Vera wiped hot tears from her cheeks. She deeply resented her brother Djordje. Djordje lived in Vienna. Djordje had disowned his past, built his shipping business, found some stupid Austrian girl to put up with him, and had two children. Nowadays, Djordje called himself “George Zweig.”
She didn’t exactly want Djordje dead—he was useful—but whenever Djordje tried to talk to her (which was far too often), Djordje scolded her. Djordje wanted her to leave Mljet, leave the Acquis, get married, and become limited and woodenheaded and stupid and useless to everybody and to the world, just like himself and his fat, ugly wife.
The existence of Djordje was a curse. Still, Djordje never gave her the absolute loathing that she felt in the core of her being at the very thought of her sisters. No one who had failed to know the depth of their union could ever know the rage and pain of their separation. And nobody knew the depth of their shattered union: not their tutors, not their machines, not even “George,” not even their so-called mother.
“Herbert, please. Stop debriefing me about my family. That is useless and stupid. I don’t have any family. We were never a family. We were a crazy pack of mutant creatures.”
“What about that tough girl, the army medic? George seems pretty close to her—they speak.”
“Sonja is far away. Sonja is on some battlefield in China. Sonja should be dead soon. People who go into China, they never come back out.”
“Where does your other sister ‘walk the Earth’ these days?”
Vera shouted at him. “We are Vera, Sonja, and Radmila! Those are our names. And our brother is Djordje. ‘George.’”
“Look, I know for a fact there are four of you girls.”
“Don’t you ever speak one word about Biserka! Biserka is like our mother: we never speak about that woman, ever. Our mother belongs in prison!”