On the fifteenth day, just before Mom was going to find out about my F in math, the teacher brought a new pupil into the classroom. This is Ricardo, she said, he doesn’t speak our language, but he’ll learn. Small and dark, Ricardo sat in the back row, his hair so dark you’d almost think it was blue. Ricardo is from Chile, the teacher filled us in when it was homeroom, but now he’s from Sarajevo too, and so I ask that you treat him like he’s always been from Sarajevo. I didn’t understand what she meant, though I figured it must be something really serious. Before Ricardo learns our language I’m going to learn how to treat people who’ve always been from Sarajevo. It was very important to me. Because of Salvador Allende and because of his mom. I’m going to ask Ricardo if Allende’s mom is still alive, if she is then we’ll play La Moneda Palace, Pinochet will try and kill Allende again, but Ricardo and me will save him. The main thing is that I hear what Allende’s mom says when they try to kill her son again.
No schlafen
In the mornings someone eats our dreams, gulping them down and swallowing up the little creature of darkness, the little creature of dawn, the hours that disappear in sleep or in preparation for death, a time sure to come and to leave nothing behind, neither an object nor a memory, not a single trace of a path on which I might light out like the brave prince who heads into the forest in search of something lost that might save the kingdom. In the moments before waking the little creature of darkness slips from the head, the heart, and the room, hurriedly departing this world, always sloppy and running a bit late, always forgetting something, leaving something behind, and this something is what I remember in the morning. I keep it as my dream stolen from the darkness, from the slinky creature just departed. Sometimes I see his little black foot slipping out my bedroom door, see him dragging a little suitcase covered in stickers saying Amsterdam, Berlin, Novosibirsk, and Sarajevo. . Sarajevo, the precious Sarajevo of my dreams, a gigantic city, the most gigantic in the world because it’s the only one I know, because I’m just four years old, and because last night’s dreams are in that little suitcase, heading off into another world. But they’ll be there to meet me one day, up in the sky, a sky that doesn’t exist. They’ll be there to meet me, a me who will no longer be, in a room like this one, furnished only with these dreams, the only trace of me.
I don’t like sleeping. I fight sleep with all my might, but all my might isn’t yet all that much. Grandma pulls me to her chest and says c’mon, time for schlafen, and I yell so that the whole house, the whole street, and the whole gigantic city can hear — no schlafen, no schlafen. She pays me no mind but carries me to my room and lies me down in bed, even though I’m still howling no schlafen. I can’t hear what she’s saying anymore, she’s betrayed me, she doesn’t get it. She thinks I don’t know anything, that my tears are just a little boy’s tears and that what I’m saying is just an overtired grizzle. Grandma doesn’t know anything about the terror that sneaks out when she puts me under the covers. I’m asleep before she’s even tucked me in, and then I’m alone, sinking down into a world not mine, where my loneliness is the biggest in the world. It won’t mean a thing when one day you leave me; you can leave me now, whenever you like, I’ll just shrug my shoulders, because nowhere will I be so alone, nor will any world be as distant as when I am alone in that strange world of dreams. I dream of things I know nothing about, I dream of horrors and terrifying ghosts, of fears that will some day run me down. I dream everything I’ll ever live to see. One day I’ll see a man lose his head in the middle of the street and then I’ll say, hey, I dreamed that when no schlafen, no schlafen, no schlafen ricocheted all over this very city. I dream every night and in my dreams try to let out a scream, so that someone might hear me, so that someone might come get me and take me outside, but I don’t let out a sound. I’m as quiet as the grave probably is, my grave or someone else’s, it doesn’t matter. I keep quiet and dream away until morning, until the moment I start to forget and wake up. Then Grandma looks at me, and I smile at her, as if it were nothing, as if nothing terrifying had happened. She says blessed are the children, they forget everything, children don’t remember a thing, and she really believes it and thinks I’ve just forgotten my dreams and woken up all smiley.
Grandma’s going to Russia. Why aren’t I going? I’m not going because I’m still little. It’s stupid to take little kids on such a long trip, it’s not worth the effort. I’m not going because I’d just forget everything I saw. That’s what Mom and Grandma say. I sit in the corner sulking, playing with my little model Volkswagen Bug and promising myself that I’m going to remember all this. One day I really will drive a gray Bug like this one, in the real world and on real streets, but I can’t know this yet. I’m four years old and I don’t know anything about my future because the future hasn’t happened yet. One day when I’m on a real road driving a real Bug it’ll be hard to figure what has actually happened. Have I grown up or just shrunk so much that now I can fit into the little car I was playing with the day Grandma was going to Russia and I was blue thinking I have to remember, I have to remember, I have to remember. . Because if I don’t remember, then she’ll never take me anywhere with her, I’ll never go to Russia and I’ll never see myself in fancy photos from overseas.
Let’s go to sleep, said Mom. I open my mouth, wanting to say something. I want to yell no schlafen but I can’t because she didn’t say it right, she didn’t say time for schlafen, and that’s the deal, they’re the magic words that make me yell. Now I just button up, my mouth half open, a look of horror on my face, no longer registering a thing. She puts me to bed, kisses my cheek, says good night, and leaves. I can’t close my eyes because I know that if I close them I’ll stay this way forever, and I’ll never again fight against sleep, I’ll get weak and helpless and believe there are battles lost in advance and wars unworthy of tears.
When Grandma was in Russia my dreams weren’t scary. They were just sad. Little wooden boats sailed through them, all the fishermen wearing straw hats like my grandpa. The tiny boats sailed and sank, and as they sank, the old men on board didn’t lift a finger, they vanished from the surface as if there were no difference between the world above and the world below, as if nothing really mattered in the vast salty ocean of my dream, the water salty like the salt of my tears when I lick them from my hand, keeping an eye out that no one sees because if they see me licking my tears they’ll know I’m done with my sulking.
When Grandma was away I woke up without a smile. Mom noticed and was downhearted. For her it was proof enough that I loved Grandma more than her because, you know, I smiled to Grandma in the morning. God, my mom was so immature and silly. One day she’ll say to me if only I were twenty-eight and knew what I know now, but I won’t say anything to her because I don’t want to hurt her, but I could tell her what I’m now telling you: Mom, you’re stupid — stupid, stupid, stupid — you just needed to say c’mon, time for schlafen, time for schlafen, and I would’ve smiled to you in the morning too, and it would’ve never crossed your mind that I loved you any less.