TE22 Potpourri

Call Me Esteban (short stories) Lejla Kalamujić Translated from Bosnian by Jennifer Zoble

“Call Me Esteban” My first postwar summer at the seaside. Me and my seven year-old cousin Haris, who’s never been to the coast before. It’s a school trip to Mali Drvenik. The rest of the first-graders are accompanied by their mothers, but Haris has brought me. Fuck it, there was no other option. His mother, Melida, works at the supermarket, with no days off, no weekends. We all live on her paycheck and Papa’s pension. We’ll pay for the trip in installments. It’s important for Haris to go with his friends and their teacher. I’m in my first year of college. Philosophy, literature. Here I’m staying ina big roomthat smells like lavender. I’ve packedmore books than underwear. Everything I read accumulates in my brain like a rain cloud poised to pour down and then evaporate in the heat of the day. At the beach, the mothers hang out in a pack. They drink coffee, eat ice cream, shout at their children. They talk and talk. When they notice me with a book in my hand they smile blandly, wistfully. I don’t understand their smiles. I smile shyly back at them, then bury my gaze in the pages. I contemplate 221

[For a great talk with Lejla Kalamuji ć and translator Jennifer Zoble all about this work, please check out the November 14, 2021 episode of Women in Translation on Trafika Europe Radio (39-minute audio).]

Lejla Kalamujić