Island of The World

by Michael D. O'Brien

  Everyone sits down at the table. No one has yet told Josip to go to bed, so he stays. There are only three glasses, however, and from this he deduces that not all the festivities will include himself.

  His father pours pale, mauve slivovica into the glasses, gives one to Fra Anto, one to the mother, and lifts his own. They make a toast. To what? To the visit!

  Yes, to the visit!

  Živio, živio, živio!

  Fra Anto often drops in like this, for no particular reason. He and Josip’s father usually discuss the books they read. His father lends the priest books. But tonight Fra Anto has brought news.

  The Allies have invaded Italy. It is possible that the war will soon be over. The Italians and Germans will flee, and perhaps a decent government will arise in Croatia. Josip’s parents throw up their hands in jubilation. Fra Anto makes the sign of the cross on his breast, as do his mother and father when they see him do it.

  The news about the war is interesting. But for the moment Josip is pondering something else. He is realizing how fortunate he is to belong to this family, which has a friend like this.

  He thinks to himself: Fra Anto is a holy man. He wears no shoes. He gives his food away to people who have little to eat. He keeps nothing for himself except what is necessary to stay alive. He is never angry, even when people are angry at him—though this does not happen often. He sleeps on bare boards with a single blanket in the room behind the sanctuary. He prays all the time. He is a saint. He is always happy.

  He likes my Tata very much. Look at the way they talk; they can speak with each other about so many things, everything really, about Homer and about St. Jerome, who had a lion and a temper, and about St. Simeon the prophet, whose body has not rotted and can be seen in the cathedral at Zadar, and about a book that is a comedy by a poet from Italy, and about the little flowers of St. Francis.

  “Much good has come from Italy”, his father says.

  “Much good has come from the holy faith that is in Italy”, Fra Anto replies, as Josip’s father fills his glass again.

  “Yes, that is more accurate”, his father admits. “Men are the same everywhere, the good and the bad.”

  “Here too, Miro”, Fra Anto suggests in a musing tone.

  “You mean Yugoslavia.”

  “I mean Rajska Polja.”

  “Ah, yes, but the fields of heaven are better than most places—in fact, the best.”

  “Why is it so, Fra Anto?” the mother asks leaning forward.

  “Why are we so blessed when all around us there is so much suffering?”

  “I do not know”, Fra Anto replies. “Perhaps in times past this village suffered more than most. Did the Turks steal many of her children and turn them into Muslims? And did those who remained neither lose faith nor rebel against God for this horror that had come upon them? It is likely such things happened in this valley, as they did in so many others. Only God can read the history of sacrifices. Or was there a saint who stopped here one day a thousand years past and asked a villager for a cup of water? And when it was given, did this saint beg from God a blessing upon us, a blessing that would remain until the end of time?”

  “Or is it because we are poor and content to remain so?” Miro asks.

  “Who would desire our valley?” says the mother. “It gives to the world nothing but a little wool, and not the best quality, either.”

  “It gives to the world its children”, said Fra Anto, staring into the flame of the oil lamp. “And they are more priceless than all the gold and lands and power of the earth.”

  “Yes”, says mother, casting a fond look at Josip. He squirms, knowing she is about to plunge into a flood of emotion, even to hug and kiss him in front of his hero. But she does not.

  Mother, father, and Fra Anto nod reflectively, then glasses are refilled and smiles rekindled. Now the bread is ready. Mother removes it from the oven, long braided loaves, steaming and spotted with hot raisins. She slathers each with butter and presents the glistening prize on a platter. They all break off a hunk and begin to nibble, trying not to burn their lips.

  The conversation resumes between bites. Though he is listening to the adults with one ear, Josip is observing. He thinks to himself something that has never struck him before:

  Fra Anto hears my Tata’s confessions, once a week, year after year. He hears my confessions too, and this is something I wish could be otherwise, but it cannot be. Even so, he likes my father very much, though he knows my father’s sins. Maybe my father has no sins. No, he has sins. I saw him empty the bottle of slivovica down his throat that night Mamica was angry with him, and that other time when he said a crude word after Svez kicked him, and those things he said about the inspector—oh, that was pretty bad, that was. I never knew my father had it in him. But Fra Anto likes him very much, this is plain to see. They are the same as Petar and me. And my mother loves my good Tata too, who works so hard for us and carries much inside himself that he hides from us so as not to worry us.

  Josip’s father gets down the tambura from the peg where it hangs on the wall beside the family altar. It has been a while since he last played it. He nests its round base in his lap. It is the bisernica type, “the little pearl”. The tuning pegs at the end of its long neck need adjusting, then father tentatively fingers its three double strings. The sound it gives is soft, high, refined, evoking countless memories of evenings spent in the happy company of guests.

  Mother claps her hands together and cries out, “Sing, Miro, sing!”

  “Sing, Miro, sing!” shouts Fra Anto in his deep voice, also laughing.

  So, father strums the little pearl and opens his mouth. From both of these instruments pour forth the music of his soul. Even a nine-year-old can understand this. The words are simple poetry, and the music is simple too, yet they reveal joy and grief combined, loss and yearning, hopes rekindled after a long winter, love in springtime. Though it is September, the kitchen window is open, and from it one can see the stars visible above Zamak. A neighbor strolls past the window and stops to listen. Josip’s mother waves to this woman. She approaches and puts her head into the kitchen, leaning her arms on the sill. Mother pours her a glass, gives her a hunk of bread. The women eat and drink as Miro sings. Fra Anto is now singing with him. They have begun a more light-hearted piece that makes Josip bounce up and down on his seat. More people gather outside, neighbors from along the lane. A few of them join the singing; it is one everyone knows.

  When it is over, a wave of applause pours in from beyond the window, and mother jumps up to open the door, inviting everyone in. More than a dozen people, young and old, shuffle inside, tipping caps and kissing his mother. The door is left open for any stragglers who might happen by. The bread disappears quickly. The singing goes on for hours, long after the bottle of slivovica is exhausted. Toward midnight, a shooting star crosses the sky behind the peak of Zamak, flares brightly, and fizzles out. The old people bless themselves. Fra Anto asks if anyone would like to pray the rosary; they all do, none excepted. Two dozen people are now crammed inside the house. Hardly elbow room, but no one minds. The elderly are made to sit down on the chairs, and everyone else stands or kneels or sits on the floor. As the Rosary is prayed aloud, a baby cries, and then a toddler squawks, but it is all sweet. It is the sound of life. It is the sound of the future.

  Springtime, and the snow-patches in the field are shrinking quickly. On sunny days the cross on Zamak shines whiter against the white mountain. The swallows are rioting, lining up along the ridges of all roofs, where they rest from building their new nests. Everyone is glad to see them back. Where do they go for the winter? No one really knows, maybe south to Greece, where it is warmer.

  In the loft where Josip sleeps each night, there is a small window—no larger than the cover of a book—set into the apex of the gable. When opened during the summer, it lets the heat of the house escape. He likes to watch the swallows from it in the morning, before his mother and father are awake. If he wets his index f
inger on his tongue, and squeaks it on the glass in circles, the swallows stop their chattering and turn their heads toward him, ranks of them in a single line along the ridge of Svez’s shed. “Pay attention”, he says, as if he is a schoolmaster and they his class of tiny students. This makes him laugh.

  The round white stones from the sea are arranged on the sill. He often picks them up, the small and the large, and rolls them around in the palm of his hand, remembering. They are the first thing he sees each morning. He drops off to sleep each night looking at them.

  A girl has come to live in the village. She is the niece of the blacksmith and has been adopted by his family. Her home is far away. Her father was killed by the Chetniks (the people of Rajska Polja have now begun to speak openly about them), and her mother is sick in a Sarajevo hospital. The girl’s name is Josipa. There are other girls named Josipa, but none of them are like this one. The children of the village know each other very well; from birth they have seen all there is to know; nothing escapes the eye and the ear. Indeed, a lot of people are related by blood here, and even the children who are not related seem to be as brothers and sisters or cousins. You do not fall in love with your brother or sister or cousin—you do not feel anything like that for them.

  But, oh, Josipa, Josipa, Josipa!

  It begins as a little flame in the heart that grows and grows. He can’t put it out. It’s not the thing that always seizes the older boys when they begin to grow moustaches, but it must be something close to it, because for the first time in his life he cannot control his eyes, which are now always seeking her face, yearning to catch a glimpse of her, anywhere, everywhere.

  Her name is like his name. Just add the letter a. She is not a Lasta, so she has no connection to the swallows as he does, but they are both connected to St. Josip in the Holy Family. This is no small thing. They are separated by five seats in the schoolroom. She is behind. He knows how foolish it would be to turn around and stare at her. No, he does not give in to this impulse, not once. He knows how much teasing would result. She is so beautiful. Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful. Until now he has held this word in disdain. It has become an indispensable word. He can’t get it out of his mind. It is a beautiful word.

  Josip is now ten years old. She is maybe two years older than he is, but he is taller. The Lastas were short people, Mamica has often said, but her family bred giants. Josipa’s eyes are sad and she says little, merely hangs around the schoolyard with her cousins, the blacksmith’s daughters, when she is not at home helping her aunt with chores. The other girls know how to get her interested in games. Once or twice she has smiled, but she remains so shy that no one wants to force attention on her. They all know about her dead father, the brother of the blacksmith’s wife.

  She has long, straight hair, blond like Josip’s. Her eyes are brown, not blue like his. She has rosy cheeks and a little smile that quivers because it has not been used for a while. But it’s easy to see she was once a happy person. Her eyes twinkle when something nice happens, such as the day Mamica brought sweetbread to school for all the students as a surprise. A little gray cat follows her about wherever she goes. It sleeps on the steps of any building she enters, waiting for her. She carries it around a lot, stroking it, singing to it.

  He would like to speak with her. The thought of such an impossibility chokes him. Instead, he has lately taken to romping boisterously with Petar the moment they are out the school door. They wrestle a lot when she is nearby, toss acorns at each other’s heads, try to make their voices deeper, and laugh like idiots at each other’s stupidest jokes. She notices but comes no nearer. And it’s plain to see that Petar has noticed her as well, though of course they both despise girls. Girls are too soft, too sweet, too unpredictable. If you throw a nut at them, they cry.

  Well, maybe not all of them—the tougher ones will throw one back without crying, harder than you threw, and then tell their fathers. You are never allowed to wrestle with them, because one day they will be mothers and you could hurt something inside and then there would be no children. You can’t punch them, even when they are clumping together and whispering in each other’s ears about you—yes, just loud enough so you can hear your name. Gigglers! Idiots! But she is so beautiful!

  He thinks about her at Mass, and while reading by the oil lamp at night, while watching the swallows, while feeding hay to Svez in the morning. He thinks of nothing but her. It could drive him crazy. He doesn’t like it. But he does like it.

  No, he doesn’t! Better to forget her!

  Then one day, after all the snow is gone from the pastures, he strolls aimlessly toward the mountain, intending to climb alone to the cross, and of course to think about her up there. She will be the size of an ant when seen from the fort. It is easy to forget an ant. He would never step on such an ant, but it might help him to ignore her from now on, after he has seen how small she is and no different from the other ants.

  As he approaches the fringe of the forest, he notices a bit of color just inside the trees. It’s a girl in a blue dress, sitting with her face in her hands. He swerves to avoid her. But just as he turns in another direction, she looks up, startled. It’s Josipa. She has been crying.

  For a moment he is undecided. Should he leave her to her tears? Maybe she wants to be alone. Maybe she would be embarrassed if anyone talked to her in this state? The dilemma is resolved by his legs, which simply pull him toward her. He sits down on the grass beside her, not too close. If he were to reach out an arm, his fingertips would just brush her shoulder. He would not do this. Never.

  “Hello”, he mutters, choking a little.

  “Hello, Josip”, she says drying her eyes on a sleeve. She knows his name! This is thrilling.

  But what should he say? She is crying for her parents. No words can help.

  So, he says nothing.

  For a time they look out across the valley to the mountain range opposite their own. The remaining snow on its crests is glowing pink in the morning sun. The wind rippling along the valley is warmer than it has been for months. Insects are singing, birds too. The first buds of the blue alpine flowers have appeared in the grass around them. He can stare at all of these, but not at her. She is blue upon blue. She is the creation of the color blue. He has never truly looked at this color before; its meaning has remained unexamined all these years. She is the essence of blue—that shade halfway between water and sky on bright days.

  Her little gray cat is not with her today. It seems she does want to be alone.

  He is afraid. Why is he afraid? He knows why. He understands that he is afraid to lose her, now that he has found her. He is afraid also of himself, because he knows how stupid he can be at times, the impulsive words and actions. If he says the wrong thing she might jump up and run away. Then this fearful bliss will never occur again in his entire life. It will be lost.

  Why is it so hard to breathe? His mouth is hanging open to take in more air, and his heart is thumping in his ears. His body has sunk into the soil. He is part of it. It will be impossible to leave. Moment by moment, because he is torn between the magnetism of bliss and the repulsion of helplessness, his fingers twitch on his knees, and his muscles convulse as if they are trying to hurl him to his feet and headlong down the slope of the pasture. It is the strangest feeling in the world. This love and fear melted together into a single thing.

  It is like the day last summer when the swallow alighted on his fingertips by the sea, and poised itself there for a few seconds.

  Who are you? Where have you come from? Where are you going?

  These questions have answers he already knows: Josipa, Sarajevo, the future. But they are not the real answers. He knows this, knows it without language—not Croatian, not Greek, not Latin—not by any vocabulary that can be articulated in thought or speech. Josip sees all of this, though none of it materializes in his mind as actual words.

  The answers are to be found beyond the appearances of things, he knows. It becomes possible to find them only whe
n the sweet shock of the unknown appears in your life out of somewhere else, from a place you did not know existed and could not have imagined until now.

  First you were not here, one presence says to the other. I did not know you existed. Now you are here. And you are perfectly silent with me, yet your eyes are gazing at me, as mine are gazing at yours. These are the eyes of the swallow.

  Suddenly he realizes that they are indeed looking at each other.

  “Where are you going?” she says, her voice soft, almost a whisper.

  Instantly restored to the realm of boyhood, he whips his head around to face the mountain and declares in a gruff tone, “To the cross.”

  She tilts her head inquisitively. “Which cross? Is there a cross on the mountain?”

  “Yes, up there on the castle.”

  “Is there a castle on the mountain?”

  “No, a fort. The fort on the mountain that is called Zamak.”

  “I would like to see it”, she says after a pause.

  “It’s too hard to get there”, he shrugs. Then he realizes that he has really told her he thinks it’s too hard for her to go there. Does she feel belittled by this? Has he lied to her? Perhaps, after all, it is not too hard for a girl to climb up there. Regardless, he cannot take her up there, because it is exactly where he had planned to forget her.

  “I can try,” she says, “even if it is hard to climb.”

  For this he has no immediate answer. Because he does not reply, she looks away and stares out across the valley again. Her face is sad, though she is trying to hide it.

  Still he does not move. He cannot return to the valley below or scale the heights above. He is caught between two zones, trapped between the past and the future, in a place that is timeless.

  Josipa looks at him. He looks at her. A current flows between them, without beginning or end, no initiator, no recipient, for both of them have given and received at the same moment. It is unlike any other look Josip has ever received or given. It dissolves all thought. It demolishes time itself. It is the strongest thing in the world. It is stronger than fire, stronger even than death. For this briefest of pauses in the many complex movements of life, and of the two smaller lives within it, there are no barriers. Only a flowing current of deep waters—waters burning with a light that is gentle and inextinguishable. In later years, Josip will still wonder what it was. He will come to understand a part of its meaning, yet he will never have full knowledge of it. He will experience it in other forms, but never again like this.