The funeral. Lena and Milan came, so we didn't take the van but rather went with two cars. Nina decided she wanted to go and take the kids, so they were the only children there to see Arpi away, his own grandchildren were at home with a sitter.
The weather was not too bad but still chilly - the new cemetery being still too new and the trees small and few, it was rather windy. Someone had the bright idea to hire a priest - a catholic, for that matter - even though Arpi, as far as I know, never showed any symptoms of religion. True, they were both baptised and went to sunday school until perhaps age of 8 or so, but then never went on their own. And both were some kind of members of the communist party in youth. But then if the christians prefer to have such a fake increase in their numbers and lose it immediately, up to them.
Many neighbors from Groš showed up, and many of his co-workers from the oil fields. After the priest's oration, someone from NIS aka Gazprom read a piece, which was so touchingly reminiscing, by style and content, of the years of self-management socialism. And one of their chief engineers was also there: Jozda.
On the way to Banatska I took a shortcut by the old hat factory. Not that it's much shorter, but it's two lights less and the street is practically empty. So we could park in the yard and actually be the first to arrive. Then a small miracle happened: the staff have prepared exactly the number of seats. We had no clue how many people will join the daća - number of neighbors who would is entirely arbitrary, and then also of the coworkers, but none of them did. Amazingly, Raja and Violet weren't too bored and actually found another kid, from regular guests, to play with.
Lena and Milan didn't stay too long afterwards, because the weather was possibly getting worse and he doesn't really like to drive at night.
[Later we found out that Arpi didn't even try to file for a divorce, guess he still hoped she may eventually come back to him. She took half of the furniture and appliances from the house, and he kept paying her rent somewhere and provided her firewood for the winter - she found there's a law by which it's his duty. As for her debts, i.e. what she embezzled as a secretary of the retirees' union in the local community, he took a loan to pay it off. With not filing he fucked up the children, as she was still his wife, so half the house belonged to her, and half to Silvija and Boba. The missus even went to the social [security services] and reassigned his retirement to her, as she had the rights and his was hefty, oil rigger's, while hers was minimal, she worked for a number of years as a cleaning lady in the gimnazija.
The inheritance process dragged a while, and ended so that Boba got the old house, Oma's. Since he was now alone in the house, we gave him as much as we thought we could, guess 1000€, and dad's old television set. When they sold the house, they paid off the missus and he left to live in a rented appartment somewhere by the brewery, with Milena. All this tied up by 2024.]
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10-X-2021 - 11-IX-2026