TE17 Mysterious Montenegro

Olja Knežević

separations, the lowest point of concentration, early evenings unmoored in strange cities much colder than what I’m used to. At those moments, my thoughts turn to home—yes, I even say home sweet home to myself—and I miss everything and everyone, but most of all, my grandmother. When I lived with her, she didn’t let me help her with work around the house. I never got the hang of it, though I haven’t done any other type of work in this city for a long time. Granny bubbles up to the surface more and more often: When, for instance, from out of my bathrobe pocket I pull a half-wrapped, linty butterscotch or an accidentally washed, disintegrating banknote to shove into the hands of my children while they grimace and complain, because really, they didn’t mean that when they said they wanted a sweet or asked for spending money. I hear Granny speaking when, instead of quarrelling, I take a deep breath and let out a sharp: Mm hmm, miscreant. And here she is at the end of the day, taking my left hand and using it to pull the comforter up over my hips, up to my shoulders, covering me so that my kidneys don’t fall off from the cold overnight , as she used to say instead of good night. But these days I call her only on her birthday and her most important holidays, New Year’s Day and May Day. Today I didn’t sweep up the bits of broken plate from the floor of the kitchen in our fifth apartment in a foreign country. Terrazzo moderno , the real-estate agent said as she opened the door to the kitchen during our apartment tour. She pronounced the letters T, R and O the English way. I pretended to be in control of everything happening to me and that I, were I to choose, would have chosen those very terrazzo moderno tiles. Three bedrooms and a living room, plus this workroom set at the far

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