Diary of Interrupted Days (17 page)

The two women sat on the couch, crying. Their breathing soon became coordinated, and had someone blind entered the room, he would have thought that there was only one person inside.

Boris had never written his résumé because he had never applied for a job. A résumé was a dry, precise form, tailored for engineers, not artists, on which he was to list his previous engagements, in descending order, his education, also going backwards, his goals and his general qualities. He tried but did not want to fit everything on one page. His life seemed too small on a single sheet. It scared him.

He was tempted to drift into fiction. Who would know? Who would be the witness? Isn’t that the purpose of emigration? He could reinvent himself and he could round off the edges a bit, fill in the gaps, paint the walls that life had built around him. Some writers do it. Spies do it all the time. What do they call it—creating a legend? Precisely. He was an artist. Fiction was his legitimate tool.

But when he printed a version that he’d invented and the strictness of the paper replaced the fluidity of the screen, he was disgusted. Not with the lies but with what the lies meant. Uprooted, he had to fight hard for his past, for every memento, every picture, for every treasured moment. The lies blurred his life, corroded reality, let rust take over, made everything the colour of shit.

He wiped his résumé clean of all inventions.

The man was reading Boris’s résumé, printed on a yellowish cotton paper as had been recommended in the library book. Boris fought the urge to explain what he meant by each paragraph, and kept silent. They were sitting in a café at Yonge and Bloor. A blond Russian waitress with a low-cut
blouse brought them their espressos. The man studying his résumé was in his early forties, apparently in casual clothes. But the longer Boris looked at him, the more he realized how carefully he had dressed. His shirt exactly matched his blue eyes; the signet ring on his right pinkie and his watch were silver. He wore jeans, but the material suggested an expensive designer.

The man laughed. “This is a perfect résumé if the job was to join a revolutionary cell in South America.”

Of course. Who would give a job to someone who spent his life doing conceptual art?

“How come they didn’t arrest you? Man, this is awesome. You glued your president’s picture to a papier-mâché dick. What for?”

“So people could admire and bow to their idol.”

“That would never work here. Our prime minister is very tall. It would take too much paper, wipe out a minor rainforest.” The man emptied a pouch of brown sugar into his cup and stirred it, looking at Boris. “Have you ever worked in advertising?”

“Lately, all our political work in Belgrade might as well have been a form of advertising,” Boris said.

“Sure, sure,” the man said.

Boris was desperately trying to remember his name. Chris? Bill? Richard? Dan? He had introduced himself when they met at his office on the twenty-ninth floor of the building towering above them, but Boris was bad with names.

“And this,” said the man, slapping the paper in his hand, “the musical gallows, that’s great.”

Boris felt awkward. The man stopped laughing, took a sip of coffee, said, “I think we could find something for you,” then looked briefly at the top corner of the résumé before adding, “Boris.”

Boris could not believe it. “That would be great.”

“Of course, you don’t have Canadian experience—you’ve been here, what, only three months? But we could prolong the probation period, and that would cover us.”

The man pursed his lips. “How about this: you get a position as a senior graphic designer. That would practically mean you could work as an art director, since you would have junior people to execute the design for you, and it wouldn’t draw too much attention to your background. After the probation period is over—say, in a year—we would drag you one floor up, pair you with a writer, and give you a proper title. Now, the tricky part is your salary. What did you have in mind?”

Boris had read about this moment, but he still was not ready.

“Come on, Boris, don’t be shy,” the man urged.

“I was thinking thirty … five,” Boris said quietly.

“Thirty-five,” the man repeated slowly. “Yeah, I think we can live with that. So, can you start this Monday?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Welcome aboard, Boris. You will love our agency, you’ll see. It’s not for nothing that ODG operates on five continents and is looking for the sixth.” He laughed at his own joke and stood up, extending his hand. “Pleasure, Boris.”

“Thank you …”

For the first few weeks, Boris had to learn so many things that his mind was numb by the end of the day. The proper use of a workstation, how to file new material, procedures (explained by those who had offices) and ways to circumvent them (explained by those in cubicles), the company infrastructure, the history of specific clients, and names, names, names. For the most part, his co-workers were friendly, but he did not want to test their patience and tried learning as much as he could by watching them, rather than asking. Many of them wanted to know more about the war in his old country, and he always answered with as much detail as he judged would not bore the listener.

He slowly fell into the space opened for him and he was given some serious projects. He took Sara to an exclusive restaurant on Yorkville Avenue for a celebratory dinner. All was going well, except for the pattern of terrible headaches that had developed during his seventh week.

He would get to work at nine, carry on with the design of the current project, answer some phone calls and his email, talk to the colleagues in the cubicles next to his or just listen to their chatter—it was all interesting. Around lunchtime, a throbbing just behind his forehead announced the arrival of the pain that soon hit his temples with brutal force and stayed there until evening. He tried the first line of painkillers, then those marked extra-strength, without success. His doctor, an older woman who made a big fuss about his smoking, finally agreed to prescribe
something with codeine, and that worked. But the pills were mildly hallucinogenic, and he couldn’t continue to work drugged and constipated. He put off taking his pills till the end of the day.

Sara had found some books in Serbian in the back of a bin in a second-hand bookstore on Yonge, and one day he took an old paperback, written by Ivo Andrić, a Serbian Nobel laureate, with him to work. Among the collection of stories was Boris’s favourite allegory, “Aska and Wolf,” about a lamb who could dance beautifully. One day, Aska the lamb gets lost in the forest and meets a big bad wolf who is clearly planning to eat her. Aska starts dancing to say goodbye to this world, and the wolf becomes entranced and keeps postponing the kill. She dances long enough for the shepherds to come and save her, surviving only because of her art.

That day, his head already throbbing, he took the book with him to lunch two blocks away, at a small restaurant hidden behind a building on a side street where his colleagues rarely went. The owner and his wife, a Middle Eastern couple, were the only employees. She cooked all the food—mostly Italian dishes—and he served and worked at the counter. Boris took his ravioli to the small smoking section in the back and opened his book.

An hour later, after an espresso and three cigarettes, his headache was gone.

He repeated everything the next day, with the same result. Wanting to find out what in that ritual had cured him, Boris tried eliminating ingredients. He changed restaurants, ate different food, tried tea instead of coffee,
did not eat at all, but the headaches still vanished after lunch. Sure that it was the writer’s magic, he brought another book from the same batch with him, but the throbbing still stopped. Certain that he was cured of whatever it was that he had, he brought
The New Yorker
with him to read during lunch. His head exploded again.

He finally figured it out: the shelter of his mother tongue had cured him.

It was a glorious May morning, bright, warm, and not too humid, which was a small miracle considering that there had been a heavy downpour all night long. Sara had finished her article around two in the morning, woke up around eight to take another look at it, made a few changes, and took the printout to the
NOW Magazine
offices on the Danforth. Her editor read it while she sat at his desk. It was all good to go. Happy, Sara decided to take a little break. She took the subway to Yonge and Bloor and walked to her old workplace.

Sara wanted to take Luz to Yorkville, and Luz said she didn’t mind as long as they went there through the underground city. When they left the store together, the clerks looked like they had seen a ghost. They walked one block west and went downstairs by Mr. Grocer, where they entered the corridors full of stores under the Manulife Centre. Five minutes later, they resurfaced at Bellair and Cumberland. Sara led Luz across the street and through the short passage to the Coffee Mill. The small, secluded patio was full, so they went inside and sat in the far corner, by the glass wall. Except for two old Hungarian ladies, they were alone.

“I read your articles,” Luz said. “You are angry at your old country.”

A middle-aged Hungarian woman came to take their order. Sara asked for two chestnut purées.

“I guess I am,” she said when the waitress left, “but not because I miss it, if that’s what you mean.”

“No. But people think they have left voluntarily when they were actually squeezed out. You have every right to be angry, but I didn’t expect that it would last this long.”

Sara leaned her forehead on her hand and looked outside. “It’s been a year and a half,” she finally said. “It’s not that long.”

Luz nodded.

After Boris got his job in advertising, Sara was able to quit the store to find something better. She saw an ad in the gay village weekly, had an interview, but their enthusiasm cooled when she mentioned her husband. The people at
NOW
were much more open, and she got her first
opportunity only a week after she had called: they asked her to cover a conference on Yugoslavia being held at the University of Toronto. After five days of sitting in the auditorium at Innis College listening to academics, politicos, and self-proclaimed experts from her old country arguing, Sara knew: there was no going back. The wound was full of pus. It would take years to heal, maybe decades. For the first time since she had come to Canada, she felt good about leaving.

Five days later, her article appeared. They gave it a plug on the cover and two full pages inside. She felt better than she had expected. Actually, she felt happy. From that point on, she published on average one article every other week, and—although the money wasn’t good enough to live on—she had found again a big piece of her identity.

The woman brought their desserts.

“So, what are you going to do now?”

“I’ve enrolled in an M.A. program at Ryerson. Media production. I have enough experience from Belgrade to do it relatively easily.”

“How is your husband?”

“He’s good, I guess. I haven’t seen much of him lately. He’s working on another big campaign.”

Luz circled her spoon in her chestnut purée, eroding the food symmetrically rather than eating it.

“How are you?” Sara asked.

“Better. Are you two good?” Luz asked without looking up.

“Why do you ask?”

“Then you’re not.”

“Luz.”

Another half-circle around the centre. Silence. Sara’s sigh. A few random spoonfuls of purée. The other half of the circle. Sara signalled with her hand, and the waitress came. She ordered an espresso and some sparkling water for Luz.

“No, we’re good. It’s just … I don’t know why I’m telling you this.”

“Because you can.”

“I feel guilty.”

“Guilty?”

“Boris has done so much for us, right from the start. He opened up my eyes about Canada, he got the papers, he arranged our wedding, he earned the money for us to start here. I just don’t know if I’m giving enough back to him.”

“Sometimes just being there is enough,” Luz said.

“We don’t argue. We support each other. And there is a feeling that probably has its name in some language, but it isn’t love. Not on my part. I’ve never told you how Boris and I met. I was in love with his best friend.”

There was no change in Luz’s expression.

“My boyfriend disappeared. He was sent to fight, and I never heard from him again. I know he’s not dead, I just know, but he never tried to find me. What was I supposed to do?”

The waitress appeared with their drinks and took away the empty purée dishes. Luz remained silent.

“I know, you’re going to ask me why I married Boris—”

“Not at all. That’s a stupid question. In fact, I won’t ask you anything. All the questions and all the answers are yours. I think you need a mirror.” She coughed into her hand and drank a little water.

“A miracle?”