Another unhappy family of the combination of a Lala guy and a wife from Lika, which turned out a bit nasty.
Živa was a village bum in his youth, just another guy who'd drink at times, work in the fields, whatever. Then during the war they had a local volksdeutscher, i.e. a guy of german minority, who got into position of power and would snitch anyone who was connected with the partisans, or even just a suspect, or someone would get a wind of him hiding some Jews in his attic, anything. The people were vanishing and weren't seen ever since. He got the task to kill the guy, and he did it, but then wasn't the same ever again. It's not as if he killed an enemy soldier on a battlefield, this was a dirty job on a guy whe knew.
He learned the masonry trade, the way village masons do it. Not too much knowledge, just lot of work and endurance. He got drunk often, sometimes even seriously, specially after he got a bucket of mortar in his head, it fell off a scaffold, and lost most of function in his left eye („if someone could make a film of what I see with that eye, what a fantasy would that be...“). I once found him in his best suit, lying on the bus station at The Corner, after midnight when I was returning home. Recognized him, propped him up, schlepped him home. For a few months he'd refer to me as „my savior“.
Danka was fat, period. Used to work as a cook in a factory mess somewhere in kombinat, at times, probably in šećerana during the regular campaigns. She'd usually be the cook if there was a wedding in the street. She was of good nature, merry and also semiliterate. She was best friends with Đuđa at times, and then best enemies at other times. They had periods when they wouldn't speak with each other.
Being so fat she developed some bone ailment and would complain a lot about it. (... 42 words...)
Years after they both died, dad once had a moment when he felt like sharing a few stories. She was not just an easy lay, she was a real radodajka (happy-to-give), and fucked sometimes for the joy of it, sometimes for cash. She worked in the kitchen of his mess hall, so he quickly heard when she was caught in the storage on heap with some worker, or maybe there were three. Then the workers' council was deliberating whether to fire her or not, and she'd refute some of worse claims with „you there, you shut up, yours is too small, you have no say here!“. And then there's a story from mom that he passed to us, when she'd go visit her for a coffee and gossip, and asked where's their son, and it was „he's in the back, taking a bath“, which lasted a long hour or two. No point of walking over for a coffee for less than that, as was customary. Then when she returned she noticed (there's a line of sight from our kitchen window to their gate, they're in the backstreet across) him leaving with some girl. And he was already married, had a kid and lived across town.
They had an older daughter, Draginja, pretty thin blonde, also older than me, who got married to some guy from the other end of our street, so the wedding party came to pick her on foot, despite it being a matter of prestige to drive a caravan of twenty cars down the streets for that, honking ceaselessly.
She didn't fare too well at school, I remember her coming to learn a few typing tricks from dad, trying to be a dactilographer, but she was too illiterate even for that (we call a colon a twopoint, and she'd type two periods). Then she went on to try to learn english, which she eventually did learn, when they moved to Chicago. He was a butcher and made good money there, and she was a housewife. We talked briefly in, if I find it (nope, can't) when one of us returned from visit home and brought a package for her (CD with photos?) and resent it from Virginia Beach. Then we talked on the phone for a while, and, oh boy, how much language she forgot. Well, thirtysome years.
For a while the family had a lodger, some arab student from Algiers or Marocco, probably some nonalignment exchange or stipend from our government, may be here in agriculture school, or doing his staž for something. There were rumours, can't say more.
This son (never knew his name, known as Šuca) was a majstor of sorts, probably a locksmith or some such thing from mašinska, worked perhaps in Radijator or some such metal outfit. He was okay more or less, same sunny disposition as his mom, and was a friend of the house as much as his mom. When mom died, he attended the funeral, but didn't have the proper attire, came in his shorts. Dad took offense to this and cut any contact with him.
This wife of his was a simple peasant girl, not pretty nor styled, didn't even try to look any better, and we haven't heard much from her for the time they lived here. Soon they moved. They had two sons, both of which became also majstors, and the older one did the sheet metal roof on our terrace, and took an outrageous amount of money from dad for that. Didn't connect that properly to the wall, so we had water flowing down the wall to the terrace, not being diverted to this roof. And that's the last we heard of them all.
8-V-2024 - 25-III-2026