Papa came out to the hallway smiling broadly. “He’s all right. There wasn’t any shrapnel. It just grazed his head, and we fixed him up. He’ll be fine.”
I entered the room and found Kolya lying on a small steel bed with no mattress, a smile on his face.
“Now you’re gazing upon a real war hero, wounded in the line of duty. I just hope you appreciate the sacrifice,” Kolya said with a serious look, barely able to suppress his smile.
“Oh, lie still or you’ll be a dead hero,” I said, leaning over to look at the bandage.
“You look mortally wounded yourself,” he said, looking at my blood-spattered blouse and skirt. “Did I make all this mess?”
“Yes, your brains were all dripping out. Oh, how grizzly,” I said. “I never knew I could have such thoughts.”
“How do you like my bed?” he asked, pointing at the bare springs. “Isn’t this the very best?”
“How long are you going to be a gentleman of leisure?” I replied, smiling.
“The nurse said that if your father can drive that truck like a Rolls-Royce, with as little jolting as possible, I can leave now.”
Papa returned to the room, and together we helped him out to the truck and into the front seat. Off the bed and walking, Kolya seemed weak and tired. I sat in front with Kolya’s head again resting on my sticky, bloodstained shoulder, as Papa drove slowly off, carefully avoiding any bumps that might jostle Kolya.
“Kolya,” he said, “you and Yura had better stay at our house tonight, and I’ll get a message to your father.”
April 17, 1941: The Kingdom of Yugoslavia formally surrendered to the armed forces of Nazi Germany.
ELEVEN
Occupation
Many streets were blocked, and Father drove cautiously because of Kolya and heavy damage in so many areas. But as we reached Dedinye and turned into Shenoyna Street, I could see that Kolya had been right. The trees were all in splendid bloom, birds providing the only sound. The street showed no trace of damage or war. We stopped in front of the house, and everything looked as though we were just returning from a normal weekend in Yaintse.
As I opened the gate and began to walk toward the house, Kristina ran out and embraced me.
“Oh, my dear girl. How I’ve prayed for your safety. Oh, how I’ve missed you. How are you? You look so pale and thin—and, I must say, dirty. You have blood all over you, even in your hair. Are you hurt?”
“No, Kristina, I’m fine. Kolya was hurt, but he’s fine now, too. How have you been? Is your sister all right? Are you going to stay with us now? I missed you so very much,” I replied, kissing her and hugging her tightly. The warmth and comfort of her hug made me feel safe and secure again.
“Kristina,” Mother said after embracing her, “do we have any food in the house? We might have more people than usual. And I’m so dirty. I’ve got to have a bath.”
We all went into the house to find everything just as it had been when we left in such haste, and I rushed to look at my room. How silly all the stuffed animals and dolls looked to me at that point—how completely useless and pointless. I went into the bathroom and quickly filled the tub, looking forward to clean clothes.
With my hair still damp, but braided and wound round my head, I dressed quickly and went into Aunt ’Lyena’s room where Kolya would stay.
“My, my, a princess out of some fairyland, come to honor the wounded hero,” he joked.
“No, just clean. I think someone is going to take care of you, too. I think Kristina is going to make you a bath, and you can lie in some warm water and soak.”
“Do I really smell that bad?”
“Well, violets in the woods do have a more appealing aroma.” We both smiled as Father came in.
“Kolya, can I help you up? I took Yura home, and he’ll tell your father you are spending the night here. Your tub is ready, and we’re going to get you all fixed up. You, young lady, go and see if you can help Kristina. There’s a whole herd of us to be taken care of.”
“Yes, Papa,” I answered, leaving for the kitchen.
When dinner was ready, I went to call my parents and found them seated in the living room.
“Mama,” I asked, “may I eat in the room with Kolya? He’s all alone, and I’d like to keep him company.”
Mother looked to Father for an answer. “Go ahead. You young folks should talk together. We’re old and boring,” he said.
After the warm bath and clean clothes, Kristina’s cooking tasted even better than usual. Kolya obviously enjoyed it.
“Asya, do you ever kiss your mother?” Kolya asked unexpectedly when we had finished eating.
“I try, but each time I’m pushed gently aside because of her lipstick or her hair, I guess, or perhaps because she has a headache . . . something . . . I don’t know. She changed so much after her operation. Mama was so very affectionate when she first came home from the sanitarium, but she has been changing back since Abdul died. You know, Aunt ‘Lyalya once told me that Mother was taught to always hold her emotions in check, to be very reserved. Maybe that’s the reason. What a strange question. Why?”
“Oh, I just wondered. You seem so warm and affectionate with Kristina and your father, but you seem never to talk to your mother.”
“Well, I guess we just don’t have much to say to each other, except for language practice. I love Papa. I think he’s wonderful. You know, I think he was the one who wanted a child, not Mama. I love Mama, too, but . . .”
“Oh, poor, poor Asya,” said Kolya, teasingly.
“I’m not poor. I’m very happy . . . sometimes, I guess. Anyway, only idiots are happy all the time. Don’t you know that?”
“So in order to prove that you’re not an idiot, you reserve the right to be sad, gloomy, and very serious at times?”
“Well, aren’t you that way, too, sometimes? Or are you a happy idiot?”
“No,” he replied, growing very serious. “I’m very happy, and I have great plans for the future. I want to get away from here as soon as this war is over and build a life far away from the memories my father longs for. When I talk to him about this, he gets terribly angry and tells me that I’m not being a patriot, that I don’t love my country and my ancestors. But he doesn’t understand that I don’t know anything about the things he feels so strongly about.
“I was born here. Sure, I’m proud that I’m Russian, but what does that mean? An Englishman is proud to be English, and a German is proud to be German. I guess I’ll just never get along with my father on this point. You know, Asya, we’re really the children of emigrants, people who fled because they could no longer fight an evil they felt had taken over their own country. But I can’t feel the same things. I can’t feel the same patriotism. Maybe if I had been a general in the tsar’s army, then I’d treasure the experience and long to return. But we—you and I—we were born here.”
“I’m not sure I was born here,” I interrupted.
“Where were you born?”
“I’m not sure. You know, Kolya, sometimes I think that I was adopted. I have this strange memory—at least I think it’s a memory. It’s very confusing.” I told him about the automobile horn and the memory it always provoked, and swore him to silence. “So you see I’m not sure who I am or where I came from.”
Kolya smiled warmly, thoughtfully, and then said, “Perhaps you are really a little princess out of some fairy land.”
“Or an old witch disguised as a princess. Well, you should get some rest, and I want to say goodnight to Kristina. Goodnight, Kolya.”
Kristina’s hugs were as warm and comforting as always and made me feel secure in spite of the events of the past several days. I was home at last. It had been a long and frightening day, and blessed sleep was not long in coming.
Over the next few days Father’s determination to return some measure of normalcy to our lives did help. The same attempt was made throughout the city, and at the end of April we learned that Trécha Zhénska would resume classes th
e first Monday in May.
I looked forward to returning to school, but classes were limited to half-day sessions, and the empty seats of classmates injured or killed in the bombardment or who had left the city made it impossible to study. We learned that two of our teachers had been killed. The headmistress’s attempts to resume everything as before failed, of course, as did our teachers’.
Nothing seemed organized as classes became student-teacher discussions about the war, the friends we had all known and lost, the beautiful city now resembling a ghost town with blocks of ruins, and the danger of buried, unexploded bombs. Still, talking about these things, though painful, seemed to help all of us. They helped me to realize how fortunate our own family had been. And they helped all of us deal with the frightening uncertainty of military occupation. The social fabric of Belgrade had simply ceased to exist for all of us in about four days, replaced with the fear and uncertainty of martial law.
In a few weeks the curfew was extended until 6:00 p.m., but the rules continued just as strict as before. In fact, German occupation forces faced constant resistance from the civilian population. The fiercely independent Serbs shot and killed many German soldiers from windows after the curfew hour. The Germans retaliated, of course, dragging people from their homes to face immediate execution. Depending on the rank of the German who had been killed, a certain number of people from the same street were simply rounded up and shot. Young, old, women, children—it didn’t seem to matter as long as some evil Nazi quota for retaliation was met without delay.
Many of our acquaintances had been killed or badly injured during the bombing, many still dying, perhaps because of injuries or the psychological difficulty of living under the occupation. Whatever the reason, Mother’s inner strength and commitment to helping others would become a source of tension between us that would eventually deepen beyond reconciliation.
Mother began attending funerals almost as soon as we had returned from Yaintse. She wanted me to accompany her on what seemed to me to be daily trips to the church for services for yet another acquaintance. I went willingly, at least at first, but I steadfastly refused to accompany her as she approached the casket to kiss the face of the corpse in a final farewell, when the person had been a particularly close acquaintance, the memory of my childhood experience still fresh in my mind. Mother seemed to understand and never made an effort even to encourage me, but as the funerals continued, I became more and more depressed at the thought of accompanying her. I began to make excuses, and eventually I simply refused all together. Mother tried to explain to me how important it was to accept personal responsibility for consoling and helping one’s friends. Her reasoned arguments made no difference. I simply wanted nothing more to do with death, and I did not believe my attendance to be necessary.
Time lost all importance for me. Classes, such as they were, continued for several weeks until one Monday morning, nearly at the end of the school year in 1941. As I neared the school, I saw German military trucks crowded into the courtyard. The school windows were open, clothing and various articles hanging from many of them. The ground around the building was littered with books and broken furniture.
German soldiers stood about in groups as I approached. Two guards flanked the entrance as I stopped and looked around, puzzled at the scene.
“Yes?” one of the guards addressed me in German. “What is it that you want?”
“This is my school. What has happened to it?”
“Well, well. This must have been a good school if they taught you to speak German as well as you do.”
“I spoke German before I started school,” I replied, chin held high.
An officer leaned from a first floor window to find out what the discussion was about, and the guard quickly froze at attention.
“Yes, young lady? What are you looking for?” the officer asked.
“I don’t understand what has happened to my school.”
“Well, go home and be happy. There is no more school. This building is now quarters for German soldiers. Was this a school for girls?”
“Yes,” I replied, chin held even higher in my best imitation of Mother in a conversation she found distasteful.
“We will soon open German schools, and you may continue your education in the traditions of the Third Reich.”
“How amusing,” I replied loudly as I turned to walk away. It was my first face-to-face encounter with German soldiers, and I was very proud of myself. I thought of Father and his stories about building a strong foundation, and I decided that my foundations were fine.
With school canceled, my day was free, and I walked about the streets of Belgrade, at first unable to recognize many areas. So much of the centuries-old beauty I loved had been destroyed, so many innocent people killed. Rumors were that over seven thousand people had been killed in the three-day bombing horror. I came to the park where Kristina let me play as a little girl before we went to shop in the market across the street.
The park hadn’t changed much. Only one bomb crater was visible, but buildings all around the park had been badly damaged. There were people in the park, even a few small children playing in the sandboxes. I wondered about our home on Dr. Kester Street, but quickly put it out of my mind. I loved that home so much that I resolved never to go there, never to allow myself even to think of its possible destruction.
I found a bench in the shade and sat down. Sitting there, I made up my mind that from then on I would try to walk through the city every day, determined to impress it on my mind, in my memory, to be sure that I remembered everything about it before the Germans changed it.
A man, a Serb civilian, walked by slowly, turned around, and came back to ask if he might sit on the bench. I didn’t answer, but moved to the end of the bench and leaned back, closing my eyes. There was a refreshing light breeze in the shade. I wondered why the man had chosen this bench with so many empty ones around, and I opened my eyes to look at him. A newspaper covering his lap shook and rattled, his hands under the newspaper, and he turned toward me as he lifted the newspaper to expose himself.
I sprang to my feet and began to run, run as fast as I could. I must have run for several blocks when I reached the edge of another small park and sat on the grass, exhausted, frightened, and crying. I heard footsteps and glanced up to see an elderly German officer approaching, a wide red stripe on his trousers, his car and driver following closely at the curb.
“What is the matter, little lady?” he asked in German, but in a gentle voice.
“Nothing. Nothing is wrong. I just want to get home,” I answered in German.
“Where do you live? Are you in trouble? I have my car here. May I take you home?”
I looked up at him for the first time. He had a kindly face, gray hair visible under his cap. He looked like a nice man.
“Yes, please.”
He helped me to my feet, and I gathered my books. We walked to the curb, and his driver held the door for us.
“You look so very frightened. Have any of our soldiers been annoying you?”
“No, no.” I was unable to speak about the incident in the park. “No. Please just take me home.”
“You know, my home is near Munich, and I have a daughter just about your age. In fact, she has long blonde braids, too,” he said gently, his smile putting me a bit more at ease as I gave the driver directions
“Is she here with you?”
“No, she’s back home. I hope this will all be over soon so that I can go back to her—back to my family.”
The car pulled to a stop in front of our house, and I got out, turning to thank him.
“Thank you very much for bringing me home. Won’t you please come in so that my Papa can thank you, too?”
“No, thank you, but we are not allowed to enter civilian homes. Good-bye, young lady.”
“Good-bye, and thank you again,” I said, turning to run to the house.
Kolya had stopped by to visit and was reading in the living room when
I burst in. Mother and Father were not at home, nor Aunt ’Lyena, but I heard Kristina in the kitchen.
“What’s the matter?” Kolya asked. “I thought I heard a car outside.”
“Yes.” I ran past him to the kitchen to find Kristina.
“Kristina, Kristina,” I cried, embracing her and crying as I blurted out the story of what had happened. “It was terrible. There must be something wrong with that man—that growth . . .”
“Asya, dear,” she began, stroking my head, “men are different than girls, you know. Oh, you probably don’t know. You see, that’s how we tell the difference between a man and a woman. It was criminal of him to do what he did. You should have gone to the police, and they would have arrested him immediately. But as for the appearance . . . that was normal.”
I was shocked, my eyes as big as saucers at her words. I knew that men didn’t have breasts like women, but it had never occurred to me that there were other differences. I went to my room to wash my tear-swollen face and returned to find Kolya still immersed in his book. I couldn’t bear to look at him.
“Asya, how are you?” he asked. “Did you have school today? Our classes have been canceled. The university was taken over by the Germans a few days ago. I guess there will be no more classes for me for a while.”
“No, we didn’t have classes either. Trécha Zhénska was taken over today, too.”
“Well, no school means we can pile up on Gypsy Island and just let the world go by.”
I remained silent. The thought of being on the beach with Kolya or any other boy sickened me. Even the thought of Father made me sick.
“Let’s go outside,” Kolya said, “and sit under the tree and dream.”
“No,” I answered shortly. “It’s too hot.”
“But it’s cool in the shade.”
Ancient Furies Page 15