Why look back?

Fragile

What am I doing here, in a faraway land, hurtling down a bumpy potholed highway on a quest to locate some long-forgotten family heirlooms and general life satisfaction? Sheer madness, said Tom. The language of this country I can understand but I can’t speak it very well. I need to compose my sentences carefully before I start. The people’s body language and gestures seem almost alien to me. But I am satisfied, for this is the journey of all journeys I am compelled to do. I’ve had it well-thought out for ages. This is my holy grail, so to speak, as Mary would say.

Strange all this, admittedly, for a person who went to a poetically named school (Harfang de Neige in Pierrefonds) in a distinctly rundown neighborhood. Together with other even seemingly more vulnerable children, I had been victim of this Somali-American bully called Robert. For three full years, repeatedly, he and his gang of tiny pupil-soldiers would chase me round the block, surround and grab me, bring me down to the ground, then sit on top of me and press my face into the hard-packed snow. The teachers didn’t see all this – or didn’t want to see it. ‘We know about him and we are dealing with it’, the headmaster had once reassured my mother. The kid was only stopped after Martha, a tall black girl, formed her own gang, a gang of angels, and had once thrashed this bully and his entire posse. Only one single time, but it was enough. After that, we all started blossoming. The teachers did not see that either.

How logical is this journey? Entirely logical, for in my rundown and plain neighborhood my savior was not just Martha but the local library. Located in Dollard-des-Ormeaux, the neighboring municipality, only two bus stops away, it would become my refuge through many years to come. It was here that I first came across that strange name – Jaroslavice—evidently the place where my mother was born (according to her birth certificate). Dozens years later, I am going to see Jaroslavice – or rather what’s left of it because big chunks of the village had apparently been flooded to give way to a dam. I am returning somewhere I had never been to, except in my imagination. I am hoping for some revelations.

During the war

Clarissa

At the beginning there was the place. A small village, a hamlet almost, where everybody knew everybody and talked not just about those alive but even those who had long passed, for there were few pastimes cherished more than simple gossip.

When Emma gave birth to a baby girl there, right in the middle of that most vicious 20^th century war, people were suitably surprised. How will the parents feed this little creature amidst all the hardships and deprivations? What if the father were to take ill and could not work anymore? Or worse still, what if he were to be arrested, finally, for stealing wood in the forest? Tom told me later that other people had apparently stopped having babies.

Emma presented her little girl at the nearby small-town registry six months later, entering her name as Clara Elisabeth, explaining that she could not come earlier as it had been snowing heavily and she was afraid the baby could catch cold or worse – they could simply get lost in the forest on the way to town. The girl would later be called simply Clarissa (and later still just Clari). She looked way too large for a six-month-old baby, and rumors had started there and then that Emma may have stolen the child somewhere, or that some refugees had left her behind, or even that she could have been, god forbid, her husband’s child from a different relationship. All this because Emma had longed for a child for so long, almost an eternity, that the actual birth seemed unreal. Moreover, nobody remembered seeing Emma pregnant.

Christmas Day

Roast duck, bread dumplings, cranberry sauce, pickled cabbage, carp and potato salad (left over from Christmas eve), pickled mushrooms, Italian mozarella di bufallo, mousse au chocolat, marzipan stolle from Germany, Christmas cookies, English Christmas cake (home-baked for the thirtieth time in a row), pineapple from Panama, mandarins from Spain, perfectly round tomatoes from green houses, pears from the local market and avocados from god knows where; Porto, beer, green tea, sparkling rose wine, Roibus tea, herb tea from Crete (a present from a neighbor who's been there recently), and more...too much food and drink for a single day to eat and not enough people here to eat it.

Where are those days when food scarce, fresh fruit hard to come by and presents modest? We even used to save wrapping paper from one year till next.....there were always about eight to ten people at the table, there was closeness and quiet joy which can't be bought, and confidence we'd always stay together. But we didn't.....

If only...

Today we went to the cemetery again. As it will be All Saints Day soon we had to clean up father's grave, lay down some flowers, light candles and say a small prayer. Only I couldn't pray. The air was biting, my hands stiff with coldness. Aren't cemeteries inappropriate places to communicate with the deceased? Dear father, I think about you quite often. Your values are my yardstick. Sorry, but I couldn't say a decent prayer for you at the cemetery. It will be eight years soon since you died. You're in my heart though...

Taking stock at sixty

Crappy feelings

Good or bad? On one hand, a general release. One can say anything and will not be taken too seriously. One can no longer expect too much. What is there left? Will I fall in love one more time? Will a man fall in love with me? Or will it just be the ongoing drudgery with no uplifting experiences?

On the other hand, sadness. Life has been decent to me if not too generous. Overall, one is still optimistic. For how long? My greatest fear? A creeping disease. It could be just round the corner...so many people around me are suffering. The biggest wish: let there not be any nasty disease, to strike me or my loved one. Everything else can be borne.