Blowing Away the Bura

By Mike Cavendish

In this novel, by October 1991 war in western Croatia between Croats and Serbs is daily and deadly. Navenka Berik, a wimpy 25-year-old Serb mother of two has had her Serb parents and her Croat husband make decisions for her. During the next few months:

- Her father is taken and presumed killed,

- Navenka is raped,

- Her husband is arrested and probably is killed,

- Her mother becomes crippled,

- From the rape, another child is born,

- Remaining family members are on the run as internally displaced persons in the dissolving Yugoslavia,

- The hassled Navenka has to step up and lead.

Unwelcome anywhere, the family languishes with temporary protection visas in Germany. In 1996, they are accepted as refugees in Australia. Peace, the English language and Australia’s very multicultural society bring many new problems. Navenka’s ongoing memories of her husband keep her wishing that he might be alive. Thoughts of moving back to Croatia or to Bosnia end when, briefly, Navenka attends the trial of those accused of murdering her father. There, poverty and the old ethnic prejudices live on. Back in Australia, her long “lost” husband finds her. However, after the initial joy wears off, the terms of his demand, at gunpoint, that his family go and live in Croatia with him are unacceptable. Navenka’s daughter Srebrenka, too young to be burdened by bad memories of Yugoslavia, cleverly resolves the impasse.

People react differently to war. Some think. Some “just feel”.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Release date: Dec 16, 2022
• ISBN: 9781398444553

Mike Cavendish

Mike was born in 1950 in the Strathfield suburb in Sydney, Australia. His father had died nine months earlier. Mike’s mother died when he was eight. He then moved to Wollongong. From 1970, Mike has lived again in Sydney, in several different suburbs. Until retirement in 2005, he worked mainly as a technical officer in the Australian Government’s Department of Defence. He lives with Tom, his cat.

Book preview

Chapter 1

Navenka Berić expected clout from her father. He, Rajko Kezman, glared at the fear-ridden and fumbling musicians. The singer annoyed her father the most.

In Bosnian, he said, ‘Knuckle down to it, boys!’

‘What, boss?’

Singling out that singer, Bosnian Mr Kezman repeated it in Croatian. ‘Usredotočite pažnju na njega. Block out those bangs. Artillery shells are going bang outside, not in here! Those donkey soldiers up on the hills can’t aim straight. And sure, the song you’re choking on is my first go at writing a song. And it doesn’t have boring trad rhythms. And you’ve had hardly any time to learn it. Yeah, I know. But you. You, boy, you can’t sing anyway. Just play your guitar. This time all of you at least play it right. You there. Drummer! Stop fiddling about. Now start again.’

Skint, because the war had wiped out their regular jobs, the amateur bandsmen obeyed. Including Navenka, the dancers in pairs and in two lines like soldiers obeyed too.

Boom! This shook the restaurant’s grey stone building, and human hearts. It broke two windows and almost cracked resolve. The band lost beat and rhythm.

Rajko yelled, ‘One. Two. Three. Four,’ stomping his foot with each number.

The musicians resumed, visibly reluctant. Cued, the dancers followed suit.

A closer boom than most rattled the band’s drummer. Vainly his face feigned fearlessness. His sometimes staccato drumbeats couldn’t lie. The quivering hand of his colleague playing the ukulele-like tamburica echoed his lead.

Navenka gasped and locked her body. Boško Berić, her dance partner and husband, felt both her tremble and her stumble. Overdosed with alcohol, and never fully tender, he further tightened his hold on her.

Son Krasimir, six, and daughter Milja, five, clasped each other together as dance partners. Behind their parents the children were imitating dancing. The battle outside and the perceived personal struggles in front of them rumbled both their hearts.

The corner of Navenka’s eye noticed that. She could do nothing.

That 16th October 1991, most citizens of Gospić town in western Croatia sat shrivelling in bomb shelters built years earlier for World War Three. Croatia had declared independence from Yugoslavia. The militants among Serbs resident in Croatia protested. The Serb-controlled Yugoslav military helped them stake out the Republic of Serbian Krajina on three tenths of Croatian land. Though still with scant weaponry, the Croats wanted their land back. Result, ready or not, war.

Grandparents, restaurateurs and Bosnian Serbs Rajko and his wife Jasna Kezman felt like football strikers caught offside in territory recaptured by the Croats in September. The official Army and the supporting Serb paramilitaries had left town, retreating eastwards. Sore losers, those Serbs kept pounding the luckless town with over a thousand artillery shells daily, not caring who suffered. Nervous Navenka knew; one day she had counted the shells.

That October evening, in defiance of the war, Rajko and Jasna had closed their restaurant for a private function, their younger daughter Navenka’s twenty-fifth birthday party.

Another boom. Walls and rooves shattered somewhere outside. The electricity supply stuttered.

A hand signal behind the band leader’s back had the musicians halting Rajko’s folk dance piece passably soon, they hoped. Rajko glared their way. Gutless bastards. He hid his chagrin. He strode to his daughter and escorted her to the restaurant’s small stage to venture a few words. She had to comply; it was her party.

After a quick forced smile, Navenka’s start ‘Ladies and gentlemen’ sounded formal among mainly familiar locals. ‘And boys and girls too’. All other than hers were, surely, in those bomb shelters. ‘Well, it was good of you, well, even brave of you, to come here this evening.’ Her eyes drooped after having glanced about in vain hope of any supportive smile, applause or unforced joy. Empty of empathy. They could’ve been statues. ‘I do not feel like celebrating.’

‘Why daughter? Why?’ Her father’s tone was more reproaching than enquiring.

Navenka shrugged. ‘What else? Our country is falling apart around us. Yes, our country. The line in your song You and I stand united … seems all out of step. I mean what is our country? We all, each of us, we must think about that like never before. Only yesterday … Bosnia and Herzegovina declared sovereignty. What’s that?’ Mindful that her husband was Croatian, born on a farm nearby, she didn’t say ‘our country’ this time.

Jasna felt vaguely queasy. She whispered to the nearest person, ‘Excuse me. Too much wine, I think. I’ll slip upstairs to the toilet.’

Half a minute of Navenka’s clumsy speech later something metallic, more bossy than any fist, whacked repeatedly on the restaurant’s door. Annoyed, Rajko strode and opened it. He saw police uniforms, then guns in hands. He heard no introduction.

‘Who is Rajko Kezman?’

‘Me, of course.’

‘Who is Navenka Berić?’

Navenka’s hand started to rise until her father said, ‘She is. Why?’

‘Both of you must come with us.’

‘Why?’

‘You must be interviewed as witnesses to the recent massacre.’

‘We know only what …’

‘Talk later. We’re running late. Just come now.’

Tongue-tied Navenka wouldn’t have spoken; it was Rajko who said, ‘Let us get our coats.’

Not only because of the breeze through the open door, Navenka was feeling chilled. That breeze wasn’t, but it felt like, an autumn junior of the mighty Bura, the north-easterly winter wind from Russia. North-easterly? Navenka’s mind felt rudderless.

‘I said now! You’ll be warm in our vehicle, not by standing around here. Come on.’

Navenka hesitated.

The leading invader motioned two of his men to grab her. They took her arms. Anxiety replaced her brief relief that her make-believe party was over.

Krasimir broke the silence of bewilderment with, ‘What are you …’ until one man’s gun turned with him toward the boy. Boško’s hand clamped his son’s mouth. Silence again.

Once outside, the police banged the door closed.

Without Rajko, the party’s lifeblood, all minds left behind went blank.

Behind the toilet door upstairs, Jasna was mulling over never having intervened during Navenka’s childhood whenever Navenka’s big sister Danica was playing her confidence sapping one-upmanship games. Had Navenka married first, prematurely or not, to get one back on her sister? Boško had made romantic moves toward Danica. She’d snubbed him. He hadn’t met her ambitions.

Jasna wondered. Was someone driving a truck or bus away?

‘Damn!’ The toilet’s water pressure was weak.

As Jasna returned down the stairs, all was too sullen. No music. No natural speech. Only agitated murmurs. One, from one musician to the others, was, ‘Let’s pack our gear.’

Boško saw her first. ‘Tašta! The police have taken tašt and Navenka.’

‘What?

‘It must be crap but they said they want to interrogate them at the police station about that massacre of Croats three days ago at Široka Kula.’

Boom! But no blast could silence Jasna.

‘Why on Earth would they want Rajko about that? Or Navenka?’

A guest insisted ominously, ‘Some of them may not be police. I recognised two who I know and who are in the HOS.’

‘What is HOS?’

Boško explained. ‘HOS is Hrvatske obrambene snage (Croatian Defence Forces). They’re paramilitary, driven by wanting revenge.’

The implication thumped Jasna in the guts. ‘So maybe they think our Serbian family is fair game.’

The party had bled almost to death. Like surged water retreating after a coastal storm guests were easing themselves out the door. Jasna caught the departing informant who had spoken. ‘How do you know the two who you recognised?’

‘Oh, some time back they admitted it.’

She focused on him sternly. He turned to resume leaving. ‘Why would they tell you?’ she did not ask. Nor, ‘Why didn’t they take me too?’

Instead, seized by urgency, and so that straggling guests of doubtful friendliness might not hear, she whispered to Boško, ‘Get your hunting rifle and drive me to the police station.’

Boom! Through her boiling agitation, Jasna didn’t hear this explosion.

Boško, who did all within his limits to love his wife’s family, obeyed at once.

Chapter 2

Electric lights inside and outside dithered to death. Boško fumbled for the TAM’s keys and his childhood hunting rifle. He charged back down the darkened stairs.

Jasna’s mouth hustled out, ‘Children, go upstairs and stay in bed.’

Krasimir and Milja couldn’t express their fears of being alone in the dark before Jasna locked the front door. Boško drove her away.

Ahead, two enemies? Or three? Certainly those morons firing indiscriminately from the hills. Maybe real Croat police? Or this HOS?

The TAM 110 was an Army surplus, 4.8 metres long, 4-wheel drive, tarpaulin covered, light utility personnel carrier. Rajko had bought it cheaply. The family had moved to Gospić in the TAM. There his paint job replaced Army grey with a boldly colourful business advertisement. Usually, Rajko or Boško drove the TAM, often over forever wounded roads, to fetch fresh produce from local farms. Rare brightness in a pale coloured town, the TAM had caught the eyes of many diners, perhaps including Croat nationalists.

Without working street lights, or pedestrians, the vehicle attracted nobody. Even flickering firelight from broken and burning buildings let nobody see much. Presumably, fire fighters were procrastinating in bomb shelters. Only the TAM’s headlights guided the anxious pair past debris splattered on the roads.

Onto Jasna’s intensifying worries curiosity intruded. She believed that Boško had never been to Gospić’s police station. Yet confidently he knew the area. How? He could have been there before he moved to Konjić years ago. However, then he was only a boy.

‘You will use that gun to save me if they try to grab me, won’t you?’

‘I know my first loyalty, tašta.’

She turned her head his way.

‘To my family. All my family. Number One for sure.’

Again her eyes looked ahead.

‘They should soon see their mistakes, if they’re honest,’ he offered in hope. ‘No way could tašt and Navenka be involved. But I’m ready for anything.’

Boom! The loudest. Stone pellets and fragments of bricks pinged, clunked and pockmarked the TAM’s side. Jasna’s head dived behind a reflexively raised arm. Boško drove on relentlessly.

He slowed to squint at the police station’s darkened sign. Then he parked. No truck or bus in sight. No sound but of battle. Flickers of oil lamps wavered inside.

At the front counter an old and haggard officer, ghoulish in his lamp’s light, gazed up. His palm thumped the counter twice. Two younger officers, pistols in hand, focused on Boško.

The senior cautioned Boško. ‘Keep that rifle pointed down, son, and you’ll be fine!’

‘Certainly, sir.’

‘And come closer.’ He peered accusingly. ‘I’ve seen you here … when? Years ago, haven’t I?’

‘You may …’

Jasna brushed that aside. ‘I’m here about my husband and my daughter.’

‘Names?’

‘Rajko Kezman and Navenka Berić. Your officers took them away for questioning. Why?’

Answering their senior’s turned head the young officers nodded negatively.

‘We don’t know.’ To Jasna the veteran sounded scarcely caring.

‘How not? Your officers would have brought them here, surely. Boško, did they say that?’

‘I assumed that, tašta. But no, maybe they did not tell us where.’ Looking forward again, he added, ‘About the massacre of Croats a few days ago.’

‘I see. Madam, certainly we want to know who did those killings. But your husband and your daughter? Those names I have not heard of before now.’

‘The police all were wearing their uniforms,’ Boško told him.

‘Who led them? Who was in charge?’

‘None of them gave us any names.’

‘How many police were there?’

‘Six or seven. Maybe eight.’

‘Aha. Now look. We three are the only ones on duty tonight. Most police in Gospić have left the force lately. Most said they would join either the Croatian Army or who-knows-what militias. Two Serb officers said simply that they had become uncomfortable in what is now the Croatian police force. At least some must have taken their uniforms and weapons with them.’

Jasna’s mind barged into deep freeze.

‘So. Can we say at least that Mr Kezman and Miss …’

Boško filled in. ‘Mrs Berić.’

‘Mr Kezman and Mrs Berić are missing persons?’

Jasna’s eyes rolled away into the police station’s dimness. The latest boom sank into some pit of irrelevance below her mind’s horizon.

‘I think so. Yes. Well, Mrs Kezman, with only a few police in Gospić still on the job and much to do, I believe that we can find little time to make enquiries.’ Finally, gently, he smiled. Cynicism or sympathy? ‘We’ll try.’

‘Thank you, sir.’

His flicking fingers found the appropriate form. ‘Their descriptions please.’

After another minute came, ‘Mrs Kezman, describe more about what happened.’ She knew little. ‘Sir, you know, don’t you?’

‘Yes, sir.’

Another person, another form. ‘Tell me your name and what you know.’

He did.

‘Yes. And Mr Boško Berić, slowly I’m recalling when I saw you years ago. You had some complaint about your father. And …’

‘Yes, sir. But now he can go to Hell. We must find my wife and my tašt. That’s all that matters to me now, sir.’

‘Very well. Each of you, please sign the form here. Please bring us photos of the missing persons later if you can. And if you think of anything else that may help, contact us again. Here are my details.’

Short and bitter. Little more could be said.

Boško drove Jasna home.

Chapter 3

Moonlight was giving Navenka no help. Even that was fading as clouds moved in. She and other people rounded up by the police sat from the middle of the bus to its back, all in darkness. She was in front of all others. The police had put her father at the back. She knew her father could recognise her from behind by her long hair and slim shoulders in shadow. She couldn’t see him.

While the passengers were boarding Rajko had muttered to Navenka, ‘This bus is plain coloured. No Police markings or colour scheme.’

Stifling any reply of hers, the police team leader had said, ‘Many Police vehicles have been destroyed in the fighting. We’ve had to use what vehicles we can.’

When underway, the head policeman had asked all to be quiet and keep all windows closed.

Rajko Kezman realised they were headed north. ‘Hey. Why aren’t we going to the police station?’

‘Sir! I asked you all to be quiet so that we don’t attract the attention of any militants who we may pass if they recognise your voices. And the bus’s lights are off so they can’t see you. It’s for your safety. We’re going to the place of a recent massacre to see if some among you may recall anything once you’re there. Now quiet please.’

Queer though that explanation seemed, the passengers acquiesced.

The police whispered among themselves. One made a radio call.

The bus stopped.

‘Mrs Berić.’

‘Yes.’

‘Come here, please. We’ve decided that you can’t be of assistance in our enquiries. Two officers are waiting beside the road there. See them?’

‘Yes.’ In the dim light they seemed not in uniforms.

‘They will drive you home. Please get off and go to them. We regret the inconvenience.’

‘She looked at the men behind her still anonymous in shadow. One waved to her. ’See you later, dear.’

‘See you, dad.’

She felt abandoned as the bus drove away. The two men grabbed Navenka’s arms.

One said, ‘There’s been a special order for you. This way.’

More than ever in her life a stirring within said, ‘Resist.’ Her arms couldn’t. She said, ‘You’re not police, are you?’

‘Don’t ask.’

An oil lamp flickered from within a decrepit shack. Inside, she saw some man half in black. Balaclava, jumper, nothing else. He turned toward her. She shuddered when she saw him working on his dick. The two ‘police’ dragged her down, gagged her mouth with a bandana, yanked her naked, spread her legs. Always silent, the waiting man eased himself onto her.

Throughout, he took his time. He breathed heavily; maybe he was old.

She felt a triumph she knew was vain yet personal. She thought, ‘I wanted to resist. I wanted that much. Without these other two goons, I could have.’

Afterwards, her rapist stayed in the shack. One man held her arms as the other drove her home. There, though they took off the gag her complaints were overpowered by the sounds of rainfall.

Chapter 4

The two sleepless children soon crept downstairs to join the only adults who returned. Dampening eyes emulated those adults in dread.

Jasna almost spat her cynicism. ‘All those guests, they just left as if it was none of their business. Nobody stayed to give support.’

‘They don’t want to believe that this could happen to them too.’ Boško raised his beer mug, stopped, and banged it back down on the restaurant table at which they were sitting. The one candle that he had lit vibrated in the jar holding it.

That penetrated Milja’s modesty. ‘Tata, what’s happening?’

Only his eyes moved her way. ‘Darling, we don’t know where your mama and your deda are.’

‘Why didn’t mama and deda want to go?’

‘Because, because maybe they shouldn’t have gone.’ Jasna tried to minimise grounds for fear. She added softly, ‘They should come back.’ Should, not will.

Some woman was running past, along the street, shrieking for a doctor. None had risked staying in their surgeries. Rain, just beginning, made her slip. Fallen, she yelled in pain.

Looking out for the HOS or anyone suspicious, Boško peered carefully through a broken window before opening the restaurant’s front door. He carried the lady inside and sat her down. From upstairs he fetched a first aid kit for the wrist injured when she had fallen. She scarcely watched as he bound her cuts and bruises; preoccupied, she gushed out her story.

‘My husband is Manager of the radio station. Tonight, the police came and took him away. My son thought they were not police but when he resisted they shot him. Where in Hell is a doctor?’

‘You are Serbs?’ Boško almost knew.

‘Yes. Why?’

‘Your Ekavian dialect. By the way, I’m Boško. Boško Berić. This is Jasna Kezman.’ Seizing the first aid kit, he avoided more questions with, ‘If you can walk, let’s …’

‘No. No. The pains are getting to me now. I don’t think I can walk. Please let me rest.’

‘Alright. Let me see if I can help your son. Where do you live?’

‘Number 17 just up the street.’

‘Give me your keys. Tašta, you should keep the gun ready.’

Jasna caught his idea. ‘May as well help others if we can’t help ourselves. Yes.’ To the confused children she attempted explanation. ‘Yes, you two, lately the Croats no longer like us Serbs.’

Krasimir was horrified. ‘You mean tata doesn’t like us anymore?’

‘No, no, no, darling. Other Croats don’t like us. Of course your tata still loves you. Just then he left to help another wounded Serb.’

‘But he isn’t staying here to help us?’

‘He’ll come back of course, dear.’

‘You said that about mama and deda.’

‘Yes, I know, dear. We hope they’ll come back. But, yes I must say it, we don’t know yet. I’m sorry.’ She reached over and pulled Milja and Krasimir to her side. Her long hostess party dress found a use; they buried their faces in it.

Jasna talked over their heads to try to calm the lady.

‘Konjić. In northern Herzegovina. That’s our home town,’ Jasna explained to the uninvited guest. ‘Our restaurant there was making good money till the big industrial downturn from, oh, about 1987, wasn’t it? Yeah. And it had to happen. A small step from mass underemployment to mass unemployment. You know? Full-time workers trundling through part-time work. A charade. Fewer and fewer of our customers could afford to eat out. We saw the writing on the wall. So we sold while we still could and moved here to Gospić, in a more agricultural area.’

‘Are you pleased?’

‘We were, until these last few weeks of fighting. But we’re hanging on here, in hope.’

‘And this Boško? He’s a Croat?’

‘Yes. Right. He’s in an ethnically mixed marriage,’ Jasna continued. ‘And goodness, hardly anyone cared about that, why, it seems an age ago, when they married in 1984. We’re here partly because his parents’ potatoes and cabbages farm is just out of town. Boško’s a good catch for my daughter Navenka really. When he was sixteen, in 1978, he felt stifled. He didn’t want a life as a farmer. So he …’

Boom! Closer again. Rubble tumbled outside.

‘Yeah. Anyway, he left this area and went southeast to Konjić to work in the Igman weapons and ammunition factory. He apprenticed as a fitter and machinist. Then fifteen months’ Army conscription. After that, back to Igman. Next he spotted our daughters working as our waitresses. Waitressing’s the only work Navenka’s ever done. At least I can say she’s done that well; her father certainly instilled into her head that pride comes with good service to an appreciative customer. But Boško? Like so many others he lost his job. Now he works mainly for us and, of all places, back on the farm on some days. That’s when he can stand it. It’s sad.’

‘He’s a real stud.’

‘Navenka sure fell for him. She was only seventeen. At first Rajko and I didn’t want the marriage. Boško seemed a bit too dominating and maybe wanting a woman, or girl, he could dominate. And he’s keen on guns and hunting. Navenka can’t stand that; she wouldn’t kill a kitten. She threatened to elope, like so many young Bosnian girls, if Rajko didn’t give his consent. She married just after turning eighteen. They wasted no time; young Kras joined us in the world just eight and a half months later. But, yes. Navenka is ordinary for looks. And brains. And confidence. Her sister is much better in many ways.’ Jasna gulped. ‘Not every way.’

‘Oh. Where is this sister?’

‘Prijedor. You know? In northwest Bosnia. Her husband’s a doctor. Ha. Doctors are never unemployed. She’s done well. They married four years after Navenka did. As a GP, he isn’t making much; that’s what socialist free basic health care does. But his partners are letting him do specialist training part-time in Banja Luka. He’s almost finished it. After that, he’ll rake in the money. And, we hope, they’ll give us some grandchildren.’

‘Were Boško’s parents here this evening.’

Jasna sighed. ‘Well, sure Rajko and I invited them. I mean as a formality. Damned rude of them not even to answer. Anyway, we don’t like them. Boško doesn’t either. Probably never has. His marriage is udao se. That’s what Bosnians call a marriage in which the couple lives with the wife’s parents. We met Boško’s parents at last when we arrived in Gospić. Not a pleasure. Boško’s father Zoran is so, so crass and crude. And his wife Budislavka is so stiff and quiet and cautious about everything. Completely under his thumb. Always he dresses like the most ragged backwoods peasant. As if no new clothes for decades. And her. Every day all dirty and faded black from shoes to shawl. Their farm never changes. Old wood stove. She washes by hand in a tub. They plough with horses. Seems like …’

Boom! ‘Woo.’ Jasna’s tense smile was involuntary.

‘Big one.’

‘Yeah. I was going to say Zoran’s a secretive guy. He talks most when he’s arguing over the prices he wants to screw us with for his vegetables. But Rajko usually wins those stoushes.’

Another boom. More shattering somewhere outside.

Minutes of silence past, until soft but insistent bangs rattled the door.

Who now? ‘Go back upstairs.’ Unheard. The children became like statues breakable in an earthquake. Her finger on the trigger, Jasna shuffled forward.

‘Who’s there?’

‘Mum, it’s me.’

Even then, a trap? Jasna checked through the window. On seeing only her darkened daughter Jasna hurried to let her in. Navenka surged forward, almost collapsing through the doorway.

With release but not yet relief, she whimpered, ‘I was the only woman. They said there was a special order for me.’

Milja and Krasimir spurted toward her. Stopping them abruptly, a loud boom, amplified through the open door, sent a piece of rubble bouncing past them.

‘Come and