*
On TV I’d seen supply trucks cross the pontoon bridge at night with headlights off for camouflage. Civilians were discouraged from travel. There was no need for an official ban or special permits; no one in their right mind would risk their life for tourism. Tata disagreed. The next morning, as we put our bags in the car trunk, he explained that hunting for the lone ripe apricot, the last crunchy cucumber—the homegrown fare more accessible on the coast where people tended to their backyard gardens between the shelling—merited the risk. He’d always found things to be zealous about, but I wouldn’t have predicted produce would ever get a turn; the only fiber in his diet was the onion he ate layer by layer with bread and grilled meat.
Before we merged onto the highway, Tata drove us to his friend Mladjo’s place to pick up the keys to the small house he owned on the Dalmatian coast and let us use for a few weeks each summer. Going there felt like entering a world of intense color—red dirt, white stone, sharp blues of the sky and sea—away from the city’s smog. We knew Mladjo wouldn’t be at home—he’d joined the army—but also that the summer house key would be, as always, in a crevice by the doorframe.
I was excited about going to the beach, but watching Tata feel around the wooden boards, sly like a thief, I felt conflicted, siding for a moment with the kids at school who called him an unpatriotic coward. They didn’t seem to think, as I did, that the war had put an impossible choice before us: to either have a dead hero or a living disgrace for a father. I scratched my belly, nails pressing deep to dismantle the knot tightening inside, to snap me out of shame.
Tata knew how to obtain papers to get him out of things he didn’t believe in. I asked him once why he didn’t join the defense effort on the frontlines. He said he didn’t want to die or kill, that he only cared about life and living. He played me Bob Dylan, interpreting the “Masters of War” lyrics with the urgency of a mad poet.
“He wrote this to protest the mass weapons build-up surrounding the Cold War, but it applies to any war, anywhere,” Tata said, eyes half-shut, head nodding through the end.
I liked the song and its truth, but to use it as a rationale for idling on the sidelines didn’t make sense. So I pushed, parroting the chilling prophecies I’d collected in the school hallways. “This is different. Everyone says they’ll kill us if we don’t kill them.”
Tata bit on an onion with a loud crunch. “They’re probably right,” he said. “But until we die, we live.”
Tata fished out Mladjo’s key and held it high like a trophy. The jesters clapped and giggled. Mama shook her head, smiling despite herself. She wore one of her wrap dresses with a tiny flower pattern and fidgeted with the bow on the belt that cinched her waist. She looked so peaceful, so in love. I pushed my doubts aside and pictured the sea.
The air was sticky. Tata opened all the windows on our Zastava 101, transforming the humidity into gusts of crisp air. Sitting in the back seat felt like flying. The jesters closed their eyes and laughed as the air rushed into their open mouths.
“Faster,” said Lolek. “More,” said Bolek.
It looked like fun, and since no one was watching, I did it too. The air shaved the surface of my skin, tickled my tongue. It was impossible not to laugh.
“Welcome to Tata’s famous roller coaster!” Tata yelled over the loud whoosh of air.