Dubravka Ugrešić - Baba Yaga Laid an Egg

And then one day, returning early from work, she went into his room and found him in bed with a young man. She stopped, dumbfounded, in the doorway, he shouted something, but she did not understand the content of his words. She stood there without breathing, without thoughts, without interest, without curiosity, without censure. He got up and banged the door in her face. And the very next day he packed and left, forever. At first she agonised about it; she could not understand why he had been so angry. Because she was innocent, if that is the right word, she had wronged him only for a second, for heaven’s sake, for just one single second. She had been entranced by what she saw, the image of a male body, to which she had given birth, that was her blood, her flesh. She had forgotten herself, astounded, she had disregarded human decency, and she had been justly punished. She could have shut the door, been ashamed, apologised, but she had not done that. She was to blame, she had driven him from the house. Oh, God, how come she had not thought of that then? That win at the casino was only an intimation of imminent loss.

There was a soft tapping at the door. She did not respond; she did not have the energy to get up.

Mevludin came into the room. Beba did not stir. Her lips were dry, her eye make-up had run and now it streaked her face in thin streams.

Without a word, Mevludin went to the bathroom, wet a face cloth under the cold tap and began to wipe Beba’s cheeks.

‘Poor you… you look like a chimney sweep…’

Beba burst into tears again.

‘Drink this. And stop crying, love, you’ll run out of tears,’ said Mevlo, offering Beba a glass of water. Beba drained it and felt able to breathe more deeply.

‘Here, have a smoke, you’ll feel better,’ said Mevlo, handing her a lit cigarette.

Beba and Mevludin smoked in silence.

‘Don’t be cross with me,’ said Mevludin after a while.

‘What about?’

‘For acting the fool. But then, I kept thinking it’d be more fun…’

‘And it was.’

‘It’s right for me to say it, though.’

‘I know.’

‘Then you must also know that I think you’re great. And I won’t forget you.’

‘I know.’

‘Well then, now that we’ve said all there is to say, I’m off.’

Mevlo got up and set off towards the door.

‘Wait,’ said Beba.

Beba got out of bed and took an envelope out of the safe.

‘Just in case…’ she said, handing him the envelope.

The envelope contained a bundle of notes.

‘I can’t take this.’

‘It’s a present from me. You’ll need something to get you started, to buy a ticket to America and to keep you going while you find your feet…’

‘I can’t…’

‘Which of the two of us is older and stupider?’

‘You,’ Mevlo smiled.

‘Well, then, your place is to do as I say. You’ll find my address inside. So one day, when you’re passing through Zagreb…’

‘I’ll look you up.’

Mevlo and the stout old woman hugged. Beba burst into tears again. Mevlo patted her shoulder and grumbled:

‘You women are all made of water. The quantity of tears you have in you is unbelievable. You should all be packed off to the desert and used for irrigation.’

Mevlo took a cigarette out of his packet and stuck it behind Beba’s ear:

‘Just in case,’ he said and left the room.

When he was making his new spa, Dr Topolanek had thought about his grandmother, to whose place they had always gone for lunch on Sundays. Afraid that she would not get everything ready in time, his grandmother always started cooking so early that by the time they, the Topolanek family, arrived everything on the table was cold. Every Sunday his grandmother got upset, and every Sunday his father consoled her:

‘Come on, Agneza, calm down, you know yourself that there is nothing in the world tastier than cold meatballs and – warm beer!’

Topolanek called his new spa ‘Granny Agneza’. It sounded local, but still a little mysterious, because people would wonder who Agneza was, why Agneza, which Agneza…? As well as this private justification, Topolanek had an objective one for his choice of his grandmother’s name: Agneza lived ninety-one years, which was a pretty decent age.

The previous evening, Linear had made a heap of meatballs, which were piled in a round dish on the edge of the swimming pool, while Willowy had brought gherkins and mustard. The girls moved Topolanek to tears with this gourmet detail. Now the three of them were sitting, naked, immersed in the hotel jacuzzi, which had been transformed into a vast tankard. Topolanek had had the jacuzzi filled with beer, and reduced the churning to a minimum, to ensure that, heaven forbid, they did not suffocate in froth. As it was, the froth was flying about in all directions.

It was a scene worthy of Lucas Cranach Senior, and, were he alive, he would have been able to paint Fountain of Youth ‘Part Two’. Except that, on the table, in the top right-hand corner of the painting, instead of a fish on a platter, there would have been Granny Agneza’s meatballs.

The girls were having the time of their lives. Willowy had made herself a beard of beer froth, while Linear had made a wig. Topolanek himself had gone beerily berserk. He was chasing Linear and Willowy round the little circular pool, repeating:

‘Little seals, come to daddy, little seals…’

And then the little seals came closer, slurped some beer from the pool and started rubbing their bodies against Topolanek’s. They were both smooth, slippery and agile, just like the seals in the zoo pool. Exclaiming, ‘Here!’ Topolanek tossed one meatball with his right hand into one mouth and another with his left into the other. The little seals fed from his hands. Willowy dunked her meatball in the beer froth, claiming it was nicer with froth than mustard. Then they dived under the surface, gambolled, played tag, clapped their hands in the foam, threw balls of beer froth at each other, touched each other, petted and kissed each other, from time to time chanting a little song that Linear had made up:

Merrily we swim, like little bugs in beer,

Beer is our element: clear, dear and here!

Topolanek felt magnificent, like a great reformer, like a scientist after a revolutionary discovery. If he had not actually discovered the formula of longevity, then with ‘Granny Agneza’ he had at least composed an ode in praise of vitamin B, and discovered yet another of the ways life could be merrier and more relaxed, and that, in our anxious and dismal age, could be regarded as a capital contribution, could it not?

And us? While life is often gloomy and cheerless, the tale runs on, bright and fearless!

‘I can’t. I simply can’t,’ Beba kept repeating, as though in delirium.

Beba and Arnoš Kozeny were sitting in the half-empty hotel bar, sipping French cognac.

‘I entirely understand,’ said Arnoš Kozeny, puffing smoke from his cigar.

‘My granddaughter!? Why, I don’t know her at all!’ said Beba.

‘And how could you, for goodness’ sake! You only discovered a few hours ago that you’re a grandmother.’

‘And the murderer of my own son,’ said Beba bitterly.

‘Come now, don’t exaggerate, we’re all murderers. First we murder our own parents, and then our own children.’

‘I don’t know. All I know is that whoever wrote the screenplay of my life was completely incompetent.’

‘They’re all incompetent.’

Arnoš was right, they’re all incompetent. Few can boast that their screenplay writer really suits them. Who knows, perhaps the bureaucratic offices of Destiny are like Hollywood or Bollywood, perhaps instead of millions of diligent bureaucrats, there are millions of bunglers copying, rewriting, smudging the paper and scribbling. Maybe there are even different departments, and some do the dialogue, others the storyline, still others the characters, and maybe that is why our lives are such an indescribable mess. As soon as we are born, an invisible bundle is thrust into our hands and we all scatter off into our lives like Boy Scouts, each of us clutching our invisible coordinates in our hands. And perhaps that anxious race is the reason for our monstrous ignorance of other people’s lives, the lives of those who are closest to us.