ence reigned. I felt a terrible fatigue, I am one of those for whom sleep during the day brings no rest, and I knew I'd be walking around for the next hour or two with a veil over my eyes and gauze bandages wrapped around my mind. I walked gingerly over to the window, as if I feared sniper fire, and saw rain clouds. Everything else seemed ordinary enough: the passersby were hurrying along, cars and buses moved intermittently across the square, two women stood talking by the door to the pharmacy and gestured as if warding off mosquitoes, a boy was staring at a balcony on which another boy stood throwing paper airplanes, three dogs nosed around the garbage bins, the traffic lights blinked on and off. I could have stood there forever, with my nose pressed against the windowpane, outside the world and yet in it, an observer but not a participant, visible yet unseen. Such a blissful state, however, could not last long and I was jolted by a knock on the door. I pulled away from the window and asked who was there. No one answered, but the knocking repeated. I started toward the door and peered through the spy hole: I couldn't see a thing. Someone was holding a hand over it, and there was nothing to do but step back and hurry to the phone. Kabbalah, magic, Sons of the Revolutionary Light or reactionary dark, it didn't matter which, it was time to call the police. I picked up the receiver, dialed the number, and stood there for a while, not realizing that the phone wasn't working. The line was dead; there was no sound coming from it; I punched the buttons in vain. The knocking, which came again, was now more alarming, though at the same time it made me wonder about the person or the people knocking, because I was certain that a whole horde was crouching in front of my door, so why didn't they just break down the door and do it. I felt like a mouse in a trap, or, more accurately, like a dog the dogcatcher has chased down a dead end, and while the knocking kept up at irregular intervals, I went into the kitchen and out onto the little terrace. The neighbor's terrace, to which I had jumped from the edge of my terrace when I was much younger, now seemed farther away. I would never make a jump like that now, I realized, though a part of my consciousness, still wrapped in gauze, suggested it was better to take the risk, because I would give myself a chance, whereas in my apartment I would meet a certain fate, a certain end. Nonetheless I went back into the apartment. The knocking picked up again as I tiptoed over to the door, and again I asked loudly who it was. No one answered. The knocking stopped. I went to the door and, as I had done so many times, leaned my ear against it. I thought I could hear someone mumbling, the sound of paper being torn, and soft footsteps going down the stairs, but when I leaned my ear to a different spot on the door, everything sounded different: the paper wasn't being torn but crumpled, the footsteps were going up the stairs, and instead of the mumbling I could hear a muffled giggle, and all the while heavy breathing. I no longer recall how much time passed before I realized that it was my own breathing I was hearing. I straightened up and looked through the spy hole. The hallway was empty. I unlocked the door and opened it as far as the chain allowed. I didn't see anybody, I didn't hear anybody, so I unhooked the chain and opened the door cautiously until I could see the entire hallway. No one leaped out at me, no one shoved me, no one brandished a knife, no one pointed a gun. A swastika spread vividly across the door, and under it, in uneven letters: DEATH TO THE TRAITOR. The paint was still fresh, and dribbles of black dripped from the tips of the swastika, hurrying toward the bottom, where they belonged. I thought it was just as well I had not opened the door earlier, because if I'd seen the writing, I'd have wanted to confront the offenders verbally. I could see myself shouting theatrically: How can I be a traitor? Whom have I betrayed? Instead of taking on the scum, you come here to puff out your chests before someone who is trying to rid you of a burden you have been bearing on your shoulders for years! I looked to myself like Lenin speaking from a podium, leaning forward to look more assertive. Nonsense, of course, and I am not thinking of Lenin but of myself, because they would not have waited for me to end, or even to begin, they would have assaulted me straightaway. It was ridiculous to hope for anything else. Death to the traitor, that's the only thing that interested them, and sooner or later, they would do what they had set out to do. I could switch day and night, I could change my hiding places, I could shave my head and grow a mustache, I could wear black-framed glasses, nothing would help. The punishment of a person who thinks differently is always welcome, no matter which side the person doing the punishing is on. The death of one traitor is a lure for hundreds of others, eager to ferret out new traitors and administer new punishments. I should have taken up the bucket, rag, and brush, and washed the swastika off the door, but for the first time I felt I had no strength left: I could no longer wash away as much as they could defile. I also regretted at that point that the Kabbalistic experiment had failed, even if it hadn't been designed as a realistic undertaking, because if it had worked, the forces of darkness would have had to retreat before the forces of light and nothing would have been the same. Now it was too late, and the feeling of being driven into a trap flared before me as if fanned by doom. Everything was coming apart at the seams, and it would only get worse. Somewhere it must have been recorded how long all of this would last; fate, in any case, is unchanging. You are rambling on like some washed-up old sage, Marko would have said, and that made me think of going to his apartment again. Although I couldn't prevent general disintegration, perhaps I could prevent my own further disintegration, preserve some of what was still precious to me. If I didn't do that, I thought, there'd be nothing left of me, and no one, not even I, will be able to look myself in the eye. The evening was fast approaching, dragging night along with it, and who knew what it had in store and whom it would bring in tow, so it would be best, while there was still daylight, for me to head to Jaša Alkalaj's. The swastika, I thought, would have to wait. It may still be there for all I know, on the door where I left it, slightly abstracted by the streams of paint that had dribbled every which way, though recognizable enough. The rain started as I stepped out into the street, and I didn't have time to look to the left or to the right, or up or down, instead I sprinted over to the bus stop where I leaped onto a bus that was just pulling away. By the time we reached the bridge over the Sava, the rain was pelting with such ferocity that the bus driver had to slow down. Water was coursing in every direction at the Zeleni Venac bus stop, and crowds were huddling in the underground walkway to get out of the downpour, the people waiting for the Zemun and Novi Beograd buses, policemen, peddlers, vendors, shoppers still out and about, even though it was late. I somehow managed to push my way through the crowd, then went on, from doorway to doorway, to Terazije, where I waited for the trolley bus. The trolley bus was a wreck, its windows were smashed, its doors had trouble closing, then suddenly sprang open mid-drive, it stank of damp and vomit. We hadn't got far from the Slavija roundabout when I decided to get off at the first stop, certain that a man was staring at me. I got off, but the man stayed on, so I was left alone at the stop, in the rain, which was coming down in gusts. The next trolley bus arrived after fifteen minutes. Although it was too early for me to go to Jaša Alkalaj's, the persistent rain forced me to head to his studio; even if he wasn't there, I knew where the key was, I could let myself in and wait. He'd given me permission to do so on my first visit, and I certainly wouldn't paint, which was the one thing that was forbidden, he had said. How much time had passed since then? On the calendar, a little more than two months; in terms of experience, a lifetime; it was difficult for me to reconcile these two measures, so different yet the same, and to acknowledge that one of them was inaccurate. And what, I thought as I walked toward the studio, if both are accurate, thereby confirming that we live far longer than the calendar indicates, each person in his or her own time, and that hours, days, months, years are merely a convention that enables us to function more smoothly within the boundaries of the larger world? One thinks of all sorts of things when rain falls for a long time, especially if he has no umbrella. Although I walked close to the buildings and dashed from doorway to doorway, I was drenched and started to shiver, then ran the rest of the way to Jaša's street. When I got to the corner, I stopped and looked carefully around. I didn't see anything out of the ordinary: there was no one in front of the building entrance, cars were parked along the sidewalk, the garbage bins were open and overflowing with trash, the street lamps shone with a stingy light. I looked at my watch: it wasn't yet nine o'clock. Then I heard the sound of an ignition turning, and a car pulled out of the row of parked cars. A moment later, shouting something I couldn't catch, two young men hurtled out of Jaša's building, both dressed in black hooded sweatshirts. They pulled the hoods up over their heads and their faces were in shadow. The doors of the car swung open, they leaped in, still shouting, and the car careened around and sped off in the opposite direction. I don't know why I didn't turn around and leave. I should have known what I would see in the studio, no point in actually seeing it, but my legs carried me as if heeding somebody's orders, first to the entrance, where I paused and looked back after the fleeing car, then to the elevator, its door ajar, as if it had been waiting for me. The door to Jaša's studio was also ajar. I approached it, and, as if watching from a great distance, from across the river, saw Jaša at his kitchen table. His head was resting on his chest, his right arm dangled by his side, his left lay on the table, palm upward. His legs were out of my range of vision, but I could see droplets of thick liquid dripping from his chin and nose. They were dripping onto his clothes, onto the floor, with such a deafening noise that I had to cover my ears. Oh, Jaša, I said. No, I didn't say anything. Pressing my ears shut, I stepped back, stumbled into the elevator, and groped for the ground-floor button. The noise of the droplets followed me, and the woman who opened the elevator door after it stopped shrieked when she saw me with my hands over my ears and my face in a grimace of pain. I smiled at her, which sent her a step back, and as soon as I moved off, she got swiftly on. I kept walking, feeling I would never get out of the hallway, and when I finally did get out, I walked straight on in the rain, which fell in thick, heavy drops as if this weren't the end. And it wasn't. Some things and events have several beginnings, while others have several ends, they end in stages, as if moving from one sense of finality to another, in slow leaps or spasms.