12 de Abril de 2005
  
Nuestra crisis de identidad
  
¿Quiénes somos? ¿Adónde Vamos? ¿De dónde venimos?
  
Octavo Capítulo: Cómo se aprende a amar una cultura diferente? Integrándose.
      
Pero de cualquier manera, eran tantas las cosas maravillosas que tenía Argentina que no podía escapar a integrarme poco a poco, primero queriendo muy lentamente, para luego amarla desesperadamente.
 
Recuerdo que lo primero que consiguieron mi padre y mis dos hermanos fue trabajo, y para mi hermana y para mí, un fácil acceso a la educación 
  
Pero algo que me asombro en demasía fue ver como, de la nada, iban apareciendo las cosas que nuestro hogar necesitaba.
   
Un día me pide mi madre que la acompañe hasta un barrio que se llamaba Lanus. Por Dios, pareciera que no llegábamos nunca, que país tan grande, y eso que solamente pasábamos de la Capital a la Provincia de Buenos Aires.
 
Donde íbamos era como una especie de feria gigante, pero fundamentalmente de aparatos electrodomésticos en general, lo que luego se llamaría la línea blanca.
 
Allí buscamos entre tantas heladeras, una grande que necesitábamos tener en casa, pero ese no es el comentario, sino la forma de la compra en si, pues basto que mi madre, preguntara el precio, diera su acuerdo al mismo, mostrara el recibo de sueldo de mi padre y entregara una pequeña parte del total del valor de la heladera y veo que el comerciante le hace entrega de un cartón rosa dividido en doce cuadrados donde mi madre debe completar con sus datos.
 
Efectuado ello, el hombre le pone un sello de pagado y su firma al casillero uno y le dice: bueno señora gracias, en cuarenta y ocho horas tendrán la heladera en su casa.
 
Increíble, en mucho menos tiempo del esperado , mi Madre se va con la certeza que le entregaban la heladera en dos días y con casi ningún requisito mas que él ultimo recibo de sueldo de mi padre que ni siquiera fue verificado.
 
Eso sí, apenas cobraba, mi padre se encargaba escrupulosamente, de separar la plata e ir a pagarla, no importa cuanta plata nos quedara ni nada por el estilo, recuerdo, inclusive, que una vez por un determinado problema no cobraba a tiempo ( toda una excepcion) y le pidió a mi madre que hable con mi tía para que nos preste la plata por unos días nomás.
 
Jamás nos atrasamos con los pagos, pero no solo porque éramos así, sino porque aquí también se lo era de igual manera.
 
Y si, no lo conté pero la verdad, es que fue toda una fiesta tener una heladera.
 
Y que decir cuando, al terminar de pagar al año, mi madre compra un lavarropas Eslabón de Lujo semiautomático, parecíamos indios que nos regalaban collares de colores.
 
Era la Argentina maravillosa que estaba con todos los adelantos y floreciente comercio.
 
Recuerdo la primera vez que me toco presenciar la muerte y no de una, sino de dos, con un curioso resultado personal.
  
Un día me lleva mi padre a asistir a un funeral en Villa Ballester de un paisano, eran todas personas mayores, yo era apenas un niño, sin embargo mi padre me acercó hasta el cuerpo que estaba en un cajón, en un día muy caluroso, llena que estaba de moscas la habitación y una señora que no se cansaba de echar fleet ( una especie de mata moscas con su líquido dentro de lo que seria como una especie de inflador y permitía su salida como lluvia por la presión), más le tiraba en la cara al pobre muerto que a nadie y siquiera otro lado.
  
A mi sin embargo nada me conmovía, veía un muerto como cuando estaba paralítico en mi infancia, como algo inevitable que debía suceder sin darle mayor importancia, ni siquiera acaso sometía a la consideración de mi mente los llantos de los familiares.
 
Los miraba extrañados, no sé si no los veía como débiles personas que reaccionaban con puerilidad ante lo irreversible.
 
Pero había muchos argentinos en ese velorio y allí aprendí como se lo vive aquí ( en Yugoslavia era casi como una fiesta en algunas regiones, en especial las que vivían los gitanos) nada que ver como lo muestra la música actual de Kusturica, no, se la pasaban riéndose por contarse cuentos y cargadas entre ellos, hablando de política y de mujeres y según la edad esos temas eran los prioritarios o se invertía su orden.
 
La comparación ( si se lo puede llamar comparación en esta bruta bestia con costumbres ya extrañas) se daba en que mi madre había encontrado un gato y lo tenia en casa como una persona prácticamente, lo quería mas que a mi padre, bueno, no es fácil decirlo, pero a mi padre, como quizás también a mí, no era fácil ni agradable querernos.
  
Y al poco tiempo se trae a nuestra casa mi padre un perrito como siempre decimos, lindo de clase marca perro, vagabundo y chiquito.
 
Creo que fue de aquello antinatural en mi que hizo que por primera vez sintiera cariño o querer por alguien.
 
La rutina era tan clara que era impensable no encontrarlo al entrar a casa, para colmo, jamás había salido a la calle y un día se me escapa, y al perseguirlo yo, el muy tonto cruza la calle, con tan mala suerte que pasaba un Ford T que por suerte le frena bruscamente, pero no puede evitar que el paragolpes le golpee y cortajee la cara cortándosela con un surco del que empezó a fluir sangre inmediatamente y lo desespero en tal forma que huyó más aun, tarde como una hora en encontrarlo en un terreno baldío recostado, lamiéndose como podía su herida.
 
Mi padre como siempre tan original dijo, déjenlo tranquilo, con su propia lengua se curara en unos días, me dije que bestia que es, pero tuvo toda la razón.
No es que sea un monstruo, o sí?, Pero ese animalillo me enternecía, era mi compinche ( bueno también, el único amigo que tenia) era chiquito, muy bueno, pero con rasgos de buen instinto y ya había marcado en nuestra casa su terreno y sus pertenencia de afectos.
  
El gato no era su amigo, por lo que, por consecuencia, tampoco lo era demasiado mi madre que lo protegía de el. Mi padre era el amor de su vida, mi hermano mayor una persona a quien temer, mi segundo hermano y mi hermana simplemente dos personas indiferentes para él y viceversa.
  
Porque mi hermano era de temer para él, porque siempre canalizaba su violencia ( vaya a saber en esos momentos si era determinada por su no acceso a los estudios y a su falta de integración con la cultura del porteño piola, no trabajador y vividor cuando no explotador) con el perrito que siempre lo trataba de maravillas, no solo que le pegaba sino que no lo dejaba comer tranquilo hasta que prácticamente el perro decidió plantar con claridad su escala de valores.
 
Mi madre le daba la comida al mediodía y a la noche, el perro comía la del mediodía, dejaba sin embargo el resto de huesos o siempre algún resto y esperaba a la llegada de los integrantes de la casa con un rito impecable como implacable.
 
Primero llegaba mi padre ( la comida del perro estaba en la entrada interna de la casa, pues había un patio grande previo desde la entrada de calle ) y el animal presto corría saltando y moviendo la cola para recibirlo con afecto y volvían juntos hasta donde la tenia la comida y hacia que comía y mi padre lo acariciaba en su cabeza. Todo bien.
 
Luego llegaba mi hermano, no el mayor, sino Carlos Alberto, casi junto con mi hermana y otra vez con ambos repetía el mismo show, solo que ellos dos apenas si le sonreían, pese a que los tentaba para que vean como coma, ni bolilla que le daban, pero bueno el animal se sentía conforme.
 
Cuando llegaba yo la fiesta se acrecentaba, el recibimiento era con matices de diversa intensidad y mutuas caricias adornadas con juegos, especialmente coqueteando con su comida que se la llevaba a su boca y yo, a esos huesos les tironeaba desde sus fauces para quedarme con ellos y el que hacia fuerza que no, todo un teatro.
 
Hasta que llegaba mi hermano José, el mayor, otra vez sin embargo la misma historia con el también, buen recibimiento ( él mas menguado) mientras mi hermano se reía y lo insultaba, pero de golpe el perro corría ( se llamaba chiquito) hasta su plato de comida y esperaba que pasara mi hermano ya rugiendo y enfrentándolo abiertamente sin vueltas y el pobrecillo recibía una patadón y se trenzaba, siempre con resultado desfavorable para el.
 
Curioso, pero la historia se repetía todos los días, al entrar le presentaba sus respetos y la alegría por verlo, pero luego le quería demostrar que el también tenia sus cosas y que eran de el, pobre.
 
Yo era el único que lo mimaba igualmente.
 
Hasta que pasado un tiempo largo sucedió lo inesperado.
 
Vengo del colegio y entro a casa, sigo derecho, paso la puerta interna y doy vuelta a toda la casa, buscaba a alguien y no sabia que? Hasta que era tal el vacio que al ver a mi madre le digo: y Chiquito?
 
Ella me contesta: salí a lo del vecino y la puerta tardo en cerrarse ( mi ya especialista hermano Carlos Alberto había colocado un portero eléctrico, y un cierre automático del portón de entrada) lo que hacia que si alguien salía sin llave, ya no podías volver a entrar sin llamar para que le abran.
 
Como mi madre entro enseguida a la casa del vecino no se percato que el perro salía detrás de ella corriendo y que no llego a entrar a la otra casa pues no lo vieron y le cerraron la puerta en la cara y la de la casa también estaba cerrada.
  
Con la tan mala suerte que apareció lo que en aquella época sucedía, el paso de la perrera, con la consecuente desgracia que liquidaban al perro al mejor estilo nazi, apenas lo metían en su camioneta liberaban la emanación de gas.
 
No lo podía creer, me fui hasta un barrio que se llamaba Flores, hasta la calle San Pedrito, donde teóricamente llevaban los animales, no, llevaban sus cadáveres.
 
Lloré como si se me hubiese muerto un familiar y con ello si, aprendí lo que es el dolor de la muerte de alguien que quieres.
 
No lo conocí con un ser humano, lo vivencie con un animal.
     
 Marijan Pirsic
   

April 12th, 2005
   
Our Identity Crisis

Who are we? Where are we going? Where did we come from?

Eight Chapter: How do you learn to love a different culture? Fitting in.
       
In any way, there were so many wonderful things in Argentina that I could not escape from fitting in, step by step, first by slowly caring, then by desperately loving.
 
I remember that the first thing my father and my two brothers got was a job, whereas for my sister and me, an easy access to education.
 
However, something that shocked me was to suddenly see how things started to be needed in our home.
 
One day my mother asks me if I could go with her to a neighborhood called Lanus. Dear god, it seemed as if we would never arrive, such a large country, and we were just going from the city to the suburbs.
 
We were going to what seemed a gigantic market, but mainly of electrical supplies, what later would be called the ‘white line’.
 
There we looked through so many refrigerators, we needed a big one for our house, but that is not the point, what is important was the way it was purchased, since all my mother did was ask the seller about the price, agreed on it, show the receipt of my father’s paycheck and pay a small portion of the price, and then I see the seller give her a pink form divided in twelve squares which my mother had to fill in with her details.
 
Once that was done, the man stamps the form with a ‘paid’ stamp, signs in the first box and says: “Ok lady, thank you, in forty-eight hours you will have the fridge in your house.
 
It was amazing, in less time than was expected, my mother leaves with the certainty that in two days the fridge will be delivered, and with nearly nothing more than my father’s last paycheck, which wasn’t even verified.
 
Even so, right after he was paid, my father cautiously took care of separating the money, and went to pay for it, it did not matter how much money we had left or anything like that, I even remember that once, for some kind of problem he was not paid in time (a rare exception) and asked my mother to talk with my aunt so we could borrow money just for a couple of days.
 
We were never late on our payments, not only because this is how we were, but because here it worked the same way.
 
And yes, I actually did not mention it, but it was a amazing to have a refrigerator.
 
And at the end of year, when we finished paying for the fridge, my mother bought an Eslabón semiautomatic washing machine, we looked like Indians with colorful necklaces as gifts.
 
It was the wonderful Argentina which had all the advances and a growing market.
 
I remember the first time I had to witness someone’s death, and not of one, but of two people, which led to a curious personal result.
 
One day my father takes me to a funeral of a fellow Croatian in Villa Ballester, they were all elderly people, I was barely a kid, even so, my father takes me to the body which was in a box, in a very hot day, the room was full of flies and a lady wouldn’t stop throwing ‘fleet’ (a kind of fly repellent in a container which looked like an inflator, allowing the liquid to splash out like rain because of the pressure), and she squirted it mostly to the poor dead guy more than anyone else.
 
However, nothing affected me, I looked at the dead like when I was quadriplegic in my childhood, like it was something inevitable and bound to happen, without making such deal out of it, I wasn’t even touched o cared for the relatives who sobbed.
 
I looked at them without understanding, I think I thought of them as weak people who reacted naively to something which had no turning back.
 
But there were many Argentineans in the funeral, and there I learned how they live here (in Yugoslavia it was almost like a party in some regions, specially were the gypsies lived), nothing compared to what Kusturica’s music shows, no, they would be laughing when telling each other stories and jokes, talking politics and women, and depending on one’s age these subjects would be priority or would have an inverse order.
 
The comparison (if you can call it this in this brutal beast with strange customs) was that my mother had found a cat and kept it home practically as a person, loved it more than she loved my father, well, it is not easy to say it, but when it came to my father, and maybe myself as well, it wasn’t exactly easy or nice to love us.
 
Shortly after, my father brings home a little dog, and as we always say: it was classy, who’s breed was dog, homeless and small.
 
I think it was then when that unnatural part in me first cared for someone.
 
It is not as if I was a monster, right? But I was touched by that little animal, he was my buddy (well, he also was the only one I had), he was small, very good, but one could tell he had good instincts, and he had already marked his territory in our house, and his personal belongings.
 
The cat did not make friends with him, which meant that neither did my mother since she protected the cat from him. My father was the love of his life, my oldest brother was someone to be afraid of, and my other brother and my sister were two persons who he couldn’t care less about, and vice versa.
 
Since he was afraid of my brother, because he always canalized his violence (who knows if in those moments it was caused because he had no access to education, or his lack of integration to the sassy porteño’s culture of not being a hard worker or and exploiter) through the little dog who always treated him wonderfully, and not only did he beat him, but he wouldn’t let him eat in peace, until the dog practically decided to clearly settle his scale of values.
 
Mi mother fed him during the day and at night, the dog ate at lunch, but left the bone’s left overs, o some left over, and awaited the arrival of the family members in a sort of clean but mean ritual.
 
My father arrived first (the dog’s food was in the internal entrance of the house, since there was a large patio before entering our home), and the animal would quickly jump and run, wagging his tail, to receive him with affection, and they would go back together to where he had his food, pretending to eat while my father petted his head. Everything was ok.
 
Then my brother would arrive, not the oldest one, but Carlos Alberto, almost next to my sister, and again with both he repeated the same act, only that they barely smiled at him, even though he tempted them to see him eat, they could not care less, but the dog felt fulfilled.
 
When I arrived the party started to get bigger, the welcoming had different intensities and mutual petting decorated with games, special playful games with his food, which he would put in his mouth and I would pull those bones so I could keep them and he would pull even stronger. It was all an act.
 
Until my brother José would arrive, the oldest, and yet again the same story with him, the warm welcoming (the cheapest one), while my brother laughed and insulted him, but suddenly the dog would run (his name was Chiquito) up to his plate of food and would wait until my brother walked towards him, now growling and facing the dog, and the poor one would receive a strong kick, and fall backward, always with an unpleasant result for him.
 
It was curious, but the same story repeated everyday, when he arrived he would by respectful and would show joy for seeing him, but he later wanted to show him that he also had his things, which belonged to him, poor thing.
 
The routine was so clear that it was unthinkable not to run into him when we arrived, and what was peculiar is that he had never left the house, and one day, without meaning to, I let him slip away, and while I was running after him, the stupid dog crosses the street, unfortunately a Fort T was going by, which manages to stop abruptly, but can’t help hitting the dog and cutting his face, and blood immediately starts to flow, which make the dog eve more desperate, so he decided to keep running, until one hour later I find him laying down in a yard, trying to lick his wound.
 
My father, as original as always, said: “Leave him alone, he will cure himself in a couple of days with his own tongue.” I thought to myself, “What a beast.”, but he was completely right.
 
I was the only one who spoiled him anyways.
 
Until, after time goes by, the unexpected takes place.
 
I come back from school, go inside the house, keep going, pass through the internal door, go all around the house, looking for someone, but did not know. What? Until it was so empty and turned to my mother and asked: “And Chiquito?”.
 
And she answers: “I went to our neighbors and the door did not close fast enough” (my brother Carlos Alberto was already a specialist and had installed an electrical door, and an automatic close for the entrance door) what happened was if someone left without a key, you could not go back in until you called someone to open the door.
 
Since my mother went right into our neighbor’s house, she did not realize that the dog was right behind her, and was not able to go in the other house because he was not noticed and the door was shut in his face, and the door at our house was closes as well.
  
And with the worst of luck, the dog pound appeared, something that was common in those times, and which would lead to a certain nazi style execution, right after he was locked in the van they would release the secretion of gas.
 
I could not believe it, I went up to a neighborhood called Flores, until the street San Pedrito, where technically they would take the animals, no, they would take their bodies.
 
I cried as if I had lost a relative, and with that I learned about the pain when someone you love dies.
 
I do not know of it with a human being, I lived it with an animal.
 
 Marijan Pirsic