In the end she really did fall asleep. In her sleep she wheezed like a big mouse. She breathed in through her nose, and then puffed out through her mouth. You could really hear a puff. Only she slept like this. I know because I’d already slept in the same room as all of them, lying awake as they slept. Mom was a quiet sleeper, but once she said a word in her sleep. I asked her what did you say last night? and she looked at me like she’d brought an F home from some school of hers. But even she didn’t remember her dreams because the little creature of the darkness came to visit her too. Dad slept smacking his lips and grinding his teeth. His sleeping was funny. It was like he was trying to make someone laugh with his sleeping, or like someone wouldn’t let him go to sleep unless he first made them laugh. Uncle snored horribly, and for a whole night I was seething.
But none of them slept puffing, not even Grandpa and he’d lived with Grandma for more than fifty years and he even said that in fifty years two people become very alike. But he coughed in his sleep because of his asthma.
I heard a last puff. A lot of time went by and I was waiting for a new puff, but it never came. I wasn’t really scared, but I was starting to get a little bit worried. I mean, Grandma was still breathing and she was still alive, but I didn’t think this was enough. I was worried something wasn’t right. I sat on my bed and wanted to wake her up, but for some reason didn’t dare. You need to be tough because only when you’re tough does everything work out. You’re not allowed to panic — oh boy, she’s not breathing, or maybe you just can’t see it ’cause it’s dark — I don’t know what’s going on, but somehow she’s not moving anymore. That’s it, here we go, I’m going to scream, but I’m not allowed to scream. If I scream, Mom won’t come back from Ljubljana, and I’ll be left on my own before I grow up, but that’s not allowed because children aren’t allowed to be left alone, just like they’re not allowed to kill ants, and they’re not allowed to cross the street without looking left and right. They’re not allowed to scream, that’s panicking, and I don’t get panicky, the kid never panics, my mom tells her work colleagues, and when she says it, she’s all aglow, my mom who’s in Ljubljana at the moment. The kid never panics is the nicest thing she ever says about me and if I scream now she’ll never say it again, and I’ll just be a regular kid, a kid you can’t say anything about, and I’ll spoil that story from Dubrovnik from when I was two and a half when Nano lost me at the Pile Gate and I calmly made my way to Auntie Lola’s place, the length of the Corso and around behind St. Blaise’s. I’d knocked on the door and Grandpa had opened it and asked where’s Nano? And I said Nano got lost and quickly got it in that it wasn’t my fault he got lost. They were all proud of me then, and Mom said the kid never panics for the first time, and when we got back from Sarajevo she told Dad how Nano got lost, and then Dad said my big boy and that’s how the legend began, the one they still tell to this very night when I’d rather howl, but I’m not allowed, or this whole world made up of Mom in Ljubljana and Grandma who’s not breathing in the dark will be destroyed, just like I destroy Queen Forgetful’s castle when I’m bored.
That time in Dubrovnik I did something bad. I didn’t burst out crying in the middle of the Pile Gate like other children, and I didn’t because I was scared of crying in front of so many strangers and I was ashamed about being left alone. Others would have cried and they wouldn’t have been scared or ashamed. Being scared and ashamed is no good and it’s better to burst out crying. It’s definitely braver. I couldn’t because I’m a coward and that’s why I went to Auntie Lola’s and gave it my all to remember the way, even though I’d always walked it with someone else. But I remembered. It was the longest journey I ever made in my life. When I’m a thousand years old like an old king, even then I’ll never go on such a long journey because when you’re two and a half there isn’t a longer journey than the one from the Pile Gate to St. Blaise’s.
You know, I’d never even thought about it before. I liked them thinking I was a kid who never panics, but the truth is I really am a scaredy pants and I get ashamed, and when this happens I make journeys that kids who cry in front of a crowd of strangers would never make. But my mom doesn’t cry either and she isn’t that big. She’s smaller than Grandma, Grandpa, and Dad, and she gets ashamed and is always scared of this or that. She takes her fears out on all of us, on me most of all, and we all love her when she’s ashamed. Shame is something worse than fear, but it’s nice to watch. Mom would have found her way home like me if Nano had lost her at the Pile Gate, she would have found her way back no matter how far it was, I know that for sure because you can spot fear and shame really easily, much more easily than courage, and that’s why I know Mom better than anyone else and that’s why I always know what she’s capable of. So anyway, if she knows how to get back from the Pile Gate on her own, she’ll find her way back from Ljubljana. Ljubljana is much closer because Mom is much older than me and she’ll make it back easily. She’s scared and ashamed and that’s why she can’t stay in Ljubljana, she can’t die, the bump can’t hurt her, the rules for big people don’t apply to her. Fairy tales exist for the scared and ashamed because in them people cross seven mountains and seven seas just so they won’t be scared and ashamed.
I breathed a sigh of relief. My face is wet, my back and stomach too. If I’ve cried, I didn’t cry down my back, everyone has to believe I’m telling the truth there. Grandma has to believe me too. Is she breathing? I can’t see anything, but if she’s breathing I’ll tell her in the morning that everything is fine with Mom. Actually, I won’t tell her anything because I don’t think she’ll understand, just like she didn’t understand the thing about split shadows. But I’ll show her that tomorrow, and she’ll just have to wait for Mom, she’ll have to worry for the whole fifteen days until Mom comes back from Ljubljana, and then I’ll tell her I knew the whole time. I’ll tell them all, Dad and Uncle and all those worriers on the phone who call when I’m not around, and I’ll tell Grandma, and Mom, I’ll tell them that only I knew, only I knew she had to come back. Tomorrow we’ll keep reading White Fang. I’m brave enough for any sad ending.
If only Grandma would let out a little puff, then I’d fall asleep, my first time after her.
That nothing would ever happen