11 May 1992, Monday - Erased

The sparrow came hopping along like a stray ping-pong ball, tilted its head and checked whether she had any food for it. Zala stood at the news kiosk and waited for the employee who had long since entered and kept turning round inside the tiny creaking cubicle which emitted an occasional metal clang. When he finally came back out, he was blowing into his hands, as if preparing for some heavy work. He pulled a penknife from his pocket and cut the plastic string holding the stacks of newspapers together.

“Are you in a hurry to get to work?” he asked Zala, who nodded, because it was easier than explaining.

He began to place the papers on the shelves. Right on his heels, Zala grabbed the broadsheet daily Delo as soon as he put it down.

“ Despite Agreement no Ceasefire in Bosnia ,” the headline read. ‘Fine, that’s more important than my case,’ she thought and looked at the right-hand column on the cover. “W ar in Croatia Raging Without Letting Up ,” ‘that also,’ “ No Agreement in the OSCE on Expelling Yugoslavia .” ‘What is the OSCE?’ she wondered and turned the paper to see the folded-over bottom portion of the front page. “ Minister Rupel Begins Visit to Austria ” and then a series of smaller titles she scanned through. A black frame at the bottom had the title “ Slovenian Lottery. ”

“Madam, you’ll have to buy it,” said the vendor.

“Right, what do I owe you?” she asked.

“Delo? Anything else?”

“All of them!”

Pack of newspapers in hand, she moved behind the kiosk and continued browsing through them. Page two was full of daily news: “ It Will Take 15 Years to Catch Up with Western Europe .” Page three told her all about how fed up fishermen were. ‘Perhaps the chronicle section?’ She flicked through to reach it. “ Jellyfish Swimming in the Adriatic Are Not Toxic ,” the bold title announced.

She wanted to throw the paper away like a filthy rag, but then thought perhaps she had just missed it, so she quickly flicked through the other papers.

Nothing.

NOTHING!

She returned to the front page of Delo and stared for a long time at the date. She went once more through the other papers. The Erased did not warrant a mention in either the daily news, or the chronicle of events, not even in the gossip column.

NOTH-ING.

She discarded the newspapers in the empty box next to the kiosk. She found her address book and phone token in her handbag and ran over to the phone booth.

* * *

Droplets of condensation accumulated on the chocolate glazing of the cake and when the sun appeared from behind the buildings, it rendered them heavy and smooth,

“I went to the archives today and looked at the footage,” the presenter said, holding the fork in his fist upwards, as if waiting for something to fall onto it from the sky. The aviator lenses of his glasses glistened in the sun. He looked upset and miserable, so all Zala could do was sit and listen to him.

“Yes, it exists,” he continued, “it’s still there. Including the minute when the sound disappeared due to supposed technical problems. I thought that was it, the end, censorship, but they didn’t dare. They didn’t dare.

“Clearly our politicians know their people well. Better than you and I. What idiots we were! Thinking we had a story that needed to be told and then finding it was one of those cases that are better overlooked. Nobody says anything to me at the office. They avoid me, if necessary, even cross the road to do so, but they’re still cordial. As if I’d farted at a high society event. Everyone is polite and ignores the stinking moment. If they were to talk about it, the stench would linger.

No, not everything has stayed the same. My show has been moved to such a late hour that even the late-night guard will give up on it.”

He motioned with his hand to Zala that there was no need for her to express her sympathy, something she wasn’t intending to do anyway. She still felt empty, blank like the newspapers that had left smudges on the tips of her fingers.

“Politicians watched, don’t worry. Even yesterday, one of them tried to make a joke about how cunning the Erased are, wanting to seek compensation from the State. I saw the footage. Cunning. That’s what it was about. That’s what they want to dismiss you as, to consign you to history as a bunch of clowns wishing to cash in on some money from the State.”

He ground his teeth. He had to close his eyes before he was able to continue.

“My wife watched as well. She waited up for me in shock and told me I had totally fucked everything up. That I’d get the sack, perhaps not right away, but that this would affect me for years to come. People’s memories here last longer than the State’s. They know whose side their great-great-grandfather was on. That’s what she said, then she jumped me and we had the best sex we’ve had in twenty years. Well, at least there’s that.”

He lifted the fork and gently lowered it onto the glazing of the piece of cake in front of him. As the tip of the prong pierced the droplet, it flattened and engulfed it.

“I thought it was just us journalists who stick our heads in the sand like ostriches and let things pass… This nation will survive through everything, because it never wants to see what it should. That’s the secret of our survival. The ostrich strategy. Others have a wider, bird’s eye view of things; our bird is an ostrich. Great nations must look ahead, small ones must look away.”

All of a sudden, his bony fingers turned white and his wrist shook with the pressure exerted. He began forking the cake madly, squashing it and crumbling it into a brown mess. Zala could not take her eyes off the destruction, as his breathing became gasping.

All of a sudden, his bony fingers turned white and his wrist shook with the pressure exerted. He began forking the cake madly, squashing it and crumbling it into a brown mess. Zala could not take her eyes off the destruction as his breathing became gasping until it unexpectedly stopped simultaneously with the attack on the cake.

“So, there, we have it,” he said and threw the fork onto the table. It fell to the floor and its clang resounded for a long while.

* * *

Faces, what faces! A Ljubljana full of people. Not an empty seat in the bars and coffee shops. Fragments of conversations reached Zala, moans about how hard they worked, how they suffered in their jobs, how everyone was exploiting them. Groaning, begging for pity, in the middle of a working day, at ten in the morning,. Faces. Tense, sombre, and tearful. People with their own worries, some real, most made up. Anxious, because in this country it was indecent not to be. Faces. Strangers.

Zala wanted to throw up.

The image of the crumbled cake remained before her like a stain inside her lens that would not disappear, and all these faces mixed into it.

* * *

A face that promised something different. Those American white teeth, the optimism, programmed from the womb, from the egg and the sperm, perhaps even before, from the first settlers. Mark’s face in front of her, confused, his eyebrows independent, furrowing the skin between them. He did not understand a thing.

“They’ll ignore it?” he said, “Nothing in the media? I watched TV yesterday and there really was nothing, I was a bit suspicious, but I could never have foreseen... Don’t the police here watch TV? The State Prosecution?”

He began to speak more and more quietly and incomprehensibly. She hated his switch to finding a solution; it was his way of escaping reality. He took the information with him and switched off, his brain rumbling on, leaving her alone in the corridor next to the drinks machine.

She hated him and herself too when she spoke weakly, “I thought... TV... that everything would change...”

“It does in American movies!” Her voice did not feel like her own - it was sulky, alien, unrecognisable. She retook control by lowering it to something between a growl and clearing her throat.“How can you be so cool? To you this is just a new problem that needs to be solved! This is not a game of chess! This is our child!”

Mark switched back to the present. “What am I supposed to do? Jump about and shout? Will that help? Will it? Will it?”

He even tried to jump a little but grabbed the left part of his chest where his rib had broken. He swore and gave her an angry look.

“I trusted my father,” she said, “until he took me to work one day, all proud. We’d just moved to Rijeka, I must have been eleven. Huge barracks on top of a hill. My father always cleaned his uniform; that day he gave it added attention. Was it possible that the Yugoslav Army had an open day? Probably not, I can’t remember, but I know I went along with him. To the army that was the strongest in the world and always won at manoeuvres. With a father who was the greatest and bravest person of my universe. What a day, oh, what a day! Everyone who walked past shouted at him and insulted him. I knew all the ranks, he taught me the ranks before I knew how to read. And all these ranks were walking past, and every one of them reviled my father. All so he could then rant on at a few dozen spotty brats who didn’t even know how to button up their uniforms and couldn’t have cared less. All they were doing was counting the days till they left.

The worst part was the way back home. Because...”

Zala’s voice trembled.

“...because, you know what, Mark, you know what? Because my father left just as proud as he was in the morning when he came to work!”

She did not want to take her eyes from Mark’s listening face. He even listened as if he were solving problems. A frown when she started talking, then a blink with the left eye, eyebrows moved upwards, eyes widened; he understood what she wanted to tell him. This was followed by a verification to check he was still following the right thread, sampling every few sentences. All this was done rationally, but at the same time, the area round his mouth was emotional, as if he had forgotten to control himself.

How she had looked for excuses after last August as to why she really could not live with him! Once the passion dwindled and the blackness disappeared from his eyes, would she really be able to put up with this eternal rational rumination? Did he have a sense of humour or did he take the world too literally? Could she... She could, the tiny voice inside her always resounded.

“I trusted you in the same way,” she added.

“I’m a foreigner here. You all function differently than what I am used to. No, I am not making excuses,” he said, hurriedly, “Have I given up? No! I keep thinking about it, it eats away at me.”

“A mathematical problem?”

She could not take his astringent look.

“I will accept anything that could save my child,” she said, “because... now... Mark, I thought of him just now and my nipples reacted. It’s the same every time. They are waiting for him, for his mouth, they are full of food. But he’s not here. The mere thought of him, just the thought of him does what it wants with my body.”

She ran out of words. Staring at the ground, she dug the fingers of her right hand into the palm of her left.

“I’m leaving for home on Friday. The corporation wants me to have some extra tests, my wife and children are worried, I need to rest. And I have a feeling, though I can’t prove it, that the Boss has additional reasons for moving me away from this country. He has friends in high places here.”

Zala looked at him in surprise.

“Of course they know about you. They have their surveillance and they know. Watch out, please.”

“I’m leaving,” she said.

“Please, stay a little longer. Let’s finally get this coffee.”

He pushed the coins into the machine and spent a few seconds solving the problem of which buttons to press.

“Like in a lab,” he commented on the plastic cup he was holding in his hands. “It even smells like something from a lab.”

The coffee was far too sweet, so she just smelled it. There was something comforting in the scent that had been present in happier circumstances.

“Anywhere you are, people don’t want to cause problems for themselves. But here everything is state owned.” He began listing by showing his fingers, index finger first. “From the media,” then the middle finger, “through to the writers,” and the ring finger, “and companies. So who is going to oppose the state?”

“You see,” she said, “that is the problem.”

“What?”

“No, keep your hand there. Don’t move.”

She clenched her fist and then stretched her thumb. “Firstly.”

She extended her index finger. “Secondly.”

Added the middle finger. “Thirdly. Did you see that?”

“No, what?”

She repeated the movements of her fingers. “Firstly. Secondly. Thirdly.”

Perplexed, he stared at her, his brow furrowing.

“What are you trying to say?”

“Count!” she said. “Count on your fingers! One to five!”

He obeyed.

“See?”

His fifty-year-old face relaxed, looking childish in its concentrated interest.

“You’re right!” he said, “That’s it! I never noticed before! I’ve been here for a year! Thanks for pointing it out... You count differently, you start with the thumb. In America, we use the index finger first. So we are out of sync, by one finger. But why are you telling me this?”

An iciness rendered her words and gaze colder.

“Have you ever thought that Slovenia might be such a peculiar place that your problem solving could fail here?”

“Look, the smaller the nation, the more it believes it is something special. This helps it survive through history...”

“Perhaps,” she interrupted, “you were wrong about the editor, made a mistake with the writer, fucked up with the TV presenter. All, get it, all the hopes you gave me were false. Out of sync by one finger. And I trusted you. You Americans come here and advise us but you even count differently. You’re a foreigner and a man. To you the child is just a word and I... I never want to see you again! Never again!”

“Zala...”

“And now you run away, like a wimp!”

“Zala, I will still try...”

“Fuck you!”

“I must... I have authorised a lawyer...”

“Fuck you!”

Once, in her arguments with her father, she had almost reached this level of icy calm. But it had seemed so terrifying that she had drawn back to the safety of shouting, brawling, and high drama.

“Zala...”

“Fuck you!” she repeated quietly, turned around, and left.

* * *

A man and woman in clothes that fashion had long left in the past were waiting outside the apartment block. Above his stripy shirt was an angular head with protruding ears; she was wearing a cardigan and held a wicker basket covered with an embroidered cloth.

Zala was about to walk past them and indeed they moved out of her way, when the woman said, “Thank you, Madam! You spoke for us also!”

The man nodded solemnly.

“We brought you some cherries, they are already ripening where we live,” the woman concluded and offered her the basket that Zala’s hand took instinctively.

“We didn’t want to disturb you,” the man said, as they nodded and left.

“How did you know where to find me?” Zala asked, but they were already too far away to hear her.

* * *

She slowly turned the shower handle to cold and shuddered every time a fresh jet hit her. She knew she had taken it out on Mark, but she didn’t want to see him again. Not because of what he had tried and how he had failed, but because of the tiny particles of his features that had travelled into her, mingling in her womb with her and her ancestors and that would now remind her of the child she had lost.

The end.

She hadn’t been run over by a car, beaten up by the police, or disappeared into the night. It had ended in a silence that absorbed her screams. How long could one voice hold on without the support of even a single echo? She had believed that love conquered all. Now she knew from experience that it certainly could not conquer the disinterest of the crowd.

The end.

She dried herself, ran naked into the bedroom, and threw a blanket over her head, shivering with the cold. As she slowly warmed up in the darkness, she dreamt of kidnapping her son, of miraculous endings, and cried.

The end.

She didn’t know if she had lost consciousness or fallen asleep. The sun reflecting in the window on the opposite side of the yard announced that it was already early afternoon.

Covered up to her nose, she looked slowly around the room. Was this all that would remain? A wardrobe, a poster with a dolphin on the wall opposite. This cot in the middle, forever empty.

She was alone.

Terrified, Zala dressed quickly.

She was already at the door when the phone rang.

“Bitch! Southern whore!” a man’s voice shouted down the line and immediately hung up.

* * *

She was the only one to get off the bus at the stop outside the Centre for Asylum Seekers. She noticed Nikola from afar; he sat smoking on the bench in the yard. The man next to him was explaining something with great fervour. Zala pressed her hands against the fencing to try and attract her friend’s attention. She looked around, afraid there might be security guards present; she saw none, but they were certain to ask for some identification if they caught her.

A young man with his shirt unbuttoned walked by and she asked him to call the guy over there, pointing to Nikola.

“Hey, Senad, come here, a woman to see you!” he shouted and, eyeing her top to bottom, reluctantly moved on.

Nikola grinned at her with all his teeth but one. The scratches on his face were healing, the edges of the bruise under his eye had begun turning yellow.

“Look at you!” she said and wanted to stroke his face. He pressed his cheek against the mesh. “Now will you yield to my charms?”

She smiled.

“Senad? What was that about?”

“I am pretending to be Bosnian. I hope they’re not such bastards that they’d send me to Bosnia where the worst fighting is. If necessary, I’ll ask for political asylum with UNPROFOR or UNICEF or whatever they are. What was the response to the show?”

“Nothing.”

“What do you mean? Here we all cried! Even those who didn’t understand a word, even they were carried away. What do you mean nothing? Didn’t it help at all?”

“No.”

“Uh, fuck it, the power of television. Just as well I don’t pay for a TV license.”

“If it would help, I would come through the main gate with my ID card and sign for you.

But now...”

“Jailhouse petting.” He pressed his face against the mesh again.

“Nikola, stop kidding. I don’t know what to do. It’s over. The end.”

“It isn’t. It ain’t over till it’s over.”

“I can’t stop hoping, I can’t! I hope the phone will ring, that the State will call and my child will be returned.”

Nikola became serious and looked at her sadly. “The State will call? Never heard that one before.”

“If I stop now, I will die. I must...”

She leaned her forehead against the mesh.

“I don’t know... I just want to lie down and die.”

“Zala...”

“I know it’s the end, yet at the same time I keep milking my tits, squeezing out the milk, do you understand? I can’t stop. This milk is my tears for him, for baby Marko, who was stolen from me. In the beginning, I cried every few hours. Now it’s less and less frequent, because my brain knows there’s no point, and my body is beginning to believe it. Nikola, I can’t go on like this, I can’t. I am so alone.”

She looked at his face, far too young for all the things she wanted to say. She was pushing her own thorns into his skin, so she fell silent, gave him a half wave and left.

She waited a long time for the bus at a stop of which all that remained was a pole without a timetable. When it arrived, she paid her fare, dragged herself to the seat and watched the waves of grass floating by.

“Inspection!” a harsh male voice said.

‘At last!’ she said to herself and decided, without resistance, to take the long journey to Kragujevac.

She looked at him tiredly. The man in the green uniform in front of her was holding some kind of card at her.

“Your ticket please.”