You should know that there is a collection of twenty-one thousand menus left from the Marshal! Isn’t that an impressive part of his heritage? I could recite to you many of the menus by heart! And the recipes—just ask Koki (and offer him a few nice morsels!). For example, a dinner for Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth consisted of lobster Bellevue, followed by a variation of grilled meat á la Serbe (čevavapčići, ražnjići, pljeskavice). On the other hand, Romanian president Nicolai Ceausescu was on a diet, taking only cereal and fruit juice. He was served a simple peasant soup from Zagorje with cheese dumplings. Being of peasant stock, he appreciated it a lot. Indira Gandhi loved apple cake, and Princess Margaret was served quails in their nest.
Ah, Koki could go on listing like this forever…
Surprisingly, judging by his favorite foods, the Marshal did not have a very sophisticated palate. He could have had caviar every day. He could have had champagne and strawberries for breakfast every day. What—isn’t that the finest breakfast one can have, at least judging by the movies? He could have had anything he wished for. A wag of his little finger would have been enough to bring him quail’s eggs, for example, although the thought of eating the poor bird’s eggs makes Koki sad. Look, even here, at the seaside—and even in the summertime—his breakfast would typically consist of an omelet with sausages. This was called a light breakfast! No wonder his attaché was sometimes desperate, because the doctor’s orders were that he should follow a certain diet. But who could have forced the Marshal to diet, even if it was for his own good? Because, of course, only he knew what was best for him, right?
You are what you eat—Koki thinks it must be a Chinese proverb that he heard long ago, because it is so wise. It was certainly true in the Marshal’s case. His eating habits were, indeed, very telling for those who knew where to look for signs about his character. As Koki said, pork was his favorite and, as far as he was concerned, his doctors and their ideas about health could rot in hell. His pleasures always came first, and the Marshal certainly knew how to please himself. Koki went so far as to sometimes think that he had become a ruler (a dictator, an autocrat, a head of the state—anyway, a person in power) just to be able to fulfill all his heart’s desires. Or was it, again, the same thing as with his legs: Perhaps he acquired such desires only after climbing to power? Never mind, let’s not get carried away by such speculation.
It is hard to believe that seemingly unimportant food habits and preferences—the content of his plate—can reveal a person’s character. But according to Koki-birdie, his ability to seriously delude himself could have already been detected in his ignoring the doctor’s orders and not taking proper care of his health. Knowing that he ate totally inappropriate and harmful food, Koki said to himself, “Our beloved Marshal, the greatest son of our nations and nationalities” (as he was sometimes called) “is seriously infected by the personality cult virus.” Ah, I see that you think Koki exaggerates, that he could not be that clever a birdie! But it was easy to come to such a conclusion. The Marshal was an extremely vain man. So much so that he believed nothing bad could ever happen to him. Whatever he did, whatever he ate, no serious illness could befall him. He felt so sure of himself, so untouchable—even by death. And that is the symptom of a grave illness that is closely connected to power. In fact, Koki thinks that it comes from having absolute power. But the paradox of such power is that it clouds not only your judgment but also your image of yourself. You begin to think that “living forever” is not only a metaphor; you begin to live that metaphor!
The most important characteristic of the personality cult is that a person believes in his own immortality. After he died, one of his doctors was here, and Koki heard him say that the Marshal did not believe he was dying. “What, amputate my leg? I’d rather kill myself!” he said angrily when the doctors told him he would need an operation to save his life. What kind of life would that be? Koki knows that the Marshal loved traveling, and he could see how humiliating it would be for him to travel like an invalid! A crippled old man! And how could he lead his people, who were accustomed to a strong, decisive, imposing person? It would look disgraceful. So it took quite some persuasion to get him to agree to surgery. He wanted to be the only one in charge of his destiny, like God. And even when he survived that first surgery, the Marshal was not aware of death looming—he spoke about his future plans, Koki heard. For him, death was an abstraction; it concerned others—not him. Yes, he said that “one is immortal because of one’s deeds,” but this did not apply to him. Mind you, on his deathbed his barber dyed his hair every second week! That is what Koki calls wishful thinking. A sad picture comes to Koki’s mind from those times, a photo with his two sons from the hospital in Ljubljana. The Marshal’s last photo. Koki could see on their faces that they were worried and sad, that they knew what he did not want to comprehend, that this was the end.
Koki also thinks that at the beginning others were to blame for adoring the leader. But later on, he himself became responsible for accepting that adoration, for believing in it. One of the dangers of the Marshal’s attitude toward the future was reflected in his perception of himself as being irreplaceable. That perhaps determined the destiny of his beloved country, Yugoslavia: He was hardly capable of imagining its future without him. Therefore, he did not prepare his successor. To create a successor would have meant that he recognized the fact that he was on his way out. But wouldn’t that mean defeat? Perhaps even an offense? He could not stand competition; therefore, he eliminated anyone who had the capacity of eventually replacing him. Another characteristic of his personality cult was that he could not be criticized—a luxury others didn’t have.
Then, in the late seventies, a so-called collective presidency of eight men, who would rotate in ruling the country, was created. But this eight-headed monster survived only a short time before the country collapsed into its bloody wars.
Well, well, of course Koki knows that in telling you all this he is being indiscreet. But, after all, the Marshal is dead, and this way he gets some extra food. He is a pragmatic tourist worker, and this is the only reason he is talking to you (by the way, give him a piece of your apple; he loves apples!). Koki, the Marshal’s parrot who speaks five languages, and is a conversationalist and entertainer of movie stars and statesmen, of queens and dictators, reduced to the role of a clown for a fistful of peanuts now. Sad, very sad… no wonder Koki gets depressed sometimes. But then, there is You Tube, his favorite Web site. Koki asks an old zookeeper to bring him to a computer at the reception desk of the hotel. The keeper knows that when Koki gets sentimental, he asks a young receptionist to show him films of the Marshal’s speeches and interviews. Or—if Koki is really in a gloomy mood—even of his funeral. Strange, you might think, that a depressed birdie would watch the funeral, yes? But let Koki tell you, it actually lifts our spirits, the zookeeper’s and Koki’s. This is because they can remind themselves how much the Marshal was loved and respected. Regardless of current claims to the contrary, every single man and woman cried when the Marshal died. Imagine that moment, when more than twenty million people cried! It was splendid, just splendid to see. Koki remembers how on May 4, 1980, life stopped in the whole country, which was much bigger then. And how people behaved as if they had lost their father, which in a way was true.