Island of The World

by Michael D. O'Brien

  When he is able, he sits down at his desk and opens the package. Inside he finds a wooden carving of a swallow. It is perfectly formed, its wings folded, head tilting up with humble composure. Its coloring is not that of the sea-swallows; it is a swallow of the mountains.

  Josip is blinded with a stab of anguish. As he holds it gently in the palm of his hand, it grows warm and remains without flight.

  Three days later he tracks down Antun Kusić and invites him to go for a practice swim in the university pool. They do laps for an hour, then shower and towel off. Antun snaps his towel. Josip returns the gesture. They laugh but say little.

  Josip walks him back to his residence. At their parting, Josip hems and haws for a minute, and then says in a low voice, “Will you introduce me to your friends?”

  Antun’s chest inflates with emotion, and he fiercely shakes Josip’s hand.

  11

  Now it is August, so hot and windless that even seasoned Splitophiles are sweating day and night and complaining about it too. Josip, who has endured much cold in his life, loves the heat, loves sweating, does not mind waking up each morning in soaked sheets. Give me more! he declares, as he stands at the window smiling a welcome to the ball of fire rising over the Dinarics. Give me more, give me more, more and more and more!

  Today, as he has done for the past three weeks, he will help Ivan Rados in the biology lab. They will catalogue his photographs of diatoms, which have been obtained with great effort through a high quality camera and a powerful Czech microscope. Hundreds of crystal clear, black and white images of the infinite microcosm.

  “Bacillariophyta”, says Ivan. “Photosynthetic. They live on light. They’re silica-based single-cell organisms—a kind of living glass.”

  Josip raises his eyebrows. “Living glass.”

  “You can find them in any water on the planet, and they’re more numerous than all the grains of sand on all the beaches of the sea. There are thousands of species, in every shape imaginable.”

  “Like snowflakes”, Josip suggests.

  “Snowflakes are two-dimensional crystallographies and quite impressive. But these have a much broader figurative spectrum. They’re three-dimensional, and they live and move and surprise you. The floating diatoms are spectacular for their qualities of light; their adaptations allow them to live near the surface. But my favorites are the heavily built sessile marine species. There’s more elegance, more symmetry, with no loss of complexity.”

  “Ah, I see.”

  Beneath the data of Ivan’s lecture, Josip hears the fervent outpourings of an enamored man. He’s in love with these little things, though he disguises it with scientific terminology.

  “You’re a poet, Ivan.”

  The scientist jerks his head up from the lens he has been peering into and laughs.

  “Poets are dreamers, Josip. They scribble their subconscious onto paper in order to connect to food sources.”

  That evening, Antun comes by Josip’s room to pick him up for the walk to the first meeting of his alternative culture friends. Antun is dressed in a fine black blazer, flawless black slacks, shining black shoes, white shirt, and black tie. His black hair is slicked and combed. The shadow of beard on his closely scraped chin is black. His eyes are liquid black, as if he were a sable otter that has just heaved itself out of the water, exuding a mysterious and admirable swarthiness. Yet all of this monochromatic effect disguises a rather guileless personality.

  Sweat is running off Antun’s brow, but you can be sure he will not remove the jacket and roll up his sleeves, which would ruin the splendid impression he hopes to make this evening. He is a visual exclamation, the most significant of punctuation marks! He wants both himself and his friend to be signs of vigorous youthful resistance, and stylish ones at that! He harangues Josip into changing out of the dingy trousers and shirt he had planned to wear and browbeats him into putting on his blazer, cleaner trousers, and a tie. This tie, Antun tells him, is good only to be buried in. But what can Josip do, it’s his only tie! And his brown leather shoes are so worn that the heels are beyond all hope, though spittle and candle wax improve the shine. And the hair! Antun insists that Josip must shove that stack of hay under the tap, and then try to get some order into it. He even lends his comb, and fastidiously washes it off after Josip has used it. When the tormentor at last gives his half-hearted approval, they set out on their perilous adventure.

  They walk around to the other side of the hills, at the center of the spreading city. Above the sparkling crown of its topmost buildings, the sky is deep purple. A few blocks from the imperial palace, they turn and begin the ascent into the more refined streets of the Manus district. The buildings along the tree-lined sidewalks are older and larger, the homes of the upper middle class and the wealthy of the pre-Communist era. Hard to say who lives in them now, probably people in good standing with the regime. So, why is the underground launching itself from this unlikely place?

  Antun knocks on the front door of a three-story house that surely must have been at one time the residence of a high Austrian official.

  “Who lives here?” Josip asks.

  “Dr. Horvatinec”, Antun replies. “Don’t ask so many questions.”

  “I only asked one. A reasonable one, at that!”

  “Shhhh.”

  The door is opened by a pleasant-looking woman in her late fifties. She smiles and welcomes them, examining the visitors’ faces with interest as she brings them inside and takes their jackets in the entrance hall and inquires their names. They introduce themselves as Antun, a doctoral candidate in literature, and Josip, a graduate student in mathematics. She is Madame Horvatinec, wife of the doctor. She simultaneously takes their hands in her frail arthritic fingers and holds them—a familiarity that disarms both of the young men, who are feeling somewhat nervous. Her tailored clothing is without ostentation, though cut from expensive cloth. Her manner, like her dress, is relaxed and gracious, neither formal nor informal. She explains that she was once a concert pianist and studied in Vienna as a young woman, but she has lost the dexterity she once had in her fingers. Still, she assures them, her interest in what they are doing is undiminished by her inability to participate directly in the arts.

  “Please come into the parlor and have a seat. Simon will be down in a minute.”

  Leaving them to perch on fragile embroidered chairs, she goes off in the direction of a kitchen, from which come the sounds of cupboards opening and dishware clinking. Food and drink are being prepared.

  The large parlor is floored with Oriental carpets, and at the end of the room is a marble Renaissance fireplace. In the corner stands a rosewood grand piano, against walls that are crowded with overflowing bookshelves. Scattered about the room are deep armchairs, a long settee, the more delicate chairs on which the visitors are sitting, a brass coffee table, a silver samovar and a blue Chinese urn containing dried flowers. Hanging on the wall above the mantelpiece is a large painting of a naval battle. Antun leaps up and reads the brass plate on its frame.

  “Lepanto”, he whispers and hastily sits down again.

  “A good sign”, Josip whispers in return.

  “Shhhh.”

  A moment later, a man strides into the room, and both visitors rise to meet him. They know instantly that this is Dr. Horvatinec. As introductions are made, keen blue eyes behind wire-rim spectacles examine the faces before him. His bearing is that of a younger man who was perhaps an athlete in his youth. His handshake is firm. His fine charcoal suit, striped aqua tie, and ornate black shoes of nonindigenous origin (Italian, maybe) so distinguish him that Antun begins to feel shabby by comparison. Still, there is no arrogance in their host’s demeanor, and his dignity seems entirely a product of moral character, unlike many at the university who display such status. Rare are the men like this doctor.

  He bids them sit down and takes a seat for himself in an armchair facing them. He crosses his legs at the knees, and in a Croatian dialect that is Dalmatian of a rarefie
d sort, inquires about their studies, their interests, their origins. His voice is deep, rather quiet, without affectation, but clearly accustomed to speaking with authority. His eyes linger a little over Josip’s minimalist responses. Antun is eager to tell what he may. Josip is somewhat tense with the effort to hold back details that could so readily pour out in the company of such a man. The doctor does not probe.

  A few minutes later comes another knock. A woman in her forties has arrived at the door. Madame Horvatinec greets her in the hallway with enthusiastic exclamations, which are returned by the newcomer, followed by kisses. She enters the parlor. The doctor gets up and kisses her as well, then introduces Antun and Josip. Interestingly, she is a Serb. A wide-shouldered woman in a long green dress, she is obviously cultured, though her mannerisms are a little affected. However, within minutes it is plain to see that beneath her temperament and her origins she is humble and sincere. She is visiting from Belgrade, where she teaches literature. Her name is Tatjana, and she is a published poetess. She wears at her throat a tiny Byzantine cross. Josip wonders if she wears it in Belgrade, or only away from home.

  Next arrives a man in his seventies, whom the doctor embraces, and Madame Horvatinec greets with a cordial shake of the hand. Has she not met him before, or does she have reservations about him? His name is Stjepan, and he seems loath to disclose any further personal information in a room that is becoming increasingly full of people he does not know. The doctor informs the group that the man has written three novels, none of which are yet published, all of them of the highest quality.

  “What are they about?” Antun asks, disingenuously.

  The novelist appears to be troubled by the question and glances at the doctor. “Simon?” he murmurs.

  “It’s all right. You are among friends”, replies the doctor. Turning to the others, he says, “Stjepan’s books—though fictional—are about the lives of ordinary people who have suffered through what has come upon our country.”

  “Do you mean Croatia or Yugoslavia?” asks Tatjana, uncomfortably.

  Madame Horvatinec, who is sitting beside the woman, puts a hand on the other’s bare forearm and says, “His stories are about what has happened to all of us.”

  “I’m sorry, Vera,” says the poetess, “I didn’t mean it to sound like that. It’s just . . . you see . . . am I really the right person for a gathering such as this?”

  The doctor’s wife flutters her hand on the other’s arm. “You are exactly the right person for this, and, with your permission, I will later on read to these dear people one of your poems.”

  “Certainly not!” says the poetess, though she is clearly gratified by the suggestion. Vera Horvatinec links arms with the woman, whose eyes are brimming with tears, and they sit this way throughout what follows.

  Shortly after, there is another knock at the door, and a round little woman with close-cropped gray hair enters. She is about the same age as the poetess, but she wears a gaudily flowered dress and a frayed sweater. Her shoes are almost as decrepit as Josip’s. Her name is Iria. Raised in Mostar, she was born in Lisbon, the daughter of a Portuguese mother and a Bosnian father—a merchant seaman. Now she is a music teacher in Split, private pupils only. She also writes her own piano compositions and collects traditional folk songs of the Bosnian Croats and Muslims. All of this is explained by Simon as the woman blushes. It is difficult to connect her appearance with her art. Vera pulls her down onto the settee, Lisbon on one side, Belgrade on the other. Three categorically diverse women linked together as sisters.

  “She is our very dear friend,” Simon concludes, “and more gifted than people realize.”

  She and Josip are the only two people in the room who have managed to say nothing throughout the proceedings.

  Another knock, and in comes a lanky, bearded fellow about thirty years old, dressed in dirty slacks and sweatshirt, with sandals on his not very clean feet. Antun begins to feel better about his own appearance. Dr. Horvatinec introduces the newcomer as Vlado, a sculptor. He is a swarthy Macedonian who looks as if he has just returned from slaughtering, single-handedly, a Persian army.

  “You might as well be honest, doctor. I am Vlado-a-sculptor, as you say, but I am also Vlado-a-nihilist, and I think you are all crazy even to talk about this.”

  “If we are all crazy, Vlado, then you will find that your nihilism is compatible with our delusions”, smiles the doctor.

  “We’ll see”, says the nihilist sitting down on the floor, folding his arms and crossing his legs, and glancing suspiciously about at each face.

  “He is not a dangerous nihilist”, says the doctor to the others. “He is angry as we all are angry, yet he is the only one among us who will admit it. He studied under Meštrović for a time.”

  “Too much realism”, Vlado interjects. “I go my own way now.”

  “That you do, and we are glad to have you with us.”

  “Why did you come here tonight?” asks the novelist, with his own brand of suspicion.

  “Because you are doomed to failure”, Vlado snaps back. “Because it is impossible to create an alternative culture, even if it is organized by Simon. No one in this room fails to admire you, Simon, and you know that our instincts are to follow you wherever you would lead us. But this is pure folly. Suicide. I have come here tonight, perhaps for the only time, to warn you that an individual mole or, should I say, a dozen individual moles, all burrowing under the walls of the prison, unknown to each other and operating in isolation, are more effective than a herd of moles galloping blindly en masse toward the wall. Feeling reassured by such good company, confident and consoled that you are not alone as you race toward the wall, you will smash into it all together, at once! Yes, sooner or later, you will be smashed.”

  “Then come along, be smashed with us”, says Antun with an ironic laugh.

  “Who are you?” growls Vlado, turning a stormy look on him.

  “Antun Kusić, master of literature, associate professor of aesthetics.”

  “Let me jot that down, Antun Kusić, so that I may report you to the UDBA. It will save you a lot of wasted time and energy.”

  Most of the people in the room stiffen, shift in their seats. Dr. Horvatinec chuckles.

  “He is joking”, says the doctor. “Our friend the nihilist would be the last person on this planet to contact the UDBA.”

  “You’re sure of that?” says the novelist.

  “Yes, I am sure.”

  “The nihilists, in my experience, are the first to collaborate.”

  “Not this one.”

  “Well, Antun Kusić, aesthetician,” says the sculptor, ignoring all of this, “you are a hero; that is plain to see. You have real courage, which is also plain to see. There are many like you in Croatia, maybe everywhere in this prison land. But, I tell you, guys like you are always the first to be hauled away.”

  “I don’t worry about that”, Antun shrugs.

  “You had better worry about that.”

  “Come, come”, says Vera, getting unsteadily to her feet. “Let’s have some wine. We’ve broken the ice very nicely, and now we all agree on things.” Everyone in the room chuckles or smiles ruefully. The character she is playing is universal in the land, the peacemaker mother, the scolder, the authority on domestic politics, who knows very well how to handle squabbling children.

  After the wine glasses are filled and food is served—almond biscuits, sweet cakes dribbled with liquid chocolate, and homemade pastries—people thaw out another degree or so. The discussion begins in earnest. There is agreement that this meeting and all subsequent meetings will not be mentioned to people outside the circle of new friends. It is also agreed that each will, with utmost discretion, keep his eyes open for other people involved in arts and letters—in culture generally—who seem unhappy about the current state of affairs, are reliable, and might be willing to participate in a project, perhaps even to join the group. A delicate balance—secrecy, with the door open a crack.

  It
is decided that no preemptive activities will begin for a year. Within the coming twelve months, they will consider ways in which a journal of culture can be published. It would, of course, be illegal to publish such a journal, free of censorship, bypassing the official permission of the state. They certainly risk the loss of their jobs, and possibly imprisonment. Each will contribute what he can in terms of writing. They will use pseudonyms. They will print and distribute by hand.

  Simon assures the group that printing will not be a major problem, because the journal will be, in its physical aspects, an unpolished product, on the cheapest paper, stapled or stitched. Perhaps there will be no more than a few hundred copies of each issue. A quarterly would be best. Detailed planning will be needed to bring it off without observation by informers or entanglement with the police. Anonymity and strict self-discipline will be the rule at all times. He and Vera will fund the enterprise, but the real work will be in the realm of creativity. Through the arts the voice of the people will be articulated—and through the journal the voice will be heard.

  Antun mentions that he has already written an essay on the geo-psyche of Croatian poetics. He then qualifies himself pedantically by saying it is also about the poetics of the geo-psyche. He is forced to explain. People digest it, warm to it.

  “There will be room for academic essays in our journal,” Simon goes on, “and this is surely important. Yet there is a difference between insightful commentary about culture and the actual creation of culture. For both, we will need to create a community of people drawn from many walks of life, from here, there, and everywhere. It will be difficult and dangerous.”