A Spare Life (24 page)

After that, everything happened very quickly. Darko and Srebra decided to hold the wedding ceremony on July 9, in the church in Krivi Dol, followed by lunch at Café Kula. They would invite our closest friends and relatives. Srebra and I raced from one boutique to the next looking for a wedding dress. Everyone looked at us in horror, not knowing whether we were joking. In the end, Srebra selected a beautiful white dress with a veil for her hair. As for me, I insisted we get a black dress for me, and I found one at the Una boutique. It was long, with bell sleeves, just like the wedding dress, but black. Srebra didn't dare contradict me. The engagement ceremony was short and almost funny. Darko and his parents came to our apartment without the traditional gifts. “That's how it is being done in our neighborhood,” Darko's mother said, a fairly young, well-put-together woman. “Engagement gifts have become village stuff. Who can be bothered with it?” she said, smiling embarrassedly, as if sensing our mother would still be interested in such gifts. Darko's father took out an envelope and handed it to me. Inside were one hundred German marks. “For our new in-law,” he said and laughed. “I do not know how this will all turn out,” Mom said. “You have just the one son, but I see you didn't talk him out of it. He decides to marry Srebra and that's it, with Zlata tagging along.” “We don't have time to concern ourselves with such things,” Darko's father said, laughing again. “The country needs to get itself in order, so let the young people live as they see fit. They will get the apartment together; they will find their way. I'm already looking for work for Darko, and with his salary they will make ends meet. We are here for them.” “They are educated and know for themselves what's best,” his mother added, and I didn't know whether to take that remark as negative or positive. Darko and Srebra exchanged engagement rings while sitting down so that I wouldn't have to stand up with them, but they were too embarrassed to kiss in front of the others. I closed my eyes anyway. Then they all left. Our mother and father had resigned themselves to their fate, or at least that is how it appeared. Our mother said to Srebra, “What do you need a wedding for? Look, now you're engaged. Just go to city hall and be done with it so people don't make fun of you.” But Srebra said she and Darko
wanted a small celebration with their closest friends and family, there was no reason to hide anything, and they wanted to get married in a church. The closer it got to the wedding—when the invitations had already been sent—the angrier our mother became. She said, “What are we going to do at the wedding? I don't have teeth. I'll be sitting there ashamed while people stare at me. Big shots from the party will probably be invited. Your aunts will come, your uncle, maybe your grandmother. That's enough. It will be best if we just stay home.” I was shocked. It was true that for months, she had complained that she couldn't get used to the dental bridge she had been given after her teeth were destroyed by periodontal disease, and she usually didn't wear it at home but she wore it at work, which meant she could put it in for the wedding day as well. Several days before the wedding, Srebra and I were at the shopping mall and nearly ran into our aunt, the wife of our father's brother, whom we had not seen since the short meeting in the convent when we were visiting Sister Zlata. “Oh, what are you doing here? How are you? What's new?” she asked us kindly. I think she was the nicest person in our father's family, our might-have-been extended family. Without skipping a beat, Srebra told her she was getting married and added, nearly shouting, “Come, Come!” She explained where the wedding would be and to whom she was getting married. Our aunt looked at us in shock, confused, in disbelief. But she took the extra, unaddressed, invitation that Srebra kept in her purse. She didn't say whether they would come. “Tell Auntie Anka to come, too,” Srebra called after her as she walked away. “Are you nuts?” I asked. “You think they are crazy enough to come? Aren't you the one that said you never wanted to see them again in your life?” “It's what Dad would want,” she said.

On July 9, 1995, Srebra and Darko were married in the church in Krivi Dol. All our friends from the convent trip were there, as were our aunts, our uncle, and our grandmother. Darko didn't do many of the old wedding traditions. He did not “take” Srebra from her home, nor did we sing the traditional wedding song, “The Cherry Tree Has Been Uprooted,” to avoid people laughing, as our mother said they might. Then we all went to the registry office. The registrar threw a fit and complete chaos broke out because we hadn't told her what the situation was and she hadn't known we were like this. “With those heads,” she said, and had she known, she would've asked her boss if it was even possible to register Srebra and Darko's marriage, but now it was the weekend and there was no one to ask—her boss had gone to his cottage, where there was no telephone. We stood and waited for them to be registered. The registrar screamed, threatened, spoke spitefully; she didn't want to register them. Darko's father finally got so annoyed that he picked up the phone from the desk without asking, dialed a number, explained the whole situation to someone, and requested that the situation be resolved immediately. “We need to wait a bit,” he said, so we waited in the hall while the registrar, shaking, closed the door behind her. After half an hour, another registrar came, but rushing in with him were several video and photo cameras. The registrar immediately began the ceremony, and there was simply no time to chase away the cameras, because Srebra and Darko had already said yes, and I bent down with Srebra so she could sign her name. Then she and Darko kissed beside my face, and Darko's breath smelled acrid from the acid that had collected in his stomach. We all left, making way for the other brides and grooms who were boiling with anger, waiting with their guests in the hallway. Darko's father swung at one of the cameras, but the cameraman was clever, and in just a few steps, he had run from the building with the others following him. We climbed into the cars and set off for the church in Krivi Dol. The priest gently pushed away the cameramen so they couldn't come in, and not even Darko's father argued with them there. The venue was so holy and solemn that even our father, who was fuming with rage, held his peace. Our grandmother cried with happiness and sadness, and for us, she
was the most important person at the wedding. Our grandfather had stayed behind to take care of the animals. In the church, I walked quietly alongside Srebra, participating in the whole wedding ritual with Srebra's veil tickling my face. It fell across my right eye; the bridal crown grazed my head as well. Several times, we accidentally stepped on each other's long gown. Darko was glowing with happiness and from the candles shining in front of the icons; Jesus Christ and the Virgin Mary looked over us kindly. The corners of my icon, sewn into the inner pocket of my dress, poked me. I prayed silently to all the saints to forgive my sins and give me the strength to endure. We got back into the cars and set off for Café Kula, where the caterer was waiting for us, since the café didn't prepare food. The whole garden was reserved for Darko and Srebra's wedding. One of the cameramen had driven behind us, but he no longer dared to get out of the car, filming us through the open window as we got out at the parking lot by the shopping mall. “Where are you celebrating the wedding?” he shouted, and for some reason, I shouted, “At the Kula.” Srebra pinched me on the hip, causing a bruise that lasted for days. We sat at assigned places at tables arranged in the shape of a V. We were on “our” bench, Darko on a chair beside Srebra. Grandma was seated next to me, then our mother and father, then all our relatives. Next to Darko were his parents and relatives, and at the ends—our friends. We ate and drank, a bit mechanically. No one was in a celebratory mood. The sounds of jazz came from the speakers. The afternoon was hot; we sweated under the parasols, drank, and brushed away flies that stuck to our bare arms. Srebra needed to go to the bathroom, and we set off for the small toilet in the café, which barely accommodated us in our dresses. “Are you happy?” I asked, but she responded, “Are you?” “Look, your wish from the fortune-telling game has been fulfilled,” I said. “Do you remember? You wanted to get married at age twenty-three and have a husband whose name began with
D
who was rich. Now you just need two children and to move to London…that is, we need to move,” I laughed. “You remember all that? I had forgotten,” she said, and asked me, “So, when are you supposed to get married, according to the game?” “I was supposed to marry last year,” I told her. Srebra gulped down her
spit. We returned to the garden, our dresses a bit wrinkled, and saw them coming in from the parking lot—our father's brother and sister with their families, all dressed up, large presents in their arms, unsure in their gaze or their gait, with their children behind them, two younger ones, and our other cousin already grown up, clothed in shiny dresses and pants. They tentatively entered the garden, while Srebra and I stood frozen, like two stone dolls. They came over and congratulated us, Srebra and me, as if we had both gotten married. They kissed our cheeks, squeezed our heads, the children looking at us with curiosity and happiness. Then Darko stood up from the table and came over to introduce himself. He greeted everyone with kindness and sincerity, pinching the kids' cheeks, though he had no idea who these people were—we were too confused to introduce them to him. We didn't know our uncle and our cousins from our father's sister's side at all—and in that moment, amidst all the confusion, we saw our father, pale, mouth open, repeating his brother and sister's names, using their nicknames, as he had called them in his childhood, as tears fell down his cheeks; his hands shook; he kissed the nieces he had never met and turned to Srebra and me, introducing us: “This is your uncle and this is your aunt,” then all the others in turn, while we pretended we were seeing them for the first time, that we hadn't even known of their existence, and had forgotten that once in our childhoods our aunt turned up, this dark-haired woman who now had a husband and two children. He also introduced us to our other aunt—his brother's wife, whom he was just meeting for the first time, but whom we had already seen three times in our lives. Then Mom came over, pale, almost yellow, on the brink of one of her fainting spells. She collected herself, greeting everyone, quickly finding them places at the table, and having food brought over. They sat down, and we returned to our places, but our father stood behind them, behind each one for a moment, his hands on their shoulders trembling so much that it looked as though he was massaging them, each person individually, or two at a time. Tears ran down his cheeks while his brother, sister, and their families, who had been driven away from him, sat motionless, heads bowed, almost ashamed—but from what?—and they seemed to be waiting for
the wedding to end as quickly as possible so they could leave, definitively, forever. Our other aunts, uncle, and grandmother went up and kissed them. Their arrival at Srebra's wedding constituted forgiveness. We were all convinced that from now on, both our father and the two of us would finally have a normal family—that they would make peace among themselves even though they had never personally quarreled. While our grandfather had been alive, it was his wish that the brother and sister not speak with their older brother. But that grandfather was no longer alive, so they could be brothers and sisters again. They could belong to one another again. This was an important event for all of us, a historic event for our father, even more important than Srebra's wedding.

The cake arrived at last. All three of us stood. Srebra and Darko cut the cake with a knife but didn't dare to rub it in each other's faces, as was the custom at weddings. The cake was melting on our plates, so we ate quickly, wanting everything to end as soon as possible, although that is what I feared most. I would then have to go home with Srebra and Darko to live with them and be a part of their marriage. The strains of “Moscow Nights” began to play. All three of us swayed by the table, not daring to dance as a threesome. Our mother was on her feet, a bit tipsy from the beer she always drank when we went visiting or at weddings or other celebrations, but even more by the presence of our father's family. She spun around the tables, dancing alone; her face was not joyful, but clouded and furrowed. That song was my only memory of the music that played over the speakers at Darko and Srebra's wedding. Our mother dancing, our father trembling in the July heat like a branch in the wind. Srebra's wedding was the most important day of our father's life. Srebra and I stood to toss the wedding bouquet. Although we stood with our backs turned, the bouquet didn't fly toward the guests but landed on my head, tangling in Srebra's veil. Some of the guests choked with laughter but stifled it immediately. No one clapped; no one yelled. Darko untangled the bouquet from our heads and handed it to me. It was all so grotesque. I thought it was good there were no journalists nearby. The guests began to get up to leave. Our father's brother and sister were among the first. They said goodbye to everyone, shaking hands like a departing delegation, and then nearly ran toward the parking lot and their cars, quickly vanishing. Our parents also stood to leave. Our grandmother pressed our mother to stay a bit longer. “Come on, we're going. It's enough,” our mother said to her. “Whatever fate has in store for them now, so be it.” We hugged our grandmother, our aunts, our uncle, but not our mother and father, though we sensed our father wanted to hug us. What prevented him at that moment? We were leaving our home, their home, forever. We parted like strangers. Now they would be alone in their apartment, in the kitchen by the small woodstove, in the dining room in front of the television, in the big room. They will rarely go into our room. They will not have to pay high telephone bills, or large
bills for the electricity and water. They will continue to heat the boiler once a week, without exception. It will suit them. They'll be calm, their hearts beating evenly, their nerves growing stronger. Will they talk about us? Probably, the way one speaks about the neighbors' children, or people at work. Can one talk that way about one's own children? I don't know.