Little Bastards in Springtime (22 page)

Baka stops in mid-sentence. She sways to Mama’s playing, she hums, she smiles. Her memories have shifted to somewhere else inside her mind.

“You didn’t mind doing free work for the government?” I ask. “Like, you know, a chain gang or something?”

Baka hasn’t heard me. She closes her eyes, her head tilts forward.

I tap her shoulder. I want to hear more. Suddenly, I feel interested in everything that’s in her head, her memories, her thoughts, her opinions. But Baka doesn’t answer. Mama keeps on playing, the candles keep on burning.

I
GO
to school, but I hear nothing and see nothing. I have an appointment to meet Ms. Markowski in my free period, but I don’t show. She wants me to bring Mama sometime, so we can all talk together about why I’m failing at school, why I’m tired all the time, why I’m such an angry young mofo, and what we can all do about it. I told Mama and she said no, she couldn’t go, her English wasn’t good enough, that I should ask if the counsellor speaks French, or better yet, that I should ask Milan to go with me instead. As if that’s going to happen, as if I’m going to have a cuddly chat about the monumental problem of me with half-joking, half-serious Milan and the nosiest woman on the planet. But it’s all an excuse anyway. Mama’s English is broken but not that broken. She just doesn’t have the energy to go into the complicated intricacies of how life produces a sixteen-year-old asshole like me.

When I come home, I see that candles have been burning all day long and are now sitting in a thick pool of hardened wax. The house smells like a church. No meals have been made today.

“Where’s Aisha?” I ask. For some reason today I want to know.

“She’s on that orchestra trip,” Mama says, and smiles brightly. Mama looks amazingly energized, alert, like someone who’s just done five lines of blow in the bathroom. Rosy cheeks, red lips, sweeping gestures, X-ray gaze.

“I’ve been playing all day,” she says. “I had an epiphany. I realized that they loved me, Papa, Dušan, Berina. That they’d hate it if I was in despair all the time, if I lost my connection to the music.” Her eyes are like amber lit from behind, they glisten in the way they used to when she was working herself up to perform. “You were so right, Jevrem. You said the words that I needed to hear.”

“That’s good,” I say, feeling pretty fucking proud of myself.

“The past is dead, the past is death. People get swallowed up by it, they step off the path of time, they disappear into memory. All that is ephemeral, you mustn’t get sucked into the void with them. Only music is permanent, only music fills the now and moves confidently into the future. Life is music, Jevrem, that’s the only way. It’s like a white light flowing through me.”

“That’s good, Ma.” I didn’t say all of that, but suddenly everything’s changed in this house, and Papa’s in ecstasy hearing her play again, he’s standing in the middle of the kitchen, arms up in the air like a Baptist preacher, face pointing to heaven, eyes closed, a wide sweet smile on his face.

“Yes, it is
good
,” Mama sings. “You should find something like that for yourself. You see, I had a revelation. Life is how we choose to see it and live it, even when it strips us bare.”

She sounds born-again, but I’ll take crazed acceptance over wordless misery anytime. I go into the living room. Baka is lying on her side on the couch, wrapped in a blanket, as small as a child. All I can see of her is wisps of white hair sticking out like silk tassels. I sit down at her feet and stare at the candlelight flickering against the television screen. Mama watches from the kitchen.

“She’s not doing well, Jevrem,” Mama says. “It’s her heart.”

“I know,” I say.

“Put your hand on her back, lightly.”

I hold my hand out. It hovers over Baka’s back. I don’t want to wake her or hurt her. I settle it very slowly on her shoulder, waiting for her to stir. She feels like she’s made of wicker, a sculpture of brittle, hollow reeds.

“When did she shrink this small?” I ask.

“We have to accept that we’ll have to live without her,” Mama says. “Human life comes and goes, but the spirit lives on.”

I stare at Mama. She’s standing taller, head up, shoulders back, her paleness a bright hot fire.

“Okay, Mama. Whatever works for you.”

Mama sighs, smiles She’s looking back at me, really looking, like she hasn’t seen me in years.. “You have a good heart, Jevrem, a loving heart. I felt it the day you were born. And look what a catastrophic life we gave you.”

Mama moves toward me like she’s going to wrap me in her arms. I step back, it’s all so different, it’s all too sudden.

“I’m going shopping,” I say. “I want you to play all night long. I’ll do everything else.”

“Not now, Jevrem. That has to wait.”

“Why? There’s nothing to eat.”

“It has to wait until next week.”

“I’ve got money, I can look after us.”

I sprint down to my room before she can say anything more and pull out a nice fat roll from my money coat and stuff it in my pocket. Then I’m out of the house, down the street. I feel strange, torn, kind of happy for Mama, kind of sad beyond describing.

I
’M PUSHING
a shopping cart. It’s 1:20 a.m. The last nine hours just disappeared, I don’t know how or where. Something about Sava and a bottle and a lot of pot. I’m drunk and high and have twigs in my hair. The supermarket is as big as an airplane hangar, bigger maybe, a white cube of light hurtling through space at hundreds of kilometres per hour.

I study the carrots, there are big fat ones and little thin ones. I put a bunch of fat ones in the cart, then stand in front of the potatoes, so many different kinds in separate bins. Colour, waxiness, size, shape. I stare at them forever, then move on. The green onions look fresh, but there are also other kinds, small and pink, small and white, bigger and yellow, and the giant red ones. I grab the ones closest to me, and the air throbs around my head like a fever. I’m beginning to feel the challenge of this, I’m beginning to panic, there’s too much stuff in this place and I can’t focus my mind. I try to picture what’s usually in our fridge and cupboards, what we really need, but I can only recall empty cupboards, desolate shelves, cans with no labels shrouded in plaster dust.

I’m standing in front of the spices. Colourful powders, dried, crushed vegetation, they must be important, there are so many of them. I try to remember spices that I know the taste of, Mama using them when she cooks. Nothing comes to mind. There’s a high, sharp keening sound coming through the sound
system like a call to prayer. It echoes around the freezers, the fridges, the wall of cheeses, yogourts, juices, the miles of chips, sodas, pasta sauces, and I’m back in the old market, I remember the smells, I remember the tastes, I know those foods. I bend over, dizzy, swaying, waiting for the sound to end, but it doesn’t, it just keeps calling out to eternity.

After that, there’s the cracker section, but I don’t even try. It’s a wall of cardboard, so many colours and patterns. There must be something we buy regularly. Every household has its favourite. The small orange fish crackers catch my eye. I wonder, why fish?

I leave without crackers and stand outside squinting for a cab. Somehow, I’ve put two hundred dollars of food in a cart, I’ve paid for it, I’ve stuffed it into bags. I feel like I’ve climbed a very tall unpredictable mountain. And there is Papa on the other side of the street, walking fast, head down, one hand shoved deep in his pocket, a newspaper clamped under one arm. “Papa,” I shout. “Papa!” My voice sounds dangerously loud in the silence of night, so many sleeping bodies all around me tucked into their beds inside their houses. Papa looks across at me and raises his arm to wave. I point at the bags of groceries at my feet. He raises two thumbs and nods his head vigorously.
Well done
, he’s saying.
Well done.

I
T’S
3
A.M.
and I’m drinking a lot of cheap red wine. Every ten minutes or so, I check to see if Baka is still alive. Her breath is like a newborn kitten’s, imperceptible. I put my thumb on her neck. All around me there is movement and little glistening flashes of light.

“There are fireflies in this room, for some reason,” I tell
her. I’ve been talking non-stop since I got back from the supermarket. It’s the amphetamines, a gift from Zijad, balancing the pot, which I’ve been smoking in giant cigarlike spliffs, filling the room with a grey haze. Baka doesn’t mind, she’s used to smoke, it’s the number one thing that soldiers do.

“April’s early for fireflies, it’s strange.”

But the glistenings of light don’t look like fireflies, they look like light shining through heavy material. Heavy material with tiny holes in it, waving in a breeze.

Baka moves, finally, for the first time in hours.

“Bako,” I say. “I’m here. Sing me a communist song.”

She seems to be trying to turn or sit up. I hear a little grunt. I pull the blanket away from her head so that I can see what is going on. Her face is tiny and white. Her eyes are filmy, her hair matted to her head. She moves an arm. She grunts again.

“Bako, what do you want?” I ask.

“Franjo,” she whispers.

“No, it’s Jevrem, Bako.”

“Franjo, is that you? We have to get up. It’s time to get up.”

“I’ll help you sit up.” I place one hand on her back and the other on her shoulder. She rises like an angel ascending to heaven, as light as air, a vague smile on her face. She tries to look at me.

“Franjo, it’s so dark in here. Where is our gear?”

“It’s because there are only two candles still burning,” I say.

“Have we run out again?” Baka asks.

“No, I think there are more in the drawer.”

“Those damn airdrops. We ask for candles and we get socks. We ask for explosives and we get pistols. Those British.”

I get up. There are no more candles in the drawer.

“You’re right, Bako. The candles have run out.”

“Look,” Baka exclaims, “there are these little flashes of light everywhere, and everything is moving.”

“I know,” I say, “it’s awesome.”

I prop her up against the pillows. “Do you want something to drink or eat, Bako?”

She stares at me. “Of course I do,” she says. “Are you mad? We have a long march ahead of us.”

I think of how she refused to take food aid from Caritas during the siege, how she wouldn’t stoop to proving she was Catholic to get it or let some priest bless our home. They should feed human beings, or feed no one at all, she said, over Mama’s pleading.

“The part of the track we’re going to is more than ten miles away and there are Germans in the vicinity. Are the others ready? Where are the others?” She looks around, blinking. “We can’t be late. The political commissar is already on edge about that ambush yesterday, and what’s-his-name, the guide, twisted his ankle.”

Baka closes her eyes. She’s exhausting herself with military thoughts. I go to the fridge and look in. “By some kind of miracle, I managed to buy all kinds of good stuff. Pita, cheese, cold cuts, eggs, pickles, peppers, tomatoes, olives, cucumber, yogourt, cereal, milk, chocolate cake in a plastic box. There are some ?evap?i?i in the fridge. I can heat them. What do you want?” I speak quietly, in case she’s asleep again.

“That’s lovely,” Baka says brightly, her eyes popping open. “So much. I’ll have it all.”

I whip out the bread and all the packets and jars. I make her open-face sandwiches, all different flavours, and put a tray of them in front of her, thinking about eating with her at her kitchen table during the siege.

“Get Franjo up,” Baka says. “Where is that Marko?”

She tries to get up herself. “I feel so strange,” she says. “Like a really old person.”

“Just stay there until you’ve eaten,” I say.

“Hamida should be getting up now too.”

“I’ll wake her,” I say.

I walk into Mama’s bedroom. Her small night lamp is on, throwing up shadows. I don’t hear a sound, but there’s a mound in her bed under the blankets. I shake it gently. It moves, Mama’s head appears. She moans, then sits up abruptly.

“What?” she asks, gasping, putting a hand to her chest. “What?”

“Sorry. Baka is awake. She wants to eat all this food. Is that okay?”

Mama lies down again. I imagine I can hear her heart going fast in her chest.

“Oh,” she says. “Wait a minute. I’ll get up.”

“You don’t have to get up. I’ll do it. I just want to know if it’s okay.”

“Yes. Yes. Of course. Feed her as much as she wants to eat.”

I walk back to the kitchen, past Aisha’s bedroom. She got back from her trip a couple of hours ago. For a moment, I really feel like waking her, I really want to do this with her, but it’s late and I’m too high to be around someone so sweet. I think of her, so scrawny and thin by the end of the war, cold sores all over her face and inside her mouth, bleeding gums, swollen stomach, but still working away every day after school to the light of a candle stub, still practising the violin in the stairwell for hours at a time. Sobbing through the night for Berina. I carried her off the plane and all through the terminal when we landed in Toronto; she was fast asleep, light as driftwood. She smelled of home.

I get food on a plate and when I go into the living room, Baka is on her feet, one hand on the coffee table, one hand on the couch, like someone standing on ice.

“It’s all so strange,” she says. “I can’t seem to stand up straight.”

The flame is a creature, I see how it dances with itself in Baka’s squinting eyes. Papa says,
just be with her, stay close.
So I squat down next to her. I hold her hand. I have things I want to tell her, but I can’t get them organized in my mind. Baka focuses on the food. She shovels it in as fast as she can with her tiny bird hand.

I
’M SPRAWLED
on the sofa keeping Baka company as endless time drifts by and she refuses to go to bed. There is no label on the bottle I’m slugging from, maybe it’s Milan’s friend’s moonshine smuggled from Yugo, made of rotting potatoes and un-detonated land mines. My eyes are blurry, I’m sweating hard, and every five minutes I’m on the toilet spewing like a sewage pipe at the seaside. I feel like everything on the inside wants to get out.