They waited. Olivera Srezoska still circled the tree, measured it; she was remeasuring her own shadow. Finally, somehow, controlling herself, through her clenched teeth she strained, she said:
“Who did it, girls?” she asked scarify, horribly. Curse me, she said it in a way that a person had to believe that she was suffering, suffering a lot, that her heart was bleeding.
The girls were silent as statures, cast. Curse me, cast.
“Who did that disgusting thing, girls?” she repeated at one after another, in order.
The girls silently bowed their heads. Not one of the girls raised her head.
“Even better,” said comrade Olivera Srezoska. “The punishment will be doubled if no-one confesses.”
“Forward,” she commanded. She led them to the dormitory. The search lasted a few centuries. She looked through everything that could be looked through, she turned over every bed, she pulled up everything which could be pulled up. And when she found nothing, she got even wilder. She commanded a circle to the left, in the washroom. She put all the girls in the washroom and she ordered them to undress, down to their bare skin. Dear mother, to undress down to bare skin. The washroom was an unbearable cellar, a veritable ice room. Summer and Winter, it was icy in there. No-one could spend any time in there without getting a serious illness. That was one of the most cursed places in the Home.
Curse me, the girls obediently completed the task. And Olivera Srezoska, without a word collected the clothes and moved away, locking up the girls.
“As soon as you decide to confess,” she said to them, “I’ll let you out.”
After that, calm, obviously calmed a little, she turned the key once, twice, three times in the lock.
Surely you’d say, that’s impossible, maybe you’d laugh at her. Sometimes I myself think and surely that doesn’t happen with just me, I think it was a dream, some ugly, unreal dream, apparition. But you must believe, I swear, didn’t so many impossible things happen, didn’t we believe, friend?
All of us remained stuck to the wall from that day, as though we were sharing the ice that was gnawing the hearts of our girls. God, how it pricked, how it hurt, how unthinkable it was, impossible. Some of them coughed up blood that Spring. Vera Nikolovska, Bosilka Kochoska the ballerina, Krstinka Kitanovska, Danica Stojanovska the artist, Rodna Trendafilovska... Curse me, they were immediately taken to the dispensary for chest diseases.
Where are they now our girls, our beauty, their bright looks, beautiful clear eyes, their little chests? What has happened to all of us, where are we, where are we all, is this a dream or real? Curse me, what has happened with the Big Water?
Later someone found the shorts. In the kitchen they’d used them as a mop...
The second event was something more general in character and it did not end with measures internal to the Home alone. Curse me, it widened out to a political issue. But in the beginning it was frighteningly funny to us, jolly. Curse me, jolly. We joked about it regally; it was really funny, it was funny! Some nice fellow, who knows how, snuck into comrade Olivera Srezoska’s little room and there you had a circus. Put simply he painted the left half of the moustache of the General with white paint, and put some other marks on the face. Dear God, how hard this event hit the young and pure heart of comrade Olivera Srezoska. Think of it, for that to happen to her, to her loved one, to her loved, favourite, most favourite, bright, brightest face. Curse me, if only you could have seen her from somewhere, if only you could have heard her. You’d think her father had died, the dearest person to her, just such a screech emerged from her breast. She screeched with alarm and, as if slain, she fell to the floor. Curse me, no-one knew what was going on; we played dumb. So, it hurts you, you bitch, the children said amongst themselves, quietly. She threw herself onto the floor like some slaughtered bird. Curse me, they just managed to bring her around with some water and a little sugar. Her young life was hanging by a thread, even the dear Headmaster was afraid, I swear, with his kindest voice he tried to encourage her, bring her around. He blew gently on her face, sweetly he said to her:
“Comrade Olivera Srezoska,” he was calling her with a voice as merciful and good natured as that, “Lift your head, gentle soul,” he whispered. “Don’t let down the political work, don’t die, don’t die, dear comrade, don’t let go the flower and flight of your young life, don’t let down the political work, as always, gather your strength, be brave,” sang the dear Headmaster, curse me, he opened up, he simply spoke as a poet, through his poem.
“Wake up, comrade Olivera Srezoska, our sister,” the poor girls were also waking her with tears in their eyes, curse me, they really started to cry, they pleaded from their hearts for Olivera Srezoska to get better. “Wake up, wake up, comrade Olivera Srezoska, it will be very difficult for us without her,” the poor girls were falling over themselves.
That cry, it seems, at last woke her. Her left eye opened, scary, bloody; she muttered:
“Criminal!” she screeched again, and again she fainted. Obviously the excitement wasn’t any good for her. Curse me, she stayed like that for a few centuries, troubled, in a trance, she would wake, she would faint, she rambled. At one time she even started to sing, like that, in her dream, curse me, her pain was great, her soul hurt.
The event, as it was shown later, was really very complicated, very serious, even delicate. No, it wasn’t just a young life hanging in the balance, the deed itself curse me, the deed itself was more than three hundred tonnes in weight. The investigation went on day and night — one after the other they called us into the Headmaster’s office. Curse me, one after the other, each one in order. Without distinction, starting with us, the residents, to the staff and the administration with all the teachers and instructors. Here there was nowhere to go and they lost their sleep; for suspicion to fall on you it was enough to draw attention to yourself in some stupid way or someone point at you with a finger, oh mother! Everyone, everyone was shaking and trembling, everyone in the Home fell sick during those days, from the first to the last person.
The investigation for the residents flowed through a few phases. At first, as if it were nothing, I swear, they forced us to recite the biography of Josif Bisarinovich Stalin. Where he was born, when, what his mother was like, his father — it’s understood he was from a family of poor parents, villagers, workers and while still young he experienced a difficult life, injustice, dark exploitation... He completed primary school with outstanding success in the small village in which he was born, he studied and at the same time he helped his poor parents with all of their work. In his early boyhood he stood out for his industriousness and benevolence and his great friendship. Apparently he helped the weaker students with reading and writing free compositions; books were his greatest friend. He stood out from his peers because of his great wisdom, unusual in someone of his young years, modesty, a solitary life, with a word, he was a real picture among his enslaved, unhappy people. But the thirst for a free life was greater in him than any other wish, freedom was imprinted into his heart from the earliest years. Somewhere in there, in the blossoming, luxuriant earth, grazing his horses in the middle of the endless fields... often in the middle of a game with his peers, in the greatest enthusiasm he would stop, and as though entrenched, would look into the setting sun. Curse me, as though entrenched. He was especially attracted to the heavy, bloody clouds in the evening sky...