Who Will Take Mother

The women from the neighborhood had washed the dishes, stacked the trays of halva in the fridge, and left before the evening prayer. The house still smelled of coffee and wet coats. Izet sat by the window in the room where his father-in-law had lain for nine years, watched the fog settle over Kalin hill, and kept quiet, because nothing else had ever been expected in this family from the son-in-law from Vitez. The hospital bed had already been taken apart and leaned against the wall. His mother-in-law, Nafija, had gone upstairs as soon as the last neighbor left. She said she was tired.

Nedžad closed the door to the hallway and sat down at the table, the way he sat down at the meetings of his air-conditioning firm in Sarajevo. He was the eldest and had never once forgotten it. "We have to settle things about Mom while we are all here," he said. "Edhem leaves on Thursday." He explained at once why Mom could not live with him: the apartment in Grbavica had two rooms, the kids were in high school, his wife worked until six, and Mom, as everyone knew, was used to her garden and would never last on the sixth floor.

Edhem listened with his eyes on his phone. He had flown in from Malmö by way of Vienna the day after their father died and arrived just in time for the funeral, in a thin black coat that was not made for a Bosnian October. He said he would gladly take Mom, but Sweden was not for her: dark by three in the afternoon, a language she did not know, neighbors who never said hello. "I will send money," he said. "A hundred euros a month. Maybe more, once I get my loan sorted out."

Fatima had been crying since morning, and now she was wiping her eyes with a paper napkin printed with the name of the funeral home. She would take Mom right away, she said, except that they lived with Izet's mother, and two older women in one kitchen, everyone knew how that ended. Besides, she worked in the shop until eight in the evening, and in summer on Sundays too. Izet looked at her. His mother was a gentle woman who had never quarreled with anyone in her life, but he said nothing.

Then they started counting. Edhem suggested Mom spend four months with each of them. Fatima said summer was impossible for her because of the season. Nedžad said he could not take winter, since that was when he had the least work and traveled, and that the house had to be sold in any case before it started to fall apart. He already had a buyer, an acquaintance from Sarajevo looking for a weekend house near Kupres, for the skiing. A house with a garden running down to the Vrbas could bring good money, he said, and the money would be split three ways. Nobody said four. They talked about their mother as if she were a sewing machine that had to be given to someone: she was modest, she did not need much, she was used to working, she would not be in the way.

Izet looked at the dismantled bed. For nine years, ever since Hasib had suffered a stroke in the garden among the potatoes, Nafija had turned him every two hours, fed him with a spoon, shaved him on Saturdays, and taken him by bus to his checkups in Travnik, because she had never gotten her driver's license. The children came for Bajram, brought boxes of chocolates, and left before dinner so they would not have to drive in the dark. Three years ago Izet had stayed with them for a week to replace the wiring, and one night he found his mother-in-law sitting at the kitchen table in her coat with her bag in her lap, as if she were waiting for a bus. When she saw him, she got up and put the water on for coffee. They never spoke about it.

"Maybe someone should ask her," said Izet. Nedžad nodded as if he had heard something useful and said he would ask her, of course, once everything was settled, so she would not worry for nothing. Fatima said Mom always agreed anyway. They reached an agreement: winter with Fatima, spring with Nedžad, summer they would see, and the house up for sale by April. Edhem sighed with relief and booked a taxi to the airport for Thursday.

That was when they heard steps on the stairs. Nafija did not come down in the black dress she had worn to receive condolences. She had on a navy blue jacket, new shoes, and a coffee-colored headscarf, and behind her she was pulling a small suitcase on wheels, the one Edhem had sent her five years ago, which until today had never left the wardrobe. She left it by the door and sat down in Hasib's armchair. "Everything carries through this floor," she said. "Your father knew that for nine years."

The children all started talking at once, and she raised her hand. "The house is not your father's," she said. "The house is mine. The winter he collapsed, your father signed it over to me at a notary in Travnik, so I would not have to drag myself from bank to bank with his powers of attorney. You never asked. You never had the time." From her jacket pocket she took out a folded paper and laid it on the table. "From the first of November, a doctor from the health center is moving into the house with her husband and two children. The rent and my pension are enough for me."

"And where are you going?" asked Nedžad, as if he had been called to a meeting he had not scheduled himself. "To Makarska," she said. "I have taken a studio apartment until April. In winter the only ones living there are seagulls and pensioners. As a girl I swam in the Vrbas, but never in the sea. In the spring I might go to Istanbul with Đulsa, who went to school with me. I don't know. For the first time in my life I don't know what I will be doing next week, and I like it."

"Mom, the day after the funeral," said Fatima. "What will people say?" "They will say I left," said Nafija. "That is true." She turned to Nedžad. "You have all had yours. University in Sarajevo, a wedding in a hotel, money for your first apartment, a ticket to Sweden, and a loan when your first firm went under. All of it came out of this garden and your father's wages, and I was the one counting. For forty-six years I have belonged to someone. First to him and to you, then only to him, when you could not come. Now I will belong to myself for a while." For the first time that day, Edhem put down his phone.

"Your father knew," she added more quietly. "Last summer, while he could still talk, he told me: when I am gone, don't you stay here guarding an empty bed. It is the only order of his I was ever glad to obey." She stood up and looked at them one by one, the way she used to count the heads of cabbage in the garden. "The bus to Split leaves tomorrow at six in the morning, by way of Kupres. Who is taking me to the station?" Nedžad said he had to leave early for work. Edhem said his taxi was not until Thursday. Fatima started crying again.

"I will take you," said Izet. At half past five in the morning the Vrbas still could not be seen for the fog. Izet put the suitcase in the luggage hold of the bus and handed her a paper bag with two warm rolls from the bakery that stays open all night. Nafija stood on the step of the bus and looked at him. "Have you ever been to the sea in winter?" she asked. "No," said Izet. "Neither have I," she said, and got on. She did not turn around to wave, and still he stood on the platform until the bus disappeared into the fog on the road to Kupres.