Coming Home To Kotor

More of our engrossing serial

PRESENT DAY

Kristina drifted in and out of sleep that night, her rest disturbed by a dream about three sisters and the man they each loved – a sailor.

The man bore a remarkable resemblance to Luka, the handsome present-day sailor who had told her their story, with black curls and a tiny silver hoop earring.

Luka had been warm and kind during their trip around the harbour, and she was certain of an attraction between them. Then later, at the bar, when she’d shown him the documents she’d copied on her phone at the museum, he’d reacted so strangely; making excuses before disappearing into the night.

Was it what he’d read on her phone that had caused his hasty retreat? If so, what?

She desperately needed to know about her father’s life before he fled Montenegro with her as a small baby. Did the documents hold the key?

Kristina rose early and made herself some strong coffee. She was due to be returning home in a couple of days. She was running out of time. She had no more answers to her questions about her father’s past, or that of her family, than she had started out with. Frustration didn’t begin to describe how she felt. She needed to know who had sent the letter addressed to her father she had found at the museum, and what it said. What role it played in her family’s history… if any.

Luka had answers for her, she was sure. She would have to find him; to persuade him to tell her what he knew.

She’d try the harbour first.

The gaggle of tourists standing near Luka’s boat appeared restless.

One man checked his phone, then made a call. Maybe to

Luka. As Kristina approached them they began questioning her.

“Do you know where the man is? We were due to leave 45 minutes ago,” one woman asked.

“I can’t go home NOT KNOWING. It’s EVERYTHING to me. Please…”

“I’m sorry, I’m looking for him too.” She gave them a smile and shrug and left the harbour, hearing them grumble and say they might try another boat.

Something must be up, she thought, for Luka to miss a sailing. He’d lose income, and the tourists would miss out on a magical trip. He hadn’t seemed unreliable.

At the bar where they’d met last night, the only other place Kristina knew where to look for Luka, the barman was reticent.

“I will ask him to call you,” the barman told her as he polished glasses and ground coffee beans.

“But I go home soon and he has information for me,” Kristina pleaded, which she was certain was the truth.

The man continued with his task, silent. “I can’t go home not knowing. It’s everything to me. Please.”

The barman sighed, eventually describing the appearance of a house, scribbling a sketchy map on the back of a receipt and handing it to Kristina.

“Go. Find him,” he said.

She thanked him and left.

The house took longer to find than she

imagined. It was tucked away in the back streets of Kotor. Finally she stumbled across what she thought was the right place – a traditional stone cottage with red shutters, as the barman had described.

As she approached the front door it opened. To Kristina’s astonishment, the older woman she’d met yesterday at the harbour, the woman who had sent her to the museum, appeared.

So, she knew Luka? But then Kotor was a small town. Why should it be a surprise?

“Cao.” The woman nodded to Kristina as she passed, a smile of recognition crossing her face, but she didn’t stop.

“Cao,” Kristina replied, watching her head down towards the town centre.

Luka appeared, looking taken aback at seeing her there.

“Hello,” she said. “I still have questions, from last night.” She could hear the tightness in her voice. She hoped she didn’t sound too desperate.

“I have to get to the harbour,” he replied. “I am late for my tour.”

“They’ve gone,” she told him. “To the next boat along. You were too late.” He shrugged, as though it didn’t matter. “He does not know as much history as me. He cannot weave a tale.”

“Please, Luka. Help me. There was a reason why you fled from the bar last night. You know something. A secret. About the war? The Siege of Dubrovnik? It’s my father the letter was addressed to. Don’t you think I have a right to know what it was about?”

He hesitated before replying.

“Maybe yes, maybe no. Sometimes things that happened in the past are best left there. Pulling them to the surface – that is not always the answer. Do we all act as well as we should? All of the time?”

Kristina remained silent, hoping that he would continue.

“A man may sometimes do a bad thing. At the time he may not understand its importance, and he has people to take care of himself. It is, what do you call it, a big picture?”

“I’m not looking for one of your stories now, Luka,” Kristina interrupted. “I’m looking for the truth.”

She was unable to keep the frustration from her voice.

He glanced around. They were standing on the street in front of his house. People passed by, nodding Cao to Luka, eyeing Kristina with curiosity.

“This is not the best time, or the right place. Join me on my boat in one hour. Then I can reveal more.”

She watched as he followed the same route as the older woman had done a few minutes before.

She would join him. She needed to know more about a man doing a bad thing and the link to her father, which she was convinced existed. Was it possible he was referring to himself?

1992

Once settled in the home his parents had once inhabited on the mountainside above Kotor, Milos found work in the local hospital. Good medics were rare, and he was kept busy, working long hours, tired when he returned home at the end of the day.

Tired, but happy that Farah was there to welcome him. It suited them both that the house was hidden away. Not only was the track to the house difficult to navigate, but the building itself was hidden behind tall cypress trees.

His parents had passed away a few years ago, and the house now belonged to him. It had remained empty until he and Farah had found sanctuary there.

They soon made a home under its red tiled roof and kept the shutters closed.

That way the interior remained cool, and prying eyes could not see in.

“Our nearest neighbour is five hundred metres away,” Milos reassured Farah when she had heard a noise one day while she was alone and he was working. “No one will visit. It is many years since they have seen me. They may not even be aware of my return. Look, this is what ➙

Had he TRICKED HER? Was the STORYTELLER in him DIVERTING her?

you heard. It was a delivery.”

He held an envelope aloft. It was addressed to his father.

“It was the postman with a bill. I will deal with it. You are perfectly safe.”

He held her close to him and her tension was released into sobs. He kissed her gently on her forehead, then her lips. He wanted to keep her safe; he loved her. He knew he could never fully allay her fears. She had lost so many close to her – missing, if not dead. It was no surprise that she was fearful.

They spent that night together in Milos’ old room, waking as dawn’s rays lit the cool tiled floor.

“I must go,” she said, turning her back towards him. His heart sank. Go? Not now. No. She turned to him and smiled, shyly. “Not go for good. Go and make coffee for us. You must leave for work in half an hour. Your hospital needs you.”

Milos lay back on his pillow, relief and love rushing through him. They were a couple. She loved him too. And so their lives continued for days and weeks. She joined him every night in his bed, spent her days alone, but safe, and he continued to work.

His main hope was that they could see their way through to the end of the war that surrounded and constrained them, and so many others. The war that was setting friend against friend. As things stood, they couldn’t marry. There were too many barriers. It would be risky to expose Farah. People could be looking for her – people who didn’t wish her well.

There were also their religious differences, although this was of less importance to Milos.

They didn’t even speak of marriage. There was little point.

But they did, often, speak of love.

One day he arrived home to hear singing; a lullaby of sorts. It was unusual for her to not greet him at the door; she heard every sound, but this time she appeared oblivious. He crept into the kitchen where the sweet notes of the lullaby came from. She was stirring soup or a stew on the stove top. It smelled delicious. Sunlight shone through the partially opened blind – the kitchen was at the back of the house where she felt safest – and it highlighted her beauty.

She looked serene, at peace. Milos smiled, a tear rolling down his cheek.

“Don’t cry, Milos, my love,” she said, turning to him. “There is nothing to cry for. I have news. Good news. You are to become a father.”

And the first sister, the sister with dry wit and intelligence, remains hopeful of the sailor’ s return. She is patient. She sit sat her window, her hands in her lap, and she waits.

The shy sister and the bold sister are not patient. Not one bit. They are, each in their own way, frustrated. They are angry. They are bitter.

The sailor has been gone for so much longer than he promised. For too long. It is dangerous out there, on these as. They have lived here all their lives. They know of the dangers. They know of men who haven’ t returned. Husband sand fathers lost for good in the turmoil of the ocean.

Ships come and go into and out of the harbour and they watch, willing his to be next, willing him to come back.

They argue. They don’ t meet, of course, but the bold sister march es around her room, kicks her plate into the corner, throws the shutters wide and hurls curses at the sisters and the world at large. “It is because of you he won’ t return ,” she cries .“If you were both to disappear, he would come back and he would bemine.” The shy sister does not throw the shutters open and declare her anger to the world. That is not her way. She feels ashamed on behalf of her sister who is making them a laughing stock in the town. She hears the towns people in the street below, gossiping and mocking. She does not mind, though, that her sister is being laughed at. But neither will she let her her anger go. No, instead, her way is quiet. She writes notes; notes that declare that she is the one for him, that if and when he does return, it will be to her. That the others maya swell give up hope. The notes are poisonous; they make her sour. Her lips purse as she scratches the words onto parchment, fold sand seals them and gives them to them aid to deliver. Receipt of the note causes the bold sister to shout even more loudly, to insult her sister seven more. The shy sisters miles. What man would return to such a harridan? She is showing herself up to be the woman she is, the shy sister thinks. A twisted harridan. The third sister does not open the notes. Nor does she heed the cries of her sister, or there marks of the towns people. She has faith and patience. She is willing to wait. She believe she will return. She is confident of his love. He will return to her…

PRESENT DAY

“…and that is how we leave them for now, the sisters. Still waiting.”

Luka’s voice faded to silence.

Kristina looked up at him and out from the boat which bobbed at the entrance to a small cove just outside the bay of Kotor. The sun was warm on the deck, and she was sleepy. Was he ending his story there?

She sat up. She wanted to know what happened to the sisters. Did the captain return? Did he love one or all of them?

But she had other questions too. Questions far more pertinent to the present – her present at least, as well as her family’s more recent past.

Had he tricked her? Was the gifted storyteller in him cleverly diverting her away from a topic with which he felt uncomfortable? ➙

Luka pulled the boat alongside a wooden dock. “Come, let’s eat. I am hungry now, you must be too.”

He offered her his hand and helped her from the boat. He leaned over to retrieve a cool box, and handed her a cotton cloth. Walking ahead, he found flat rocks in the shade.

The tiny cove was empty. A secret place? Kristina wondered. Not somewhere he stopped on every tour.

She was hungry, yes. She’d only had a couple of cups of coffee so far today and it was lunchtime now. The morning had flown by.

There’d been so much activity since she emerged from her sleepless night, dashed to the harbour, then the bar, his home… and now here.

As he pulled food, plates and glasses from the cool box she could see what had kept him busy in the hour before she had met him at the harbour.

Offering her a plate, he cut crusty bread on a small chopping board.

“Please, eat,” he said, indicating ham, olives, cheese, water and a bottle of crisp white wine.

They helped themselves to lunch. She poured herself a small glass of wine but he refused, accepting water instead.

“I’m driving.” He smiled, indicating the waters in front of them.

“Do you treat all your clients like this? Is it all part of the package?” she said, layering a slice of cheese then ham on the bread before taking a bite. It was delicious. He shook his head.

“No, only the special ones.”

Kristina blushed, thinking how wonderful it would be to be in this beautiful place with a gorgeous man, as a tourist. Learning about the history of the town and the area, enjoying the sun and warmth.

It would be wonderful; she pictured a holiday romance. His arms around her at sunset…

But she wasn’t here for that. She was here to find out about her father. Her family. And time was passing.

“Luka – last night?” she had to ask.

“Why did you go? What did you read on my phone that upset you so much?” He gazed out to sea.

“Luka,” she whispered. “Please. I need to know what it says.”

He shook his head.

“How would you feel if you knew nothing about your father’s life? If you didn’t know your mother at all? If you had no sense of your past, of history?

“You’d feel adrift. And now my father isn’t around to ask about it, either. He’s dead, and I can’t tell you how I wish I had asked him more while he was still alive.

I wished I’d pressed him even when he was reluctant to talk.”

“And now you press me instead.”

She met his gaze. His voice was stern, but his eyes shone. He didn’t look away. “Yes,” she said. “Yes, I am.” “I remember your father,” Luka said, his voice quiet. “He was a brave man. He saved many lives. He worked long hours at the hospital in the town. It was during the Siege of Dubrovnik. People fled to our town, injured. He would help them, whatever their origins, taking risks himself.

“He ignored the authorities, the military. He saw only humanity and their needs. He saved many Bosnians – women and children – found them places with local families where they worked, hidden, instead of them being sent to camps in Serbia with their men, where their fate – well…”

Kristina held her breath as she listened.

She remembered her father’s work in hospitals at home. He had so much compassion. He had worked on wards where wounded soldiers were sent, offering them hope. The fact he had compassion back in Kotor came as no surprise.

“My father, he was not so brave, but he had his reasons.”

Luka paused and took a long drink of water.

Kristina suspected they were coming to the reason for Luka fleeing last night. His father. Was she about to hear the truth?

“My father betrayed your father. To the authorities. Told them he was harbouring a Bosnian woman.” Kristina closed her eyes.

“The Bosnian woman was taken away. Your father had heard at the hospital that they were coming for her. He arrived home as they were leaving. After that, he left too – not wishing to endanger your life, I believe.”

They were both quiet. Kristina stood and walked across the pebbles to the sea, her eyes brimming with tears at what she had just been told.

She thought of the anguish her parents must have felt. The pain. She was too young to remember, in truth, but the image of her mother being taken away while she, a baby in her father’s arms, was holding out her hands to her mother, her cries pitiful, was vivid. Her father, at first angry, then silent, knowing they had lost the fight, that resistance would be futile and would endanger his child too.

The pain of the truth Luka had just told was unbearable.

She felt his hand rest on her shoulder. His touch was feather-light and tender. In other circumstances…

“There is more to tell,” he said. “I have brought you here, to the cove, for a reason. It is a special place.”

He hesitated.

Kristina turned and met his gaze.

She wasn’t sure whether she could bear any more pain.

Not now…

“How would YOU FEEL if you had NO SENSE of your past, of HISTORY?”