"Mom, I never realized how much you and Great Aunt Lubitsa had in common and how much you looked alike," exclaimed Maja in amazement, tossing a wild cascade of blond curls, with her hazel eyes open widely. In the summer of 1989 Aunt Lubitsa had shown Maja some photos of herself as a young woman, and Maja took them for pictures of me.
It is summer of 1991. Sitting in Maja's kitchen, in Boston, sunshine lavishly pouring through the large windows, my eyes are resting on the lush leaves of her tropical garden, clean calico curtains, and the neatly arranged jars with herbs and spices.
"Her eyes and eyebrows, especially her massive, black hair against that pearly complexion. Now I know where your rounded hips came from," continued Maja teasingly, emphatically outlining the shape of the hips richer than hers. "And those famous knees," she added mischievously, alluding to one of our secrets. I had told her a long time ago how my knees had been the object of some admiration, in my youth, while I knew they were imperfect and preferred to keep them covered.
Maja is right: I have always looked more like my paternal aunt than like my mother, but I never fully realized how much Aunt Lubitsa and I had in common till she died and a large part of me left with her. Although taller and more athletically built, I have always looked so much like her that, when seen together, we were taken for mother and daughter. People often commented that our likeness was deeper than merely physical. With a smile, Aunt Lubitsa admitted that I shared her quick temperament, extreme independence unusual for a woman, pride and strong-mindedness. I also inherited many of her talents, I am afraid in a much milder form: her sensitivity to the animal and plant worlds, with a keen interest in herbs; love of the traditional arts and crafts and all kinds of handiwork; acute intuition in male-female relationships, love of nature and life in all manifestations.
My aunt Lubitsa was a real survivor. When she died at age ninety two, she was still lively, with an ageless, fascinating spirit. I think of her often and know I am not the only one.
As always, when visiting Maja, we had taken long walks through parks, had eaten in fancy restaurants and bought earrings from the street vendors, while chatting and laughing together, sharing some woman-to-woman secrets and, naturally, talking about Aunt Lubitsa.
"Mom, how would you like a cup of tea?" Maja interrupted my thoughts. "Now would be the time to drink Baka's (Grandma's, Great Aunt's) tea. She had given me a bag of herbs last time I'd visited her." And she jumped readily to bring a bag full of different herbs, all neatly tied with yarn in vivid colors. The yarn brought a warm tide of memories: those were the remnants from our favorite sweaters, blouses and booties that Aunt Lubitsa had made for us through the years.
"I haven't opened this bag since then," Maja continued in a soft voice, her eyes growing gray and cloudy with memories, "waiting for a special occasion. You know, Mom, after she died, I realized she'd known she was going to die and that it was our last visit. It is all so clear now. All she'd said or done then was one big, loving good-bye." Maja's voice grew softer till it almost turned into a whisper.
Then, she smiled a big, warm smile, her eyes still grave, and added with pride, "Yet, she was not scared or sad. She was at peace, as serene as ever." Changing the tone, Maja resolutely added: "And now, let's have that tea."
The herbs spread on the kitchen table, both of us lost in the search for the times gone by, caressing the familiar, soft shapes, inhaling the subtle, aromatic odors, we surf on the high tide of warm memories, engulfed by that huge wave, gentle like mother's touch. A smile grows within me, as I realize that those same herbs have been a part of Maja's childhood just as they have of mine. She readily recognizes the camomile delicate daisy-like heads, faded with time, their white petals falling off, the yellow center turning into a golden dust. She does not remember the Serbian name for the honied, slender-leaved linden, all withered and brittle, still powerfully awakening the images of the childhood coughs, sore throats and feverish nights comforted with soft lullabies. And while I rapturously repeat its name "lipa, lipa, lipa," to awaken her recollection, the sound combined with the delicious fragrance opens the magic doors of reminiscence and I see the big, old linden trees in our churchyard next to my highschool, with our family home just down the street -- that small, quiet street filled with the heavy, intoxicating aroma of the blooming linden -- and the nocturnal quietude broken only by the deep, sonorous toll of the church bells.
Linden tea is humming on the stove, filling the air with its familiar, fruity fragrance, bringing in the same loving image: my aunt, Maja's great aunt, Lubitsa, raising us, in turn, with those same friendly, soothing, cure-all herbs, remedies for all our childhood ailments. Like ours, she had touched many other lives in a lasting way and taught us, indirectly, some of life's arcana. She played an important role throughout my whole life, but our relationship in the later years became more complex. Now, writing this down is the only tomb-stone, the only memorial I am giving her, since her frail body has been laid next to my father's and their parents' in the small, crowded cemetery of her native Futog, in Yugoslavia.
My daughter will, naturally, marry an American and, hopefully, have children. My grandchildren! They will not be able to read books published in Yugoslavia about our past, the books that meant so much to me, my brother, my parents. I want my grandchildren to know their roots. Now, at my age, I feel this is important. I did not understand it earlier, when my father expressed concern.
My daughter is very supportive of my writing, especially since "Baka Lubitsa" was her favorite great aunt and admittedly a great role model. For me, my daughter is the best inspiration: her wish is law for me, or as they say in Serbian "Ona okom, a ja skokom" (no sooner said than done) -- her mere glance is enough to make me jump and do it! Just like a Serbian mother. Just like any mother. She jokingly tells me that I am like a Jewish mother. Like an Italian mother, in short, too much of a mother, a real pain. At times I can be too protective, too compulsive, too obsessive, too everything. She feels about me just as I felt about my mother. What she cannot know yet is that the memory of my mother and her love is still keeping me happy and alive. That is where my sanity and integrity come from. As for my own motherhood... well, that is the best part of my femininity and has always been so. Now, it is the strongest source of my personal happiness. The saying goes that Serbian wives are first mothers and sisters then lovers. I know this is true of me, my mother and, I believe, my grandmother. When it comes to Aunt Lubitsa, she had no children of her own, but raised and helped to raise more than her fair share.
It is a pity that I never asked my aunt more about her life. My knowledge of her consists of sporadic pieces of information, often unconnected and floating in oblivion like the icebergs in the North Sea. Of course, there are my own experiences and impressions of her, incomplete too, covered with the golden dust of time and nostalgia mixed with awareness that I will never again be able to ask her for a recipe or advice in "the matters of the heart." She was an unusually good and resourceful cook, a woman of experience and wisdom in matters of love. Those were just two of her many areas of expertise. She was so much more, a rich and vibrant human being and an intriguing woman. She was a Jane-of-all-trades, for whom cooking and baking were just additional aspects of nurturing that we freely enjoyed, but also took for granted. Actually, having both her and my mother (my grandmother, too) as exceptionally good homemakers, I myself always felt intimidated and less-than-satisfactory. Therefore, through the years, when complimented on my cooking and baking, I would gratefully accept the compliment, but never quite believe it, knowing how easily I can burn a steak while studying or writing a poem.
My Aunt Lubitsa, as I remember from my childhood, made the most delicious crepes filled with cottage cheese and raisins, dipped in milk and baked in the oven. It was a ritual, a family tradition, on special occasions, like Christmas, to gorge on them after a full dinner. My aunt enjoyed making those crepes especially for me, and I enjoyed eating them because they were made with love more than with cottage cheese and raisins. "Would you like some more?" Aunt Lubitsa would ask with a teasing twinkle in her dark eyes, while already placing the steaming hot, bubbly crepes on my plate. She knew to pick the palest and the softest for me, slightly browned, and the crisp ones for my father.
I remember the dessert plates we used at the time. Around the edges they had selected fruits in relief, painted in pastel colors: pears, apples, peaches and cherries. I grew to love those plates through the years of memorable family dinners, and enjoyed tracing the embossed contours of my favorite fruits so realistically and invitingly shaped. Later, as a homemaker myself, I saw Franciscan china patterns. They vaguely reminded me of my Aunt's dessert plates that were more subtle in color and pattern.
Another specialty of my Aunt's was her poppy-seed strudel, as thick as her thigh, as the saying goes among the fun-loving people of the province of Vojvodina. In her recipes she used only fresh, home-made lard, no butter, margarine or oil. Vegetable oil came later, when we, the new generation, invented health food, calorie counting, low cholesterol diets and other ways of saving mankind. I remember my aunt's omelets being so delicious that nothing will ever come close in comparison. My brother claims that Aunt Lubitsa's bean-soup (typical Serbian traditional dish) was absolutely divine. Better than any army cook could make. (Serbian men do not pass an occasion to inform their wives that the best bean soup they ever tasted had been the one cooked by the army cook. I could never figure out why. Does it taste better if cooked in large quantities, or does the harsh exercise have something to do with their appetite?)
When I grew up and was married, living in Belgrade, the capital of Yugoslavia, Aunt Lubitsa liked to come and spend the winter months with us. She was the best baby sitter my little daughter could possibly have had. She knew hundreds of nursery rhymes, folk songs, and fairy tales, and I believe that Maja started talking early and in full phrases (actually turned out to be a real chatter-box right from the start) because my aunt constantly talked and sang to her. At that time Maja had a tiny replica of a hand-made basket that she carried around like a Little Red Riding Hood, while singing quite an impressive repertoire of the children's nursery rhymes that Great Aunt Lubitsa had taught her.
While staying with us, Aunt Lubitsa would naturally take over cooking, baking, sewing, knitting and crocheting, making beautiful, intricate doilies and table-cloths that I still cherish as my family heirloom, together with my mother's and my grandmother's embroideries and lace-inlaid curtains and pillow-cases. As a girl I was not really interested in all that, but my mother used to smile knowingly saying she knew I would start caring about it once she was gone, just as it had been the case with her and her mother. And she was right. Now the history is being repeated with Maja and me.
Aunt Lubitsa liked to sit in a specific biedermeier armchair in our living room. I had spotted that chair in our neighbor's shed in Futog, chickens sleeping on it, all stained with droppings. They had thrown away their antique furniture to replace it with new, more modern versions. I could not stand the sacrilege and offered to buy the armchair. They thought I was joking, and willingly gave it to me. But it felt better to pay for it, load it on the top of my car and bring it to Belgrade, have it cleaned and finished, then upholstered with genuine biedermeier material of my choice. After all this, I felt sure the chair was, naturally, mine. But, no. My husband, who never asked for anything to be his, this time absolutely wanted that chair to be "papa's chair." He would not be dissuaded. He was always in it watching TV, napping, reading the newspaper or Churchill's Memoirs, while I was working in the kitchen. So it naturally became his, except when Aunt Lubitsa was staying with us. I can still see her sitting, slightly bent over her crocheting or a newspaper, her glasses low on her small, still pretty nose.
If we had visitors, Aunt Lubitsa would immediately withdraw to her room or into the kitchen, claiming that she was too old for our company, just to surprise us in no time with freshly baked cheese biscuits or some other delicacy of hers. Only now I realize what great help she was and how much easier life was for all of us when she was around. Although she did not want to sit with us, she actually loved to hear our little gossip about the love affairs of the popular singers and politicians, especially about the forsaken lovers ("dumped" or "ditched" - as Maja put it in her teenage jargon). Aunt Lubitsa always had an air of not listening, still there was an omniscient smile around her mouth. If asked for her opinion, she had ready advice, usually much wiser than we could understand at the time.
My friends loved Aunt Lubitsa. They always asked her for advice and wanted to know when she was going to come again. When Maja reached that special age from twelve through fifteen, her friends too confided in "Baka" and received a free consultation on how to attract and keep a boyfriend, how to make sure he stays faithful, and other important matters. "Be yourself at all times. Nobody and nothing is worth giving up your personality. If you don't appreciate yourself, who will?" "Make your man feel good about himself, too. Be supportive and loyal in times of crises. Do things with him. Share interests." "Learn to cook foods his mother prepares, but never compete with her. Do not criticize her, even if he does." "Be clean and neat, so that he doesn't have to look elsewhere." "Never show possessiveness or jealousy. That will quickly drive him away." "Be ready to listen, and ask his opinion. Make him feel important. You will have to make the decisions in the end, anyway."
Since she did not have a life of her own, as we often put it, Aunt Lubitsa always found the time and patience for other people's needs and problems. If there was an illness in a family, a sudden death or, better, a wedding, Aunt Lubitsa was the first to be called for help. She could cook for any number of people and always knew what was proper in any situation. She was level-headed and nothing was impossible for her. A widow since an early age, she had patience and hope in times of crises, cautious appreciation of good times. A real survivalist, she always had a cheerful disposition and the positive spirit of those who know what life is really like.
Some nations specialize in widowhood. The Serbian, for one. Each community has always had a whole line of widows: all looking alike, a type, a status rather than an individual, all dressed in black, with a clean, starched head scarf on their head, moving noiselessly through the house, efficiently fixing all the problems, meeting all the needs. There has always been a large supply of the younger widow generation, too. In my aunt's life-time, for instance, there have been two world wars and numerous calamities; therefore men have always been scarce, either away at war, in concentration camps, exiled, or just dead. Women are strong in our nation, because they have to be strong. My aunt was no exception.
She was first married when she was sixteen, to an attractive, wealthy, but -- as it turned out -- absolutely spoiled man who liked to drink and gamble. He would go to the local tavern, drink to oblivion, and throw money on gypsy girls whose dancing and singing made him forget he was a married man. He would spend nights there and at dawn, when the tavern closed, he would reel home, followed by the musicians, gypsy girls, and their drunken racket. My aunt would be awakened, if she was asleep, to help him take off his boots, to bring food and drinks for them all... and the party would start all over again, if they were not too tired.
Later in the day he would wake up with a headache, blurred memories, and promises to never drink again. He would beg to be forgiven, swear he loved her. But, he would do it again. Once, he bought her a set of heavy, gold chains en vogue at the time, in order to soften her heart after one of his drinking binges. The gift was cynically appropriate. It finally opened her eyes.
Standing in front of their home, on the lawn that she had neatly planted with colorful, fragrant flowers, hot, blazing sun gleaming on the chains clenched tightly in her fist, her dark eyes ablaze but her voice strangely calm, Lubitsa stood tall, addressing her husband," Listen to me, Aco. Don't spend your dirty money on me. You will need it for the gypsy girls. They will not love you without it. Our marriage is over. This is final."
She hurled the chains away -- symbolically and literally -- and they landed on the tile roof with a weak yelp. She did not turn to look back, as she left that house never to return.
After leaving her husband, Lubitsa returned to her native village, a small farming community next to the city of Novi Sad. It must have been a desperate but nonetheless courageous step. Divorce, at that time, meant shame, especially for a woman, a woman too beautiful for her own good. (A folk saying teaches "A beautiful woman is seldom a happy one.")
Hard-working, honest folks of Vojvodina believed that a decent woman should be married, and once married should be able to keep her husband, no matter what. In human nature there is always room for jealousy and envy, and that is the first step to gossip. My father, a patriarchal authority for his younger sister, knew what a small community was like. He warned his sister not to offer any reason for gossip. There was no need to remind her of that again.
Rudely awakened to the reality of life, her naivete gone for ever, Lubitsa lost trust in men. With trust, she lost interest in them. That only made her more irresistible. Men did everything to attract her attention. She was so different from other women. Real enigma. They found it a challenge to solve it, to find the key. But there was none. Or, perhaps, she threw it away together with the golden chains. The persistence of men (and their constant marriage proposals till her old age) Lubitsa found annoying and offensive rather than flattering.
After the first shock, people got used to Lubitsa's being back home with her parents, especially as she went seriously about her business. Barely eighteen, she was as mature as a proud, disillusioned woman can be. She assumed the responsibility for the family cooking, cleaning, washing, raising chickens and other small animals, working in the garden and in the field. That was her share in helping the family and justifying her living at home in those hard times of the Austro-Hungarian occupation and The First World War. When all men were drafted, including her father and her only brother, she was left with her mother and her older sister to take care of the household. They did their best to survive, waiting for their men to safely return home and resume normal life in better times.
My Grandma Lenka, short for Jelena (Helen), was a proud, authoritative woman, better at men's work than many men, yet with all the prerequisites of femininity: beauty, laconic speech, wisdom and high moral standards. She was known to handle any situation with dignity and prudence. Often, an attractive woman, who is always busy, with no time for gossip around the neighborhood, intimidates and antagonizes those who have more time and who like to compare themselves to others, but cannot stand the outcome of the comparison. And so, one day, as the story goes, a good neighbor asked my grandma: "Say, Lenka, do you know where your husband is right now?" After waiting long enough for my grandmother to show curiosity, which she never did, the neighbor freely offered the answer anyway by mentioning the name of the local, rather popular enchantress.
My proud and discreet Grandma - an ancestor, whose blood I am carrying but wisdom cannot match - laughed and answered, "That will have to be somebody else's husband, because my Milan is in the back-room fixing the door. The hinges have gotten loose." She leisurely talked with the neighbor some more and then calmly went home.
Needless to say, there were no loose hinges in their household.
My Grandma Lenka, a woman without too much formal education but with an infinitely natural, folk wisdom, knew -- when necessary -- how to protect the dignity of her family name and the integrity of her marriage. Silently patient in times of adversity, she was a valiant fighter in her own way and an admirable survivor. That was my aunt's mother and her role model.
After the divorce, my aunt, a stubborn survivor, too proud to show grief, sang while working. That she could do better than anyone! She had an outstanding voice for which she was widely known. A man from America was visiting his relatives in Futog, an educated, wealthy man. Hearing my aunt sing and recognizing her unusual talent, he offered to take her with him to America and pay for her music education. He was sure she could sing in the Metropolitan Opera. My grandparents thanked him, but refused. No explanation offered.
Much later, at the end of her life, my aunt received another invitation to visit America. That time from me. I was already living in the United States with my daughter. My brother and his family preceded me by seventeen years. Aunt Lubitsa declined: it was too late for her.
She did not get to see America. And if her parents were, seemingly, the reason for that, in the case of my daughter it was the other way round. Life brought Maja to America through her mother's decision. She was too young to have a say. However, that opened up a brilliant opportunity for education and career, nothing less than the one promised to her great aunt a whole life-time arlier.
While she was staying at home, after the divorce, Lubitsa had something happen to her that she could not confide in anyone. She shared that secret with me much later, when I was old enough to understand. We were talking about life and I, always interested in women's share, exclaimed:" Auntie, it seems so unfair that you should not have experienced true, happy love. You, more beautiful and talented than many a woman! You deserved love, marriage and motherhood." She smiled her enigmatic smile, replying : " Well, as you know, I had my share of marriages." And she smiled again, not at all bitterly. "I have raised more children than the majority of women. I didn't even have to go through pregnancies." Her voice didn't reveal whether she considered it a loss or a gain. Then she started a bit more seriously:" There has been only one man in my life..." and she paused to add, with a touch of bitterness: "Your mother has always thought -- quite wrongly -- that my life's path has been paved with men." She stopped, again, and I didn't dare to prompt her. Her joking mood seemed to have gone.
I sat silently, my head lowered. All my life I have been caught in that triangle with two loving -- and loved -- women, my mother and my aunt, involved in a conflict, their conflict, that I could not quite understand, but a conflict that seriously affected my life. My aunt was talking now, as if thinking aloud: " I loved Aca, of course, but I was very young when I married him. He killed that emotion before it fully developed."
She was silent again. Suddenly, I realized she had never talked to me like that before. It dawned on me how little I knew about the intimate lives of my closest relatives: my mother, my father, my aunt. I had never stopped to think of them as people of flesh and blood, as if in life they were assigned only the roles of my relatives.
I glanced at my aunt. She was gazing at a distance, as if looking at the gallery of familiar portraits. "The man I loved, as a woman loves a man, was a doctor in Futog. It was during the First World War. All men were drafted, and so were my brother, Nikola, and my father, Bata. Somewhere in 1918 Bata unexpectedly came home for an 'urlaub,' as they called a leave in the Austro-Hungarian army. Naturally, we were happy to have him home, but also very worried: nobody got an 'urlaub' unless terminally ill and practically useless as a soldier. And, certainly, Bata was changed. He looked like a living corpse: skin and bones, slow in motion and lifeless. My quick-tempered, always busy Bata, now was just silently sitting in the sun, not talking to anyone, refusing to eat or drink. I took him to the best doctor I could find, Dr. Steiger. He examined Bata with care, and said:' There is nothing seriously wrong with him. He is not ill, only terribly exhausted, physically and emotionally. He will be all right, I promise you. It happens to the soldiers who are under too much stress.'
I was relieved to hear that, but not sure whether Dr. Steiger could be completely trusted. Was my father really well or did the doctor, an officer himself, want him back in combat? After all, Dr. Steiger was a Hungarian Jew, and we, the Serbs, were the occupied people; probably just a worthless mob for him. What did he care? Our men were drafted. They left their homes, their families, and the fields that lay barren, uncultivated, while they were expected to fight for the foreign empire that wanted more land, somebody else's land. Just as the Austro-Hungarians occupied our country, now they wanted Russia as well, and our men were supposed to go fight. It was twice unfair, because the Russians were Slavs, like the Serbs, of the same religion, and mostly farmers, too.
I was watching Dr. Steiger's face while having all those thoughts, trying to find something in that face that would help me understand the man's real motives. There was nothing there that would help me. He was a young, handsome man, with perfect manners, very professional in dealing with the patients: Serbs and Hungarians alike.
While I was watching him, he was watching me, too. In his eyes I saw admiration like in all men's eyes that ever observed me, but there was something different too. That admiration did not include the will to possess, and I did not feel diminished by it. No, I felt strong and beautiful, in control of my decisions.
'I will do anything for you,' he blurted out in excitement. 'Anything, to help your father,' he corrected himself readily. 'He needs more time at home with his family, good home-made food and care, and he will be fine. He is a strong, healthy man. In the meantime, I would like to observe him closely.'
Hot blood rushed into my face. Oh, I heard him and I didn't like what I heard. He wanted to see me again, that is what "observing closely" really meant. What did he care about my father? Yet, I was so happy to know that Bata was not ill and going to die. There was hope, there was life. I looked at Dr. Steiger gratefully, not finding words good enough to thank him.
When we were getting ready to depart, Dr. Steiger saw us to the exit. He told Bata to take plenty of rest and eat well, then he shook hands with him. While Bata was leaving, he looked deeply into my eyes, then bowed his head and gently kissed my hand. The look he gave me erased all doubts if there were any. I was in trouble.
Confused, I wanted to be out of his office and left alone to think. Returning home I was silently rehearsing all that had happened. It was clear to me that my father's welfare was in my hands. Naturally, I was ready to do anything for him. But, did it have to be so difficult, so dirty? Men! Oh, yes, they would do anything for me. How many times have I heard it. How familiar that sounded. But, what a price! Aca, my husband, appeared to be a lamb, before he got me. Then he turned into a wolf.
All the suffering and humiliation of the past experience came back to me vividly. No. I will not be dragged through mud again.
I was running in a circle, like a dog catching the tip of his tail. Sometimes I would think: maybe Steiger is a decent man. Maybe he means what he is saying. But then, I would remember how sweet Aca was before we got married. No. I could not trust anyone anymore.
If men would just leave me alone. My beauty, of which they all talk, is a curse, not a gift. Women hate me for it, men harass. I don't need it. I didn't ask for it.
The days were passing and I had not reached a decision. Unexpectedly, a black limousine stopped in front of our home and Dr. Steiger himself came to visit his patient, as he put it. While everybody was raving about his professional dedication and humane care, I felt like a hunted animal. All the children in the neighborhood gathered around the car to inspect it, because a limousine in the time of the First World War in a small Serbian village was not a common sight. We certainly got the attention I didn't enjoy," concluded Aunt Lubitsa sarcastically.
She was quiet for a long time and I didn't know what to think. I wanted to know how the dilemma was resolved. As if hearing my thoughts, she added, "In short, Dr. Steiger treated my Bata, and gave him papers certifying his inability to return to the front." The tone of her voice was changed when she added curtly, "I became Dr. Steiger's lover."
I could tell, there was something that still bothered her in that age-old story. I felt compelled to ease her. "But, Auntie, there is nothing wrong with it. That man loved you. As if it were difficult. You were young, beautiful, full of life. So was he, probably. What's wrong with that? You didn't have much of a life, anyway. I am glad that happened."
She smiled a sad smile and looked through me as only she could do. Then, still smiling, added. "When I got to know him better, I fell in love too. Yes, he was a fine man. And he made me happy as no one else ever tried. We had great times together. I was seeing him so often, my poor mother thought I was going through a lengthy treatment. Naturally, he became our family physician, too.
I remember, one day we drove to Backa Palanka to a wedding. Stopping at an inn for a quick refreshment, we saw my ex-husband Aca. As always, he was drunk, and throwing money on the gypsy band asking them to play and celebrate his freedom from a lousy marriage. Steiger, who was in his uniform of an Austro-Hungarian officer, called the owner of the inn and ordered the inn to be closed because of the public disturbance. The order was immediately taken care of, and we saw Aca like a defeated dog, tail between his legs, leave the premises. I never saw Steiger as mad and disgusted as then."
"You see, he really loved you, Auntie," I said, always ready for a happy end. "And how did it all end?" She went on: "Steiger insisted on engagements, because I felt dirty having to lie about our relationship. He would carry me through his offices calling me 'my beautiful Serbian wife' with such a funny accent, that I could not resist laughing, while he was actually proposing. We would have been married, I suppose, if he didn't end the way he did."
"How? What happened?" I insisted impatiently.
"He left for Budapest to visit his parents and never came back. Died of ruptured appendix."
What irony: a physician to die of appendicitis. But, it was a long time ago, a war time, and medicine was not what it is now.
After my aunt spent some more time at home with her parents, a very decent widower with two little daughters started coming from another town, where my aunt's family had relatives, asking for her hand. He was very patient, because my aunt did not encourage him in any way. He was also very persistent. Because of his perfect reputation, everybody thought they would make an excellent match. Everybody, but my aunt. Each time Nikola came to visit, aunt Lubitsa meant to tell him to stop coming. But, for some reason, she could not make herself do it. Finally, she took the courage and confessed," Nikola, you must stop coming. Don't waste your time on me. I... I don't... I cannot love you the way you deserve. I don't think I will ever love again."
He smiled his gentle smile and answered, "Don't think about it. Just be yourself. It will all come with time. In the meantime, I think I have enough love for both of us to make it work."
And so they got married and Lubitsa moved to Irig, a quiet little town in the Srem region. A lover of nature, my aunt must have enjoyed that environment full of greenery, surrounded by beautiful vineyards and orchards. Situated atop the Fruska Gora Mountains, Iriski Venac was known for its health resorts and sightseeing spots of unequaled natural beauty.
With enthusiasm, my aunt started putting her new home in order, working long hours. She was a good wife to Nikola and a good mother to his daughters, always keeping in mind old folk tales and sayings about heartless stepmothers. Their house, a spacious, beautiful home, came to life with a new, young, and dedicated wife. Bright and clean, always freshly painted, the house had two large gardens. One faced the street, next to the house, full of trees, bushes and fragrant flowers; the larger one, in the back, always had fresh vegetables and fruits: sweet strawberries and raspberries, juicy apples, and plums. In the front garden, among the delicately fragrant orange-headed nasturtiums and bell-headed lilies-of-the-valley, Easter bunnies laid their eggs of bright red, yellow, or light blue. In the nests made of fresh-cut grass, there were also cookies, chocolate bunnies, chickens and some other little trinkets that make children happy. Our Easter egg hunts in my aunt's Eden-like garden still represent my fondest memories. Aunt and uncle watched our egg hunt with genuine interest, amazed -- it seemed -- as much as we were at the little bunnies' curious knowledge of what we had wished for.
In my mind I still see the idyllic beauty of my aunt's home in Irig, the good-natured, red-haired Irish setter that patiently suffered my attemptsr to ride him, and the luscious, fragrant garden with so many places to hide. I still see the smiling face of my Uncle Nikola, bending to embrace me before leaving for work and upon return. He always had time for children stories, always enough room in his lap for me, while I was excitedly listing all the fascinating events he had missed while at work. Uncle Nikola reminded me of my father: they both had the same name and the same thick mustache, the strength and masculinity combined with good nature and kindness radiating to the world around them, so typical of men in the province of Vojvodina.
Life was good. We did not even know how good. And our aunt seemed to have been happy. There was only one thing that never changed, she later told me. Late in the evening, she would stay in the kitchen scrubbing the dishes, preparing the dough for the early morning bread, washing and cleaning, watering the garden, doing absolutely everything to delay going to bed. The nights were beautiful, as they could only be in a small town filled with sweet, natural fragrances and almost perfect serenity occasionally broken by a solitary bird's call or a distant dog's bark. Everybody was asleep, only Nikola was patiently waiting for his young wife, not understanding why she had to work so late.
But life has a way of teaching a lesson in appreciation. The Second World War broke out and Uncle Nikola was among the first to be taken by the "ustashi" and killed with many other quiet citizens. Still a young woman, my aunt became a widow, like many, many others. She remained one till the end of her life. As it always happens, she realized what a good man and a good life had been lost forever.
In more than one way I feel my aunt's life story resembles mine. Many a night I spent doing research, working on my doctoral dissertation, or writing poetry and short stories, while my husband waited for me to come to bed. Both he and I were hoping that, when I finished my graduate studies, my book, or any other on-going project, we would have more time together. He started building a small weekend-house for our old age, when I could finally dedicate myself to writing only, and he could enjoy gardening. Before the weekend-house was finished, however, he died of cancer, and my life changed forever. It was a lesson in life's priorities.
Forty years earlier, at the beginning of the German occupation in Yugoslavia, historical circumstances turned around not only my aunt's but many other lives as well, including my own childhood.
When the War broke out, my brother and I were hiking through the woods with our aunt at the top of Fruska Gora and Iriski Venac, a walking distance from our aunt's home. Going there we passed through the clean streets with the row of mulberry and linden trees in front of the white, freshly painted homes. Going further up the hill, the streets turned into small fields, vineyards, and orchards with people working in them. From time to time our aunt would stop to talk to some, and we would play around. The people knew our aunt and enjoyed talking to her, thus getting a little break from work too.
In no time, it seemed, we reached the forest at the top of Iriski Venac with a popular large hotel and a sanitarium for tuberculosis recuperants. The day was bright and sunny and the forest smelled fresh. We were just about to sit down for a rest in that place of calm serenity and beauty, when suddenly silence was broken by a powerful, not too distant explosion. Our aunt took our hands in hers and we practically ran down the hill all the way home. The orchards and vineyards were almost deserted, with only a few remaining people gathering their children and belongings and leaving in silent panic.
Later, we were told that the bridge over the Danube at Novi Sad had been destroyed in order to stop the enemy. Even as we were returning home, the airplanes flew over, and the air fight started. Our father, like all men, was drafted immediately. The German army occupied Yugoslavia in a blitz and divided the country between their allies. Srem (where our aunt and other relatives lived), became a part of Free State of Croatia, where "ustashi" (a volunteer army formed of native Croats) helped Nazis exterminate the Serbs, Jews, Gypsies and all who did not qualify for the pure Aryan race. The rest of Vojvodina province was given to Hungarians to rule over as the German Allies. That is where our family lived.
Life-threatening conditions became an everyday fact of life, with bombing, lack of food and other necessities, and -- worst of all -- persecution of peaceful citizens and their families. One human life, no matter whose, became a small, insignificant detail in the large, tragic panorama of suffering. Food was rationed and we waited long, long hours to get a small piece of lard, sugar, or a piece of the poorest quality soap. We cut mom's and dad's clothes to make clothing for us children. There was no leather and there were no shoes during the War and even afterwards. My aunt made some comfortable footwear called "espadrilles," with the soles of braided ropes and the uppers from cloth. All we needed was to stay away from water and rain, and they were fine. Another option, of course, was wearing the wooden-sole slippers. I loved mine, although they created painful blisters all over my feet. But, they had red soles and black straps and they made a wonderful clunk-clunk noise when I walked or jumped!
Nowadays, "espadrilles," huaraches, or sandals imported from Mexico and Latin American countries bring a smile with a rush of warm memories, because my childhood was happy, although it took place during the harsh times of the War and Occupation. This was so only because of the loving care of my family who did everything to make their children's lives endurable, even beautiful. The part my aunt played in that effort has always been significant.
My aunt had a specific talent that still brings fond smiles to my face. She had amazing healing powers, though she lacked formal medical education. The healing was exercised on humans, plants, and animals. She was known to successfully operate on chicken's eyelids (actually sew them), and fix their broken legs or wings.
I remember seeing animals of all kinds gather around her and watch her while she talked to them, and not only the animals that knew her, but any animals, anywhere.
Some may consider me strange, because -- like my aunt --I like to talk to squirrels in my yard, and they stop and listen. I feel so proud when they do not scurry away, but look at me with their beady, sharp eyes, listen to me and come a few step closer. They want that communication just as much as I do! Dogs follow me in the streets till I stop and caress them. They sense I am eager to do that anyway. Plants grow abundantly around me as if nurtured by my mere presence and an unspoken love for them.
A long time ago, when I was much younger, busy with my life and career, I entered my mother's room unexpectedly. I caught her talking gently to her plants. Poor Mom, how lonely she must be to do something like that - I thought. I am not surprised anymore, however, for I do it myself now. Not only out of loneliness; I have another reason, too. I enjoy both animals and plants, because they are beautiful. We share this planet, and I want to share it in peace. Not only humans need love to flourish, plants and animals do too. That is why I collect dried and dying plants and revive them with love and care. We both gain in the process.
Once my daughter caught me breathing on a sick plant. "Mom, you are an educated woman... Let's not go too far with it." When I told her that I do not know exactly why, but I have noticed that it helps them grow, she stopped and thought, then started thinking aloud. "Probably it is because you exhale CO 2 and that is what they need ... they give us oxygen, which we need... well, that is where we can have a successful co-operation, a symbiosis of a kind. There has to be a scientific explanation for your healing the plants by breathing on them, though. Let me think..." That is Maja. She has to understand everything. I do not need to know why. I don't even want to know. It is much more exciting and fascinating to find out unexpectedly, through life. But I am so proud of her scientific thinking, of her knowledge and education. I remember now how on similar occasions my aunt used to look at me with pride. She had no college education, but she was naturally much above average. I, her brother's daughter, and her extension, became an educated woman, traveled to the countries she had only read about; I could speak foreign languages and had my own books published. She felt happy and proud when she could not understand all that I was saying or writing.
My daughter now makes me proud in the same way. She is getting her Ph.D. at a much younger age than I received mine. From M.I.T., a highly reputable school, inaccessible to me, in my time. Her "artificial intelligence" does not make me feel intimidated but proud, and the little robots she makes inspire grandmotherly feelings in me.
Looking at the line of men and, even more women, in our family, I see the same driving force: a family tradition and a powerful thirst for knowledge; ambition and a desire for continuous progress. Each of us has made the best of life circumstances in order to climb upwards, in spite of historical, familial, and personal hardships: wars, deaths, calamities, big and small. The spirit of survival, so typical of our nation, our clan and family, and each of us individually, pervades us.
Aunt Lubitsa, more than other women predecessors of mine pushed the limits of the common mores and practices accepted for the women of that time with some outstanding achievement. Studying science today, Maja can remember how we laughed approvingly when, without any formal medical background, Aunt Lubitsa treated plants and animals, while plants grew exceptionally well, and animals followed her. It was so simple, so natural for her to heal them. It bothered me, at times, though, that she sometimes showed more unrestrained love for animals and plants than for human beings. With human beings she was patient and helpful, but it was obvious that she never treated them quite as equals, never trusted anyone completely, never lost herself emotionally. Only a few people were accepted in her world without any reservation. Maja was one.
Aunt Lubitsa was always in perfect control. Not only was she in perfect control, but she could easily control others, too. This was especially so with men. My father, my own husband, all men always did all she wanted them to do, without her asking. Women sensed that power in her and resented it bitterly. After a short while, they always wanted her to go away, because they never felt in control of their husbands, brothers or fathers in their own homes. I am not sure if Aunt Lubitsa was quite aware of that. I know men considered this "accusation" nonsense, pure imagination, one of those female irrational exaggerations where men were absolutely powerless.
But I know it is not pure imagination. I felt it myself, and know perfectly well what I am talking about. Exasperated, I even asked my aunt once," Well, whose aunt are you, anyway, my husband's or mine?"
For years my mother complained to me how Aunt Lubitsa found ways to get between her and my father. Whenever she was around, he changed and did everything my aunt wanted; made plans and decisions consulting his sister, not his wife. I heard this so many times, that it passed by without real consideration. However, when it happened to me, years later, in my own marriage, I remembered my mother's words. I wonder now what it really was. Was it just that Aunt Lubitsa understood men and their nature better than other women, including me? Was she just lonely and needed to feel that she still had some feminine powers left in her? Or did she have some old, deep wounds inflicted by women, and could not resist a piece of revenge, here and there, even with her own kin?
We will never know, but certainly it added to her powerful image and made her more intriguing. It does not matter anymore. All the mentioned loved ones are already gone and only I am left to tell the story. All of them are now free of any worldly passions, trailing in the glory of eternal peace and harmony. Now they can love each other without any rivalry or competition.
Recently, my dog died. Butterscotch was mine for seven years of unconditional love and loyalty. She was my only companion in a solitary widow's life. Is my aunt's life story being repeated through mine? When my dog died, I was shaken profoundly. Butterscotch had been my first and only dog. I had to wait fifty years till life allowed me to have one. She was given to me as a tiny, helpless, whining pup that grabbed my heart right from the start. No other pair of loving eyes has ever looked at me with such devotion as hers. When she died, I learned about the unconditional love of a dog, compared to the selfish love of human beings. Only then, maybe, I started understanding why my aunt showed unrestrained love for animals but was on guard with people. In the last ten years of my widowhood I have started to understand my aunt and finally to realize where I have been wrong.
My aunt and I had a special, although not quite simple relation- ship. As her brother's child, her flesh and blood, I was like her own daughter. Often, when my aunt and I went shopping or eating out (ice cream was our common weakness), people took us for mother and daughter. That made my aunt very proud, but saddened my mother. I can remember her blue eyes, darkening, while she asked:" Why? Why do they think you are hers? I am the one who bore you in pain, pain from a broken leg and from the childbirth at the same time!"
That is true. And now, as a mother myself I know she raised me with uncommon love and care.
In many ways my mother was diametrically opposed to Aunt Lubitsa. Mom was a soft, light-skinned, blue-eyed blonde with long, naturally curly hair and an angelic beauty. Aunt Lubitsa had the beauty of an archetypal seductress, with her dark eyes, voluptuous body and Siren-like, alluring voice. My mother was a refined, subdued, sophisticated lady - Aunt Lubitsa a natural Earth goddess, a free gypsy spirit. As if torn between the two, I had a bit of both in me. It was as if they fought over me, my body and my soul.
In my grandparents' home there were two large portraits hanging over the twin beds. Two women, both beautiful, one blonde, soft and vulnerable, the other a brunette, intriguing and powerfully alluring. Those two portraits had a powerful effect upon me. I wanted to decide which one was more beautiful, but I could not. They represented two different worlds, and I knew it was more than just a question of taste. I myself was torn between those two worlds, my aunt's nature and my mother's upbringing.
Mom was more vulnerable than my aunt. In their duels my aunt easily found ways to cause Mother heartache, while not letting herself be emotionally touched. If she was, she never let it be known. In later years, though, when they both grew older, with the usual aches and pains of age, Aunt Lubitsa proved to have been made of a sturdier material. My mother developed a heart condition rather early, and it was Aunt Lubitsa who came to help on many occasions. Often, my mother would call and ask her to come and help me with my child, when she, my mother, could not do it because of her poor health. They both knew that no one else could be trusted to do such a good job with Maja.
Many a long winter night they spent together, crocheting and chatting as two women-friends. The age brought them together, I thought. Also, love for me and my little daughter, the only grand child available, since the other two -- the daughters of the firstborn son, my brother -- were growing in the far-away America. My father, the object of their age-old rivalry, was a reconciling factor when it came to helping raise his favorite grand-daughter, as charming and talkative as he himself. He still was an absolute authority for both women, except that Aunt Lubitsa knew how to work around him. He was too naive for her female intricacies. He never could understand what women found to fight over, anyway.
But, life took care of it. At age 66, Mom died in her sleep, of a heart attack, and Dad was devastated. Although he had been a perfect lover of life who claimed he was going to live at least one hundred years, after Mom's death he changed drastically and was ready to join her within a year.
My mother's relationship with Aunt Lubitsa affected me profoundly, especially so after Mom's sudden death. It took long to accept the fact that she was not around anymore. A relative told me that she and Aunt Lubitsa had one of their major confrontations on that same day, and that this probably brought about Mom's heart attack. That information fell heavily upon my heart. Perhaps my mother would not have died so early, if she had been treated with more care. The thought was devastating, too terrible to express. Like secretly witnessing a murder, I could not confess it to anyone, yet felt guilty nonetheless.
Since then, for sixteen more years, I have coped with that dark secret, torn between the duty toward my living aunt and the loving memory of my dead mother. Outwardly, nothing changed. There were no doubts about what I owed to my aunt. Everything was done to make her feel appreciated. But I never completely relaxed, never trusted her as before. I could not forget that awful secret which like a dark shadow lived in my heart feeding on the sacred memories of my happy, innocent childhood in which both my mother and my aunt represented images of pure, immaculate love and unselfishness.
After I left Yugoslavia and moved to the United States, I went back almost every summer, primarily to visit Aunt Lubitsa. Yet I could not stay long with her. The shadow was still with me, tormenting me, splitting me in half. I was still not free of that tragic, purely "female" triangle including my dead mother.
I feel free now, because I know in the spiritual world Mother and Aunt Lubitsa are free from jealousy, competition and rivalry of any kind. Their souls float in the universe in complete peace and harmony and they share love for my father, instead of fighting over it. And I am still here, trying to understand and sort out what I can before I join them in the glory of infinite peace and harmony.
I remember my aunt mostly from the time of her widowhood -- that is, after the Second World War. A perfect image of a widow: dressed in a crispy, clean, starched calico dress - black with dainty white polka dots. She always wore calico. The dress had to be long and loose, with two large pockets for her glasses and a white, clean, starched handkerchief. The dress was usually made by a neighbor or my aunt herself. It had to be modest and practical, just right for her age, as she never failed to comment.
The funny thing is, if you opened my closet, you would find some calico dresses. Naturally, I have one black with white polka dots, too. I remember, my mother had one, also. The simpler, the better - both my mother and my aunt always said. And I believe this myself. (Maja commented once, "But, Mom, your dresses are fitted, feminine, not "old-ladyish.")
Talking about dresses, here is what happened once between my aunt and me, something that I cannot quite understand, because it did not sound like my aunt. After all, maybe I did not know her, either.
One summer, I was coming from America to visit my aunt. It was a hot day and I was wearing a cool, neat calico dress with a navy blue background and tiny purple flowers. Naturally, my aunt was overjoyed to see me and we talked about everything. But later in the day she whispered:" Couldn't you have worn something better? Coming all the way from America? The neighbors will want to see you. They will gossip. After all, America is a place of wealth, and you are wearing calico. They will think you are poor or in some kind of hardship."
I was so astounded, that I did not reply at all. The first thought, a bit bitter, was: Yes, I am suffering hardships. Being a widow by itself is a hardship. No one should know it better than my aunt. But I did not say that. I was analyzing my actions. Why did I wear that dress? Naturally, I did not travel in it all the way from America. I changed into that dress only for my bus trip to visit Aunt Lubitsa. For me, calico was appropriate for a trip to a village of my childhood. Something traditional. I had not seen it from the other angles.
"You know, Auntie, I don't pay attention to gossip. And I don't often let other people's opinions control my actions. My experience is that people will see others the way they want to see them and understand only what they can understand in them. I have more important things on my mind than the neighbors' gossip."
She listened carefully till I finished, then nodded without comment. That was the end of it. But, somehow, I was not happy with the whole thing. What I understand now is: my aunt wanted to be proud of me. She wanted her neighbors to see me in the best possible light. Since they wear calico every day, a woman coming from America is expected to wear something else. After all, these are simple folks. I should have worn my best silk dress, to "impress" the neighbors and make my aunt happy. But, that is the type of practical wisdom I am still lacking.
Always extremely clean and neat, my aunt insisted on doing her laundry herself, by hand. I did not understand why she made it so hard on herself, since we all had washers and dryers anyway.
I always thought it was one of her habits, a way to keep her "independence," or something of that nature. Now my daughter can- not understand why I wash a large part of my laundry by hand, and almost always (or at least whenever possible) dry it in the sun on the clothesline. It smells so fresh and good, and it reminds me of my mother. She used to say that the sun, or frost in winter, do the most hygienic job for one's clothes. And not only that. There is something beautiful in the colorful clothes happily swinging and swaying on the clothesline. It is a symbol of home, symbol of life and joy. My daughter tells me I am just making things more difficult, creating more work, sticking to the old, traditional ways. She says my mother had no choice, that this was the only way then, but with the new technology, I don't have to do it the hard way.
When my aunt's heavy, black hair turned silvery, she had it cut short and wore it simple and practical, without any styling.
She lived a simple, prudent lifestyle, eating healthy food, consisting mostly of fruits, vegetables and dairy products and drinking fresh lemonade, yogurt, and herbal teas.
She dressed simply. Often, at home, she would wear my sweater or a dressing robe I had given her. I thought she was being frugal without real need. On the other hand, my wardrobe, in those times, was quite elegant. First, I liked pretty things. Also, I often traveled abroad and always brought back some fine clothes and household items. I thought my aunt liked the touch of the extra- ordinary. Now I know better.
Now that I love to wear the clothes which my daughter "discontinues" for whatever reason, I think I know why my aunt did the same. I have too many clothes as it is, and definitely do not need "discontinued" ones. Unless they are my daughter's. Anything coming from her is accepted with love. Now I know why my father abandoned tons of his clothing to mostly wear one particular shirt which my brother had sent him from America. It was the same with my aunt. Values change with maturing. I know it now.
Call me strange, but I never loved my dresses while they were new. I may have liked them, but loved -- no. Dresses are like friends. It takes time to love anybody or anything. Time together. Shared memories. An old dress, with a small, unnoticeable stain from a memorable dinner for two is more valuable than the most expensive new dress. For that same reason my brand-new (still unused), beautiful, contemporary towels are sitting in the closet, while in my bathroom you will see some white, washed-out, old-fashioned, linen. For some this may look like a lack of taste, or money, but for me it means getting up in the morning to a soft embrace of my mother's and even grand-mother's linen, with all the warm memories included. Pretty soon my home is going to look more and more like a typical ol' ladies' house, with plenty of dusty family photographs, old but beloved furniture, washed-out but cherished linen, beat-up but favorite pans, and so on.
My aunt had a deteriorating spine and in order to slow down its calcification, she exercised regularly. She was as limber as Jane Fonda. Maja took a photo of her in a pose that Jane Fonda's students could hardly assume.
Aunt Lubitsa has always been a very good walker, too, always walking instead of riding, especially in the country. Naturally, she did not like the city life-style. Our huge sky-scrapers she called "chicken-pens." However, she must have found some excitement in the city. Or, perhaps, she just wanted to be with us during the long winter season. After her parents died, for many years she lived by herself. Only now, being in the same situation, I know how it must have felt.
In her last years, after my father died, she moved in with a friend's family. Being farmers, they lived in her native village Futog, which has grown into a fine, modernized suburb of the city of Novi Sad, where my childhood and youth had been spent. The home where she moved in was a spacious, antique building. During the Austro-Hungarian occupation it was used for the local landowner, Count Kotek's, employees. The house had high ceilings and large windows, and a spacious hall with plenty of exotic plants. There was a garden with roses in front of the house and a large back yard for the animals, another for the vegetables and fruits, just what our aunt was used to having all her life.
Our aunt was never quite satisfied with the treatment other people gave to animals and plants. She always had to check if they were given plenty of fresh water during the hot summer days. (I have been catching myself do the same lately). She would never drink a glass of water without spilling some on the nearest plant, too. The water she used to wash the vegetables for cooking would be given to the plants in the front garden. Aunt Lubitsa was always environmentally conscious. With her it was second nature, not a fad.
The family that she chose to live with could use all of her habits and expertise. They needed just that little help at home while they were at work in the fields. On the other hand, my aunt was happy to be needed. She had her garden, her animals to take care of, and plenty of neighbors that she had known since her youth. Within walking distance from the house was the village graveyard where her parents and her brother were resting eternally. She checked regularly whether the graves were cleaned and grass cut, then pointed out where she wanted to be buried, next to her brother.
My visits to her always included going to the cemetery together. Walking through the grass and wild flowers, she would point out, "This is 'bokvica' - good for cuts and wounds. It will clean them thoroughly, no need ever for a tetanus shot. And this is 'apta' - poor folks' fruit. Many a child has been raised on the marmalade made of this nature's free gift. It grows everywhere and is rich in vitamin C." In my mind's eye, I instantly saw how, during the War time, our neighbors' toddlers chewed on thick pieces of bread heavily layered with that purple marmalade, their ruddy faces richly stained and smeared by it. Another memory: during that same time, bread and butter sandwiches were substituted with bread and homemade lard sprinkled with paprika. I never knew it as poor people's food, it tasted so good!
Going to the cemetery, my aunt was walking fast. It was not easy to keep up with her, although every year her spine bent a bit more. Apparently, she knew all the graves and whom they belonged to. She was pleased with the ones that were well kept and cared for. If she saw a neglected one, she would mutter something about "the new generations not having anything sacred in their lives."
Like meeting a friend, Aunt Lubitsa smiled, spotting a small silvery-leafed tree, filled with heavily aromatic flowers attracting swarms of noisy bees. "This is 'dafina.' If you keep some of its cut branches in your home, you can be sure no insect will be around. No mosquitoes, no moths, and you don't need any chemicals or sprays, trust me," concluded Aunt Lubitsa, pointing to the plant known in America as the 'Russian olive tree.'
"And this herb here saved your father's life," gravely added Aunt Lubitsa, showing an insignificant-looking grass. "For days and months I had fixed him this 'outlaw's grass' tea mixed with camomile and linden, when he was seriously ill." She was talking about millefoil, known for its properties for hundreds of years through the Serbian history, the name "outlaw's grass" dating from the times of the five hundred year old Turkish occupation of the Balkans.
My father's illness took place when my mother was still living and Maja was about four or five years old. My father, always strong and exceptionally healthy, was not feeling well for quite some time. When he finally had a doctor examine him, he ended up in a hospital for respiratory ailments.
The diagnosis was so bad that we did not even want to use the right word for it. Dad had to stay in the hospital for a lengthy treatment. Finally, he was released, but not better. At that point my aunt took him in her hands. They both left for the family vineyard at Dumbovo, not far from Beocin in the Srem mountains. The area was beautiful, the air as fresh as it can be in the woodland. That family vineyard, owned by our family for generations, contained all the best memories of the family history for many years back. It was the place where my father spent memorable days of his youth, including - I believe - the rite of passage from the innocence of boyhood to the pleasures of manhood.
Our aunt knew some parts of it, because they were only two years apart and her girl friends were just the right age for him to be interested in (the same as with me and my brother, one generation after). My aunt knew much about her brother, naturally, but she was one of those rare women who knew how to keep quiet. Just like her mother, my Grandma Lenka. Aunt Lubitsa never talked about her brother's private life. She had that special loyalty of love and shared memories that creates a true bond of intimacy.
To that special place filled with significant memories my aunt so naturally and rightfully took my father to heal him. My mother never really liked our family vineyard. Perhaps she knew, or at least sensed, what it meant to my father and Aunt Lubitsa. She had spent many a summer there, however, especially when my brother and I were little. It was a good, healthy place to raise children, a good place for us to grow and learn about nature and life. However, our mother resented something in that place and she resented something in my father's and my aunt's bond of intimacy. I was too young to understand it at the time. Later on, when I was mature enough to understand, it was never discussed.
However, the family vineyard stayed a place of significance for each generation in our family. Later, my little daughter spent her summers there with both my father and my aunt, a city child getting her first hands-on education in living closely with nature. My father and my aunt enjoyed that fullheartedly, and there are many sweet family anecdotes preserved through oral tradition with Maja in the leading role.
My brother first, later I as well, had a dramatic role in becoming the ones who, through leaving the country, abandoned the family hearth, interrupted, cut and discontinued the line of precious family memories. I had to be the one who sold the vineyard to join my brother in America.
On her death-bed, our aunt expressed her wish about the vineyard. If it were to be sold, she wanted it to be offered to Dragana, the young girl who had been good to her, the older daughter of the family Stefanovic, where our aunt lived her last years. My brother and I agreed to give it to her, not sell it, because she was good to our aunt while we, her closest relatives, were far away.
However, it still felt painful to be the ones breaking the family tradition. The vineyard had been owned and enjoyed by many generations, including my brother and me as the last owners.
We were the ones who left our fatherland "in search of the greener pastures." In due course, life has taught us, among other things, that the greenest pastures are those remembered from the childhood.
As I have recently written:
"Things are almost never
what they seem to be:
those who have
actually have not;
and we must first lose
in order to find,
and go away
in order to return."
Now I am painfully aware that our family history has been drastically changed, and disrupted. My brother has no sons: thus, the family name does not live on. No more branches on this tree. Somebody else will have to continue the name. Somebody else will enjoy our vineyard.
When Aunt Lubitsa took my father there, after he had been released from the hospital, she fed him good, home-grown and home-made food, seasoned with sister's love and her desperate wish to heal him.
My father and Aunt Lubitsa took it easy. He had plenty of rest, plenty of communication with the familiar scenery around him, that same ageless scenery that lived before him, that shared his life span with him, creating a beautiful, magic background for his exaltations and moments of intense oneness with nature, when through intense ecstasies one flows with the River of Life, throbs with the pulse of the Universe. Aging and getting tired, but with a wiser eye, he was enjoying that same ageless nature, knowing that it was going to survive him, to live on, serving as a decor and a teacher to new generations of those eager to drink from the River of Life, impatient to learn from the Teacher.
And his Sister, that Sorceress, that Witch (as she half-jokingly called herself), that Earth-Goddess and Nurturer, only made him fresh lemonade with honey, and prepared herb teas of her choice (camomile, linden and millfoil, "the outlaw's grass"). She was only there when he needed her, sharing their mutual memories of the times, events, places and people they both knew and loved. At the same time, she gave him enough space to be alone with nature, alone with his thoughts and healing memories. And when the time came for him to have a check-up at the hospital, the doctors examined and examined him again, because there was something puzzling. They must have misdiagnosed him before, because his chest and the whole respiratory tract were absolutely clear and healthy.
We were so happy and relieved that nobody remembered to credit my aunt with any part of it. I suspect now that it must have been true throughout her whole life. Whatever my aunt did was always accepted as normal and taken for granted. She never made a big deal of any thing, so nobody else did.
On another occasion, when I was absent from home for four months on a scholarship in Sweden, Maja only four years old, Aunt Lubitsa came to stay with her and with my husband. It so happened that during that time Maja contracted mumps. She had a high fever, painful and swollen salivary glands, and was greatly suffering. My aunt did not take her to the doctor. She applied a slice of bacon on Maja's neck and kept massaging her little, burning body with the clean, strong, home-made plum-brandy (famous Serbian "rakija" slivovitz). The massage with alcohol reduced the temperature, and the bacon took care of the swelling. That night Maja slept well and the next day she did not need the doctor.
Jokingly, aunt Lubitsa called herself a "witch doctor" or just "a witch." Once, however, she got seriously worried about her "evil powers." We had to laugh, although the occasion was not a funny one. We had just moved to a new apartment building and people were still working on alterations. A young doctor and his wife lived in the apartment above ours. They were having some shelves fixed, so -- naturally -- there was plenty of noise going on. It was making my aunt really angry, because the noise was getting unbearable just at the time when she was trying to have Maja take her after-lunch nap. Maja was a restless tike, hard to settle down anyway. Aunt Lubitsa was grumbling, annoyed, and when the noise became worse, she exploded in a "folkloric," old-fashioned cuss, "Sanduk ti kovali, da Bog da," wishing for the noise-maker to get a coffin made instead of a shelf.
And what do you think happened? That young doctor got killed in a car accident. We saw his wife dressed in black, her eyes swollen from tears. My aunt was smitten with guilt. She swore never to wish evil on anyone, no matter what. That was our good, old Aunt Lubitsa.
When I visited my aunt in the summer of 1989, I did not know it was our last time together. She looked just like always, dressed in a clean, starched black calico dress with white polka dots, her glasses low on her little nose. She was reading something, and did not hear me enter. Family pictures were all around her: my brother and I as babies, our graduation portraits, wedding photos, family portraits with our children... The room was dark and cool, regardless of the heat outside. White laced curtains, crisp and clean, quivered in the breeze. Everywhere in the room doilies Aunt Lubitsa had crocheted covered the tables and night stands.
I recognized our family rug, bleached and worn with age, my mother's cushions on the sofa and my grand-mother's chest with Aunt Lubitsa's linen.
Time stood still. Coming from overseas, thousands of miles, from the United States to this small, cool room in a village in Yugoslavia, I felt at home, safe and secure, a child again, loved and protected, the sweet aroma of the blooming linden-trees outside lingering in the air, just like in my childhood. Oh, it was so good to embrace Aunt Lubitsa's frail body and see her all-knowing smile. Like always, she asked half jokingly-half seriously, "Shall I live long enough to see Maja, 'moje malo cure-pure, moje malo pace (little duckling, as she always called her). She was relieved to hear that, in fact, Maja was coming in a month, as soon as school was out.
I spent that day with my aunt. We visited the old cemetery, with its paths lost in high grass. We criticized the care-taker for not mowing the grass regularly, talked to some neighbors who obviously knew every detail about me and my life; we inspected all the plants and blooming roses, and checked to see if the chickens had enough fresh water. After talking long into the night, I went to bed, a soft, fresh-smelling bed that my aunt had made for me. She gave me my mother's towel to dry my face, and her pink silk night gown, soft like her lullaby, like baby's breath, the night gown I had grown to love on my mother, my aunt now gave me to sleep in.
As I was leaving the next day, my aunt started, reluctantly, "My child, I am ninety-one and will have to die... sometime..." I interrupted her hurriedly. "Auntie, don't talk about death. You will live long yet." And she left it at that.
I returned to America. The school year started and I was immediately grabbed by everyday life. Aunt Lubitsa was doing well.
Then, unexpectedly, a letter came from a relative announcing that my aunt had died November 23, after a short illness. She was clear-minded till the end. There were some pictures and other things she wanted me to have.
I have not returned to Yugoslavia since.
No doubt, after my aunt's death I have felt much lonelier. There is no day that I do not think of her with a new understanding and awareness. I think of her with love and pride, identifying with her more and more.
When this summer I visited my daughter in Boston, we took long walks through the park, laughed together, ate in fancy restaurants, shopped for silly, unnecessary things, shared some secrets and -- of course -- talked about Aunt Lubitsa.
I learned that where I had failed then, in the summer of 1989, my daughter came out as a winner. She did not interrupt her great aunt when she started:" My child, I will have to die... some time...may be soon..."
They had a long talk. My daughter has not really told me what about. I understand.
And now, in the summer of 1991, I am visiting Maja and drinking the linden tea that Aunt Lubitsa left us. Like a long time ago, we are all together again. Three women -- three generations -- bonded by love and by the same precious memories, raised on the same tradition, each a daughter of her own time.
The sweet aroma lingers around us like my childhood memories, like my aunt's all-knowing smile, and I hear the words she told Maja that last summer of 1989, the words that are as much mine as they are hers," When I die, do not cry. Laugh, sing and rejoice. Life never ends."