ONE SELF PORTRAIT EVERY DAY in 2020 : 158

Have I told you about Fatima Hrstić?

Every time I “cook” Turkish Coffee the Bosnian way I think of her.

I met her in Gašinci in the early nineties. Before the war she used to be a teacher and in the camp I got to know here as she was active in trying to get a school set up. She had managed to flee Brčko with her two children, Edin and Edina (aged 12-13) and her parents whilst her husband, Refik who was an art teacher before the war stayed on the front not far from Brčko.

Her father used to roast coffee beans in a pan over an outdoor fire.

I once fasted with Edin during Ramazan, he was thirteen at the time, Fatima told him that he didn’t have to if he didn’t want to but he insisted he wanted to. He did moan all day though, so did I as I hadn’t realised that even cigarettes weren’t allowed.

Between my two spells at Gašinci I had met and fallen in love with Katarina and I remember one evening in Fatima’s hut I had everybody in hysterics: the verb “to write” is very similar to the verb “to piss” in Serbo-Croat. I remember asking Fatima to check the letter I wrote for Katarina, it started “I am pissing you these words …”

Once I drove her to the village closest to the front so that she could see Refik. It was quite surreal; I remember we were in a cafe and someone asks about someone and he is told that he got shot and died the day before.

OK, this is funny, at the time the Croatian authorities didn’t treat Bosnian refugees well (this is not the funny part), a group of ladies from the camp had to go to Zagreb to get some papers done and I went with them by train. I used to knit at the time (I was quite good, I knitted a sock once and that’s not easy) and there were five of us in the compartment. A policeman comes and asks for our documents. He then asks where is the other lady, Fatima asks what lady? he says “that lady” pointing at my needles and wool which was next to me. They told him that that was mine. The policeman “come on, don’t mess me around, a man doesn’t knit”. I had to knit in front of the policeman to prove that I could knit even though men can’t or should not knit”.

After the war they returned to a village not far from Brčko (I can’t remember what it was called) and lived in prefab hoping to one day be able to get their house in Brčko back. I visited them during that crazy trip to Sarajevo with Riaz’s father. I remember making pizza with the kids. I remember going to a party in the village hall and I remember drinking and snacking all night before starting off for Sarajevo the next morning.

We did keep in touch but not in the same way people can stay in touch now with social media. I remember them coming to stay with my parents when Katarina and I lived in Italy.

I need to speed things up now because I want to get to what happened in Astoria, New York.

In 1998 we moved to London and in 1999 or 2000 they write to me saying that Fatima has multiple myeloma, that in Bosnia there can’t treat her and was there any way we could help. Ania’s brother worked at the Royal Marsden and he put me in touch with a consultant. We met him and he said that we should get her over for tests to see if a transplant would work. He told me that the test would cost £3000 and the transplant would cost £30000 or £50000 I can’t remember but way over what we would ever be able to raise but he said, just worry about getting her here and get the test done, then for the transplant itself there were funds we could get the money from.

We spent a few months collecting money to pay for the test and travel to London. People in Bosnia were raising money and we were raising money in London by asking family, friends, people at work etc.

So, we have the money, Refik and Fatima come over London and stay in our tiny flat. She gets the test done and the consultant says that the tests are positive, the earlier she has the transplant the more chances of success and it will cost £30000 or £50000 I can’t remember. I say, those war funds will pay for that, won’t they? He says that he doesn’t deal with raising money that that was my problem. We were really down. It would take years to raise the money and she needed the transplant as quickly as possible. Friends of Fatima were positive they would be able to raise the money but it would take a while. Marianne Kaplun, a friend of the family (my brother’s godmother) I think her father had recently died and she had sold his house and she sent all the money needed for the transplant and said pay me back when you can.

Fatima had the transplant, it was successful although it was vicious. After a year or so, Fatima, back in Bosnia, dies. I’m thinking all the suffering and effort … and Refik tell me that that extra year with Fatima was priceless. They were all more prepared for it.

A few years later I get an email from Edin saying that Refik had passed away too.

In 2017 I am in New York and am taking part in an exhibition in Bushwick. For the performance I am planning to do I need someone able to read the future in the coffee dregs. I am told that Astoria is where I would find people from ex-Yugoslavia. Brett David and I go there, we first go to a couple of Bosnian restaurants but they are not interested, then we eat pita in a Macedonian place and ask but they can’t help either.

It’s a bit of a failure but I tried. Next to the pita place there is a balkan grocery store. Brett says that I should try it, someone might know someone who can read coffee. There is a lady there and I start speaking to her in Serbo-Croat. She asks how come I speak it so well and I say that I worked as a volunteer in a refugees camp. She asks which one and I say Gašinci. She says “my best friend went to Gašinci”. During the war, they fled together from Brčko, she managed to get to the states but her friend went to Gašinci”. You’ve probably guessed it by now, her friend was Fatima but what are the chances? really. Gašinci had between 3000 and 5000 refugees at any one time. I don’t know why but I say “was your friend Fatima Hrstić”. She is shocked and says yes. we talk for a bit with tears in our eyes (really) and she said “so you are her friends in London” I give her my email address, she says that she doesn’t have email but her daughter does, I say please write me an email, I would like to stay in touch (she didn’t). She gives me loads of stuff, Bosnian chocolates, biscuits, juices, Ajvar and more.

And it’s true, every time I make Turkish coffee I think of Fatima. Everybody makes Turkish coffee slightly differently and feel strongly that it should be done their way. I don’t care, I do it the way Fatima taught me.

In 2006 Brian Dawn Chalkley asked me how do you make Turkish coffee, I made a video and put it on YouTube and sent him the link. I am pretty sure he never watched it but it has had 187,463 views since then and many comments: some approving the way I did it, many disapproving, some try to correct me and some get quite angry.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=co3c7mbgYWg

6.6.2020.

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