Free The Two Deaths of Senora Puccini by Stephen Dobyns Page B

with little effort.
    â€œYes, this man was in prison, a political prisoner somewhere. I don’t know the country. It turned out that the next cell was occupied by a Yugoslav, at least he said he was a Yugoslav. The two men couldn’t see each other but they could whisper back and forth. After a few days, the writer asked the Yugoslav to teach him a little Serbo-Croatian. You see, he was so bored, nothing to do, nothing to read. The Yugoslav refused but the writer kept asking him and after several more days the Yugoslav agreed. . . .”
    â€œIs this going to be a long story?” asked Malgiolio.
    â€œNot particularly. I just thought Batterby might be interested.”
    The oysters finished, we were sitting back drinking the champagne. Malgiolio chewed on a bit of lemon. “I was wondering if you knew where Pacheco got those oysters.” Malgiolio has very small teeth, almost like the teeth of a child.
    â€œWhy don’t you ask Pacheco when he returns?” I suggested.
    â€œI expect I will, since you can’t tell me. But what I mostly want to know about is the picture of the woman on the mantel. Do you think she’s his housekeeper?”
    â€œHe said she was,” said Dalakis. “Why should he lie?”
    â€œBut why keep her picture on the mantel?” asked Malgiolio.
    â€œCarl, go on about the Yugoslav,” I said.
    The boy reappeared carrying a tray with three bowls of a clear soup, which he set in front of us. He spilled a little on the tablecloth and for a moment we were distracted as he hurried to clean it up. Whenever he saw us watching, he blushed.
    Malgiolio tasted his soup, rolled it around in his mouth, then began to eat it rather quickly. I sipped a little. It was turtle soup with some sort of sherry. I didn’t recognize the kind.
    Dalakis glanced at Malgiolio with friendly exasperation. “The writer,” he said, continuing his story, “had a piece of chalk, or maybe it was charcoal. The Yugoslav would tell him a word and the writer would print it on the wall. Maybe ten words a day. Neither man knew how long he would be in prison and of course each expected to be released quite soon. In the meantime, they continued this course of instruction in Serbo-Croatian. Additionally, the Yugoslav began to tell the writer about Belgrade. He described the turrets and churches, how the city was built upon three hills. He talked about the rich houses covered with delicate tile mosaics and the ancient part of the city with its narrow winding streets and high white walls. He described the parks and lakes full of little boats and the profusion of flowers and the small bands of musicians that wandered through the outdoor cafés. He described the smell of cinnamon and bread baking and flowers and the smell of some sharp spice that one found everywhere.”
    I glanced at Malgiolio, but he was giving the same attention to his soup that he had given to his oysters and seemed unaware of our presence at the table. As for Dalakis, he occasionally took a spoonful of soup, spilling a little on his tie, a little on his chin, then dabbing at himself carelessly with his blue napkin.
    â€œAs months passed, the walls of the writer’s cell began to fill with words, and he and the Yugoslav began to have very simple conversations in this language, this Serbo-Croatian. The writer, who was a sort of wanderer, began to develop a passion to visit Belgrade, to see these places the Yugoslav described so vividly. And he felt that in this acquisition of language and by obtaining an exact description of the city, he was creating for himself a place to live, even a homeland.
    â€œA year went by, then a second and a third. At last the Yugoslav and the writer held all their discussions in Serbo-Croatian. Furthermore, the writer had managed to get paper and began to write poetry in this language, for you see he had made up his mind that when he left prison, he would go to