Chapter Text
“Ladies and gentlemen, please fasten your seatbelt as we are approaching Francis International Airport, thank you, and welcome to Liberty City.”
The sky outside ascends with its clouds, the descends isn’t drastic, but certainly felt below his seat. From afar, he could see the airport, the runways, and even the air control tower. He has arrived.
Radovan takes out his notebook from his backpack — a quite small notebook, just as large as two of his palms, with green hardcover, dotted with white circles, creating a polka dot pattern — then starts to write on the yellowish paper:
“29 April, 2009.
I have landed in America, and i wish to meet my sister soon.”
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The long arm of the jetway stretches to dock into the plane’s door, with the passengers already prompted to leave the aircraft, and Radovan won’t make his stay longer. He stands up with his backpack clutched behind him. His feet pads onto the carpeted jetway, a whole new texture than the hard plane’s floor before. This one feels like, of course, walking on a carpet.
This jetway doesn’t have transparent walls, so what Radovan sees throughout his walk is just lines of fluorescent light above him, other passengers he tailed, and the jetway’s wall.
“Endless parchment paper,” a silly thought crosses his mind while his eyes are on the walls, a small awkward smile plants on his face.
Even before he enters the main terminal, the noise of the world is already heard from where he walks. It made him slightly scared: imagine walking by yourself in a land where no one knows who you are and vice versa. Even so, that fear is not disturbing, he’s still able to walk into the grand terminal.
The date Radovan picked is simply random — 28th of April — but he just arrived the next day as a travel that far takes definitely a lot of time. Yet despite the randomly plucked day (Tuesday), the airport is still highly populated with people.
He’s overwhelmed by the stuff around him. Flight boards change as airplanes stop and go, people walking while talking with the noise of their dragged luggage, announcement over announcement. He keeps his pace, his eyes on the terminal’s door.
So many kinds of people here he could only see in mere glance and peripheral vision: from business suits to relaxed blazers, from important people to a family. There is one bringing a whole cart of luggages and another with just a backpack, like him. The view from the huge window facing the world is already magnificent from here, now imagine when…
…he is outside. The noise did not subside but softened instead. It’s still overwhelming, but it's more to get thrown by pillows this time. Cars are lining in front of him all the way to the ramp. They are dropping and picking people up. The view is as how he imagines it: brown leaves on trees, hurried steps of the Libertonians — people from Liberty, as per his sister — rushing to their gates inside, and the wind breeze sweeping on him.
Yellow cars…Radovan knows these are taxis, but never thought to see them with his eyes in front of him. The one he decides to ogle on is the sedan variant, with full on yellow paint outside of the black tires. There is a decal of the taxi fare, $2.50 initial fare and the mileage. The roof has that iconic taxi sign, where this one instead has advertisement on it. He squints his eyes to inspect the advertisement there: seems to be a show named “I’m Rich $” (dollar sign included) written with calligraphy font and golden color, four people behind the text, and a slogan “Celebrate Greed 5 times a week” are below the main title. Also this show seems to air on CNT, the text is too small for him to know what CNT means.
Enough ogling the taxi car (as it already drives away too), Radovan looks around then, observing the airport he is in. The building of the airport is large, concrete colored, with rigid design and windows being the whole walls. Despite the rigidity, the upper part looks like wings expanded and full of windows, but still rigid if he stares at it from here. There are four roads all feeding and coming from one road. There is a sign on the part where the road splits into four, he can’t read it from this side. In one of the separations, the road leads to a small portal into a multi storey parking lot.
The time is ticking and Radovan is well hungry now. Where is his sister? He knows she can drive now so there should be no excuse. He wonders what she looks like now, what car will even greet him soon. His backpack becomes slightly heavier than before, either from his lumping back or he is just getting hungrier.
A white sedan glides from the ramp and enters the waiting parking space in front of the terminal. It nearly crashes into a taxi, what a reckless driver. The window of the driver’s side rolls down, a familiar face pops out with a smile, hairs down and a blue shirt wrapping the body.
“Took you long enough.” Radovan comments, her sister is here.
“I forgot your arrival time.” She answers, unlocking the door.
“Right,” he opens the door in the back seat to throw his backpack, before stepping into the passenger’s seat at the other side of the car. His sister, Emilija, turns the car’s gear from park to one, before driving away from the airport’s terminal.
“How’s your first flight?” she asks, the car continues forward, following the loop of the parking lot and subway station.
“It took forever,” he answers, his eyes observing the moving scenery, “there is no direct flight from Skopje to Liberty City after all, so I have to transit.”
“What flight and what transit?”
“POT, not that expensive,” the car enters the wide freeway, not many cars on the roads, “transit in Warsaw before a direct flight to America.”
“Not that expensive on what scale?”
“Nine thousand.”
“Damn,” he can feel her American accent mixing with her Macedonian, “and where did you get that money? You’re a broke boy, you know?”
“What’s a broke boy? I am not broken.”
“Poor, no money, you know?” She looks over at him, “you probably never see an American dollar outside the television, here.” She hands her two bills; one $20 bill and another a $5 bill.
“This is…25 dollars.” He counts the money, “but thanks anyway.”
“Don’t ditch money like that, it’s possibly around 1000 denars or so in those two bills alone,” she laughs a little, “so how about food then? You look hungry.”
“What food?”
“Our food,” he saw the car pass the first interchange, the car did not turn in this one, “how about gomleze, hm?”
He sits there while thinking about his sister’s choice of food, a rail . He didn’t know if the food would be bought or cooked, but either way it’s not wrong to try a hometown cuisine after he arrives.
“The fast food here is terrible,” she adds before he could answer, “but if you actually want to try that, we can just stop by for one.”
“Maybe later,” he finally answers, the car enters the second interchange, it drives right into the ramp, entering the larger boulevard below before stopping at a red light.
“In that case, gomleze?” she presses the gas again after the light’s turning green, then takes a left turn.
“Да, секако.” (Yes, of course)
“Одлично!” (Great!) she respects his response, before switching back to English, “now the taste might be different but I am trying to make it similar like how mother cooked it.”
“We’ll see then.” the car turns right, evading the roundabout. A park is now the scenery for her side.
After taking a left turn, into the road with metro rail above it, she drives onward until she parks beside a building — an internet cafe to be exact, with apartment units above it.
“Here we are, man,” it’s always funny hearing Emilija sounding American with that accent. “I cannot park the car here, no parking spot as you see. You want to stay here or some with me?”
“I guess coming with you is better,” the car drives away quickly, “to know more about the city too.”
“Know more on what? I park the car just in the street behind the building.” And she did not lie, she entered a street, then into a larger avenue, before parking it with many others on the side of the road. The width of the road also serves parking in this dense area.
“Is it safe?”
“I’m the one living here for seven years, of course it’s safe!” she slams the door with her hand, before locking it. “Now follow me, we can take the alleyway shortcut.”
“Why took a shortcut?” he asks, their shoes pad on the concrete ground.
“Maybe because going back around takes longer, I don’t know.”
The walk is short, though it was expected since they took a path named shortcut, where instead of a full minute — maybe less — it just took 20 seconds! What a genius.
They stand before Emilija’s apartment building. With how dense Liberty City is, multiple buildings here are classified as mixed-use buildings — buildings where it serves as both residential and commercial unit, or like this one resided by her. This one has an internet cafe below, the sign atop the entrance reads “TW@” with a gradient of cyan and purple as the backdrop. Right now, Radovan is staring into the huge window that reflects the inside of the ground store.
The window was dirty, but it was transparent enough to see what’s behind. There is a receptionist section right beside the entrance, a woman with a purple uniform stands behind it. Further inside are lines of computers — each is a set of boxy monitor and its computing machine beside the desk. There is another section in the right side, though he can’t see pretty well, that area instead has the computers circling the huge support pillar. It seems to be designated as a “Gamer Zone”. Radovan hasn’t tried these new computers, let alone to game in it. He planned he will, later.
She pushes the door beside the whole business, the one that leads into the apartment unit in the upper floors. As it opens, a stair is revealed. There is a bulletin board on their right, plastered with posters from job applications to advertisements to missing people to “do you like feet as I am?” kind of posters.
They keep climbing, the sun behind them is casting from the windowsill. It wasn’t too hot — it’s still April after all — it provides enough lighting to travel around. After reaching the third floor, she takes a turn into the hallway, Radovan falls behind.
His shoes are well worn, it was his father’s after all. Brown leather, maybe already peeling but he just glued it years ago. The soles are tapping against the hardwood floor, dark oak in color and possibly type.
“And here’s where I live,” Emilija stops, 304 is carved on the ashy white door, “and we live from now on, maybe.” She pulls a key from her pocket, before unlocking the door with it. She turns the knob over, and the door opens.
To call her apartment modest is a fitting word, indeed. First he saw the kitchen unit on his left: a stove, a countertop, and a sink are in row. Beside the kitchen part is the bathroom, supposedly, judging by the drying mat on the door. Then in front of the kitchen is a table for four but only two chairs next to each other, facing the living room which is just a couch, coffee table, and a television mounted to the wall. Outside it may look like the curved part of the apartment, but inside it was the extension part. This makes the living room larger as a huge window is facing the park. Then finally a bedroom taking the right side of the apartment, or right in front of them. It has a door that faces the living room, the entry point.
Her apartment is clean, fairly clean, not obsessively clean. There is a single plate and a dirty cup in the sink, a leftover on the table, a mug on the coffee table, and even right now she just takes her clothing off and changes to a much more comfortable one: a blue short past her knees and a black shirt with no imprint.
Hardwood dark oak floor the same as the hallway, the walls are thin as if it’s made of paper mache and cardboard. There are some paintings on it, or maybe just random stuff she bought just to make it lively. He wonders how much money she has to own this.
“Sit down, I am going to reheat this first.” Emilija walks with the plate of gomleze and places them on the countertop. She takes a skillet, spreads oil on it, and turns the stove on. The gomleze is lined on the skillet to be reheated as fresh from the oven.
“How do you cook that without an oven?”
“I have a restaurant, you forget?”
Yes, indeed Emilija has a restaurant and he is aware of it. When she arrived in Liberty City nearly ten years ago, she dreamed of owning a restaurant. Radovan could remember the story, but it was fragmented between short visits and letters.
“It made money,” she explains, hand cocked on her hips, “I mean no wonder, right? I am able to send some for mother and you.”
“And now mother is gone.” Radovan speaks in a lower tone. “You… didn’t get the chance to visit her one last time.”
“I’m sorry,” she says, pouring tea for the two from a kettle. “How did…she pass away?”
“Pretty calmly, actually,” the two glasses clink as it is being set down on the dining table, “doctor said it was old age, she’s buried in the local cemetery.”
“Besides father?”
“As she asked.” He smiles, drinking his glass of tea. Emilija stares at the calendar on the coffee table.
“It’s been three months then,” she drinks her own glass, “I should pay a visit.”
“We should go together later instead.”
“Make sense.” She dunks the whole glass in one go. “Can you cook on your own?”
“Do you think I am an idiot?”
“Of course not,” she punches him on the arm lightly, maybe, “go pick the gomleze yourself, I have to go back to my restaurant.”
“So early?”
“Sorry,” she says sarcastically, “that I got a job and you don’t.”
“Very well then, I’d like a job,” he finishes his glass of tea.
“Then come to the restaurant,” she takes her pants from before on the hanger, wearing them back hastily. “I got a job or two for you and you only, my lovely little brother.”
“Замолчи.” (Shut up)
“Повторно го користиме јазикот на татковината, а?” (We’re using the language of our homeland again, huh?) She cocks her head, “don’t care. I put the address on the coffee table, you are smart enough to find it yourself, right?”
“Да, да, само оди.” (Yes, yes, just go) Radovan stands up.
“Добро тогаш, се гледаме т,” (Okay then, see you later,) she smirks, “broke boy,” before leaving the apartment.
Radovan lets out a long sigh, the apartment is emptier. Not like he has anything else to do here. So he stands up, smoothes his shirt for a while, then turns off the stove. He takes one of the gomleze, biting into it. Warm and not crunchy, more like softened. He lets them rest on the pan.
Slowly, he pads over to the living room section, looking down onto the coffee table. There is a paper sitting next to a fake plant in a white pot. He takes the sheet of paper, inside is the instruction to go to her restaurant. He folds it neatly then into his pocket it goes.
Radovan takes one last look into her apartment, before walking out with the key, locking the door behind him.