A Spare Life (23 page)

Kristina's little daughter began to cry. She had pricked her finger with the needle she was using to string beads. It seemed as though we had all been waiting for something to interrupt the conversation, and now, rescued, we turned toward her with advice or ran around seeking bandages or gauze, reacting more than the situation required, since there were only a few drops of blood on her finger. In the confusion, I managed to whisper that I wanted to go home. Apparently, Srebra didn't want to, but fortunately, Darko also wanted to leave, and said that he had to finish something for school—a difficult drawing. We left the apartment quickly and didn't come back to those gatherings again for a long time. Something had broken within me, and likely in some of the others as well, but I didn't know exactly what or in whom. I didn't feel the need to meet with them anymore. I longed to see Sister Zlata, but the others—Father Seraphim, the monks whom I met at one of the vigils at Saint Petka, and later met from time to time at our gatherings, and all those people “from the church,” whom I liked with all my heart—now became distant from me; I preferred to think about them than see them, and whenever I went to church, I lit candles for each of them, but then tugged on Srebra to leave as quickly as possible so we wouldn't need to talk or go somewhere with them. That suited Srebra, because Darko always left with us, and we would go to a café. After a while, we also started going to his house alone with him, and while we listened to music in the living room—the three of us sitting on the couch—I would turn the pages of a book or photo album, shifting my body as far away from Srebra as possible, while he put his arm around Srebra's waist or put his head in her lap so she could stroke his face, or he would simply hold her hand. I pretended not to see all this, immersing myself in the text or photographs in my hands, but I could hear Srebra's breath—right there, right next to my cheek, by my left ear—as if it were my breath, broken, swallowing the quietness that served as their private conversation. They loved each other more and more. Physical desire was literally born from the love between their souls; the arousal of their bodies was not ignited merely by sexual desire. That drive I recognized from my nights with the clown, when I wanted anything at all to enter me, satisfy me, fill me with bliss, and then,
when it was done, I felt empty and hated myself for my self-gratification, because that wasn't lovemaking, but simple masturbation. Darko and Srebra loved each other so much that it would have been the most natural thing for them to lie with each other, caressing and kissing each other, then at last, joining one another, blissful in the act of conjoining their bodies and souls, without a condom or the pill, because even at the outset they wanted to conceive a child; they were already three in one, and God was with them at every moment as well. But unfortunately, I, too, was with them, inseparable from Srebra, and now from Darko as well, aware of everything happening to them, but powerless. God forgive me, but several times I considered suicide so Srebra could be alone and finally live her own life. But what if, when my dead body was separated from hers, she died as well? What if something went wrong and they were simply unable to save her? After all, our blood mixed in our bodies across the link between our heads. If we had only conjoined legs or arms, we would have been separated long ago, since it would have been better to have only one leg or one arm and be free rather than to be whole, but have, in fact, nothing.

Srebra and Darko had been going out—or, more precisely, had loved each other—for more than a year and a half, when, on our graduation day, which Srebra had hurried along as quickly as possible, preparing me, too, for the final exam, Darko waited for us in front of the university. He had graduated several days earlier. It was a beautiful June day, warm, not too hot, the beginning of the summer of 1995. “I just came to congratulate you,” he said. “Let's get together tonight. Go somewhere and celebrate.” Srebra and I agreed to go to Café Kula, our favorite place in the evenings, and after standing around a bit with Darko, we left. “Do you feel a bit empty, now that we've finished?” I asked Srebra, with barely enough courage to say those words. “Yes, a little,” she said, hesitating. “I wonder what Mom and Dad will say.” We were walking toward the National Theater but didn't feel like hurrying home, so we stopped in front of the Kultura bookstore by the stone bridge. We went in. The mother of one of our high-school classmates worked there; she was always kind to us, and now we told her we had graduated. She congratulated us warmly and shared her regret that Biljana was dragging through school and still had some outstanding exams to make up from last year. “But you,” she said, “even as you are, you've graduated.” We walked along the stone bridge toward the Record bus stop, but I felt an emptiness inside that I couldn't express in words, nor was it clear to me why I felt it, because the fact was I had finished my law studies, which I had disliked for the entire four years. I had irrevocably lost that time to something I hated, something that had been the biggest compromise of my life. But now what? I saw no goal ahead of me. We didn't have the money for the operation we had longed for since childhood, or money to open a lawyer's office, and there was no one who would employ us, and Srebra wouldn't get her stipend any longer. What would we do? What would we live on? At home, we neither received nor expected money, though occasionally our father—sad that we had grown more distant over the years than one could even imagine parents and children becoming—pressed some money in our hands, without our mother seeing, when we went out. Accompanied by these thoughts, in complete silence, we arrived home. I knew I would find it unpleasant to say, “We
graduated,” like when you go to an office and people you don't know are there but something important has happened and you can't hold it in, so you say, “I graduated today,” and those unknown people smile through their discomfort, not knowing what to say, caught in the midst of something, but then collecting themselves and saying, “Great, congratulations.” Srebra, however, announced clearly and loudly, “Hey, we're done! We've graduated.” Our father was sitting in the dining room watching the news, and Mom was on the couch in the kitchen making some sort of wall hanging. Our father mumbled something under his breath, so quietly that we couldn't hear what he said, then went back to watching television. Our mother looked at us and asked, “So who else finished? Did everyone pass? What about that professor who apparently fails students, except when he saw you like that…” She got up and set out some cold fried liver with eggs, bread, and salad of half a cucumber sliced in a small dish on the table for us. We sat and ate—without a word, without answering her questions—quickly, enveloped in shame, as if we were intruders in the home of these people who were, by chance, our parents. We went to our room, sat on the floor, pressed our heads against the bed, and kept silent, but inside us all the anger in the world grew. Fortunately, at that moment the telephone on the wall by the bed rang. We got up. Srebra picked up the receiver, and immediately we heard Aunt Ivanka's voice. She said she was calling to learn how we had done; she'd been thinking of us all day, wondering whether we had graduated, and she was as happy as if we were her own daughters. She said we had to go visit them the next day for piroshki so she could congratulate us on our graduation. Our aunt, our mother's sister, was always more maternal than our mother. We also called Aunt Milka, and she cried with joy and kept repeating, “Auntie's lawyers.” We called our uncle, and heard in his voice how proud he was of us—he said he would immediately tell our grandma and grandpa. “We'll come to the village this weekend,” I told him, and felt an urgent need, as I'm sure Srebra did too, to sit on our grandma's lap, to have her hug us—one with one arm, the other with the other—and we would say to her, “Grandma, sing the song about the galloping horse,” and she
would sing it. Then we would stand up and turn our faces toward her at the same time, and we would shower her with kisses, and in doing this, we would nourish our souls with love.

We felt much better that evening in Café Kula, as we drank red wine sitting on a bench and chair at our table, toasting the three of us, as Darko said. There were stars in the sky, quiet jazz came through the speakers, the tables were full. Darko leaned across the table toward Srebra and me. He fixed his gaze on her, trying not to look at me at all, and said, “Come on, let's get married.” Then he repeated it: “Let's get married.” Srebra seemed to have anticipated this and turned the proposal into a question, “Should we get married?” “Yes, let's get married,” Darko said again, taking her by the hand. “How can we get married?” Srebra asked. “How can you get married?” I asked, in shock, managing to say something. And at that instant I was overcome by the most hysterical laughing fit of my life. I kept giggling, imagining it in my mind: Darko the groom, Srebra the bride, and I, with my head attached to hers, walking beside them in a long black dress. I choked with laughter and began to hiccup. Srebra, angry that I was shaking her head with my laughter, said in a loud, clear voice, “Yes, let's get married.” “Hold on, are you crazy? How do you think you can get married? What about me? What am I going to do?” “You will live,” said Darko, “just as you have lived at home until now, only now with me.” “Yes, but at home we didn't sleep with our mother and father,” I said rudely. But Darko replied, “If you love Srebra, you will do this, because God is looking at all of us.” “That's exactly right,” I said, “God looks at us and what does he think? How will you marry Srebra when she isn't an individual, when our bodies are bound together, and you can't have one minute alone together? Are you thinking about that?” “It's important for me to be with Srebra, without regard to anything else,” said Darko. Srebra added, “And all that matters to me is to be with you, without regard to anything else.” I took control of myself, and the laughter froze somewhere inside me. It had turned into a heavy lump in the center of my heart. I grasped the icon of Saint Zlata Meglenska in my pocket, squeezed it, caressed it, scratched it with my fingernails. “Are you aware of what you're asking of me?” I said to them. “Are you aware of the fact that this isn't how married life is lived, with a third person always present—never alone? Are you aware of what you are asking? What if I don't want to? Will you make me?” “Yes,” said
Darko. “If necessary,” and he forced a smile. “But you are a good sister and you believe in God. You can make this one sacrifice in your life. And listen, I promise you I will do everything possible to get you the operation to be separated, even if we have to go to the ends of the earth! Do you think this will be hardest on you? No, Zlata, you are lying to yourself. It will be me. It will be hardest for me. I will be ridiculed by everyone I know. They will call me crazy, but I don't care. I love Srebra more than myself, and I will marry her, without regard to anything else.” Darko finished his speech, heated, red in the face, holding Srebra's hands in his own. “What sort of marriage is this going to be? Do you have any idea? A chaste one?” I asked, a crumb of hope in my soul. “Yes,” said Srebra at the same moment that Darko said, “No.” “No,” Darko repeated. “We will have children, right Srebra? We will also have children? Wherever a couple is in love, God is there, and children.” “And me,” I said, as ironically as I could, unable to recover from the shock of the proposal, from the entire situation. “We will find a solution,” said Darko. “There has to be one.” He leaned across the table and kissed Srebra on the mouth, and then they rubbed their noses together, Eskimo fashion, as they did when they wanted the most intimacy between them, but, unintentionally touched me as well. I felt their breath on my face; an intoxicating sweetness came from their mouths and spread around our heads. From all the other tables in the garden, people stared at us, shocked by the sight, some with mouths agape, saying, “Whoa, look at that!” I abruptly stood up, pulling Srebra from the bench, and she moaned at the familiar pain in the spot where we were conjoined once again tearing at us like a knife. Darko left money on the table and we set off rapidly, as though escaping from a place marked, for me, by an evil deed—but the place of love's pledge for Srebra and Darko.

“We must tell our families,” said Darko, his arms around Srebra's waist. When I thought about how Srebra would have to tell our parents, I thought that when our mother and father heard about this proposal, they would either die of heart attacks or begin shouting and not allow her to do it, for them to do it. I was certain they wouldn't agree to such a scandal, if for no other reason than what our neighbors and relatives would say. They wouldn't permit the scandal of their daughter with a physical deformity, unable to be separated from her sister, marrying and all three of us having to live together. I also hoped that Darko's parents wouldn't allow it, even though they were educated and in influential positions. It was his mother, after all, who helped Srebra get her stipend. We had never met his parents, but from the things Darko said, we knew they were decent people, his mother at least. She was a liberated, open, and modern woman, he said, and his father was, in any event, away from home for days at a time. He spent his time at the planning bureau or at party headquarters; he would likely run for president of the party in the next election. They had a lot of money, Darko was always generous, and their apartment looked like something out of a magazine, with modern appliances and comfortable armchairs and couches. “My father told me he would buy me an apartment when I graduated, and yesterday we went to look at one in KapiÅ¡tec; it was very beautiful, eighty square meters. So we'll have a place to live,” said Darko, as if reading my thoughts. “You are so kind,” I said ironically, unable to hold it in. Srebra tried to say something, but Darko kissed her, again and again on the lips, while I stood there, eyes wide behind my glasses, lips pursed, waiting for the appearance of the bus that would take us back to our normal life. Our mother and father were still watching television. “You're home early,” our mother remarked. “Srebra's getting married,” I said like a gunshot, and Srebra, as if she had expected no less, said, “Yes, I'm going to marry Darko.” We went to our room before they could say anything, but didn't close the door, just pushing it halfway. If the door wasn't closed, it was a signal to our mother that she could come in if she wanted to talk to us. Our father never entered our room, except when we weren't there; whenever we showed Verče, Lenče, or Aunt Ivanka to the
door he would quickly go into the room and open the window to let in some air after the departure of our guests, who always smelled to him of something, as if they hadn't bathed, even though bathing took place only once a week in our house, too. Mom came in and sat on the bed, while we stood beside the small cupboard and acted as if we were looking for something among the decorations on the shelf. “What do you mean you're getting married?” she said to Srebra, while also looking at me. “How do you plan to get married with your heads like that? Is he crazy? What will your sister do? Is she going to be your witness?” “Yes,” said Srebra, “if necessary she'll be our witness. Darko and I are going to get married. That is what we have decided.” “You aren't thinking. Knock a bit of sense into your head. What will people say…a man living with two wives? Doesn't he have a mother and father, or are they all strange? My girl, I understand you need to go out and have a juice in a café so you are not shut up at home, but I don't understand you getting married when you're like this and incapable of marriage.” From his chair in the dining room, our father added, “They have devoured the world…as if they're going to get married. This has become intolerable.” He spoke in the plural as if I were also getting married. At that moment, I realized I had actually forgotten that we had finished our studies that day, that they hadn't even congratulated us, and that from now on, we would have to languish here with them, with no university, no Srebra's stipend, no work, no money for the operation, nothing. It occurred to me that it would be better to flee from this strange home, to go anywhere, to break away from our family. The marriage between Srebra and Darko would be out of love, and so, with them, I would at least live under normal conditions, in a normal apartment, and, in the end—with normal people. So I began defending Srebra—to her great surprise, and the shock of our parents—saying I fully supported the marriage, and that we would live together, and, I'd take three diazepam before bed if I had to, to sleep like a log so they could do whatever they liked. That's what I said, and Srebra held on to that thought. “Really, you would take sleeping pills?” she asked me later, when we were in bed, though we usually never spoke in the dark. “If I have to,”
I said. Our mother and father could be heard whispering for a long time in their room.