TE17 Mysterious Montenegro

Alta Ifland

cement floor.

Two hours later, when the storm had passed, Olga swept the floors clean, and after tossing all the shards in a large plastic bag, she put on a flowery apron sent by Tania from Santa Barbara and turned on the stove to make chicken noodle soup.

*

Nine months after his return from the States, a new opportunity arouse for Serioja: the apartment building’s caretaker, awoman in her early sixties, died suddenly of a heart attack, and the tenants needed someone to replace her. Using her connections, Olga secured the position for her son, and announced loudly, as she opened the apartment door:

“I found you a great job! You start working tomorrow!”

The job consisted mainly of mopping the stairs of the four-story building, and of doing occasional chores, such as replacing burnt bulbsorfixingtheplumbing. Fortheseoccasionalexpenses,Serioja was to be given a monthly allowance from the super, an amount so insignificant it was barely sufficient to buy a screwdriver; but the words “monthly allowance” were enough to trigger a certain image in Serioja’s brain, and with this image before his eyes he accepted the offer. From then on, everymorning he could be seen holding a mop with which he traced solid lines, as the tenants hurried to work past him on the recently washed stairs. Some of them claimed that the stairs were even dirtier after than before he cleaned them. But he wasn’t going to start paying attention to all the idiots out there, was he? 186