Minut column, which left me plenty of time. I already knew the end, all that was left was to write it. The last moment is near, would be the words at the start of the last paragraph, for us to understand that those who present themselves as the great caretakers of this country, invoking attacks based on ethnic minorities, have caused the greatest damage to the country. Regrettably the entire system of government has been corroded by moral and political corruption and no one feels called upon to comment or condemn the events of which I am writing. Perhaps, who knows, they are afraid to, because the connection between organized crime and the political hierarchies is an open secret. Everyone cares about his or her life, that much is clear, especially in a country where human life is cheap. If we all react, if the protest catches on, and hundreds of thousands of people join, there will be no more fear. And so on, in the same vein, with no shame. All that remained was for me to decide: should I name the names of the politicians, criminals, and waffling intellectuals? I wouldn't be saying anything new, but if the piece was not precise in attributing responsibility, then I ended up colluding with those against whom I inveighed. Vague allusions work in café arguments; in a text like this they are ballast that undermines every good intention. No surprise that I dreamed strange dreams that night, including an exhausting sexual adventure with a red-haired woman whose name was Hilda and a battle with a creature covered in leeches. I got up gingerly from bed, as if putting my feet into water teeming with the little bloodsuckers. The leeches, of course, put me in mind of Volf Enoch, and that instant something moved in me, came unstuck inside my skin, and I felt like one of those figures they carve in India, an identical smaller figure inside each successive figure, until the last one is so small that no one notices when it steps out into the world. I am making this up, of course, but had I not entertained myself this way, I would have stopped writing long ago. There is nothing more tiresome than a gloomy story that has nothing, aside from the story line, to steer us briefly in another direction, where it tricks us and shunts us onto a sidetrack, and then, just as we think we are forever lost, opens a door and leads us back to where we began. We may not have distanced ourselves from the gloom, but for a few moments at least we breathed fresh air. My day was not like that and it passed slowly. I had breakfast, bought the paper, and read it carefully — nothing on the Jewish Community Center burglary. Not a word. I didn't turn on the television; if the papers ignored it, the television stations would have nothing to say either, except for the rare independent programs that broadcast news outside the system, but I couldn't get them with my little indoor antenna. Marko had offered to set me up with an improvised antenna using a washbasin and an umbrella on the terrace, which, he maintained, would work perfectly. I stubbornly refused, and now I wonder why. Sometimes we reject the help of others because we think we are thereby protecting our integrity. I now know this is jealousy rather than a defense of i ntegrity; jealousy because someone knows how to do something we don't and because no matter what we think of him or her, that person reflects us more than we do ourselves. It sounds complicated, but why should anything be simple? No one promised us when we came into this world that our lives would be simple, the world comprehensible, dreams clear, death merciful. We get the starting point, that's all, no signposts to the next, the one where the path ends. All in all, living is groping in the dark, blindness despite the seeing eye, a tightrope walk, a slide down a bumpy banister. In the end all that's left is pain, which corresponds to that sentence of Faulkner's, or to the choice I made in relation to that sentence. Pain is the antidote for the void, is what I meant to say. For lunch I prepared chicken soup from a packet. I used less water than the instructions called for, because I wanted it to be stronger. I also ate a slice of Gouda, the cheese I like best. After lunch, having placed the dishes in the dishwasher, I felt drowsy, but I boldly defied the weakness of my body and set about organizing the papers on my desk. The last few weeks, pulled in all directions by unpredictable events, I'd neglected my papers, files, and notebooks, and now I tried to file away copies of articles I'd snipped out of the newspaper, the letters and notes. The only thing I didn't touch was the manuscript of The Well. There wasn't a folder large enough for it, and I was afraid that if I tried to move it, it would turn to dust or sand, like a genuine book of sand. That made me think of that magic corner in the yard of the building at Zmaj Jovina Street. Had I already been thinking about it before that day as a passage to another world? I can't remember. In any case, I was thinking of it then: there must be a way to move from there to another reality, I just needed to find it, provided I didn't forget how to get back. I wouldn't want to stay where I didn't belong, though I could imagine several worlds from which I wouldn't want to return. In one there would be a lot of scantily clad women, in another no one but me, and in the third only my spirit. I checked my watch. The afternoon was aging; soon I would have to leave for the opening of Jaša Alkalaj's show. I went into the bathroom, combed my hair, made sure I had no need to shave, slapped a little lotion on my cheeks, then washed my hands. I took my jacket down from the coat hook, locked the door, and walked to the bus stop. Two police cruisers were parked near the Jewish Community Center: one across the street, by the entrance to the hotel, the other a little farther along, partly up on the sidewalk in front of the grocery store. Police were also at the entrance and in the hallway that led to the courtyard building. Crowds of people were there, and after several steps I could no longer move. Pressed on all sides, all I could do was let the throng carry me, step by step, up the stairs. When I finally reached the museum, I was in a sweat. Inside, under the glare of the television spotlights, it was warmer still. I wouldn't have been surprised to see pools of sweat. Somehow I managed to maneuver myself to the back of the room, closer to where Jaša Alkalaj was standing. His face had undergone yet another transformation, and now looked more like the face I'd known. The man standing next to him had just finished a speech and the applause resounded through the room. He was followed by a critic: in a few sentences the man summarized Jaša Alkalaj's entire opus, gave his assessment of several new paintings, then lifted a piece of paper, for a moment I thought he was hanging out a white flag of surrender. This, said the critic, was the text he had prepared for the occasion, but the new circumstances left him no choice but to rip it up, which he did, tearing the page in half. I could see the shreds of paper floating through the air. When you take a look at the paintings hanging here, said the critic, you will notice that some have been vandalized, that the forces of darkness were trying to steal their light, believing it possible to crush creative spirit. In their shallowness, he continued, they believe fear to be the father of obedience, a misconception they would not be prone to if they knew anything about history. But this is no moment for lectures and sermons, said the critic, this is a moment when the paintings, both the untouched and the damaged, will speak for themselves. Conceived to demonstrate the power of defiance, he said, marked by this new assault, aimed at that spirit among us, they now send the same message, but louder and more assertively to all willing to listen. Often in history, said the critic, books have been burned and artwork destroyed, but each time art managed to rise from the flames, and so it would again. The opening of this exhibit, he said, will dilute the darkness that tried to engulf it, and along with it, all of us. There was more applause, and new beads of sweat erupted on my forehead. People began milling around, looking at the paintings, the cameramen besieged Jaša Alkalaj, a woman said she'd faint if she didn't get some air, the hubbub became louder, unfamiliar ruddy faces alternated with the ruddy faces of well-known public figures, actors and writers of Jewish background, politicians who had sniffed out an opportunity, bored newspapermen, then someone shouted that he had a number on his arm, a gaunt man who had rolled up his shirtsleeves, someone came over to him, gently tugged at his arm, and pulled down his sleeve, the man began sobbing, and as the visitors parted before him like a sea he staggered to the exit, his words breaking between sobs, until he fell silent, and that silence became loud. The television reporters also headed for the exit, the spotlights were turned off, space opened up, waiters appeared with trays, with glasses full of wine and apple juice, slender gusts of air coursed through, it was possible to move from painting to painting between the clusters of people fanning themselves with folded catalogs, the only crowd left was around Jaša Alkalaj, but I was patient, I could wait. That is when I saw Margareta. She was standing in front of a painting, craning her neck to examine a detail more closely, then stepped back and approached it from the other side. Access to Jaša Alkalaj opened just then, and though I would have liked to go over to Margareta, I walked the other way. His face, closer up, looked like the cracked bed of a dried-up river, his eyes were bloodshot, his lips blue, his eyelids wrinkled. His hair was plastered with sweat, he was breathing with effort, raggedly, as if fighting for each breath. I tried to congratulate him on the show, but he dismissed this with a wave of the hand. A Pyrrhic victory, he said, nothing more, no point in wasting words. I asked whether the police had come up with anything. Did I really believe, Jaša asked, that they would? I said nothing. To some questions there is no other way to respond. Two older women approached Jaša, so he just said that I should come to his studio later to celebrate the opening. Fine, I said, and with the tips of my fingers brushed off the sweat that had pooled above my upper lip. Now that I was used to the vanishing, I didn't believe I'd catch sight of Margareta again, but there she was, standing in front of the same painting, sipping juice. I went over and stood by her. The painting she was looking at was nearly all black; in the upper-right-hand corner was a window from which light shone like a beam from a lighthouse; the light illuminated a cloud in the sky, and on that very spot, partially hidden by a curly wisp, was a triangle in the center of which was an eye; the eye was blazing, the fire had already caught the eyelid, and the flickers rose from the lashes as they rose from the candles in the menorah pictured in the pupil of the eye. If God's eye burns, Margareta spoke up as if she had been waiting for me, then it's all over, what use is a blind God? God didn't have to see, he saw without eyes, from within, with the heart, I said, or with who knows what. No one's perfect, said Margareta, not even God. Her sentence had a vaguely sacrilegious ring. I didn't know the Kabbalah well enough to be able to say that the Kabbalists doubted God, but didn't the Zen Buddhists say that Buddha had to be shit, just as he had to be all other things? In other words, he who desires to be perfect must also be imperfect; he who desires to be in everything must be in things he doesn't want to be a part of. God is either all or nothing, there is no third possibility. I stood next to Margareta and stared at the burning eye, and all I could think of was that the pain must be excruciating. I would like to know, Margareta said, what the painter really had in mind. We can ask him, I said. We'll ask him later, said Margareta, no rush. She finished her juice and looked at me: You see him now and then, don't you? Yes, I said. And you? She nodded. I didn't know you two knew each other, I said. You never asked, said Margareta. So, I asked, how long? hoping the tinge of jealousy in my voice would not be audible. Forever, said Margareta. Jaša's my father. There are situations in which we suddenly catch on to a word or concept, the real meaning of which has been eluding us for years. There, in the Jewish Historical Museum, standing in front of the painting Jaša Alkalaj had titled