The Summer I learnt to fly by Kreativni centar

Jasminka Petrović wove a tale about plenty of important things into a book about one summer and the protagonist’s growing up – relationships, human pride stronger than reason, love despite distance, war, responsibility, sense of guilt, empathy and, eventually, death. Lamija Begagić, writer A fantastic tale which wins over both older and younger readers with its original narrative method and plot, dealing with the basic issues pertaining to the value of life. The protagonist Sofija’s summer holiday sets in motion a veritable avalanche of events, genuine emotions of common and uncommon characters, bringing memories back to life. Elizabeta Georgiev, librarian The best and wisest novel by Jasminka Petrović so far, a warm and multi-layered intergenerational tale which has deservedly garnered immense attention of both its readers and the media. Aleksandar Gubaš, Knjigoskop blog editor On the one hand, a universal tale of growing up, falling in love, fears and insecurities typical of teenagers, spiced up with “the Mediterranean as it used to be”; on the other, a skilful portrayal of the breakup of Yugoslavia through the image of a (too) long estranged Serbo-Croatian, i.e. Old Town/Belgrade family. The constant interweaving of the Belgrade slang and the Hvar Bodul dialect opens up questions of the possibilities of communication, exchange, understanding. Tijana Spasić, literary critic

The Summer I Learnt to Fly is a remarkable book. It portrays a life period when you “learn to fly”. It’s a borderline separating childhood from early youth. The characters are realistic and they show us that life consists of both rose petals and thorns. Sofija Bogdanović (aged 12) It normally takes me ten days to read a book, but I read this one in a single breath. At times I had the feeling I was experiencing segments of my own life. I recommend it to both children and adults. Peca Stamenković (13) Sofija is a good foundation for a good person. She’s quite introverted, lacking opportunities for developing dialogues, but she has started to figure out what tolerance and forgiveness are. These are the two key words in any person’s life. Of all the books written by Jasminka, this one has the strongest human foundation. Zlatka Ančić-Morović (80) The novel is an excellent portrayal of the protagonist’s growing up. I single out one scene in particular, when she is being seen off on the journey by Mum and Dad. The book deals with relationships between men and women, as well as between the young and the old. I recognised myself in a number of situations. I can’t wait for a sequel. Sofija Lipovac (13) Funny and original. An almost perfect description of growing up. Uroš Radulović (14) Out of the cul-de-sac of estrangement of man from man, people from people, humankind from humankind and even, inconceivably, children from children – a possibility is offered, consoling and ironic, but funny and unavoidable, of how to conquer the unknown and find the familiar and yourself right next to you. Through the personalities of older and younger people, children and adults, people from here and those from out there – all in one – one discerns a final showdown with local nonsense on the land and on the island. Petronije Ponjević (65) Belgrade. The sea. Hvar. Lavender. Boredom. Snoring. SMS. Tears. Grandmas. Skype. The Bodul dialect. Dogs. Hanging out. Pain. Love. Family. Relatives. Idleness. A foreigner. Growing up. Funny. Sad. Honest. Subtle. Truthful. Historical. Natural. Dramatic. Tragicomic. True to life. If you read this book, you will learn to fly or at least lift ever so slightly off the ground… Ivana Lukić (38)

Jasminka Petrović The Summer I Learnt to Fly First English-language edition © Kreativni centar, 2020 Translated from the Serbian by Nataša Srdić Language editing by Novica Petrović Scots language dialogues proofread by Andrew Crumey The Serbian original edited by Anđelka Ružić Book cover illustrated by Dobrosav Bob Živković Layout by Dušan Pavlić Prepress by Vesna Pijanović Published by Kreativni centar, Beograd, Gradištanska 8 tel.: 011/ 38 20 464, 38 20 483, 24 40 659 www.kreativnicentar.rs e-mail: info@kreativnicentar.rs For the publisher Ljiljana Marinković, director Printed by Klik Print, Beograd Copies 300 Printed in 2020

Prevođenje ove knjige sufinansirano je iz budžeta Republike Srbije – Ministarstva kulture i informisanja. The translation of this book has been financed from the budget of the Republic of Serbia – the Ministry of Culture and Information.

The SUMMER I Learnt to Fly

For Vlada

Night One

randma’s snoring. I’ll freak out. And these mosquitoes are driving me nuts. They’re entering my nose and eyes. The day’s about to dawn and I’m still awake. Plus, I’m hungry. I keep tossing in bed. My nightgown’s twisted around my body like a candy wrapper. I was so looking forward to the summer and the holidays! I thought Mum and Dad would let me go camping with Luka and his friends. The other option was to go to Kraljevo with Saška and visit her cousin. But it all fell through! One afternoon Mum started twisting my arm: – See how pale you are! You stare at that computer screen all day long. Now, this year you’re going to Hvar with Grandma. You’ll have a great time: the sea, the sun, new friends, falling in love... I spent my best summers in the Old Town, ah, it’s all coming back to me now... Blah blah blah... and I accepted, rising to the bait. Of course, as soon as I stepped onto the coach, I regretted it, but it was too late then. Grandma took a pillow from her bag, not a fancy travel pillow, the inflatable kind, but a real big bed pillow. She clogged the aisle with that monster pillow, so the other passengers could hardly push their way to their seats. I was so embarrassed that I pressed my head against

the window, pretending not to be with her. The situation on the platform was no better. Mum and Dad were giving me the last instructions before the journey, yelling as if lost in the woods. Since I didn’t react to that, they started jumping frantically and banging on the glass. At that moment, I got a message from Saška: You lucky girl, have a nice journey! Ivana and I are mooching about in the school yard. Say hello to the sea for us and tell her we two will get to know her one day, too. Once when we are rich and famous. Kiss. I wanted to reply as quickly as possible that things were quite contrary to what they thought. The lucky ones were those mooching about in the school yard, sitting on the small wall, and not those who were going on holiday with their grandma. I also wrote that I’d rather jump out of the coach or, rather, out of my skin... I was about to press Send when the coach started, with Mum and Dad beginning to run next to my window. I thought, OK, they’d run for a while and then stop. I wasn’t going on a school trip with the class teacher. I was mistaken, though. The two of them kept running through the entire station, along the street, and when we halted at the traffic lights, and then at the crossroads... Mum and Dad perform that stupid family ritual whenever Luka and I travel anywhere. I have told them time and again not to do that, but to no avail. Luka thinks they try to atone for parents’ sins that way. I think nothing, just keep sinking deeper into the ground, that is, the seat. I deleted the message I’d written to Saška, put  instead, added kiss, kiss and pressed Send. I’m better off with them envying me than thinking I’m a jerk. The message went straight to the school yard, and I remained seated on the coach, looking at Mum and Dad running and waving next to my window. They reminded me of third-rate street entertainers. At one point Dad started lagging behind. For a little while he kept walking along the middle of the street,

and then he paused. He was sweaty, dishevelled and out of breath. He ducked his head and put his hands on his knees. I was terrified he would be knocked over by a juggernaut. Mum kept on running to the pedestrian island. She leant her back against the traffic lights and waved, and kept on waving until a tram emerged and blocked her from view. Then she rang me on my mobile and told me to behave myself, to listen to Grandma and not to raise her blood pressure, as her health card wasn’t valid abroad, which meant each Grandma’s visit to a doctor would have to be paid extra. As the coach was crossing the Gazela Bridge over the Sava River, Mum was explaining that this was because we hadn’t paid additional health insurance for financial reasons. She added this wasn’t an ordinary journey, and that Grandma would certainly be quite agitated, and that I had to be her support, and that she and Dad were going to come to Hvar as soon they submitted a project, and that I had no reason to worry, that everything was going to be fine, that the Old Town was the most beautiful place on earth, but I had to take care not to say bre* there and not to use the Cyrillic script, that the locals were wonderful, though I might come across someone who’d look askance at me, but she advised me not to take that personally, adding that we had already discussed that, and that the best thing to do was to stick to Grandma, and then she said she had to hang up because Dad had got all stiff and couldn’t straighten up. So, that’s how my summer holiday began. Lucky Luka! He always fares better than me. Without fail. I can only imagine how he’s having a wild time at Silver Lake as I listen to Grandma sawing wood. This is the second night I haven’t slept. It was horribly stuffy on the coach. The air-conditioner performed poorly. I wanted to read, but some chit of a girl complained about the light, so I had to switch it off. Still, the * Bre is a very common Serbian interjection used as a general intensifier.

greatest fuss was at the border crossing. Grandma couldn’t, for the life of her, find the parental consent form stating that my parents allowed me to go abroad. Panic-stricken, she fumbled in her bags, throwing about food, bottles, glasses, tissues, slippers, creams, and so on. And when she had humiliated us sufficiently in the presence of customs officers, she recalled putting the document in a safe place – the bag with her medicines. As soon as the coach started, I put on my earphones out of protest and played some music, which didn’t stop Grandma from sticking peaches, sandwiches and curdled milk under my nose every now and then. Who on earth takes curdled milk on a journey? We arrived in Split at 7 a.m. I wanted to brush my teeth at a drinking fountain next to the bus station, but was stopped short by Grandma roaring like a Bengal tiger: – Brush your teeth? No way! You want us to miss the ferry? That’s what you want? Take a gum and that’s it! Do you ever watch commercials? – she yelled agitatedly, pulling my arm. When she gets hysterical, Grandma tends to talk unimaginable nonsense, and very, very loudly at that. We boarded the ferry drowsy, crumpled, stinky and not on speaking terms. I was so nervous I ate all the remaining grub. Including the curdled milk. I had to unbutton my jeans, as I couldn’t breathe. Next to us sat some Italians, seven or eight of them. They were playing cards and having a great time, unlike me. Among them was a couple, nuzzling and kissing all the while. I felt so miserable that I wasn’t even embarrassed about Grandma snoring on my shoulder. The battery on my mobile had gone flat, so I couldn’t even listen to music. So, Grandma snored on the coach, on the ferry and now she’s snoring in the room. No wonder, since she’s stuffed

down all those Bromazepam pills. She’s swallowed her fill of double doses and now she’s sleeping like a log. And me? I can only stare at the ceiling, count sheep, bang my head against the wall or whatever comes to mind. All right, I admit, it must be tough for Grandma. She’s returned to her home town after twenty-six years. That’s surely a lot of time – twice my lifetime so far. I wonder what she thinks of this all. The sea? The house? The people? I couldn’t live without Belgrade for even less than a month. There, I already miss it! And how greatly I miss my room and my bed! A total apocalypse ensued when we stepped off the ferry. It was scorching hot, and I had on a sweatshirt, deep trainers and a jacket because it had been rainy and cold in Belgrade when we’d set out. Grandma’s sister Lucia, nicknamed Luce, was waiting for us at the Old Town port. They fell into each other’s arms and burst into tears. I stood by like a jerk as they shed copious tears, choked with emotion. In the meantime, all the passengers had left the port, as well as all the cars, taxis and buses, so the three of us had to go on foot, taking a path along the beaches at that. As normal people strolled in their swimsuits, I dragged my and Grandma’s monster suitcases under the layers of full winter equipment. My hands still hurt from all the lugging. Grandma was red in the face like an Indian, so I feared she was in for a stroke. At times I felt like hurling that monster pillow of hers into the sea, but I fretted I’d hit a swimmer on the head. Grandma told me that Luce is a nana* and that I don’t have to address her with the V-form. Nana Luce lives alone. Almost everything in the house is dilapidated, especially the toilet seat. So, I’m going to spend the summer holidays in a black * The Dalmatian word for grandmother is nona. Likewise, the original word used both in the meaning of granddad and uncle is barba.

hole with two grandmas. Oliver Twist is Mr Lucky compared to me. I wish it were winter now. I hate summer. I’ve cranked up the volume on my mobile. One Direction against Grandma’s snoring. I press the earphones with my fingers. No use. Grandma’s still in the lead. Why did I accept to come here? I’m hot. I’m bitten all over by mosquitoes. I keep scratching. Last year we went to Greece for the summer holiday. In fact, Luka, Mum and Dad did holiday, whereas I lay in a darkened room for ten days. Immediately upon arrival, I caught a stomach virus and a temperature. I never laid eyes on the sea. Could this holiday be even worse than last year’s? I’m staring at the ceiling. I’m waiting for dawn. I can hear some dogs barking in the distance. What is my Buzz doing now? My Buzzy, my sweet Buzzy. When he snores, I don’t mind it at all. My battery is dead. I take my earphones out and put them down on the bedside table. Nana Luce doesn’t even have a computer, let alone the Internet. How to be rescued? Should I write messages in a bottle? Make a raft and flee from the island like Robinson Crusoe? Required school reading has its uses, after all! Why, I could read! A good idea! I switch on the lamp and open a book. – Turn off that light and go to sleep! We’ll be eaten alive by mosquitoes! – Grandma yelled so loudly that The Neverending Story jumped in my hands. I close the book and switch off the lamp. For once, Grandma is right. Over the past few minutes, a million mosquitoes have gathered and they’re all now buzzing around my head. I flail my arms to shoo them away. The room’s as hot as an oven. I cover my head with the bed sheet. I hate summer because I sweat like a pig. I find it gross. And I sweat because

I have to wear layers of clothes to hide my flat chest. Lucky Ivana and Saška, they don’t have such problems. It’s worst when we have PE and when Julijana asks me in the presence of all the girls: – Sofija, you still don’t wear a bra? I’d rather have small breasts than a small brain. Grandma’s rolling over. The bed’s creaking. She is now on her side. She’s stopped snoring. Silence at last. Or not, after all. I can hear crickets. What a rest for the ears! A nocturnal concert for one person. Oh, no! Grandma’s at it again! I’ll go insane! I tuck my head under the pillow. Now it’s as hot as two ovens. I want to go home! I want to go home! I want my Buzz!