The best, worst and biggest thing about my father were his strong hands. They were a heavy mass of muscle hardened by construction jobs building stone houses, and by the never-ending farming tasks in Stankovci, our Croatian village. With their own tranquility, the fields complement the village and their seven hills, reminding one of the Eternal City of Rome. Those miles of farming land had been sponsoring a chance for the survival of my forebearers. My father had to take that chance, too. That chance always came with strong hands. My father used those hands to bring us — his family — out of poverty and to make us proud of having the largest and best-looking house in our village. He used them while talking to make a point, to count his hard-earned money, to greet his friends, to scare his enemies, to protect his possessions, to hold his four children. Without them one could never endure the work. My father was aware of it, and would look at his own hands as the most precious possession he had. His fingers, swollen with frightening strength, were intimidating reminders to stay out of trouble in his presence. My father used those hands to bring us — his family — out of poverty and to make us proud of having the largest and best-looking house in our village. He used them while talking to make a point, to count his hard-earned money, to greet his friends, to scare his enemies, to protect his possessions, to hold his four children. In hard times, he used those hands to pray when communication with the world around him ceased. With his hardworking and powerful hands he proposed to our mother — the most beautiful girl in the village, according to him — giving her a bouquet of red and white roses. In sickness those hands used to carry us children to our country doctor five miles away from our house. They would also bring us back, cover us, and tuck the woolen blanket under our bodies, hot with fever or sick with flu. Those strong hands would close the door on our bedrooms silently, as if they belonged to a friendly, giant ghost who didn’t want to wake up the inhabitants of the house. The same hands would feel our sweaty foreheads. On a sad occasion when my mother broke her leg and couldn’t walk, those strong hands would carry her every night upstairs to their bedroom. He would bring her down to our country kitchen on snowy winter days and would sit her by the fireplace. Then he would go about his daily chores, cutting the thick air of frustrations with them as if playing golf and not getting an expected result.

Life’s path brought my father to quite a few unusual situations where his strong hands had to live up to their name.

In the early fifties, fate arranged for my father to use his strong hands where he never dreamed of: the birth of his youngest son, my brother Zeljko. It was a late afternoon in the middle of the fall. My father was working in the fields alone now that my mother was bringing her pregnancy into the ninth month. She was almost ready to give birth, but according to my father, not on that particular day. When my mother started going into labor (to her own early surprise, too), I was the only person there who might help. I was a six-year-old boy, confused and frightened by the situation. My father came home just at the right time to save all three of us: my mother, her newborn son and myself. He did a doctor’s job before the doctor arrived. The country doctor congratulated him on the job well done. That was the topic my father always talked about with special pride — helping his own son come into this world!

Other occasions where he had to use his strong hands were not as happy as this one. One day my father rolled up his shirt sleeves and left the house in a hurry, just when we were about to have supper. A few yards away from our house, the government had opened an excavation pit to supply stone for building the new school in the village. Nobody else was allowed to help himself with stone to build his own house, except my father, whose property held the pit. When a horse-driven carriage with rubber tires tried to sneak by our house, my father noticed in the nick of time. And that was the reason he ran out of the house and up the hill, mumbling more to himself than to anybody else, “Let me see what those two wise guys want.” My mother, my sister, my little brother and I ran after him. When we left our front gate and looked in his direction, he had already caught up with the two stone thieves.

They ignored him, throwing the stones into their carriage as if that wasn’t their business at all. When he continued his protest, trying to reason with them, the younger man, without warning, punched my father right between the eyes.

As we approached them we overheard our father: “You know, guys, you are trespassing on my property, and you are stealing from my stone pit!” They ignored him, throwing the stones into their carriage as if that wasn’t their business at all. When he continued his protest, trying to reason with them, the younger man, without warning, punched my father right between the eyes. My father absorbed the punch without blinking, like a pro in some boxing ring, staying on his own two feet. In that instant an angry smirk landed on his forehead. He closed his large fist, locking eyes with the culprit’s as in a bull fight. Then he decided to fire it into this guy’s head. He repeated the same with the other fellow, who by all his verbal evidence (he yelled out: “Oh, son, are you hurt?”) seemed to be his father. Before he realized it, he got a portion of the same medicine that his son had already gotten. At this point both of them were wiggling on the ground, bleeding from their noses, trying to get up. My father’s large, muddy farmer’s boot landed on the throat of the younger one, while his quick hands kept pressing on the chest of the older one. He let go of them only when they promised him not to come back on the same business adventure… and — yes! — when they agreed to unload the stolen stones. That was the end of the stone thieves. Some nasty rumor about my father spread through the village after this incident, keeping other would-be stone thieves away. My father was left with enough stone to build another extension to his original house, with the government’s approval, of course! That was his only appreciation of the communist government, which he otherwise thought was too constricting and cruel.

After many years, another incident of a similar nature happened. This one took place in the local blacksmith’s shop. There, my father’s strong hands changed the attitude of the most feared village bully — “big mouth” Viktor — a short, overweight man in his forties who constantly spewed insults, often without provocation. He once insulted the parish priest by calling him a “hell’s angel” just because the priest liked to drive a motorcycle on his regular visits to nearby parishes. My father would frequently visit the local blacksmith, Jozo, to sharpen his plow and other farming tools. The blacksmith’s shop was a place for the village men to gather and discuss everything from farming to getting brides for their sons, the village widows, their houses, and sometimes — bravely enough — the failure of the communist system. That was an official taboo, and just because of that, it aroused an intense interest in everyone present. Often verbal arguments would flare to the point of fist fights. The Balkanians, thought to be hot-tempered people with a long memory and a special knack for revenge, would start one fight and bring more fights with no forgiveness in sight. Regardless, people would go about their daily business as usual… with revenge simmering under their skin.

One day a group of men, including my father, were discussing the best-looking widow in the village — Anka. She lost her husband one rainy day when he fell off a bike. The talk was about whether she was seeing the local mailman Bosko or not. The bully — big mouth Viktor — was categorically saying that he saw not only Bosko, but a local teacher visiting her too. He asked everybody, “Why would Vojko visit Anka? She has no kids!” Vojko’s brother was present when Viktor-the-bully asked this rhetorical question. Right away, he started defending the honor of his married brother, who happened to be the best teacher in the village, according to all the villagers. My father was on the teacher’s brother’s side. When Viktor, who was eager to turn his argument into a fist fight, began readying himself, my father just waited. Finally, he told Viktor to shut up or leave the shop. That didn’t please the bully. It infuriated him. He started pushing his index finger into my father’s face. At that point my father said nothing. He started rolling up his shirt sleeves, closing and opening his fists, bringing them into the scope of Viktor’s close vision, almost touching Viktor’s eyebrows, sending a message of red hot danger. Viktor grasped the size of my father’s fists which were ready to slam against his face. He did the right thing — for a change — by lowering his insulting voice all the way to the front of the shop and running out, still cursing in a whisper. That caused an uproar of laughter and temporary relief amongst the men in the shop. But everybody realized that at some point, the blub-blub Viktor would resume the argument even if it took fifty years. I do not know if the Balkanian tradition lived up its reputation in this case.

Then, there was a different kind of incident where my father’s strong hands were involved. This one was free of trouble. I like to call it an American incidental experience. It took place in Brooklyn in 1979.

View of the Brooklyn Bridge, 1889
(Oil on canvas, 101.3 x 51 cm)
BY Emile Renouf

My father used to talk about America as a proud American, though he knew no English, and had only an elementary school education. Regardless, he was a self-taught scholar by reading books and following newspaper reports about the world. In December of 1978, I, his lost son, fulfilled his secret wish of coming to visit America. America in this case meant Brooklyn, New York. It was Christmas season. I waited at the Kennedy airport, anxious to see him. I was excited, visualizing him in an expensive outfit suited for a world traveler. I had a reason. I’d sent enough money for him to dress properly. When I saw him on the luggage pick-up line, he had a somewhat unpleasant surprise for me. Instead of a new overcoat, he was wearing his old (but in one piece) farmer’s woolen winter coat. Instead of a brand new suit, he was wearing an old but clean jacket and mismatched pants that he kept for years in his commode in Stankovci — his outfit for special occasions. Instead of a new pair of factory made shoes, he was wearing a pair of rugged farmer’s boots. A gift, from his shoemaker, Antun, who was also from Stankovci. When I first saw him I took a second look. Then I took a microscopic look around me to defuse my doubt that I wasn’t in Stankovci, Croatia, but at the Kennedy airport in New York. Before I could ask, he read my mind (he had the ability to read his family members’ minds), which I guess was not that difficult anyway.

“Son, America is the country of all the peoples on earth!” he told me right away, “and she takes them the way they are! Son, America is greeting me the way I am — a Croatian peasant!” I couldn’t argue with his point.

During his visit, he met an old American Indian from Oklahoma. This Indian lived on the same block I did: 73rd Street and 6th Avenue in Brooklyn. Without the ability to converse with each other, but with my free translation service, they became friends. Mr. Changikook (the Indian) would often join us at dinner. Those were better moments in the old Indian’s life; he lived alone in a one-family house. The American incidental experience with my father’s strong hands was taking place over a period of three months, right in the dining room on the first floor of 644-73rd Street, Brooklyn. As my father would be eating his soup, bringing the spoon to his mouth, Mr. Changikook, sitting on the opposite end of the table, would stop and look at my father’s large hands: “Oh, Mighty God, I’ve never seen such strong hands and thick fingers in all my life!” I took personal pride in the translation for my father. After all, it was credible, coming from the Indian who worked in the New York harbor as a longshoreman for most of his life. My father took that as an honorable compliment, too. He had a question for the old Indian.

America is the country of all the peoples on earth!” he told me right away, “and she takes them the way they are! So, America is greeting me the way I am — a Croatian peasant!” I couldn’t argue with his point.

“Ask the Indian if I would qualify for a chief of his tribe?” my father demanded. The old Indian answered my father’s question with a hearty laugh, showing his two front teeth capped in gold: “In my tribe you would be a sure winner!” said the Indian, bumping his large, pointy nose — his personal trademark — with his right hand, while taking his woolen hat off.

Many years have passed since then. My father went back to his village and continued doing what he knew best: farming and house building/fixing. I visited him from time to time. On every visit he seemed to be growing a little older. New creases would appear on his cheeks and forehead. His posture was somehow losing its original strength. His eyes required glasses more often than not. But his hands were always showing that unusual strength, vitality and speed.

On one of those visits, I remember watching him reading. A buzzing fly started pestering him, landing on his wide-spread newspaper. When his patience was exhausted, it took a fraction of a second for his quick hands to punish the unintelligent fly. Its lifeless, tiny body rolled down the newspaper’s columns. He continued reading peacefully afterwards.

My father’s strong hands and their size were as cut in my memory as an epitaph in white stone when I was far from him, living in America and reminiscing on life in the village. And when a drunken driver hit my father while he was getting off the bus on one of his daily strolls to his corn and wheat fields — and snatched his life out of him at eighty — I cried my eyes out, thousands of miles away from him, here in New York.

I still do not believe that those strong farmer’s and builder’s hands of my father drained all of their strength in passing… taking the last chance with them — for me — to shake them one more time at the Kennedy airport…

— FROM The Blue Moon Across the Fence