Ancient Furies

by Anastasia V. Saporito

  “Now, my child, something has you very upset. Would you like to tell me about it?”

  “Nothing, Jovan,” I answered, now beginning to regain some composure. “There has just been some trouble at home. My mother is away for the night, and I’m afraid to be home alone. Could I stay here with you just for tonight?”

  “Well, yes, of course you can. But don’t you think that I should go and tell someone where you are, or maybe leave a note explaining?”

  “No, there’s no need. There is no one there tonight.”

  “Well, let’s drink our tea while it’s hot and have a piece of bread, and then we’ll rig up someplace for you to sleep.”

  The tea was hot and strong, the bread substantial and tough. The combination helped me to begin to relax. Dear old Jovan kept up a steady monologue while we finished the tea and while he moved boxes and blankets to provide a place for me at the other end of his basement. He hung one old blanket from a beam next to the boxes to provide me a measure of privacy. He talked continuously about his wife and children and their lives before the destruction of Belgrade, pausing from time to time to see if I wished to say anything.

  I did not, of course. Nor did I understand or even hear much of what he said. But the steady, calm tone of his voice was comforting, reassuring, and brought me at least an illusion of security. As the candle burned low, Jovan gently remarked that he had to be up early for work and that it was time to sleep. I climbed on top of my boxes as we said goodnight, and I heard him shuffle to his bed, his couch, at the other end of the basement. He extinguished the candle, and in the pitch-dark of the basement, I listened as the old man recited his prayers.

  “Heavenly Father, you know that my troubles are past and that I now pray only to join you and Dusha. But these are terrible times. So I ask that you please watch over my little friend Asya and her family and that you keep her safe and guide her always. Amen.”

  Jovan’s simple words reminded me of Aunt ’Lyena, and I wondered at how much they seemed to have in common. She was from a privileged background but broken in body and stripped of so much material wealth, while he was from a far simpler background but stripped of everything he held dear, yet they shared a deep abiding faith that maintained and strengthened them far more than anyone else I knew. And I remembered the little nun and the grotto at Hopovo. And I knew that I was beginning to understand despair.

  I did not sleep that night, of course. I went over and over the few minutes with my father, thinking that I was mistaken. I could neither understand nor forget the vacant, glassy expression in his eyes. That man had not been Papa but a terrifying stranger. No one had ever behaved this way before. Sex was still a complete mystery to me, still a rather frightening unknown, and my father had been the one person I could trust.

  A sexual meaning in what had happened eluded me until I suddenly remembered my visit and conversation with the doctor a few months earlier, and I became even more frightened. I relived every moment of my short life, and all the happy times we had shared as a family, and finally I remembered the sound of that old automobile horn and the memory it always evoked. I reasoned carefully that the horn must be a real memory and that my real parents had left me someplace never to return. I decided that I must have been adopted. There could be no other explanation.

  I longed desperately for Kristina and the comfort she always provided, but try as I might, I could not imagine a conversation with her—could not even think of the words to describe what had happened and how I felt. Dear Aunt ’Lyena would have been destroyed by the knowledge, and Mother’s quiet reserve, now conveniently explained by my decision that I must have been adopted, had always made it impossible for us to discuss highly personal matters. The strain of the occupation had worn so heavily on her that I simply brushed away any thought of confiding in her now. And I decided I could not run away. The world we lived in offered no haven, no avenue of relative safety.

  In a strange way, perhaps because of the terrible times we lived in, the way I rationalized the event actually strengthened me at a time I needed it most. Since the onset of the Nazi occupation of Belgrade, I had been steadily growing more independent and self-confident—mature in so many ways far beyond my fourteen years. Mother’s quiet reserve and aloofness had begun to erect barriers between us years before. The simple, absolute trust I had always placed in my father, however, and my complete reliance on his strength and judgment were now replaced with fear. That fear, however, was accompanied by a fierce determination to survive. I reasoned that since my father had always been so strong and protective, I could still rely on him as long as I was very careful. I must, I decided, continue to rely on my parents for shelter and food, but no longer for emotional support or moral guidance. And I must never, never let Aunt ’Lyena learn what had happened.

  As the first light of dawn began to brighten the basement, I heard old Jovan stirring, and I slid from the top of my boxes, slipped on my shoes, and greeted him. I found him in the brightest corner preparing to shave, and I busied myself with making tea and slicing some of the remaining bread. We exchanged brief pleasantries over breakfast, and I followed him up the broken stairs and into the bright sunshine of a new day. I walked with him to the trolley stop, and he turned as the trolley approached.

  “Well, good-bye, Asya. You seem much better than you did last evening. But remember that you can come back to see me anytime. God be with you.”

  “Thank you, Jovan. Everything is going to be fine, but I’ll come back to see you.”

  As the old man boarded the trolley, I turned to cross the street and enter the park on the other side. That was the last time I ever saw dear old Jovan. I was filled with a fresh resolve, but I wasn’t quite ready to face home yet. I moved from bench to bench, from one grassy area to the next, trying to imagine every situation I might face and trying to plan how to avoid ever again being alone with Father. In midafternoon, I turned and began to walk slowly toward home. I wanted to arrive home before he did.

  THIRTEEN

  Kolya

  I approached the garage slowly, stopped just inside the entry doors, and waited until I saw Mother. I was determined never again to enter unless I was certain Mother was home.

  “Hello, Asya. You’re home early today. No extra studying?” she said pleasantly.

  “No, Mama. Nothing special.”

  Mother had apparently spent the night at the stables and was not aware of my own absence. I sat on the sofa next to her and was reading when I noticed my father approaching through the garage repair area.

  “Hello, everyone. Marusha, you’re back. It’s nice to see my two girls together. How are things at the stable? How’s Silva getting along?”

  I remained silent, pretending to be absorbed in reading, as he and Mother greeted each other, and he began to prepare something to eat. At dinner Mother seemed much calmer and more relaxed as she often was after a day at the stables. She chatted briefly about Silva and her day, explaining that she had ridden a bit too long and, afraid that she had missed the last trolley, decided to spend the night there. I avoided eye contact with Father, but it was clear that he was also avoiding my eyes, that he was upset by his actions.

  That night as I lay in bed, I once again went over everything that had happened and thought about our dinner together. Father had avoided speaking to me. He was clearly uneasy, but Mother hadn’t noticed any change. His manner and conversation with Mother appeared normal. It was only my observation that he avoided my eyes and did not speak directly to me that enabled me to relax a bit. It seemed clear to me that he was ashamed of the way he had acted. I had begun to convince myself that I was mistaken, that I had misinterpreted what had taken place, but his behavior now made it clear that he was trying to cover up and put the incident behind him. And it was clear to me that I was not mistaken. I would never again be able to look at his eyes without remembering that vacant expression, and I was now determined to avoid being alone with him.

  I continued to practice Englis
h with Mother each day. I was by this time fluent in four languages—Russian, Serbo-Croatian, German, and English—and still had a good command of French. Old Church Slavonic, the language of the Bible which I read fluently, of course, was not a “spoken” language. I was completely confident in my ability with languages and my pronunciation. I used English only at home because of the occupation, but knew that my ability matched Mother’s and that she sounded exactly like Miss Spencer.

  The last few days of classes were devoted to final exams, which I passed with exceptionally high grades. The Akademie also tested the language ability of graduates, and I elected to be tested in Russian, German, and Serbo-Croatian, passing with no difficulty. I was asked by the instructor if I knew any other languages, and replied simply, “No.” Upon completion of the classes and testing, I was awarded both a Certificate of Completion for the regular business school and a Certificate of Modern Languages, which indicated fluency in three languages. Accompanying the two certificates was a brief letter listing the certificates awarded, language ability, and the address of the labor office where graduates were expected to register.

  “Wonderful, Asya,” Mother said when she reviewed the Certificate of Modern Languages. “Always remember that you can never know too many languages. The more languages you know, the more opportunity you will have. You will never be hungry if you know foreign languages.”

  At the end of June I reported to the labor office, where the clerk informed me that I was eligible to work as a translator/interpreter in one of the offices of the German occupation forces. As I left the building “Uncle” Max Zengovitz approached, impressively strutting in his brown cap and uniform, swastika proudly displayed on his arm. Max Zengovitz’s parents had emigrated from Germany to settle on a farm in Ukraine and had become quite prosperous before the Russian Revolution. Max had grown up in Ukraine, where he met and married Aunt Olga, a cousin or close friend of Mother’s. They had emigrated to Yugoslavia at the same time my parents did and had a daughter, Tanya, who was a year or two older than me.

  They had never been guests in our home, but Mother visited often with Olga to reminisce about the summers they had spent together while schoolgirls. I had met them frequently at social functions at Russkii Dom, where Max worked on several programs with Father and where they were devoted and patriotic Russians. The day after the fall of Belgrade, Max declared himself a devoted and patriotic German.

  He joined the occupation forces and strutted about in a pillbox cap and brown uniform, with black leather belts, one that crossed his chest, and a red and black armband that displayed the Nazi swastika. His daughter joined the Hitler Youth movement and had been sent to attend school in Germany. Max approached with his arm raised in a Nazi salute, saying, “Heil, Hitler.” I was relieved when he didn’t stop as I continued walking, responding simply “good morning” in Serbian.

  The terror that had gripped everyone in the first few months of the occupation began to ease with the lifting of the curfew and gradual reopening of shops and restaurants throughout the city. Over the last eighteen months, fear and uncertainty had been replaced by apathy and boredom. Although isolated Serb resistance never stopped within Belgrade, most of the population had resigned themselves to the reality of Nazi occupation, sustained by an unshakable belief that it, too, would pass.

  By June 1943, however, the atmosphere in the city was beginning to change. Slowly, almost imperceptibly, the nervousness and guarded conversation was returning. I did not understand what was happening, but the tide of war was turning slowly but steadily against the Nazis. German forces were now retreating from the Soviet army on several fronts, and Tito’s Yugoslav Partisans were gaining control of many areas within our own country.

  Following the invasion, Radio Belgrade had been renamed Radio Lili Marlene, an arm of the official Nazi broadcast system. The haunting strains of the popular German song “Lili Marlene” introduced the periodic official news releases of the OKW. However, the famous four notes of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony introducing BBC news broadcasts, although heard clandestinely, gave everyone a lift. Somehow my parents, and all other adults, always had the latest news of Nazi retreats and defeats, Allied advances, and Partisan victories. Rumors of an expected Allied landing in Europe, including American forces, were spreading.

  I was determined to avoid my father as much as possible, and that meant avoiding home. With the increasing heat of the summer, I began to venture back into Belgrade even while staying at Yaintse in order to go to Gypsy Island, and while staying in Belgrade I went every day to swim. Mother began to voice her concern about my behavior to the other people staying at the house in Yaintse, and I soon felt alienated from everyone. Poor, sweet Kolya was unwittingly about to become a complicating factor.

  By late July Kolya began to appear at the beach, occasionally with a friend, but most often alone, looking pensively across the river, lost in thought. The ranks of the Russian boys who had been his constant companions had been thinning for over a year, and it is strange to realize that at the time this never raised my curiosity.

  At first, when alone, Kolya would join me for an hour or so sitting on the beach in idle conversation about the impact of the war on the city and the lives of everyone we knew. Kolya had changed. We all had, of course, but the change in Kolya seemed profound in ways I could not fathom. He had always been a serious boy, quite the opposite of his brother, Yura, but he had matured and grown much more thoughtful. There seemed to be a part of him that he would not, or could not, reveal—some inner turmoil that he struggled with. I understood his inability to speak freely about his thoughts, because I could never bring myself to speak openly to anyone about my feelings toward my parents.

  Gradually that summer, we met more frequently at Gypsy Island. Kolya became for me the big brother that many girls wish for. I felt safe when I was with him and looked forward eagerly to our time together. We spent hours that summer talking about books we had read, music we loved, and our dreams and plans for the future, without ever mentioning the reality of the war, the occupation, or our families. It was, I think, an idyllic friendship in the most unlikely circumstances—one that probably would never have developed under normal circumstances, considering the difference in our ages.

  By the end of July, the summer heat was intolerable, and I spent nearly every day at the island swimming, often meeting Kolya. In early August, Kolya was more troubled than usual and slowly began to talk about his unhappiness, his certainty that his parents did not understand him, and his conviction that all his dreams for the future were being shattered. We stayed longer than usual that day, often running into the water to cool down. In late afternoon the skies darkened suddenly, and we remained in the water as a driving, wonderfully cooling rain started.

  I don’t know how long we remained enjoying the rain, but as suddenly as the rain had started, a ferocious thunderstorm appeared. As the lightning began to strike closer to the river with frightening intensity, Kolya yelled, “Asya, we should leave. The lightening is dangerous.”

  I ran behind him toward the cabanas, where we found that everything had been locked up, and someone had placed our clothes out on the steps. Gathering our clothes, now completely soaked, we ran toward some trees but found no real shelter. The sun was setting by the time the rain began to slow, and we had to put our street clothes on over our bathing suits and head for home. The air temperature dropped quickly in the wake of the storm, and a strong, cold wind blew. I shivered, chilled to the bone, and thought about the long trolley ride home, thankful we were not staying at Yaintse that day.

  Kolya remained on the trolley as usual when we reached my stop. We said good-bye, and I stepped from the trolley into the same cold wind. It was now past dark, much later than I usually arrived home, and by the time I walked the two or three blocks to the garage I was shivering. Mother and Father were sitting in the adjoining office that sometimes doubled as a “parlor,” talking with friends who were visiting, and Mother came to the door as I
passed on my way to our rooms. She stood in the doorway and looked at me with an expression of absolute disgust, ignoring the wet clothes and shivering.

  “Where have you been?” she demanded. “You’re behaving like a dirty little prostitute.” She then slapped me sharply across the face several times. “Get to your room and go to bed.”

  I ran to my room in tears, shocked at Mother’s reaction and at being struck for the first time in my life. I sat on my bed, crying and shivering, trying to understand what had caused Mother to act as she had. I knew that she was increasingly upset by my wandering throughout the city, worried even more since the classes had ended and my time was completely unaccounted for. But her reaction was a complete shock.

  I cried bitterly, wondering why Mama thought I was acting “like a dirty little prostitute.” I knew that I hadn’t done anything wrong. I had been swimming with Kolya and his family for as long as I could remember, and Kolya was like my brother. It wasn’t our fault that the rain started and our clothes became soaked.

  Trying to understand Mama’s words and the shame they made me feel, I remembered my encounter with the man in the park a couple of years earlier. Suddenly I felt terribly dirty, and I undressed and went to the bathroom sink to fill it with water and begin a sponge bath. The mirror over the sink revealed tiny young breasts, no larger than walnuts but in my mind so terribly obvious even when fully dressed. I thought about the strange glances that I had begun to notice from men, glances I had never seen before and which unnerved me. I saw quite clearly that the tiny waist I had longed for a few years before was now pronounced. I remembered the scene in church when I had fainted after binding my waist with a rope to imitate Mother’s waist, and now I no longer wanted it.

  I cried, wishing with all my heart that I could remain a child, wondering why my body had to change. I wondered if Kolya had noticed the changes taking place in my body, and I resolved then and there never to go swimming with him again, never again to even visit Gypsy Island. So many times I had tried to bind my breasts tightly before putting on my dress, but the binding would always slip and was so uncomfortable. I was ashamed of what I saw in the mirror, and I finished my sponge bath, carefully trying not to touch my breasts. I slipped into my nightgown and into bed, still shivering, crying, and with Mama’s words “like a dirty little prostitute” still ringing in my ears, I fell asleep.