Minut editorial office to deliver my article, which meant heading the other way, since the Minut office was in the center of Belgrade, but I saw nothing wrong with that, in fact it seemed to be in sync with what the triangles were suggesting. You must be mad, I said to myself in the mirror as I was shaving, otherwise why would you believe in something that has no meaning? Because nothing can exist with no meaning, I shouted over the buzz of the electric shaver, and because everything speaks to us, it's just that we are not skilled enough to hear and understand. The face in the mirror shook its head but said nothing. I rubbed my face with lotion, combed my hair, licked my lips. I picked up the envelope with the article in it, slammed the door behind me, shoved my keys into my pocket, and dashed down the stairs. In the crowded bus I remembered that I had not given the piece a title, but pressed from all sides, surrounded by unpleasant smells and the stench of sweat, I couldn't come up with one. Fear of Water, said the editor after he'd read the piece, there's no better title. I didn't like it personally, but I kept my mouth shut. You're getting back into form, said the editor, keep this up, and feathers will fly. I had no idea what he meant, and I hoped he was not expecting me to write about a chicken farm. Of course the grim reality in which we were living didn't give me much leeway. Today a river and the river mud, tomorrow chickens and slippery chicken shit, the day after tomorrow who knew, but as long as it was possible to write about something, and as long as Minut was willing to print what I wrote, there could be no giving up or complaining. I left the editor and went over to the accounting office. Mirjana, in Payments, was waiting for me with cash. I signed for the money, kissed her on both cheeks to the giggles of her office mates, and hurried off to the Zeleni Venac bus stop and the buses that ran to New Belgrade. The railway line no longer ran between Zemun and New Belgrade, but I knew which high-rises the person who met Dragan Mišović from time to time had meant. The minute I got to the first building I had a problem: the light in the stairwell was out, and the tenant list was hung up high on the wall above the mailboxes, lit by a feeble light that shone wanly through the glass front door, impossible to read. I had to go to the nearest newspaper kiosk to buy a box of matches, then, striking match after match, I studied the handwritten list of names. There was not a single Mišović among them. In the next high-rise the light was working but there was no tenant list. I had to climb all the way up to the top floor, the sixteenth, if I counted them correctly, reading the names on all the doors. Some of the doors, on the third, fifth, and eleventh floors, had no nameplate, so I had to ring the doorbell and ask whether a Mr. Mišović lived there. He didn't live behind any of those doors, nor did he live in the makeshift apartment at the top of the building, adapted from rooms designed for communal use. There was a family by the name of Mišović; in the third high-rise, but no Dragan among them. I rang their doorbell, just in case. A boy, about ten years old, opened the door, and when he heard my question, went to ask his mother, then returned with the news that Grandpa Dragoslav was away in Montenegro. Impossible, I said, but the boy had already shut the door. There was one more building that met the loose description offered to me, but after the possibility that Dragan Mišović; might have moved to Montenegro, if he was indeed the grandfather the boy had referred to, I wondered whether there was any point in going into the third building. In I went, nevertheless, driven by the urge to be systematic in everything I did, which compels me to line up the books on my shelves in alphabetical order and arrange the plastic bags, cans, and glass jars by size. None of the other entranceways had been clean, but this last one was sickeningly filthy. Heaps of trash carpeted the floor, old newspapers were piled in the corner, cigarette butts strewn everywhere. The stench of urine hung over it all like a thick curtain. Despite the state of the entranceway, there was a framed list on the wall with the names of the people who lived there, and on it, as I struggled to hold my breath, I found the name I was looking for. Dragan Mišović lived on the eighth floor, in apartment number 42. I pushed the button to summon the elevator, but it didn't appear even after several minutes had gone by, so I started up the stairs. When I had made it to the sixth floor, I heard the clang of the metal elevator door slamming shut a floor or two above, and the lit elevator cabin shot by me, hurtling toward the ground floor. For an instant, through the translucent glass, I caught sight of a dark silhouette. I couldn't be sure whether the person was a woman or a man, but I was certain that he or she was wearing a cap. Not until I'd made it to the door of apartment number 42 did it occur to me that perhaps the person in the elevator had been Dragan Mišović. If he wore the same coat winter and summer, why wouldn't he be wearing a cap on this balmy March day? It was too late, of course, for me to race down after the elevator, though I could have called it and checked whether I could detect a lingering whiff of mint. I pressed the doorbell and it announced: