The Making of Zombie Wars by Aleksandar Hemon Page A

keep his head and body segregated.
    Ana said something to the man, and he revolved to give her an angry look, responding with a word that, to Joshua, sounded gutturally ugly. The man did not look at Joshua once, waving the cleaver around as he was getting wound up about something. Ana stood between Joshua and the door, blocking off the retreat route, so he looked around the kitchen with feigned interest: a calendar from a butcher shop on the wall; a cuckoo clock with weights and an unmoving pendulum; the spice rack, spiceless. He nodded, as if to show his admiration for the simple, human ambition of the kitchen. The Levin syndrome: always seeing himself from someone else’s point of view, as if in a movie.
    Finally, mercifully, Ana said: “This is Esko, my husband.”
    â€œPleasure to meet you, Esko,” Joshua said. “I’m Joshua.”
    Esko moved the cleaver from his right to his left hand, as if considering shaking Joshua’s hand, still saying nothing. His jaw was wide and not only unshaven but layered with unshavenness; a big, blackish wart protruded from the depths of his hirsute cheek. Joshua understood at first glance that Esko disliked him.
    â€œI’m Ana’s English teacher,” he said, unnecessarily.
    â€œGood,” the man said and returned the cleaver to his right hand. A scene presented itself to Joshua: Esko grabbing his right hand, carelessly offered for a shake, then swinging the cleaver and slicing it off, the blood spraying the kitchen walls. Instead, Esko went back to dismembering the lamb, the splinters of meat flying about excitedly.
    â€œMy husband was born in boat,” she said.
    â€œOh really?” Joshua said. “That’s fascinating.”
    â€œThat’s what we say in Bosnia when somebody doesn’t know how to be nice.”
    â€œThat’s okay,” Joshua said. All of his utterances felt wrong, as if English suddenly were a language foreign to him. Esko placed the lamb’s head on the board, complete with its grotesquely googly eyes, and split it in two with one powerful blow. He picked up a piece of the brain with the cleaver and licked it off the blade. Born in an abattoir, more likely.
    â€œIt is not okay. He was not really born in boat. He is from good city family.”
    She was upset, he realized.
    â€œHe is my second husband,” she said, which Joshua elected to understand as not my first choice . She was grinding her teeth, snorting instead of breathing. He had an urge to put his arms around her and squeeze her hard, just to see how strong she was. She made choices: she was strong. But there were no dimples in sight.
    â€œI like your place,” Joshua said, helplessly.
    â€œGo look around,” she said.
    He slipped past her out into the hallway, but there was little to look at. He could hear Ana speaking to Esko with restrained fury, riddled with hard Eastern European consonants. Obediently, he opened the first door and it was the bathroom: towels, mirror, moldy dampness. He opened another one and it was their bedroom. The bed was unruly, as if sex had just been had in it; chairs covered with clothes; the smell of married bodies. A tower of books stood to one side, on top of which was Let’s Go, America! 5 . On the closet door handle, there were her bras, bundled like scalps. As a kid, Joshua had thoroughly searched his parents’ bedroom whenever they’d gone away: he’d frisked his father’s inside suit pockets, finding condoms; he’d looked through his mother’s dresser drawer, dug through her bras and underwear; he’d gone through their documents: bills, bank statements, letters to lawyers. He’d kept tabs on them; he’d found out unmentionable things. He’d known well before Rachel that Bernie had been fucking Constance on the sly. He closed the door.
    â€œIt’s crazy messy,” Ana said, right behind him. There was only one more door to open: a