Whole Wild World

by Tom Dusevic

  ‘Look at that rubbish country, everything to Belgrade.’

  ‘Tito has to beg everyone for money.’

  ‘Yugoslavia can’t even feed itself.’

  The kids had been warned to be quieter, but our spirits could not be dampened. We mixed soft drinks into heady, cloudy brown concoctions and introduced weapons into hide-and-seek – excitement being a vector for rising danger – so it became more like search-and-destroy. Arms being in short supply, we improvised. Sam pulled out a large black umbrella with a sharp metal tip at the end; in his expert hands it was now a fire- breathing bazooka.

  Discovered hiding under a blanket near the bay window, my mission was to bolt to safety in the sunroom. I dashed for the ‘B-A-R, bar’ shrieking with glee as my cousin gave chase. Coming the other way was Sam, locked and loaded. My open mouth, a vast virgin wilderness, met its destiny in fast motion, the collision as spectacular as a blood geyser in a slasher film. I’m down. My head has exploded. I’m dying. But the body, a testament to the human spirit, is still producing a torrent of tears. I generated so much wailing it was enough to stop Tata in mid anti-Tito tirade.

  Did a plane just crash into the house?

  After the umbrella was extricated – I suspect it was left in longer than necessary to shield bystanders from the hot gush of tears and to save the walls from crimson saliva splatter – it was banished, never again to be used in house skirmishes. A grisly future in poison-tipped encounters with double agents in the Soviet bloc now beckoned for the exiled brolly.

  I must have stopped crying at some point because I’m smiling in my Communion photo four months later. Tata and I sat in the emergency waiting room for an eternity, longer than a school day, although not as excruciating as a Croatian national day speech-fest. I watched the clock, hour after hour, wondering when our turn would come. Here it is again, the big hand on the six, half-past something. There weren’t many people waiting but there had been a car accident and I was stuck.

  Midnight. I’d never been up so late.

  I fell asleep on Tata’s lap. I hadn’t been back to this hospital since I was born but I knew instinctively what goes on around here amid the pervasive antiseptic odour and hush. The blood and spit flow have subsided but there’s a voodoo-drum throbbing in my throat, a boulder lodged atop my head. A soggy mound of bloodied cotton wool and face washers sit beneath my chair.

  Our turn. There is a needle from a nurse. I wince, but the sleep and pain have dulled my nerves. I’m asked to gargle and spit out the muck so the wound can be cleaned. It can’t be stitched.

  Sam put a hole in the roof of my mouth; there is a fleshy pothole at the back of a dark cavern, a place that will store mashed up food like a sump. I will play in that roughed-up nook with my tongue for years when bored in class or before I sleep at night. How lucky am I to have such a secret distraction? Only I know it is there. It’s a too-simple tongue manoeuvre, backward roll, half-twist, to relive that wild night of noise and energy and blood. I was gathering stories of my own.

  I hadn’t been paying proper attention to family matters but Sam and Teta were off to Croatia for a three-month holiday. Apparently I’d been asked if I wanted to go but given my mother wasn’t allowed to enter Yugoslavia – she was an escapee and my mate Tito would put her in prison if he got his hands on her – I’d declined the offer of an all-expenses-paid European trip and a bonus summer.

  There was a tortuous paperwork path to get passports for Sam and Teta. Danica Lukin, born in 1915, Kali, Yugoslavia, had sworn allegiance to the Queen. No way would Tata consent to the Y-word on his documents. There were visits to travel agents and injections (as the route went through the Philippines and India). Sam had to get his hair cut as well.

  ‘In Singapore they put you in jail if your hair grows over your collar or if they catch you with chewing gum!’

  As usual, Sam had done his research. He was taking Teta to Croatia, not the other way around. Still, the barber was always an ordeal for Sam, given his trauma as a toddler. Mama and Teta were convinced the best way to secure a good head of hair for life was to completely shave it bald at age two. They did this in summer and neglected to put a hat on him when they walked home in the noonday sun. Sam’s little head was roasted. He suffered heatstroke and was rushed to emergency. Later, Tata vetoed the flawed hair strategy for me, arguing against such peasant sorcery in the child security council.

  As was the custom, in the weeks before departure relatives, friends and people on the village fringe came to our place with envelopes and gifts for kin. All of it was written down in a little book Teta carried like an accountant for the mob. This was no small matter as the remittance trade often caused bad blood. A botched delivery or someone trying to pull a fast one instantly spawned a vendetta, here or back in the village. Better to nip trouble in the bud, to take immediate restorative action, as these things fester.

  That’s why Mama, Teta and I are trekking through the distant western suburbs of Fairfield and Smithfield on official business (which Tata has wisely decided to abstain from). Unfamiliar with the local buses we end up walking for miles – the metric system is on its way. The Lukin sisters are adamant they’ve been duped by a woman, a mule, who has just returned from a visit to Croatia. I’ll call her Gold Marija; a change of nickname is imminent. She was carrying gold chains, sent by our relatives, which have not been handed over. One of the chains was to be mine, so I’m a wronged party, not just muscle.

  In a new housing estate, we find the correct red brick house. I’m relieved, for I’d had doubts about the planning and execution of this whole venture. We have come by surprise but are welcomed inside by Gold Marija, a woman much younger than my mother and aunt. There are several other women here – coffee, cakes and biscuits are on a small table in the lounge-room. Lemonade for the boy! Look how tall he is!

  Teta’s not here for pleasantries and confronts Marija about the missing cache of gold. Marija tells a rambling story, excuse after excuse. Mama shakes her head and clicks her tongue. Teta’s heard enough and calls the woman a liar and thief. Marija collapses. Has tiny Teta head-butted her? Marija is carried by other women into a bedroom and placed on a bed. There’s a stalemate over several hours, with Marija, prone, in a catatonic state, calling for her husband.

  ‘Ajme Ante! Ajme Ante!’ ‘Oh my Ante!’ emanates from a dark room, tucked between a sing-song of moans and whimpers. Cold compresses are applied.

  I can tell Gold Marija is faking it. The visit is as surreal as it is melodramatic. They’ve run out of lemonade and chips, so I’m itching to leave. Talk of an ambulance and Ante’s imminent arrival leads to our rushed departure.

  But this isn’t over. We will claw back our gold, calling in favours from families with influence here and in the old country. No blood is spilt, but Marija – her heirs and successors, plants and pets – are dead to us. On the forlorn walk to Fairfield station I begin mimicking the accursed woman, delighting in her woe.

  ‘Ajme Ante! Ajme Ante!’

  Some kids are forced to play the piano accordion when other families visit. ‘Ajme Ante!’ – the name we’ll forever use for that thief – is added to my stand-up routine.

  We took Teta and Sam to the airport. In those days flights to Croatia were charters, which meant the plane is filled with people we know from church and the club. Two cousins are jumping out of their skin to get on the plane. Sam has an ultra-cool blue BOAC cabin bag over his shoulder, even though they aren’t flying with the British carrier. I regret not being part of it – especially as the highlight of the trip is seeing our only living grandparent, Baba Luca, Tata’s mother – but I didn’t want to spend that much time away with Teta or miss school before my Communion. Aged seven, three months is a big proportion of your life. Sam, the top student in his grade, is giving the field a chance to catch up.

  Mama cried when they departed, her pitifully low threshold for tears (even lower than mine) justified in this case. I just waved goodbye. In the car, I had the whole back
seat to myself, instead of being stuck between Teta and Sam. While I did miss Sam, I adapted with obscene haste, like a widower marrying his new girlfriend the day after his late wife’s funeral. This only-child thing worked for me. It instantly meant I was out of the cot and sleeping in Sam’s bed. Life was a holiday from the usual family dynamic.

  Sam’s absence meant I made friends with neighbouring kids, particularly those who attended public schools. I also became sly enough to ‘borrow’ coins from Mama’s purse – how could she possibly miss a few one-cent or two-cent coins? I’d slip out while she was busy, sprinting to the shop near the Greek Orthodox Church for lollies. This was my area of know-how: the five-cent mixed bag, curated with the greedy child’s arithmetic of maximum weight.

  We were sent pictures of the travellers. The light looked bright in Ljubač and Kali, Sam surrounded by kids I could not place, everyone looking slim and tanned. Even Teta is smiling in the photos.

  As a family of three, we started visiting and hosting different people on Saturdays and Sundays. I met new kids – a chubby older cousin called Dean, his dad a fisherman from Port Lincoln, who’d win a gold medal at the L.A. Olympics – and told them about my big brother who was on ‘holiday’, Croatian shorthand for ‘visiting the homeland’. Going on a vacation to the beach, staying in a caravan or visiting another city were unheard of in our wider social circle. You knew which families could or couldn’t go back to Croatia. My sense then was that the main helpers at the Croatian club, like my father, were not permitted to travel there.

  As Sam was in fourth class, my mother allowed us to walk home by ourselves after school. It was just under a mile (1.6 kilometres). The arrangement gave her more time for housework; we got freedom. When Sam went to Croatia, Mama was inclined to go back to the previous pick-up system. I begged her to let me walk home on my own. I went most of the way with Peter, one of Sam’s friends. On Burwood Road, there was a zebra crossing near the library. A police officer had visited our class, boring us with pedestrian safety when all we wanted her to talk about were bad guys and guns. Look left, look right, look left again.

  As we do every day, Peter and I are talking and oblivious to any danger as we walk across the zebra markings on the road.

  Bam! Hit by a car. Its front strikes me just below the hip. Boom! The impact sends me rolling on top of the hood. The car stops. Bam! I fall back onto the road. An older lady screams as she exits the car. She puts her arm around me, sits me up. I’m in shock. Where did that come from? Whoa, I’m on top of a car! The pain would come later, as would a shocking replay of the impact, visiting me in the dark, over and over.

  I sit on the side of the road with the woman, who’s wearing a fur coat. She’s scared, breathing heavily. I’ve got scratches on my hands, which I’d scraped to break my fall. Instinctively, I feel I’ve done something wrong, causing this lady worry and agitation. People had come out of shops to gawp, not help.

  ‘Where does it hurt? Is it your leg? Should I call an ambulance?’

  I know if I go to hospital it will be the end of walking home by myself.

  ‘I’m good,’ I say, running on adrenaline. ‘I’ll be okay.’

  The woman had been making a left turn, but looking right, in the direction of oncoming cars, and didn’t see us until we were right in front of her. I try to walk, but it’s a hobble.

  ‘Let me drive you home,’ she says, calmer now.

  She offers Peter a ride but he lives a street away. I’ve officially been ‘run overed’ or ‘runned over’, both terms acceptable in the schoolyard.

  The woman asks if I know the way home.

  I do. She has the most fancy car I’ve ever been in, with leather seats. It’s warm inside, which I’m thankful for because I’m shivering. She drives slowly and, unlike our Holden, the car changes gears by itself. Her voice is now very calm, even soothing, and I sense she’s not from this area.

  ‘What’s your name, young man?’

  ‘What school do you go to?’

  ‘What class are you in?’

  ‘What’s the name of your teacher?’

  ‘Will anyone be at home to look after you?’

  ‘No,’ I lie, firmly. ‘My parents are at work.’

  As we drive down Cecilia Street I see Mama is at work in the front garden.

  ‘Just drop me off here please,’ I say.

  We are across the road from my house. Think quickly.

  ‘Is this your home?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Another lie. When the car stops I open the door, trying to appear as if everything is normal and I’m not hurt. I glance over the road. My mother is digging in the garden, head down.

  ‘Shall I wait for your parents to come home?’

  ‘No, they’ll be home much later.’

  I thank her and wait for the car to pull away. My mother looks up. I wave, sheepishly. She looks at the woman in the car and waves to her. The woman waves back and drives away slowly. I cross the road, trying not to limp. Be calm.

  ‘Who was that?’

  ‘My teacher.’

  ‘Why did she give you a lift?’

  ‘Because I didn’t feel well and it was on her way. But I’m okay now and just want to rest.’

  She goes back to her gardening, can’t see me hobbling up the steps. My left leg is swelling up. I’m aware of a creeping tiredness and a throbbing pain, but I haven’t cried. I lie down to take the weight off and get my school shorts off, put on pyjamas. I’m cold and pull up the bed covers.

  When Mama checks on me later I tell her I’m exhausted. Not a lie. She feels my head, checks my temperature and serves chamomile tea, my elixir as an infant. I eat dinner on a tray. With only the two of us at home at night it is low-key and snuggly. I regret lying to her, having wiped the slate clean ahead of my Communion.

  A few days later the now multicoloured bruise has annexed more territory around my hip-bone. I cannot take my eyes off its vibrant awesomeness when I sneak a look at it in the privacy of the toilet. Like an aurora borealis there are swirls of purple and black, with splotches of yellow, red and skin-white. My mother notices it while I’m having a bath on Saturday night. How could she not?

  ‘Bože moj!’ My God! ‘When did you do this? Did this happen at rugger-bee?’

  I didn’t have the heart or energy to make up another story. On an impulse I told the truth.

  ‘And the woman who drove you home, was she your teacher?’

  ‘No, she was driving the car that hit me.’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me straight away?’

  ‘I thought I’d be in trouble.’

  She looks annoyed, but not necessarily with me. She kisses my head. Maybe telling the truth, even at this late stage, and not crying would cancel out a lie. God might be prepared to scrub this one from the record.

  Tanned Sam and Teta are back from Croatia, just before my Communion. He is taller – long pants are ankle freezers – and chubbier. The adventure has put a strange gap between us. For the first few hours we feel each other out. Given his escapades in Europe and Asia, Sam has grown up, tasted things I have little conception of. Three months off school has made him smarter. He’s also spent time with our beloved Baba Luca, grandmother to every kid in the village.

  ‘We got stuck in Bombay and there were hundreds of kids playing cricket in the streets.’

  ‘I got run overed.’

  ‘I bought a camera in Singapore.’

  He’s the winner, a two-punch knockout.

  ‘Šime is talking funny,’ I confide to my mother.

  His Croatian has taken on the distinct sound of the village, earthy and languid, in his conversations with my parents. I’m also detecting a hint of a ‘wog’ accent when he speaks English, which he barely spoke while away. Did he just say vot?

  What makes it bearable is the return of my coach and playing opponent, as well as the distribution of duty-free and other gifts from Croatia. Teta begins unpacking. I can’t believe they have accumulated so much s
tuff. How were they able to carry these heavy bags on their own? Teta passes around the booty, which comes in all stages of cover – from deluxe wrapping to underpants.

  Sam’s camera is unbelievably snazzy and mature, a Minolta in a black leather case fit for a nine-year-old world traveller; I got a 10 Kodak from the chemist for my seventh birthday that takes out-of-focus snaps. Hidden bonus: Sam just scored himself the job of family photographer for life. Sucked in!

  Tata gets bottles of rakija and Maraschino liqueur. Mama is claiming a pile of doilies and tablecloths, while untangling fiddly necklaces and other gold jewellery. For the family, there is a Sony over-the-shoulder cassette recorder (the exact one every reporter in the world uses, probably even Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein from the Washington Post, soon to break the Watergate story). There are folkloric odds and ends that end up on top of the TV or sideboard, including hats used in Croatian dancing that resemble shallow cake tins with hairy long strands coming off the back. There’s Kraš chocolate, which porky Sam has clearly acquired a taste for, as well as picture books and photographs.

  One of my older cousins has sent me a lacquered wooden box with naïve art of a forest on the hinged lid. The rich aroma hits me as soon as I break the seal on the box. Inside, neatly pressed and asleep like factory orphans in tight rows, are fifty cigarettes. I’m surprised to say the least; no one in our family smokes – yet. I sulk.

  ‘What am I supposed to do with this?’

  ‘People are coming to visit us, it won’t go to waste,’ says Mama, who is thrilled by the return of the prodigal pair.

  She’s anticipating the multitude that will come to collect letters and gifts sent from relatives.

  I had been banking on a watch for my Communion. The accompanying sense of entitlement I have built, brick by bloody brick, is a monument to behold. Teta is feeling around a stack of her underwear and pulls out two rectangular black boxes.

  ‘We bought them in Singapore for you and Šime. Pick which one you’d like,’ says Teta, always happiest, and at her best, giving presents. The watches are as different as Milenka and Danica: one is open-faced, classic, uncomplicated; the other is smaller, nervy, with a third hand busily counting the seconds – that’s the one I choose.