Miljenko Jergovic - Mama Leone

Uncle Momčilo used to be a colonel, but he’s been retired from the military twenty years or something. When he retired he was younger than my mom is now. Grandma says it was because of Ðilas , and saying it in her hush-hush voice means there’s no way I’m to ask what because of Ðilas means, because then something might happen to me because of Ðilas , or Grandma will get mad because I’ve put her in a sticky situation. Because of Ðilas is my name for a sticky situation, and that’s the way it’s going to be when I grow up too. When something bad happens, and all I can do is shrug my shoulders in the face of a mountain of trouble and wait to see how things play out, I’ll think: Here we go again, it’s all because of Ðilas . And that’ll calm my nerves some, because I’ll remember Uncle Momčilo who was the first to show me how beautiful the sky is when you find yourself upside down.

Uncle Momčilo built the house next door to ours. His house isn’t an old Dalmatian house, just a regular tourist one. Zero aesthetics , says Grandma, a whiff of the barracks and that’s how they build their weekend houses . I don’t understand what she’s talking about, and what I don’t understand is hard for me to remember. I sit on the floor building a castle for Queen Forgetful and repeat after Grandma a whiff of the bawacks and that’s how they build their weekend houses. . Oh shut it you, little devil, and don’t you go around saying that to people because if I hear you, you’ll never set foot in my house again. And it’s barracks, not bawacks . She often does that: says something, and the second I repeat it after her or ask her a question she’s already threatening me that I’ll never set foot in the house again or that she’s going to skin me alive.

Uncle Momčilo has a wife called Auntie Mirjana. He’s got a son called Boban too, but I’ve only ever seen him once in my life. Boban is short and fat, and he’s got a squeaky voice and doesn’t look like a grown-up even though he goes to work and drives a green Fiat 1300. Auntie Mirjana bakes bread rolls and cooks baked beans. Bread rolls and baked beans are the two best things to eat in the whole world. Auntie Mirjana loves it when I ask her when are you going to bake bread rolls again? And she always brings me some the next day, and Grandma gets mad and says you little scallywag, the woman’ll think you’re a little bread piggy , and then I tell that it’s not bread I like but bread rolls. You buy bread at the supermarket, and you bake bread rolls in the oven. Grandma says that bread rolls are actually just bread. Grandma isn’t lying, I know that for sure, but I don’t believe the meaning of some words, because any word can mean what I want it to mean, just like it could to her if only she weren’t so grown-up and worried someone might punish her if a word means something to her that it doesn’t to them. I hear the words bread roll and I’m flat-out hungry, I hear the word bread, I couldn’t care less.

Auntie Mirjana taught me how to walk. I was nine months old and it was my first time in Drvenik. Grandma was cooking lunch, Mom had gone to the bank in Makarska, and I was with Auntie Mirjana in their yard. She held my hand and said c’mon, left leg, c’mon, right leg, now left leg, now right leg , and then she yelled Olga, Olga, Miljenko’s walking . Grandma ran out holding a knife for gutting fish, oh no, not now when Javorka’s in Makarska. . Maybe we shouldn’t tell her , Auntie Mirjana worried. Out of the question, you can’t keep such things from the mother , said Grandma.

Mom came back on the afternoon bus, Auntie Mirjana said watch this , lifted me up by my fingertips, and I was away. Mom burst out crying and scooped me up in her arms, my boy, my big boy , and then I started to cry. She was supposed to be crying out of happiness, why I was crying I don’t know because I don’t remember a thing.

Today everyone says that Auntie Mirjana taught me to walk and it’s a really big deal for them, but bread rolls are a really big deal for me, and so is Uncle Momčilo teaching me how to look at the world from upside down.

It’s a shame when people only see each other once a year, aging so quickly in each other’s eyes , Grandpa said. Franjo, believe me, you haven’t aged a bit , said Uncle Momčilo. Get off with you, the old fossil’s mummified like Tutankhamen , said Grandma. And you, Miss Olga, you just get more beautiful with age. . Oh please, Momčilo, mocking old ladies doesn’t become you. I wear every wrinkle as a memory, and you know, I remember a lot. That’s why I don’t go senile, because every single one reminds me of something .

They repeat the same story year after year; one year the old fossil is mummified like Tutankhamen, the next he’s as shriveled as a dry plum, and the one after that he’s embalmed like Lenin, everything else stays the same. They lie and they’re happy when they’re lying, and I’m happy when I lie too, it’s just that everyone gets mad at me but there’s no one to get mad at them. I don’t get mad because I can see that they’re somehow sad. Grandma’s sadness is in the corners of her mouth, Uncle Momčilo’s in his eyes, Grandpa’s in his nose. Each of them is sad where you can see the sadness best, and they’re sad because they really can see each other getting older. For grown-ups, old age is reason enough for sad mouths, eyes, and noses, because they think it’s better to be a child, and no one can convince them otherwise.

We didn’t come by ourselves , said Uncle Momčilo. Momir is with us , Auntie Mirjana folded her arms. Who’s Momir? I asked. They’d thought I wasn’t there again because I was building a castle for Queen Forgetful. They looked at one another, startled. Grandpa shrugged his shoulders, Auntie Mirjana raised her eyebrows, and Grandma said you know, Auntie Mirjana and Uncle Momčilo have a grandson now. . Good for them , I answered coldly and returned to the castle, which had been under heavy snow for right about three seconds now.

I don’t want to see him. . But why not? He’s a baby, baby Momir. . What do I care? You go, I’m not. . But Auntie Mirjana has baked bread rolls. . Good for her, I’m not hungry, I don’t care . So Grandma and Grandpa went to see baby Momir, and I stayed with my castle and everything suddenly went quiet. I’d never heard such silence. All you could hear was a big summer fly and my breathing. I stared at the wall and listened. Inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale, just like that, but then it was more choppy inhale, long exhale, choppy inhale, long exhale, and then came the flood. I thought about Auntie Mirjana’s bread rolls and how I’d never eat them again. I was all alone, but my loneliness wasn’t mixed with fear, it was loneliness mixed with sadness; mouth, eyes, and ears, all sad. I didn’t have anyone anymore, they were all with baby Momir.

When Grandpa and Grandma came back I was already sitting in the broom closet, there behind the heavy curtain where Uncle kept the oars and motor for the dinghy. Here you go, Auntie Mirjana sent this along for you , said Grandma and held out a bread roll wrapped in a white cloth. I took the bread roll, hot and heavy, and put it in my lap. But I didn’t want to eat it. I can’t eat on such sad occasions. I can just stare at the tips of my toes, listen to my breathing, shake my head at every question I’m asked, a rusty old buoy no one’s ever going to tie their boat to.

How about a walk in the clouds , Uncle Momčilo came over as soon as I woke up. I looked him straight in the eye and didn’t say a thing. I know you want to. It’s our thing, just between you and me. No one else knows how beautiful it is. . I will if you promise me something. . If I can do it, I can promise you, shoot, just don’t forget that I’m not Il Grande Blek or Commandante Mark. . Promise me you’ll never show Momir how to walk in the clouds . Uncle Momčilo went quiet and put his finger to his bottom lip, like he always does when he’s thinking. You know, this is a complicated business. I mean, you’ve caught me on the wrong foot, on my left foot. You see, the thing is, I wanted to ask you something about that, and now I don’t know how to begin. . You mean, you won’t promise me. . Wait a second, that’s got nothing to do with it. It’s something else. I need your help, but I don’t know how to explain it to you. . Promise me you’ll never show Momir how to walk in the clouds , I repeated, word by word, slowly because my inhale had gotten choppy, and Uncle Momčilo’s face had shattered into a thousand pieces, flashing in brilliant strips of light, the rays with which tears begin on a sunny day. Of course I promise you, but I also want to ask you to promise me something. . Promise you what?. . You know, I’m already an old man, and when Momir grows up a little bit, I’ll be even older and weaker, my strength will have gone, you understand, so if I may, I’d like to ask you something, if it’s not going to be too big a problem for you. . C’mon, just tell me what I need to promise you . I wanted to be serious because Uncle Momčilo was really jumpy and it seemed like I was his only hope. I’d like you to promise me that you’ll show Momir how to walk in the clouds. You’ll be big and strong by then, and you’ll be able to show him, and because I taught you how to walk in the clouds, I can’t ask anyone else. That’s it, that’s what I’d like to ask you, if it isn’t too big a problem .