A Spare Life (20 page)

Gary walked self-assuredly with small hurried steps, trying to follow the rhythm of the four legs and two conjoined heads—now quickly, now slowly. Little by little we made our way to the Record bus stop. We had to wait for the night bus. There were other people waiting as well, young people with cigarettes or slices of
burek
in their hands, loud, drunk, filled with summer-night self-confidence. There were women our mother's age, as well as other, older women wearing skirts below their knees, viscose blouses, sandals with low heels, handbags over their shoulders, and shopping bags in their hands, evidently returning home from their jobs in cafés or some other odd business that stayed open till midnight. Gary looked at them discreetly, with curiosity and intensity—not with the gaze of a tourist but of someone who really wanted to comprehend how life was lived here, why people lived the way they did. The bus finally arrived. We got on and I took enough money from my purse to pay for Gary as well; nighttime tickets cost double the regular fare. Gary thanked me several times, touched by what he understood to be Balkan generosity, but what was simply a normal gesture for us. As always, the other passengers gaped at us wide-eyed, elbowing each other. Those who were our age laughed out loud, but this time, they also looked at Gary, with his big red Adidas bag with white lettering and pockets with zippers. We were speaking English. Our neighborhood's main street happened to be under repair that summer, and all the buses stopped at an improvised stop a bit farther than our usual one, and we had to get home somehow with all our bags, guiding Gary through the small, dimly lit neighborhood streets. Srebra unlocked the door and we went in. We brought Gary straight to our room. Our bed was made; from time to time, our mother surprised us by setting up our bed. Until that moment, we hadn't thought about how we were going to arrange everything: where Gary would sleep; how to tell our parents that we had a guest staying over; how they would react—whether our father would get angry and shout or whether our mother would be the one shouting. We left Gary in our room, and went into our parents' room. Mom was always a light sleeper, and she often woke up during the night and stood in the bathroom or sat on a chair in the
dining room when one of her strange dizzy spells took hold of her. She got up immediately, asked what was the matter, whether we had gotten home all right. “A foreigner came home with us, a guy from England. He had nowhere to sleep,” I whispered to her. “What? What sort of foreigner? Why?” our mother asked, a bit confused, getting out of bed as if she wanted to see him immediately, to see why he was here, but then she remembered she was in her pajamas. So first she took off her pajamas, put on a bra, threw on a viscose blouse and a skirt, and just as she was ready to confront our guest, she remembered something. In the half darkness, she fumbled for something in the ashtray on the little table and then placed around her neck her gold chain with a half-moon clasp, saying, “A foreigner has come to our home. Let's not let him think Macedonians are unrefined.” She woke our father, but he couldn't grasp what was happening, so our mother explained everything to him in a whisper, and then she followed us out of the room, knocked on our bedroom door, and the three of us went in. Gary was sitting on the other bed, confused, not knowing what to do or say. Mom approached him, greeting him warmly and saying in Macedonian, “You're from England? Such a large country. What brought you to Macedonia?” Srebra translated for him, but didn't translate the bit about England being a large country. Gary smiled. He said he'd wanted to see Yugoslavia once again as it had been, but he was too late; the country had already disintegrated, even though there was no war in Macedonia. “We're an oasis of peace,” Srebra interjected, and I had to explain that that was what our first president, Kiro Gligorov, had nicknamed Macedonia. “An oasis, a holy oasis of peace, but there will be shooting here, too, and won't we be surprised then,” our mother said, but Gary only smiled kindly, exhausted from his trip. Mom quickly took our bedding out of the room and remade the bed with a white sheet, white pillowcase, and blue blanket, the complete set she kept for guests. We said goodnight to Gary and left the room. We lay down on the empty bed in our parent's room. The next morning, our mother got up early and made fried dough pastries. The whole apartment smelled of cooking oil and yeast dough. After Gary woke and washed up in the bathroom—it didn't occur to any of
us that there wasn't any hot water in the boiler—we led him out onto the balcony. Mom had put out quite a spread: warm pastries, yogurt, tomatoes, even ajvar—probably the last of this year's pepper relish—kashkaval, bread, salami; everything in the refrigerator was arranged on the balcony table, and we all sat on the brown plastic stools. Our father was already down in the garage, but Mom kept appearing on the balcony and then disappearing again. She made coffee, brought out glasses of juice, fluttered around our overnight guest from England, sparkling, decked out in all her gold jewelry. After breakfast, Gary pulled a pocket edition of the Bible from his bag and begged us to find our Macedonian edition. Then he asked us to go to the book of Ruth and to read it aloud with him. First he read a section in English, then we read the same verses in Macedonian; that is to say, I did, because Srebra refused to read. Then we took him downtown, and after a walk through the Old Market, Gary had to catch the bus to Belgrade. Before he got on the bus, Srebra asked him in a hoarse voice from the depths of her soul, “Gary, do you know if there's a doctor in London for our heads?” “London has everything, so there is probably that kind of doctor, too,” Gary said, and then, waving for a long time, a smile on his red cheeks, he left. We went home in a strange mood, a bit sad. We knew almost nothing about him, except that he was from the Beatles' hometown, Liverpool, and that he was married with three sons, the youngest a three-year-old. He left us a family photo to remember him by, which pleased our mother. “He's a serious person,” she said. “It shows. It's no small thing to have three children, though what was he thinking, traveling here during the war?” Our father added, “God save and protect us from such people.” The incident with Gary was discussed for a long time at home, whenever guests came or Mom spoke with our aunt and uncle on the phone.

The fall examination period was approaching. We didn't have time for anything except studying. Before each exam, Srebra and I made a big hot chocolate with lots of sugar. I always sensed I passed those exams thanks to the energy-producing cocoa that we drank before taking them. Our mother left for work before us and so couldn't do the custom of pouring water on the stairs to give us good luck, as she had done for our uncle when he was living with us and attending his foreign-language course. We took exams and went to lectures, then took more exams and listened to more lectures. Everything was the same and everything was new at the same time. Macedonia already had its own governmental structures, while in Bosnia, more and more people died. One cold November day, it was announced that Croatian forces had destroyed the old Turkish bridge in Mostar. “What a bridge that was!” our father sighed. “It was so old!” Then, just before New Year's, we finally got a call from Tomče, our uncle in Slovenia. Our mother scolded him on the phone: “You disappeared for three years. We thought you died. You didn't think to call? I tried so many times to find you, but I couldn't understand the Slovenians. The whole time they were shouting
Ni
,
Ni
at me.” This is how we learned that, when the war broke out in Slovenia, Tomče had fled to Austria, to Graz, fearing he would be drafted, and he found work as a mechanic in an auto-repair shop run by a Slovene from the Austrian region of Styria. He had been living well, but didn't travel to the former Yugoslavia, because he was afraid he would get stuck in some army or in a camp. But now he was going to come back to Slovenia, he said. Things had been better for him there—he knew Slovenian, had friends, and his relatives were there. Everything would be as it had been before. It was unlikely he'd come to Macedonia, he said, until all the conflicts ended. At the end, he added, “I hope you are not siding with the Serbs.” Our mother didn't know how to answer, so she just said, “As if I care about who's for the Serbs and who's against them; what's important is that you are alive and healthy.”

At the university, Srebra and I mingled more and more during our breaks with the other students. We would sit down for a while with a group and attempt to participate in their conversations. Some were still distant, our physical defect bothering them, but we were sufficiently mindful to notice and to keep our distance from them. During the breaks, there was one group in our department that was always the same: a slim, almost bony, young woman with long thin hair, a blond beauty with large blue eyes and a modest body, a tall guy with a ponytail and small beard, a shorter guy with glasses and long bangs. There was also an older woman with a long braid down her back and a man who likely had some illness, because his left hand constantly shook and the left side of his face grimaced strangely. They were gentle and calm, spoke quietly and discreetly, always keeping off to the side. They dressed modestly, but neatly—the women didn't wear makeup and wore long skirts or wide pants that appeared old-fashioned somehow; the men wore blue jeans and inexpensive shirts. When any of them encountered Srebra and me or simply met our glances, they smiled, almost imperceptibly, discreetly. I liked this group and felt they must be good people. During one break, I dragged Srebra over to where they were seated on the top steps of the amphitheater. The older woman was holding an apple and a small knife in her lap. She was cutting slices and sharing with the others. When Srebra and I approached, she immediately offered us slices as well. We took them, thanked her, and right away they all asked us how we were, how things were going. We all already knew each other; we had been in the same department a long time, but only now were we formally acquainted. They were talking about what they were going to take with them to the monastery. They said they were planning to go to a convent for New Year's to see Sister Zlata, and to avoid the New Year's Eve craziness. They would spend the night there in peace, and then there would be a vigil. This was the second year that they were going to the convent on New Year's Eve. It felt to me as if Saint Zlata Meglenska moved in my pocket, jumping with joy when she heard their conversation. “What about you? Will you celebrate New Year's Eve?” the slim student asked kindly. “We never celebrate. We just watch television and eat
peanuts,” Srebra laughed. “It's hard to celebrate New Year's Eve with joined heads,” I said, laughing at my own expense. And they burst into laughter. “Everything is good for something,” said the older woman, and we all laughed again. How good I felt in their company! Later, Srebra said that each of them was a bit eccentric, and that if they weren't such zealots, they would really be ideal. For me, it was precisely because of this that they were ideal—they believed in God, or at least tried to believe in God. Although my relationship with God was undefined, I felt we were on the same wavelength.

“Hey, why don't you come with us?” proposed the young man in glasses. “You won't regret it.” Srebra and I felt a rush of warmth flood our shared vein. At that moment, the professor came in. “We'll see you later,” I told them. “A convent? Are you crazy?” Srebra muttered when we got back to our desk. “Please, I'm begging you more than ever before,” I whispered, and for the entire class I drew crosses, chapels, and saints with halos on my notepad. Srebra couldn't contain herself, and quietly hissed at me, “Don't you see what priests are doing in Serbia? They give their blessing to believers to go slaughter women and children in Bosnia, and you want to go to a convent.” “Sister Zlata is surely not like that… Surely…they are not all the same,” I said, defending her, even though I hadn't met her, because I wanted, more than anything, to go to the convent. “We are going,” I told Sneže and Ivan—the blond woman and the guy with the ponytail. Later, we learned that they had been a couple for years, as were the slim young woman and the guy with long bangs. On December 31, 1992, we found ourselves at the train station early in the morning. There was another young woman with the group, who had a beautiful white face, olive green eyes, and a limp in her right leg. The older woman from our department had a nine-year-old girl with her, her daughter. Another young man had come, our age, short and nice-looking, with glasses and a trim beard. We could barely find an empty compartment. The women took seats, and the men stood in the corridor. The train was loaded with passengers, and one immediately noticed the refugees from Bosnia with their small children clutching their skirts. It was loud and crowded. The train was unheated, and wind blew from all sides; only the air that we exhaled warmed us slightly. “Why are you studying law?” I asked Sneže, Marina, and Kristina. “Ah,” said Marina, “we are all children of long-established Skopje families, and, you know, we always become lawyers, judges, or jurists. Tradition! We didn't want to break the chain, so we obeyed and enrolled in law.” Sneže added, “And that's how we met each other—forced to study law rather than something better, like theology or literature.” “I've already completed theology,” said Kristina, “I'm not a student. I just go to classes. I like feeling young again, and I keep them company. Besides, I
don't have a regular job.” “That was truly an ascetic journey,” she said when we arrived. Her little girl had already befriended us and dubbed us the “Double Lottie,” from her favorite children's book about Lottie and Lisa. We climbed into three taxis, which took us up a steep, snowy road to the monastery.

We unloaded our bags in front of the convent and entered the church. All of them, except Srebra and me, bowed three times before the main icon, kissed it three times, and crossed themselves three times. I wanted to do the same, but I was afraid to pull Srebra over only to have her not want to bow and for us to teeter and perhaps even fall. Sister Zlata was reading the midday prayers. When she finished, we crossed ourselves and went outside, where everyone kissed her hand and said, “Mother, bless us.” That's what the others said to her and that's what I said. Srebra merely extended her hand, but did not kiss her. Sister Zlata smiled at us warmly, her big blue eyes sparkling like lakes. How unearthly she looked in her long black mantle: tall, firm, humble, and dignified. She was our namesake—mine and my icon's—and I felt such pride because of it. She led us into a reception room connected to the kitchen, where a warm hearth awaited us and the aroma of linden tea. She drew tea from the kettle with a ladle and offered us tin cups. A jar of honey stood on the table, and everyone served themselves as much as they wanted. “We also have coffee,” she said. “But no one reads the coffee grounds here,” she laughed, and we laughed along with her. I poked my hand into my pocket and caressed the icon.
Look,
I said silently,
her name is Zlata, just like us
. Had Zlata Meglenska brought us here, to Sister Zlata? Was this God's plan? Three Zlatas in one place. In the distance, we could hear the New Year's Eve commotion: firecrackers going off, music reverberating from all directions. We sat in a large room with a small chapel in one corner, and each of us was occupied with something: Sister Zlata was teaching Srebra and me how to make candles, Sneže and Ivan were quietly reading a prayer, Kristina and her daughter were attempting to pick up the melody of a hymn, Marina and Kosta were reading the lives of saints, and Darko, the young man with the trim beard, kept us company by making candles with us. When we finished, Sister Zlata called Srebra and me into the kitchen and said we were going to make pita. We scooped boiled beans from a large pot, while she chopped an onion, fried it, salted it, and then mixed it into the beans. Srebra and I blended the mixture. “Have you eaten pita with beans before?” she asked, and Srebra and I shook our heads. “There are many temptations in
life, but pita with beans is the greatest. Even so, we monastic people don't give it up for Lent,” she said, laughing. My eyes devoured her cheerful figure. I even gathered up the courage to ask her how people who lived a monastic life slept, so if they died during the night they wouldn't be found in some unsuitable position. “That's a good question, but it's a secret. However, since you are Zlata and Srebra, and we are namesakes, I will tell you. We sleep on our backs,” she said, “and hold a cross in our hands. If we die in our sleep, our soul skips along the cross and departs—poof—straight to God. The cross is the soul's stairway to God.” When I heard that, I immediately thought of Roza and my cross that became her soul's stairway to God. But too early, too early! “But those who marry,” she said, glancing around the room to where the others were gathered, “cannot easily hold a cross while they sleep. It's sufficient for them to sleep with their arms crossed.” “We always sleep on our backs because of our heads,” said Srebra, “but without a cross, and we can't cross our arms because our elbows knock into each other.” “You carry your cross inside,” said Sister Zlata. “You don't need another one.” Is that why Roza borrowed my cross? Is that why? She skipped along the cross to God, leaving us to mourn for her. I felt this was the right moment to show her my icon, our shared Saint, Zlata Meglenska. I pulled it from my pocket and offered it to her. I had never done that before. She held it gently, almost sacredly. She looked at it, crossed herself, kissed it, and returned it to me. “You and Saint Zlata Meglenska are already one,” she said, taking the pita from the oven. It was the most wonderful pita in the world. Just before midnight, we went to bed: the women on couches or borrowed mattresses in the room with the small chapel; the men in the other, empty, room. All night, the sounds of New Year's Eve reached us, but from a distance. They were not loud and distinct, but more like echoes of the wildest night of the year. The world was outside, but we were in a convent. Srebra and I lay on our couch by the door, and a candle in the corner illuminated the icon of the Holy Virgin. Somehow, I managed to cross my arms on my chest, and after a while, I sensed that Srebra had as well. But it wasn't easy to sleep with our arms crossed, because our elbows constantly touched and our noses itched. Our arms inched
their way down beside our bodies. We had trouble falling asleep. Early the next day, the clang of Sister Zlata's bell woke us. We dressed and entered the church, read the morning prayers, crossed ourselves, and bowed our heads. Srebra and I were new to all this, but everyone was patient, and everyone was enraptured by one love. I finally felt I belonged somewhere—that this was the world I needed. The others performed the Saint Basil's Day custom for good luck—crawling beneath the icon of Saint Basil. The small table was narrow, and I didn't think there was enough room for Srebra and me. As if reading our thoughts, Sister Zlata waited for everyone to finish, then took the icon, kissed it, and placed it on the table where the church books were kept. Now Srebra and I could crawl underneath. Srebra did not want to, both on principle and out of embarrassment, but Darko came up and said, “Nothing is by chance in this world. Everything is God's plan.” Srebra gave in and pulled me under the table, and while we passed underneath, I prayed to Saint Basil for love. I listened to my inner voice praying for health, for happiness, when all of a sudden I heard myself praying for a man. I was ashamed of myself. I was certain that Srebra prayed for only one thing, for us to be separated, for us to be freed of one another at last, but that hadn't occurred to me. Then we had free time. We went to the library, and among the many books, Srebra found Eliade's trilogy on religion, and I found Dostoevsky's story “The Meek One.” We took the books and sat on a bench at the large carved wooden table, spending some time reading. Later, all of us peeled potatoes. Sister Zlata spoke: “There are many temptations in this life. It's easier to be delivered from some, while from others it is more difficult. But we saved ourselves from New Year's Eve didn't we?” We all laughed. “And now, sitting and peeling potatoes, we think there is no temptation, but look where our hands are; they are not in the air, or on our chest, or alongside our bodies. They are between our legs, just where the devil loves! Something starts to tickle, a desire we didn't seek, but which comes unbidden, and the mind goes astray into the world of pleasure, the soul falls asleep, and there you are…sin is not far away. So, it is best if our hands never rest between our legs, but are always busy away from our bodies. See, we should sit like
this.” She sat down with her back straight and lifted the potatoes into the air, not touching any part of her body. We all tried to sit like that, but there was no way Srebra and I could sit so straight, because our heads pulled one of us toward the other; for years, we'd had pains in our necks and our backs, soothing them with our mother's Chinese balm. “It's not easy,” said Kosta; “my hands ache. It's better if I stand up.” “Exactly,” said Sister Zlata. “A person should stand, rather than sit, to work and to pray. To avoid sin, a person should stand upright.” “How much can you personally resist temptation?” asked Boro, the man with the misshapen face and the hand that constantly waved back and forth. Sister Zlata thought a moment and said, “Very little. It would be more difficult for me if I lived in the world. Here, I can pray all day, but out in the world, everything comes before prayer. If only God had had mercy on me and made me worthy of a life spent wandering, rather than a life in this palace, then, like Saint Seraphim, I would sleep not in warmth but in the cold, eating roots. If He had only given me the strength to be like Saint Catherine in the desert! If I could glorify the faith as Zlata Meglenska did…” and she turned toward me, adding, “who, for Jesus's sake, was flayed, hanged, and cut to pieces. But my children, I am far too weak for such adventures of the soul and body. For years, I have been tormented by rheumatism, and at times I get dizzy.” A hush fell over the room. I squeezed the icon tightly in my pocket. On January 3, everyone was getting ready to leave. “Come on,” said Srebra, “let's get ready.” But something was compelling me to stay. I wanted us to spend our January Christmas with Sister Zlata, in peace and love, and not at home in Skopje, where, once again, Christ's birth would need to be celebrated quickly on Christmas Eve, where, once again, we wouldn't open the door to carolers, and where, once again, Srebra and I would eat alone before Mom and Dad sat down to eat.