On the 10th anniversary (July 2023), we welcomed her in the Residence for Writers, Literary Translators, and Artists "POETEKA - Tirana in Between", supported by TRADUKI. Read below an excerpt from the novel "In the Ditch" by Sladjana Nina Perković.
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I had to go halfway across town. We usually pay the bills for our apartment—you know the ones, electric power, trash removal, heat, the cable connection, and so forth—at a bank in our neighborhood, but their system crashed or whatever and they sent me to their main office in another part of town. So, off I went across town, walked into the bank, and there were more people there than at a soccer stadium during the World Cup finals. And to make matters worse, of the seven teller windows, only three were working, and so many people were cutting in that there was no telling where a line began and where it ended. The bank's number dispenser, the one upon which civilization relies, broke down, resulting in a real case of gridlock. People were breathing down each other's necks and swearing under their breath, bristling with hatred. "I gave birth to three children and worked till the last day with my belly up to my chin, but ladies these days seem so helpless", hissed a woman with highly teased bangs when we let a pregnant woman cut in front of us in line. And then another woman nearly had a nervous breakdown when she saw them letting in a man in a wheelchair. "But he's in a wheelchair. He's sitting. Why him? I'm so much worse off with my varicose veins!" People began to fidget, and a fight nearly broke out, but then a bald security guy showed up, and, calling us "uncultured livestock", organized us into two lines, because, meanwhile, the third window had closed. The teller had gone off, no doubt, for her hard-earned break. It was, of course, my lot to wait in the line that moved much more slowly. At one point I remembered a cartoon in which Gustav is working as a bank teller and has a glass of red wine hidden under the counter. So first he dips his finger in the wine, then licks it and turns the page. I thought of the likelihood that these tellers were doing the same and my lips spread in a silly grin. Smiles in the line for paying bills, however, were such an unnatural and suspicious thing that the security guy, that same baldy, shot me one of those sideways glances, like "What have you got to grin about, kid", and in an instant all trace of the smile on my face was gone. After that I just waited, huffing and puffing like everyone else. When my turn finally came and the teller greedily snatched the money from my hand, I felt pleased and satisfied. The torture was over. I was free, at least until next month.
Outside I was greeted by rain. I had no umbrella, though I couldn't believe I'd forgotten it. For the last two months, rain had been falling every godforsaken day. My umbrella had become an extension of my arm. Whatever. When I finally got home, I was soaked through and through. Even my ankle boots were drenched. I turned the key quietly in the lock and slipped into the front hall. The pressure cooker sound came from the kitchen. Mama was cooking beans and didn't hear me. I slowly peeled off my ankle boots and my soaking-wet socks and tiptoed into my room. I put my socks on the radiator to dry, though there was no heat, because, as usual, the city heating system was on the blink, slipped in under my coverlet, and turned on the television. For two hundred and fifty thousand monthly payments my folks recently bought a television set with a 40-inch screen at the huge shopping center that sprouted up on the site of Dad's former, not to call it "late great", factory, and I inherited their old one, which wasn't at all bad. And, better yet, I was there in the nick of time. My favorite detective show was just starting.
It has been like three years that I haven't been up to much but lying around in bed and watching detective shows. I don't know how else to describe the mood I'm in, except that my organism sank into a state of general lethargy. My boyfriend—and we were together for absolutely ever, you know what I mean, like since tenth grade—was sent a letter of guarantee by his aunt in Sydney, and off he went. The idea was that he'd take care of my paperwork and I'd join him, but Mama almost had a seizure when she heard. "Do you even know where Australia is?" she foamed at the mouth. I know perfectly well where Australia is. There'd be at least three lightyears between me and Mama. But don't get me wrong. It's not Mama's fault that I didn't go. What happened is that my boyfriend sent me a postcard when he got to Australia. He wrote, "This is a country with great possibilities", and then he vanished along with all the possibilities. He neglected to write anymore. I kept a close eye on his Facebook posts. Him holding a crocodile by the tail. Him sunbathing on a beach. Him slathering on yogurt he'd bought at a Bulgarian market to treat his sunburn. Him eating Yugo-Smoki peanut puffs to ease his nostalgia. Him tucking a bill between the breasts of a singer at a nightclub. And then one morning, when I was sitting on the john and frantically scrolling through social media, my phone fell out of my hand, straight onto the floor tiles. The screen cracked. The man behind the counter at the mobile phone repair service said the repair would cost more than a new phone and he gestured to a glass case where Chinese smartphones were on display. "They don't cost much and they work just fine", he said and went on talking about how they make these phones at the same factories, using the same parts, as the iPhone. I looked at the man behind the counter and said, "But I don't want a new phone". He rolled his eyes and said that if I insisted, he could order a new screen for my phone. Then I broke down completely. "But I don't want any sort of phone at all". And from that moment, on, I didn't want anything and that's how I sank into the state I already mentioned. The only thing I still wanted was to be in my bed, watching detective shows. That was the only thing that made me happy.
Of course, my happiness didn't last long. Mama had already sniffed me out. Exactly one second before Detective Frost would uncover the murderer, she charged into the room, completely blocking my view of the screen. She looked pretty upset. I didn't catch on right away to what was going on, because her arms were flailing and she was talking really fast. When she saw that all I could do was stare at her, she stopped, took a breath, and repeated everything. Aunt Stana had choked on a mouthful of chicken. Uncle Radomir found her on the kitchen floor, all blue, her eyes bugging out. With her fingernails, she'd nearly clawed away her whole throat. In her desire to convey the scene as faithfully as possible, Mama grabbed herself by the throat with both hands. She stuck out her tongue and rolled her eyes.
I had no chance to catch who the murderer was. When Mama finally stepped away from the television screen, the credits were already rolling by.
"Awful", I huffed, grumpy, thinking of the detective show that had just finished. I suspected the murderer was the little old lady who'd been raising pigeons, but maybe not. Sometimes they tangle the story up so much that right to the end you can't say with certainty who the murderer is. That is why I love the British detective shows. The newer American ones, where the main detective uses expensive laboratory tests that can take them from a mote of dust to the killer instead of relying on brains and intuition, are sheer idiocy. Though I watch them, too, but only when there's nothing else on.
" Awful. And awfuller than awful!" Mama repeated and added, "The funeral is tomorrow at the village graveyard".
"Tomorrow", I said absentmindedly, while trying to recall the schedule for when the episode would be rerun tomorrow.
"It has to be tomorrow. They have no mortuary in the village so they have to bury the dead right away. What a blessing in disguise that she choked to death now that the cold weather is here. Imagine this in the middle of a summer heatwave". Mama shuddered at the very thought of the deceased, mid-heatwave.
"Awful", I continued staring, disinterested, at the television screen at a toothpaste ad.
"What have you got to wear? Let me see if there's anything halfway decent in here", Mama opened my closet and thrust her head in among the clothes. There were all sorts of things from pink flannel pajamas that I have worn since I was ten, to plaid shirts, a total disaster, bought in my appalling and confusing teen phase, and all the way to the old washed-out t-shirts and sweat pants for "around the house". There wasn't a stitch of serious, halfway-decent clothing. Or at least I'd never been able to dig up something like that. The closet was in such disarray that I was even a little alarmed to push my head in so I generally wore the two or three shirts that were right on top.
"To wear?" I blinked.
"Well, you must have something suitable for a funeral. I hope you're not planning to go in jeans and this red blouse!" Mama wriggled out of the closet and quickly put back a lipstick-red silk blouse she'd worn back in the 1980s. She generally hated those years of her life and tried to erase them by ripping up all the pictures on which she struck cheery poses, with all sorts of war paint smeared over her face and shoulder padding worthy of one of Napoleon's officers. The lipstick-red blouse was the sole item to survive the hell of the Inquisition. Probably because it ended up, by mistake, among my stuff.
"Why've I got to go? Can't you go by yourself?" I jumped off the bed as if scalded. If there was anything I hated, it was her making me go to funerals. Old lady Smilja's maid-of-honor died and we're going to the funeral, our first-floor neighbor's cousin died. People were non-stop dying of cancer, bee stings, tiger mosquitoes, ticks, rare auto-immune disorders, cardiac arrest, strokes, mouse fever, alcoholism, but also traffic accidents, wars, and sometimes even old age. So we were forever going to somebody's funeral. Proportionately far more than weddings, showers, saints' days, and other festivities.
"Don't be a spoiled brat!" Mama rolled her eyes. "And besides, I'm not going. You're going alone".
Translated from Bosnian by Ellen Elias-Bursać
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Sladjana Nina Perkovic (1981) is a Franco-Bosnian journalist and a fiction writer. After finishing her studies in Political Sciences at the University of Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, she mainly worked as a news correspondent for media outlets in ex-Yugoslavia. Her work has also been featured in many European news outlets such as The Guardian. Today, Sladjana is mostly committed to her writing career. She has published a collection of short stories "Kuhanje" ("Cooking") and the novel "U jarku" ("In the Ditch"). "U jarku" was listed for the 2021 NIN Award, the "Meša Selimović" Award and it was awarded as the EUPL 2022 special mention. She lives, works, and writes in between Banja Luka and Paris.
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