TE22 Potpourri

Lejla Kalamujić

Call Me Esteban

“Locomotive to Locomotive” Locomotive 1

shredding their bare feet on the beach’s sharp stones. Their long, gauzy dresses are buoyed by the water, floating around their hips like multicolored seaweed. The mothers rip the leeches from my hands, remove the tangled strands of hair from my face. With flustered voices they order their children: “Hurry, get her!” She wears a white dress that makes her hair and brows seemeven blacker. Everyone falls silent at the sound of her footsteps. The children and their mothers move back. Lightly but decisively she approaches my body. Her creased face leans over mine. The sun is radiating. She takes my head and cradles it in her hands, like an egg in a nest. She is my mother. On the cusp of old age. She lowers her lips tomy eyes, then licks a salty droplet from my lashes. “This is Esteban!” she says. The rest of the women exchange surprised looks. “Esteban, and no one else!” she cries. Upon hearing this, the other women gather around me again. They begin to wail in unison. They rake their faces, pull their hair, rend their dresses. “It’s Esteban!” declares my motheroncemore, kissingmybluecheeks. All theotherwomen stand, nodding. Like a flock of nervous birds, they surround my mother. I feel the tears in her warm, wet kisses. The rest join her in hugging me, kissing every part of my body. Time drifts along; the sun slides toward the horizon.

On december 13, 2009, all the media outlets in the former Yugoslavia announced the revival of the train from Sarajevo to Belgrade. The line had been out of operation for eighteen years, and interest in the story led journalists in the ensuing days to write about passengers and their stories. The articles overflowed the borders of the former constituent republics, spreading to all corners of the earth. About ten travelers set out fromSarajevoonDecember 22, and Iwasamong them. I headed to Šid, the Vojvodina border town where my grandmother had grown up. Her sister still lived in the area with her family. We hadn’t seen each other since ’94, when, after a ceasefire in Sarajevo, I’d decided to end my exile and return to the city. I’m alone in the compartment. The train slowly pulls out of the Sarajevo station, the locomotive accelerating. Through the smudged window appear tall buildings. Like planted spears they rip through the swelling clouds. Grayness chews the first winter snow and spits it onto the muddy streets. I’m nervous: fifteen years is a long time. So is the eight hours of rattling along the ancient tracks. I take off my shoes and lie down. I make a pillow of my thick down jacket. I look around the compartment: days the train was called The Olympic Express. How it was back then! Fast, and so long it stretched far beyond mychild’sview. It carried hundredsof passengers. In the former country they’d called it “the train of the future.” 225

And that’s that. An impeccable death, perfectly suited to me.

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