A Memory

I was two years old when my older sister and I were left at our paternal grandparents’ for the first time. Our father’s parents owned a piece of land in Northern Panonia and lived a secure and simple farmers’ life the feel of which I would often crave as an adult. But in my early childhood, I was not familiar with them. We lived in Belgrade, and distances were different in the nineteen sixties than they are now, so mutual visits were rare. Even without the unfamiliarity of our grandparents, my sister and I would have dreaded the idea of our mother leaving us: we went through a lot of turbulence at an early age, which made us cling to her desperately. Now, our parents decided to take a shopping trip to Germany, so they left us, like it or not.

I know what is going on, which makes me silent, watchful, and serious from the early morning. Then, the moment comes, and a sudden vast emptiness takes away my balance – I cry for my mother. Fear is overwhelming: I am not sure that she will ever come back. Grandma is nice and tries to console me. In five days, they will come back for sure, she says with certainty. She shows what five days mean on my little hand; we will count fingers each day, she promises. All day long, I am around grandma in the kitchen warmed by the wood burning cook-stove. When we sit to eat, I like the oilcloth on the table. It is thick and smooth, figured with a repeated floral pattern – tulips in red, leaves in green… “Eat, please eat, honey,” my grandma pleads.

There are two single beds and a couch in the room. My sister sleeps alone on the couch. I sleep with grandma. Her bed is concave and makes our bodies slide towards each other. Grandma has a flannel nightgown and very soft hair. It feels comforting to have her close… In the middle of the night – I awake. The room is dark and resonates with grandfather’s snoring and the beating of an old wooden clock. Awareness that it is only me in the room who does not sleep flows in gradually, and the fear of a wolf overcomes me. The wolf may come and devour us all. But he, somehow, has a special interest in me. Is he already at our door? The door of the room is wide open, and the entrance door to the house is across the hall, straight from grandma’s bed. I am listening attentively – I am all ears. And I really hear some crackling around the entrance door: yes, he is there! The wolf is there! I stop my breathing, so that he does not hear me. It is of the life-or-death importance that he does not hear me. Therefore, I keep on holding my breath. (How does the wolf look? He walks on his hind legs and wears blue overalls. He is the wolf from the picture book The Three Little Piglets.)

When I wake up again, the room is full of daylight, and our grandparents are not in their beds. It feels pleasant, now, to be alone at the bottom of the warm concavity. There is a tapestry on the wall along grandma’s bed, fixed at its top by nails. It contains an appealing picture of nature, woven with threads of dusky autumn colors: a few distinct trees in the front, woods and hills, a brook with a deer on its side, a group of people picnicking farther away – slender ladies in long gowns, merry gentlemen in breeches… The picture absorbs me, and I observe each detail with fascination. The deer is my favorite. It is a buck in full, mature beauty. Its head up, its antlers high – it listens…