Miljenko Jergovic - Mama Leone

Mom’s Sunday games are I’ve got a migraine or look at the state of the place, we’re cleaning under the rugs today . I like the first game better because then Mom spends the whole day lying in bed whining, sighing, and grasping for the barf bowl. As long as she keeps it up, I can go about my business building a castle for Queen Forgetful and flicking through the encyclopedia, I’m just not allowed to shout, but that’s it, everything else is okay. In our family migraines are passed from generation to generation, from head to head in actual fact, so we can’t remember an ancestor who didn’t get migraines. Mom says our ancestors who didn’t get migraines were actually monkeys, and that their heads started hurting the moment they became human. Grandma says that if she got a migraine, she’d lock herself in the bedroom, put earplugs in, draw the shades, and let the kids smash the place up, just so long as they leave her in peace. I can’t figure why I’m not allowed to smash stuff up when my mom has a migraine. You’ll see what it’s like , Mom would say, the joke isn’t going to pass you by, and after you’ve had your first migraine you’ll understand everything your mother has suffered in life .

Mom’s other game look at the state of the place, we’re cleaning under the rugs today is a pure catastrophe. The game involves shunting wardrobes around the house, taking the rugs out into the yard, cleaning floors and windows, Radojka the cleaning lady coming over and my mom playing Alija Sirotanović until Radojka goes home and Mom gets tired — which is when the game is called off. But this doesn’t mean the rugs are put back on the floor and wardrobes shunted back in place. No way! The mess lasts at least another ten days, and then we live in a state of emergency, sleeping in our beds in the middle of the room, not watching television because we don’t have anything to sit on and because the screen is covered in curtains taken down to be cleaned. Mom gets really uptight when we play this game and no one’s allowed to say anything to her because then she just starts screaming and crying and talking about the past. In the past everyone maltreated Mom. I don’t know a single member of our close or extended family who hasn’t maltreated Mom and who she doesn’t rail about because of that. Only I never maltreated her in the past because in the past I wasn’t even born, but apparently I’m making up for that now.

Today isn’t a day for Mom’s migraines. Today we’re going to Pioneer Valley. Dad’s coming for us around noon, lunch has been put back to four, which means we’ll have a whole three and a half hours for looking at the animals. God, father, look at the fog , Mom said, almost pressing her nose up against the windowpane trying to see out. But there was nothing out there, just fog and milk and the boughs of the cherry tree beneath the window disappearing into the milk rather than growing from the trunk. What did I tell you? Grandma replied. What did you tell me?. . That it’s foggy out. . I don’t know, I don’t remember, I was still asleep. . Fine, play the smarty-pants then. . I’m not playing the smarty-pants, I was asleep and didn’t hear you , Mom was getting snippy, and that was always dangerous because her snippiness could finish with us not going to Pioneer Valley. But luckily Grandma bit her lip. Grandma always bites her lip when a ring girl starts strolling around the apartment with a sign saying “Fight Time, Round One,” because she doesn’t have the strength for a fight of fifteen rounds. She’s mature and experienced, but Mom is young and up-and-coming and would knock her out by the third round.

Maybe you should give Pioneer Valley a miss after all , Grandma stared at the foggy whiteout outside the window. I don’t know, I really don’t know , Mom drank her coffee and lit her first cigarette. Here we go, you’re going to back out on me again , I put the last block on the top of the tower where Queen Forgetful was holding her parents prisoner. No one’s backing out on you, be reasonable, take a look at the weather , Grandma wasn’t falling for it. What do you care, you’re not going to Pioneer Valley, it’s all the same to you what the weather’s like. . Yes, yes, it’ll be all quite the same to me when you come down with bronchitis and I have to look after you .

Dad arrived fifteen minutes before noon. We’re going to Pioneer Valley, right , I got it in before Mom and Grandpa could open their mouths. If that was the deal, let’s go , he replied. The two of them looked at each other. Mom sighed like our national hero Marija Bursać when she was injured in the village of Prkosi and headed off to play the martyr. Outside there was either a light rain falling or it was the fog turning into drops of water, I don’t know, but the whole thing looked like a ginormous cloud had come down on the city, covering the roofs of the houses and the streets as if we’d ordered a giant duvet for Sarajevo so we wouldn’t have to climb out of bed.

There was no one at Pioneer Valley. The ticket seller in the entrance kiosk was dozing, and some young guy puttered by on a two-wheeled cart loaded to the brim with bluish-looking meat, singing seaman sons are always so late ashore, and poor mothers weep forever more . As he passed by he said good day, folks, make yourselves at home . Dad turned after him like he was about to cuss, and Mom gripped her handbag and said Christ, do they have to hassle me when I’m at the zoo too . Then they both shut up, and I shut up too because I already felt a little guilty.

The monkeys were surprised to see us. They scratched their heads and looked at Dad as if seeing him for the first time. Looks like they’re into you , Mom teased. And why wouldn’t they be? Dad made like he was lost in thought. The guy on the cart came by again: it’s strictly forbidden to feed the animals , he shouted, and then continued on with his singing. Oh get lost, bully boy! Dad yelled after him. He’s just doing his job , said Mom. The guy turned his cart around and came back. Who are you telling to get lost, huh? His light-blue eyes looked like they’d been found at the bottom of an Olympic swimming pool and he seemed really dangerous. Who do you think you are, talking to me like that? Dad took Mom and me by the hand and led us off toward the lion cage, but the guy caught up to us, cutting us off with his cart. I can throw you out of here, you know, I could punch your lights out too , he shouted. Get out of my way or I’ll call your boss!. . You know what, old fella, the boss can kiss my ass . His eyes were popping out of his head at Dad like he’d seen a heap of shit. Then not waiting for a reply he took off.

Mom sighed and shook her head, Dad breathed through his nose, snorting mad. We stopped next to each cage, but I didn’t feel much like looking at animals anymore. It occurred to me that none of us knew why we were here. Mom and Dad didn’t even look at the animals. Dad just stood in front of the cages, stared at the bars, and shut and squeezed his eyes together like he was going to fire a bullet from each, or maybe a thunderbolt, and Mom just looked up in the air, high above the lions and tigers, all in the hope someone might finally notice her sacrifice, or someone would attack her so she’d at last be able to defend herself. The fact was, she was itching for a fight. I wanted to say I felt like going home but didn’t know how to begin. I’d spent seven days laying the groundwork for our visit to Pioneer Valley, how was I now supposed to say I didn’t want to look at the animals anymore?

As we crossed the bridge, a little stream flowing underneath where ducks swim in the summer, Mom tried to take Dad’s hand, but he made a quick long stride and got away from her. That was the sum of his courage. She wasn’t his wife and he had every right to let her fall into the stream, and he wasn’t her husband and she had every right to hate him for bringing her to Pioneer Valley in such fog. I didn’t want to get mixed up in their relationship; as a matter of fact I wasn’t interested in their relationship, though it felt a little weird when I thought about the fact that I was the child of two people at opposite ends of the earth who are completely different and total strangers to each other. If we each have our own star like it says in “Cinderella,” then their stars are so many light-years from each other that no one could even be bothered counting them.