A Spare Life (26 page)

Srebra told our mother over the phone that she was pregnant. The next day, we went to visit them. Our mother was dressed in her blue robe. It was the first time she had been dressed like that in front of Darko. Both of us understood. When our mother was dressed in the blue robe with the yellowish-green flowers, we knew she was sick, but the illnesses she had were never anything concrete, they were something unspecific, psychosomatic, menopausal, as our aunt would say. Our mother had stopped menstruating at forty-five and was showing early signs of menopause, but even when she had still been menstruating, her health had not been much better. Now, wrapped in her robe, she informed everyone in the vicinity that her body was weak beneath it, vulnerable, sick. We had come so Srebra and Darko could tell her in person the news that she would become a grandmother. Our father was muddled but well intentioned. He poured a glass of aged rakija for Darko and drank a toast with him, though he didn't say, “To the baby,” or anything like that. Our mother, pale, with matted hair, said to Darko, “So now this, Darko… People will laugh. It's not as if they weren't talking as it was, but now, with her stomach when they go out walking…” Darko wanted to respond, but our father said, “Well, you just know everything don't you?” Srebra and I stood, pressed against the chair in the dining room like helpless children. Our mother dragged herself to the kitchen and, most likely, lay down on the couch, but we didn't have the courage to follow her. Instead, we went into our former room to take a few more of our things. I took some of my books, and Srebra grabbed
The Book for Every Woman
. She wanted to take it, but we both knew she couldn't—it belonged to the apartment, to no one in particular, just like the other Serbian book,
Natural Herbal Cures
. Those two books stood on a shelf in our room and were shared among us. Our mother often looked up recipes for medicines in them, although she never made any. And she, Srebra, and I all read them, but never left them just anywhere—returning them to their place, which was an unspoken rule all of us respected, even our father, who sometimes checked something in them, too. Srebra wanted to take
The Book for Every Woman
, because it had an entire chapter dedicated to pregnancy, with explanations of all the phases in the life of a baby, practical
advice, and even drawings showing how to nurse, how to wash the baby, how to swaddle it, and all sorts of other things. “What do I care,” Srebra said, and she took it, putting it in the bag we were filling with books, and our hands knocked together as we stood on the bed to reach the books, which, as always, creaked so much we were afraid it might break, which our mother repeatedly warned us it would. Either she heard us, or something else was bothering her. She came into the room, and we immediately jumped off the bed. Although Srebra was a married woman, our mother treated us as if we still lived at home, and she said, quietly but decisively, “You are going to be the death of me. People will laugh; they'll shout: ‘Hey look, the one with the head has a baby; how did that happen? It certainly didn't fall from the sky. They slept together, but I wonder who did what with whom?' They'll gossip about you, and won't you be shocked: you'll have harmed that child for the rest of its life. But that's OK, keep playing your games, idiots.” Srebra was silent, but our temples had begun to pound, to thunder, as if the blood would burst through our heads. “How things are is our business,” I said, while inside, I seethed with anger. Insults like that turn into anger and spite: “As if we care what others think,” I said, my voice rising to a shout. “We are going to take care of this baby, and I'll be a hundred times better an aunt to him than you were a mother to us.” I couldn't contain myself. Srebra sobbed loudly. The shaking in her body transferred to mine. She was trembling and crying, and in the dining room, our father said to Darko, “Leave them alone—it's women's business.” But Darko came into our room anyway; he grabbed hold of Srebra, and the three of us abruptly left the apartment. The bag of books remained in our room.

I don't know how we got home. Srebra cried the whole way; her tears rolled down my neck and wet my left shoulder, but I didn't brush them away. I cried, too, but softly, without a sound. I cried for everything that had happened to us, while Srebra cried for everything that hadn't happened. The drive seemed to last an eternity. The streets downtown were closed, the textile workers striking, so we drove down side streets, and by the time we got home, we had calmed down, and were even at peace. We went into our apartment as though in a dream. I wanted to go to bed right away, but Darko poured us each half a glass of chocolate liqueur and himself a whiskey. “A toast to the new life,” he said, and the sweet liquid slipped down our throats, awakening us, reviving us. Although I told Srebra she shouldn't be drinking on account of the baby, she answered that this would be the last time. We were gripped by excitement, joy, and sadness all rolled into one. We picked up the bottle and drank. We drank liqueur and Darko drank whiskey, and when we went to bed that night, we weren't conscious of anything. My head was heavy, and I felt it wasn't my head but Srebra's on my neck. I had the feeling that my soul was in her body and hers in mine. Darko was too drunk to lie by the wall, so he lay beside me. As I heard the sounds of Srebra falling asleep, my hand seemed to stretch itself toward Darko's body, toward his short pajama pants, where a peak rose. I reached through the slit of his underwear, and once I grasped it with my right hand, I couldn't release it. I masturbated him calmly and quietly, and he stifled his moans. When he finished, he turned and poked his middle finger into my vagina, giving me pleasure like I had never experienced. Although his finger was like the tip of the clown's cap, it was unimaginably better, moving in and out, turning around inside me seeking the most secret places of bliss. While Srebra breathed regularly in the sweetness of a dream, I reached orgasm with her Darko's finger. Then I fell asleep.

But the night had no end. Later, just before dawn, Srebra woke me, dragging me from the bed. “I have to get to the bathroom, I have to, get up!” We could barely drag ourselves to the bathroom. I tumbled down onto my chair while she sat down on the toilet. She sat there for a long time, but nothing came out. Then, suddenly, something splashed into the toilet bowl, like a small turd falling. Srebra jumped from the toilet seat, and I from the chair. “What's the matter with you?” I yelled at her, sleepily. “Blood,” she said. “Look, everything is red.” I wasn't wearing my glasses, and although I peered into the toilet, I could not see anything. “It felt like something fell out of me,” she said. “Like a ball. Look, blood,” she was upset, shaking, and I shook along with her. I cried out, as loud as I could, “Darko!” and as Darko awoke, we dragged ourselves to the bed. “Darko, I'm bleeding.” Srebra trembled, trembled as never before in her life; we trembled as never before in our lives. I was completely awake, but everything was jumbled in my mind: me, Srebra, Darko, the night. I knew Srebra had lost the baby, but I didn't say it aloud. Darko must also have known, but he said it was nothing, everything was all right, and then he helped Srebra put on clean underwear while we sat, hunched on the bed. Then we got dressed. Darko started the car and we drove to the municipal hospital, where, at the entry ramp, they shouted to us that cases like ours weren't admitted at night, thinking we had come because of our heads. Srebra didn't look pregnant, and, while Darko explained everything, a group of nurses passed by, holding slices of burek. The smell filled the night, and it was like the atmosphere after a party. We followed them; there wasn't a single doctor around. They finally led us into a small room, but they didn't know how to lay the two of us on the bed, so they placed us crosswise. The doctor, who had been more curious about our heads than about Srebra's pregnancy, told her, “A piece of tissue from the embryo tore off and fell out while you were urinating.” And while we stared at him in shock, he added, “Tomorrow, we'll abort it, and then it will be over.” I asked in an unsure voice, “Can't the baby be saved?” and he looked at me and said, “What baby? It was a three-week-old embryo, a chromosomal mistake, a monstrosity. It's for the best that it turned out this way.” Then he
stood and told the nurse to give Srebra a referral for surgery and left. The nurse added, “Sometimes this happens for psychological reasons as well,” and gave Srebra the referral. We immediately left, dragging ourselves from the doctor's office, bent over nearly double. Darko already knew everything; the doctor had told him the same thing, but without the personal commentary. Srebra was completely silent. In the operating room, we lay like two fallen branches, as if we had each lost an embryo. I didn't move at all; I didn't want to move Srebra even an inch. She was still dazed from the anesthesia. They hadn't given me any, although I had asked for it. They told me to close my eyes if I didn't want to watch. As it was, I couldn't see down to where the forceps removed my unformed nephew from Srebra's womb. I listened to the surgeon tell the nurse, “It will be difficult for this one to give birth after this,” and the nurse muttered, “God listened.” I wanted to shout at her, rebuke her for invoking God in that way, with her mean-spirited conviction that Srebra shouldn't have a child, given how she was, joined to me, but I didn't have the strength, and wanted to sink into myself. When they brought us back to the recovery room, they placed us on a bed beside the wall, and I squeezed up against the wall so there would be enough room for Srebra. Three more women were brought in, one after another: two didn't want to have children, so they had come alone to have an abortion; the third wanted one, but this was already her fourth spontaneous miscarriage. That was all she said, and then she sank into silent sobs. The two who didn't want to bear children and had been saved from it were having a lively conversation a half hour after their operations. They talked about life on Mount Vodno, about houses and apartments, furniture and gardens, their husbands, their work, and most of all about upholstery and wallpaper. They exchanged telephone numbers. They would be in touch to work out exchanging contractors. But their babies, along with Srebra's baby—unformed, undeveloped, tiny, strange, almost invisible—were sent to a garbage dump somewhere or to a cosmetics factory. Who knows? Darko came to get us that afternoon, after Srebra had completely revived, had come back to full consciousness and to herself, not only recovering from the anesthesia, but also from her confrontation with herself, with her
loss, with her despair. She was silent the whole time, even when Darko asked how she felt, if she was all right, if she wanted anything. She was silent and dragging along beside me to the car. In the car, while the radio played, “Stay with Me, Stay with Me,” a song I hadn't heard for years, she said nothing, nor did she say anything as we rode the elevator up to the apartment. When we got inside, I turned toward the bedroom, thinking she would want to rest, but she yanked me with surprising strength toward the living room. We sat on the couch, while Darko bustled about, asking whether she wanted some orange juice or something. She swallowed, cleared her throat, and said, loudly and clearly, “Sit down!” Darko sat. “I know,” said Srebra, “I know.” “What?” Darko asked in surprise, but my heart jumped. “What you know, too. I don't need to say it. You know I know. Right?” Both Darko and I were silent. It was clear to Srebra that I knew what she was talking about; the wild beating in our temples gave me away. My cheeks burned, giving off heat that Srebra could feel on her skin. “Take your hand out of your pocket; your icon will break—look how sweaty your hand is.” She grabbed my free hand. “Look.” Darko was sitting in the armchair, and, although he shifted nervously, he had had time to collect himself, and said as self-assuredly as he could, “I don't know what you're talking about.” “You do, too,” Srebra said, with a voice like a squeezed lemon: without force, but sharp, sour, and unflinching. “But your God forgives everything, right?” she said. After a few minutes—a full eternity—I quietly asked, “And yours?” “In my case, only the court decides whether to forgive. But that's no longer important. What is important now is that we get separated, Zlata. Once and for all. With Darko, or without him.” Srebra wasn't saying anything new. After all, for our entire lives, we had been dreaming—privately, or together, even saying it aloud—that one day we would be separated, having the operation and finally living according to our own wishes. Or we would die. Though in our imaginations, there was never death. We dreamed of a successful operation, and we imagined ourselves alive, healthy, and separate afterward. Srebra was ready for anything now, for a shared death, or for mine, or hers. She could no longer endure our bond. No longer. It was too much for her, without a baby and
without the husband whom she willfully distanced from her, because, as she said, she knew. But how? How did she know that the night before the miscarriage, drunk and unconscious of the consequences, we satisfied our basest passions? There were none baser; we had fallen into the greatest, most terrible, most shameful sin. “All right,” said Darko. “Either with me or without me.” That is how the conversation ended: unclear, unspoken, unexplained, yet at the same time clear and irrefutable. Darko picked up the phone and called his father. He told him about Srebra's miscarriage. No, no, he didn't want to talk with his mother. He told him that he had never before asked for anything, but now he had nowhere to turn. His father might have to call the president, he said, but the money for the operation must be found. “Whose?” “Srebra's,” he said, and then added, “and Zlata's—they must be separated… No, no, that's not what the doctor said,” he added, already annoyed. “Does someone need to have said that for them to be separated? Is that it? They're twenty-three years old. How long must they live like this? How long will we have to live like this? Call someone. You're the vice president, after all. The whole party is behind you. Surely someone has a connection to the monetary fund. Yes, it's likely expensive. We haven't inquired, but still, ask for the money. If not, we will take out advertisements to raise the money for the operation. Someone might be more humane than the party, right?” Darko was sarcastic, for the first time ever, and his father probably was as well, because Darko added, “Yes, I am a member as well, but only a member; you are the vice president, and you have power.” He said some other things to his father as well, speaking passionately, convincingly, but his face was pale, and the receiver trembled in his hand. When the call ended, he was silent. He went into his study, where, in a corner, stood an icon of the Virgin Mary with a lamp and candleholder in front of it. After several minutes, he called us, but Srebra didn't want to stand. Darko persisted, begging us to come in, so we got up, and, wondering what he wanted, entered the room. He stood in front of his small shrine and read prayers for the forgiveness of sins, then he passed a prayer book to us, but Srebra wouldn't take it. So I did, and Darko and I read one prayer after another, and crossed
ourselves, but Srebra didn't. I took my icon of Zlata Meglenska from my pocket, and passed it to Srebra to kiss, but she brushed it away. I didn't pass it to Darko, I don't know why, and he seemed not to notice. We read the Akathist Hymn to Mary, and tears fell from Darko's eyes. For a moment I envied Srebra, because he loved her so much, but then I remembered that she knew and could no longer love him. Thoughts swirled in my head. I missed Sister Zlata and I missed God. Before going to bed, I gave Srebra a sleeping pill, and I took one as well, of course. We slept thanks to the pills, not the prayers. Darko slept in the study, with the candle lit and the icon lamp filled with incense from Mount Athos, which he had received from his friends at the church in Krivi Dol. Srebra and I were alone again, sisters, but in the much more comfortable bed in Darko's home, rather than at our parents' house, but we were more unhappy than we had ever been in our lives, nearly on the brink of death. Our parents knew nothing about Srebra's miscarriage, although I knew she would call them the next day to tell them. “What has been written will unfold,” I heard our mother say into the receiver, “Don't be upset, you silly fool, you are not the first and won't be the last. Besides, what would you do with a child, given your situation and how people talk about you?” Srebra's hand holding the receiver was clammy, but she didn't hang up. “We're going to have the operation,” she said. “We're starting to collect money.” “Where could we possibly find the money?” Mom said. “You haven't said anything about it for years, and now it occurs to you. What next?” “It didn't occur to us? It didn't occur to you!” shouted Srebra. “We aren't asking you for money; we'll find it ourselves.” Our mother repeated her favorite saying: “Do whatever you want. You're the smartest girls in the world, and you do whatever you want; you don't listen to anyone, and now you find yourself in a fine mess.” That broke the camel's back. Srebra hung up the receiver, then lifted it again. She called a taxi. “We're going home.” “Don't!” I said. “That will make too big a deal out of it. Calm down, please. Darko will sort things out with his father about the money, you'll see.” But Srebra was already pulling me outside, into the elevator, then down to the street where the taxi was already waiting for us. The taxi driver went crazy when he
saw us. “You're them!” he gasped. “You're the ones. I let out a passenger here who told me about some girls with their heads stuck together, and now here you are…” “Yes, that's us,” Srebra said. “Would you like to see how we're attached? Would you like to touch?” “No. That's not necessary,” the driver said, and he started the engine. I immediately said, “To the cemetery in Butel.” I could tell Srebra was boiling; she didn't understand why I told the driver to go to Butel. The driver did as I said, and after a long drive through Skopje traffic, he dropped us off at the cemetery entrance. There were a few heavyset women selling bouquets of carnations and daffodils. We didn't buy anything. Behind our backs they crossed themselves and moved away a bit, spit to ward off the evil eye, and prayed that such a thing would not happen in their families. We went into the cemetery. “Why did we come here?” Srebra asked. “To find peace,” I said to her. “Both in ourselves and between ourselves. Here, where everyone is dead, will be the best place to find peace. And I held out the little finger of my right hand to her, but she didn't give me hers. I recited the rhyme we said when we hooked pinkies to end a quarrel, but didn't add “cut,” because Srebra didn't want to make peace, not this way, not so quickly. “Just think about whose grave we have never visited,” I said to her. “Roza's. It's the right thing for us to do, come here once, together, as she knew us, before we're separated and have our own lives and don't think about her. She wouldn't even recognize us any other way, you know.” “You actually think we'll find her?” Srebra asked sarcastically. “We'll ask someone; there must be some sort of manager. A registrar or something.” But there was nothing. The guard said he was new and had no information about where anyone was buried. “You have to ask the family for that information,” he said. “You don't just come like this to a cemetery. You could wander around all day, and someone might grab you and rape you; there's all kinds that come out here, and they come looking for all kinds, one head, two heads, just as long as they have somewhere to put their you-know-whats.” Although he was young, he was giving us a lecture as if he were some old relative. “Have you been raped yet?” Srebra tossed back at him. But I was already dragging her toward the older graves, from the eighties. There was no order to
the Butel cemetery, no way for a person to get oriented. We wandered among the graves, staring at the inscriptions and photographs. We rested on a bench, stood awhile beside a child's grave, a young girl, who had recently died at the age of three. Her poor parents hadn't made a grave but a monument—a throne on pillars, strewn with fresh flowers and wreaths and small plush bears and other animals, a white house of marble with red ribbons and balloons tied to all four columns. It was more like a birthday party than a grave. Tears fell down Srebra's cheeks. “I didn't bury my child,” she said. “It was only three weeks old,” I said. “It wasn't a child yet; it was an embryo.” “It was a baby,” she said. “My baby, and I didn't bury it.” Our mission to find Roza's grave was a failure. Srebra didn't even look. She just walked beside me, absently, drowned in her own misfortune. I dragged her along the pathways. I felt Roza no longer meant anything to her, that she didn't remember her. Who knows whether she was even buried here. It would have been more logical for her to be buried in Triangla, which was closer to her home and not out at the end of bus route 59, all the way out in Butel. I pulled Srebra toward the cemetery exit, which we found only with difficulty. The guard waved to us. We hopped on the 59 bus and set off. We didn't go to our parents' apartment. That night, I dreamed about our father: He was wearing a long black overcoat (something he brought from his childhood home, something that remained from his life with his parents); his chin was stubbly; his hair was thick and straggly. He was lying dead in a hearse. I looked at him through the balcony rails and realized that he was not dead, just seeing what it would be like. Srebra cried out in her sleep. I woke, and woke her as well. She said a skeleton had been lying on top of her all night. She had grabbed its head—no its skull—under the blankets, thinking it was Darko's, but the skeleton wanted to enter her with a bone instead of his penis. Her head was covered by the blanket. She wanted to scream but had no voice. She wanted to pull the blanket off, but she didn't have the strength, and the skeleton's bones touched her through the blanket. A horrible nightmare. How much freer a person is to retell her disconnected thoughts when half asleep, not yet in control of her words, not thinking of the consequences of what's being said, completely