Leaving

by Dragana Kršenković Brković

The total silence was suddenly broken by the flapping of wings. Anna quickly turned her head and saw a cormorant flying just above the water. Several large birds stood on a branch protruding from the Lake Skadar. Despite the distance, she could make out the yellow patches around their eyes and beaks.

Dusk was gradually falling. The entire area including the surrounding hills was bathed in blue. Her eyes fell on the Great Bay where her father had been casting his nets that day. This had always been her favorite place on the lake. At that moment, as her gaze moved from the thickets and pine trees on the ridge toward their reflections in the water, she remembered how many times she had secretly taken her father’s boat onto the bay and gazed fondly at the surroundings for hours from the highest point of the steep cliff.

She put her hand into the water. Its cool touch felt good. In the blue depths the delicate stems of aquatic plants were swaying subtly. She was in two minds about whether to tell her father what she intended to do. She only had to say:

“I have decided… I want to leave.”

However, she did not have the courage. She knew very well what would happen if she said this. 

      Her father would fix her with a long, inquiring look. His sunken, dim eyes would sparkle for a moment in deep surprise. His harsh voice would also say something unintelligible, it seemed to her that he said: “Yes”, after which he would continue with his work.

Standing in the middle of the boat, he would skilfully pluck the fish out of the nets with his strong, swollen hands. He’d try not to look at her. Instead,  he would finish stowing the nets and glance toward the floats, which she used to help reel in, too. Then he’d sit down, start the engine and head for home. The old boat, its paint almost completely peeled off, would make its way through the water lilies, reeds and tops of trees whose trunks disappeared in the water during the spring floods. Along the right-hand side of the boat, the reflection of the remaining letters, painted on when she was still learning to walk, could be seen in the ripples.

 Yes, she could see what would happen at home.

 It would all begin with her father bursting into the kitchen and throwing his worn-out boots into the corner of the room. Without looking at her mother, seemingly uninterested and in a quiet voice, he would say. 

 “That daughter of yours is planning to leave home.”

Without waiting for her mother to erupt, he would walk toward the door, grim-faced and angry. There was no need to ask where he was going. He would head straight to the tavern, where he spent most of his days.

As he passed her, Anna would notice that her father’s face looked even more wrinkled in the pale light of a solitary bulb. Old before its time, his face reminded her of the dried blackberries she used to find along the narrow roads and rocky slopes around Lake Skadar.

He would come home just before dawn. If he managed to not break anything in the kitchen, he would bump his way into the room where he and her mother slept, swearing and cursing the day he met her mother, ordering her to wake up. Though stumbling over his words, he would repeat over and over how everything was her fault. That she was the one to be blamed because he had not taken the opportunity when he was young to go abroad. That it was her fault he was imprisoned in all this damp and that because of her there was nothing for him to be happy about.

While these things were going on, her mother, usually always ready to give a loud and harsh reply, would be surprisingly silent. Occasionally, through the thin walls, Anna might hear her mother’s quiet cries, a whimpering sound. After that, her mother would avoid her for days on end.

Anna had absolutely no doubt. As soon as her father left the kitchen, her mother would pounce on her. Even if she went out to the terrace, absently looking at the wooden boats whose tops peeped out of the thick grass covering the lake water to the jetty, she would hear mother's accusations behind her back. How she, Anna, kept on repeating that story. About how insensitive she was. About how she prefers school and some bird study to her mother's illness.

"She to study birds! It’s nonsense! Who still learns about birds?", her mother would repeat angrily and irritable.      

Anna would not say a word. She would wind some nylon fishing line through her fingers, waiting for her mother to calm down. At some point, that would happen. When she finally came into the kitchen, she would find her mother standing near the narrow window cut into the thick stone wall, looking pensively into the distance across the peaceful lake.

The following morning, everything would continue. Aware of the fact that Anna would hear her voice while in bed, her mother would start complaining to the next-door neighbor. No one has such an ungrateful child, she would begin. She had constant headaches and pain in her bones, but Anna wanted to leave! And that, just when she should be helping her mother in the house... And, anyway, how could she let her go? Well, it’s a big city... And, it’s true, mom’s sister lives there, but still... And those dreams of Anna’s! Who wants to devote their life to running after birds, recording what they do on the lake? Nobody.

When even these frequent morning monologues wouldn’t help, everything would become tougher.

Her mother would scold her to her face and threaten her. This scene was so vivid in front of Anna’s eyes that she suddenly jerked the boat. Surprised, her father lost his balance for a moment, then managed to regain it. Wanting to help him, Anna stood up with outstretched arms…

That was enough to send her falling into the water.

As she was sinking to the bottom, she noticed the oblique beams of sunlight breaking through the thick growth of plants. The roots of these aquatic flowers were located deep in the mud, while the stalks, several meters long, swayed ever so lightly, carried by the gentle currents. When she waved her hands toward the surface, she suddenly realized that she could not move. She looked down and saw her leg trapped in a carpet of green.

The more she strained, the more the stalks tightened their grip on her. Everything started to grow in size, to spread and to pulsate, faster and faster, until everything started to dance. Even the undulating image of the Great Bay, which had until then been quietly resting on the lake’s surface, suddenly started moving. It somehow plunged into the depths, wrapped itself around her, and gently brought her to the surface, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

As she approached the surface, her father’s quiet voice reached her ever more clearly. Finally, she felt the tight grip of his large hand and found herself back in the boat.     

Anna looked silently at the Great Bay as the water dripped from her clothes.

Visibly exhausted, but with a barely perceptible smile at the corners of her mouth, she looked at the pine trees, the low heather bushes and the broken lines of the numerous crevices in that rocky cliff...

Something gave inside her and, without even looking at her father, she suddenly said: 

“I’ve decided… I want to leave.”

Translated into English by Aleksandra Nikčević Batrićević & Peter Stonelake 

Dragana Kršenković Brković is the author of three novels, two story collections, two nonfiction books, and fairy tales. 

She has been a guest writer and has received fellowships and grants from various organizations, including Apexart (NYC), Art OMI (NY), UNESCO (Rhodes), HHH Fellowship (California & Washington DC), Goethe-Institute Munich (Leipzig), KulturKontakt Austria (Vienna), OeAD-GmbH (Graz), Internationale Jugendbiliothek Munich (Bologna), National Cultural Found of Hungary (Pécs), The Biennial of Illustration Bratislava, Драматичен театър „Боян Дановски“ /Boyan Danovski Theater/ (Pernik), etc. 

She is a member of the Montenegrin PEN Center (Crnogorski PEN Centar) and the Montenegrin Association of Independent Writers (Crnogorskog društvo nezavisnih književnika – CDNK).