DADDY'S STORY

Na engleski prevela Andrea Baskin

           Although the road never took me to the village Grab, the birthplace of my father, I have a very clear picture of it, at least to the extent of someone who spent his entire life in a peacefull, quiet town, can have about mountains and forests. The people that know these places are saying that the forests are cultivated, and there is no trace of large carnivores. Yet, until just a few years ago, no one could convince me that under these forests, hidden from the eyes of humans, doesn't exsist a mangy old bear wandering around and waiting for his buddies to play with again.

My father's life's work was the removal of decrepit bunkers that nestled at the southern end of our land. No one can say with certainty which army had left behind the construction to constantly hinder agricultural work in the fertile Vojvodina country - though it is no longer important. Dad managed it to thoroughly remove the monstrous ruin with hard work, and because of that, to this day in that place new generations of corn are growing. It was his blessing.

Yet that same field at the same time became his curse, and it was there that my father, while he was just in the middle of a job, on a windy summer day, suffered a stroke. 

Whereas months, and later even years, he was lying motionless in the beginning somehow believing that he will recover - in the time leading up to the time when his nerves became completely blocked - he began to tell a story, a story that I often recall. 

This is how his story would go if it would have been told at once, and if there would be no need for it to be completed with some guesses: 

***

Somewhere at the beginning of the war (not our newest, but the great World War), he and his uncle Velja went out to the neighbor village - if you can call a group of houses on the slopes of ravines and edges, a village. As they entered into the area of ​​the village, they saw the dogs gathering around a pile of sticks. They were still wondering about that strange group of dogs, when one of the dogs ran up beside them carrying a severed human hand.

Suddenly they realized what was covered with branches and rushed home shouting like crazy. 

The masacre happend in a Serbian village, and when their father (and my late grandfather), went there with some villagers, they found enough clues to be sure that the people responsible for this evil were residents of a nearby Muslim village 

(Then they were saying “Turkish”, but because of the peace in the house let it stay this way). 

At that time, it was a matter of honor to do what must be done, so my grandfather and his three brothers took ravenge (which is a topic for another story) - after which they had nothing to do but run away as outlaws and try to survive the search which inevitably 
followed. 

Because feud was still an unwritten law.

Feuding was a vicious circle – once started there is no end. A descendant will kill other descendants while there is a single member of the opposing family.

Grandma Sava was well aware that her children are in danger, because traditions do not say anything about years, but only the male offspring. Somewhere in the wilderness she dug a dugout, and covered it with branches and dirt. Five children moved in, cows, goats, and with them, my now deceased grandmother.

Although it is incomprehensible to me, none of my uncles - when I inquired with them about these events - did feel anything unusual in such a way of life, which lasted almost five years, except for one thing - none of them was able to accept that their mother (my grandmother), had refused to take their dog with them.

Life went on as it could in the middle of the wilderness. If you know what you're looking for, the forest can give you everything you need. Along with the milk of their animals and the quite rare visits to the village, where they would obtain things they needed, it had gone pretty well.

The children were often wandering around, seeking nutritious roots and berries. After a while, they were so used to these wanderings, that they have become much the same as visiting the supermarket is for some of our contemporaries.

Their dugout was on a slope covered with dense thickets. That thickets were for the children in few of the months like some kind of a candy shop, with sweet fruits that were growing abundantly.

One of that days, in the late afternoon, my father (then still a child) went around the thickets, mercilessly devouring every „candy“ he would find. The evening was already in progress when he decided to return to his home.

As soon as he turned around, he saw something, so unbelievable, that he thought it was definitely the happiest day of his life. For only a little bit away, half hidden in the bushes, was a doggy (pooch, dog - whatever ...). 

Of course there was nothing to think about. His legs went in that direction by themselves, and as he approached closer, his joy was greater because it was not a skinny mutt, but a large sheep dog, probably Šarplaninac, or maybe even some of those huge ones which they heard were brought from the Hungarian border.

The dog was occupied with something in that bush and obviously did not notice him until the moment when my father scratched his back. He winced slightly at the touch, but what he was doing appeared to have been much more interesting than the uninvited guest that (what a rudeness) enthusiastically caressed and scratched him.

It was a dirty dog, with rough and sharp fur and my dad was happy about that because he thought that there is no better sign that the poor pooch was abandoned. The touch of the child and the animal lasted for a while, and then my father's newfound buddy just decided to leave the company.

He was not following him, because he knew that it was a too large animal that he would be able to retain him. With regret, his eyes escorted his found, and again lost friend, and the last time he saw the yellow gleam in his eye when he turned around in the dense shrub and sent a sign of farewell.

Just a minute later, he saw his brothers, with axes in their hands, rolling more than running down the slope, mindlessly yelling. He didn't understand them and started to look around, looking for a mysterious danger to which his bewildered brothers were heroically heading, but somehow he was unable to detect any convincing reason for their hysterical behavior. Having made several circles around him, still yelling aloud, they finally paused, suspiciously eyeing the environment constantly, and finally Rade, the oldest brother, asked him: 

- Dragi, were did that bear disappear?

***

Well, that's the story that recently increasingly came to my mind. With a reason. Surely, the bear is still there. He appears in the orchards from which we as children were stealing green apricot, prowling the streets after dark were we followed the girls home and searching around in classrooms where we first met with the algorithms.

He feeds on the carcass of a world that is rotting. A world of history in retreat of the fearsome skeletons of future buildings that are lurking through the ruins of our youth.

He is waiting...

As the years go by, more and more often in dark corners and shady parks for a moment I see a yellow glow with an eager, almost enamored look. The boundaries between the worlds are geting weeker and weeker. My world and the world of dreams in which he is the ruler.

I know...

He will watch from the shadows, waiting for his moment, because there are many more males in our family. 

Males that he will sooner or later ... welcome to what may be the very cornfield where it was the second time he met my father.