Page 62 of Slanting Towards the Sea
FIFTY-SEVEN
IT’S A FEAT, BUT in a couple of days I manage to get everything ready.
I order the platters of prosciutto and cheese to be served in our home at the wake, give instructions to the florist for the farewell wreath with Sa?a’s and my name on it, and another one with Sa?a’s, Silvija’s, and the kids’ names.
I arrange for the funeral car to take Dad’s body from the morgue to the chapel; change the sheets on Sa?a’s bed to prepare for his and Silvija’s arrival tomorrow morning; successfully avoid both Asier’s and Vlaho’s calls and limit our communication to texts.
“busy, busy,” I say each time. “so much to do, so little time.”
Between the delirium of fresh grief, all the texts, calls, and the telegram condolence cards that fall out in heaps whenever I open our mailbox, I almost miss the two emails that arrive in my inbox. The first one is from the Croatian Employment Services. It’s mercifully succinct.
We are sorry to inform you that your application for self-employment aid has been declined.
Unfortunately, the Committee didn’t find that you have the relevant work experience in the field you want to start the business in, or that you have successfully demonstrated that there are enough potential business partners to make your business plan viable.
As soon as I read those words, I want to scream at the screen, at those fools who wrote this nonsense.
Of course, I don’t have the relevant work experience.
If I did, I wouldn’t be needing self-employment aid.
The urge to crumple my phone and hurl it into a wall is overwhelming.
But what’s the point of getting upset? Absurdities like these are the air we breathe here, so I push it down to where I store all my defeats, my legs leaden with them.
I mindlessly move a dozen newsletters and spam emails that got through the filter into the trash folder, and almost miss it, the subject line being as spammy as they get: Financing just came through from the EU , but then just as I’m about to hit delete I recognize the Italian scientist’s name as the sender.
If I’m still interested, she’d like me to send a CV and a cover letter, and we can do an interview via Zoom.
It’s a formality, she says, she already knows she wants me for the job.
She discloses what they’ll be able to offer if I’m interested.
It’s not a hefty amount of money, and I wouldn’t be eligible for a relocation package.
But she offers to help me navigate the difficult Florentine apartment market herself, which I assume is more than what she does for other people, a nod to the way we hit it off seven months ago in Split.
I turn around in my excitement, almost yelling “Hey, Dad!” but then I catch myself, the words on the brink of coming out, in the place where they’re the most difficult to contain.
In the garden in front of me, the grass glistens with morning dew, the rusty leaves of hibiscus peppering the ground.
A strange sensation comes over me, like I’m detached from this place I’ve called home my entire life, like I don’t belong here now that everyone else is gone.
But then I realize, it’s not just this house, it’s this town, this country.
Croatia has been rejecting me all my life, and I refused to accept it.
She’s made every step of my life difficult.
A climate where the favored succeed over the capable.
A place where adoptions take decades and sometimes never happen.
A place that offers a chance of free education but no work in your field of expertise, and then denies aid for self-employment as if it’s your fault that you couldn’t obtain the required work experience.
And yet, I’ve kept binding myself to it.
But it’s over. I’m done. I’m ready to set myself free, cut the last thread holding me here.