My aunt’s voice bothers me even when I cannot hear it in material form: “The change has to come from within, imposed changes only bring bad things.” My aunt, who has travelled to one foreign country only, which is more than anyone else in my family, always wants to emphasize her wisdom. She refuses to retell events she has seen or experienced the way they happened. She prefers to turn them into clumsy proverbs: “You should request, and at the same time look modest.” That is how she was concealing, and still conceals, the specific events and the specific people that provoked her to invent her proverbs. That is how she conceals her inability to explain the motives of people that do not follow the pattern of what she sees as acceptable behavior. I have never asked her: Why? Why was that imposed change bad? Why should I look modest while requesting?
There are no mosquito nets on the windows. The first night I was awoken by voices, of the owner of the house above us and another man, I assume one of my neighbors in the subterranean home. A snake almost entered my room.
I do not know where I am, I do not know why I am here. I do not know where else to be. I do not know how to be elsewhere. “Don’t you dare not answer my call when I phone you. I always answer your phone calls, don’t I? I worry something may have happened to you, and you impertinently refuse to answer the phone,” my former husband’s voice comes to my mind. I do not know why I could not act differently for twenty years. The questions reemerge all night. I do not know. I do not know. I do not know. I must divert my mind to something else. I mustn’t get buried by these questions. I start thinking of Vera’s equation. The equation… the math… the equation…
– Was it you that threw away the snake last night? – the following morning I ask the man, who is approximately my age, and who finally comes out of the bathroom, in front of whose door I have long been waiting.
– Oh, no. I took it away from the yard, I did not throw it.
– There are no mosquito nets on the windows?
– I put some myself, found some cheap ones. I have something left. I’ll give them to you, if you want, but you’ll have to stick them or something.
– Okay, thanks.
He thinks I’m requesting them immediately, so he invites me in the room opposite mine. I stand on the threshold. Music is playing, more quietly than the first time I heard it. He hands over crumpled mosquito net.
– I’ll help you, if you need help.
– I’ll try to stick it myself. Thanks. – I hesitate. – Who lives in the other room?
– A very nice lady. She is not very mobile, and she wants to sit in the garden. In the backyard. I sometimes help her out. She could use help.
– Okay.
I haven’t told Vesna where I live now. I will not tell her yet. I will go twice a week in the branch offices of the Ministry, on the borderline of the Crniče settlement, and in a few weeks I’ll call to thank her. I get ready for the first meeting, it is already very hot because the meetings are scheduled for eleven o’clock, and I go out.
Elena, Vera and their mother are sitting on the grass. I stop.
– You’re right, it’s a letter – I say.
Vera gets up quickly, and accidently destroys the building they have been making with the playing blocks.
– Vera! – Elena gets angry.
– I’m sorry – I say to Elena, feeling guilty.
This time Vera does not hug me tight. She stops about a meter away from me, and looks straight into my eyes, expecting. She is impatient.
– The first number of the equation is not “2”. It is a letter: “b)”. Previously there is “a)”, then there are “c)” and “d)”. There is no “b)”. Instead of “b)”, they’ve printed “2”. So, the number is not 234 + something, but it is b) 34 + something.
Vera rushes inside the house, then comes out carrying the math textbook and a notebook. She solves the math problem. She writes slowly. The numbers she writes are barely recognizable. She hands over the pencil to me.
– You should put a check mark if she solved it correctly – her sister explains.
I put a check mark.