Running Away to Home

by Jennifer Wilson

  Robert returned to the table. He explained that his daughters were clearing out their stuff from the third floor. They would move in with him and Goranka on the first floor, where his mother had lived (and died). The workers would complete the second floor quickly, he promised, and all would be well.

  “You want, we go see now,” Robert said with another exaggerated shrug, his eyebrows raised and his mouth in a questioning frown.

  Cuculić stepped forward. “Robert says he wants to show you his third floor now. You may decide then what you want to do.”

  “I know what Robert’s saying,” I said to Cuculić. “Because he said it in English.”

  “Might as well check it out,” Jim said, getting up and pulling me up with him. “It’s late. We’re not going anywhere tonight.”

  “It’s not like we have any other options.” I sighed. “Thanks to these yay-hoos.”

  A friend had given me a piece of advice before we left: Whatever happens, roll with it. We’d come to Croatia to open our lives to the lessons of the ancestors. That meant relaxing the standards a little. Or a lot.

  Roll with it. Yes. I could control the planning for this trip, but I had to make peace with the fact that I couldn’t control what happened from here on out. I had to find it within myself to let go and trust this journey. I took another one of those cleansing breaths and gathered my son and daughter. We filed out the door in the boozy wake of Robert and Cuculić, who were chatting with Jim in broken English about the drive, the flight, and the weather.

  “Mom, I want to go home,” Sam moaned.

  “It’s gonna be okay,” I said firmly. “We’re together and we’re safe. That’s all that matters right now.”

  “You look mad,” Zadie noted.

  “Because I am going to kill Robert and Cuculić as soon as we have a place to stay,” I explained patiently. “But that’s more a logistical matter than an anger issue.”

  “Jen,” Jim warned.

  “And also!” I added, pointing. “Look at the pretty mountains!”

  We looked out the car windows and tried to see Mrkopalj as Jim saw it. The earth rose in peaks above the village, vivid green from the rain. Open meadows peeked from behind the houses, blooming with early summer wildflowers in purple, yellow, and white.

  When we arrived at 12 Novi Varoš, Robert’s home, his daughters stepped out of the side door, inching shyly down the concrete steps. They looked disheveled. Poor things had been frantically packing, rectifying the mistake of their father and I. We were now moving three very sweet-looking little girls out of their home. This did not improve my conscience.

  “This is Ivana. She is fourteen,” Robert said. Tall and thin, with a head of thick and wavy blond hair, Ivana smiled at us.

  “Hi,” Ivana said. “Nice to meet you.”

  “And Karla. She is twelve,” Robert said. Karla made a small wave with her long hand. Lanky, with thick brown hair and wire-framed glasses, Karla could have a future as a women’s basketball pro.

  A third little girl, almost Karla’s miniature, pressed against her dad’s leg. “This is Roberta,” he said, putting his hand on her head. “Roberta is five years old. She is like Zadie.”

  Roberta smiled at Zadie.

  “We go now upstairs,” Robert said.

  “Robert says that now you go upstairs with him,” said Cuculić.

  “Seriously?” I turned up my palms at him as I passed.

  Robert slid back a rolling wooden door on the third floor of his house. We stepped into a space that was open and dorm-like, with high slanted ceilings. To the left was a bedroom with an upright piano, a wardrobe, a bare mattress, and a desk. Straight ahead was the bathroom. I poked my head in to see a lime-encrusted shower and slanted ceiling of knotty pine. An ominous smell emanated from the direction of the toilet (duly noted by the primary toilet scrubber in our family—me).

  On our right was the main living space. Ivana and Karla pulled out a modern red couch with silver pegged legs into a futon. Ivana shook out three child-sized sheets, and smoothed them over the makeshift bed.

  “You sleep here,” she indicated to Jim and me.

  “Mom! Hi!” Sam called. We looked up. Zadie and Sam had climbed into two tiny lofts opposite each other, straight out of a Laura Ingalls Wilder book.

  There was a small wood-burning stove. An old rocking chair in front of a big window. A round table and four chairs. A kitchenette with a dorm fridge.

  Though it was small, the place was clean and bright, its wide plank floors stained gold. The heavy wood ceiling beams looked more than a century old. The girls had decorated with stuffed animals and snapshots of themselves and pictures of the Virgin Mary Scotch-taped to the wall. Underneath a Catholic calendar, a tiny dried-up holy-water font was draped with an oversized ceramic rosary.

  I walked over to the window with the rocking chair. It swung wide onto a full view of the great green mountain Čelimbaša, less than a mile away. The rain had stopped. Black pavement glistened in the dusk. Behind me, Robert said to Jim: “Two, three days here.”

  I turned. “Two or three days to finish the second floor?”

  “Four. Maybe five days,” said Robert. “Then rooms: finished.”

  He coupled this statement with a shrug that seemed to be his signature. One shoulder raised slightly, one eyebrow inched up in equal proportion.

  I was feeling very tired. The kids climbed down from the loft and came over to me. I wanted to snuggle close like chipmunks in that stiff-looking red bed and sleep a long, dreamless sleep.

  I looked at Jim and nodded once. “This works,” I said.

  Jim turned to Robert. “We’ll stay here, then,” Jim said. “Two or three days.”

  “Maybe one week,” said Robert, shaking out a cigarette and casually hanging it on his lower lip, relaxed now. “Not long.”

  We all left the house. Cuculić or Robert, I can’t remember which, showed us the vast backyard with a huge garden planted entirely with potatoes. Robert’s backyard and those of his neighbors were not separated by fences. They all ran together into one glorious field of wildflowers, tall grasses, and garden patches, merging in the distance with a lovely low mountain. The girls walked toward the backyard and Ivana beckoned to Sam and Zadie. Surprisingly, my slow-to-warm kids followed.

  “Well, shall we get our bags?” Jim asked, giving me a quick squeeze.

  “Yes,” I said, watching for a few more seconds as my children receded into the wide meadow in the evening light. They’d never had a yard so big in their lives.

  Robert and Cuculić smoked in the driveway. Cuculić called to Jim that we should park our car in front of the abandoned house across the street. Jim did so and we began hauling suitcases.

  On the way up the stairs, I peeked again at the second floor. Jim and I have renovated a house. I know the look of near-completion, and the second floor did not have that look.

  I dropped a few suitcases in the dorm. Jim stepped in behind me, laden with bags.

  “This is going to be good,” he said, clamping a big hand firmly on each of my shoulders. “I know you’re worried, but we’re not going to hang around here and be miserable. We’re going to settle in to this place and have some fun.”

  I looked at my husband and nodded, drawing strength from his calm.

  Jim chuckled. “What do we have to worry about, anyway? We’re all together. That’s the main thing.”

  We all slept on the foldout futon that first night, spooned together, windows thrown open to the cool mountain air. The mattress felt like a countertop and my pillow a sack of flour. I tried not to think of the sea. In the darkness, the silence of the village shattered when a drunken man sang in the night. Cats fought. A dog bayed intermittently. We all slept but Jim, who sat up all night in the big rocking chair, staring out the window with a smile on his face.

  chapter five

  In the morning, I woke to the sound of the dorm’s door rolling open. It was Jim. He’d already been over to the little groc
ery store across the street, and now he unpacked his shopping bag: a jar of Nescafé, a liter of orange juice, crusty bread, yogurt, sausage, and apples.

  “How’s everybody doing this morning?” he asked.

  “Better,” I said.

  “Good,” Zadie’s muffled voice called.

  From under our pile of blankets, Sam’s long arm emerged. He stuck out his thumb, and then slowly turned it down.

  “Well,” Jim assessed. “The neighbors are out, walking around or riding tractors. The air smells great. It’s a little cold. In July!”

  The temperature was significantly lower in Mrkopalj than in Iowa during a typical summer. Gone was the soul-crushing humidity of the Midwest. I sat up in bed to stretch and watch Jim rummage around the kitchenette. He boiled water in a tiny pan and cut bread, sausage, and apples on a small wooden board.

  “I can totally do this,” Jim said. “No work. No computers. No nothing. Just us.”

  He stirred Nescafé crystals into cracked coffee cups he found in the cupboards. The place was sparse but solidly outfitted, like a park cabin without the mousey smell. Jim handed me a cup of coffee as I lounged. Grandma Kate drank Nescafé, but it was nothing like this nutty European version, which teetered on the verge of tasty.

  The kids stirred under the covers. Sam sat up and looked around.

  “Awwww,” he groaned. “We’re still here.”

  We crowded around the little kitchen table by the window. The kids were sleepy and suspicious of the food, which Jim had placed on a communal plate in the center. They nibbled the food and liked it, but the orange juice didn’t taste right.

  “Okay, guys,” Jim said. “Yesterday was tough, but today will be better.”

  Sam’s head lolled forward and banged against the table.

  Zadie crawled onto my lap. I lowered my nose into her hair and breathed.

  We didn’t know if we should unpack, in case Robert miraculously finished the second-floor rooms, so we dressed from our suitcases and stowed them in the piano room, which we decided would serve as a giant closet. Though it was only ten paces from the main living area, we had this primal urge to stay within sight distance of each other. So we dragged its mattress to a corner near the wood-burning stove for Sam. I unpacked his Legos and found a few wooden folding trays he could build on. This little protected cove would be his own private Tatooine. He seemed relieved.

  Zadie dressed elaborately in a princess costume—something she deemed as crucial as air, and in fact had packed alongside her nebulizer—and asked to go outside to find the girls. Jim and I escorted her downstairs as Sam tinkered with his living space. We found Robert sitting on a bench up against the house next door, smoking, wearing spring-green Capri pants, toes poking through worn leather huaraches. A large golden retriever wiggled on his back at Robert’s feet.

  Jim walked over and rubbed the dog behind the ears. “Who’s this guy?” he asked. The dog’s tongue lolled out in joy. Jim threw a stick and he bounded away.

  “Oh, hey, Jeem,” Robert said, taking one last drag of his smoke, then tossing the butt into his neighbor’s yard. “This is Bobi. My dog. Karla’s dog.”

  “Boe-bee?” I asked. “Or Bobby?”

  “Boe-bee,” Robert answered. “Is typical name for dog in Croatia.”

  Bobi returned with the stick. Jim petted him some more, admiring the dog. Bobi got so excited about the attention that he jumped on Zadie, knocking her over. She didn’t make a peep but scrambled to me, and I hefted her onto my hip.

  Robert stood up and rustled Bobi into a wire pen attached to the side of his house. “We go now to coffee at house of my first neighbor.”

  Robert pointed to another three-story house across the street.

  “Should we go get Sam?” Jim asked.

  “I don’t know,” I said, looking up at the yellow window of the third-floor dorm. “He seemed pretty peaceful with his Legos.”

  “Sam!” yelled Jim. Our boy poked his big, tousled head out the window. “We’re going next door!”

  “Can I stay up here?” Sam asked.

  Jim and I looked at each other, worried.

  Robert watched us, arms akimbo. He scratched his great curly head. “We go across street,” he said, pointing again. “Is near.”

  “We’ll be right over there!” I yelled, pointing across the street. “You can see us from the window! Yell if you need anything!”

  “Okay, Mom,” Sam said.

  Zadie and I crossed the street together. “Now look both ways twice,” I reminded her, pausing as a little Fiat zipped by.

  “Is small road,” said Robert. “Safe.”

  “Well, we live in the city, and the kids don’t cross the street alone yet,” I said, still looking both ways to make my point to Zadie.

  “Not many cars on road,” Robert said.

  “What if a car comes when you want to cross?” I asked Zadie.

  Robert interrupted. “Car stops for person in Mrkopalj,” he said.

  I gave up and we followed him across the quiet street.

  A tall, barrel-chested man with buzzed white hair wearing brown Carhartt coveralls greeted us. We’d seen him out in the meadow when we’d arrived in Mrkopalj, cutting his grass with a slingblade.

  “This is Mario, my first neighbor,” said Robert. Because Mario was not Robert’s physically closest neighbor, we understood “first neighbor” to mean the one most trusted. Over time, this theory proved true.

  Mario stepped forward, shaking Jim’s hand and then mine. Mario had rosy cheeks and bright blue eyes and the first full set of healthy teeth I’d seen.

  With a nod, Mario indicated a green picnic table in the nearby grass. The meadow sparkled with dew in the morning sun. Zadie slipped onto my lap. Another golden retriever came hustling down the steps of Mario’s house, a cacophony of toenails clicking against wood. The dog rushed to the table, silky gold fur lifting and falling as he half walked, half crawled around us.

  “Sidi, Thor!” commanded Mario. “Sidi, doli!”

  Thor sat.

  Robert tossed Thor a wafer cookie from a plate on the table.

  “Neh!” Mario said to Robert. Robert harrumphed a little and tossed Thor another cookie. Mario glared at Robert, just the slightest trace of a grin beneath his grimace. Mario turned and cocked his head at me, as if to say: Can you believe this guy?

  A set of wooden shutters clattered open on the house. An old woman poked her head out. Sun glinted off her glasses to make her eyes look like blank white orbs. She waved one long slow swipe, then clasped her hands in front of her and watched us.

  “Mother of Mario,” Robert noted.

  I waved back.

  Mario, who spoke no English, asked a few questions of Jim through Robert. “Mario say what job is Jim do?”

  Jim answered. “I’m an architect.”

  Mario seemed pleased. “Mario is carpenter,” Robert said. “Carpenter of the wood.” Mario beckoned to Jim and led him to a side door at the back of his house. He opened it, revealing a full workshop. They disappeared inside, power tools being the international language of men.

  I pulled Zadie close and clasped my hands around her belly. We looked out onto the low mountains blooming with wildflowers, rolling beyond the yellow spire of what I recognized as the Mrkopalj Catholic church.

  “Are the guwls awake yet?” she asked. Zadie couldn’t say her r’s yet, a trait I secretly loved.

  “Ivana, Karla, Roberta wake soon,” said Robert, smiling at Zadie.

  Sam showed up, walking across the street to join us. Thor tackled him immediately, licking him first, then humping his knee.

  “Thor!” Robert called, tossing him a cookie.

  Sam jumped up and squeezed in next to Zadie and me at the picnic table.

  “Sammy, did you cross that street by yourself?” I asked.

  Sam seemed surprised. “Yes,” he said. “It’s a small street.”

  Jim and Mario emerged from the wood shop. “Don’t cross the street with
out us,” Jim said sternly.

  Everyone looked at the quiet paved road. “It’s a really little street,” said Sam.

  “Oh, hey, Jeem,” Robert said, grinning. “Mario last name: Fak. Is like American word that sounds same. But is bad word.”

  Mario shook his head.

  “Fak!” Robert said, for emphasis.

  A wiry brunette peeked out over the second-floor stair railing and waved a quick, energetic greeting. She brought down a large tray of coffee fixings.

  “This is Jasminka,” Robert said. “Wife of Mario.”

  Jasminka smiled, handing bottles of juice to the kids with a wink. She set down a ceramic cream and sugar set and held up a small metal pot with a long handle.

  “Is džezva,” Robert noted. “For coffee.”

  Jasminka prepared it Turkish-style. When the Turks ruled the area in the sixteenth century, they left behind words—the ski hill, Čelimbaša (CHELL-eem-basha), was derived from the name of a Turkish pasha—and they left coffee, which was as harsh as the warriors who brought it. A thick muck of grounds heaped at the bottom of the džezva.

  “I’m trying not to get any of the mud in my cup,” Jim said, “but it’s impossible.”

  “I know,” I whispered, stirring in sugar, which kicked up a mess of grounds.

  “Gah!” Jim sipped at the mix of grit and nitroglycerine. “That’s got a kick.”

  “If we talk fast, nobody knows what we’re saying,” I said as Mario, Jasminka, and Robert chatted amiably around us. “It’s like we have a secret language.”

  “Wanna make out?” Jim asked.

  “You’ve got coffee grounds in your teeth,” I noted.

  Robert’s daughters appeared.

  “Zadie, Sam, you come play?” Ivana said haltingly. Both kids looked at Jim and me.

  “Sure,” Jim said.

  Sam and Zadie held hands and looked back and forth several times before crossing the street. I’d never seen them hold hands. Here, they’d have to rely on each other more than they ever had.

  “Maybe we’re being overzealous about the road,” I mused, watching them.

  “No one ever died from being too careful,” Jim said, working at his coffee.