He was dead when they found him. He sat on the stone, his face as white as lime and smiling like an angel. I don’t know how angels smile, but that’s what Granny Tere said Nikola’s smile was like and she always goes to church so she knows how angels smile. Nikola was smiling because he was dead and wasn’t scared or ashamed anymore, so he could finally smile again, like back when he didn’t have tuberculosis. People smile when they think something’s funny but it’s nicest to smile when it’s nothing to you. Something was up, you were in pain, suffocating and worrying, and then it’s nothing and it’s funny because it’s nothing and you think there was nothing there to start with, you just got a bit anxious and thought you were in pain, suffocating and worrying.
The next day they took Nikola up into the mountain and buried him in the cemetery on Biokovo, out from which you can see the whole vastness of the sea; the sea beyond Hvar and Pelješac, beyond Korčula, beyond Vis, all the way to Italy. In the end, beyond everything there is still the ocean, but out there it gets round. When you’re up on Biokovo, when you’re at the cemetery, you understand why once upon a time people thought the earth stretched out flat: that’s because they’d never climbed Biokovo and couldn’t see the ocean is round, and if the ocean is round, then the earth is round too. I think the cemetery is built so high, right up there on Biokovo, so when the living bury the dead they can take comfort that they know what the dead didn’t. When someone in Drvenik dies, you learn that the earth is round.
Grandpa and Grandpa went to the funeral and came back all red. After the rain a fiery sun had beat down; Grandpa was furious and breathing heavily and cussing Nikola out for not dying some other day, like some sunny day so that when they buried him it would be raining, so the funeral procession wouldn’t have fried climbing up Biokovo and baked all the way down. No one cried, said Grandma. They’ve washed the shame from their hands, said Grandpa, disgusted not by the shame that was no more — by Nikola — but by the living, now all relieved there was no one in Drvenik with tuberculosis anymore.
Fine, I’ll take you to see where he died, said Grandpa and reached for his umbrella. There had been five days of rain and I couldn’t wait for it to stop. I wanted to see the place of death and was worried the highway wouldn’t be pink anymore like a melted Pink Panther. And my worry was well-placed: The asphalt was black, like any other highway. I looked around and everything looked rainy and normal, no trace of a special place for dying, no sign of anything Nikola must have left for us so we’d know where he died.
That’s where he sat down, Grandpa pointed to a white rock where the number 480 was written under a red line. It means he died on the four hundred and eightieth kilometer of the highway, but that doesn’t matter. Nikola’s gone, no story, straight to bed. You happy? We can go home now. Actually I wasn’t that happy. I was confused. I thought there would be a mark at the spot where he died; maybe the highway wouldn’t be pink but at least there’d be something giving away that someone had been there and then suddenly wasn’t there. If there isn’t something like that, then there’s also no reason for someone to die and when there’s no reason for someone to die, then the sadness is much bigger than a little cry and bye-bye. Then you would never stop crying when someone you loved died.
Why do people die?. . They die because they get old and because if people just kept being born and didn’t die there wouldn’t be enough room on earth. . It would be better if no more people were born and people didn’t die. . Why would that be better?. . Well, because then only people we know would be alive, who were good, and new people who we don’t know wouldn’t come along and make old people die. . How do you know those new people wouldn’t be better than the old ones?. . No one is better than you. . Nonsense, of course there are people better than me. There are lots of people better than me, you just haven’t met them yet. You’ll see when you grow up. . I’ll see when you die?. . Yes, you could put it that way. When I die, you’ll see how many better people than me there are. Your friends will be better, the woman you marry will be better, and your children will be better. They’ll all be better than me and one day you won’t be sad about my death anymore. . You’ll die for those better people?. . Yes, and you’ll die for those better people too. The important thing is we die in the right order and children don’t die before their parents.
He’d never spoken for so long and so quietly and calmly. He let the umbrella down and shook it out. The drops splashed all over the kitchen tiles and all over Grandma’s hair. He did it deliberately and smiled. You old fool, said Grandma without even looking at him. She doesn’t have to look at him to know why he shook the umbrella out on the tiles and all over her hair, and he doesn’t have to see her eyes to know she’s not mad. Even when he doesn’t shake the umbrella out, he knows she thinks the same thing — old fool — it’s just there’s no reason to say it aloud. They’re happy because in the rainy season when it’s tough for people with sick lungs so some people have to die, that it was Nikola who died, who no one said old fool to, and who didn’t have anyone to shake the umbrella out on. There are big crowds in places where people die; it’s like at the bus station with everyone pushing and shoving, so when you look from afar, it seems everyone wants to get on, but actually they’re pushing and shoving to not get on, to hang around until the last bus comes along, which you climb aboard because the crowd’s gone, because you’ve got a ticket in your hand and there’s no one left to say excuse me to if you stay alive.
I beg you, don’t let her jump
It was summer, wildfires burned red beneath the Biokovo range, fire-brigade sirens wailed, people ran with containers full of water, the sea smelled of Coppertone and glimmered in the colors of a petroleum rainbow, and we packed our things in the Duck, our Citroën, and got ready for the journey to Sarajevo. Grandpa had died eight months ago, I’d finished first grade in Drvenik, and now we could head happily home. Sarajevo would be home now, the time of a little Sarajevo, a little Drvenik was over. It was all over with Grandpa’s asthma too, and from now on we’d only go to the seaside as tourists. Drvenik wasn’t our home, which is what I’d thought; it was the home of Grandpa’s illness, like a hospital where you go to get well but everyone knows you’re going to die there in the end.
We’re leaving forever. I have the feeling we’re leaving forever because that’s the only explanation for why we’ve packed our winter sweaters and shoes in the trunk and we’re not leaving anything behind except the feeling we’re never coming back. If we do come back it’ll be as folks on vacation, folk just passing through, all nervy because they’re dead set on making the best out of their vacation, so they yell at each other and drag other people’s children along by the ears. I feel sick thinking that next year we’ll be tourists too, and already feel like a little German who’ll run screaming out of the water when he sees a crab among the rocks and gets marched off to the medical center in Makarska if he stands on a sea urchin. There are three tiny black dots on my big toe, three sea urchin spikes from three years ago. I didn’t tell Grandma and Grandpa I’d stepped on a sea urchin because then they would’ve heated a needle in a flame, which is a terrifying sight. It would’ve hurt like hell if they took the spikes out with that, so I tried myself with my fingernails, but they wouldn’t come out, so now I’m taking the three spikes to Sarajevo with me as a memento and proof that I’ll never be just a regular tourist.