What is the girl's real name we don't actually know, when she was 11 she discovered the book called Matilda about a girl who possessed magical powers, and talked about it so much so ,that her parents and friends since than, simply call her Matilda.
Matilda is now all grown up . She works at the Zagreb archaeological museum a walk away from home. She is engaged even. Matilda seems to have it all sorted.
One day walking across the Zrinjevac square amused by birds playing in the tree tops she tripped and fell on to her knees in the fresh morning dew, staining her white trousers in the mud. There was no time to change or iron something else, and Matilda very conscious of her messiness entered the museum. All day she was bothered by those muddy knees. As visitors would enter the rooms in which she stood so Matilda would turn to face the walls or cabinets trying her best to hide the filthiness. Yet that sense of ill-ease remained with Matilda for days after the incident. Each day Matilda became more bothered during the work time. She kept reading up on about the arrival of the Greeks to the Adriatic coast for the thousandth time, and stared at the skin of the etruscan mummy, hoping that something within history will rid her of that feeling. Yet for the first time the museum she had loved so much, became suffocating, making her feel as if buried in some enormous dark tomb, having not achieved something that was needed, yet what that was, she did not know.
Boromir her fiance noticed the restlessness and after a few weeks having allowed time for herself to approach him, unsuccessfully, asks Matilda" What has been botherning you for so long?"
Matilda surprised that her unease is so noticeable replied languidly. " In fact I do not know. For years I have dreamt of working for the archaeological museum, and have enjoyed going there each day until recently that feeling became one of dreading going to work. I spend days studying the exhibits anew, and looking for something that is missing. But really is something missing in the museum or am I missing something, I can not tell"
" Is it time to look for work else where?" Suggested Boromir.
" No. Replies instinctively Matilda. That is exactly where I wish to work, but there is some sort of puzzle which is must solve, only the problem is I am unaware as to what it is."
" Is the problem rooted outside the museum?" Boromir asks cautiously.
No I think not, I love our group of friends, this city of ours, and the job, and I'm excited about the wedding, and though everything seems to be in place as it should, I still feel like I have not realised something that I should , and that stone building reminds me of a pyramid in which I am buried too soon, and have no right to it , the right to feel at peace. There is something that I must solve."
Whilst Boromir felt relief that Matilda is not re considering being with him, Matilda after the conversation felt no better. The next day, during the work break ,she sat with a mug of coffee in the museum garden and mused at the sculptures from the ancient roman city of Salona. The garden was scattered with remains of sculpted women's and mens heads, and sarcophagus adorned with carved achievements of the long buried. A blackbird hopped about it all.
I am like the blackbird, sadly compared Matilda, I find myself amidst something long ago created, which I try to comprehend, and inform others, yet I don't know where I my self have come from.
That evening Matilda joyously hugs Boromir and explains" I have discovered what is bothering me. I do not know where my ancestors come from. What kind of place is it. Who where those people and how they lived. Our wedding is coming up soon and yet What shall I tell our children if we have them. I shall teach them about dinosaurs, Ilirian tribes, and when they ask where are grandparents from, our roots, I will have to say I do not know"
" So this is why you feel such unease in the museum, you are missing your own historical context. " Boromir sums up, feeling relived.
" Obviously"
" Well lets investigate" Suggests Boromir whose relatives have been born lived in Zagreb for centuries, and whose grandmother and father are still alive and available for visits in the old town, and so there was never much mystery as to who they where and where they came from.
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