Yugoslavia, My Fatherland

16

When Dusha, with that unforgettable smile, first told me, fourteen years ago, that she was expecting a baby and that we would move in with Dragan, aka the ‘whispering one,’ at his apartment on Pregl Square, while his parents, the ones who hadn’t taught him that it was rude to whisper in company, would move to our, smaller apartment, everything went black before my eyes. My inhibitions fled before me, and I couldn’t hold back anymore. That day, Dusha was ‘a slut, a cow, a shit-face, an ass kisser, an idiot, a piece of shit, a pig, a moron, a dunce, trash, a fuck-face, and stinker, and a ‘slut’ a few more times. For me, this helped. I don’t even know what I resented more that day; the fact that she had buried my father without my permission, or that of all the men in this world, she had given herself to Dragan Ćirić from Pregl Square, who was never more than the sum of his parts. Whatever it was, it drove me to primal scream therapy, until I could hardly breathe. I threatened her and threw things around the apartment. Dusha hid her head in her hands and sobbed, while I was yelling and waving my hands at her, and I finally told her, at least ten times, that she could go fuck herself, but that I wouldn’t be moving to Pregl Square, that I didn’t want to see her kid, that I didn’t give a fuck about it all, and couldn’t care less, even if I never saw her again.

Despite this, Dusha called me from the maternity ward when Mladen was born. I didn’t yell or call her names anymore, but I was silent on the phone, pretending not to hear that I had a brother with black hair who looked a bit like me, because he was chubby just like I had been. I waited for her to tell me what she had to tell me and then I said: ‘So?’ and she went quiet, and then we were both quiet until she hung up.

I first saw Mladen when his tiny black hair was already falling over his eyes, and when he could easily annoy me for the simple reason that Dragan found everything that he did funny. Even though he was only excitedly grabbing my nose with his hands, and uttering random sounds that Dusha immediately translated into philosophical dissertations. He was a chubby free-peeing kid who, in addition to my nose, was also fascinated with Dragan’s stubs in the ashtray on the table, and in his presence I tried to appear as unenthusiastic as I could. When this wasn’t enough, I decided to ignore our blood ties, determined that he wouldn’t be my brother. I actually decided that Dusha’s new family would not even be close to my new family, and started intentionally avoiding them.

When the boy started to say ‘daddy’ and ‘mummy’, Dusha invited me to see her at work. There, in a doctor’s office, she explained by way of stammering apology that some people, unfortunately, can’t be alone, and that loneliness requires a special kind of inner strength, which she didn’t have, and so she needed someone to go through life with her. She explained that she just had to start a new family, and that I would understand when I’m older, and know more about these things. She added that Dragan was a very good husband and an even better father, that he was hard working and honest, and then she entangled herself in these meaningless clichés some more. In the end, when she didn’t know how to proceed, and even what she wanted to tell me, she stopped and said that she would just like for me and Mladen to love each other, to all get along. But I was in the middle of the worst years of puberty at the time, so I just answered that the three of them and I weren’t a ‘we,’ and never would be a ‘we,’ because they were ‘they’ and I was ‘me’. And I added that, unlike her, I could be ALONE. And before I slammed the door behind me, I had said that she couldn’t order me to love anyone.

The next time I saw Mladen, Dragan introduced me, saying: ‘Mladen, this is Vladan. Give him your hand.’ At the bus station, I shook hands with this handsome dark haired little boy with olive skin and big dark eyes. It seemed that at this point his father agreed that he didn’t have a brother, and that I was only one in a series of strangers Mladen would practice his manners on. So we stood there, looking at each other, and Dragan, who was even more embarrassed than I was, took advantage of his son’s presence to avoid talking to me, and gently babbled to him all the time: ‘You see how big he is, you’re also going to be that big when you go to school, and you’re going play ball, and when you eat a lot and find yourself a girl and…’

Luckily, the bus I was waiting for soon came, and Dragan didn’t have to carry on with his improvised forecast of Mladen’s life story, which made him seem an even bigger fool that he already was in my eyes.

I don’t know when and how they finally explained to Mladen that I was really his half brother, but for years it seemed to me that he didn’t have a clue what that meant, and how to behave around someone of my description. The rare times we met, he shyly withdrew his gaze, and I can’t recall a single conversation with him from the time when he was a little boy. He partially made up for this, when he transformed from a cute quiet little kid into a local freak, breaking into basements and writing on the walls of lifts. He thought it was a good joke to see his own half brother as one of his pals from apartment block number five or number eight, and to communicate to him in this way.