We continued along the road through the fields, looking at the houses strung along the slopes of Sredogorje, searching for the road to Grandpa’s house. We were almost there when we turned onto the lane and slowly climbed uphill, past meadows and plum orchards, toward the house.
They would notice us while we were still out in the fields, and as we approached we could see everyone bustling about and gathering in the yard. They always greeted us with radiant faces.
And there were plenty of them in the house: Grandpa Petar, known as Pekan; Grandma Đuka; my mother’s grandfather Mile, whom everyone called Rođo; my uncles Milan and Nikola; my aunts Mira and Nada; Uncle Milan’s wife, Danica, whom everyone called Snaja; and their children Mara, Milka, and Anka. Later they also had a son, Petar, who sadly died when he was barely twenty years old.
The neighbours, the Đaković family, known as the Šabans, would also come over, along with their son Mića, my age. He was a modest and reserved young man then, and still seemed the same when I met him again a few years ago.
Grandpa Pekan would lift me out of the cart and kiss me. I would run into Grandma’s arms, and then go over to old Grandpa Mile.
Grandpa Pekan was of medium height, bony, with a friendly face and warm eyes. His words and laughter were sincere; he spoke from the heart, and I felt a deep warmth and affection toward him.
Grandma Đuka was a modest and reserved woman, with prominent cheeks and a gentle face. Her eyes were always slightly lowered, yet in them glowed a quiet warmth and love for us, giving her presence a magnetic attraction.
Suddenly everything would come alive.
Joyful exclamations, expressions of delight and cheerful surprise from loved ones who had not seen one another for a whole year echoed through the yard and drew neighbours from the surrounding houses, curious to see who had arrived.
I would look around the yard.
Beside the house, slightly set back at an angle and opposite it, stood a modest henhouse where Grandma kept her chickens. A little lower down, beside the road, was a fenced enclosure full of sheep.
The horses would still be tethered a little higher up, above the house. The yard was full of poultry, which, disturbed by all the commotion, angrily clucked and moved aside.
Grandpa was hospitable, although he lived modestly, and he was always embarrassed that he could not treat us better.
While preparations for lunch were underway, we would sit beneath the broad walnut trees in their deep shade. The adults would have the inevitable rakija and coffee, and the conversation would begin.
Grandpa Mile especially fascinated me.
He was a bony, already stooped old man who was then either approaching ninety or perhaps already past it. His face had begun to sink, and from deep within his aged eye sockets two penetrating eyes looked out. Strong white moustaches descended from beneath his nose, filling his withered face and falling in thick strands below his chin.
With a Lika cap on his head, wrapped in a sheepskin coat, wearing broad woollen trousers and rubber Lika opanci, he reminded me of Starina Novak, the hajduk from the epic poems my father used to read to me.
When sitting, he always held a walking stick, which he never parted with. It helped him move more easily when following his sheep across the mountain slopes and clearings that rose above the house.
Grandpa kept sheep into his very old age, when he already needed two sticks to move his frail, worn-out body.
That same body had, back in the century before last, before 1900, set off for America, where he worked in a mine, only to return to his family in Lika. There he finally settled down and lived to the remarkable age of 103.
Meanwhile, I would wander curiously around the yard, peering into every corner, because everything there was once again, and always, something unusual to me.
The house stood on high foundations, built on one side directly onto a rocky outcrop, while the other foundation enclosed a basement that housed the stable.
Above the stable stood the living quarters, built according to the traditional Lika layout, with three rooms: a central entrance room and two side rooms where the family lived.
The house was filled with smells that rose from the stable through the wooden floor into the rooms above.
The doors to the rooms were opened by pulling a rope, which lifted a narrow wooden peg from the upper part of the door. When released, the peg dropped into a notch in a wooden piece attached to the door frame, fastening the door shut.
In the central living room, there was a hearth in the corner.
A fire was built inside a brick-lined enclosure, and above it hung a pot from chains, in which hot water was always being heated or some meal was cooking.
The smoke stung the eyes as it freely rose toward the attic, which was open here, and escaped through the roof, passing the hanging slabs of bacon that had already turned black from excessive smoke.
Bread was baked on the hearth—dark, heavy bread with a distinctive smell and a slightly sour taste that I did not particularly care for at the time, but which I would gladly eat today, rather than many other things.
Željko Narančić