Mirko's grandmother came and sat beside him, patting the back of his large hand with her small, wrinkled one. He smiled at her, sleepy- the holiday feast had already been consumed, and now the family had gathered themselves in the crowded sitting room, putting off the matter of coffee and cleaning until the food had been better digested.
"So," she said to him in a measured voice. "He's cute."
Mirko started, and then laughed convulsively from deep within his belly- a sound of surprise as much as humour.
"Yes," he replied. "He is very cute."
Of course, there was one figure that stood out among the throngs of Mirko's humongous broken family, and that was Martín. With his fair hair and small frame and sharp green eyes- which was to say nothing of his demeanour, or his finely tailored clothes- he was as startling as a black sheep in the middle of a snowy flock. For every move he made, someone was watching him, for his strangeness made him impossible not to watch. Mirko saw how he struggled- his language was limited only to a handful of words and phrases in present tense, it was clear he barely understood what was happening around him, and because it was in his nature he was suspicious, holding his head high in case anyone found him lacking and his eyes flickering back and forth in search of someone who did. At the moment, though, his focus was absorbed by some of the younger children who, enthralled by an adult who did not know how to speak, were teaching him to play a game of marbles with elaborate gestures and slow, drawn-out words.
"He's a thief, then, like you?" his grandmother asked, and Mirko nodded. "He wouldn't last very long in one of our prisons. What do the Spaniards feed their children?"
"He might surprise you," Mirko told her with a chuckle, not bothering to correct her assumption. Martín had certainly surprised Mirko, plenty of times.
"How did he get those scars?" she asked, her voice lowering, and though Martín couldn't possibly have understood the change in tone made him flash a little look Mirko's way, curious and accusatory.
"A bullet landed in glass near his face," Mirko told her, but he looked over at Martín in reassurance, and slowly the other man turned back to the game on the floor before him. "He cannot see very well anymore."
"Oh, poor dear," she murmured, and Mirko knew from her tone that the sentiment was genuine. Still-
"What do you think, Bako?" Mirko asked, looking away to meet her gaze in full. In earnest. It was too important to ask this question, when he had no mother or father to ask it to. And it was clear she understood, as she held herself still for a torturous minute, watching him closely. Her eyes resembled Dimitri's, the son of her second son, both of whom were long dead.
"Do you love him?" she finally replied, and for a moment Mirko felt a shock- the words sent him back in time, to a warm room in the Italian countryside lit by dim electric candles, to a bed slightly too small and the incredulous, protective, achingly familiar voice of another woman-
"Are you in love, Helsi?"
-a woman who, like so many others, was absent from this dinner table.
"Yes," Mirko told his grandmother. "I do love him."
Nairobi had been right, of course- first it had been only 'in love'. But that had changed- perhaps in the Bank, when Martín had revealed his true name and his first ounce of humility, or perhaps in the Philippines, when Martín had told Mirko he loved him for the first time, or perhaps in any tiny, inconsequential moment before or after these. It didn't matter. It was the truth, now.
"Then it's all good," she said to him with a smile, giving his hand a firm squeeze. "You're doing very well for yourself."
She stood then, and Mirko watched her cross the room with vaguely dampened eyes. She tapped Martín on the shoulder and (to the disappointment of the children) drew him from the game.
"Come help me prepare the coffee," she told him smartly. "I think we do it a little differently than you might be expecting…"
"Sí- coffee? Yes…" Martín managed in his unnatural Serbian, eyes wide and slightly bewildered, but he stood and followed her into the kitchen anyway. Mirko chuckled. He could only suppose it would be quite a sight in there, and Martín would struggle...but at the moment, his belly was simply too full and his heart too warm to want to move. In this instant, a female cousin replaced his grandmother in the chair beside him, asking about his adventures in Latin America, and the new conversation soon enveloped his thoughts.
Martín hadn't any reason to be afraid, and that night, Mirko would be sure to tell him.
Like she had said- it was all good, then.
