Trafika Europe 5 - Slovenian Interlude

Mediha continued her lonely old woman monologue, while I continued to stare at a sheet of paper I’d accidentally found folded between the Sudoku puzzles. Perhaps intentionally hidden from spying eyes. It was a letter addressed to ‘My darling.’ Tomislav Zdravković’s writing looked very much like that of Nedelko Borojević, and it disgusted me to think that this ‘darling’ he referred to was the current Dusha Ćirić, ex-Mrs. Borojević, ex-Miss Podlogar. The idea that Nedelko saw Dusha as his darling so many years after his official death seemed twisted to me, though I couldn’t articulate why. But oddly enough, the idea also appealed to me, the ghastly thought of an eternal fire of love burning between a fugitive war criminal and the head of human resources at the Ljubljana Polyclinic. And it was far preferable to the more likely target for this letter, a darling who wasn’t my mother at all. In my own bizarre way, I was relieved when I began to read the letter, as I sat on the mattress of Tomislav Zdravković’s bed, holding in my shaky hands, the letter he had written to Dusha at least three years ago. My darling. J. should soon be setting off, so I thought I’d write you a few things. The way things are going, I won’t be here for much longer. Things keep changing and they say I should move on, just in case. Until we see how it goes. Loza said that new kids were coming, and that

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