Summer of The Dancing Bear Read online

  Summer of the Dancing Bear

  Essential Prose Series 93

  Guernica Editions Inc. acknowledges the support of

  the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council.

  The Ontario Arts Council is an agency of the Government of Ontario.

  Summer of

  the Dancing Bear

  Bianca Lakoseljac

  GUERNICA

  TORONTO • BUFFALO • BERKELEY • LANCASTER (U.K.)

  2012

  Copyright © 2012, Bianca Lakoseljac and Guernica Editions, Inc.

  All rights reserved. The use of any part of this publication,

  reproduced, transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic,

  mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise stored in a

  retrieval system, without the prior consent of the publisher is an

  infringement of the copyright law.

  Michael Mirolla, general editor

  Lindsay Brown, editor

  Guernica Editions Inc.

  P.O. Box 117, Station P, Toronto (ON), Canada M5S 2S6

  2250 Military Road, Tonawanda, N.Y. 14150-6000 U.S.A.

  Distributors:

  University of Toronto Press Distribution,

  5201 Dufferin Street, Toronto (ON), Canada M3H 5T8

  Gazelle Book Services, White Cross Mills, High Town, Lancaster LA1 4XS U.K.

  Small Press Distribution, 1341 Seventh St., Berkeley, CA 94710-1409 U.S.A.

  First edition.

  Printed in Canada.

  Legal Deposit – First Quarter

  Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 2011945664

  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

  Lakoseljac, Bianca, 1952-

  Summer of the dancing bear [electronic resource] / Bianca Lakoseljac.

  (Prose series ; 93)

  Electronic monograph.

  Issued also in print format.

  ISBN 978-1-55071-362-6 (EPUB)

  I. Title. II. Series: Prose series (Online) ; 93

  PS8623.A424S86 2012 C813’.6 C2012-900005-1

  For Jovanka Ivanović

  whose love bound the family that bent reality

  during the birth of the country that no longer exists

  Chapter I

  Searching The Wells

  my dress in rags

  jewels of stardust

  my home gypsy carts

  i sing and dance

  for copper coins

  and i sell cookie hearts

  (Summer 1960)

  Perched high up in the crown of an old cherry

  tree, eight-year-old Kata sat in her hideaway, humming a tune. The melody repeated itself in her thoughts, gathering resonance from voices in the past until it reached hypnotic proportions and she felt that she could touch it – touch the voice if she kept her eyes closed and carefully extended her hand out into the summer breeze.

  For the last two nights, she had been listening to music drifting over from the distant gypsy caravan. She could identify the sorrowful duet of violins, the deep echo of the gigantic double bass, and the imposing rumble of the accordion that, to her dismay, drowned out other instruments. And then, well into the night, when the caravan seemed to be sleeping, she discerned a gentle singing voice she thought must belong to a beautiful gypsy fairy. It was carried aloft by the sweet, melancholy notes of a violin, but not like violins she’d heard played from house to house earlier in the night. Sitting on the window ledge in the moonlight, hidden from her sleeping Grandma and the world, she watched the long shadows swaying over the courtyard’s flower garden and wished the crickets would stop the incessant chirping that muffled the gentle melody. She hoped the voice would return every summer, and that someday she might steal out into the night and find the singing fairy.

  ****

  But now, from her post in the cherry tree, she wished the mystique of the previous night had not dissipated in the haze of afternoon heat. Below, the fruit orchard sprawled on her right, and the two-storey yellow brick barn loomed on her left. The main house, glaring in whitewash, stood behind her, the guesthouse in front. The courtyard between the houses seemed overstuffed with the two linden crowns towering over the exuberant flower beds down in the shade and a blazing rose garden in the sun-drenched circle in the middle – all enchained by the rusty iron fence and gate.

  Kata revelled in her seclusion under the cool canopy of boughs, as she inhaled the familiar bittersweet greenness of the foliage. Spotting a bead of leaching cherry sap, she scraped it off the bark and nibbled on the tart, gummy substance. She found the odd shrivelled cherry the robins had missed, hidden beneath drooping clumps of leaves. She gazed through the branches at the fields. Then, through the sluggish sway of the wheat, a cloud of dust twisted up like a small tornado, staying close to the well-trod path. Finally it popped out of the field, the dust dissipating to unveil her friend and classmate, eight-year-old Miladin.

  He was riding his horse – a long broom fashioned from twigs. He held the broom-handle between his legs, the branches trailing behind. Head cocked to one side, neighing loudly, whipping the branches behind him with a stick and shouting “giddy-up,” he sprinted to the gate. As she watched his thin arms and legs flail out of sync with his body and his slightly oversized head wobble on his thin neck, she felt a twinge of guilt for secretly naming her new string puppet after him.

  The large iron gate squeaked as he pushed it open and galloped through.

  Hoping to remain unnoticed, Kata carefully climbed to a higher row of branches. But Miladin headed straight for the tree.

  “Whoa!” He commanded his horse to stop next to the rope swing suspended on a branch below her, and continuously jogged in place while hitting the broomstick behind him and shouting: “Whoaaa! Whoaaa boy!”

  He finally dismounted and tied the rope he used as reins to the wooden seat of the swing.

  “Your horse better not rip my swing off!” Kata shouted.

  “I was gonna tell you something, but now I’m not.” Miladin struggled up the smooth bark of the tree. Eventually, he reached the fork of three thick branches and sat across from her, separated by the tree trunk.

  She scowled: “You’re sitting in Maja’s chair.”

  “Well, she isn’t here, is she?” He widened his eyes and puckered his lips wryly and Kata marvelled at the soft dots of mauve bordering his pupils.

  Rolling her flute between her palms, she raised it to her lips and blew a low ominous note.

  “Ha! You think I care? I’m not afraid! There is no magic in that flute.”

  They staged their usual ritual of spiteful remarks. Then Miladin began to climb down.

  She stuffed the flute into the bodice of her faded flowery dress and followed, careful not to step on his knuckles gripping the branches below her.

  “So aren’t you gonna ask me?” Miladin blurted as they faced each other at the base of the tree.

  “What news do you bring now, Hermes?” she snapped, imitating the wobble of his head and rolling her eyes, feigning boredom.

  “That’s name-calling. You broke the rule!”

  “It’s not! My grandma said you’re just like Hermes! He was a god, you know! Flying around, bringing news! It’s not name-calling!”

  Violet eyes lit with excitement, his thin face crinkled in mischief. He hunched his back, chin jutting, and clasped his left fist with the palm of his right hand. She thought he looked like a barnyard rooster, ready to take on any and all comers.

  “Everybody’s searching,” he whispered, with a devilish grin.

  “Searching for what?” she asked.

  “I’m not gonna tell you.”

  He mounted his
broomstick horse and rode off.

  “That’s just like you!” she shouted into the cloud of dust billowing behind him.

  She returned to her perch in the cherry tree and watched him vanish into the path in the wheat field, until all she could see was the shimmer of hot air above the expanse of yellow.

  And then, to her astonishment, the field transformed into the Wheatfield with a Reaper, a painting she had recently seen at the Vincent van Gogh exhibit during a class excursion.

  The exhibit surfaced in her memory – she, face to face with Van Gogh’s masterpieces, heart pounding, hot air rising to her throat. Her classmates pushed and played silly games, obstructing her view, oblivious to her need to bask in the vibrant colours and the frenzied curves and the warmth of the swirling sun and the swaying wheat. She needed to immerse herself in the landscapes that blazed under the summer heat, penetrating her vision, her whole being.

  Back home, she had gone to the well-thumbed picture book of Dutch painters Grandma had given her. Gazing into the paintings, she had realized she was a new person. For her, blossoming orchards, sunflowers, irises, wheat fields, the sunshine, the clouds, the well-trod path leading to her friend Maja’s house would never again be the same. Van Gogh’s icy-blue stare had pierced her own vision and opened a breach through which all life took on a new meaning. All things, animate and inanimate, were infused with new light and shadow, and with the swirl of a brushstroke were instilled with a mystical power. For the next little while she existed in a frenzied state. Her body dwelled on a farm in the little village of Ratari, but her mind drifted amongst the paintings in the National Art Gallery in Belgrade, 40 kilometres away, absorbing the aura of a genius whose hands had painted … no … created … breathed life into the images that now possessed her.

  The wheat field below began to sway, and the Wheatfield with a Reaper came to life. She closed her eyes and the inscription under the painting appeared on the canvas of her vision: Van Gogh described the ‘all yellow, terribly thickly painted’ figure as Death, who reaps humanity like a wheat field. The yellow symbolically derives its power from the sun, which is the painting’s source of light.

  That is precisely how the field before her now appeared. Complete, with reaper – except that this reaper was swinging his scythe back and forth, back and forth – harvesting the wheat.

  She slid down the tree, ran across the yard to her grandmother, who was sitting in the deep shade of a linden, and asked who was the reaper harvesting the wheat. Grandma looked at her curiously. She paused, removed her spectacles, set aside a bouquet of herbs she was carefully tying with a string, and finally answered: “Today is Sunday, my little swallow. No one harvests wheat on a Sunday.”

  “But there is a reaper in the field behind the barn,” Kata whispered. She ran – cutting across the rose garden, barely missing the razor-sharp thorns, oblivious to the rosy hues of rumpled petals she usually collected – back to her perch in the tree.

  But now the reaper was nowhere to be seen – just the oscillating mirage in countless shades of gold.

  She slid down again, ran to her grandma’s room, and retrieved the book on Dutch painters. She flipped back to the painting to ensure there was a reaper in the canvas. And yes, there he was – about to swing the scythe, and as always – frozen in his stride.

  “Did you see him swinging his scythe, Deda Mihailo?” she heard her own timid voice. Warily, she peered into her grandfather’s black-and-white photograph, still hung above Grandma’s headboard fifteen years after his death. If his all-seeing eyes, if his all-knowing presence could not reassure her, who could? Didn’t Grandma say that he had built this large estate, planted almost every tree with his own hands, and that he watched from above all that transpired on his land? Didn’t Grandma ask him to give her a sign each time she was, in her words, in dire need of his guidance?

  Kata considered asking her mother about the reaper in the painting, but quickly dismissed the thought. It was easier to talk to the ever-calm face of her grandfather. Although he had died before she was born, through her grandma’s recollections she felt she’d known him for as long as she’d been aware of her own existence. She’d been heedful of his dreams and aspirations, his successes and even his failures, his ultimate folly, in Grandma’s words – of allowing himself to be killed. In fact, she felt she knew him better than her own aloof father, even better than her unpredictable mother. Her parents taught grade school in the nearby town of Obrenovac and spent their weekends and school breaks on the farm. Living with her grandmother, she was accustomed to their absence. During the summer, she dealt with their presence by keeping out of their way. This was easier than she first thought. They existed in their own worlds, separate from each other and separate from hers, as if they were all complete strangers.

  She waited patiently, flipping through the pictures of paintings, recalling the canvasses from the gallery, glancing at her grandfather’s image on the wall. But he gave no sign. He continued overseeing with those serene eyes, a likeness of which she would sometimes glimpse in her mother’s when she was unaware of being observed. His portrait remained steadfast in its role of family timekeeper, stamped in the corner with an imprint, 1945, Belgrade Photo Studio, reminding everyone of the time no one could ever forget – the end of the war, and the year of her grandfather’s disappearance.

  Clutching the book against her chest, she ran back out. As she stood on the high verandah unsure where to turn next, whom to ask, her gaze drifted again to the wheat field in the distance, beyond the barn.

  She stood motionless, sweat flooding her forehead. In the distance, where the reaper had been, now a dozen people or more were holding hands, linked in a human chain, sweeping the field. They shifted and swayed, flattening the sea of yellow below them, hollering, undistinguishable sounds floating on still air.

  “Kata, do you hear that? Can you see anything from up there?” Grandma rose from her chair, hand shielding her eyes against the sun, gazing into the distance.

  “I’m here, Grandma! On the verandah! You see it too? You hear it?”

  Grandma dropped the herbs into her basket and hurried toward the verandah, head cocked to one side, listening. Her words raced ahead: “What is it? What do you see, Kata?”

  “Over there!” Kata pointed at the advancing, faceless figures.

  Grandma picked up the pace. She was short and appeared child-like, with the handle of the huge willow basket slung over her arm, and the kind brown eyes, too large for her face, wide with apprehension.

  Kata stepped down and stood by Grandma under the two tall cypresses Grandpa Mihailo had planted long ago. They looked over the barnyard as the human tide approaching through the wheat field moved closer and closer – wailing – louder and louder.

  A neighbour, a recent bride, marched through the iron gate, clutching her uplifted apron.

  “She’s gone!” the young woman cried, her handsome features twisted in terror. “Gone! She’s nowhere. It’s the gypsies, I tell you! She’s gone. My God!” Her dark curly hair had long escaped the red kerchief that sat, awry, on her head.

  The fine wrinkles tightened around Grandma’s eyes, pulling up the loose skin on her cheeks, leaving her sun-bronzed face taut, her thin lips pale. The willow basket that seemed attached to her arm fell to the ground and rolled on its side down the grassy slope toward the rose bushes.

  She placed her arm around the young woman’s shoulders: “From the beginning, Roza. Sit down.” Grandma pointed to a rough-hewn wood bench under the old lilac tree, her typically calm voice betrayed by a faint tremble. “Tell me. Who’s gone?”

  “The baby! Angela’s baby! Vanished!” Roza remained standing, wild-eyed.

  “Calm down, Roza dear. In your condition, you shouldn’t over-excite. She must be somewhere.”

  Roza laced her fingers protectively over her lower belly: “How did you know?”

  “You’re glowing, dear. Everybody knows. We’re all happy for you and Alex.”

  �
�She’s gone, I tell you!” Roza repeated. “She’s nowhere.”

  “Where could a two-year-old be gone to, dear? I’ll come with you to Angela’s.”

  “Nobody’s there! Everybody’s searching! My mama always said … some day those gypsies … we’re searching in vain, I tell you.”

  “Are you sure, Roza? Have they looked – ”

  “Am I sure? Didn’t you know? The whole village is in an uproar! Searching everywhere!”

  Roza waved her hand toward the looming commotion, the pale swelling of her large breasts spilling over her low-cut dress, held together by translucent round buttons ready to pop off with every fretful word.

  Grandma encircled Roza’s waist and led the way toward the gate. Although the top of Grandma’s head barely reached Roza’s shoulder, she kept up with the young woman’s stride, the bun of salt and pepper hair fastened tightly at the nape of her neck bobbing in rhythm.

  Kata trotted behind, eyes glued to the gigantic fuchsia flowers and green leaves of Roza’s dress, the thin fabric rising with every step, accentuating Roza’s muscular calves. “The giant’s wife,” she muttered. “Sleeps in a beanstalk in the sky.”

  The chorus of sobbing voices became louder.

  “Go away,” Kata whispered, holding her temples, hoping to block the wailing. Shielding her eyes from the light, she observed the wave of figures silhouetted against the setting sun, trailed by long shadows, as they came into focus: familiar faces, gaunt with panic, dread, rage … mouths wide shouting … at the sun … at God … at gypsies.

  In the midst of the turmoil, village elder Papa Novak was assigning tasks, his guiding voice rising over the hubbub.

  “Go search the pig sty! Take two men and go! Hurry, hurry! We have much to cover before dark.”

  “It’s done,” a man answered. “I checked the closer ones. A toddler couldn’t be this far.”