3 May 1992, Sunday - Erased

Zala opened her eyes to find the Director of the Clinic looking toward her baby’s bed. There was something contemplative spreading over her face, tightening into an idea. Zala pretended to close her eyelids and continued to observe the woman through her eyelashes. She felt she was witnessing something personal that the woman next to her probably would not want observed.

Zala groaned deliberately. The woman was so absorbed in thought that she didn’t notice. Her eyes remained glued to...

‘My child!’ Zala leaped up in fear.

He was sleeping.

“You don’t know how lucky you are,” the Director whispered, without looking at her. “A wonderful child! All that could have happened and didn’t, we should stop and think about it more often, and learn to appreciate what we have more, don’t you think so?”

Zala nodded.

With a slow turn of her head, the Director looked over at the sleeping women. The moaning woman opposite was asleep with her chin in the air, snoring through a wide-open mouth.

“I see all kinds of mothers here!” the Director said. “Fathers too, of course. There are all kinds of people in the world! I work in a job where I come into contact with the entire population. And the entire population is...”

She moved right up to the cot railing, peering at the sleeping face.

“The population is... I’m worried about our country. It is so young, will it be able to handle all these people? You said you were a nursery school teacher?”

Zala wanted to reply, but the words stuck in her dry throat, so she merely nodded though she was convinced that she had never spoken about this with the Director.

“Then you know. This is how we are. People come and we judge them, we can’t help it. I judge you to be a mother who wants the best for her child. Is that not so?”

“Of course,” Zala answered, trying to guess where this monologue was leading.

The Director’s fake smile looked like something she had learned.

“We’ll sort it all out, don’t worry!” she added and left.

* * *

Ljubljana had been thoroughly cleansed by the rain that Sunday morning. The inhabitants had left for their weekend houses and dachas, half towards the coast, half into the mountains. The tourists had not yet arrived; the war was still raging on in the neighbouring states of the former Yugoslavia (translated into only a fingerprint’s distance on the map) and it scared visitors away.

Zala stood by the window and looked out. She missed being active, missed her usual morning walk after the May Day holidays through the empty town, across Tivoli Park to the forest and toward Rožnik Hill. Evidence of the previous night’s traditional celebrations was littered everywhere, empty bottles and patches of drying vomit. At the top of the hill were the remnants of a bonfire, a thick circle of blackened ash; when once she had stuck her fingers into it, she had been burnt. Binmen climbed slowly out of small trucks, stretched themselves and looked despondently at the mess they were called to clear up before the hung-over population began to wake up.

She found something appealing about work that was only noticed when it wasn’t done.

Zala slid her fingers across the hospital window silently. A line of chestnut trees created a canopy over the empty road and occasionally swayed in the wind, making Zala wonder whether it was her eyes or the branches that were quivering. Every so often, a taxi drove by resignedly, the driver burning fuel simply because otherwise he might fall asleep at the rank.

She noticed a skinny figure with a beret, one of those with a little stub sticking out on top, a bit like a fuse, and she remembered how she used to see workers wear them throughout Yugoslavia. With their dark, leathery skin, they looked like sailors, though they had almost certainly never seen a ship in their life. Their hands were bony and covered in protruding veins and tendons, as they passed along the bricks on the building sites of the former homeland. On public holidays, when the locals would drive off somewhere and migrant workers returned to their homes, these people had nowhere to go. They walked around town at a slow pace, as if afraid the road would end before the holiday did. They probably only made a single stop all day, to buy a burek at the red, prefab, plastic kiosk. They would unwrap the greasy paper slowly, as if it contained a precious gift.

The figure stepped out onto the road without looking left or right and crossed it along a drawn-out diagonal, like a car with a full tank of petrol and an open map on the passenger seat. Zala could not tear her gaze away from the forlorn figure in oversized clothes, its skeleton-like posture and resigned demeanour. The man reached the pavement, transformed into tiny dark patches behind the treetops, and disappeared.

* * *

The doctors marched in for rounds as she was breastfeeding. Tania winked at her from afar and Zala lowered her head to hide her smile.

The Consultant frowned and nodded, and Zala’s fingers tensed into fists.

“Are we going home tomorrow?” she asked.

“In principle...” he began, swivelling his chin on its axis and pressing his lips together.

Tania looked at him with surprise, shifted into his personal space and stepped onto her toes, as she tried to look at the papers he was crumpling with his thumbs.

“You know... there are some complications...”

“Is there something wrong with my son?”

“No, no, no! Just some tests... it’ll all be clear this week...”

He avoided eye contact and his body moved, as if each part separately wanted to escape the scene. Zala felt her throat close up, her words stuck and she could not swallow. Paralysis spread in freefall down to her stomach and her muscles tightened to prevent her from exploding.

“It’ll all be fine,” said the Consultant, halfway toward the corridor and rushed away without even looking at the remaining two patients in the room. Only now did the male intern notice that something unusual was happening, blinking nervously as if he had only just woken up. He hurried after the doctor. Before following them, Tania pointed to herself and waved her hand reassuringly.

* * *

Zala waited for Tania at the coffee machine. She tried hard not to follow every move of the minute hand on the clock, but could not resist. It took all her power to stay put, to keep herself from rushing around and asking questions. Every muscle wanted to act, to do something, anything, but remained trapped inside her skin, forced to wait.

Tania came, almost running.

“I don’t know what this is about, I’m sorry. The Consultant refuses to say anything, but all the results I’ve seen are fine. Please, stay calm!”

Realising how unconvincing her appeal was, Tania tried to substantiate it with a squeeze of the hand. Zala latched onto her, hurting Tania. She apologised; the force simmering inside her was looking for an outlet.

“But what...”

“Nothing! I’m sure it is nothing! They’ve not conducted any new tests on you or your baby, yesterday everything was fine, and then today... I have never seen anything like this.”

“He’s hiding something...”

Tania hesitated and then nodded.

“Everything is fine with your child. I am certain of that! I’ll keep my eyes open, really. Trust me!”

Zala looked at her and, for the first time, no longer saw the neighbour’s girl she had once defended, but a white gown and stethoscope she could trust. At least as long as she held her hand and felt her warmth.

“I need to go!” Tania said.

“Yes,” Zala said, gathering all her strength to release her fingers.

* * *

Zala raised her index finger. She waited for her eyes to adjust to the patchy darkness; the corridor’s dimmed night lights. The child’s head lay in front of her, as delicate as twilight. She leaned forward. Every time the metal frame creaked, she waited for the groaning to stop before lowering her finger further. She held it right under the baby’s mouth and felt its breath, its warmth, and then the wrinkling of its brow – he is breathing! He is alive!

Reassured, she carefully moved away. She couldn’t see the point of lying down. Fear wanted her flat, stretched out on the bed, so it could lie right across her, crushing, smothering and stifling her.

She didn’t sit for long, beginning to compose herself for yet another check. The night seemed to become ever longer as it progressed, as if she and the anguish that it brought her were its sole purpose.

Small moments of relief:

(He is breathing! He is alive!)

mingled with intermittent periods of horror, when her head filled with everything she had ever heard or read about cot deaths, birth defects, and tiny white coffins.