THE WITCH

MARINA GUDELJ SELF-TRANSLATED FROM CROATIAN

Znala sam da je Vinko umro prije nego su objavili fotografiju njegova iskrivljenog lica među osmrtnicama. Vjerovala sam da duša umirućeg traži osobu s kojom se želi oprostiti pa se uvuče u ljude koji ju okružuju. Prepoznala sam ga na licima ljudi što su čekali red u pekari. Nisam ga vidjela dva desetljeća i zanimalo me zašto je tražio mene.
Njegova izobličena glava, noge nalik štulama, kralješnica savijena ulijevo. Tridesetak godina stariji od mene, dane je kratio pomažući popu u crkvi kao ministrant, ali bez haljine. Bio mi je skoro prijatelj, po svemu bliži od ostalih seljana. Vidio je pakao.
Govorili su da je nekad bio bistar. Premlad da bi ga ubili Nijemci ili Talijani, dio obećane generacije koja će preživjeti.
Govorili su da će onaj koji pri ukopu mrtvaca uhvati popa za štolu vidjeti gdje će ići duša pokojnika. Vinko je bio previše znatiželjan ili nije vjerovao pričama. Kad su mu sahranjivali pokojnog djeda, zgrabio je resičavi rub svećenikove štole. Kažu da je nakon toga poludio.
Govorili su da je moja baba utopila prvu ženu mog oca. Kazivali su da ju je u snu vabila - tada nisam znala što to znači, da skoči u bunar. Našli su je po postolama koje je ostavila pod bunarom kad je skočila.
Govorili su da se vidi da sam babina mala, da imam zle oči, da šurujem s vilama i pričam sa stokom. Govorili su da sam vještica.
Do svoje desete godine svaki sam vikend provodila na selu. Živjela sam među sprovodima kad bi se sunovratila rodbina čije suze nisam razumjela jer nisam shvaćala kako netko može toliko žaliti ili uopće voljeti nekog koga ja ne volim. Živjela sam među jablanovima i kupinama, hrastovima i bajamima. Gubila sam se po obroncima, u vlažnom lišću i prijateljevala s jednim malim teletom, s Vinkom kojem je moja rodbina branila da mi se približi jer su se bojali da će mi nauditi i s obiljem morskih lica stvorenih u mašti. Događaje otamo teško svrstavam u zbilju. Ni danas nisam sigurna jesu li dio nečeg snovitog, usamljene dječje sanjarije ili je stvarnost tamo doista bila drugačija, obojena, podzemna. Zavlačila sam se u napuštene kuće, izvana zakrčene divljim bršljanom, iznutra vlažne i obrasle mahovinom na dijelovima gdje je otpala žbuka. Ulazak sam doživljavala kao podvodni svijet, carstvo morskog kralja koje se otvaralo preda mnom u svojoj jezi i zanosu. U to sam doba bila opsjednuta svime morskim, gnjavila prijateljice iz grada da se sa mnom igraju dubina, a predvečer gutala epizode Ribljeg redarstva. Inspektor Škrga i pjevačica Anđela. Mala sirena, njezine sestre i vještica. Nije mi bilo važno kakvi su likovi. Željela sam biti svaki od njih. Jednako kao Anđelu, zanosnu i oštećenu, štovala sam Ariel, bajkovitu i nevinu. Među stajama nalazilo se gumno gdje sam jahala na teletu, krsteći ga dupinom, a Vinko se igrao s nama, ričući kako i dolikuje kralju mora.
Osim mene, u selo je dolazilo još samo jedno dijete, dječak kojeg sam viđala u crkvi. Debeo, potrebit, previše voljen. Mrzila sam ga. Uvijek je sjedio između svojih roditelja za koje sam smatrala da ih ne zaslužuje. Njih su se dvoje neprestano gledali, a za Očenaša bi raširili ruke i malim se prstima dodirivali. On bi odole hvatao poglede, uhranjenim očima vrebao majku da ga pogleda. Tada bi ga ona pomilovala po glavi, a otac spustio dlan na njezinu ruku. Željela sam ih za sebe.
Nakon mise odlazili smo u staru kuću gdje je živjela tatina mama i tamo joj, uz kolač od višanja - pekao se svake nedjelje - prenosili tko je bio u crkvi. Kuća je mirisala po papru i kvasini, a baka po šeriju. Ponekad bi društvo bilo šire, pa bi se rođaci iz grada podsmjehivali popu. Don Miro, teatar zatočen u čovjeku. Ponašao se kao glumac, mlatio rukama, neprestano mijenjao naočale, čas za na blizu, čas za daleko, govorio o zvijezdama, recitirao Ujevića. Ne pamtim da sam nakon toga viđala ljude da se tako grleno smiju nekom čovjeku. Kao da gledaju nastup komičara. S njima sam se smijala i ja, oponašajući njihov smijeh kako sam nekada pratila nasnimljeni smijeh u tv serijama kada nisam znala čitati. Smijala se i Neda, razroka, neudana sestra mog oca, također samo zvukom, ne očima, ne grlom, nipošto srcem. Noću je čitala don Mirove pjesnike, a danju pratila vijesti na televiziji. U rijetkim trenutcima kad je napuštala kuću, ja sam se uvlačila u njezinu sobu i sa srcem u petama čitala bilježnice ispunjene divljim stihovima želje. Tamo sam prvi put vidjela riječi kao što su hlepnja, pomama, stegna. Imala je knjige iz filozofiije skrivene pod krevetom i dvije grančice spojene u raspelo iznad jastuka. Prijateljevala je s Ankom koja je uvijek vonjala po spaljenim svinjskim dlakama i subotom ujutro prodavala kobasice na pazaru u Splitu. U don Mirovoj je blizini hroptala i rumenjela.
Tele koje smo imali voljela sam više nego ijednog čovjeka. Noću sam se iskradala do pojata, odvezivala tele i lunjala s njim po puteljcima obraslima dračom i spavala s glavom na njegovoj glavi, na slami. Nekad sam ulazila i u tuđe staje, plela konjima pletenice, gutala mlijeko ravno iz krave, ljubila janjad, uznemiravala pse.
Majka nije znala za milost. Ne sjećam se kako je točno išlo. Znam da je stalno ponavljala da nam treba para i da je baba ionako prestara za baviti se stokom. Sve će poklati i prodati.
Baba je pokušavala utišati moje vriskove. Seljani su me se bojali. Tražili su majku, nastojali je urazumjeti.
„Poštedi tele, Matilda, ako Boga znaš“, molili su kroz moje jecaje. Čak i susjed Mirko koji nije razgovarao ni sa kim i čija se žena objesila. Pa njegov brat, lovac, čiji su psi lavežom pratili moje krikove. Anka, tetka Neda, susjeda Kata što je čistila crkvu.
Mislila sam da to rade jer me vole, a oni su u kužinama šaptali da je crn znak kada vištica plače. Palio se tamjan i škropila sveta voda. Sjedila sam na starim turskim stepenicama pred kućom i na sav glas žalila. Vinko je sjedio pored mene i oponašao moje krikove.
Ubili su tele. Završila sam u bolnici skupa s majkom. Ja zbog šoka i dehidracije, ona jer si je odsjekla šaku. Nikad me više nakon toga nije pogledala. Babi je rekla da joj je neka žestoka sila gonila ruku.
Dva dana nakon klanja tuča je uništila sav nasad u selu. Životinje je zahvatila bolest kojoj nisu mogli naći uzroka. Nitko više nije šaptao. Proklinjali su mater za ono što je učinila, a kad bi se našli u mojoj blizini, pružali su rogove.
Otac koji je dotad živio među sjenama, opsjednut sjećanjem na prvu ženu, sada je još više potonuo. Jedva me vidio, a pogled mu je stalno padao na mjesto gdje je majka nekoć imala dlan. Što je njegova tišina bila duža to su njezini zahtjevi bili učestaliji. Tražila je da joj previja batrljak iako je znala da mu se gadi. Morao ju je voziti do prijateljice, do kume, dodavati šalice iz najvišeg kredenca. Meni se obraćala iz pristojnosti, kao da sam poznanica koju je slučajno susrela u kazalištu.
I dalje su me vodili na selo i puštali me da radim što želim. Vinka više nisu tjerali, sada je sam bježao od mene jer me se bojao. Bolno sam željela roditelje onoga dječaka. Nedjeljom bi mi oči zasuzile dok bih ih gledala s dna crkve, a kad bi svi kleknuli, klečala sam i ja, želeći nestati jer su provirivali kroz sklopljene ruke da vide pružam li jezik ili rogove na hostiju.
Nesreću s dječakom nisam planirala. Oranice na suprotom kraju sela zvali su Stankove njive. Tamo, među suhozidima, postojala je zelena bara prekrivena vodenom travom što se sluzavo njihala na površini. Tu sam običavala sjediti. Dječak je naišao sam i niotkuda. Potrčala sam mu ususret i stala ga udarati. Njegova me nemoć razjarivala. Dogurala sam ga do bare. Stvarno ga nisam namjeravala ugušiti, željela sam ga samo malo zaplašiti.
Vinko, koji me pratio, podigao je galamu. Dječak se nagutao vode, ali je ostao živ. Mene nikad više nisu poveli na selo.
Čula sam da je nekoliko godina poslije toga događaja dječakova majka umrla, a malo nakon toga vidjela sam mu oca u gradu s drugom ženom. Javio mi se kao da mu nisam pokušala ubiti sina i rekao mi da život pripada živima, misleći pritom na novu ženu. Sramežljivo sam kimnula premda nikad u sebi nisam našla jednostavnosti za razumjeti tu misao.
U gradu sam zaboravila na procvale voćnjake i drskost prirode. Nisam dolazila kad je umrla baba, ni kad su tetku Nedu našli da visi iza kuće na bajamu.
Tek od jednog susreta mi je tijelo zazujalo kad sam na stajalištu autobusa ugledala nepoznatu ženu plavičaste kose. Izgledala je kao djetinjstvo, kao mašta, kao nemoguće, kao bezbrižnost. Uzvratila mi je pogled i prije nego sam se snašla, nestala. Bio je to jedini put u dvadeset godina da sam se poželjela vratiti tamo.
Stigla sam na groblje taman kad su spuštali Vinkov lijes. Probila sam se do groba kako bi svima omogućila pogled na sebe. Znala sam zašto me tražio. U gradu nisam mislila na vradžbine, ali ovdje, među opustjelim njivama, dračom i mirisom vlažne zemlje kroz moju je kožu opet zakolala magija sela. Željela sam im je pokazati. Raširila sam ruke, stopalima se otisnula o pod i podigla se visoko u zrak.
by Marina Gudelj
The story “Vještica,” translated here in English as “The Witch,” first appeared in the collection Fantomska bol (Phantom Pain). It’s the story I am most attached to in the collection and that is the most autobiographical, despite being full of fantastical elements.

The village in the story is unnamed, but is in fact my grandmother’s village, a tiny little town in the Dalmatian hinterland where, when I was a child, we visited my mother’s mother on the weekends. That was where I was exposed to various beliefs and superstitions, where I was surrounded by stories that were perceived as real. As soon as we drove into the village, my aunt would turn my undershirt inside out to protect me from evil spells. Everyone in the village knew exactly who the witch was, and I was not allowed to approach her or accept her gifts (sweets or eggs). Although in my mind I accepted all of this as true, I was not afraid, only intrigued; the stories were extensions of my own wild imagination that had already been awakened by the ocean and its creatures. Later, at university, I recorded all these beliefs for a course that assigned students to collect folk tales. Almost all of the fantastical details of “The Witch,” barring the very end, come from those stories. People truly believed them, or so they say.
Marina Gudelj (b. 1988 in Split) holds a degree in Croatian language and literatures from the University of Zadar. She has written for as long as she can remember and begun publishing in the last few years. Her work has been published in a variety of journals and online platforms and placed in numerous competitions. Her debut short story collection Fantomska bol (Phantom Pain), published in 2020, was nominated for multiple awards. Her novel Nedovršena (Unfinished) appeared on Hena.com in 2021 and became a frontrunner for the prestigious T-portal award in Croatia, granted annually to the best novel. She runs a literature blog called Straničnik, where she publishes stories that (generally) fit on a single page. She lives in Split, where she is a lecturer in Croatian language. Her free time is spent more unpredictably.

I knew Vinko had died even before a photo of his disfigured face appeared among the obituaries. I believe that a dying person’s soul searches for people they want to say goodbye to and sneaks into those who are near. I recognized him in the faces of the people in line at the bakery. I hadn’t seen him in two decades and was curious why he was looking for me.

His head was deformed, his legs stilt-like, and his spine curved to the left. Some thirty years older than me, he’d passed his days helping a priest as an altar boy of sorts, but without a robe. He was something like a friend to me, more than any of the other villagers. He’d seen hell.

They said he’d once been bright. Too young to be killed by the Germans or Italians and part of the generation that would survive.

They said that a person who touches the priest’s robe during a burial would see where the soul of the deceased went. Vinko either couldn’t resist or didn’t believe in those stories. When his late grandfather was being buried, he grabbed the fringed hem of the priest’s robe. After that, everyone thought he’d lost his mind.

They said that my grandmother drowned my father’s first wife. They claimed she lured her – I didn’t know what that meant at the time – while she was sleeping, to the well. They found her shoes near the well where she’d left them before she jumped.

They said that I was my grandmother’s child, that I have the evil eye, that I scheme with fairies and talk to cattle. They said I was a witch.

Until my tenth birthday, I spent weekends in the countryside. Life revolved around funerals, where the rest of the family would fall to pieces and I didn’t understand their tears because I couldn’t fathom how someone could grieve over or even love someone I didn’t. I lived among poplars and wild blackberries, oaks and almond trees. I would get lost in the hills and in the damp leaves. I made friends with Vinko (whom my family feared and wanted me to stay away from), with a little calf, and with a host of imaginary sea characters.

Even now, it’s difficult for me to think of those days as reality. Were they part of some dreamy, lonely child’s fantasy? Or was reality truly different then—vibrant, colorful, otherworldly somehow? I sneaked into abandoned cottages shrouded in ivy, their insides damp and covered in moss. I would pretend they were underwater worlds, empires of a sea king that opened before me in all their eerie enchantment. At the time, I was obsessed with everything connected to the sea; I pestered my girlfriends from the city to play sea-depths, and in the evenings I devoured episodes of Fish Police. Inspector Gil and the singer Angel. The Little Mermaid, her sisters, and the witch. It didn’t matter who the characters were. I wanted to be every single one of them. I loved the captivating and desperate Angel as much as magical, naive Ariel. There was a threshing floor between the stables where I used to ride the little calf, pretending it was a dolphin. Vinko would play with us, roaring like a proper sea king.

Apart from me, there was only one other child who visited the village, a boy I saw in church. Fat, needy, showered with love. I hated him. He always sat between parents I thought he didn’t deserve. The two looked constantly at each other and during the prayer of Our Father they would stretch their arms behind the boy’s back and touch their pinky fingers together. The boy would throw blank, hawkish glances, his eyes fixed on his mother, waiting for her to look his way. Then she would pat the boy on the head and the father would place his hand on hers. I wanted them for myself.

After mass, we would go to the old house where my dad’s mother lived and there, over cherry pie baked every Sunday, we gossiped about church. The kitchen smelled of pepper and yeast, and grandma smelled of sherry. Sometimes relatives from the city would join us and mock the priest. Father Miro was a theater trapped inside a man. He behaved like an actor at church, waving his arms, endlessly changing his glasses—near-sighted, far-sighted, near again—preaching about constellations, reciting Ujević’s poems. I never again heard such guttural laughter at someone else’s expense. As if they were watching a stand-up comedian. I laughed with them, echoing them, as I used to do when I couldn’t read the subtitles on TV and instead followed along with the laugh tracks. Neda, my father’s unmarried, cross-eyed sister laughed, too, but only with her voice—not with her eyes, not with her throat, and by no means with her heart. Nights she read the poems Father Miro had recited, and days she watched the news on television. On the rare occasion she left the house, I would sneak into her bedroom and, with my heart in my throat, read her journals, which were filled with wild verses of desire. There, for the first time, I saw the words urge, passion, and groin. There were philosophy books hidden under the bed and two twigs in the shape of a crucifix hanging above her pillow. She was friends with Anka, who always smelled of burnt pig’s hair and sold sausages at the Saturday morning market in Split. In Father Miro’s presence, her breathing grew labored and she blushed.

Our little calf I loved more than any human. I’d slip out at night, untie the calf, and we’d moon around on the bramble paths or sleep with my head against his, in the straw. Sometimes I went into other people’s stables, braided the horses’ hair, guzzled milk straight from the cows’ udders, kissed the lambs, and roused the dogs.

But Mother had no mercy. I still have no idea how it all happened. I know she kept saying we needed money and that grandma was too old anyway to keep cows. She would slaughter them and sell off the meat.

Grandma tried to silence my screams. The villagers were afraid of me. They came looking for my mother, trying to reason with her.

“Spare the calf, Matilda, for the love of God,” they begged through my sobs. Everyone, even our neighbor Mirko, who never spoke to anyone and whose wife had hanged herself. And then his brother joined in, a hunter whose dogs howled along with my screams. Then Anka, Aunt Neda, our neighbor Kata who used to clean the church.

I thought they were standing up for me, that they cared for me, but in their kitchens they whispered that a witch’s cries were a bad omen. They burned incense and sprinkled holy water. While I sat for days on the old Turkish stairway outside the house loudly grieving, Vinko sat beside me and matched my every whimper.

She killed the calf. I ended up in the hospital together with my mother. I was suffering from shock and dehydration. And my mother, she’d cut off her hand while slaughtering the calf. After that, she never looked at me again. She told grandma that some violent force had taken possession of her arm.

Two days later, an ice storm destroyed all the crops in the village. The animals fell ill, a strange disease that no vet could diagnose. Nobody whispered anymore. Now they yelled curses at my mother for what she’d done, and when they were near me, they threw their hands up in devil’s horns.

My father, who had been living among shadows, obsessed with the memory of his first wife, now sank even deeper into despair. He barely noticed me, and when he looked at my mother, his eyes fell to where her hand had been. The longer his silences grew, the more her commands multiplied. She insisted that he bandage her stump even though she knew it disgusted him. She asked him to drive her to her friends’ place or to the store and always pestered him to reach for the mugs on the top shelf of the cupboard. Meanwhile, with me, she spoke only as a formality, as though I was an acquaintance she’d run into at the theater.

They continued taking me to the countryside and leaving me to my own devices. No one had to chase Vinko away from me now; he ran off on his own because he was afraid of me.

I wanted that church boy’s parents so bad. On Sundays my eyes would fill with tears as I watched them from the back of the church, and when everyone knelt, I knelt too, praying to disappear because they were peeking at me past their folded hands to see if I was sticking out my tongue or showing the devil’s horns to the eucharist.

The incident with the boy wasn’t planned. The ploughlands on the far side of the village were called Stanko’s field. There, hemmed in by a stone retaining wall, was a green pond covered in slimy grass. After the calf’s death, I used to sit by it. One day, the boy appeared there out of nowhere. I sprung to my feet, ran over and started hitting him. His weakness enraged me. I pushed him toward the pond. I had no intention of drowning him, I only wanted to scare him a little.

Vinko, who followed me to the pond that day, made a big fuss. The boy had swallowed a lot of water, but he was alive.

I was never brought to the village again.

I heard that, several years later, the boy’s mother died, and shortly afterwards I saw his father in the city with another woman. He greeted me as if I hadn’t almost killed his son and told me that life belongs to the living, perhaps in reference to his new wife. I nodded shyly, but never managed to find the simplicity of mind to understand that thought.

In the city I forgot all about the blooming orchards and nature’s arrogance. I didn’t visit when grandma died, nor after aunt Neda was found hanging from an almond tree behind the house.

But then, a single accidental encounter made my body tingle: when I caught sight of an unfamiliar blue-haired woman at a bus stop. She looked like my childhood, like my imagination, like something impossible, like carelessness. She glanced back at me and, before I knew it, disappeared. It was the first time in twenty years that I’d wanted to return.

On the day of Vinko’s funeral, I arrived just as the coffin was being lowered into the grave. I made my way to the grave so that everyone could see me. I finally knew why his soul was searching for me. In the city, I never thought about witchcraft, but here, among the desolate fields, the brambles, and the smell of wet soil, my skin crawled again with magic. I wanted to show it to them. I spread my hands, stamped my feet into the earth, and lifted myself high into the air.