TE17 Mysterious Montenegro

Catherine the Great and the Small

cares that I’m so skinny and have a bad haircut? I know how to kiss, my pillow can vouch for it. I use everything I have: my lips, teeth, tongue, hands, hips and breath—and when imagining myself in the act, my whole body trembles from the force of imagination. It’s June, school’s just letout, and thedirt is alreadycracked from the heat, it resembles chunks of aged cheese from the farmers’ market. We tasted this dirt, literally. As little kids, when we were hungry, we tried chewing the dry earth that looked like cheese to us, we all did, and now we laugh about it. In the early afternoon, the smell of dirt mingles with the smell of garbage from the plastic bags tossed near the building entrances, with the smell of gasoline from overheated cars, and with the smell of musty pink and white oleander blossoms. That’s when we go inside for lunch. Evenings simmer things down, even the oleander has a delicate smell then, and we tell each other the fragrance is a trick—the white flower is probably poisonous, but we still lick the blossoms, and we lick the leaves, defying our fates under the heavens chock full of big fat stars, which watch us from above, follow us, are astonished by us and love us, as do our mothers from the balconies in the neighborhood. Well, other mothers, anyway. My mother is sick, she’s in the hospital. I’m the only one of my friends in this situation. Enisa told me this makes me unusual, but to me it means I always feel sick to my stomach, and maybe a little ashamed. I like it better when my mother’s home, so what if I hear her moaning and throwing up, because even then, she’s a fountain of life in my little family. When I visit her in the hospital, I can’t, like, bug her to fixmy hair. Without her help, my hair doesn’t look like it’s 55