Ivan Dobnik - Vilenica

Guy Helminger · 369
“How long do we have to wait?” asked Tiha.
“Until the shops are open,” repeated Biljana. She wasn’t sure if her husband
knew they had arrived. Come to think of it, how could he know they were
already here? Her father had gone with her and his granddaughter across
Bosnia and all the way to Croatia, and would certainly have called him
after he had got back to Trpezi. But had he returned already? And even if
he had, and if he had called Aleksandar, he could only have told him that
his family was on the way, not when exactly they would arrive at Esch.
Biljana opened the zipper on the side of the suitcase and pulled out a piece
of paper with the phone number of Aleksandar’s brother, where her husband
lived since he had fled. Živko had come to Luxembourg eight years
ago and worked here as a turner. He had his papers, he was employed,
everything legal. Biljana looked at the number for a while, then she tucked
the piece of paper into her trouser pocket.
Sporadically, the lights went on in the tall building of the train station, a
pub in the ground floor opened. But she didn’t want to call from a bar.
…
The night leached slowly from the sky. The darkness turned mole-colored,
then translucent and in the end bright like a white but frequently used
cleaning rag, wiping between the roofs of the houses.
“Not really much warmer here than in Montenegro,” said Biljana. She
folded her arms; she seemed so delicate, as if she would start shivering with
cold any moment. Is this the place where she would live now, where she
would want to live? She would miss her father, the mountains, the house,
all the small things always taken for granted, the cackling of the hens, the
pile of firewood by the doorway, the trips to Berane.
Another train was approaching, the brakes creaked, then it drew out again.
Tiha was beginning to get bored, and walked along the wall counting cars.
She hadn’t seen her father for six months, and she imagined he had gained
some weight since then. Surely he ate more, here in Luxembourg. Not that
he picked at his food at home, but she was somehow sure he ate more here.
In Trpezi, Eldina and Milka would already be playing on the street in front
of the house, as they played together each day before the bus came around
noon to bring them to school.
“Don’t go too far,” Tiha heard her mother calling. She turned her head
without answering and continued walking. Would she also have to take
the bus to school here?
Some of the shops seemed to fill with life. Tiha saw how the shop windows
lit up, how saleswomen strolled up and down the shopfloors, loading the
sales counters or rearranging the goods. She had good eyes. Grandpa Gordan
wouldn’t have been able to see that from all the way over here, perhaps
not even her mother.
Translated by Ana Jasmina Oseban
and Samuel Pakucs Willcocks