II
It was the beginning of September, kids were going back to school, beauties in bright dresses displayed their summer tans for all to see. Kosta was hurrying home from work and for the first time the thought happened upon him that he didn’t love her anymore. It terrified him like a wet dream terrifies a bashful monk. We have only one life, and he knew he’d spend his on the route between home and work, moving his wife from the bed to the wheelchair, from the wheelchair to the toilet seat, and from the toilet seat back to the wheelchair. . That afternoon, for the first time, Kosta sensed his own mortality and that this was how it was going to be until death.
Not knowing what to do, he called a meeting of the homeowners’ association.
Ensign Pehar turned up with a bottle of slivovitz and two shot glasses. He poured one for himself, took a little sip, and then poured one for Kosta. They sat in the laundry room until it got dark outside, drank slivovitz, and waited around killing time. They exchanged a few general observations about stairwell hygiene and the security situation in the building. Pehar raised his index finger and said our strategy has to be. . and then let his hand fall dismissively, not knowing how to finish.
My wife’s an invalid, said Kosta. . I didn’t know. In that case I wouldn’t have saddled you with this. . It’s okay. At least I get to be president of something. A couple of hours here and there. . You work. She must be on her own all day. . I can’t do anything about that. I don’t have anyone to keep her company. Neither a hare nor a hound, as we say. Everyone we used to know around here is either dead or scattered someplace abroad. And then when we were on our own, the accident happened. On a zebra crossing, the light was green, not that it mattered. We made it through the whole of the war and then this, on a zebra crossing. . I’ve got something for you, Pehar whispered confidentially. Kosta looked at him, downed his slivovitz, and said he had to go.
The next day the ensign brought the dog over. He was four weeks old, lost his balance when he walked, and whined nonstop. We’ll call him Željko, said Rajna. . But that’s a person’s name. . There isn’t anyone here to complain. He can be Željko.
The first few days the dog pissed all over the apartment and took a dump in the most unusual places. Kosta cleaned and wiped up after him, and Rajna thought it was all too funny, like the three of them were in a sitcom where every mishap and misfortune just made people laugh, contented. The first month Željko was a little bigger than a fattish cat, the second he looked like a regular dog with disproportionately huge paws, the third he was already so big that when he tried to sit in Rajna’s lap he tipped the wheelchair over. He kept growing even after he looked like an average-size Saint Bernard, and after nine months he looked more like a calf disguised as a dog.
He had a bovine nature too. Hopelessly devoted to Rajna and Kosta, he was scared of everything else: dogs, cats, children, people. He scampered away like they were aliens, aliens who might be stronger than you, or smarter as well, but you weren’t sure, and who might turn you into a pumpkin, a mouse, or something even more terrible as an experiment. Kosta took him for long walks in the park and called out after him — hiding in a bush, under a car or a bench — because some little munchkin had scared him to death again, opening his arms to hug him, burbling doggie, doggie.
Željko seemed to have completely changed his masters’ lives. Kosta stopped reading the paper from cover to cover, he’d leave it on his desk and do other stuff, like flick through dog-food brochures, buy Željko rubber bones, cabbage- or carrot-shaped toys, or a red collar with his name on it. Rajna learned how to arrange things in the house so she could reach Željko’s food, and the dog would follow her everywhere she went. She’d wheel around the apartment the whole day, talk to the dog, try to explain things you couldn’t say to people, and he looked at her the very way you expect people to look at you, but the way only dogs do: straight in the eye, with endless trust and a hope that nothing is lost and that all is well and that everything will stay the way it is, because time has stopped and days no longer fly by, nothing is evanescent or perishable. With Željko’s help Rajna learned how to get from her wheelchair into the armchair and back. He’d sit firm in place, she’d grab a tight hold of his head and perform a maneuver she couldn’t explain to Kosta, and which, so she believed, she had learned from the dog — and presto she was in the armchair. The grip didn’t work when she tried it using Kosta arms. He offered that she grab hold of his head, but that didn’t work either. They laughed until they cried and were happy for the first time. Željko brought the rubber cabbage over and dropped it down in front of them, his contribution to the fun.
III
My life has completely changed since Željko’s been with us, said Kosta raising his glass of slivovitz. Bless his good mother, we have to look after our president, said Ensign Pehar clinking glasses with Kosta. The president has to have his bodyguard. . Only I don’t know who’s looking after whom, we him or he us. One day Rajna was telling me about when a cockroach scooted past, and Željko took off under the table!
They had homeowners’ association meetings every Tuesday, fortified by a few short ones and a little cheese. Pehar would methodically put notices up, but no one else ever came, so he and Kosta completely forgot they had any neighbors. Pehar insisted on spending at least five minutes talking about “building infrastructure,” a pedantry that amused Kosta no end, but he accepted the game all the same. Later they’d chat about anything and everything, mostly about life, which for both he and Pehar had taken some strange turns. The ensign’s wife had died in childbirth in 1958. Seventeen years later, his son, a high-school senior, put a bullet in his temple using Pehar’s service pistol. Left on his own, Pehar had spent his life between home and the barracks, until five years ago, as soon as the election results were out, he was pensioned off, or rather, hounded out of the army because he didn’t fit within the “new organizational structure.”
I don’t believe in God, but I’m sure he’s been punishing me for some thirty years or more. When Anđa died, I knew that’s what he was doing, and I told him, go on then, do your work, and I’ll do mine, but I won’t believe in you. And when one day I didn’t have a son anymore either, I told him, okay then, now you’ve taken everything from me, but I’m not giving you anything, you do your work, but you’re not getting an empty shell from me. And that’s how things stand to this day, he’s punishing me because I don’t believe in anything to do with him, and I’m alive and I’ve still never asked myself why I’m alive, said Pehar, completely at ease, as if he was giving his report before taps.
Maybe that’s how one manages to live, thought Kosta, reconciled with both his own and Pehar’s story.
IV
Željko was almost two when Rajna suddenly got it into her head that the dog needed to learn something. She tried for days. But when she’d say shake hands, he’d try to jump into her lap, four legs and all. When she’d say bring the ball, he’d lick her on the nose, and on the command on your mat, he’d wag his tail and think he was going to get a biscuit.
The dog doesn’t know anything, she said to Pehar that Tuesday when he came by to collect Kosta for their meeting. Of course he doesn’t when no one’s taught him, Pehar replied, clicking his heels, creasing his forehead, and transforming himself into a soldier from a Socialist film journal.