The dear Headmaster Ariton Jakovleski gave us a signal to continue with the singing of the anthem as if nothing had happened. Curse me, for the first time, we sang it with all our hearts, for the first time, with love. Oh, you had to see the son of Kejtin. He was so carried away, he was so far away, that he didn’t notice that we’d stopped singing, that the flag was already waving. In his enthusiasm, he continued to sing. Curse me, he was singing.
His soft, hoarse voice sounded strangely; it was unreal, magical. Curse me, when the anthem is being sung, you should stand still, Kejtin was singing freely, he sang happily, and we stood quietly, in line. He certainly did not see us, he must have been on one of his secret great wanderings ... Oh great, oh free water! Our hearts shouted with happiness.
Drought. The drought lasted a few centuries. Curse me, the whole earth dried up. I swear, everything was scorched. While the drought lasted, everything around was mute, nothing moved. The sun had been struck in the heart, it was melting. It was bleeding. Every day we saw how the sun was dying. Curse me, the sun was dying. What would happen if the sun died, we bore such stupid thoughts. If the sun died, wouldn’t a heavy endless darkness fall on the earth; the trees and the beautiful grasses would die and surely you wouldn’t be able to see the birds fly, or clear waters run? Everything would turn into ice, the trees, the grasses, plants, the waters, the air that we breathe and maybe even the sun. Oh God, how frightened we were! “Has the sun a mother?” asked a stupid little boy; he wanted to know if the sun had a mother. Everything on this earth has a mother, the matron Verna Jakovleska said to us, and the sun has a mother. Certainly curse me, everything has a mother. Just so. That is the most beautiful thing, a mother. But such storytelling didn’t appeal to the dear Headmaster Ariton Jakovleski. “Listen, old woman,” he said to her firmly, just managing not to burst, “Don’t spread holiness, you know we’re in the clear with the saints.” Curse me, in the clear. After that, the old lady went to her little room without a word and didn’t come out for a long time. The drought lasted a hundred, a thousand centuries. We saw neither the Senterlev mountain nor the Big Water. Everything ran away, disappeared. That’s why complete deafness reigned. Curse me, certainly that was fear.
A story about Olivera Srezoska and the girls, the incident with the shorts
A while ago I wanted to tell you about comrade Olivera Srezoska, our Assistant-Headmaster in the Home. It certainly would be in order, in the end, she deserved that; but you will understand that sometimes, a person wants to escape from the line. Just that, to escape from the line. Just that, to escape, to escape, I swear. And who didn’t guard themselves, who didn’t run from comrade Olivera Srezoska?
That being was odd; it had a female name but with certainty it could be said that nothing beautiful, nothing delicate sprang from that being. She was able, without limit, to devise things, to conduct things, to fulfil, to realise projects. Curse me, just that, projects. Frankly the way she was able to devise them, that was something unique, special. Not infrequently, her name was mentioned in essays, the wall newspapers and the local press. Comrade Olivera Srezoska was put forward as an example of classless society, I swear. Just that, an example of classless society.
The girls trembled before her like leaves on a branch. Curse me, like leaves on a branch. If she told them to crawl, they would lie on the ground without a word and would do what they had been ordered to. Just like that, as comrade Olivera Srezoska would command. She was a mistress of punishments, we must acknowledge that. Some sorts of punishments, cheap, ordinary, they already failed to satisfy her. She had caught on; it was not worth a person getting his hands dirty on small and meaningless things. Comrade Olivera Srezoska would either conduct an important action, or she would not be bothered at all. In all of that, Olivera Srezoska was searching for meaning. Her intensity was great, but at the same time, low, petty and so repulsive, that you couldn’t come to terms with it easily. She wove things like some skilful craftsman. She threw herself into it sincerely, with all her soul. Curse me, she believed. In just the first few months, she conducted six such actions of which two will certainly remain in the history of the Home.
The first situation was the one with the shorts. Comrade Olivera Srezoska had a pair of red cross-country shorts. After the photographs with the face of the General, the shorts were the most sacred thing to her in her life. Curse me, most sacred. I well remember that the red shorts belonging to Olivera Srezoska were talked about with much respect, with social, political and moral esteem (surely, such a thing cannot be thought about ordinary ones). They were sport shorts that she’d won from the committee for physical culture as the winner of the Autumn cross-country held to celebrate the liberation of the town. They were a dear souvenir to her, you could tell. She wore them only for national holidays and then, Oh God, she walked a little differently with them on than usual. It appeared as if she was in a rapture, as though they were a little inside her. Curse me, you could tell from a distance that that day was a significant holiday. But once the festivity passed, I swear, she would take them off the same minute and would hang them up straight away in the sun to air out a little. That was good, naturally. Curse me, after just one such holiday comrade Olivera Srezoska ended up without her favourite shorts. Curse me, without her red pants. It would’ve been better to have stripped her naked to have taken her soul. God, she was so crazy, she roared. We thought fate had selected someone that day, that she would tear someone to shreds.
Without a word, we all moved out of her way, like shadows we stuck ourselves to the wall. We were all next to the wall, males, females. Curse me, the fear was great. Without any command, the look of comrade Olivera Srezoska made us line up. It seemed to be we were holding up the cursed wall so that it wouldn’t fall. As never before that, it was desolate and soulless in the home. The only thing that could be seen in the yard was that tree split in two by thunder and that angry, dark Olivera Srezoska. She was pierced to her heart deeply, most deeply; poisoned. If you were to offer her jam in a golden teaspoon, in that moment she would have refused; everything, everything was poison to her. That tree and Olivera Srezoska; as though there was no-one and nothing anywhere around. Two short, mutilated shadows in the middle of the Home’s desolation, they measured its nothingness. It was hard to decide whether the tree or comrade Olivera Srezoska was the unhappier.
That moment of expectation lasted a whole lifetime. Curse me, a lifetime. At the end, she pulled out a whistle from her shirt, gave a signal for the girls to form a line. I feel as if I can still hear the severe screech of the whistle. Curse me, as though she split the whole Home in two.
Our poor girls. Maybe most of them went around wholly naked under their coarse gaberdine dresses. Curse me, they went around au naturel. And if one of them had underpants, they would have been so worn that they would be bare in the middle. Curse me, where would you get underpants for the girls! And almost all of them were at that age, they were just budding. When they sat on the ground they had to firmly keep their knees together so they would not reveal all. Who knows how hard it was for our girls, for those little buds that had just begun to blossom. Put sincerely the girls were also the only beauty in the home. Every day, every hour they made life more beautiful all around; you’d see one like a flower growing out from under the rock, they would surprise you with a strange wonder. Wonderfully they’d take you by surprise, they’d fill your heart with a warm breeze and already you’re someone else, you just see beautiful things. There, the mouth of one of them has become sweet, soft, you think it’s honey; another has surprised you with a long bright look, dear and warming to your heart, you’d think the sky had opened up above your head, a rainbow is caressing you, oh God; a third shyly bends her head toward the ground, she’s shy, gentle, like a lamb, you see her breasts have become more pointed. Curse me, all that was so beautiful, so wondrous in that wasteland, like a clean grain separated from the others. Our girls recalled something that was the purest, most beautiful; a little flower blooming on a delicate, thin blade of grass that waves in the sweet Spring breeze, recalled everything good that the heart may want. Curse me, at Olivera Srezoska’s signal, without a word, each tried to run in front of another, no-one wanted to be late. Confused, mute, at once they stood in line. Curse me, mute.