Trafika Europe 1 - Northern Idyll

Now it’s evening. Mama and I are standing by the window. Mama says I should look at the stars, I should find my own star and give it a name. Then she talks. Poor Lucija, she says … She experienced so little good, always in that hole with no windows. Watching the door, all her life. Seeing who came and who left, taking in mail for the other people in the building and that’s how it went. Silvester was nice. He played the organ in the church. Poor Srečko. What will happen to him, eh? What do you say, my beautiful Ballerina? And she takes me to bed. It’s dark. I listen to her footsteps. They’re moving away. Now I know my mama is in her room and that Tata is already asleep. • THE POSTMAN SAYS THERE IS no good in the world since they went to the moon years ago with Sputnik. He says the stars will take revenge and that things will be worse and worse in the world. As he says this, he puts a telegram on the table. I’m standing in the kitchen, looking at him. Tata is standing, too, looking through the window toward the yard as if he can’t see the postman. The postman is standing in the door, looking at the telegram he’s put on the table. Mama is looking at it, too. I’m looking at the postman. Mama doesn’t get a glass, she doesn’t pour him a drink. I’m standing in the corner, watching. I’m wearing a gray shirt and a blue skirt. Mama says that I got the skirt for my twenty-fifth birthday, Mama says I’m thirty now and

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