and milk, break off some bread onto her plate, put some sugar on it and wash it down with the warm beverage. Eight years. She never missed a day nor was she ever late although she couldn’t read numbers. She could tell time only on the hour and on the half hour. She would say, "When the small hand is here and the big hand is there." I couldn’t teach her to tell the minutes in between, even though I was smart. They told me I was smart in school after we had written a test that didn’t test our knowledge and wasn’t given to us by our teachers. My parents concluded that this was obvious even when I was really young and tried to teach Beloved to read and write.
She wanted to know and she didn’t want to know. In alternation. She quickly gave up and refused to start anew. Connecting several syllables in a word wasn’t going so well. She would remember the first and last syllable and would then fill in the middle with a syllable that made sense to her. She went toclass for four school years. This was after the Second World War when the non-democratic government forced everyone to go to school and introduced mass literacy. Beloved didn’t care much for the government or literacy, but she cared about my father: "I went because I didn’t want them to fail him."
She did her homework in such a manner that her brother would read to her and she would listen and memorize. At school, she wo
uld follow the lines of the text with her finger while others read, and when she was called upon to read, she would simply recite what she had learned off by heart. The fact that my parents begged her to learn to sign her name so that they wouldn’t have to go to the post office to pick up any registered mail after work didn’t motivate her enough. But her Certificate of Citizenship did. She signed her name in large, shaky letters. She turned sixty-two that year.
She often talked about how Grandfather beat her and forced her to crawl beneath the horse in the stable hoping that the horse would get scared and kick her once and for all. She would tighten her fingers around her thumb into a small fist and say that he would hit and hit her with his fists. Her shoulders, back, kidneys. He drove her away from home before my father turned three. She went back to her brother. Disgraceful. Very disgraceful. The greatest disgrace.
"May he be damned! I hate him so!"
In high school, I relieved her of her self-imposed duty to make me breakfast, although she would peak through my bedroom door every morning and ask if I had gotten up.
"Do you care about your Gran?" she would then ask me, and I would reply, "Who could love such a little devil as yourself?" We would laugh, but since I didn’t quite understand the question, I couldn’t reply properly.
While I lived in my room and played video games day and night without any desire to graduate or find a job, and masked my frustrations regarding unfulfilled ambitions with a Gandhi-like image of peace, understanding, tolerance and love for the entire world, I would sometimes go downstairs into my parent’s kitchen where Beloved often sat in the dark so as to save electricity, whispering conversations and events from the past to herself.
The arguments were intense.
They would start with the fact that I would scare her by entering the kitchen, or vice versa. Then I would ask her why she was sitting in the dark and why the fuck she was trying to save electricity when the light bulbs we had barely used up any electricity at all and how much electricity did she really think she saved by sitting there in the dark like that. But explanations had no effect on Beloved.
Or we would start discussing the war:
"They all need to be put in prison camps!"
"The entire nation isn’t responsible for the war!"
"And the fact that they chased my entire family away and killed them, goddamn them?"
Or family relationships:
"Just you wait and see! Your uncle is going to inherit everything and you’ll get nothing!"
"I don’t give a fuck about any inheritance."
"I sold everything I had and gave the money to you!"
Or about my aunts, Grandfather’s daughters from his second marriage:
"I hope their husbands chase them away just like their father chased me away! Goddamn them!"
"What did they do to you? They weren’t the ones who chased you away."
"Their father chased me away. They’re his seed! Damn all of them!"
I would feel a growing sense of intense hate and tried to fight it off. You can’t be Gandhi and curse the shit out of someone because you’re so upset, I would think to myself as I clenched my jaw and chewed loudly, exhaling through my nose just like my father. I would balance on the edge of this wave trying to decide whether to succumb to this immense rush of energy or not. When I could no longer bear the intensity of my feelings, I would allow them to spill in the kitchen and drown Beloved.
"WILL YOU SHUT UP? WILL YOU?"
I would threaten her with a huge knife that I used to slice the bacon with, and tell her that I would kill her if she didn’t stop, knowing all along that it was merely an empty threat. You can’t kill your grandmother. You’d go to jail. I know. I’m so smart. I would then grab the top of her head and squeeze it with all my might, just like my father used to when his beloved mother got on his nerves.
Her head was small enough to fit perfectly in the palm of my hand. I could feel the soft material of her scarf and the bending of her skull’s old bones under my fingers. Just like my father. We had the same reactions to the same feelings and we suffered the same defeats by these feelings.
My father never showed remorse for his actions, but sometimes, when he came home drunk, he would cry. Just like me.
Many years later, after I moved out, Beloved was diagnosed with high sugar level and had to take insulin. It took half a year of therapy to get her sugar back to normal and for Beloved to accept the fact that I was gone.
Now, she tries to make out the headlines in newspapers when she thinks no one is looking, uttering them and trying to write her first and last name with her shaky hand on the edge of the newspaper, just like the signature on her Certificate of Citizenship. When I come visit, she shows me the newspapers and says, "Gran has read all this!"
"That’s the way to go," I reply.
On sunny days, she sits under the covered patio in front of the house and counts the straws in the place mats while we wait for the old daughter-in-law to serve us dinner. I ask her how many straws there are and she shrugs her thin shoulders and replies, "Sometimes thirty-six, sometimes forty, and other times less. Sometimes it’s like this and sometimes it’s like that."
Then we laugh.
We laugh together as if we have never hurt one another, as if there has never been any anger or hate between us, as if we have always loved each other like happy characters from fairy tales.
_____________________________________
1 Milica – diminutive of mila (Cro.) = dear. Back.
The Axe
Trees began to disappear at the end of November.
In parks.
The metal skeletons of park benches remained the rusted witnesses of the attack of tree-thirsty two-legged vultures. And the roots. Tiny. In craters. As if the parks had been under the cannonade of a strange weapon that attacked only trees. All trees. With no exceptions. Pines, beeches, oaks, birches, plane trees, chestnut trees, etc. The cypress trees at graveyards weren’t spared the hunger for warmth. For life.
"We’re running out of wood."
"I know."
"So what are you going to do about it?"
"I don’t know."
"You don’t know? What do you mean?"
"I don’t know."
"What do you mean?"
"Like I said, I don’t know."
"And who is supposed to know then?"
He stared at the orange jumping game of raw energy through the blackened glass, the sight of it itself keeping him warm.
"It’d be best if you got up, went down to the basement, got the axe and went out to get some wood!"
He didn’t move. It was as if the words had been ravenously swallowed by a huge white worm. His dark brown irises bathed in the reddish-yellow flame.
"Well?"
The stress on the question after the overly stressed e plunged into his gut and made him nervous. The palms of his hands began to itch. His nails dug into them. The fire slid away from his eyes.
"What is it?"
"Nothing," he said, harshly stomping past her.
"What is it?" she shouted at his back. "Am I supposed to go out in –20 degree weather and look for wood? "
"Since you know what the temperature is outside, maybe you could put on another sweater and burn less firewood!"
"I will wear what I want in my apartment, and not what some asshole intellectual who can’t even go out and find firewood tells me to! Do you hear me?!"
He slammed the door.
The door opened when he was halfway down the hall and she yelled, "Slam doors at home, at your mom’s and dad’s place!"
"I am home. Unfortunately!"
"Then go to hell and don’t come back, you pathetic asshole!"
Slam.
A screw rolled towards the doorstep, bounced off, jumped over the shaggy brown doormat and hit the floor. The nameplate on the door swung and then stood still. He put his hand on the metal doorknob of the stairwell door and looked at the white letters on the blac
k background. His rage quickly vanished leaving a dusty whirlpool of sadness.
He recalled that, in the past, their arguments were mostly about other women. He would come home from work and make a comment about one of his female students: what she wore, what she said, that she had a lip piercing, how she posed a question, etc.
"Do you think she’s hot?"
"That’s not what I said…"
"What do you mean that’s not what you said? You just said she was hot!"
"That’s not what I meant…"
"Then what did you mean? That you’d fuck her? Is that what you meant?"
"Come on, what’s wrong with you!?"
"What’s wrong with me?! I know what you’re like! You’d fuck those little whores who blink their eyes at you and show you their boobs in the front rows! Isn’t that right? Professor. You jerk off to them, don’t you, professor? You jerk off to them when I’m not home!" She would slap and/or smack him. "You perverted fuck!"
He would get up with the desire to slap her, she would jump on him and it would all end up in vicious intercourse with biting, scratching, licking, until they both came at the same time, screaming and bellowing.
Things would be peaceful for a while. Then they would do it all over again.
Now they fought over firewood. They found a substitute topic and they completely left out the orgasms. The quiet flood of discontent crept in unnoticed like the autumn, dampening their love and stifling the heart.
A door lock clicked behind his back and he heard the squeaking of ungreased hinges.
"Godspeed, neighbour!"
"There’s no hope for me anymore. Not even God can save me," he replied.
"Oh come on neighbour, don’t be like that. God sees all and knows all and he helps us when we need it the most. Would you like to come in for a hot cup of tea? I just made a fresh pot," she said smiling, thus revealing her yellow plastic teeth.
"Come in, come in!" she said as she opened the door all the way and stepped aside trying to convince him to come in, her old body wrapped in scarves and heavy layers of blankets.
"No thanks, I have to… Well, you know, go get some firewood."
"Come in for some tea, neighbour. I’ll lend you some firewood if you don’t have enough. This winter won’t last forever."
The thick cups kept the tea warm, guarding it much like guards that guard a castle.
"Mmmm! This is good tea."
"It’s homemade."
"Really?" he asked in disbelief.
"Yes, I picked it last summer while I was on a pilgrimage, then I dried it and here it is!"
He was fascinated by the tea. It tasted like summer.
"What kind of tea is this?"
"Thyme. It’s good for the nerves," she said smiling, her wrinkles folding one over the other.
"I should give a litre or two to my wife."
"We all need some."
The ceramic bottom of the cup scraped the saucer.
"Don’t be angry with her, she’s still young."
"Yea."
"She’ll learn in time," she said, closing her eyes, images from the past coming back to her.
"Yes…" remained unspoken as the old lady nodded her head.
They sat in silence.
He stared at the greenish-brown liquid, observing the precious heat as it disappeared forever into the cold air of the living room. That’s when he noticed that it was noticeably colder than in his apartment and that it was impossible to open the windows because they were wrapped in curtains, cloths, towels, and taped with self-adhesive tape. There were blankets at the bottoms of all the doors. It seemed that the old lady ate, drank, slept, and lived in the living room. The fire was barely burning.
He wrapped his hands around the cup more tightly.
Sip.
The comfort of the heat trickled down into his stomach.
"Isn’t it a bit cold in here?"
She smiled and replied, "I’ll put on some more firewood for my guest."
"Oh no, no… That’s not what I meant…"
The doors squeaked and a log was placed in the fire.
"You didn’t have to…" he said, staring at the floor uncomfortably.
"It’s fine, neighbour, it’s fine… I should probably keep a better fire going in here anyways to warm up my old bones, but instead I’m frugal as though I’m going to live to be 150 years old!"
They smiled at each other.
"Does your family come visit you?"
"Do you visit your folks?"
He blushed.
"It’s already much warmer, isn’t it? These old fireplaces are great. You throw in one piece of wood…" She took a sip of her tea.
"You know," she said in a grave voice, "I wasn’t the greatest towards my daughter when things were still alright. I didn’t like her guy and so I told her that. Maybe a few times too many. And so they stopped coming over. Lydia and I never fought, you know. I would talk and she would remain silent. Then I would repeat myself, thinking that she didn’t understand what I was saying or that she didn’t hear me. And so, they stopped coming over."
"I’m sorry…"
"No need to be. It’s my own fault. I realized that when it was too late. Lydia had phoned me to ask if I needed anything. I told her I was fine on my own and that if they hadn’t bothered keeping in touch until then, that there was no need for it in the future either. I hung up the phone. Two days later my phone connection died. It started snowing. You know how it was…"
He looked forward to the snow much like a little child does. The snowflakes. The white carpet that grew thicker and thicker by the hour and covered the roads, sidewalks, cars, garbage containers, kiosks. The silence that it brought with it and the way in which it calmed the city down. Forever.
"That’s when I realized that I was a stubborn old woman, but it was too late. The phone lines were dead. We were snowed in. We couldn’t budge."
They both took a sip of their tea at the same time.
"Are you bored?" she asked suddenly.
"No, no! Not at all! Please, go on!"
"Long story short, her guy came by a few days later when the snow had stopped and brought me bread, milk, flour, water, salt, and brought up some firewood from the basement. I didn’t say a word to him. I couldn’t, you understand. I merely shook his hand as he was leaving."
She fell silent. It seemed to him as though she was struggling not to cry, but the old woman smiled, her eyes closed, and said, "They come by almost every week."
He took the last sip of his tea and stood up.
"More tea?"
"No, thank you. I really should get going."
"I won’t keep you then! I’m glad we got to have this chat. Come by again. And don’t worry about your young wife… She’s still… Well… Young. If your love is strong enough, everything will be fine."
He unlocked the lock. He reached behind the door and felt the handle of the axe. He wouldn’t turn on his flashlight – he had to be frugal. How much firewood was left over? He thought they had burnt two thirds of the five meters of wood, but he knew that they had used up more. Once upon a time, five meters of wood would have been enough to last them the entire winter, with leftovers for the following one. They would wear short sleeves around the apartment and walk around barefoot.
The hard and frozen snow that shaped the path towards the building resembled a bobsled trail. He climbed up the round embossed steps onto the street, which was asleep under a thick white blanket. It was quiet. No movement. He breathed in the cold and set off. His large heavy boots led the way.
The axe on his shoulder shone, as it was brand new, since he only used it to chop up the five meters of wood they received. He never used it to cut down trees. When parks and tree-lined streets were being butchered, he stood aside and watched. Groups of people would alternate in beating the old poplars with their axes. At first, they would all talk amongst each other and joke around, even sing, but as the trees began to run low the atmosphere beca
me more and more excruciating. They increasingly reminded him of their hairy ancestors. When the one-hundred-year-old giant would succumb and hit the ground much like a mammoth, they would jump on it, tear it apart, divide it up, and drag it to their caves. Splinters would remain in place of blood.
He was disgusted by such scenes.
When the last caveman would leave, he would approach the place of massacre and collect any twigs that had been left behind.
He was disgusted with himself.
He looked around searching for splinters of wood or any forgotten branch or log, but he knew he wouldn’t find anything. This was a city without any tress, much like most cities today. He called them "cold concrete graveyards." This made him happy because his brain hadn’t rusted over the past few months of chaos. When it first started to snow, he considered this a good opportunity to finally get some rest during the days that followed, or perhaps the entire week! He just wanted to read next to the warm fireplace.
Passers-by with greenish plastic bags clutched to their chests led the way to Delivery Point 17 in slavic quarter. He came across a long line of silent people, introverted much like oysters, who were hopping and shivering, their hands tucked deep inside their pockets. There was only the sound of the cold metal speaker on the roof of the armored personnel carrier that called out names in alphabetical order, "Cucic! Cukovic! Delbjanko!"
As their names were being called out, the people approached the carrier, grabbed their bags and quickly left, without a sound.
"Dragozetic!"
"Dragozetic!"
"Is Dragozetic here? Dragozetic? Next! Dukic!"
From day to day, the list of people grew shorter.
A soldier in a combat suit lazily signaled with his head for him to come around. He walked around DP 17 while the barrel of the heavy machine-gun followed him from the dome of the APC.
He aimlessly dragged his feet as his agape stare into the past finally began to make out familiar images in front of his frostbitten nose. Memories of the sunny park, the slide, the swings, the teeter-totter, and the dusty brown sand where he played with his toy soldiers had a hard time making their way through the snowdrifts. The old five-storey building seemed abandoned. There was no doorway. A few of the windows were broken.
He entered the gate that was buried in snow, and climbed up to the first floor. Both of the apartments had been abandoned, robbed and destroyed. He sped up, grabbing onto the barren metal handrail from which the wooden railing had been removed. Apartment number 5 gaped open. The hallway was dark and scattered with glass shards and broken ceramic tiles that crunched beneath the feet like cockroaches. The lack of doors and sills made it clear as to what had happened here. A dead, toppled over television floated on its turgid belly in a sea of splinters, leftovers and dust. A few centimeters of snow managed to find its way in through the drawn blinds. The kitchen tiles were covered in metal. Pots, lids. Blankets, sheets and out-of-fashion clothing were strewn all around. Torn up mattresses and pillows. The pillow down and the snowflakes fused together. Piles of documents, letters, postcards, books, old magazines and newspapers were scattered and frozen.
Photographs.
He knelt down among them, put down his axe and took off his thick gloves. The first photo he picked up made his throat clench and the salty liquid spilled down his frostbitten cheeks. Tears flowed as he thought about the family trip they all went on a long time ago.
He allowed the streams of tears to wash away the sediment of fatigue, tension and uncertainty, disguising them with the loss that was nothing more than the reason for his initial departure. He had left never to come back.
The sound of the lock clicking in the apartment above made him jerk.
He quickly stood up and yelled, "Hey!"
"Hey!" replied the empty stairwell. He heard quick little steps.
"Stop!"
The echo was overcome by the slamming and the quick locking of the door.
He fled up the stairs and banged on the first door, yelling, "Hey! Open up! I have to ask you something!"
No response.
He went on to the next door. "Hey! Open up!" he yelled, banging on the door.
"Go home, there’s too many of us here already!"
He paused.
"Did you hear me? Go away! Go home!"
"Are the Vukovic’s with you?" his voice quivered with hope.
"They are, they are! They’re all here!
"Tell them their son’s looking for them!" a smile spread across his damp face. "Tell them I’ve come back!"
"Go home!"
"Tell them their son is back!"
"Go home!" screeched the voice. "We know your kind! Go home!"
"Tell them I’m here!"
"They don’t want to see you! Go away! Get lost!"
"Mom!" he yelled through the crack that had been sealed with silicone between the edge of the door and the sill. "Mom, it’s me! Come out! I’ve come to get you!"
"Go home or I’m gonna shoot! You hear me?! I’m gonna shoot!"
"Let me see the Vukovic’s! I’m their son, Strahimir Vukovic. Let me see them!"
"There are no Vukovic’s here! Get lost or I’m gonna shoot! I have a rifle!"
"But you just said…"
"I’m gonna shoot!! You hear me? Go home! Get lost!"
He withdrew from the crazy screeching behind the thick door. He stood on the landing and stared bluntly at it, his mouth gaping open in silence. His eyelids suddenly seemed to be covered in coarse wool that scratched his dry eyes. The void in place of his heart could not be filled. He left the building. After wandering the empty streets for half an hour he began to feel the harsh bites of the cold on his bare hands. His shoulders and head slouched, he went back to get his gloves and axe. The walk back and nightfall chopped up his foggy thoughts into strands. He realized that he wouldn’t be back at his apartment until later in the night. The irrational feeling of terror forced him to hurry up.
The rhythmical sound of axes on a quiet street caused him to go off course. Two bundled up men were trying to cut down a hard, frozen wooden telephone pole. Splinters flew everywhere with every swing of the axe. He stopped and watched them. Vultures. The chopping suddenly came to a stop. The two men exchanged looks. Discomfort crawled up his back sending chills up his spine. The man on the left signaled with his head and both of the axe men headed towards him.
He took a step back and put his hand up in the air, "Wait…" but words became a commodity no one wanted anymore.
He turned around, tripped, and dropped his axe. He tried to regain his balance.
His lungs frozen and his stare watery, he came across an APC and the patrol. His exhausted sweaty body desperately stumbled, mimicking running.
"Help!" he managed to shout.
The soldiers stopped next to the APC and pointed their machine-guns at the stammering image.
"Stop!" echoed the PA system.
"Help me!" he gasped, stumbling towards them.
"Stop!"
He stumbled.
Pressure in his ears.
Needles in his lungs.
Shaky legs.
"STOP!"
The enormous machine-gun spat out warnings of lead almonds.
His knees gave out and he fell flat to the ground like a blanket.
"Spread your arms and legs! Don’t get up! No sudden movements!" echoed the voice through the megaphone on the empty avenue that was covered in a frozen, milk-like carpet.
The boots walked over to him.
"Don’t budge!" he heard the distorted voice behind the helmet say.
The cold barrel made a round mark on his hot, glowing cheek. He was being frisked by the palms of the soldiers’ hands. They roughly turned him over onto his back. His eyes were firmly shut.
"He’s clean!" The words were robotic.
He sat up, crying.
"We apologize, sir, but you didn’t stop when we warned you. What seems to be the problem?"
"My axe was s
tolen."
Silence.
The dark visors exchanged glances.
"Sir, we can’t do anything about that. Get up and go home," they lifted him to his feet by his armpits.
"My axe…"
"We can’t help you. Go home. We’re sorry. That’s all we can do. Can you walk?"
"Y-yes…"
The armored gloves were already pushing him on his way.
"The sooner you get home, the better you’ll feel. Hurry up, it’s almost curfew!"
"What about my axe?"
Their backs were already turned to him and they were walking away.
The view of his building was salvation to him.
He fell down the frozen slope and slid into the building entrance on his back, bruising his tailbone on the stairs. Pain. He pulled out his keys, which hung around his neck, and unlocked the door. The light coming from the basement attracted him like a butterfly. He heard someone hurriedly stacking wood. He moved closer.
The flashlight on the floor shone on a pile of blankets and limp arms and legs stuck out from underneath it. The embroidered shawl with fringes that covered the skull, which was wrapped in scarves, was heavy with blood. The pool of blood was quickly cooling down, but the stench still made the stomach turn.
The sadness cut him like a knife, with a sharp bloodless move.
He stepped over the flashlight and picked up his neighbour’s axe. The man who was rearranging the wood from one partition to the other was startled by the scraping of the axe on the concrete floor.
"Hold on, neighbour! It’s not what it looks like! There were two other men! Get it? They ran away when I walked in! They dug up the snow and got in through the window! Look! Look! Over there! Take a look, for Christ’s sake!"
He shifted his gaze. The window was open. The reinforced glass was broken just enough so that an arm could fit through it.
"You’re stealing firewood."
"Look, neighbour… She won’t be needing it anymore…she’s dead. Get it? I mean… You know…" he smiled, "We can work something out…"
"You vulture!"
"Hold on! Hold on!"
He raised the axe.
"For God’s sake, I have kids…No! NO! NO!!!
He continued chopping even when the cries stopped.
He knocked on the door, his pockets filled with photographs, his new axe on his shoulder. He heard quick footsteps on the tile floor. The knob turned.
"Where have you been?! I’ve been worried sick! Did you get the wood? Why are you standing in the door? You’re just letting the cold in! Get inside! It’s not as if we have wood to spare…"
He stood in silence, his pupils moist and vibrant. His chin quivered like a small child’s before bursting into tears. He slowly hung his head on his chest. He looked meek, as if awaiting punishment. But all he wanted was to get a bit of rest, just for a few days…to read next to the warm fireplace…
The axe swung in the air.
The Shelter
I’m cold. I’m really cold. Mom put two pairs of tights on me. One pair’s thicker and the other one’s thinner, and two pairs of pants. I’m having a hard time walking because of this. It’s too tight. I also have two turtlenecks on, an undershirt and a thick pink sweater and a jacket with a hood that has fur around the edge and I love it. My feet get the coldest. Mom says to wiggle my toes around and that way they’ll get warmer, but I tried and it didn’t work. Then she said I had to wiggle them for longer and that then they’d be warmer. Now my toes hurt and they’re still cold. Mom says that I’ll be warmer now and that everything is going to be okay because we are in the shelter now. Other people from our building are there with us also, but I don’t know any of them. I only know the old gramps who brought us to the shelter. He opened the door with a code and helped everyone get inside. We brought all the canned goods we had and now we all have lots of cans, but we’re not allowed to eat too many because we don’t know whether dad and the other men will find other cans. So I’m a little hungry and a little scared that dad hasn’t come back yet, but mom says that everything will be okay and that dad will come back soon. Before he left, dad gave me his iPhode to look after it for him. A iPhode is very expensive and dad got it at work because he was good and worked a lot. The iPhode doesn’t work anymore because the battery ran out, but that doesn’t matter because dad doesn’t work anymore either because a lot of snow fell. Mom says that the snow will melt soon because this winter has lasted long enough already, and when it’s over we’re going to go to the coast and we’re going to swim as much as we like. I don’t know why she says that since we live on the coast, but we’re not allowed to go swimming because the water is really dirty, and now it’s completely frozen over. Mom probably thinks that we’ll go somewhere else. I don’t want to go anywhere else because all my friends are here, although I haven’t seen them in a while because of the snow.
"Are you cold, love?" Mom’s voice.
"My toes are a little."
Mom smiles. I know that she is smiling although I can’t see her face because the light is behind her.
"Come here, love!" she reaches out her hand.
We walk between the other people, and mom keeps saying excuse me and pardon me. Someone is lying inside a sleeping bag in the corner.
"Hope, this is Branko. Branko, this is Hope."
Someone peeks out from inside the sleeping bag. I can’t see well though, since it’s completely dark here because of the shadows.
"Branko," mom asks, "will you let Hope inside the sleeping bag with you and that way you’ll both be warmer?"
I squeeze mom’s hand, "Mommy…"
"Everything’s alright, love. Branko is a good boy and he’s going to share his sleeping bag with you. Isn’t that right, Branko?"
Branko wiggles inside the sleeping bag and makes room for me. I don’t want to lie next to him. The sleeping bag is so tight.
"Come on, Hope. You’ll be warm."
I hold on to mom’s leg.
"Love, you’ll freeze and get a cold, and you know that the doctor’s closed. How are you going to get better then? Here, put your arm inside the sleeping bag and you’ll see how warm it is."
"She doesn’t have to if she doesn’t want to," says the boy inside the sleeping bag.
"Come on, love," mom was pushing me towards him. "Come on."
I’m scared. Mom’s hand was pushing my back. My pants are too tight when I need to squat down. The sleeping bag really is warm. I slowly wiggle my way inside next to the boy. I’m still scared. I turn my back to him.
"You’ll both be warm in no time. Let me just tuck you in a little better…There!"
Mom leans over and kisses my nose. She’s smiling again even though I can’t see her face.
"Aren’t you warmer already? Ok, keep each other warm and be good."
Mom walked away. I went stiff. He was silent. I could hear him breathing. I don’t know what to say to him, but it’s getting warmer. My toes hurt less already.
"Are you hungry?" he asks me.
"A little."
Branko takes off his glove and pokes me with his elbow as he rummages around in his pocket.
"Here."
He put something in a crinkly wrapper in my hand. A chocolate bar!!! I quickly take off my gloves and open it. It smells so good! I take a big bite.
"Eat it slowly so it lasts longer. Don’t chew it, just suck on it."
"You want some?"
"You go ahead and eat it."
The chocolate melts in my mouth. It’s so tasty and sweet. Mmmmmm! It’s the best in the world!
"Thank you. This is the best chocolate I’ve ever had! You know the last time I had some chocolate? Before school ended, and that was… A long time ago."
I’m munching away.
"Don’t eat all of it at once. Leave some for later."
Branko is very smart and good. I put the rest of the chocolate bar in my pocket.
"When this winter ends, I’m going to buy lots of chocolate
and eat as much as I want!"
The sleeping bag is great because it’s really soft. I’m so nice and warm. Now, if dad would just come back, then everything would be awesome!
"Beep, beep, beep…" someone was punching in the code to get in. It must be dad! I see mom getting up, her back towards the door. Everyone gets up. It must be dad, it just must be! And the others! And they’re bringing us cans of food so now we’ll have more! Branko and I are squeezing and wiggling inside the sleeping bag, but we can’t get out at the same time. The doors open.
"Daddy! Daddy!" I yell. Branko is in my way. I can’t see dad because everyone is up on their feet. Something heavy drops to the floor. I hear someone saying something, but I can’t make out what. A flash and a bang. I shudder. My ears plug up. Suddenly there are flashes and bangs and smoke that smells like firecrackers and shouting and yelling…Branko grabs me by the shoulders and pulls me back into the sleeping bag. I want to see mom and dad.
"Daddy! Mommy!"
Branko pulls me close, hugging me roughly and pulling the sleeping bag over my head.
"Shhhhh!"
He hushes me. I don’t let him, but he’s stronger than I am. Shooting and yelling again. I’m scared! I’m really, really scared. I’m shaking. Branko is holding on to me tightly. Somonee falls down next to us and on top of us. He’s heavy, but I don’t dare move. The firecrackers stop. I hear screams and blows after which everything goes silent. Something heavy is pressing against our legs.
Footsteps.
Someone spits.
"Goddamnit!" says an unfamiliar voice.
Breathing and footsteps.
Branko and I don’t dare move.
"Fuck!!!"
"Come on, let’s get out of here…"
"Leave me alone!"
"Let’s go…"
"Get away from me!"
The steps move away.
"I’m going outside. You guys gather the food and anything else that might be of use to us."
Someone is walking around. I’m trembling. I know I’m not allowed to move. Branko is still holding on to me tightly. I head rummaging, cans being put into bags. Someone moves the heavy thing off of our legs and starts feeling around in our sleeping bag.
"Fuck! There’s another one in here. He’s still alive!"
I hear staggering; someone falls, then loud clicking from the other side of the shelter.
"Fuck, shoot them! Shoot before they kill us!"
My eyes are tightly closed and I can’t hold it in any longer…
"Shoot! What are you waiting for?"
"Mooommmy…." I cry loudly, as loud as I can.
"Fuck, it’s a kid!"
"Fuck the kid! There’s someone else in there too!"
"Mooommmy…"
"Open the sleeping bag!"
"Fuck that! Just shoot them! They’re going to kill us!"
"Mooommmy…"
"Who’s going to kill you, you moron? The child that’s crying for its mother? Open the fucking sleeping bag!"
Hands start searching for the zipper. Branko is pulling the sleeping bag over our heads. I’m crying as hard as I can. They rip the sleeping bag off our heads. The light is bright.
"Don’t kill us, mister! Don’t! Please! Please!" Branko was saying through tears.
"Fuck, there are two of them! What are we going to do with them?"
"What do you mean what are we going to do with them? Let them go! Let’s grab what we can and get out of here!"
Everything is quiet now. It’s dark and there’s no one left. I’m not as scared anymore. I’m just really tired. I’m hugging Branko tightly. Branko says he will take care of me. He is rocking me slowly as he cries and says, "Go to sleep, Hope. Tomorrow when you wake up everything will be okay… Everything will be okay…"
The groans fade away in the darkness of the shelter while the bodies around us quickly grow cold.
Biography
Alen Kapidzic has graduated Croatian language and literature at the University of Rijeka. He published three novels ("Picnic", "Junk" and "Night by the River") which two of them he wrote in collaboration with two other writers (Enver Krivac and Miso Novkovic). With two small publishers from Rijeka (ZIGO and Gorin), he founded Edition "Katapult" (Catapult) for young writers and NGO named after edition aimed at educating young people who want to develop their talents and skills in publishing processes. For his volunteering work as a president and leader of editorial team in NGO "Katapult", he won annual award from the City of Rijeka for the best volunteer in year 2007. He completed a few courses in creative writing held by eminent Croatian writers and won local prize "Zlatko Tomičić" for the best short story . He published several short stories in regional literature magazines and attended short story festival Kikinda short in year 2010 and almost won "Prozak", national award for the best young writer. Almost. :-) His science fiction short stories were published in several Croatian collections of SF&F short stories.
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