The Apocalypse Reader (22 page)

Mira said to him (in Croatian, the English equivalent of this): "Don't worry, later she'll be in touch with us-when you calm down."

"Yeah, when he impregnates and abandons her."

"Why do you never see the bright side? He's a good Christian."

"Do good Christians elope?"

"You should know. Jacob with Rachel and Leah."

"Oh, in that case ... Jacob actually waited awhile first-for fourteen years. These kids waited for fourteen minutes at the most." But, he was glad. Things might be easier now. At least he wouldn't have to save for her education.

Tony was a "B" student, not brilliant but steady. He helped with painting houses, and maybe he'd be an "A" student, thought Daniel, if those fumes hadn't gotten to him as well. So he owed it to his son, to send him away to college.

Daniel and Tony watched TV evangelists; Daniel liked the idea that you could worship at home, together with a million people at the same time. One Sunday morning they watched Schuyler interview a former Miss America, who had failed to win the competition in her state, and then prayed for a year, believing that God would help her, and God blessed her so that she not only won her state competition, but the nationals as well. "If you want something, believe that God will give it to you. If you want to be Miss America, pray and believe, and you'll be Miss America." That's what Miss America said, and Schuyler agreed with her and repeated it. Daniel laughed. "No matter what I believed, I could never become Miss America. I'd be lucky if I became an American. What nonsense. One more false prophet. Switch off the TV, son."

YEARS PASSED. Now and then the Markoviches got cards from their married daughter, who lived in Seattle. On Sundays, overworked Daniel needed to sleep; church was in his bed, where he celebrated Sabbath, the seventh day, in perfect rest, supine and sometimes prostrate, as if in prayer, and he couldn't keep his bloodshot eyes open. By now he'd lost most of his hair, but in compensation, grew a red beard.

Mira and Tony, now a senior at U.C., attended services at a neighborhood Baptist church. One morning, Mira said to Daniel, "Come, let's go to church, at least your English will improve."

"For that I can watch TV," he said. "Or better yet, read the word of God."

"Your soul will improve."

"If work doesn't, I don't know what will improve it. I need rest, wife, not stiff benches. My back hurts."

"Go see a chiropractor."

"But that's a witch doctor, isn't it? How can you recommend one and go to church? They are too expensive anyway. To pay to see one, I'd have to work one more day and hurt myself."

"And how do you think you'll pass the citizenship test if you can't even understand the questions?"

"Good question. Let me rest."

He fell asleep on their orange sofa and snored even before the sun set.

In the morning, he woke up Tony to go out and work. "Got to pay for school," he said. With nostalgia, he thought of the old days in Yugoslavia, where higher education was free.

They drove to Hyde Park in their Toyota pickup with ladders on top. On the way they stopped for coffee at Dairy Queen. Tony picked up a newspaper, and as they drove on, he said, "Dad, look at this, there's a war in Croatia."

"Nonsense."

"Why, look at this, in Dal) near the Danube Bridge, Yugoslav forces killed seventy-two Croatian policemen."

"Really? What else does it say?" He spilled hot coffee over his white shirt. "But that's not war," he said. "Just several dozen people killed."

"And to you that's normal?" Tony asked.

"Not normal, just not war."

"What is war then?"

"Big armies attacking each other, not just incidents."

But while he painted he was worried and absentminded. His wrists hurt, swollen with arthritis. His brush strokes often went over window sills, and he had to wipe the paint. A kid's room that was supposed to be half red, half blue, he painted all blue in quick rolls, with the blue paint dripping from the ceiling onto his paper cap and brows. He'd made a cap out of the
New York Times
.

DURING THE CITIZENSHIP test, Daniel could understand almost no questions.

"Maybe we should wait," said the officer. "You must be able to speak English to participate in our democracy. How will you know what you're voting for if you can't understand the language? Out of five questions, you got only one right, that Bush is the president."

"I know. I learn," Daniel said. "Ask more."

The officer, a middle-aged black woman, said, "All right. Who is the governor of Ohio?"

"Voinovich!" Daniel exclaimed. He knew-there were so few people from Yugoslavia in politics, and here was one. Although Voinovich was a Serb, Daniel was proud of him-it made it easier in a way to be a "vich" in Ohio. "And Kucinich was the mayor of Cleveland," he said.

"We don't have to worry about Cleveland right now," the officer said and scrutinized him. "All right, you pass. Welcome to the United States of America!"

"Thank you, thank you!" he said.

As HE PULLED out of the parking lot on Court Street, he said to Tony and Mira: "Can you believe it, the Serb governor's name saved me from flunking the citizenship test. You never know where help will come from."

"It's amazing," said Tony.

"I was so worried that you wouldn't make it," Mira said. "We are all Americans now, can you believe it? Isn't it great?"

"Sure thing," said Tony. "Except, who's going to believe Dad? He speaks English so badly."

"At least they'll believe you," said Daniel. "Especially when they draft you. You had to say you'd bear arms for this country, didn't you?"

DANIEL WAS PROUD of being an American, and as a true American, he watched the six o'clock news every night after work, and later CNN. Although he still spoke with a heavy accent and without much grammar, he understood English. And when one hot morning he got the news that his hometown, Pakrac, in Croatia was attacked by Serb irregulars backed by the Yugoslav Federal Army, he did not go to work. He tried to call his old uncle who lived on the eastern side of the Pakra river-he couldn't get through. He couldn't get through to any members of his family in Croatia. He grew anxious, and read the Bible but found little comfort.

DANIEL BOUGHT A shortwave radio and listened to the news every night. He got Croatian radio, BBC, Deutsche Welle. There was a report of the Pakrac hospital being bombed, and another of Vukovar being surrounded by 20,000 troops, and people massacred. Gradually, he managed to hear from most of his relatives, but he still feared for their lives. But even more he feared for their souls; most of them were atheists.

Vukovar fell three months later, and Daniel's life went on as usual; after work he watched CNN and listened to the pulsing shortwaves on the radio until he fell asleep.

A COUPLE OF years later the war in Croatia was at a standstill and the war in Bosnia reached a high pitch; some of Daniel's relatives from the vicinity of Banja Luka disappeared. One day as he worked and worried, painting wooden siding in a Hyde Park house among many large trees, he saw a blonde woman in a tennis skirt nimbly stretching on the floor. He gazed at her strong muscular and smoothly feminine thighs and her freckled cleavage as she bent to touch her Nikes with her fingers. Daniel's ladder shook and scraped on the wood siding.

"Oh, goodness, you'll fall if you don't watch out," she said.

"That's the problem. I watch."

"Let me hold your ladder," she said.

He was leaning over the tall window, his knees at her eye level.

She grabbed the ladder.

"Not necessary," he said. "It's firm."

"Is it?" she said and touched his crotch. Like a youngster, he got an instant erection. "Oh, that's a compliment," she said. "My husband doesn't react like that to me. Thank you, my friend." She spoke up into his crotch, and it wasn't clear to him whether she was talking to him, or to a part of him. She sounded delighted at any rate. She unzipped his jeans, and held his penis in her hands. With a brush laden with dripping white paint, which sprinkled over her hedges along the house, and another hand holding on to the bucket of paint, he couldn't defend himself, unless he said something, and he couldn't think right away what he could say that wouldn't be rude. And by the time he could think to say something, like "You are beautiful but I am a married Christian and therefore this is not the right thing to do," he felt tremors of lust and a delicious comfort in yielding to what was happening with such dexterity; her gently sliding nails made his lower abdomen twitch.