My mother says: “ Magdalena is a beautiful name.”
I say: “Yes, it is a beautiful name but it has nothing to do with me. You always called me Lena.”

I say: “And now I am interested in Mary Magdalene. What do you know about Mary Magdalene that I was named after or rather why was my grandmother named after Mary Magdalene?”
My mother says: “Your grandmother got her name after her auntie and one could make a movie about her. She was a legend, a beauty called Magdalena. She had songs sang about her.”
I ask: “Where was she from?”
My mother answers “From Zupa” and starts telling me a story: “She was happily engaged with her beloved and then one day as she was going back home from the town. That was not her usual day of going to town to sell. She usually went twice a week and this particular day was not her day. And so as she was going back home she met this fiancé of hers, embracing another girl.”
“Why?”
My mother answers: “I don’t know” and continues: “That is such a sad story. She passed them by without saying hello, and when she came down to Ploce, she died. Her heart broke and she died of sorrow.”
I cough and am amazed: “She died on Ploce? It’s not possible.”
My mother is determined: “Yes, truly”
“She died? How can you just die like that?”
“From the heart, from the great sorrow. Her heart broke from the sorrow.”
I am sceptical: “How old was she?”
My mother answers: “She was young, not even 20.”
I ask: “And how come she was named Magdalena?”
My mother says: “I don’t know that, I suppose after her grandmother.”
I say: “And then my grandmother was named…’
My mother confirms: “Yes, because she was famed for her beauty. She had songs about her.”

I ask: “Who sang these songs?”
My mother says: “The boys and girls from Zupa. And there’s a folk song “Almond’s Branch” or something like that. I’ll find it for you.’
I say: “That would be great.”
My mother says: “A lovely song” and continues: “And then I found out where her grave was and every year at Halloween I take one flower and place it there.
I ask: “And where is this grave?”
She says: “On Dance, in the corner.”
I am surprised: “On Dance? How come they buried her there?”
My mother explains: “Because there was so much sadness and sorrow that they didn’t want to take her back to the village and he was so devastated because that affair with another girl was insignificant, he had nothing to do with that girl, was just walking with her embraced by accident and was taken aback when he saw her so he never said nothing. And he never married. That year there was no ball in Postranje.”
I say: “I remember you telling me about it.”

I say: “But isn’t being named after Mary Magdalene a bit of a silly…?”
My mother interrupts: “Why? She is a wonderful example of Biblical women that were penitent. When she met Jesus she felt a huge remorse for her lifestyle so she followed him and was the first one to see an empty tomb and she became totally renewed, penitent woman, a completely new woman.”

I say: “But still when you think of Magdalena, what’s the first thing that comes to mind: the saint or the whore?”
My mother says: “That she’s a follower of Jesus.”
I say: “Really?”
My mother says: “Yes really.”
I say: “When one say Magdalena, my first association with the name Magdalena is whore, Mary Magdalene figure.”
My mother says: “See, that’s how you view life, for me…penitent”
I interrupt: “So for you, when one says Mary Magdalene…”
My mother interrupts: “Penitent.”
I say: “I’m not thinking about my own name now, but in general. When one mentions Mary Magdalene figure the first association is…”
My mother says: “Penitent.”