Baba Yaga Laid an Egg

But then, when the young man appeared, there was only one thing on her mind: to maintain his attention for as long as possible. And she succeeded, only for a time, but that was enough. And the young man was clever, he got his doctorate without waiting to see his favourite writer’s last novel, and then he got a scholarship, set off to America and disappeared without trace.

Given that Kukla’s life was in any case like a very bad film – at least that is what she thought – let us hope that it will support this one last observation: Kukla never forgot the young man’s attention. His attention had been like dew dropping onto a desert rose – and the foreword to Kukla’s second life.

What about us? While life stories are muddled and extended, the tale slips along in its rush to be ended.

7.

It is not true that Mevludin knew no English at all. He knew a lot, of course he did. That is why he said to the girl who was standing in front of him, crying bitterly:

‘I am sorry, I understand the full extent of your damage.’

Mevlo knew that kind of BBC and CNN English and he was in a position to enunciate eloquently such sentences as: There has been no let-up in the fighting in Bosnia. Heavy shelling continued throughout the night… Mevludin knew a lot, he knew about peace negotiations, about ceasefires and the ceasefire appears to be holding… He also knew about sporadic gunfire, progress towards a settlement, wail of ambulance sirens, the horror of the early-morning blast, he knew all about a pool of blood, explosion, reminders of horror and many, many other things.

That is why he said to the girl:

‘Stay calm but tense.’

Mevlo remembered the sentence The atmosphere in the city remains calm but tense as the ceasefire appears to be holding and he was sure that his words would comfort the girl. The girl glanced at him in horror, as though she had come face to face with smelly socks, and went on sobbing.

Mevlo considered what he could do to console the girl. Then he remembered the cheque that Mr Shaker had given him. He took it out of the little pocket in his jacket, tapped the girl on the shoulder and said:

‘Look! Take it…’

The girl looked at him with the same expression, as though there were smelly socks in front of her nose, leaned her elbows on the table, laid her head on her folded arms as on a pillow and continued to cry.

‘Look!’

Mevludin tore the cheque into little pieces and tossed the pieces into the air like confetti. For a moment the girl watched the little pieces of paper floating through the air, stopped crying, and then remembered that she had been crying, and laid her head back on the table, arranging her folded arms like a pillow, and carried on crying.

Mevludin looked at her lovely round shoulders shaking with sobs. He felt helpless.

‘Oh, for God’s sake, love, do stop crying, you’re going to melt clean away. And then what’ll I have left? Tepid water?’ Mevludin whispered in his Bosnian, a language Rosie could not understand.

And then Mevludin thought that maybe the girl was hungry, she had probably not eaten anything all day, and he had some food in his bag that he had forgotten about, a boiled egg and a slice of bread. Mevlo placed the boiled egg and slice of bread in front of the girl. For a moment she raised her face out of the tangle of her copper-coloured hair, and then laid her forehead back on the pillow of her folded arms. Her sobs were slightly weaker, or so it seemed to him.

Mevlo took the egg and started to peel it. And, what do you know, as he was peeling the egg, out of the blue, Mevlo was visited by a life-saving recollection. Once, while he was massaging one of his guests, the guest had demanded that they play him his favourite song during the massage, and he had explained the words of the song, so that Mevlo remembered it. When he left, the guest had even presented him with the CD…

‘You’re my thrill…’ said Mevlo.

The sobs stopped, but the girl still did not move.

‘You do something to me…’

The girl was as still as a little bug.

‘Nothing seems to matter…’

The girl was silent.

‘Here’s my heart on a silver platter…’ he said, handing the girl the egg.