Miljenko Jergovic - Mama Leone

Tomorrow was Friday. There was only one more day until Saturday. C’mon, I’ll show you something you’ve never seen before , said Nikša. We set off for the old camp ground, to the little wooden hut where they used to keep the sun umbrellas, and sat down on old beer crates. Nikša dropped his pants. He didn’t have any undies on; he was older than us and everything on him was bigger, the thing he wanted to show us too. Check this out! he said and pulled the skin up. I’d never done that, but I was sure it had to hurt. He put the skin back down and pulled it up again; my throat tightened like it did when they used to take me for my vaccinations. He repeated the up-down thing with the skin a few more times, that’s gotta hurt , I thought. Everyone was silent, waiting to see what might happen next. Nikša said look, it’s getting bigger! And it really had gotten bigger, but it was big before too.

I was scared and looked over at Zoran and Miro, but they were dead still, staring at the action between Nikša’s legs. Nikša breathed faster and faster, and everything on show got redder and redder. I was scared what was going to happen next, actually most of all I was scared because Zoran and Miro were just sitting there watching not worried about a thing. Then I remembered I was an outsider from Sarajevo. I jumped up off the crate and took off outside.

I don’t know whether they burst out laughing or yelled that I was a scaredy-cat, I don’t know anything, because I just ran and ran and ran and didn’t stop until I got home. What’s wrong, speedy, you’re covered in sweat , said Grandma. I was doing athletics! I gasped convincingly. She saw me and she saw Dane Korica on his way home from the Munich Olympics. I was dying of happiness because I’d made it home and had managed to lie like a champion. I lie best when I’m happy.

On Saturday I woke up dead set that I wasn’t going to leave the house. I’m not going outside until we go back to Sarajevo. Grandpa had gone to Zaostrog, I’d said I wasn’t going with him, Grandma asked are you sick? I said I think I’m sick , and she said well, you’re not going to Fishermen’s Night then , I said I didn’t want to well, well, you really are sick , she said, and fetched the thermometer. You don’t have a temperature. Where does it hurt?. . I don’t hurt. I’m just feeling a bit sick and I don’t want to go outside. . Did you get into a fight with someone yesterday?. . No. Nothing happened yesterday, I just don’t want to go outside today, and not tomorrow either. . Why? Are you going to be sick tomorrow too?. . If I have to go outside I will be. . You’ve decided to never leave the house ever again?. . I’ll go outside as soon as we’re back in Sarajevo. . Did someone say something mean to you?. . No, but I’m a little bit scared. . Of what?. . Of the donkeys that sleep at Profunda. . Have you been to Profunda? Grandma shot out. No, I haven’t, and I’m not going to go either, because I’m not leaving the house. Do donkeys really sleep at Profunda?. . What donkeys? You know there isn’t a donkey left in Drvenik. . Last year there were three, Mijo’s, Dušan’s, and Stipe Alača’s, that must be them. . God, where’d you get that from, those donkeys are long gone!. . Where are they then?. . They were taken to Makarska. . What are they doing in Makarska? Grandma sighed and looked at the ceiling, mumbling something like ohjesuschristsaveme and then said fine then, I’ll tell you, but don’t you dare start bawling! There’s nothing there at Profunda, it’s just a ruin like any other, full of brambles. The donkeys were sent to the slaughterhouse because nobody wanted them anymore .

I closed my eyes, my heart was really pounding; fine, I’ll suck this one up too. No more questions? I shook my head. But I’m not going out until we’re in Sarajevo . Grandma didn’t say anything else, but I knew she was thinking that tomorrow I’d change my mind and tear off out of the house. That was what I was most afraid of because I knew there was no way I could tell her that the real reason I can’t go out is because something I saw had made me really scared, something others could watch, but I couldn’t, and that’s why I can’t go outside.

Am I a Sarajever? I followed her into the kitchen. No, you’re a Sarajevan. People from Sarajevo are called Sarajevans. . Is that good, to be a Sarajevan?. . It’s good to be whatever, it’s good to be from wherever. . Then why do they say I’m a Sarajever?. . Who says that?. . Zoran and Nikša. . They say that because they don’t know anything about it and they’ve never been out of Drvenik. . And why do they call me a Dalmatian in Sarajevo?. . For the same reason. Because they’ve never been out of Sarajevo. . And why do we always move?. . Because Grandpa has asthma and has to spend lots of time at the seaside. Besides, it’s good to move around because then you’re in lots of places at once, the place where you really are and the place where you’ve come from, and if you don’t like it, you could always spend the whole year with your mom in Sarajevo. . Promise me you won’t force me to go outside until we get back to Sarajevo. . Fine, I promise, but only if you tell me why you don’t want to go outside all of a sudden. . I don’t want to because they keep calling me a Sarajever , I lied and went to my room. I always leave like that when something is really important, because as soon as I go, Grandma takes everything I’ve told her more seriously. I threw myself on the bed too, just in case, burying my head in the pillow and waiting to see if she’d come. When she came in, I pretended to be asleep. She pulled the covers over me and crept out.

I slept through Fishermen’s Night and the mission to Profunda. Actually I slept right through everything that happened after that, everything I didn’t want to see. I spent the whole seven days before we went back to Sarajevo in the house or the yard, playing by myself. One night I ran across the road, to Uncle Postnikov. He got his sketch pad and felt-tip pens out and drew snow, snowy villages and snowy cities. Uncle Postnikov is eighty years old, a Russian who once, a long time ago, fled the revolution. Why? I asked him. Because I was scared , he said, calmly sketching a reindeer-drawn sleigh with a girl on it wearing a big brown hood, her long blond hair peeking out from underneath. When you’re really scared, you have to run. . And never go back?. . I don’t know, I couldn’t go back. . Why?. . Because of those who weren’t scared, the ones who stayed. . I’m never going back either. . Where are you never going back to? he asked, surprised. I’m never going back to the old campground , I said to Uncle Postnikov. If it’s because you’re scared, then we’re the same , he answered, and turned to a new page where the whole of Moscow was to be drawn.

The world is beautiful when it’s turned upside down. The sky beneath me means I could walk on it, and the top of our house in Drvenik is pinned to the sky and it’s like our house is going to topple over on its side because it’s resting on a single tip where the two sides of the roof meet, but the house doesn’t topple over, nothing happens, there’s just my laughter and wishing it would stay this way forever, that the sky stays forever under the soles of my feet, that I’m tickled by clouds of sheep, that I can walk across the sun like I do across the steamiest August asphalt, that when night falls the stars will prickle me like the sand on the island of Brač, like the shingle where Ismet Brkić is building his weekend house. I want it to stay like this forever. Squealing in delight I scream no, no, don’t let me down , but Uncle Momčilo isn’t listening, and the world spins around me a couple more times and then everything is back to normal. The concrete yard is beneath my feet, the sky high above, and our house is sitting like all the other houses, the walls rising up to the roof. There, high in the air, everything gets thinner and smaller, because in this world everything on the ground is wide and everything up high narrow, and that’s how it’ll stay if I can’t get Uncle Momčilo to grab me by the ankles and hold me upside down, to give me a little joggle so I can see what it’s like when sky and earth quake, but nothing collapses, when everything stays anchored and beautiful, and there’s no pain that might kill the miracle in your eyes.