Instruction Manual for Staying Alive
Trans. Mirza Purić
no one in my family has ever committed suicide
at least not in any conventional manner such as
pills drowning hanging
they did kill themselves with alcohol and bad habits though
but not in a usual way
and if they did the relatives made sure to cover it up
keep it from the kids and neighbours
after the funeral things would go back to normal
never speak ill of the dead
just like with any other death
nothing more significant than a fly buzzing through the kitchen
when lunch is over
I don’t know what I felt
when doctor said
you must take medications
talking alone won’t solve this
life is not an american film and you score high
on suicidality
I didn’t realise I was at the end of my rope
the pharmacotherapy was to say the least
just another defeat
am I mad please doctor please tell me the truth
doctor said
please have a seat tell me everything
you mean everything as in from the beginning
I should start with how I wanted to kill myself then
I said
it’s true
I thought about it for a long time
I thought about it a lot
rope jump oven water but
my first choice was the knife
hot bath quietly without drama
a knife and the wrists a winning combination
I live alone no one calls
if I do it on friday no one would find out before monday
when I don’t turn up at work
and even then they’d probably just be upset
because I haven’t called
later they’d say we couldn’t have known
she always laughed she was a good employee
conscientious and diligent if a bit sloppy
she was never sick
she was never late
we couldn’t have known she lay in the tub for three days
in water turned cold from the coldness of her body
her mother never visited
she rarely phoned
not our fault
we couldn’t have known
franz kafka once said
a book must be the axe for the frozen see within us
franz kafka lied
there is no axe to break the frozen sea
which has trapped our hearts
depriving us of love for ourselves
I live in a town in which children are killed
a kid had his leg blown off by a bomb
he was left sitting in the park leg in hand
and I had to leave
and the price of leaving was steep
why did you go? because you’re a traitor
why didn’t you stay? because you’re a coward
and I had to learn how to talk again
all the new words for things
like spoons and beans
they said it wasn’t the same language and to be careful
how I talk and to whom
baba said no more mr branko mr tomo mr pero
the messrs are over there
if I don’t get it I’d better go back
how to not go mad doctor
where to go back to
when I came to baba
there were no books in her house
just a heart trapped in the frozen sea
there was no dignity
there were rancid bonbons squirrelled away at the cupboard bottom
there were dead people walking round the house at night
we heard their steps on the entryway tiles
in my thoughts I sometimes wander off to my childhood
there’s a house with a lawn that children run across
they laugh and it’s like in the films about ideal families
there’s a winding stairwell and a piano
and a front door and a back door
high ceilings and shade in the middle of summer
that’s not my house
it’s my baba-auntie’s
that piano is played by her children
those rooms have large squeaky beds and chests
those chests contain duvets
and those beds lives and deaths
in one of them died my baba-auntie’s husband
he’d beaten her in sickness
he’d beaten her in health
he died and the bed remained
tell me doctor how could one not go mad
baba-aunty brings us cake on a platter
smiles as she offers it to us
how do you even dare to smile
have you forgotten how your husband battered you
it was a house like those at the seaside
when I came there from war
there was a war on at the seaside too
the houses were the houses of the natives and the enemy
the natives went into the enemy houses
stole everything of value
stripped the wainscoting and blew up the houses from the inside
whilst the enemy was far away
gone never to return
only yesterday the natives roasted pork with the enemy
fanned the flames under the spit, toasted with acrid dalmatian wine
that’s taken with well water
to dilute the taste of the wine which is the taste of death
how could one not go mad doctor
at night the babas entered the houses
dressed in black so we don’t see them
but our eyes were used to darkness and never missed a thing
the babas burrowed through the rubble like moles
taking the valuables
they knew which walls were safe to walk along
they dragged themselves back home down dusty roads
thinking we didn’t see them
they would die lonely in their greed with no one to bury them
their sons would die on the frontlines
or return as mad as me
their daughters-in-law would curse them
their grandchildren forget them
when I came to live with my baba
her feet were rotting she didn’t know what to do with them
flies landed on her wounds
the room reeked of death
and grandpa’s coat he’d put on
when he worked in the pig sty
and afterwards put on the bed to lie on it
mouldy wallpaper drooped from the walls
jesus on the mount of olives was mouldy too
in his frame on baba’s nightstand
his face had erupted in lichen
baba grandpa jesus and I
we all had a skin condition
never mind
baba had a cane and used it to tame anyone who
entered the room
grandpa because he took too long in the pig sty
me because I was whoring about again
selling my fanny for pennies to anyone who’d buy
baba was clever baba knew
she saw everything and heard everything
she wasn’t as mad as we thought
I am mad doctor
I fantasised about living in a house
where nothing is heard when you shut the door
where thick carpets warm your feet
the water tank doesn’t freeze over in the winter
you’re not cold when go for a pee at night
and you can wash yourself whenever you please
baba saved the water from the washing machine in the tub
we swilled the toilet bowl with it after shitting
the toilet was on the other end of the house
I once slipped on the spilt water and fell
broke a flower pot
ended up with a livid eye
baba said
she’s drunk again
she’ll amount to nothing
she was talking to grandpa thinking I couldn’t hear
how could I not go mad doctor
to punish her I told everyone at school
that baba was beating me
how can I not be mad
I learnt a trick
tell a lie when I should tell the truth
and I lied and I lied till I ran out of lies
truth was not valued there
because baba knew better
baba spoke the language of lies and didn’t know any other
if I wanted to be understood I had to learn to lie
truth and lie were two different languages in our home
and baba wasn’t schooled
just four years of primary and tales from other people’s beds
how could I not go mad doctor
when I had to lie to dodge a beating
to get a meal
to avoid being kicked out
to stay alive today tomorrow be damned
how could I not be mad doctor
the year before the war a girl came to visit
she talked about the life of a boy I was in love with
a sink full of encrusted dishes a halo of flies
flies again you may say doctor
she scraped the plates with her fingernails the pans with wire
it was summer we couldn’t go to the seaside
we went to a hill to that girl’s home
two months later her father would be killed
just like that
there was no water
we had to fetch it from baba kova’s
we sat at the table eating eggs and bacon and cake and fruit
baba kova sat with us laughing
we slept in played music shaved our legs and armpits
with baba kova’s water from the jerry can
baba kova didn’t mind we were mongrels
she’d start to mind two months later
baba kova went to school with the murdered father
he went to live in the city she stayed on the hill
then baba kova’s son killed the father
just like that
how can one not go mad
she knew nothing but cows and pastures and barns and hay
nothing about the holy cross and freedom
baba kova didn’t know what fatherland meant
but would find out soon enough just two months
how could I not go mad from all that doctor
back to my childhood again
grandpa my old man and I went hunting
grandpa was shooting and the forest trembled with fear and death
the recoil crushed his shoulder but he didn’t cease fire
until he grabbed three fat rabbits by the ears
I stared at their rolled back eyes
on the way back
my old man didn’t see the doe
that jumped in front of the car out of the thicket
grandpa stepped out picked her up
and later said
she was dying in my arms shedding
big warm tears
we unloaded the doe from the boot together
how could I not go mad doctor
at home grandpa hung the gun on a peg
and never went hunting again
and I was mad
I’m twelve years old coming home from school
father’s lying in bed staring at the ceiling
father has clinical depression
he’s there and he isn’t the meds have fried his brain
there’s nothing for dinner dad please get up I can’t
be coming from school to watch you die anymore
father can’t afford new windows
once long ago he changed baba’s
and now he can’t afford to change ours
and he’d like for mum to go to vienna
maybe that’s just an excuse
for mum not to go to vienna
for sister not to go on her graduation trip
but then the war starts
so mum doesn’t go
she never leaves him
his fried brain has trapped mum and now
she dare not move
if she goes
a witch will eat her
a wolf will eat her
a bear will eat her round here wild animals eat people doctor
mum can’t leave her dying man
but she can leave her children
round here you can leave your children but never your man
doctor how could I not go mad doctor
tell me how
this life would kill an elephant
there’s always this fear
that everyone I love and need
would abandon me
this illness won’t leave me be even when all seems well
on quiet sunday afternoons I wait for something to happen
a plane crashes straight onto our building
the ground shakes
sister phones to tell me mum’s dead
sunday afternoons are for resting
hiking in the woods
but on the hike a snake attacks me
a tree falls on my head
threats never cease and there’s no escape
there’s always a premonition
I go to the seaside terrifying animals live in the sea
grab me by the leg pull me down into the depths
no one realises I’m gone and when they do it’s too late
there’s no one to save me
tell me
how could I not go mad
when I was nine they said be careful
how you leave the house even more careful how you enter
wash your shoes take off your clothes but carefully radioactive particles are in the air
don’t eat strawberries don’t eat vegetables don’t eat just don’t
there’s a radioactive cloud above the city it’ll kill us all
but I wear rope espadrilles doctor how do I wash rope
how do I undress inaudibly invisibly how do I not flick off the dust
how do I not open the window
if I don’t get cancer I’ll suffocate
how can I not be mad then it’s perfectly clear to me
that I’ve been mad for a while now
this diagnosis merely confirms it
