Bogdan slices diagonally across the patient’s eyelid, precisely following a marker-drawn line. Milo sits across the table, a mirror image of Bogdan in every way. Same green scrubs, same wide-set, black eyes, same assiduous expression directed to the patient’s face.

“Who is this one?” asks Milo as he retracts the newly liberated flap of flesh. “Did Tata say?”

“Whoever he is, he’s about to become a lot more handsome,” Bogdan replies.

Both men smile beneath their surgical masks, but this small joy is interrupted by a ringing phone.

“Da?” answers Milo.

“Are you ready? She’s in the lot,” says the voice of their brother, Arsen.

“Twenty minutes,” Milo replies.

“I told you kurchi to be ready for three-thirty,” Arsen says. “It was a crap idea to let this audit go forward. Why expose us to the woman?”

“We voted. Three-to-one,” Milo replies. “Facial recognition goes live next week. So, unless Tata wants his whole crew indoors or in prison, we need to keep the OR rolling. It’s easier to be in compliance with The College. Easier access to the drugs and supplies. It’s the path of least resistance.”

“And if we encounter resistance?”

“Ms. Čalić will disappear, and so will we.”

+

Sonja sits in the waiting room and wills herself to forget the bottle of rakija back in her car. Surgeons are such magarci. They always make her wait. She checks her hands. No shaking. She has time. Sonja counts things to calm herself. Four chairs, four windows, four coat hooks. A hand sanitizer in each corner of the room. Check. Check. Check. Check.

A faint glow emanates from the thin fabric of her handbag, and Sonja removes a tablet from within it. A photo of a small horse standing next to her foal appears on the screen. The foal is wet from its recent birth, and beneath its hooves is a message from Sonja’s mother, Jagoda: “Look who finally arrived,” the message says. “She’s eager to see you—if you can get away.”

Sonja traces a line around the foal’s perimeter, longing to stroke it through the screen. It is not the foal who is eager to see Sonja, but rather Jagoda herself. The last time Sonja was home, the mare had not even been pregnant.

Sonja knows she should visit her mother. Part of her wants to leave the waiting room and do just that, but the idea of an entire weekend bathed in Jagoda’s well-meaning but intrusive concern is too much to face.

A new message appears: “I will make some fritule later to celebrate. A waste to eat them all on my own.”

Sonja replaces the tablet in her bag. Her mother must be desperate if she is throwing down the dual gauntlets of a newborn horse and Sonja’s favorite sweets. Jagoda is usually a stoic woman who guards herself more fiercely. Sonja feels a small shame that she has pushed her mother so far.

Sonja stands and examines the framed poster behind her. “Welcome to the Četiri Brata Institute of Cosmetic Surgery.” The photo depicts three identical-looking men wearing white lab coats and stylish eyeglasses. They could easily be triplets, but it is hard to tell for sure. It is clear from their faces that they have all sampled heavily of their own wares. Three sets of vaguely cat-like eyes. Three sets of too-plump lips, their vermillion borders unnaturally crisp.

“The brothers Vulanovic, I presume,” Sonja mutters, subtly pressing her hand against her mouth to check that the mint scent is still overpowering the drink.

“Da,” says a voice behind her. “Bogdan, Milorad, and Sasha.”

Sonja startles and turns to face the man who has appeared behind the reception desk. His hair hangs limp atop his shoulders, but he is, unmistakably, one of the surgeons.

“I’m Sonja Čalić,” Sonja says, extending her hand. “Dr…”

“Doctor Nobody. I’m their brother, Arsen. Artist of the family, I’m afraid. Never made it into med school.”

“Are you…”

“Quadruplets. Four of a kind. What are the chances?”

“One in fourteen million,” Sonja says.

“You like numbers, Sonja?” Arsen asks. “My mother loved numbers. Her last joy on this luckless earth was counting us. Four sticky babies all in a row.”

“She died?”

Arsen gently pulls back a small metal ball from the modern sculpture on his desk and lets it go. The ball clicks against the sculpture’s edge in a rhythmic motion.

“Minutes after we were born.”

The ball’s movement draws Sonja’s eyes. Between each click, the Adriatic Sea blinks in from beyond the clinic window.

One-two, one-two, one-two, one-two.

Arsen comes to stand beside Sonja. He is too close, but for some reason, Sonja does not object.

“She was a beautiful person, our Mama,” Arsen says, quiet as a kitten. “Tata said she had an artist’s soul. Mama said the tides of the Adriatic were like the breath of God. Close your eyes, Sonja, imagine it.”

Sonja feels like hot sand is sprinkling across her skin. She closes her eyes.

“Is there anything in your own life that makes you feel that way, Sonja?” Arsen asks.

Sonja’s heart heaves with a slight panic, but it is fleeting and quickly disappears.

“My four little Konik Horses,” Sonja replies. The part of her mind that is drifting further from the rest of it wonders why she told Arsen this.

“Tell me about your horses, Sonja. Describe them to me.”

“Their manes are like silk, and when I press my legs to their bodies, I can feel their pulses in my own my thighs.”

“Where do the horses stay, Sonja?”

“At my mother’s farm.”

“Do you want to go there, Sonja?”

“Yes. I am so lonely in the city.”

“You can go there right after we finish, Sonja. Just get in your car and drive.”

“They are in Sinj.”

“Not so far, Sonja. If you finish quickly, you could make it before dark.”

“I should finish quickly.”

“Yes, Sonja.”

+

Bogdan runs his gloved finger across the edges of the patient’s perfectly sutured incisions.

“A thing of beauty,” Milo says.

“But nothing so perfect as the original,” Bogdan replies.

Both men consider an old photograph of a young woman hanging on the wall beside the operating table. The woman smiles back at them with an other-worldly, painted-on smile. Her dark, upturned eyes remain fixed in a seemingly permanent state of surprise.

“It’s her eyes this time,” Milo says, tracing the newly created ridge on the patient’s left eyelid.

“I bet the next one will have her lips,” Bogdan replies.

“Yes. Arsen hasn’t drawn Mama’s lips for a while now.”

The swinging door opens and Sasha Vulanovic enters the room. He joins his brothers at the table.

“Her eyes,” Sasha says, glancing back and forth to the photograph, “but only the eyes.”

“Do you think Tata notices what we are doing?” asks Bogdan.

“He is mafia, Bogdan. Hardly an intellectual. As long as the software doesn’t recognize his thugs’ faces, that’s all he cares. They can continue their mischief for at least another five years before their faces become known again.”

“And then?”

“Repeat customers are good for business.”

The sound of approaching footsteps drifts in from the distant hallway.

“The auditor is upon us, it seems,” says Sasha.

“Did Arsen hook her?” asks Milo.

“Da. And then some. Had her blubbering some shit about horses in the span of half a second.”

“Arsen is a luđak, but he is world-class. Hopefully, she will just go along.”

“And the Ketamine?” asks Bogdan.

“At the ready,” Sasha says, tapping his pocket, “for plan B.”

The three brothers remove their masks and smile their identical smiles.

+

Sonja eases the tablet from her bag as she enters the clinic’s main suite. One of the Vulanovic brothers is talking, but she is not sure which one it is. His hair is short, so he must be one of the surgeons. But where has her friend Arsen gone? Ah. There he is, only two steps behind her. Sonja is comforted when she hears his soft voice.

“Doesn’t matter which one, Sonja. Pick any name,” Arsen says.

Sonja clicks the drop-down menu, selects “Milorad Vulanovic,” and checks several “OK” boxes as they appear.

“I need to see the operating room,” Sonja says. The auditor’s checklist is hardwired into her brain.

“Of course,” says the surgeon-brother.

“Everything will be fine there, Sonja,” Arsen says, and Sonja feels reassured. She looks to the tablet and selects “Bogdan Vulanovic” from the menu.

“Bogdan is a terrific surgeon, Sonja,” Arsen says, and Sonja clicks “OK.”

The surgeon-brother pushes open a door, and Sonja sees two men in green hunched over a surgical table. Suddenly, she cannot stop herself from laughing. Four identical faces turn toward her, and Sonja becomes afraid she has made a mistake. She searches the faces for Arsen.

“What is amusing to you, Sonja? Arsen asks pleasantly.

“They look like vultures,” Sonja says. “The way they are sitting.”

“But look what a good job the birds are doing, Sonja,” Arsen whispers, and Sonja clicks “OK” on her screen.

Sonja’s heart becomes lighter as the eyes of all four men smile.

“I need to see the charts,” Sonja says, and then drops her voice to whisper. “But Arsen, I feel so tired.”

Arsen’s hand touches Sonja’s shoulder, and she realizes she may faint.

“It’s been a hard day, Sonja,” Arsen says. “There’s another stretcher right here behind you. Why don’t you lie down a moment?”

+

The four brothers surround Sonja as she sleeps on the stretcher. Sasha throws the empty Ketamine syringe into the yellow bin and says, “It’s interesting, the shape of her nose.”

Milo slides a gloved finger against the ample surface of Sonja’s nose-bridge. “Yes,” he says. “It reminds me of—”

“The old pictures of Mama,” Sasha continues. “From before she met Tata and his money made her beautiful.”

Arsen wipes the accumulated saliva from the edge of Sonja’s mouth with a new parent’s gentleness. “There is something appealing about her ugliness,” he says. “There is almost a purity to it. Her love for the Konik Horses touched me a little. In all my years, I have never had anyone answer me with such clarity of heart. Horses are such stupid animals, but imagine being loved like that?”

Behind him, Arsen’s three brothers roll their eyes.

“We should send her to Tata,” Milo says. “I don’t like the comment she made about us being birds. It means Arsen’s hold is incomplete. We cannot be sure she will cooperate once she leaves the clinic. Appealing or not, she remains a risk.”

“I vote to let her go,” Arsen says and crosses the room to stand beside the next patient who lies, already anesthetized, beneath the picture of their mother. “I filled the rest of the report and submitted it on her tablet. She will remember bits and pieces, even after the Ketamine. Tata put in a word, so they sent us a lush. I almost became drunk myself from the smell of her breath. She will make her assumptions and be too embarrassed to make inquiries.”

“Bogdan? Sasha?” Milo asks, “Send her to Tata?”

“Da.”

“Da.”

“Three-to-one, Arsen. Your losing streak continues. You are the janje in our midst. Tata says you are too much like Mama.”

“And the rest of you? Are you proud to have drifted so far toward Tata’s side of things?” Arsen asks. The four brothers laugh.

“The best any of us can hope for,” Milo says. “Is that we are all a case of mistaken paternity.”

“Come,” Arsen calls from across the room as he uncaps a red marker.

The three remaining brothers leave Sonja to her slumber and assemble around Arsen’s fresh palette of human skin. They stand in reverent silence as Arsen draws the smooth lines atop which Milo will carve the mafia man’s new lips, perfect, like an ocean wave parting in mid-sea.

“Whatever else you are, Arsen, you are a great artist,” whispers Bogdan, and the others nod.

“We are all great artists,” Arsen says. “It’s as close to Mama as we will ever get. Close your eyes, brothers. Imagine it is her hand holding this pen.”

The brothers close their eyes.

+

Sonja awakens in her car. She bolts upright, and her panicked eyes scan the early-evening sky. The lights of the clinic have been extinguished, and hers is the only car in the lot. She reaches a trembling hand to the glove box and unearths her rakija. Suddenly, a vision of her four Konik Horses trots through her mind. One-two, one-two, one-two, one-two.

“I will drive to Sinj,” she surprises herself by saying aloud. “If the rakija enters my mind, I will replace it with thoughts of the horses.”

Sonja turns her key in the ignition, and, seeing no other alternative, she puts it in gear and begins to drive inland.

+

Three syringes clatter into the yellow bin.

Arsen crosses the operating room and switches the anesthesia machine to “auto.” Tata’s thug will have to wait a few more hours so everyone can take their naps.

Arsen’s brothers’ heavy limbs are woven together where they sleep in an aesthetically pleasing arrangement atop the pristine white floor. Arsen descends to the tiles, wiggles into the small space he has left for himself between his brothers and presses his body against theirs. He closes his eyes, listens to the rhythm of their breathing, and thinks of the Adriatic Sea. Arsen feels his brothers’ steady pulses against his own limbs. He envisions four little horses galloping, imagines his precious, ugly Sonja riding atop all of them as if they were one animal. 

+ + +

K.R. Segriff is a Canadian writer and filmmaker. Her work has appeared in Atlanta Review, Greensboro Review, Best Canadian Poetry and Prism International, among others. She is working on her debut story collection.