Miljenko Jergovic - Mama Leone

Are you sure the boy’s yours? she asked. He’d barely set foot in the room. Yes , he replied, and turned and left. In that instant he believed in himself and not in her, but it was a tepid self-belief, not fiery or cold, and it dissipated before he understood that you don’t give anyone an answer to those kinds of questions, not even your own mother, because the question isn’t about anything to do with you — your child — the question is about you yourself. In any case, he went to see my mom, kissed her, and smiled, giving her a hug much too firm, one meant to conceal doubt, a doubt not easily concealed. Mom looked at him, shaken and speechless, she began to age, her love turning to hate.

I was a big tubby baby on white crocheted pillows, a raspberry mark on my left temple. The neighborhood women said you must’ve had cravings for raspberries or strawberries while you were pregnant . Astonished, Mom conceded yes, I did, I’ve always loved strawberries , and the women nodded their heads and wanted her to feel guilty. In time the raspberry began to grow, and the doctors said it would cover my whole face unless removed, so for six months when I was two they injected saline solution in my temple. That pain remains the clearest memory in my life.

You think this isn’t your son? she yelled at Dad. My real grandpa and grandma were frozen in the next room. I don’t think that, God help me, I don’t think that , he replied and went again to his mother’s. He came back with a year-old potted plant and said this is for our apartment , knowing full well that nothing would ever come of the apartment or the plant. My evil grandma had succeeded in seeing her will be done, but in hearing her prayers, God allowed himself a little joke: He didn’t drive the she-devil from her son’s life, but from the she-devil’s life she drove her son, who, in but a fleeting second, had proven himself unworthy of fatherhood.

This is how it was to be: A God-fearing mother kept hold of her son, yet was forever punished by an unusual twist of fate. By the time I was just a year old my face was well defined — and I looked like my dad. The same head shape and forehead, the same chin, nose, and eyes, even my fingernails were the same shape; other children resemble their parents too but not to this extent, they don’t just resemble one parent. Instead of my dad not being my dad, it was like my mom wasn’t my mom, my face containing none of her beauty, not a single smile or gift. Back then I took completely after him, and when Dad showed his mother my photos, she pursed her lips and fell into an even greater despair at fate’s cruelty. She saw the resemblance in the child’s photos, just as for a lifetime she’d recognized with horror who her son resembled: We were doubles of Grandpa Ðorđe, the man who had ruined her life. His image would now live on until her death and much longer besides, which only went to show that suffering is eternal, enduring even when those who would suffer are no longer around.

And what is it you want from me now? she asked, handing him back the photos. I would like you to see my son , Dad replied. I’ve seen him, and now what?. . I want you to see him in real life, in this room . She didn’t say a thing, just looked at him hoping her silence spoke for itself, that he would get the message and know there were things you simply didn’t say in God’s presence, things requiring caution, which you were to only approach the way you would someone you loved. For her only a mother’s love for her son was greater than God, and from her son she expected nothing less than that his love for her be greater than God.

You have to do this for me , Dad tried to convince Mom. She lit her third cigarette even though two already burned in the ashtray. You have to, after this everything will be different . She didn’t believe him, but at the same time she knew she’d have to accede, the strength of her resistance having no bearing on a decision made long ago. Yes, of course, she’ll bathe her son, get him scrubbed up, make him the most beautiful little boy in the world, and take him to that woman who happens to be his grandmother, as unbelievable as it seemed and regardless of it having been long clear there was no place for grandmothers and grandchildren in this story because it was a story that had ended long ago, in a time that had nothing to do with Mom, a time when the notes from that piano perhaps still resounded.

You’re coming with us, right? Dad turned to my grandma and grandpa. In her black Sunday best Grandma sighed like you sigh before starting a big job. Grandpa just shook his head: I’m not going. If you ask me why I’m not going, I’d have to say I don’t know, but I think I’m old enough to not do anything I don’t want to. You’re young, attend to it yourselves . Although he probably didn’t understand what old Franjo was telling him, Dad didn’t insist, nor did he respond. In actual fact, he was probably a bit relieved. Better not to have witnesses like Grandpa in life if you’re not prepared to man up, because they can destroy your entire world with a single wave of their hand. Grandpa could be gruff, and though everyone attributed it to his asthma, Dad suspected his gruffness was of a different kind, the gruffness of a man who didn’t forgive others things he hadn’t forgiven himself. Whatever went down in the room with the piano, it was better it happened without old Franjo.

I sat on my dad’s knee. On their knees my grandma and my mom held little coffee cups with flowery saucers, the other grandma smiling from her armchair. The silence was much bigger than the room, bigger than the piano, and bigger than every silence the living are capable of keeping among themselves. Words came out without order or purpose. I’m very glad to finally meet you , said my grandma, would you care for some rose jelly? replied the other grandma, and then an age passed before anything else was said. You have a beautiful grandson , my grandma finally managed, and why didn’t your good husband come , the one in the armchair volleyed back. No one knew how long this went on, but it went on all right. I eventually fell asleep looking at the cross above the doorway and the man pierced with nails, frightened because I didn’t know who he was. In memory he became a symbol for that room, where only a piano, a cross, and a crone lived, my wrong grandma, who had never gotten up out of that armchair in all my life, so I didn’t even know if she could walk.

I woke up in the car. Mom had me in her arms, Dad was driving, and my grandma was holding the handgrip, beating her big nose in the air to the rhythm of the road. Thinking I was asleep, they didn’t talk. Mom tried to peek into a plastic bag holding something wrapped in white gift paper. The next fifteen minutes were the last hope for saving her marriage. When we’d left, my other grandma had jumped out of her armchair and said I’ve got something for the little one, he’s growing up now , and taken a plastic bag from the fridge and given it to Mom. She looked like someone who had almost forgotten something really important. For Mom it was a small but endlessly important detail, a sign maybe all was not lost, that her mother-in-law’s love had, in spite of herself, found a way to creep from the darkness and free itself from the chains in which it had been bound since the time the piano was still young. In that fifteen minutes Mom forgave her everything, chiding herself her lack of compassion for the woman’s misfortune, for having only thought of herself and the child who lay dozing in her lap, for never thinking how that woman had once, long ago, held such a child in her arms, totally devoid of hope in the man whom she loved.