Baba Yaga Laid an Egg

On Saturday morning, when David’s car left the famous spa town, the sky was blue, the grass green, the trees with their dense branches were casting sharp shadows, and between the shadows, as though jumping over invisible strings, large black crows were scampering. David was thinking over the whole tangle of unusual circumstances, about people’s lives, Asja’s, Pupa’s, Kukla’s and Beba’s, about the chance chain of events that had led him to Filip, Beba’s son, then a bit about his own life. They had all been drawn towards each other for a moment like magnets. He thought about Pupa. Lives could turn out one way or another, most of us live our lives shoddily, but at least then that famous metaphorical descent from the train ought somehow to be calculated in time and an effort made to ensure that the descent itself is not shoddy. We are not responsible for our arrival in the world, but perhaps we can be for our departure. At the last moment, Pupa had thrown the ball that had been placed in front of her (in which David too had played his part), and the little ball had first of all flown in the expected direction – towards her grandchildren, Zorana’s and Asja’s children – but then in the end it had rolled away where no one had anticipated, and, what was most important, where its fall would cause it to spin in a livelier and more useful way: towards Kukla, Beba and Wawa.

What a young man! What a wonderful young man! thought Kukla, sitting comfortably sprawled on the back seat of the car. David had not only arranged everything, but now he was even driving them home, to Zagreb. Pupa was at this moment flying in her egg from Prague to Zagreb, and she would be met at the airport by a funeral service that would take her to the morgue. David had thought of that as well. And he had managed to organise Pupa’s funeral: that would take place in two days’ time. He had found the requisite addresses on the Internet and got everything done with a few phone calls. The money that Pupa had left in her will to Kukla and Beba had already been transferred to a newly opened joint account in both their names. Beba’s money, the sum she had won gambling, had also been transferred to the joint account, at Beba’s insistence. All the papers had been signed, not a single detail had been overlooked. A special account had also been opened with money intended exclusively for Wawa’s future education. All the rest had been left up to Beba and Kukla, although David had promised that he would be available to help at any time.

Through the car window Kukla watched the clouds, white and weightless as beaten egg white. She let her thoughts run once again over the list of things she had to do. She had to buy a new computer and would have to start looking round schools. That would be a challenging task, to find out which were the best schools. And then, maybe Wawa would want to go to ballet school, and music school, and skating, oh, there were so many things! Kukla decided that she would sell her flat and put all the money in one place, and then she and Beba could talk everything over, how, what and when. Because who knows how much longer she would be on hand for Wawa. If she had inherited lucky genes, and it seemed as though she had, she would be in this world for a while yet, absorbed in a new, wonderful and unique task – Wawa! She would be Wawa’s auntie, Wawa’s auntie Kukla. But if she thought about it all, perhaps it wasn’t so important that she and Beba should plan things in advance. Perhaps they ought to instill something different into Wawa, some learning that would make her wise, something that no school in the world could give her.