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He's woken up by the planes.
He's twelve and he's woken up by the planes and it's warm and dark around him and the engines are deafening.
He's twenty-four and he's woken up by a particularly vicious honk in the Parisian streets and for a moment he thinks that it's the planes, back for him again.
There are no planes anymore, of course: he's in a hotel room and everything is quiet and dark, a far cry from the night-time orange skies of the Belgrade of his childhood. But he can still hear the roar of the engines in his mind, the last fading moments of a dream. No, not quite a dream.
Novak shivers. It's not cold, not beneath the woolen blankets, but the hairs on the back of his neck stand up and the adrenaline pulses through his body. He's as ready for it as he was twelve years ago, waking up, curled around Marko and Djordje, in their parents' bedroom: those nights when his father and mother barely slept, stayed awake listening to the planes and the explosions. He can remember the way that he begged them to let him stay up instead and how he was reprimanded because he had tennis practice in the morning. Novak would end up lying awake most nights anyway, as the explosions shook the apartment floor and his brothers twisted and turned on the bed. Sometimes, he can remember, the planes would get so close, the explosions even closer, and Novak would grab Marko's hand, pick up Djole, and they would tumble into the bathroom. Novak would push them behind himself like he could block them from the entire world with his twelve-year-old frame.
He's been on the tour for eight years, been away from Belgrade for most of them, and he still can't get the planes out of his head; will never forget the months when they lived not day-to-day, but hour-to-hour, never knowing where the bombs would land. He remembers leaving for school thinking that it might be the last time he ever saw his family and remembers running home every day and clinging onto them because they were all still alive.
There are no planes anymore, he reminds himself, only the honking of horns in the streets, the light of the city through his window. He thinks that he could never really imagine this as a child because he was just as scared that they would never make it out. He still can't believe it sometimes: in the middle of rallies in gigantic stadiums, filled with fans that love him, he'll wonder how this is real; how he's not asleep, just waiting to wake up; how he's not back in Belgrade on the practice courts, the courts he grew up on.
Families from all around Belgrade used to congregate in the arena. If they played tennis, they thought, nothing else existed; if they spent long enough inside their bubble, sitting together on the bleachers like they were pews, then they would never have to look at their torn country again. They would sit together, breathe together, think together, wish together (tilting up their heads towards a sky that they couldn't see). Novak remembers that everyone was tired, so tired, and their eyes were sad.
The reason that Novak learned to joke at all was this: the children were so frightened and confused; didn't know what was happening or why their parents never smiled. He couldn't explain it to them, so instead he smiled like everything was alright because Djordje was only four and flinched at every loud noise and Novak had forgotten how he looked when he wasn't terrified. Novak sometimes wondered if Djordje remembered anything but this, if the deafening sound of explosions and fiery skies had wiped away all memories of white slopes and skiing, of summer days and fireworks. Novak could barely remember anymore, his mind was filled with fire and noise (of planes, of gunfire, of tennis balls). Sometimes, though, if Novak tried hard enough – smiled and danced around and made jokes – then Djordje would grin at him, forget about everything else, and his eyes would lighten just a little bit.
Novak lived for the looks that his brothers gave him – little glances when they didn't know if he was looking, the ones when they ran towards him, eyes bright, and even the glares when they were angry with him – but it was one in particular that he remembered every second of every day, awake or asleep, tired or sick or distracted.
Novak was told by the time he was seven that the family was depending on him; that their future rested on him. They were poor, poorer because they needed to pay for Novak's food and clothes and equipment, and the rest of them compromised because Novak needed to be the best tennis player in the world. In the evenings, sometimes, Marko would ask, in a small, high voice, if he could have just a little bit of Nole's food because he was still so hungry. Srdjan would crouch down until his eyes met Marko's and explain to him how Nole would be a big tennis champion one day, and when that happened, Marko could have all the food he wanted. Srdjan would smooth his hand over his younger boy's hair and remind him of who his big brother would grow up to be and, in an instant, Marko would turn to him, bitterness forgotten; run towards him; look up towards Nole, arms curled around his neck, like he was the greatest hero that ever lived.
(He still remembers that look in Mare's eyes; right in the middle of matches, his breath catches and he thinks that this is what he plays for, who he wins for.)
Only weeks after the bombings stopped (and everyone rejoiced but still no one believed), he got pulled away from them, pulled to Munich and tennis centers with coaches and dozens of kids who all wanted exactly what he wanted. Novak worked harder than them, pushed farther than them, killed himself more, because he didn't just want to be a tennis star, he needed it. And when he bled sometimes, threw up after running too much in the summers, or broke his finger (and it hurt worse than anything he'd ever felt, it hurt), he'd go back to his room and look at the pictures of Marko and Djordje on his dresser, imagined how they would look at him when he finally made it to the top.
He hated it sometimes. At ten, at seventeen, even at twenty-three, he resented the way that it was all him, always him; the way that, even with his brothers, even though they understood him better than anyone, there's always just a shade of worship threaded through the love. He hates the way that it defines him, the way that all of those things led him to this, right here, on the brink of his dreams – he wonders if there might have been another way.
He may have dreamed about freedom and choice once, about Mallorcan sunshine instead of Belgrade smog, but this is Novak's story: he was pushed into tennis by circumstance as much as anything else, molded by his family's dependence, his country's love. He was the one whose laughter rose out of screams and sometimes the pain behind his eyes was evident even when he was smiling. He's the one that wakes up in the middle of the night, breathless, because he will never forget, even when he needs to. Who, tomorrow, when he's playing Roger for his dream in the center court at Roland Garros, will remember the look in his brothers' eyes and will have to deal with the distraction. But, Novak thinks, he will become the best in the world, just like he told them all.