Chapter Four – "1990 – Happiness"
It is so hot that even the dogs have stopped barking and crawled into the shade. The people would very much like to follow their example, but unlike dogs, people have to work, so they grudgingly perform their duties and stare at the clock, trying to make time go faster. Still, some people, like my new friends and I, sunbathe on the roof of the hospital since there was no surgery scheduled today and the intern coordinator cannot think of looking on the roof for the missing interns. After baking on the roof for several hours while imbibing warm beer and snacking on someone's homemade sausage, I decide to sneak off and go home, since no work is getting done anyway from all the heat, and all the nice, sensible people are staying at home and not providing study material for slightly crispy surgery interns. Anyway, my shift is almost over as well...
Waving goodbye to my fellow work skippers, I sneak out of the hospital, almost running into the coordinator but diving into an empty room just in time, extract my bicycle from the bushes and head towards the kindergarten to pick up Jasna early and have a family day. The engine on our car blew two weeks ago, so I have been taking Danka's bicycle to work, which has probably been a good thing – I still need to work off all the food and booze at several parties I attended before going to Vukovar along with Marko's baptism celebration and the going away party our best friends threw for us. I make a turn, wave at a neighbor of ours and her husband who smile and wave back, and think with a bit of sadness that this is the first summer in a while I will be spending without Gordana, Stipe and Tomo. We always found something crazy to do during the summer that served as conversation fodder for the rest of the year – our road trip to Vukovar last year is still considered legendary among the masses. Oh well, we actually have real jobs now, however pretend they might seem, and that means we have to begin to lead our own lives and start different traditions.
I almost zoom past Jasna's kindergarten and only manage to stop with vigorous application of brakes. Leaning my bike against the tree, I walk inside and ask Marina, who is in charge today, where Jasna is to be found. Marina says that it would probably be the playroom and stares at me oddly. I look down on myself and understand the cause of the odd look. A bare chest, blue swimming trunks, and a lab coat over them with an addition of purple flip-flops definitely make a fashion statement rarely seen by the kindergarten teachers on the parents of their charges. I proceed to the playroom, where little boys and girls are playing with various toys, and am immediately tackled by Jasna, who grabs my leg with all of her considerate strength and begins to chatter a mile a minute about her day so far. I walk out of the playroom with Jasna attached to my leg, notify her and Marina that we are going home early, pick up her bag from the shelf and proceed outside, with my outfit now appended by a five-year old in a pink dress on my leg. It is amazing that Jasna can almost reach my waist now – she's going to be tall, just like me, Danka says – because I still remember when she was Marko's size and was barely as long as half of my arm. Seeing the bike, Jasna releases my leg, and I sit her down on the bag rack, and get on the bicycle myself. She grabs onto my lab coat, and we are off on our way home. Since all the sensible drivers are sitting at home drinking various cold beverages or swearing at their overheated engines, the streets are almost empty, and ten minutes later, we are on our street.
I am quite glad that we finally have our own place. Right now, while it is hot, we mostly live in Danka's grandmother's small house next to a cornfield, but we will go back to live full-time in our apartment in the center of the city when the summer will be over. Going from two tiny rooms in different parts of the city to a house and an apartment has been quite dizzying and satisfying. We are hoping to build a small house in several years when we have saved enough money, or maybe build onto Baka Ana's house. It is further away from the hospital then our apartment, but it is not like Vukovar is a metropolis – I can get to work from here in twenty minutes at most, and that is when there is actual traffic. I turn onto a little path that leads to the house, pass our dead car, and stop near a huge tree that towers over the house. Danka is on the porch of her grandmother's house, knitting something unidentifiable while Marko sleeps like a rock in his crib beside her. She has got a job working at the radio station starting in September, which she is really happy about – the extra money in the fall will help with the expenses. She looks up from the mysterious garment and waves to us. We disembark the bicycle and head to the porch – actually, I head to the porch while Jasna skips there. She gives Danka a kiss, and then it is my turn, and it is a very nice kiss indeed. When we part Jasna rolls her eyes and I can't help but laugh.
"So, how was your day, my dear wife?" I enquire, sitting down in a chair beside her.
"The usual – Marko woke up, Marko ate, Marko fell asleep, I knitted, Marko woke up, Marko ate, Marko fell asleep, I knitted, and then my handsome husband and my beautiful daughter came back home earlier then usual, not that I am complaining. Do you think we should have a picnic to celebrate?" She puts down the knitting, and smiles at me.
"You read my mind," I say, quite ready for a family outing. We've been so busy since we came here we haven't had any family outings, and a picnic sounds just perfect. "I'll go make some sandwiches and try to find our picnic blanket-"
"-while I try to find the swimming suits, children's toys and get the kids changed," Danijela finishes for me, and we share another of the kisses Jasna finds yucky. After that, we go to attend to the picnic preparation tasks. I locate our old picnic blanket, put it on the chair and make some sandwiches with sausage, pour some juice in a thermos, tie all of this into a bundle and emerge onto the porch again, where Danka and the kids are assembled already, waiting for me. I tie the picnic bundle to the front on the bicycle, and get on, hoping that it won't detach on the way to the river. Danka sits down on the pile of towels that she has put on the back of the bicycle, secures Marko to herself with a big scarf and then Jasna climbs between us. The bicycle creaks under our combined weight, but it is built like a tank and won't fall apart any time soon, so I push off and we fly down the street, barely escaping collision with various sleepy dogs, slow-moving grandmothers and misplaced flowerpots. We call out an occasional greeting as we zoom by people from work or other parents from kindergarten, while trees and buildings become one big blur until we get to the Danube and I stop the bike. We unload, and while Danka puts some towels on the grass for us to sit on, I unpack the bundle with food.
After everything is in order and Marko is happily napping in the shadow of a tree, we have lunch, after which I decide to stretch a bit and walk to the water's edge to take a look at the river. Danube's not the cleanest river ever, but I've swam in it before and nothing has fallen off. Just as I am about to turn around, someone pushes me from behind, I lose my balance and fall into the water with a loud splash. When I surface a bit downstream, and spit out a mouthful of the river, my wife and my daughter are looking far too innocent to be truly innocent. I retaliate by getting out of the river, picking up a laughing Danka, dangling her over the river and letting go of her, and she pushes me in as soon as she gets out. This repeats several times, with Jasna playing the role of a delighted spectator who goads on whichever one of us that is pushing the other one in. When she deems that we should do something else, we stretch out on the blanket and play cards until Jasna begins to feel sleepy and joins her brother in the shadow. After constructing a towel tent over the sleeping kids, we sit down on the stone parapet and dangle our feet in the water. I put an arm around my wife and we just sit there, looking at the sun sparkling on the water, and I feel so very happy. I have everything that I want right now, and I would not give it up for anything. I kiss Danka lightly on the cheek and she turns her face to me. I can see the love in her eyes, and I am even more in love with her, if it is possible.
"I will love you forever," I say.
"Forever," she echoes, and we kiss.