Miljenko Jergovic - Mama Leone

The plane flew to Chicago, then Osman changed for Paris, then again for Zagreb. He sat in the empty airport hall, looking out through the glass at airplanes in the rain and tiny blond stewardesses, their umbrellas plastered in advertising slogans. He had no need for words of comfort, but had he sought them, he wouldn’t have found words more consoling than those written on the yellow, blue, and red umbrellas: a little white birdie boasted — it’s quiet and warm under her wings, Colibri Airlines . Osman was sleepy but afraid of closing his eyes in an empty hall that could suddenly fill with people whose every eye would be on him. He thought about his brother and about Mary Kentucky. The two of them would be lost if he didn’t come back. It’s weird to be so important to someone in life, yet not feel the slightest responsibility, not be in the least proud that you’re their first and last hope. Omer was Osman’s twin brother, but you couldn’t say the same in the other direction. The stronger brother had been born so the eldest would have someone to guide him in life, just as the war had only erupted so Osman would go to America and save Mary Kentucky, who if it hadn’t been for the war would have remained a lost soul, even if she had realized her dream and become a singer. Her singing was damn awful, but in the whole of Alabama there wasn’t a soul who would tell her that because there wasn’t anyone willing to listen to her until Osman came along and became her shoulder to cry on and ear to burn. He bitterly regretted being the one who could fill hearts and guarantee a peaceful sleep, and wished that at least sometime he might get to be a Mary or an Omer to someone, to be loved, powerless, and pathetic, someone who is helped because he knows how help is sought.

Two hours passed before the first passengers for Sarajevo started arriving. Osman didn’t want to look at them. He didn’t want to recognize anyone, or anyone to recognize him. It pays to remain anonymous when you’re on an unwanted journey; it’s not a return home anyway, and he’s not going to Sarajevo to establish just how much he isn’t from there anymore, he’s going because his father is dying, sick and old, and you can’t let yourself get too cut up, but he is dying and a son should see his father one last time, bury him as God commands, and then leave again, the same way he’d arrived, as a foreigner. He reached into his jacket pocket for his passport, a compact American passport in which not even his family name was written how he had written it his whole life, from the time he had gone to school. This family name was proof he didn’t have to recognize anyone here and that no one should recognize him. The Croatian customs officer bowed to him courteously, and it was then he remembered how once, long ago, at the entrance to Maksimir Stadium before a Dinamo—Čelik game, a cop had sucker punched him just because he had a Čelik scarf on. That couldn’t happen now. They don’t beat up Americans around here, thought Osman, and he doesn’t even have that Čelik scarf anymore. He can hardly remember what it looked like, just that it was black and red.

On the seat across from him there was a girl with a Walkman on, next to her a bright green carry-on with Benetton written on it. She closed her eyes, rocking discreetly to the rhythm of the invisible music. The music wasn’t inaudible though, a distant melody made its way to Osman’s ears, but apart from what you could see on her face it definitely was invisible. She had short red hair and one of those noses you would say was ugly if you looked at it in isolation from the whole, too wide and totally masculine, by no stretch the nose of a beauty. Her lips were also a bit big, and her auricles uneven, but Osman thought he was looking at the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. He stared at her, trying to catch every movement on her face, like a man who had made a long journey north wanting to see a deer, though a deer hadn’t appeared for years, and he’d set up camp there in the north, and one day a deer appeared, but by that time he had already headed south, reconciled to the fact he was never going to see one.

The loudspeaker announced a half-hour delay on the flight to Sarajevo and Osman heaved a sigh of relief because the redhead didn’t open her eyes. If she’d opened them he’d have had to stop staring. The corners of her mouth twitched, invisible muscles in her cheeks playing with her, and she frowned in rhythm, God only knows what rhythm, but it definitely wasn’t country. Osman again remembered Mary Kentucky, good old Mary, who was sure to be sitting at the kitchen table weeping. She would never see this because she doesn’t have the right eyes, doesn’t matter that she’s a woman, she doesn’t have eyes that could see a redhead about to set off for Sarajevo, a woman who would today be the most beautiful in the city, and tomorrow and every other day too, maybe forever, the redhead in Sarajevo, beneath the white roofs of a city that was in flames the last time he saw it, and beneath which he, Osman, would never again set foot, not even today because he’d take a bus straight to Zenica, or ever again because that’s the way he wanted it, such was his fate and his passport, American, and he needed to act accordingly, his loyalties clear when the government recommended American citizens not travel someplace because of a war. He was already sure the redhead was from Sarajevo and was going home. The beautiful and irregular face isn’t one for other cities, that’s how it seemed to Osman; such a face can only be Sarajevan.

The voice from the loudspeaker announced the flight and Osman thought: time to go, beautiful . The redhead opened her eyes, catching his glance with her green eyes and reaching for her little suitcase. If she’d only known what he was thinking she’d have said something reproving, but she didn’t say anything, she just left. Though he didn’t need it anymore Osman took out his passport, and then his plane ticket; the most important stage in his journey was over. Everything that happened from now on would be just the orderly closure of duties life had set down for him.

His dead father was waiting for him in Zenica. He was laid out on the red floor of the house, surrounded by women with their heads covered, all kneeling, quietly speaking the words of a prayer. Osman stopped and immediately wanted to take a step backward, but he thought: hey, c’mon, that’s my father, I’m his son , and he moved forward. The women didn’t interrupt their prayer, I can’t go in now , he stepped back, banging into the door, a whispered sorry escaping his lips. Luckily there was no one there except his dead father and the women at prayer, and perhaps God.

Without tears he buried his father. He lowered the coffin into the grave with the hand closest to his heart, trying to remain as invisible as possible as the priest bade farewell to the deceased. Later a few people he didn’t know offered him their hands and left without having looked him in the eye. He returned again to his father’s house, which smelled of winter, old shoes, and Preference cards. He sat on the sofa, held his face in his hands, and long and slow dragged his fingers down toward his chin. When his middle fingers made it to the jawline, it was all over.

He locked the house and left the keys with a neighbor. The house needed to be sold, but he didn’t know how you went about this sort of thing anymore, and didn’t actually care about the money. He couldn’t go back to Alabama with money in his pocket. If he’d already renounced his former life, he couldn’t now return to his new one with earnings from his father’s death. Hamid, the neighbor, asked what he was supposed to be guarding the house from, and until when. Osman said he didn’t know, Hamid shrugged his shoulders. There was nothing much to be said or debated; silence is probably best when you don’t know what more to say.