Mama Leone Read online

  I was in my third year of elementary school when for the first time I opened a heavy thick book with History of Visual Art written on it. I saw the picture again on page 489, it was called Girl with a Pearl Earring, and it said that it was painted in the year 1665. I thought about how big and strange the world was: three hundred and two years before I pointed my finger at the picture and said Mama, someone had seen me lying on my back in a dark room watching spiders dawdle along the ceiling, dangling in the air, and they had painted my mom.

  I didn’t pull the claws off crabs anymore, and I didn’t smash their bodies in the shallows; I resigned myself to not knowing anything about them and not being able to see their eyes, I knew they didn’t have any blood and that they weren’t like me, but another world had already closed shut above my head, one in which every word had an exact meaning and every one of them could frighten and hurt. I didn’t see Mom in the picture anymore and I ached for all the dead crabs.

  What will Allende’s mom say

  School began on the sixth of September, the teacher said fall’s here kids, pencils, paper out, down to work. I looked out the window at the sunny summer day, why fall when it’s not fall I thought and started lying: “Trees are stripped of their leaves, rain pours from the clouds, a sleepy dog shuffles at my feet.” That was about it. I hadn’t the foggiest what the teacher wanted to hear about the fall and what else I could peddle to her. I put my hand up. Miss, did you bring an umbrella? . . . Excuse me?. . . I was wondering if you brought an umbrella . . . Why do you want to know? Write your essay, time’s running out. I wrote: “The teacher passed by. She didn’t have an umbrella because she’d forgotten and left it at home. I said hi and asked: ‘Miss, look’s like fall’s here, don’t you think?’” I signed my work and handed it in. The teacher was surprised that I’d finished so soon; actually she didn’t act that surprised, more like the essay must be no good. I’m just a second grader and haven’t yet figured out how things work at school – the shorter and less descriptive your essay, the lower your score. Let your imagination run wild, show a little spark, don’t just say “fall” – say the soft, sumptuous, auburn fall, that’s what she told me the next day after she gave me a D. But in my imagination fall’s not soft, sumptuous, and auburn, it’s fall and that’s it, I protested. That afternoon the telephone rang, the teacher, wanting to speak to my mother and asking her to come to school the next day for a talk. What’ve you done? She frowned like she was going to throttle me, I didn’t do anything, I just said that for me fall wasn’t sumptuous and the teacher gave me a D . . . If the teacher says it’s sumptuous, then it’s sumptuous, my mother concluded pedagogically. I opened an encyclopedia called The World Around Us to the page where there was a picture of the circus: trapeze artists on the trapeze, a lion jumping through a flaming hoop, an elephant standing on its hind legs, and a man in a striped suit with a gigantic mustache holding big black weights above his head. I’d had a bellyful of the fall and the first day of school, I wanted to see a circus. Actually, I didn’t want to see a circus, I wanted to join one and perform, as a lion, elephant, or giraffe, and felt so cruelly trapped in my human body. Unfortunately I hadn’t read Sartre yet and didn’t know anything about existential angst. I only found out what that was all about when I actually didn’t have it anymore, because by then I myself had turned into a ball of existential angst, and the fall really was soft, sumptuous, and auburn. Fall for an A plus.

  The television news starts at eight, quarter to eight is the cartoon, then the ads, then a watch hand circles the screen for a full three minutes, then a globe dances in rhythm to a symphony and cosmic rolls of thunder, continents float by, the world begins with giant Africa and little Europe, then come the two Americas, the vast silent ocean and Asia, by the symphony’s end Africa and Europe are back, and then Mufid Memija’s face, his tie in a bulky knot, a piece of paper in hand, the latest from Santiago de Chile, the presidential palace is still holding out, the military junta’s forces are advancing, the truck drivers’ strike continues, Salvador Allende has sent out a dramatic appeal to all Chileans and the international community . . . Are we the international community too? I ask Grandma. On the one hand we are . . . On which hand aren’t we? . . . On the hand you’re waving in front of the screen so I can’t see anything.

  I got an F in math and immediately decided to keep it quiet. Parent-teacher interviews aren’t for another fifteen days. That’s how long Mom won’t know. I already felt like a prisoner on death row with only fifteen days left to live. Luckily I was only seven, and when you’re seven fifteen days seems like fifteen years. A long and slow stretch lay ahead of me; the older I get, the faster the time will go by, it’ll speed up like a big intercontinental, intergalactic truck, until it goes so fast I won’t be able to catch up, so it’ll get way out in front of me and it’ll seem the biggest part of my life was back then, when I was seven years old. A quarter of a century later I’ll have the experience of a seven-year-old who accidentally fell into a machine for premature aging. Having kept quiet about the first F, I’ll keep quiet about all the next ones too, until I get tired and old, until I finish school and Mom ends up getting bored with worrying about my Fs.

  I’d come home from school with a secret. I thought they might be able to read the secret F on my face. Mom couldn’t, she didn’t read what was written on my face, same goes for Dad, he didn’t dare read it because he was only here to visit his son, but Grandma, she definitely could have read it, but she doesn’t care about my Fs. She’s already sitting in front of the television, it’s almost eight, she’s smoking anxiously, waiting for the news to start. Chilean President Salvador Allende has been killed in the presidential palace of La Moneda, says Mufid Memija, bless his poor mother, says Grandma. A man with a mustache and a helmet on his head enters the palace.

  Augusto Pinochet, says Memija, fascist pig, says Grandma, who’s that, I ask, he killed Allende, says Grandma, why didn’t we defend him? . . . How were we supposed to defend him from Sarajevo? . . . Well, didn’t he ask us to?. . . What, who did he ask? . . . Us, on the one hand we’re the international community . . . Well, on the hand that we’re the international community, on that hand we did defend him, bless his poor mother . . . Who’s Salvador Allende’s mother? . . . I don’t know, poor thing, she’s probably not alive . . . Why wouldn’t she be alive? . . . She’s better off not alive if they killed her son. . . And what if they’d killed her, would it be better if he wasn’t alive? . . . No, that’s different. Sons should outlive their mothers. I looked at my mom. She wasn’t paying the news any mind. She was sitting at the kitchen table and eating beans. She’s just got back from work, and when Mom comes home from work she usually eats beans or she has a migraine, and will skip the beans, go to her room, pull the blinds, and lie down and groan so we can all hear.

  Why was Salvador Allende killed? I ask her. She puts the spoon in the bowl, leans her elbows on the table, and rests her head in her hands: because fascists killed him. It is, of course, all clear to me, when fascists kill, you don’t ask why they kill; she looks at me, somehow full of pride, she’s young, and in those years young mothers were happy when their sons asked about Salvador Allende. Death didn’t give me the creeps then; death still had a certain allure, still just a scratch on the face of the earth. Fall was just a scratch too, soft, sumptuous, and auburn. I didn’t know anything about beckoning death, and I wasn’t superstitious either, so I didn’t know you shouldn’t mention death too often and invite it in, but in any case I still didn’t ask Mom whether she was going to die before I did or if she’d watch pictures on television from La Moneda Palace, like Allende’s mom. That’s if Allende’s mom was still alive of course, and I’m sure she must be when Grandma’s been dreading it so much. Everything she ever dreaded always happened.

  Saturday came around, Mom was vacuuming the house and I was playing with a plastic pistol. I don’t know who I was playing war against, probably against Pinochet. Mom bent down and tried to vacuum the dust und
er the couch. I went up to her, pressed the pistol on her temple, and pulled the trigger. She dropped the vacuum cleaner hose, stood ramrod straight, her face in horror. I thought she was going to hit me, she didn’t, tears were streaming down her face, she ran out of the living room yelling Mom, Mom. Grandma was sitting on the terrace reading the newspaper. I knew I’d done something terrible, but that I wasn’t going to get a hiding. I slunk into the hallway, tiptoed to the terrace door, and peeked out. Mom was sobbing convulsively, her head in Grandma’s lap, Grandma was caressing her and saying it’s all right, it’ll be all right, calm down, it’s nothing . . . How is it nothing, I gave birth to a monster. I went back to the living room, opened the encyclopedia to the page with the circus, but I didn’t see anything. It was hard for me to look at anything. If I’m a monster, something scary is going to happen.

  Why did you do it? Grandma asked me. Mom was at work so we were alone. Because of Allende’s mom . . . What’s Allende’s mom got to do with your mother, why did you shoot her? . . . I was just playing . . . What were you playing? . . . Chile . . . You were playing Chile and shot your mother? . . . I was Allende . . . Allende didn’t shoot his mother, for God’s sake! I’d never seen Grandma like this, she was deadly serious, but not angry, just really sad. You said it would be better if Allende’s mom weren’t alive, I was already messy with tears. I said that, but Miljenko . . . Well if you said it, what did I do wrong, I was just playing Allende and just wanted his mom not to be alive. I’d never been so inconsolable. Don’t cry, Allende was good and would never have killed his mom . . . Why not if it’s better she weren’t alive. I didn’t even notice that Grandma was getting more and more upset with every sentence. Sons never kill their mothers, ever, not even when it’s better, because it’s never better when sons kill their mothers and now give Allende a rest, play something else, play Partisans and Germans, kill them if you want to kill someone, but don’t you ever shoot your mother again.

  By the afternoon everything was fine. Mom had forgotten I’d shot her and was quietly eating her beans. I’d quit playing Allende and was waiting for the evening news on television, for news from Santiago de Chile. At some soccer stadium Pinochet had cut a guitarist’s fingers off, a friend of Allende’s, and it was then I swore I’d never play guitar.

  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 f
orever, 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.