The Bastard’s Wife
When I was one year old, my mother prayed for me to die.
She, my poor mother Mika, ended up bearing five children. Like so many other mothers in Serbia in the early 1900s, she lost a baby son to dysentery. She lost her first born, her heir. When her now eldest daughter, her four-year-old Radica, contracted the deadly disease in 1931, Mika couldn’t bear the thought of losing her little girl, her sun, her soul. She looked at her sick child, lying in bed, pale and yellow, weak, suffering, and then she looked at her younger daughter in the crib, still a baby, me, Ruza. I was a small, sickly baby, and a big burden to Mika, who had to take care of two children, work the land with her husband, and take care of the household and the cattle, every single day. No weekends, no vacations. And my parents still barely made ends meet. Helpless and desperate, Mika had to at least try to do something to save her daughter. She did the only thing she could. Prayed. Prayed to God for me to die.
“God, if you must take one away from me, please, take the younger one…”
When Radica died, Mika was not only in mourning but also in fear of God’s retaliation.
“Please, forgive me for asking you to take one child over another, I know you have your reasons that I, a small, ignorant woman, cannot understand, but you understand mine, don’t you? Please forgive me…”
Mika had been an orphan. She worked as a servant in the village, taking care of cattle and tilling land into fertile ground to grow wheat, corn and potatoes. She was a petite woman, almost half a woman, but she worked for two. Her gentle facial features and pale skin didn’t match her life. She married my father, Branko, who was also an orphan. His father died in the war, and when his mother remarried, she had to give him up. Her new husband didn’t want baggage from her previous marriage. Branko was taken in and raised by his aunt and uncle. So they found each other, both poor, both alone.
My parents desperately needed another pair of hands to work the fields and take care of cattle, as soon as possible. I was now their eldest child. When I turned seven, I wanted to go to school with my friends so badly. I had never wanted anything that much. I would have done anything for it! I promised to be a good pupil! I promised not to make any trouble! I promised to work before and after classes! I promised them the sun and the moon, but they still didn’t let me go, not even for one day.
I never, ever forgave them for that!
I had no toys and was very rarely able to play games like hide-and-seek. I started to work in the field, to take care of the sheep and cows, and to babysit my newborn sister Loza at the age of six. My mother and I rotated our duties like clockwork. I put Loza in a sack, with only her head sticking out, for my mother to breastfeed her, while filling in for her in the field. And then, when Loza was full, she handed her back off to me, and went off to work again.
My father took in my orphaned cousin Voja when I was nine, to help us with work. My uncle was shot in the gut while serving in the military, a victim of a training accident, when one of his fellow soldiers mistakenly put real bullets in a gun that was supposed to have blanks. My mother’s explanation for the accident, however, was much simpler. “God’s will.” This was her general response to all of life’s unpleasant surprises, from the tragic to the banal, from a loved one’s death to a rainstorm that prevented her from going to the market.
But I was never taught about God.
I was just a little girl when my mother and aunt dragged me into a church, for the first time, to listen to the liturgy and pray with them. They didn’t explain why, they didn’t ask me if I wanted to go. They didn’t introduce me to God, just wanted me to fear him, and trust that he only means the best, and everything he does, he does for a reason.
I fainted, my first time in the church.
It must have been the smell, all the candles and incense. That, or I’m the anti-Christ.
My father didn’t like priests and didn’t go to church.
“Priests are just thieves, stealing from hungry, hard-working, simple folks, who need some kind of explanation for all of the bad things in life, and a feeling of hope that someone out there is watching over them and preventing even worse things from happening,” he used to lecture my mother. And she would just say: “Move from that spot!” Even though she was angry at him for blasphemy, she didn’t want anything bad to happen to him. And he just blatantly offended God, so according to old Serbian belief he had to move from the spot he was standing on, to avoid God’s wrath.
He would frown and squint at her, and leave the house. She would then call him the anti-Christ, but only after she would look out the window and see him walking toward the stables, in his olive-green, thick, wool, puffy-legged pants, white linen shirt and black wool west, black hat and traditional Serbian leather shoes, Opanci, pointy much like a boat, and laced around the ankles.
When I was older, my girlfriends and I gathered, every evening, in front of my village’s Zadruga, the only store and gathering place in the village, where men met to have a drink, talk to neighbors and look at the girls dancing. We were dancing the ancient Serbian circle dance, the kolo. The dance was an opportunity for us to share in what until that point had been the rare thrill of each other’s youth and to look, albeit subtly and shyly, at the young men who were enjoying the individual and collective spectacle that we cast. Every day, after a hard days work planting potatoes and lettuce, leading the sheep to their meals and then safely back home, and walking for hours and hours on wild, beautiful southeast Serbian hills, I would go in front of Zadruga, in the same clothes, same socks, and same opanci and dance with my girlfriends, while eyeing boys.
One evening, my girlfriends were waiting for me, but my mother said:
“You have to go feed the sheep first.”
I didn’t want to, but mother’s word is law. So, I told my friends not to wait for me, and ran for the meadow, crying. Then, I had a thought: if they eat fast, the sheep, maybe I can make it to Zadruga, late but still make it! But the damn beasts were taking their time, snacking. I started yelling at them: eat faster, you stupid, you don’t say for a stupid woman that she’s a sheep for nothing, but, what do they know, they don’t speak Serbian. So, I’m playing with this branch, watching them eat, angry, disappointed, sulking, hating my parents and my life, and suddenly, I have another thought. Their bellies will look full, if I get the hair on them to stick up! So, I quickly comb the hair around, on their bellies, with this thin branch I had, one sheep after another, one after another, and I look, their bellies do look full, with all the hair on them messy and sticking up! So I hurry them back home. There my Mom awaits:
“Ruzo, you’re home quickly, have the sheep had enough to eat?”
“Yes, Mama, yes, look at their stomachs, they were really hungry today and they ate fast.”
So, I left them in the sheep cot and ran to Zadruga!”
There and then, I met Stanko while the sheep were bleating loudly in the sheet cot and my parents were swearing at them. Tall, handsome, blond, and proud, Stanko was my first boyfriend. I was 19.
Girls then didn’t date boys like they do now. And boys knew not to ask for more than they were allowed to. Dating in Serbian villages in the 1950s consisted of walking, talking and holding hands. Stanko and I had a walk every evening, from 6pm up to my curfew at 9pm, for almost three months, when he met me in front of Zadruga one evening, looking at his shoes.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“You know Nada, Nada Petkovic? My parents want me to marry her…”
Yes, I knew her. She was like a stump, short and fat, and she was also older than me and even older than him! She was 21! But her parents had a big property and a lot of land.
I know I was not supposed to, but I kissed him on the cheek, and ran home. I ran as fast as I could, I felt I was outrunning the cattle, and the wind, and the birds. And my own tears.
A week later, Svetomir showed up in front of Zadruga, while he was serving as an army sergeant who oversaw soldiers rebuilding tunnels destroyed during the war. He had his eyes on a lot of girls, and he had his share of walks. But he only bought a dress and shoes for me, when we got engaged. I never had a dress before then! I was wearing skirts and shirts my mother made for me, and my mother was no seamstress.
Svetomir, known as Toma to his friends and family, was a dark-skinned, dark-eyed, flirty sergeant with a mustache, six years older than me. He was also from a village in southeast Serbia, Veliki Drenovac, about a two-hour drive south of my home. His mother Natalija was a sickly woman but still had managed to have five healthy children–four boys and one girl. His father was famous in the village for speaking French, which he learned while fighting with French soldiers in World War I.
His father bequeathed him the name Svetomir, which literally means “Holy Peace,” as a quixotic wish for his son’s future. But it turned out to be a bad omen, as Svetomir would spend most of his life in one war or another. He was 16 when the Nazis dropped bombs on Yugoslavia, and he quickly joined the Partisans. Hiding in the mountains and forests of Serbia, Svetomir trained for battle and, with other illiterate recruits, received an education he otherwise would not have had. He survived the war, brought back home with him a higher rank and a wounded right arm. He had a big scar on the sagging skin of his arm, above the elbow. The scar produced thinner, smoother skin.
He was calm and gracious as he talked about the hunger and the cold, the marches, the fear and the loneliness, and death as another soldier, marching along side him, every day. To a listener, it seemed like he was reading a story from a book. There were no tears, no shivers, no cold sweats. But he came back from that war with nightmares and traumas. For years, he woke up screaming in the middle of the night.
“Toma, what’s wrong?” I had asked him, many times, at 3am, terrified by his sudden jump from the bed or an eerie scream. He would turn toward me, then pin me down by my shoulders, hard, and put his hand over my mouth.
“Who are you, bastard? I said, who are you, what do you want from me? Ruzo, is it,is it you? Uh, nothing, just, just go back to sleep, I’m f-, I’m fine, just sleep, and leave me alone!”
He never apologized.
In the morning he would say to me:
“Don’t you dare tell anyone about what happened last night…you hear!”
And then he would leave the room.
He once slapped me because I was beating him in a social game of Jamb, consisted of rolling a dice and keeping scores, in front of his friends. After they left he told me: “Don’t you ever, ever again, embarrass me, woman!”
And again, he would leave the room. Just like my father used to, with my mother.
Every day on his way to and from his walks, he would cheerfully greet his neighbors and friends in their 70s and 80s: “How are you today, young man?” He would never miss a day of shaving, trimming his mustaches, putting on his tie and suit and going for a walk. Alone. I was never invited to one of his walks.
I heard rumors of Toma being a lady’s man many times. One time, I think it was 1954, I was pregnant with our second child as Toma and I, with our two-year-old boy Bane, were moving from Pirot, a town not far from the Bulgarian border, famous for its hand-woven carpets and miserly men, to Nis, Serbia’s third largest city. We got on a horse-drawn carriage – me, Toma, Bane, and this divorced woman. Little by little, I noticed Toma and this woman were trying to communicate with their eyes, smiling. I tried to ignore it. When we got to the train station, Toma told me to go to the room designated for only women and children. It was a room heated by a big, coal and wood-fed, metal heater. It was cold outside, so I listened to him and went there. But, I had no peace, and after a while I decided to go check on my husband. I found him in a traditional Serbian restaurant, Kafana, just next door, drinking with that woman.
They were shocked to see me, with my little boy.
“What are you doing in here? It’s only for men!” Toma yelled.
“Then what is she doing here?”
Toma couldn’t come up with an answer, so I continued.
“I came to see what’s keeping you. Why don’t you join us? You should be with your family.”
“But that’s only for women and children. Just go back there, it’s warm there, the train will be here soon.”
I decided not to argue and went back. Soon we boarded the train. He sat across from me and our son, and I saw that he was restless. All of a sudden, he said he was going to stretch his legs and would return shortly. Fine. I waited and waited. A lot of time passed, and he was not coming back. I knew what was going on, so I got up and found him just a couple of cars down, talking with, smiling at that same woman, from the village, from the carriage, the divorced one! As I was standing there, behind them, and they didn’t see me yet, I noticed that he was casually touching her hand, gently, like she was an expensive porcelain doll he was afraid to break. So I march in, in front of them, and while she was looking away, and he was in shock, I pushed our boy onto him, I slapped him, and then I left! As I was walking back to my car, childless and pregnant at the same time, I caught glimpses of co-passengers staring at me as I were the devil. Women had their right hands over their mouths, eyes wide, and men were frowning at me, while checking on their own wives, as if they could catch my audacity. I heard them calling me a witch, a bitch. I walked, chin held high, but my knees were shaking.
A couple of minutes later, he came back carefully to our seats with our boy. I was looking out the window, at the green meadows and endless wilderness, as the train was slowly bumping along.
He handed me our son, but I didn’t move, didn’t even look at him. He tried to talk to me, but I remained silent. I didn’t say a word to him for a week. After that, I just gave up. I gave up caring about his women.
When I got pregnant with my third child, Toma wanted me to get rid of it.
“Go talk to your mother, she’ll know what to do.”
I came to my village once again, pregnant, and hugged my midget, blind mother, who was up to my chest, and half of my body. Hugging her felt like swallowing her. She was wearing a long, dark blue skirt she made herself, years ago, old male-looking flat shoes, off-white shirt and a black wool cardigan over it. Her white frail hair was covered by a thin, fake-silk flowery scarf, tied below the chin.
She was still able to move around her small, rocky yard, even though she couldn’t see.
“Mom, I’m pregnant again. Toma doesn’t want it. He says we don’t have the money to support it. We already have two. What do I do?”
She brought me inside her small house, and sat me on her low, hard bed in her kitchen with mud floors, and one small window. I was sitting next to her. She was petting me on my curly, shoulder length, blonde hair, as tears began rolling down her wrinkly cheeks. She was 70 years old, but to me she looked like 90.
“I almost lost you once. But God didn’t want you, he wanted Radica. Not you. I offered you as sacrifice, but he still took what he wanted.”
“Mama, what are you talking about?”
“But he didn’t give you an easy life instead. Maybe it’s my fault. He gave you Svetomir.
Don’t do it!”
“Don’t do what?”
“Don’t give up your child. I never forgave myself for asking God to take you and leave me Radica. I hope you can forgive me one day.”
I forgave her the day I had my third child, Ljubisa.
I told Toma that my mother couldn’t help me, that it was too late. He yelled at me, and slapped me a couple of times. Then he left the room, and barely spoke to me for the next six months.
In 2002, he ended up in the hospital for his heart.
There’s not much doctors can do about that, I thought. But then five days later, he died of stroke.
Finally, I was able to rest. To breathe.
“Did you love him?” my granddaughter Ana bluntly asked me once, eight years after he died.
Yes, I loved him. But he was a bastard…
