A Tale of the Roses

 

 

A conventional pair of Serbian tales worthy of the telling. Quaint, true love episodes that are difficult to render in any meaningful, contemporary form. They belong in an earlier age, something like that of the Troubadours. Roses, for heaven’s sake.

            The simpler first. A tale with a simple, worthwhile moral, which always gives at least some justification for an author.

            In the usual way, the girl here was a beauty, much sought after. The younger sister. The pair of girls were inseparable. Years later they would be run down by a taxi and the elder lose her life in the tragic accident. Then they were walking arm-in-arm across a pedestrian crossing, the younger having managed to half-mount the pavement. Thirty years before it was the same on the Corso in the centre of town, arm-in-arm.

            At some point earlier in the evening an admirer had given the Pretty a rose. Sweet.

            There was the old, unchanging problem of approaching a beauty. Always a challenge; always would be. Beauty daunting and defying even the most courageous hearts.

            Rather easy to simply pass a rose over to a gal. Hi! There you go. Run off, stage left.

            Rather lame in fact. You really do need to do better than that, chum. Yep.

            Well, this first guy can manage only this and no more. That is, the first guy in this first tale. We are actually interested in a second chap watching the procession from the wings here.

The first managed the preliminary, the faint-hearted offering. Shy. Diffident. Success rating on its own perhaps no better than 25%. Here’s the simple moral, guys: you gotta be brave.

            Bobo, the second lad in this first tale, late on the scene perhaps, standing some distance away from the approaching gal, finds himself trumped by the other, who got in first. Landed the offering with the girl, into her hot little hand, which he may have been lucky enough to lightly brush.

            Fortune does favour the brave, at least in this episode.

            Unlucky in the timing, what is left to Bobo this evening on the Corso?… Well, what about, without any further ado, simply go pluck that flower, that rose, for himself? The other had no right to treat his girl so. No. (Apart from some eyeing, no contact between this pair up to that point.)

            Here he goes, bounding over. Pluck in one. Picks the pocket. I’ll have that, thank you.

            Pretty impressive. No two ways about it. Gets him the girl in the end, in fact. You better believe.

A big talker when he gets rolling, Bob, full of rattle. Some months later the Beauty needs to tell him, Slow down, man. I can’t understand a thing you’re saying.

            Didn’t matter. Guy was flying by then. At some point during the courtship the pair were observed by the Beauty’s brother, the big 195cm Centre-Forward, entwined on that Corso, close & snug. Something the big bro didn’t want to see again. Told his sis. Again, didn’t matter. Done and dusted. Fifty years later here in the flat (inherited from a Partizan officer father), slap bang in the centre of town, going strong as ever. Brilliant match. A joy to enter their domestic circle.

            Part two. (The pair of tales received within the single week. A return to the town where one had been greeted in regal form forty-four years previously, by the previous generation.)

            A rose-seller now involved. Roses specifically; not various flowers, as was first assumed on a casual survey at the initial meeting.

Two buckets or baskets were mounted somehow on an old bicycle, front & rear. An older man, mid-seventies was a correct guess.

            Discoloured flannel shirt, worn jeans. A short, slight figure. Could have been a retired academic in a degraded tertiary sector. (Finance; economics grad. in fact.) Selling flowers, roses, in order to make-do, it looked.

            Strange how some people can be prevailed upon to reveal a life history (in small) within two minutes of meeting. Ready with it a long time; telling it over and over across the term, perhaps. Still mystified themselves, possibly, the way it all panned out.

 Venerable Chika Dobrosav had been in the line a good many years.

First the name, never encountered previously. Good -sav. Impossible to parse. 

… Oh! Whole. Entire. Sav. Never previously in that conjunction.

The whole thing here beginning again with a first, single rose. 

The gal who had overcome the lad in this second instance was a closer counterpart to the beau. Petite; Dobro hardly any bigger. Both would maintain the same profile for the next fifty years. Fine, delicate lines. Intelligent aspects.

They had met initially on a student flight in the old Yugoslavia. Dobro had captured a window seat for his camera; Lidia on her first flight denied.

A discerning type who had attended Art School in parallel to the more regular, lucrative arts, to Lid’s eye this lad looked the sort who might give up his seat for a lady. Sure.

Second step was the rose. At an arrangement to meet at a particular place, Dobrosav had prepared the ground. At one point along the route, in a hedge, Dobro had secreted the appropriate flower.

Onto it there. D. bending, plucks and delivers.

If you will allow, my dear lady.

Well, like the first, hardly able to decline. Granted the beau. Blushes raised. Shy averting of eyes. But granted.

Delighted by the success, Dobro with whatever words they were that bubbled out. A fine, thoughtful man; reader of poetry; from a loving family. Despite his struggles with words, as the says, something adequate and fitting can be assumed. Within a short time, even right then by the hedge, or shortly after, as a token of his true feeling, Dobro promises his Lidia he will present her ten thousand of this same flower.

Ah! What? Golly. What a blast. (A canny, sly kinda proposal, in fact.)

Currently forty-eight years and counting of roses every morning: on the pillow, in the bathroom, a kitchen vase, before proceeding out the door to his garden by the Ibar, Dobrosav, to await the dawn.

The reader can do the math. Add at the same time financial returns from the rose-garden. (More of which presently.)

In the report from Lidia herself the toilet-roll holder also received the flower, in addition to the small vase by the hand basin. There may have been a vase in the hall. Another the veranda. The number certainly does add up.

Now, procurement. Well, there were to be three rose-gardens in all over the forty odd years, all stemming of course from the single, venturesome one. The first rose-garden would be uprooted suddenly one afternoon following a municipal order for works. From his seat Dobro had watched the ghastly harrowing. Second removal came after some adjoining vegetable growers complained about whatnot. In the latter case, unlike the first devastation, the plants could be extracted and transported to the third garden for re-planting.

Further details contextualising: in the beginning Dobro had been completely ignorant of anything to do with produce from the soil.

You can’t hold a hoe, much less raise any kind of crop! The father.

Learnings. Failing better. Persistence. Always the rose; nothing without the memorable rose fixed in Dobrosav’s temporal lobe. Faithful lover that he be.

When Lidia was asked about the avalanche of flowers, the possible crushing, she replied, Far better that than the other kind of husband.

Glory. In both cases long-lasting marriages of a form that, hazard the guess, was rather less rare in that particular soil than in some other. Back in that generation, and possibly progressing even into the present too.

 

 

Authentic / Аутентично

 

One of the lads here at Authentic, a waiter, has a gal approach calling out from 5 - 6m distance. Kolega! Što te nema kod nas? She was in her own labelled work clobber, a food place or the like around the corner. At the entry here the lads sit on high barstools awaiting orders from the tables. At point of the handshake in passing the lad grips the bars at the bottom of the stool in order to hoist himself up a little from his seat for the courtesy. On the gal goes in her garish purple polo, bun tight behind on her head, toward her own post in the mall, everything a thrifle easier for her shift after suchlike camaraderie and respect. Tomorrow is four weeks in this town with second cousins who have not been seen in forty-four years. Kraljevo, Serbia, where the famous Žiča Monastery, founded by St. Sava early in the thirteenth century, is a ten minute drive. Some of the old ways maintained.

 

Један од момака овде у Аутентичном ресторану, конобар, прилази девојком дозивајући са удаљености од 5-6 метара. Колега! Шта те нема код нас? Била је у својој означеној радној одећи, ресторану или слично иза угла. На улазу овде момци седе на високим барским столицама чекајући наређења са столова. У тренутку руковања у пролазу, момак се хвата за решетке на дну столице како би се мало подигао са свог места из куртоазности. Девојка затим иде у својој дречаво љубичастој поло мајици, са пунђом чврсто стегнутом на глави, ка свом месту у тржном центру, све је много лакше за њену смену после таквог другарства и поштовања. Сутра су четири недеље у овом граду са рођацима другог колена које нису видели четрдесет четири године. Краљево, Србија, где се чувени манастир Жича, који је основао Свети Сава почетком тринаестог века, налази на десет минута вожње. Неки од старих обичаја су очувани.

NB. Surprisingly, with some text G. Transl. actually produces a half-decent rendering.

Larissa

 

Shortly after Branko’s return to the table a lady happened by who was known to the pair of lads. B. had gone off to the apoteka and once seated again there she was, coming along the inner path by the café windows.

Facing the direction from which she arrived, Bobo had spied her first and called out a greeting in passing, it seemed it might be. In a small city there were numerous daily encounters between the locals. Branko’s former fame had slipped over the years, though every night with him two or three chance meetings with old friends and acquaintances were assured. A few nights before Branko had told of his short walk to work mornings at the height of his football career, forty-five minutes needed to cover the couple hundred metres to his office.

Here at Authentic with this woman pulled up Branko had needed a few seconds before he made the identification, it seemed.

A former looker, he recalled later. Nagradjena; well-stacked, though the English gave an inappropriate connotation.

B. himself remained a handsome figure in his mid-seventies, an impressive presence. On the other side the lady was difficult to imagine as a pretty, desirable young girl in any former time.

A conquest, little doubt. One of many back in Branko’s bachelor days, although he had said couple weeks back that laying the local gals then was like removing a kidney. Nine years in China had been an altogether different matter. Branko spoke beautifully of China and Russia too, which he had visited on numerous occasions. Nine years he had trained young footballers in Chengdu.

In fact it was not the case. The lady had been from a family in the near neighbourhood, her parents visiting B.’s own at home. There was no question of having some dalliance there, even without the matter of the kidney.

Twenty or thirty metres after leaving Authentic the name would come back, an unusual and striking one. Ksenija.

Once Branko found his reference at the table after a few seconds, he rose to his feet. Before his chair he stretched to his full 195cm and stood in place. In the first movement the thought had been he would extend a hand, or had the woman been a relative of some kind, come round to embrace her.

Bobo here sat back in his chair withdrawing, leaving it to the pair of them. Clearly there had been something between his brother-in-law and this townswoman. The field was theirs.

Branko stood at ease turned toward the lady on the other side of the table. He was fine; the woman was fine. B. looked well. The man could not reply in precisely the same form. It was good to see her; it was a welcome meeting.

At his full height, arms at his sides, in his blue long-sleeved shirt, clean-shaven as always, Branko resting his eyes on the woman, was one way of describing it.

The look with which Branko beheld the former neighbour was impossible to describe. No painter or camera could capture the fullness of his expression. It was rare to see such a thing.

The woman was honoured by that kind of attention, to a degree that made her blush slightly, even in her late sixties, or perhaps older again.

Arrow straight still the former Centre-forward, the first representative of his city to win national sporting representation. The size of the man bearing such a visage produced a complicated, enthralling picture.

A warm smile at the very least. Heart-felt. An outflow of rich feeling channeled across the table. The concentrated fixity left his companions completely aside.

The young man had disappointed the lady back then, unable to return her interest. She had been in love with him.

The latter had come out unintentionally under questioning after leaving Authentic. It happened to be the truth.

Perhaps most of this was apparent in that greeting Branko offered Ksenija from the other side of the table. In the first few minutes it seemed the pair had been intimate. Bobo said he could not say, but initially his evasion seemed to suggest as much. The truth however fitted better.

Only women in fact poured out such warm generosity, to a child, an elder, a former friend. More usually women. The manner ran in the Vukičević family, however. Lesser forms, in lesser or different occasions, had been seen forty years before in their flat in that town. With this episode Branko’s likeness to his mother too became apparent. It was only his younger sister that more closely resembled the father.

So many decades later the woman, Ksenija, might not have been unduly troubled through the night by the encounter.

In Branko’s past there was a young woman, a girl rather in her late teens, that so many years later still haunted the man. Down on the coast they had spent a night walking hand-in-hand through the resort town where Branko had a match the following day. There had been no surgical operation here, only the hands, walking and talking. Perhaps even kisses were superfluous in that young, brief relationship. Branko had missed the bus back to his dorm, he had raised the suspicion of cruising police, was taken back to the station and questioned. The night was spent on a park bench in his training shorts huddled close. In the era before house phones, much less mobiles, from that night the connection was lost, irretrievably.

The girl’s name would never slip from mind. It was impossible, even without the echoes of Doctor Zhivago and the old Soviet General who had broken Hitler’s horns on the Eastern Front, as they used to say up in the village.

 

                                                                                                              Kraljevo, Serbia

 

 

 

Ties That Bind (Bešna) Sept25

 

 

There was the question of the odd name. A few days ago from a passing reference the reminder came of the formal Zorica; usually Zora, Dawn. Bešna came from bela, white, from her grandmother Gospava. In youth Bešna had been especially fair-haired. The oldies often devised names for their kin and many never called their children or grand by their proper names, the old evil eye superstition at bottom.

More than forty years ago in the two or three meetings when she called around to her parents’ flat, it was Bešna in particular of the four children of cousin Peko who left an odd and unusually strong impression. 

Eldest male Branko was Branislav, literally protector of the family feast day; and by extension, honour. The eldest male was always hope for the future too, of course. A big lad who turned out a notable footballer, the first from Kraljevo to win national representation. Centre-back, 195cm. Forty years ago the height had not been so apparent.

(The whisper emerged at the time that Branko had needed to sort out his eldest brother-in-law, as his sister Bešna was being beaten.)

Jelica was a nurse, later specialising in surgery. Forty plus years ago she too came to greet the visitors arrived from the coast, the first of her father’s clan ever to visit. Jelica had followed Bešna into nursing; the elder specialising in what was termed at the time defektni childcare.

Youngest Moki, Tomislav, from the line of old Medieval Serbian kings. Not the usual Tomo or Tomi; Moki.

Moki was the first of the siblings on the scene of the accident. At a marked pedestrian crossing a taxi had mown down the pair of sisters. Jelica had already gone off in an ambulance and Moki found Bešna on the trolley about to be loaded into the back of a second. 

Conscious and not so badly injured, it initially appeared, Bešna recognised her younger brother.

Njesam ja valjda nešto pogrešila.

Surely I wasn’t at fault.

These years later at mentions of Bešna, youngest Moki now in his early 70s would often start with tears. Because he did not do enough for her, he explained.

When the reported words at the crossing were cited to elder brother Branko, who had of course heard it at the time, he replied, Uvjeh je bila odgovorna. She always had a sense of responsibility.

It was night when the accident occurred. In some jurisdictions even forty-four years ago, in such circumstances the driver would have been jailed, regardless of any plea and argument. Pedestrians struck on a designated crossing, invariably the driver is guilty of reckless negligence. 

It was a remarkable thing for a victim to say after she and her younger sister were run down like that. How could she have been at fault? Not keeping proper lookout?

Forty years before Bešna’s responsibility had been to welcome her father’s pair of first cousins, who had arrived from afar. It was her responsibility to meet them, greet them, offer hospitality and extend all kindness. This could only be done in her person, without aids of any kind. Her father and mother, the latter of whom she most closely resembled, had not prepared her in any way, apart from calling her over. 

The elder two, Bešna & Branko, were born in Kosovo; younger pair Kraljevo, two hours outside Belgrade. The remainder of their lives all four would live in Kraljevo, apart from Branko’s decade away coaching football in China, and later Kuwait.

All four children, in their thirties forty-four years ago, strove to greet their father’s family with fitting respect.

At the end of the 5 - 6 day stay, during which accommodation had needed to be made for them, various gifts were presented, among which was a fob watch and 2 - 3 books. The major gift was a woollen jumper that Peko’s wife Kosa had knitted during the term. That was the reason for those searching looks from the woman around the dining table.

For her part the eldest Bešna only gave of herself, by some inner stirring and rousing. A question or two came from her. Responses were received with a slight inclination of the head. Besna sat emitting a kind of receptivity that was centred in her posture, her long pan face, in her eyes, all with quiet and stillness.

In this Bešna imitated her father Peko’s hospitality. Some afternoons Peko wore his suit jack over his shoulders like a stole. There were few words from him. A turn in his chair drew subtle attention. The children had received little guidance for the occasion; his wife, a fellow Montenegrin, no doubt needed nothing herself. 

Moki’s eldest granddaughter, named for the marigold, told of the improvised tales grandad Peko produced in childhood. The man clearly had a flair for words. For the welcome of his guests in the early eighties, the year after Tito died, all the ceremonials were conducted with that unspoken feeling that worked like a gravitational force. Bešna had acquired some of the knack; something more than the sister two years junior beside her, who attempted to follow the lead.

During the reunion forty-four years later it was learned Peko’s mother Gospava, back in the early fifties most likely, had travelled alone by horse and donkey to pay a visit to kin on the Montenegrin coast, over 400kms away. It was on her return some couple months later that Gospava learned of the death of one of the thirteen children to whom she had given birth, only five of which survived into mature adulthood.

Father Peko had passed by the time of Bešna’s accident and Kosa the mother developed dementia soon after. In Australia the news of Bešna lagged many years.

 

 

 

Kraljevo, Serbia

Moki (Tomislav)