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(between 1963 and 1990, under the title of Le Livre Slovène;

since 1991, under the title of Literæ Slovenicæ).

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II/2020/LVIII/150

Nataša Kramberger: Blackberry Heaven

Original title: Nebesa v robidah

Translation

Kristina Helena Reardon

Afterword

Matej Bogataj

Editorial Board for Litteræ Slovenicæ 2020

Tina Kozin, Tanja Petrič

Editor of this Issue

Tanja Petrič

Proofreading

Jason Blake

Cover photograph

Daniele Croci

Design

Ranko Novak

Published by Slovene Writers’ Association, Ljubljana

On behalf Dušan Merc, President

First digital edition, Ljubljana 2020

https://litteraeslovenicae.si/

ISSN 2712-2417

Kataložni zapis o publikaciji (CIP) pripravili v Narodni in univerzitetni knjižnici v Ljubljani

COBISS.SI-ID=305098496

ISBN 978-961-6995-68-9 (epub)

Nataša Kramberger

Blackberry Heaven

A Novel in Stories

Translated from the Slovenian

by Kristina Helena Reardon

With an afterword

by Matej Bogataj

Društvo slovenskih pisateljev

Slovene Writers’ Association

Ljubljana 2020

For my roots

Malna and Lenart

Mama and Primož

ed a Daniele

with love

She bought apples instead of a bicycle.

Three kilos, twelve apples, and the market vendor’s raincoat laughed along with her.

- When it rains, they are even better.

In Amsterdam, at three in the afternoon, raindrops fell across the earth and down the raincoat.

Puddles swelled over the bridges and across the outdoor market.

Thieves were selling bicycles by the canal.

- Bikes, bikes.

She bought apples instead of a bicycle.

Her great-grandfather was a village musician and played the horn at baptisms and funerals.

Her grandfather was a gravedigger and before that a payment collector for TV subscription packages. He sealed off the televisions of those who did not care to watch or to pay. With wax and adhesive tape.

Her mother wrote eulogies. And she delivered them, sometimes in a black blouse, sometimes in black shoes.

She did not know where to look when the bus arrived and opened its doors.

She shoved her backpack and bag on first, and Mama said:

- Do you have money on you?

Instead of nodding, she remembered that the elderberry bushes were about to bloom at that very moment. Then Lojz came by and messed it all up. He asked if the two of them had a stiff drink at home, and Mama said hang on, and she stared at the elderberry bush and the birch trees and at the slope and down the long street, and then Fanika shouted after Lojz:

What are you begging for this time, you damn idiot, and after that the driver was not very kind to her either, and he said let’s go, damn it, before she had even stepped onto the bus, before she had even told Mama that she did have enough money, after all.

And yet.

And yet it was always that way.

...

It’s important that you always have a kaleidoscope in your pocket, Mama said at just the right time.

She bought apples instead of a bicycle. Three kilos, twelve apples, and the vendor laughed. And her raincoat laughed, too, and it was raining in Amsterdam, absolutely pouring, and she said:

- Where did you get these, ma’am, these golden deliciouses?

Everyone had disappeared, oh, how it was pouring, how the water washed over Amsterdam, how the city might have dissolved if it were not made of stone, and the lady was shaking her head, she did not understand English, she did not understand Slovenian, she did not understand anything, only Dutch, and she was drenched, beg your pardon, Miss, she said, I do not understand.

Then the woman handed her a bicycle bell, she did not know why, but it did not matter, oh, how it was pouring, and she left.

She stood in the rain with apples and a bell in her hand, looked across the wet bridge and saw a man on the other side, selling a single live fish.

Live, live.

With whiskers and a white belly.

If you went through the Pacaraima Mountains to Mount Ayanganna, you would find the Potaro River rushing into the Essequibo. It crosses Kaieteur Falls and runs along the Tumatumari Falls, bringing with it a great deal of gold and many diamonds. And men and women and children pan for gold and diamonds beside Tumatumari Falls, and sometimes, just sometimes, down there in the Potaro River, amidst the silt and gold, sacred fish surround them, with their whiskers and white bellies.

- Señor, are you OK, Señor?

If you went to the Guosongmucha Mountain in Zadoi County of the Yushu Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture of Qinghai Province, you would find the Zaqu River, which becomes the Jiang River, which is also called the Dza Chu, the river of rocks, which crosses the Yunnan Province, which means south of the clouds, where it changes its name to the Mekong, in which fishermen once caught a great river monster, with whiskers and a white belly, which they then proceeded to eat, seeing as the monster was sacred and as such prolonged their lives and blessed them, too. None of the fishermen knew the source of the Mekong, the one they called the sacred river, for the Mekong—which crossed the province south of the clouds, and Tibet before that, and the Qinghai Province before that—originated far away and high up in the snow-covered mountains. That is why, for a long time, and in the very beginning, no one knew the source of the river, nor what it was called. Not long ago, only recently, some travelers, who were following eagles and retreating from avalanches, went straight to the source and said that there was no doubt: the Mekong River was once called the Zayuqu and came from the Guosongmucha Mountain in the clouds.

- Señor, are you OK, Señor?

During the rainy season, no one fishes in the sacred Urubamba River beneath the sacred heights of Machu Picchu because the river is mighty and the waters are wild and the spirits of the Incas take the fish for themselves and for their Incan sons, and wild currents whisk them below ground and into the skies. He who dared to cast his fishing float then would be blighted; both he and the float would be carried away by the sacred Urubamba River beneath the sacred heights of Machu Picchu, while the Incan spirits would take them underground or to the skies. He did not see the current under his feet, nor did he hear the oncoming rain, nor did he know where to look, when the old woman shook him up and down so much he felt sick to his stomach:

- Señor, are you OK, Señor?

Instead of nodding, he remembered that the grapes were about to ripen at home at that very moment. Then the rain poured down on him, more and more rain, and the old woman said, hang on. Then she rose like a dove, shaking her head like a dove and wrapping two long plaits of black hair around her fingers, and tucking them under her hat like a dove. Then she left.

- Eat, Señor, eat.

The old woman was good to him, peeling boiled potatoes and putting them on a plate for him, and there was another old woman who bandaged his foot, and a third old woman who watched over his fishing float, as if it were enchanted, as if.

As if.

And it was like that until he left.

...

Old women along rivers are important, he thought at the time, because they have connections with other old women.

In Amsterdam, at three in the afternoon, she stood with apples and a bell in her hand, looking across the wet bridge as the man on the other side sold a live fish with whiskers and a white belly.

- Oh, Sir. How much is the fish?

- Oh, Miss. How much were the apples?

- Oh, ...an entire fortune for one kilo.

- Oh, ...and for four apples?

Oh, she said, we can do the math together, Sir, we can make math a game and do multiplication tables on our fingers, we can stand here without a word until the rain stops, and if we release your fish now that the world is so full of water, it might just swim off into the sky.

Oh, said the man, I’m sorry, Miss, I get it, please excuse me. Are they good?

- When it rains, they are even better. Why is it live?

- What, the fish?

White, with whiskers and a zigzag tail, and if you looked at it through a kaleidoscope at the just the right moment, it said:

- What now?

Part One

In the afternoon

the sun always shone sideways across the church, and the clock always read ten past two. It was ten minutes behind, the clock on the bell tower, and the two girls played beside the village stream, which was something of a cesspool beneath the bridge, the one which had once almost been washed away by a flood, leaving it uncrossable for two days. Oma still gets dizzy when she has to cross bridges—that time, the water had pulled her from the church to the chapel and swept away her left shoe.

In the afternoon, the sun always shone on the rocks on the stream bank and the algae sizzled if it was tossed over them. The two stood right beside the water, and the first one said, what now, and the second one said: don’t worry, I know how to do it.

They had been a funny pair since the first grade anyway, and sometimes they went to the stream. The first one was a bit near-sighted and wore goofy red glasses on a goofy chain that the optician had insisted was exceptionally practical for small children and would not hinder her play. The second one was a little mouse from the sacristy who wanted to become an altar server but wasn’t allowed to because she was a girl.

In the afternoon, they went to the stream, and as they played with the algae, frying it on the rocks, the one from the sacristy said, hey, how come you’re not baptized? Jesus, what a question, said the one with the glasses, I’m just not (she had no idea how to explain that her mother carried a torch for Tito and had helped install waterlines throughout Benedikt with the Yugoslav voluntary youth work brigade, and that her father, also a red, even believed in the theory of religious rape, which is what he called the baptism of two-month-olds). Then you don’t have a mother or a father, the little Christian pushed on, in baptism we all receive the Holy Mother, Marija, and God the father. My mother’s name is Marija, too, said the one with the glasses, and the church mouse smacked her on the nose. You really don’t know anything, you don’t even have a name, you fool, God gives everyone their names in holy baptism.

And the first one said, what now, and the second one said: don’t worry, I know how to do it. At ten past two, church time, the sacristy mouse exclaimed: in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, I baptize you with your God-given name, Saint Jana. She poured half the stream over her head so that Jana’s hair smelled like the cesspool for the next three days. And earth received a new holy child and the sun shone on, sideways as always. But I don’t want to be Saint Jana, said the child. When you’re two months old, no one asks you want you want to be either, said the one who knew how to do it. And it doesn’t matter anyway, the name is just a formality.

In the evening, when the sun had gone away, the clock on the bell tower still read ten past two. Saint Jana worked on problems from her Math Is a Game workbook, and she thought to herself, dang, that poor thing really was the object of religious rape.

Two days later, at ten past two, she enrolled in catechism out of sheer formality. Her mother Marija almost ascended to the Father in shock.

In the afternoon

she always brought lunch home from work in stoneware containers, and her little girl was always already there when she got home. There were three—stoneware containers with lunch, that is—and today it was mashed potatoes and chicken stew. All the teachers were entitled to school lunch for each member of their family with their pay, and they could eat in the school cafeteria or take it to go. It always smelled like overcooked pasta and pork rinds in the school cafeteria, and the old woman who worked as a cook always filled her containers with three times as much as she needed: come on, come on, for your little boy, he needs it to grow.

She stood in the middle of her kitchen in her apartment as steam rose from the lunch containers. Outside, beneath her window, steam was also rising from a Yugo Skala, a new washing machine still jutting out of the open trunk as four men argued around it. Spark plugs, said the school janitor, it’s the engine, said the gym teacher, it needs water, said Roškarič. She put lunch on the stove and cursed the spark plugs that had burned out and the engine that would not start, God-knows-why. She went to the balcony for mineral water, got some wine out of the fridge, and handed the men spritzers.

- Hinko!

The old cook shouted from the school: Hinko!, you lazy drunk, come back here and replace the gas cylinder. The janitor took the glass of spritzer and chugged it, ugh, that was watery, he leaned over the engine and took a drag from his cigarette, saying, yes, yes, spark plugs/engine/water, for sure, then he straightened up, swung the glass toward the lawn, and as the last drops of water and wine flew out, exhaled a puff of smoke and raised his hand toward the cook, oh, what are you yelling at!, I’ll be there in a second! Then he lifted his glass toward her, motioning for her to pour him another spritzer, more wine, less mineral water, and the other three lifted the washing machine out of the trunk. There had been no border patrol at customs, per an arrangement with Drejč, and if smoke hadn’t started coming out of the hood just over the border, it all would have been over in a heartbeat. Luckily for them, it was almost all downhill from the Austrian border, and for a little while they were able to cruise along in neutral, and then they were towed for a while, and they only had to give the car a push up the last hill.

The washing machine was gleaming on the lawn in front of the apartment block, and the neighbor was excited. His wife had given birth to twins, and now they had a new washing machine from Austria, they had smuggled it across the border in the Yugo with the help of a real friend at the border. They had also smuggled in a twenty-kilo bag of laundry detergent along with a liter of fabric softener. To our health, he hooted, to our friends.

She poured them another round—spare spark plugs are under the seat, Hinko—and the old cook roared once more from the school:

- Bloody idiot, if you don’t come here right now, I’ll shove the gas tank down your throat!

The janitor paid her no mind, replaced the spark plugs, topped off the water and the oil, and the engine started. He motioned toward the lawn with his empty glass, oh, like I said, it was the spark plugs, and then flung himself onto the grass and lit a cigarette. He left the engine running so that the Yugo idled in place for quite some time. All the residents of the apartment block had gathered in front of it, the washing machine was shining white as linen, and it was not clear to anyone how they had shoved it into the trunk of the Yugo.

- And with only one rope to tie it down! Good heavens...

She picked up the empty bottles and went back inside. The stoneware containers with mashed potatoes were already cold and the apartment and was full of the smell of chicken stew. She glanced at the clock: I have to pick up the little boy at my mother’s, good-thing-the-car-started. She switched on the burner at the lowest level so that the mashed potatoes wouldn’t burn. She fixed her hair with two blue barrettes as she went. She got three plates ready, the little girl wouldn’t be eating. The little girl had already eaten at school, with her classmates, after classes, and she should have been home already: I went to the store to buy a little ruled notebook and then I went to catechism with Natalija and Simona.

...

I went to the store to buy a little ruled notebook.

And then I went to catechism with Natalija and Simona.

To catechism.

Cat-e-chi-sm.

...

The clock on the bell tower read ten past two, the residents of the apartment block were having a party out front, and the little girl had left a note on the table that said she went to catechism with Natalija and Simona.

The priest

was quite young because the old one had breathed his last back when Oma took her to church where they all sprinkled the dead man using twigs that had been set in a bowl of water. Oma said that the water was holy because it was blessed and that the twigs came from olive trees that grow by the sea. Then everyone prayed over the dead man and some old biddies cried. After that, the altar servers brought out the censer, from which smoke rose, and the church began to stink. Oma crossed herself and one of the old biddies fainted.

The young priest wore a black surplice and a wooden cross over it, and he stood by the door to the rectory and made sure that everyone had changed into slippers in the front hall. She did not have slippers on her, dang, Natalija and Simona had not mentioned this.

- Why did you leave your bag at home? You should have taken it with you.

- Father, she doesn’t have her slippers.

- Father, tell her that she has to go barefoot in the classroom now.

- Father, look, I have new earrings.

The church mouse positioned herself right in front of the priest and stood on her toes. On Saturday, she had had her ears pierced in Maribor, and now they were all infected, but that would go away within two weeks. The earrings were small and round with diamonds in the center. Not real ones, fakes ones, like in the movies.

- Father, she isn’t baptized.

She took off her shoes and went barefoot, almost saying hello, but at the last minute she heard what Simona had said, and the floor was mud stained because it had been raining the day before, and she had a hole in her sock. She held the small ruled notebook in her hands, positioned herself next to the church mouse, and looked at the priest, who was young and wore a cross on a chain around his neck. He nodded and smiled at her. She did not know why, but she almost genuflected, bending her knees slightly, and said, just like the others:

- Praise Jesus.

- Ma’am,

she said to me, be careful so that what happened to my sister won’t happen to you: when her husband died, she forgot to withdraw his money from the bank and after half a year she lost the rights to it, he’d had a twenty-year pension in his account, and it all disappeared in the blink of an eye, be careful, ma’am, though your husband drank, of course, that kind blows through everything, she said to me, she didn’t even shake my hand, I had a flower arrangement in my arms, fourteen yellow gerberas, and I cried my eyes out on the grave like a drunk...

She stood in astonishment in the middle of the kitchen, handing over tissue upon tissue and then a roll of toilet paper. She was completely silent, leaning on the stove, while the widow in black was crying, sobbing, crying, bawling, talking, talking, she bent over her table, over essays that had been written that very day in the fifth grade, over tests and over the teachers’ union newspapers, Mrs. Marija, Mrs. Marija, don’t judge me, but I could just hang myself.

The bell had not rung and the knock had been too soft, and when the door had opened, she was standing there in just her bra, replacing the bag in the vacuum cleaner, and her apron with the logo from the voluntary youth work brigade was caught on the radiator. I’m sorry, she said, I was just cleaning the house.

The woman at the door could only stare at her at first, covering her mouth with a black handkerchief as tears streamed from her eyes. Mrs. Marija, she said, I could just hang myself.

She was the head teacher of the widow’s son’s eighth grade class, her first class of students, and the boy had flunked math, though he was quite good in phys ed, and he wanted to be a police officer, Mrs. Marija, Mrs. Marija, the two of us are all alone, he even left us the farm, thirty bulls and fifty pigs, I just... Mrs. Marija, don’t judge me.

She said to the widow, don’t be ridiculous, well then, and she made her Turkish coffee and sat beside her. The woman must have still been young, her eyes were uncommonly blue and dreadfully, dreadfully deep, she put away the batch of tests so the ink would not run more than it already had, and tossed two piles of tissues in the trash and said:

- My condolences.

The coffee grounds were slowly settling in the bottom of the cup, the silence was good for them, the widow stared blankly ahead and sobbed in short bursts, and between one of them said, thanks for the coffee, I really needed it, and then remembered that she had to buy a hundred-watt lightbulb at the store.

- Instead of helping us, everybody just laughs. Why did I let him go to the pub every night? But it isn’t true at all, he wasn’t a drunk, Mrs. Marija, he turned the farm around all on his own, and he loved his little boy so much that he signed over a new tractor to him so that he’d gain an appreciation for the land, and now he’s gone and flunked math, and it’s already the second semester...

She couldn’t have been much past thirty, no, no, they must have been the same age, or maybe she was even a bit younger (and, oh, God, she already had a son in the eighth grade), her eyes were so blue, so dreadfully, dreadfully deep, and if she hadn’t been crying, her face would have been stunningly beautiful. She told her, stop by any time and we can chat, and don’t worry about math, your boy is bright. The woman stood up and turned toward the living room, glanced at the bookshelves, and almost inaudibly said:

- Mrs. Marija, don’t judge me, but might I... borrow a few novels? I used to read sometimes... and now, at night, I am so... I’m so alone.

The dismantled vacuum cleaner was still in the hallway, two bags beside it, one empty and one full of dust. The apron with the voluntary youth work brigade logo hung on the radiator, and the clock in the bell tower read ten past two. Neither of them knew what to say, but they were not embarrassed, they looked each other in the eyes to say goodbye, everything was quiet in the hallway... when outside, on the stairs, there was a bang, and the door burst open:

- Mama, Mama, someone stole the priest’s angel from the altar.

In the morning

once every two weeks she went to the supermarket and the post office. She wore leather shoes and a blue suit, a kerchief on her head. She put her leather wallet in her leather purse, along with the electric bill, the water bill, the television bill, and a linen handkerchief. For the last three months, she had also added reading glasses. Just in case.

- Pep, I’m leaving, Pep!

She went to the pantry for her basket, spread a cotton cloth across the bottom, and put her purse on top. She looked at herself in the mirror, a single ringlet out of place on her forehead, hair still black as a raven. She fixed her hair with two blue barrettes as she went. She wiped her face with her handkerchief, God-how-I’m-sweating. She picked up her basket and her purse and left.

- Pep, I’m leaving, you hear me!

She locked the door and set her keys under the asparagus fern. She went down the stairs slowly, holding onto the railing, all nine cats followed behind her, one of them had given birth to kittens the day before, God-knows-where-they-were, the old cat must have hidden them above the stable.

- Hey,

shouted Pep, from the pear tree, or the plum tree, or the tractor or the linden tree, from God-knows-where,

- Leaving already?

The downhill road was not paved, and the crushed stone had been carried away by a storm. She walked up the steep slope, past the stable and the linden tree, past the walnut tree, and toward the manure pit, where Pip was standing.

- What are you yelling for, damn it, I can’t even see where you are.

Then she laughed at him, and he laughed back at her. Beetles were flying around the linden tree, and the hens were wandering around the manure. One cat, which had been following her, now stopped in the sun. Pep touched his index and middle fingers to his brow, briefly, in greeting. He wore a linen worker’s cap on his head, and beads of sweat were dripping into his laugh lines. She walked slowly over the worn, crushed stone road, basket in hand. The sun shone down on the stable and on the crushed stone, and pavement began beyond the bend. The cat turned and came back, and the bugs were buzzing around the linden tree. He was still holding the pitchfork in his hands, and he leaned on the handle then. He could see her in her blue suit as she went from the bend to the willow tree, past the chapel and as far as the transformer. Then she rounded another bend and disappeared behind the cornfield.

God bless you,

she said, greeted by the scent of humidity and paper in the small office that always made her sneeze when she stepped inside, achoo, God help you, achoo, Gesundheit, the fat postwoman at the counter was stamping letters slowly, Mima Kraner and the Štefanič pair were in line, and new Easter cards, this year’s, were on display in the rack. They were the same every year, rabbits, eggs, and Easter Blessings inscribed in gold, but last year they had offered musical cards for the first time: when you opened them, music started to play, and when you closed them, it stopped.

She closed the door, and the line curiously dissolved, and Mima Kraner immediately stepped toward her with her leather purse in her hand, God bless you, she said, you’ve come for your pension. The young postman behind the counter was pissed at the old postwoman, where did you put the Žerjavec package, hell, I put it on the shelf earlier, and now it’s gone. The postwoman stopped putting stamps on the letters, watch your tongue, young man, and sat back in her chair to continue stamping.

And she said, God bless you, achoo, God help you, achoo, Gesundheit, and Mima Kraner took three cards from the rack and walked over to her, God bless you, you’ve come for your pension:

- You haven’t donated yet, have you? I’m donating today, I came to the post office to see how much my pension is going to be, and then I’m bringing him my donation. It won’t be enough, there are two of us and the pension only covers one.

- What are you donating to?

- To the priest, for the angel. Damn gypsies, Mara told me she saw them messing around in the sacristy, and I told her why didn’t you chase them away, you crazy old biddy—they shouldn’t be puttering around the sacristy, God-help-us, there’s only a month until First Communion, and there is no angel on the altar. Good thing we have such a young priest. He’ll take care of it quickly, though I did hear, you know, that they booted him from his last parish because he drank, but he doesn’t look like a drunk—he’s so well spoken and is supposedly good with children. He’s too good—that’s why they stole from him. What was I saying... you haven’t donated yet, have you?

The young postman found the package beneath the counter, right at the postwoman’s feet, and outside his motor scooter had kicked the bucket because he had left it idling too long. Oh, hell, now how am I supposed to start it up, watch your tongue, young man, what was I saying... you haven’t donated yet either, have you?

She took her purse out of her basket and her leather wallet out of her purse, how much are these cards, she asked Mima, I should send some to my sisters in Germany. The Štefanič pair had just finished up, and the postwoman said: next. Oh, my turn! Mima jumped, turning toward the counter and said no more.

- God bless you, how much do the cards cost?

By the time the postwoman cashed out her pension and wrapped the two cards with their white envelopes and international stamps in white paper—for your sisters in Germany, right?—Mima was already gone. The postwoman leaned straight forward, lifting herself slightly from her chair, sighed deeply, God-help-me-if-I-were-not-so-old, and propped her elbows on the counter:

- Crazy old biddy. She thinks she can buy heaven on her pension. Just this morning, the priest announced there would be a collection for a new angel, and she is already going to donate. Anyway, she doesn’t have enough on her own. The priest said that each household should contribute at least fifteen marks per family member; we can’t expect the diocese to take care of it—we still need a new vestibule. The new priest isn’t too bad, though I did hear, you know, they booted him from his last parish because he got tangled up with a young woman, but he doesn’t look like a ladies’ man to me—he’s so well spoken and is supposedly good with children. He’s too good—that’s why women flock to him. Well, what was I saying... when will you make a donation?

Her great-grandfather was a village musician and played the horn and clarinet at baptisms and weddings. At his last marriage ceremony, he was bitten by a hornet and died with his clarinet in his hands right in front of the bride, who was young and fair and had rosy cheeks.

Her great-grandfather had seven children, the oldest of whom was her grandmother.

Her grandmother was the oldest daughter in the family. When she was a girl, she had long hair that was strong as rope and dark as a raven, and her skin was clear as the sky. Every Sunday she scrubbed with chestnut soap, and in a primary school picture, she stood under the Jonathan tree and laughed like the heavens.

Her grandmother gave birth to four children, and the oldest of them was her mother.

Her mother was the oldest daughter in the family, she taught Serbo-Croatian and Slovenian and also wrote eulogies and toasts for fiftieth birthdays. And delivered them, sometimes in a black blouse, sometimes in black shoes, sometimes with a perm.

She just didn’t know where to look when the bus arrived and opened its doors. She shoved her travel bag and sleeping bag on first, and Mama said:

- Do you have your passport?

Instead of nodding, she remembered that the acacias were blooming at that very moment. Then Fanika came by and messed it all up. She asked if the two of them had a stiff drink at home, and Mama said, hang on, and she stared at the acacias and at April and down the long stretch of pavement, and then Lojz shouted after Fanika:

- What are you begging for this time, you stupid old biddy, and after that the driver was not very kind to her either, and he said, let’s go, damn it, before she had even stepped onto the bus, before she had even told Mama that she did have enough money, after all.

And yet.

And yet it was always that way.

...

It’s important that you don’t have a hole in your pocket, Mama said at just the right time.

(And yet.)

- Stop, stop at the station, for God’s sake.

- Damn it, why would I stop? No one is waiting.

- S-stop?! For God’s sake?!

At the small lean-to that stood in place of the next station, there was a car waiting, and then there was Mama. She stopped the bus at the last moment, curlers in her hair. She didn’t say anything; she just thrust it all into her hands: her passport, a scarf, a kilo of Oma’s apples.

That evening

at ten past eight she was crossing the bridge over the Oudezijds Voorburgwal Canal when suddenly, instead of cold, a sharpness in the air set in, shhh, shhh, darkness. She made her next breath shallow so it did not sound like a panicked whimper. Then she blinked three times, long and hard, to make the darkness go away. The damp stench of piss rose up from the canal, and she could hear thieves hissing: Bikesss, bikesss. The red-light district across the bridge was no longer red, just slimy and horrible. The street lights were mute, the stone houses cold, and the trams still. The narrow streets became even more winding, and someone started shouting like a madman. She made her next breath shallow so she could not feel the blood pulsing through her veins, and she crouched down near the child and said, in English: don’t worry.

When Europe lost power, Amsterdam was pitch black.

A silent hum under the bridge swelled up into the sky as if water were still the only living element, while bicycles and their stray lights darted by here and there. The few bicycles that had working lights, that is. She was crouching down there on the bridge in the center of Amsterdam and the child stood in front of her. His mother was Chinese and his father African; he had been born here, and she was his babysitter. He looked up at her, furrowing his brows, licking his lips, don’t cry, please don’t cry, the wind howled through the canal and black circles danced before her eyes. The child wore a cap on his head and squeezed her index and middle fingers. When he pursed his lips, he looked like a little girl, and he was tiny for a two-year-old. He looked up at her from his furrowed brows and waited for her to say something, until he bent his knee ever so slightly, crouched ever so slightly, and bent forward, leaning against her forehead so that his black curls ran into her mouth and her breath became even shallower, and he squeezed her neck with both his palms and pressed against her cheeks, then turned to look up at her so that she instinctively looked at him, too: Jana, maan!

When you locked your bike up with just a single lock in this city, you really risked not finding it again. She knew this all too well, she had searched up and down the Oudezijds Voorburgwal Canal for what felt like an eternity, convinced that she had left her bike here, no, no, there, and she had given the child a piggyback ride down the bike lanes and over the bridges, past the street lights and cafés and under scaffolding, over the canals, until the child felt heavy as cement and the city went pitch black in a split second. She now guessed her way to the tram stop in total darkness—though the trams were not running anyway, they were out of service, how could they go anywhere?—and she cursed their lock for being so flimsy and for being just a single lock, and she cursed the thieves for having honed in on her. The sharpness, rather than the cold, was pressing down on the Oudezijds Voorburgwal Canal, and the child was speaking to her in a language she could not understand.

Jana, maan!

When Europe lost power, her bicycle and child seat were stolen in Amsterdam.

Jana, maan!

He laughed at her, leaning against her cheek, watching her under his furrowed brow, and pointing at the sky. Maan, maan, why don’t you understand, he laughed, and pursed his lips, his mother was Chinese and his father was African, when he pursed his lips he looked like a little girl, in the midst of all the darkness and silence he jumped higher and higher, on the bridge, over the canal, tiny, tiny black curls slid out from under his cap and he thought she was so funny, her alone, on a remote bridge in a place with no power, he pointed to the sky, Jana, Jana, the moon, the moon, maan.

When she first came to his house on Overtoom Street to babysit, he had been four months younger and even tinier. She entered and he greeted her by name, Tag, Jana, as his mother had been telling him to do all day. He stood still in the opposite room while she was at the front door, watching, watching, watching, for a long time, first from behind the doorframe, then from inside the closet, then from behind the couch, then he took three uncertain steps toward her, and when she did not move, he ran to her in a childlike gallop, took her hand and pulled it down, down, and then pressed a wet kiss on her cheek: Jana! When his mother left, he cried until she put The Lion King on. He sat in front of the television, barefoot and with tear-stained cheeks, a red nose, and the pursed lips that made him look like a little girl, he pointed at the lion cub on the screen and never cried again. He soon noticed that they did not speak the same language, sometimes he explained things in Dutch, sometimes in Chinese, sometimes in an African dialect, while she replied in English, or German, or Slovenian, and he would repeat after her and his vocabulary grew, he taught her to understand and repeat his words, the phrases he thought were extremely important: we say eat, we say drink, we say Lion King.

Maan, maan, Jana, maan!

In an Amsterdam without power, the silence was unbearable and the echoes hollow. The water under the bridge rippled in such a way that the city seemed even more unstable, as if the bridges were wavering in the water, in all that darkness, in all that emptiness. She was overcome by a wave of dizziness and it seemed to her that she was about to be washed away by a flood: it would carry her from the red-light district to the tram and sweep away her left shoe. All of a sudden, no one was left on the streets, there were no steps, no bikes, no cars—no, cars were not allowed in the center of Amsterdam. She looked at the child, who was now impatiently pulling at her hand and before her chest tightened—what-now-what-now—she finally realized that maan meant moon.

When the lights and neon signs shone in the city, only brown fog was left in the sky, a smear, filthiness, smog. If you looked up after a clear day, you could sometimes see how the air was on the brink of filling with stars, but how the city lights diluted them, and you never really knew whether it would rain tomorrow or if it would be sunny again. The child danced along the bridge and laughed at her, and she was afraid he would fall in all this giddiness, and the last thing she needed was him breaking something! She went after him and scooped him up, and as they leaned against the fence along the path they looked up at the pitch pitch pitch black sky, covered in black black clouds, under which there was a timid timid, white white, silver silver glowing... moon. It was just shy of a full moon, and if there were no clouds, the whole city would have taken on a silver glimmer. She stood on the bridge over the Oudezijds Voorburgwal Canal with absolutely no idea as to how they were going to get home, and as the child watched the moon, he closed his eyes and his mouth relaxed into a smile. The hum under the bridge swelled up into the sky as if the city’s very foundation were swaying, bikes were tied up along the canal with two or three locks, two or three chains, the street lights were mute, and candles flickered in the windows.

When Europe lost power, Amsterdam was more romantic than usual.

Baby, baby, bikesss?

The voice hissed in the darkness, smooth and completely stoned, and the junkie slouching and the bicycle was not even in bad condition, fifteen euros, and the brakes were fine. All at once she felt sick with the weight of the child, who was asleep in her arms and every now and then slipped to one side, then the other, like a sack of wheat. The junkie came right up to them with the bicycle, big wheels, top tube slopping down, she should have grabbed the handlebar, she should have held onto it firmly so that he could not have yanked it away after she had handed over the money, once the cash is in a junkie’s pocket you have to grab hold of the bicycle firmly so he doesn’t yank it right back, that’s what she had been told, that’s what the guidebook said, and it also said that you should not buy stolen bicycles, not ever, because it was against the law, it was illegal, and it meant supporting junkies who stole, thieves making money, it all came full circle, you should never buy them, and anyway, the bike did not have a hub dynamo and the lights did not work, and where would she have put the little boy, she couldn’t hold him in her arms and still ride a bike in the dark, she was sick with the weight of the child, she had placed him over her shoulder like a sandbag, and she turned away and spat Bastard at the guy as she remembered that she had lost her bike and everything else that had happened, Bastard, and off she went, without thinking, on foot, straight into the red-light district.

Young ladies in corsets lit candles in their windows and tourists lit their way with their bicycle lights and pimps had long-lasting flashlights and the red-light district was lively and loud and bright. The air was still slimy and scary here, but it was a little bit less sharp and a little bit more alive. Here, people found the power outage amusing, and one drunk was blathering on like crazy, hysterically waving a rainbow PEACE flag over his head, to our health, he howled, to the end of the world! The muscle in her left shoulder twinged with pain as the child slipped lower and lower, as if he weighed three tons, he slipped lower and lower as he slept.

In Niewmarkt Square, a flock of citizens bleated confusedly in front of the metro station, pouring out of the metro station, inside the metro station, the police lit up their sirens, and an animal panic overtook the square. Who attacked, what attacked, the metro stood still. The second flock of citizens was still trapped underground in the train, and firefighters went into the tunnel to get them out. Someone saw a rat, I swear it was almost two feet long, I swear it had eyes as big as walnuts, and it laughed right in my face!

She walked on the damp cobblestones toward Amstel Street past a disgusting facade with faces that her sparse light made even scarier, and the arch made her think of the Kraner cottage, which was no longer there.