Part X of A Dairy for Puse continues on March 12, 2016, the latest installment of a mother’s diary to her daughter from 1919 – 1953, capturing a moment of Dalmatia and Dalmatian exile in history.
Start at the beginning with Part I here.
I.
October 27, 1931
Here we are, finally, in the new flat. It is very spacious, but it is very old fashioned. Large, low rooms, small windows, but than again, there is a spacious terrace above the entire Old Catholic church and a lot of greenery in front of it – the park at the hospital walls and a high school in the neighbourhood. Two teachers of the civic school live with us – Miss Kosović and Miss Barani. None of them teaches Puse, except Barani at the civics. Kosović is from Dubrovnik, smooth and moderate in speech, while Barani has a strong personality: impulsive and determined, intelligent and very conscientious, but not even a little of a psychologist. She does not like compromises and the two of us used to have conflicts, but since she stays with us, she is a bit more cautious. So, the other day, we talked about something at the table and my husband argued, that in this case one should show his teeth and not give in!
Of course, Barani immediately accepted it and then they have both taken it against me, as I give in easily and Puse, listening to everything very closely, I can see how she feels sorry for her mother, but still agrees with them.
“Yes, you are right”, says Puse finally and looks right at me somehow with pity, but then she adds: “Oh, dear mother, this is how Puse is”, as if she would say: “Mom, I love you, but I agree with them.” Puse already feels her own temper and she thinks, she needs to follow it. Every now and then, new problems come up. Like for example, she is convinced that if aunt Marica would have been her mother, she would be very religious too. Aunt Marica, my sister is the personification of religiosity, although Puse doesn´t like her too much. But, because aunt Marica is not her mother, religiosity develops to the extent that comes naturally to Puse and her mother does not allow the slightest allusion that might offend this feeling of rising religiosity.
Puse really loves her mother, although many of her principles do not correspond to her way of thinking. For example, her mother is not like many other mothers, who dress their daughters according to the latest trends, nurturing the feminine vanity. Puse is sometimes bothered by this, but.. then again, no one is equal to her mother. Eh, my Puse, there are the riddles that seem unsolvable to you at the moment, but they will actually stay unsolvable for the rest of our lives.
April 2. 1932
It was half past seven and Puse asked me for my permission to go out with Mejra and her mother. Mejra lives above us and she replaces Olympija, Dodi and Roko now. Mejra is one year older than Puse.
“Going for a walk at this hour?”
“Are you not going to let me go? she already resents it.
“I do not understand how people can go out at this hour. You are still children, you have to go to sleep, tomorrow´s school.”
“All right, I won´t go”, Puse blushed from being offended. “Not even with the mother of Mejra you will let me go. But she is a grown woman.., I thought I could go with her?”
“It is not about that, but about the late hour, that is now.”
At that moment, Mejra runs in and says, that they only go to buy something.
“Okay, but be back soon,” I agree.
Yes! As if my permission would be of any worth to her now. Puse has no intention of going any more, she goes to her room and I can hear her sobbing:
“I will become a nun, she won´t let me go with anyone, as if I would walk up and down the square every day.” and deeply hurt, she snuggles under the covers and sighing falls asleep.
Two days later, it was a Sunday and together with Mejra and her mother, she made up for the walk and came home. I go out on the terrace and see some beardless un-roasted Don Juan staring into the windows. To Mejra´s or Puse´s? He is spinning, walking and turning..
That is the first sign for me, that new duties await me.. Yes, Puse starts to leave her little cocoon in which she lived her childhood dream. It is again, one of those insights, that knocks at the heart of the parent: the time has come, when the child is no longer just yours, when life begins to entice and attract them in its natural turbines.
Mom has received an invitation from the school in Trnovača, to be a guest of honor at the exams in Sinj. Puse has heard the news from others and immediately saw her mother trying to leave her behind.
“Good, good,” she says to me, “again, you are going to Sinj and you said nothing, just that you don´t have to take me with you.. Okay, okay, as you wish, when you come back you will see what I will do, you´ll see, you´ll be amazed who will you find in the house..”
“Who?” and I already see the beardless Don Juan.
“You´ll see and will not be allowed to send him away.”
Her being thirteen and her strong temperament have created some fantastic visions in me.
“Who are you going to bring?” now we all ask her curiously, but she won´t say. After a long absurd interrogation, Puse smiles victoriously and ironically lets out:
“Bubi”.
“Bubi? Bubi? and we all burst out laughing. Bubi is the curly dog of aunt Mile.
“Yes, I will bring him and make him a kennel on the terrace, even if you forbid me to do it. I go right away to get my beloved Bubi.”
I never wrote down, that Puse has always loved dogs. Everyone knows this by now, and brings her all kinds of dogs as a gift, candy, china, cloth, but she longs to have living one – one that would jump, run around her, give her a paw and listen to her – so she always asks me, but mom doesn´t want to hear about it, But Puse shall win, because the fear of the beardless Don Juan really upsets her mother.
