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HAIR EVERYWHERE
TEA TULIĆ
Translated from the Croatian by Coral Petkovich
English language edition first published by Istros Books London, United Kingdom www.istrosbooks.com
Originally published in Croatian as Kosa posvuda, 2011
© Tea Tulić, 2011
The right of Tea Tulić to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988
Translation © Coral Petkovich
Cover design: Davor Pukljak, www.frontispis.hr
ISBN:
978-1-908236-31-9 (printed edition)
978-1-908236-41-8 (e-book)
This book is supported by the Croatian Ministry of Culture and the City of Rijeka
To the girl who wanted to understand foreign languages
Special thanks for this book goes to Daša Drndić and James Hopkin
Tea Tulić
Crisps
One morning I got out of bed and went to buy some crisps. I slid down the banisters right down to the big legs stretched out on the ground floor. Mr Neighbour from the third floor was sitting motionless, leaning against the wall. I jumped over his legs and went to the shop. When I came back to the building again, with a half-empty packet of crisps in my hand, there were people in white coats standing over the neighbour. Near the big legs on the floor, I saw a hat full of thick dark-red blood. I didn’t run up the steps. I went up quietly, dragging my hand along the rail.
‘Drunk again, poor man!’ Grandma was standing in the kitchen stirring her burnt minestrone soup.
Mr Neighbour had missed the steps this time, and his chance for a new day.
Mum
On the day Grandma did not die, Mum had an unusual headache. Her eye began to run away to the left. My brother took her to Emergency. He came back home without her.
Mum is a strong person with small bones. She has been in hospital twice before. One time she had peed out a stone, the other time, a stray child.
On the day Grandma did not die, I went shopping. Books, balms, bath things. I wore week-old dampness in my hair. I passed the square where, a few days before, a handsome young man breathed his last. They say he was a sportsman. A good student. Not aggressive. He was beaten to death. I wondered how it sounds to foreigners, our word for death: Smrt
The Neighbourhood
In the neighbourhood of gaudy façades, prize-winning gardens hide cold benches. Under the benches, warm yellow, white and black dogs growl. They bark at strange noises. Mouthpieces for their masters. They don’t allow anyone to park in their space. They don’t like those whose grandfathers don’t inhabit the local cemetery. Unkempt trees make them angry, and purple mulberries that stick to passing feet. They are restless, and they piss on their own flowers.
Anxiety
‘I’m afraid,’ says Mum, ‘I’m afraid I messed up my eye. Two days before pay day I ran out of eyeliner so I used the ink from my pen. Do you think…’
‘I’m afraid too, but not of the ink,’ I answer.
‘They didn’t find the Patch, don’t worry.’
She calls the bloody cloth “The Patch”. I imagine “the Patch” is like Mars, big enough to wander through space by itself. And everything is fine as long as it wanders.
Tea
This is red tea from the House of Green Tea. It will chase the snake from your stomach. It is expensive. I put it in the bag together with the white chocolate and go towards the parking lot. People never think about how they have taken someone else’s space, when they park their cars. They are all in a hurry and haven’t got time to consider the fair play of their parking. In the same way, they walk quickly and get in the way of other pedestrians.
When I get home, I’ll eat soup and a steak. Then I’ll change into my pyjamas and make the tea. I’ll add three small spoonfuls of raw sugar. When I sit in front of the television, and the cup is half empty, I’ll be watching the adverts. I’ll hide one eye in the zebra-striped pillow.
I know that’s how it will be because I have already tried it. That tea.
Nurses (Don’t Know)
No one knows why Mum is in the hospital. That’s why we run up and down the stairs. Upstairs there are only nurses. They have special white clogs and mascara on their eyes. They have no information. They don’t even have plastic cups.
‘The doctor went downstairs just now,’ they say.
No one else is running up and down the stairs, except us. Downstairs there is a coffee machine. Downstairs there is a smell of soup. There are no doctors downstairs. For days there haven’t been any.
Grandma vomited last night. I wish she hadn’t. It made me vomit too.
Passion Flower
The passion flower is a creeper with flowers like space stations. My friend whose children have nice names sells it to me. She tells me how this plant helps her sister to deal with a terrible boss and a lazy husband. In its liquid form it costs less.
When I drink a capful of this brown liquid, the snake in my stomach vanishes, but nausea comes instead.
Grandma
Grandma tells me to pull out the green cash-box where she has put her banknotes. We have to check that they are still valid. We are especially worried about the biggest ones.
In the meantime, she needs to be changed so that she is not wet. My sister takes off three pairs of tights, while I hold her. The banknotes are still current, Grandma is dry and we jiggle the little boxes with gold clinking inside them. There are three gold chains with pendants. One for Mum, one for my sister and the third for me. Grandma meant me to have the one made with links. It’s yellow, like her urine in the plastic bucket.
My brother won’t get anything. He’s a male.
New Year’s Eve
Mum is home. They let her come home to celebrate New Year’s Eve. But her head is very painful at home too. Under a artificial pine tree a plastic Jesus holds his arms out wide, towards the plaster models of sheep. A plaster Saint Mary stares without eyes at the little plastic Jesus; as she stands besides her husband who has no upper arms. Underneath them is moss. Under the moss are faces of the dead on the obituary page.
We don’t turn on the little lamps on the artificial tree.
We wait for the fireworks to finish.
Today blood dripped from my bottom. It would be better if it had not. Now I have to be even more worried.
Group Photographs
There is one photograph. On it are Grandad, Grandma, Mum and her sisters. Mum has a grey-black, thick cotton dress and blond highlights. Grandad is sitting in the middle with his palms on his thighs.
There is another photograph, again with Mum and her sisters. This time with their husbands. The aunts are red in the face and wearing blouses with shoulder pads. Their husbands are wearing colourful cardigans.
There is a third photograph. We are in this photograph. The grandchildren. Our faces are serious, and our hair half-combed.
We sent all three photographs to the uncle who lives in Canada, in a house with a pool. While we were getting ready to be photographed, someone said to Mum:
‘Don’t put so much make up on, he will