Island of The World

  A door opens in the nearest house, and a man steps out onto the porch. About fifty years old, he is clean shaven, wearing jeans and sandals and a sweatshirt with the word Hajduk written beneath a soccer ball decal. He approaches, wiping his hands on a dish towel, his expression curious to know their business.

  “Are you lost?” he greets them.

  The driver steps back and lets Josip answer.

  “Is this Pačići?” he asks.

  “Pačići, no”, replies the man with a furrowed brow. “No ducklings here. Though, as you can see, we raise geese. But we don’t really sell from the front door. On Saturdays we bring them to the market in Mostar. That’s the best time to buy.”

  “I did not come to purchase anything”, says Josip, with an apologetic dip of his head. “I used to live near here when I was a boy. I have come to see it again.”

  “Ah”, says the man, with a smile of interest. “You lived here, in this place?”

  “Not here, but deeper in the mountains. We used to pass through Pačići to get there.”

  “Well, I regret to say we’re not Pačići. Maybe you took a wrong turn somewhere. I don’t know of any place by that name.”

  Josip pauses and glances around the yard. The houses are the same, placed exactly where they were when he last saw them.

  He knows that if he looks too closely he will see a man raising a gun above a boy collapsed on the snow of this yard.

  “It seems the name is now lost”, he murmurs. “But this is the place. A clan of people once lived here. Their name was Dučić.”

  “Dučić is a common name—there are several in the hills between here and Mostar, and north toward Sarajevo, I would wager. But no one by that name lives here. Let me go and ask my aunt, she may know.”

  He calls toward the open door of his home, and a woman comes out. She is about the same age as Josip. Introductions are made all around; the Muslim driver is treated cordially. The man’s name is Branko, the woman is Teta Ana.

  The man explains the situation to his aunt.

  She puts a hand to her cheek, as if trying to recall something.

  “Yes”, she says. “There were Dučićs here before the war—I mean the war when the Italians came. None of the family survived those times. We got this house in the 1950s. The buildings had been empty for years, just falling into ruins. When the government started to move people around and make the collectives, we had to leave our place down by the river, where I was born. One of my cousins married a Dučić, but that branch of the family lived farther out from here. She’s still alive, and so is her husband.”

  Josip’s heart skips a beat. Is it possible?

  Then, with a sudden ripping in his chest, he sees Petar with a split skull, his arm without a hand, lying in a pool of frozen blood.

  “They raise sheep”, the woman adds. “Where is their home?” asks Josip.

  Teta Ana points toward the east. “Over there about five kilometers. You can’t drive it, you would have to walk.”

  Josip can walk there, but he knows it is not what he is looking for.

  “You said you once lived near here”, says Branko. “Where was it?”

  Josip turns and faces the forest to the north. He does so without hesitation, by the interior orientation that requires no thought.

  “There”, he whispers.

  Branko and Teta Ana are puzzled.

  “There’s nothing there”, says the woman. “No one ever goes that way, only the sheep.”

  “There is a valley up there. It’s where I lived as a boy.”

  “Yes, there’s a valley”, says Branko. “I’ve been to it a few times, but there are no houses.”

  “Rajska Polja”, Josip murmurs, choking.

  The man and woman shake their heads. They do not recognize the name.

  “You must mean Roško Polje on the other side of the mountains, near Tomislavgrad.”

  Josip shakes his head. “This is the place”, he whispers.

  Branko and Teta Ana frown. There is nothing more to be said, really. They cannot think of anything else to suggest.

  “Would it be possible for me to go to that valley?” Josip asks. “Is the road still open?”

  “There’s no road, only a path for the sheep. It’s a long walk.”

  “Then it can be walked?”

  “I don’t think it would be too hard”, replies Branko. “If you’re willing to walk, you’d be there in a couple of hours. The shepherd takes the flock there each spring and brings them down in the autumn, so the path will be open.”

  “The owners would not mind?”

  “There are no owners. It doesn’t belong to anyone.”

  By now it is noon. The man and his aunt invite the guests to lunch in their home. Inside, the stone walls have been papered in bright floral patterns, the wooden floor varnished and shining. Everything is spotless. A generator hums, the source of electricity. Now there is a refrigerator, cooking range, and a color television set on which cartoon characters are playing. There are no religious decorations to be seen anywhere, nor are there political ones. Family photographs and sports insignia predominate. The single window in the kitchen is where it has always been. Though no pig tries to enter the house through it, Josip can almost hear the trotters clacking on the sill.

  After lunch, he pays the driver, who prepares to make his departure, promising to return on the evening of the following day. Branko lends Josip a rucksack and fills it with bread, cheese, sausage, and a water flask. Teta Ana lends a roll of blankets and a woolen farmer’s jacket. They refuse all attempts at payment.

  “I would go with you,” says Branko, “but I have to pick up my son later today. He’s studying at the university in Mostar and wants to come home for the weekend.” He grins and taps a cell phone hanging from his belt. “No escape!” he quips.

  “Are you sure you want to go there alone?” asks the aunt, with a worried frown.

  “Yes, alone”, Josip replies, with a smile of reassurance.

  They take him to the edge of the forest and onto a footpath leading to the northwest. As he sets off along this narrow, muddy track, they watch him for a minute, then return to their lives.

  The trees on both sides are no longer the sun-filled woods they once were, during his boyhood. Now they are a forest of beech trees blocking the view of the surrounding mountains. It is difficult for Josip to believe that upon this path he once ran at top speed to save a life, which in the end was not saved. Two lives. Many lives. From time to time, his eyes become moist, yet it is the happiest memories that now return to him. He holds them and does not let them go too quickly. He realizes that the memories of his last day will soon rise up to receive him, though in what form he cannot guess. His heart beats quickly, yet he suffers no wave of the terror one would expect to feel when returning to a scene of catastrophe. He is surprised at himself. It is not quite what he had anticipated.

  Perhaps a half century has numbed certain portions of his mind. Much of that day and night has blurred, though the crucial scenes have never left him. At present, they are in the background of his thoughts, perhaps because their pain has decreased with the passage of time. There have been other drownings, other blood, other deaths and rebirths. Yet he knows that this rebirth, long overdue from his first death, is not yet complete.

  After two hours of steady walking he notices that the forest is giving way to a woods of younger beech, their paper leaves crackling in the breeze. Birds are still singing. High above in the open blue spaces, a falcon circles slowly, then plunges like an arrow. The woods become a scattering of saplings, as thin as rods. A hundred meters farther on and the trees end. Josip comes to a halt and gazes out over the valley of Rajska Polja.

  It has changed. There are no buildings here. Random patches of meadow are knee-high in grass and wildflowers. Solitary trees now stand tall and rich with foliage where once there was open pasture and cultivated gardens. Black pines have crept down into the edges of the valley floor, narrowing it s
till farther. Toward its far end, near the ancient pass into the north, a land-bound cloud meanders across a patch of green—the flock of sheep that is still brought here each summer. There will be a shepherd with them.

  For a measureless space of time, Josip does not move. He sees a silver thread winding through the valley and knows it is the brook that served the people of the village. The sun glints on its surface. The warm wind blows in his face, bringing with it the perfumes of all growing things. He inhales and moves again, slowly, through the wild grass toward the place where the village once stood.

  He arrives at the bank of the brook just south of where the houses were. The lane that bisected the dwellings is no longer there. Yet the sheep track wanders along beside the water, staying true to the path long ago trodden by human feet. It passes between two rows of grass-covered humps, six or eight to a side, then beyond a larger one at the end of this formation and out again into the fields beyond.

  Josip stops at the first hump.

  Everything has flown from his mind. No memory of fire and blood roars in to take its place. He is simply in that state of suspension he has experienced a handful of times. He is conscious that this is extraordinary, that it is given to him only at the most pivotal moments: when time ceases, but motion continues in the world around him. He feels an unusual calm. There is pain in it, and sorrow, but there is also the throb of joy, for in this very place was his beginning and his end. The end that led to other beginnings. He would like to pray, but it is not necessary. He knows that the entire experience is a wordless prayer subsumed in the presence of God. He squints as he looks briefly toward the sky and the wheeling of eagles and doves.

  The current ebbs and flows, sometimes gentle, sometimes threatening to break out in sobs. But whether this is caused by happiness or grief, he does not know, nor does he question. He takes a few steps forward, and the street opens up to receive him, materializes as both a row of grassy humps and as a habitation with a name. Its walls rise before his eyes, and the sound of laughter and music fills his ears. His eyes are streaming now. A few more steps and he is home.

  It is the fourth house on the right. A little above it, on the rise of meadow, is the hump of Svez’s shed, and beside it is the rock on which he so often sat pondering the shape of the world. For a few moments, he stands by a flat stone that must have been the doorstep, once raised, now half buried. He puts a foot forward and plants it gently onto the exposed stone. Then he removes it. He looks at the hump of green. A few hewn blocks are visible on its sides, covered with moss. The hump is a foot or two above the level ground. Inside it are the bodies of his mother and father. It is a tomb. Miroslav and Marija. Two skulls in the burning embers of the thoughts of men, shimmering down to ashes, and snow, and dust and wind and seed and the droppings of generations of sheep that have summered here for fifty years. They are gone.

  He bows his head, chin on his chest. He is a dead boy, seated in a bare room in the house of his parents’ killer, fed by the woman who brought him back to life again, beside the many waters that flow through the habitations of man. He is a boy with no face, gazing into the mirror of the past, seeing himself again, knowing himself as his own grandfather, yet without issue, for there were other deaths to come.

  Are they gone?

  They are gone.

  Now he cries. It is soundless, as fathomless as the sea.

  He would kneel if he could, but his joints are aching from the long hike and threaten to collapse. His back is sore. Slowly he circles the house and goes into the yard behind. A few steps farther and he has reached the rock. Beside it is the rotting stump of the oak that was old when he was young. Mamica tied a rope between it and the house so that her washing would catch the wind. He sits down on the rock. It is hot from baking in the sun. The sky is bright as silver. He cries for a time and remembers.

  On this very rock he found the flowers and the blue feather Josipa gave him in their first exchange of gifts. And the little crucifix that she made for him, is it still here? Are the white stones from the Adriatic still under the house where she lived? Is the little doll he made still there, does it rest with her? Yes, they are here. They are reduced to ashes, but they are not gone.

  Because he is tired, because he is old and full of memories, he stretches out on the rock and sleeps for a while. He cries in his sleep and then awakes. Just as he is sitting up, he hears a whistle from the north end of the village and sees a human form striding in his direction at an unhurried pace. The figure spots Josip, pauses a moment, waves, then continues along the sheep track toward him.

  As he approaches, Josip gets to his feet and waits. It is a tall youth. Then, with a shock of recognition, he sees that it is Petar!

  With a cry, Josip stumbles forward to meet him, but as they close the gap, he trips and falls. The boy rushes forward and helps him up. They stand facing each other, both astonished, both blinking rapidly. Yes, it is Petar. It cannot be, but it is! The same face, the same eyes, the same black hair poking out in all directions.

  His heart is palpitating now, and he is gasping for breath.

  “Petar”, he breathes, at last.

  “Who?” asks the youth, laughing and puzzled.

  “It’s me, it’s Josip!”

  “I thought you said your name is Petar.”

  “No, no, you are Petar!”

  “You are mistaken, sir. I’m Ivo Dučić. Who are you?” Josip rubs his face, shakes his head, cannot answer. “Are you lost, sir?”

  “No”, says Josip. “I have come home.”

  “Home?”

  “I lived here when I was a boy.”

  Now the youth’s bewildered expression is replaced by curiosity. “Ah”, he says. “I always thought people lived here long ago. No one knows the name of this place, no one remembers.”

  “I remember”, Josip whispers.

  “Who are you?”

  “I’m Josip Lasta.”

  “You’re from the city?”

  “I am from America, the city of New York.”

  “New York? I have not heard of it.”

  “It is where I now live. But when I was a child, Rajska Polja was my home. This place was Rajska Polja.”

  “The fields of heaven. It is surely that. I come each spring with my father’s sheep and go back before the snow falls. I never like to leave it.”

  Ivo Dučić leads Josip to the rock beside the brook, and they sit down on it. From this rock, Josip has dipped a bucket into the water a thousand times. On this rock, he left the letter J in round white stones from the sea. Here Josipa in a blue dress found them and knew instantly who had left them there, for her.

  Josip glances up the east slope to the mountain of Zamak. There, at the edge of the lower oaks, he sat beside her the day she cried for her parents.

  Where are you going? she asked.

  To the cross, he replied.

  Now the old man from New York gazes higher, toward the place where the watchtower once stood. The white cross is no longer there.

  “Have you ever climbed up to the fort?” he asks.

  Ivo smiles. “Many times, though it’s just ruins.”

  “Yes, it was ruins in my day too. And is the cross still there? I do not see it.”

  “It’s still there, but it’s fallen and broken into pieces. I don’t know who broke it. My father says the Partisans did it or maybe the Communists who made Yugoslavia did it later.”

  “Are you a Catholic?” Josip asks Ivo shrugs. “I guess we’re nothing.”

  “It was not always so. I knew your family. My friend Petar was a Dučić. He lived here, too.”

  The boy does not know what to say. Names are so easily blown away by the winds of time.

  “He looked like you.”

  Ivo grins. “Some of my cousins look like me. The hair—”

  “Did any of your family live here high in the mountains?”

  Ivo shakes his head. “I don’t think so. Well, maybe. But that was a long time ago. My father w
as born down there—” He points in the direction of Pačići. “On a farm past where those houses are, the people who raise geese. My grandmother told me before she died that Dučićs lived there before the war. I mean the war when Italians and Germans were here, not the war when the Serbs invaded. Now we are Bosnia-Herzegovina. I don’t like the peace soldiers, because they aren’t from our land. They shouldn’t be here, but maybe they keep the Serbs from hurting people.”

  Ivo offers a few more thoughts about the recent war. As Josip listens, he is hearing voices from the past.

  My father says someday we will have a real Croatia.

  Petar shrugs. My father doesn’t think so. The British will rule us just like everybody else tries to.

  Maybe Ustashe and Chetniks won’t let them, says Josip.

  Maybe Partisans won’t let them, replies Petar.

  They all kill people, Josip muses. Why do they kill people so much?

  I don’t know, Petar replies shaking his head. They are angry.

  Fra Anto says we must not do what they do.

  He’s right, but when they try to shoot you, what can you do? You shoot back.

  Ivo is still talking, remembering things his grandmother told him. She gave birth to his father on a night when Partisans swept through the region, slaughtering people. She lost family members.

  “From Pačići?” Josip asks.

  “Pačići? I don’t know where that is. She lost some aunts and uncles. She didn’t like to talk about it. It always made her cry.”

  The sun is dropping into the western range. Josip tells Ivo that he will stay the night. The boy invites him to sleep at his camp at the end of the valley. When they arrive there, Josip sees a large canvas tent and a crude stone fireplace, a paddock of rails, boxes with food, an old rifle leaning against a stump, an axe, and a barn lantern. Ivo goes off for a while to gather the flock into the paddock for the night.