Baba Yaga Laid an Egg

‘Beba’s right. Do you know how many children I’ve brought into the world with these hands?’ said Pupa, for some reason spreading out the fingers of one hand.

Mevludin stared in awe at the old lady on the lounger, who now reminded him of a holy chicken, because for a moment it seemed to him that instead of her hand she had spread her wing.

‘I don’t know, madam, perhaps you can tell me how to improve my situation. You’re older, wiser, you’re educated, so I assume, you can’t altogether have forgotten the syllabus,’ said Mevlo, evidently enchanted by Pupa.

Beba moved away for a moment and observed the scene. Standing in water up to his waist, a young man in wide trousers, with a little waistcoat pulled over his naked torso and a turban on his head, was gazing in reverence at a little old lady, in the shape of a horizontal letter S, wearing a child’s swimming costume with the Teletubbies printed on it, floating on a lounger. The old lady resembled a hen, while the young man looked like a hero out of A Thousand and One Nights.

‘Shall we order another bottle of champagne?’ suggested Beba.

Here it should be added that in reality everything went far more slowly. The reality of a story, however, rarely corresponds to the reality of life. Or, in other words: while in life a cat struggles to catch its prey, in the tale, like a bullet, it strikes home straight away.

Mevlo signalled to the invisible waiter to bring another bottle of champagne. They poured it out, sipped it slowly and then Beba, who had resolved to help Mevlo come what may, made a solemn proposal:

‘I’ve got a suggestion: let each of the three of us choose and describe her ideal man, and then it will be easier for Mevlo to see what he’s lacking!’

The women looked at each other. Who knows when they might last have had a conversation along these lines? At school? Beba had evidently drunk too much champagne and it had made her childish. However, what happened next was something quite other than the participants could have anticipated. To start with no one had expected any response at all from Pupa let alone an immediate one, but, nevertheless, it was Pupa who piped up:

‘My ideal man is Superman.’

‘Why Superman?’

‘Because Superman is the best, quickest, cheapest and most comfortable means of transport!’ said Pupa and her blue eyes sparkled with a girlish gleam.

‘Just because he’s mobile?’ asked Beba.

‘And because he’s a handyman.’

‘What’s that when it’s at home?’ Mevlo asked Kukla.

‘Someone with golden hands who fixes everything round the house.’

‘Superman can weld a ton of steel with one glance, so he’d certainly be able to fix a cooker, a blender or a blocked water pipe. He could also be a home diagnostic centre, so you wouldn’t have to hang about in hospital queues forever. All he has to do is look at you with those X-ray eyes of his!’ prattled Beba.

‘There’s something else,’ said Pupa.

‘What?’

‘Superman mends the world. He fights evil.’

‘Like Tito!’ Mevlo burst in.

Here it should be explained that Mevludin was one of those Bosnians who valued the long-dead president of former Yugoslavia, Tito, and who were convinced that had Tito been alive in Yugoslavia, which meant in Bosnia too, there would have been no war, and therefore no shell that had so fundamentally altered Mevlo’s life.

Mevlo looked downcast.

‘I’m not qualified.’

‘Why?’ asked Pupa seriously.

‘I can fix a leaking pipe for you in a jiffy, I can change a tyre, I can unscrew a bulb and change that, but when it comes to mending the world, I can’t do that… When that war flared up in our country, what did I do to stop it? Nothing!’

‘You’ve got golden hands, you know that,’ said Beba.

‘That’s what people say.’

‘Well, just imagine that Radovan Karadžić and Ratko Mladíc, instead of going to The Hague, turn up on your massage table!’

‘I’d wring their necks!’

‘There you are, clever hands have great power,’ said Beba, although she was not too sure of her idea about the clever hands.

‘What about you, Beba, who’s your choice?’ Kukla cut Beba’s prattling short.

‘Hmm… it’s difficult.’

‘Come on, love, think of something,’ said Mevludin.

‘You all know who Tarzan was?’ said Beba brightly.

‘Of course!’ said Kukla, Pupa and Mevludin at the same moment.

‘But do you know his real name?’

‘Tarzan,’ Mevlo blurted out.

‘Tarzan’s real name is John Clayton, Lord Greystoke!’ said Beba triumphantly.

‘What are you implying?’

‘Half-ape, half-lord! That’s my ideal man!’ Beba burst out.

The three of them started giggling: Pupa asthmatically, Kukla whinnyingly and Beba throatily. Mevlo looked dejected again:

‘There you are, I’m not qualified again, love.’

‘Why?’

‘The monkey bit I can manage, but as for being a lord, there’s just no way!’ he said.

Once again it should be said that in reality, in this case the watery, poolside one, everything happened far more slowly. But while life will dither and shilly-shally, the tale’s seven-league boots leap over hill and valley.

‘Now it’s your turn, Kukla!’ said Beba.

‘I don’t know…’