TE23 Double Feature

The President Shop

Vesna Mari ć

from unexpected guests an opportunity for the children to ask her for a piece, for she could not refuse them bread in front of others, her pride would not allow it; but after the guests left, the children were scolded for their brazen-ness. Mona’s favorite story was that of the President being left in charge of his siblings, while his parents were off at a multi-day wedding celebration. Spurred on by a mean old aunt, who had assured him his parents, full from the wedding food, would not mind if he boiled up a piece of the pig’s head that had been left aside by his mother for feasts and family celebrations, the boy did just that. His siblings were very hungry. He went in the larder; the pig’s head sat on the shelf, eyes closed as if in prayer. The President sawed off a piece from the neck, boiled it up for a soup, which gave them all a terrible stomachache—the fat was too strong for them. Upon his parents’ return, the little President incurred his mother’s disapproval. Yet his mother did not 297

President’s gold-en head and the hot ball of the sun looked as if they belonged to kindred tribes, Ruben would carry it back up to the shop.

Chapter 4

The stories of the President’s childhood and early life were known to all throughout the Nation. Mona particularly liked them. The President was born poor in a small village in the north of the country, the eldest of five children, all of them barely educated. He was always smart, prudent, hard working, and had a love of—and a longing for—fine clothes. He narrated his life stories to the Nation, via books and speeches. He told of his strict, yet gentle and loving, mother, who had to ration food for her children, locking up the daily bread in the larder, the occasion of a visit

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