Susan had just walked in the door with her bag of groceries when the phone rang. She ran to pick it up. "Hello?"
There was a brief silence, then a thickly accented voice, sounding very much like Luka's said slowly, "Hello? Is Luka in ... house, please?"
Susan hesitated. Luka had been napping when she left. Should she wake him? The caller went on, "This is his fa'zer."
"Yes. Just a minute. I'll get him." Setting the phone down she went into the bedroom. Luka was still asleep. The ringing of the phone hadn't wakened him. "Luka?" She shook him gently and his eyes opened. "Sorry to wake you, sweetheart. Telephone. It's Tata." Luka sat up quickly, and Susan knew he was alarmed. He called his father every month or so to chat but, so far as Susan knew, Tata never called here. For him to call must mean that something was wrong. She handed Luka the bedroom extension.
"Bok, Tata ..." Luka said into the phone, and motioned for Susan to leave the room. She did so, but had to smile. It wasn't like she would understand a word anyway. She still knew almost no Croatian. She hung up the living room phone and returned to putting the groceries away. She could hear Luka talking in the other room and, after a few minutes his voice rose, anxious, then angry. It was hard to not go into the bedroom and see what was going on. Not that it would make any difference, of course. She still wouldn't understand a word.
And suddenly a thought struck her. She knew that Luka's father spoke almost no English ... her brief exchange with him a few minutes before confirmed that. So she was going to have to learn ... at some point ... how to say, in Croatian, 'Mr. Kovač , I'm sorry to tell you that your son died today.' Perhaps Luka could teach her the phrase.
After perhaps 10 minutes Luka's voice fell silent, and a moment later he came out of the bedroom. He went to the fridge, rummaged in it for something to drink.
"Is everything ok?" Susan asked, when it was clear that Luka wasn't going to volunteer anything.
"Yeah. Well ... no, not really," Luka admitted. He poured himself a glass of orange juice. "My uncle had an MI yesterday."
"Bad?"
"Hard to say. He's alive, but hasn't regained consciousness. Tata was pretty vague on the details ... he's upset of course. It sounds like he probably won't make it though."
"I'm sorry."
"And ... Tata wants me to come to Zagreb ... help him understand all the medical stuff ... say good-bye to Uncle Petar." Luka drained his glass, and from the look on his face, Susan knew he was wishing it contained something stronger than fruit juice.
Luka didn't say anything more. "I think that sounds like a good idea," Susan said carefully.
Luka stared at her. "Don't I have enough on my plate right now? I'm supposed to fly halfway around the world to baby-sit my father ... and help bury my uncle?"
"Were you ... are you close? You and your uncle?"
"We were, when I was a kid. I usually see him when I go home for visits, but we really haven't been close for a long time. Not since I left Croatia. I just don't feel any pressing need to do this. I'm sorry if it makes me a terrible person, Susan. My brother is there ... there's other family ... friends. He just thinks that because I'm a doctor, I can explain better what's happening ... maybe change what's going to happen."
He sat down on the couch, picked up the remote and began to look for something to watch.
"I still think you should go, Luka," Susan said. "It would be a good chance to see your father again, and your brother. You're feeling well right now. Why not take advantage of it?"
Luka turned off the tv. "I can't go," he said quietly. "You know that."
"No, I don't know that. We could both go, if you don't feel up to traveling alone."
"I can't see Tata. I can't let him see me. Not anymore." Luka drew his hands down his sides. While he hadn't lost any more weight recently, he hadn't gained any back either. He was still painfully thin. If Tata saw him, Susan knew, he would immediately know that something was badly wrong.
Susan shook her head. "So you still don't plan to ever tell him that you're sick?"
"I can't tell him. He wouldn't understand."
"You thought I wouldn't understand. I surprised you. Why not give him a chance?"
"This is different. Tata isn't young ... he isn't well educated. I love him ... he's my father, but I know that to him, AIDS is something you get from sex ... usually gay sex. I could never explain it to him. What am I supposed to tell him?"
"The truth might be a good place to start," Susan said quietly.
"And you think that would really help? Then he'd have to know that his favorite son ... and yeah ... I'm his favorite son ... had something ... unspeakable happen to him? Whatever I would tell him, it would just hurt him. I can't see any reason to do that."
"So what's the alternative? Never seeing him again? You think it won't hurt him to not have a chance to say good-bye to his favorite son?"
"It happens all the time, Susan. People die suddenly all the time, and there is no chance to say good-bye. When I came to America, and every time I leave after going home for a visit, we both know that it might be the last time we'll see each other. The assumption is usually that he'll be the one to die .. he's in his 70's now, not in the best of health ... but it looks like it will be the other way around." He sighed. "I should have died in Matenda ... medically I mean. I shouldn't have survived that. If I had died there, or in Kisangani, he wouldn't have been able to say good-bye."
"So ... what did you tell him? When he asked you to come?"
"I said I couldn't miss work. He got angry; said family should matter more than work."
"And he's right. He deserves to know, Luka. He deserves the chance to see you. And you need to see him. If you can't tell him the truth ... tell him something else. You said he doesn't know much about medicine. Tell him it's ... something else. Cancer ..."
"I can't lie to him."
"But you expect me to?" Susan asked quietly.
Luka looked startled. "No. I don't expect you to tell him anything."
"I'm going to have to. Eventually." She shook her head as Luka just looked at her, baffled. "At some point here, sweetheart, you are going to be ... off getting reacquainted with Danijela ... and I'm going to be sitting here making a lot of very unpleasant telephone calls. I'm going to have to tell your father that he's just lost his son. And ... as little as he knows about medicine ... I don't think he's going to be satisfied with that. He's going to want to know how ... and I'll need to tell him something."
"You can tell him the truth. Whatever the ... immediate cause of death is. It will probably be some sort of infection, right?" Luka sighed. "Susan, please let me do this my way. I love my father. But it's not like we get together every Sunday after church. I've been back to Croatia 5 times in the past 9 years, since I came to the States. We talk on the phone, I send him money. When I'm dead he will grieve, but for him to know the truth will just make the pain and grief worse." Luka shook his head. "It's hard on parents to see their kids in pain, or worse, to know that they're in pain, and to know that they can't help them. Tata has already seen me suffering. I just don't see how it will help him to know that I'm suffering more. Let him think it was something quick ... something easy. He can't help me, so how would it help either of us for him to know the truth?"
"Closure? For him, and you."
"He'll be able to bury me. That should be closure enough." He hesitated. "I've been thinking about it. I want to be buried at home ... in Vukovar. It's something I'd always thought I'd want, had always planned on. Then, in the past few months, I began to think that maybe I'd be buried here, but the more I think about it, the more I know that my ... original plan ... feels right. Would that hurt your feelings too much?"
"No." Susan smiled a little. "You should be with your kids. And Danijela. Given that we aren't married, I think that anything else would be really hard to explain to your family."
"Ok. I can ... see to making those arrangements ... something you won't have to worry about." He picked up the remote again, then put it down. "I don't know, Susan. I'll think about it. Maybe I'll write him a letter ... something you can see that he gets after I'm gone. I can try to explain some things. But he doesn't have to know. Not now."
