Yugoslavia, My Fatherland

28

‘I’ve already fulfilled his last wish and everything’s waiting for him. Just like he’d wanted.’

As I walk among the graves at the famous naval cemetery in Pula, looking for the name of Tomislav Zdravković, the name that hid my father from the truth about his crimes for the last time, Loza’s words are getting louder and louder. I don’t pose any questions to the man who had called me to tell me that my father was buried here, at this cemetery, but I’m sure that this was the last wish fulfilled by Captain Emir Muzirović for Nedelko Borojević.

After burying his friend, whom he had helped hide from The Hague Tribunal for so many years, at a memorial cemetery protected by The Hague Convention, Loza also died. At least the papers said that he died, but I know he killed himself. But that’s not important anymore because, thanks to him, Tomislav Zdravković now lies here somewhere, a place where no one should search for eternal peace, but which might be the only correct place for him. Here somewhere, among soldiers of countless armies, with the souls of their countless victims watching over them, while the non-peaceful await their oblivion and the final forgiveness of history.

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An invisible force is dragging me today, towards the grave of August Rittera von Trapp and Hedwiga Wepler, and only when I stop in front of it, do I realize that I have already stood here once, with him. ‘Here they are, Vladan: the grandpa and grandma of the kids from the film,’ I hear him say, and I know that he is referring to The Sound of Music, the film we saw yesterday. I don’t believe him, because my father likes to make up stories, so I am waiting for a smile to creep on his serious face to reveal that he’s just joking. But this time he ignores my suspicious gaze, and tells me that my birthplace used to be an Austrian town, and that many soldiers are buried in this cemetery who, like him, served their country.

‘This is not a cemetery anymore, it’s one big monument!’ he says, and I don’t understand him, because there are graves everywhere, and not a monument in sight, but he goes on to say that soldiers should still be buried here, as this will continue the rich military history of this town, making this an even bigger and more renowned monument.

I’m still too young for stories about graves and transience and all those tomorrows which will come after us: His words give me the chills, but he just goes on and on, telling me that the names of the dead say everything, and that he, when he first came to Pula, went straight to the cemetery in order to find out where he really was.

‘Our people aren’t here at all. There are Austrians, Germans, Italians, Czechs. That’s history for you, Vladan. Today we are here, tomorrow it’s going be someone else,’ he says, and then we absentmindedly stare towards the grave of August and Hedwiga, George’s parents, and a melody from the film starts buzzing around my head, but I think that I really shouldn’t whistle in a cemetery. Even if it isn’t a cemetery — but a monument.

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It’s small, barely visible, this grave of his, hidden well from the curious eyes of uninvited visitors. There is no photograph on the tombstone, no date, and naturally, no name. My father isn’t here, I think for a second, standing over him. Looking around, I’m afraid of someone noticing me, revealing a dead criminal’s hiding place. Tomislav Zdravković lies here, I read again, and hear my drunken father’s voice again, penetrating into my room once more, in the middle of the night, interrupting my attempts at sleep. ‘I hit the bottom of life. And hell and the abyss.’ How many times have I heard this song, and how many times I have I heard my mother whispering from somewhere: ‘Quietly, Nedelko, quietly. Vladan’s sleeping.’

Since Dusha called me and told me that Nedelko died, I’ve been seeing him an awful lot. I see him and her, too, and Emir and Enisa, and everybody’s there. Even though it’s cold outside these days, I can feel summer coming. I can hear Mario whispering during Italian lessons that his father promised him that he could go alone by boat to Fratarski Island, and that I could go with him. Summer is almost here, I can feel that, and every day at lunch, Nedelko keeps repeating the same question: ‘How about we go to the island of Cres or maybe Lošinj this year?’ And my mother and I aren’t sure if he means it, so we don’t reply. ‘We’ve never been on an island,’ he says, while ladling some more soup into his bowl, and I hope that he means it, and that we will really go to the islands, and I can hardly wait for summer, which will begin any day now. June is almost here, and my mother is already ransacking the wardrobe to find my trunks and beach towels.

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It’s getting dark, but I’m still standing over Nedeko’s grave, thinking that, after almost seventeen years, I’m still waiting for that unfinished June to continue, and another great summer in Pula to start. And I feel more and more that I’m still the boy who is waiting in room 211 at the Bristol Hotel for him to return home. A boy waiting to return to Pula, where his friends with a boat await him, and his dad will finally take him to the island of Cres or maybe Lošinj, to a large island, even larger than the Brijuni Islands, so large that you can’t even believe that it’s an island. Sinisha went to see his aunt on the island of Krk, and told me that everything was different there than it is here, on the coast.

I’m thinking about my old friends, wondering where they are now and what they’re doing, and I remember how we hit Fat Fred’s ass with a slingshot, and then convinced him that it was a wasp, and then Fred raced home, afraid that he would get an allergic reaction. I feel like laughing again, and then think that Sinisha and Mario, my old friends have been waiting for me in the back garden, behind the shop, for seventeen years, waiting to meet me that day and go to the Valkane swimming area after lunch. It’s only half an hour walk from our apartment building to the sea, and Mario promised that he would take his brother’s deck of cards, while Sinisha promised that he’d bring a rubber ball for the water volleyball game. For seventeen years, they’ve been sitting on those stairs in front of my apartment building, with towels around their necks, waiting for me.

Is everything finally over now, I ask myself? Can I finally go back home and go to the beach with them? Can my summer now finally start, I wonder, as I stare at my father’s grave, as if expecting an answer?

But Tomislav Zdravković doesn’t reply.

Nor does Nedelko Borojević.