"Is it close to three o'clock yet?"
The work in our office is coming to an end and each of us is secretly checking the time. Every day about that time the work élan drops a bit and we unconsciously start some small talk about mothers-in-law and their bossiness, children and day care, food prices and utility cost. I am so sure it is not so only here, in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, but everywhere else in the world where people work for a living, while craving to go home and have some family time.
Today, we are rummaging through the names for a baby that is not even on the way. But, in the office with so many young, married women one should be ready at all times.
"How about Michelle?" Mrs. Bratic is asking. She has majored in French and it has played a major role in her life since.
"Or Jelena, Helena..." Branka is suggesting. "You can always call her Eli, Jela, Nena, Nina, or Nen..."
"These are fine if you like the foreign-sounding names. What about Liliana? It is feminine and flower-like." Mrs. Bratich brakes in. "Alexandra, on the other hand, would be quite international. Sandra for short."
Sandra! My thoughts diverge, rolling back to my high-school days. Alexandra...Sandra... my best friend in the junior year. Medium tall, slender, with finely shaped dark eyebrows and dark green eyes shadowed by the lush silky lashes. While the rest of us were still children, awkward and shy, she was a year ahead, with a promising beauty. The youngest of three daughters of "Steve the Carpenter," as everybody called him, she was not aware of her looks, because her eldest sister, Vera, was an acclaimed beauty.
Vera was darker, athletic, and a bit masculine, though attractive nevertheless. With Sandra everything was curves, like in Silvana Mangano in The Bitter Rice: a tiny waist and rich, perfectly shaped hips. Maybe a bit skinny otherwise, but her legs were already fully formed, so we could all envy her. What really made her outstanding were her eyes. Like the surface of a glacier lake in the middle of a deep forest, a shadow of her dark, restless eyelashes changed the color of her eyes from a dark emerald to a sunny bluish-gray.
She was quiet and we never knew her thoughts. Smiles were her specialty, smiles instead of questions and smiles for the answers. Silent, intriguing smiles. Not a brilliant student at all, she dreamt about school and tests long after graduation, always awakening in terror and sweat. When the teacher called her name, she would get up very slowly and with resignation of someone who did not expect anything good from it, but could not change it either. With her right hand, she was trying to open the textbook and find the answer to the teacher's question, with the left nervously fixing the bangs that didn't need any urgent fixing. Her hair was thin, brownish, neatly curled in the morning, hanging limp and straight by noon. Now when I think of her looks in detail, nothing was perfect, yet she was a beauty. Especially among us undeveloped teenagers.
Sandra and I were best friends, but during that time she never opened to me in any way. She would usually come to copy my homework in language arts and math. I had my assignments done -- or at least checked -- by my brother, who would, from time to time find an error in our textbooks and in the problems assigned by our old math teacher that looked very much like Santa Claus, especially at the ample circumference of his non existent waist. Although it was great to have someone do my homework, it was also very inconvenient to have a math genius for an older brother, because he would usually freely express his complete disillusionment with my ability to ever understand mathematics, after he had tried, unsuccessfully, to explain the assignments first.
Sandra never tried to understand math, either. She just copied the homework silently and with patience of someone who had lost hope long time ago. She never asked questions, or talked at any length at all. Just listened, really listened. She could listen better than anyone I knew. And smile. Smile her silent, intriguing smile.
In our junior year, we made a field trip to the Adriatic Coast. Those school field trips stayed in our memory as the most exciting experiences, although at the time they also were very tiring. It is because the transportation was nothing like today, only five or six years after the W.W.II, while the resources were very limited. That did not stop us from enjoying our field trip for many reasons. One of them was, the school was going on for all the others while we were free from the academic daily routine and the threat of tests.
The trip took place during the springtime, in the luscious Mediterranean decor, with the only guardian our favorite home teacher. She was our youngest teacher, strict and still shy as a novice, but we liked her. She would have been our choice for a guardian if we had been asked.
Just on that field trip many of us became aware that we were not kids anymore. It came naturally, as a pleasant shock and a revelation. First, our teacher treated us differently on the field trip than at school.
She talked to us as if we were her equals. We were so happy that she had been assigned to accompany us, not the old physics teacher or, even worse, Grandma Chemistry, as we called our good, old, tired chemistry teacher. Our home teacher, Milica, was young, very serious and dedicated. We thought she was strict and demanding as a teacher, but we had no doubt that she was good. I realize now, she was also very sensitive, shy, and lonely. We knew she was single, so we immediately assumed a previous, unhappy, romantic love as the reason for her not being married. She lived a very private life. Years later, a young librarian, a muscled, rather athletic, "macho" young woman moved in with her. They stayed together, as far as I know, for the rest of their lives. We thought it was "liberated," "worldly," and scandalous that they both smoked. Being teenagers, we often wondered about our teacher's love life, while she asked us questions about the social satire, poetic license, or subjunctive and plus-que-parfait, sonnets and blank verse. On those occasions we would have to avoid meeting her eyes, afraid that she could read our thoughts, lingering through some risqué areas and off the subjects she had so dedicatedly tried to teach us.
I often wonder if she had done it with other students as well, but when she returned my book reports to me, there would almost always be a long personal comment about my writing and how it triggered memories about her deceased mother, some childhood wounds, or something like that. She had a way of making me understand that she appreciated my writing and that she considered me mature and special enough to treat me as an equal, as a friend. A teacher myself, now I understand, and feel grateful.
During the field trip our teacher made it clear that we were not on the school time or schedule. She must have known that some of the boys were smoking. She never showed that she had noticed, and she never smoked in front of us either. When we finally arrived to Budva, at the Montenegrin coast, Milica was the first to take her dress off and jump into the water. She wore a two-piece swimsuit! It was quite a shock. We didn't know whether to admire her, be proud, or taken aback. She was so subdued and proper in the classroom. We realized, then, there was so much more we didn't know about her. Her body was a combination of soft and feminine, strong and athletic. Girlishly slender torso, lean hips, but strong, almost peasant-like, sturdy legs. She was a powerfully good swimmer! Nobody else could match her jumping, swimming, diving. She swam long and far into the open sea, and we lost sight and sense of time before she was back again.
In the meantime, back on the beach, we, girls, were reluctant to take our dresses off in front of the boys. Most of us wore one-piece swimsuits. Only four-or-five years after the World War II, our swimsuits were mostly home made, out of simple calico. Not all the girls were good swimmers, either. The worst was that we knew the boys were going to watch us closely and later comment on our legs, hips, god-knows-what.
It was easy for Sandra. In our eyes, she was perfect. Also, she didn't care what the boys thought of her. She cared only for Iva. And, during the train ride to the Adriatic Coast, on that same field trip, it became quite obvious how much he cared for her, too.
Iva was the best looking young man in our whole class, probably in our whole school. And he was a young man, while the rest were still boys.
When did this love really start? It was hard to tell. Since both of them were quiet and more mature than the rest, it may have developed without our knowledge. On our way to Omish and Budva, however, on the train, they were constantly together. They sat next to each other and kept their belongings in the same luggage. For the rest of us, it was the ultimate intimacy. In the evening, while everybody played innocent games like "the telephones," "post office" and a very anemic version of "spin the bottle," they were standing at the train window, silently watching the starry skies and the lush scenery passing by. It seemed they did not talk much. In the night, they slept on the same narrow wooden bench that represented their seat in our passenger class on the steam train still used in the late 1940's. We could not understand how they could both fit there. We had one each and complained how small and uncomfortable it was. There was no way we could get any rest. They shared it voluntarily and enjoyed sharing it. Constantly together, they were like one, holding hands, or embracing, she like an ivy vine entwined around him.
Secretly, we watched them, not understanding, but envying, gossiping, pretending to be shocked.
Do you think they cared? Not even noticed. They were floating above the cloud, not realizing where we were going or why, just enjoying being together, finally together all the time. It seemed they did not care about the teacher either. The school did not exist for them anyway, except as a frame, a decor for their love. It was only a chance to be close, to breath the same air, to watch and absorb each other, silently, like in a trance.
That was all we knew about them. Since they didn't notice or acknowledge us, we had no motivation to spy on them either. We, too, enjoyed our freedom from school and home, and the guardianship of a young, understanding teacher who was not in our way and yet took a good care of us.
Finally, we could try all those complicated hairstyles that they would not let us have at school ("they were not appropriate for our age or the school environment"). Finally, we could dress, as we wanted, without being reminded "what is trendy, is not always in good taste." And, finally, we could go to dance,
Chaperoned by our favorite teacher, could stay till eleven at night, and then all gather in one hotel room and discuss the excitements of the day and share what the dance partners told each of us and who was the best-looking guy at the dance.
It was a pure joy to watch the silvery moon on the indigo-blue Mediterranean skies and listen to the waves gurgling over the gravel beach and splashing the walls of our hotel. Nobody was reminding us it was too late and time to go to bed. It felt good, oh so good, to know that the serenade and the guitars under our windows were meant for one (or all) of us, and to know that the next day in the streets of that small coastal town the young men would smile and call us "Signorina," just like in the Italian movies, a sure sign that only at home we were considered, and treated, as children... nowhere else! Here, we were given compliments, real compliments! We felt so mature, so feminine, and so important, in possession of some unnamed power we ourselves did not quite understand.
Sandra's and Iva's love was blooming here, too, in front of our eyes. We left them alone because we ourselves were falling in love with the natives, other tourists, everybody and everything, sincerely, strongly, seriously and forever; falling in love with the salty, hot days and sweet, intoxicating Mediterranean nights.
If there were more or less mature individuals among us before, now those differences disappeared during the field trip. We were far away from home, it was springtime, and the field trip lasted only two weeks. It was a matter of honor to fall in love and talk about it in the evening when we all crammed in one small hotel room. The bolder ones had already had a date or two, exchanged the addresses and a few awkward kisses.
But, gradually, the trip was coming to an end. One day, we made a boat trip to the small coast town Supetar on the island Brach. I remember a small harbor glittering in the blazing sun and the sea surface blooming with the white, jello-y mushroom-like flowers floating like the sea umbrellas. Our meager knowledge of the Dalmatian flora and fauna could not decipher what they were, but they gorgeously enriched the beauty of our day. The whole trip flourished with those purplish-white creatures of the sea.
The air vibrated with the heat, while we absorbed the salty-gritty air, climbing up the hill to the old cemetery, read the faded inscriptions and imagined the people who had once lived on this dream-like island.
Before we left, we took with us some of the jellyfish (we finally decided that those must have been jellyfish, what else?), but they thawed on the way back and turned into a small puddle of dirty water, that quietly evaporated. The excitement of that day and of the whole field trip dissolved, too.
We boarded the train silently and unwillingly, and returned home. The local young men never wrote. There were no serenades anymore. We had to style our hair and dress simply and appropriately. Back to our school uniforms of black satin and white collars that made us all look alike, and we hated them! Our teachers were testing us constantly, and even our home teacher changed: she kept asking us about sonnets and satire, subjunctive and plus-que-parfait, as if we had never seen her in a two-piece swim-suit swimming in the aquamarine Adriatic Sea.
More and more, the memories of the field trip faded. The trip itself appeared impossible, strange like a dream. We could have doubted that it ever took place, if it had not been for Sandra and Iva, the couple intertwined into one body, like a tree and its ivy vine, beautiful, absorbed in their trance-like reality, untouchable by everyday life and our common reality.
Now even the teachers have all noticed, there were some comments and allusions. But nothing bothered them; nothing threatened their perfect love. At least, it appeared so.
The end of the school year came fast. They both passed somehow, although with difficulty. There were some failing grades threatening till the very end. After the school was out, Iva went home to the country,
Sandra to a summer camp. Housing the high school students from the greater city area, the camp was situated in the heart of the lush green, hilly Serbia. Its orchards, meadows, and pretty streams were new different scenery from our city of Novi Sad, situated on the banks of the river Danube in the flat Voivodina.
All day long I spent with Marko. We raced through the meadows and hiked over the hills. He drew pictures of the landscapes for me, and I taught him to dance in the evenings. The fireflies twinkled around us, and he caught and placed them in my hair for a sparkling, live diadem. The quiet mountain nights were filled with the crickets' chirping and the distant dog barking. Life had so much beauty and excitement in store for me!
Sandra did not dance much. She stood there with Vesa. That young man, for some reason, gave me the creeps. He reminded me of a snail, dragging himself slowly, not really walking, always sneezing, snuffling and snorting. , his nose constantly dripping from colds, allergies, or any other existing, wet condition. Known for his fine, extremely high-pitched tenor, like a woman's soprano, he had been performing publicly in the school environment and acting as if he already were on the permanent staff of the famous Milano's Operahouse La Scala. In him, even a talent was repulsive.
By the time we were returning from the summer camp, Vesa and Sandra were known to be "going steady". I was stunned, like everybody else, and could not bring myself to approach Sandra with a simple question:
"How can you? After Iva? Are you normal?"
Back in the classroom that senior year everything seemed the same. Well, almost. When the teacher called Sandra's name, Iva was worried and tried to help by whispering the correct answer. When his name was called, Sandra would turn to me, quickly ask for the answer and whisper it to him. However, after school, in the evening, downtown, where young people walked through the traffic-less "corso," Sandra was with Vesa and Iva with an attractive ballerina. Strangely, they still watched each other's every move, inhaling each other's presence like an intoxicating nectar, just as before.
Only now, they did it secretly, faking indifference.
One day, in the class, one of our classmates, a skinny, nervous creature, said something demeaning about Sandra, hoping to earn Iva's approval and comradeship. He miscalculated it. Before there was time for Iva to think, he hit the boy, who just prostrated himself before Iva's feet. It was pathetic. Iva, who was one of those strong men who hate their own strength and try not to crush everything around them, helped the boy get up, clean off, then earnestly apologized. The boy was only too happy to accept it and everything was soon forgotten. However, we realized something after that. The question "Why, then?" Stayed with us.
The time has passed and we graduated. Everybody was enrolling at different colleges. Iva left for the University of Belgrade. That was my choice too. One day, Sandra came to my home and quietly said:
"I am getting married."
I was so astounded that, without thinking, I blurted out, disappointed:
"Why, Sandra, for God's sake? Do you have to?" Not to go to college for me was unimaginable "pits," a punishment nobody deserved. It did not occur to me that having three daughters "Steve the Carpenter" might not have been able to provide college education for the youngest one. She never enjoyed school either. Her oldest sister, Vera, was already working; the middle one was in teacher's college.
Sandra smiled her intriguing smile and said: "I want to. I want to marry Stevan."
In the overall excitement of everybody enrolling and leaving for college, her wedding passed unattended. She made it a quiet, family affair.
A couple of years have passed and several of us friends, now students at different schools of the University of Belgrade, have gathered to go visit Sandra. She had recently moved to Belgrade and we acquired her address and the telephone number. We did not, purposefully, call in advance.
When she opened the door, the shock was mutual and complete. She did not expect to see us, and her beautiful eyes grew wide, in surprise. We, on the other hand, could hardly recognize the young woman she had turned into. A bit more rounded, her skin fair and without teenage imperfections. Everything was a still curve with Sandra, but even more feminine and seductive now. She was also more talkative and self-confident, and -- again -- more mature than the rest of us, still students, still going to school.
Real life somehow was still delayed for us.
Showing us into the living room that spelled fine taste and reasonable wealth, she was still fixing her hair nervously, like before. Her hair needed fixing less than ever: perfectly styled, shiny and healthy looking, just like the rest of her. She served home made cake and fruit juices, then we sat and chatted, reminding each other about some "horror" moments in our school days. We mentioned our field trip to Dalmatia, too. Sandra asked about other friends, including Iva, but there was no particular interest shown. It was like from a great distance, from another dimension.
Her little daughter came in and, shyly but gracefully, greeted us all. Then she left to play. Sandra talked about her husband, a director of a business firm, and her own work in the public library. It was a new, different Sandra. A quietly happy woman.
Much later, when I was married too, and we became very close again, she told me what I wanted to know for so long.
"Yes, of course I am happily married. I wanted to marry Stevan from the moment I met him. Not for a second have I ever had doubts since." She was telling me smiling.
"I can see that, but... but..."
"Oh, I know what you want to say. You want to ask about Iva. I must tell you, I never saw that relationship the way you have. Remember, you showed me the story you'd written about our field trip... You could never finish it, you said. It was a beautiful story, Mira, but it was your story, not mine.
You are such a romantic, a poet, whatever. I am not. I have never been. You know what a nightmare school had always been for me. I don't have the way with words as you do. You make stories. I just live the life as it is. Mira, you have always seen life differently from other people."
This is my quiet Sandra. She knows me better than I know myself. "Now, what are you saying? Are you telling me you have never loved Iva? Could I have made up the whole thing? I don't understand."
"What I'm saying is: those were childish games, teenage dating. I didn't even know what love was.
I thought I did, of course. That year, at the summer camp, I never received a single letter from Iva. Naturally, I felt hurt and revengeful. I "adopted" Vesa just to show I didn't care. In fact, I detested him. On the other hand, Iva told me later, much later, he had written to me every day but never received a reply. He was hurt and thought I never really loved him. Seeing that worm of a man with me, after the camp, he felt betrayed, disappointed in me. It really killed it all. As you know, he dated some gorgeous ballerinas and such, so I thought he didn't find me attractive enough. We never talked about it and never knew what the other felt. We were either too shy and insecure, or too proud, I don't know. Probably all the above."
"My God! This is like a comedy of errors, except that it must have felt more like a tragedy at the time.
I am sorry. I was sorry then, too. You were like Romeo and Juliet, and I wanted it to last. The rest of the class felt the same way."
"Here you go again, Mira. You are an incurable romantic. The rest of the class did not care, believe me. They just enjoyed the gossip and always assumed more than there had been. I was pretty sick of that."
"I'm sorry. To me, your love added so much beauty to our school days. I'll never forget it."
"Because you are still a dreamer. You have never dated yourself, so you see it in glorified terms."
She was right again. She may have copied my assignments and homework, she may have been a poor student compared to me, but I will never pass life tests as successfully as Sandra.
"Well, what about marriage? Do I see marriage in glorified terms, too, or do we both agree on that?"
"Mira, Stevan is the best thing that has ever happened to me. My life at home was not easy. My life at school, as you know, was a nightmare. Even now, I dream about it and wake up sweaty and in fear. With Stevan, life is simple and good. I am in charge of our home and he is always supportive, no matter what. He is in charge of the life outside our home, and I support him in that. Everything works fine. Life is good. Stevan, and our marriage, has changed my life, has changed me."
"I can see that. That is true. I am happy for you. You deserve it."
"You probably want to know the end to the 'Iva story' - right?"
"I have patiently waited for years. And patience is not one of my strengths." I smiled, lovingly. Sandra has always understood me better than anyone else, and loved me just as I am. She is almost like my mother. She always cooks my favorite food and makes me eat more than I need.
"There is not much to tell. I dropped Vesa soon after the summer camp. I had always been physically repelled by him. Iva dated around, but always looked at me in a special way. I didn't know what to think. Neither of us initiated confrontation. It hurt, but after a while, it didn't matter anymore. I met Stevan and knew right away that I wanted to spend my life with him. Iva left for Belgrade to go to college. We met by chance once, much later, and cleared the old misunderstanding. I was happy to hear he was about to get married, he seemed sincerely satisfied that I was happy in my marriage. Maybe Iva was a bit more romantic than I, just like you." Laughingly, she added:" I never told him that Vesa had stolen all his letters coming to me in the camp, in his lame attempt to keep me for himself. The creep that he was, he actually helped me on my way to Stevan. Indirectly and unwillingly, of course. " She laughed heartily, sincerely amused.
Listening to Sandra, I thought how her understanding of life makes it simple and devoid of big passions that my romantic nature tended to find in it. I realized how much I needed to learn from her.
Misha, my husband, always loved Sandra and Stevan more than other friends I brought in "as my dowry." May be because he understood life in simple terms, too. He appreciated the fact that Sandra was a good cook; always ready to please her husband. Stevan was the head of the household whose decisions were respected. On the other hand, Stevan jokingly emphasized that she was in charge and his rank was lower than his (a major versus a colonel, he would call it). One of his favorite "complaints" to Misha was that -- if he married her -- Sandra had promised, she would cook and bake every day, and would bear him three children. She cooks and bakes magnificently, we were the witnesses, but they still have only one child. He reminded her that she had "hooked him" on false promises and he wanted them delivered. We would all laugh, knowing the other side of the story: waiting for Sandra's parents to decide about his proposal, Stevan burnt his lips and fingers chain-smoking. He had used all his persuasiveness with her parents to succeed, but feared that the difference in age may disqualify him. Obviously, everything was resolved to the mutual satisfaction and nobody ever regretted the decision.
Years of close friendship between me and Sandra, and our husbands, have passed. When my husband was dying of brain cancer, nobody visited him so faithfully as Stevan and Sandra. Nobody showed more love and compassion when I lost him. More than ever before, Sandra was insisting on my staying with them and eating the food she prepared whenever I came from America, where my home has been since then.
Soon, Stevan too died of lung cancer. Both widows, we still are the closest friends. Sandra lives in Belgrade, alone with her memories. I am in America, alone with mine. Between us are the vast Atlantic Ocean and so many happy, shared memories.