"BACK TO SCHOOL"
by Kevin O Cuinn

1. GRANDMA’S ANGRY

I didn’t think it was such a big deal, losing my tongue, my mother tongue, but oh boy, Grandma did.

Talk about pissed off. Pissed at Mum especially, but me too, I could feel it, I didn’t have to understand a word, she just kept pinching my arm. Noljuk! Sure, it all worked out, I mean like, here I am, pushing keys, but boy I didn’t have a clue, not an iota of what was going on when we got back, and why the two women in my life were screaming blue murder.

Hindsight says it was along the lines of: he’s speaking gobbledegook for the love of ... what have you done to my baby, the shame of it, goddamn freakshow. You and your foreign holidays, Bognor isn’t good enough for you, huh? Well it’s a long way from Croatia you were reared, you fucking upstart, we’ll soon see about this.

2. CROATIA

Croatia . Ahhhhh. The glorious, sun-kissed Adriatic, vaci guczi baldanoi, yeah, every word sounding like a designer label, szunema-ylvich, okgz? Shit. Mum was on a sabbatical from the law firm and jumped at the ad - room, board, moderate wage, 40 hours waiting tables: Dubrovnik. We were on our way for visas before you could say slivovitz. Grandma was still cool about it at that stage, but you know, a lot can happen in three months. We switched planes in London, and let me tell you, they speak weird. Jowl, jowl, jowl . Croatia, where have you been all my life? It took, like, four minutes to settle in. We were up with the sun, breakfast on our own personal terrace, overlooking the crater of some burnt-out volcano in the misty ocean. The view, oh boy. Every day fresh fish straight from the sea, it was another world. Me and Mum had all day to ourselves, and it was our best time ever. We chilled on the beach every day till 3pm. She looked great in the wraps, and that Grace Kelly swimsuit. She bought a book and hit the lingo with vehemence, oh boy, tahaczi metzo yot. That one killed me. By the time Mum was going off to start her evening shift, I was safely wrapped up in bed, the snug bug rug scenario. Mum’s boss Theo, a Croatian born Greek, claimed Mum was the quickest hottest smartest English speaker to work his tables in all eternity. Theo’s teenage daughter, Mirja, took a shine to me, and would often come over while Mum worked, but hey, it was all above board. I was very flattered, and she was so sweet, guzcolca, mmmm, you better believe it. The summer, aahhhhh, that was, so long ago. Mum encouraged my linguistic prowess from the word-go, she’d hit me with her pigeon restaurant vocab, and it would crack me up, and she'd study harder so as I wouldn’t crack up when she’d say something weird, and the ante just kept on rising, and rising. There she goes. Upward and onward. I read all the masters, original version, and then Schiller, Goethe, Shakespeare, in Croat, oh boy, Shakespeare:

Nesty-z, tol arczy oraczs, arpad? But fine, all good things, end. Norstzz. Grandma. So happy to see her.

3. CULTURAL REVOLUTION

Grandma started with the waking me at 6 a.m. with whistles and bells, bosztolya! Then it was a strict diet of TV, TV, and more TV. First came the anger, screaming like a banshee and kicking the set. Helluva fight. Then the resistance. I turned my back and recited the masters at the top of my voice. That’s when she got the drill out and mounted a set in each corner of the room. There was nowhere to turn my back to anymore. Then came the exhaustion, and the listlessness, and the lying face-down in the middle of the room. It was before the switch to digital, can you imagine the garbage? But what with Mum back at work, I’d lost my back-up. Anger, resistance, exhaustion. Numbness. Total supervision. In the evening I’d try to catch some quality time with Mum but her lingua was fading fast, she was always tired, but mostly she dared not cross Grandma. Soon enough I’d be hauled back to that damn TV. Then bedtime, I dreaded it, and those stupid stupid stories. It was noise, just noise, horrible horrible noise. But slowly, with tears in my eyes, I began to recognise the undulations in her voice. The same shit every night, till, after a month, I could pre-empt the words, what would happen next, stupid goddamn wolf gets beheaded by forester, psychotic pigs get evicted, dumbass house made of candy. And people think Western culture isn’t in decline? Sleeping goddamn beauty.

Not forgetting the Billy Graham cassettes she played while I slept.

I made a break for it once. She was freaking because, interference from shit knows, a subtitled b+w Russian war movie was coming through, not a word of which I understood but she thought all her hard work would be undone, Russia, Croatia, all the same, godless Commies, and Reagan still warm in his grave. Her fiddling with the sets gave me just enough time to make a dash to the bathroom. As soon as I opened the window the air-raid sirens and the strobe lights went goddamn berserk. But I just kept on going, I might not get a second shot. Next thing my left ankle is in her hand and she’s pulling me back inside. Damn. That’s when the dogs arrived from the far side of the property. German Shepherds, two of them, hungry as hell, foaming like they were auditioning for a horror movie. That’ll teach you, you ungrateful brat, said Grandma. They’re as close as you’ll ever get to Europe, ever again. Boldornoc orzcji szuk! Woh!

4. THAT WAS THEN

It seems like so long ago. Before I knew it I was responding correctly, albeit it in Croat, to questions in English. Then came the one word replies. Yup. Sure. Dude. Slowly at first. But by the time school started after Christmas I was pretty much monolingual.

The kids were great. Hey, Mr. Mulcahy, great that you’re back again, that substitute teacher really sucked. Those kids.

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