I was just about always alone after they separated me from the son of Kejtin. I think he felt very alone too. For the whole time I wished I was neither bird nor titan, nor butterfly (even though the flight of a butterfly is the thing I love most in life) — I dreamed totally impossible things. I dreamed about a small, curse me, a small hole in the wall, the size of an eye from where I could see the water, to hear her good voice. I believed in the power of the Big Water so much, I believed one day she would come, that she would knock down the wall, carry it away, that she would say to it “It’s enough, it’s enough; you’ve kept them locked up long enough.” She would say that to the wall and then she would wipe it out, she would take it into her good, bright arms. Curse me, everything would become water. There wasn’t a day when I wouldn’t go around the wall a few times looking for that hole, the view toward the Big Water. For all of the centuries I was in the Home, I didn’t want to think about anything else, I didn’t need anything else, I completed all of my chores without love, without any real interest. And after that, then, that thought alone, who knows on which path, as though broken I dragged myself along the wall. I was looking for that small hole in the wall, even though I knew it was made of concrete, a solidly built wall made exactly for this purpose. When I thought it was all just an hallucination, an illness, a dream, the son of Kejtin took me by the hand and, without speaking, took me toward the attic of the building. Even if we were separated, he saw my dream, he knew where my heart was flying, what it sought through the wall. Curse me, he saw.
“Don’t tremble,” he whispered, “if you’re afraid, they’ll discover us. Set your jaw, don’t make a noise, don’t let your teeth chatter.”
“I am not afraid,” I said, “It’s cold, I am freezing.”
“Hey, Leme,” he said. “Hey, friend,” said the son of Kejtin with such wonder that he couldn’t stop the laugh which came to him at that time. And laughing like that, doubling over with laughter, he forgot about the punishments, and holding his sides with both his hands, laughing, he said “Hey, Leme, curse me, there was no bigger comedian ever born in the world. Do you know what season of the year we are in, poor boy, don’t you know it’s real Summer, August, the most beautiful month of the year?” he said and started to laugh. Even more, like some mountain spring, hard and unstoppable.
“Stop,” I begged him, blaming myself for the fear that was eating at me.
“I can’t,” he said, laughing, “you’re terrific Leme. Even if I wanted to, now I can’t, friend. I have to have a good laugh because otherwise I’ll die. O-ho, I haven’t heard such a thing for a long time,” and again he burst into laughter. “It’s cold, you said, eh? O-ho Leme, you little devil.”
“Do you realise where we are,” I reminded him. “Do you know what will happen to us if they catch us?”
He waved his hand powerless to stop, he had to laugh. The whole of him was laughing like a devil. With his face and with his eyes, the son of Kejtin laughed all over. It was pointless to try to persuade him, he would laugh to the end, he would laugh for a whole century. I swear, until the last drop of blood dripped from his heart. I already knew the son of Kejtin, no, punishment meant nothing to him. There was no order they could make which would separate our hearts, to demolish our eyes so that we would not wink at each other, our thoughts not to talk, the heart not hear the voice of the Big Water. That distance tied us even closer together. Curse me, that distance. I treated everything of his as my own, wherever he was amongst the children, my eyes would find him first. I had his laugh with me, and once I paid dearly for it. It was time for lunch and someone devilishly joked about the way the dear Headmaster was slurping his cabbage stew. He had the habit at lunchtime of having a whole serving of cabbage. He did it with such skill that a person had to double over with laughter. His moustache smelled of cabbage at a three metre distance, it went yellow like old sauerkraut. The laughter leapfrogged from child to child.
“What are you laughing about?” the son of Kejtin had dragged himself from somewhere to under my table. “Tell me, tell me the truth, little Leme!”
It was a bad oath. Forgetting that he is an irrepressible giggler, I said to him:
“SLURP! Look at the dear Headmaster.”
Who could’ve stopped the son of Kejtin from laughing then, oh God! Ariton Jakovleski went goggle-eyed when he saw us together. He said:
“Dear little birds, just look at what I can see.” He couldn’t believe it, he was amazed. “Look, look,” he said softly, “my little pigeons have flown”, the dear Headmaster was still joking, Ariton Jakovleski was really born for making jokes. “How come you two are together,” he cut in suddenly, “From where do you get such optimism?” he was thinking of Kejtin’s laugh and Ariton got it right about the optimism.
I took the blame for everything last thing, because I knew the son of Kejtin would not give in, even if they killed him, he wouldn’t say a word. I left lunch and without a word, set off to comrade Olivera Srezoska. The handing out of punishments was divided now: the minor punishments were left by the old guy to his Assistant-Headmaster, comrade Olivera Srezoska. And her, oh, I will have to introduce you to her better some time; she had her own method of punishment, thoroughly different to the dear Headmaster, but in brutality, they were very close. Comrade Olivera didn’t dirty her hands, she hit with strap across your back, and above all of that she did an ugly woman’s thing, hit and pinch, so it would hurt you to the core. Curse me, so it would hurt you to the core. If you cry, she wonders why you are blubbering for no reason. You’re not bleeding, you haven’t lost an eye, but you’re bawling out loud, so hold on a little, at least so there is a reason for the tears. In that way the penalty was doubled, she was smart, comrade Olivera Srezoska. This punishment, it is understood, was in some ways harder because of the baseness it was carried out with. Olivera Srezoska had thought it out to the last detail. So often the children complained they hadn’t done something worse so that psychologically they would remain undisturbed in the hands of the dear Headmaster. This way, not only do you get the same thrashing but your soul melts down thinking about what and how the Assistant-Headmaster Olivera Srezoska will in that moment deal with you. Her soul burned to be in charge, with each day she became a harsher person, she degenerated into a tyrant. People like her don’t even think how malicious and destructive they are; on the contrary, they live with the hope the sun shines only because of them. Anyway, there were bright moments too in the heart of comrade Olivera Srezoska. In her spare time, she wrote songs about children. Curse me, songs.
“I’m begging you to stop,” I said to Kejtin. A few days before, I had seen a new strap in the administration.
“Okay,” said the son of Kejtin at last calming down, “but don’t make me laugh anymore.”
“No,” I promised him, “I won’t make you laugh,” not understanding how I could make him laugh so much.
“Then let’s go,” he said, dragging me through the dark ceiling of the Home that was full of cobwebs. He went as if through a plain, he moved as though on a well-known road. It was as if he’d been going over that road for centuries, that he knew it. He overcame all the obstacles so skilfully and at the same time so well did he lead me that I thought he might have been possessed by the spirits. Curse me, the spirits. The water spirits, they might have cast a spell on him to lead me to the bricked up windows. Like a lord of the ceiling, he threaded through it. Curse me, that’s what he was, the lord of the ceiling. He had memorised the attic; surely he must have been there a thousand times. I swear, a thousand times until he’d found this spot. When at last he stopped, he said, with a somewhat different voice, with a voice I did not recognise,