Read Mama Leone Online

Authors: Miljenko Jergovic

Tags: #Fiction, #Literary

Mama Leone (36 page)

BOOK: Mama Leone
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And then the war began, and one September morning during the first siege Lotar found a note under the door: “If you want to know. I'm in Madrid. Gita.” She'd probably been scared of the war and had left Lotar a message, anxious as to whether in Madrid too there would be someone to desire her lone kiss. Gita was already fifty years old, which Sarajevo eyes didn't notice but maybe Spanish eyes would, and Gita wouldn't be Gita without a kiss; she'd never make it alone in a world without her humiliated men.

So now, whether Lotar hoped his waiting was finally over, that Gita had tired and exhausted herself and was waiting for him in Madrid with her love, or he simply couldn't imagine staying on in a city where Gita wasn't, it's hard to say, but from that day on Lotar began planning his escape from the city to Spain. He didn't have any money, nor did
he have a passport, and didn't know how he might acquire one or the other either. A giant alone in his own city. He started to skip sevenths of the month, his kidneys and ribs hurt, and with every day that passed following Gita's message, Lotar aged more and more. His hair turned white, his muscles no longer smooth and taut, more and more people would pass him by, blind to his strength. Only one thing remained as monumental as Trebevi
ć
: his will to go to Madrid, to his Gita, for a second kiss.

Two and a half years after the war started, Lotar vanished from the city. Before leaving he'd tried to borrow money for the journey, but no one wanted to lend it to him; people were sure that there was no returning from such a journey. He tried to get a passport, but they didn't want to give him one of those either, he was still strong enough to fight and his love held no sway with the authorities. No one was surprised that Lotar left in spite of all this. People knew that when it came to getting to her, what existed between he and Gita allowed no obstacle, even when she was as far away as Madrid.

No one ever found out how Lotar made it across Bosnia, how he made it across all the countries that stood in his way, the manner or mode of how he traveled, or how he never encountered a single customs officer or policeman. What is known is that he appeared like a ghost at a police station in suburban Madrid, skinny, barefoot, and covered in scabs. He took the first policeman by the hand and said
Gita Danon, por favor
, the man took fright, Lotar repeated
Gita Danon, por favor
, and the whole of the station gathered, and backup arrived too,
as did an ambulance, and Lotar stubbornly repeated
Gita Danon, por favor
; it took the Spaniards half a day to work out that he didn't know a word of Spanish, so they tried in different languages, in German, Italian, English, and French, one even tried to address him in Hungarian; Lotar shook his head, clasped his hands in prayer, or took people's hands in his and repeated
Gita Danon, por favor
.

A man in a white hospital coat took him by the arm and led him out of the police station,
Gita Danon, por favor
, Lotar gazed out the window of the ambulance, the man held his hand, and he glided through Madrid as if in a film, as if in someone else's life, Lotar hunted the faces of passersby, hoping he'd see Gita; instead he spotted a billboard for a charity event, on it a photograph of Sarajevo's razed National Library.
Sarajevo
, said Lotar,
Sarajevo?
the man in the white coat gave a start,
Sarajevo
, Lotar confirmed,
Gita Danon, por favor
, and clasped his hands.

Lotar lay in a hospital bed. His heels poked out through the bars. So frail and with his bushy beard he looked like the long-dead branch of a magnificent tree. A kindly older gentleman approached his bed, behind him followed a policeman and a doctor, the man sat down next to Lotar, Lotar opened his eyes,
Gita Danon, por favor
, the gentleman put his hand on Lotar's shoulder and said to him in their language
are you from Sarajevo? . . . I am . . . When did you get here? . . . Yesterday . . . From where? . . . From Sarajevo
. The gentleman's eyes began to glisten the way the eyes of Bosnians who've lived for twenty years someplace far away glisten when a dying man says that he has just arrived from Sarajevo.
I'm looking for Gita Danon
, Lotar tried to sit up,
she's from Sarajevo, and
now she's in Madrid, I have to find Gita Danon, she's waiting for me, and I've been waiting twenty years and some for her
. The gentleman nodded his head,
we'll turn Madrid upside down if we have to
, Lotar didn't believe him, but he was too tired to move.

That night in Madrid the strongest man of our city lay dying. This you have to know because you'll never meet such a man again anywhere. There isn't one anywhere in the whole world, not where you live, and not in Sarajevo were you to go looking for him. Yes, Lotar lay dying, the one and only Lotar, the Lotar who had ripped Dino Krezo's ears off and beat him to a pulp on the cobblestones in front of the medical school, as well he should have, when it was for Gita's honor.

In the morning he never regained consciousness. He didn't even wake when the gentleman from the day before came in, nor when Gita Danon came in after him, crouched next to his bed, and placed her hands on Lotar's enormous elbow, he didn't even wake when she said
my darling Lotar, I wore myself out, you don't need to wait for me anymore, I've come to you
, he didn't even wake when she kissed him long on his gray lips. But listen well to what I'm telling you now, only Gita Danon knows whether Lotar's lips moved back then, only she knows whether it was too late for love or whether it had remained forever. If you meet her, don't ask her anything because she won't say, she won't say hello, Gita doesn't respond to greetings, because she broke a thousand hearts for a single Lotar.

BOOK: Mama Leone
12.87Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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