“Some of it”, Josip murmurs.
“Simply put, it’s a kind of de facto dispensation.”
“What should I do?”
Friar Todd takes a deep breath, exhales.
“Basically, it’s your call, Josip. The Finntree’s marriage is valid, but that doesn’t stop you from contacting them.”
“Must I contact them?”
“Only if you want to. It seems to come down to a pastoral discernment question. I guess the question you need to ask yourself is, what would bring about the highest good for everyone involved.”
“Do you have a suggestion for me?”
“You’re free to make your own decision about contact. I can only offer what every other theologian I talked to said about it. They all thought you should probably leave the Finntrees in peace, let them get on with their lives, and you can get on with yours.”
Josip nods and puts his face in his hands. “I’m sorry, Josip. I wish it were easier.”
What would easier be? And what is this he feels? Is it relief, anguish, loss, resurrection, death, execution, rebirth, a beginning, the end? It is all one. He sighs and lifts his head at last.
“I’m driving up to the Berkshires this weekend”, says the friar. “Want to come along?”
“Yes. I would like to visit Abel’s grave.”
Thus, more is asked of him—the abyss of longing, as well as the inner resistance necessary to repel the magnetism of a phone directory that might divulge the address of the Finntree family. He reads newspapers sparingly, only articles about the war. He attends no more Croatian-American benefits, fund-raisers, or social events. He donates what he can but becomes more invisible than ever. For the time being, he continues to send in new poems to the magazine—shorter, darker, more melancholic ones. He is growing nervous that the publisher might slip and mention the poet’s name in an unguarded moment—thus broadcasting it far and wide through the human “grapevine”, as Americans call it. Josip extracts a renewed solemn promise from the man that under no circumstances is his real identity to be divulged.
“Paranoia!” grumbles the publisher.
“That’s right, it’s paranoia”, Josip nods. “Please indulge my mental afflictions.”
It must remain this way because it is always possible that Ariadne will pick up a copy of the magazine and notice his name. Marulić will mean nothing to her. In a glance, he had understood her new life, her good marriage, her good husband, her five children. He could not bear to become a tragedy returned, a long-healed memory erupting into pain. He will not permit what remains of his life to haunt her or destroy her happiness.
“If I die now, at this very moment,” he declares to the stars, “it has all been worth it. For I have seen that she exists. She is on the earth with me.”
He will bear this absence, this silence, this permanent separation. He will take it entirely upon himself, and no one needs to know. Yes, he will offer it to the crucified Christ. He will offer it for Ariadne and her family, and he will unite it to the Lord’s sufferings so that lives will be saved over there in the war.
35
In 1995, the war in former Yugoslavia ends. In the autumn of 1996, Josip flies to Zagreb and is admitted into the country as a tourist. This is his first sight of the northern regions of the land. He walks on foot from the city to the mountain shrine of the Majka Bozja Bistricka—a day’s journey around Mount Zagreb and through wooded hill country, gentle valleys, and fields—about thirty kilometers. His pilgrimage is slow but unflagging. Sometimes he passes others who are heading toward the shrine, usually the elderly and infirm or women with small children. Sometimes vigorous walkers pass him, older or younger than he, striding eagerly toward the shrine, while he approaches step by step, as if each passing meter has a significance of its own. He sleeps at a pilgrims’ inn on the way and arrives the next morning.
Now he has come to the place where his father often spoke of taking him when he was a boy. There they would have prayed for Josip’s vocation—“whatever it might be”, Tata had said. Now the old man sees what he and Tata would have seen together if a journey had been granted to them. Though his vocation in life never materialized because all possible forms of it were atomized by the malice of God’s enemies, he can still offer what remains, offer it for others, the known and the unknown.
Wandering about the grounds, he comes to a large crucifix and stands before it with bowed head. His body begins to shudder with interior sobbing. It is not normal weeping. It is something else, as if his soul cries. Then, with closed eyes, he sees a human form approaching. He knows—though he cannot explain how he knows—that it is a father, a father given to him. It is not Tata, but someone else—a soul he does not recognize. Is this the materialization of longing in the imagination, the father who should have been here with him long ago? Or is it a guardian for his soul sent from beyond the perceptions of man? Who is he? Josip does not know, does not need to know. Now the presence takes Josip’s old man’s hand and transforms it into a child’s. Thus he is led from holy place to holy place around the holy valley, his mysterious father showing him everything. As they walk together, Josip begins to understand his own loneliness in full measure, feels it anew, sees its foundations, and becomes certain that only the ground of poverty opens the soul to such consolations. He gives thanks for this after Communion in the basilica, and when he stands for the final recessional hymn, he senses that the invisible father has departed from his imagination—or perhaps he has merely stepped away a pace.
Returning to Zagreb on foot, Josip finds a cheap hotel room, falls into peaceful dreams, and awakes with words ringing in his ears, The surprises of the Lord have not come to an end.
In the cathedral of St. Stjepan, he attends Mass, prays before the tomb of the martyr Alojzije Stepinac, and remembers the calendar in the kitchen at Pačići the day the Partisans came.
From Zagreb he travels by bus through the coastal mountains. It is a shock to see houses, indeed whole villages, that were bombed into ruins and have not yet been rebuilt. At the town of Senj on the Adriatic, he hires a local fisherman to take him out among the islands. The boat is not unlike the Sea Lion, which long ago took him south from this region and dropped him at Split. This boat does not have a name, only a number, but its captain is no cipher. He is old enough to have weathered some storms, young enough to have been born after Josip fled to Italy. As his craft chugs across the Velebitski kanal toward the island of Prvić, he keeps up a stream of commentary above the thrum of the inboard engine.
“I remember when they abandoned it”, he says, pointing into the distance, where a white knob is rising above the heat haze. “That was in 1989. We used to sneak over there for years to pick up bits of metal they left behind. There was stone for a while too, limestone squares. Very nice they were, but they disappeared pretty fast. They call it the naked island, and that’s its name too. They called it that long before it was a prison.”
“So, you know it was a prison?” Josip says.
“Everyone knew, but no one said a word about it because none of us wanted to go live over there, you can be sure. Then a few years ago, after the Communists were kicked the hell out, people began to talk. The homeland war changed a lot of things, and I’m glad of it. Though I’m sad, too, because I lost some friends. They were in the army, and we had nothing to fight with, no navy or air force, not many guns on the ground either. It was a miracle we won that war. One hundred percent miracle, just like the old days.”
Josip continues to scan the horizon as the heights of Glavina slowly rise before him.
“Why do you want to see it?” asks the captain with a quick look.
“I was a prisoner there.”
“Ah, that’s too bad. Good to see you made it through. Will you tell me about it?” Josip drops his eyes. “It was a hard place”, he murmurs. “Many of our people died there, it’s said.”
“Yes, many.”
Thirty thousand, perhaps as many as fifty thousand. “We’
ll have to land on the other side because there are bays over there and a landing dock. It’s too steep here.”
Yes, too steep. Now they are passing close to the precipitous slope down which he slid in the dark, a skeleton man in flight from hell, not knowing the hell that lay ahead. Is that the ravine he descended to reach the shore? Yes, it must be.
His heart is playing tricks on him now—racing, then stopping, and racing again.
The captain cuts back on the throttle, turns the wheel, and eases the boat around to the north side of the island; then they slowly proceed to its western end. There they make another swing and cruise along the south side. Trees and thickets of bushes are now growing here. A cove appears on the left.
“That’s Vela Draga, where they dropped off the prisoners. Or maybe it’s the place where they picked up stone. I don’t know.”
He spins the wheel, and the bow turns toward the wharf. “I’ve changed my mind”, says Josip. “Don’t land, just go around the island.”
“As you wish.”
Once, twice, three times around, and during much of this time Josip remains with his eyes closed, facing the island, whispering prayers as the cries of countless souls reach for him across the water.
Finally, the captain, who has been patiently quiet for a time, asks if Josip wants to return to Senj.
“Not yet. Can you take me a little farther?” Josip replies, nodding toward the mainland a bit to the south. As the boat cruises in that direction, Josip stares down into the waves, seeing a pale human shape desperately swimming underwater.
Down—forward—up!
Within twenty minutes, the boat is idling, slipping toward a beach below a small stone house that stands alone among fruit trees at the base of a high hill. The boat’s draft is shallow, and the captain kills the engine, letting the bow rustle onto the pebbled beach.
“Should I wait for you?”
“Please. I won’t be long.”
“Take your time. You’ve paid for the day.”
Josip drops over the bow onto the beach, shifts the knapsack onto his shoulder, and climbs a winding path through the weeds toward the house. When he arrives at the courtyard, he sees that it has not greatly changed. On the rough flagstones there are still potted flowers, and the house is better shaded by fruit trees larger than he remembers. There is a driveway on the other side of the house, and an old car sits there. Beyond it is a gravel road that climbs toward the coastal highway, which is hundreds of meters above.
Seated on a plastic lawn chair, with her back toward him, a woman is speaking to a child sitting on her lap. The woman’s voice is reciting in a sing-song. Josip clears his throat and says, “Zdravo.”
Zdra—he croaks—vo! as the dolphins speed away into the deeper waters, smiling as they dive.
The woman yelps and jumps from her seat, turning around with the child in her arms. She is in her early forties, handsome and strong. A book drops from her lap—she has been reading to the child, a three-year-old girl. She is startled by this man who has come up out of the sea, but she does not seem afraid. The little girl examines the stranger curiously, stands beside the woman, and takes her hand.
“Can I help you?” asks the woman.
Josip nods.
“I—I am looking for Drago and Marija. Do they still live here?”
The woman’s face saddens. “I regret that they have both passed away. My father some years back, my mother this winter. You hadn’t heard?”
“I knew them a long time ago. I am sorry about the loss of your parents, Jelena.”
Startled again, she asks, “How do you know my name?”
“I knew you too”, he smiles. “You were as young as this child at the time.”
“Really? A long time ago it was, then. What is your name?”
Josip steps forward and offers his hand, which she shakes in a hesitant way, her kindly face somewhat puzzled.
“I am Josip Lasta. Your parents knew me only as Josip. And I never learned your family name.”
“Oh”, she says. “I’m sorry, but I don’t remember you.”
An orange cat comes out onto the patio from around a corner of the house. Its tail is pointing straight up in the air. The child runs to it and picks it up, cuddles and strokes it, sings into its ear.
“Do you remember the poem?”
“The poem?” she laughs.
Dupin, dupin, dupin,
play with me, one, two, three,
dupin, dupin, dupin . . .
“I don’t know any poem like that.”
“It is your own. Those words came from your lips. And I think those little words helped save me.”
She shakes her head, then pauses, and looks away toward the sea, as if straining to remember something. She frowns, then looks back at Josip.
“Were you the man who came from the sea?”
“I was. I am.”
“Yes, I remember now”, she nods. “Mamica and Tata talked about you for years. Not your name—only the man who fell into the sea, that’s what they called you.”
“When they took me from the sea, they brought me into your home and cared for me because I was very ill. Later, your father and his brother took me in the Sea Lion to Split.”
“The Sea Lion! My goodness, then it’s true. You know, that boat is still in the water. My older brother has it in Rijeka. He uses it to fish sometimes, though he’s not really a man of the sea.”
She offers to bring him food and drink. He thanks her but declines. He cannot stay long.
“I had hoped to give something to your father and mother”, he says, opening his knapsack. “When they rescued me that time, they gave me gifts—from the little they possessed—clothing for a man who had no clothing. They were very brave and generous. They saved my life. They and the dolphins.”
“Dolphins”, she smiles. “I have always loved them, but we seldom see them this close to shore. Years go by without seeing one.”
“It was they who guided me to your shore. And it was, I think, your poem that honored them and thanked them, for at the time I was unable to speak and was close to death.”
She regards him thoughtfully but says nothing.
He offers her several packages, which she accepts with a look of curiosity. Opening them she finds a pair of men’s trousers and a fine shirt, a leather belt with a metal buckle, and a new fisherman’s cap. From the knapsack he also takes out a box marked with the symbol of a New York shoe company and gives her that as well. She takes it hesitantly and opens the lid.
“Oh, what fine boots!”
“Please accept them.”
“If you wish. I appreciate it. Though my Tata is gone, these will fit my husband.” She is still examining them with a look of wonder when he says, “Now I must go. Thank you, Jelena, for everything. I pray you will remember your poem. And perhaps you will teach poems to your child.”
“My grandchild, this little one is”, she corrects. “When you came up out of the sea, just now, I was reading poems to her.”
She smiles into his eyes. He bows to her and goes back down to the shore. On board the boat, he sits near the bow and looks up at the little house on the hill as the craft draws away. The woman and the child are standing there, waving.
At Senj he catches the bus to Zadar. He has been to that city before, but he has never seen it, for he was hiding under the deck of the Sea Lion as it was being fueled. How odd to have been in a place and to have no visual memory of it. It’s like being a blind person. Soon he will see it, but during the two-hour journey he can sit back and try to absorb the meaning of his return to Goli Otok. It will take time. He is too close to that epicenter for real understanding, but the assimilation has begun. He holds the image of the white island in his mind, for it is a place he has never seen as a whole. Its interior he knows all too well, and it now provokes sorrows and ponderings.
He sees again the faces of his fellow prisoners, those who tended his demolished flesh after his arrival, sewed up his wound
s, washed him, fed him, and helped him to stand and walk again. Those who advised him and whispered with him and engaged in the forbidden dialogues that awakened the atrophying mind, and in the end held back his hand from the act of Cain. Those few whom he had known among the countless nameless ones, were they too among the hosts of the lost? Or did they survive? Were Sova the owl and Fr. Tomislav and Ante Czobor ever released, or did they die in their chains? And what about Vladimir Lucic? While he was in Zagreb, Josip checked the telephone directory, recalling that the professor once taught in that city, but no such man was listed. Neither did the university’s information office know of him. Did he perish among that vast cloud of witnesses? Everywhere Josip goes, he checks directories, finding nothing.
Now he turns his thoughts from the old pain. He knows it will return because it always has. And it may be that this pain is an essential part of his mission—one of the reasons he was permitted by providence to escape and to live, so that he might remember them always and pray for their souls. This he now does, as he has so often done since his restoration to faith.
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