by Tom Dusevic
‘Show us how Rudy walks,’ my mother would say and I’d stiff-leg it around the lounge-room. They’d laugh and so I’d do it over and over.
We were generally healthy but I often had to go to the eye doctor. From birth I had a turn in my right eye, which was progressively becoming more pronounced. I was examined by a variety of doctors and there were many tests to get through. By the time I was three, it was decided corrective measures were needed; an operation would be a last resort.
For a time I wore a pinkish, skin-coloured eye patch over my left eye. Pirates were not generally idolised then. The patch was green-black on the inside, but if you looked closely it had a pattern of tiny perforations that could let in the teeniest bit of light. I’d get eye drops put in and when I saw myself in photos or in the mirror, my eyes looked like I’d been crying. I’d bump into furniture and knock over items I was trying to reach, and get into trouble for breaking things I didn’t mean to, which made my dad cranky.
It felt like Tata got angry a lot, even more than Rudy, and I was often relieved when he went to work after lunch at the cornflakes factory as it meant I could be alone with Mama. A little later, Teta would be home, usually in a bad mood. Danica means ‘morning star’, not that I knew it then, but for me she was a little black-mood cloud of castigation and threat. Teta was almost ten years older than Mama and was bossy with her as well. She was short, unlike anyone else in our family. Before I started school I was up to her bosom.
The best time of day was when we went to pick up Šime and Mary from school. Ineska and I would hold hands. We’d see other preschool kids while we waited for the bell to ring. On the walk home we’d often stop for cakes. I’d always choose a meringue, coloured white, blue, pink or yellow. Although I’d heard the baker say to another customer they all tasted the same, I was convinced pink was best. Meringues defied nature, yet their colour, texture and lightness formed an alluring harmony. Biting into one was like crunching compacted air.
I pestered Šime about what was happening at school, looked at his books and learnt new words. He’d patiently listen as I went through the TV shows I’d watched that morning and what I’d learned, especially on Owly’s School, hosted by a puppet that seemed pretty real to me.
Romper Room was my favourite show, overseen by Miss Patricia, firm but fun, who I was hoping would be my teacher when I started school. I tried to get Mama to join in the games but she was usually busy with housework. My mum was fantastic with the ‘posture baskets’, the segment when you had to balance a basket – a tin or plastic bowl at our place – on your head and walk around; she could do the housework and not drop the basket.
In the parlance of the show, Ineska and I were good ‘Do-Bees’, marching around the lounge-room, doing dress-ups, having milk and a snack at the same time as the six or seven kids who were on the show that day.
‘Oh, come with us and gallop, and gallop, and gallop,’ Miss Patricia would sing as we circled the lounge-room riding a broom or mop.
There was the ‘Bend and Stretch’ song to get you loose all over. ‘Bend and stretch, reach for the stars, there goes Jupiter, here comes Mars.’
There was time to rest your head and listen to a story. This was how we learned English, by hearing it said. But my first thoughts were still in Croatian. ‘Zašto’ came more naturally than ‘why’.
At the end of the program, Miss Patricia looked into a Magic Mirror: ‘Magic Mirror, tell me today, have all my friends had fun at play?’
Yes, yes, we’d reply.
Then the picture changed in a trippy sequence and she’d be looking straight at us.
‘I can see Jason and Kylie, Sharon and Kevin. Jane, Sally, Jennifer and Peter, too. I can see all my friends …’
Much as I craved it, Tomislav was never going to be called, but even Tommy and Thomas were rare. Ineska was like me, an outsider floating out there in space with Jupiter and Mars. We were made for each other. Pre-literate, a heart settled, my mind turned over a new phrase I’d picked up: Ineska was my best friend in the whole wild world.
My father and I were slugging it out, hot-headed daily skirmishes in a long, slow war. Not only did he infuriate me with his attitude to reasonable zašto questions, he’d tease me with ditties, rhyming couplets sung in exactly the same way, as if he were a troubadour summing up the drama for those who hadn’t been paying attention.
‘Tom just asked his Mama for a lolly, he can go to bed and suck his dolly,’ he’d sing in Croatian, the unromantic language of astonishing insults. The last word would resonate, just out of reach, to snatch shut like a tenor’s sneaky top note.
On this occasion, it wasn’t completely his fault. This was the era of my failed Ja idem, Ja idem exit: I was hooked on lollies and could carry on if denied. But I had learned from the prison troublemaker how to niggle and goad.
My insolence was now a travelling show, gaining notice, even from tough critics. Our family friend Mrs Lovoković told my parents I had poked my tongue out at her. From a safe distance, I’d add, not in a threatening manner or likely to spread germs. Being exposed and getting attention, however, only made me want to do it more often.
One of the rituals the adults had was writing letters to Croatia and reading ones sent from there, which would arrive every few days given we had three active letter-writers, particularly Mama. It was the only time she stopped working. She took her time and had luxurious handwriting. I thought she must be writing several at once but she spent hours on each, fitting in as much detail as possible, getting the words just right.
‘What do you write about, Mama?’
‘I tell them about you and Šime and Tata, what’s happening here with our relatives and I ask questions about their lives.’
‘Do they know me and Šime in Croatia?’
‘Of course they do. They know about all the things you say and get up to.’
All the things.
I had developed a refined taste for stamps. Not licking, but looking at them, especially ones with sporting themes. Australian stamps were better than the foreign ones that came to our place. I remember going with Tata to the post office and first seeing stamps with Aztec symbols and the five rings, which I understood were about running; they were commemorating the 1968 Mexico City Olympics.
Even as a preschooler I knew Croatia was a state of mind rather than an actual country on a map. Or rather, I knew how much that upset my father. Letters came from Jugoslavija. Like Queen Elizabeth on our stamps and money, there was one man whose head was on all the letters that came with a blue Par Avion sticker: President Josip Broz ‘Tito’. He was the devil incarnate in our house.
One time, when Tata upset me, I knew exactly how to strike back. There he was, on the soft, grey couch, head in the paper. It must be said he looked tranquil (even better for my purposes), his head on a cushion with the Sydney Harbour Bridge embroidered into black velour. There must be something wonderful about the Sun – other than the Opera House lottery results, row after row of tiny numbers, which he checked every few days – and the weekly Croatian newspaper Spremnost to keep him so absorbed.
Getting Tata’s attention, I waved around a letter that had arrived that day. I backed away a little and pointed to the stamp.
‘I love Ti-Ti …’
This was a premeditated thought crime, for I’d already unlocked the front door, making sure there was clear room to run.
I said it again. ‘I love Ti-Ti …’
Just in case he nabbed me I left off the last syllable; it would stand up in court. I took a breath and let fly ‘I love Tito’, lifting the stamp to my lips, giving the old dictator a kiss and making a dash for the door.
My dad even dropped the newspaper and put a foot on the floor to heighten the excitement. It was thrilling, electric, my heart leapt out of my chest. I’d touched the devil with my lips and lived to tell the tale. Rather than repercussions, Tata added this to his repertoire of ‘things my son has done’.
Watching my parents’ daily ro
utine, I identified the best bits and set my ambition. When I grow up, I declared, I’d lie on the couch all day and read newspapers. I’d look after the kids, too, inexplicably countering centuries of Dušević patriarchy by tapping into the burgeoning women’s movement of the time. It gave my parents joy to hear me tell other adults about my plans.
‘But who’d look after your kids?’ an incredulous aunt asked.
‘I would.’
‘And what would your wife do?’
‘Oh, Ineska, she’ll work in the factory.’
Šime and I shared a tricycle. It had been his for a long time but I’d taken possession. That’s the law between brothers. Although it was too small for both of us, it was all we had. We’d run it around the paths that circled the property, on the driveways in front of the back garage where it was safe and around the hedge and backyard toilet. Šime was good at sharing, except for one time when his turn went on for a lot, lot longer than it should have. I begged him to let me have a turn but he ignored me, caught up in the fun. When Šime was at school earlier in the day I had come across junk my parents were throwing out. There were bits of wood, tins of paint, and a couple of long fluorescent tubes. This was a decade before Star Wars, but it was obvious to me a light tube could be used as a sword by a knight.
I took one in both hands and waited for Šime to ride around a corner, my heart racing, wicked little hands sweaty on the tube. As soon as he came into sight – he may have been smiling and singing defiantly, poor fool – I swung with all my might. The dinky lost control in the explosion of glass fragments. Šime hit the ground hard, amid a gush of blood and gut-churning wailing. This was no time to stand around. Šime was hurt and bleeding. I had to run before he got up or the police arrived.
Mama went with Šime in an ambulance. He could walk. I’d been hiding in a stormwater pipe down the street, crouched low and silent. I could see the activity out the front of our house, as neighbours came to view the crime scene. When the coast was clear, I edged home, checking for signs of the law.
Teta was in the backyard in her apron.
‘Šime is in hospital,’ she said in a grave voice. ‘Wait till your father gets home from work, he’s very angry. You will have to go to the popravni dom.’
Reform school. The mythical children’s prison/boarding school of our childhood that was invoked whenever we’d gone too far. I hadn’t even started big school and I was going to be taken away. I began to panic and cry.
‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry,’ I whimpered, breathing quickly and shallowly through my mouth.
‘Sorry! Sorry! Kill me, tell me sorry,’ she said repeating a line my parents would use to describe the abject disrepair of a one-word apology in Australian society due to over-use. ‘And stop crying and carrying on. You’re only crying for yourself, when you should be crying for Šime.’
It was close to my bedtime when a taxi brought Mama and Šime home. I knew it was serious. His head was wrapped in a bandage, like an injured footy player, and he seemed groggy. Šime missed a few days of school. When the bandage came off, there were black stitches in the middle of his forehead, like he’d been sewn up, but not by someone very good at it, like Teta. Would he be like that forever? He usually had a kind face but now he looked cranky, like a monster on TV. After a while, the stitches came out. The oval-shaped scar stayed, just below his crooked fringe, always cut so high.
Not long after, Šime had a birthday party. He turned six on a Sunday and after Mass we went back to our place for lunch and a party. Šime and I had exactly the same outfit, as we did in those days, in the same size. In the party picture his gear looks too small and my clothes look too big. Hidden in the garage was a blue Cyclops tricycle, much bigger than a dinky; you could take a passenger in a seat at the back and there were coloured streamers at the end of the handlebars. Now we could race each other on the paths and yard. Peace in our time.
I dodged reform school but there were other closed institutions ahead for me. I got a serious bacterial infection (that first appeared as food poisoning), which spread to my blood system; commonly called ‘blood poisoning’ in those days, it’s known now as sepsis. I was admitted to the Children’s Hospital in the city and stayed for ten days. There were long stretches of time alone in a room. I wasn’t allowed to eat anything but got an injection in the arm several times a day from a nurse; the needle was stuck into me and held in place by tape. A bottle hung over the bed. I wasn’t allowed to wriggle around.
I was moved to a general ward with dozens of other kids. The place was a noisy zoo. A fuzzy-haired girl screamed all the time, while a boy threw his food; they were in beds with high bars and it seemed to me they were in jail. When Tata came to see me during the day I begged him to get me out of there, promising to be really good. I hadn’t eaten for days and began dreaming about food (okay, lollies and biscuits) during naps; it was hard to think about anything else. I pleaded with my parents for food.
One night I had a large number of visitors. Then came time for them to leave. There were no nurses or doctors around and my mother was the last one to kiss me goodnight. I knew she wasn’t able to stay because I’d asked her many times.
‘Please, please just bring me some biscuits,’ I whispered, keeping an eye out for the needle squad.
‘But you know I’m not allowed to,’ she replied. ‘I’ll get both of us into trouble.’
‘Nobody has to know.’
‘How will I get food past the nurses? They check our bags.’
‘You can hide it in your bra.’
It was so obvious to me. What kind of smuggler was she? The day I came off the drip I ate everything in a gluttonous frenzy, lest it be a temporary reprieve. Bras, useless, let them burn.
I’m in Bankstown Hospital, the year before starting school, and about to go into surgery. I’d had two eye operations before but the terror has not faded. My bed has become a trolley and a man is pushing me through the hospital. We go past people on trolleys in corridors, push through doors in a whoosh, and reach a wide door to a lift. Inside, I stare at the ceiling, noticing a trapdoor. Just in case. The lift doesn’t feel like it’s moving.
I close my eyes and when I open them again I’m in a white room with bright lights, brighter than I’d thought possible, yet familiar. There are several people here, different voices, men’s and women’s and they are calm, which helps. Because they’re all wearing masks and green smocks I can’t tell them apart but assume the taller ones are men. One of the men leans over and says he’s going to give me something to make me relaxed and then I’ll go to sleep. I won’t feel anything.
‘I want you to breathe from this mask and count backwards from 100.’
He must think I’m at school. I’ve never ventured that far with numbers. When he places the mask over my nose I can taste a strange chemical, a mix of medicine and cleaning products, the sorts of smells I’ve sampled under the sink in our kitchen when my parents were outside. One or two heads move in and out of view.
‘Do I say 100?’
The numbers come, slowly, logically, 99, 98. Like a game or puzzle, you first say 90 and make the second number smaller by one … 97, 96, 95.
I wake.
How much time has passed? I feel something has changed. I open my eyes but I can’t see. I don’t know if it is day or night. That’s not good. My head is wrapped in a blanket of some kind, my arms can’t move – pinned or tied down? I can’t tell. I hear noises, things moving about and muffled voices. I drift back to sleep.
‘Tomislav, Tomislav.’ It’s a gentle voice, like Mama’s, but it’s not her. It’s familiar, Croatian, so I don’t fret.
She asks if I can hear her voice. I can. She holds my hand, her touch is warm and soft like Mama’s. Do you still feel sleepy? Are you hungry? Are you sore anywhere? After a few more questions I realise it’s Dr Bosnić. I was scared when we saw her in her surgery days before this operation. She promised to come to check up on me. And she had, before and after the procedure. Her husband is
also a doctor and they’ve always looked after our family.
I’m still afraid, but by now used to the machine rhythm and clatter of hospitals. I drift off again and try to remember the order of how things went so I can report to Mama, Tata and Šime everything that went on. I especially want to tell Šime how I can count backwards from 100. When I get the chance I’ll try to count back to one. With everything dark, I can think clearly, feel my breathing. If I try really hard I can make the colours in my head change by moving my eyeballs. It’s a great trick.
Later, when I’m better – the turn in my eye won’t be as noticeable, I won’t ever have to wear glasses because there’s one eye good for distance, the other for close up – I sometimes see colours and patterns before sleep. It feels as if I’m going back, far back, a long time ago, before I was even born, just a shape or air bubble, floating through water. On sunny days, I lie on the grass and cover my eyes with an arm, fingers or eyelid. The sun is baking me. I can make colours dance, go deep into space or swim in a sea of light. Pressing on my eyelids I create a kaleidoscope. I command a whole world in my head. These eyes are okay.
My favourite part of the house is the bay window, its patterned leadlight glass stretched across six panels: red, blue and green circles and squares. Parts of the glass are bevelled, so depending at which angle you looked through, the shape of things outside changes. Rain made it dazzling. Something might look this way to me, but maybe someone else saw things in a different way. Was I seeing the same things that other people saw? I had taken lots of eye tests so I knew there was a right and a wrong way to see things, but what if your own head actually made them different? I had time to think about such things.