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From the moment we stumbled into her apartment smelling of sweat and lugging bicycles and piles of gear, Bina greeted us with a smile and a firm handshake.  We soon found that hidden in the smile was dictatorial control of the kitchen.  She cooked us a huge feast shortly after we arrived.  When we tried to insist on washing dishes, she drove us from the sink with deliberate firmness.  “Now you sleep,” she ordered, in English she’d studied in high school but hadn’t used much since then.

Fare typical of Bina’s sumptuous cooking.

Cloaked inside Bina’s forceful hospitality is deep compassion.  On our second day in Belgrade the wind picked up and the sky darkened.  We sat on the balcony watching the weather roll in, but Bina ran outside.   We watched her scramble around in the rain, attending to the four street dogs she has adopted.  She removed old blankets from where they hung in a tree and lined the bottom of a makeshift shelter with them.  She secured the plastic sheeting against the wind and encouraged the dogs-all of them spayed, neutered and fed on her account-to come in out of the rain.

After a couple of days we realized the magnificent meals and the refusals of our help would continue indefinitely.  I still persisted, however.  “Can I help with anything?” I asked one afternoon after Bina had announced “I will prepare you something special for lunch.”  She picked up a glass, filled it with beer, and said, “You can sit down and drink this.”

Unable to help, we began lounging around the house, waiting for the announcement “Children! The dinner is prepared!”  At her table we swilled wine and beer, gobbled enormous quantities of mashed potatoes, stuffed ourselves with flavorful meatballs, pounds of delectable fried fish, acres of tomatoes, whole wedges of cheese, and cow-sized portions of cake.  The quality of the food inspired me to ask Bina where she learned to cook.  Typically enigmatic, she answered simply, “What you love, you are good at.”

Bina never at with us.  After she filled our wine glasses, she retreated to the dining room, cigarette and wine glass in hand. However, if we said anything she had an opinion on, she would rush back into the kitchen, to ensure that her perspective was heard.  Often, Lela found the opinions by her mother in these interjections objectionable.  Issues bigger than a generation gap separate them.  Bina enjoys cigarettes and alcohol in all its varied forms.  Lela rarely drinks, never smokes, and wastes no chance to ridicule those practices.  “I must have been switched at the hospita,” says Lela with an eye roll when the gap between her and her mother’s tastes becomes apparent.

Bina, for her part, responds to these disagreements by calling Lela a “yellow chicken”. With Lela’s grudging assistance, Bina explained that a yellow chicken is a younger, inexperienced person who ruins a good time through needless or misguided interference or lack of participation.  When “the Peter”-as Bina calls our tallest member-refuses a second glass of wine, he becomes a yellow chicken as well.

We will no doubt miss our environment in Belgrade.  Like Bina’s street dogs, however, we will get along fine without her, if not as comfortably.  We will be very grateful to have been able to bask in the shadow of a caring individual before pressing on towards Paris.

FBR with (clockwise) Lela’s dad, Nikola, Lela, and Bina.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 20th, 2008 at 4:42 am and is filed under Jim's Posts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.