Deciding to tell you about Isaac, the son of Kejtin, has brought back to me such beautiful, delicate and unforgettable memories, such pure and bright moments I don’t think I’ll ever forget. I am so proud when I think of the son of Kejtin, proud as Jesus Christ himself. But I only want to relate to you those hours in the Home, just the cursed hours we passed until we reached the Senterlev mountain. That was a mysterious mountain, the Senterlev. They said that was the mountain the sun was born from; impossible, the mountain from which the sun is born. Does anyone know a similar place, such a mountain from which the sun is born? I do not believe, you know, that the Senterlev mountain was the only such mountain. There must have been some unspoken thing in that; but not even the Headmaster, our dear fatherly Headmaster, Ariton Jakovleski, knew it to be the truth. Whatever it was, one thing became certain — the road to the Senterlev mountain was horribly steep, like the road into hell. And all we had to do was go along the road — curse me — and now, I do not know from where I got all the strength, will power and courage for such a horrible, difficult road. At the beginning I will just say this: the passion for life and freedom was many times greater, a thousand times greater, a million times greater, an infinite amount greater. Curse me if it did not keep us going, kept us from being afraid of the dreadful punishments. Oh, eternal sweet dream. Curse me, it was the voice of the Big Water.

    They paired me with him in line. Curse me, my friend from the assembly line. They charged me with him, they weighed me down with him. Each one of the exemplary friends was charged with such a bad boy in the assembly line. I said “exemplary”, curse me, because that is a word I hate for life. Exemplary comrade, exemplary pioneer, exemplary member of the Youth Communist organisation, exemplary citizen. Exemplary, I don’t know what else, curse me, exemplary asshole. But that was the assembly line, I swear.

    It was Spring 1946, the first Spring after the war. It seems like it was 1,000 years ago. I only remember a little, it was bad weather. Snow. A gale. A big snow storm landed on the Earth and all of the trees that were in blossom were turned to ice. Turned white. And everything went silent all of a sudden, all of the precious and innumerable sounds of the Spring that had just come were gone; nothing remained of that beautiful, strong light. Ice. I remember it very well because I was wearing short Spring pants which were made of a patterned Italian rug. The snow was high, to the waist. Everything, everything was covered; blanketed.

    We were a sad group of hungry and dirty children, homeless. Bad, dark little villains as the good teachers called us. Hunted down in plains, in gardens, in forests, in barns, from cliffs, in the big snow. Curse me, we would not give ourselves up. We probably did not realise that they wanted to take us to a Home, under a roof, to a bed, that they would give us hot drinks with a piece of bread and marmalade, that they wanted to do us a good turn, to provide us with every last one of those stinking things that are provided for in the assembly line. Subject to regulations, curse me. All of that was fine but we still wouldn’t give ourselves up. I tell you, all that Spring, we were hunted like little beasts by Red Cross units, teacher units and all kinds of hunters.

    I must admit that I changed my mind quickly; after seven days. Curse me, I gave myself up. Okay, I said to myself, I don’t want to sadden the hearts of my uncle Ilko Kostadinovski and my dear aunt Kola Kostadinovska. Okay, I said to myself, I’d better get out of the empty bam, I’ve spent enough time with the mice. But when my dear uncle Ilo, my good uncle Ilo, saw me set off, on parting, when I put out my hand to shake his, I swear, he left his pitchfork, he had been dragging manure out of the stable, wiped his hands quickly on his knees and his shirt front, hugged me so hard I thought he would break my bones. He said:

    “Leme, son! Leme my dear little nephew, I won’t say goodbye to you, I would not be Ilo Kostadinovski if I didn’t bring you back from that evil place.” He said it so loudly that even those who were down by the river could hear him; it was as though he wanted everyone to hear him. All of a sudden, my aunt ran towards us breathlessly, with my cousins, Stojna and Mara, my dear little cousins. But my uncle remained firm, at that moment he didn’t pay attention to anything, he kept hugging me closer (he must not have felt my pain) and closer, stronger and stronger, shouting at the top of his voice “Believe me, Leme, I will save you (dear God, the grey, snow-filled sky, cheerfully opening above our heads, there’s a ray of sun, and that small light, triumphant, shows us that it is Spring. Curse me, Spring). Believe me, Leme, my little nephew, I will save you.” (At that, you should have seen my aunt pricking up her ears! As though her bulging eyes were saying “What?! What?!”) “Nothing, Leme,” said my uncle softly, with tears glistening in his eyes, “Just let these hungry years pass,” he said. “You can see for yourself, Leme,” he said quietly “You can see how hard life is, it isn’t very good for anyone, son. What else can be done, you have to go to that dungeon.”

    Curse me, that’s what he said “dungeon”. I couldn’t have known what that word meant then, I was simple and ignorant. At the age of twelve, I wrote my name “EM”, because I couldn’t bear to think about the letter “L” as it reminded me of something awful. I had only been to school for one year, and that was about all the knowledge I had in me. At that time, I knew very few words, I must admit, and those that I did know were terrible swear words which I can’t bring myself to write down, because I now know what they mean. When I think of the way I spoke then, curse me, I begin to sweat, I blush with shame. I swear, just at that tragic and sorrowful moment, leaving the dear manure heap, I saw a young, wild rooster with a peppery red comb, swoop like a beast onto a gentle, young hen which was gingerly poking around in the manure, and all of a sudden, without any shame, he wrapped the little hen under him, for just a second, in the wink of an eye, curse me, and it didn’t even make a sound! What a great thing, I thought, they are having it off, but those were not my words, I swear. It was my grandfather Kostadinovski who taught me those words, may he rest in peace. As a matter of fact, he would have said it if he were alive, if he were lying there, under the eaves, warming himself in the Spring sun, getting rid of the ice from his chest. Curse me, in that sort of moment, my grandfather would thaw out completely, he would turn into a blue shining drop. “Oho-ho,” he would say, waving his hands about so you would think he was about to take flight, “oho-ho, they are having it off, Leme.” I was a favourite of my grandfather’s and he was always teaching me little things. I know why the cats spend all day and night miaowing during Winter. I know about the dogs and the cows; I also know why my aunt sometimes would pat me on the head, give me a piece of bread with cheese just so that I would go outside; I also know how angry my uncle would get at my dawdling on the stairs, he couldn’t wait for me to leave the house. “I hope you choke on that bread. Go on, go!” my aunt would blurt in such moments. I swear, I know lots of things like that; things I now had to leave behind. I had to set off at once, I saw tears in my aunt’s eyes. That made me get out all the more quickly. Curse me, if I had to see that for a second longer, I thought I would die, that my heart would burst.

    “Leme, goodbye, go in health, but don’t go talking about us, because it would be unfair; I have raised you like one of my own, you know. I cared for you like a little bird!”

    “Oh,” I said sympathising, “Oh, dear aunt,” I wanted to say something else, but she started to cry even more forcefully, and finally I had to go. Curse me, how I wanted that moment to be prolonged, to look at that dear manure heap. I was most saddened by the gentle little chickens, I felt a terror when I realized, my God, we are parting, it’s over. I thought there wouldn’t be chickens anywhere else in the world, let alone such dear and kind chickens as these. But it would have been altogether insensitive on my part to delay, I didn’t want to sadden the hearts of my dear relatives any more. Curse me, that’s my nature, I don’t want to hang around for a minute longer than I’m supposed to. And those tears in the eyes of my aunt; I prefer laughter. Curse me, I used to be a giggler, I thought no-one could match me, I joke at everything around me! But most often, I was alone, without anyone in my life. Sometimes I think about how sweetly, how stupidly I used to laugh to myself, like some poor idiot. Curse me, I would be overcome by crazy laughter and couldn’t stop. I remember he would laugh like that too, my friend, the son of Kejtin, you will see, he would laugh his head off. Some people in the Home, and especially those on the staff who thought they knew everything, said he was a bit mad, that even he didn’t know what he was laughing about. Curse me, he did know what he was laughing about. He got the better of them all. At the end, we couldn’t bear those shit heads any more, but we did laugh. Only he could’ve thought of that thing with the tree, curse me. Oho-ho, how all of them were taken in, even the Headmaster Ariton Jakovleski. But where was I? Yes, the parting, good, those tears drowned me. I knew they were false, I knew they were impure, curse me, why would she cry when, as soon as I leave, she would attack my uncle for saying he would get me back. I swear, I saw the hostile look she gave him at that moment, if she could’ve, she would’ve impaled him on the pitch fork. Curse me, during those seven days, while I was hiding in the bam, there wasn’t a single place she didn’t send my poor uncle to look for me. I swear, they were looking under rocks and up trees. Oh God! And now, goodbye, maybe I’ll return one day to save my uncle. “Go Leme, go my dear boy,” said his unhappy face. But really, I couldn’t tear myself away from the warm, enchanting manure heap. Curse me, that was really muddying my mind, I kept thinking there was something unexpected, some sweet mystery hidden in that manure heap. Anyway, I’ll have to come back one day, I thought to myself, I swore to myself.

    “Goodbye, dear cousins.”

    “Goodbye, Leme! Goodbye, lovely cousin.”

    “Goodbye.”

    “I hope you never come back,” my dear aunt couldn’t stop herself wishing me a good trip. That was the blessing of my aunt on the third step I took. Curse me, a blessing.

    I left not altogether sad, I left with a strange, unfamiliar happiness, all the way to Baska, I felt happy. I swear, the Spring sun was blazing on the snow, getting clearer, stronger. Oh, what beauty, the visibility was increasing everywhere, all around, the snow was melting, going over the plain, something warm entered me like a current, some strange, beautiful shiver shook me. Curse me, it was in Baska, I can’t forget it. It was here we were herded from all the different areas, dirty, frightful little children. It was here they burdened me with him and that’s what I wanted to tell you about.

    They brought him to Baska under guard. He was a boy, a spectre, seemingly my own age but who, it turned out, was really thirteen or fourteen. He was one ugly boy, the ugliest boy, tall, thin, bent over like a willow branch, with crooked shoulders, and then, his strange, bulging eyes, as though he’d never had any sleep, as though they’d never been shut. He was barefoot, dark, ragged and I don’t know why, he was always smiling. Curse me, he winked at me; he just winked. It was as if lightning hit me. “A bit touched,” I thought to myself, and at that moment he burst out laughing, as though he could read my thoughts. Curse me, he understood. After that, he stared into the empty sky somewhere far away, he didn’t pay any attention at all to what was said about him. Curse me, at that moment, he wasn’t there, he’d travelled away. After that I saw how much he wandered, I swear I was terrified when comrade Olivera Srezoska, instructor and Assistant-Headmaster of the Home, stuck him next to me. The damned family reputation. I wanted to tell her, having responsibility for others is not my personal character, it was my father’s, but she cut me off quickly.

    “Leme, this bad boy will be next to you in the assembly line,” she said. “You are responsible for him, remember that.”

    This word “responsible” was new to me, too. I didn’t know it. She should’ve said, “If he runs away, Leme, I’ll beat you like a dog, I’ll put you down.” Curse me, what could I do when my grandfather was shameless and taught me such shameful and appalling things. This word, at first, didn’t remind me of anything, or if I did recall it, it was as something ugly, dog like and unmentionable.

    His endless rambling made the greatest impression on me; it was as if he were a bird. At those times, his unattractive face changed, became beautiful. Curse me, all of his being would change, and a mysterious, unknown and unnoticed light seemed to shine from him. Never seen before, I swear. The teacher, old Mr Verdev, could’ve spat on his physics, that light was not found in science. It was some great, wild fortune. That’s what I thought when I watched him hastening along the road, floating away. Curse me, it was as if he wasn’t in line, as though he was not walking along that bumpy, grooved country track. I swear, as if he wasn’t on the ground. He flew as if the whole countryside, all of the plain, was his. Curse me, he was far away from that bleak, muddy plain, far away from that black column of unfortunate children, gentle as lambs.

    Olivera Srezoska paid him special attention, if another child did something wrong, she would shout at him:

    “Why do you sway when you walk?”

    or:

    “Don’t wave your arms about, walk properly,”

    or again:

    “Why have you raised your head so high? Why are you laughing? What are you laughing about, you ragged good for nothing? Look at yourself; lower your head. Stop laughing.”

    Then, for the first time, our eyes met. He looked at me warmly, with a cheerful smile, as though he were saying “Little fool, you are afraid. This barking, old hag has scared you! I am here, don’t worry!” Curse me, he acted as though he was the one who had been made responsible for me rather than me for him.

    Distrustful, I gave him a sideways glance. At once, he understood my glance and now, without hesitation he said:

    “You are mad, friend. You thought that about me but you are the one who is mad!”

    He said the truth, curse me, as though he was inside my head.

    “Come on, little fellow,” he said then, friendly, with that same crooked smile “don’t be a child. I know about little puppies like you, they just yap.” And in the same moment, he burst into a fit of uncontrollable laughter. Curse me, nothing could stop him. He’s going to laugh for a few centuries, I thought to myself, he’ll laugh until the very last drop. I swear, he was a terrible giggler.

    “Why are you laughing?” I asked him.

    I thought he hadn’t heard me, but that wasn’t true. As soon as we entered the gardens he suddenly stopped, pointing toward the setting sun and said:

    “There, it is there, the water. The Big Water! There it is. Look! What, don’t you believe me, comrade?” he asked affronted, and started giggling. “Okay, come on, you blind, little bird, open your eyes, look, over there, there where it is shining like a flame, there...”

    He spoke with such excitement, such joy that you just had to believe him. Curse me, he saw it, he already had it in his eyes. It was wicked, inhuman not to believe him. It was as though each word was a strong sapling. All at once he ignited in me a strong fire which my heart did not recognise until then. Curse me, I fell about a thousand times and picked myself up again from that road. I looked over to the side where the sun was setting, I was looking for the Big Water.

    “What can I do with you when you are blind?” he said, smiling, rushing, happily waving his arms around as though he was about to take flight.

    After walking for a while, in front of us unfolded the most beautiful, the most mysterious scene in my life. The Big Water. Huge. Wondrous. Oh, God! Dear God, it greeted us with motherly eyes, with a bright, sweet look. I went dumb, I swear.

    The children stopped as though on command.

    “It’s coming!” cried the boys like birds.

    “She will come,” an unfamiliar voice spoke to us. A woman we did not know dressed all in black was slowly coming towards us. She was the matron Verna Jakovleska, the good Verna Jakovleska.

    I can still see that water. The dream of Kejtin, our dream. Curse me, our whole dream. We could walk beside the water for as many days and nights as they made us, we could walk beside the water without resting for a century. The exhaustion, the difficult road, the hunger and the thirst that were with us as we were led to the Home disappeared at once. It was as if all of our pain, all our misfortunes were melted by the good soul of the Big Water. The snow, the mountains, the burned down villages, the abandoned farms, the barren fields. It was all left far behind; all that was in us was the Big Water. The water was all around us, curse me, it was as though the Big Water was waiting for us. I swear she recognised us, she recognised us at once. It was as if her gentle voice was saying to us, “Go little ones, my little ones, here is the road, go, don’t give yourselves up.” And we went, comrades’ honour, we went, I swear on the good name of comrade Olivera Srezoska, we went.

    In a line, under command. Curse me, in line. Dear mother, in line. Remember that word if you don’t want to get kicked at each step. Those who thought of such a stupid thing as the assembly line must have been beasts. And there it was, like a prize for all that was lost, like in the most beautiful dream, we stood spellbound on the bank.

    The dear water. The setting sun was lying above the waves, had given itself to them. Look! Thread by thread the golden ball of the day is unwinding. In that moment the Big Water looked like an enormous loom that was quietly, wordlessly, wondrously weaving. Following some secret path, you could see it being carried to the shore. Curse me, the trees and birds that had flown to their branches were woven with gold; spider webs were wafting over the shallows. Splendid nests, I swear. It was as the same thing was happening to the people who, with a strange excitement, were now appearing, now disappearing behind closed windows. Curse me, as though they were afraid to open them. But their looks gave them away, you could see everything in their looks. The water, everything has turned into a huge wondrous loom which continuously, tirelessly, gently weaves. Before we knew it, the twinkling southern sky opened over our heads. A thousand, no countless little lamps burst into flame on the southern vault. And it seemed the lake had been waiting for just this moment, you hear how she is letting herself go, how freely, powerfully she starts to roar. Just then she is everywhere, she reigns. Oh that golden wave! I swear, that was the voice of the Big Water.

    “Come on,” Kejtin said to me softly, putting his long bony hand on my shoulder. “Come on, little one,” he whispered. “Can’t you hear, she is waiting for us!”

    Curse me, that was the truth. I forgot about the punishment; what meaning did even the biggest punishment have before such beauty? I didn’t ask him where, nor why; softly, without a word I set off after him, like a captive giving myself up to his lead. Like a black demon, he slid down the bank, then, like a goat, he jumped from rock to rock waving to me all the time, urging me to follow him. We climbed right up to the highest point on the peak. Curse me, the highest one.

    Everywhere around, there was water and stars.

    A million little stars, curse me. Their soft light set fire to the whole sky, you thought they were shining, twinkling from everywhere. They’d descended into the water, they were floating. At one time, all of the lake and its banks began to blaze, green, blue — it called out to us with a human voice, enticed us. Curse me, maybe I am imagining it, maybe it was just the gentle dark waves but that voice was truth. Maybe it was the green soul of the water, what did we know — speechless, squashed, one next to the other, we sat on the highest cliff. In a dream, under a spell. Without a word we listened to the waters roll in and retreat; how the stars were quickly multiplying in the sky and how in the morning even more quickly they melted away, turning into a fine blue dust. Oh, beautiful stars of the southern sky. We watched how the snow was disappearing from the home fields, we were returning home, curse me, home. At the door, a dear face with big, very deep eyes, blue, clear, the most beautiful eyes greeted us. Oh dear God! One wave looks like Mount Senterlev. I swear, at that moment we saw all the dear images, all the lost images returned, everything was back in its place. Everything returned, we were home. You recall even some thing which had been totally forgotten, a small thorn stuck in your bare foot, you remember how your mother had carefully worked it out with a needle, and, so that it wouldn’t hurt you too much, she blew coolly over her work, with her own breath. Oh, my dear little one, mother’s heart! You hear her voice.

    Everything was there in the Big Water. Curse me, all of it was that simple and that beautiful. It was a happy time, an unforgettable time which became eternal.

    “Kejtin,” I called him by name like an old friend, “Kejtin, my brother.”

    “Leme,” he replied, as a friend. He patted my head, like a little puppy, he stopped the tears which appeared by themselves in my eyes and said, “Leme, little brother.”

    That night a wave entered us, a wave which no-one could take from us. Such a wave stays in a person for all time, I swear.

    Where did his strength come from? Many sleepless nights, many difficult days brought me only one answer, I swear, it was his human goodness. So, I’ll have to tell about it all, oh God, how he knew about the dead; he knew how to give breath to inanimate objects bringing them to life, transforming them, making them authentic. Curse me, real. One time, in the Home, many people became suspicious that his was not a human birth. He frightened them with his spirit (even though they preached most vehemently against religion). Some thought that he was the son of the evil one. Curse me, offspring of the evil one. What other explanation for his sharp pointed head, pointed shoulders? Was it some frightening, midnight coupling between an unfortunate girl and the evil spirit? He didn’t have any sort of family character record. I don’t recall him ever saying even a word about his mother, father, brothers, sisters — curse me, he never mentioned the Kejtin family. What could his family have been like? One thing was known, I swear, anyone who reached for him would then lose his strength. And it wasn’t a single incident — he could see everything that was invisible; everything that was far away, unreachable, he could have. Everything which looked firm would turn to dust at the touch of his bony hand. Lastly, was he not the one and only cause of the death of Ariton Jakovleski? Wasn’t he the one who destroyed the wall and let in the water? Curse me, he was accused of the most awful things; things he certainly never did in his whole life. So you will understand how much he had to endure; at the end, he had to pay for it in an unthinkable way. Curse me, just that, he had to pay.

    We still didn’t know anything about the wall then. About the mornings in the Home, about the wake-ups, about dreaming in this accursed place. In the beginning, the wall wasn’t noticeable. Our heads were still swimming, intoxicated with the sparkling, moist air from the water. I do not have to remind you of the rapturous, wondrous hours of happiness we spent that night by the Big Water. Curse me, the Big Water was a beautiful dream. I always believed in fiction.

    The wall was all around the Home, like a serpent. Huge. It embraced you, it wrapped you up in its tail and then, nothing could save you. Oh God, those black mornings full of dread next to the wall. Silence. It seemed each morning it consumed one child. The image of the mornings in the Home remains as one of the scariest in my life. All along the wall you could see boys lined up, boys who had been woken too early, still with troubled dark dreams, bleary-eyed, blue from the cold and trembling. Most of the children were barefoot, not dressed warmly enough, each wearing whatever he had arrived in. To get away from the ice of the early mornings (God, how the frosty dew could bite), they did stupid exercises, indifferently stamping the ground, one-two, left-right, up-down; just enough to warm up your soul. Curse me, a soul. The soul felt the coldest; our souls were ice. The children were usually silent, with strange, big eyes, sick, with a dark flame, little heads bowed, as though they were looking for something that was lost on the ground. Usually they would stand like that, heads down, for hours, like young, slender flowers whose stems were broken by a harsh wind and which had now wilted (but maybe it was from hunger too). This was most noticeable with the little girls. Curse me, our beautiful girls! Hair shorn off, limping, like ugly little boys, diminished, melted into the line. Curse me, someone had thought up an assembly line for the beautiful girls.

    Fear spread all around, unknown fear. Even to this day I still tremble with fear when I see homes for children; I think they still have that deafness, that silence, that dead quiet. The fear had entered every child, every object. The devastation and poverty was such that you couldn’t know whether the war had ended or still continued. I can still see the children bent over like old people, children who swallow air with difficulty and let out the same air with even greater difficulty, children who don’t run but who drag themselves through the dust, children who hardly open their mouths once in a day. Sometimes it lasted for days, sometimes for weeks, sometimes the image would stay for months. Day and night. Mute children, curse me, dumbly looking at the wall. But really nothing could be done. You know you are built in by the wall. You don’t have anywhere to go, you are separated from the other world. Curse me, you’re built in on all sides.

    The wall seems to get bigger. It looked so high, as if it was built to keep out the birds. Some of the children measured it with spans, to the millimetre. Curse me, to the last millimetre. Usually before the assembly, in his spare time, some boy had thought to measure the wall. Certainly in despair; curse me, it had no meaning. It was as if the devil had nothing else to do, all at once, all the measuring provoked a variety of disagreements. Someone would interrupt you when you were measuring, would confuse you and you would have to start again. Oh God, not because it was so important, but all the wretchedness had to come out somewhere. Usually, one weak boy would grab the throat of an even weaker boy so the fight would be finished to the end. However mindless this sounds, the measurement and re-measurement in time became one of our dearest past times. Such a confusion of numbers that there wasn’t a soul alive who could sort it all out. Altogether different dimensions came out of it all, some said the height was such and such; according to others, the height was something else. Yet others spoke aloud the measurements they had made, in their sleep; it was incredible, horrible, everything was in a muddle. Even so, each one well knew for himself how high the wall was. When the administration found out we were spending our time so mindlessly, that we carried our notebooks in our hands to disguise what we were doing, they immediately banned everyone from walking near the wall, and everyone who tried to measure the wall again got the strictest punishment. Curse me, the strictest.

    The wall had its own history, it hid something evil from the past. I swear, it hid all of the restlessness of those who had been locked in here before, I think it excited us with a particular power. The strange and indecipherable signs left by the “predecessors” as we named the lunatics who were there before us (fifteen to sixteen of them, probably the last ones, the others having fled immediately after the war and returned to normal life), curse me, those signs planted fear in our bones. It was obvious they weren’t joking, there was a constant threat that they would appear, that they would jump from the wall, as though their restless sick souls were pressed into the wall. It was as if they could come back at any time, curse me, that they are watching you. Their shadows were present, alive. But the most frightening thing was that some of the signs displayed a clear human conscience, a mind. Curse me, you could see heart, a gentle look, things that made you feel warm. Maybe all of that was created in a shining moment, there, in that moment, shivering, they confirmed their existence on the wall, their human life, they “immortalised” themselves, just like the traveller who set off to be a guest worker, on the road, in a thousand places, on trees, on rock, on metal road signs, you see he has written his name. Curse me, his human name. As if those big, hungry eyes could be understood differently. Clever eyes, full of brilliance. Blue. Same as the sky, curse me, like the sky. Just about everything that was in colour was blue. Blue dominated on the wall. Only God knows how the lunatics came to blue, but it was known that it served them as a useful cure. Those who had had the chance to see the lunatics at work, how they etched with colour day and night, told how at those times the lunatics behaved totally normal, like human beings. Our bell-ringer, comrade Aneski, one of the previous inmates of this Home, in his moments recalled all of that in a very lively way, and what was most strange was he always started to speak about this himself, without any greater reason, he would say:

    “Lunatics, being lunatics, are not normal.” He would say “Give them a little paint and they would forget everything, for days they would forget about eating, about sleeping. Give them paint and they wouldn’t pester you for anything else. They would become gentle as lambs. Lunatics!”

    There were times, after long observation (maybe that was darkness, twilight), when all of the signs merged into one universal image. Then, a whole sea would roar before our eyes. Curse me, a sea. You see a storm over the wall, waves which had risen to the skies; bewitched birds with wings spread wide, a scream, some human voices, the drowned, hell. The children would go mad one by one, see how quickly they disappear. They hide like mice, everywhere in the Home. You’d think some bad wind had got into the Home and struck the children, had pursued them. Curse me, nothing could bring them to their senses. That fear, that bitterness was overwhelming. In any case, that was a delusion and not a lot of time passed before the wall was whitewashed and all over its surface we wrote slogans in red. At first, those slogans didn’t remind us of anything, they were unnecessary, big red bugs. Curse me, red bugs. But later they meshed completely with the life of the Home.

    I don’t know for how many ages we were imprisoned in the building that carried the impressive name “Shining Light”. But I swear, a person with the best vision soon had to see a doctor for loss of sight. Some, you know, went blind, curse me, it was blindness. Later, it turned out it was a rare form of blindness, a type of blindness that couldn’t be cured with the wearing of glasses. And strangest of all and in the beginning, hardest to understand, was the fact the building itself was transformed into a wall. All of the windows from which you could see the Big Water were bricked in. Curse me, bricked. They explained that all of it was done on noble inspiration. Curse me, all people are adorned with noble inspiration and we will die from such things! Blind, without seeing each other. Curse me, blind. Honestly, that was a whole tale. The windows that faced the lake were bad places, it was where the watery spirits got in, to wake the people. From there, each day, someone would jump. Investigations showed it always came after some subconscious behaviour, in a moment of powerful excitement, inflamed by the deceptive voice of the spirit. They were misled by the water’s spirits, they thought they could fly. Curse me, where would they fly, the windows were high, just about up to the ceiling, and the hope to survive was none at all. There wasn’t one who got up off the ground if he’d tried flying through the window. And who didn’t want to try at least once. Just that, to fly once. Not caring where he’d fall, not caring from what height he’d throw himself or how long his life would last. And then, there were so many times when it was very much all the same, curse me, very much so. The risk was the same whether you flew or remained.

    The wall everywhere, all around, the wall above all, was in the Home. Curse me, the wall.

    Only somewhere far away was there a freedom, a big water which couldn’t be built in by any wall.

    “Here,” said the son of Kejtin one morning and started to laugh, happy laughter, from the heart. Curse me, that was when it happened for the first time, she spoke to us. I swear, the wall couldn’t do anything to the water, she thundered. We heard. She was coming. Curse me, she was coming, even over the wall.

    The image of the Big Water can never be lost. It was as though she, together with the yearning for the Senterlev Mountain, achieved real meaning, as though this wondrous magical dream were possible, could materialise in some way. The Big Water is unattainable, she has to be in the heart of a person. In his dream. Curse me, for the whole time we were in the Home I don't recall I wanted anything else from life. Like the dearest thing; like the face of my mother I kept her deep in my heart. I didn't even talk to the son of Kejtin about that, you couldn't talk to anyone about that, I thought. It was magic. A dream. I would never exchange that great, free water, not for everything in this world. Curse me, I wouldn't give her for anything, even though she was the sole cause of those and later sufferings, mine and Kejtin’s. And happiness, don't forget. A person who has travelled such a hard, humiliating road has to know the value of that impoverished, little muscle, the human heart. I swear, only our love divided into a thousand atoms, shared with the others, what you’ve given to others, that is all you have, that is where meaning is. Come on, then, let’s give our blood to those who are our brothers, our eternal confirmation. Oh, let’s hurry. The lunatic bell-ringer is striking his bell, every dream is cut short. Crazy, blind running, down dark, narrow stairs — Everyone in line! Everyone line up!

    Our assembly line was the most sacred thing. On one side you could see the newly arrived ones and, on the other, the older ones. Even though they looked almost the same, you could, even at first glance, distinguish the first lot from the second. The older ones had already learned, in line you had to look directly at the forehead of the dear Headmaster Ariton Jakovleski. Exactly at his forehead, curse me. The newly arrived ones still permitted themselves the freedom of looking left and right, to look at the small, distant sky above the Home or just to look aimlessly for hours. Wandering on the patterned wall. God help those who forgot the line. If only you could get used to something like that from the first day; all you needed was to be a bit stupid and a bit two-faced then you could certainly achieve a good character appraisal and all that flows from that little piece of paper. Paper, head, blood. Life. If only you could’ve seen those who had the best “character appraisal”! Curse me, when they were in charge of the line, on duty, there wasn’t a scarier place than the Home. Oh God, how they killed themselves for the administrators, the instructors, how they would lie shamelessly, how they thought up vile suggestions. I think that chased us away the most from that place, that betrayal. The son of Kejtin couldn’t stand it anymore, he said “I have to escape”. Curse me, he said those words.

    That was at the very first step. The first lining up. But we were still only children and above all we wanted most to look at those places we weren’t allowed to look. However, a person can get used to anything. Curse me, a person can endure anything. More than once the dear Headmaster would say “When a bear can learn to dance, what remains for an intelligent being?” That was the whole of our education, I swear. Worth nothing; even a moron would understand all that was necessary were a few right and a few left “thoughts” of the dear Headmaster and it was totally clear. It became clear to you, as clear as bright daylight. After all, it quickly turned into action. For a little while, everyone who stuck out was pruned; walloped. There was no untidiness in the line. Soon enough, the line was understood. We weren’t so stupid, curse me.

    The Big Water was so far away from this yard. God, in the beginning we still believed in God — dear God, life was so far away from this place. The wall was all the way around as was the death-bringing toll of the bell. Curse me, the assembly line. The voice of the Big Water came as though in a dream. She was on the other side of the wall, enormous, free. All we could see was the wall. Black. With bum marks in a thousand spots, curse me, some poor souls in extreme despair had obviously tried to set fire to the wall. Earlier they were to be pitied rather than laughed at. But after one such attempt it didn’t occur to anyone to do something similar. Often the children and the objects became equal, it was difficult to separate one from the other.

    That morning we became familiar in the most impressive way with the administrator in the Home, comrade Ariton Jakovleski. You could meet all sorts of people in the Home. There were all sorts, all of the types created by God. Smart ones and stupid, mean and kind hearted, all types. The Home with its residents resembled a cuckoo’s nest. Just like everywhere else you could meet special and unusual temperaments which you could never make presumptions about with any certainty. Here, not even fantasy could help very much. Such people, whether because of natural stupidity or because of cunning and corruption are able very skilfully to conceal themselves from those around them. To look at him, there was nothing, nothing unknowable in the life of Ariton Jakovleski, it seemed, nothing in particular; a life, an upright, ordinary man, living the life of any mortal. But for the person who knew Ariton Jakovleski’s nature — those were complex, difficult examinations of the conscience. For a long time, he wouldn’t permit anyone to get close to his heart, as they say, it was covered all over with barbed wire but it was as if that soul was in an eternally dark camp. Curse me, you could count all of the facts of his poor life, no, I swear, you wouldn’t find the truth here. It was hidden like light in water and every attempt to just hold the light in your palm for just a moment with the water would be in vain. It is very hard to take light from deep water. Then again, the light is simply hidden in fine sand, so all you have to do is separate it from the fine grains of sand, collect it, find it, my friends. Curse me, what a thankless job, and let’s not even talk about the trouble, turning over one stone after another until you find that tiny place where, like the devil himself, in a little hollow, the accursed truth has hidden itself. And what of it, my friend, he’s not around anymore, in his place gapes a black hole, a grave. Curse me, somewhere the man drowned, he was lost, unseen.

    Because of the truth, curse me, for the truth, I will start at the beginning, then the sequence of events just as God created our beautiful world. In order I will tell you all that is known and not known about Ariton Jakovleski. Yes, just about one part of his life, about the part I knew and I don’t say this without reason, I presume he was not always so alone, so damned alone as we knew him in the Home. Ariton Jakovleski must have had his own house, his close relatives, maybe even children, sons and daughters, maybe he was a very happy father, person. An exemplary, gentle hearted father, I swear, it could’ve been said of him that his was not a barren nature, made that way at birth. Maybe Ariton Jakovleski (God, if that was his real name; war changes everything for a person) — maybe there was a time when he dreamed, hoped, maybe loved! Didn’t, curse me, that love ruin him in the end? Call me a beast, but there was a time when I prayed to God and before people, and today I do it too — when someone is judged, as much as is possible you cannot just look at one part of his life for something that perhaps is not his fault.

    It was said he was specifically appointed to the Home with the task of taking care of the orphans of the war. It was said it was his own request. Curse me, from love. How much could we find out; to the last moment Ariton Jakovleski and with all that darkness and ice in his soul, still, that good man planned a better end for himself, he even hoped, he had moments when he passionately believed in his work, meaning he had some deeper hope. Maybe at those times he thought he would be paid back for everything he had lost in his life. Poor man! And it was not hard to work out that life wasn’t set all that much in his favour, the marks of a definitely brutal and tragic life were as visible as a dagger’s scar on his face. What was that hope based on? What dream deceived him, what water splashed about in his hard, chiselled, manly head? He spent all his time in the Home alone. I think he chose to be alone; apart from his administrative duties, there was nothing that could tie him to the people in the Home. Even though he tolerated the instructors, he didn’t like them. His only friend was the strong and very loyal dog, Andrusha. You couldn’t say life had put them together because of an exercise of will, a great battle obviously, great memories were the agent of the friendship between Ariton Jakovleski and the dog. (A dog doesn’t easily become loyal to a man.) Curse me, there was something touching, tender, inexplicable. That man and that dog, some damned common destiny. For example, everyone in the Home knew something terrible was going to happen to Ariton Jakovleski. Some might even have known the exact time of the accident, and maybe some knew the details about the place and the way he would take his life, but no-one found it necessary to lift even a finger. Not that, because of his individual, strange, strict behaviour, no-one in the Home mourned his loss, at the end, it was a human life, regardless what kind — he was a person after all. Curse me, everything appeared helpless, every word, every comfort. That sort will live out the last remaining moments of their life more calmly, easier if no-one from outside stirs, if you leave them to themselves in their own peace. He analyses everything and then it ends, mercilessly he judges himself, he dies with some lightening of the soul, he is conscious, he punishes himself, his soul is Christian, repentant. He thought he’d saved himself, he washed his hands, everything is smoothed out and now enough, goodbye life! And in case something made him rethink, he couldn’t go back, everyone already knew, everyone was waiting for that death. Tragic, my friend, tragic when you are still alive and someone has written you off. Curse me, there’s no life for a person after that, no way, he has to die.

    The dear Headmaster was a real devil. He still wore an army uniform with the red star. They called him the old partisan. God, he was strong, proud, then! Do you want me to describe him further? Excellent, I think you should pay attention to one other thing if by chance you bump into our dear Headmaster, comrade Ariton Jakovleski. Sometimes he acted like he was going blind, he would walk around acting blind when really, he could see like an eagle. When he hit, he never missed. The Headmaster was rare in that regard, he could see with his hands. With his left and with his right. Sometimes he was imaginative, more than once he hit out with both hands. You understand, that was on special occasions when he was in a good humour. To put it briefly, the Headmaster was one of those very wholesome, useful citizens who don’t have anything negative inside them. Let’s be honest, the dear Headmaster was like one of those people who put a lid on their life like you would on some ordinary object and then, go on, try to wipe that philosophy from their heads. If you make a drunk stop drinking, he’d be ready to die, he’d collapse. It was the same with Ariton Jakovleski. He would not yield, God forbid, from his positive ambitions (he loved to express himself that way) — he was no longer well. It was as though he got all of his strength from those stupid tasks. From day to day, as the tasks were lost, he lost his strength. But comrade Ariton Jakovleski did not permit such a thing, at least in the beginning. He knew his job, he trod his path perfectly. He had a firm step, army trained (curse me, the army changes a person in every way, in every single way). And I can see him now, my heart feels it deeply as if I am still in the Home. Curse me, I can see him and I remember his every movement. He’d put his hands behind, maybe these were the times of reflection, he would throw his head as high as it would go (it was rare to see his head bent toward the ground) and he circles around the yard like an eagle which has flown close to the ground to look for its prey. You could say he was unique in every way, and when he’d sing some battle song, then he became amazing. Everything in the yard, as if on command, fell silent. Curse me, a song.

    The tortured and sick morning hung like the tom half of the Home’s tree. The morning rolled itself in the sharp glass fragments in the wall. What happened to Spring, to the sky, the birds, what happened to the migration of things, with the rain, what happened with the Big Water? All the kids stood like statues. Frozen. We thought something bad had happened in the Home. No-one knew what morning it was, curse me, what really happened with the Big Water. No-one looked at us, didn’t even glance. The Headmaster did another hundred circles around the tree, singing his little song the whole time, until at last he went as silent as a stone. Oh, how quiet it was. He began to look deeply at one child then another, like he was looking for a thief. He measured each child, as if saying “You bloody mice, mice, bandits, look into these two eyes, eyes of a man who wouldn’t feed his mother (he paused in front of me and Kejtin) — look and remember, learn what a line is, discipline. At your age we captured German soldiers, my word, living fascists — remember, either you will be people worthy of your fathers (but our fathers had already gone) or it is better you don’t exist at all,” curse me, and I wish we did not exist. After that, obviously not finishing his review, he turned toward us unexpectedly and — not even giving us the chance to open our mouths — he took our heads as with a magnet, you know, mine and Kejtin’s, and with all his strength, hit one into the other. Poor heads, how they sparked! The old guy, you could see, had experience, had worked it out to the last detail. One head against the other. Turning toward the son of Kejtin he said:

    “Who are you, you devil?” and without waiting for an answer, he belted him across the ear. He thought with his right hand. “Who?” he repeated in case he hadn’t heard and at the same time, belted him with the left hand. The Headmaster hit so cleverly that everyone, each time, was surprised. Curse me, he hit like lightning from a cloudless sky.

    The son of Kejtin, Isaac Kejtin, as though nothing had happened, as though he hadn’t received two violent blows, calmly replied to the Headmaster:

    “I am the son of Kejtin,” he said, “Isaac Kejtin.”

    “The son of Kejtin,” repeated the Headmaster in a very interested way, and gave him a regulation third whack. “Think further,” he said, “maybe you’ve forgotten something, little son of Kejtin,” curse me, he said “Maybe you’ve forgotten your name.” That’s what the Headmaster said and slowly, as if he was counting old cartridges, he turned toward me. Oh, the omnipotent comrade Ariton Jakovleski, I was lost in his shadow. For a whole decade we sized each other up like two devils, the dear Headmaster loved to play a little game beforehand. From above the dear Headmaster is glaring at me, he winks at me, and I look at him from below, shooting him a fiery look or two, thinking he will feel sorry for me. He’s looking at me and with a sort of loving voice he says to me “Do you like this little Home; just tell me what you’d like, and I’ll get it for you, my little eagle.” I thought he was saying something like that to me and I got a bit closer to him, like I was going to throw myself into his arms, I’d hug him like he’s my own father, but it was from fear I got closer so he wouldn’t get me from a distance, so he wouldn’t hit me from a distance, so he wouldn’t rip my head off, so I’d end up without a head. Curse me, fear can force a person to do anything. “It’s a good Home, Headmaster, naturally,” I answered him in my thoughts.

    “And who are you, you devil?” he cut me off, whacking my nose. I didn’t see when he put his hand out.

    “Lem,” I said to him, leaving the blood to run down my chin and below, over my throat and onto my chest. “I am called Lem,” I said, “the nephew of Ilo Kostadinovski.”

    I left my blood flowing in a gentlemanly manner. Curse me, when I mentioned the name of my uncle lie Kostadinovski, I felt I’d said something important, that I’d said it all. The blood cooled me off a bit, my whole body was burning. I was happy when I thought of my uncle Ilo, I swear, I thought, well, what an uncle I have, the good Ilo Kostadinovski.

    The dear Headmaster certainly was not expecting such an answer, and much later we understood how crazy it was to give any answer, the dear Headmaster preferred his underlings not to have their own answers. Curse me, no answer at all. Not permitting me to stand open-mouthed any longer, he hit me to the ground with his heavy butcher’s hand, into the new dust of the Spring which came up from the ground like a flame. After that, he returned to the son of Kejtin.

    “Does anyone know about this traitor?” the Headmaster asked the other boys.

    You understand, no-one lifted his head. The son of Kejtin stood alone, distanced like a wave, exactly like a lone wave, some lone wave, like some free and unruly wave he stood in the middle of the Home’s desolateness. I saw the Big Water, I heard her voice, I flew over her huge expanses. The thin voices of the children were unreal, they begged the son of Kejtin to fall.

    “Stupid,” called out some of the older residents, “stupid. Drop down, fall! He won’t leave you alone until you fall, he could even kill you.”

    The son of Kejtin was not listening, he was already on one of his long trips, his thin lips quivered as if the first butterfly, as if a butterfly had landed on his lips, his eyes were full of light, he was far away, he was travelling.

    “Don’t big note yourself,” called out that voice, “there isn’t anyone who has managed not to fall.”

    The son of Kejtin nodded his head toward the ground, and when he did that, then it was useless for anyone to try to dissuade him. He can’t fall in the dust seeing me in it. “Be a man, son of Kejtin,” I begged him, “hold out, don’t fall!” Again he smiled with his eyes and hugged me with two winks.

    “You’re laughing,” said Ariton Jakovleski, amazed, “you devil, you’re laughing.”

    But the son of Kejtin didn’t say anything now. And he didn’t fall, I swear, he didn’t fall. He bent down much later to lift me up from the ground.

    “Get up little one,” he said. “Get up, strong Lem, we’ve arrived!” (Curse me “we’ve arrived”. I was still seeing stars, like someone drowning I held onto the son of Kejtin). I let him take me along.

    From that day, the son of Kejtin was a personality in the Home. It was not, at the time, a desirable thing to be. No-one in the Home was allowed to have his own free will, his own thoughts. The sooner you realised, the lesser the suffering, the greater the success. Your character appraisal would be excellent. Curse me, the character appraisal was most important. That’s what made a person, a person or a thug, yes, exactly that, a thug.

    At the end, the strange penalty was imposed. For a certain time, we were separated, one from the other, we weren’t allowed to be in the same place in the Home. In the same way, everyone was banned from going to the Big Water. They couldn’t think up a harsher punishment. Curse me, that was the worst punishment they could impose on us. I was separated from the son of Kejtin, and now they banned all of our dreams about the Big Water. The dear Headmaster knew, if you want to punish someone, just separate him from the thing that’s dearest to him. Rip out the one thing that’s in his heart, cripple him, blind him, so he can’t get away from you. Idiots, how can you destroy something if it’s in a person’s heart. I know, I know another century would pass before we understood the voice of the Big Water. But I can already see the frozen assembly line felling apart, columns of unfree children under one command, in one line, under the bell, listen, she is coming, I swear. Curse me, my friend, she is coming.

    With each day that passed, I believed more in the tale about the Senterlev Mountain. You couldn’t just think up a whole mountain, a huge mountain from which the sun is born. Surely it existed and to climb this mountain would take a hundred centuries, a whole lifetime. A whole lifetime and still you wouldn’t know how far up you’d reached. Curse me, what a road. Not even comrade Sekule the Meteor knew it. He taught geography and couldn’t hear properly when we asked “If there isn’t a God in heaven, then what is there?” Once we even asked him about the mountain, the Senterlev. He spat on his glasses to clean off the dirt, he took an old notebook from his coat pocket and became immersed in its pages which had yellowed with age. “There isn’t any such mountain,” he said with a sincere voice, sighing deeply. Good-heartedly he added “We were fighting on the Endriev mountain,” some Endriev mountain, curse me. “Then on the Klenoechku mountain, a number of our comrades fell there, just before liberation,” he said it with the sort of voice you just had to believe. He listed a further one thousand three hundred mountains through which the brigades had passed, but he couldn’t think of the Senterlev mountain. “It exists,” Verna Jakovleska’s voice was heard, “it exists, my dears.”

    Curse me, a circus. Poets, artists, opera singers, ballet dancers, musicians, cross country runners, talents. At that time, who knows how, a strange sick feeling arose in me. I thought them unfortunate people, sick, incurable. Poor unloved beings, I thought, brothers of man. It’s clear, they know life, they love it, they love life. Man is in their hearts, they know his own unfortunate face. Surely, when they are unfortunate, insulted, downtrodden people as well. They were apparently also hungry, probably pushed back over the threshold of many homes, inhospitably treated, Oh God, they know what to sing, to draw out the pain of man, they know what to tell someone, where to send him. That’s why I always listen to them with an open mouth and that cursed habit has stayed with me from my youngest years. Just say someone is telling me about the stupidest thing, for example, that he’d spent all day with his son’s bicycle (it had probably a blown tyre) and I open my mouth to listen to him. That wasn’t the reason later to hate them so much, to call them ruffians, the biggest liars. I didn’t know then they were special people, cursed, that for them, the angel comes from one side, the devil from the other. I wanted to talk about that, the talented, about that extraordinary event in the life of the Home.

    That sort of thing happened on holidays. Curse me, holidays. It happened in order, we knew of it in advance. Seven days in advance. Probably so we would be prepared to greet the muse. Curse me, the muse. We thought the muse was Olivera Srezoska, member of the Investigating Commission. But we knew something else, and that, I admit, was the best thing about such a day. That day they fed us better, curse me, they stuffed us right up to the neck. I can remember that well, for breakfast we got abundant vegetable soup. With cabbage and enough pumpkin. Curse me, you’d eat it and enjoy it, it created all sorts of feelings. They didn’t give us so much potato for nothing. There were also seconds, you could eat as much as you wanted. You spoon it up and you’d think, today they are selecting talented ones, God, what will sing out of you, what is your talent. For what are you, you take a guess, you think you’ll try one thing, then you think perhaps another thing, and it is hard to decide because you see you have all the talents, you have them, God gave them to you. You have some more potato, that’s a good thing, no, they’ll make me recite something, you don’t know, that’s not a good thing — Okay, I’ll be an opera singer, you want to try, you’ve swallowed a whole potato, your voice won’t come out, you sweat — then, everything gets mixed up, milky heart, you get sad, you think, what if you don’t have anything in you, you feel a heavy weight, you feel sick, all the stuff you’ve wolfed down with great appetite turns to poison inside you. But you had to go to the audition, that was the rule. You felt dead. Curse me, dead. You get your courage up again, something pulls you together, something holds your soul together, they will somehow work out your talent, they know, curse me, they know how much you are worth.

    From then, twenty, thirty centuries have passed, but I remember it all like it was yesterday, yesterday morning for breakfast. At seven o’clock, but you have been awake all night. A whole century, curse me. You see the eyes of all the children are aflame, full of some scary fire. The drawn little faces have become somehow strangely restless, very serious, you think them wise, beautiful, the line had never been so beautiful. From the first day when they told us about this very strange event in our lives, that fever grabbed us. Curse me, fever. It was even announced in the most artistic way. The instructor, the very good Trifun Trifunoski, poet, the master responsible for physical education and the literature club, with two regional contests in cross country running (the Spring and the Autumn races) — with one respectable republic championship result (thirteenth), he had been in the newspaper, awarded a certificate and those things which go along with it — in the best, in a one hundred per cent artistic manner, he announced the day of the audition. Dear God, what a voice, you know, that was my criterion for artiness, I thought, horses run to prove themselves, naturally poets shout to shout each other out, I thought what a voice, what a strong voice Trifun Trifunoski had. I have to say how he, reading, shook the lot of us, he crushed us. Curse me, we could stand dead still, as if mowed down. He read, word by word, grenade by grenade, varied calibre, depending on the aim — he would march from one end of the line to the other, it wasn’t any effort for him at all. On the contrary, he flew, you imagine, a bird, he spreads his hands and the gentle hearted Trifun Trifunoski flew. The excitement, the passion in the way even a meaningless little word is expressed, there you are, that’s what started a fire. Fires. Curse me, fires. There wasn’t a child who didn’t shift in the assembly line, who didn’t at least once, under the influence of Trifun Trifunoski, wave with his hand. You see a whole hand is going to hit you in the mouth, in your eyes. It is going to poke out your eye. He doesn’t take any notice of the fact you are standing next to him in the line, he’s gone blind. That was the first time the children let go, forgot about the assembly line, about the straight assembly line. I swear, it was the first time the instructors and the dear Headmaster permitted such a horrible criminal violation. Whose heart could stay calm when Trifun Trifunoski, with goggle-eyes, when, pointing a finger at you, he says:

       Oh, yes! Oh no!

       Why not!

       I see you as a worm

       Maybe there is an artist inside you

       O, yes! O, no!

       Why not!?

       Maybe a devil,

       Some other wondrous talent,

       this-that, friend-brother,

       brush, colour, new pattern,

       O, yes! O, no!

       Why not!?

       Or maybe a poet,

       a person with a flower.

                (great applause, cheers)

       Oh, yes! Oh no!

       Why not?

       Maybe a machinist,

       a happy tractor driver, dear son!

       Oh yes! Oh no! Maybe a pilot, bright wing

       Maybe an opera singer,

       ploughman,

       planter.

       Oh, yes! Oh, no!

       Why not!?

       Best worker,

       Small cart,

       pick-axe,

       top labourer,

       blood donor.

                (still more applause, cheers, cheers)

    O, yes! O, no! immediately you remember these meaningful verses, these verses which left the strongest artistic impression on us. You go and experience it, you say to yourself:

    “Should I do this or not,” then you answer yourself:

    “O, yes! O, no!”

    That wondrous, powerful man, it became clear, was not only talented in his feet. He had a hundred times more in his soul, his heart than in his feet. Curse me, it was all so extraordinary, scary. Those seven days passed as if in a dream, as if our lives changed to the core. We forgot the wall, the disastrous mornings, the wake ups, the classes on character, the poor life, all the put downs. Curse me, your soul was rich, they were happy centuries passed in the Home. There wasn’t a child who didn’t wish this moment would last forever. Curse me, forever. Oh what water, what a Big Water started swishing in the deaf Home, our silent, deaf Home, our unfortunate lives all at once became happy. Completely. We would go to bed with that sweet happy dream, we would wake up with the same dream. Everything was possible then, you could withstand anything. Even the weakest boy found strength, he could easily withstand any sort of punishment. Curse me, nothing hurt. It was as if a dead bird came to live in the children’s breast; the ice melted. The mournful, scowling children all at once became others, they lifted their little heads as though they had been watered. Even the environment changed, the Home, the yard, all of it! The stinking, little mattresses freshened, the desolate yard, the black tree blossomed, it had white, it had red, it had blue, it had violet, it had yellow gold flowers. Bloodlike. The red letters on the wall turned into butterflies, huge wondrous new butterflies from the Antarctic. Golden bees began to hum in the air, probably attracted by the perfume of the beautiful flowers (they greedily gathered up the delicious pollen), beautiful things happened, golden fishes are swimming before your eyes. Oh God, what else could it be, other than freedom, other than a dream, a child’s fantasy growing more and more vivid. Again I could hear the Big Water, I stood on the highest cliff, again the unknown voice could be heard, that woman, mother. Curse me, mother. Everything, everything we could possibly want in those moments was ours. Curse me, how little you need to feel happy, full of delicious, rapturous dreams.

    And you see some poor child has come unstuck from the ground, and is drifting. Curse me, drifting, he’s set off for somewhere far away. He’s dreaming. His look is like that of someone who’s very sick. He’s blind, deaf; he neither sees nor hears. Who knows where his mind has flown. So what if you address him, he doesn’t hear you, he doesn’t see you, nothing interests him any more on earth. Everything that’s happening around him is simple and ordinary. Don’t ask for him, he’s not here. It’s all strange to him. If you say to him:

    “Where are you off to, brother, that’s a wall?!”

    “Wall,” he looks at you compassionately, as though to say, “luckless wonder, what wall; I am high up, in between the white soft clouds, what do I care for your wall! Kill yourself if you have no talent, friend,” his distant look was saying. And he bangs the wall with his head, his forehead splits like a ripe melon, and red fluid flows out. Nothing hurts him, it’s not his head. Someone else is living inside him. Curse me, the talent. I swear, that talent is a horrible thing.

    Everything we did, everything we worked at, even when we walked, our walk, our steps, everything we ate, our mouths, and when we slept, our ravings, all of it had some devilish connection with talent. In those days, more than once, a child would be startled in the middle of the night and would all of a sudden jump from bed, you think, he could see the sad situation he was in — something was simply driving him and flying, he leaves the sleeping hall. A bird. Curse me, there is a God, to go in that darkness and along those rotten stairs with only a few minor accidents — forehead, nose, eye, sprained leg. Oh there must have been some good angel here keeping watch all night. You see some climbing, some descending. No “good morning”, no “good night”, each is alone. Not speaking. Poets, tractor drivers, motorists, opera singers, ballerinas, musicians, choir singers, artists, river just flowing. I swear, at that time not even their own mothers would know them. How, how could you now recognise that beautiful Bosilka Kochoska who was as gentle as an ant. Oh God, her little head was lifted up, if she trips, nothing will be left of her pert, little nose, snubbed, sweet bird-like little nose. And her little legs are like that, restless she takes small steps when she walks, she walks on her toes, curse me, she is a natural ballerina, Bosilka, she takes your breath away. I swear, if you had thrown her into water at that moment, she would’ve walked, the water would’ve supported her. Curse me, she would’ve walked on water. Some of the children, tiny mongrels, bad characters, some without talent, brothers of Kejtin, devils, who, to make jokes, would address her for something, would ask:

    “Comrade Bosilka Kochoska, what was your name?”

    The answer was not at all important, because she wasn’t even listening properly; it wasn’t that she’d heard you — you could even ask her more stupid questions, the important thing was her bowing to the ground, when her little neck stretches out and her little pursed lips, unfamiliar, new, when she says to you in some sing-song voice:

    “Please, yes, thank you!”

    “No, nothing, you say, I beg your pardon!”

    And she will answer you:

    “Au revoir, do come again!” and saying that she makes a deep bow, wondrous, magic, she would paralyse you. And you see whether you want to or not, you stop and now, altogether seriously, you ask yourself:

    “Was it her or not?” you interrogate yourself; you rub your eyes. You see you’re not as you should be, that it’s got under your skin. As they say, you are one sheep short of a flock. So you say to the wind:

    “Goodbye. Until we meet again!” You’d been tricked by some shadow, you thought something scary had grabbed you. Curse me, talent is black magic, an illness.

    What about what happened with Todorche Terzioski. You can see yourselves what an artistic name it is. A little ox, a greedy guts, all at once, he felt as though something was choking him. All night it was as though something was stuck in his throat, he said he could not breathe. It was gathering and growing and in the morning, at breakfast, all at once it exploded. Maddened, he jumped up from the table, he burst into song and he locked himself in a place which shouldn’t be mentioned. He was singing opera, the whole Home was booming. At first we were a bit taken aback, we were a bit frightened, we wondered what was going on. We left breakfast and we took off to see what happened.

    “What’s up, Terzivche?” the dear Headmaster Ariton Jakovleski asked him delicately. “Aren’t you well?”

    “No,” he sang, “I a-am we-ell, practising!”

    “What are you practising, Terziche?”

    “O-pe-ra-com-rade A-riton Ja-kov-le-ski!”

    “Practise, practise,” said the dear Headmaster, he wiped his forehead, and with that we began to calm down a little.

    After that he stayed in that cursed place for hours. What, didn’t it stink? Curse me, it was the sweetest thing for him, the most excellent. His soul was singing, could a person cool off and for the whole day, from morning to night stay bravely in a place like that. Was it some simple little passion. O, I swear, all the feelings were mixed in here, it was some frightful, deep force. Whatever you spoke to him about during those days, he couldn’t reply in a human way, normally. If you said good morning to him, he would reply in an operatic way:

    “Go-go-go-od mo-o-orn-ing!” for the rest of the day he would mutter it. “Go-go-go-od mo-o-orn-ing!” It could’ve been evening, midnight, it was all the same, for him it was just good morning. Curse me, morning.

    All the same, that wasn’t the only impressive change in the children. When your soul changes, you change the way you look on the outside, everything. Could they permit here such a great famous national ballerina, such an artist or poet in long frock coats made of thin worn blankets, poorly cut, and even more poorly dyed with chestnut leaves? Surely that wasn’t allowed, oh how new, colourful, strange that morning looked. If you knew nothing about the Home, you would’ve thought it was a carnival. The little girls made large colourful rosettes from their folksy, red scarves, and you see they have decorated their bust or their hair with safety pins. Curse me, red flowers. Others wove their hair with white ribbon and dropped them over their foreheads. You would see her but you wouldn’t believe it, she walks quietly, lightly, like a fairy, sorceress. The boys, too, tried to look better, more elegant. They worked on one thing for hours: they spit on their palm and you see them rubbing their uncooperative tufts of hair, taming them, as if they’d been licked by a cow. They look at themselves in small mirrors. After that, they would tie not-so-clean hankies over their moist hair, and with that, their souls somehow lighter, they slept, they dreamed. Curse me, that was peak perfection. Until the morning, it was skill and joy, and then you’d see the hair is a mess, so he would have to untangle it, then comb it, bringing hot tears to his eyes. But that is the power of talent, the poor kid starts everything afresh, he puts up with the biggest pain, bravely.

    That day the dear Headmaster and comrade Olivera Srezoska and Trifun Trifunoski, and the whole Home were very elegant, in their Sunday best. The dear Headmaster had draped his army overcoat over his shoulders, for this occasion, he had on the war decorations, and Olivera Srezovska and Trifunoski were dressed in the cross country competition shirts. That was the first and last time we saw Olivera Srezovska in a shirt, free, unbuttoned. Curse me, unbuttoned. The other two instructors, comrade Koljanoski and the Meteor, acted as the orchestra. Comrade Koljanoski played the jug, an old skill, and the Meteor was able to drag out the piano accordion a bit. At the same time, all the flags were brought out along with the other things that go with such an event and you could already say the exam had started. Curse me, at that moment the bell-ringer struck the bell.

    That was in the northern hall, in the freezer. The examining committee, the dear Headmaster, as president of the committee, Olivera Srezoska, as a member and Trifun Trifunoski, also a member, took their places in the most auspicious way at the examining table. At that moment, applause roared in the northern hall, hurrah! hurrah! hurrah! You can imagine the children’s hearts at that cursed moment. The candidate called by the committee came out as though swamped by cold water. His teeth chattering.

    “Where does your talent lie?” the dear Headmaster would ask.

    “M-m-m-my t-t-t-talent is in ev-ev-everything,” the candidate replied.

    “Of course, that is certain,” comrade Trifunoski would say sweetly, encouraging him, “it’s evident, plain to see, but still, you, my dear little fellow, just pick one, the one closest to your heart, the one that like a Spring brook is burbling in your veins, in your bright, little veins, the one that like a sweet breeze waves before your beautiful shining eyes.” And, go on, just try and stop Trifun Trifunoski, he would totally forget himself, you could see it; he was shaking too, as though he were qualifying too.

    “Yes, I thought the same thing”, says the talentless fellow, the block head shamelessly put his dirty, little finger on his peeling forehead (that cursed head), there, now, there is no way he can recall, slit his throat, he can’t remember or if he can remember it, it’s something he hadn’t thought of at all.

    “Come on then, recite a poem,” comrade Olivera Srezoska would prompt him, “say something.”

    “Okay, First of May,” a spark ignites but only briefly, quickly the spark fizzles, it’s made of straw, except for those first words, you couldn’t get more words out of him even if you used pliers, like a stubborn donkey which wouldn’t move.

    “Well, you know how to dance,” the dear Headmaster would say, “do you know a dance?”

    “Yes, I know how,” he says quickly, “aha! I love oro folkdance!”

    “Let’s see then,” the dear Headmaster would say and would give a signal to Kolojan Nikolovski.

    Then comrade Kolojanski would blow into the clarinet and those unfortunates would start, each in his own way, like drunkards, lunatics, totally mindless, black shadows, scary, flapping one way then the other, it seemed some bad wind was carrying them. They jump, screech, sing, cry, perspire, and they give themselves over to the abundant dust raised from the dirty floor. The dust and the sun got mixed up, the children are swimming in the golden dust, black, tired, shrunken. Afterwards, they fell on the dirty floor; they drowned in the dust. Oh God! It was even more delicate with the candidates for ballet, cursedness. The Meteor had done his own composition especially for them, curse me, ballet. Here you see they’ve thrown off their ugly, coarse frock coats, they’ve taken off their heavy army boots, some barefoot, some in socks, white and home made, some in silk socks won in the cross country (as a prize), some in panties, some in small, woollen, homespun, village dresses, some with long sweet arms, white, thin, oh God, one had been small but now grew taller, she’s sprouted, tall, to the skies, another became shorter, had slouched her shoulders, slumped, dear God.

    One, two three,

    three, three, four, cursed be unmerciful Meteor.

    One, two,

    three, three four, like frightening black butterflies fluttering in the abundant dust of the northern assembly hall. They danced long, they danced wildly, horribly. Certainly you can imagine such a terror, a black dance by hungry, sleepless, immeasurably tortured, unhappy children. Curse me, I thought I would die, I swear, I never felt a greater fear than I did that day. For many years after that I dreamed myself dancing, jumping in that dust, in that hell.

    Kejtin, friend, how we danced, how we enjoyed ourselves, hooray!

    All of the strictness was in vain, all of the penalties, the whole assembly line, when that wave would suddenly appear in your head, the Big Water. Curse me, a thousand small, bright little holes would appear then at the wall, they were looking through it, at the water. Under a spell. You could see, one hole after another, shining. It was the strangest, most magic labyrinth; go ahead and try to find where the look of a child has pierced the wall. The administration reviewed every section of the wall; the punishment was harsh. Every little opening was cemented at once. They were blind men, what benefit was there in cementing the holes, when an hour later, a thousand more holes opened up. At one time, to free itself of this problem, the administration organised the general dismantling of the “little windows”, an action personally supervised by Ariton Jakovleski. And no-one thought there would ever be an end to this problem, when from somewhere, who knows how, her voice could be heard, and she said:

    “Come on,” she called out to us. “Why have you frozen? Go! That’s the Senterlev mountain.”

    The same night, a thousand new openings peered at the Big Water.

    It was the end of March and the beginning of the real Spring. But maybe it was the end of Spring, maybe Summer was coming, curse me, no-one knew what season we were living in. Dry winds blew through the sky, fire. Maybe it was an unknown season. But that was the day when we destroyed the order of the dear Headmaster. In the middle of the night, taking advantage of the fact the others were sleeping, the son of Kejtin came next to my bed.

    “Leme,” he woke me, “little Leme, come on,” he waved to me with his hand and, without waiting for my answer, without a whisper, like a cat, he went out into the night.

    Even though I didn’t know where, and even though I knew the price of such disobedience, I got up and went. Without a word, I set off after the son of Kejtin. The whole Home was drowned in that familiar deafness. The Home was oppressed by that same wasteland silence which hangs over graveyards. From time to time, someone sought someone else in their dreams. One of the boys was rambling. Without any answer. The Home was dead, it hardly breathed. Fear spread everywhere around, some great, unknown fear.

    In the Home everyday it became harder to put up with, more impossible. The only place where we could pass the little spare time we had was the yard, already known to you, and the area around the wall. Even though that was part of the general Home area, for us it was a part of the wall. Just about all of the boys would gather in that part. Like discarded, old objects you could see a heap of children in the area near the wall. That place, by rights, was the hunting ground of the dear Headmaster. Curse me, his hunting game; from that place he prepared his roast (which was the way he loved to express himself). This was where the greatest trade unfolded, all agreements were reached, all court rulings made, some, it is understood, even made plans to dig under the wall. Here, all of those things which come about later in life started to emerge. Contraband was traded to death; there was trade with anything you could find — from a button to a needle. At one time, the most sought after object was the “Virgin Mary”. That was a small picture, and no-one can ever say where it came from or how it got into the Home, a small picture in which a very attractive woman was shown in various poses. Curse me, that was sex to set your teeth chattering. All you needed to do was to see it with one eye and you had to put your hands into your pockets straight away. Looking at that picture, even we little mice lifted our tails. Curse me, it was sweet to look at sex. Somehow it was alluring, beautiful to look at the uncovered full breasts of the woman. That was real sex, honest word of youth. I swear, even today it is causing someone’s hands to itch. There was nothing the dear Headmaster didn’t try to get the photo. He pulled everything out of our belts, you could say he plundered all of our goods, but he didn’t manage to get to the sex. He just about died of frustration, he and the entire administration, everyone wanted to get to the sex. But we kept the “Virgin Mary” as safe as our eyes. In that regard, we were under the control of deep unity, sex was treated as the most important thing. How. many times was he watching out for it, but it was a waste. When the dear Headmaster showed up, the children shoved themselves into a black knot and the sex was saved again. It would fall to the ground. And the knot of children would unravel in a second and each one, all alone, would go off in his own direction. Most often they’d stick it to the wall and would start to rub their backs on it as though they had scabs. Curse me, if only you could know what thoughts were in the little head leaning against the wall. When that was happening, he was no longer in the Home.

    I was just about always alone after they separated me from the son of Kejtin. I think he felt very alone too. For the whole time I wished I was neither bird nor titan, nor butterfly (even though the flight of a butterfly is the thing I love most in life) — I dreamed totally impossible things. I dreamed about a small, curse me, a small hole in the wall, the size of an eye from where I could see the water, to hear her good voice. I believed in the power of the Big Water so much, I believed one day she would come, that she would knock down the wall, carry it away, that she would say to it “It’s enough, it’s enough; you’ve kept them locked up long enough.” She would say that to the wall and then she would wipe it out, she would take it into her good, bright arms. Curse me, everything would become water. There wasn’t a day when I wouldn’t go around the wall a few times looking for that hole, the view toward the Big Water. For all of the centuries I was in the Home, I didn’t want to think about anything else, I didn’t need anything else, I completed all of my chores without love, without any real interest. And after that, then, that thought alone, who knows on which path, as though broken I dragged myself along the wall. I was looking for that small hole in the wall, even though I knew it was made of concrete, a solidly built wall made exactly for this purpose. When I thought it was all just an hallucination, an illness, a dream, the son of Kejtin took me by the hand and, without speaking, took me toward the attic of the building. Even if we were separated, he saw my dream, he knew where my heart was flying, what it sought through the wall. Curse me, he saw.

    “Don’t tremble,” he whispered, “if you’re afraid, they’ll discover us. Set your jaw, don’t make a noise, don’t let your teeth chatter.”

    “I am not afraid,” I said, “It’s cold, I am freezing.”

    “Hey, Leme,” he said. “Hey, friend,” said the son of Kejtin with such wonder that he couldn’t stop the laugh which came to him at that time. And laughing like that, doubling over with laughter, he forgot about the punishments, and holding his sides with both his hands, laughing, he said “Hey, Leme, curse me, there was no bigger comedian ever born in the world. Do you know what season of the year we are in, poor boy, don’t you know it’s real Summer, August, the most beautiful month of the year?” he said and started to laugh. Even more, like some mountain spring, hard and unstoppable.

    “Stop,” I begged him, blaming myself for the fear that was eating at me.

    “I can’t,” he said, laughing, “you’re terrific Leme. Even if I wanted to, now I can’t, friend. I have to have a good laugh because otherwise I’ll die. O-ho, I haven’t heard such a thing for a long time,” and again he burst into laughter. “It’s cold, you said, eh? O-ho Leme, you little devil.”

    “Do you realise where we are,” I reminded him. “Do you know what will happen to us if they catch us?”

    He waved his hand powerless to stop, he had to laugh. The whole of him was laughing like a devil. With his face and with his eyes, the son of Kejtin laughed all over. It was pointless to try to persuade him, he would laugh to the end, he would laugh for a whole century. I swear, until the last drop of blood dripped from his heart. I already knew the son of Kejtin, no, punishment meant nothing to him. There was no order they could make which would separate our hearts, to demolish our eyes so that we would not wink at each other, our thoughts not to talk, the heart not hear the voice of the Big Water. That distance tied us even closer together. Curse me, that distance. I treated everything of his as my own, wherever he was amongst the children, my eyes would find him first. I had his laugh with me, and once I paid dearly for it. It was time for lunch and someone devilishly joked about the way the dear Headmaster was slurping his cabbage stew. He had the habit at lunchtime of having a whole serving of cabbage. He did it with such skill that a person had to double over with laughter. His moustache smelled of cabbage at a three metre distance, it went yellow like old sauerkraut. The laughter leapfrogged from child to child.

    “What are you laughing about?” the son of Kejtin had dragged himself from somewhere to under my table. “Tell me, tell me the truth, little Leme!”

    It was a bad oath. Forgetting that he is an irrepressible giggler, I said to him:

    “SLURP! Look at the dear Headmaster.”

    Who could’ve stopped the son of Kejtin from laughing then, oh God! Ariton Jakovleski went goggle-eyed when he saw us together. He said:

    “Dear little birds, just look at what I can see.” He couldn’t believe it, he was amazed. “Look, look,” he said softly, “my little pigeons have flown”, the dear Headmaster was still joking, Ariton Jakovleski was really born for making jokes. “How come you two are together,” he cut in suddenly, “From where do you get such optimism?” he was thinking of Kejtin’s laugh and Ariton got it right about the optimism.

    I took the blame for everything last thing, because I knew the son of Kejtin would not give in, even if they killed him, he wouldn’t say a word. I left lunch and without a word, set off to comrade Olivera Srezoska. The handing out of punishments was divided now: the minor punishments were left by the old guy to his Assistant-Headmaster, comrade Olivera Srezoska. And her, oh, I will have to introduce you to her better some time; she had her own method of punishment, thoroughly different to the dear Headmaster, but in brutality, they were very close. Comrade Olivera didn’t dirty her hands, she hit with strap across your back, and above all of that she did an ugly woman’s thing, hit and pinch, so it would hurt you to the core. Curse me, so it would hurt you to the core. If you cry, she wonders why you are blubbering for no reason. You’re not bleeding, you haven’t lost an eye, but you’re bawling out loud, so hold on a little, at least so there is a reason for the tears. In that way the penalty was doubled, she was smart, comrade Olivera Srezoska. This punishment, it is understood, was in some ways harder because of the baseness it was carried out with. Olivera Srezoska had thought it out to the last detail. So often the children complained they hadn’t done something worse so that psychologically they would remain undisturbed in the hands of the dear Headmaster. This way, not only do you get the same thrashing but your soul melts down thinking about what and how the Assistant-Headmaster Olivera Srezoska will in that moment deal with you. Her soul burned to be in charge, with each day she became a harsher person, she degenerated into a tyrant. People like her don’t even think how malicious and destructive they are; on the contrary, they live with the hope the sun shines only because of them. Anyway, there were bright moments too in the heart of comrade Olivera Srezoska. In her spare time, she wrote songs about children. Curse me, songs.

    “I’m begging you to stop,” I said to Kejtin. A few days before, I had seen a new strap in the administration.

    “Okay,” said the son of Kejtin at last calming down, “but don’t make me laugh anymore.”

    “No,” I promised him, “I won’t make you laugh,” not understanding how I could make him laugh so much.

    “Then let’s go,” he said, dragging me through the dark ceiling of the Home that was full of cobwebs. He went as if through a plain, he moved as though on a well-known road. It was as if he’d been going over that road for centuries, that he knew it. He overcame all the obstacles so skilfully and at the same time so well did he lead me that I thought he might have been possessed by the spirits. Curse me, the spirits. The water spirits, they might have cast a spell on him to lead me to the bricked up windows. Like a lord of the ceiling, he threaded through it. Curse me, that’s what he was, the lord of the ceiling. He had memorised the attic; surely he must have been there a thousand times. I swear, a thousand times until he’d found this spot. When at last he stopped, he said, with a somewhat different voice, with a voice I did not recognise,

    “Little Leme, listen carefully to me, you’ll do as I tell you,” curse me, it was another voice, I think it was burning away at him. “Little one, now you’ll have to close your eyes,” that was an order.

    He said all of this with such a voice that I was not allowed to question. Quietly I complied with each one of his orders. I put my palms over my eyes, I closed my eyes.

    “Okay,” I answered, “my eyes are closed.”

    The son of Kejtin was silent, like he was thinking for one hour, he left the impression of a man facing a big decision. With that same voice he said:

    “Believe me, Leme,” he said softly, as though he tore the words from his own soul, “believe me, little one, you must remain on that spot for a whole century. Be a man, Leme. That’s nothing.” Curse me, “just a century.”

    I received all of it with the pure and deep love you have for a friend and comrade. But other than that, the way he did everything appealed to me immeasurably. The son of Kejtin was one of those devilish old men who can see a thousand kilometres before them, as though the whole distance was gathered in his eyes. Once, it was already late night, far into the night he saw a pale light, a distant light. He said “That’s a star falling, Leme, it is going out, it’s dying.” He saw all of that before the star fell and that’s why, from then on, I had to believe the son of Kejtin could see like God. What could he see now, where was he taking me with my eyes closed, a hundred times a second those questions came to me.

    I don’t believe all of that lasted that many endless centuries, but when he put his hands on my face and when he took mine in his, when at last I opened my eyes, I almost screeched. Before my eyes as in the most beautiful dream was exposed the whole surface of a lake. A big lake. Curse me, it was the Big Water. The Big Water was again so close, I swear, she was in us. I hugged her to me like the dearest thing in life. And she came all the more closely, with bright colours, with thousands of voices, with centuries of mournful wailing. You had to get centuries older to keep hold of childhood.

    “Kejtin,” I whispered, I wanted to announce all my grief, but it wasn’t necessary, he was inside my thoughts, he knew all of my heart, each one of my thoughts. It was as if he was my twin, as if we had been together for the whole of our lives. Curse me, a lifetime.

    “Be a man, little Leme,” he said to me, “be a man, control yourself, we’re no longer alone,” he gestured toward the Big Water.

    “Be a man, little Leme,” the Big Water repeated his words, “be a man little Leme and restrain your heart. Be quiet.”

    “Forgive me,” I said to my friend. “Forgive me, son of Kejtin, Big Water,” I said wiping the tears away. I felt free of my wretched name Lem, I felt how the Senterlev Mountain is born, how I am going after it, how I am climbing and how it isn’t madness. Curse me, I believed. The son of Kejtin, understanding my thoughts, said:

    “Listen, Leme, listen little fool,” he rebuked me, “nobody knows this place except for you and no-one is allowed to have it until he earns it. Listen little fellow,” he added, “now only you and I know this place and don’t you give it away. This place has to be deserved, Leme,” he said very seriously, giving me a warning.

    “What does it mean,” I asked, “for someone to deserve something?”

    “Yes,” he said, like he knew before I said anything what I was going to ask, “you don’t understand that, Leme, but one day you will understand. One day, after a thousand centuries, everything will be known.”

    “After how many centuries?” I said as if I had not heard him. “After how many centuries will everything be known?”

    “Don’t make me laugh, Leme,” said the son of Kejtin, “don’t make yourself smarter than you are, don’t make out you can know everything.” He thought a little to himself and, taking his hand from his pointy chin (his hand was always stuck to his chin), waved it turning himself toward the Big Water and, with a happy voice, said “I bet, little one, you don’t know why you deserve this place. Do you, Leme?” he said and he looked at me with his beautiful bright eyes.

    “No,” I answered him sincerely, but surely I do deserve it, a thousand times over I must have deserved it, I wanted to say to him, but I kept silent so I wouldn’t make him laugh.

    “I liked you, little Leme,” he said, wanting to speak himself, “I liked you, from the time you fell on the ground,” a bitter smile briefly distorted his face, “when you were in the dust, I mean when you lifted your head from the dust and said to the dear Headmaster “What for are you beating us, we were at the Big Water”, curse me, that was brave, little one. I haven’t seen that sort of bravery before, maybe you were muttering but it was brave. No-one else could’ve thought up such a thing to say. That kept me on my feet, little one. But it’s not that, Leme, it’s not that, friend. No! Oh you are a devil, Leme, the biggest devil!” Then he scratched his tousled, red hair, wild like a kid goat’s and, smiling, said “You deserve this place because of something else, Leme. You deserve it for all of the days you spent, looking for that hole from where you could see a little toward the water. I think there isn’t a spot on that horrible wall where your eyes haven’t looked. And what were you looking for little Leme?” he said putting his hand on my shoulder. “You were looking for this place and, there you are, now it’s yours, be happy. You have earned the right to have it, Leme. It’s yours,” he said and like a demon he slipped away through the ceiling cavity, leaving me alone in that place. As if just then, he turned into part of the water, plunged in the night.

    It was one of the happiest centuries in the Home. Curse me, that was the happiest hour in my life. I acknowledge that neither then nor since did I ever again have such a happy century. After such a moment I could endure any punishment. From that day, my life in the Home was totally changed, the threatening fear totally left me, the fear which was settled in every part in the Home, again I could think of the Senterlev mountain, of that mountain where the sun is born. Curse me, that was happiness.

    The nights spent in the ceiling were the most beautiful hours in the Home. Here, in freedom, among a thousand sounds, colours and wishes. You felt it, you drank it in and, from a crawling black snail, all at once you become something great, wondrous, alive. In your frightened little heart, a giant wave stirred up. You would see the wall falling down, a happy feeling would be imprinted on your soul, a feeling that wishes would be fulfilled. It shouts in you, your thin chest opens up and from it a wondrous bird with gold feathers flies toward the sky. For hours afterwards, without anyone able to stop you, you fly above the water. Your wings are as strong as those of a dove born in the warm nest of the old cliffs. The frightening boom of the waves, the powerful storm the night you came into the world, big fear, uncertainty, all are lost moment by moment when your shiny, light wing touches the spell-binding endlessness of the surface. You fly without getting tired, without end. Madly. You are enticed by unseen, secret landscapes, one more beautiful, brighter than the other. Until then, your eyes have seen nothing similar. Like a magnet they pull you toward something even more beautiful, brighter. Eternal. Curse me, eternal. Rushing, you meet death. You hear one of the children in its dream, in the silent, deaf night, utters a scream like someone had put a knife to his throat. You see bulging faces on the stinking mattresses, in confusion even in their sleep. In a fever. Then, like a mad man I ran in that space in the ceiling. I asked myself, dragging myself through the great cobwebs, “Where is that mountain, that cursed mountain which one of the children called Senterlev?”

    The bell ringer was the only person who happened to be in the Home from the old residents of the asylum. Early on, it was discovered our “Shining Light” had been “Villa Peace”, dedicated to the mentally ill. One of them was the bell ringer, comrade Aneski. But it couldn’t be said he was totally mad. Even less should he be blamed for not knowing his job. It was his old trade, I swear. God, the real wonder was how could he stand it. To be honest comrade Aneski was so cunning and devious, he was such a real spindle that we should tip our hats to him. Obviously the cunning fellow’s lunatic actions appealed to the dear Headmaster, so he pushed it to the limit. Our bell ringer knew very well how to maintain his character appraisal.

    Once, he couldn’t get to sleep the whole night. His left molar hurt, and he could not find peace at all. What didn’t he drink; he even put on the root of a nettle, even a little brandy was found from somewhere, but the pains just wouldn’t stop. All night he moaned “Oof!” out loud, curse me, he moved from dormitory to dormitory, moaning as loud as he could, just so that we couldn’t sleep either. And when one of the children, joking, moaned “oof” mimicking him, he went completely mad. Even though it was night, not a good time at all, midnight, he ordered us to line up in the yard. That was a Winter December night. It was a dry cold Winter, cold enough to crack rock. Everywhere around it was deaf, just the stinging wind, blowing harshly, like a sickle, passed above the ground. The fine snow like hawthorns was hitting us in the face, every object was shrieking, the ground was screeching. It was, certainly, the most desolate night in the world, the ice nailed us to the ground, I swear, the pains left the bell ringer; his pain was over, he was cured. Impossible, you say, but he cured himself. Curse me, if that day did not end in that surprising way, maybe today he would have gone much further. What did it matter he was mad? Even better. He did every task without a word. No, I swear, I’m not joking, he would have become a man, a pioneering builder of the new society and so on, if only he hadn’t got clever that day.

    His obedience, his humiliation, his self-sacrifice and discipline quickly brought him out. Exactly like that, they brought him out. If he tried hard, he could even have put together an excellent biography. Once it was communicated that he, namely comrade Aneski, was the organiser of some revolt in the hospital and something similar; a matter which shouldn’t be undervalued. Meanwhile, as to the truth, he was a more modest man, but above all, he just loved his call and his little bell to death. Curse me, the little bell. For example, he could not be separated from the bell he woke us with, not even once. There wasn’t anything the children did not try to get him to stop with those absurdities but he doggedly continued on. There’s no question about it, he had something constant in his character. He kept the little bell and the pickaxe by his bed like marital props. No, comrade Aneski wasn’t that mad, he knew the soul of our dear Headmaster Ariton Jakovleski perfectly well, it’s understood, as well as the assembly line itself. There you are, he knew the administration waged war daily with the son of Kejtin and there wasn’t a morning he didn’t, like a madman, at first light, appear at the foot of the bed of the son of Kejtin. Oh God, he was unhappy and he suffered so much he couldn’t once, at least once, find him asleep. Curse me, he brought his own death on his head himself.

    Waking had two parts: the first part was the normal part, when the bell ringer’s behaviour was peaceful. Curse me, someone had thought up normal behaviour for the wake up. In that event, the bell ringer, at the allocated time, would get up on the little stage that was placed in the middle of the yard and from that spot he started his bell ringing. I think there was not a living soul who couldn’t hear him. Certainly the whole neighbouring area around the home was woken by the ringing from the Home; the whole area was dragged away from its dreams. The second part of waking was linked to the alert character of the bell ringer. Like every subjugated and enslaved man, he was scared to death for his poor future. Every late arrival to the assembly line meant something very bad to him. He thought it was levelled directly against him so we would ruin his character appraisal with the dear Headmaster. Simply put, people like him are full of fear, they exert themselves beyond their own capabilities, they are always on the alert, from day to day they become more and more soulless, more blind. That’s why the bell ringer, and over and beyond the assembly line and everything, thought up a first and second part of waking. Maybe he hadn’t slept through the night until he came up with it, until he thought of such a thing. Isn’t that the most ferocious, the scariest suicide, oh if only his murky head had for a moment became a little clearer. Curse me, what a terrible blindness, what an inconceivable punishment.

    When the bell ringer would appear in the dormitories you would think the plague had descended. He was so harsh and at the same time cunning that he didn’t permit even the slightest contention. Think of a man without dreams and think how much he would respect the dreams of others. But our children’s hearts from all four sides were full of dreams, they gushed. Can you think what your dreams would be like if such a man were the keeper? He wouldn’t fail to look for us even under our beds, everywhere he, in his sick head, thought to look. Every place where a dream could be, he hunted it. He hunted it as though it was his greatest enemy. And it was like that, he was afraid of dreams. Curse me, he was afraid. It was obvious he had never had a peaceful dream, when he woke up, he looked tortured and deeply unhappy, beaten black and blue. He left an impression of a man who was returning from long conscript labour. Naturally every action of his went in extreme, it even seemed entertaining in the beginning. Sometimes he himself did not believe his own eyes, he supposed even they would deceive him. (Poor thing, he was suspicious of everything, of himself, of others, of the day, of the night, even of the earth he trod beneath his feet.) He would go into the toilets, he would open the wardrobes, he would peer under the beds, everywhere, everywhere. The buffoon did that in a very facetious way, but not without motive. Quickly after that we worked out we were not allowed to joke about anything with the bell ringer. Because, it will happen perhaps, in any case, that someone is caught somewhere he does not belong, then woe is he. Even with a medical certificate it was risky to stay in bed. It’s not as if the madman would even ask you — he pulled the steel and — whatever fate God had in store for you. Curse me, whatever God had in store for you. Anyway, it was scariest when he started to foam, when, without any reason he would go wild and would grab some boy and start to choke him.

    “You, beast, in the cellar,” he would rave, “in the cellar, you thief!”

    And if you dare to ask him what you’ve stolen, then he would, without a word, look at you with such a scary, terrifying look, a look which was heavier than every punishment. Without a word he would grab you by the neck and he would drag you toward the cellar.

    In the Home there were many unpleasant places, the sort of places which, if you can, it would be better to avoid. But the cellar was something else, no-one knew what the cellar was, no-one knew what was hidden in the cellar. No-one had until then looked in that part of the Home, the bell ringer alone was the only master in the cellar. The key hung around his neck like a cross. And that was enough to make you sense the fear in all your being. Comrade Aneski was born to that, he was a workshop of fear. Curse me, that’s what Kejtin called him, workshop of fear. Maybe that is why the dear Headmaster and not just him, but all of the administration, relied so much on the bell ringer for reinstatement of the assembly line. In that regard, the bell ringer was God. I swear, God. Lunatics. Cursed lunatics, with a wall before their eyes. Blind.

    One day, though, that idiot was good. He recovered his sight. Curse me, recovered his sight. He was as good as a lamb. That was his day. He was celebrating, he went wild with happiness. He had a reason, a real reason to be happy. What he managed to achieve with the assembly line was at such a level that it stirred up collective elation. Things that had for centuries tormented intelligent, deep people, things like the self-awareness, humanity, or some such discipline, our bell ringer managed to attain in the course of a year. Curse me, they were blind.

    The day was very stormy. All night a strong, rainy wind blew. From the water bank came horrible, morbid cries of birds. The restless, frightening voices woke us. No-one slept. It was thought the storm had come into the Home. Kejtin, who most certainly heard the storm before anyone else, with the first sound, was already out of the dormitory. His little bed was empty.

    “Where is Kejtin?” asked one of the boys. “Kejtin is missing!”

    At that moment, Kejtin came in drenched like a mouse. It was obvious he was happy, his face was shining. The children jumped out of their beds at once. They knew Kejtin had seen something. He was smiling, angelic, unusually, quietly, happily.

    “Tell me, what was there?” they asked him. “Where does this wind come from?”

    But his happiness quickly paled. With his thin transparent hands, once, twice he wiped his wet face and, it seemed, in that way he took away all the beauty he had brought in from outside, once again his face became ugly, unattractive. Alien. Curse me, alien. The residents of the Home began to push around the tall, unattractive boy. Metodija Grishkoski, a young man from the administration, spurred on by some of his friends, dared to shove him from behind, he was after a fight.

    “Wise one, invisible strength, what did you see, tell us? Did you see your devil, did you see the water’s spirit, what was it like, strong one? Did he look like you, eh?” He threw heavy insults into his face and emboldened by Kejtin’s silence, he started to rip into him even more.

    “Leave him, you crawler!” I called. Other children called the same thing. The dormitory was like a lunatic asylum.

    Unusually, this time Kejtin remained completely quiet, as though he wasn’t at all interested what was around him. He looked like a person, a traveller who just passed by, by chance, briefly, a person who was in a rush, who was hurrying on his trip. The same moment like a shadow he flew through the dormitory, he left. Then, like stupid sheep, the children rushed after him... He’d climbed onto the stage in the yard, he was hunting the rain. Curse me, he was hunting the rain. That was beautiful, magnificent Spring rain. Shining rain.

    And in the dawn. Day. Between two big, burst clouds, a small, thin, weak ray shone with a new, beautiful light. Not a single child wanted to return to the stinking, poisonous beds. I swear it happened simply, just like that.

    This morning there was no need for the bell, every last child was in the yard. The bell ringer rolled his eyes, they were going to pop out of his head like loose buttons, he rubbed his forehead, surely his whole body was in flames, dear mother of mine, he didn’t believe it. He began to run from one grade to another, to sniff like a hound, curse me, like a hound, to stare into every face with an expression which seemed to ask “You, beast, are you here in the line? Where are you?!” and at the end when he was completely sure, he went wild with happiness. Curse me, he threw the little bell from his hands and over his head he ran to the administration to announce the happy news. You can just imagine how the news spread out in the administration. The dear Headmaster didn’t even manage to do up his trousers, he was holding them up in his hands and like that he went from one grade to another, with that same joyful expression which was on the bell ringer’s face just a short time ago. The dear Headmaster’s moustache shone, it turned to gold. It meant in the end we succeeded, that’s what it meant, at the end of all ends, he winked at the sleepy instructors. They looked like they were not at all happy, obviously they were still in their dreams, they were sleepy. They were a little bit put out they had been woken early, I swear, if a person were to leave them like that, on their feet, they would’ve slept a number of centuries. Then and later, only comrade Srezoska was fully awake as she was for the whole of her life and, it’s understood, like always, buttoned up, top to bottom, our Assistant-Headmaster. Obviously she wasn’t overjoyed, it was as though some worm was eating at her.

    Anyway, it was impossible for a person to stay calm looking at the bell ringer. Poor man. The incident totally melted him down, it hit him in the heart. His eyes shone, curse me, there was a warm tear even in this being. A person wouldn’t ever believe there was room in his heart for wind and for other such follies. I now believe, curse me, in every human heart there has to be one or two warm Spring rain drops regardless of how hard it is, covered in ice. I saw that with my own eyes and I believe it as I believe in a clear day, I swear.

    That morning the sun rose too. Maybe the sun knew about our special holiday, the District Manager was already familiar with it, wanted an essay to be used so we could benefit from the experience. The dear Headmaster at last did up the buttons on his trousers (he turned a little to the side and did up the buttons). Immediately we put up the flags, we put the stage in order, we did it in a minute. A flower was even found from somewhere, the comrades came, the official for sport and culture, comrade Dervutovski, the official for general things, comrade Veceski, comrade Elimoski, comrade Lazhoski, we held a meeting in honour of comrade Aneski, our bell ringer. Curse me, a meeting. Dear mother of mine, he was sensible for an hour, he awoke. We all saw, his eyes became different, he looked at us very kindly, dearly, gently. Curse me, he abandoned the madness and he looked at us with bright, human eyes. The stone in his chest thawed, it melted like a drop of Spring dew touched by the strong ray, a warm, little flame like a golden spider was crawling over his tortured and unhappy face. I swear, for the whole time he wasn’t listening to the speech, the applause and all the other ridiculous things which can blind a person. With thirsty eyes he looked only at us, at each child. The poor man, you could hardly recognise the bell ringer — tyrant, impossible, I swear, in that moment, each child’s heart was with him, was begging for his poor life. He saw it and couldn’t contain himself. He didn’t have any strength left in him any more, the unhappy creature.

    “He’s dying,” said the son of Kejtin to me, “he is perishing like a wild dog.”

    “Quiet,” I begged him. “He is alone. He is with us, friend.”

    “O the poor little man flew higher than he thought,” said Kejtin with a bitter smile. “There you are, now he is plummeting into a dark abyss from which he will never leave.”

    The bell ringer eventually went completely mad that day. Incurable. For days he could neither eat nor sleep. He went from child to child, and all of a sudden he would look at you with that stiffened, white look. After that, he’d be possessed again and he would start to escape, to hide, to cry, to bawl, he soiled himself and banged his head against the wall. So he would not be so troubled, we tied him up with a rope and we left him tied up like that, so he could die more peacefully. We saw how he was dying. Curse me, it seems you cannot die so quickly and on a whim.

    He died on an ordinary day. Early in the morning, before the flies attacked him. I swear, he beat the flies.

    After the death of the bell ringer, the Home sunk into that familiar deaf silence again. Fear settled into every small nook. A new fear. No one mentioned the Senterlev Mountain any more. It was as though snow had fallen on it, as though the sun had died. In those unhappy days, even the voice of the Big Water was lost, all was gone. Pleasant dreams disappeared to somewhere they could not return from. Everything smelled of death; we thought an evil spirit lived in the Home. Most of the children, especially those who knew something of the frightening spirit, were horribly afraid. They woke in the deafest night from their dreams and, as though someone were giving chase, they ran, they hid through the Home. They were looking for a way, a path by which they could be freed from that cursed place, to escape the cold shadow of the wall. No, there was no such place. On all four sides we complied with regulations, securely built in. If they finally managed to understand that, if they managed to free themselves from the nightmare, everything would end happily. After that, wide awake, as if ground down, they would get back into their beds, but healthy and happy, whole. But if the dream held onto them a little longer, then they were prepared for the most mindless acts. In such a moment, little Klimoski, a little boy as quiet as a beetle, so quiet the children even called him Klimoski the Beetle, went so wild he managed to jump right to the top of the wall. He held on with the palms of his hands, held onto the glass pieces on the wall and stayed like that as though in a trap. In the morning we found him rolling around, bloodied and insane, captured.

    We saw we faced a long and hard road before we reached the Senterlev Mountain. Curse me, a whole century, a whole life time. Curse me, a life time.

    The general dirtiness, the poverty which weighed the Home down eventually reached its inevitable conclusion. The fleas multiplied in large numbers in a short time in the Home. From the dormitories to the kitchen. And the lice were hungry. In the first instance we had no hope. The children, like cropped grass stalks quickly began to wilt, they could barely move through the huge yard. Our legs were heavy and we just managed to drag them along. We were covered in fleas from head to toe. They bit us day and night. Curse me, without rest. Every dream was lost in the Home.

    For the first time, too, the food stopped. We were full. Curse me, full. No-one had any peace in the Home, even the administration openly showed its concern and great fear. Everyone was frightened by the fleas. Those cursed fleas, it seemed, respected no one, they did not know about the assembly line in the Home. What about all the times that a big fat flea, a flea as big as a button, would suddenly flash across the dear Headmaster’s face. A shiny bug. However unpleasant it was even for our teachers and educators, however brave they were, in the spirit of the time, hardened, brave people, self sacrificing, they could not easily overcome the fleas. After that they gave up the front, as they say, they didn’t defend themselves all that much, as if it was a normal thing, unashamedly they undressed before the eyes of all the children and they scratched all over their bodies, scratched until they drew blood. And the fleas, and this was the worst, had a habit, of getting into every little part of the human body. It seemed that even the crust of bread that you had in your hand was full if those black little bugs. The scratching became some kind of physical culture for us. Curse me, blood. Only Comrade Olivera Srezoska resisted that weakness; for the whole time she remained fully buttoned up, firm, in the assembly line, even though even she looked tortured and pale, poor thing.

    It was hard to beat the fleas. Those days, while the reign of the fleas in the Home continued, everything was dead. A real wasteland governed the Home. It was as if the plague had been through the Home and it had destroyed everything. A grave. Curse me, a grave. Most of the children lay on the ground, as if mowed down, it was all the same to them whether it was day or night, no one worked at the assembly line any more. In those days teaching and similar things stopped. The whole yard darkened from the fallen, mowed down, harvested children’s bodies. And the sun was strong and relentless, it had never lingered in the Home. Now it was as if it had joined with the fleas, was crawling in the yard, black. Small.

    For a certain time the entire Home was a wall.

    In those deaf, wasted hours, I most often dragged myself to the place in the attic. Like a drunken man, with a blurry perspective, with weak legs, with trembling hands. As if nailed down I sat there for hours. Oh God, how was it I wasn’t scorched by the sun. (I didn’t know that it wasn’t good to stay in the sun so much). Defeated, I lay for days.

    The sky above the Big Water was red. Curse me, in flame. Now and again, when my consciousness returned, I heard the dry frightening winds roaring. Just like that, red bloody winds. They said that the winds came from the sea, from Africa, from the desert, curse me, if we knew where they came from. It seemed that, with fires all around, everything was burning. With every touch of objects you feel the death bringing white heat. Just like that, it’s in the water, in the earth, in the rock, in the trees, in the houses, in the touch, in our hands, mouths, in our breath. Curse me, in our souls. O God, everything will melt, you see it. Dust. Curse me, dust. Even the stars are melting, you see it, before your eyes, the stars rain down. Fine black dust. The sky is empty, desolate. The dry wind will take everything away. Curse me, everything is turning into dust, into nothing.

    And you, you poor little man, dizzily, you wait on the roof for the voice of the Big Water to contact you. You still hope. Curse me, you look like that stubborn lone star of the south. High above the water, you think that the sky is too small for the star, that the sky cannot fit all of the stars in it.

    One morning, at dawn itself, at the end the fishermen appeared in their little row boats at last. Everywhere around a great morning peace reigned. It was as if the dry scary wind had disappeared. You see with half an eye, you feel that peace, that strange change. Universal deafness. Curse me, the earth and the water is calming, even the air was still and mute. Somewhere far away on the horizon, as in a dream, a morning fire crawled. The fishermen were coming in the direction of our Home, they were hurrying toward the closest bank. You could hear their troubled, abrupt voices, they were tirelessly rowing, rushing toward the bank. The black water came after them like a crumbling bank. Was it a wave, a storm, I won’t ever be able to remember. Every moment you thought it would swallow them.

    The unthinking escape of the people, the hungry cries of the birds, the motionless picture of the morning, the shorn children in the huge yard, the fleas, the dead water, the mute air, the dry wind, the fires — they created in me a new and as yet unseen fear. In that hell finally I saw the whole of our miserable life, the war, the dark armies, the familiar and unfamiliar corpses in the fields, on the roads, on the army trucks covered by canvas wings, we thought they were sleeping, we were foolish children who stole bombs from the army trucks; after that the Home is before my eyes, the tragic death of the bell ringer, the good matron Verna Jakovleska, uncle Lentenoski, the few stunned escapees, the dear Headmaster, his dark fate, comrade Olivera Srezoska, the old, unhappy spinster, our poor teachers and instructors, Trifun Trifunoski, his sick, dark soul noble, bright, oh I swear, that was the path which led to the Senterlev mountain. The son of Kejtin, when he saw me, the whole of him convulsed, as though he’d trodden on a fragment of glass, barefooted. He said:

    “What is it little Leme?” he mouthed the words, deadly frightened seeing me with bloodshot eyes. “What’s happened friend?”

    “The birds,” I said without spirit.

    “What about the birds, unhappy little boy?” he asked. “What birds?”

    “The birds have gone mad, son of Kejtin,” I said, “The birds have thrown themselves into the people. I saw bad birds, Kejtin!”

    I cried out loud.

    He now went quiet, as though he didn’t understand me, mutely he looked into my crying face. With real pain in his voice he said:

    “Poor Lem, poor Lem!”

    “All the birds went mad, Kejtin,” I rambled.

    “Cursed birds,” he said, and after that, as attentively as he could he took me by the hand and like a little child he took me down to the bedroom. He put me in my bed to sleep. Curse me, so that I could sleep.

    Many of the children thought that that was the end, the last hour. They didn’t defend themselves any more, they let the fleas eat them through. In that overwhelming heaviness we at last got something that, until then each child could only dream of. The administration resolved to take us to the water’s edge so that we could be cleaned of the fleas. No fear existed any more that one of the children would turn into a bird and fly away. All of the children looked like captured birds that had had their wings cut off. Curse me, if any one of them could walk properly let alone fly. Children like old men, curse me. Their decision wasn’t at all risky now, it turned out that it was the only possible decision.

    It was ordered that everyone’s hair was to be totally cut off. That was the most humiliating hair cutting that could be imagined. They lined us up, one grade after another, and like that, in a line, two by two, they took us to the bank. In line, curse me, in line to have your hair cut. Once there, comrade Mijanche Deloski, our hygiene instructor, would grab us. He was a self taught barber, and no-one was mad enough to joke with him after you had put your head in his enormous hands. Curse me, like lambs, submissively we gave in to the shears.

    When they first opened the little gate, when we found ourselves eye to eye with the Big Water, I thought that at least one child would gather a little strength and would fly away, that nothing could hold him down. I thought we would grow new wings, that they would take us over there, the place our hearts beat for, day and night. Cursedness, that fire was real, the water was burnt, drawn back. I swear, the water was running away, it was being lost. Curse me, it had all been calculated, immediately after shearing, with huge tears, bewildered we returned to the Home. While that was happening the instructors, a bit taken themselves, at the tops of their voices called:

    “Come on, fly you little bastards! Go fly! Wherever you go, you will always return to this little Home, like dogs you will come slinking back!”

    Curse me, that was the truth.

    We could hardly wait for the hair cutting to end. We ran back to the Home as if we’d lost our minds.

    In the yard, the others were waiting, the unshorn ones, the upper grades. We, the ones who’d been shorn, were put in the laundry to leave our clothes and while there, the man from the hygiene institution covered our heads with a white powder. Because there wasn’t enough clothing, we had to stay half naked those few days, in underpants. Such a frightening scene had not been seen in the yard of the Home before then. Thin, undernourished bodies of children, barely kept together, as though stunned we were turning around our own small, mutilated shadows. We didn’t know what to do with our broken hands, as if we were meeting in that cursed place for the first time. Curse me, centuries had to pass before we would recognise each other again.

    It must have taken Kejtin a long time to find me amongst all of the shaven mice. Obviously, not even he could hide the emotion and pain, not to tremble at seeing me for the first time. Dear God, I was crawling along the wall like some lizard, black and small. Without command, he left his grade and flew to me. Curse me, he flew. I ran away, I hid, I was pressing into the wall so that he couldn’t see me, so I couldn’t see him. Dear mother, how horrible it was to see. When at last he unstuck me from the wall, curse me, if I could have, I would have completely entered the wall, I would have bricked myself in, when he saw me like that, he released that happy generous smile and said:

    “Be a man, little Leme. Be a man, comrade. Hair grows back quickly, you’ll see, your hair will grow back straight away, my dear one,” and then gently, very carefully, he took my head to him with his bony hands and most gently, most dearly, he kissed me on the forehead. He pricked me with his protruding upper teeth. Curse me, I was shaken. My dear friend, I swear, as if scorched quickly withdrew. He looked long at me, oh his look! Curse me, he didn’t believe, I saw a tear in his eyes. The first time that the son of Kejtin cried, he just couldn’t believe at all, no! no! no! At that moment, it was as if someone had pierced his heart, he let out the strongest, most horrible cry.

    “Oh Mother! My dear Mother! I’m scorched. I’m dead,” he said and mindlessly started to run, up, down, all over the Home.

    The boys, like hungry, wild electric current, hounded him, they chased him, they called out cheerfully:

    “Hooray! Hooray!”

    From then on, many centuries passed; at the end we even left the Home, we lived through happier and more bitter moments, but those few incomprehensible moments, in my young and inexperienced heart always remained like the worst dream. Whenever I see crazed birds, bloodied people, scorched water, fires, devastated fields, dead people, abandoned villages, deserted mute roads, white short lightning, a sign of drought, queues of people, assemblies, curse me, I think someone is being separated in that moment, one person from another. Curse me, I can hear that cry.

    “Kejtin,” I jump from the deepest sleep, I go mindlessly, I look for him. “Kejtin.” That’s my cry. Curse me, mindlessly, madly, we separate and lose each other. I go and only one question strikes me like lightning in my soul. “How and where will I find him now?”

    The Senterlev Mountain showed white on the other side of the Big Water. It came with a luminous shine from the same side of the water as the wind. That must be where the sun is born. To get to the Senterlev Mountain, you had to pass over all the water. Many of the children were already passionately preparing for such an expedition, through the water. Even if it was stupid, the whole thing was very appealing and we prepared for such a trip. Curse me, we believed in such a possibility. Of course, that was just one possible plan to reach the mountain we loved. The plans ended up in waste. The whole thing ended up in wasted plans, it was a total disappointment. The same Spring, some children from “Progress”, a similar home, who’d managed to escape, reached the town and heard about our Home. Without a second thought they took off and went back to where they had come from. Now, that gang was something to cry over, you felt shame and disgust for those poor unfortunates. None of them had eaten for days, they hadn’t slept, they’d been hiding in barns and gardens, dirty from weariness and hunger, they looked like thoroughly beaten farm beasts. They could no longer think oh see, they were lost because they had no place to go, they were blinded. It showed it was best in the Home. Could you survive a bigger disappointment, a greater misfortune than one you see and hear from the mouth of your brothers who for days and nights, for centuries had also prepared for escape. I was so afraid the alluring mountain did not exist.

    At least three times a month, official comrades came into the Home, do-gooders, noble people, citizens, fathers and mothers in search of their children, busy activists, teachers, artistic troupes, poets, sailors, all sorts of shits. Some comrade Lazhoski and his wife, or was she his sister, monsters, health and hygiene inspectors, some eternally hungry people. Curse me, they had to put loads of food in front of them when they came for lunch. Okay, let them eat, I wasn’t concerned about the food; everyone stole. The instructors and the teachers, each took turns. I began to hate them, more than anything else in the Home, because of their insensitivity, hypocrisy, being without a conscience. Curse me, it was as if only one thing was important to them — a plate to stuff themselves with food, to endlessly stuff themselves. We started to hate them. In the most natural way, curse me, such hate. However smart or educated they were, however many thousands of times better they knew the new laws and followed those laws most correctly but they couldn’t be justified by any law. Curse me, in what law could you see such a dark clause, instructors stealing the poor entitlements, little by little, the meagre provisions of children in the most audacious, the most heartless manner? Openly and without shame they short-changed us on bread; they took it away in their bags. Curse me, did they have any books or science in their big bags? Isn’t that what villains do? Who dares to withhold food from hungry children, to pull it from their mouths? What sort of people could they be, how could you describe their conduct? Curse me, conduct. How could someone like that instil something good in your soul, to pour in such learning with a funnel — nothing stays in your head, part of one thing comes into your head, part of another goes out. Your mind is not focused on his teacherly words, you don’t even hear him, you simply see how he’s stealing from you, how greedily he is enjoying himself. Your mind is totally focused on that — he says to you, sun, ray or angel, devil, and you think to yourself, hell, darkness, army, villain, thief, I’m not going to learn from you, that’s not right, even if I remain ignorant and blind for the rest of my life. Curse me, that was in our thoughts. We looked at how they ate; it happened that when their mouths gaped wide we’d say to them “Your health! May the food you’ve eaten turn to blood,” or “Enjoy,” “Best wishes for success,” “May the good wishes multiply!” However stupid or ignorant you were, you could feel something was wrong, oppressive. They’ve stolen your soul, it seemed they’d sunk their insatiable mouths into your soul. Oh those dreadful hygiene people. I swear, each report had the same content, one after the other. The situation excellent, improved in the third semester, one hundred percent. The Lazhovski family acted like manufacturers, they threw reports around which were as full of details as hollow macaroni. Curse me, lies blossomed at every level. I swear a one hundred per cent lie. Later, many with that fortune won excellent character appraisals for themselves. Curse me, they acted as if they were something special.

    I have to admit, of those that came to the Home chasing whatever job they had, to this day I can still recall only the old man Lentenoski in a lively way, happily. Curse me, with immeasurable happiness. He came to the Home every day and, on a small two-wheel cart, with his lively, little horse, he brought bread. I still happily remember that magnificent, little old man and that black bread brought in the cart. But there was something else here too, the dear Headmaster did not have that same frightening power and brutality when faced with uncle Lentenoski. How many times, during one of his enraged, mindless actions would he stop himself when he heard the sweet ringing of the hooves of the pony on the cobbled pavement, when he heard the happy, sing-song voice of uncle Lentenoski. In some strange way the good uncle tamed the rage in him; in an instant he made a good man from the brutal one; from the enraged man, he made a reasonable being. Uncle Lenten was the only ordinary, non-official person who had the power to stop the worst rage.

    The strangest thing was, from time to time, he would, all of a sudden, disappear somewhere, would be lost. For days he’d be nowhere to be seen, for months, sometimes we thought he was never coming back. Where he went, why he hid for so long, no-one knew. Only God, as they say, and his weak soul knew the reason. But just when we thought he was never going to return, all of a sudden, totally unexpectedly, he would appear, as though he’d sprung up from the dust. All of a sudden one early morning, you’d be woken by that sweet jingling of his pony, its constant, happy murmuring, humming. Even if it was over the wall, we could already see him coming, curse me, like some grand marshall. Oh uncle Lentenoski, may your dreams turn to gold. “Uncle Lentenoski is back,” listen how the children talk and how, as if commanded, they would fly to the entrance door to meet him.

    “Hey, it’s uncle Lenten!” they announced, in case someone had fallen asleep. Everyone had to be there to greet him on arrival.

    “Lenten, Lenten!” came the happy clamour, one over the other, out of turn; who would be the first to shake his hand. We shook hands like great old friends.

    In time, we got used to his ever more frequent disappearances, his strange life. It was precisely for that reason that the older residents thought up a separate name for uncle Lentenoski, they called him hermit of the seasons. Always, when he returned from his, to us very unusual trip, without exception, he would bring us back a story, and that was always connected with the seasons. If it was Summer, then the man in the story would be walking along a dusty road, through dry, wasted fields, through burnt down villages. Uncle Lenten knew all the villages by heart and would list off a million unknown places. The man would walk for a long time without break. Curse me, tortured by the thirst, without water for hours, with a parched soul. I swear, that man was always alone and on the road.

    “Where was the man going?” one of the children would ask trembling, with a tear in his eye.

    “The man, my dear little one,” uncle Lenten would gently say to the child, “the man was going through the villages and all the settlements, to all the towns and all the homes, my dear little one.”

    We already knew, I swear, and however hard and wearying that road was, however ruthless the sun was, the road poisonous, he persevered, no-one could hold him back, my dear little one.

    “What was the man after, uncle Lenten?” one of the children would ask quiet, with fear.

    “What was the man after, well,” uncle Lenten would twirl his military moustache a little, he would wink from on high, happily, then as he was spending ages thinking about it, looked around, looked at the child and at last would say “Well, nothing, my dear, some little hermit or other, ha!”

    At that moment, always somehow eager to evade, he thought up all sorts of clever things, he stood the whole time, he would make the pony lower its head, to be a clever “boy”, to say hello to the students, because they were very educated people, wise, because the young boys are also good little ponies, gentle hearted. Then he would miaow like a kitten, make every sort of sound, like a jay bird, like a cuckoo. He thought up thousands, thousands of other games, just to get away somehow. But that was impossible, he was closed in on all sides by our thirsty, shining looks. Our looks begged him, told him, “tell us dear old man, tell us uncle Lentenoski, tell us what was that man looking for?”

    After a few centuries we found that out too. That man was looking for his family, his house, his children, the mother of his children. Curse me, that’s what the man was looking for.

    With a tremor in his voice one of the boys would dare to ask him:

    “Well, uncle Lenten, did he find his children?”

    Then uncle Lentenoski cleverly would shake his head, left to right, whether he found them or not, you children don’t understand anything. After that he would start to tell us all about it with his sweet, gentle hearted voice.

    “On his way he met Autumn, my dear little one, scary Autumn!”

    “Oh, cursed Autumn,” the words would, all of a sudden, tear away from our hearts, “cursed Autumn,” we would curse.

    “Cursed Autumn,” uncle Lentenoski would whisper, too, “cursedly bad season,” he would smile a quick, distant smile, like a rambling ray across the sky of a storm, like a rainbow in Spring over the fields. Curse me, old Lentenoski had a rainbow in his eyes.

    After that came the story about Autumn. Heavy rains fell, the sky was black. The whole earth was overturned, all of the roads were lost. These frightening, cold rains were nothing for the man. The man went as if barren Autumn was nothing, the dark and scary trees, denuded, dead. The man went as if he did not care about Autumn, the man just continued on his path through the cold, through the scary waters, through the mud, through the thorns. Everywhere he reached, they gathered around him, they wondered at this muddy, filthy unclean man, where was he from, what devil was he, no-one dared to get close to him. They were afraid to speak to him, they were afraid to let him go over their thresholds, they were afraid to look him in the face. And he, curse me, he wanted nothing from the people. Not bread, not water, not a bed, I swear, he just wanted his children.

    They didn’t believe him, they shook their heads in disbelief. They left him alone, saying:

    “What are you asking us for, you unfortunate man! There’s the government! Go to the government, the government knows!”

    “Go, go!”

    “What an unreasonable man! Maybe there’s something wrong with him,” the people said.

    “What, even an animal would understand more quickly, see how he’s looking, look at his eyes!”

    “Madman, you should take a stick to him, he would see better!”

    “Maybe he’s not human,” the women made a ritual, protective spit into their shirtfront to ward off evil, then shrieking, they gathered their children around them like hens and locked themselves in their homes.

    “And he, uncle Lenten, what did he do?” one of the boys would ask in tears. Uncle Lenten would then go quiet for a bit longer, that little man looked strange in that evening, in the middle of the children, in the deserted, strange, in the silent home. He was quiet, like a thin, captured, little bird. With tiny, lively eyes he looked from child to child; now we were quiet. Curse me, everything was quiet. It seemed it was as if, in that moment, uncle Lentenoski got a thousand years older all at once, irrevocably. Curse me, a thousand years of lost life. How many times did we decide never to ask about such things again but we never stuck by our word. Some evil spirit was pressing us, wouldn’t leave us in peace.

    Once, however, we heard the whole story.

    It was in the Winter, the first Winter after the snow, the man returned to his home from the war and he didn’t find his home. The man had a wife and two children. They told him that they had gone to some distant mountain village. They’d stayed there in the Spring, they told him, they found the wife dead in the mountain, with a little pack of firewood, covered in snow. The children must have been cold, they lived in a little hut beside the village. Curse me, the children must have been cold that their mother had to go on such a frightening blizzardy day to gather wood in the mountain. Mothers are not afraid of snow, mothers are not afraid of anything when their children are cold. Curse me, mothers are without fear, they have just one fear, their children. Dear mothers of gold, our own dear mothers. I swear, that’s the only fear that lives in them, their children. The children departed in Spring. Sometime before Spring with the winds, when the snow starts to melt. First of all the littlest one was lost, one day he didn’t return to the hut. Maybe the boy went to look for his mother, curse me, maybe he went after his own mother. After that they found him in the plain, in a cornfield, when the snow had all melted, some ploughman in his ploughing, the child was lying on the ground like a little bird with folded wings; a fallen bird, most certainly killed by the north wind. As if he was sleeping, with his face on the warm earth, among the yellow field grasses, between small, new-born beetles. Curse me, the ploughman thought the boy was sleeping, dreaming. Then the older boy went, alone, he wafted along the road like a little cloud. Quickly he went along the road, healthy and alive. Where he was going, what he was doing, they didn’t know, they didn’t ask him. A child, what is there to ask? He was with his spotted puppy, Boobi, they ran along the melted snow, the sun was shining. Curse me, sun.

    After that, running along, the boy and the puppy got to another village, an unfamiliar one, they went to the city, they saw them on some bank, near a big water he and his dog rambled around for hours, they played in the waves, they took him to some Home...

    That night we didn’t hear the bell calling us to the assembly line. No-one wanted to move from the spot, to leave uncle Lentenoski alone. That night, curse me, the most snivelling boy could take any punishment.

    “What’s up with you, you little devils?” asked the instructor who was on duty, mindlessly. “You will assemble or else you will be punished; you’ll miss out on dinner!”

    He could shout at us all night, the idiot couldn’t see. I swear, we weren’t in the Home any more. We were far away, very far away, on a road. We were going through the fields, through the villages, through the caves, through the snow, through the waters, through unfamiliar settlements and cities, through all the homes, everywhere where that man pounded the road. Curse me, we went everywhere with him, together. A black rain hit us, a strong sun killed us, we broke through the most frightening snow, a gale, no, nothing could turn us back from that road, to separate us from that man. Every place where we met people, familiar and unfamiliar, good and bad, we told them all the name of our mother, the name of our father, the names of our sisters and brothers, our secret signs. Oh God, maybe they had other names now, other signs, maybe they were now Hungarians, Russians, Poles, French, Czechs, Germans; we told them of the beautiful dream of the place we were born; where was it, do you remember, there was a hill, a hill with sun in the morning, then a little river, from there the river runs into a wood, a silver, a gold forest and the sky above it just the same, don’t you... but then again, maybe we were together in a home, in a room, curse me, maybe that Metodija Grishkoski is your brother, degenerate, impossible... I swear, we didn’t recognise our sisters, brothers, oh, we have to find them, nothing can make us turn back from that road.

    “You will be shut in the cellar,” Olivera Srezoska, the Assistant-Headmaster raged.

    No-one got up, we were all satisfied. As though blind, as though entranced, each one set off wherever their eyes lighted, we set off through the yard, through the rooms. The place couldn’t hold us, we climbed up to the dormitories, we went out, I swear, we travelled with that man.

    That same night uncle Lenten disappeared. It was late Summer, maybe Autumn, the birds were migrating, no-one knew exactly. I swear, all of the children were with uncle Lentenoski, above all we most wanted him to return to us. To return once again with his son and if he wanted, after that, never to come back again to the Home. Curse me, every morning, you’d wake up and you see all the children have pricked their ears like rabbits, has uncle Lenten come back? You hear the arrival of the cart and something would trick you, it would seem he was back again, breathlessly you’d run into the yard. Undressed, barefooted. Your heart could hardly stand it until that cursed door opened, even though you knew it wasn’t him, you wait. That lasted a few centuries.

    The Winter, the fifteenth of February, he returned. It was morning, we were in the assembly line. We were singing the anthem. Curse me, the anthem. But when, like a little mouse, uncle Lenten softly snuck through the door, when we saw his stooped, shrunken shape, we all went quiet as if commanded to. It was as if he wanted to rest, he stood by the door for a bit. Then one of the children, a little devil, flew from the assembly line like an arrow and as if strangled by someone shrieked despairingly:

    “Daddy Lenten!” Curse me, with all his strength he hung around his neck.

    “Daddy Lenten,” he murmured, “I knew you would come back,” he murmured over and over, “I knew you were my father!”

    The dear Headmaster Ariton Jakovleski gave us a signal to continue with the singing of the anthem as if nothing had happened. Curse me, for the first time, we sang it with all our hearts, for the first time, with love. Oh, you had to see the son of Kejtin. He was so carried away, he was so far away, that he didn’t notice that we’d stopped singing, that the flag was already waving. In his enthusiasm, he continued to sing. Curse me, he was singing.

    His soft, hoarse voice sounded strangely; it was unreal, magical. Curse me, when the anthem is being sung, you should stand still, Kejtin was singing freely, he sang happily, and we stood quietly, in line. He certainly did not see us, he must have been on one of his secret great wanderings ... Oh great, oh free water! Our hearts shouted with happiness.

    Drought. The drought lasted a few centuries. Curse me, the whole earth dried up. I swear, everything was scorched. While the drought lasted, everything around was mute, nothing moved. The sun had been struck in the heart, it was melting. It was bleeding. Every day we saw how the sun was dying. Curse me, the sun was dying. What would happen if the sun died, we bore such stupid thoughts. If the sun died, wouldn’t a heavy endless darkness fall on the earth; the trees and the beautiful grasses would die and surely you wouldn’t be able to see the birds fly, or clear waters run? Everything would turn into ice, the trees, the grasses, plants, the waters, the air that we breathe and maybe even the sun. Oh God, how frightened we were! “Has the sun a mother?” asked a stupid little boy; he wanted to know if the sun had a mother. Everything on this earth has a mother, the matron Verna Jakovleska said to us, and the sun has a mother. Certainly curse me, everything has a mother. Just so. That is the most beautiful thing, a mother. But such storytelling didn’t appeal to the dear Headmaster Ariton Jakovleski. “Listen, old woman,” he said to her firmly, just managing not to burst, “Don’t spread holiness, you know we’re in the clear with the saints.” Curse me, in the clear. After that, the old lady went to her little room without a word and didn’t come out for a long time. The drought lasted a hundred, a thousand centuries. We saw neither the Senterlev mountain nor the Big Water. Everything ran away, disappeared. That’s why complete deafness reigned. Curse me, certainly that was fear.

    A while ago I wanted to tell you about comrade Olivera Srezoska, our Assistant-Headmaster in the Home. It certainly would be in order, in the end, she deserved that; but you will understand that sometimes, a person wants to escape from the line. Just that, to escape from the line. Just that, to escape, to escape, I swear. And who didn’t guard themselves, who didn’t run from comrade Olivera Srezoska?

    That being was odd; it had a female name but with certainty it could be said that nothing beautiful, nothing delicate sprang from that being. She was able, without limit, to devise things, to conduct things, to fulfil, to realise projects. Curse me, just that, projects. Frankly the way she was able to devise them, that was something unique, special. Not infrequently, her name was mentioned in essays, the wall newspapers and the local press. Comrade Olivera Srezoska was put forward as an example of classless society, I swear. Just that, an example of classless society.

    The girls trembled before her like leaves on a branch. Curse me, like leaves on a branch. If she told them to crawl, they would lie on the ground without a word and would do what they had been ordered to. Just like that, as comrade Olivera Srezoska would command. She was a mistress of punishments, we must acknowledge that. Some sorts of punishments, cheap, ordinary, they already failed to satisfy her. She had caught on; it was not worth a person getting his hands dirty on small and meaningless things. Comrade Olivera Srezoska would either conduct an important action, or she would not be bothered at all. In all of that, Olivera Srezoska was searching for meaning. Her intensity was great, but at the same time, low, petty and so repulsive, that you couldn’t come to terms with it easily. She wove things like some skilful craftsman. She threw herself into it sincerely, with all her soul. Curse me, she believed. In just the first few months, she conducted six such actions of which two will certainly remain in the history of the Home.

    The first situation was the one with the shorts. Comrade Olivera Srezoska had a pair of red cross-country shorts. After the photographs with the face of the General, the shorts were the most sacred thing to her in her life. Curse me, most sacred. I well remember that the red shorts belonging to Olivera Srezoska were talked about with much respect, with social, political and moral esteem (surely, such a thing cannot be thought about ordinary ones). They were sport shorts that she’d won from the committee for physical culture as the winner of the Autumn cross-country held to celebrate the liberation of the town. They were a dear souvenir to her, you could tell. She wore them only for national holidays and then, Oh God, she walked a little differently with them on than usual. It appeared as if she was in a rapture, as though they were a little inside her. Curse me, you could tell from a distance that that day was a significant holiday. But once the festivity passed, I swear, she would take them off the same minute and would hang them up straight away in the sun to air out a little. That was good, naturally. Curse me, after just one such holiday comrade Olivera Srezoska ended up without her favourite shorts. Curse me, without her red pants. It would’ve been better to have stripped her naked to have taken her soul. God, she was so crazy, she roared. We thought fate had selected someone that day, that she would tear someone to shreds.

    Without a word, we all moved out of her way, like shadows we stuck ourselves to the wall. We were all next to the wall, males, females. Curse me, the fear was great. Without any command, the look of comrade Olivera Srezoska made us line up. It seemed to be we were holding up the cursed wall so that it wouldn’t fall. As never before that, it was desolate and soulless in the home. The only thing that could be seen in the yard was that tree split in two by thunder and that angry, dark Olivera Srezoska. She was pierced to her heart deeply, most deeply; poisoned. If you were to offer her jam in a golden teaspoon, in that moment she would have refused; everything, everything was poison to her. That tree and Olivera Srezoska; as though there was no-one and nothing anywhere around. Two short, mutilated shadows in the middle of the Home’s desolation, they measured its nothingness. It was hard to decide whether the tree or comrade Olivera Srezoska was the unhappier.

    That moment of expectation lasted a whole lifetime. Curse me, a lifetime. At the end, she pulled out a whistle from her shirt, gave a signal for the girls to form a line. I feel as if I can still hear the severe screech of the whistle. Curse me, as though she split the whole Home in two.

    Our poor girls. Maybe most of them went around wholly naked under their coarse gaberdine dresses. Curse me, they went around au naturel. And if one of them had underpants, they would have been so worn that they would be bare in the middle. Curse me, where would you get underpants for the girls! And almost all of them were at that age, they were just budding. When they sat on the ground they had to firmly keep their knees together so they would not reveal all. Who knows how hard it was for our girls, for those little buds that had just begun to blossom. Put sincerely the girls were also the only beauty in the home. Every day, every hour they made life more beautiful all around; you’d see one like a flower growing out from under the rock, they would surprise you with a strange wonder. Wonderfully they’d take you by surprise, they’d fill your heart with a warm breeze and already you’re someone else, you just see beautiful things. There, the mouth of one of them has become sweet, soft, you think it’s honey; another has surprised you with a long bright look, dear and warming to your heart, you’d think the sky had opened up above your head, a rainbow is caressing you, oh God; a third shyly bends her head toward the ground, she’s shy, gentle, like a lamb, you see her breasts have become more pointed. Curse me, all that was so beautiful, so wondrous in that wasteland, like a clean grain separated from the others. Our girls recalled something that was the purest, most beautiful; a little flower blooming on a delicate, thin blade of grass that waves in the sweet Spring breeze, recalled everything good that the heart may want. Curse me, at Olivera Srezoska’s signal, without a word, each tried to run in front of another, no-one wanted to be late. Confused, mute, at once they stood in line. Curse me, mute.

    They waited. Olivera Srezoska still circled the tree, measured it; she was remeasuring her own shadow. Finally, somehow, controlling herself, through her clenched teeth she strained, she said:

    “Who did it, girls?” she asked scarify, horribly. Curse me, she said it in a way that a person had to believe that she was suffering, suffering a lot, that her heart was bleeding.

    The girls were silent as statures, cast. Curse me, cast.

    “Who did that disgusting thing, girls?” she repeated at one after another, in order.

    The girls silently bowed their heads. Not one of the girls raised her head.

    “Even better,” said comrade Olivera Srezoska. “The punishment will be doubled if no-one confesses.”

    “Forward,” she commanded. She led them to the dormitory. The search lasted a few centuries. She looked through everything that could be looked through, she turned over every bed, she pulled up everything which could be pulled up. And when she found nothing, she got even wilder. She commanded a circle to the left, in the washroom. She put all the girls in the washroom and she ordered them to undress, down to their bare skin. Dear mother, to undress down to bare skin. The washroom was an unbearable cellar, a veritable ice room. Summer and Winter, it was icy in there. No-one could spend any time in there without getting a serious illness. That was one of the most cursed places in the Home.

    Curse me, the girls obediently completed the task. And Olivera Srezoska, without a word collected the clothes and moved away, locking up the girls.

    “As soon as you decide to confess,” she said to them, “I’ll let you out.”

    After that, calm, obviously calmed a little, she turned the key once, twice, three times in the lock.

    Surely you’d say, that’s impossible, maybe you’d laugh at her. Sometimes I myself think and surely that doesn’t happen with just me, I think it was a dream, some ugly, unreal dream, apparition. But you must believe, I swear, didn’t so many impossible things happen, didn’t we believe, friend?

    All of us remained stuck to the wall from that day, as though we were sharing the ice that was gnawing the hearts of our girls. God, how it pricked, how it hurt, how unthinkable it was, impossible. Some of them coughed up blood that Spring. Vera Nikolovska, Bosilka Kochoska the ballerina, Krstinka Kitanovska, Danica Stojanovska the artist, Rodna Trendafilovska... Curse me, they were immediately taken to the dispensary for chest diseases.

    Where are they now our girls, our beauty, their bright looks, beautiful clear eyes, their little chests? What has happened to all of us, where are we, where are we all, is this a dream or real? Curse me, what has happened with the Big Water?

    Later someone found the shorts. In the kitchen they’d used them as a mop...

    The second event was something more general in character and it did not end with measures internal to the Home alone. Curse me, it widened out to a political issue. But in the beginning it was frighteningly funny to us, jolly. Curse me, jolly. We joked about it regally; it was really funny, it was funny! Some nice fellow, who knows how, snuck into comrade Olivera Srezoska’s little room and there you had a circus. Put simply he painted the left half of the moustache of the General with white paint, and put some other marks on the face. Dear God, how hard this event hit the young and pure heart of comrade Olivera Srezoska. Think of it, for that to happen to her, to her loved one, to her loved, favourite, most favourite, bright, brightest face. Curse me, if only you could have seen her from somewhere, if only you could have heard her. You’d think her father had died, the dearest person to her, just such a screech emerged from her breast. She screeched with alarm and, as if slain, she fell to the floor. Curse me, no-one knew what was going on; we played dumb. So, it hurts you, you bitch, the children said amongst themselves, quietly. She threw herself onto the floor like some slaughtered bird. Curse me, they just managed to bring her around with some water and a little sugar. Her young life was hanging by a thread, even the dear Headmaster was afraid, I swear, with his kindest voice he tried to encourage her, bring her around. He blew gently on her face, sweetly he said to her:

    “Comrade Olivera Srezoska,” he was calling her with a voice as merciful and good natured as that, “Lift your head, gentle soul,” he whispered. “Don’t let down the political work, don’t die, don’t die, dear comrade, don’t let go the flower and flight of your young life, don’t let down the political work, as always, gather your strength, be brave,” sang the dear Headmaster, curse me, he opened up, he simply spoke as a poet, through his poem.

    “Wake up, comrade Olivera Srezoska, our sister,” the poor girls were also waking her with tears in their eyes, curse me, they really started to cry, they pleaded from their hearts for Olivera Srezoska to get better. “Wake up, wake up, comrade Olivera Srezoska, it will be very difficult for us without her,” the poor girls were falling over themselves.

    That cry, it seems, at last woke her. Her left eye opened, scary, bloody; she muttered:

    “Criminal!” she screeched again, and again she fainted. Obviously the excitement wasn’t any good for her. Curse me, she stayed like that for a few centuries, troubled, in a trance, she would wake, she would faint, she rambled. At one time she even started to sing, like that, in her dream, curse me, her pain was great, her soul hurt.

    The event, as it was shown later, was really very complicated, very serious, even delicate. No, it wasn’t just a young life hanging in the balance, the deed itself curse me, the deed itself was more than three hundred tonnes in weight. The investigation went on day and night — one after the other they called us into the Headmaster’s office. Curse me, one after the other, each one in order. Without distinction, starting with us, the residents, to the staff and the administration with all the teachers and instructors. Here there was nowhere to go and they lost their sleep; for suspicion to fall on you it was enough to draw attention to yourself in some stupid way or someone point at you with a finger, oh mother! Everyone, everyone was shaking and trembling, everyone in the Home fell sick during those days, from the first to the last person.

    The investigation for the residents flowed through a few phases. At first, as if it were nothing, I swear, they forced us to recite the biography of Josif Bisarinovich Stalin. Where he was born, when, what his mother was like, his father — it’s understood he was from a family of poor parents, villagers, workers and while still young he experienced a difficult life, injustice, dark exploitation... He completed primary school with outstanding success in the small village in which he was born, he studied and at the same time he helped his poor parents with all of their work. In his early boyhood he stood out for his industriousness and benevolence and his great friendship. Apparently he helped the weaker students with reading and writing free compositions; books were his greatest friend. He stood out from his peers because of his great wisdom, unusual in someone of his young years, modesty, a solitary life, with a word, he was a real picture among his enslaved, unhappy people. But the thirst for a free life was greater in him than any other wish, freedom was imprinted into his heart from the earliest years. Somewhere in there, in the blossoming, luxuriant earth, grazing his horses in the middle of the endless fields... often in the middle of a game with his peers, in the greatest enthusiasm he would stop, and as though entrenched, would look into the setting sun. Curse me, as though entrenched. He was especially attracted to the heavy, bloody clouds in the evening sky...

    I have to boast a little, I swear comrade Ariton Jakovleski, and not just him, all the members, even some of the investigators themselves, they were all so satisfied with my answers, they listened to me agape. And when I finished, they remained frozen like that for a while, open-mouthed. They looked at me with dear, grateful eyes, as though they were saying “Thank you Leme, live long, be healthy, may good fortune always follow you in life, may you become a great man, the greatest!” I acknowledge that at that hour, my heart was not very quiet, a strong excitement overtook me, somehow I couldn’t control myself, I was forced to call out “May he live!” and some other grand things. Curse me, I felt a bit easier, the fear left me a bit. The investigators then sincerely congratulated me, shook my hand, curse me, we shook hands.

    “I am so pleased, Leme,” said the dear Headmaster and offered me his hand, he squeezed so hard I just about collapsed to the floor.

    I answered, more from the excitement than from politeness “Same to you, dear Headmaster.”

    To this he said to me “Call me comrade, my dear young man. And now, goodbye, a great task awaits us, we’ll discuss your future further.” And, I swear, he personally opened the door for me, and I was free.

    The shaken children in the hallway who were waiting in line agape, their little fish eyes frozen. No-one knew what had happened. Curse me, as carefully as I could, I winked at Kejtin; that was our making-up. Oh God, when he saw me as that puffed up, haughty pretender, the biggest pretender, liar, without thinking he burst out laughing. He knew, he knew everything, curse me. Go on and try to stop the son of Kejtin laughing.

    Just then, the closed door behind me was opened all of a sudden. The dear Headmaster came out again, pale as a sheet, without a drop of blood in his face, he barely managed to strain out:

    “You’re laughing, Kejtin. Is there something funny, you beast! Come in!”

    I saw, I swear, he went in still laughing. Who could now stop the son of Kejtin from laughing, curse me, he would laugh like the devil, for a hundred centuries.

    “Son of Kejtin,” they commanded him, “stop laughing!”

    “Why are you laughing, what is funny?”

    “Nothing, nothing, honestly,” says Kejtin, but an even bigger laugh came out of him.

    “Isaac Kejtin, sew up your repulsive mouth,” Olivera Srezoska screamed at him insanely, “sew it, you cursed wretch!”

    “I can’t,” the son of Kejtin answered sincerely. “I couldn’t if my life depended on it, Olivera Srezoska,” he added that bit on his own.

    But then, Kejtin had an opportunity to see the whitened moustache of Josif on the table and now, nothing could stop him. He laughed with all of his heart. He laughed like God, curse me, like God. Comrade Olivera Srezoska couldn’t tolerate it any more, her nerves were already ripped to shreds any way, she was not able to do anything. The laughter of the son of Kejtin pierced her in the deepest part of her heart. In all of the pain she suffered, curse me, this was the peak.

    “Stop, you subversive element,” mouthed comrade Olivera Srezoska, God, the whole Home was echoing, “stop you cursed beast, beast, beast! Criminal!”

    Just as the son of Kejtin wanted to stop his laugh, it faded away itself. But when he looked at the monstrous face of Olivera Srezoska he doubled in half again, without wanting to, wildly, the laugh came out of him on its own. Olivera Srezoska did not control herself. She hit him with whatever was in her hand, with the inkstand with which she was writing our answers. Curse me, with the inkstand. On his face, his eyes. She pierced his face and his hands which he tried to shield his eyes with.

    “Dear mother,” said the son of Kejtin, defending just his eyes. “Dear mother, I have been left without eyes,” and his laugh stopped.

    They took him out with his face all bloody, pierced all over.

    “Dear mother,” the son of Kejtin repeated all the same, as though he couldn’t believe what had happened to him, as though he didn’t know where he was.

    They shut him in the cellar with a group of other suspect boys.

    “It’s him, him and no-one else,” the voice of Olivera Srezoska could be heard, she still couldn’t calm herself.

    Not then and not since have I ever been able to hate a person. I was weak and I often hit my head into the wall, often I bled because of that, but I never carried ill feeling inside me, such a repulsive burden. I could forgive anyone for anything, I swear. But for the first time, I didn’t know how to look at Olivera Srezoska, our Assistant-Headmaster of the Home.

    Kejtin, my friend, I searched for him everywhere, I couldn’t find him, “Kejtin,” I think I said it aloud, but the people were applauding. They were applauding Olivera Srezoska. Curse me, “Kejtin!” I called, but no-one heard my voice. Deaf, deaf people. Curse me, I was deadly afraid of that deafness.

    The water had already entered into me, I swear, it was big, the biggest. In the first moment, just like that, unexpectedly, finding myself again free, near the bank, hearing the voice of the water, not looking at the waves as though I had lost my mind, hurried toward Her, curse me, not feeling the earth falling away beneath me, not feeling that I was entering something scary, deep, from which I could not return. I didn’t hear the voice which told me to go back “Stupid boy, unfortunate boy, where have you set off for, the waves will take you away, the water will swallow you up. Go back, go back, stupid fellow! You will regret it, you’ll regret it all your life, your child’s mind is taking you into a greater evil, unfortunate boy, little Leme!” Another voice was whispering to me “How will you live without Her, Leme, you’ll be blind, crippled, unhappy. There won’t be enough room in the world for you, not the smallest spot, they’ll persecute you all the same, endlessly persecute you like a small, abandoned puppy. “Go! Go!” Oh, my weak, childish mind, my sick, unhealable soul. For the first time, I found myself facing such an unthinkable, dark ruin. My own salvation, I owe my poor life only to one man, a dear man, unhappy Trifun Trifunoski. Curse me, someone had to die.

    Kejtin is under lock. Curse me, under lock. The only thought I had was that Kejtin was in the cellar. I was afraid that if I didn’t do something at once that he would die, that my friend couldn’t survive that. Only one wish existed, to help him to get his freedom back. Curse me, his freedom. I swear, there was no other cure for the heart of Kejtin.

    The last evening bell announced the time to go to sleep. Just as the few lights in the Home were turned off, all of the voices went silent. No dream would come at all, I was in a fever, in a confusion, I went to sleep for a little, then, as though startled, I would wake, some unfamiliar voice would wake me, would call me to wake! I listened, it was the voice of the Big Water. Curse me, after so many centuries the voice of the Big Water came back. She endlessly roared, hummed, threw up powerful waves, the whole bank echoed. Powerful waves started to splash me, to take my poor little bed, above my head, crazed birds flew. Curse me, the dream was the most frightening illness there was, the biggest.

    In the morning, at the darkest dawn, I knocked on the door of Trifun Trifunoski’s room. He couldn’t sleep either, he was possessed by the noble spirit and shaking with fever, as they say in the old folk tales, a fever lasting three years. Pale, haggard, powerfully excited, pressing a little leaf between his palms, he was muttering out loud, sounding word by word. He was reciting, creating.

    The noble Trifun Trifunoski (no, it is not possible for a man to hold himself back), that was the truth, on the little table there was a little, open army suitcase, full to the brim with poems, novels, plays, with all sorts of creative work. Oh God, dear God! Surely there was something in that burning soul when so unthinkingly he resigned from that happy, secure future which was already smiling on him. Curse me, he forgot the victories, the awards, as if the flattering commendations did not keep him, all at once he became a slave to something scary. Curse me, a slave. It was tragic to see this powerful, handsome man in such a degrading situation, at once I regretted that I had come so early. That man, who so easily ran millions of kilometres, over mountains, rivers, plains, who like a deer leapt over huge ponds of water, who in a wondrous manner could fly over muddy, heavy roads, through thorns, through rains, through slush, who got lost in thunder storms, it was sad, it was desperate to look at how he was rolling around in the little stinking room. His whole body was useless to him, something more powerful had nailed him, ruined. Curse me, how quickly, how unexpectedly everything changed in him, how quickly he deteriorated, lost weight, wasted away, he was totally wasted, he looked like a big, wounded bird with withered wings, its steel-grey feathers dragging through the mud. What made him go so crazy?

    You just had to see him before a holiday day, for example, the first of May, May Day. Curse me, then it was as if he wasn’t on the earth, it was scary to meet his look.

    “Look at Trifun Trifunoski,” one of the children would say.

    “Don’t be stupid,” another would say. “Get out of his way, he’s thinking!”

    “Off by heart,” would say the first child, “he looks disturbed to me.”

    “He is not,” a third would join in, in defence of Trifun Trifunoski, “you’ll hear at the celebration.”

    “But where is his book,” the boy would ask, “can he do it just like that, off by heart, as though he is reading something in the wind.”

    Curse me, in the wind. It was a wind he knew, some strange, foreign wind. He didn’t sleep for days and nights. Sometimes, for centuries, I swear. All of a sudden you’d see him like some eternal guard circumnavigating the Home for hours, there was no place that could contain him. It could have been an ugly, harsh Spring, with snow, with storms, what do you think, could that dim his bright look, to darken the sun on May Day? Curse me, it was as if everything was against Trifun Trifunoski, the weather would go bad just around the holiday. Cold rains would fall, stacks of snow, the unexpected ice would lay all nature to waste. All the same, while the others were taken with rage, kindly Trifun Trifunoski, sunken in his secret world worked sweetly, with happiness. Curse me, it was as if he wasn’t there, as though he lived in another world. Everything was different with him, the sky was clear, blue, high, endless; happy little birds were flying, red flags were waving, a hammer and sickle blossomed on every wall, red stars, symbols of every country, at that time, he was with them, marching. Curse me, marching. So what if the north wind was whistling, Trifun Trifunoski could hear the Internationale, he was inspired with such a spirit, he was creating. Curse me, no-one could provoke such a fever in the children as Trifun Trifunoski did when he took the stage, when he started to recite one of his poems. Everything in him cheered, he sang. We listened open-mouthed, in a trance, we greedily gulped each of his words.

    That’s why I hurried to Trifun Trifunoski so early, that I wanted as early as possible to reveal my own great secret. My own heart. Curse me, my whole heart. The thing that was born in me that night was the shiniest thing, most beautiful. Not a single star, not a single sun was as bright. With a beaming face I stood before Trifun Trifunoski, victorious. As soon as he saw me, with a single look he hit the nail on the head. He said:

    “What do I see, little Leme, you’ve burst into song! I bet the nightingale has come out in you!”

    (Curse me, the nightingale.) As calmly as I could, sweetly I answered him:

    “It wasn’t a nightingale,” I said and I was taken, carried away. Losing my mind.

    “Well, what?” he said inquisitively looking at me. “Sit down,” he said to me sweetly, offering me his own chair. He did not take his eyes off me the whole time, observing me. “What could it be then, Leme?” he asked carefully, a little indirectly, teacher-like.

    “It was water,” I answered him directly, “wild birds. I can’t contain myself, Trifun Trifunoski!”

    “Strange,” he said, “come on, read, let’s hear your wondrous composition, Leme.”

    “Thank you, Trifun Trifunoski,” I wanted to say, “but I haven’t the time,” I wasn’t allowed to lose a single second, every moment was decisive for the life of Kejtin. At once, without stops, without breaks, without any punctuation, I began to read, blazing as though with a machine gun. Curse me, I sang, I cried, I crawled, I flew, I fell dying, I came to life, I laughed, I swallowed water, I sank, I was lost. I was in the sky, with the stars, in the shining gardens of paradise, I fell into deepest, darkest hell. For example, when it was necessary to say, oh, oh, my dear mother, oh, dear friend, oh, life, oh, birds, oh water, oh Home, oh, oh, oh — that amounted to someone, oh, someone stabbing you in the back with a knife. Oh, a knife. Naturally, if someone sticks a knife in your heart, you won’t be singing; rather, you will fall down, you will scream. Curse me, I screamed at the top of my voice.

    “Calm down, Leme, calm yourself, you poor boy,” said Trifun Trifunoski, frightened, concerned, but he could not tell my heart to calm down, no-one could stop such a devastating, evil wind.

    “Oh, I’m going blind,” was one part of the composition and fool that I was, I rolled my eyes so naturally, showing only the white of my eyes, so that they were all you could see, and poor Trifun Trifunoski thought my sight was gone. Mournfully, he said:

    “You unfortunate little boy, now you will be blind and lame for the rest of your life!” And then he piled the most offensive abuses on the evil muse. “Curse you, you dark goddess, shame on you for taking this thin, weak, little bird as a target, for sending your death-bringing, poisonous, titanic arrows into this thin, little chest. Here I am, Cupid, here I am, black muse, all of me is available to you, hit me, wrestle with me,” Trifun Trifunoski offered himself up.

    But with these words, it was as though he helped me, curse me, it was then that the river flowed in me. Part of what I was saying was written down and part of what I was saying had never before come into my mind.

    “Oh, be quiet, be quiet, savage wave, say in this case who is right and who is wrong,” and you know, in that moment, the wave calmed, a long pause followed, the waters near the edge softly whispered, under the pretence they were weaving the fabric of truth, white, and poison, untruth, turned into small, black blisters which were pointlessly dying on the bank. “Die, die,” I was merciless. “This fire, this heart which is becoming enflamed, curse me, one clear day — grey day, it will be clear who is right, who is wrong!”

    Once I finished reciting, it was as if a huge stone fell from the soul of Trifun Trifunoski.

    “How do you feel now, Leme,” he asked me sighing. “Have you calmed down a little, dear heart?”

    “Yes,” I said, “now I feel better, Trifun Trifunoski.”

    “Let’s thank God for that,” he said. “Good. How are your eyes?”

    I admit that I considered this question a little, I did not understand it but I hope that I gave a sufficiently correct answer. Looking at him goggle eyed I answered him:

    “They will be able to see the sun again, Trifun Trifunoski!”

    “I am glad, Leme,” he said sincerely happy, you could see he was happy, “my heart is very happy that your sight has returned to you, young man, and now we must analyse things a little, Leme.”

    We look at each other straight in the eye, fierily. Curse me, fierily.

    “What can be said, Leme,” he started, carefully, “you can see for yourself, unhappy Leme, it is scary, horrible! It cannot be thought of, it is pure fantasy. Leme. Fruitless, poisonous, death-bringing, my little bird. It is aimless, Leme, it has no aim. (Curse me, aim.) Let’s analyse, word for word... It’s strange Leme, very strange, dear young man, all night to wastefully, aimlessly look at the water, just like that, little fool, good-for-nothing; what sort of satisfaction did you get from that, little friend? Shivers are crawling over me, Leme, when I think of all that might have happened to you for such a hollow, wild thing. What benefit could a person expect to get, Leme, except oh, to certainly earn a fine, little cold, one to get into your bones. I bet that you froze your little brother too, Leme, the one you took to that boulder, his teeth were chattering, weren’t they, Leme?

    “Yes, Trifun Trifunoski, it is true, it was cold,” I acknowledged.

    “There,” he said so sweetly, helpfully, like a parent would, “you endured so much fear in those black waves and wild birds and it was all for nothing! And secondly, Leme, the most frightening thing, is that in your composition one can see a great insensitivity, young man. At least in one moment you should think of the millions of hungry people, the millions suffering, the millions drowning in blood, of your unfortunate brothers, you haven’t any conscience, dear young man, to be able to sit on that boulder to pursue your crazy happiness. Where is your oath, Leme, your youth morale, your human spirit? You have acted selfishly Leme, just like a bourgeois without taking into account the class struggle of the proletariat... Tragic, Leme,” kindly Trifun Trifunoski abruptly destroyed me from all sides.

    “I am ashamed,” I said and I started to cry. I acknowledged that I had no talent, that I hate all poems, novels and all such things, I acknowledged to him that it was a moment of craziness, darkness, pain, and that it was selfish, a small pain, the pain of just one person, meaningless, one person. Curse me, just like that, of only one person.

    His confusion was without bounds when he heard these words from my mouth. Curse me, he did not believe.

    “I value your sincerity, Leme,” he said dryly, with concern, “but your soul is ill, black, it has to be cured, dear. What is the evil spirit in you, Leme, that’s made you so crazy, who is that evil devil?” he asked with pain.

    “Kejtin,” I called to him weeping out loud. “He is dying in the cellar... He has been refusing food for three days, he wants to die, he will die. He is dying innocent, I swear, he is dying because of some disgusting person, some villain. Today is the last day, Trifun Trifunoski, tomorrow is the doctor’s examination and they will take him away, dear mother!” You know, this was the limit of my strength. Out of my mind, with my hands, with my head, with my feet I started to hit the wall of the little room, and at the same time to call out the harshest ugliest words. “Disgusting! Villain!”

    Obviously the good Trifun Trifunoski had strongly struck my pain. Calming me in his arms, with his dear hands stroking my hair, I remember that he said one other thing, with fervour he said:

    “Poor boy! Why didn’t you say it at once, Leme? Aaggh,” he said with pain, as though someone had stuck a knife deep into him, through to his bone, ah, that disgusting person, that villain! No, no, that cannot be permitted, no way! A brief smile flashed on his lips, lit up his face, something excited him, with some strange happiness, he comforted me, “Be comforted, Leme, your friend will return to you safe and sound,” then from his suitcase that was full of works he took a note pad full of hand written poems, drawings of flowers, stars and flags and he gave it to me. “For you, Leme,” he said, “these poems are for you, dear young man.” Curse me, I thought that he was giving them to me to calm me down. I was so ignorant and stupid!

    That was the last time Trifun Trifunoski and I saw each other. The only thing that remained was the hope, that little note pad with strange poems and even stranger, inscrutable drawings...

    Perhaps some of those little devils had really thought up that mountain, Senterlev. Perhaps it didn’t exist at all, someone had dreamt it up from fear, from scary despair. Curse me, I curse myself, I became a non-believer, a liar, in me were born some evil, bad feelings, unnoticeably I began to hate everything in the Home, even the children. I would show those little disgusting villains. Ah, you must think that that was so simplistic, simple, easy. Ah, you certainly don’t know! An escape from that place must be made, far, far away. You might stay on the road, you might fall on the road, and the sun might burn you as long as you do not return. Never go back again to that Home, in that deaf building. Never, never! Never to see the eyes of those people again, to leave all people! To be alone, all alone, dear boy, little man, to hide yourself in some dark, deep cave, away from everyone, from every person. You are not permitted to mix with them, their words are lies, their love is false, that’s how they smile at you, dear boy, until you fall into their hands, until they seize you, then like a little beast, they will throw you in the cafe, in the line, in the assembly line, in the cursed Home. I was full of hate, bitterness, oh, God, something frightening, mindless, was tying itself to my heart. But that’s when She came, I swear, I can swear any oath you ask of me, she said to me “What is it Leme, don’t you believe any more, woe is you, son. Believe, Leme, believe, little Leme,” she made me swear an oath on my mother to do so. Curse me, so what, perhaps that mountain did exist, the Senterlev? And it was as if everything started from new, love, hate, truth, lies, curses, prayer, goodness, swear words...

    Dreams were his illness. Curse me, dreams. He wasn’t happy when they freed him. I saw how difficult it was for them to drag him out of the cellar. He wanted them to leave him there, leave him to the mice. Curse me, to the mice. He looked even more mournful, more alone. Alien. Distant. As soon as he adjusted his sight, he fell onto the ground as though mowed down. Curse me, he was dead.

    “Kejtin is dead!”

    “Kejtin is dying!”

    “Kejtin has died!” the children were screaming, all at once, all over the Home, the scary news spread.

    “Kejtin no longer is alive!”

    There was no way I could understand it at all. Curse me, if ever I believed in such a thing, in those liars. How can the son of Kejtin not be alive, I thought, how can he be covered by the earth, lying still, not moving; there was no way I could understand that his heels would be wiped clean in a funeral ritual, even less could I believe that he would not be laughing. Curse me, a laugh. What would happen with the day, the night, the sun, with the stars, the wind, the water, everything, everything on the earth would become deaf, a waste. I could not understand how he could endure such calm, the earth, to not fly, to not think, to not travel.

    “Liars!” I wanted to shout to them all. “Cursed liars!”

    The bell rang. Curse me, death. In an hour the whole assembly line in the Home was destroyed, all of a sudden you saw children running from all directions, kind, stupid, reckless they’ll smash open their heads, everyone wants to see his death. Curse me, the death of Kejtin. Oh God, God, evil children!

    He was laid out, dead, motionless in the dusty, red-hot dust of the yard.

    Death.

    For a while that frightening image, that hard realisation, calmed down even the wildest and the most troublemaking children. That was the first time we could so closely, so realistically see our own death. The death of a child. Frightened by that thought, made wise without a word, by something even more powerful than words, it was totally unfamiliar, that unseen thought circled above our heads; you could see that warning had the strength to influence everyone present, at once they were stunned, mute, saddened. Curse me, servile. The deceased would need a white sheet so the sun would not burn him, and a sheet was brought straight away. The deceased needs a handkerchief to wipe the blood from his lips, and with tears, comrade Olivera Srezoska hands up her own. Curse me, she is crying. I swear, I saw, I saw.

    “Oh, poor boy!”

    “What a talented, strong boy was Kejtin!”

    “Yes, he had strength!”

    “There was something uncommon in him, something else, human! He was not an ordinary young man, no!”

    “Yes, yes! He was a talent, energetic, brave!”

    “He wasn’t afraid of anything, he endured everything!”

    “Oh, fate!”

    Curse me, that was what was said until the first handful of earthy and then those same tattlers would start at once out loud to snigger, and they would not fail to say:

    “Well, at last his end came!”

    “Dear God, it was time. There was no life in him!”

    “Yes, yes! Now we are saved, what is done is done, may he rest in peace.”

    “May God forgive him his sins, but he was asking for it! He earned himself an end just like this, he was a great good for nothing, stubborn, hard headed, always acting important, proud, superior. There was something devilish living in him, evil. He was like that, frightening. Bad blood, impure.”

    “What if he comes back to life,” someone spread a rumour calmly, idiotically, and all of the voices went quiet, as though under command.

    The Home doctor was awaited, uncle Sile Nikolovski. He will cut short the uncertainty. Uncle Sile Nikolovski got there quite quickly. He was sleepy eyed, they’d got him out of bed, he came in his slippers, without shoes, just as he happened to be. Just as he’d closed his eyes because he had a headache, he’d had a difficult operation the day before in the hospital and he still could not free himself from it. He’d had to take out someone’s wind pipe (a young man), there’d been no other alternative, a pear had got into his wind pipe. After fifty years when they see the way we heal, he said, they’ll say it was a slaughter house, butchers. Curse me, butchers. He was under a powerful impression from the event. It was obvious it had really hit him, he just kept complaining. And always, after such an excitement, other feelings quickly emerged, he was transported to the war. The event tied him with similar such events in the battle and it was impossible then to stop him, the patient can die; he’ll retell it all, in detail about the frightening storms of the war.

    “Oh dear children, be happy that that cursed war finished! Throats were cut, my little birds! Butchery, butchery! Once it was in Slivovo, in the partisan hospital, once at Slavej, once in Aegean Macedonia, then Bogomila. Oh, dear children! I am telling you that was butchery... The backpacks were placed up on donkeys, we got lost, we found ourselves on a little hill, the poor little donkeys slipped on the hill, it was Winter time, the people rolled down into a gully, landing on their heads, on their crowns. Hey, hey, hang one, comrades, comrade Marko says to them, your names will be written with golden letters in history, long live freedom, long live the Revolution! Oh, dear children! There was no other choice... an operation had to be done in that very spot, take the axe, Siljane Nikoloski, comrade Marko ordered me, come on, what are you looking at me for! Come on, save the people!”

    (Maybe they were our fathers. Curse me, our fathers.)

    It was only at such a time, when he met our looks, that uncle Sile Nikoloski, curse me, would pause. He would shake his head and as if it was nothing, with a smile would say:

    “Stories, stories, dear ones! Don’t listen to the fool,” he would use the biggest insult for himself, and only then would he return to the present event. Dreamy, taken, shaken, he muttered “Ah, what’s swallowed up the boy?”

    Dear God, I was shaken. If he grabs him by the wind pipe, I thought, poor Kejtin, my poor friend. Curse me, uncle Sile Nikoloski had such strong healthy hands. It was enough for those hands to touch where it hurt you, once or twice, and you would immediately be healed. He would soften your bones, as though he’d healed you with the best medicine. Sometimes, uncle Sile Nikoloski was used for other things too, but that wasn’t his fault. He helped with the various functions in his own way, as they say, he cured, by sight. I still remember everything, how they carried away some of the older residents. Curse me, in any way. A general, visual examination would be organised, by sight with uncle Sile Nikoloski from child to child, he would stop at the unfortunate one and say:

    “Now, young man, somehow you look really unwell to me. You have dark circles under your eyes, go on into the hospital with you so we can see what’s going on with you, how it is, in case it is something infectious, dangerous. To check it, little bird.”

    After that, we already knew, it was bad luck for the ones who were transported to the hospital. For him, there was no coming back. Those poor people never gave themselves up, they fought until the last drop of strength was spent, they called:

    “Don’t give in, brothers! No!”

    In that moment I prayed to God for just one thing, strength to uncle Sile Nikoloski, don’t let them take Kejtin to the hospital. When they turned Kejtin on his front, we saw his staring eyes, his lips forcefully pressed together, frothing. With a little blood.

    “He’s already set off, may God forgive him his sins,” said Sile Nikoloski. “Put him in bed, it’s all finished with him!”

    “What if some medicine were given to him?” said the dear Headmaster, I swear, he said just that, medicine.

    “What medicine, Ariton Jakovleski?” said uncle Sile Nikoloski. “It would be wasting the pills, it’s all finished for him, brother. How are you going to save him if it’s from some herb or some black magic, or if some spirit has taken him! No, no, it won’t go for long, Ariton Jakovleski. By tonight, at most by morning. Look at him, skin and bone, his whole little body will fall apart, one bone after another, each of his little bones will crumble, that’s what the illness does. If some wonder happens and he survives, it will be a horrible image. For show, Ariton Jakovleski. It is better for him to get his affairs in order a bit earlier. (He was thinking of the soul, curse me, Kejtin’s soul.) If by some chance he ends up alive, he will be blind, maybe deaf, but I guarantee you with my life that he will be mute!” Curse me, he will be mute, that’s what uncle Sile Nikoloski said.

    Still, mine and Kejtin’s greatest hope was hidden in that black prediction by our Home doctor. We knew, curse me, we all knew, from experience, that if uncle Sile wrote off someone’s life, you could expect the best to occur, the person would live for another 100 years. I swear, if Sile Nikoloski gave you the worst scenario, you wouldn’t be afraid of it, you would be 100 per cent certain that God would relent, it would pass. Be afraid if he tells you otherwise; in that case you will not get up. Knowing this, knowing Sile Nikolovski could be counted on to always get it wrong, that was the biggest hope.

    “He will get better, he will!” I was ecstatic, curse me, I went mad with happiness, I shouted “He will get better!”

    And the dear Headmaster, and the others from the administration acted as though they had not heard me, they passed over this, my crazy outburst without a word.

    Kejtin’s illness totally captured me. I saw neither when Spring nor when Winter came. I think that his illness was shared with me. Curse me, joint. Obviously, some evil, scary fever, fear, had burnt his soul. His whole face, his head, hands, feet, all over he had dark little red spots. For so many centuries he did not open his eyes. He lay in a dream, in some strange long dream. Curse me, his illness lasted a thousand centuries.

    The salvation came suddenly from an unexpected quarter. In the Home a sweet, irreplaceable being lived, the wife of Ariton, Verna Jakovleska. Only rarely would you see her outside the little room in which she lived, closed in, quietly. Some said that the old woman was not all there, a little confused, the dear Headmaster keeps her under lock. In the war, her only son had been shot so, it meant that the dear Headmaster had had a son. Curse me, a son. They thought up other things too, but no-one had seen her face close up, she lived like a bat, like a nocturnal bird. Her presence in the Home wasn’t known about for a long time, as though she didn’t live amongst us, among people. We saw her for the first time that night by the water, then she seemed to me to be unreal, a shadow, a spirit. Now all of a sudden, she unexpectedly appeared in our sleeping hall. It was bed-time, we’d just put the blankets onto our beds. When she appeared at the door of our sleeping hall all of a sudden, all of us, every single one remained still, as if nailed to the spot. Certainly we were frightened by her unexpected visit, her scary appearance. We remained frozen at whatever we were doing, our hands were paralysed, with silent eyes we looked on this unusual dark woman. She was all in black. Curse me, black. She reminded us of something scary, of the death we’d seen in the yard. Seeing our confusion, she also remained on the threshold, uncertain, for a time, and during that time it was as if she was changing her mind. But then she seemed to remember something important and quickly, quickly she set off to Kejtin’s bed. At the end of the sleeping hall, in the comer. Curse me, she knew. Curse me, she threw herself at his little bed, we saw that she put a hand on his forehead, she gently stroked his injured face.

    “My dear,” she said so softly, so gently that we were electrified. Just then we were freed from the stiffness, from the scary ice, we saw she was a mother, Kejtin’s mother. Curse me, our mother. Her hands were noble, her eyes sweet, and full of light, her voice soft and familiar, motherly, she woke him, “Dear son, dear son,” she said to him.

    Curse me, we recognised the voice at once. It was in us, oh, the unforgettable voice of our mothers. That was the unfamiliar voice which called to us day and night, which led us to the Senterlev Mountain. Oh, if only that moment could be continued into eternity! I prayed, if sometime something can be held onto, then let it be the love of our mother. Oh, God, all of that was beautiful, scary, real, unreal, unique, close, painful. Curse me, mother. After the sun, surely the brightest light in the world is in a mother’s eyes, her immeasurable love. Oh, that unique, irreplaceable love, I swear. In his scary dream he heard her, her voice woke him, with parched lips, in a dream, in magic, in a trance, he said:

    “Mother, my dear mother!”

    I swear, at that moment his sick eye flashed. For the first time that day I saw in his eyes a shiny drop, curse me, he was crying. The son of Kejtin was crying, he was crying in his way, with sparks in his eyes, like he did everything in his own way. Kejtin, friend, I wanted to hug him, to never let him go from my arms. He was a still child, just like all the children in the Home. I swear, he was a child even though he could think like a devil and even though he could behave like an adult. I saw that he was a real and unfortunate child and that in his chest beat a crushed, young heart. Curse me, all the same he spoke, he repeated himself, he was rambling:

    “Mother, my dear mother!” he asked for her over and over again, I saw, I saw, curse me, that unstoppable smile of his appeared on his face again. Curse me, he was smiling.

    People, dear people, how I went crazy that day! I thought all fear had come out of me, all around I saw how the water rushed. I swear, a huge water, endlessly big hope. Curse me, hope.

    Those who shouted at the tops of their voices acting like happy people, they were the biggest liars. Once I had the chance to see one such hero in action. Curse me, until then he had been very loyal to the Home and the administration. That day, I swear, all he needed was a part of a second. It was evening, after dinner, we were throwing away the rubbish, the good-for-nothing was the manager of the hygiene department. Curse me, he totally forgot about his character appraisal. This time, exactly the opposite occurred, the one who was allocated to watch us, to take care of us, the bad ones, shot through, without a word. To this day, I have never seen such a crazy, mindless escape. Certainly, he shocked the administration; certainly no-one expected such a repulsive, two-faced action. As far as the truth was concerned, it wasn’t as if you could say that anyone was overly excited; on the contrary, they said nothing, where the hell would he go, he will come back. Curse me, I prayed so much that that good-for-nothing would not come back. Soon a general revision started in relation to the character appraisals, some were proclaimed to be expired, incomplete; new ones were written. And it was right, no place remained for any sort of trust. Curse me, everything started from the beginning. The same lies, the same evil actions, the same worthlessness so that better character appraisals could be arrived at. That writing and rewriting of character appraisals lasted for centuries. That good-for-nothing really did come back, curse me, the following day, in the morning.

    The son of Kejtin was one of those wretched people who came into the Home without a family character record, without any sort of receipt. Curse me, receipt. With him, the matter was even worse because in the classes about character appraisals he conducted himself in a totally uninterested manner. Curse me, the son of Kejtin didn’t digest the classes on character appraisal at all. They got stuck in his throat like some hard morsel. Once he allowed sleep to overcome him during the class. Curse me, he fell asleep. In every other class a person could allow himself such a luxury, it wasn’t at all dangerous to fall asleep for a bit in another class, it was even preferred as something normal, natural. It even happened that our teachers fell asleep, a person can fall asleep. For example, the Meteor, our geography teacher, comrade Sekule, had fallen asleep, not once, not twice, it was lucky we were not keeping count. Curse me, we would debate a little about the Earth and the Sun, around the fact whether the Earth moves around the Sun or the Sun around the Earth (once the Earth moved around the Sun, another the Sun around the Earth), and after such heavy, intense discussion he would put his head down. But first of all, after we had mixed everything up, after we had turned the whole celestial vault upside down, the Meteor in a conciliatory spirit would say “Okay then, little fools, why are you insisting so much, what is most important, the Earth or the Sun, the Sun or the Earth, it’s all the same, it is important for you to know that they move, the main thing is that something moves, that’s enough.” He would say it and then put his head down again; with a single word, everything was explained, intelligently. Curse me, intelligently. Once he fell asleep exactly on Mars, curse me, in the lesson itself he started to snore. Old Sekula would let off the snores in such an intense way, you think it is a pan of beans cooking, he was so carried away that he carried us away too. Slowly, slowly, we put our heads down on the desks, we stretched out our little legs from desk to desk. Sleep spread like a sneeze. Soon, the whole classroom was purring, in the air, you could hear every type of sound, choirs, music. Curse me, it was an orchestra, an opera. Quietly we floated around the kind hearted planet Mars, we took over the sky and all of nature.

    But that was the geography class, naturally. Just try to do that to the dear Headmaster, in the character appraisal class. The old man was a devil, and he was able to make the classes rich, with content, very interesting. He knew how to instigate issues for discussion, to make an intrigue. Curse me, we would be unravelling it for centuries. The dear Headmaster would expertly embroider the whole thing, I swear, then the devil himself would be forced into a bottle. At the end, the idea of the subject itself was hidden, he aimed to put the matters in as tangled a form as possible, as unclearly as possible. Curse me, tangled. A person would never know what and who the matter was about. Who was the thief, who was the honest one, who was stealing and who was protecting? Go on, untangle it, identify the main characters, who are they, how many of them are there, where are they and how did they get tied up with the dishonest action. Curse me, you can speculate for centuries and still remain on the same spot, not a step forward. I swear, in most of the examples, it was the same person who was stealing and protecting. Curse me, the same one. But whether he is guilty was the next question before which we stood as though in front of a wall.

    “His whole life,” would say the dear Headmaster and he would begin to narrate with decorations and medals weighing down his shirtfront. “What do you think now, is he guilty?” the dear Headmaster would put the question directly. After that we would answer, in order, each according to his own knowledge.

    “Yes, he was guilty, such a man with medals.”

    “No, he wasn’t guilty, they are the merits that he had. It is easy to spit on a man. He was fighting.”

    “Yes, those who fought are honest.”

    “I swear, yes.”

    “No,” some crazy boy would disagree. “No,” he says and will not give in, rip his tongue out if you want to, he will still say “No.”

    “Yes!”

    “No!”

    “Yes!”

    “No!”

    “How many are yes?”

    “How many are no?”

    “Ten, fifteen, twenty, no.”

    Looking at the answers, that man is found guilty. The dear Headmaster would shake his head in a dissatisfied way; he was totally dissatisfied. “It’s as if your heads are full of sand,” he would say, “nothing stays in your heads.” Then he would twirl his moustache and tirelessly he would begin from the start. But that was just in the beginning, after that even a rock, even a tree could understand the truth. Curse me, the truth. The later answers were clear, pure. We have to acknowledge that, in connection with those matters, the dear Headmaster really made us sweat. “Further work must be done, day and night,” he would say in a dissatisfied way, summarising the results. He would breathe in and he would begin from the beginning. He would bring out new examples, for the second, for the third, for the thirteenth time, he would convey to us the biography of the deluded comrade, he was an angel, we were living in a great delusion, we were blind. It is better to bite off a man’s tongue than leave him to live in a delusion.

    “What do you think now, my little chickens?” the dear Headmaster would ask at the end. “Is the comrade that was stealing guilty?”

    The first one “No, the one who was stealing, he wasn’t guilty of anything.”

    The second one “No, he wasn’t guilty, on the contrary, he is an honest man, I think.” (Curse me, the little devil thinks.)

    The third “No, no.”

    The fourth “No, his image of a warrior, builder...”

    The fifth “No, no, no...”

    The sixth,

    the seventh,

    the eighth,

    the eighteenth,

    all of us “No,” we answered in chorus.

    It’s as if I can still see the happy smiling face of the dear Headmaster before me. Thank you, God, he was happy, why, how, I never understood it. One thing was important.

    “All of you say “No”! That is the truth, eagles, you have got into the content so well, into the idea,” he concluded victoriously, proudly.

    Maybe it was better if a person could answer that way for everything. “No” and full stop. Curse me, no. May the devil take away the heart; it did not always understand, it was not obedient, it could not always reply like that. Poor man, then he would have to start from the beginning, the heart can break when it is crazy. There was no end yet to that matter, I swear.

    All of those classes, with all their mindlessness, with all their stupidity were like poison to our children’s heart. We were dying for another love, for other words, for so many days, nights, centuries we looked for that source, but there they filled our heads with stupid things. And however funny that was, and impossible and alien, it quickly became the truth for a large number of the children. The most frightening was that we began to believe in such mindlessness. Curse me, mindlessness. But right next to you was one forgotten, scorched water; we became deaf to the voice of the Big Water. I swear, we lost the path to the Senterlev mountain. Curse me, for centuries we lived with those blind things, dark things. There was only a small number of children who believed that those people who did not have character appraisals were worth something, too; maybe they too, suffer so much, love so much, and also as much are our friends. Dear mother of mine, the people who did not have character appraisals or whose character appraisals were blemished, were our enemies. Curse me, enemies. In the Home, the son of Kejtin fought for one such ingrate. He came without a character appraisal and after that he left without one.

    “No problems,” the dear Headmaster was saying, “we will create a character appraisal for you, Kejtin. You donkey, you lazy bones. You’re not capable at anything. What, what have you done, you eat bread here for free, you talentless boy,” he attacked him with the most hurtful words every class, simply, he trampled him. You could say that there was not a single class when he did not make Kejtin get out of his place, that he did not make him answer questions, to pick on him in some way. It was known the dear Headmaster had taken him as a target and in this case, nothing could be done against him, curse me, he wanted to make a man out of the son of Kejtin. Kejtin, on the other hand, always answered in the same way, with boredom, he yawned, as briefly as he could, with half a word, he used abbreviations which then had to be teased out, he answered deliberately badly, without interest. Sometimes he was a trouble maker and evil toward the dear Headmaster, he made fun.

    “I don’t understand,” he would say, “comrade Ariton Jakovleski,” he would say, “I don’t understand how such a man can allow himself, Ariton Jakovleski, and if he has already put out his hand...”

    “That is an example, you little idiot.”

    God, how could he not understand that, we were all amazed. Then, even I started to hate him, he was distant from me, alien. An enemy, curse me, the son of Kejtin was my enemy.

    At those times, he was all alone, abandoned by everyone. A person without a character appraisal, tortured by horror. He was attacked by enemy glances from all sides, contempt, malice. He had to put up with all of that quietly, inside himself. He had to stand in the corner during class hundreds of times, separated, for a punishment. I don’t believe that anything hurt him more in the Home than the humiliation that he had to put up with in every class on character appraisal.

    The class when he fell asleep, the glass was full to the brim. Finally, we were all against him, there wasn’t even one, not a single heart on his side. Curse me, he saw it. For the first time, submissively, obediently he lowered his head, as though he were not the son of Kejtin. Curse me, what sort of people were we going to grow up into, for what sort of people were they preparing us for with a rein tied to the character appraisals, only God knew that.

    Later, the class on character appraisals lost its strength and sacredness.

    The battle for new character appraisals was even stronger, harder. Curse me, we got so many character appraisals, killing off so much that was human, we flew on slogans, shooting birds. Unexpectedly, the son of Kejtin got into that game. Curse me, the son of Kejtin’s character appraisal. The dear Headmaster was delighted with Kejtin’s conduct, he had the right to ascribe to himself the greatest merit. Not only once did he nod his head approvingly while looking at the reborn son, he would say, “That’s it, my eagle. I want to see you in the line with everyone else.” The son of Kejtin even managed to get a commendation, he was outstanding, I swear he triumphed.

    What was happening with him, what did he think up, this thought was troubling me, day and night, there was no way to know what he was cooking up for them. Curse me, if he was behaving as he should, if he really was in the line with everyone else. He said he was planting some sort of cucumbers for the administration but he was using a different type of seed. It was difficult to work out.

    Where did the son of Kejtin go, my friend, I looked for him more than once after that. I went back over every corner where I could to find him, but he lost himself in the same way that everything started to be lost from the earth. Again I started to check every part of the huge wall, that coldness which settled into the son of Kejtin and in my heart. I was listening for the Big Water, I waited for her voice.

    It was as if everything in the Home was dead. Even in the hunting room it was dead. No-one traded with anyone any more, no one believed in anyone, the wall was higher than ever before. Curse me, everything was built in by a wall. No one knew where friendship went, the glances, human beauty, goodness, the Big Water, dreams, wishes. The Senterlev mountain, the birds, the sun, what sort of weather is this without any wind, without rain, why don’t the bright rains of Spring roar, what sort of weather is this, dry and infertile, this huge snow which closes our roads, this darkness through which we passed like shadows, unknown, this poisonous dust in our eyes, where did the golden brightness from the eyes of the son of Kejtin go, what is this lie which enslaves us, which separates us? He was behaving as though he did not notice me at all, as though he did not notice the wall and everything that surrounded us in the Home, at all. He acted like he really had been reborn, as though he really did find himself in paradise. Curse me, paradise. At the top of his voice I could hear him boasting in front of the other boys, acting the happy man.

    I knew, I swear, he was saying all of those mindless words emptily, that this was his big game, and I did not like it. I was afraid of every coming day, I trembled at the sight of his acting like a reborn boy; I speculated with certainty he was acting like this while preparing himself for the future. But what kind of future could he have, our future? One thing was clear, clear as the Spring sun. That would be the last punishment for the son of Kejtin. They could kill him like a fly, the thought hit me in class and I fell silent. Dear God, even the children themselves could kill him, for revenge. And how much they tried, wore themselves out fighting with him over everything so that they did not fall behind. I swear, he was even better than the boys with the best character appraisals, he tormented their souls, he wore them out. Yes, they could kill him, it hit me, certainly they would kill him. In that, they were more cunning than him, shivers crawled through my veins, I lost all peace of mind, all my sleep.

    Metodija Grishkoski and the others would never forget his presentation on the wounded partisan, extracted from the drama of the same name. Curse me, drama. Kejtin represented a partisan, a captured, wounded fighter, and Metodija represented a fascist, a prison guard. Metodija Grishkoski, who, in everything until then had been first and who had the most flattering character appraisal, in any other situation would not have taken the role even if you had killed him, but now he agreed from a mean motive. There was fighting, the role gave him the chance to beat the wounded partisan, the son of Kejtin, to death. The stupid fool had made himself keen even before then, he was boasting that he would put funeral oil on the son of Kejtin. There was no reason not to believe the dog. Would Kejtin just stand there with arms folded and be beaten, agitated others. All that gave to the play a particular artistic interest. Curse me, artistic. We were all waiting, we were all trembling in anticipation, the closer the day got, the more restless we were. That show-off Metodija Grishkoski, that great crawler, finally got up everyone’s nose. Curse me, it was a play about life and death. So many wounded, unfortunate souls awaited the fight. I swear, it seemed someone had to die that day.

    The presentation started solemnly enough, in silence. In the semidarkness, in a tiny, poor light. A fascist soldier in front of the prison. He’s marching. Heavy, murderous steps. From time to time from the prison comes the thin, but brave, song of the wounded partisan. The song is getting louder, the light is getting brighter. It irritates the eyes of the fascist guard. He is getting angered, stomping with his boots, he says:

    “Will you stop, you slippery bastard, or not!?”

    The wounded partisan answers him in song.

    “Cut my throat, if you want, or hang me, I will not stop and in my grave I will fight on, you can be sure. I will sing song,” he answers very bravely.

    “You’ll sing, you’ll sing,” Metodija Grishkoski snarled at him. He dragged him out of the prison cell and in the most repulsive way, he started to stomp on the wounded partisan. Heartlessly, with his stick he started to hit his head, his arms, his legs, to poke out his eyes. At that moment, Comrade Olivera Srezoska who was responsible for the presentation from behind the curtain splashed a bucket of blood, watery red earth, and rivers ran on the whole of the stage from the wounded partisan. But that man sang again, curse me, all covered in blood, he sang. I swear, he set our hearts on fire. He was singing,

    “Oh, fascists, cursed fascists.”

    That was the peak. Then Metodija, the fool, with a heavy boot stepped on his throat and said to him:

    “So, you are still singing? I will hang you.” And in a flash, he took a rope and threw it up to the ceiling. Curse me, he was going to hang him. He started to put his head in the noose. Oh, God, what poor Kejtin had to suffer through. Now there was nowhere to go, the rope was around his neck.

    “No! No!” one of the children shouted wildly.

    “No, no!” all of the children went mad.

    “Cursed fascist!”

    “Soulless monster!”

    “Blood sucker!” the angriest protests possible flew from all around, pieces of wood and rocks were hurled at the head of Metodija Grishkoski. All of us in turn got up from our places with clenched fists. Curse me, with clenched fists.

    Kejtin poured the last drop in his own, full glass. His eyes turned back, he went limp, oh, the devilish artiste, he reached his bloody hands towards us and softly, softly, weakly, he said:

    “Comrades, I am dying. May sweet freedom live. May the Revolution live. Down with tyranny, death and the fascists!”

    Oh, God, he said it in such a way that we had to believe him, we went wild. I swear, we were struck dumb when the dear Headmaster jumped up from his place in the front row, as though his burn was on fire with a revolver in his hand, and like the craziest bird cried:

    “Cursed fascist dog, you will not hang him,” he aimed the loaded revolver straight at the luckless boy Metodija Grishkoski.

    Fortunately, at that moment, the Meteor showed himself to be in control of himself and brave, may they rest in peace, all those strange, unnoticed heroes, downtrodden people, always on the edge, thrown out, I swear, in the middle of the fire he stood up and he grabbed Metodija Grishkoski in his arms. As if suffocating him he said: “Die, little fool, if you love your life. You must die, you fascist,” that quietened the dear Headmaster down a bit. He said:

    “Certainly, that will be the most proper penalty. How could you stab him with that huge knife, you cursed good for nothing. You are taking his liver, his golden heart, his dear eyes, you are ripping off his skin.”

    “Murderer,” echoed in the huge, northern hall.

    “That’s no knife at all dear Headmaster, that’s a broom, a kitchen broom,” poor Metodija Grishkoski tried to defend himself.

    “Quiet,” said Meteor to him wisely, “it’s your own fault. You went too far, you stupid boy.”

    “Fascist!”

    “Death!”

    “You kill, slaughter, hang people!”

    “Death!”

    All of his character appraisal fell into the water at that moment. Curse me, into the water. Certainly he would never forgive him that. In pain, bloodied, like a wounded little beast, each day he growled, he followed the son of Kejtin in every place in the Home, he was preparing to exact the scariest revenge. Curse me, just that, revenge.

    I waited for that revenge every night alongside the wall. Sometimes also when the children were in bed, I would steal away and like a shadow, like a beast I lingered along the wall. Not until late into the night would I at last return. With heavy feet as though I was returning from seeing someone in the administration, I dragged myself over the stairs as though broken. Curse me, through the dark, worn out stairs of the Home. To the third floor, in the northern section, to the cursed dormitory. How could they think up such crooked, high, dark steps for disabled people and thin children. For the first time I wanted to bellow out loud. Son of Kejtin, I wanted to shout, Kejtin friend, I wanted to wake him, escape from the Home, they are going to kill you.

    The son of Kejtin, as though he had heard my breathless voice, was waiting for me on one of the upper stairs.

    “Coo,” he made a sound like a bird, he frightened me and started to laugh out loud, in his own way.

    “Get away,” I said to him, “go, go from this Home.”

    “O, Leme, little Leme,” he said. “Why don’t you collect yourself, why don’t you sleep, Leme?”

    “Sleep,” I said, “how can I sleep, friend?”

    “Set your jaw, Leme, and dream,” he said laughing the whole time, unable not to laugh and, like always, he began to wipe his mouth with his hands, to reconsider, to move off with his thoughts, to travel.

    As though mowed down, like someone had cut us off at the roots, we tumbled down the stairs. It was already late at night and the Home was sinking in that familiar deafness. You would think that death had been a guest here since a long time ago and that the last ray of life had been lost here. We are all dead, shadows.

    I do not remember if, after that, for a whole century, we said even a single word to each other. We were quiet as though struck dumb, overwhelmed by the electricity of the Big Water. The Big Water strangely came back again like a distant echo, as if in a dream. Curse me, it was coming. I swear, nothing was changed in his heart, it was the same thing, it was Kejtin-like. Here were friendship and love and comradeship and the look of a friend and smiles, his smile, wishes and the belief in the Big Water, the truth about the Senterlev mountain. Curse me, that mountain existed after all, that mountain with a sun, with golden mists, with eternal mists. Good dreams came back, nothing could destroy the wish for freedom and the Senterlev mountain in our little hearts. In our hearts there was a lot of love, my friend. Curse me, love. The Big Water was all around, I swear that was the only thing that remained of life in the Home. What could we have that was bigger, better?

    I cannot remember another place where childhood dies so quickly. Curse me, if there is some other place where childhood is so soullessly buried. Childhood, the most beautiful flower of life, disappeared like a faded flower. Curse me, no-one knew where the days of childhood went. For the two or three centuries that we were in the Home, for that short time, I felt that all of us aged many thousands of years. And it all came on in just one single day, the most frightening, the most beautiful day in the Home. Curse me, just one, single day.

    We were living through the hard, long Winter of 1949. It was a chilly, cold day. A north wind was blowing, carrying angry, black snow flakes that bit like wasps. The weather sounded as if it was in pain that whole day like a woman in labour, the northern wind was screeching, most ferociously lifting the earth. It was strange that sometimes, there, in such a moment the weather and everything else had to be against your heart, just as in the fairy tales. We were moving wood, some chopped logs which were just ripped from the mountain; the life giving sap in them had turned to ice. Curse me, to save us from the cold, from the long, frightening Winter. The wind, as though mad, entered the Home and made a real wasteland of it. Sometimes, so that we could sleep, so we could get a little warm (we were afraid to get into our beds), before going to bed, we staged great battles, which not uncommonly became real and turned into bloody fights. The children, like little beasts, strangled one another. A person could, over nothing, end up without an eye or without a hand, sometimes, even without a head. To tell the truth, that day wasn’t really bad and unpleasant. We were occupied with something the whole day, as they say, we were working at something, we were running around, moving, it was warm. Curse me, that was happiness. My dear people, we were working. We were unloading wood, we were taking it from one place to another, we were cutting it, we were stacking it, we were making use of all sorts of skills. A big stove had been brought from somewhere for our dormitory. It was jolly, curse me, we were working at something real. Blood was running in our veins, it was some sort of feeling, at last we were working at something which made you think of life.

    In carrying the wood and in the general murmur, the son of Kejtin managed to steal a piece of wood. He was very satisfied with this, his own bad action, he was very pleased, even happy. Curse me, he was shining. Certainly, he had thought of some magic spell, I thought to myself, otherwise I do not believe he would have dared to do something like that. For what other thing could the piece of wood be any good to him if not for some devilishness that sparked in his head.

    “Someone could have seen you,” I trembled, someone might have seen that piece of wood as I had seen it.

    “No, no, don’t worry, little one,” he said, happier, as though born again, I saw, the whole of the sky was in his eyes, he had something strong, great in him, I swear.

    It was very dangerous to be caught stealing in the Home. Some could barely wait to see you before they went quickly to report you to the administration. Betrayal blossomed in the Home, more and more, betrayal became an exemplary character appraisal. Curse me, betrayal was a character appraisal. There was no other word for all this action except filth. They filled our young hearts with filth. Some of the children, Metodija Grishkoski, Sokole Efrutoski, Stojche Ivanoski, Mircheski, Stavreski, some child called Kamenoski, Ognenoski, a girl called Slobodanka, one that was called Dobrila, then Violeta Doneska; they all became real good-for-nothings. Denouncing became a part of their lives. They sniffed around everything like hungry dogs, in whatever they looked at, they made their own report and went straight to the dear Headmaster, to comrade Olivera Srezoska. It often happened that some of those devils would simply think up a game, to trap you, to catch you red-handed, on the spot, as they say, to betray you. The writing and presentation of reports of this type was particularly valued; do not forget, friend, it was preparation for life, for the future. Of everyone in the administration, if there was anything that held their attention, it was the character appraisals and these reports. Reports were full of blossoms but all around thorns were growing. Curse me, thorns. The submission of reports had priority over every other thing in every way. Whoever was most agile, who stood out the most, that was the one who could become the captain of the class, responsible for a group, on duty in the kitchen, a supervisor, he could be amongst the first to meals (which was not of little importance); with a word, those sorts of comrades were ahead in everything, they were awarded prizes, they were privileged. Even now I cannot state with certainty which was the worm that ate most into the children’s hearts. Was it hunger, fear, the penalties, the daily humiliations, the cold, maybe the grade for character appraisal, maybe the assembly line, and that cursed wall, or maybe everything together. But of all of that, one thing was clear as day, dobbing, cowardice and malice began to sprout in the Home like a rotten potato. Everyone was cautious about everyone else, everyone kept away from everyone else, closed up in himself. Curse me, closed up in himself.

    “If someone saw you,” I warned him, “it will be frightening. You know the penalty for hiding things and for stealing...” but he was not hearing me, he wasn’t there, he had already travelled away. It was a waste to speak to him, I saw, there wasn’t a word to describe his great happiness...

    All of those days, during all of those bad, Winter days, however bad the weather was, it was all the same if a northern icy wind was blowing or if a great, dark southern snow storm fell, the son of Kejtin would sneak out of the Home and always with his piece of wood he would hide in some hole, in some darkness. Curse me, so that he could work uninterrupted, freely. It didn’t matter what the weather was like, it didn’t matter what the wind and snow were like, a thousand storms could start now, nothing could separate him from his work, he obstinately held on to his secret work. Even if I didn’t know what he was working on, I knew that he was working on something happy, that his whole being was full of that sweet light, I swear, at that time he was in another world, unimaginable, far from the Home, far away from all of those intrigues and ugliness. It was obvious that he was on the path to something beautiful, magical, unique. Curse me, unique. I was shaking with fear for his health, in general for his life. Curse me, if they don’t see him today, they’ll see him tomorrow, the day after, they are tireless in that, they will smell it. And he himself each day became less cautious, more carried away with his work.

    “What are you working on, son of Kejtin?” I asked him once, softly, at his ear. In the same way, softly, at my ear, he answered me:

    “I am working on something that cannot be understood just like that, quickly,” little Leme, “something that cannot be imagined in your wise little head, young man.”

    He always returned frozen to the dormitory, his hands were frozen solid, red as a lobster. But he was happy, he wasn’t cold, curse me, it was as if whatever it was that he was working on was a justification for all the cold that he took in. He warmed them by breathing onto them, because his eyes were teary from the pain. He was laughing, curse me, he was laughing. What could it be, I thought about it for hours. Kejtin’s secret each day, more and more inflamed the curiosity of my young and inexperienced soul, what could make him so lose his mind? After that, every time I thought precisely about those days, I understood, there are so many things that cannot be quickly understood, they cannot be seen by a naked eye; things that are so beautiful they conceal themselves in objects around us, they are waiting on us to see them, but we blindly stomp on them, we destroy those small, subtle and unique things, cruelly we maim them. But we did not know until later about that as about every other happy, great thing in our lives, not until the end. Not until then did our eyes open, we said, oh, how we have been deceived, friend. Then there is no limit to our sorrow, too late, friend. Curse me, it was like that this time.

    Finally, the son of Kejtin was caught in the act. Certainly, it would have been expected, his absence was obvious, dear God, how carried away he was with his work, in that piece of wood, you would think that there was nothing more important for him than that piece of wood. Certainly someone saw how he was slinking through the yard, had found his hiding place, had watched him day and night. But the strangest thing was something else, the content was the strangest thing, the details of that whole matter as they were set out in the report of Metodija Grishkoski. Curse me, report. With unbelievable pedantry, with details, with days, with dates, with a description of the weather conditions, very stylistically, artistically, as though in some novel, as though he had worked on it all of his life, he had prepared the report about the Kejtin “abuse”. I swear, everything had been noted, from the first day, from the moment when we were unloading the wood, our discussion, the little coat, the unstitched lining, the shirt front where he had hidden the piece of wood, the place where he had worked on it, the places where he had buried the shavings, the shavings as evidence, the knife with which he had carved the piece of wood, that report had everything, everything, every possible stupid thing. Curse me, the shavings.

    “Beautiful, beautiful report!” the dear Headmaster was delighted, it was all comrade Olivera Srezoska could do not to burst into tears, from the heart, with flaming words she praised comrade Metodija Grishkoski. “That is a real report,” she said, “such a report would be something that some of our older comrades would be proud of. A hundred such reports and victory is ours,” exaltedly continued the dear Headmaster, as though he and comrade Olivera Srezoska were speaking in a duet. “That is a success in every aspect for the whole of our collective,” related the dear Headmaster, and in that moment Olivera Srezoska gave the sign for applause. Curse me, applause. We were saluting our outstanding comrade, Metodija Grishkoski. Monkey. Cursed monkeys, I wanted to shout.

    Poor Kejtin! My poor friend Isaac Kejtin, son of Kejtin. He was guilty, he was separated from us, he was moved away from all of us into a little corner. He was waiting for his punishment, the humiliation which he in no way deserved. All of the months during which he had been exemplary and worthy went to waste.

    “The mask has fallen,” said the dear Headmaster with a victorious tone as though he had been waiting only for this moment. “The mask has fallen,” he repeated, “camouflage does not last long, just like the face powder can be wiped from a fallen woman” (the dear Headmaster continued his comparison). “Like the powder that cannot conceal the face of a fallen woman,” he added somewhat delicately, with experience. “Each person who starts for a dishonest action will not get far,” he said that harshly, cruelly, familiarly. “Remember,” he said whacking him with two blows for a start. “The strength of the collective is huge. Remember that you evil boy,” and he whacked him a third time.

    “What should I remember, Ariton Jakovleski?” asked the son of Kejtin as though he had not been hit at all; that was his biggest mistake. Curse me, he never restrained himself at similar injustices. Oh God, after so much study, after everything, he still dared to ask.

    Ariton Jakovleski, Olivera Srezoska, the instructors and the teachers were agape in wonder. What a hide! As though they did not believe that that decisive, clear voice is coming from that corner, from that place where the son of Kejtin was. The Headmaster madly turned toward him. He asked:

    “You still open your mouth, you dog,” he was barely able to mouth the words while holding back a million tonnes of rage.

    But now it was as if the son of Kejtin had decided to go to the end. Curse me, the end. Totally calmly, but with his decisive, clear voice he answered:

    “I want to know, Ariton Jakovleski,” the son of Kejtin said obstinately, lifting his head from the floor, bravely, daringly looking into the eyes of the powerful Headmaster.

    It was as if Ariton Jakovleski stopped a little, as though he did not understand, somehow confused his look ranged around the hall, but then hammered itself on that wall where the Home’s clock was hung.

    The clock had stopped working long ago.

    Everything around was silent, stopped. A great uncertainty and anticipation fell on every object.

    “Ah, that’s it!” the dear Headmaster said through clenched teeth, he grabbed that piece of wood, and mute with anger, directed himself toward the son of Kejtin.

    “Kejtin, son of Kejtin,” I called to him, I pleaded with him, I hid my head under the desk lid so that I would not see, so that I did not have to believe. “Goodbye Kejtin,” I whispered. “Goodbye, dear friend.” I thought that the time had come for us to part. Curse me, parting.

    I will never understand what happened with our dear Headmaster, never, not so long as I live will I understand what wind it was that hit his heart. In place of the expected thunder, in place of the already familiar act, he just asked:

    “Why did you steal, son of Kejtin?”

    It was the first time that he referred to him by his name, son of Kejtin.

    The son of Kejtin was also surprised, obviously confused. Softly he muttered:

    “I did not steal,” he said, “I have not stolen anything, comrade Ariton.”

    “What do you mean you have not stolen anything,” he said strictly. “Here, you have stolen something,” he showed him the piece of wood. Ah, if the son of Kejtin could only own up, if the son of Kejtin could acknowledge such a thing, the old man could forgive him. But the son of Kejtin did not acknowledge it, he said:

    “I have never stolen,” he answered, swinging his head upwards, in his own way and I knew with certainty that he had never stolen and that he would not even try to.

    “You have never stolen?!” that made the dear Headmaster go wild again. “You are a living thief, you were born a thief, a bandit.”

    “It cannot be said that Rane ever stole anything from anyone,” said Kejtin, not without pride. Now for the first time since we had been together in the Home he mentioned the name of his father, Rane Kejtin. After that he added “It cannot be remembered that anyone from the Kejtin family had ever stolen anything, Ariton Jakovleski,” he was looking straight in his face, like a pure, just person.

    “You are a problem, Kejtin,” muttered the dear Headmaster, “a big problem; then what did you want to do with this piece of wood?”

    The son of Kejtin did not answer at once, as though caught in a trap he lowered his head, he went silent. We heard him quietly, painfully weeping. God, Kejtin was crying hard, he could hardly contain himself, as though he could not get enough air, he was suffocating. It lasted for some centuries. Curse me, a million centuries. With his head facing down to the floor the whole time, like a true thief, softly, weakly he answered:

    “I wanted to make a mother,” the son of Kejtin whispered. Curse me, just that. A mother.

    A strange silence came over the class room. In that moment all eyes turned toward the piece of wood that was in the hands of Ariton Jakovleski. Dear God, my dear God! It was no longer a piece of wood, curse me, it was a mother. For the first time the dear Headmaster stood nailed to the ground, confused, shaken, without an answer.

    “I swear,” the son of Kejtin would not stop. Oh God, he had never been like that, “I swear, Ariton Jakovleski, it is a mother.”

    As though under command, all the children stood up from their places. All eyes were thirstily turned toward that piece of wood.

    “Mother,” said the dear Headmaster obviously confused. And my people, my dear people, curse me, he brought that piece of wood close to his own eyes so delicately, he started to somehow strangely look at it for a long while. My people, I swear, it was a mother, a real mother, we saw how the hands of the dear Headmaster relaxed, they shook. My people, I swear, the dear Headmaster’s hands were weak, we saw, the Water entered into him, it carried him away; not taking his eyes from that strange carved piece of wood, in half-tone as though to himself he repeated “Mother,” and he looked at Kejtin, at all of us. He did something that none of us could ever have thought of, something that cannot be told in its entirety, even with the most beautiful words, truth, but something which must exist, which keeps man from the greatest ice, something which can’t be uprooted must live in a person, in every person. He raised the piece of wood once again to his eyes, and with a voice which we had not until then heard, he mouthed “But so many hours in the snow, so many days in the cold, so much fear,” muttered Ariton Jakovleski. “Oh, devilish children, so much snow, so much cold,” the dear Headmaster repeated, over and over, as though he had lost his mind, as though he had been carried away. Curse me, carried away.

    The son of Kejtin was quiet; we were all quiet. I swear, only our eyes, our looks also spoke softly “Yes, dear Headmaster, so much snow, so much fear, that’s nothing when you have a mother. It is not cold, dear Headmaster, it does not hurt when you have a mother...”

    “Yes, yes,” he said understanding our looks, our hearts, and curse me, delicately, carefully, with trembling hands he handed the piece of wood to the son of Kejtin. “There you are, son of Kejtin,” he said to him with effort, with a weak, sickly smile, which after that quickly disappeared from his yellow moustache, “there, it is yours, Kejtin.”

    Curse me, no one knew what had happened to the dear Headmaster. I swear no one knows what happens with a human heart. That day, all of the children in turn all of us aged many years, many centuries. The poor man, he blamed himself for everything in the Home. Oh, incomprehensible human heart. Curse me, we have never in our lives prayed for anyone like we did for our dear Headmaster, for our old Headmaster of the Home, Ariton Jakovleski.