The Story of Her Holding an Orange (6 page)

“How’d you know my name?” responded my grandma, entertained by this strange man. She had already started thinking about how she’d tell the story to all her friends.

“Oh, we all know your name, Dana,” said the man as he took a step towards her. The water was now at a level a little above his knees.

“Who is we?” 

The man didn’t answer. As predictable as it’s getting, I have to tell you what the man did. Out of his oversized coat pocket, he pulled an orange.

“This is your present,” he said, stretching his hand towards my grandma although she was still at least ten feet away.

My grandmother grew up in a decently wealthy family, and fruit was hardly a luxury, so the orange certainly didn’t cause a “wow” factor with her. 

“No thanks, Mister, I’m alright,” she responded, slowly losing interest in this whole situation. “You can give it to someone else.”

“Oh, no, Dana, this one is especially for you,” he answered, tilting his head at such a steep angle that my grandma was sure his hat would fall into the water.

“No, thanks,” she responded, slowly backing up. Even though she was an adventurous spirit, she started sensing something was wrong.

“You take it, you take it now,” the man said, dropping the smile. 

Now, you have to understand, my grandma has seen some shit in her life. She lived through World War II and the Bosnian War, yet she says that even now, the man’s face that evening is the scariest thing she’s ever seen. She was a young kid with a vivid imagination, but she swears that the man’s eyes got much darker as he spoke those words. She turned and bolted. As she was about to disappear in the forest, she turned around to see if the man was coming after her. 

He wasn’t. He was still standing in the icy river, holding the orange. As she watched, the man put the orange back into his pocket, and then took a golden pocket watch out of his coat. He checked the time, looked up to the sky, as if he were checking the weather, and started walking away. Through the river, the water still past his knees, step by step, he walked away. That was enough for Grandma; she turned around and ran back to the safety of her home.

My grandmother didn’t see him again for more than twenty years. She grew up, and the man from the river became only a distant childhood memory. She would sometimes tell the story to her friends, but everyone would disregard it as the product of a child’s blossoming imagination. In time, Grandma convinced herself that’s exactly what it was, a small kid letting her mind run wild. 

In 1952, Grandma brought my mom into the world. My mom was her first child, and according to our customs, it was a huge deal for the whole family, even the extended one. Celebrations started on the very day she was born, although my grandma was kept in hospital for two more days for observation. Apparently, there were complications during the birth and doctors wanted to keep an eye on her. 

On the second night in the hospital, the man in the black suit came back. 

My grandmother had a room to herself. She was deeply asleep in her bed when a bright light woke her up. In horror movies, you see a flickering light with nobody around, only for the monster to jump at you from behind your back. Well, that didn’t happen. As soon as Grandma’s eyes adjusted to the light, she saw the man standing in the middle of the room. He wore the same black suit, now outdated by more than two decades. On his head was a ’30’s top hat, and in his left hand, he carried the same cane. His right hand was tucked in his pocket. 

She said that a hundred thousand things ran through her mind, but she remained speechless at the scene in front of her. It’s funny how, in situations like that, your brain casts around for all the information it can find, trying to make sense of things. I suppose it’s an evolutionary tool to help us survive. My grandmother’s brain was no match for the irrationality of the situation in her room, which I suppose was what left her speechless. And just as she gathered the courage to speak, she noticed something else; the man looked exactly the same as the day she met him, more than twenty years ago. 

“You did well,” the man said, smiling. He revealed his flawlessly white teeth that went along with his seemingly ageless face.

“What… what is it that you want from me?” she asked, pulling the blanket up to her chin, as if it had some sort of shielding power to protect her from this ageless man in black.

“You brought the right one, Dana,” he spoke softly. He took a step towards her, making my grandmother pull the blanket even higher, up to her nose.

“Brought who, what are you… what do you want from me?” she begged.

“You only have to take this, and it will all be over, I promise you.” He took another step towards her, pulling an orange out of his right pocket. 

“Leave, or I’ll scream, I swear,” she said, shaking from adrenalin and fear.

Apparently, that answer wasn’t what the man wanted to hear. He tilted his head to the left while his smile widened. Taking another step towards her, he stopped barely a foot away and spoke in a child-like voice, as if he were a young boy instead of a man in his forties. 

“It would be better for all of you if you took it, Dana, it really would.” The childish voice made him seem even more terrifying, though she hadn’t thought that was possible a moment ago.

“Get out!” she screamed at him, causing him to lose the smile and step back.

“Fine. He’ll take it then. He’ll serve the transfer.”

The man cocked his head back, adjusted his top hat, and walked to the door. Before he exited, he turned the light off in the room. My grandma was left alone in her bed, shaking, surrounded by nothing but darkness and fear. 

She never told anyone about this incident, until that day when I begged her for help. My grandmother said that, at the time, she had no idea who the “he” was that the man was referring to. 

After a few years of always looking over her shoulder, my grandmother let her guard down, although time seemed irrelevant to the man. More than twenty years had passed in between the first two incidents, but Grandma was only a human who wanted to forget, so she moved on.

In 1992, the man in black from forty years ago was the last thing on my grandmother’s mind. The war in Bosnia had started and my grandfather and she were stuck in a city that was being demolished by military pawns led by greedy politicians. We were absolutely helpless; no supplies were allowed through the borders of Bosnia, and the only thing we could do was talk to them on the phone. It was rough, trying to carry on a conversation while the sounds of shots being fired and exploding bombs could be heard in the background. The food supply was limited (and that’s a generous description), so people had to resort to different methods of survival.

I remember the story of my cat, Pipi. Pipi was only a kitten when we left Bosnia. We had my grandparents watch her. When the war started, Pipi’s food portions went down to barely anything, which was exactly what my grandparents were living on as well. My kitty then took it upon herself to save the family. Every day, every single fucking day, Pipi would go out and hunt pigeons. She’d bring the dead birds back to my grandparents’ apartment, proud of her contribution. And let me tell you, that little bit of meat is what kept them going through the roughest of times. All three of them. Going out was no option since snipers were shooting every person in the street, so Pipi remained their lifeline for quite some time. Funny how animals can feel shit like that. 

I digress, but that’s how bad it was in Bosnia; my grandparents relied on a kitten for food.

In 1993, oranges started appearing at my grandparents’ front door rug. First, it was only one a month, then they started finding them more often, maybe once a week. And every time my grandma would find them, she’d throw them out. My grandfather was shocked at her behavior in times of extreme food shortage, and kept asking for a reason why she thought trashing perfectly fine fruit was justifiable. She refused to answer, and after a while, my grandpa gave up and got on board with throwing the oranges out, especially when they started showing up every single day. Then, one evening, they heard a knock on the door.

Knocking wasn’t normally a bad sign. If military wanted to get in the apartment and murder the two of them, they’d do so by breaking in, not polite knocking. However, there had been an incident a few days before that started with a similar knock on their door. When they opened it, they saw four young soldiers with Muslim emblems on their uniforms. My grandparents were Serbian, which meant that, in that war, they were the enemy of Muslims. They were dragged out in front of their building and put up against the wall, ready for execution. Just as the soldiers were about to fire, Grandpa’s old friend and neighbor, who was a Muslim army commander at the time, showed up, probably coming back from combat. In short, he told the guys to get the fuck out before he executed them instead of my grandparents. They got the message, apologized, and left. I suppose you could say that my grandpa and grandma were lucky on more than one occasion.

Anyway, when they heard the knock again, my grandparents just assumed that the soldiers had come back. Two years of being in the heart of a war used up all of their fear, so they calmly walked over to the door and opened it. It wasn’t the Muslim military. It was the man. Only this time, a woman was next to him.

My grandma wasn’t able to state with certainty if the man actually didn’t age the last time she saw him. However, when he stood in front of her that night in ’93, there wasn’t a doubt in her mind - the man looked exactly the same as the first time she encountered him, more than fifty years ago. He wore the same damn suit paired with a top hat and a wooden cane. Next to him was an unusually pale woman with cherry-red lips and eyes that would pierce through your soul.

“Hello, Dana,” said the woman, smiling, paying no attention to my grandfather standing next to her.

“What the fuck is this?” demanded my grandfather.

Immediately, both the man and woman’s smiles faded away, and their heads turned towards my grandpa. 

“You may want to remain silent for this,” the man said, his voice cold and threatening.

My grandfather has been tortured, starved, and shot at, but he claims that he never felt such fear as when the man addressed him. The man and the woman turned their heads back to my grandmother, the woman tilting her head slightly and smiling again.

“Where is he?” she asked in a childish voice that didn’t belong to a woman of her age. 

“Who? What do you want? Can’t you see we have nothing?” responded my grandma in desperation. She was so drained of emotion from the years of shit she’d been through that the man and woman, at least for the moment, didn’t scare her like they should have.

“Don’t argue, tell us where he is,” said Rose. She sounded like a child being denied a toy at the store.

“Where who is?” jumped in my grandpa, genuinely puzzled by the strange situation.

“Your grandson,” answered the man. His voice was boyish but cold; my grandfather could feel the blood freeze in his veins. 

“He’s in Montenegro,” Grandpa answered, too confused to think of lying. “Why?” 

The strangers’ grins widened to inhuman proportions. They looked at each other, then turned around, almost mechanically, and walked down the stairs in perfect synchronization. 

“And don’t ever come back!” screamed my grandma after them.

My grandparents quickly went to the balcony and watched the strange couple leave. The man and the woman walked down the street with bullets flying everywhere, appearing not to give a damn about the danger surrounding them. My grandma couldn’t see that well, but she swears their heads were still tilted to the side, and they both still wore Cheshire Cat grins.

EIGHT

The Bike Trail

After this story, seemingly worthy of a low-budget Hollywood horror movie, I was even more lost. My grandmother didn’t help much; all her memories did was increase the mystery and multiply the questions. I assumed that the woman who visited my grandmother was Rose. In a strange way, I was relieved that Trish and I weren’t the only ones harassed, as crazy as it sounds. Being emotionally exhausted from overanalyzing the situation, I reached the point of not giving a fuck anymore. I could feel the stress build up in my body. How could I not? What human can go through something like this and stay perfectly sane? 

With Trish out of town, I took a day off work to get myself together the best way I knew how. I got my bike and decided to go on a long trip that would hopefully clear my mind and sweat out some stress. I decided to do a long 50-mile route from Provincetown to a city called Hyannis. The weather forecast announced possible showers, so I left all of my electronics at home and took only my helmet and some money. Ten miles into cycling, I was feeling good, and I swear, even if it was just for one damn second, I forgot about oranges.

After 30 miles or so, I hit a bike trail that led directly to Hyannis. This was the homestretch, in my mind, because the bike trail was fairly flat and easy, so the last 20 miles wouldn’t take long. That was a good thing because the weather was getting progressively worse; heavy fog had set in and I could smell the rain coming. Visibility on the trail was only about 5 feet at best, but that didn’t matter because I was literally the only biker out there. I suppose that normal people don’t do long ass trips on rainy days.

Halfway through the bike trail, I started noticing benches on the side. I’d been on this road several times before, but I had never noticed the benches. Either way, they were a good idea. The trail was long, and I guess everyone needs a break sometimes. About 7 miles into the trail, I thought I heard laughing. I squeezed my brakes and slid for a few feet on the slick trail before stopping and dismounting. I listened. Nothing. At that time, the fog was so thick, I couldn’t see more than few feet ahead of me, and rain had started coming down. I listened some more. Still nothing.