Emptiness

who would close the door behind you around midnight, leaving you to
the remains of the night.
– I don’t know who gave you the right you have to drag me into this
stinking hole…
Dry stick like finger on her lips interrupted him once more.
– I didn’t drag anyone here; you followed me here as a gentle lamb-
kin going to the slaughter house.
a crow with a long caw landed on top of a low tree peeking through
the opening behind the girl. It must’ve been lurking to catch one more
thing before the night falls, – was the only thought that crossed Ivan’s
mind. Maybe it was trying to trap some careless sparrow that had no
time to go into hiding in a last attempt to catch yet another bug for his
little ones.
– and before that I would follow you into that nameless alley in the
northern part of the town fearing with every step that creaking snow
under my feet would give me away.
I would follow you to the dark yard, watching you pass some wo-
oden buildings probably chicken coops and ducking occasionally to
avoid branches of chaotically planted plum and apple trees with roots
crawling under the eaves of a shabby house. Quick knock on the door
and you disappear into the grate of bursting light. I admit, I didn’t have
the courage to wait for your return from the “hole at the end of the
world,” as I named it in my mind, I was forced into my own dark hole
on the other side of the town because of the barking dogs. although it
did seem a little safer than the one where you have disappeared.
– Who gave you the right … ? and who are you anyway?
– Everything in its time, dear Ivan Chabrilo.
She was silent for a moment, staring at his quivering lips, lit ever so
slightly by the diluted evening light behind her back.
– I’ll be asking questions for a bit more and then you’ll get a chance
to do the same.
– I don’t have to listen to your nonsense! – He was not able to conceal
the rage in his voice.
– of course not, but you still will, right?
He did not answer, but he also did not move from the spot.
– Before you leave, I want you to tell me if you left a premature baby
at the one storey building on the liberators Street?
He clenched his fists, raised his hands wanting to step toward her,
but the legs were immersed deep into the ground beneath him.
– or in that hovel, in the nameless alley, did you also leave a trail of
your seeds for another premature baby to sprout from it?
– ay, what are you talking about?
Silence. Silence and darkness, rapidly thickening around them.
– and who are you, really?
– Everything in its time – a quiet, calm voice in gentle waves was rol-
ling the darkness towards him.
I would not know to tell you how long they remained silent. out-
side, all sounds were mute; even that crow’s cry left the trees and di-
sappeared behind the top of the hole where the window used to be.
– Ivan Chabrio, I will tell you a story.
– To be honest, I don’t care for a story…
– Pre-war, wartime, post-war, who will know what kind of story it
may be – she continued as if she didn’t hear him. – The storm was ad-
vancing, breaking everything soft and fragile standing on its way; in
the meantime, one young man was telling one girl how there were no
other values for him other than the ones of love. neither general nor
domestic nor national values … nothing but love, he was whispering
to the poor girl while embracing her with a whip of fire. and he spe-
wed out the seeds, which should spread only love … no other values,
neither general nor fatherland, nor national…
Silence was flowing through the darkness of the room that was
once destroyed by a bomb turning it into half ruined lair. The only
sound that could be heard was that of a beam of water upwelling from
a hot sprinkler.
– The girl with the seed in her had to go far north, to stumble across
other people's homes, to climb windows of multi-storey build-ings just
to wash the glass as best as she could so that gentlemen living there
could see outside of their windows as if there was anything to see but
the old gray buildings. She had to pray that someone will find an incu-
bator in a sidelined hospital with even the smallest space for her infant.
He felt no need to say anything and even if he tried no words would
come out.
– You, Ivan Chabrilo, probably don’t care what happened to this
unfortunate prematurely born infant in the following years, but per-
haps you would be interested to hear that 18 years later both the prema-
turely worn out mother and her child came back hoping to meet the one
with whip of fire who claimed that nothing else was important but love.
How nice it would be to hear car brakes squeaking, fracture, pene-
trating cry from the outside – anything, just to hear something – Ivan
thought. The silence became unbearable.
– and one day, uncovering from the clothes in the corner of this
lair – he turned his head slightly to the right – they spotted him on the
street. That’s him, the sick woman said through a cough. My father?
asked the tall skinny girl in disbelief. He made you, dryly cough out
the mother. They watched him until he disappeared in the building
and then the mother said that they should tidy up and arrange meeting
with him.
nadina’s voice trembled for the first time.
– That night, the mother died.
– a fascinating story… – Ivan finally broke the silence that was
suffocating them both – But I have to … They are waiting for me …
– I know… building on the opposite side of the street …Second
floor. Just like those who waited for you on the liberators Street or in
the nameless alley …
– I really have to …
– I will not tell you about a girl who gave the waste collectors all she
had so that they can sneak her mother into the cemetery on a wheel-
chair overcrowded with junk and put her in an empty grave. or how
few days later she read in the news about a corpse of an unknown
woman found at the City’ Cemetery…
She fell silent for a moment.
– or how she later started following her father, preparing for the
longest time to approach him.
– okay, but why are you telling me all this? – He tried to keep his
voice from trembling.
– I am nadina – She repeated what she had already said when they
first entered the room.
Moment of silence echoed through the dense darkness.
– nadina Harbas.
The sound of her last name tore into the silence of the room…
– You are daughter of that beautiful Harbas girl? The one for whom
the whole city was turning heads?
– Indeed – she replied quietly, and then her voice turned ice cold. –
She recognized you. and she showed you to me.
once again the infinite waves of silence overwhelmed them.
– and I have been following you … always a bit behind where you
can’t see me. up until you started coming to the house opposite of mi-
ne and my mother's lair, opposite of Her house. Tonight, I have decided
to approach you…
– This means that you are… – He was hardly able to utter the words,
and, with his open arms he started walking towards her as if in attempt
to embrace her.
When he reached the hole where the window used to be, nothing
was there to greet him.
nothing but darkness and emptiness.

Translated by Nikol Markovic
Edited by Anastassia Pronsky-Stojanovic and Nikol Markovic