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Hold these suitcases please!
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By: Jerina Zaloshnja
At seven in the morning, on the third Tuesday in September of the year 2003, weighed down with some bags and all kinds of suitcases, I placed my foot on the threshold of our new apartment in R. for the first time. ‘The little captain’ weighed down more than me, in a worse state than me, entered behind me. In the dark, narrow corridor of the apartment, which we had rented only one week ago, we carelessly dropped everything we had and then we too dropped to the ground, completely exhausted among all the bags. In the first room on the right, at the end of the corridor, on a long queen size bed which creaked from want of oiling, right there, we lay down, both of us, just as we were, road weary, perspiring, dusty from all that stuff, belts and bags.
We should have arrived at our new apartment the day before but a last-minute mechanical problem in the front of the ferry we were taking caused us to leave at least four hours late.
If you could just see the people on the ship, pushing, waiting to set off. They laid their blankets on the ground, carefully lined up their shoes on the edge of their blankets as if to say, “Hey careful this is my territory -- that over there is yours.” They gladly but also with some annoyance opened some food they had packed – bread, cheese and boiled eggs.
Half an hour after the announcement over the loudspeaker, “Patience folks, a small defect, we’ll be delayed,” every deck of the ship was covered with these cotton blankets of every color and design. They were so multi-flowered and multi-colored that if seen from afar the cotton blankets would look like a spring garden and the people on them like flower seeds.
“Why don’t we sit like them?” -- asked ‘the little captain’ with a kind of annoyance and curiosity.
“Well, we’re not refugees,” I answered, “We’re different!”
True! We were different! We were not desperate refugees, unable to pay for a cabin, or a simple cot bed like the people on the blankets.
We had booked a ‘superior luxury’ cabin (although to be honest it was so stuffy it was hard to breath in there) while below there was a car filled to the brim with bags.
In the ‘superior luxury’ cabin I was set free from the burden of the bags, but it was pointless to shut ourselves in there so early.
“I’m hungry,” said ‘the little captain,’ so we headed for the restaurant. We passed by the blankets like a flower garden on the second, third and fourth floors. Would you believe if I told you we didn’t even look right or left in these areas. The restaurant had hot and ready meals, which many people were eating, and, with a quick head count, seemed to be populated with fewer people than the areas with those on the blankets. Would you believe that ‘the little captain’ first and I behind, we went directly to the VIP zone to the a la carte restaurant? Didn’t I tell you that we were a special case, that we were not refugees like all the others?
Half an hour after that cold supper that in fact was barely eatable under the situation, ‘little captain’ and I went out on the deck, next to the bow, I with a glass of red wine and he with a bottle of Coca Cola. It must have been awfully damp that early fall night, because it made your eyes water and you couldn’t keep them open and ‘captain's’ soft skin was damp as if water had poured on it. Nearby, the port lights dimmed, a little further the fading lights of the town. I rejoiced! Something new was waiting to happen to us, a beginning, a change. But for the moment nothing was moving with this ship. Could this be a signal, a sign, an invitation to turn back, to where they were waiting for us with open arms, our wonderful status quo.
“Look, we are moving” - ‘the little captain’ spoke.
Slowly, so slowly, with just one slide, our ferry slid, cast off, shaking a little back and forth. Soon the port lights started to get smaller, dimmer, more and more until they were quite lost.
“That’s it! it’s over!” I said to myself. In that moment, at that launching, in that loss of light and in the darkness, I understood that I and ‘the little captain’ were no longer as we were a little while ago. Why were we leaving? Had we not been fine?
The next day, the arrival in our new apartment in R. the following day until Sunday, practically all week, I cleaned, organized suitcases and all the stuff we had with us. I went out only to accompany ‘little captain’ to school, to shop, to drink a coffee at Roza’s bar. But I was happy with this new life full of housework and tiredness but without the worry and concern that had weighed down my spirit my whole life. I began to go to language courses and other courses, to take dance lessons once a week with the girls from the dance group at the church, to enjoy details, the little joys that life brings.
“Buona Domenica Signiora,” they say continually at ‘Roza’s bar!’
“Buona Domenica,” I answer with such a sweet disposition, relief! It’s the first time I hear such a greeting for Sundays. The first time I am so free, so uncluttered, enough about me.
But ‘the little captain?’ Well … ‘the little Captain’ bloomed as he deserved. In two years, he blossomed so wonderfully, like a flower turned toward the sun. I noticed the difference every day as I waited for him after school, with that happy childish face.
“Hey ‘captain’ what marks did you get?”
“An A,” he said, all lit up.
In every class after that he always showed up first, so that, when one of the students had to answer in class the teacher said, “Well let’s hear first what ‘prime minister’ has to say!” Who was prime minister you might ask. Well ‘the captain’ who else, my ‘little captain’ whom the school had nicknamed ‘prime minister’ because he was so wise.
In the following years we moved house three times. Not because we were not happy with the previous one, the neighborhood or the people but because we had to. ‘The captain’ was growing up and changing schools and in the larger towns you had to move, to run, to save time and the cost of transport.
Can you guess now how tired I was from all that moving, from all those bags. Sometimes I saw myself as a maid. Life is passing me by as I carry around items, clothes and things, some of which, to tell the truth I’ve seen only two or three times. My mom’s glossy bag when she came for a visit, my dad’s grey tie, some handkerchiefs, the little radio, the beige raincoat, the black telephone, a bunch of photographs, notebooks and dairies. Would you understand if I said that carrying things around has become a habit even when I go out for a little while?
“Eh, as if her arms have lengthened, as if she’s been to the gym,” whistles ‘the little captain.’ He’s right.
If you see a lady walking making a click clack sound, pulling a suitcase at night in our road, it’s me and those are our suitcases. Sometimes, especially uphill their weight seems unbearable, so much so that I feel like throwing them away and be done with it! I feel my heart pounding, as if it will burst from all that burden, from all those memories. Then I stop and rest a while and call ‘the captain.’
“Take them,” I say, “These suitcases, up to the house.” ‘The captain’ obeys immediately. He knows very well that without these suitcases, we wouldn’t be what we are.
