Mother Tongue

by Tania Romanov

  Inside, Roža put the Turkish coffee jezva on the burner, and they sat around the old olive wood table in the kitchen. The room was cluttered—an old sink, shelves full of dishes and pots, a large loaf of bread with jars of jam near it—but the late afternoon light flowed through the open door onto the old stone walls and gave it all a pleasant golden glow.

  Katarina’s eyes absorbed the kitchen she was raised in and she kept running her hands along the banged up side of the familiar table as if searching for a particular dent, or recreating a specific moment shared here. But Roža was clearly thinking of Martin's family home, across the way.

  “It still hurts me every time I think about those people across the road,” said Roža. “It is an awful situation. You know they won’t give up the house, don’t you?”

  The relatives, to whom Katarina and Martin had “sold” the house across the street in desperation, had spent the time since the first war becoming more Italian than the Italians. And they had invented, as least as far as Roža and Bogdan could tell, a grievance against Martin and Katarina. They claimed to be owed even more land from Martin, for taking care of another relative, a deaf and mute brother. They had filed with the government to take over that land, but nothing happened, so they just shared their anger with everyone in the village. Their evil wishes extended to Bogdan, as well. They claimed that Bogdan had sold his house while he had been working in Croatia and illegally took it back on his return. There was no love lost between the households and Roža could barely look out her window without getting furious.

  Roža told them she was sure these awful people had no intention of giving up Martin's family house and had ingratiated themselves with the local authorities to ensure that it was in their name. Now that the Italians were possibly leaving, they were nervous and had gotten newly aggressive on the subject.

  “But we’ve never even thought about coming back for the house,” said Katarina.

  “I know. They are so unpleasant, we just ignore them. Let them stew a bit. I won’t tell them why you are here; you can count on that.”

  “Why are you here?” asked Bogdan, interrupting his wife as he walked into the room, bringing a special bottle of rakija that he had made. He looked as if he had just realized there might be a hidden meaning to this trip.

  “We’re just here for a few days to visit with you,” said Katarina quickly. “I want to swim in my sea, maybe eat some of our fish. And I want to hear all about your lives, find out how things are here. We’ve shared a few letters over the years, but there’s nothing like hearing it in person.”

  Zora thought the answer came so quickly, it sounded almost rehearsed. Katarina had missed this home every day of her life, and now she talked about fish and swimming? Her mother had never before talked about swimming. For a moment Zora felt quite sure there was another reason behind this visit, but the fleeting thought passed, and she just stayed quiet. They all sat there, just looking at each other.

  Katarina finally broke the silence. “Of course there is one other thing I must do.” They all looked at her. “I need to visit the cemetery. I need to visit the boys, and my mother and father.”

  “You know we have been taking care of their graves,” said Roža.

  “Yes, thank you. It’s been over twenty years since I have visited them. It’s too long. My heart aches with the pain of missing them.”

  “I understand,” said Bogdan. “How long do you have?”

  “Just three days,” replied Katarina. “Milena is getting married next week.”

  “Bože moj,” said Bogdan. “Oh my God. Little Milena. Married. Joj, joj. Oh, my! Oh, my! Little Milena. I’ve never even met her; she was born after you left. And now this!”

  “And of course you already have grandchildren, Katarina.” said Roža.

  “Yes. I have five already. I think you know about my Rožića, my poor dear, the one we named after you. She died giving birth to her third child, bless her soul.”

  “I am so sorry,” Roža reached out and put her hand on Katarina’s. “There’s nothing harder than losing your child. And you yourself have lost several, so you know better than I do. Is the little one, the one who was born as her mother died, doing well?”

  “Oh, yes, they are all fine, thank goodness. You know Slavića went to take care of Rožića, stayed when the baby was born, and recently married Ivan. Maybe we should have seen it coming. She’s pregnant with her own first child now.”

  “What? We didn’t know all that.”

  “Really?” said Katarina.

  “Slavića. Oh dear . . . Slavića . . .” Roža said, as if remembering something from long ago. “She was the one born right after you came back . . .”

  Roža seemed about to say more, but Katarina interrupted, not letting her finish the thought. “Yes, our dear, dear Slavića.” Katarina paused, lost in thought. “You know she was always Martin's favorite. And now she's there, raising her sister's children and about to have her own.”

  The interchange caught Zora by surprise. She had never heard about Slavića being her father's favorite. Zora always hoped it was she, herself, who was her father’s favorite, but really, he loved them all. What did her mother mean? She wondered. And what had Roža started to say?

  But the conversation had moved on, and Katarina was talking about Mara and Jana's children.

  “. . . So that makes five grandchildren for me, with a sixth on its way. You know, I am quite sure I wrote to you about it.”

  “I guess we haven’t been all that good about writing.” Bogdan looked at his wife, seeming somewhat sheepish as he spoke.

  “It doesn’t matter. We never were a family of writers. I’ll tell you everything. But first you,” replied Katarina. “What’s happened here since the war? We try to read about it, but it feels confusing.”

  “Oh, it is confusing,” said Roža. “But the good news is that we can speak Croatian again freely. It feels funny, after more than twenty years, I can tell you. We spoke it at home of course. But schooling was only in Italian. All business and all government was in Italian. It was dangerous to speak Croatian, and it got worse after this last war started.”

  “You know,” Bogdan finally said, “I need to tell you something about your letters.”

  “What is that?”

  “Well, perhaps the reason we didn’t get them was that you sent them to Bogdan Rojnič. But that’s not my legal name anymore. Those Italian postmen probably just threw away anything with a Slavic name.”

  “What?”

  “Well for our family my name is still Bogdan, but I had to change it legally if we were to stay here. So I have an Italian name now. It didn’t really help; I couldn’t find work anyway. I wasn’t willing to get that close to the Fascists. So I left and worked in the north of Croatia until the war.” Now that he had started talking, it was as if the flow of words had waited for this moment. “But it’s wonderful to be back home, and thank God we were able to keep our house in spite of everything. No thanks to your husband's relatives, mind you. We had some serious problems with that, as well, and almost lost it. They claimed I had sold it while I was gone.” He finally paused to take a breath. “But I don’t want to talk about the past anymore. Everything is going to be better now. I think the Italians will soon be gone.”

  He deeply believed this. And things were finally changing fast. Now that the days of the Italians were almost certainly ending, it didn’t matter to Bogdan any more that his name had been changed or that someone had tried to take his house. It was over. For all of them, as for their country, the post-war period was going to bring a new world order, and they were ready to move on.

  “You know, Kata, you might even be able to get your own home back.”

  But Kata didn’t want to discuss it. She wasn’t interested in old fights, and she knew nothing would change until the Italians were really gone. Her family was far away, and her home was with them now. They talked long into the night over many more coffees, lamented Martin’s reluctance
to come back while the government was still unsettled, and agreed to stay in closer touch in the future.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Medulin farewell

  The call of a rooster the next morning pulled Zora out of a deep sleep. Her mother was lying next to her and as the room slowly grew brighter, the old stones in the thick walls and in the floor glowed. It felt comforting, and soon she heard her aunt pouring coffee and moving chairs in the kitchen. Zora went outside and brought in a pitcher of washing water. This was the room her mother had slept in as a girl, and Zora had felt her ease into the space as if she were putting on an old pair of slippers. Zora got dressed, then quietly slipped out and went for a short walk to give her mother and aunt some privacy.

  By the time she returned, everyone had gathered in the kitchen over coffee. The sun streaming in the window lit up their faces, and warmth suffused the air and atmosphere. The old jezva that the coffee had been made in looked just like the one in the apartment in Zagreb, but everything else was different. The yard and the kitchen were like one extended room, and the flowers that Roža had put on the old table brought the garden scents with them. The furniture had been there long before any of them were born, and a lot of it looked like it was handmade from ancient olive trees or of pine from old forests that had now disappeared. Bogdan and Matte were at the back wall on a small bench, and the women sat on chairs with embroidered cushions. Katarina had her hand on her cushion, rubbing it in a way that told Zora immediately that her grandmother must have made all of them many years ago and that her mother had grown up sitting on them.

  The old chipped coffee cups reminded Zora of her mother’s kitchen, but Katarina fit in this place in a way she never had in the apartment in the bustling city center of Zagreb.

  The conversation moved to things that were happening beyond this house. There were over twenty years for them to catch up on, and Zora was fascinated by everything she was hearing.

  “You know,” Roža said, “it’s a very tense time here. Many of our people are still living in Croatia, just waiting to come home. The Italians who took over their homes and businesses are pretending nothing will change, but you can tell they are nervous. The ones who have family in Trieste are moving back there. Some of the small shops have already changed hands, and now they want people who speak our language at the counters again. We are, of course, very excited about the possibilities, but there’s been so much turmoil we almost don’t dare hope for too much.”

  “The political situation is definitely changing,” said Katarina. “One reason Zora and I could come so quickly is that we no longer need a passport to visit here. Travel between Yugoslavia and Istria is completely open now, otherwise we would have had to wait for passports. I’m not even sure I know where Zora’s birth papers are. Now that we are here, we can also go to the church and sort that out. I am not sure what Zora’s papers say about her country of birth. Probably Italy. It was such a confusing time, when she was born.”

  “Oh, dear,” sighed Bogdan. He had been just sitting and staring at her, but suddenly he was brought back to the present. “I guess there was no way you could have known. They are probably gone.”

  “What do you mean?” asked Katarina.

  “The documents from the church are all gone. The Italians took them away. They wanted no record of the people who left. They didn’t want you all to try and come back and reclaim your property. Everyone remaining had to file new documents at the town hall, in Pula. It was complicated and they tried to prevent us from doing it, and later said our house had been sold, just like they said yours had. But we persisted. That’s why we finally have the papers for the house. It’s also why I had to change all our names.”

  “Oh, my God,” said Zora. “Does that mean I don’t have proof of my birth?” She wasn’t paying much attention when he talked about the house, but the remark about her documents being destroyed brought her focus back sharply.

  “I’ll look for that when we get back, duše,” Katarina said. “You know, it was such a difficult time, your birth. We didn't know it then, but nothing would ever be the same afterward.” Her mother looked at her with a distant expression, and Zora realized she was reliving a time Zora knew only from her mother's stories.

  “That’s right,” Bogdan said. “Zora, you were born at the same time that Italy formally was given Istria and just before Mussolini became prime minister. We’ve waited the length of your whole life for that prokleti vrag, that cursed devil, to finally get his due. And now he’s gone, and we are to be free of the Italian yoke at last.”

  “I am not even sure,” Katarina confessed, “where the border is with Italy anymore. Are you?”

  “Oh, it’s moved pretty far away,” asserted Bogdan, nodding his head. “You know even Trieste is no longer part of Italy. It’s an independent protectorate of that new League of Nations. I think the Americans and the British are involved in overseeing it. Maybe we will get Trieste, too.”

  “I know. I was pleased to hear of that possibility,” said Katarina. “There are so many of our people there.”

  “But the language in Trieste is mostly Italian, although there are many Slovenes there as well,” said Bogdan, musing. “I passed there on my way back from Croatia. It still feels like part of Italy.”

  “They can have Trieste,” declared Katarina. “As long as we get back Istria.”

  Her statement triggered a thought for Bogdan. “But what was it like living under the vlasti in Belgrade and the Serbs? Did you get to know them?” he asked. “It was very uncomfortable when I lived in Croatia. There was no love lost between many of the Croats and the government in Belgrade. It was especially rough just before the war, before I returned here, to get away from those Ustaše, those Nazis.”

  “Yes,” Katarina said. “I'm afraid you're very right. But I hope we are moving past that . . .”

  “Yes, Croatia broke away from Yugoslavia,” Bogdan interrupted, needing to get it all out, “and declared itself a state, and joined with Hitler and Mussolini. A country at war with itself. It was awful. But that's over, those Ustaše have fled to Canada, to America, to foment their evil elsewhere. We will be one people, all Croats.”

  “You know, Bogdan, we have lived in both Serbia and Croatia since the Italians forced us out from our home here,” said Katarina. “The Serbs took us in when we fled. They gave us a house in Petrovaradin; they gave Martin work. We would have been homeless and hungry if it hadn’t been for them. They treated me like one of them. My daughters married Serbs. Naši ljudi su; govore po našemu. They are our people; they speak our way, in our language.”

  “You’re right, Katarina. Besides, we aren’t really even Croatian; we are Istrian. Our ancestors came from Montenegro, and we’ve been here almost four hundred years. I wish we could be our own country.”

  “That’s not likely,” young Matte spoke up for the first time. “We would be lucky to be a Republic or even an Autonomous Province of Yugoslavia. That’s what we young people are working toward. But it looks more and more likely that we will be split between Croatia and Slovenia. Our part of Istria will most likely go to Croatia.”

  “Oh, Matte, you know Petrovaradin, where Slavića and her family live, is in Vojvodina, which is an Autonomous Province, just like Kosovo. I don’t think you want that here. It’s just one more reason to argue and fight. Mnogi govore po Majarski, many of them speak Hungarian. I’m afraid they will want to break away and go with Hungary. Martin and I are desperately tired of worrying about parts of countries breaking away and being at war with each other.” Katarina paused, and looked at her brother, wondering what it had been like for them. She was so happy to be here, sitting in the same room with him, the wars over, the Italians perhaps leaving. Maybe peace would last longer this time; surely he and his son wouldn't want more turmoil?

  “But we know we could be better off on our own . . .” Matte started to say when Katarina interrupted.

  “Basta! Enough is enough!” Katarina raised her voice and
seemed to grow in stature, more aggressive than Zora had ever seen her. Was this her mother, the peacemaker of the family?

  Katarina continued, trying to contain herself. “Just keep your heads down until you are part of our country again. You are far away from the center, and you might be more vulnerable than it seems right now. You know Istria was taken away from us a few short years after the end of the First World War, when we thought it was decided, and that we would stay in Yugoslavia. You don’t want to risk that happening again.”

  “I know you might be right, Aunt Katarina,” said Matte, wanting to ease the tension, “but we have to at least try and have our own identity.” He stood up and started walking out of the house, barely pausing to hear Katarina’s final comment.

  “I understand,” she said, “and you are young. But remember, anything is better than the Italians.” She smiled then and almost ruefully repeated a phrase that no longer carried the old bite. “Prokleti Italiani! Damned Italians.”

  The next two days were filled, it seemed to Zora, with memories and Turkish coffee. The jezva came out, the coffee was ground, Roža made the same black thick liquid that Zora had grown up with. In this family it had never been replaced with the Italian espresso that was now served in public places. After dinner there was always rakija, the fruit brandy that no Balkan home was ever without. The first time Bogdan pulled out the bottle from the storeroom, he mentioned that he had always hated that užasna grappa, that awful grappa that the Italians favored. Clearly the years of living under the Italians had not endeared them to Bogdan and his family. Zora wondered how they would they feel once they were under Yugoslavia and the leadership in Serbia. Would they just transfer their resentment? Why couldn’t their people live in peace, and just be happy in the embrace of their families? She wondered when it would all end, this conflict.

  Every day Katarina walked up to the cemetery, while Zora went down to the sea and explored the town. Only the first time did Zora join her mother. The cemetery was small, and the graves had simple stones over them for the most part. Many were old and crumbling, and the ancient trees above them dropped branches and leaves.