“Where does your talent lie?” the dear Headmaster would ask.
“M-m-m-my t-t-t-talent is in ev-ev-everything,” the candidate replied.
“Of course, that is certain,” comrade Trifunoski would say sweetly, encouraging him, “it’s evident, plain to see, but still, you, my dear little fellow, just pick one, the one closest to your heart, the one that like a Spring brook is burbling in your veins, in your bright, little veins, the one that like a sweet breeze waves before your beautiful shining eyes.” And, go on, just try and stop Trifun Trifunoski, he would totally forget himself, you could see it; he was shaking too, as though he were qualifying too.
“Yes, I thought the same thing”, says the talentless fellow, the block head shamelessly put his dirty, little finger on his peeling forehead (that cursed head), there, now, there is no way he can recall, slit his throat, he can’t remember or if he can remember it, it’s something he hadn’t thought of at all.
“Come on then, recite a poem,” comrade Olivera Srezoska would prompt him, “say something.”
“Okay, First of May,” a spark ignites but only briefly, quickly the spark fizzles, it’s made of straw, except for those first words, you couldn’t get more words out of him even if you used pliers, like a stubborn donkey which wouldn’t move.
“Well, you know how to dance,” the dear Headmaster would say, “do you know a dance?”
“Yes, I know how,” he says quickly, “aha! I love oro folkdance!”
“Let’s see then,” the dear Headmaster would say and would give a signal to Kolojan Nikolovski.
Then comrade Kolojanski would blow into the clarinet and those unfortunates would start, each in his own way, like drunkards, lunatics, totally mindless, black shadows, scary, flapping one way then the other, it seemed some bad wind was carrying them. They jump, screech, sing, cry, perspire, and they give themselves over to the abundant dust raised from the dirty floor. The dust and the sun got mixed up, the children are swimming in the golden dust, black, tired, shrunken. Afterwards, they fell on the dirty floor; they drowned in the dust. Oh God! It was even more delicate with the candidates for ballet, cursedness. The Meteor had done his own composition especially for them, curse me, ballet. Here you see they’ve thrown off their ugly, coarse frock coats, they’ve taken off their heavy army boots, some barefoot, some in socks, white and home made, some in silk socks won in the cross country (as a prize), some in panties, some in small, woollen, homespun, village dresses, some with long sweet arms, white, thin, oh God, one had been small but now grew taller, she’s sprouted, tall, to the skies, another became shorter, had slouched her shoulders, slumped, dear God.
One, two three,
three, three, four, cursed be unmerciful Meteor.
One, two,
three, three four, like frightening black butterflies fluttering in the abundant dust of the northern assembly hall. They danced long, they danced wildly, horribly. Certainly you can imagine such a terror, a black dance by hungry, sleepless, immeasurably tortured, unhappy children. Curse me, I thought I would die, I swear, I never felt a greater fear than I did that day. For many years after that I dreamed myself dancing, jumping in that dust, in that hell.
Kejtin, friend, how we danced, how we enjoyed ourselves, hooray!
All of the strictness was in vain, all of the penalties, the whole assembly line, when that wave would suddenly appear in your head, the Big Water. Curse me, a thousand small, bright little holes would appear then at the wall, they were looking through it, at the water. Under a spell. You could see, one hole after another, shining. It was the strangest, most magic labyrinth; go ahead and try to find where the look of a child has pierced the wall. The administration reviewed every section of the wall; the punishment was harsh. Every little opening was cemented at once. They were blind men, what benefit was there in cementing the holes, when an hour later, a thousand more holes opened up. At one time, to free itself of this problem, the administration organised the general dismantling of the “little windows”, an action personally supervised by Ariton Jakovleski. And no-one thought there would ever be an end to this problem, when from somewhere, who knows how, her voice could be heard, and she said:
“Come on,” she called out to us. “Why have you frozen? Go! That’s the Senterlev mountain.”
The same night, a thousand new openings peered at the Big Water.
View to the lake
It was the end of March and the beginning of the real Spring. But maybe it was the end of Spring, maybe Summer was coming, curse me, no-one knew what season we were living in. Dry winds blew through the sky, fire. Maybe it was an unknown season. But that was the day when we destroyed the order of the dear Headmaster. In the middle of the night, taking advantage of the fact the others were sleeping, the son of Kejtin came next to my bed.
“Leme,” he woke me, “little Leme, come on,” he waved to me with his hand and, without waiting for my answer, without a whisper, like a cat, he went out into the night.
Even though I didn’t know where, and even though I knew the price of such disobedience, I got up and went. Without a word, I set off after the son of Kejtin. The whole Home was drowned in that familiar deafness. The Home was oppressed by that same wasteland silence which hangs over graveyards. From time to time, someone sought someone else in their dreams. One of the boys was rambling. Without any answer. The Home was dead, it hardly breathed. Fear spread everywhere around, some great, unknown fear.
In the Home everyday it became harder to put up with, more impossible. The only place where we could pass the little spare time we had was the yard, already known to you, and the area around the wall. Even though that was part of the general Home area, for us it was a part of the wall. Just about all of the boys would gather in that part. Like discarded, old objects you could see a heap of children in the area near the wall. That place, by rights, was the hunting ground of the dear Headmaster. Curse me, his hunting game; from that place he prepared his roast (which was the way he loved to express himself). This was where the greatest trade unfolded, all agreements were reached, all court rulings made, some, it is understood, even made plans to dig under the wall. Here, all of those things which come about later in life started to emerge. Contraband was traded to death; there was trade with anything you could find — from a button to a needle. At one time, the most sought after object was the “Virgin Mary”. That was a small picture, and no-one can ever say where it came from or how it got into the Home, a small picture in which a very attractive woman was shown in various poses. Curse me, that was sex to set your teeth chattering. All you needed to do was to see it with one eye and you had to put your hands into your pockets straight away. Looking at that picture, even we little mice lifted our tails. Curse me, it was sweet to look at sex. Somehow it was alluring, beautiful to look at the uncovered full breasts of the woman. That was real sex, honest word of youth. I swear, even today it is causing someone’s hands to itch. There was nothing the dear Headmaster didn’t try to get the photo. He pulled everything out of our belts, you could say he plundered all of our goods, but he didn’t manage to get to the sex. He just about died of frustration, he and the entire administration, everyone wanted to get to the sex. But we kept the “Virgin Mary” as safe as our eyes. In that regard, we were under the control of deep unity, sex was treated as the most important thing. How. many times was he watching out for it, but it was a waste. When the dear Headmaster showed up, the children shoved themselves into a black knot and the sex was saved again. It would fall to the ground. And the knot of children would unravel in a second and each one, all alone, would go off in his own direction. Most often they’d stick it to the wall and would start to rub their backs on it as though they had scabs. Curse me, if only you could know what thoughts were in the little head leaning against the wall. When that was happening, he was no longer in the Home.