Ceremony of the Everyday

 

 

Sixteen years since the last visit, leaving town after a four month stay. Through the late summer & autumn our villagers came down with their produce 2 - 3 times weekly to the piazza at Novi. (An authentic old sketch at Beograd Buffet featured a tethered donkey hanging its head, one of ours in all likelihood.)

Decades later following those footsteps over the paving-stones, the July-August tourist peak, with its colourful inflated plastic, dark sunglasses & high gloss nails suggested the old ghosts going about their former business. The poles remained unchanged; there was little doubt. Post-war the village and its ways had been carried over to suburban Melbourne.

Now the village was almost completely abandoned. Some handsome weekenders that were rarely visited had gone up from descendants who had prospered. Two visits were made to distant relatives who still kept up there year round. Zoro and his older brother continued to work their grandfather’s plots and planned to retire there. Over the period there were some fine reunions, fine new acquaintances made, discoveries and surprises. A disappointing piece of chicanery was revealed—without anyone noticing the heir of a father & paternal uncle had been disinherited from the ancestral holdings.

At the bus station café captivating older men had welcomed a long absent, still older friend in regal manner. The returnee had prepared some lines for the occasion and delivered in elegant measure. They continued in that particular form of life-long acquaintances. A magnificent ceremony in small. 

A half hour later after the coffee at an adjacent table, while leaning on the railing awaiting the arrival of the delayed bus, they still continued with that improvised script of theirs.

Ovo ti je živa istina; This is living truth… One of them began a new development.

The chap proceeded from there to his tale, from the endlessly surprising pages of life.

(Život piše romane, it was long said here. Life writes novels.)

The Dubrovnik bus driver in his mid-30s, who pulled in an hour earlier than the Podgorica (formerly Titograd), received a hand-clasp from the older supervisor manning the gates at the station.

Improvised from the concrete below, the elder reached up high to the narrow driver’s window, where the pair kept joined 4 - 5, even 6 full minutes, it may have been, while they spoke.

Were they related? Was the bond something in excess of work colleagues.

One would assume so, but given the remnants of the old culture in the mountains, you could not bet on.

 

 

 

               Herceg Novi, Montenegro