Part 9 (1/2)
”Your soul will improve.”
”If work doesn't, I don't know what will improve it. I need rest, wife, not stiff benches. My back hurts.”
”Go see a chiropractor.”
”But that's a witch doctor, isn't it? How can you recommend one and go to church? They are too expensive anyway. To pay to see one, I'd have to work one more day and hurt myself.”
”And how do you think you'll pa.s.s the citizens.h.i.+p test if you can't even understand the questions?”
”Good question. Let me rest.”
He fell asleep on their orange sofa and snored even before the sun set.
In the morning, he woke up Tony to go out and work. ”Got to pay for school,” he said. With nostalgia, he thought of the old days in Yugoslavia, where higher education was free.
They drove to Hyde Park in their Toyota pickup with ladders on top. On the way they stopped for coffee at Dairy Queen. Tony picked up a newspaper, and as they drove on, he said, ”Dad, look at this, there's a war in Croatia.”
”Nonsense.”
”Why, look at this, in Dal) near the Danube Bridge, Yugoslav forces killed seventy-two Croatian policemen.”
”Really? What else does it say?” He spilled hot coffee over his white s.h.i.+rt. ”But that's not war,” he said. ”Just several dozen people killed.”
”And to you that's normal?” Tony asked.
”Not normal, just not war.”
”What is war then?”
”Big armies attacking each other, not just incidents.”
But while he painted he was worried and absentminded. His wrists hurt, swollen with arthritis. His brush strokes often went over window sills, and he had to wipe the paint. A kid's room that was supposed to be half red, half blue, he painted all blue in quick rolls, with the blue paint dripping from the ceiling onto his paper cap and brows. He'd made a cap out of the New York Times New York Times.
DURING THE CITIZENs.h.i.+P test, Daniel could understand almost no questions.
”Maybe we should wait,” said the officer. ”You must be able to speak English to partic.i.p.ate in our democracy. How will you know what you're voting for if you can't understand the language? Out of five questions, you got only one right, that Bush is the president.”
”I know. I learn,” Daniel said. ”Ask more.”
The officer, a middle-aged black woman, said, ”All right. Who is the governor of Ohio?”
”Voinovich!” Daniel exclaimed. He knew-there were so few people from Yugoslavia in politics, and here was one. Although Voinovich was a Serb, Daniel was proud of him-it made it easier in a way to be a ”vich” in Ohio. ”And Kucinich was the mayor of Cleveland,” he said.
”We don't have to worry about Cleveland right now,” the officer said and scrutinized him. ”All right, you pa.s.s. Welcome to the United States of America!”
”Thank you, thank you!” he said.
As HE PULLED out of the parking lot on Court Street, he said to Tony and Mira: ”Can you believe it, the Serb governor's name saved me from flunking the citizens.h.i.+p test. You never know where help will come from.”
”It's amazing,” said Tony.
”I was so worried that you wouldn't make it,” Mira said. ”We are all Americans now, can you believe it? Isn't it great?”
”Sure thing,” said Tony. ”Except, who's going to believe Dad? He speaks English so badly.”
”At least they'll believe you,” said Daniel. ”Especially when they draft you. You had to say you'd bear arms for this country, didn't you?”
DANIEL WAS PROUD of being an American, and as a true American, he watched the six o'clock news every night after work, and later CNN. Although he still spoke with a heavy accent and without much grammar, he understood English. And when one hot morning he got the news that his hometown, Pakrac, in Croatia was attacked by Serb irregulars backed by the Yugoslav Federal Army, he did not go to work. He tried to call his old uncle who lived on the eastern side of the Pakra river-he couldn't get through. He couldn't get through to any members of his family in Croatia. He grew anxious, and read the Bible but found little comfort.
DANIEL BOUGHT A shortwave radio and listened to the news every night. He got Croatian radio, BBC, Deutsche Welle. There was a report of the Pakrac hospital being bombed, and another of Vukovar being surrounded by 20,000 troops, and people ma.s.sacred. Gradually, he managed to hear from most of his relatives, but he still feared for their lives. But even more he feared for their souls; most of them were atheists.
Vukovar fell three months later, and Daniel's life went on as usual; after work he watched CNN and listened to the pulsing shortwaves on the radio until he fell asleep.
A COUPLE OF years later the war in Croatia was at a standstill and the war in Bosnia reached a high pitch; some of Daniel's relatives from the vicinity of Banja Luka disappeared. One day as he worked and worried, painting wooden siding in a Hyde Park house among many large trees, he saw a blonde woman in a tennis skirt nimbly stretching on the floor. He gazed at her strong muscular and smoothly feminine thighs and her freckled cleavage as she bent to touch her Nikes with her fingers. Daniel's ladder shook and sc.r.a.ped on the wood siding.
”Oh, goodness, you'll fall if you don't watch out,” she said.
”That's the problem. I watch.”
”Let me hold your ladder,” she said.
He was leaning over the tall window, his knees at her eye level.
She grabbed the ladder.
”Not necessary,” he said. ”It's firm.”
”Is it?” she said and touched his crotch. Like a youngster, he got an instant erection. ”Oh, that's a compliment,” she said. ”My husband doesn't react like that to me. Thank you, my friend.” She spoke up into his crotch, and it wasn't clear to him whether she was talking to him, or to a part of him. She sounded delighted at any rate. She unzipped his jeans, and held his p.e.n.i.s in her hands. With a brush laden with dripping white paint, which sprinkled over her hedges along the house, and another hand holding on to the bucket of paint, he couldn't defend himself, unless he said something, and he couldn't think right away what he could say that wouldn't be rude. And by the time he could think to say something, like ”You are beautiful but I am a married Christian and therefore this is not the right thing to do,” he felt tremors of l.u.s.t and a delicious comfort in yielding to what was happening with such dexterity; her gently sliding nails made his lower abdomen twitch.
Daniel moved, bending lower a little bit, and he put the brush on the can of paint, and fastened the can along the ladder; the hairs on his forearm got stuck in a screw. Probably thinking that he wanted to jump into the room, she said, ”Oh no, this is a fine arrangement. You keep doing your thing, I'll do mine if you don't mind.”
When he came, he was flushed, with sweat drenching his s.h.i.+rt. ”This is fun,” she said. ”Why don't you come here tomorrow, and we'll play some more through the window?”
”But job done today.”
”I know. We could do a bigger one tomorrow.”
After this Daniel felt a mixture of shame and guilt. What's the big deal, he thought. It happens. It's not like I have done anything. I just stood there; she did it. What choice did I have? But that reminded him of Adam's excuse in the Garden of Eden. She did it. Why be selfish and worry about himself; he had to worry about his relatives in the Balkans. So what if he wasn't a saint?
THAT EVENING HE went to a gathering of Croatian immigrants at a winery, Vinoklet, in the suburbs of Cincinnati. The sun was setting colorfully over the vineyards, and Daniel had the impression that he was in his native region. A Croatian engineer who ran the winery had nearly replicated his native landscape here-rolling hills with rows of vines, greenish fish ponds, and scattered groves of apple trees. At the entrance to the winery, a sign read, ”Warning: consumption of our wines in moderate amounts creates an aura of well being that may lead to pregnancy.”
Pa.s.sionate emigres gave speeches about the importance of writing letters to the White House, to the state senator, to alert them that there was a large Croatian population that wanted something done to stop the war in Bosnia with a fair settlement for the Croatian minority. ”You can all give twenty dollars apiece to hire someone who will send the messages to the White House by e-mail if you don't have the time for it.”
Daniel gave, and then drank the wines, ”Tears of Joy” and ”Sunset Blush.” He chatted with a man who had lost his arm in World War II; he enjoyed speaking Croatian and feeling like he was not a foreigner. ”I was just a lad then,” the man said. ”I was harvesting in a little wheatfield when Chetniks came, surrounded us, and took us to Knin, where they hacked us with knives. I woke up in a mound of bodies, and crawled out. A nurse helped me, and I was between life and death for months, and for ten years my wound kept festering, until I finally recovered, probably thanks to wine. I love wine.”
”Probably G.o.d saved you. Not wine.”
”Maybe the Virgin saved me.”
”Which one?” Daniel asked.