Little Bastards in Springtime (27 page)

Mr. Duff is standing next to me. “Prose fiction narrative is one of the most powerful human inventions. In my humble opinion, anyway,” he says. “Along with various things engineers have come up with. It has the power to transform the world, because it has the power to transform you. How you think and feel, the extent to which you understand and empathize with others, and therefore how you act in the world.”

The thing is, our exit was blocked. First rule in a situation like this: grab at least one thing. It’s a point of pride. Second rule: don’t waste time talking to anyone, especially each other. Third rule: bring out the heaviest weapon you have and use it fast. So, Zijad popped the tear-gas canister, we dropped to the ground, the men stumbled around coughing, we slithered past them, the men swore and wheezed, we sprinted up the stairs, the men shouted at each other, we flew past the women, burst out the back door, and ran like wild dogs for the car. The police were wailing down the street as we threw our loot into the trunk. We squealed out of the driveway, doors still open, and burned the engine in the opposite direction, with a whole halfminute
to spare. We love this part of our escapades, when we’re almost caught. With adrenaline sluicing through our veins, Sava, Madzid, Zijad, Geordie, and I feel like Buddhist monks perched on the craggy peak of a remote mountain, minds free of tormenting thoughts, hearts free of sadness and fury. We’re so Zen our heart rates drop, our breathing slows, our third eye opens to see all of reality sparkling brilliantly in every direction of existence, and in the midst of chaos, we feel normal for a few sweet moments of our day.

“Read a book cover to cover, and you will become a more thoughtful, interesting human being,” Mr. Duff says, thumping his hand hard on the pile of books he’s going to hand out, trying to get our attention. “And that—” The buzzer goes and his voice is drowned out by thirty chairs scraping backwards.

S
AVA
and I walk home, moving slowly along the cracked sidewalk, not caring if it rains, sleets, thunders, or blows a typhoon, we need the fresh air. In the houses, fridges open, milk is poured, chips are eaten, TVs are turned on, kids rest their brains from badgering and sudden revelations, women throw pots and pans around, drink glasses of wine, try to remember which children go where, when, what happened to the last ten years of their lives, were they good, were they bad, and think about life’s simple pleasures like melted cheese on broccoli and precut fruit. That’s what I think is going on in those houses, anyway. In my house, there is pealing piano music and waiting to see what the future will bring.

“We build the railroad, the railroad builds us,” I say.

Sava says, “My grandfather told me they also went on expeditions together, like up to Tito’s war headquarters, or to his
village in Croatia, and places like that. They went all together, in trains—and guess what they did on those train rides?”

“They sang,” I say.

“Yup.”

“And discussed vital issues of the day.”

“Yup.”

“Laughed and joked and slapped each other on the back.”

I scoff. Sava scoffs.

“Whose village would you want to visit now, on a train full of singing people?” Sava asks.

I can’t think of anyone’s village I’d want to visit.

“The Dalai Lama’s?” Sava suggests. “Kurt Cobain’s? I don’t know.”

We think about it and watch the clouds race by above our heads.

“D
O YOU
ever think about politics?” I ask Sava, Madzid, and Zijad, who are lounging on my floor in the late afternoon, smoking up a storm like a bunch of nervous soldiers in a trench. People were paid in cigarettes during the siege, they were an essential of life. Now we inhale a hundred dollars and four pounds of flour every day without a thought. “What do you mean?” Madzid asks.

“Oh, you know, about the way things should be, justice, injustice.”

“Ah, no, not really,” says Zijad.

“You know, what you believe in, what form of government.”

“Like what party? Liberals, NDP, Conservatives?”

“No, you idiot, like socialism, communism, liberal democracy, capitalism, that kind of thing. Which is the best way to live, for individuals, for society, you know, the good life.”

“Never. They’re all fucked.”

I take one of Baka’s letters out of the box and read it aloud to them. “Listen to this,” I say. “There was a time where this is what you did if you were kids like us …
Railroad fever has really spread, whole school classes are here together on their summer holidays, no one wants to be left out of this hundred-and-fifty-mile-long adventure. Everyone feels strong and enthusiastic, there are no stragglers, everyone works double-fast time because we want to better the target date for finishing, we’re like one body, that’s how it is, and some of us do it all on the run. Oh, the constant rattle and whine of those squeaky wooden barrows along the line, day and night. But the government has supplied us with some big machinery as well and that will make us lay the miles down faster than ever, you should see them, giant tractors and steamrollers, and when we come to excavating the tunnels there will be explosives and of course many of us know exactly how to use those, that’s one good thing about the war, we have so many skills to give our new country. And there is special training, some are going to be civil engineers, they’re being trained on the job starting with surveying, and it looks so interesting, I want to do it too. I see sunshine and happiness in our future, maybe we’ll have surveyors’ tools and hard hats too, or desks with blueprints and technical drawings on them, you and me waving our pens around sounding knowledgeable about sewers and bridges and important things like that. Write me soon, all my love to you (I love you so much and miss you), my H.

Your A

We build the railway, the railway builds us.
”

I look at the others and they’re staring at me like little children listening to a fairy tale.

“She wasn’t that much older than us, that’s the thing,” I say, feeling depressed for us all.

Mama is calling me from upstairs. When I burst into the
kitchen she’s got a look of determination on her face. She tells me she’s going out with Aisha to get her some new clothes, Aisha is growing tall and nothing fits her anymore. Okay, I say, whatever. But Mama stares at me with a message in her eyes. She wants to tell me something, but she doesn’t want to say the words out loud, she’s ashamed. Suddenly I understand her loud and clear. For a moment I feel light as a balloon, like my whole body has suddenly filled with helium and I’m floating in space like a moon-walker. I waft downstairs and get the cash that Mama wants. There’s enough here to dress Aisha for all seasons, and all her girlfriends too, the ones who never come over to stay because Mama’s ashamed of our house as well.

‡ ‡ ‡

Z
IJAD’S COUSIN WHO IS HUGE AND ROUND BUT
looks about thirteen is in the living room when we enter Zijad’s apartment. He’s slouching on the sofa, eating chips, his big white-socked feet pressed up against the wall. He says, “Heya, Zid” when we pass to go to Zijad’s room. “You hanging out with your filthy Chetnik friend?”

I say, “You’re an ugly kid,” and walk into the living room menacingly, but he doesn’t flinch. His hair sticks straight up and is dyed blond, a home job that’s left dark patches all around his ears.

“You’re animals, you just kill and kill and kill,” he says.

“What are you talking about, I’ve never killed anyone in my life.” Which, as I say it, I suddenly, sickeningly, have doubts about. Those two kids lying in the parking lot in front of their building, the ruined Pumas, the limbs that didn’t move anymore. And me, my arm raised.

Zijad says, “Get a life, Johnny, you’re such a loser sitting around with these old people listening to the same old mentally ill stories. Find some friends. Play some video games. Watch American movies. Buy stuff. Anything but that depressing old-country bullshit. Move on, for Christ’s sake.”

Johnny says, “Someone has to stand up for our people, Zid, otherwise we’ll be, you know, dragged down forever. It’s not our fault that we’re the best and had to cut the rest loose.”

His voice is deadpan, and he hasn’t moved an inch during this exchange, except that he’s still eating the chips and crumbs are accumulating on his chest. The living room windows reveal a huge dark-blue sky and downtown Toronto glittering optimistically in the distance. I stare at it for a second and think that life is surreal.

“You be respectful to Auntie and Uncle, Johnny. Do you hear? You shut up about this stuff around them or I’ll fucking kick your ass.”

“Ha ha,” says Johnny. “You’re so lame. It’s a free country, I can say anything I want.”

I sigh. The only response to a stupid point of view is to punch the person in the face, because reasoning will never help. Or walk away. And since beating this boy up isn’t going to make him grow a brain, we turn our backs and walk down the hallway that smells of fried oil to Zijad’s room, banging the door shut behind us. We light up smokes and spliffs and sit around decompressing in a five-alarm cloud. Zijad grumbles about Johnny and his other cousins, how the family was ripped apart at home and over here, how relatives still don’t speak to each other, and all that fucking pathetic stuff.

To cheer him up, I tell Zijad about thoughts I’m having, thoughts about doing something real for once, something useful, thoughts that are obsessing my mind and won’t go away.

“You know, for Baka, because that would make her happy.”

He says, “Oh yeah, sure, man. That’s good. I like that, I get where you’re coming from. It’s worth a try. Whatever.”

“There’s this old lady two blocks over,” I say, sitting up, a plan suddenly sprouting in my mind like a little pea shoot. “I see her all the time sitting on the retaining walls at the bottom of the lawns on our street. Sitting there, with her grocery bags and cane lying in front of her, as though she can’t carry them one more step. When she isn’t sitting, I see her stop every twenty feet or so, stand panting, wiping her face with a handkerchief.”

Zijad nods, lets a thick white puff of smoke hover at his lips for a moment, then inhales hard. He flicks ash into a Coke can.

“I know what she buys, Zijad,” I say. “I see it in her net bags every time she passes. She has milk, cereal, white bread, margarine, cigarettes, and a bunch of cans. Do you know what that means?”

A
ISHA
reads aloud to me.

“People wrote to each other a lot back then,” Aisha says. “We did a unit on letter writing in school, in the time before people had access to a telephone and cheap long-distance and electronic mail. And we looked at epistolary novels too.” Her mind is like Sava’s. It’s as quick and hungry as a clamp trap. We’re on my bed sorting the letters by date. Mama is in the living room practising a light, airy, tinkly piece. Chopin. It
sounds like a summer afternoon in a park in Paris, or that’s how I imagine it. I’m hanging with Aisha, because it’s the right thing to do, it would make Baka happy, and Baka is on my mind every minute of the day.

“I’ve never written a letter in my life,” I say.

“We don’t have the same need to express and understand ourselves,” Aisha says in her teacher voice.

“Oh yeah?” I say.

“Unfortunately, it makes us less precise thinkers. Letter writing requires keen observation of the world around us, and of ourselves.”

“Oh yeah?” I repeat like an idiot.

“Baka had so much to express. Life was exciting, meaningful for her with so much going on. And she was in love with our djedica.” Aisha’s eyes are fixed on my face like I might have something interesting to add. But I don’t.

“She wanted me, us, to know that her generation did great things,” I say, trying at least to fake it.

Aisha is sitting as close to me on my bed as she can get, her hand resting on my leg. I look at it and realize it’s as familiar to me as my own.

“Why aren’t we rebuilding our country from the ruins of our war now?” she asks.

“It’s not the same now, our war was a different kind of war. There was no Yugo left to rebuild after, everything fell apart, that was the whole point. Especially the idea of Yugo. Their war pulled it together. The communists did.”

“Do you ever see Berina and Dušan in the night?” Aisha asks me.