Front Matter - Part 01

Another Mother A Novel By Dragica Najcheska

(Translated from Macedonian to English and edited by Risto Stefov)

Another Mother Original in Macedonian - Skopje, 1978 Translated to English - Toronto, 2022 A Novel All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system without written consent from the author, except for the inclusion of brief and documented quotations in a review.

But it isn’t the earthquake’s material devastation that became Dragica Najcheska’s immediate interest and obsession. This in itself is a significant angle of the project, in which the experiences of the small, ordinary residents of Skopje, the changing of their life relationships, destinies, emotional and mental violations, the creation of new situations and relationships within families, the search for justification and meaning… occupy a dominant place in Najcheska’s story where her characters live on finding the truth that some of the loved ones have disappeared, irretrievably, into the darkness and abysses of the event.

In the centre of her engaging approach to the subject, Dragica Najcheska takes two families and catalogues their emotional tremors from the inside, describing the atmosphere in the city, the objects of where her young heroes see themselves in the past and in the future.

Najcheska has good storytelling abilities and consciously avoids outbursts of exaggerated emotion.

The novel “Another Mother” doesn’t put forward sorrow but quiet, elementary accounts of the heroes who speak about themselves and their loved ones; whose life after the earthquake is a struggle to re-establish their relationships, to make sense of things that have disappeared and to find justification for what happened to their relationships, involvement in the family, in school, in the company and in the institutions.

The central hero of the novel “Another Mother” is Hristina, a girl who has barely passed the twelfth year of her life – who is unexpectedly and cruelly hit in the most sensitive way, without measure or mercy. Her little sister Eli is not aware of the tragedy and the price that has been paid, of the pain that has been inflicted on the survivors through the separation of their dearest ones, without whom life has lost its beauty and charm and, if you like, to a certain extent, time and meaning. It is necessary to stay sober, to get over it.

It now represents the meaning of current life and the persistent search for a new formula of existence. In Dragica Najcheska’s novel, one feels human primal strength, an aspiration to survive the tragedy, to get over what’s been lost, to seek the Archimedean point of existence, regardless of the fact that deep in their intimacy people will bear the wounds of an unexpectedly fierce blow, the repetition of which could not be sustained by a human heart, in this case a child’s heart, which after the tragic event forcibly accelerates the intensity of its spiritual meaning.

Dragica Najcheska very subtly reveals the deep emotional and spiritual tremors of her heroes, especially Hristina, because she is the active and only narrator of this quiet, sorrow-free and exaggerated “burning” of feelings - a human, contemporary and eternal drama of people, of families.

It is this component - silence and tragedy - that is the greatest quality in Dragica Najcheska’s successful novel. What the subject offers -believing without question the sorrow, awareness of feelings and testimonials - Najcheska consciously reduces, to an extent, and confirms her narrative maturity and the power of selectivity in choosing the most adequate course of action.

The main point in this prose, urban, thematic and expressive, should be sought in the evolution of the emotional and thought world of the heroine Hristina who, after all her internal self-conscious ethical resistance and dilemmas, realizes the inevitability of the elementary act that will take place in the life of her father and the family as a whole.

It took great human and writer’s courage for Hristina’s intimate dilemma to find its most natural resolution. As a philosophy of life and as a philosophical message to the living and contemporaries, especially to the young generations for whom it is intended and dedicated, - the novel “Another Mother” should be counted among the most successful written on this topic and for that age in the collection of contemporary Macedonian literature.

Petar Shirilov, October 1978 Another Mother In the same way as me when I was little, at night before going to sleep, my mother used to tell Eli, my little sister, the long stories about Cinderella, about Ivitsa and Maritsa, about the black cow...

Since we slept in the same room I listened to those stories again, which seemed to take me back to the years when I was little. There was something so warm and gentle in my mother’s voice and so sweetly lulling that I would forget about all my math assignments, all the homework and drift off into a sweet dream with Eli.

The mornings weren’t so great because when I woke up Mom and Dad had already gone to work. I had to take on the role of the big grown-up sister and look after Eli. I also did some other work, in addition to that assigned to me by the school, which my mother had asked me to do the evening before.

First I had to wash, dress and feed Eli, which wasn’t an easy task.

Her being pampered so much caused me a lot of grief. She used to cry because she didn’t want me to wash her, or she would spill her plate of food, for which I would have to slap her hands. But no one seemed to understand my dilemma. Imagine Eli spilling the plate with food on the bright, clean parquet floor, which Mom had made so shiny and lemony smelling with such care! Then Eli and I wouldn’t have a good time.

It hadn’t been a year since we moved into this beautiful new apartment, which my mom had shined with her caring and hardworking hands. My father also often helped her with the cleaning.

After settling Eli in her crib, enclosed on all sides by tall nets, and piling her in with all the toys, I set about doing my homework. I tried not to pay attention to her so as not to be disturbed by her unintelligible chatter.

I finished the first two years of school with great success and I had to continue that way. When it was time to go to school my Aunt Raina, a distant relative of my father’s, would come and stay with Eli for a few hours until Mom and Dad got home from work. Aunt Raina was always gone before I came home.

I usually played with my friends after I came home from school.

That was the best part of the day for me. I would drop off my bag in my room and then run back down the stairs. My friends would meet me and we would play in the street. Today my school was over.

Mom and Dad were at home. That chatterbox Eli was with them!

Who of my friends was going to catch me or pass me in a race or find me where I was hiding?

It was getting dark and at any moment now I expected my mother to call me: “Hri...s...tina, it’s getting dark outside.” I knew it was time to go but I ignored it so that I could spend a little more time outside.

When my mother yelled again, there was no waiting. I would run up the stairs.

“I told you,” she would say scolding me a little, “not to wait for me to call you.” I would then mumble some sort of excuse. It was soon dinnertime. Everything on the table was impeccably clean. The food had an attractive aroma with a well-known scent, ours, in our house, so directly associated with Mom and made with her skillful hands.

Everyone had their own place to sit. Eli was in Mom’s arms sitting on her lap. That’s why it seemed to me that Mom couldn’t eat comfortably. I would have taken Eli in my arms but I knew Mom wouldn’t allow me. And the pampered Eli, under no circumstances, would want to be separated from Mom’s lap, which I knew so well and for which I even envied Eli a little.

My father, being free, would usually finish eating first and then take Eli from Mom’s arms, so that Mom could then finish eating her dinner.

Tomorrow they would go to work early. That’s why Mom did her cleaning in the evening and prepared our lunch for the next day.

Clean, washed and dressed in our pajamas, we lay in our beds covered with ironed sheets that had a wonderful smell and we sank into them like in warm, pleasant water.

Mom’s gentle sing-song voice lulled Eli to sleep... “When the children went to bed in the evening their stepmother told their father, ‘Tomorrow you will take the children and bring them to the forest where you cut wood. You will leave them there all alone to be eaten by the forest beasts’...” I immediately remembered that story.

It was from Ivitsa and Maritsa. I didn’t believe Eli understood any of this but, for her, Mom’s presence and her soothing voice was enough to help her fall asleep quickly. When Eli fell asleep, Mom would stop telling the story, often in the middle of a word. She would then cover us both, gently touching the blankets, or she would stroke our hair. She would then tiptoe out of the room and leave the door slightly open so as not awaken Eli...

* * * This one night I was awakened by some terrible banging. I opened my eyes and the first thing I saw were pieces of plaster falling from the ceiling and the walls. I felt like I was being choked. It was simply impossible to breathe from the dust that filled the room.

Without realizing if this was real or if I was dreaming of things collapsing around me, I screamed for my mom and dad and then ran out of the apartment and down the stairs. Other people from the building were also running down the stairs. Suddenly I remembered Eli and was horrified. What about Eli? It wasn’t safe to go back but even more horrifying was to leave little helpless Eli alone in the collapsing and crashing building. Frantically, not feeling the impact of all the things that were falling on me, I ran back to the apartment.

Eli was coughing and choking on plaster dust. I somehow got her out of her crib and, dragging her under my arm, I ran with her back down the stairs. In all this, I remembered that Mom and Dad had gone to work early that day and there was no one to help us. So the most terrible thing that we faced that day was Eli and I getting out of the building. And lucky for us, the very moment that we found ourselves on the other side of the street the building, like it was made of cardboard, collapsed with a terrible crash. I shuddered at the thought of what would have happened to Eli if I hadn’t gone back to get her. Dozens of people could be heard on all sides of the street screaming. Everyone was frantic and running like crazy up and down the street.

I’d heard about earthquakes from the old people. I struggled to understand what was happening all around us. A woman took Eli and me to the yard of the neighbour’s single-storey house where there was a well and helped me wash Eli, who was crying the whole time, spitting plaster dust from her mouth.

At that moment I heard my father’s frantic voice yelling, “Hristina, Eli!” Immediately after that I yelled out loud, “Father!” He hugged us both, squeezing us as if he couldn’t believe his eyes that we weren’t harmed after seeing the hideous ruin that our building had turned into. Several people gathered around us and wondered how we’d done it. How two children had managed to get out of the apartment alone? They hugged and kissed me, as if I’d done something impossible - heroic because I’d taken Eli out of the apartment before the worst happened.

During all that time, the ground shook violently under our feet. At the same time we all looked at each other frantically, grabbed each other’s hands, as if that could reduce the danger, and sometimes ran madly down the street, only a short distance, and then turned back.

My father was restless looking down the street where my mother usually came from work. I too, with fear and a tight heart, also kept looking, unable to take my eyes off that street. I wanted to ask my father why my mother wasn’t there yet, convinced that she would have come running hundreds of times by now. I was afraid to ask…

I knew that he was also tormented by her absence. I wanted to tell him to go and find her, meet her on the way but then I realized that he was afraid to leave us alone again, or of something worse, even more terrible. The earth tremors were still strong. Some people spoke of the horror that the earth might collapse in places and take us all down with it.

We began to cry again when Aunt Raina came running, looking frantic. I immediately saw in her eyes that she was looking for my mother. Then I heard her tell my father to go and find her.

“Don’t worry about the children, I’m here now,” she told my father.

“Your mother and father are lucky, they are lucky they avoided a big tragedy…” said Aunt Raina quietly to herself, pressing us against her lap. She didn’t want to look at the pile of bricks, concrete slabs, broken objects that was left of our house. I myself was stressed when I imagined what really could have happened if I hadn’t woken up at the first moment, and if I hadn’t gone back to get my sister, if I hadn’t dragged her out of the crib and run with her outside to the street.

It seemed like everyone got out of our building alive and unharmed, I guess because it didn’t fall down at the first tremor. I heard some older people say that other buildings in the city fell immediately. We had no idea that even more terrible things were happening elsewhere in the city. Every now and then someone would run up covered in blood, screaming and yelling that there were people buried alive in many buildings. Some of the people around us screamed when they found out their loved ones had been killed. All this exhausted me more and more and I felt that I could no longer stand on my feet. I struggled to hold myself up, still keeping my eyes on the street from where our mother was supposed to come. I noticed that Aunt Raina was also looking, only further.

“Aunt Raina, Mom and Dad still aren’t back…” I said, even though I knew in advance that she couldn’t tell me anything more. It was as if I hoped that her answer would ease the uncertainty that pressed upon me and would dispel my terrible fears.

“They’ll be back, my child, they will come... They were probably held up on the road,” said Aunt Raina with an uncertain trembling tone of voice, which caused me even more anxiety. I thought to myself, “If my father is going to come back, let him come back with my mother. No, not alone, no!” I would have cried at that moment if Eli wasn’t there.

Noon was long gone. I hardly noticed the tremors that shook the earth every ten minutes or so with a dreadful and menacing rumble.

It seemed like some huge, invisible monster was attacking us from underneath, shaking the ground and looking for more victims. Our eyes were still riveted on the end of the street, from where we were waiting for Father and Mother to appear. From time to time Eli, without understanding what was happening, would helplessly cry, Mama! Aunt Raina and I would just hug her and she would stop.

Poor Eli, she acted like no great calamity had befallen her. She didn’t ask for food, nor did she complain that we were on the street and on our feet all that time.

Dust hovered around like a threatening ghost, even here right next to us. We now had no house, no furniture and nothing to wear or eat.

But none of that mattered to me; I just wanted my mom and dad to come back. I didn’t care if Mom was wounded and had to go to the hospital. Now, that didn’t seem so terrible to me.

When my father appeared alone at the end of the street coming towards us, I wanted to close my eyes; I didn’t want to look. I didn’t want to believe that he was alone. When he arrived he said nothing, we didn’t ask him anything either. At that moment I knew we no longer had a mother. I started crying out loud and so did Eli. Aunt Raina also started crying. Tears flowed from my father’s frantic eyes, streaking down his dust-stained face.

Some of our neighbours who lived in the same building and knew my mother came running. “Poor Rada… Her poor children…” I heard some of them say and they cried with us. They hugged us and pressed us up against them. I heard some of them asking, “What happened to her? Did she suffer much? Did she die in the bank where she worked? Did the bank collapse? Not the bank too?!… Oh, this damned misfortune…!” ...One thing was becoming clear and more certain than anything – Mom wouldn’t be coming back. The misfortune of the earthquake was a calamity for everyone – for Eli, for me and for Dad. It had taken the most precious thing away from us. And nobody could do anything to change that. I couldn’t, I didn’t want to believe what had happened! I wanted to grab Dad’s hand and ask him to take me to where my mother was, even if she was dead. She couldn’t be taken from us so suddenly. Who was it that did this… this sudden and terrible thing… without letting us see her one more time.

How could I ask my father anything about my mother after I looked at his sad face and eyes full of despair? Where did he leave her?

Mother, are you going to leave us forever without us seeing you again...?

People came later and took us to the park where there were tents set up. They also gave us some food. Aunt Raina stayed with us. My poor aunt, she didn’t have the heart to leave us...

There were moments when I thought all this was a dream, or a horror story that had come to life and I was participating in it. Then suddenly it would all end and everyone would return to their normal life and we would all return to our apartment and Mom and all of us would be together with all our familiar things around us. But immediately after that thought, reality hit and the whole horrible truth hit me again. The presence of the heap of rubble from our destroyed building reminded me of our dear deceased mother.

Something terrible hit me the first moment they said we should go to the park and stay in the tents. I didn’t want to separate myself from our building, not even from that great pile of rubble. It seemed to me that we’d lost my mother like we’d lost everything in our home to that rubble.

Only Eli ate the food they gave us. Aunt Raina offered me some several times but I didn’t take it. Any pleasure, even eating food, seemed offensive to me. I simply could not swallow it...

The earth rumbled menacingly all night long, heaving beneath us with stronger and weaker shakes. Now that we had lost my mother, it didn’t much matter to me what happened to us. Poor Eli, she had no idea what was going on. How would she be with us without Mom? Almost no one slept that night. People mourned; some silently and some loudly and some here close to us in the dark. I cried silently, inconsolably.

The next day my father was gone for a long time, for many hours.

When he came back he took us away and soon we boarded a bus;

one of those from the city.

The ride was terribly slow. We had to make many detours due to the ruins. Many streets hadn’t been cleared. The city looked much scarier than I’d imagined. It was real devastation. We stopped at last. We went to a cemetery. Several fresh graves were dug, all lined up one next to one another. There was a name written on a piece of board for each.

My father pointed with his hand and said, “Your mother is here.” Even though I read her first and last name on the board that my father had pointed to, I couldn’t believe that this was my mother, our lively, ever-smiling good mother, under this pile of heaped earth with her name painted in black on this rough board. There were people, strangers all around us throwing themselves on the ground, kissing the boards with the names written on them and crying, yelling and screaming uncontrollably. Some brought framed pictures and left them on the graves. There was an old grandmother looking over one grave. My father was more reserved in expressing his pain, probably because of us. Unshaven, with messy hair, he looked old to me, like he wasn’t our father. After we visited the grave for a while we again headed for the bus. I didn’t want to leave but evening was approaching and Eli needed to go to sleep. Again crying aloud with tears dripping down my cheeks I followed my father. Eli, of course, understood none of this. I looked back several times at the grave where, as my father said, our mother lay. Now there are only the three of us – my father, Eli and me.

...It’s strange how a person can get used to things, even to this most terrible thing that happened to us. There were two mattresses in the tent. Eli and I slept on one and my father on the other.

News of the calamity that befell the city spread throughout the country. Clothes, food and medicine arrived from everywhere.

A few days later, Mom’s relatives came. I don’t know how I survived that day. I was sad and crying constantly. So much so that I wanted to run away somewhere where there was no one and nothing. My mother’s sister, our aunt, stayed with us for a few days but she had to leave because she lived in another city.

We were given dry food in those days so there was nothing to do around mealtime. A water tap was installed in the park for us to use for washing. Kitchens where soon organized where hot food was served.

Eli began to feel the absence of our mother and cried more and more often and for long periods of time. She was just sad.

When I was alone with Eli I often lied to her, telling her, “Mama and Papa will soon come home and bring Eli a new toy…” At night before she went to asleep, because that’s when she cried the most, I told her stories the way Mom used to. She got used to falling asleep to my stories. But now that I remember, I instinctively avoided the stories about bad stepmothers, about the magic mirror, about Ivitsa and Maritsa, about the black cow and about Cinderella... I don’t know why, since I was little, when my mother told me those stories, I didn’t like them. I didn’t want to hear about those bad women… I just wanted to hear stories about godly mothers...

Eli often fell asleep clinging onto me. Even though I wasn’t very big, I was a kind of protection for her now that Mom wasn’t there.

Dad often took her in his arms during the day and spent several hours with her.

I almost avoided looking directly into my father’s eyes because I knew what pain I would find there, how many unshed tears. Perhaps it was better that neither the apartment nor anything from it remained. Everything there reminded me of Mom and her magic hands.

When Father and Aunt Raina were talking I overheard them say that some sort of wooden sheds would be built quickly for those whose houses were completely destroyed. And that they would give us one to live in. I didn’t care, I was indifferent to all that.

The painful days passed slowly.

“In which tent did you say Hristina Petrovska lives?” I heard someone say my name one morning near our tent. We had just woken up. The male voice I heard was unfamiliar. My father immediately got up, dressed quickly and went outside.

“Are you Hristina’s father?” “If you mean my daughter, yes I have a daughter named Hristina,” my father said, wondering what this man wanted.

“Forgive me Sir, I’m a journalist and I heard from your neighbours about her courage. Is it true that Hristina, as I was told, your little girl was alone in the apartment at the time of the earthquake and, running down the stairs, risking her life, rushed back into the apartment and fearlessly saved her two-year-old sister? I beg you to let me write something about her and photograph her.” Even though I didn’t see him, I felt that my father was perplexed and that in all our misfortune with my mother, it had never occurred to him that I had rescued Eli from the falling and collapsing building and that other people saw something special and heroic in me. As for me, it was simply the right thing to do. Even now I feel the same but if things went wrong, I now realize that we would both be under the ruins of the building. I think that’s what perplexed my father. Of course I did that unconsciously, by instinct… I would probably do it again if it happened again… who knows how many times.

When I stuck my head out of the tent opening to see the stranger, my father shrugged his shoulders indifferently to his question. I believed that neither he nor I had wanted to be photographed. Most likely the stranger didn’t know about our terrible tragedy with my mother. He took a picture of me the moment I walked out of the tent and wrote down some things about me like how old I was and that I was a good student. I couldn’t stand it anymore so I burst out and told him that we’d lost my mother, but he wasn’t surprised He obviously knew about it and gave me an encouraging hug.

We had almost forgotten about the stranger when one day the mailman arrived and brought several magazines in Macedonian and foreign languages. Most of those magazines had a photo of me and my name, as well as a few words written about my heroism.

Not a week passed by before I started receiving beautiful dolls, gifts and letters from strangers, mostly from children from all over the country. They wrote expressions of sympathy in the warmest way, as well as invitations for my little sister and me to go and live with their families. They were nice to me and had good and pure, big hearts! I can’t tell you how much I cried over those letters and gifts, and how many grateful letters I wrote with Dad’s help.

When we moved into the newly built residential shed, I felt like I had suddenly grown up and should assume the role of the lady of the house. But perhaps because we now had rooms and more space in general than in the tent, I felt Mom’s absence even more. Sometimes I was afraid of forgetting her… of what she looked like, or the smallest details connected with her. We had no photos of her, not one. I don’t know what I would have given for a picture of her to hang on the wall in the room where Eli and I slept. But every time I thought of that it reminded me of the concrete and bricks that had obliterated all traces of our home and her.

One day when I came home from school I was surprised to see a big picture of mother hanging in the room where my father slept. It hung above his bed. Where did he find it? It seemed to me like it was by some miracle that it was hung on the wall. Maybe he went and looked through the ruins of the building and by some chance found the picture intact. Or maybe he had a small picture of her in his wallet, where he kept Eli’s and mine. Then I remembered that our relatives could have had a picture of her and they gave it to him.

Having the picture there was like somehow having Mom around, present with us. I was a little sorry that the picture wasn’t in our room but the important thing was that no one bothered me if I went to see her several times a day. Often I couldn’t separate myself from her for a long time. It helped me remember her features and everything about her the way she truly was...

Another day when my father came home for lunch, I saw him carrying an unusual book under his arm. After thinking about where to put it, he opened the closet door and left it there. I realized that he didn’t want us to see it and maybe that’s why I was even more curious as to what it was about. In front of him, of course, I pretended not to be interested in what he’d brought and where he’d left it but I couldn’t wait for him to go out for his afternoon break, or to buy groceries for tomorrow’s lunch.

The moment he stepped out I entered his bedroom like a thief, opened the closet door and took the book. By looking at the cover and title, I understood that it was about documents and photos of the victims of the earthquake. Turning the pages and reading the names of the dead, as well as looking at their photos, I was trembling all over waiting to see my mother and our street like it had been the first time. I felt this way maybe because our tragedy was recorded in a permanent place, like this book with terrible images.

I was crying and kissing my mother’s picture and, of course, that’s why I didn’t hear my father when he came into the room. I just felt his hand hugging me warmly and saw the tears in his eyes. He sat down on the bed. I felt that he wanted to say something comforting to me but that he was so sad, inconsolable, that he couldn’t find the right words. I knew that he went to the cemetery every day and on Sundays he took Eli and me.

Before winter came we placed a gravestone on Mom’s grave. By setting her apart from all the others it was like we had taken her and reclaimed her. She was now ours. The white marble monument also featured a picture of her. I had long since taken the book from my father and placed it under my pillow, and because of that I was less jealous of my mother’s picture hanging in my father’s room. I often took Eli to see Mom’s picture on the wall and told her things about her. It saddened me to think that Eli wouldn’t be able to remember her. She was very young when Mom died. What she would remember, however, was what Dad, Aunt Raina and I told her.

Aunt Raina came over to see us almost every day but she was getting sick more and more often. Her health wasn’t the best before, but after the earthquake she was completely weakened. I dreaded the thought that she too might stop coming to see us...

That year winter came earlier than usual, indifferent to the fact that there were still people living in tents and in unprepared, dilapidated houses.

Because it was getting dark earlier, and because of the cold, we rarely left the house. We felt even lonelier during the long winter evenings. My father wasn’t a very sociable person to begin with and his friends and acquaintances rarely visited us. And our relatives, those living closest to us, lived in another city so we were usually all alone. Sometimes Aunt Raina would prepare lunch for us. But Dad cooked for us most of the time, the way we knew how.

They also built a prefab school near us because our school, as well as several others in the city, had been completely demolished.

During the first days of school, it seemed to me like everyone knew about what had happened to me and felt sorry for me. It seemed like some of the children whispered about it and looked at me sympathetically. It was nauseating and I felt like crying out loud and running out of class. Our teacher also took a careful attitude towards me, often reminding me of that terrible thing that happened and telling me that it was okay if I couldn’t pay attention to what she was teaching because of it. It would appear that only another girl and I in the entire class had lost a mother. Probably from some instinct, I hung out with that girl the most. However, we avoided talking about our mothers because it hurt too much. Marina was even quieter than me and was also a good student. She, on the other hand, had no brother or sister and was alone with her father and grandmother. That damned night her grandmother had taken her to sleep with her because she was living alone in another house at the time. Her father, a doctor, was called to the hospital at night. As a result her mother was alone at home when she died. Marina always wore a black ribbon in her lush blonde hair and I wore a black apron.

I knew that Marina’s black ribbon and my black apron were just outside things. The real darkness that we carried in our souls was the regret of losing our mothers. But what could we do? We couldn’t show that. I could envy all the other children in the class for being carefree but I knew that I would never have their carefree laughter and cheerfulness again.

It was most difficult for me during the big holidays. On those days I wanted to run away from home and go somewhere, I wanted to travel somewhere. This first New Year after the earthquake wasn’t the same. I knew that almost nowhere in the city would it be welcomed like other years. The terrible thing that had befallen the people of our city was present all around... in the uncleared ruins, in the people who dressed in black, in the expressions on their faces...

I wasn’t happy about the gifts we got at school, or the ones that Dad brought home. I couldn’t wait for those two or three days to pass so that I could go to school again.

The day I saw my friend Marina in class, from the expression on her face, I knew something unpleasant had happened to her.

During the break after our second class, which was longer than the others, I went to her and wanted to know what had happened. But at the same time, I didn’t want to ask her if she didn’t want to tell me. I wondered if someone in her home was sick.

Marina quickly returned to class and sat on her part of the bench.

She wore a black ribbon and a black apron that day. I wanted to help her, although I didn’t know what was wrong or how to approach her.

I sat on the same bench and talked to her about things from school but it didn’t work. Suddenly she burst into tears and ran outside into the yard. Then she was gone. I put her books in my bag and took them to her home. I rang the bell. When a young woman I didn’t know appeared at the door, I was confused. I thought I had rung the wrong doorbell. The young woman smiled kindly at me and reached out for the bag, as if expecting someone would bring it.

“Are these Marina’s books?” she asked and took the bag.

“Yes,” I said feeling confused. “Is Marina here?” I dared ask.

“She is here,” she said. “But she’s resting for a while, she doesn’t feel well. Thank you for bringing her bag.” “See you later,” I said and slowly walked down the stairs. She was a nice and pleasant woman, I thought. I hadn’t seen her there before, even though I often went there. I wondered if she was a relative of theirs.

Marina wasn’t at school for two more days but I didn’t dare to look for her, without even knowing why.

When she came the third day she seemed a little more composed, but not to me. My friendly gaze couldn’t escape the truth that she still wasn’t over it.

On Sunday, when we were returning from the cemetery, I happened to see Marina’s father from the window of the bus. The same young woman was with him, the one whom I’d met at the door several days ago. He was holding her hand. It suddenly became clear to me that she was Marina’s new mother. I now understood why Marina had acted like that all these days. I couldn’t believe that her father had decided to take this step so quickly. That good, lovable man suddenly became strange to me, even unpleasant. Poor Marina! How would she get used to this strange woman… a stepmother, who would replace her mother... and so quickly? Suddenly I shuddered at the thought. And yet, this was happening to my good friend Marina.

If I were her I’d run away from home. Go and live alone somewhere in the world away from here. At that moment on the bus even my father began to look strangely at me. Just thinking about it… that he might be planning to do something like that also.

When I went to school the next day, I tried to pretend that I didn’t know about Marina’s sad secret. Or maybe it had been just a figment of my imagination.

“My father brought home another mother,” she said suddenly when we went out to the schoolyard during the longer break. There was sadness in her voice but also a reconciliation of what had been done… that was inevitable.

“I know,” I said and noticed that she wasn’t surprised.

After that we were both silent. There was nothing more to say.

Neither could she condemn her father for that, nor could I utter such a thing.

For the next few months Marina came to school even more meticulously dressed and combed, but less and less attentive to her lessons and more distracted in class. I often invited her to my house to help her get over it and so that we could study together, but I managed to change nothing.

During the spring, like all the others, I tried to cheer us up but many things got in the way... All the terrible things that had happened the summer before interfered... Nothing could bring us peace: not the blossoms on the trees near the destroyed houses… not the empty places cleared of ruins… and not the birds with their lively songs. It seemed like we wanted all creatures to sing somewhere else this spring... The swallows didn’t find their old eaves and old nests. And the park was empty, trampled by the many people who’d found refuge in it during their first unhappy days. Everything looked pitiful.

Walking home from school both Marina and I could still smell the ashes from the ruins despite the fragrances of spring.

“Will you come with me to my house,” Marina asked when we were at the first intersection. “I’m no longer living here, I moved in with my grandmother.” I was surprised… shocked in fact but I didn’t want to ask where or why. I continued to walk with her without saying a word. After we passed a few streets Marina stopped in front of a shed and we went inside. Her grandmother greeted us. She was happy to see me because she knew that I was very friendly with Marina.

She gave us a treat… chocolate candies.

“Let’s celebrate our new house,” said the old woman. I looked at Marina. She was looking out the window.

“You know daughter, they gave me this shed because they demolished my house. It was almost falling down and, besides, I didn’t want to live alone. Well that’s it, now I’ll be living here with Marina. It’s nice to be with someone. How are you doing in school?

“Okay,” I said while thinking about what the old woman had said.

Was this true… the old woman didn’t want to live alone, or did Marina’s father’s new wife not want Marina living with them. I knew it would be difficult for anyone to win over Marina so soon after the terrible death of her mother... But I didn’t know what kind of woman the new wife was. I just realized that Marina would have to live not only without a mother but more and more without a father.

A few months later it became clear to me that, one day, Marina would have a little brother or sister from the new mother. Marina very rarely went to her father’s house after school, feeling more and more like it was an obligation. She became more and more withdrawn and serious. Despite the great tenderness and care she gave Marina, her grandmother’s company wasn’t joyful company for her.

I never told my father about what was happening in my friend’s life.

I feared that could happen to me.

“My dear it might be a sin for me to say this, but how long do you think you’ll be able to live alone like this? Here, you see, I’m getting weaker day by day. And how much do I help? None! The house needs a permanent housekeeper to do the work all day long.” I overheard this conversation between Aunt Raina and my father one evening. Of course they thought I was asleep.

My father was silent.

Even though I was very attached to Aunt Raina and we owed her a lot, at that very moment I felt like I didn’t love her anymore. I felt like standing up and screaming, telling them that I’d overheard them.

It was shortly after the one year anniversary of Mom’s death. I don’t know how I restrained myself and remained motionless.

“I know it will be difficult,” Aunt Raina continued, “with two children; rarely anyone would want to bother… but we will tell her in advance, we will tell her everything in advance… Perhaps there will be someone…as long as she doesn’t have children of her own...

It will be difficult with mixed children. No matter how good she is, she will tend to want her own children more… those she gave birth to.” My father was quiet. I was afraid of what he might say. It seemed to me at that moment that our fate, mine, Eli’s and his, depended on what he said. But my father was stubbornly silent. After that I understood the kind of weight this conversation had on him. He couldn’t stop Aunt Raina from talking about these things but he did answer her with his silence. This must be very painful for him - I thought to myself. That’s what I needed to believe at that moment.

But was it really so?

Just when I thought that conversation was over, I heard Aunt Raina’s voice again. “Another winter is coming. It will be cold.

You’ll have to leave your children home alone with a burning fire…

in a wooden house. God forbid if something happens. It’s well known what a man can and can’t do...” There was silence again.

I wanted to get up and say that I would do everything myself and that there was no need for Aunt Raina to come here if she couldn’t. I wanted to tell them that I wouldn’t go to school if she had to come here just for us... I wanted to tell both of them things… I was furious laying there in my bed.

I heard Aunt Raina leave and my father pacing nervously in the kitchen for a long time. Eventually I fell asleep in a kind of stupor.

That night the stories of Cinderella’s bad stepmother, of Ivitsa and Maritza’s terrible stepmother and of the little girl who’d suffered from her stepmother in the story of the black cow, all came to life for me in my dreams. I was locked in cages, eaten by beasts, running from witches and when I woke up, I remembered my father’s warm gentle hand on my face and his worried voice calling my name.

“Hristina, what’s wrong with you,” he asked, “are you having a bad dream or something? You were yelling in your sleep.” I grabbed his hand and pressed it to my cheek like I needed saving…

Like it was something that could make me feel safe in life.

Oh, how many things I wanted to tell him at that moment. How much I wanted to ask him to promise me that he would never bring another woman to be my mother. How could one be a mother when clearly one was not? I wanted to fall on my knees and beg him. But I couldn’t do that. I felt that I was still too young to decide what needed to be done and I trusted my father to make the right decision.

That thought and the touch of his hand on my face helped me fall asleep again, this time more peacefully.

In the next few days, I wanted to ask Aunt Raina why she’d said all those things to my father but I didn’t know how to start that kind of conversation.

I decided to enroll myself in the sixth grade. I was tall and no one really knew how old I was. Eli was growing up fast and we started having problems with her. It became more and more difficult to lie to her about the tragic truth which each of us tried not to forget, but at least not to think about it all the time and get sick.

Sometimes I envied Eli. If my father decided to do what I considered my worst fear, it would be possible for Eli to believe that this other woman was her real mother, who had gone away for a long time. Anyway Eli was still young and, whatever happened, it wouldn’t be so tragic for her. When I thought about all this, I thought how lucky Marina was that she at least had a grandmother to run to and that she didn’t have a little sister like Eli to look after.