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knows how much grape schnapps Captain Muzirović put
away, and how many times the ‘Slovenian girl,’ Dusha
Podlogar, watched with the same excitement, through the
same window of the same green train as the same lights
slowly expanded, while thorn-trails formed in the palms
of the same nervous lieutenant, before he finally
summoned the courage to kiss her on the lips for the
first time, as they sat on a park bench. Or did he unclip
her bra with his shaky hands, and even touch her erect
nipples? Who knows if her lieutenant once welcomed her
with a woollen army blanket beneath his arm, instead of a
red rose, and took her to a gloomy, lonesome place,
instead of to the Hungarian Café? Perhaps comrade
Dusha then missed her train back home, unable to pull
herself away from his strong, lusty embrace?
My mother didn’t talk about this, of course, but she did
talk about how she began buying her co-worker toffees
so that she wouldn’t tell their mutual boss that she liked
to take naps in the small warehouse of the shoe shop on
Tito Street, because she was so exhausted from catching
the train almost every day and then running straight from
the station to work in the morning. Mother also spoke of
how her colleague used to tease her, saying that this had
been going on long enough for her to expect a ring
instead of a rose, but she’d reply that she was just having
fun and was in no rush. She also liked to add that any girl
would be afraid to marry someone who looked that
handsome in his uniform, because a girl could never be