Minut and it got easier. We agreed to meet after I handed in the piece, I wished Margareta a good night, kissed her lightly on the cheek, and set out for Zemun. The triangles are opening, I thought as I walked away, and, suddenly elated, I started whistling an old Beatles tune. The walk to Zemun was not strenuous, but for a body unaccustomed to walking several hundred meters, let alone a few kilometers, it is exhausting. At least, I consoled myself, nothing disgusting awaited me by the door to the apartment. That there might be people waiting never crossed my mind, a consequence of an enjoyable taxi ride and my fine mood, the whistling and occasional singing. I started with the Beatles, then I continued with hits by the Kinks, Manfred Mann, the Dave Clark Five, and Cream, then thought of the song "We Gotta Get Out of This Place" by the Animals. I didn't know all the words and I kept repeating the refrain, until suddenly I stopped and heard the Danube slapping the shore with crystal clarity, though I was still some distance from the promenade. The fear that someday I might flee "outta this place" and not hear the sound of the river didn't last long, and I reverted to whistling and singing, focusing on the songs of Marianne Faithfull, with whom, if anyone even cares, I had once been desperately in love. I went into my apartment, took off my shoes, drank two glasses of water, and attempted to rest in the armchair in front of the television, stared for a while at the dark screen, then went into my study and switched on the computer. I read the piece again, made minor changes, added a paragraph about the opening of the show and the symbolic gesture of the critic who felt it his obligation to join in solidarity with the threatened artist by committing an act of violence against his own text. Maybe we should all follow his example, I wrote, and in solidarity destroy something we have created before someone else destroys it for us. The Danes, the story goes, saved their Jews in World War II by wearing yellow armbands, so perhaps we could save our Jews and ourselves by joining them as victims of violence. That was it. Even if I had wanted to say something more, I wouldn't have been able to, the piece was already too long, and as I printed it, I braced myself for the battle with the editor the following day. At first, when he saw how long it was, he didn't even want to look at it. Cut it, he said, then we can talk. I thought of Feliks the cat but was reluctant to use him again as a means of persuasion. Instead, I urged the editor to read the piece and then decide, and I would abide by his decision. It turned out that I'd done the right thing: the editor's secretary told me that Feliks had disappeared, or was registered as having disappeared, because he hadn't come home for five days, and the editor, she claimed, was in distress, and who knows how he'd have reacted to my inquiries. I sat in her office, on the plastic chair by the coat rack, while behind closed doors the editor read my piece. Then the door opened and he summoned me in. I got up, looked at the secretary, she winked, and I slowly closed the door behind me, like someone saying farewell to the world. The editor didn't offer me a seat, so I stood by the door, my hand on the doorknob in case I had to depart in a hurry. Let me say right away, the editor said, the piece is good. I breathed a sigh of relief: I could let go of the doorknob, and even smile. But, said the editor, you should cut it so it fits the space designed for the column. The smile, of course, vanished from my face. So now what? I asked. Do I roll up my sleeves and cut it down to size? The editor scratched his chin and ran his fingers through his hair. Whether short or long, he said, it is equally dangerous, so dangerous that I am not sure you understand how dangerous it is. He looked at me without blinking. I didn't blink either. The overt naming of names, said the editor, no one likes that, the church especially. The hard line is in fashion these days, he said, which means that reactions are unpredictable. He asked me whether I had all these elements in mind when I wrote the piece. I'd thought of nothing, I said, except the truth. I felt, I confess, like one of the protagonists in the Watergate affair, though what I was doing exposed no political or ethnic plot, brought down no prominent politicians or public figures, revealed no intentions or secrets. It was simply drawing attention to a state of the collective spirit, which could be explained by the historical context and the long isolation of the country from the mainstream of the world, but which becomes a threat, like certain diseases that become chronic and therefore incurable and ultimately a potential source of something far worse. Hatred is a disease, and it occurs when the normal functioning of the individual and the collective spirit is disturbed. To hate another you first need to hate yourself, your own lack of power or ability, we don't seek the culprit in ourselves, where it truly lies, but in someone else, and not in just anyone else, but in a person visible enough and, most important, powerless enough that he can't hide or defend himself. In brief, my intention was not to encapsulate that surge of hatred, though hatred should, no doubt, be branded at all times; what I meant to do was warn of the dangers that threatened if the cracks in the collective spirit were not attended to and if individuals and groups who adeptly use those cracks for promoting their own aims were not stopped. Now I know that I was unsuccessful, or my insights came too late. The spiritual scale was overloaded, the needle was skewed, and this breakdown, if I can call it that, was beyond repair. Besides, who could have thought that only a year later, the country would be deliberately sacrificed, the collective spirit encouraged in its most depraved incarnation — blaming others with a paranoic fervor, denial of the guilt among those who were to blame. I was unaware of that while I stood there with my hand resting again on the doorknob, anticipating the editor's decision. He looked up at me. I felt a drop of sweat forming behind my ear and starting to trickle down my neck. This is a typical no-win situation, said the editor, if I publish this, I'll regret it, and if I don't publish it, I'll regret it. I didn't say a word. I raised my hand and with my index finger brushed away the drop of sweat that had trickled halfway down. We go with it, said the editor, and looked away, as if ashamed of his decision. We go with it, he repeated, come what may. Nothing will come, I said. If nothing comes of it, he glanced over at me, then why are we publishing it? Nothing bad, I answered, that's what I meant. And that was what I meant. Who could have foreseen the storm and everything that followed when the pace of events picked up, getting stronger like soup that has cooked for too long? But if we were to know everything in advance, would life have any meaning at all? Hence the prophecy system, such as that of the Chinese Book of Changes, doesn't speak of the future as a pattern that can be learned, rather, it lays the groundwork for the unpredictable things that will nevertheless crop up. Yin and yang alternate, whole lines break and broken lines heal, after the spring comes the summer and winter follows the autumn, but no one can say with certainty which days will bring rain. So during the rainy season the prudent person carries an umbrella, while the reckless person does not and, of course, gets wet when it rains. Prudence is not precise knowledge, but a willingness to adapt to circumstances in the shortest possible time. I go on and on; I am probably remembering the thrill I felt when the editor announced his decision, and the thrill was the kind that gets one talking, just as I had talked to the editor's secretary on my way out, then to two women and a fat man in the elevator. Don't worry, I told them, it's just that I'm happy. That was when they looked genuinely alarmed. Happy, in this day and age? said their looks. I stopped talking and started whistling. The fat man gaped at me, while the two women crossed their arms over their chests, which was probably meant to signify extreme disapproval. I turned my back on them, there was nothing more I could do, but I went right on whistling, though softer, and through my teeth, first "Yellow Submarine," then "I Want to Hold Your Hand." When the elevator stopped, the door slid open, the women hurried out, the fat man went panting after them, and I, still whistling, thought I should reward myself with a glass of