ClosingTheKrasniGoraClosing the Krasni Gora The hour was late when the teenaged bartender ushered the last group of drunken patrons out the door. As usual, the crowd was quite loud, but extremely jovial. Amusingly so. The Krasni Gora Cafe generally left its guests in good spirits, in more ways than one. Fine home cooked food, pleasant music and friendly conversation were the norm for the local watering hole in the village of Uzice, tucked away as it was in a valley in the Pritskje Mountains of Srebija. The tall, lanky bartender might have been young, but he joked and laughed with the regulars as if he'd known them all his short life. In fact, he had. Goran Vladic had grown up in this cafe. Ulan Maskarac, Goran's grandfather, had opened the business and nurtured it with love and patience, growing it from the seed of an idea to the flowering success that it had become. Fifteen years after its founder's death, the Krasni Gora was still in the family and just as successful. It was now run by Ulan's two children - Nadia Vladic, Goran's mother (or majka as it was in Srebijan), and her younger brother Karloff. And Goran, of course. Goran waved to the departing guests and locked the door behind them, flipping over the 'Closed' sign. Nadia had already cleared several tables. She swept the beer mugs into a bin efficiently, never cracking a one, then wiped the tables down with a wet soapy cloth. Goran took up his place behind his mother, skillfully snatching up chairs, tossing them up by their backs, and flipping them upside-down onto the tables in one fluid motion. One-handed. It was a feat of juggling that he'd practiced ever since he'd grown tall enough to manage it. Nadia chuckled at her son's antics. Though the skill might have seemed trivial to most, the petite brunette's pride in her only son shone in her wide but weary smile. "You have that now, don't you?" she observed. "Shh. You'll mess me up," the lad said, never taking his eyes off his next chair. Flip! One more and he had finished the table. "You were in good voice tonight," Goran complimented his mother as he moved to the next table. "Thank you," she replied, pleased that he'd noticed. "I thought I'd try some older songs I hadn't played in a while. They felt like old friends." "They were lovely," Goran agreed. Nadia played the gusle, a single-stringed instrument similar in shape to a violin or a mandolin, which was native to Srebija. Most Srebijan guslars were men, but Nadia had learned to play at her father's knee. She had become far more proficient than her brother, whose talents were mechanical rather than musical. She enjoyed singing the traditional old songs, which were more like epic folktales set to music. Her sweet, clear soprano, accompanied by the intricate rhythms of her instrument, was one of the prime reasons people came to the Krasni Gora from miles around. Tonight, as she said, she had chosen several older pieces, including one she had written herself. "The Bearded Traveler" was a romantic ballad about a brief but passionate love, lost to the ages when the traveler went on his way. "He'll return again someday," the heroine sang in the refrain as she continued to live her life, stopping at times to reflect on what might have been. Goran knew "The Bearded Traveler" to be autobiographical. As pretty as the song was, it bothered him. "What made you do 'Traveler' tonight?" he asked as he picked up a chair. Nadia knew her son too well not to catch the edge in his voice that he had tried to hide. She shrugged. "No reason," she said lightly as she wiped down another table. "I was in the mood for it." "Why?" he persisted. She looked up from her work into her son's blue eyes, so like his father's. She smiled at him maternally, noticing again how tall he'd recently become. "You've had a growth spurt," she commented. Her reply did not seem like an answer to Goran. His brows knit in confusion. "Uh... yeah. So?" "So? So?," she teased, poking him in the stomach playfully. "So you look like him. It made me think of him. That's all." Goran smiled uncomfortably and turned around to pick up another chair. "And that bothers you, eh?" Nadia said softly to her son's back. How does she know me so well, thought Goran as he paused with a heavy sigh. "Yes," he muttered, his chair falling a little harder onto the table than it was meant to. "Why?" she asked, turning the tables on him to answer. Goran turned around and looked at her queerly. "Why shouldn't it? He left you," he answered irritably, as though this point should have been obvious. "As I knew he would," Nadia countered calmly. This response did nothing to ease Goran's confusion. "And... that doesn't bother YOU?" Nadia giggled at her son's befuddlement. She reached out to take both his hands in hers. "Come, my liska. Sit." Goran did as he was told, sitting next to his majka at a table near the front window. Nadia gazed up at him before she spoke, brushing a curly lock of auburn hair out of his eyes. He didn't flinch. "Yes, my love. You look like your father," she said gently. "I will say it and say it again because it makes me happy to do so. You have his eyes. His height. His strength. You have my nose, though. I had to give you something," she grinned. Goran smiled too. Majka's broad grin had always been infectious. Nadia stroked his cheek tenderly. "You have his smile. No! Don't let it fade!" she said as he tried to hide it. "That is the smile I love. And you have his hair. Sort of. That's a mix. His was lighter. And redder, but you have some of the red." She reached up to touch his hair again, but this time he caught her hand. "No, Maj. I don't want to be like him. He left you with a child --" "That he didn't know I had," she interrupted. "But that doesn't matter --" "But it does, liska," she said more firmly, placing a finger to his lips to still his protests. "It does." She paused to assure his silence, then continued. "Bayard made me happy, Goran. It is that simple. He was kind to me. He made me feel loved. And beautiful." Goran could not imagine anyone thinking his majka was NOT beautiful, with her grey eyes, tousled brown hair and high cheekbones. "But you are..." Goran protested. "Shh! Shh!" she shushed him, then smiled. "I know, liska. I know. But a woman, she sometimes likes to be told that," she smiled coyly. "A woman likes to feel like a queen sometimes, and Bayard knew how to do that. He knew how to make a woman feel like the only woman on earth. And I enjoyed that. But at the same time, I was not stupid. I knew he would not stay." A look came over Goran's face with which Nadia was quite familiar, having seen it on Karloff's more than once at the mention of Bayard. "No, Goran. Nor was I a harlot. He was here for several weeks. We enjoyed our time together, but both of us, we knew it would not last. He was foreign. He had important ties elsewhere, he said. Family Business. You know how that is." Goran looked skeptical, but remained silent. She covered his hand on the table. "I loved him, Goran. I love him still. I will always love Bayard, but I know it can never be. "What makes me happy is the gift he did not realize he left for me." She looked intently into Goran's eyes. "You, Goran. You are my gift. You remind me every day of what it feels like to be loved and... and special. Even here." She waved at the little restaurant dismissively. "So please. Please don't hate him, for I do not." Goran was silent, staring at his hands on the table. His majka had never spoken with him this intimately about his long-lost father. It made him feel strange. Older, perhaps. As if she were trusting him for the first time with grown-up secrets and feelings that she'd never before dared to share. "Do you really think he'll come back?" Goran asked in a voice that was barely above a whisper. Nadia thought about that. "I don't know," she finally answered honestly. "I would like to think so. I would welcome him if he did. But like in the song -- I will hope, but I cannot wait. I have too much to do," she smiled wistfully. Goran gazed out the window toward Kalic Pass, where the winding mountain road led out of their valley toward the city of Pristina, then on to the world beyond. He wondered if he would recognize his father if he ever set eyes on him, or if they would pass on the street each unknown to the other. He wondered if Bayard ever would come back. Nadia left her son to his thoughts and stared out the window as well. For her, that familiar gap in the hills meant something different. It was where she had last seen her Bayard ride away, astride a great roan stallion. It seemed to Nadia that he had faded away in a curtain of crystal before he should have been out of sight, but that was something she had never told anyone, not even in song. It was certainly nothing more than girlish romance that had made her see it so. To think otherwise would be foolish. "Could he flip chairs?" Goran's question snapped Nadia out of her reverie. When she looked up, he was smirking at her mischievously. She returned his sly smirk. "One-handed," she grinned. |
