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Birds (short story from Nothing Can Be Done) Korana Serdarević; translated by Iva Gjurkin Birds were dying one after another. Swans were the last to switch off. They hung their necks and wilted slowly like the narcissus flowers in Grandpa’s garden. There were too many of them, and they were everywhere. I’m old enough, but that’s still too young for me to know anything. My name is Sunny, for I was born under the summer sun on August 1st. People remember that year for the heat that caused the asphalt to crack, rivers to dry out and some animals to disappear. Mum was sweating in the hospital bed; perhaps she even cried. With her was a midwife watching a Mexican soap opera, glancing at the TV high up on the wall under the ceiling. “Vete de mi casa!” cried Juanita, wearing heavy makeup, and the midwife grabbed my shoulders and pulled. I came out with a red face, red hair and wide-set eyes. The sun stuck firmly to the window glass. Mum wiped the slime from my head and lay me down on the dark side of the bed. I’m hot. I’m always hot. After that, my mum left. I don’t know where; I never asked. I did wonder why, but I didn’t understand the answer, so I decided to leave it alone. My dad and my grandpa took care of me, which was nice. Dad used to pour soup in his plate and his spoon always sounded like a motorbike. Before I fell asleep, Dad would stroke my back down to the shortest ribs and up to the nape. When I cried, he’d rock me and say: “Sh-sh-sh-sh.” He had curly grey
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hair that, over time, climbed to the top of his head, and his forehead stretched like pizza dough. Dad sits on the floor of our barn, sweat dripping down his cheeks. Grandpa and I walk the yard with the animals every day. There are a lot of them, but we like the birds the most. That’s why we feed the chicks first, bright yellow and squeezed into an old cardboard box. Grandpa gives me one, and I hold it gently in my hand so it doesn’t break. I can feel the warm heart against the middle of my palm. I remembered that from yesterday. I was sitting at the table in the kitchen, gazing through the window, when a sparrow fell out of the sky to the ground like a dry leaf. I went outside and took it in my hand, its two soft feet sticking out of my palm like arrowheads. Dead sparrow. Broken. I don’t care how fish swim with their white bellies turned up towards the sun. I will not count the open wounds on the ground. Everyone has their own worries, and mine are birds. Grandpa would water the garden while I was still asleep, after which he’d clean the barns and sweep the yard. Later we’d feed the chicks together, then the geese and chickens, and then gaze high up into the walnut tree, where the bird houses were. I can’t reach them; I can only watch as they sway in the breeze. My grandpa has thin hands with long fingers that put food in the bird houses and pour water in the dishes. I wash my face several times a day, and the water evaporates before I can even lick my lips. I watch out the window all the time, waiting to see the
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birds. Let them be spots disappearing in the sky; let them be sparrows that jerk their heads; let them be storks with red feet that break in half. The fields behind the house are brown and flat. The border between the earth and sky is a hazy, broken line. Grandpa and I had to spend summers inside, in the dark shade, on a dirty yellow couch in front of the TV and crosswords. Grandpa doesn’t like the heat, because then all he has is early morning. Later, Dad makes him go inside. “Grandpa’s heart is not working well anymore,” Dad says. “He has to stay out of the sun.” Two years ago, the doctor told Grandpa that he can’t eat anything that grows above the ground. Last year, Dad told Grandpa that he can’t clean the barns, carry heavy weights or push the wheelbarrow. All he was allowed to do was feed the birds. If only it would rain. The water dishes are empty, and I’m too short to reach the pipe and too weak to carry the water from the river. Birds are drying out in the heat. Their beaks are open all the time, their throats plugged with their tongues. Dad explained today that Grandpa wasn’t allowed to work anymore, so he had nowhere to go and nothing to keep his hands busy. I buried all the chickens and the geese behind the kitchen door, in the loose soil where flowers sometimes spring. That was all I could do by myself. Before they started to fall from the boughs, from the power lines and street poles, birds fell from the roof of our barn: a pair of storks, five doves, tens of sparrows, a grey hawk and a big motionless heron. They started to scratch 4
the bricks early in the morning. Grandpa wasn’t in his room to ask him what to do, so I went outside to look in the barn. High above my head, Grandpa’s body hung from a thick rope, swaying like a birdhouse. Sweat drips from our cheeks, my dad’s and my own, all day long. We sit in the house and wait for the heat to pass. We can hear cows mooing and sheep bleating from the outside, but we never hear the birds anymore. Franka (short story from Nothing Can Be Done) Korana Serdarević; translated by Iva Gjurkin I dropped out of the bus as if someone had kicked me in the back. As I stumbled towards the bus terminal’s concrete, I caught the rhythm of purposeful walk only with trouble. Last night I took the entire anti-nausea pill, and my body was still obediently digesting it. There was a dense white fog outside, so only a tiny part of the world around me was visible, but it was enough to reach my destination. Space opened under my feet with each step. There were no far horizons or empty spaces to cover with sheets of nostalgic memories. The city of my childhood was hidden by the low cloud, which soothed me. That’s what it was like in my mind, too. Air cold and wet. Sounds approaching out of the complete unknown. I dragged my bag like an overweight corpse all the way to the new bus station, constantly aware of its insides, of what was squeezed between my shirts. For four months I’d been moving the envelope that came by special delivery, signed and signed-off with a court seal on the back, from one place in the apartment to another. Reluctantly aware that I wasn’t allowed to just crumple it up and throw it away, I’d been leaving the contents of the 5
envelope on various flat surfaces of the apartment, just to see if it could be lost or forgotten. No such luck. No matter what I did, those papers kept finding themselves in my hands, their words stuck in my consciousness like an unfinished homework. I had to do something, sign something off, call, or just go there personally and settle it down. Completely unexpectedly and with a certain dose of defiance (towards myself), the latter prevailed. The city bus was still the same public lobby it always was. Limp people squeezed in front of me, sagging like coats on hangers, wrinkled by the rough awakening, yet awake enough to lead empty conversations. Weariness smudged me all over the seat, like a drunken kid. My station was second to last, after which the tin waiting room was to turn around and start back towards the beginning of its circle. Only a few steps left to the house, which emerged from the fog like a wet photograph: Grandma’s small garden, a fig tree (now completely rotten), and the outlines of the two-story house, which, according to the papers in my bag, was now all mine. Mum and I were always alone on the ground level. Dad worked from 7 to 7, and his returns to home did not include warm idyllic scenes, social games or watching sitcoms with the family. Leaving him alone was essential, and Mum would gently warn me every time I wanted to get close to him. Grandma, Dad’s mum, lived alone in the loft. Her plants reached from the balcony all the way to my room. Equally, her influence reached the most intimate corners of my parents’ lives. Grandma was the proud house owner; she knew everything and monitored everything. She also had her own 6
interpretation of everything, which she would calmly convey to us during Sunday lunches. Mum would be predictably offended by this meddling, after which she’d get angry or laugh. And then one day, to our surprise, Mum began to ignore Grandma. I suppose that was when Grandma started dying. Her meddling could no longer influence others’ lives. When she fell asleep that year, a night before Easter, she did not wake up. I knocked on the neighbour’s door with my fist. The fog was already rising and I began to remember that house across the street: its naked, unplastered walls and too-low windows. There was no one in the street to ask me bothersome questions about where I’d been and what I’d been doing, so I cringed at the thought of the conversation that was about to follow. Franka opened the door. Frank was ugly. I looked at her closely, and really, ugliness defined her like no one else. “Hello?” She had a high forehead, a flat face framed with tiny blond curls, and small, deeply set eyes that were too far from her nose. What attracted attention the most was the big birthmark on her left cheek that leaked from her eye like a giant brown tear. This sad clown stared at me, waiting at the door. I introduced myself. “Marko? Our Marko? Jesus, I would’ve never recognized you!” She squeaked and stretched her lips into a smile filled with teeth, which smudged the blotch all the way to her ear. I had no idea who she was, and for a second, I wondered if I should admit it. I doubt I’d forget such a face. 7
Being lazy, I decided to simply smile. She invited me in, and I nervously explained that I needed the house key, that I was tired, that I wouldn’t have anything to drink and that I’d drop by later. Franka’s big butt swayed towards the closet in the hall, where she took out a set of keys. As she babbled, I tried not to stare at the birthmark. “If there’s anything you need…” “Right. Thanks!” I unlocked the door and pulled the bag forcefully into the long hallway. Everything was as I’d left it after Mum had moved away. For four years, this house had been waiting for a new tenant, calmly collecting dust on its surfaces. A few months ago, my uncles finally decided to stay where they were across the ocean and sign the house over to me. To Bora’s son. He grew up there anyway; let the kid have it. Who’ll help him, if not his family? Where is he, anyway? What’s he doing? Let Bora’s Marko have the entire house. Maybe he’ll get married, so at least he’ll have a place to start a family. Yes, let him have it. They agreed, touched by their own generosity. I turned on the light, swallowed hard and stepped towards the living room. I didn’t even notice that Franka was still behind me. I spent my puberty in unoriginal conflicts with Father, who, suddenly interested in me, felt obliged to steer me verbally in the right direction and comment on my journey to adulthood. Never offering satisfactory explanations, he simply uprooted all my ambitions, no matter how much Mum secretly watered them with caring tears. I’d never aimed too high, but occasionally, an honest desire to go skiing or camping was smothered by 8
Father’s dull contempt and the closing of his wallet. Although I don’t think about it anymore, I believe he did that because he didn’t love me. I remember him standing at the door and waving at us as Mum and I sat in the neighbour’s stuffy Peugeot. The war had come too close, and only the real men stayed to stare it in the face. Utterly alone, strict and silent, father stayed too. It was almost midnight and the streets were immersed in darkness, so we didn’t turn the headlights on. I remember the pregnant woman who sat to my left on the back seat, her big dark belly, wet cheeks and mother’s hand that pressed me close. We ran away. When we returned, mother quickly replaced the concrete gravestone with the marble one, which father never would’ve allowed: wasting money on the dead. As much as man tries to stay true to his decision to be hard, as much as he resists the soggy quagmire of feelings, he is still soft in his core. I felt that as I stared at the wooden table in the corner; the cabinet with Mum’s crystal glasses that we never used; the couch worn by the lonely watching of soaps; the curtains that took too long to crochet. I opened the windows. The fog was receding. “I vacuumed last Sunday,” the voice behind me said. I flinched. “Hehe,” she grinned. “I came to see if everything was okay. I’ll turn the fridge on. I can also make your bed…” As Franka tinkered around the kitchen, the light slowly revealed the decrepitude of the familiar space, and I felt as if I was being sucked into an ancient life that now rubbed me like a shoe that didn’t fit. 9
“No need, really! I won’t be staying,” I managed. “Is that so?” She peeked from behind the fridge with that marked cheek of hers, like a sad mirage. Watching her stand in that place where my mother used to spend most of her time, I felt chills rising up my spine. Franka, completely unfamiliar and strange, haunted our house with her ugliness. She seemed even more bizarre where she was standing, for the space that I deemed to be the symbol of a personal catastrophe painted her face into a Greek tragedy mask. “I thought you’d stay awhile, see how it feels now that the house is yours,” Franka said. She approached, staring directly into my pupils, until stood too close. I could see the dark hairs on her birthmark, which filled me with acrid disgust. “I came to get the papers in order so that I can sell the house,” I said, quickly stepping around her barrel-like body on my way to my bedroom. The fridge in the kitchen grunted as if someone had coughed significantly. After I went to college, my mum lived by herself for a few years, struggling with the too-high household bills and too-long days, which she filled with her small duties. Occasionally, she cleaned houses to make some extra cash on top of her clerk salary, and when I finally got a job, she retired early and peacefully, and moved in with her mum in Split. Actually, I think she had been yearning for that city the entire time she lived here, torn out of her natural habitat, in an unknown city and someone else’s house. I understood how she felt.
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I knew that the ownership of the house had to be settled, so I answered my uncles’ calls calmly. Expecting they’d split the house into tiny little spaces, cut it like a birthday cake and share it for tasting, I did not impose myself. I’d spit my crumb back in an instant. I will never live on this street, in this house, again. I will never be a child again, nor a young man. Out of all the doors I’ll ever walk through, I will never go back to those I ran away from. No, this house had to go, and Mum agreed. It would be a pity to let it crumble. Let someone else have it; let it be filled with new people, or let them tear it down. The house had to go. The air in the room was stale, so I opened the balcony door wide. In front of me were just houses, in the street, children. The middle of the room emanated emptiness behind my back, while all the furniture huddled against the walls: a bed, small mirror, a writing table. A closet. Everything clean, abandoned, alone. I took the papers out of my bag and sat down to decide what to do. When I turned around again, I saw that Franka was sitting on my bed. A nervous shudder passed through me. “Excuse me, do you need something?” She kept her silence. “Who are you, anyway?” “Franka,” she said softly, giving me a reproachful look. At the moment, it seemed to me that she was a lot older than me, perhaps already married or a mother. We both fell silent. She was caressing the uncovered mattress of my bed with her wide palm.
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“Do you need anything?” I asked again, now evidently distressed. She shook her ugly head, but remained sitting there. Her palm traced the mattress a bit too intimately, making a soft rustling noise, leaving creases in its trail. I watched her with hate that suddenly started to grow inside me, smothering every remnant of empathy for that curly freak that sat on my bed, where I have mourned my childhood so many times. As if reading my thoughts, Franka gazed through the balcony door, her shoulders sagging, her brown tear sinking to her chin. “Thank you for your help, Franka, but I’d really like to be alone for a while.” I softened my tone and got up. “I have a lot of work to do.” The corners of her lips lifted inanother awkward smile. Her watery gaze trailed my face and body, making me feel as if the wet tentacles of an octopus moved all over me. I stood in the middle of the room, poisoned by the nauseous discomfort, trapped. “It’s not your fault that the house is empty,” Franka whispered as she got up. She hugged me with all her might. The draft closed the balcony door. Outside, the sun pushed through the clouds. Voices spoke; cars passed by. The morning was ripe. When I caught my breath and looked over Franka’s head, I saw my reflection in the small wall mirror. I stood there completely alone. I sold the house.
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When I went to visit my mum some time later, I asked her if she remembered Franka from the neighbourhood. Mum watched me for a long time, and then she cried for a while.
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