Another death in the family; the extended family. Another near contemporary. Brat od Ujaka, Brother from maternal Uncle. Ratko carried our grandfather Rade’s name—Ratko informally, like Mladic the Bosnian Serb General imprisoned at the Hague. As the eldest son of the male line of old Rade, Ratko was the most cherished by granddad. Cousin Vajo—Vasilije; from the second eldest daughter—told of the disappointment in childhood after he was supplanted in granddad’s affections by the new born; abruptly cast aside.
Twelve thousand kilometres distant, the mourning has had little shape or form in Kuala Lumpur. This afternoon the memory of the usual practise of keeping the television off until after a funeral at least, when last night at the Cyber the football highlights from the final in Melbourne had been watched.
Many months now the Muslim prostration for prayer had revolved in the mind. As an expression of helpless submission to the higher power, to Fate and the life course, the other acknowledgements paled by comparison. The Christian prayer and its form certainly—charismatics and evangelicals included; the Buddhist and others. (In Singapore Hindu males inside the walls of their temples had been seen stretched out flat like horizontal divers, arms full-length before them and forehead to the ground.)
Regular contemporary forms of prayer and supplication at least, outwardly at least, suggest another kind of conception of the human and a lesser acknowledgement. In earlier times in these faiths there had likely been a good deal more fervour. Our grandmother Ruza, Rose, the old patriarch Rade’s wife, when she went on the pilgrimage to the shrine of St. Vasilije at Ostrog in the Montenegrin interior had walked the sixty miles, some part at least barefoot.
There had been a great deal of family history recovered over the years that might have been shared with Ratko. In encounters with other relatives it was always wonderful delivering stories that took the listeners completely by surprise. Mother, Jelena Radova before she married, had been the patriarch’s first child. Strangely enough, in her case too she had been immediately supplanted in her father’s love when the son George was born. Without in her case resentment or sense of grievance.
There would be few mourners for Ratko, his poor mother above all; though being somewhere in her mid-eighties now, Aunt Saveta’s tears may have dried.
Difficult to guess how far the younger brother Momo might be roused. The brothers continued to live on their hill sharing a party wall, but the sister-in-law had created a divide.
Ratko was twice married: with Serb Milka there were two daughters from memory; a second marriage to a refugee from the Yugoslav Wars of Succession, as they were termed, produced a son.
On the last visit nearly ten years ago the word was Ratko saw very little of either wives or children. Some drinkers and heavy smokers lived well beyond their early sixties.
Ratko’s was a quiet, gentle manner. We did not really have Montenegrin blustering in our family, not even Vajo and his younger brother Leka, who in younger years perhaps came closest.
During the conflict in Former YU Ratko like many others got himself out of the territory. As a son of Uncle George, descendant of a good communist, a Yugoslav like most of us, the thought of warring against our fellow Slavs was no doubt completely abhorrent.
Grandfather Rade had been dragooned into Emperor Franz Joseph’s army to fight his fellow hill people, always shooting above their heads, he would later maintain.
We had three or four hours together in Ratko’s kitchen drinking sljivovica and smoking cigarettes ten years ago in the side of the house that had remained the same over the last thirty years. (Momo had built on and decorated.) On departure Ratko had shown his large vegetable garden and seemed dubious hearing the enthusiasm for it. That we had maintained similar with similar plantings in Melbourne he seemed to disbelieve.
Momo worked as a physiotherapist at the health resort at Igalo, where he had found a job for his brother as gardener and groundsman. Perhaps the early brotherliness had limited later difficulties and Momo would grieve his brother.
2AM Ratko had passed away, Leka’s widow Vida had said in the mail. Either Ratko was in poor health and there had been a vigil, or else his mother had found him in the middle of the night.
Kuku joj u dom; Keening in her house, we say.
And after the burial, Laku mu crna zemlja; Light the black earth (on him.)
KL, ML 8 September 2018
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