Catch the Rabbit

The right to silence was always more important in our friendship than the right to questions.

She would say you can’t have a person. But she would be wrong. You can own people for embarrassingly little.

There’s no finish line in Bosnia, all roads seem to be equally languid and pointless; they lead you in circles even when it looks like you’re making progress. Driving through Bosnia requires a different dimension: a twisted, cosmic wormhole that doesn’t take you to a real, external goal, but into the gloomy, barely traversable depths of your own being.

Ali ona me je uvijek podsjećala na nešto suštinsko u meni, neki centar koji ne može da se svede na četiri pravilna ćoška. Podsjećala me je na to da je nered prirodno stanje ovog svijeta, te da je naš život organizovan oko napora da unesemo red u sav taj haos, zapravo ništa drugo do odraz nesagledive arogancije.

You think people choose everything in their lives. Because you have spent your whole life choosing everything.

Our language was everywhere, whereas English, French, or German could only slip shyly through the tight passage between our front-palate consonants. I was surrounded by the same words I had cleansed myself of, the way a man who finally quit cigarettes might find himself closed in a smoking room.

Bila je to prva godina našeg prijateljstva, samo što tada nismo tako razmišljale. Niko ne razmišlja tako kada neke priče počinju. Ne možeš da znaš da je to prvo poglavlje. U tom trenutku to je sve vrijeme i sva priča, nema ništa prije niti poslije.

Per a mi els Balcans són un color, no un topònim. Els noms s’obliden més fàcilment, només cal que t’omplis de paraules estranyes, de mapes estranys, i de les lletres que desapareixen com el sucre a la llengua. Però els colors romanen, com pampallugues sota les parpelles, encara que hagi abandonat el sentimentalisme a casa la mare, fa molt de temps. Els colors no s’esborren amb quilòmetres. Un matís verd i feixuc, com els pebrots oblidats, secs i pansits, que ja no serveixen per nodrir ningú. Un marró trist que serpenteja com un riu mort després de l’apocalipsi. El color d’una mòmia devorada pels cucs. S’entreveuen les empremtes de les botes, encara que sigui impossible veure-les des d’aquesta altura. Tan sols és un miratge. Centenars de botes sobre la terra batuda. I els matolls, tumors d’un erd pàl·lid vora el riu, matolls cansats, però encara silvestres, cadascun amb el seu signe d’interrogació a sobre. Hi va morir algú, aquí? Algú hi va matar, aquí?

College was out of our lives – for me like a lover I had overestimated for four years, for her like a painful vaccine someone else had told her was necessary.

It’s that particular logic of hers that says gravity is to blame if someone pushes you down a flight of stairs, that all trees were planted so that she could take a piss behind them, and that all roads, no matter how meandering and long, have one connecting dot, the same knot – her. Rome is a joke.

We were the last two people in the world who believed he would come back. […] We knew that Armin was alive. That knowledge connected us much more than a shared desk did, it was important to stay together until the end, until your brother showed up again. If we fought, if we split up, that fragile conviction would come undone too. As if his whole life had been woven into the fabric of our friendship. He was to be found nowhere else but there.]

The night he hit her, I ran out of the house in fear, as if the kitchen had suddenly filled up with rats that lived in the dark behind the fridge and the oven and whose existence I had been unaware of.

Boys just stared at you as if you were a complicated dessert surrounded by unknown tableware.

What happened next?’ ‘He kissed me.’ ‘Down there?! Gross!’ Dead serious, as if you were confirming you had seen aliens land on our planet, you answer, ‘Down. There.

They looked at us girls with contempt in their eyes, ready to accept a power given to them unfairly. They had no idea what to do with it. And we felt the injustice as if someone else had been given a complicated toy we would have been able to put together in two seconds.

He reads books that are not for school as if he has nothing better to do with his time.

His hair was just like yours - black, uncombed, as if someone had left it behind on his head.

There’s an order to these things,’ I explained. ‘First the kiss. Then he can grab your butt. Then your boobs. First over the T-shirt, then under. Then you can touch his thing. Then over the leggings. After a year you let him put his hand down your pants. And you haven’t even kissed yet.

A bloated belly lay where the knees were supposed to be, swallowing my mother like quicksand, turning her into a uniform shape, a pile of mass, with a lock of blonde hair on top of it and two small eyes under the frowning forehead. She was deformed, as if a giant toddler had taken her into his clumsy hands and disfigured her like Play-Doh.

Compraré un carregador i trucaré al Michael. Li preguntaré si ha trobat les cortines. Què fa el nostre veí despullat. Si ha acabat aquell programa. Fins i tot li preguntaré per l'alvocater. És important. Li diré que Viena està perfecta, inflada com un pa. Seuré a l'avió, tornaré al seu llit. Al matí se sentirà l'olor de te negre amb algunes gotes de llet sencera. Ningú esmentarà Tito al meu aniversari. En Michael em dirà, amb la sintaxi de Yoda, que la “Força és intensa en mi”. Encarregarem pasta oriental, seurem al parquet ratllat i mirarem sèries. Ho farem a la taula del menjador. Ens barallarem a la botiga de queviures. La seva llengua. La seva guitarra. Els seus vinils. Descansaré de mi i d'ella.

A ella no li havia d'explicar res, tenia la lupa escaient per a les meves petites inquietuds. La meva sang era plena de petites partícules de foscor que se m'enganxaven per tot el cos. De manera que m'hi havia d'avesar, havia d'acceptar-les com una part substancial del meu ésser, una part per a la qual en Michael i tots els Michaels d'aquest món no tindrien mai un sensor adequat, una part que primer els intrigaria i després només els cansaria. De tant en tant, a les vores del meu ésser hi ensumarien una tendresa il·lògica, una tenebra que es desprendria de la meva pell, i no sabrien com interpretar-la, malgrat els seus intents benintencionats, emprenyats perquè no serien aquell que em faria estar millor. Em llegirien d'esquerra a dreta, amb molts diccionaris, fent de mi un llibre de tapa dura; i llavors vindria la Lejla, n’arrencaria els fulls i en faria ocellets. Perquè només ella sap que la foscor no s'interpreta, que no hi ha tema ni idea. Només ella sap alliberar-me de les tapes dures.

D'aquella tenebra que a Banja Luka gairebé es podia tocar, sentir-ne les fibres amb la llengua, un cop t'ha entrat a la circulació i se t'ha escampat pels pulmons, el fetge, el cervell, ja no en tornes a estar neta. De tant en tant surt a la superfície de la pell i la fa més aspra i freda, l’afebleix a poc a poc, mentre les satisfaccions diàries esdevenen del tot trivials, i aquella felicitat senzilla amb què comptaves se t'escapa entre les teves mans maldestres.

Tenia por del que em podien fer aquestes partícules de foscor, després d'omplir-me els pulmons i de passar-me al reg sanguini. Les meves venes estaven netes de feia molt de temps, no sabrien com reaccionar.