Running Away to Home

by Jennifer Wilson

  After a very long time, the priest read aloud: “Radošević. Valentin.”

  I took a sharp breath in.

  “Son of Petar and Katarina.”

  “Born in 1886,” I said. “That’s the one.”

  “Yeah,” said the priest.

  “House Number 262.”

  Siblings Matej, Franjo, Vincenza, and Ana.

  As with Jelena, there were no notes about Valentin after his birth date. But we did find another interesting fact on the page: “Mother born Starčević,” the priest read. Robert and I could be cousins.

  It didn’t surprise me. Robert and Cuculić had told me that the Radoševićs were one of the first families in Mrkopalj hundreds of years ago. So were the Starčevićs and the Cuculićs, by the way. Me and Robert and Cuculić: the first pirates and exiles in line to get in. There were now so many people with the same last names that the village had come up with an elaborate nicknaming system. Robert’s family, for example, was Baća, which meant “boy.” His father had been called Baća before him, and it’s where Robert got the name for the café-bar Stari Baća, which translated to “The Old Boy.”

  As Robert put it: “Every family have nicky-name.”

  The priest snapped the Book of Names closed. “Enough, huh?” he asked.

  “I think for now,” I answered.

  “Because Radošević has many families,” he said, feigning exhaustion.

  “Ah!” I said, grabbing my purse. I fell into the pidgin English I used in Croatia when I was nervous. “Right! Thank you so much, your helping of me. Is it good to maybe donate some? Something to the church for the help of finding the names?”

  He shrugged and looked down at my tape recorder.

  “If you can, if you can,” he said.

  “I can,” I said, rummaging in my wallet. I took out two one hundred-kuna bills. “One for each, Valentin and Jelena.”

  He made a very big deal out of recording my money in a ledger.

  “Jennifer?” he asked, pen poised.

  I stood up. “Jennifer,” I repeated.

  Then I spoke the names as if I’d earned them: “My great-grandmother was Jelena Iskra. My great-grandfather was Valentin Radošević.”

  I had begun to witness.

  After I left I took a quick walk around Mrkopalj, looking for numbers 40 and 262 on the little tin house-number tags. I wanted to see more of my family, now that I’d scratched the surface of their presence. But I could find no houses that corresponded to the numbers written in my notebook. So instead, I turned back toward the church in hopes of beginning my search for the physical remnants of my ancestors in the groblje, or cemetery.

  My brother, Tim, had sent me photographs of Valentin and Jelena’s graves in a Des Moines cemetery—the headstone read “Wally and Helen Radosevich.” Easy enough. But finding the graves of Petar and Katarina Radošević, and Josip and Marija Iskra, would be a formidable task. I looked down from the hilltop of the yellow church onto a field below crammed with hundreds of headstones, bounded on either side by tidy rows of tall, oblong cedar trees. I toed gingerly down the concrete steps to follow a paved path canopied at its midpoint by a giant crucifix and trellis. It seemed to lead straight to the foothills beyond, every inch along the way crowded with graves. Each name I’d learned so far in Mrkopalj—Starčević, Cuculić, Fak, Paškvan—had so many representatives among the dead. Of Radošević names, there were hundreds, and several Iskras, none matching the names of Valentin and Jelena’s parents. Some head stones had cameo images. In the stiff portraits, I could see Mrkopalj: shadowy eyes, high cheekbones, dark hair.

  Many graves had fallen into disrepair over time, untended and forgotten. I suspected my own family was among them. I saw a very old one, open and excavated, the top of a coffin showing inside—families moved relatives when they outgrew a plot or could afford a better one. Lichen covered simple wooden crosses with nail holes where names were once tacked on. Hand-formed concrete stones had worn away to become unreadable. Some could only be identified as graves because they were in a cemetery and they were the appropriate size.

  I was beginning to understand why my mother and Aunt Terri scrubbed the family headstones in Des Moines on Memorial Day, the way Grandma Kate, Sister Paula, and Auntie had scrubbed before them. Though it would be tougher to find Valentin and Jelena’s parents if their graves were unmarked, my work in Mrkopalj would not be complete until I did. My days of ignorance about my roots were over, and I had to pay my respects accordingly.

  After two hours of picking through the weeds and overgrown grass under the full sun, I grew hot and dizzy. I took a bottle of water from my backpack and drank under a tree. I saw two men standing near the headstone of a soldier, kneading knit caps in their hands. Returning to the cemetery over the following months, not once did I find it empty. Old women freshened the flickering candles in red jars. People my age arranged flowers over cousins lost in drunk-driving accidents. Kids dropped by, seeking advice from absent grandparents. Even little-tended graves were decorated with longevity in mind—silk flowers and perpetually blinking electric candles. The Mrkopalj cemetery was a living thing. As I sat there, a tall smooth marble headstone caught my eye. The name upon it was Katarina Radošević. That had been Grandma Kate’s maiden name. I took it as a sign not to give up, but I’d had enough for one day.

  That night, I told Jim about my fact-finding mission with the Owl and my first round of detective work in town. We were driving home from Delnice, cruising in the Peugeot through the droop of trees in inky darkness, blasting one of the mix discs I’d made at home. We’d discovered a video store where most of the movies were in English, dubbed with Croatian subtitles. This felt like the height of luxury, even if the definition of a “contemporary” movie in Delnice was K-9. Even better: We’d discovered “our” place in a joint called Pizza Scorpion. The guy at the wood-fired oven—somebody told me he was the brother of Aziz, the Albanian fruit vendor I liked so much—baked the kids friendly little cheese pizzas, and Jim and I ordered the house special. We couldn’t interpret the menu, but it included the ingredient “scurvy,” which seemed like a dare from the travel gods. We were not disappointed. Behold the toppings: bacon, mushrooms, cheese, sausage, a poached egg, and a glob of sour cream on top. A real widow-maker. Jim and I were pleased. Total bill: $10.

  “I’m proud of you,” Jim said. He was hunched over the steering wheel, trying to make out the road. The Delnice drive was deliciously creepy at night; the forest seemed to encroach even more after dark. “It sounds like a productive day.”

  “It was,” I said. “I’m going to see if there’s a cemetery map or something. Some of those headstones are so weathered I can’t read the names. But I have to find Valentin and Jelena’s parents. They’re the ones who got this party started. They let their kids go to America. Because of that, there’s me.”

  For some reason, driving the Dramamine Memorial Road in the pitch black canceled out the nausea, and we were all very happy and full that night. Occasionally one of us would wonder aloud what we might do if a zombie walked out of the woods—a legitimate question in this land where overforestation was a problem.

  When we got home, the kids snuggled into bed and Jim and I lowered our bodies onto that cruel tray of a futon. I looked out the window at the big black bowl of Mrkopalj sky as I drifted off to sleep, Pavice and Josip’s dog, Cesar, braying deep into the night, a hunting dog of indiscriminate origin, the only mixed breed in town besides us.

  chapter eleven

  We walked to church together for the first time on the third Sunday in July. We’d been in Mrkopalj for just over two weeks. Our slow-moving herd took a shortcut, ducking past the Konzum and around a shabby bend, where a German shepherd lunged at us the moment we rounded the corner. His snapping teeth barely missed my forearm. Jim and I catapulted the children down the alley as the dog fought viciously against his chain.

  So we were particularly thankful to arrive, alive and unscathed, at the stucco church stai
ned a deep shade of goldenrod. Our Lady of Seven Sorrows perched upon the highest elevation of the village, up three sets of stone steps from the road and overlooking the cemetery I’d recently been baking in. The spire reached into the sky, punctuated by a small circular clock face and a bell tower, this simplest of church designs, its only fancywork being marble-framed doors, half-moon stained-glass windows, and scalloped stone edging like the border on a school bulletin board. We dipped our fingers in the stone font of holy water, its contents forever chilling within these walls.

  Jim and I huddled in the pews and pulled Sam and Zadie close for heat as much as affection. A spartan wooden kneeler ran the length of our shins. Parishioners shifted in the quiet, waiting for mass to begin. The church was packed, even though this was just one of Mrkopalj’s two Sunday masses. With the piercing notes of a mighty pipe organ, the choir rolled out the hymn “O Maria” from high above, in voices triumphant and strong, delineated perfectly between octaves. Loudly, regardless of talent, Mrkopalj joined in with the robust noise of people genuinely glad to be here.

  The saint sculptures in Our Lady of Seven Sorrows were painted brightly in metallic colors and flanked by faux marble columns. Crystal teardrop chandeliers twinkled in the light. A strip of red carpeting led up the aisle, past marble statues of the disciples, their names inscribed at the base: Matej, Marko, Luka, Ivan. The shoes of the faithful had worn the crimson and black slate floor tiles to a smooth patina. I held Zadie close, breathing in the warm-bread smell of her. Jim kept his arm tight around Sam. None of us understood a word from the altar, but the heavenly choir of Mrkopalj gave us the general idea. In that cold calm space, I was thankful for my children as they sat, fidgeting but patient, through the long mass.

  We stopped at Stari Baća for coffee on the way home. A summer girl, Marija, asked us if we wanted Sunday dinner. Though it was good manners to make a reservation so the women in the kitchen would know how much scratch-cooked food was required of them, we were assured there was enough on this day, so we accepted the offer and she set our table. We liked Marija, who looked like a young version of Dianne Wiest. She made a fabulous cappuccino.

  A big redheaded guy and his son, a boy of maybe thirteen, ate dinner, then went outside for a smoke break. Marija’s sister, Stefanija, another summer girl sitting at the bar with a coffee, saw my shocked face as I watched them light up outside the window.

  “You are surprised?” she asked me, raising her eyebrows. Stefanija looked like a mischievous forest sprite in bubble sunglasses and fashion boots.

  “That boy seems a little young to be smoking,” I said.

  “When we were in grade school, even the kids got smoke breaks,” Stefanija said.

  Maybe it was considered an act of patriotism in Europe’s largest tobacco-producing country.

  Marija brought a large bowl of what looked like egg-drop soup. The broth was thick, and we mopped it with country bread. Sam and Zadie held off, hesitant.

  “Eat your food, kiddos,” I said, mouth full.

  “I don’t know if I’ll like it,” Sam said. He hadn’t trusted us in matters of food since the roadside pig incident.

  “You might not,” Jim said. “But chances are it’ll be the safest thing for you to eat. It tastes like regular chicken soup. Pretty much.”

  “Except it’s better,” I said, my head lowered over the bright yellow broth.

  “It is, isn’t it?” Jim agreed. In Croatia, Jim and I had begun describing ourselves as feeders, rather than foodies.

  “Do I get ice cream if we eat it all?” Zadie asked shrewdly.

  “Probably,” I said.

  “Nothing like some soup!” Sam said, digging in with a big spoon.

  They ate cautiously, Sam picking through the broth seeking meat. Finding no definite chunks, he slurped his lunch. Zadie, who hadn’t eaten more than a teaspoonful of anything in her life, consumed her standard amount.

  Stuffed yellow peppers and potatoes with beef gravy arrived. The kids seemed more grateful for their soup then. Marija served a dessert she called pancakes: crepes with Nutella. I watched the kids finish their soup, uncomplaining, anticipating the chocolatey goo. Sam played Legos at the table. Zadie practiced snapping her fingers. Jim and I had come to Mrkopalj to fix our family, but the kids hadn’t needed any fixing. They adjusted to most any situation, as long as their parents were close by.

  The bar buzzed with generations of families catching up together. The old neighbor Viktor came in with the church crowd, and sat down to drink gemišt with a buddy. Robert’s girls rounded up Sam and Zadie and they headed outside in a pack to ride bikes and play in the meadow. Jakov Fak, Mario and Jasminka’s Olympian son, streaked by the window on training skates, lean and muscled and tan.

  Jim and I finished our meal with two more cappuccinos. Stefanija still perched at the bar, along with a young guy in a stylish sailor’s shirt and pressed pants. He introduced himself as Marijan Padavić. Though he was only twenty-eight, he’d already worked as a fashion designer and a graphic artist, and was now studying music and theater in Rijeka.

  “I also sing in the Mrkopalj choir,” he noted with a slight toss of his head. “I am a tenor.” His was the higher male voice that I adored, its soaring sadness the physical embodiment of aspiration, matching the jewel-box beauty of Our Lady of Seven Sorrows.

  Marijan was trim and refined in a village of more hulkish men. His father was the mayor. Marijan later told me that he’d been the first kid in Mrkopalj to color his hair. An old woman had leaned out her window as he passed by on his bicycle, screaming “Oh the Satan! Oh the Satan!”

  “I’m not that fashionable anymore,” he said. “That was in my teenage days.”

  “So you’re the tenor. Who’s the amazing bass?” I asked. Matching Marijan at the lower end of the tonal spectrum was a voice as heavy as a tuba.

  “Željko Crnić, husband of Anđelka,” Marijan said. “Your neighbor to the north.”

  It pleased me to make those connections to the voices of the church. Plugging in like this felt a lot better than standing on the outside, looking in, wondering what the hell we were doing here.

  Jim and I walked home together, at which time he embarked on a favorite pastime of his: staring at Robert’s house.

  Activity in the construction zone of the second-floor apartment was high during the weeks following our arrival, but nothing ever really got done. The young workmen could only make progress when no one else was around. The whole too-many-cooks thing applied in Mrkopalj. Especially when the other cooks were drunk.

  Therein lie the problem: Robert was always there those first weeks, hiding under the pretense of work but really just turning the whole place into a party zone. He would get Cuculić or any other willing conspirator over under the guise of showing him the apartment’s progress, and then he’d proceed to talk him into having “just one gemišt.” The idea that there was ever “just one” of any drink in Mrkopalj was laughable.

  Nevertheless, it was a phrase of Robert’s that we came to love. Or at least Jim did. “Just one gemišt!” spoken with gusto and impressive frequency. Then, after four or five rounds of “just one,” Robert would head over to Stari Baća, where he’d try to keep track of the bar’s business by entering drinks into a ledger with hash marks. As the night progressed, Robert’s scratchings would become sporadic and confused, and eventually he’d abandon the ledger altogether. It was widely known that if you got to Stari Baća at the right time, you could drink for free and Robert wouldn’t notice. Though Robert complained bitterly about Croatia’s short-lived smoking ban (repealed by that woman prime minister he’d been so skeptical about), declining business in Stari Baća had much more to do with the owner’s tipsy accounting practices.

  At the beginning, when we actually thought the apartment might be completed at some point, Robert’s work pace nearly killed us. We didn’t unpack our suitcases because we didn’t know if we had arrived at our final destination. Slowly, by the late days of July, the seco
nd floor developed a real kitchen and a modern bathroom with that crazy shower full of buttons and dials just like a spaceship. It had a bedroom perfect for Sam and Zadie, and a separate one for us with an actual bed, hand-carved by Robert’s brother. When the bed was delivered, the headboard was capped by two carved wooden miniatures of Robert’s signature wafflestomper boots, complete with red shoelaces.

  Unfortunately, at any point during the construction period, you could find more beer bottles and wine boxes than actual tools. We began to suspect that we’d be living in the third-floor dorm for the duration of our stay in Mrkopalj. Eventually, by the end of July, we simply unpacked and resolved to love our dorm.

  The nature of these local construction practices, coupled with impressive amounts of alcohol, should have explained the haphazard arrangement of Robert’s house. The structure of the Starčević manse completely baffled Jim’s architectural sensibilities. As I had struggled to find my place in Mrkopalj, so Jim struggled to understand the insane construction of Robert’s house. Once he sat down and drew the thing in detail but even that didn’t help much.

  I’d often find Jim outside, arms crossed, head cocked, brow furrowed, just looking at the thing. I could almost see smoke rising from his ears as he tried to comprehend the three stories of hodgepodge building material subdivided into so many separate compartments that it laid out like a rural haunted house. Sections that had served specific uses in the past were simply abandoned when no longer needed. The barn in the back end of the first floor, for example, remained much a barn in spirit, though it held only Bobi and a year’s worth of potatoes in its gloomy chambers. The first floor, where the dead grandmother had lived with Robert and Goranka, emanated the feeling of sagging, deep settlement. Worn-out burgundy pleather couches ringed a small television. The kitchen floor had softened so much that I sank an inch with every step across the linoleum on the way to use the washing machine. A spiral staircase went from the first floor to the second, with a strange and hidden bedroom wedged between.