Island of The World

by Michael D. O'Brien

  “So, this is your piece of chocolate”, Josip’s father says.

  “I saved it from Christmas,” she replies, “hoping that you would come this year. It has been so many years since we were all together. Marija’s letters, and the troubles . . .” She pauses and searches his eyes. “Have you had difficulties?”

  “No more than the usual”, he answers as if the troubles are a minor matter. “Rajska Polja is of such little interest to anyone; we are well protected.”

  “Protected by the mountains and protected by God. Every day I pray for this. News from the interior reaches us from time to time. The Italians—are they very harsh? They have done terrible things here, though as I told you some are better than others, like that boy Emilio.”

  “Since 1941 they have come to the village three times with the Home-Guard and searched every house. But no one was arrested. Recently the Italians have been undermining the Domobran, taking over everything in Herzegovina, breaking all their promises to the NDH and supporting the Chetnik rebellion to make things even more confused. The Partisans are growing in numbers too, and most of them are Communists. In the mountains madness is growing among our own people. To the east of us for the most part.”

  “We have heard. The Chetniks . . .”

  Both his father and Sister simultaneously flick their eyes toward Josip and back to each other.

  “Your letter said you will be searching for work here in the city. Is it so?”

  “This is my hope. I must try. In Herzegovina things are becoming more unstable every day. Italian officials control all education now, and our school inspector works for them. But no one has made real trouble for us. I do not think they will be here forever. The war will end someday.”

  “Yes, it will end. But will there be other troubles on its heels? Croat against Croat, Serb against Croat. And the poor Muslims. Terrible things have reached our ears. Even women and children.”

  Her face is now anguished.

  His father and Sister Katarina once again speak without words. Josip sees that their eyes are saying they must not allow him to know what they are talking about. Something terrible. He swings his legs back and forth and glances at the Gospa with the swords in her heart. He eats a biscuit and pretends he is not listening.

  “Teachers in Split come to the convent asking us to pray they will find jobs”, says Sister Katarina. “Sometimes an answer to prayers comes swiftly, though mostly not. It is a hard time for everyone.”

  Again they look at Josip.

  “The Gospa will watch over your family”, Sister Katarina says with finality. “She will carry this boy through these evil times, and one day, yes, one day there will be no more fear.” She wipes her eyes. “May he grow old, a good, good man. May he grow old . . .”, she trails off.

  Josip is now entertaining a few doubts about Sister Katarina of the Holy Angels. To grow old is unthinkable. He knows well enough that people grow old, but in his heart he really knows that old people were born old. They have always been that way, and children have always been the way they are: they expand from extremely small, inarticulate sprouts in the belly to fairly large-sized children who can argue with their parents (always a dangerous activity). But they don’t turn into old people just like that. Of course he realizes that his summation of the matter does not make sense. Though in a strange way, he is sure, it does.

  He eyes the plate of bread and, with a nod of permission from Sister, finishes it off.

  They sleep in the guest house on the grounds of the convent. It is a hut at the side of the garden up against the high stone wall surrounding the convent grounds, beneath some palm trees that sway in the night, sighing, sighing. The room contains a bed, a little table and wooden chairs, and a kneeling bench for prayers before a crucifix. The floor and walls are made of white bricks; the tiles above the roof beams are red. Father and Josip say their night prayers by candlelight, tumble into bed, and sleep deeply.

  The next morning Josip begins to reload his pockets with the stones from the beach, but his father tells him to leave them in a pile in the room. It is to be their home for the next two or three days, and no one will steal the stones; certainly the Sisters will not. Reluctantly, Josip obeys.

  They walk a few kilometers to the west of Split, cross a small river on a foot bridge, and enter the ruins of Solin. Much of it is buried deep beneath the soil. Yet the foundation stones of the first cathedral are visible, and the remains of the Roman walls, even a city gate and the paving stones of the street that runs through it. His father explains that the two ruts in the stones were gouged by chariot wheels. The most exciting place of all is an amphitheater. Its stones are almost black, not like the pictures he has seen of the huge coliseum in Rome, which is gray, nor like the white coliseum in Pula, for both of these look almost as good as on the day they were built. Solin’s amphitheater is buried halfway to its uppermost stones by countless centuries of living and dying. His father and Josip climb a slope of grass to the top and gaze down into the bowl of the arena. At the bottom, sheep are grazing where gladiators once fought and Christians once died. Among the sheep is a group of boys his own age kicking a ball around and scattering the witless sheep that get in the path of their play.

  “This is a better sport”, his father says with a half smile, seating himself on the cap of a pillar.

  Josip slides down a heap of rubble into the arena and ambles toward the boys. He says hello, and they greet him in a friendly way. He enters the game, just as he does in Rajska Polja. They are not exactly like the boys of his village. Their accent is Dalmatian, same words, but different sounds. Their clothes are those of city people, though ragged. They do not wear shoes. Their feet are black with dirt. Their hair is long. Maybe no one looks after them much.

  But the game is fine, and there is a lot of laughing and shouting, and no one gets angry. The ball is a bundle of rolled rags bound by string, not as heavy as the sheepskin ball the boys use at home. It takes some getting used to because the kicks and foot moves have to be different for a ball like this. He adapts swiftly. Then his father shouts to him and beckons that it’s time to go. Josip waves good-bye to his teammates. Maybe they will never see each other again. That’s all right. It was fun. As his father and Josip climb back up the heap of rubble to get out of the arena, a boy runs after them and pulls at the father’s coat sleeve. Josip’s father stops and looks down at him. The boy’s cheeks are hollow, and his eyes seem too large for his skull.

  “Can you give me food?” he asks.

  Father ponders a few seconds, and then thrusts his hands into his pockets. He gives the boy the hunk of bread they had saved from breakfast. It was to have been their lunch. He also gives him a coin. The boy takes it, flashes a look that is unreadable, and then tears into the bread, wolfing it down on the spot. Then he runs away. Josip’s father looks after him, sighs, and he and Josip leave.

  Later that day, his father visits a big office building. Josip sits on a bench outside the door of a smaller office within the building. Many people come and go in the halls: a few are Italians, most are Croats. There are stacks of books everywhere. Schoolbooks.

  His father comes out of the office, shaking a man’s hand, and then he and Josip go down the front steps into the street. “Was it a good visit, Tata?” Josip asks.

  “Not such a good visit”, his father says, though he quickly smiles and claps Josip on the shoulder. “Let’s go back to the Sisters’ house.”

  Two more days are spent in this way. Father is visiting many buildings. He tells his son that he is looking for work as a teacher in the city, but he has found that there are no positions available. He wears his confident smile more and more, but whenever Josip glances at him, his father’s face is solemn, his eyes haunted by the look Josip first noticed when they prayed at the locked doors of the cathedral.

  The next morning, after Mass with the Sisters, there is a lovely breakfast in the parlor with Sister Katarina. Eggs, biscuits, tea. There is no coffee for father, be
cause the single cup they served him on the day of his arrival had been a gift from a benefactor of the convent. The Sisters had been saving it for medicinal purposes but decided to give Miro Lasta their best. After breakfast all the Sisters crowd into the parlor from a side door, including the Mother Superior, who, Josip notices, is very old and bent. She is the one who has a brother in prison; she blessed the Italian soldier. That is what a saint looks like, his father says later on the homeward journey.

  Before Josip and his father’s departure, the Sisters sing three beautiful songs for them: one in honor of the suffering Christ, one in honor of the Gospa, and a final one that is about the personalities of barnyard animals and is so funny that everyone breaks down laughing before it ends. When it is time to say good-bye—really good-bye—Sister Katarina hugs Josip and kisses him on both cheeks. He likes her well enough, but this is a bit too much! All the Sisters are giggling as they watch, and their Mother Superior steps forward and puts into Josip’s hand a little object wrapped in oil cloth. Very tiny. He is sure it is one of those religious medals like the ones the catechism Sisters give out whenever they visit the village. He puts it into his pocket.

  “Open it as soon as you are on your way”, says the Mother Superior with a twinkle of her eyes.

  Without warning, without even knowing he is going to do it, Josip drops to his knees and says, “Please bless me so that I may return to my mother.”

  The Sisters grow silent; there is some sighing, hands held to hearts. The Mother Superior makes a simple sign of the cross over Josip, and then he jumps to his feet. It is time to go.

  All the Sisters accompany them through the hallway, out the front door, and follow as far as the gate in the garden. Thirty pure white birds, waving and waving as father and Josip walk away down the street.

  Near the waterfront, they find the autobus that will take them back to Bosnia-Herzegovina. The Italians call it Zone Two. Father always refers to it as “our Croatia”. He explains that a land is where a people live; it’s their home, not a barnyard enclosed by someone else’s fences. Such fences cannot last, he says. Josip does not quite understand this, for he is preoccupied by something more important—the little package Mother Superior gave him. Inside he finds a single square of chocolate. He holds it in his mouth a long time, letting it melt slowly.

  They travel for two hours southward along the coast, the sea always on the right, Argo always riding upon its shimmering blue. When the bus leaves the highway and turns east toward the mountains, Josip recognizes the very spot where they had debarked three days earlier. He gazes down the olive covered slopes to the single orange tree on the edge of the cliff. Below this, he knows, is the beach where he swam and the home of his friend, the lastavica who rested on his fingertips.

  3

  Sun beating down on the village. A strong breeze blowing from the south. In the grass behind the house, his mother is drying clothing. All morning she has washed the family laundry by hand in a tub on the back porch. She thinks herself alone and talks to the chickens, scolds the donkey, and from time to time sings snatches of song, or whispers prayers. She is happy today.

  Josip watches her for a while, sitting unseen behind a bush. It is a great trick, hiding from his mother, because generally she sees and knows everything. His great love for her wells up with force, and tears spring to his eyes. He understands her now in a way that he has not until this moment: she is an exceptionally kind person, full of faith. She serves him and his father unreservedly, exacting nothing in return except an occasional kiss.

  “Mamica,” he whispers, “my Mamica.”

  There are sheets and blankets in need of drying. They have not been washed all winter and have grown musty. The mother would ordinarily drape such items over larger bushes, but today, for no apparent reason, she ties one end of a rope to a hook in the wall by the kitchen door, then unrolls it slowly as she walks uphill toward the rock and the solitary old oak that crowns it. She ties the other end of the rope to the tree. That done, she returns to the backyard and begins to hang the washed blankets and sheets on the rope. They flap furiously, hitting her at first. She laughs and goes to the other side of the rope, upwind, to hang the rest.

  Josip pulls off his shoes and tiptoes toward the rope, which he notices is now like the rigging of a ship with signal flags. The sheets are white, the blankets are blue, red, green, gray. His mother has alternated each blanket with a sheet, making a pleasing pattern with which the wind now vigorously plays.

  He is standing opposite her, a sheet between them. She still does not see him, does not appear to sense his presence. He steps forward, arms open wide, until the wet sheet slaps his whole body and sticks to him.

  “O Marija”, he sings in a high wobbly voice, which he thinks sounds ghostly.

  His mother gives a sharp cry.

  “O Marija,” he wails, “I am the spirit of your little boy Joshko. I am here to tell you that you must give him more sweets!”

  “And what will happen if I do not, O spirit?” mother wails in return.

  “Your beloved little Joshko will fly away forever like a lastavica.”

  “This I could not bear, O spirit. Tell me, what sweet does my beloved especially favor?”

  “Your beloved is especially fond of sugar cakes made with butter and walnuts.”

  “I will make him one for supper. Tell him not to fly away.”

  “I will tell him. Good-bye, Mrs. Lasta.”

  “Good-bye, O spirit.”

  Suddenly her arms are around him, wrapping him in the sheet. He struggles to get free, but she holds him tight, laughing and laughing in the way she does only when she has had a glass of wine at Christmas and Easter or when she receives a letter from her sister, the nun in Split, or when Tata and she are discussing things quietly when they think he is asleep.

  “Mamica, Mamica, let me go!” he bleats.

  “But if I let you go, you will fly away.”

  “I won’t. I promise. Make me a cake and I will stay forever.”

  “Then I will make you a cake.”

  She lets him go, he staggers back, trips, and falls to the ground. She comes around from behind the sheet, her eyes full of hilarity, hand covering her mouth to keep her laughs inside.

  She sits down on the grass beside him, still chuckling. “Oh, what a boy you are”, she says.

  But now he has begun to think of other things. “Why do you hang the blankets on a rope today?”

  “Because today I want to catch the wind in them. And when they are dry, the scent of the wind will remain within them so when we sleep, we will sleep in the arms of the wind.”

  On an impulse, he leans over and kisses her cheek. She puts an arm around him and squeezes him. Her eyes are holding him so tenderly that he begins to feel uncomfortable. He senses that it is important for boys not to be captured by mothers, even by a mother as fine as this. He jumps up, goes to the other side of the rope, and presses his body into a sheet.

  “Such a fellow you are, Josip,” she smiles, “so full of tricks.”

  Now he is completely engaged with the sheet, which wraps and unwraps him.

  “Is this life, Mamica?” he asks.

  “What do you mean, is this life? Of course it is life.”

  “I mean,” he says, reaching forward so that he is imprinting his entire form on the sheet, “I mean, do we come into the world like this, like a shape that pushes the air, fills a space that wasn’t here before, and though we are now here, we are also hidden?”

  “I don’t understand, Josip.”

  “Are we all in sheets, pushing our shapes into space, trying to see each other behind the sheets but we can only see a little?”

  “Perhaps it is like that”, she says musing. Standing, brushing grass from her skirt, she goes to the other side of the sheet because she wants to hold him a while longer, to press him to herself, a habit he once loved and that he has now almost outgrown. But he has gone. He has flown away into the sky. She shakes her head and re
sumes hanging up the laundry.

  It’s summer, very hot during the day, though cool at night. The snowpacks on the heights are almost all gone. This morning a single airplane flies low over the peaks. The entire village comes out of their houses to witness this amazing event, the first time such a thing has happened. Its engines make a rumble like thunder, but longer. The people stand in the lane watching its passage, hands to brows, shielding their eyes from the sun. The men in the fields stop what they are doing and look up without moving. Everyone is worried the plane will drop a bomb on Rajska Polja, but it doesn’t.

  There are circles on the undersides of its wings. The rumble fades slowly as the little cross in the sky disappears into the north.

  “The British”, father says. This remark sparks much debate among those who are standing nearby.

  “Maybe he is lost”, says an old man. “They are bombing Italy now.”

  “Can they fly this far from Malta?” asks a young woman. “Are they in Malta? I heard they are in North Africa”, says another.

  “No, in Sicily. The Americans too.”

  Josip’s best friend, Petar, hits him on the shoulder and says, “Let’s go up to the castle. Maybe more planes will come.”