THE SAME
My father takes a long time to climb
the two steps. He hooks the handle of his cane on his pocket, gropes for
the door frame with his right hand and, hunched over and panting, enters
the kitchen. He cautiously sits in his chair and with a sigh proclaims that
we have a turtle.
My mother raises her eyes, reddened from her chopping onions,
and they sharply scold him through a film of tears.
I recognize what’s happening: he has mentioned nuns in brown
habits with bluish-violet halos around their heads; the monastery for whose
construction my grandfather collected a thousand gold coins; the water that
gurgles just under the bedroom; unknown people with bloated faces who stand
in the garden and stare at our windows when the moon is full; the pictures
one can enter (even more easily than mirrors!) just by stepping high into
the frame; travels that require only the bluish cold darkness behind closed
eyelids…
But my father’s fabrications have never included a reference
to animals.
Yes, there were winged horses for the angels in his visions
of healing… And, yes! Once, returning from the street (with a thick sweater
over his striped pajamas) he said that exactly ten donkeys were waiting for
their tailor. But this was all (still) at the beginning of his illness, and
we took it as a very successful joke at the expense of Uncle Risto – the
saddler.
So now I ask:
"What turtle?"
"Very pink," he says and calmly inhales the smoke of the
freshly lit cigarette.
Without a word, in resignation my mother wipes her tears with
the wrist of her right arm, and I steal a glance at my father’s wrinkled,
bewildered face, whose expression prompts my second question:
"Where did you see it?"
"In the yard," he says with that uncertain tone in his voice
that so often has hinted at the nesting places for the wonders similar to
the ones found in the books I like. I often draw the wrong conclusions, but
at once the thought occurs to me that my father is just getting warmed up.
I return to my book, thinking the appearance of a turtle in our yard,
unusual as it might be, is not a miracle great enough for me to put up with
all of my father’s asides and repetitive digressions. He will not miss the
chance of mentioning the old monastery, and then my mother will raise her
voice:
"You and your monasteries! And in our yard!" and the magic
will evaporate, turning into an ordinary family quarrel.
My father, oblivious to all outside influences, sinks into
himself. He strokes his powerless stiff arm with the other in measured,
slow movements, the only remedy for the pain, strokes that stretch the only
thin and transparent thread that connects him to the ordinary world.
When he opens his mouth to say something he frightens us because we expect
him to start moaning. The ritual of stroking his arm is always accompanied
by moaning and his "nonsense" that a big worm is drilling holes in his
elbow.
My mother has yelled at him many times, annoyed with this
"stupidity":
"What kind of worm? What kind of worm?"
And he stares at her wide pupils and answers dispassionately:
"White."
But this time the scene is not repeated. And my father
whispers the reason:
"It’s not so bad off. There is a lot of greenery…"
After a few days we adapted to my father’s new fabrication.
Everybody knew there was a turtle in our yard. Some mockingly asked
questions about it. (What does it eat, where does it go, how does it sleep,
where did it come from?) Some, when my father started telling his story,
just nodded their heads without much concern, uninterested, calm, somewhat
bored, but also undoubtedly with a pang of anxiety for the "poor, fragile,
and gentle creature under the shell. And the shell, it might get crushed if
you happen to step on it."
For a long time my mother would heave a sigh and lift her
eyes, but this also passed, and she started cracking jokes. The "your
turtle" from her shouted diatribes turned into "our turtle," spoken in coy
feminine tones of mockery to prod her husband as if he were impotent,
especially in the rare moments when a thin smile would rearrange the
network of wrinkles on his dark face. But he remained stubborn, even in the
new mood, and stood by his claim: We do have a turtle in the yard!
Our yard is truly marvelous. All who enter for the first time
crook their necks to take in the Big Tree. And they wonder aloud at the
female loyalty of the ivy clinging along the entire length of the tree.
They admiringly sniff the air when they are struck by the fragrance of the
flowers, and they smack their lips prosaically when their eyes eagerly
nibble at the image of the future salad within the frame of flowers –
tomatoes, cucumbers, and peppers.
And the greatest miracles, my father says, are in our yard
upside down. As if in a mirror, the top of the monastery bell tower, that
is, the Big Tree, is as deep as it is high. The roots of the flowers are
the same as these, but even prettier from the other side. Under the marble
basin of the former Turkish bath (where my mother planted petunias) there
is a gurgling spring that can be heard at night in the deep silence of the
bedroom. No, there are no tomatoes and peppers like these. That’s right.
None. Oh, the guests know how to admire the underground image of our yard.
But because of many of them, my father breaks off his story, leaving them
to the munching of a salad that gives them goose pimples, a certain sign
that only we, the privileged few, know the difference between what is
important and what is not.
Our guests inhale the fragrant air with nostrils spread wide.
My father, shoulders hunched, sits in the chair that more than anything
seems to hinder movements to and from the kitchen. From there, where the
succulence of our yard has relocated, my mother carries dishes.
My father stares into the distance. His glance glides along
the concrete pathway and, like a magnet, pulls the dark spot from the
denseness of the parsley. Tap-tap. He lowers his gaze for a thread of
light, fearfully staring, following the clumsy movements of the turtle
along the pathway. The guests have their backs turned. I stare at it with
my mouth open, and my mother, stepping from the kitchen and faced with the
miracle on the trail, drops the platter. (Inevitably of salad.)
I keep watching the turtle, but out of the corner of my eye I
catch a glimpse of the frozen figure of my father, whose gaze protectively
steers it into the safety of the thick shade of okra and eggplant. In the
kitchen, my mother is fuming over the freshly sliced vegetables and
whispers sharply:
"It’s not pink, you see! And I’m sure, positive, that it’s
the small turtle we brought from Vodno when you went there for a summer
holiday. With the children from the kindergarten. I’m sure. S-u-r-e! It has
just grown up. Nothing strange after all."
The turtle incident inspired me to listen with new attention
to my father, who tells the old stories with a new vitality. My mother
observes our bond suspiciously and from time to time mumbles:
"Pink turtles only exist in cartoons!"
Many days after my encounter with the turtle, my father woke
me up one morning by touching me with his cold but healthy hand.
Disheveled, his pajamas unbuttoned, he barely leaned against the bed. His
eyes sparkling with his plea, he stammered that I had to save it… She had
thrown it in the garbage. I had to get up. He was sorry, but the garbage
men would be coming.
Shivering, I passed through the fog that had rolled into the
yard. But, in fact, my mother had thrown the turtle into the garbage and it
helplessly tried, using the five openings in its shell to turn over, to
swing itself using the roundness of its back… I looked it at closely – it
had a whitish, smooth underside, but with dry, scaly legs with sharp claws,
with an awful head from which dark little eyes glittered, pleading for
help. But… I couldn’t touch it because five little snakes slithered in and
out of the shell’s openings…
Panting heavily, I returned through the yard, yelling to my
mother that she had to get it out IMMEDIATELY. Yawning, barefoot, she
sauntered down the pathway and then returned slowly, afterwards slurping
her coffee restlessly. After a brief question, my father limped to the shed
as if under a great burden. He peered for a long time through the crack in
the old door and then struggled down the path again to us, even more
slowly. Stammering, he whispered that it was awful. I should never leave
him alone. He would break himself in two trying to help the poor pink
creature. Yes. In the beginning it looks like a snake, but that should be
overlooked. You have to reach in your hand and turn it over, not be
disgusted by its shell, or afraid of its claws... Then it becomes pink.
My father died one night as I, whether because of a long
night reading, or because of some predetermined fate of a person to be
alone – slept deeply.
The next day I looked in shock at his body in the casket. The
crossed arms were now symmetrical, both immobile, with large, uncut, curved
fingernails. The fine capillaries on his forehead and cheeks created a
bluish shadow over his hazy visage…
The sleeve of the palsied arm had a big hole at the elbow.
My mother, noticing my gaze, whispered:
"Moths ate our clothes."
But I knew the big white worm had left through that hole. Now
that pain was completely out of the question.
The night after the burial I dreamt of a huge turtle on the
pathway of our yard. Turned on its back. With huge claws poking through the
openings for its legs. It displayed its bent head. Just like a snake’s
head. Revolting. But it looked at me with those familiar sad eyes, pleading
for help. I was sweating as I turned it over. I struggled as if I were
lifting a paralyzed man. But after I had turned it, pink, like a mobile
bush, it disappeared into the garden.
I was awakened by my own weeping, and the cold air flowed
towards me through the open window, rhythmically banging the shutters. With
my back broken, leaning over the tear-stained dark yard, I yelled to the
top of the Tree/Bell Tower:
"Fraanz! My father has turned into a turtle."
