Wandering among the stands, my heart full of Gypsy shrapnel, I chanced upon something that immediately caught my eye: a plastic tote bag with red, white, and blue stripes — Ana was right; I paid only two guilders for it — and like a wound-up mechanical toy, I made for the butcher’s called Zuid (South), a code word to the local Yugos, who were its principal patrons. The butcher’s window proudly displayed jars of pig’s knuckles, and the shelves were lined with a modest selection of Yugonostalgic delicacies: Macedonian ajvar, sausage from Srem, olive oil from Korcula, Plasma Biscuits (whose ridiculous name made them an instant cult item the moment they appeared on the market), Minas coffee (which of course came from Turkey), and Negro Chimney-Sweep toffee (also a cult item because of the name). I bought a jar of ajvar and some toffee. It was a ritual purchase, purely symbolic: I hated ajvar and the toffee was bitter.
Thinking of the thousands and thousands of émigrés who leave their countries for countries like this one, who buy ajvar they hate and toffee they know is bitter, carryalls they will never use, ludicrous plastic-fingered backscratchers, and nylon chignons, I proceeded on my mechanical-toy journey, now heading toward the side street off the Oosterpark where a Bosnian café by the name of Bella was located. There I found a group of sullen, tight-lipped men playing cards. The looks they gave me were long but completely expressionless: not even a woman entering their male space could throw them off guard. I took a place at the counter, ordered “our” coffee, and sat there, penitent, so to speak. Before long I began to feel the invisible slap on my face and noticed I had hunched over like the men.
Having finished the coffee, I picked up the relics I had gathered on my pilgrimage — the Macedonian ajvar and Negro Chimney-Sweep toffee in the plastic carryall with red, white, and blue stripes — and set off for home. The Gypsy shrapnel had dissolved in my heart in the interim, and I was no longer bleeding, but I was confused as to whether I had just bid farewell to something or filled in an invisible application form. “For God’s sakes, sister. You crazy or somethin’?”
PART 4
CHAPTER 1
I’m like a stepping razor
Don’t you watch my size
I’m dangerous, I’m dangerous
Treat me good
If you wanna live
You better treat me good.
I knew it was Igor the moment I heard the doorbell ring. I knew he’d be coming for an explanation. He came in, walked around the room as if it were too small to contain him and he wasn’t yet sure whether to stay or not, but then he put his backpack on the floor and said, “Hmm. So this is your pad.”
“Yes, this is my ‘pad.’”
“Living room — bedroom, kitchen facilities, and bath,” he said ironically. “‘Tight quarters, two meters by three.’” He was quoting a Yugoslav TV commercial.
“I hope your place is better.”
“So you’ve made your little nest in the basement.”
“Let’s just call it the lower level.”
“Don’t have many books, do you,” he said, glancing around the room, “considering your profession, that is.”
“Would you like something to drink?” I asked, ignoring the remark.
“Coffee will do. I don’t see you stocking anything else in this place.”
While making the coffee, I thought of what to tell him. Although the cups were clean, I gave them another wash. It took me forever to find the sugar bowl. I did everything I could to buy time.
She is from Zagreb, Count, a true product of Zagreb and a truly remarkable young woman. Though still in her salad days, she has a will of iron and is steadfast and intrepid. I hardly need state that she is at home with the standard school subjects, but she also knows French and Italian, can sing and draw, and is a dab hand at embroidering. She is so taken with her calling that she performs her duties with great passion, and there is an idealistic strain to her nature, which makes her regard the reform and ennoblement of the souls entrusted to her as a sacred mission.
It was an excerpt from šenoa’s Branka, that classic of Romantic prose in which a young teacher, imbued with the ideals of the Croatian national revival movement, leaves Zagreb for the remote village of Jalševo to teach the village children. Pouring the coffee with my back to Igor, I listened to him read from the copy I had taken out of the library. I could feel my chin trembling. I was afraid I was going to cry. It was a childish way to provoke me, but I sensed it was no more than an introduction to the extravaganza he had planned.
“So you’ve been spending all this time staring at people’s legs,” he said, putting down the book and nodding in the direction of the barred window.
“You can cope with anything if you know it’s temporary,” I said in as calm a voice as I could muster. “Besides, I’m leaving in a few days.”
“What makes you so sure it’s temporary?” he asked, either unconcerned about where I was going or feigning lack of concern.
I took him his coffee on a tray. I knew what he’d come for and decided to take the bull by the horns.
“Look, Igor, I’m terribly sorry…” I began, putting the tray down on the table.
“Great. You’re sorry.”
“Sit down,” I said, and sat down. He remained standing. He had turned his back on me again and was staring out the window.
“I know you’ve come because of the grade.”
He turned and trained those dark, slightly crossed eyes on me.
“And if I have?”
“I don’t know,” I said. I heard my voice crack and felt my chin tremble again.
He turned again and crossed the room to the basket I used for various knickknacks including the presents I’d received for my birthday. Igor started going through them.
“Everything was so good at first, wasn’t it?” he said, picking up the two pairs of handcuffs.
“Yes…” I said cautiously.
“By the way, Comrade, have you ever tried these on?”
“What for?”
“Oh, out of curiosity. Didn’t you even wonder how they open?”
“No.”
“And I thought scholars were supposed to be inquisitive,” he said.
The sneer in his voice made me blush, and again I was on the verge of tears.
Igor came up to me and took the cup out of my hands. He put it down on the tray.
“What do you say we give it a whirl?” he said, taking my hand and placing his lips on my wrist. They were cold and dry.
Then he lifted the wrist and skillfully handcuffed it to one arm of the chair.
“There,” he said sweetly. “Now you’re my slave.”
“What kind of joke is this?” I said, mouthing words that didn’t sound like mine.
Igor drew his chair up closer and took my free hand. “That was quick, wasn’t it? Bet you were impressed. I practiced for hours.”
I pulled my hand away. “Come on now. Take this thing off, will you? You shouldn’t have any trouble after all that practice.” I was doing my best to smile.
He took back my free hand, put it up to his cheek, and gave it a few strokes.
“Ah, Professor,” he said, “you’ve got a nineteenth-century hand.”
“A what?”
“Your hand is like the descriptions of hands in nineteenth-century novels: a dainty white hand.”
He put my hand in his and turned it over like a glove.