Coming Home To Kotor

The final part of our engrossing serial

PRESENT DAY

“You said there was more to tell me.”

Kristina was facing Luka as he looked out to sea. She’d been unsure if she wanted to hear more, but if it was relevant to her and her family? Then, yes, she did. “Well?” she pressed him.

The revelation that Luka’s father had betrayed her family all those years ago had been a terrible shock, one she was still processing. The impact of that single, momentary action on her family had reverberated down the ensuing years. Her father had fled to the UK, taking Kristina with him as a baby. She had never known her mother, who had been taken away by the authorities. She didn’t know whether she was alive or not.

That was a lot to process and bear. “Yes,” he said, finally, turning to her. “Come, let’s get on the boat, we must go back. I will tell you on the way.”

They gathered the remnants of their picnic and returned to his boat.

Once he’d thrown the rope aboard and pushed away from the dock Luka appeared ready to open up again. Kristina sat beside him as he steered them back.

“At that time, many men were smugglers. Times were difficult for people. There was a war – a siege. Some of them turned to crime.”

Surely he wasn’t going to open up about his father’s life of crime now? To add insult to injury?

“My father, he had a boat. Not this one, but one like it. He fished from it. And he used it to… smuggle.”

As if betrayal wasn’t enough. Now smuggling too?

“Is this supposed to make me feel better?” Kristina interrupted. When would they be back on shore?

How soon could she get away, get home, and put this sorry incident behind her?

She should never have come to Montenegro. It was a mistake. One she was regretting more and more as time passed that day.

“Please, Kristina, please listen. I am telling you. It is complicated.”

Luka rested his hand gently on Kristina’s arm. She was stranded out at sea with the man. What else could she do but listen?

“My father felt terrible guilt about how he betrayed your family,” Luka continued. “Times were different. It may not be easy to understand. My father was smuggling, yes, but not tobacco, like the other men.”

What other kind of contraband was there? Kristina wondered.

“It was people,” Luka whispered. “Bosnian women and children who had lost their menfolk. He took them to

Greece, to safety. Not many. It was risky. Had he been caught…”

Smuggling people? Taking them to safety? Was this true?

“Your father arrived in town with a woman. It was an open secret that they were living together as husband and wife. He was taking a risk.

“Your father thought they were invisible, but this is a small town. It is not like Dubrovnik. People see everywhere, everything and everyone. People were always ready to betray, for money.

“The police were already sniffing around my father and his boat. Suspicions were already raised locally. He thought of warning your father, but he did not believe he would listen to him, a postman. He had

“Your father THOUGHT they were INVISIBLE but this is not DUBROVNIK”

to act quickly. It was one life against several. People make very difficult decisions in times of war.

“Betraying your family bought him some time. It was, what would you say, a diversion? While the police dealt with your family he was able to take several other families to safety in Greece.”

“But, my mother, my father, me,” Kristina whispered. “What about us?” Luka shrugged.

“It was as I say – a time of war. He wrote to your father, afterwards, but it was too late. Your father had left. That is the letter you found in the archive; the one you showed me. A letter from my father to yours. Saying sorry for what he had done. Explaining himself. Hoping for understanding and forgiveness. It was a shock for me to read it.”

Kristina was silent, fearful that if she spoke, she would sob. She had been taken from this place as a baby. She’d not lived through a time of war. Yes, she’d lost her mother; her family had been broken, her father had been forced to make a new life for them in a foreign country. But she hadn’t been forced into making decisions like this. She couldn’t fully understand what it was to live like this, always looking over your shoulder, always watchful.

She couldn’t judge.

“My father…” Luka hesitated.

“Yes,” Kristina said.

“He is still alive. I have told him you are here. I have told him of your search. He would like to meet you, to seek your forgiveness. I would like you to join us for dinner tonight at the bar – the food is very good there.”

Whatever Kristina had been expecting, it wasn’t this. It was one thing not judging, forgiving at a distance – but in person?

Could she do that?

1993

“Good morning, Kristina.”

Milos kissed his daughter on the forehead. She rubbed her eyes, not yet quite awake. She was a toddler now, running around the flat they rented, crying and laughing. A child who filled him with joy. A child who resembled her mother.

“Come Kristina,” he said. “It is time for us to leave. I must take you to nursery. I have work to do.”

“Dadda, doctor,” she said, flinging her arms around his neck.

Yes, he was still a doctor, although his small daughter would have no idea what that entailed. He would drop her off for a day of play and he would head for the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham where he held a position in trauma surgery, treating soldiers returning from far-flung conflicts. Returning, or being sent there, as the hospital had a reputation as a centre of excellence. Milos had exactly the skills and experience they required.

It was a life for both of them, but what kind of life, he didn’t truly know. He loved his daughter, her zest for life, her enthusiasm and her playfulness, but when he left Kotor he left so much behind. Farah – his friend, his lover, the mother of his child. He had no idea what had happened to her; records were scant and he tried to search, more than once, but gave up, never discovering her fate.

He and Kristina were safe, yes, but they weren’t complete. And they never would be. Eventually, not able to bear more pain, he turned his back on the past and looked to their future together.

He watched his daughter run happily into nursery and headed for the ward. “Good morning,” he said, shaking the hand of his first patient, his English accented but almost perfect. “I am Mr Newman, your doctor and I will be helping you today.”

Milos Novak of Kotor was no more.

PRESENT DAY

“I don’t know, Luka. I don’t know if I can. I am trying to understand. To put myself in your father’s shoes. I really am, but… my family was torn apart.”

They were pulling into the harbour. In a few minutes they would be back on dry land. She hoped the turmoil she felt would settle once they were, although she doubted it.

“We will be there anyway,” Luka said. He was subdued as he tied the boat up – nothing like the man who had told her the story of the three sisters the other day, nor the man who had begun to woo her with a picnic, a man she was attracted to. A man she could easily fall for.

“Thank you,” was all she replied, touching his arm and leaving.

As Kristina headed uphill to her hotel she saw an older man in the distance. Could that be Luka’s father? She was too tired to give the thought any more space. She needed rest; to lie down and think, then begin packing. Tomorrow she was due to return home.

Kristina woke with a start and checked the time. She’d slept for two hours. If she were to join Luka and his father for dinner she would need to get ready.

She was torn, but something compelled her towards meeting them. Her desire to talk directly with the man responsible for betraying her mother, but saving many others, outweighed her reservations. She was curious to meet the man who had made such difficult choices.

There was also the mystery of what happened to her mother. Luka’s father might, just, have the key to that secret.

She wanted to hear how the story of the three sisters ended, too. She applied lipstick and mascara, changed her clothes and headed for the bar.

Hello,” she said, shyly, interrupting Luka who was deep in conversation with the older man she’d spotted in the distance earlier.

Luka stood quickly. Perhaps he hadn’t expected her to turn up.

“My father, Radun. This is Kristina, Milos’ daughter.”

The older man stood and shook Kristina’s hand, nodding, making eye contact, then looking away.

“Please, sit,” Radun said, indicating a place between them. Luka called the waiter and ordered her a glass of wine.

“Thank you,” Luka said. “For coming. I and my father are pleased you have.”

They sat in silence, sipping their drinks. Kristina didn’t know where to begin.

“I’m sorry,” Radun said finally. “I hurt your family, your father, your mother, you. I have never forgiven myself. It was a time of confusion and hatred.”

His speech was stumbling, hesitant, his English not as good as his son’s.

“I hope you can find space in your heart to forgive me for my betrayal of your mother. We were turned against each other, at that time. Our neighbours were our enemies. It suited the authorities for us to hate one another. There was propaganda. We were told to be afraid of infiltrators. This was how they controlled you, made you fearful. We had our own families to protect, too. I tried to help people I knew, the women and children. The police were becoming interested. If they had discovered what I was doing… I acted quickly, without thought or compassion. Back then, there was little compassion. I used up all I had on my family and the others.”

He looked over at Luka.

“A woman was more likely to survive in a camp than a man.” He shrugged. That was, no doubt, a brutal truth.

“I do forgive you, Radun. I understand. But my mother…” Kristina whispered. The pain she felt was unfathomable. She needed to change the subject, for now. They had the whole evening. They could come back to the story of what happened to her mother, if either man knew.

“May we order food, please, Luka? I’m hungry. And can you please tell me the end of the story of the three sisters? I can’t go home without knowing their fate.”

Tears filled her eyes as she waited for him to continue.

1825

The years pass. The three sisters age. What beauty they once had fades. The sailor does not return. Yet, still, they wait. The bold sister is not as active in her wrath as she once was. She can no longer pace around her room or cry from the window. Her rants and rages sub side to mutters and occasional outbursts.

The shy sister tires after writing merely a word or two, the scratch of her pen soon ceasing. She does not give her unfinished notes to them aid for delivery to her sister.

What point is therein vitriol, in anger and envy now?

They have been abandoned by the man they each love. They have been left alone ,to die.

The bold sister passes away first. Her foot steps cease altogether, and her window on the world closes forever.

The other two notice her passing. Do they mourn her?

Maybe, yes they do. They are sisters, after all. Before they were grown, before the sailor was known to them, they played happily together.

The shy sister also passes away. Her pen will no longer touch parchment. Her window also closes. The towns people pass by and nod. They understand what has happened.

Are they saddened by the sisters’ passing? Possibly. Those that understand the heartache of lifelong, unrequited love.

Only the third sister lives. The one with dry wit, intelligence, but now faded looks. Her window remains open. She sit sin the shadows waiting...

“They have been ABANDONED by the man they EACH LOVE – left to die”

PRESENT DAY

“She waits and waits,” said a low, gentle voice. “For we women never give up hope – even when it seems that all hope is gone forever.”

“He was such a GOOD MAN…” They SOBBED in each other’s ARMS

The three of them turned at the sound of a woman’s voice.

Farah emerged from the shadows and stood next to Kristina.

“I’m your mother,” she whispered. “Finally we have found one another. After all these long years apart…”

Kristina stood and allowed the woman she had met at the harbour, the same woman she had seen leaving Luka’s house, to take her in her arms and hold her.

A memory was there, she was sure, of the woman cuddling her as a baby, rocking her to sleep with lullabies. And now, again, the same arms were holding her tight in a fierce hug, as though if she lets go they will never see one another again.

“Mother,” Kristina whispered.

“At last. Makje.”

They pulled apart from one another for a moment. Both were crying, tears of joy and relief. Luka had pulled a chair up close to Kristina’s and he encouraged Farah to sit.

Radun and Farah nodded at one another, not strangers, nor friends.

“I looked for you. Truly I did,” Farah began. “I was taken to the camp for two years and returned to Kotor after that. I knew you would be gone, but I had to try and find you somewhere. I was told you had gone to the UK.

“Before I followed you I tried to trace you, but with no success. There was no trace of Milos Novak and his daughter. I thought, then, maybe people were mistaken. Maybe you had gone elsewhere. To the US, possibly? Milos was an excellent surgeon. His skills would have been in demand. Had you both gone there you would have been, how do you say it? Needles in haystacks.”

“Yes, Dad changed our name. He was known as Mr Newman at work. He thought it might make life easier for us.”

Farah nodded in acceptance, as though these few sentences answered many of her questions.

“As I grew up and asked more about you, Dad told me that he thought you were no longer alive. He was very reluctant, always, to talk of the past. I believe he saw many horrors. He didn’t think you had survived the camps. Men came over to the UK, men who had been in camps, and my father treated them. I think they told him horror stories.”

“The camps were terrible places,” Farah acknowledged. “But I survived.”

“Dad was wonderful to me. Loving and caring. And he was highly thought of at work, I know,” Kristina continued.

“But he wasn’t well. I believe now he would have been diagnosed with posttraumatic stress disorder.

“He helped many soldiers who were brought to the hospital. He dedicated his life to them, and to me, but he would never speak of the past. I believe it caused him too much pain.”

Farah wiped tears from her eyes.

“He was such a good man,” she said. “Such a good man.”

“He was.” Kristina fell into Farah’s arms again. Both women sobbed.

“When I met you, at the harbour,” Farah said after a few minutes, “I wondered if it was you. You have his look, I can see, his intelligence. But that was too much good luck, after all these years.

“And then I saw you again, at Luka’s, yesterday. I’d gone there to talk of you, but I asked him not to reveal my suspicions, not yet. I wanted to be certain. Had you not been my daughter it would have been terrible. Raising hope only for it to be trodden on.”

They talked on as food arrived, words tumbling out. Memories needed to be shared, stories told, pasts rebuilt. Finally, Kristina had answers.

The following day Farah and Luka accompanied Kristina to the airport. Radun had come to her hotel in Kotor to say goodbye, but he didn’t join them.

There were more hugs and tears as they all said their final goodbyes. “Arriverderci.” This time Farah smiled. “Until we meet again.”

“Yes – and soon, I hope,” Kristina replied. “There are so many years to catch up on. You will come to the UK? I will show you where we lived, Dad and I. Give you a grand tour.” Farah nodded.

Kristina’s plane was called for boarding. She must go.

Luka held her close; kissed her on each cheek and whispered, “Until we meet again, too.”

Yes, Kristina would be back – not only to see Kristina and the town she came from, but Luka too, one day. She was so glad now that, although she was saying farewell, she had come with questions and against the odds had found answers – as well as her mother.

And Luka.

As Kristina watched Montenegro disappear behind clouds, she decided she would write up the three sisters’ story on her return, and she would give the one remaining sister a happy ending. Because that’s what everyone deserves.

She finally had her own happy ending, although, of course, it was tinged with the sadness of her father’s passing.

As the plane banked above the clouds and she could see blue sky above Kristina pictured her father sharing their happiness from on high. She imagined him picking her up in his arms again and swinging her until she giggled and saying to her, Well done, my love. You did so well and did me proud. You will be happy.