Baba Mara

summer season. Baba Mara spent much of her working day under
this space that although lacking the fourth wall on the side open to
the yard was as hot as a sauna. The heat came from a metal stove that
burned maize cobs and twigs as well as from the Sun-tempered tiles
above head. Pieces of spare or damaged tools that could make an entire
workshop were tucked between the tiles and the beams that carried
them. This was not the only fascination for the children who often used
all sorts of tongs, screwdrivers, hammers or planes for their fancywork
and games. Other centers of attraction were in the corners of the kitch-
en-shed and at the very entrance where spiders spun their insect traps
mostly at dusk or repaired the existing ones. How they managed to
perform their dancing architectural feats in perfect compliance to the
laws of geometry was an impenetrable mystery to all observers.
Half a dozen of us kids had gone fishing on the Great Canal early in
the morning and it was high time we packed our fishing tackle. Seldom
did we manage to outwit the fish and lacking the experience and pro-
ficiency in the tricks of the trade, we often came back with empty nets.
An entire folklore was built locally around the somewhat nobler-class
trade of fishing and fishers. Those who were unexpectedly successful
in their fishing efforts were often teasingly accused of having used long
net traps, mullein flowers to make the fish go ‘tipsy’ or applying other
methods unapproved of by the community. If they did not catch any
fish, a number of derisive and comical verses or songs were thrown
into their faces, such as :

‘ His nets hang empty, but carps are well fed;
The fisher will dine his loaf of bread’

‘ Your bottom’s wet and face is red,
With nothing to supper drag to your bed’

Truly, as would be expected on a scorching day, our company of young
would-be fishers soon made our speechless appearance, noses hanging
down, which signalled that our outing on the canal could not count as
a contribution to home economy but belonged entirely to sports and
adventure.
‘Well, boys, no fish again, huh?’, said Baba Mara from the kitch-
en-shed inferno as the team was silently unpacking their long reeds,
nets and oars.
‘Not a single fish bite !’, retorted Laza, my elder brother.
‘Just mosquito bites’, I put in. ‘Luckily they stopped soon after the
heat had struck.’
‘Why did you stay so long, then, for God’s sake ?’, asked the grand-
dad coming from the garden and rubbing his hands in a mash of
squeezed plums. He seldom used soap for hand washing and main-
tained that it was the best way of keeping hands tidy and soft.
‘Oh, well, you know, Bata, how it feels to be on the water... Fish
and luck may leave you, but hope never does !’, said the eldest of the
company, Novak.
‘Bata’ was traditionally short for brother as Lazar was the eldest
of the four brothers in his family. Lazar’s youngest brother Milos, the
arch-master tamboura player of the village, was Novak’s father.
‘ Well, I’ve cooked some food here but can’t tell now if it will suffice
for us all... I had hoped you’d bring that fish...’, said Baba Mara in a
serious voice.
Everybody knew that she was playing a joke because she never made a
meal that would not be enough for at least a company of starved soldiers.
‘ I told you we should buy some fish from one of those old hands...’,
said Novak’s brother Radivoj in a half-whisper. He was the least toler-
ant of anyone teasing with his failures among the four fishers.
‘Come on, don’t listen to that old big tongue’, said the granddad. ‘
Wash up and let’s all dine in the kitchen.’
The combination of living room and kitchen for wintertime, com-
monly the biggest room in the paors’ house, was certainly the coolest
place in the house. Its only window looked out into the backyard and
was too small to let in sufficient amount of light, so electric light had
to be used most of the time. A wooden shelf painted in light green car-
ried a pile of dishes, glasswear and kitchen gadgetry such as meat-min-
cing machine or poppy seed hand-mill. Spoons, knives and forks in
all paors’ homes carried a tint of verdigris and imparted a salty taste
of static electricity. This may have come from the fact that all founda-
tions had been made of rammed earth so the air inside was quite damp
throughout the year. In the corner to the right of the window there
stood another cooking stove for winter use. Its metal top was in many
homes polished to the gloss of mirrors and it literally, according to
local tradition, reflected the qualities of a good housewife; the brighter
it shone, the more hardworking she was.
Above the stove there hang an embroidered piece of cloth common-
ly called ‘the cook’. It featured some naïve-art motive centered mainly
around the cooking part of peasant life and equally heart-warming
verses to go with it. Both the embroidery and the cloth were the prod-
ucts of Baba Mara’s dexterous hands. My brother Laza and I often
played a game of listing all the handiwork that had come out from her
fingers which mounted up to hills of strudels, loaves, broths, knitting,
yarn, woolen pullovers, bed sheets or pieces of finest linen. This output
that could match a production of a smaller factory did not include the
stacks of hay, sheaves of corn or piles of maize that had rubbed their
way by the large knuckle of her hands.
When she was young, Baba Mara must have been a true gem of
classical and exotic beauty blended in an intriguing yet balanced way.
Her eyes belonged to that phenotype that varies along a wide spec-
trum of grey and green in response to the changes of light while con-
trasted to dark chestnut long hair which she often carried in a bun. The
forehead struggled with time successfully, not permitting its carving
fingers to leave its grooves and messages. Her cheeks were somewhat
broad and the short line of mouth defied the laws of proportion, only
to add freshness and a touch of oddity. An immaculate necklace of
whitest tiny teeth flashed on the tan background of her face. Her thin,
almost birdlike neck, made an elegant bridge between the roundish
head and large bony trunk.
Apart from being a good storyteller, Baba Mara had a perfect
ear for music and possessed a cherubic voice that was capable of at-
taining very high pitches and still retain its mellow pulsations. When
she sang there were not many who dared accompany her and perhaps
run the risk of spoiling her performance. She did not only sing well in
an old-fashioned, almost forgotten way captured on first records that
featured accelerated, often near-pathetic vibrations. She was a living
treasury of old songs of Voyvodina that had absorbed the spirit of
Middle European 18. and 19. c urban music as well as a bunch of influ-
ences from Russian, Hungarian, Roumanian folk music and grafted
them on the rootstock of old Serbian music.
After the lunch we resumed our endless activities that invariably
lasted from dawn till dusk. Grandparents had a summer after-lunch re-
treat in the konk, a porch-like entrance to home supported by wooden
columns and ending with a permanently locked door that led into the
street. On the street side it formed a recess with a couple of steps made
of bricks where people often sat in the shade during warm afternoons
and nights. In the very corner behind this door that had lost its function
long ago, the old couple had mounted a simple bed of wooden boards
masked off from the yard and the konk by heavy hemp coverlets. Atop
the boards there was a straw mat that furnished the cheapest and best
insulation from either heat or cold. The only trouble, particularly for
children used to city life, was getting used to rustles and sounds that
followed every single movement in this gigantic bird nest.
Lazar seldom slept in the konk; he preferred sitting at the table
after meals and thumbing through his agricultural magazines, The
Bible or old newspapers. Baba Mara waddled now into the quiet of the
afternoon resting place but could not yield her awareness to the grip
of slumber. Memories seldom haunted her as she simply did not have
time to surrender to their whirlpools and drifts. But no one can shun
forever the need to level one’s accounts and bills owed to life. The states
of consciousness dancing on the edge of a deep dive into the chasms
of dreams and perky vigilance in the light of reason were the best mo-
ments to discern many riddles or quandaries of past with unearthly
ease of comprehension.
...The house they’ve been living in and the family Lazar and she
have raised by God’s grace...that all was so strange and burdened
by often soul-squeezing labor or flogging of fate...Yet, awards have
dripped or sometimes poured from Heaven too, offsetting by far the
fatigue, sorrow and streams of care that often menaced to undermine
the foundations of our very beings...
The house was the labor of their own hands from steps to chimney,
including all the gadgetry and furniture. When they got married from
their financially meager but children-rich families, Lazar and she had
only one kitchen plate and a fork and spoon to go with it apart from