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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