“No way,” I said. “Rijeka is a toilet bowl. You just get lost on this maze of roads that go round and round and round.”
Cornelia lifted her eyebrows. “But it can be very nice.”
“Croatia has such an amazing sea and countryside,” I said. “Give me Mrkopalj over Rijeka any day. Or Zagreb for that matter.”
“Hear hear!” said Dragica, throwing her head back.
“I don’t get it,” I said to Dragica. “Why aren’t you around more often? You don’t live with Cuculić all the time, right?”
Dragica said she lived in Udine, Italy, where she worked as a home health aid. “This is because there are no jobs in Mrkopalj. And I am not from here anyway.”
Nikola Tesla pulled up in front of the bar in his natty silver Renault Mégane. He had Cuculić with him. They joined our table.
“Your wife is fun,” I told him. “I wish she lived here.”
“That is the problem!” he said. “Because of that thing, no jobs, we are apart. My wife must drive hours away to wipe asses for money.”
Dragica nodded. This was just a fact of their life. Money was scarce, so they did what they could. They were hosting relatives in town the next day, and they could barely afford meat for a nice meal. I think I saw Cuculić asking the summer girls if there were any scraps in the kitchen that they could use.
“But you have one of the best jobs here,” I said. “Why can’t you afford food?”
“Oh ho ho!” he said. “That is the problem!”
I didn’t get it. Then one of the summer girls came over and Cuculić ordered a rakija. Dragica looked away. I think rakija was the problem, too.
I’d had a few myself, which emboldened me to probe the Cuculić affair.
“But you love each other, right?” I said.
They both emphatically answered “Yes!” without hesitating.
“That’s so sad,” I said, actually tearing up. “I wish you two could be together.”
“Ho,” said Cuculić. “That, too, is the problem.”
Dragica, Cornelia, Cuculić, and a silent Nikola Tesla all raised their cups and glasses in commiseration with the failed love of the Cuculićs.
chapter seventeen
Ana Fak taught me to bake povitica during that first week of August. After the fourth time calling Jasminka down to translate for us, I knew it was time to hire an interpreter.
“Jennifer, you must learn more Croatian,” Jasminka said, giving me a playful yet stern look. She handed me her Croatian-English dictionary—I’d brought my own from the States, but it was useless against the Mrkopalj dialect. “Use book. Learn more.”
I crossed Novi Varoš balancing my povitica pan and the dictionary. Were people sick of translating for me? Jasminka’s nudge had been gentle, but a nudge nonetheless. It worried me.
Then Pavice saw me from her yard and let out a big whoop, mimicking me balancing my heavy load. “Woohoo, Yenny! Whoa-oh-oh!”
I smiled and yukked it up a bit for her. It seemed as if every time I was unsettled by Croatia—its politics, its wars, its language—the women of the village were there to soften the edges.
I dropped off the book and the povitica, but the dorm was empty in early afternoon. I headed back outside.
“Pavice’s son shot a boar,” Jim said when I sat with him on the yard swing as he watched the kids play. “What’s his name again?”
“Josip,” I answered.
“That’s her husband’s name,” Jim said.
“Yes,” I said. “But it’s also her son’s name.”
“What’s the Croatian word for ‘two’?” Jim asked.
“Dva,” Sam and Zadie said in unison.
“Okay, so Josip Dva shot a boar,” Jim began again. “Then he ripped its face off, and it’s hanging on a tree behind their house.”
“Gross,” I said.
“It’s cool!” Sam said. “You should go see it.”
“It’s like a mask,” Zadie said. “But with blood.”
“Joj meni!” I turned to Jim. “What are we doing to our children?”
I looked around the meadow, trying to find the boar-faced tree, but I couldn’t. An old man pushed a wheelbarrow across the field, haying his sheep. Someone was burning a weed pile, smudging the air slightly blue.
Viktor walked out from his side porch and fixed a newsboy cap on his head. He crossed Robert’s yard toward Anđelka and Željko Crnić’s house, pausing to pat Zadie on the head and tip his hat to us.
“How’d povitica go?” Jim asked.
“It was sweet,” I said. “We should go up and get some while it’s still warm. Jasminka made me take her dictionary. Everyone’s sick of our bad Croatian.”
“People are tired of us already.” Jim shook his head. “We’ve barely been here a month.”
Indeed, the invitations to coffee and backyard barbecues had slowed considerably. I knew people weren’t really sick of us; we were just part of the scenery now. Still, I couldn’t keep relying on whoever was available to translate for me, usually Robert, whose skills were suspect.
People wanted to know us better, too. There was only so much friendship we could kindle without exchanging the most basic details. I felt close to Ana Fak but I couldn’t even name one thing about her beyond the fact that she lived with her family across the street. And where the hell had Pavice come from?
“If we haven’t learned the language by now, we probably won’t learn it,” I said. “To be honest, I can’t do much more work here if I don’t have better communication skills.”
“With all the kids home from college, I bet you could find an interpreter,” Jim said. “The young people speak good English.”
“I’ve got my eye on Stefanija,” I said. “She speaks the best and people like her. When people talk to me, it’ll be like they’re talking to her. Plus, she’s funny in both languages.”
“Hiring everybody’s favorite bartender to interpret,” Jim mused. “That’s good, Wilson.”
“I thought so,” I said. “Unless Robert doesn’t want her to have a side job.”
“I don’t think Robert pays those girls enough not to have a side job,” Jim said.
“I’m going to head down there, then,” I said. “Go grab some warm povitica!”
I glanced around for Josip Dva’s bloody boar’s face before I left. Instead, I saw Manda at her window, looking out at me. Had she been watching us all along?
In Stari Baća, Stefanija was pulling the day shift, steaming milk for a cappuccino. I backed away, as I always did when the Stari Baća espresso machine was in action. It had blown up in the bar about a year ago, breaking every glass, destroying a section of wall, and nearly exploding a tiny summer girl who’d just ducked down to retrieve something from the floor. Robert had patched the wall, and his job looked as sloppy as the work of the doctor in Rijeka who sewed his finger on sideways. I wasn’t taking any chances, so I moved to the opposite end of the bar.
“Hello, Stefanija!” I yelled over the steamer noise.
“Hello, Jennifer!” she yelled back, pushing a chunk of her jet-black hair from her pale face. She wore a miniskirt and tights and an oversized Flashdance sweatshirt that bunched up beneath her blue bar apron.
“Are you free tomorrow morning?” I bellowed, plugging one ear as I spoke.
“Yes, I am!” she called. “Why do you ask?”
“I was wondering if you’d be interested in doing a little work for me!” I yelled. “I could use an interpreter!”
“She speaks very good English,” said a guy hunched at the bar nearby, directly in front of the cappuccino maker. I recognized him as Pasha, the town soccer hero who worked in Rijeka as a “spider”—slang for traffic cop. My gossipy husband (Pavice’s American equivalent) had said that Pasha and Stefanija had once been the “it” couple in Mrkopalj. There was still an on-again, off-again aura of nostalgia between them.
Stefanija switched off the machine and rested her hands wide on the counter, her pixie face crinkl
ing into a wry half smile. “Yes, I would be happy to help you.”
“I will pay you for your time,” I said.
“Just one moment, please,” said Stefanija, hustling out to serve the cappuccino.
I looked over at Pasha, who raised his beer to me. A smallish man with a mullet that actually worked for him, Pasha exuded a strong but quiet electrical current. Jim told me that when he went to Stari Baća at night, Pasha was often there and insisted that people speak English when Jim was around, so he felt included.
“How’d you guys learn to speak so well?” I asked Pasha.
He laughed. Stefanija returned and joined us across the bar. “Stefanija, how do we speak such good English?”
“Easy.” She winked. “We watched Santa Barbara.”
Pasha nodded. “In our school, growing up, we have an hour break at lunch. We would go to Stefanija’s grandmother’s house and watch Santa Barbara over that break.”
“It was a very dramatic show,” Stefanija said.
“I’ve got some drama,” I said. “People are sick of translating for us.”
“Yes, I know,” Stefanija drawled.
“Why should you have to learn Croatian?” Pasha asked. “Nobody knows Croatian in the world. People here should speak English. It’s an international language.”
“Well, we’re visitors here,” I said. “It’s the respectful thing to do. All the travel books say so.”
“But you’re not learning it. Because Croatian is impossible,” Pasha said. “It’s not disrespectful. You should not worry about things like that.”
“I will translate,” Stefanija said. “But I will not take your money.”
“I need professional work, so I will pay you a professional wage,” I said.
Stefanija just shook her head. “What would you like to drink?” she asked, avoiding the money thing.
“I don’t need anything right now, except an interpreter,” I said.
“Of course I will do this for you,” she said. “But if you want to know Mrkopalj, you must meet the old people of the village. I can help you with this. Viktor and Manda Šepić are some of the oldest people here. They are your neighbors on Novi Varoš. They have many stories.”
Stefanija thought for a moment.
“Then you will also want to speak with my grandmother. She is very smart. She is all the time reading books. She remembers everything.”
I nodded. “I look forward to it,” I said.
Someone else ordered a cappuccino, so I left in a hurry. Pasha raised a hand in farewell, then turned to face the cappuccino maker head-on as Stefanija hit the steamer.
We celebrated my hiring of Stefanija with a beach trip to the coastal village of Baška, so far south on the Kvarner Peninsula that it was nearly to the Dalmatian Coast.
“I asked Robert if we could bring the girls,” Jim said. “Only Ivana and Roberta can come. Karla has biathlon practice.”
Zadie was ecstatic. Ivana had continued her role as big sister over the summer, and Roberta was still Zadie’s favorite live-in playdate. Sam was the lonely guy, stranded in a sea of girls, but Legos sustained him, and he carefully stuffed his backpack full of them as the rest of us changed into beach clothes.
Downstairs, Robert had lined up both girls against the Peugeot and was talking intently to them. When we approached, he stood back and stuffed his hands in his pockets. “Ivana and Roberta have cell phone,” he said. “You must call if there is problem.”
Jim and I had been tentative about taking the girls. If they needed anything, it better not be urgent, because paging through Jasminka’s dictionary took forever. The cell phone helped. If we dialed Stari Baća, the summer girls could translate for us.
Robert pointed a fat finger at Jim. “You must learn to speak Croatian!”
Jim gave a Robert-style shrug. “If there are problems, we will call.”
Robert examined his daughters. Roberta toed at the dirt with her water shoes. Ivana, reed-thin in her swimsuit, pushed up her Euro glasses and impatiently met her father’s stare. She wasn’t amused by his worrying. She often hounded him to knock off the sauce and straighten out for the family. It was she who was growing into her sisters’ protector. Worrying was her job, not that of the brown bear before her.
Still, when Robert spoke, she listened. Then I realized: Robert was praying. He bowed his head and grimly recited a brief blessing, and the three of them crossed themselves.
“Really, Robert, we’ll be okay.” I punched his arm a little. “Is be good!”
“I know this,” Robert said, stepping back.
Robert was shy about the religion thing. Every time we passed a roadside shrine in the car, he’d make some great kerfuffle, coughing up a storm or pretending to brush crumbs from his forehead and shoulders, hiding the fact that he crossed himself every single time. On Sunday mornings, Robert blasted a radio broadcast of Catholic mass in Zagreb. He regularly walked to the cemetery to place flowers on the family graves. But we never saw him inside the walls of Our Lady of Seven Sorrows.
I’d asked him about it. “I going to church, but I don’t go to church,” he said. “When people say I have to go to one building to be a good person, I only want to do the opposite thing.” In fact, he and a friend once protested this point by stripping down and riding bicycles through the street naked during mass.
“We have fun with them.” He shrugged. “Make them talk about us.”
“But,” he added, “I pray every night.”
“For me?” I’d asked him, teasing.
“For everybody.”
Jim started the Peugeot, and I patted Robert’s arm. I watched him in the rearview mirror, brooding with a cigarette as we drove away.
The scenery on the coastal drive to Baška was deceivingly beautiful. Houses cascaded down mountain slopes of red dirt and green forest. Roadside vendors camped under umbrellas, selling honey and wheels of sheep’s-milk cheese. Wide blue sky canopied a clear sea. The effect was a soaring of the spirit that put the viewer into a state of deepest road meditation. Easy floating, baby. But Jim and I knew the scenery was just a mirage. That wicked coastal road craved our unsheathed internal organs and our shattered windshields. As much as it lulled us, it roiled our stomachs and taunted our mortality.
Ninety-degree cliffside turns weren’t the problem. They’d just make you throw up. The real issue was all the cars veering across the white line from the sheer centrifugal force of the relentless zigzag. Loose boulders occasionally tumbled down the sheer rock walls. And based on our knowledge of Croatia so far, Jim and I assumed that most drivers were drunk. There was nothing to do but give in to the danger and trust the steel railing bordering a miles-long vertical drop into a stony sea.
If Jim had a tendency toward meekness when it came to matters of nature, then driving the Croatian seacoast developed at least a minimal callus on his sensitive soul.
We needed this on the road to Baška. We left the mainland via the Krk Island Bridge, passing from green coastal mountains to the red-rock rubble of Krk, one of Croatia’s 1,185 islands, an exotic Martian landscape.
We’d seen Baška’s beach listed in travel stories as one of the world’s prettiest. Eventually, it appeared like an oasis, ringed by that distinct white stone beach line. Waves lapped the Adriatic shore. Swimmers bobbed on its cool sapphire plain, content just to float in a body of water that seemed specially made for dipping weary humans. The Velebit mountain range loomed beyond.
Jim found the public parking area, and we walked as a family through the town center. Baška’s Mediterranean white plaster buildings baked in the sun. We slid on sunglasses. The whitewashed cobblestone romance made us feel cool.
“Wish we were here by ourselves,” Jim said into my ear.
“It feels like Mexico.” I sighed.
Jim and I took a yearly winter trip to the Mexican coast, where we acted like boyfriend and girlfriend for five solid days, drinking beer at noon, flirting over dinner. Every once in a while, we just
needed that reminder of what brought us together in the first place. Electricity, they’d call it in Mrkopalj.
But in Croatia, our family traveled in a primal herd. Had we been to Baška on our own, Jim and I would have ducked into the ancient shops, where I might find a pretty sundress without having two kids hiding in the clothing rack waiting to jump out and scare me. We’d have wandered those cobblestone streets in search of a back-alley seafood joint, with no tiny humans clinging to our backs like rhesus monkeys, making a steady stream of merchandise requests.
Yes, this trip had helped our family know each other better, but sometimes it felt as if Jim and I were paying for it with our marriage. We were Mom and Dad all the time. Our experience thus far had been rich and full, but by no means perfect. Things could be rough. We spent nearly all our time together, and sometimes this wore on our nerves. For every sight we’d see, there were three that we couldn’t because we were traveling with the kids or the budget didn’t allow it.
As I struggled across the sand with our beach bags and inflatable toys, I wistfully watched tanned young couples in tiny Euro swimsuits embracing in the water, forehead to forehead. Theirs was just not my life, and truthfully, it kind of bummed me out. Sometimes, there were just days like this.
So instead of being free and young and continental, Jim and I jockeyed the kids around on blow-up rafts. Ivana alternated between walking in the water, dreamily watching the mountains beyond, and lounging in the sun, serene away from the chaos of her home. Begoggled and water-winged, Roberta stayed just deep enough to get a good eggbeater going with her legs. She bobbed on the waves for most of the day, facing the waterfront where kiosks sold beachwear and cheap jewelry, grinning at the buzz of beach life.
Instead of foofy drinks under a pastel umbrella, Jim ordered us deep-fried minnows that still had their eyeballs, and he ate them whole. In the evening, rather than enjoying a romantic seaside dinner with a bottle of wine, we picked a family-friendly fish joint where Sam immediately melted from his chair when we confiscated his video game, claiming exhaustion and lolling under the table for the rest of the meal. Zadie, in a bizarre accident I still can’t figure out, broke her glass by biting into its rim really hard. The Starčević girls ate in horrified silence as I frantically searched Zadie’s mouth for shards, thankfully finding none.
Running Away to Home Page 19
