Just Love

Setting: Belgrade, Serbia, 2001.

Nada lay on her back watching the faint shadows as they shifted across the ceiling. Her eyes had long adjusted to the mix of moonlight and the pale glow from the street, both slipping through the raised edge of the window shade. The window stood open to the hot August night, yet the air in the room felt heavy and still. She stared upward without thought, numb except for the slow burn in her stomach. It felt like a small ball lodged deep inside her, something fuzzy and unwelcome that pressed against her with a quiet insistence. She knew it was close to four. The alarm clock on the nightstand ticked steadily in the dark, and she waited for it to sound before lifting a hand. When the bell rang, she silenced it at once, then sat on the edge of the bed. She had not slept, yet she did not feel tired. That ball in the pit of her stomach kept her wired and ready to go.

She switched on the small lamp by her bed, and the room eased out of darkness. A framed photo of her and Miloš appeared in the glow, taken at his high school graduation, her arm resting proudly around her son’s shoulder. It was taken almost a decade before, and she always marveled at how tall and handsome her little boy had become, missing entirely the endless beauty of her own smile.

Nada pushed herself to her feet with slow care, her slender figure emerging in the glow, and for a moment she had to gather the strength that did not come as easily now that she was fifty-five. She stood just above average height, thin through the shoulders and hips, with the delicate build of someone who had spent a lifetime running on endurance rather than strength. With quiet, practiced motions she changed her clothes. She dressed in a simple blue skirt with black stockings and a light summer blouse, navy with large white dots. The clothes were modest and neat, the kind she favored, meant to keep her presentable without ever drawing attention.

In the bathroom she turned on the overhead light and faced the mirror. Her short red hair brightened under the glare, though the darker brown of her natural color showed at the roots, along with the thin threads of gray that had begun to appear at the edges. Shadows rested beneath her eyes, some from the sleepless night, some from the years that had folded behind her. She looked at her reflection without flinching. Once she had been unmistakably beautiful. The outline of that beauty remained in the fine structure of her face, softened now into something gentler, something that came from within rather than from the surface.

The meaning of her name – hope – came to her for the first time after many years. She could not help but smile when the train of thought took her to the summer she spent in Spain as a teenager with the school choir, two bright weeks filled with music, bus rides, and the thrill of being far from home. Trying to explain how her name was Nada always turned into a gentle tangle of gestures and guesses that she and her best friend at the time found endlessly hilarious. The moment of joy was brief, but her soul appreciated it nonetheless.

Back in the room, she looked around and had the odd sense that something was different from last night, although she knew that made no sense. Like most flats built in the old days under communist rule, the space was small and plain, part of a gray block that looked much like the others around it. A tall wooden closet stood along one wall, and opposite it the bed pressed neatly against the wall beneath a small chandelier. Everything was tidy and in its place, yet in such a tight space even a few things could feel like many.

Instead of paintings or decorative photographs, the few open spots on the walls were filled with children’s drawings. Nada was a schoolteacher, only a few years away from retirement, and she had always loved her work. The classroom gave her days a rhythm she understood, and the children brought a kind of brightness that nothing else could replace. She loved their small triumphs, their sudden tears, their endless questions, and the way they looked at her as if she could steady the whole world with a story or a kind word. Teaching had carried her through the hardest years of her life, giving her purpose alongside her love for Miloš. It was the one part of her days that had never lost its meaning.

The quiet of the bedroom brought back a memory of Miloš at six or seven, darting between the furniture as he chased their dog, Rex. The name had always amused her. Miloš had wanted something grand, a big dog with a strong bark, and instead they brought home a small Cocker Spaniel with silky ears and timid eyes. Rex barely filled the space behind the armchair, yet Miloš ran after him as if the apartment were a field. Something or other would get knocked over, a vase or a picture frame, and she would scold them both before giving in. She never stayed angry for long. Miloš would throw his arms around her waist, Rex would circle her ankles, and the whole scene would dissolve into a tangle of kisses and laughter.

Leaving the memories behind, Nada tiptoed across the small hallway and slipped into the kitchen. The room doubled as a dining space, with a simple table and two chairs set facing each other. Above the counter were shallow cabinets for plates and glasses, and in the corner a small microwave sat beside the old stove. A narrow shelf next to the wall clock held a few more dishes, leaving the rest of the room bare. She stood for a moment, looking at the chairs and thinking only one would be needed soon. Working with slow, precise movements, she began assembling the gibanica – a traditional cheese pie – laying each sheet of pastry neatly in place and spreading the filling with care. The kitchen was silent except for the soft rustle of paper and the click of the oven door as she slid the pan inside. Everything she touched stayed clean, ordered, and exact, as if the neatness alone was her unique signature on the face of this earth.

Now came the moment Nada dreaded the most. She looked at the wall clock – it was half past five. On her toes, she glided to the other bedroom where Miloš was sleeping. She had always done it this way, never quite understanding why since her aim was to wake him up. Still, she did not have the heart to do it abruptly. With the light that was coming from the hallway, she studied his face for a long moment. Miloš was twenty-seven. His tall frame seemed too large for the narrow bed he slept in as a boy, all long limbs and sharp angles. He was thin, though his shoulders were broad in a way that hinted at strength rather than heaviness. The black hair he had inherited from his father fell over his forehead, and in sleep his features softened into the boy she had raised.

Mornings came back to her, the years when she would stand over his small bed and whisper that the teacher was waiting, that it was time to get up. He always wanted one more minute, his voice muffled in the pillow, bargaining for a little more warmth. He had been stubborn from the beginning, sometimes a touch spoiled, yet always a good and steady child. By the end of his first week in school he announced he wanted to walk there on his own. The building stood only a few hundred yards away, visible from their kitchen window, though he still had to cross one street. She let him try, but she followed him each morning, hiding behind trees and standing at corners so he would not see her. For months she walked after him like that, watching until he reached the gate, then later she kept her post at the window until she felt ready to let him go.

“Come on, wake up,” she whispered. “Come on, it’s time.”

He opened his eyes at once, far too quickly for someone who had slept deeply. She leaned down and kissed his forehead, the way she had done since he was small. “Come on,” she said again, softer now, and left him to get dressed.

In the kitchen she sat at the table and looked toward the stove. The oven hummed quietly, the smell of the gibanica rising in slow waves through the room. Her thoughts drifted to Miloš, to the way he had always seemed certain of himself, even as a boy. She had been the one at his side through everything. She raised him on her own in all the ways that mattered.

Zdravko had been present in name more than in life, even before he left. His work kept him traveling when they were married, and after the divorce he drifted away even further. Fourteen years earlier he had gone to another woman, much younger, when that woman became pregnant. There had been shouting, sharp words thrown in pain, and long silences afterward. She told herself she forgave him, yet something inside her had never quite closed. He was tall and clever, with the same lean build Miloš carried, and a way of explaining things as if he alone understood how the world worked. Useful in his profession as an engineer, maddening at home.

The nineties had been the hardest. Yugoslavia had broken apart in a chain of violent conflicts, and each new war brought more fear, more loss, and more uncertainty. By the end of the decade the country she grew up in no longer existed, replaced by smaller states and the exhaustion of those who had lived through its collapse. She and Miloš had weathered that time together. They were a team. She took care of him, but she had always treated him with the respect she would give an adult. Even when she denied him something as a child, she listened to his arguments. They would talk at this same kitchen table, though he kept his private world behind a wall. He rarely mentioned the girls he liked or the things he did with friends. That closed-off part of him came from his father, she knew, but it never kept him distant from her.

Nada lifted her head and saw Miloš standing in the doorway. He was wearing a pair of jeans and a T-shirt he always used for travel. Their eyes met for a brief moment before he looked away. He understood what this morning meant to her; she could feel it in the way he held himself, careful and uneasy.

He leaned over to check the gibanica in the oven, using the opportunity to touch her softly on the shoulder. Then he sat across from her at the table, still avoiding her eyes. She reached out and placed her hand over his.

“Should we call Maja,” she asked, “just to make sure she’s okay? That everything’s all right over there?”

“I’m sure she’s fine,” he said. “Everything will be okay.”

She remembered how uneasy he had been, true to his quiet nature, on the day he first told her about Maja. He was a university student then, studying to be a civil engineer like his father, when he met a beautiful girl on a bus. Maja came from a small town in the northern province of Vojvodina, and very quickly she became the center of his world. Nada had sensed the change before he ever said a word. He smiled more in those weeks. His face seemed lighter, as if someone had opened a window in him. She knew he had met someone and waited patiently for him to speak.

When he finally did, they were sitting at this very kitchen table. It was the first time he had ever told her about a girl. All the others she learned about in fragments, overheard or guessed, or by watching him come home late with that guarded expression he always wore. But this time he spoke openly. And only a week later he brought Maja over for dinner. She remembered the moment the girl stepped inside: a sweet, soft-spoken blonde with blue eyes and a thin frame much like her own. Nada knew at once that this would be her daughter-in-law. She liked her immediately and understood, with a feeling that settled deep and warm, that she would love her, too. Maja was a teacher, just like she was, working in a kindergarten and carrying with her the same quiet steadiness that had always lived in their home.

The phone rang. Nada stood up and answered it. Zdravko’s voice came through the line, edged with the noise of passing cars. Even at this hour there was traffic in Belgrade, a fact that crossed her mind in a brief, detached way.

“I’ll be there soon. Is everything okay?” he asked.

“Yes, of course,” she said. “Just enter the building without ringing. The door is broken, so you can go straight up.”

He added something else, a few more words carried along with the hum of his engine, but she was no longer listening. She lowered the receiver and set it back in its place.

Zdravko had insisted on being the one to drive them to the airport, even though he lived only a short distance from it. Instead of meeting them there, he chose to cross the entire city and then double back again, determined that his son would not arrive in a cab. It was the rare moment when he went out of his way for Miloš, she thought, when she first heard of his plan. But she let it go, just like she did everything he said these days.

When Nada came back to the kitchen, Miloš was already back in his room. She could hear him closing his suitcases, and a shiver ran down her spine for the first time. This is it.

* * *

Zdravko was panting when she opened the door. He was as tall as ever, with wide-rimmed glasses sliding down the bridge of his nose and thinning hair already graying at the edges. A small beer belly bulged under his wrinkled t-shirt, and his jeans looked slept in. She noticed these things at once; she always noticed the small details he never thought mattered.

He brushed past her and muttered a curse under his breath. Not only was the front door of the building broken, the elevator was out of service as well.

“I knew this would happen. Something always has to go wrong. The car wouldn’t start this morning,” he said, half out of breath. He moved through the apartment like a policeman on a raid, scanning the entryway where Miloš was taking out his suitcases. One was very large, and the other one was a carry-on.

“You good?” he asked. “Everything ready?”

“All good,” Miloš answered, looking his father straight in the eye, almost defiantly.

“Okay then. Did you talk to Maja?”

“She’ll be fine,” he replied.

“Let’s go.”

Zdravko reached for the larger suitcase. Before he could lift it, Miloš put his hand on the handle and stopped him.

“I’ll do it,” he said, and pulled it away, stepping out of the front door first.

“He knows everything best, like always,” Zdravko said.

You should talk, Nada thought to herself. The whole scene felt distant, as if she were underwater. Movements reached her dimly, voices softened at the edges. Things were happening in front of her, but she was not truly part of them. She simply stood there, breathing, taking it in, unsure what she was supposed to do next.

Then Zdravko’s voice cut through the haze and pulled her back.

“Come on, let’s go. Why are you just standing there?”

He held the smaller suitcase now, his impatience rising. This was how he handled stress, pretending nothing momentous was happening, as if Canada were not halfway across the world, as if they were leaving for a weekend in the mountains rather than saying goodbye to their only son.

By the time they stepped out of the building, the sun had already risen, bright and steady, promising a hot August day. The car waiting outside was a white Opel Vectra, the older model from the early nineties, long past its prime. Getting the luggage into the trunk proved harder than either wanted to admit. Zdravko tried to take control, lifting the heavier bag at an awkward angle, insisting he knew the best way to fit everything. Miloš stepped in at once, correcting him, shifting the bags around, refusing to let his father handle them alone. Nada waited beside the rear door until the trunk finally slammed shut, then got into the backseat.

Inside the car, the first thing that reached her was the sharp, artificial smell of a pine-tree air freshener hanging from the rearview mirror. Next to it swung a Red Star emblem – the logo of one of Belgrade’s big football clubs – faded at the edges, bumping lightly against the plastic tree each time the car moved. The back seat felt cramped and disorderly. Loose papers were scattered on the floor, and a crumpled receipt lay near her feet. Dust lined the edges of the seat cushions, and the fabric was stained in places where no one had bothered to wipe it clean. The disorder made her uneasy. It was not just the mess itself, but what it said about Zdravko, about the way he lived, and about his wife who clearly did not mind a car left in such a state. As she settled into the seat, Nada folded her hands in her lap and tried to focus on the passing scenery instead.

They drove along one of the main boulevards as the morning light spread slowly over the city. The sidewalks were already busy. Cars were parked half on the pavement, half in the street. Graffiti covered the walls of old apartment blocks, some new, some overlapping layers of spray paint from years before. Even at this hour there was more traffic than she expected. It was not a beautiful city, not in any simple way, but it was hers. She had grown up here and so had her son. Like the haberdashery her grandmother once owned, where she played as a little girl, every corner of the city seemed to offer its own colored thread, each one tugging at her heart mercilessly.

As they passed Miloš’s high school, she felt a small pinch in her chest. She remembered the day that photograph on her nightstand was taken. He needed his first suit for graduation, and they spent an entire afternoon going from shop to shop. Nothing fit right, and the prices were impossible, yet somehow they managed. They bought the jacket in one store and the pants in another, relieved to find they were close enough in color to look like a pair. Choosing the tie took even longer. Miloš wanted something plain and gray, something safe. She tried to convince him to pick something brighter. In the end they bought both. She was completely broke afterward. She never told him she had borrowed money for it, only that he looked handsome. And he did. She had never been prouder.

In the front seat, Zdravko’s voice rose and fell in its usual rhythm, cutting through her thoughts.

“So, is everything ready? You know how it is over there. You sure you got all the papers? All the visas? Everything for the two of you?”

“Yes, Dad,” Miloš said.

“Well, you got to be careful. In Canada they don’t screw around. You’ll be working hard. It’s not going to be like here, where your mother does things for you, or I help you out. I got you that job and told you to be patient. Not a lot of money at first, but you work your way up. But no, you quit.”

“I didn’t quit,” Miloš said. “I decided to try something else. To have a better life for my family.”

“Well, if you say so. But those Canadians, they think different. They’ll work you to death. You’ll see. You’ll learn.”

Nada listened quietly. Zdravko had never been to Canada. The farthest he had gone was Greece a few times and once to Italy, yet listening to him, you would think he had traveled the world. She looked at the back of his wrinkled T-shirt, the way it bunched beneath his seat belt, and felt her old, familiar mixture of irritation and resignation.

They crossed the bridge into Novi Beograd, the sun rising higher over the Sava River. She looked out across the wide blocks and open spaces, the rows of gray buildings lined like teeth. God, every time I cross this bridge, she thought. This city. In the morning sun it looked almost beautiful, the kind of beauty that catches you off guard. How could a place be so ugly and so beautiful at the same time?

As they turned onto the road leading toward the airport, she felt the knot in her stomach tighten again. It rose slowly, like a fist closing inside her. Her palms grew damp. The closer they came, the harder it was to breathe.

When they arrived at the airport, Maja and her parents were already there. Both of them were kind people, solid and polite, doctors from a small town north of Belgrade. She would never admit this to anyone, but they always reminded Nada of a pair of hobbits, both short and a little stocky, with curious eyes and the kind of gentle, pleasant smile they seemed to wear no matter the occasion. Their eyes were red as they greeted Zdravko and Nada. Although the young couple had spent the past year in a rented apartment not far from Nada’s home, they chose to spend their final two days before leaving with their respective parents. Now they were all meeting here, the last real family gathering they would have for a long while.

Maja looked beautiful, Nada thought. Her stomach was just beginning to show, the faintest curve under her blouse, and in that moment Nada felt she had never seen her shine like this. They had learned about the pregnancy only two days after the immigration visas had finally been approved. Bittersweet hardly covered it; she lived that whole week in a state she could never put into words, full of sadness and joy at once.

They all hugged. There were tears. Nada looked at Miloš and Maja standing together and felt a swell of pride. He had chosen well. They were starting a life, a family, even if that life would be far from her.

“Did you get everything? Are you ready? Should we get the tickets?” Zdravko asked, his voice rising and falling in short bursts. He was nervous. She could see it in the way he shifted from foot to foot, as if trying to outrun his own feelings. For a moment she felt a small flicker of sympathy for him. Neither of them knew how to carry sorrow properly. She pushed hers inward, letting it settle deep where no one could see it, while he let his out in these restless streams of talk, these tedious word salads that spilled out whenever he did not know what else to do.

They sat at an overpriced café near the departures hall, watching the morning crowd thicken around them. Most people looked as if they had just rolled out of bed, hair uncombed, shirts wrinkled, faces puffy with sleep or travel. Tears glistened on some cheeks; on others there was excitement, impatience, or the blank stare of someone simply trying to get from one place to another. Nada looked at all those faces and wondered about their stories. Were some of these parents saying goodbye to their children today? Were others heading out on short trips, vacations, business flights? A sports team in matching sweatpants and hoodies moved in a loud cluster across the hall. An elderly couple shuffled by with careful steps. A group of young backpackers lounged with oversized bags at their feet. Around her she heard a dozen languages – snatches of English, German, Arabic, French, and more – all mixing together in a low, constant murmur.

The airport itself felt busier than it had in years. After a decade of UN sanctions and empty departure boards, the Belgrade Airport was finally waking up again. The old terminal, with its pale floors and flickering overhead lights, carried the smell of fresh paint in some spots and the stubborn scent of age in others. It was far from glamorous, but life had returned to it. Planes were taking off again, real international flights rather than the limited domestic trips of the nineties. Although she had not been at this airport for close to a decade, Nada realized this was the first time she had looked around and really taken it in. She would always remember this day as a patchwork of emotional moments that would stay with her as long as she lives. They were floating like islands in a sea of half-forgotten nothingness, and she would wonder how she hopped from one island to the other, and who was in control of her body as she did so.

At their table the air felt heavy. No one seemed to know what to say. They sat together but apart, united only by the ache of what was coming. From time to time someone checked a watch, although the minutes barely seemed to move. Miloš and Maja sat side by side, holding hands tightly, nervous but steady. Whatever they felt, whether fear or hope or guilt, each of them wished this moment would pass quickly. And for that very reason it stretched on and on, refusing to end.

Zdravko was the first to stand up. Nervous as he was, he glanced at his watch and made something that sounded like an official family announcement: “It’s time.” Everyone rose at once, more than ready for the moment to move forward. They each checked the table and stools around them, the habitual sweep travelers make in places like this, and then headed toward the big old-fashioned split-flap board that listed the departing flights. Regular travelers knew this spot well; it was where the real journey began, because right below it stood the entrance to security and passport control, the point of no return that parents like Nada dreaded. As the steady streams of passengers converged on this small estuary of the terminal, she listened to the letters on the board flipping over, one tile after another, with the rapid clatter of a jackpot machine. Good luck or bad luck for Miloš and Maja? Only time would tell.

Before they stepped into the restricted area, Nada took Miloš into her arms. It was not the polite embrace of adults. It was the kind of kiss and hold she had not given him since he was a baby boy, something deep and instinctive, pulled from a place in her that had no words. Tears ran down her face without restraint as she pressed all her love into that moment. She whispered to him to take care of Maja, to take care of the child, to be the man she knew he already was.

He kissed her back, something he rarely allowed himself to do. Like so many men, he had been raised to swallow his feelings, to keep them hidden behind a shield of calm. But this time he let the shield drop, just enough for her to feel his fear and his love. They stayed like that longer than either expected.

Nada turned to Maja and pulled her into a long embrace. She held her tightly, feeling the small swell of her stomach between them, and slipped a folded stack of bills into her hand. “He wouldn’t take it,” Nada whispered. “So you will.”

Maja looked down and shook her head. “But it’s too much. You’ve already given too much.”

“No,” Nada said. “It’s for the baby. You must take it.”

Maja’s eyes filled again, and she nodded, closing her fingers around the money with a quiet, trembling “Thank you.”

After they watched the young couple disappear from view, Nada and Zdravko stood together without moving for a long moment. All the years between them suddenly felt thin. For the first time in fourteen years, they shared something unguarded, stripped of past grievances and old wounds. She reached out and touched his forearm, a small gesture, and rested her head lightly on his shoulder. He put an arm around her, tentative at first, then steadier. They sat down, side by side, on a row of empty chairs, silent, joined only by the ache in their chests.

She thought of everything that had brought them to this point. It would have been impossible for Miloš and Maja to leave without help, and she had been the one to make it possible. There was a moment, early in their preparations, when it seemed they would not manage it at all, when every document and fee felt like another wall closing in. She decided then to give them the only thing of real value she had. She sold the house she had inherited from her parents, the last piece of her childhood, and offered the money as their wedding present. She remembered their faces when she told them on the day of the wedding, hoping the news would bring relief rather than cast a shadow over the celebration. Miloš had not wanted to ask her for anything, not out of pride but out of love. She knew that. And she gave it to him willingly, even though the same gift now felt like a blade turning inside her.

The truth was, she had inherited that house for a reason. For him. So that he could have a life not pinned down by the weight of this city, its wartime shadows, and the exhaustion that followed in their wake. The pain in her stomach tightened, but beneath it she felt something steadier, a kind of quiet certainty.

This was the best thing she had ever done.

Maja’s parents came over to say goodbye, and the moment slipped away. Still, a trace of the peace it had given her stayed with her for a long time.

* * *

Zdravko offered to drive Nada home, but she declined. He had a thirteen-year-old daughter to get to school and a wife who never took kindly to excuses. She would have felt sorry for him, but he had made his own bed long ago. Instead, she gave him a hug and sent him on his way. The wall clock over the exit door showed that it was not even ten o’clock in the morning, but Nada felt she had spent a week’s worth of energy. Slowly and carefully, as if she was walking through a minefield, she stepped outside and hailed a cab. She felt she was losing control of her body and needed to empty her mind in silent meditation. The ride was uneventful, the city sliding past her window without shape or meaning. The only detail that stayed with her afterward was the smell of the pine air freshener, the same harsh scent Zdravko used in his car. It felt like a circle was closing, but she was too tired to let her emotions take her down that treacherous path.

The cab driver, one of those slovenly-dressed, unshaven men in their mid-forties who drove most of Belgrade’s taxis at the time, noticed the vacant look in Nada’s eyes and kept quiet for the entire trip. He had taken a lot of mothers like her to and from the airport in the last few months and he knew better than to intrude on her pain. When they arrived, he stepped out, opened the door for her, and asked softly if she needed him to walk her to the building. She thanked him for the gesture, pressed some money into his hand, and began the short walk toward the entrance. Her legs felt heavy. Left, right, left, right. Thirty-two – she counted the steps to her building the way she did when she was a child.

At that moment, a gust of hot wind, so unusual for that place and time, broke her trance and gave her enough of a pause to gather herself for the climb upstairs. When she reached the apartment, she unlocked the door and walked into the stillness. The rooms felt hollow without Miloš, as if something essential had been pulled out of the air. Nada went to the bedroom and sat on the edge of the bed.

She reached for the top drawer of her nightstand and pulled out a stack of children’s drawings. Every four years, when her fourth graders said goodbye, she would get a drawing from each child to thank her for the time they had spent together. They were snapshots of happy childhood moments that all had her as the towering, loving figure in the foreground. Nada had always loved her work, even when the days were long and the pay barely enough to live on. She loved the noise of the children, the small victories, the endless questions, the way a lesson could take shape from nothing. She set the stack on her lap, and her eyes fell on a rainbow. A child’s handwriting sprawled across the page, uneven and earnest. She took it in with a smile and knew this could still turn out to be a good day after all.