Only at such times, lying awake on the bed in my Amsterdam burrow, was I able to gain a clear picture of myself. I picture myself pulling on my jeans, throwing a jacket over my pajama top, and sailing out of the basement. I attempt a deep breath, but the air is tepid and as sticky as cotton candy. A numbing subtropical wind whisks litter along the street. Two plastic bags caught on the branches of a nearby tree make a snapping noise and glow dully in the dark like messages from another world.
I see a compatriot of mine, a short, squat woman with a sprightly gait. She has a tall, gray-haired woman in tow. The older woman is walking with the aid of crutches. “Get a move on, Mama,” the younger woman commands in a voice that penetrates my eardrum like a needle. All “our people” know this woman. “She’s a genius,” they say. Sometimes she sports a veritable troop of fictive offshoots, sometimes a fictive eight-and-a-half-month stomach, sometimes today’s fictive cripple of a fictive mother, but she is always accompanied by a glowering man who follows her like a shadow, his hands thrust deeply into the pockets of his short jacket. They claim she can steal anything “our people” care to buy: clothing, jewelry, VCRs…. “Let’s go, Mama,” she grunts. “Get a move on.”
A drunk young Englishwoman pulls my sleeve and asks, “Got a match?”
“Sorry,” I say.
“Fuck you!” she says back and totters away.
I am standing in front of a tattoo studio. The studio is closed, but the TV in the display window is showing a documentary. “I began getting myself tattooed to learn what pain means,” says a young Japanese man, turning to expose a richly tattooed back to the camera. “Each of these patterns is a memento of pain.” Another young Japanese man covered with tattoos nods vigorously and says, “No pain, no gain!”
The thick, black water in the canal round the corner shimmers ominously. A white swan emerges abruptly out of the darkness and freezes ghostlike. Just then the TV set in the display window shuts off and the screen goes blank. I keep standing there for a while. The plastic bags in the branches are still snapping like children’s kites. The subtropical wind licks my face. Sweat trickles down my back. “And out goes Y-O-U” Then I scamper back to my hole like a mouse.
CHAPTER 8
We have come to the end of our primer. We have learned all our letters. We can read print and we can read script. Now we can read all sorts of nice children’s books. Now we can read everything. We know how to write, too. We know how to write everything we see. Now we can read and write by ourselves. The more we know, the better we are.
And then came the exam. There they were — all four of them: Johanneke, Meliha, Ana, and Igor — in the corridor outside my door. Johanneke came in first. I asked her several questions, all of which she answered correctly. I gave her an A. She had worked much harder than the rest and proved a discreet observer of the goings-on. Only now did I realize I’d never had a serious conversation with her. We had adopted her, and she was “ours.” That had apparently sufficed.
“I hope you’ll stay on,” she said.
“I may,” I said, trying to sound cheerful.
I stood, walked to the door with her, and held out my hand. She looked uneasy.
“Good luck,” I said like a fool, realizing that I needed it more than she did.
The moment Meliha entered, I knew I couldn’t go on with my role.
“Forget about the exam, Meliha,” I said.
“What do you mean?”
“I can’t bring myself to quiz you,” I said honestly. “Exam or no exam, you deserve an A.”
“Now you tell me! And here I crammed all night, just like when I was a student. It was great, by the way. Really!..So you’ll be back next year?”
“I may be.”
“Well, if you are,” she said cheerfully, “I’ll be back, too.”
We talked a little about her parents, her plans, the status of her studies….
“I don’t know what to do,” she suddenly blurted out. “I’m in love!”
“Who is it?”
“A Da
er!”
So we talked a little about her Daer. A great guy. And wild about Bosnia. Works for an NGO. Violence prevention, something like that. Spends more time in Sarajevo than here. Knows the language. Maybe she’ll end up going there with him. Who’d have thought it would take a Daer to make her want to go home. “And then there’s…well…My dad — he’s going downhill. All he can say is, ‘Life’s one big joke.’ He’s like a parrot. You ask him how he wants his eggs, fried or scrambled, and he says, ‘Life’s one big joke.’ Though it may be I should take some lessons from the guy.”
She stood. I followed suit, and we shook hands. She was on the point of opening the door when she paused and a shadow drew across her face. It made her look ten years older.
“What’s the matter, Meliha?”
“Nothing. Sometimes I think I’m going mad. I’ll be walking along, and suddenly I have to stop and pick up the pieces, the pieces of myself. My arms, my legs, and phew! there’s my crazy head. You don’t know how glad I am to find them. So anyway I glue them together and they hold for a while. I think that’s it for good, and then I’m in pieces again. And again I pick them up and put myself together like a jigsaw puzzle until the next time….
She opened the door and added, “Now my face is all wet, and my Daer’s downstairs waiting for me.” Then she forced a smile over her face and slipped out.
Ana was next.
“I want you to know I didn’t come for the exam,” she said, entering the room.
“What do you mean?”
“There’s no point. I’m not going on.”
“Why the sudden decision?”
“I’m going back to Belgrade,” she said.
“Hold on. Back up a little. What’s made you decide to go back?”
“Geert has always preferred Belgrade, and this place is getting on my nerves.”
“You won’t miss anything?”
“No.”
“But you’ve spent several years here, haven’t you?”
“They could have been anywhere.”
“Are you sure you don’t want me to give you a grade?”
She didn’t seem to hear the question.
“I only came to say good-bye,” she said, then added impulsively, “Are you on your own?”
“Why do you ask?”
“Living in a foreign country — it’s much harder when you’re on your own.”
“That depends,” I said. I was not eager to pursue the conversation.
“You know…,” she said, “what happened would have happened no matter what.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“You didn’t realize it, but you were the last reason for us to get together. Things would have fallen apart without you.”
“Why is that?”
“Because that’s how it goes. At first we were in an up mood: we got a kick out of life. Life was a blast, a never-ending party. And then one morning we woke up to find a clearing all around us.”