Life with the black demon. Sandra Pasic

father, whom dear God chose to take for himself. My father was alive, but I was miserable because of it.

      Few nights before we moved out, some man and my father were sitting in the living room, drinking. My father was very drunk. There were various weapons, rifles, bullets, bombs and other firearms in front of them. He played with a bomb ring, saying he would kill us all. It was a game for him. Until then, I had never felt greater fear and panic. Mother was terrified, and that man told him not to play with such things, because it was life-threatening. Naturally, my father always hated when someone told him what to do or what not to do, so he got even angrier and cursed. He went out on the balcony and fired his rifle, and threw a bomb from the balcony in the middle of the night. The neighbourhood was terrified and fearful. The police did not come, not even to warn him for harassing the neighbourhood. When that hell was over, we were all still alive, thank God.

      The day of our moving also came. Terrible feeling. It was very difficult feeling for me. What I regretted the most was what I was leaving behind. Although, in 1997, I was a little girl, barely nine years old, I had a crush. He was a little black-haired boy who, naturally, didn’t even notice me. Father and mother were packing our stuff in the flat, and we helped them with that. He took down everything that could possibly be removed from the flat. The flat we moved out of was left in very poor condition.

      I thought the new address would be some new turning point in life, maybe a happy start or a change for the better. Unfortunately, our hell continued. We moved to the address ‘Ceravacka hills no. 12’, to a huge house with two floors, plus an attic belonging to a Serb. We lived on the first floor, actually, the ground floor. The Ogresevic family also lived in that house. They had three children, two boys and a little girl. On the one hand, I was happy because they were kids of my age. We often played behind the house with mud and cans that we found in the rubbish or secretly took from the house.

      I always thought that I had a normal life and that everything that happened to me, the beatings and turmoil was normal and that everyone lived like that. It was something natural for me, because I didn’t know of a different kind of life. It was only then that I realised that I was wrong, because these children, my neighbours, received tenderness, love and attention from their parents every day, even without beatings, and I realised it was them who were truly happy. It was then that I realised that there are good and bad fathers. We, my sister, brother and I were not hungry. My father provided us with food, sometimes even bought toys, but I was not happy. I didn’t want toys, I didn’t want anything, just love and attention like the other kids had. Every time I saw a happy couple walking down the street, or children being hugged by their parents, who cuddled and looked after them, jealousy awoke in me. Mum was not allowed to kiss or hug us, her own children, in his presence, because his reaction would be violent. She would hug us when my father was not there.

      One day, dad got a call to report for serving a prison sentence. They were preparing us for this news for days. Our father told us that he was drunk in a tavern and that a man, also a drunk, had insulted him. My father had a gun in his pocket. He said he pulled the trigger and fired a bullet, wounding the man. Earlier, my mother told me that my father had spent nine years in prison. He was also in the Correctional Facility in Zenica.

      Mum’s sister lived in the USA. My parents planned for us to go there with her husband. We even received a letter of guarantee which we were supposed to go to Zagreb with. At the time, it was not difficult to go abroad. There was no end to my happiness. How ecstatic I was at that moment.

      I thought to myself:

      - My God, thank you for a new chance.

      As always, my happiness was short-lived. Mother and father told us that it wasn’t possible for us to go to the US anymore, even though they prepared everything. They didn’t give a more detailed explanation. I was disappointed and very sad because I dreamed about the magical USA.

      Father turned himself to the police the next day. He was taken to the nearest prison in Bihac in Luka. He was gone. There was peace and positive energy present in the house. I wasn’t even aware he was not there.

      With him being gone, spring arrived. I felt as though the sun warmed my skin, and I also felt my mum’s peace in her soul. I asked her why she didn’t leave dad when he treated us like that.

      - I can’t my dear. What if he found out? He would kill us once he was out of prison.

      My mother explained to me that she had already had one marriage and that she had a son from that marriage, our half-brother N. She told me that she never wanted to leave us at any cost, and that she was forced to leave her first son with her ex-mother-in-law. She would always talk about what people would think and say if she left her children again. She said the grief would be the end of her.

      On one occasion I asked her:

      - Mom, why doesn’t our brother N. come and live with us?

      - How could I do that honey when your father’s not your brother’s real father? Look how he destroys you mentally and physically, how he mistreats you, imagine what he’d do to him.

      We often went to our granny’s. I loved going there because granny’s family brims with positive energy. I have the best grandmother and grandfather, and the best uncle. Staying with them, I felt, in a way, secure and loved by everybody.

      The bus station in Cazin was about an hour away from their house. We cried while walking there because we couldn’t walk anymore, our legs hurt. Mum carried my brother since he was the youngest, and my sister and I followed her. At one point I sat on a concrete crying, I couldn’t walk, so my mother teased me, mentioning some swamp. She said that if we didn’t listen to her, some Alaga would come and throw us into the swamp.

      Of all the visits, as I said before, I loved going to my grandparents the most. We all felt free there. Our half- brother, with whom we played all day, would often come. It was very nice for us. When the time came for him to leave, I would get very sad... Everyone had to go their separate ways. The mother was often in tears and we could see that she grieved for her son. At night she called to him in her dreams and cried in her sleep. My half-brother used to tell me that he was also a little jealous of us, because we grew up with our mother while he had to grow up without her love. I often imagined the three of us playing together and how we were all very happy. Unfortunately, I knew that was not possible, because I knew that my father would never accept it. He would surely beat and harass him, as he has all of us all these years!

      At the time, we didn’t have a phone either, so it was very difficult to get in touch with our half-brother. Sometimes I would write a letter for him and leave it to my mother’s family to deliver it to him. And mum would also write a couple of sentences and secretly put some money so my father wouldn’t notice. My brother saw my father and often said that he didn’t like that man at all. He felt fearful just by meeting him once.

      On one occasion, my half-brother happened to be with my grandmother in Cazin and I asked him to come with us to Bihac, to spend a few days together with us. However, every time I invited him, he refused. I wondered why he was like that and why he blamed mother for his misfortune. I also asked my mum why she left him before she married my father. She could take the child with her. My mother told me that it was not possible because she could not feed him, nor could her parents accept him as a family member in their own home. She told me that I would understand everything when I’m older and have my own children. There is no difference in the amount of love for your children. She repeated that she could not protect us from our father either, how could she protect him, who is nothing to him. Father does not pity or spare us, so why would he spare him even if there was a possibility to spare him. He often called our mother a whore because she was married once before. He punched her in the nose for having a child from the first marriage. We asked mum about her first marriage. My mother told us that her first husband died very young and that she had become a widow at the age of eighteen.

      All that time while my father was in prison, his brother, our uncle, fed us, that is, he bought us food and he gave money to my mother to provide what we needed. I will never forget that. My uncle was a good man, different in every sense from my father, a police officer by profession. I can’t thank him enough, because such a gesture, especially