On Monday morning, Nick sent me this email:
“1. Could you remind the gardienne today that we still need that phone number?
“2. Do not ask her how she is. Kosovo declared independence today, and I could barely get out of the house. She just kept going on about how it isn’t just–never mind that the Serbs murdered about 100K women and children.”
I tried, ‘kay? But the problem with this can be easily illustrated just by giving their two diverging versions of how their conversation started.
When I did, inevitably, get cornered by the (Serbian, by the way; born in Kosovo, in fact) gardienne, I mentioned that Nick had said something about her being upset. “Oh, yes,” she rhapsodized. “He was so kind. He was going to work this morning and saw that I was crying and asked what was wrong.”
I don’t think that you need to know my husband quite as well as I do to be skeptical.
“Is she kidding!?!” he exploded that evening. “I said, ‘Ça va?‘ and she said, ‘Oh, no, ça ne va pas bien.’ And I said, ‘Aw,’ and kept walking. And she shouted after me, ‘No, no–j’ai dit “Ça ne va pas bien!”‘ and then insisted on telling me why.”
It’s unthinkable for people from where we are from that one’s home might simply…stop being that. “They’re dealing drugs in our churches,” she wailed. “But Americans–I know, you don’t think so much about these little countries. You barely know which ones exist most of the time.” And it’s true, you know, however ungracious it might have been of her to say to the American who was actually listening to her at the time. If Connecticut seceded from the Union as a Buddhist state, would I–well, yeah. The thing is that it’s really almost too absurd to contemplate, even if I were to be away as long as she has been (25 years and counting, now).
On Tuesday I cooked a thoroughly homemade duck stew for a French man and his Singaporean wife, and on Wednesday I drove off with a Czech woman (you take your life in your hands) to look at wedding dresses (“Does it make you want to get married over again?” Kristina asked, a little too astutely). So, I mean…I’m feeling pretty international.
But…
…I’ve also been looking into vacation plans for this year. Looking at Italy, and Greece, and the south of France…maybe Tunisia. Maybe.
“Croatia?” the gardienne (who knows about my paternal grandmother) asked on Friday. “It’s lovely. And you like to cook; have you tried their food? Stuffed cabbage, or peppers–look, the next time I cook something Serbian or Croatian, you can taste some, and have the recipe if you want.”
Those little countries; you know?