A Spare Life (30 page)

Before we entered the hospital, Srebra said we should phone our mother and father. “So they're not worrying about us,” she said, and from that perspective, from abroad in London, it was natural they would be thinking of us, asking each other what we were doing, what we had done. “Let's,” I said, and after inserting British pounds, we dialed their number in Skopje from a phone booth. Our mother always answered the phone, as she did now. “Where are you? Why haven't you been calling?” she asked, but her voice was lost. It was so muffled and raspy that we barely recognized it. I felt concern weigh on my conscience. Holding the receiver to our ears under our chins, Srebra said in one breath, “We're fine. We are going to the hospital right now. They've given us a room. The doctor is really good. He said he first has to do an examination and several tests, and then he'll do the operation.” Our mother was silent for a moment, and then said, “Your grandmother died. Your uncle called this morning. So we are going there.” She choked. In shock, Srebra and I couldn't utter a word. We heard our mother say, “Bye,” and she hung up the receiver. Srebra and I stood in the phone booth in the hospital courtyard, lost, broken. Darko helped us go into the hospital. We were taken to a room with a large bed that had a special mechanism for raising and lowering our bodies, a bundle of shiny equipment beside it, a gorgeous magnolia out the window, and two green bonsai on the nightstands. The room looked more like a hotel room than a hospital room. It had its own private bath, with the largest shower stall we had ever seen, with an enormous showerhead and two small hand-held showerheads for rinsing. How could there be a stall especially made for Siamese twins and we had never seen such a thing in our lives? The nurse smiled from ear to ear as she showed us all the things in our room and in the bathroom, as though we were her guests and she had given us the nicest room, with a view of a green lawn stretching out beyond the hospital, which from the fourth floor could be seen in all its splendor. “Our grandma died,” I said, barely audible. The nurse gasped and said she was sorry, but added that such was life: old people die, young ones live, children are born. She asked us if we needed anything. We needed nothing but our grandmother, alive, like when she'd held us in her embrace and sang, “This is
the way the ladies ride, a gallop-a-trot.” They left us in peace. We lay down in the enormous bed, each with her own thoughts and tears, staring at the television without knowing what we were watching. Darko tried to make conversation, but neither Srebra nor I could get words out of our mouths. That first night in the hospital, I dreamed we were talking to our father on the phone, and he asked us, “What does the doctor say? Is there any chance?” And just as I was about to say, “There is,” Srebra moved the receiver to her ear and said rapidly, “There is and there isn't.” Then our mother grabbed the receiver and shouted, “So why then have the operation? Why can't you just go on as you had before? You're just there for the hell of it. There are people who go around with no legs or arms. You have everything, but you still think it's not enough.” But I repeated, as if in a trance, “We have nothing! We have nothing!” and Srebra added, “Please, I beg you.” Then she put down the receiver, and in our anxiety, we both wet our pants. When I woke up, I immediately felt the sheet beneath me to see if it was dry. I thought about how our grandma must have already been buried without us, and how we would never see her again. The doctor came in. The tests began, conducted by a team of twelve doctors and nurses, both men and women. What did they not do to us? What did we not endure for those three and a half weeks of both painful and interesting experiences? We gave ourselves over completely, acting as if nothing hurt, as if nothing bothered us. “What obedient girls,” a doctor said. “Very Balkan,” added our doctor, and he laughed. He had this irony in him, as well as a sense of humor that made anything forgivable. He was a neurosurgeon, an intellectual who allowed himself both humor and irony, everything in the service of the relationship he was building with us. A nurse came in with a razor and said they would have to shave our heads. As the nurse shaved me, I felt my head getting smaller, as if it were becoming smooth and round as it never had been before. Even the nurse was surprised by what she saw. “You have such small heads,” she said. “They're so Jewish!” When we looked at ourselves in the mirror, we saw two strange faces, unrecognizable at first. We each looked first at herself and then at the other, and saw how much the hair determines a person's look. Now, with no hair, we
looked funny, almost grotesque. “Your hair will grow back, I guarantee,” the nurse said and then bit her lip slightly, as if realizing that she shouldn't have said the words “I guarantee.” While she might be able to guarantee our hair would grow back, she couldn't guarantee anything else—the outcome of the operation, for example. But she had guaranteed our hair would grow back normally, if… When he saw us, Darko laughed happily, looking relaxed. In fact, Darko laughed the whole time we were in London, as if he had swallowed some happiness medication. He tried to get us to relax, take away our worries, infuse us with hope. He laughed in a joking way or in a simple, childish way. He even went as far as to flick little stones and blades of grass at us. He scampered around, teasing, sparkling with optimism, trust, and faith in God. I think Srebra had forgiven him for everything, everything, and she seemed to have forgiven me as well, though she didn't speak to me at all. Over the course of those weeks, Bogdan rarely came to the hospital. I felt heavy in my soul asking myself why, but at the same time asked myself why I expected him to come every day like Darko did. Darko was Srebra's husband, while Bogdan was nothing to Srebra and me, after so many years in which we hadn't thought of each other. Why did I miss him after the one night in the hotel that we spent talking and talking and talking? Days later, an hour after we went into the operating room and were left alone to get accustomed to the room, to talk, and to see Darko, Bogdan also came. “Here?” Srebra was asking uncertainly. “Yes, here,” the nurse confirmed, adding, “Don't worry, we'll sterilize everything again. Just relax and spend some time together.” The operating room was enormous, like a high-school gymnasium. It was bright and equipped with the most modern medical instruments and machines.

It was Friday, September 13, 1996. “Friday the thirteenth,” Srebra said that morning. “Yes, how did it happen to land on that date? Still, the evil eye won't get us,” I said, thinking how our superstitions had come from our childhood, when, along with Roza and the other children, we would grab our hair whenever we saw a dead sparrow, or make a wish and count to three when an airplane flew over us, leaving a white line in its wake, or we would shout, “Pu-pu, mother from the grave, serpent in the grave,” or we would say, “I swear to God,” even when we hadn't told the truth, or we avoided utility poles and didn't walk under the wires lest some misfortune befall us, or we took care not to step over someone's leg because that would keep us from growing taller, or, in the village, our grandmother would tell us not to look at each other in the mirror before bed or we might be married off by a Gypsy, and we shouldn't light a fire before going to bed, because of the village superstition that the head of a match could make you wet yourself. There were many, many habits against superstitions from our childhood. But Friday the thirteenth had never been a part of that, for the simple reason that dates didn't interest us, especially during the summer, when time flowed like sweat in the Skopje heat, or like a village game, without end. It was September 13, 1996. Bogdan tumbled into our room, eyes aflame. How handsome he was! It was only now I noticed how good-looking Bogdan was, what sort of man he had become, his body firm under his tee shirt, which read “Love your shit as you love yourself,” and his legs firm under his blue jeans. He carried a large plastic bag. He said, “Hi, I'm sorry I'm only just getting here, but I had so many things to do.” Then out of the bag he pulled his hotel bed-warming jumpsuit and quickly put it on over his clothes. While we lay on the bed, propped up with pillows and staring at him, he hopped onto the bed. First he got in beside Srebra, pushing her over to my side, and covered the bed with his body in the jumpsuit. Then he jumped around to the other side, to my side, but I was already at the edge of the bed, so he lay down on top of me. Srebra automatically pulled her body as far away as our heads allowed. Bogdan lay on top of me, just for a second, then jumped up, saying, “There, I've warmed you and your bed. Now they can do the operation, and I can give back
this suit because I'm not going to be a bed warmer anymore.” I was confused, but Srebra laughed and said, “You're crazy.” Then Darko came back into the room. He had been with us since early in the morning, and he sat down beside Srebra and stroked her face, and for an instant, his fingers also touched me. I immediately touched the icon of Zlata Meglenska in the pocket of my nightgown, and once again thought about how I would have to part with the icon, because we had been told very clearly we couldn't have anything on us, no rings, earrings, or anything. We would be under deep anesthesia and would be naked, and there could be nothing else in the room, not a scrap of fabric, nothing, not even my glasses, and when we awoke, we would already be in our room or some other room in the hospital where all our personal effects would be waiting for us. A crazy idea went through my mind. I took the icon from my pocket and handed it to Bogdan, saying, “Keep this for me until the operation's over.” He took it and looked at it in his hand as if some image from his memory had flashed into his mind. He held it, seeming to not know what to say. “Just until the operation is over,” I repeated, and he nodded. Soon the nurses came in and began to get the room ready. Bogdan appeared perplexed; he held the icon in his right hand, and with his left, he waved and said, “Good luck.” Then he darted from the room. Darko first kissed me on the cheek, then bent over and kissed every inch of Srebra's face. His breath smelled of Orbit gum with a hint of watermelon. Suddenly, my mind seemed to expand, and I saw Srebra and me seated in Grandma's yard, holding big slices of watermelon, “the heart,” as the older folks called it—the part they usually gave to the kids—and the juice flowed down between our legs, between our knees. It dripped all over us; our shorts were spattered; we ate and ate the red watermelon, and the smell of watermelon floated in my thoughts. I would fall asleep to the smell of watermelon, and perhaps Srebra would too, and we would wake with separate heads, separate lives. The nurse coughed discreetly; Darko pulled away from the bed, stood up, and said, “I'll have my fingers crossed for you.” He left the room, and Srebra and I were silent. It was as if we both wished to say something. Yet we remained silent. It seemed obviously pathetic to say, “Forgive me” or
“Good luck” or to make a joke, even ironically. So we were silent, and then the whole medical team was beside our special operating table, as well as another hundred or so doctors and nurses. Our doctor said, “There are a hundred people gathered here, just because of you,” then he added, “Have you decided whom we should save, if we can only save one?” I said, “Srebra! She has a husband, she wants to have a child, she wants to be a lawyer…” Srebra interrupted me. “Zlata. Until now, she hasn't had anything of her own. Let her have her way for once.” The nurse handed us a document to sign. I grabbed it as quickly as I could, and circled Srebra. Then I signed it. Srebra had no choice and signed it as well. Then our neurosurgeon angel stood over us and, with a smile, wagged his finger like at a child, saying, “Now don't you go and not survive on me.” Injections followed, and a quiet, intoxicating plunge into sleep, into a state of peace, calm, blessing, nonexistence.

I did not witness anything that happened during this time, anything that happened to us, to me, or to Srebra. I heard everything from other people—Bogdan, Darko, our doctor. For the entire two days of the operation, Darko and Bogdan waited in the hallway. Only they know how they passed the time, which must have seemed to stretch into an eternity, an exhausting and powerless eternity. They slept in shifts on the benches in the hallway, and no one reproached them. On the contrary, a nurse brought them two sheets to cover themselves and offered them coffee and water. On Sunday morning, Bogdan left the hospital for a short time and took a bus to Manette Street in Soho, to the chapel of St. Barnabas, which the Macedonian Faith Association sometimes rented for holy services and whose chapel housed a center for the poor and homeless. The church was open, and a priest was celebrating the liturgy in Macedonian inside. It was the name day of Saint John the Baptist. Bogdan took my icon, clasping it in his hand throughout the service, and, as the city clock in Soho chimed ten, the liturgy ended. He looked around to see if anyone was watching, but the few worshipers were already leaving the church, and the priest wasn't behind the altar, so Bogdan walked quickly down the left aisle and stuck my icon under the left altar door, crossed himself, and hurried away. He had no idea why he did it. It just occurred to him. He thought that if he put the icon in a church, God would have mercy on Srebra and me, and the operation would succeed. At critical moments people do unconsidered things. I had told him to keep it for me, but he left it in the church. He couldn't carry the weight of the icon's might alone; he needed God's strength, and in London it was only at St. Barnabas where God was glorified in Macedonian. When he got back to the hospital, upset and worried by what he'd done, he was vacillating between repentance and approval of his actions. Darko was waiting for him in the hallway. “They're about to tell us,” Darko said. “A nurse came out and said, ‘It's all done.' We just have to wait a bit for the doctor to wash up.” Indeed, after a short time, which seemed like an eternity, the doctor came into the hallway—tired, disheveled, unshaven, dejected, forever aged. He said to them, “Srebra did not survive.” “Srebra did not survive, and Zlata is still uncertain. Her life is
hanging by a thread, but the bleeding stopped half an hour ago, and we might be able to save her.” No one said, “Srebra died,” only “She did not survive.” This wasn't clear to me when I awoke, and after avoiding the question, “Where is Srebra?” for a long time, I was told the same thing. “Srebra did not survive.” “She bled every last drop,” one of the nurses said. The doctor clouded over at the remark, and, holding my hands, he said, “We separated you. The vein was on your side. We transferred Srebra's blood to a different vein. There was no longer any connection between you. A hand could pass between your heads, but a moment later you both began to bleed. No matter what we did to stop the bleeding—and we did everything, everything—Srebra wouldn't stop. At one point, just at ten o'clock, her heart stopped, but you were bleeding less, and slowly you bled less and less until, at 10:25, it stopped. You survived. Srebra did not survive.” I moved between states of unconsciousness—dream, or intoxication, I don't know which—a state of falling, almost hitting bottom in a deep chasm in which all that could be heard was the echo of a word:
No. No no no
… Later, perhaps the next day, Darko came into my room. He wept with his head in his hands, repeating, “Srebra did not survive. Srebra did not survive.” The nurse immediately led him out. After that, the doctor wouldn't let either Darko or Bogdan into my room for several days. He sat beside my bed, always there when I awoke from half sleep, half unconsciousness. Before he would leave the room, he unlocked the door. In a moment between delirium and reality I thought, “I'm locked in,” but, as if reading my thoughts, he turned and said, “Zlata, the hospital is flooded with journalists. There are even some from Macedonia. I have to protect you.” “Where is Srebra?” I muttered, and it was that instant I realized that Srebra did not exist, that she would never exist again. “She's in the morgue. You will leave together. Everything is arranged. You need to get a bit stronger. Another two or three weeks.” I would fall into the delirium of a therapeutic sleep and then awaken. A blunt pain throbbed above my temple, at the spot of the operation, but it wasn't physical pain, but spiritual, the pain of my—of our—life. For the rest of my life I would continue to feel Srebra's head next to mine. My
head was wrapped completely with a thick casing of bandages. I was dazed, only half alive, without the strength to cry or to think. But in one of those eternal seconds, I remembered the icon. I desperately needed my little icon; it was the only thing I could grab onto, like a straw. Bogdan came in, his face frantic, aged, dejected. “The little icon,” I whispered, “Did you save it for me?” He nodded, but didn't give it to me. I was too weak to ask him any more. I fell into a delirium and awoke for just a few seconds. When he next came, he gave it to me without a word. One side was chipped. A small piece of wood had broken off, as if it had been caught in a door. But I didn't ask what had happened, because I had no strength to ask. He told me Darko was gone; people from the Macedonian embassy had taken him away—he was at the end of his strength and had begun to fight with the journalists in the hallway. But he, Bogdan, was here, and would remain here, with me.