“Whaaat a shaaaame; what about a selfie with the two of us?” She flung her arm around his shoulders and reached into the pocket of her apron for her cell phone.
“Oh, no, truly no need.” He was polite but firm, although she was already pressing up against him. A smile escaped Nora, which he noticed, and it softened him.
“Hey,” began Nora, “so, you drive a cab, and this is a place you like.” She was teasing him a little and that made him smile. She realized her tone was perhaps a little too familiar, and that stopped her for a minute. “Sorry, I’m talking to you as if we’re old friends; but then again, we’re about the same age. Are you from around here?”
“More or less,” said Marko, smiling. “A childhood in a boring city nobody ever heard of until the war, then a go at being a student, then the army, then the black-hole time, then the cab in what is once again a boring city. The story of our generation, one you probably know.”
“Yes, for the most part.” Although he seemed like a straightforward, self-possessed man, Nora had the feeling there was a lot more there than just boredom and the story of their generation, but she was reluctant to press. She just wanted them to keep talking; it felt good.
“Well, fine; what do you think?” She switched the focus to what she was currently dealing with. “From the perspective of a boring cab driver, what was actually going on among the three of them?”
“Nobody except the three of them can know for sure, but as you said, the story is tragic. No point in turning this into an interethnic conflict, though unfortunately it will, clearly, be used for that by all sides.” He was deeply aware of where he lived.
“Where were you during the war?” Nora couldn’t stop herself from asking. She assumed he was in the army, and then maybe, like she, a refugee at a hotel on the coast.
“Here,” he answered plainly, and then looked her in the eyes. At first Nora didn’t get it.
“What do you mean, ‘here’? During the war?”
“Yes, during the war.”
“And afterward, too?” She was still groping to understand.
“Afterward, too.”
“Oh, I see.” Only then did she get it: Marko had been here the whole time, and yet she’d been thinking he was a Croat. She couldn’t have said why; in fact, there was no reason to have taken it for granted that he wasn’t a Serb. She drank down a big sip of her bitters and cola—every bit as disgusting as when she was in high school—and struggled to come up with what to say to keep the conversation going. She was afraid of what he’d say. She felt sure he’d come up with something along the lines of Is that a problem for you? and then things would get all awkward, but he didn’t. For a time both of them were quiet.
“So, what was that like?” she asked him. For the first time she was talking with someone who’d spent his youth in the city when it was razed to the ground.
“Bad. Thugs everywhere, people shooting guns all the time. The inflation devoured everything, the bread tasted like a kitchen sponge. We could see the lights of cities in the distance—Osijek, Novi Sad—and dreamed about what it must be like where there was electrical power, while here we were being fed the line that we were finally free.” He smiled gently. He was showing no restraint in responding to her questions; he wasn’t evasive or pretentious, his answers—candid. Nora listened, and then asked more questions. She couldn’t remember when someone’s story had so engaged her, when someone had so engaged her, and Marko was talking as if he were saying these things for the first time. About the city he hadn’t moved from, except to go around in circles. He said little about himself and mostly talked about the mood and the time, the people who’d disappeared. Nora talked about the coast, her recollections of the apartment they never came back to, her father who was killed in the war. Marko didn’t ask for more than she was willing to say; he just listened, especially to what she wasn’t saying. The hostess hovered near them several times, but neither of them noticed her. The terrace soon cleared out, and then they were the only guests left in the café. They didn’t feel like going, but there was no particular reason to stay, except for their conversation which was unfolding outside of the time and context in which they found themselves, and there was still so much to talk about. Closing time was near; the waiter had already begun threading the cord through the table legs of the tables near them, hurrying to finish his shift.
“We really ought to be moving along . . .” she said, not entirely convinced.
“Yes, it’s late; nobody works after eleven here.”
“I’m guessing the party I was at before we ran into each other is still hopping, but there’s no point in going back there.” She smiled at the very idea.
“What party?” Marko asked.
“Oh, a reading from an awful book of poems at the Serbian consulate. A madhouse. Really,” she said with a conspiratorial nod.
“How did you end up there? Poetry lover?” he teased.
“Well, more a case of phenomenological research. A real vampire’s ball—with City Councillor Velimirović leading the charge.” At her mention of the name, a shadow crossed Marko’s face, and his mood changed to serious.
“Not the best company, Nora,” he said seriously. “Watch out for guys like him.”
“Why, do you know him?” His remark interested her, especially considering that Marko was a Serb.
“I know them all, far better than I’d like,” was all he’d say.
“Oh, they’re all the same. On both sides,” added Nora.
Marko looked in silence at the table in front of him; he seemed dark again, as he’d been when he arrived. He reached for
