Page 55 - To Family with Love

My old man acted more and more as if he only cared about his homeland, and little or next to nothing about his family. Sometimes, when he would call, I’d pick up the phone, and there would only be silence on the other end.
− Dad, is that you?
Not a single word, and I would always know that my old man was calling, because I could hear Dubrovnik pounding, moaning and panting behind his back and into the phone. He would keep silent like that for a while and then suddenly click, and you would only hear tu, tutu, tu, tutu... You see, even our phones stuttered. That would always just make me sad. Why the hell doesn’t he call at night, when he has the urge to shout like a baboon, but during the day when his lips are sealed up tight as a drum? Maybe the call is much cheaper when he just keeps qui- et?! My ma decided not to answer his calls at all until he comes home again, although he would try and convince her that it was not up to him at all, that the cards would make the call. My ma, I could testify to that in court, was as mad at my old man as a hornet. I wasn’t even allowed to mention his name. Unless the matter was of utmost importance, we wouldn’t talk about my old man or the school at home at all. Worst of all, I knew my ma was mostly right, and I was also a little angry at my old man myself. What reason could he have had to go to Dubrovnik in the war- time, if he hadn’t even visited it once in times of peace? So that’s the kind of person my old man was. Everything was upside down
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