Steeped Tea and Broken Knives

I don’t like tea. I never have. But my father did, and when I made him a cup that afternoon, I could almost pretend everything was normal. He’d asked me to make it, as he often did when he was at home. So, I filled the kettle, added the tea bags, and waited for it to boil, listening to the quiet hum of the house. The smell of the tea, warm and comforting, filled the kitchen as I poured it into his mug. 

It wasn’t much. But it was one of those simple things that kept us both grounded. 

“I’ll pick you up from rehearsal later, yeah?” he said, looking up from the newspaper. He had been quiet lately, distant, as he often was in his own way. But there was something comforting about his routine. 

I nodded. “I’ll be ready,” I replied, handing him the cup. 

I didn’t think much of it then. How could I? That afternoon, everything seemed normal. Little did I know, the moment I made that cup of tea would be the calm before the storm. 

But of course, nothing ever stays calm for long. Life in Montreal has a way of introducing the unexpected, especially when you're part of a community that's anything but ordinary. Growing up in a neighbourhood filled with stories of strange characters, I came to learn early on that, just beneath the surface of the everyday, there was a world of eccentrics whose actions ranged from baffling to outright dangerous. 

Montreal had its share of eccentric Croatian figures, men who didn’t quite fit into the mould of ordinary life. Growing up, I’d heard the stories—local legends, really—of men whose minds worked differently, whose brilliance and madness often went hand in hand. Some of them were harmless, the kind of oddballs who might fix your fridge in the morning and, by the afternoon, have invented something no one could understand.

There was The Great Antonio, for instance, famous for pulling buses with his teeth—a feat so absurd it had become part of local lore. And then there was Pavle, the "Nikola Tesla" of Montreal—or at least, a Temu version of him. Where Tesla had invented world-changing technologies, Pavle invented gadgets no one ever asked for. The kind of mind that could turn an old washing machine into something that looked like it came from a dollar store, or cobble together bizarre contraptions in his basement that might not work but always seemed to make things more… complicated. 

No one really knew what Pavle was up to in that basement of his. But when something broke, and you were from the former Yugoslavia, Pavle was the guy you called. If your fridge stopped working, you didn’t call the repairman—you called Pavle, and he’d bring it back to life in a way that left you wondering if you were living in the 21st century or the 19th. 

Although we weren’t Croatian, my father had always been fluent in all the languages of the former Yugoslavia. It was something that came naturally to him, almost as if he had been born to speak them. He was the go-to guy for bookkeeping, translations, and anything that needed a multilingual touch in the immigrant community. People would call him when they needed help with paperwork, or when they wanted someone they trusted to handle their finances or sort out a problem in their native tongue. It wasn’t much of a stretch, then, that he was known to others as “the man who could get things done.” 

When my father told me he’d be in the area after my theatre rehearsal and offered to pick me up, I didn’t think twice. 

We drove through streets I didn’t recognise, and soon, we were at the door of Pavle’s house. His kitchen smelled of burnt food and motor oil, a familiar scent from all the times we had visited. Pavle was standing at the stove in his lab coat, a pan of sausages bubbling away, the grease splattering in all directions. 

My father made himself comfortable at the table, as if this was just another routine stop. He sifted through a stack of papers with the same blank expression he always wore—unaffected, unbothered by anything around him. I, on the other hand, felt uneasy. Pavle had always been unpredictable. In fact, I couldn’t recall a single time we’d been in his house without something strange happening. 

I stood by the door, unsure whether to stay or leave. Pavle turned to me with a sausage in his hand, the grease dripping down his fingers. He took a chunk out with a knife and shoved it into his mouth, chewing it loudly. He didn’t say anything to me, just stared. His wild eyes flickered in and out of focus, and I felt an odd tension rise between us. 

Then, in a split second, the knife was in his hand again. He whipped it across the room, the blade slicing through the air with terrifying precision, embedding itself into the wall inches from my face. My heart stopped. 

The knife clattered to the floor in two pieces, landing in a strange kind of symmetry, like it had always been meant to break this way. Silence descended, thick and suffocating. I couldn’t move, couldn’t speak. I stood frozen, staring at the broken knife. 

My father didn’t flinch. He didn’t even look up from the papers in front of him. He didn’t acknowledge the danger, or the madness in the room. His voice remained as neutral as ever. “Slomio si nož. You need a new knife. This one is broken.” 

Without a word, Pavle stood up and walked over to the drawer where the knives were kept. He didn’t seem at all bothered by what had just happened. Instead, he muttered something under his breath as he rummaged through the drawer, looking for a replacement. 

I stood there, still too scared to move. My father stretched out in his chair, calm as ever. There was something detached about him, like he was used to this sort of thing. Balkanska posla, I thought. Just another one of those things you couldn’t explain. 

The silence lingered, broken only by the clink of the knives as Pavle replaced the broken one. 

Then, after what seemed like an eternity, my father looked up from his papers, his gaze settling on Pavle. “Make me a cup of tea.” 

I stared at him, bewildered. What kind of man asks for tea after all that? 

But Pavle didn’t flinch. Without a word, he moved to the counter, his hands shaking slightly as he began to prepare the tea. The kettle began to whistle, a sharp contrast to the stillness of the room. 

I watched as Pavle poured the hot water into the mug. The sound of the kettle’s whistle seemed to punctuate the absurdity of the moment. The chaos, the violence, the knife—it all seemed to fade into the background as Pavle, the mad inventor, now busy making tea like it was the most normal thing in the world. 

When the tea was ready, Pavle handed the cup to my father, who took it without a word, the ritual of it as normal as ever. And in that moment, everything seemed strangely calm—too calm. 

I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. But I realised, perhaps too late, that this was just another one of those moments in life you could never explain.