TE17 Mysterious Montenegro

Serioja, Maria and the Mop

and then he gave the answers too, and she followed him with the same quiet smile and light in her eyes. When he seemed anxious or in doubt, her face too borrowed his anxiety or doubt, and without saying aword, shewas there. He’d never met anyone so intensely present , he’d never felt so understood. Night after night he opened up to her, and night after night she sat there like a silent mirror, and by the end of the week, when there was nothing left to say, they went to his bedroom and took off their clothes, and he felt more understood than ever. The very next morning, Serioja-and-suitcase were back. He too had spent a magical week, he talking, Bill mostly listening and pouring Scotch into their large crystal glasses, Serioja explaining how different life was “back there,” and how much more he preferred to live here. Because words often failed him, he used large gestures to convey the chronic lack of the most basic daily necessitiesduring communism, suchas “cleaning paper.” Hearing the words, Bill nodded his head in supportive acknowledgment: “Clean?! Everybody smelled like shit. Shit was everywhere. Sometimes the water didn’t run, and shit piled up in the toilet for days. No paper, no water, just shit.” As one who took two showers a day, Bill sighed to show his sympathy, then they both toasted—“To water!”—and downed the fiery liquid. Serioja hadn’t been so happy since his job as a summer camp administrator, when he spent his days entertaining his colleagues 179 “I see. Things weren’t very clean there.”