Miljenko Jergovic - Mama Leone

On Sunday Dad went to Makarska but came back before lunch. They were really good at the medical center. Not a problem, what are colleagues for, how about a cup of coffee, how are things in Sarajevo, just a minute, the nurse will bring it out to you. And they didn’t charge me a thing , he said. I slunk under the table thinking: if he calls me to come out in that wouldn’t-hurt-a-fly voice I’m gonna yell and get ready for a fight because that wouldn’t-hurt-a-fly voice always means one thing — an injection’s coming my way. If he calls me to say I’ve got to take a pill, then I’ll come out because it’s beneath his dignity as a doctor to lie to a patient and be there waiting with an injection instead of a pill. That’s what he once said and I took him on his word.

I waited anxiously, not letting out a peep. And they knew I was waiting and were all silent too. Dad got up from the table, took a glass, and filled it with water. He crouched down next to the table, but I was already pressed up against the wall. Here you go, this is a pill for constipation, you gotta take it, you gotta drink up , he said as if he were scared of me. Actually, I think he was a little scared that I was going to start howling, and I was sure he’d spent ages dreaming up that word constipation, which didn’t even exist, he just dreamed it up so I’d believe he was talking to me like I was a grown-up.

Anyway, I took the pill and drank up. Grandma asked when it should start working and Dad said if nothing’s happened after twenty-four hours and six pills, then . . I froze, because he didn’t say what would happen then, and I already knew it was going to be something terrible and that’s why he interrupted himself, so I wouldn’t hear. They’re going to take me to the hospital to see the surgeon and he’s going to cut my tummy open and take all the poop out.

Grandma asked you want to go potty? But I didn’t. A bit later she brought the potty over, c’mon, sit down, maybe you’ll go poopoo , so I sat down, but nothing happened. C’mon, squeeze a little , she said. Mom rolled her eyes, and Dad said it’ll all be fine , and Grandpa sat there the whole time chuckling to himself, trying to keep it down so no one would hear him and Grandma wouldn’t call him an old hillbilly. The thing is, for Grandpa everything to do with farting, the toilet, and going to the shittery, which is what he used to say when someone — usually me — needed to go poop, was the funniest thing ever, and he’d laugh like he was retarded because he thought nature invented these things to give people something to smirk about and make women get embarrassed.

I spent all day yesterday sitting on the potty, and the whole day again today, right there in the middle of the room, trying to make the impossible possible. I didn’t feel like going poop because I just didn’t feel like pooping, and it didn’t help any that I was so scared of what would happen if the pills didn’t work and I wouldn’t be able to poop even if I wanted to.

Things went downhill after the TV news when Dad got his doctor’s bag out. As soon as I saw it I was on my way under the table but ran straight into Mom’s lap. Her skirt didn’t smell like lavender anymore but fear. Mom was as strong as a villain and I fought her, kicking and screaming, but someone lifted me up in the air. I didn’t see who because my eyes were shut and I was screaming. First I howled let me go, let me go , then I tried I need to poo, I need to poo, where’s the potty , but they didn’t believe me or say anything. I kept howling, but they went quietly about a business they’d agreed on in advance and there was no change of plan, not even if my bones started breaking and all the color ran from my face and everything broke into the tiniest little pieces, into Lego blocks you could build a whole new person out of, someone who could go poop every day and who you didn’t have to catch in the air like a butterfly and get that colored stuff all over your fingers. They got me down on the bed, Dad said what’s the matter, there’s nothing to worry about, it’s not going to hurt and I was sure that something terrible was going to happen. As soon as they say it’s not going to hurt, it only means one thing: it’s going to hurt like hell, because whenever he or some other doctor says that something’s not going to hurt, it always does.

They took my undies off and flipped me on my tummy. Mom was holding me so tight I couldn’t move. I turned my head to look at the injection, but then I saw that Dad didn’t have an injection in his hand, there wasn’t a needle in sight; he was holding something red, which looked like a pear, a rubber pear, and instead of a stalk it had a little thin see-through tube. It looked way scarier than an injection, so I screamed my lungs out. Mom turned my head back the other way, and I felt someone holding my bum, pulling it apart and sticking something up there inside me. Though there were no bombs, cities silently crumbled in my pounding heart, they’re sticking something up there, but why? Stuff’s only supposed to come out of there, don’t they want me to poop? Why are they putting more stuff up there? And then the stuff they were squirting up my bum expanded, hot, wet, and strange. It burned and stung and kept expanding, and I was full of this strange stuff, and there was more and more of it, and I thought it was never going to stop and that I’d just keep getting fuller and fuller with that stuff until I burst or admitted something they hadn’t even asked me yet.

Grandma came over and said now be a good boy and sit on the potty. If you get up on the potty we won’t ever have to do this again . But this wasn’t my grandma, it was a German telling a member of the resistance that he’ll quit the torture if he betrays his comrades. I spat at her, but she didn’t hit me. I sat on the potty and looked at the floor. Something gushed from me onto the tin pan below, gushing out of me against my will, the same way it went in. Are you done? someone asked. I bit my lip and looked at the floor. He’s done , someone said. I kept staring at the floor. Someone lifted me off the potty and wiped my bum. I didn’t say anything, just looked at the floor, and when the floor wasn’t there to look at anymore I shut my eyes. They sat me down on a chair. I looked at the floor. Go play , someone said. Put him to bed. Everything will be fine tomorrow , said someone else. I just sat there looking at the floor.

Now I’m lying in bed and waiting for the morning so I can finally get going. You can’t leave at night because it’s dark, which means you can’t see where you’re going, and my car doesn’t have any headlights. I’m going to have another good look at that photo and see if I can see me sitting in a real car and not a cardboard box that used to have packets of cookies in it. If you can see it’s a car, tell me. If you can’t, I’m going to have to take my spade, my teddy bunny, and my winter sweater and set out on foot. If I stay, I’ll have to look at the floor for the rest of my life, never say anything, not telling apart the voices talking to me.

Donkeys sleep at Profunda, that’s what we whisper so the old folk don’t hear, because if they heard, then we’d be in for it. Profunda is out of bounds, because that’s where little Vjeko went and fell and broke his neck and there was a big funeral, the procession went from one end of Drvenik to the other, from Punta to Puntin, and then it went up on Biokovo, where the cemetery is, and everyone cried because the body was a little one, and when the body is a little one, really everyone cries. When it’s a big one, the only people who cry are those who loved the dead person or those who love those who loved the dead person. No one had been to Profunda since then, no one even knows what’s there anymore, but by the time three years had passed since Vjeko’s funeral, the wonders of Profunda had gotten bigger and bigger. Then the big gest rumor of all started going around, the one about the donkeys sleeping there at night.