Miss Juliana puffed as she tried to get her breathing back under control. Her pulse was racing as if she had just lugged the fruits of a major shopping trip into her larder. In fact, she’d only been on the phone, and although the call had been remarkably short, it had been momentous. Only the receiver in her trembling hand and the drawn-out dialling tone told her that it hadn’t been a dream.
It was a curious state she found herself in. She carefully put the receiver back onto its cradle, and looked out into the garden, at the green, yellow and blue of the tulips and irises. The colours swam before her eyes. How long had she been waiting for this day to arrive? She took two paces forward, sank into the chair next to Sophia’s easy chair and began drumming her hands on the worn armrests in disbelief.
This was where she had been sitting back then. It had been the time of year when the marigolds were in bloom, the lavender’s aroma filled the air and the cobblestones were sticky with pollen from the lime trees. The Albanian had gone home to help with the harvest and would only return again in the autumn. Sophia had travelled to the Adriatic coast with her little sister to enjoy the summer heat there, and Juliana had been left behind to keep the home fires burning. It had been a Saturday, in the early morning hours; she still remembered it vividly, as she’d been waiting for the cheese merchant. Instead of the bell, she heard someone sneaking along the passageway. Had the Albanian come back early?
She got there just in time to see Nicola, his suitcase in hand, slipping through the door. She stood paralysed on the staircase. Somewhat reluctantly, he put the suitcase down again and stepped over to her. He took off his cap and cupped her face in his big warm hands. With him standing two steps below her, they were just about the same height. With his grey eyes, he looked at her as one looks at a little child.
‘Juliana,’ he said, and sighed. ‘Little Juliana, my dear. Don’t make parting so hard for me. Don’t be sad, and don’t worry. I’m going to be back for sure!’ Then he left. Simply gone. Juliana blew her nose.
Sophia had always called Nicola a good-for-nothing philanderer, a lazy wastrel, instead of just doing as he’d been told. He had been supposed to go to Budapest – like his father and grandfather had done – and learn the leather and fur trades and become a furrier. He was to work in the Vienna and Paris branches before returning to Belgrade to take over the main shop in Queen Natalja Street. But those shoes were apparently a bit too big for little Nicola to fill, Sophia had maliciously remarked. To impress upon Nicola his responsibilities, Sophia reminded him that their papa, namely Juliana’s Uncle Lazarus, had created an astrakhan jacket for Princess Elena back in the day, a fashionable Persian lambswool coat with sable trimmings, and so made a name for himself at an early age. From then on, everyone who was anyone in high society had to have a piece made by the House of Spajić, even if it was only a muff. Nicola would have been able to continue the business without too much effort, nobody was asking the impossible of him – definitely not some major coup.
Juliana knew nothing about such things. She looked after running the household and was responsible for the laundry; what she did remember was that there was always laughter when Nicola was down in the kitchen, sitting down at the piano with a cigarette between his lips to play the latest popular songs and then grabbing big Drinka by her ample hips and dancing around with her.
All that had been a long time ago. Absent-mindedly, Juliana straightened the tablecloth and looked at the clock. Flowers on the table would be nice. But the crystal vase was too heavy for her to get down from the cupboard now. Should she offer him dry biscuits? Along with his coffee, Nicola used to love having quince cheese with walnuts, sprinkled with caster sugar. But the Albanian who picked the fruit in the autumn had long gone, as had Drinka, who had made them into quince cheese by boiling them with cloves. There was no order anymore, everything was topsy-turvy. When had Nicola left – before or after the war? Did he know about the bomb damage and the great fire? Did he know that upstairs only the salon had survived? She hadn’t set foot in the room for years. The stairs were too hard to negotiate, and it was too sad to see the rain leaking in through the ceiling and the pretty rose-patterned wallpaper gradually disappearing beneath ugly brown water stains. At least here in the kitchen pretty much everything had remained the same – only the pots and pans were no longer gleaming, and the black-andwhite chequered floor tiles had faded with the years.
She opened the large cupboard. The midnight-blue dress hung at the very back between little sachets filled with lavender. The colour suited her. She could have led a different life. With the dowry Uncle Lazarus had promised her, she could have had her pick of suitors. A master craftsman, or even a teacher. But her responsibility lay here, in this house. She had served her cousins, had always been there for them, and that had been the right decision. She had kept the legacy, the little that was left, kept it safe and preserved it.
She tied the belt, twisting the bow on it around to her hips, stepped towards the chest and pulled open the big drawer. She had collected her hair in a casket to make stuffing for a bun, only to be used on special occasions. And this was one of those special occasions, maybe the final one of her life.
Carefully securing the bun in place with pins, she turned her head and looked at her wrinkled face in the mirror. Juliana Spajić, the poor cousin from Kopaonik. The circle was complete, and everything regained its order and meaning. The grandfather clock rattled, about to strike. It was time. Juliana got up. A feeling of great solemnity filled her heart. When she passed Sophia’s chair, she stroked it tenderly and then turned off the light in the larder.
She opened the little door in the gate, stepped over the threshold out into the street and blinked, blinded by the sun. The man who was waiting there had a silver bicycle and one hand stuck loutishly in his trouser pocket. She had never seen this stranger before.
‘Good day,’ she said.
‘Little Juliana?’ the man asked, and made a clicking sound with his tongue. ‘Didn’t the two of us speak on the phone?’
She searched his face for something familiar. His chin was strong, but the mouth and the lips – no, this wasn’t her Nicola. She felt dizzy. So it was exactly as Sophia had always said: all just wishful thinking. She was just barmy.
He stepped a bit closer. She wanted to pull back, when she looked into his eyes, into that grey. He firmly took hold of her shoulders. She couldn’t understand what he said.
‘Nicola?’ she stammered. ‘Is it you?’