“What’s there to say? Mom’s crying all day, Dad refuses to speak to her. He says she’s buried her alive, that he won’t talk to her anymore if she keeps crying. And Mom just keeps calling Antonija, and when the phone stops ringing she bursts into tears again.”

Ana was holding the phone between her left shoulder and ear while loading the dishwasher with her right hand.

 “Ehh, well, no, no one expected it! She mention it? Yeah, she mentioned it, but who would’ve imagined this? She called me from the airport and then she called Mom. But with Mom she couldn’t get a word in, so she called me again asking me to calm Mom down. I told her: ‘My God, Antonija, you’ve done it this time.’ Like I’ve got nothing better to do than clean up her mess. And her poor Dena’s beside himself. Three days now since she left and he’s been staying here with us out of grief. Says he can’t believe she’s done this to him. Poor man, he can’t set foot in their place, he says, it’s too much for him. So then he’s crying here in front of my kids, and the kids ask if their nana’s dead, and if not Nana, then is it Gramps? Come on…”

She put a tablet into the dishwasher, closed the lid, and turned the dial to “Heavy.” Soon the kitchen echoed with the sound of a flood, the machine filling with water.

“Yeah, it’s the dishwasher. I’m just now getting to the dishes. Mateo had some poster he had to prepare for school, about the Vikings, so I spent the whole afternoon writing and gluing with him. And I made fish and chard and threw in a few eggs. My Zvone doesn’t like fish, says it’s no food for working folk, heh. But he’s right, fish can’t fill you up. You eat and eat—turn around and you’re hungry again. Don’t even get me started on chard. If it wasn’t for the kids, I wouldn’t go anywhere near it. This morning I dropped by Danica’s to get some. Twenty-five kunas for a kilo. But you cook it and there’s barely a fistful. And let me tell you, that Danica, my God, she weighs it like it’s gold. Back when me and my sister were kids and my mom worked the farmer’s market, she never used those little weights. That Danica counts every single kuna.”

Ana put the phone on speaker, placed it on the ground by the fridge and started rummaging in the freezer. She pulled out a chicken breast, jumped over the phone, put the breast in the sink, let the water run, returned in one leap, turned off speaker, and nestled the phone back between her ear and shoulder.

“I’m thawing a chicken breast for tomorrow. Dena wants to make chicken in white sauce. He cooks it real nice—he even makes his own bechamel, no heavy cream shortcuts or any of that ‘quick and easy’ crap.

“You bet she’s crazy. So many times he’s cooked and done the housework, hung the laundry, vacuumed. Zvone can’t even fry an egg, not that that keeps him up at night. He hardly ever helps me with the kids, and if he does hang the laundry, I have to follow behind and fix it. Well, that’s what you get when no one’s taught you how to do it.

“Ah, my poor Ma, she’s getting on my nerves, too. Crying ’cause three years now they’d been cohabiting, as she puts it, ‘paperless.’ Says she’s been hoping for grandchildren, praying for Antonija to get pregnant. I’m like, cut the crap—grandchildren? She’s got two from me already, and she never calls me to bring them over. When I leave Bartul with her, she grumbles about how no one ever watched the two of us for her when we were kids. What does she mean no one ever watched us? We were always at one grandma’s or the other’s, or playing in the street, sometimes until nine or ten at night. But there were a dozen of us kids in the neighborhood—I can’t leave the little guy to play outside alone. Different times now.”

After throwing the chicken breast into a plastic bowl with warm water, Ana grabbed hold of the phone and plopped down on the couch.

“Huh? Oh yeah, something dinged, probably my Facebook notifications. A stupid game I’m playing. Yeah, she mentioned it. And I have to say she’s been acting weird.

“Well, my God, until just the other day, she came over every day for coffee. I mean, I could never doubt her love for my kids—she always came around to see them, but then she started to withdraw. She mentioned that goddamned Nepal, and I half-listened, thinking it’ll pass, she’s probably just had a fight with Dena or whatever. When, lo and behold, a few days later, she calls me from the airport. I’m standing there crossing myself, asking if she’s lost her mind.

“She’s gone insane, I’m telling you,” Ana said, gesticulating with her free hand. “She says to me she’d mentioned applying for a visa, so why am I so confused? She wouldn’t have applied for a visa if she wasn’t serious. I say, ‘And Dena?’ and she says she already told me she called him, I never listen. Hell, how am I supposed to catch everything with two kids running around? Sometimes I can barely hear myself.

“How should I know what she’s planning to do? She says she’ll figure it out when she gets there. Is that nuts or what? Says she’ll climb the Himalayas. Mom lost it over that one. Mom was like, ‘The Himalayas? She’s never even climbed the Mosor, right here on her doorstep.’ Hah. She says she’ll look for work, be a Sherpa or something. I tell her, dear Antonija, my God, what’s the matter with you? You’re leaving our beautiful homeland for that disease-ridden garbage dump? I’m not racist or anything, but all those places are crawling with disease. Basically, she’s leaving a good job and a good life and dumping Mom on me. So that’s the story—I’ve got to see about all this beeping, and my battery’s dying anyway. Talk soon—and don’t tell anyone anything about this, we’ll see what happens. All right, bye.”

As soon as the conversation ended, she shook out her left hand, tapped the blue icon, then notifications, but saw nothing new. Then she spotted a red symbol above the mail icon. One unread email. She tapped the icon and saw the bold, black letters of her sister’s name.

Dear Ana,

I just woke up—half an hour and we’ll start our descent into Doha. I have to say the flight wasn’t the least bit tiring (okay, well, I slept through it, hehe) and the more time passes, the better I feel. I’m less afraid and more and more excited.

I’ll start this now, and finish it along the way, between flights and naps. I feel like we didn’t say a proper goodbye or get on the same page. I know I dumped Mom on you, but she’ll calm down. You know that yourself.

I told you everything started coming together after I watched that documentary about Asia. Afterward I found it online and watched it again. Damn, sometimes I watched it three times a day. I couldn’t stop. Something kept pulling me back to it. Then I started reading about all sorts of things. About mountains and all that. When it crossed my mind that I could go there, that instant, a huge weight lifted off me. 

A lot of it goes back to when Dena and I were in Istria and returning home on the magistrala. Dena can be really stupid sometimes—he likes driving fast and that always irritates me. This particular time, we’d just passed Zadar when he started speeding and I knew he was expecting me to bitch and moan. But I just sat there thinking—So what? Even if we died right this moment, so what? I wouldn’t have cared in the least had we been pulverized. That was my thinking, just shy of my thirty-fifth birthday.

After that, there was no going back. I realized that nothing had ever happened to me, that I’d never experienced anything truly unusual, and I was scared I never would. At that moment, I felt trapped inside myself. All kinds of things occurred to me.

I also thought about how much I wanted kids (you know how much I love you and your kids), but that if I continued living like I was, I’d have no stories to tell them. When I saw the documentary, the thought crossed my mind—Hey, imagine if I went, and one day I could tell my kids: Guess what? Your mom’s been there.

I read all sorts of things, about people who’ve climbed the Himalayas—and I’m not saying I ever will. I’m sure I’ll try, but not with the goal of reaching the summit, just being there, near all that. When I read how many people died trying to reach the peak, I have to admit, I was overcome with a sense of urgency, and the fullness of life, and horror, all at once. To those people, the undertaking was so important that they put everything at stake. I want to be near that, in the vicinity of a situation where you could suddenly disappear, where there’s a fine line between life and death. You probably think I’m being morbid, but I’ve never felt like those people—to me nothing has ever been so important. Now I have a choice: die on a mountain or grow maggoty from boredom.

Which is why, after figuring out all the visa stuff and finding a place to stay, I stopped reading and decided to surrender myself to fate. I’ll find some little job—I mean, so what if I end up carrying other people’s bags? The job doesn’t have to involve mountains. Or I’ll ride people around on those tricycles they have there—I read somewhere they still use rickshaws, ha!

If I disappear in an avalanche, know that I was happy—though I doubt that’ll happen. See you, at the latest, in five months, when my visa expires. But we’ll talk before then.   

Kiss the kids for me and good luck with Mom. Don’t show her this email—she’ll think I have a death wish.

Love from your sister.

Ana read the email again. She glanced out the window. Darkness shrouded the roofs of the houses, crept through fences, and formed strange silhouettes. The light at the end of the street had yet to be repaired.

She called out to Zvone that she’d stay up just a little longer, then padded along to the pantry and picked up the dark green bottle with the label Extra Virgin where they kept the sweet red wine from Zvone’s cousin in Dugopolje. She opened her laptop, poured herself a glass, and typed “Nepal” in the search bar. She stayed up all night, scrolling through pictures of mountains, bright colors, temples, tents, dust, catastrophe. She read about Hinduism, earthquakes, avalanches, local customs, Sherpas. As dawn was breaking, she responded to her sister.

Send pictures.

„Neman ti šta reć. Mater plače po cili dan, ćaća neće više s njon da govori. Kaže da je živu pokopala, da neće s njon pričat više bude li plakala. A mater samo zivka Antoniju, a kad joj prekine poziv, udri u plač.“

Ana je držala mobitel uguran između lijevog ramena i uha dok je slobodnom, desnom rukom slagala suđe u perilicu.

„Eee, eee, ma niko nije očekiva! Da je spominjala, je, al ko se tomu stvarno nada? Zvala me s aerodroma i zvala je mater, al od matere nije mogla doć do riči, pa je opet mene zvala da umirin mater, a ja joj govorin: ‘A moja Antonija, lipo si zakuvala.’ Pari da ja neman drugog posla nego sad sređivat njen nered. A oni njen jadni Dena ne može doć sebi. Evo, treći dan otkad je otišla, od žalosti ruča s nama. Kaže da ne viruje da mu je to napravila. Jadan čovik, ne može stat u stanu, kaže, teško mu je. Onda ovde prid mojon dicon plače, a dica pitaju: al je baba umrla, ako nije baba, je li dida. Ma biži…“

Ubacila je tabletu u stroj, zatvorila poklopčić i kolut za pokretanje perilice okrenula na slovo B. Uskoro se kuhinja ispunila zvukom poplave, mašina se punila vodom.

„Je, mašina je. Evo tek san sad stigla suđe sredit. Mateo ima neki plakat za školu radit, o vikinzima, pa san cilo popodne s njim pisala i lipila. A spremala sam ribe i blitve i bacila dva-tri jaja na oko. Moj Zvone ne voli ribu, kaže da to nije ručak za radničku klasu, hehe. A u pravu je, riba je gladna, moš izist ne znan kolko, za uru si opet gladan. A blitva da ne govorin, da nije dice, ne bi je ni kuvala. Bila san jutros u Danice uzet, dvajstpet kuna kilo. A kad je skuvaš, nema je šaka. A i Danica, majketi, važe je ka da je o’ zlata. Sićan se još kad smo ja i sestra bile dica i kad je naša mater prodavala na pazaru, nije nikad stavljala oni mali uteg. Danica gleda u svaku kunu.“

Ana na mobitelu stisne tipku za razglas, odloži ga pored hladnjaka i stane čupati nešto iz zamrzivača. Izvuče pileća prsa, preskoči mobitel, ubaci prsa u sudoper, pusti vodu da pljušti po njima, u jednom se skoku vrati do mobitela, ugasi razglas i ponovo ugnijezdi telefon između uha i ramena.

„Triban otopit prsa za sutra, Dena je reka pravit piletinu sa siron. Lipo on to spremi, sam napravi bešamel, ništa vrhnje za kuvanje i sva ta brzo i fino sranja.“

„Dašta je nego luda. On bi joj više puta tako i skuva i učinia po kući, razgrnija robu, usisa stan. Zvone ne zna ni jaje pofrigat, niti ga to zanima. Jedva mi nešto priskoči oko dice, a kad razgrne robu, ja iden za njin i popravljan. E, to ti je tako kad se nije naučilo. A mater jadna, i ona je dosadna. Plače jer su eto tri godine živili, šta ona kaže, divlje. Kaže nadala se unucima, molila se ona da Antonija ostane trudna. A sere, kakvin unucima, ima ih kod mene dvoje, pa nikad ne zove da ih doveden. Kad joj oću ostavit Bartula, brontula da nas dvi niko nije čuva. Di nas nije čuva, uvik smo ostajale te kod jedne, te kod druge babe ili na ulici nekad i do devet-deset navečer. Al nas je bilo desetak u kvartu, ne mogu ja malog sad ostavit samog da se igra vanka. Druga su sad vrimena.“

Kad je ubacila pileća prsa u plastičnu zdjelu s toplom vodom, Ana uhvati mobitel dlanom i svali se na kauč.

„A? Je, nešto je zapištalo, to su mi biće notifikacije s fejzbuka. Igran neku glupu igru, biće od toga. Ma pričala je ona o tome. I moran priznat da je bila čudna u zadnje vrime.“

„Ma Bože moj, do nekidan je svaki dan kod mene dolazila na kavu. Ne mogu reć, voli ona moju dicu i uvik ih je volila doć obać, al onda se nekako uvukla u sebe. Rekla mi je za taj vražji Nepal, slušala sam ono na po uva, računam proć će je, biće se posvadila sa Denom ili štagod. Kad ono, zove ima koji dan da je na aerodromu. Ja se stala krstit, pitan je jel pri sebi.“

„Ma napizdila se, kažen ti“, Ana je sad žestoko gestikulirala slobodnom rukom. „Kaže ona meni da al mi nije rekla da vadi vizu i šta se ja sad tu čudin, pa ne bi vadila vizu da nije mislila ozbiljno. Ja govorin, a Dena, a ona da mi je rekla da ga je zvala, da je nikad ne slušan. Borati, di ću i ja sve slušat s dvoje dice po kući jedva sebe nekad čujen.“

„Šta ja znan šta će radit. Rekla je da će vidit s njima tamo kad dođe, eto ti koliko je pukla. Da će se penjat na Himalaju. Mater je na to obolila. Kaže mater, di na Himalaju, ni na Mosoru nije bila. He he. Spominjala je ona da će probat nać nešto, da će bit nosač ili nešto tako. Rekla san joj, Antonija moja, Boga mu ljubin, pa šta ti je? Di ćeš iz ove naše lipe zemlje tamo u ono smeće i bolest? Da se mi razumimo, nisan ja ni rasist, ni ništa, ali to sve tamo je puno boleščina.

Uglavnom, ostavila je ovde lip posa i lip život i otišla tamo, a meni naturila da smirujen mater.

Eto ti, iden vidit šta ovo pišti, a i baterija će mi crknit skoro. Čut ćemo se, nemoj nikome ništa govorit o ovome, vidit ćemo šta će bit. Aj.“

Čim je završila razgovor, otrese lijevu ruku, klikne na plavu ikonicu, pa na notifikacije, no ne nađe nikakvih novosti. Tada ugleda da iznad ikone sa sličicom pisma svijetli crveni znak. Jedan nepročitani e-mail. Ana stisne ikonu i ugleda debela, crna slova sestrinog imena.

Draga Ana,

maloprije sam se probudila, još kojih pola sata pa ćemo počet slijetat u Dohu. Mogu ti reć da let do sad nije bio niti malo naporan (dobro, spavala sam, hehe) i da kako vrime prolazi, imam sve bolji osjećaj. Manje se bojim, a sve više osjećan uzbuđenje.

Počinjem ovo sad, a dovršit ću i poslat putem, kako buden čekala avione i kako se buden budila. Iman osjećaj da se nismo rastale kako triba i da se nismo niti malo razumile. Znan da san ti navalila mater na vrat, al smirit će se ona, znaš to i sama.

Rekla sam ti da se sve počelo slagat kad sam gledala onaj dokumentarac o Aziji. Nakon šta sam ga odgledala, našla sam ga na internetu i gledala opet. Gledala sam ga (jebemu mater) i po tri puta u danu. Nisam mogla prestat i sve me nešto tamo vuklo. Onda sam počela svašta i čitat. O planinama i o svačemu. Kad sam pomislila da bi mogla otić tamo, taj tren, točno taj tren, s mene ka da je pa ogroman teret.

Ima od toga dosta, ono kad smo Dena i ja bili u Istri i kad smo se vraćali doma, išli smo magistralom. On nekad zna bit baš dosta glup, voli prebrzo vozit i uvik me nervira s tim. Tako i taj put, taman smo bili prošli Zadar kad je on opet jurca i znan da je na neki način očekiva moje žuganje, a ja sam samo sidila i mislila – Pa šta! Nek sad i poginemo, pa šta. Ne bi me ni najmanje bilo briga da se negdi zalipimo. Eto, to sam ja mislila sa svojih nepunih trideset pet godina.

Kad san to jednom pomislila, nije bilo nazad. Skužila sam da mi se nikad ništa nije dogodilo, da nikad ništa nisan doživila, ono da je baš neobično, a istovremeno sam se bojala da mi se nikad više ništa novo neće dogodit. Bila sam ti baš zarobljena sama u sebi. Svašta mi je padalo na pamet.

Palo mi je na pamet i to kako bi volila imat dicu (znaš koliko volin i tebe i tvoju dicu), ali da nastavim li ovakav život, da im neću imat šta ispričat. Kad sam pogledala dokumentarac odma mi je prošlo kroz glavu – Ajme, zamisli da oden, pa da jednog dana svojoj dici kažem: Vidi, mater je bila tamo.

Počela sam svašta čitat, o ljudima šta su se penjali po Himalaji i ne kažem da i ja oću. Sigurno ću probat, al nije mi cilj osvajat vrhove nego bit tamo, bit u blizini svega toga. Kad sam pročitala koliko je ljudi poginilo jer su išli osvajat neki vrh, moran ti priznat, obuzea me osjećaj neke hitnosti i punoće života i jeze istovremeno. Tim je ljudima to bilo toliko važno da su išli stavljat sve na kocku. Tila sam bit u blizini toga, pored takve situacije di samo odjednom nestaneš, di je tako tanka granica između života i smrti. Sad misliš da sam morbidna, al u usporedbi s tim ljudima, meni nikad ništa nije bilo toliko važno. Umrit na planini ili se ucrvat ovde od dosade.

Zato sam, kad san istražila šta i kako po pitanju vize i kad sam našla di ću noćit kad dođem, prestala čitat o svemu i odlučila se prepustit. Nema smisla opet doć na gotovo. Probat ću nać neki poslić, pa šta, mogu i ja bit tegljač prtljage, ne mora bit po planini. Ili ću vozit neku od njihovih trokolica, vidila sam negdi i da su rikše još u upotrebi, haha.

Ako nestanem u lavini, znaj da sam bila sritna. Al ne virujem da će to bit slučaj. Vidimo se najkasnije za pet miseci, kad mi viza istekne. Dotad ćemo se čut.

Poljubi dicu i sritno s materom. Nemoj joj pokazivat mejl, mislit će da sam išla s namjerom da poginem.

Voli te tvoja sestra.

Ana je još jednom pročitala e-mail. Bacila je pogled kroz prozor. Mrak je prekrio krovove drugih kuća, uvukao se među ograde i činio siluete čudnima. Uličnu svjetiljku na dnu ceste još nisu popravili.

Doviknula je Zvoni da će još malo ostati budna, a onda se odvukla u špajzu i uzela tamnozelenu bocu s natpisom Extra djevičansko u kojoj su držali slatko crno vino što im je poklonio Zvonin rođak iz Dugopolja. Otvorila je laptop, natočila vina u čašu i u tražilicu upisala Nepal. Ostala je tako cijelu noć. Gledala je slike planina, šarenila, hramova, šatora, prašine, katastrofa. Čitala o hinduizmu, potresu, lavinama, običajima, Šerpama. Pred jutro je odgovorila sestri.

„Šalji slike“, napisala je.