81 / 208
81
bedside table. A rubber on the table reminded me that
Nedelko Borojević used to solve math problems in the
Voice of Istria newspaper, using a pencil and rubber.
Sometimes it took him all afternoon, and so focused
would be on his task that he wouldn’t hear Dusha yelling
from the kitchen if he wanted to eat what was left of
lunch.
‘I don’t think I’ve been in here since he left. I saw people
come several times and take things away, but what could
I do? Now I don’t even remember what used to be in here,
but it was always so... empty. He had a few books and I
gave him a potted plant once. I know he had a painting. I
think it used to hang above the armchair. He said he’d
bought it at a stand beside the farmer’s market, that he’d
liked the young painter and thought he was a good
haggler. So he said.’
While Mediha kindly put forth an effort to reminisce aloud
about her former neighbour, I mindlessly flipped through
the old Sudoku puzzles. They were solved, all of them,
filled in with accurate, even beautiful numbers, which
revealed an unusually meticulous man, in striking
contrast to the state of his apartment. He seemed to have
had more time for Sudoku puzzles than anything else in
his life. If I could judge by the astonishing number of
solved puzzles, I’d say that Tomislav Zdravković hadn’t
been up to much of anything else during his time in
Brčko.