GRACIJELA PUTINA THE SUPERB STORYTELLER FROM ROVINJ, CROATIA.

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Biography: Gracijela Putina was born in Croatia on August 17, 1964. (Brajkovići,Kanfanar-Istria) where she still lives. She graduated from the "Faculty of Education in Rijeka - teaching activities in Pula". She has worked: in nurseries and kindergartens, on radio and TV, in publishing, in insurance companies and in parallel: she has cared for the infirm in orphanages or in their homes, and has worked in a family restaurant since early childhood. She is a member of HSK - Croatian Parliament of Culture. Her poem ERO UNA MARIA MADDALENA was declared the most beautiful love song in 2020 in Italy. She has been retired since 2014. and ever since she spents days painting, playing, singing, making photographs, recording and recycling various materials in the house of her childhood that is surrounded by many pets, fruits, vines and flowers. It was discovered as a poem in elementary school. She participates in various events in the country and abroad.

NOVELET BY GRACIJELA PUTINA
SAFE AND SOUND
Novel written by: Gracijela Putina It was the year 1980. She was from Kuntrade, and he was from Rovinjsko Selo. She was 16 and he was 19. Every morning they would take the same bus, she would go to school and he would go to work. She remembered watching him all the time. He was Mercedes’ neighbour, an Mercedes used to go to the same school with her, same class. Later they were even desk mates. That young man’s name was Bruno, and his hair was so gorgeous, thick and curly, a bit longer. Beautiful full lips, smooth skin, long eye lashes and thick eyebrows. He worked on a boat that transported workers and tourists from the Small pier (in the center of Rovinj to St. Catherine’s Island.) During communism, there was no place for saints so they called it Catherine’s Island. One morning they agreed that she would come downtown so they would have lunch together in the “Brancin” restaurant. And this is how it went. He had food stamps. He was sitting just across the sea but he was timidly looking at her. She had nowhere else to look so she looked into her plate or Him. Oh, he was so beautiful to her! When they finished eating, she left some food on her plate, and he took her fork. He pushed all the remaining food on one side of the plate and said gently: “See – when you can’t eat up everything, you should leave it on one side neatly. It’s so much nicer. “ And he smiled at her. His teeth were beautiful – white and long. She remembers that even today, every time she can’t finish all the food on her plate!

One day, during the usual bus ride, they agreed to meet in the “Batel” bar, near the fish market in Rovinj, in a narrow and dark alley. The both smoked, God forbid anyone saw her smoking. That bar had a bad reputation – people said only drug addicts went there. But what other choice did they have? She had apricot juice and whipped cream. They smoked and chatted softly, with his arms around her. Her heart was racing. She was afraid that someone could recognize her. That would really get her into trouble. She kept saying: “Don’t! Stop!” You know how it goes in Istria: “Mum, Toni won’t leave me alone!” His brother worked in the municipality office, 100 meters from the bar! There were only several such dates. She had to come from school on time. She helped her brother with the kids and did all the work at home. They had a tavern, a lot of land and a devil at home – her sister-in-law. So, one week when she had classes in the afternoon, she told her sister-in-law: “ If I don’t get to come at 7 pm, I’ll take the next bus. We have some late classes this evening.” She wasn’t brave enough to tell her mother so she told her sister-in-law. When she was done with her classes, she didn’t take the 7 o’clock bus and went to the cinema with Bruno instead. The film started at 8.30 pm, and her last bus was at 9.15 They watched the film for about half an hour, because she couldn’t stay longer than that. When they came out of the cinema, it was raining. It was spring, March. She was wearing a pair of new grey, cheap moccasins she bought in Trieste. These was a third pair of new shoes she had in her entire life. She got her first pair when she was 9. From Trieste. The second pair – white, Yugoslavian, plastic - for her first communion. So, the two of them, running from “Belgrade” cinema to the bus station. It’s near, 100 meters maybe, but when they got there, they were the only ones there, wet and without an umbrella. She told him not to stay close to her. She was embarrassed – what would people say to see her standing near a young man alone and at that hour. And she was even more afraid that her brother would come. After five minutes, Bruno told her: “Your brother is coming”. He knew who his brother was. She told him to stop jinxing. As she was saying that, her brother approached them – he was 10 years older and very jealous of her. He looked at her, and said: “What are you doing here?” “I’m waiting for the bus.” “Go home now!” So she went like a puppy, walking right in front of him, to the square where his car was parked – a Renault 4. On their way home, he told her that he would say all about it to her mother and father if it happens again before she graduated from college. He was so angry and kept scolding her. She was silent the whole time. When she came home, she immediately washed her hands and went to sleep in her room. She saw a light coming through the door glass. She heard heavy steps coming up the stairs and the wooden floor cracking. Her brother opened the door, switched on the light and said: “It will happen never again! Aren’t you ashamed of yourself! Never again! Next time I’m telling mother and father.” He forgot that his wife was living with him in the flat in Pula when they were both 16. He forgot that a year before that another woman had given birth to his children – triplets. Aquarius people have double standards. Thank God his wife told him that night: “If you’re going to Rovinj, check if you sister is at the bus station, she didn’t catch the 7 o’clock bus.” You know, women who get to experience all kinds of thing by the age of 16, and have relationships with several men at the same time, and get to marry the wealthiest of them all, women who are narcissistic (sociopath and psichopat) cannot bear to see someone young, beautiful and in love. And when my sister-in-law got married (or should we say – got pregnant) who would look after her? She would lose her child minder!

Let’s go back to Bruno. He had a room at his father’s place in Rovinj. His parents were divorced. In the morning she would come and wake him up. One morning, he threw her on the bed, and as he was standing above her with his hands on her wrists and said: “Now I can do whatever I want with you.” He was looking right into her eyes. She was begging him: “Stop scaring me, please.” He laughed and said : “ You know I wouldn’t do it, but I could …” On the night stand there was a radio her grandfather bought her for 200 dinars from a neighbour who lived in Paris. He used to sell stolen goods here. But, this radio never worked so she took it to Bruno’s place to see if he could fix it. It might be still there.

She started a new school year in the grammar school and Bruno went to serve the military in Subotica-Serbia. The wrote each other letters. His letters would come to the grammar school, in a wooden crate. She kept checking if there was any letter for her. She was scared that someone would take her letter. She lived for that day, and was so impatient to receive her first letter. She had some scissors in her pencil case so she could cut one end of the envelope. And so that day came, and her first letter. She was running to the bus station, and on her way there was the new clinic. She entered the clinic and went to the toilet, locking the door. She was so excited while she was reading her first love letter. Her heart was racing. Bruno sent her rhymed poems, too. After some time, he wrote that he didn’t intend “to cling onto one woman”, that he was still young and that he didn’t wan to fully commit. During his leave he was seduced by his neighbour in Rovinjsko Selo. Today she is a respectable notary public and whenever I see her I tell her that I would kick her ass for that, And she laughs. She is divorced and maybe she doesn’t know what love is, but she surely don't knows that our first son was to be named Bruno… (I learned about Bruno and her 20 years later!) I immediately understood that something happened when I was sitting in the last seat on the bus, where Bruno was supposed to pass by through the back door, and when he passed me by he said “Ciao” and moved on. And he moved on! He didn’t stop and didn’t sit near me. He went to sit in the middle part on the left. I better not tell how I felt. I have kept it inside for 50 years. Never told a living soul about it.

On the 28th May, my brother and sister-in-law with two distinguished attorneys from Rovinj and my neighbour who works as a social welfare officer took me to a madhouse in Pula and after 8 days “with my approval” they took me to the madhouse on Rab. The papers say that I drink, that I walk around in my pyjamas, that I cannot live alone and that my brother helps me with everything… None of it is true! Thank God I know that a large wealth was left after my parents died and that they wanted to leave me out of it. The best way to do it is to say that someone is mad and take away working capacity.

On Rab I was enclosed in the worst department, the so called ''Pais''. The boss there was the doctor that got killed a couple of years ago. After 5 days they put me in a department where I was free to go out, to walk into the yard . That madhouse was not as bad as it seemed We slept on rubber mattresses, in those rooms without any aircondition on 35 degrees, and without a whiff of fresh air. Near our building, there was another one on the right and 2,3 of them on the left. In the one on the left there was a forensic department where one day I came across Bruno! So we sat there on the bench and talked. When he got his retirement money (100 kunas), he would get me a chocolate that we would eat together. There was a shop in the yard. I thought he was in the department for alcoholics, that he started drinking, but no. Bruno had a small house near the sea in Rovinj. He had no running water, but he had all the rest. He made a barn for his goats with his own hands and he had many beautiful, healthy goats. He had a dog and many books about God. He started building a house and when he finished the roof, the woman he was living with wanted to get rid of him and she reported him for raping the neighbour (she was an accomplice). Bruno never did such a thing, but the papers said GUILTY. They are still both living and well in Rovinj. When I told Marcela (that was living with Bruno) that she needs to come and get Bruno on Rab, she venomously said: “I would never ever come and get him”. And she spat all over herself. She killed all the goats when Brun went to Rab and ruined everything. She only cared about the house near the sea, and wears a large cross around her neck and keeps talking about God.

So, after two and a half months I went home and I’m still well. I got a retirement pay for disabled persons, while Bruno was transferred as homeless to a home for adults with mental illnesses in Sveta Nedelja Nedešćina, in his native Istria, and the state gives him a small welfare aid. Sometimes Bruno calls me, and sometimes I call him. I write postcards for hi, I send him mobile phone vouchers, and I send him packages for his birthday and New Year. He has always been careful with money, and it’s ''easy for me''.

We are both marked with our crazy families that made us unhappy. I didn’t visit him in Sveta Nedelja, but when the newspaper is printed I will go and give him the magazine. It could be around November when it’s his birthday.

What is left is our correspondence (that my mother tore to small pieces), a poem, a platonic love an eternal friendship and one of Bruno’s tears in the book where it will all be written, and Bruno will read, read, and read. I know him best.

What is most important – Bruno and me forgave everybody and we are both safe and sound! Alive and well!