The Language of Money

Aleksandra Đorđević

I was on the bus, on my way to my first job interview, when forty euros were stolen from me. Even today I cannot shake off the feeling of disorientation whenever I misplace a banknote, and I feel most at ease when small, tidy sums rest close to my heart.

October in Belgrade was already deeply yellow when an advertisement rustled through the leaves. It wasn’t so much about a coveted position in a private language school as it was about the experience of presenting myself to a stranger. Just at that moment when the sky seemed open to everyone.

Nothing I wore was expensive, yet everything could pass as such. I bought a white faux-leather jacket from the Chinese shop, patched the rest together from old and borrowed pieces, and was especially proud of the green velvet bag my mother had remade from worn-out trousers, following my sketch. But that very bag betrayed me, slouchy, held together by only three snaps that never fully closed. In fact, the most valuable thing on me that day was the wallet: small, leather, folding, with a hidden pocket holding the savings from my student loan.

Now I know I should have been more careful, but I never liked sentences that begin with “If only I had…”. I still break into a sweat remembering the mass of bodies swaying gently. I turned my head away from breaths and armpits, stared at my shoes, and missed my stop.

I remember the woman in a raincoat, though it was a sunny day, slender, boyish. I unfolded a city map so we could both get lost in it, and the more insecure I became, glancing around in discomfort, the more helpful she appeared. Fingers stained yellow slid across the map and most likely operated inside my bag. Her rough voice almost whined, yet we never managed to pinpoint the right spot. Then she hopped off toward a building, supposedly to fetch me the correct address.

You surely know the feeling when the second-hand butchers shame. The neighborhood suddenly turned sinister, and the October sun grew heavy. My wallet returned to me, kicked and abused, with a gaping emptiness in the hidden pocket. That was the first money I had ever separated from “my own worth.” I couldn’t believe the thief’s eyes were as transparent as the sky.

I don’t know whether that event permanently changed my relationship with money, but it certainly set the course away from inviting neighborhoods where people peek into each other’s shopping bags. The path of insecurity (rather than distrust) was paved by upbringing. I don’t recall ever having my own money before that, nor taking responsibility for the household budget. I wish I had, so I could have built that proportional sense between earning and giving. I believe I would have developed a clearer idea of numbers or at least translated them more easily into value.

My attitude toward money was never consciously built on the things it buys. I received and exchanged them. Even during the war years, when I wore my mother’s boots a size too big, I never lacked anything. Truly, accumulation of money never crossed my mind, though I do enjoy the feel of fresh leather under my fingers. For me, money must circulate just as good deeds circulate. Fairly or not, energy travels from you to me to someone else, and back again.

Today, in our household, we divide tasks by experience, ability, and inclination. Bills are not my domain, so I delegated those numbers to my husband. Yet numbers called me out. The other day, when I opened my mail, I saw in black and white, my name attached to a debt running into the thousands. My indifference cost me a new tablet and other little things.

I began to wonder what a person’s relationship with money reveals: vanity, power, generosity? We all know the types: the spendthrift, the miser, the saver… Some of us are precise, others calculating, still others lavish. And I ask myself; do we carry the same attitude toward life? If we are stingy, toward whom, and who can judge? If we are naïve, is there anything more beautiful than untouched, original trust nurtured in the arms of our loved ones? Finally, if we are self-aware, won’t that quality also guide us in deciding what is worthy of our money?

I never believed that trust could be stolen by blue eyes, clear as my pillowcase. We mourn departures for forty days with reason. That day forty euros were taken from me, perhaps along with a mental list of small joys, but I cannot escape the thought that something greater, deeper, more primal than money was stolen from me.