Baba Yaga Laid an Egg

There are all kinds of people in the world, good and bad. Beba had a heart as big as a frying pan and a mind that those around her did not consider worthy of mention. Between her heart and her mind there was a sudden short circuit. Beba was simply not in a position to take in the quantity of new information that had splashed over her like a bucket of cold water. That was why her eyes narrowed, she swayed on her chair, cried out something that sounded like ‘Awaw!’ and, dragging the tablecloth with her, crashed to the floor. There was general consternation in the restaurant: the waiters flocked round like seagulls, picked up the cutlery, wiped up the spilt milk, ran after a bun that was rolling over the floor. In a few seconds two male nurses appeared. They put Beba on a stretcher. The stretcher was followed by Kukla, after Kukla came David, after David Mevlo and after Mevlo skipped the little girl with the puppy in her arms. In the whole scurrying procession, it was only the little girl whose face showed no trace of anxiety.

‘Honestly! Why are you giggling, my pet?’ grumbled Mevlo.

‘Old ladies are funny!’ said the little girl.

‘My special friend has fainted, and you think it’s funny. What’s funny about it, eh?’

‘Awaw! Awaw!’ the child chirped, hopping from foot to foot.

‘Aw! Aw!’ the puppy joined in for the first time.

From his pocket Mevlo took a little wooden ladle decorated with Czech folk patterns that he had picked up on some local souvenir stall:

‘Here, see if this will help you calm down.’

‘Why?’

‘Vai, vai, vai! So you can make me soup when you grow up, that’s vai.’

The little girl burst into peals of silvery laughter.

Here it should be said that Mevlo found nothing strange about the fact that the little girl was speaking English and he Bosnian, but they understood each other very well. The only thing Mevlo could not understand was why the little girl kept repeating ‘Awaw! Awaw!’ But the little girl was only saying her name – Wawa – backwards, which was after all what Beba had done as she passed out. It was one of Beba’s little quirks, that at moments when things started going awry she would pronounce words backwards.

What about us? We keep going. While life finds humps and bumps to stumble on, the tale keeps hurrying and scurrying along.

2.

Mr Shaker, Pupa, Pupa’s grandson, that nepos ex machina! Goodness, how much had happened, and at what breakneck speed! Kukla had not yet managed to take any of it in properly, nor give it due consideration, and, what do you know, here she was dragging a completely strange little girl around after her and having to find some way of entertaining her until Beba came to and was able to get her bearings. And then the news that Beba’s son had died of Aids, that his partner had refused to take over care of the child and that Beba would have to take legal charge of her, because there was no one else to do it… It was all too much, too much even for a very bad novel, thought Kukla. But, then again, things happened, and, besides, life had never claimed to have refined taste. Each of them, Pupa, Beba and Kukla, had her own life, each of them had accumulated baggage on her way and each of them dragged her own burden after her. And now, all that luggage, piled up in one great heap, had collapsed under its own weight – the suitcases had burst at the seams and all their old junk was out in the open.

As soon as Kukla opened the suite door, the child’s gaze was drawn to Pupa’s fur boot, as though to a magnet. The boot had stood there since the hotel staff brought it back from dry cleaning. To start with the little girl just looked at the boot in wonder, then she went cautiously up to it and peered in. Slowly she raised one foot, then the other, and stepped into the boot. At first she stood in the boot, looking all around her, and then she slipped deftly into it and sat down, without letting her puppy out of her embrace.

‘Are you hungry?’ asked Kukla.

The child shook her head.

‘Thirsty?’

‘Umm…’ replied the child non-committally.

‘You’re not thirsty?’

The child shook her head again.

Kukla was a little embarrassed. Looking after small children was evidently not her greatest talent. The child peeped out of the boot, tensely following Kukla’s every move. Kukla sat down wearily on the edge of the bed and gazed at the little girl.

‘What am I going to do with you?’ she asked.

The child raised her shoulders and let them fall.

‘Do you like the boot?’

‘Aha…’

‘My friend used that boot to keep her feet warm,’ said Kukla, because she didn’t know what else to say.

The child stared at Kukla without stirring.

‘Her name was Pupa.’

‘Apup saw eman reh,’ said the child.

Kukla gaped at the little girl: that was not Chinese, for sure. The child watched her blithely, knowing that she had attracted Kukla’s attention.

‘Pupa,’ repeated Kukla.

‘Apup!’ said the little girl.

‘Kukla.’

‘Alkuk,’ said the child.