Miljenko Jergovic - Mama Leone

He didn’t work a whole lot, generally only toward the end of the day when he’d finished reading the paper and the fear of going home had caught a good hold. He knew what Rajna was going to say, what he’d say in reply, their movements, when they’d head to the kitchen, and when they’d leave the room; he knew everything that was going to happen between now and tomorrow, until the moment he again would shut the door behind him, sigh, and head to the newsstand.

Life’s a grind , he said as the closing credits of a Partisan film played on TV. Life is beautiful , Rajna replied, her mouth curled up in a cynical smile. He thought of a perch he caught long ago, when he was a kid on the Danube, on a school trip when the teacher showed them how to hook freshwater fish. Fish are dead creatures, they don’t feel anything, they don’t know anything, and they’re not scared , that’s what the teacher had said with a smile, a perch struggling lazily on the end of his line. The smile seemed to have more to do with the hooking than feeling.

He put Rajna to bed and went into the kitchen, lighting his last cigarette of the day. The water puled in the pipes, the poplars creaked below the window, somewhere in the valley there was the clang of a tram. Kosta sensed that none of it was part of his story anymore. The world, as it does before a journey, had split into two parts: the part left behind, foreign, reduced to sounds that soon would longer be heard, and the part that was opening up before him, predictable and gray, every day the same as the next.

One day you’ll leave and never come back , she said to him as he lifted her from the toilet seat into the wheelchair. Where would I go? he sighed sulkily. After the first month he was no longer capable of being constantly chipper and polite. You’ll find another woman, and you’ll leave me on the toilet. . Right here on the toilet, huh?. . Yeah, with a dirty ass . Stunned and speechless, he looked at Rajna, or rather, at the crown of her head. Her face and eyes were on the other side; like a toy, he only saw her on the side from which he’d set her down. Words are sometimes uglier than what they mean , he wanted to sound cold. Rajna had become a talking doll.

There was a note fixed to the front door of their building: “Dear residents! As you know, on the twenty-fifth of August the heart of Osman Megdandžić stopped beating, he was our neighbor and long time president of the homeowners’ association. So that our environs, stairwell, laundry room, and attic remain as clean and tidy as they were under the mandate of the sorely missed Osman, a new president needs to be elected. A meeting will be held at half past six this evening. Please show your communal spirit and come along. Signed: Ivan Pehar, retired ensign.” Kosta read every word of the message slowly and carefully. Even though they lived next door, he’d never met the sorely missed Osman, he’d never taken a peek in the laundry room, nor had he even been in the attic. But that’s okay, sometimes there are things a man doesn’t have to know, he thought as he headed to get the paper and went on to work.

There’s a homeowners’ association meeting at half past six , he told Rajna as soon as he walked in the door. And you’re going of course. . Yeah, I have to. The president of the homeowners’ association has died. . Interesting. He must have been very young if he was president , she tried to be ironic. Well, you know, the building has to be to looked after, no one wants rats breeding and drunks pissing in the stairwell. . So you’ll be leaving me. . Yes, just for half an hour , he replied, agitated. Since she’d come back from the hospital he hadn’t spent five minutes out of the apartment. Except going to work, but surely there’s no way that counts.

Sitting on a wooden school chair, Ensign Pehar was alone in the laundry room at half past six, on his knees a black diary and ancient wooden coloring pencil, the kind where both ends are sharpened, blue at one end and red at the other. After fifteen minutes of waiting Kosta lit a cigarette. He sat on a low three-legged stool. That’s a milking stool , said Pehar after a long silence. Kosta gave a start and automatically turned toward the door. The ensign raised his index finger: It’s a milking stool! You’re sitting on a milking stool .

They sat there in silence for half an hour. Kosta smoked. Pehar drew blue five-pointed stars on the tabletop. Kosta looked at the clock, Pehar put his pencil and paper down. It’s decided then. There’s nothing else for it, you have to be the new president of the homeowners’ association. I’m the other candidate, but that won’t work — given my delicate past and all , said Pehar, sweetly stressing the word delicate as if it were a nougat praline and not a word. So what does the president of the homeowners’ association do? Kosta asked. Organizes and chairs the meetings. Everything else is up to us , Pehar replied collecting his notebook and pencil and offering Kosta his hand: congratulations!

It was the beginning of September, kids were going back to school, beauties in bright dresses displayed their summer tans for all to see. Kosta was hurrying home from work and for the first time the thought happened upon him that he didn’t love her anymore. It terrified him like a wet dream terrifies a bashful monk. We have only one life, and he knew he’d spend his on the route between home and work, moving his wife from the bed to the wheelchair, from the wheelchair to the toilet seat, and from the toilet seat back to the wheelchair. . That afternoon, for the first time, Kosta sensed his own mortality and that this was how it was going to be until death.

Not knowing what to do, he called a meeting of the homeowners’ association.

Ensign Pehar turned up with a bottle of slivovitz and two shot glasses. He poured one for himself, took a little sip, and then poured one for Kosta. They sat in the laundry room until it got dark outside, drank slivovitz, and waited around killing time. They exchanged a few general observations about stairwell hygiene and the security situation in the building. Pehar raised his index finger and said our strategy has to be . . and then let his hand fall dismissively, not knowing how to finish.

My wife’s an invalid , said Kosta. . I didn’t know. In that case I wouldn’t have saddled you with this. . It’s okay. At least I get to be president of something. A couple of hours here and there. . You work. She must be on her own all day. . I can’t do anything about that. I don’t have anyone to keep her company. Neither a hare nor a hound, as we say. Everyone we used to know around here is either dead or scattered someplace abroad. And then when we were on our own, the accident happened. On a zebra crossing, the light was green, not that it mattered. We made it through the whole of the war and then this, on a zebra crossing. . I’ve got something for you , Pehar whispered confidentially. Kosta looked at him, downed his slivovitz, and said he had to go.

The next day the ensign brought the dog over. He was four weeks old, lost his balance when he walked, and whined nonstop. We’ll call him Željko , said Rajna. . But that’s a person’s name. . There isn’t anyone here to complain. He can be Željko .

The first few days the dog pissed all over the apartment and took a dump in the most unusual places. Kosta cleaned and wiped up after him, and Rajna thought it was all too funny, like the three of them were in a sitcom where every mishap and misfortune just made people laugh, contented. The first month Željko was a little bigger than a fattish cat, the second he looked like a regular dog with disproportionately huge paws, the third he was already so big that when he tried to sit in Rajna’s lap he tipped the wheelchair over. He kept growing even after he looked like an average-size Saint Bernard, and after nine months he looked more like a calf disguised as a dog.