Mama Leone by Miljenko Jergovic Read Free Book Online

When one day I see people losing their heads in the middle of the street, then I’ll know that only Donna had saved me from these kinds of dreams.

The kid never panics
    It’s June already, my birthday was seven days ago, and yesterday I discovered the world of split shadows. It was like this. We arrived in Drvenik, Grandma and me, and as soon as we got there she said go on, go and play , and I knew why she so was quick to get rid of me. She wanted to pick up the phone, ring Dad in Sarajevo or my uncle, Mom’s brother, or someone else she could have a serious talk with, someone as worried as we were, because the day after my birthday Mom had gone to Ljubljana for an operation. Dad said it’s nothing serious , but two sharp lines creased Mom’s face, two crevices between her eyes. She said you never know, it could get bigger . Dad said and that’s why you’re going to Ljubljana, to be on the safe side and so that it doesn’t get bigger . Grandma asked well, what is it exactly , and Dad said nothing, just a tiny bump on the cervix . I sat underthe table pretending I was building a Lego castle for Queen Forgetful, but I actually wasn’t building anything, I was eavesdropping and trying to understand what was going on. But I didn’t understand anything. Instead, a vast freezing emptiness swelled in my chest, right there under the bones where we breathe, where the heart beats. I didn’t know what it was. It wasn’t a space holding old fears or guilt at something I’d done, but something strange and new, something I couldn’t figure out because there just wasn’t anything there. But I felt it swell, pressing against my bones, this vast freezing emptiness, dissolving into dead air, into a shadow hovering over my heart and the grown-up hearts of Grandma, Mom, and Dad, my heart that now shares terrifying and serious things with others. Bump is a nice little word, like tummy and mommy, but it means something terrible. Words like this didn’t exist before. Before this bump everything little was harmless and sweet, tiny to the eye and pretty to look at, but this had all changed. It changed the day after my birthday when I was eavesdropping on Grandma, Mom, and Dad. The time of little things and their goodness had come to an end. From now on the world would no longer hide in diminutives, no longer reside in their little lost paradises, in Lego cottages or on tiny ottomans upon which the dreams of secret princesses lay scattered.
    Grandma’s on the phone now. I thought it over as I traipsed past the stone Dalmatian houses. I wasn’t just walking, I was stamping, really getting into it. I wanted to stamp right over the top of whatever waslodged in my head. Mom had gone far away, all the way to Ljubljana, and she was in the hospital, having an operation. You go to the hospital to get well, not to get sick , Dad said when they were going to take my tonsils out. But why do they take your tonsils out in Sarajevo and you have to go to Ljubljana because of a bump? Because a bump is so terrible that you have to go far away, like in a fairy tale where they cross seven mountains and seven seas to get well. But not all long journeys have fairy-tale endings. A fairy tale is a fairy tale because it’s a story with a happy ending, it’s just that happy endings don’t happen very often and people don’t usually live in them. There isn’t enough room for everyone. In fairy tales there’s only enough room for a couple of old kings, for their good, bad, and clever daughters, and for the queen and a few witches, but not for people, the millions of millions of people. There isn’t enough room for my mom either, who isn’t a queen or a princess but just a regular mom who works in accounts, suffers from migraines, and sings on Saturdays, enveloped in steam and water until her hands have finished doing the washing that isn’t allowed to go in the machine.