Strahinja called last week to tell me that his mother, Zorica, had died.
Zorica, moja Zorica, it has been so many years. It is hard for me to believe that you are gone…
It was 1999, and we had just moved to the Studentski grad neighborhood. This area was part of the blokovi, or projects in Belgrade – a place strongly associated by many as an area where Šatrovački is the speaking style, and hardship is the lifestyle.
My son witnessed his first murder in this neighborhood, and also learned the street smarts of survival. I learned to sense when trouble was about to start or had recently finished. I also learned not to gawk during the in-between. However, the most important lesson I learned was how to live without money. That is the lesson Zorica taught me.
Each day my main goal was to keep my son’s friends outside so we could hide the poverty apparent in our one room apartment – such a joke since everyone knew everyone else’s floor plan. So one day, my son brought home a new friend, Strahinja. A language talent, Strahinja announced to me in perfect English that his mother, Zorica, wanted to meet me.
Within a few days, I was received at Zorica’s apartment, and despite our language barrier – we began to build a friendship.
Zorica’s job had vanished when the pharmaceutical factory where she worked was privatized; the new owners had shipped the equipment overseas to India, displacing hundreds of workers.
My work was infrequent as well; our limited funds brought us together. Zorica knew how this game was played, and another ally put more resources into play.
Lesson One: The Neighborhood Store. We organized our accounts in the “book”, by alternating our purchases. One would catch up on the bill, while the other fell behind – an endless cycle. Naturally, Zorica was also allied with the shop owner - so we had quite a bit of leeway. I still remember the woman telling me that just as long as we don’t steal, a little overextended credit is not a problem.
Lesson Two: Organizing the day. Each morning we had coffee at her place and pooled our resources for the day, planning our strategy for the day. When food supplies became critical, Zorica reached out to the village to stock up the big deep-freeze sitting on the border between her kitchen and the living room. She provided the meat; my funds covered the rest. This was how we fed our boys.
Lesson Three: Utilities. We were sitting in her apartment when the electricity went off. The immediate response to this event was to always try to see if everyone else’s was off. Zorica called out in the hall and was immediately notified that it was just her. She took off as if she had been shot out of a cannon. She returned in about 15 minutes with two employees of the electrical company in tow.
As she plied them with Serbian plum brandy, the workers made it clear that they hated this ugly responsibility. After all, no one could afford electricity, and now suddenly it was being cut off? In the face of this injustice, they had developed a policy of turning off the electricity and waiting to see if anyone showed up in the basement. Zorica’s quick action and clever ways had once again saved the day.
Lesson Four: The most extraordinary lesson in my opinion, was Zorica’s plan for zimnica – pickled winter vegetables along with roasted peppers. Now we are talking about a massive, massive amount of food being put up to last us through the winter months. This mission required precise planning.
Because of protests, buses were not running. We hitchhiked to the large green market that was about 10 kilometres from our neighborhood. We were saving our funds for the actual purchases, and a taxi back home since we would have bags and bags of heavy vegetables.
We made it to the market, and then the real battle was on – the villagers drove hard bargains, but Zorica was not naïve and proved just as cunning. The wheeling and dealing got pretty loud and bitter, but that was nothing compared to the taxi bandits. There was no way we had the small fortune they requested. So we began to hitchhike back home while dragging around massive bags of vegetables. Finally, some workmen with a van took pity on us, and we got back home with our haul.
Over the coming days, Zorica taught me a bit about the procedure for pickling vegetables on a large scale and roasting peppers. Thanks to Zorica, both families made it through that winter.
Eventually, we had to move to another neighborhood. With both families working for survival, we drifted apart. That neighborhood had more or less become of out bounds for my son because of rival groups. Zorica with her strong backbone and constant vigilance ensured that her son was not associated with the elements of the street, but nevertheless moving across certain boundaries could be dangerous for him as well. Zorica and I could barely make it in our own neighborhoods and had little time to journey back and forth. Essentially we lost one another.
I could hear this in her son’s voice when we spoke by phone. He seemed surprised that I could remember so many details about his mother, and my own powerful association with the ziminica that is the lifeblood of the poor in Serbia.
In preparing for her funeral, I put on my old black, lace-up boots that she had given to me so many years ago. I remembering being puzzled at why Zorica wanted to give me these boots. Years later it dawned on me that my son and I wearing tennis shoes through the winter seemed really weird and pathetic to Serbs. As always, Zorica had rescued my family again.
It was cold, snowy, and bitter. However, I stood outside that chapel with great pride that my dear Zorica had such a huge turn-out. Obviously Zorica had touched many, many lives. I could see how many had relied upon her incredible strength over the years.
As we proceeded to the cemetery, I remembered coming with Zorica to visit her parents’ graves. On that day, I never thought I would stand there years later and watch her casket being lowered into the ground.
I hugged her son, and told him we would meet in coming weeks. Then I whispered in his ear that I had on those precious black lace-up boots that his mother had gifted to me so many years ago. He smiled through his tears and said he was sure that would make her happy.
Zorica had just gotten tired. She told her boyfriend that she was going to lie down, but instead she just took a small quick breath and passed from our lives.
Zorica, moja Zorica, it has been so many years. It is hard for me to believe that you are gone…