Island of The World

by Michael D. O'Brien

  Josip is unsure, feels the ache in his throat. What to do! Should he speak like a Lastavica of the Mountains addressing a Lastavica of the City, tapping into whatever remains of that old grace, as the armless man once spoke to him? Why not? He has always been unarmed.

  Caleb and Jefferson take his luggage and carry it into the terminal, man on one side of him, boy on the other. Their arms rub close. Such physical people. Josip is wistful that other dear friends are unable to be here. He had the tearful good-bye weekend in Connecticut, another in Harlem. Most of all he feels the absence of his daughter and grandson. They are busy; they have full lives. He has not known them a long time. Well, they had a last supper at the restaurant two nights ago and then the final good-bye on the phone. Marija has a big meeting today with some Dutch people who want to invest in her company. They have flown in from Amsterdam just for this and will fly out again tonight. She feels terrible about it, but it’s impossible to get away. Ryan is unable to drive in from Princeton because he has an exam today. If he skips it, he’s a dead man, the year’s blown! Thus, they have reached the end of some awkward yet soulful exchanges. The boy has grown curious about his ancestors and has begun to ponder on a wider field than his known world. Growth, expansion—perhaps even new depth. It’s hard to say what will become of him. In any event, he plans to visit Croatia next year, bicycle from Trieste to Dubrovnik; and has asked if he can bunk in with his newfound grandfather when he gets to Split. He’ll be coming for sure—unless he wins a scholarship to Oxford.

  During the past month, Josip has laid a trail of bread crumbs through the forest: little gifts that say: this is who I am, here is how you can find me. You will find me when you know who I am. He gave the picture of the swallow to Ryan, gave Marija the first editions of his books (Marulić) and the revised editions (Lasta), inscribed to her with loving and heartfelt words. At her apartment in Greenwich Village, she has several copies of each title. She is always going into bookstores to ask if they sell the poems of Josip Lasta, never letting on that she is related to him.

  Caleb interferes during the check-in, wants to do all the talking at the airline counter, as if Josip, who has traveled by air before and is familiar enough with the process, is a doddering old fellow who needs minding. The airline woman is black, too, and her face registers some irritation. Josip smiles. These psychological cultural-sociological dynamics are interesting to him.

  Caleb is trying to assert his authority, straining to sound proprietary and knowledgeable, but the pose is not working. He interrupts the lady and supplies the answers before she asks the questions. She does not like his manner. Pretending she cannot hear Caleb, she asks Josip the usual questions in the proper order.

  “Did a stranger ask you to carry anything in your luggage, sir?”

  Josip shakes his head.

  “Do you have any inflammable or explosive items, knives, scissors, or other weapons in your carry-on luggage?”

  He hesitates. Inflammable items, yes—his mind for example. Explosives? Well, there have been moments . . .

  She begins to restate the question, but Caleb interrupts:

  “Sistah, this man ain’t gonna hijack yo’ jet. He’s a very famous poet, runna-up fo’ National Book Award, and he’s about the best—”

  She ignores him. Turning to Josip, she asks, “Is this gentleman your taxi driver, sir?”

  “No.” Josip shakes his head.

  “An employee, then. Your chauffeur?”

  “He is my son.”

  All discussion instantly ceases. The lady raises her eyebrows, tilts her glasses down the bridge of her nose, and peers ever so ironically at Caleb.

  “That’s right, sistah, this mah Dad” Pronounced dayad.

  She turns to Josip, puts the tickets and passport down on the counter before him, and says, “There you are, Mr. Lasta. Please proceed to the security gate, and on the other side you go to the Czech Airlines counter at gate 44. You’ll transfer in Prague to Croatian Airlines and pick up your luggage when you arrive in Split.”

  “Thank you, Madame”, he says, offering his hand. She shakes it and smiles warmly. “Have a nice flight, Mr. Lasta.”

  Time to proceed farther into the labyrinth. Caleb and Jefferson are allowed to go as far as the security gate. Man on one side, boy on the other, lots of body contact. Caleb does something he has never done before, not in all the years they have known each other. He drapes his arm around the old man’s shoulders, and holds him tightly all the way.

  “You said son.”

  “I said son, Caleb.”

  “I know you meant it. I know.”

  There in the distance, a jaw gapes wide to receive those who intend to go up in the air. Josip must pass through its electronic dentures, the green and red lights, and the men in uniforms with their amazing batons. There is a lot of beeping, and long lines of people are waiting to be swallowed.

  “I love you”, says the black giant in a choking voice. “I love you, and I thank you for all you did for me.”

  “I love you too, Caleb. It is I who thank you.”

  Caleb lets the tears run down his face without trying to hide them.

  “A man is himself and no other”, Josip says. “He is an island in the sea of being. And each island is as no other. The islands are connected because they have come forth from the sea, and the sea flows between them. It separates them yet unites them, if they learn to swim.”

  “You already taught me this, Josip, a long time ago.”

  “As you taught it to me, Caleb, and as you are teaching it to Jefferson.”

  From behind comes the sound of running steps clattering on the floor tiles. A young man in a flying raincoat abruptly halts beside them, huffing and puffing. It is Ryan.

  “Had to come”, he wheezes. “Had to come.”

  “Ryan, what about your examination?”

  “To hell with my examination!”

  He takes the old man’s hands in his own, his grandfather whom he is just getting to know and whom he may never see again.

  Neither the old man nor the boy say another word. They just stand there looking at each other, the islands connecting across time and oceans and the blows of fate—a fate that has transformed itself into providence at the very end.

  The boy kisses his grandfather on both cheeks, European fashion.

  No matter what comes, my beloved, we will not be defeated.

  Then a guard barks, and Josip must go through the tunnel to the other side. His belt and his religious medallions cause some delay, but when he is through into the secure zone, he turns and waves. There they are, over there in the unsecure world, Caleb, Jefferson, and Ryan side by side, waving back. Caleb puts his massive hand to his heart and keeps it there—a final word. Ryan has his hands thrust deep into his coat pockets, chin on his chest, though his eyes are looking up, gazing across the abyss at his grandfather.

  For a moment, Josip is startled, for it is as if he is again in Sarajevo in a small apartment filled with darkness, staring at a photograph of his own grandfather. And now, in this way, he sees for the first time his grandfather in the flesh. Their faces are the same, all three: a youth of the West, a man of the mountains of Bosnia, and the one who is the bridge between them.

  Images stream inward, albums of his mind filling with new things that once were old. First, the beginning of the slow descent into Split. There, in the west, are the little boats under sail as they have been since the voyage of Odysseus. The turquoise of the Adriatic is so intense that to gaze upon it is to fall headlong into worship. Passing below are the red-tiled roofs of the island town of Trogir; then, more turquoise. To the east, the Dinaric Alps are higher and whiter than ever before, the peaks still sleeping under heavy snow. A stewardess informs him that it has been a very cold winter; the city has suffered twice from frost!

  It is spring at sea level, and as he steps outside the terminal into the air of Croatia, he breathes it in, opening wide his arms. The olive trees around the airport are sprou
ting new leaves, and the breeze is full of the spices of the earth. It is heaven, all this warmth and perfume and light, a light like no other on earth.

  A bus takes him toward Stari Grad, the downtown core. There are many new buildings; the city is growing. Nine years have passed since he was last here. That time when he was tempted, when he almost took vengeance and killed the killers, but did not. There are the palm trees, and, oh, there is the Marjan! He bounces in his seat, cranes his neck as if he were nine years old, sitting beside his father when they had just spotted the sea as they descended from the mountains. Was it more than sixty years ago? I will add and subtract later, he smiles to himself. Mental pocket-calculators are for mathematicians. Oh, look at that emerald mountain, and look at the ivory palace, and the steeples shaking as their bells ring and boom in the pristine air. Look at the gulls and the shore birds, and look at all my people!

  He carries his luggage from the drop-off point on the waterfront and makes his way to Marmontova Street and into the hotel where he stayed last time. It is a short walk from there to the shore and a minute’s walk to the church of St. Francis. After he has checked into his room, he returns to the street and goes directly to the church. Fra Anto is there waiting for him, as always, but his face is now fully restored, and he stands robed in white, with his arms extended and light pouring through the open wounds. You are home at last, Josip, say his shining eyes. Here you will stay.

  “You’re here too”, the old man replies.

  Let’s go in.

  Now, for the first time in all the years he has known him, the friar does not remain outside. His priestly robes flow behind him, his bare toes with a bandage or two, his face of burnished bronze illumines the shadowy entrance. With some surprise, Josip notices that another person is walking with them—a barefoot twelve-year-old boy dressed in white shirt and trousers. The boy takes his hand.

  So, with the friar’s hand in one hand and the boy’s hand in the other, Josip enters the church. There are other visitors, but their presence does not inhibit him from dropping to his knees and prostrating himself on the marble floor. Fra Anto and the boy do likewise, bending before the Presence in the tabernacle.

  Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God almighty!

  The old man kisses the dust because the earth was made holy and it is the Lord’s. Then he kisses the wounds of Christ, and in this movement he understands at last that he is kissing his own wounds too. He is also kissing this land and this people, from whom he will never again depart. All crucified churches are resurrected churches, some within the boundaries of time and some only in eternity.

  Much good begins in us before we learn to know its name, sighs the old man. Our Father is patient with us, for he loves.

  Rising, he sees that the friar and the boy have gone.

  40

  It is high summer in Split, very hot. The mistral breezes blow in from the northwest from time to time, bringing some relief. Josip loves both hot and cool. It is all good.

  His one-room apartment in a crumbling building five blocks from the waterfront is splendid. The water pipes clang, paint peels from the walls, yet the view from the window is superb. It faces away from the sea, unfortunately, so it is not exactly paradise but close to it. The building is on the slopes of the Marjan, surrounded by trees. From his window he can observe red roofs and courtyards filled with potted flowers. He sees mothers hanging laundry, children playing with balls, and contemplative cats. Beyond these are the swaying spears of poplars, the fans of palm trees, and the mighty spread of blacker pines. The Marjan’s pathways offer a variety of opportunities for strolling and for observing the pleasant activities of birds, animals, and human lovers. He goes there daily, two or three hours at a time, good exercise. His lungs are not what they used to be, and his legs—well, the legs have from his earliest years threatened to betray him. But that’s fine, that’s what seventy-two-year-old legs are supposed to do.

  His room—oh, this room is like a miracle. Not too expensive. His small janitor’s pension and the semiannual royalties from his publishers are enough to cover the rent and to provide his food, to buy a few books and socks, and to leave a little extra for envelopes and stamps for letters to family and friends. He likes to go out to a restaurant once a month—one of the poorer places, not for tourists—and dine on freshly caught squid, rice boiled in its ink, brown trout and carp just fished from the estuary of the Neretva, plus inexhaustible platters of bread and bowls of salad. Dinner is always finished off with a basket of juicy figs. Most days he eats at home, subsisting on bread and olive oil, a bit of dried fish and his coffee. Life without coffee is not life—this is a lie, he knows, but one he can live with.

  This room is smaller than his room in New York. It has an alcove with an electric stove and a metal sink for washing dishes. There is a bathroom with a small porcelain sink and toilet, but no tub, no place for fish to come visiting. He bathes once a week by wading into the sea in his swimming trunks, stepping off the very wharf where he was reunited with the Lastavica of the Sea when he was a student. On cooler days, when the aged must guard against chills, he gives himself a sponge bath in the privacy of his room. He worries about becoming eccentric—and “aromatic”, as he calls it. A little incontinence, but no real prostate trouble, thank heavens!

  The room has books in it, those he brought from America along with the new titles he has purchased here. He hires a man to build him shelves. Excellent shelves, they are, fresh pine boards carefully beveled and notched, built without hurry. For the entire week, as the carpenter works in Josip’s room, scattering sawdust and smoking his pipe, Josip keeps him supplied with cups of coffee and snacks and stories. Because old men can be candid about their lives, he tells Josip that he was in Molat concentration camp. He is impressed that Josip survived Goli Otok.

  “Few lived to tell of that hell”, he shakes his head, chomping reflectively on his pipe stem. “Life is strange. But God has the final word.”

  Josip takes a slice of dry bread and breaks it in two. He gives one half to the carpenter and keeps the other for himself. The carpenter gazes at the piece for a moment and then meets Josip’s gaze, steadily, understanding the gesture. They are both well-fed men, far from hungry at the moment. They eat the bread slowly, without speaking, then resume their tasks.

  His books are few in number compared to what he once owned. There are twice as many shelves as he needs at present, but he hopes to fill them as time goes on. Can a dwelling place without books ever truly be a home? He has donated his collection to the new Catholic university in Zagreb, and last month he received a letter of thanks from the director. Caleb had packed them all and sent them to the university in a big container, by sea; the shipment arrived without mishap. Caleb must have stuffed a copy of The Seraph into the lot, because the rector, who is fluent in English, says that the translations are very good, not every word exactly what he would have chosen but still expressing the essence of “creative intuition”. A person who uses such an expression is someone Josip would like to meet someday, a person with whom he might discuss obscure topics with mutual enthusiasm and occasional thrills of illumination. Nevertheless, he does not want to encourage any public persona of himself: the poet-in-exile-returned-home-at-last!

  There have been probes: invitations to give lectures at faculties of literature in Split, Zagreb, and Sarajevo, three or four journalists knocking on his door. All of this he has declined. Let the poems speak for themselves! No need to inflate the persona with public relations that doubtless he would ruin anyway. It is preferable to remain what he is: a retired custodian, a person of no particular interest to others. It is essential to have nothing in order to keep the riches he has been given. Yes, he is rich—he is a man who can distill sight and insight onto bits of salvaged paper; he is a man who can enjoy taking the garbage down to the corner; he can chat with fishermen and carpenters and housewives, never as condescension but as the replenishment of his true self. Every day he can swim in the greatness of the
ordinary. This is freedom, and he is very grateful for it. It is all good, just as it is.

  A year passes. He attends daily Mass at St. Francis, Sunday Mass in the cathedral of St. Domnius. He never passes its wooden doors without a prayer for his father’s soul. It is odd what one remembers, what one forgets. A single look of fear sixty years past is remembered, while a thousand hours of discussion are forgotten; the flicker of an azure wing cuts an incision that remains permanently open, while quantities of more dramatic events recede, taking up their residence deep inside the archives of the mind.

  He does not return to Rajska Polja or to Sarajevo, though he knows that a journey to both places would engender a good deal of fruitful reflection and the most poignant feelings. He is not afraid to go. In a sense, it has already been accomplished. The sea is enough for him.

  He does indulge in one short bus ride south along the coastal highway. By examining a map of Dalmatia he deciphers the route they must have taken when he was nine years old, the time his father first showed him the waters on which the Argo sailed. At the juncture of a road that comes down out of the mountains, the bus stops and lets Josip off by the side of the pavement. Old as he is, he feels weightless, a boy again. Picking his way down the slopes, however, he goes carefully through well-tended olive groves and occasional stands of orange trees. They are bending with ripe fruit now. The single windfall he eats is very sweet.

  How he knows where to go is something of a mystery. All but the formations of land and water have changed. Perhaps it is subconscious orientation, aided by the configuration of a plateau immediately below and the island of Brač across the straits. There is no solitary tree growing at the very edge of the mainland, beneath which he might find a man and a boy eating sour oranges. He cannot in this way rediscover himself as himself—rather, the self that was, before the destruction of his childhood.