A LEGEND ABOUT ARMED PEOPLE
INITIAL CANTO
This May Day was not in Amsterdam. Nor there was any yellow snow falling. This is not the end of the story either. Like with any legend this story should belong to the beginning:
A high school teachers’ staff room was appropriately re-decorated solemnly: red flags in all four corners, awkwardly written paroles on the walls in ugly angular, geometric letters, a table in the corner covered with red piece of fabric with a tacky crystal vase on top filled with red carnations, roses of the working class. The rest was as usual: tables and chairs covered in cheap brownish veneer in color reminiscent of a coffin causing an insidious anxiety, then a shelf with neatly sorted gradebooks bound in cheap red plastic covers, a black and white TV with an antenna on top ridiculously inwardly twisted in shape of flower petals, a square also veneered radio with labelled cities and frequencies at the front panel. Glass display cases with trophies from local schools sports events and random memorial mountain marches when all students were forced to climb hills all day long in honor of a famous partisan unit trail, which was not so bad after all since we didn’t have to go to school that day. In addition to the trophies there were also numerous award flags on stands like for instance: ‘for the best decorated school yard’ or ‘for the extraordinary achievements in studies and participation in youth movement’, together with chess box sets also in dreary shades of darker or lighter wood. The shelves full of books, some brand new some and never opened, mainly in red or Yugoslav flag tri-color covers. Next to the display cabinet was a warning banner with instructions in case of air or nuclear-biological alarm safety procedures; and a framed picture of comrade Tito in his partisan uniform staring at us from the wall.
The sky outside was starry and crystal clear, roses in full bloom, festive holiday time. Nevertheless, that May Day I wasn’t able to travel, say to the coast or a similar destination, since I had been appointed to be on the holiday duty guard being an exemplary student. It was a practice to arrange all kinds of duty guards during the state holidays as a form of self-defense in all state organizations, and institutions, such as schools and health care facilities, which would overnight become ‘objects of special security significance’ or ‘extremely important points of social self-defense interest’. At the time we were not really clear who the enemy was that we had to self-defend ourselves from as this was all happening following the golden age of seventies and the most peaceful period of peace; both Russians and Americans were far away; Israeli army taking care of its own business in Gaza and Southern Lebanon; South African regime satisfied with its attitude towards its own blacks, turmoil in Afghanistan; Chinese fighting Vietnamese who had already managed to win a battle for a just cause; our non-aligned friendly countries mainly fighting each other; we were always in favor of supporting all progressive forces in their effort to fight for a just cause, and we ourselves were living in brotherhood and unity which we had to protect ‘like an apple of an eye’ as Comrade Tito often used to point out. Comrade Tito would also point out on ‘numerous irregularities in our society’ and that ‘enemy never sleeps’ hence we had the following parole written on the wall of our teachers’ staff room: “Prepare like a war will be tomorrow and live like there will be a peace for a hundred years” and we followed it, at least the first part of the parole.
We moved one table close to the phone, next to which were the numbers of the police station and a local communist party committee written in big letters. The teacher, Gojko, was dismantling and assembling a rifle like an expert, it was an old type of a bolt-action rifle, M48 type if I remember correctly. There was no haste or rush in his movements neither there were any facial twitches typical for a soldier or a demonstration in the self-defense class, but he did it rather smoothly and with an ease and expertise, quite enjoying the fact that the bolt handle parts ‘fit so perfectly’ as he liked to emphasize. Gojko was a teacher of Technical Education, which was one of the less important subjects in the hierarchy of subjects (although we were constantly reminded that all subjects were equally important!) so he was considered to be one of the less significant teachers, meaning not the one who can fail you to repeat a year. He was of a soft nature and we felt comfortable in his class. Gojko brought a bottle of ‘Rubin’ brandy and a portion of cevapcici for the purpose of spending his time on duty. He ate the cevapcici all at once leaving only a greasy wrap on the table with a few left-over pieces of hardened pieces of bread and some stale diced onion. Yet whenever he had a sip of brandy he’d also pick a bite of bread with onions which, after all, was infused with grill smoke and so it was still appetizing with smoky flavor.
Anyway, Gojko would sit in the chair laid back comfortably dismantling and assembling the rifle bolt until it fully slid into its casing then he would pull it to click. He’d then give me a serious look and solemnly declare that our rifles were the best in the world and that it was a good thing that we had our own independent army industry because “you’re free only if you can produce your own weapons of a good quality.” He then reminded me that I should go out and check around the school, like to make sure everything was fine, which was not such a bad thing since I could have a smoke. We were not allowed to smoke around teachers, of course, nor in or around the school, as a matter of fact students were not allowed to smoke anywhere regardless if they were of full age or not. I remember that in one of the school communist party meetings after the reading of ‘confidential party information’ about the situation in Afghanistan (which was by the way already made public in media ten days before and could be read in any daily newspapers), our math teacher who was also the school party secretary explained the principles of ‘democratic centralism’, meaning a specific democratic order within the Communist Party of Yugoslavia: “There are no teachers and students here, we are all communists with the equal rights.” “But does it mean that we can all have a smoke?” one student, a member of the Communist Party, asked, by the name of Salčin. The school party secretary got confused and mumbled something about the school rules then turned the subject to the meeting agenda. And that student Salčin failed the math that year and hardly made it through the rest of high school to get his diploma.
I returned back to the teachers’ staff room and reported that all was ordinary outside. Gojko raised his eyebrow turning his sight from the rifle and asked me what I meant by ‘ordinary’ and added that ‘nowadays we all have to be extra vigilant’. Regardless Gojko immediately grabbed the phone and dialed the Party Committee number to say that ‘all was under control and ordinary at the high school’. Trust me, I don’t even know to this day what was meant by ‘ordinary’ and back then we were very much aware and alert anyway. It was later in my life that I noticed a striking resemblance between teachers and army officers, they both had a similar ‘importance’ note in their facial expression and the same ‘care about people’ which justified the cruelty of the system they belonged to; they also had the same feeling of temporary relationship with their subordinates since each soldier would serve his term and become somebody different one day and each student would graduate high school and eventually university and become who knows what. So did I a year or two later. I got a job as a director assistant at the TV station while still a student and I made some decent money. I remember that I was able to buy a moped of ‘Tomos’ brand with the money earned assisting a direction of a stupid folk show named ‘ In the Rose Garden’ or something of that kind. Gojko would sometimes invite me to his home (he would insist for days until I finally found some time to pay him a visit) and he’d justify his invitation by a need to have a third person necessary to play the Preference card game, which I was really into back then, and at the same time he would use my visit as an excuse to his wife to take out a bottle of grappa or brandy to offer me a drink. So, we would sit and sip our drinks with the cards on the table until Gojko would start to mutter and stumble around. In the end it would typically be just the two of us sitting in his apartment kitchen. Gojko’s wife and two children would fall asleep and go to bed and our ‘third’ player (weirdly there’s always a third player in this game there is no first or second) who this time was some manager in the company reselling stone samples, no idea. All I know that he was Gojko’s countryman who’d leave us right after the game with an excuse that he still had to do some work. Gojko would then bug me to play a game of chess with him (which I truly hated and which he enjoyed to play and win; even worse he’d constantly make comments during the game). He’d then serve us pickled peppers filled with salted cheese sent by his mother from his native town and every single time he’d explain that the cheese would actually had been fermented inside the peppers after which he’d get completely stoned and become totally ‘candid’ in a kind of an incomprehensible manner repeating senseless things like ‘excuse my language’; I guess it was customary in his native town where the ill-willed villagers would make no difference between words uttered by a drunk or a sober man. He once started asking me in this state: like your moped is really nice, you don’t drive it as much; maybe you don’t need it as much as I do, it would be really handy for me to have it; I could pay you in a couple of installments, I can definitely manage by to get some money…
Anyway, Gojko felt a need during this duty shift to suddenly ‘care about people’ after he had made that call to the Committee reporting that everything was under control. I guess he was getting bored so he decided to become cozy with me. But first he unsteadily wandered to the principal’s office where he found another bottle of Badel brandy named ‘Cesar’ with a cap in a shape of an antique pillar.
- Ibro will kill me. He kept this one for the VIP visits but I don’t give a damn, the school has money. He placed the bottle on the table together with two carved crystal glasses.
- Come one, sit down and have a drink. - I don’t drink… I said reluctantly. - Fuck, you don’t. Come on, have a cigarette.
He lifted a pack of blue ‘Morava’ cigarettes, a cheap local brand, from the table. I immediately felt discomfort; maybe he’s just testing me? I’ve already been in trouble. I was caught smoking and drinking on a school trip.
- Well, I don’t smoke. - You can’t trick me. - Well I only tried it once to see what it was like.
- And, you didn’t like it, right? Enough bull sheet. We are here with the same mission; there are no students and professors. It’s like we are in the army, for God’s sake.
He offered the cigarettes again and held a pack in his hand until I took one ‘Blue Morava’ cigarette out, which seemed a bit silly since I already had a pack of Marlboro in my pocket.
- Do you remember that session when we were discussing if you should be expelled from, do you know who defended you and was on your side?
Truth to be told this was already the third professor who claimed that it was him who protected me from being expelled, although I know for sure that ‘on my side’ were only the literature professor, Mira, who had just started working and was on probation, and the philosophy professor who recently defended his Ph.D. thesis and became the only Doctor of Philosophy who could not move any further than being an ordinary high school teacher for whatever reason. Actually the school kept him for ten years with his Master’s degree too but nobody paid any attention to him or simply considered him crazy. - Yes, they all voted in favor of expelling you as a warning to others. I stood up and said: he is a grade A student and has always been exemplary until now; he’s a member of the literary section and everyone can make a mistake but everyone should also be given a chance to improve, we have to care about people. Then professor Radović added that this was exactly why we had to expel him since the rules were the same for both good and bad students. And the lunatic Travar responded: “Why do you follow the rules now when no one respects or follows them anyway.” Radović snapped back at him that he doesn’t teach anything and that kids couldn’t learn a single thing in his classes since he lets them do whatever they want. And, that he’ll send an inspection to his class.”
That was true; I remember when the math professor attended his class in the role of the school party secretary in order to verify if professor Travar was teaching anything and if his students gained any knowledge. Travar came into the classroom during the break and told us: “Listen, kids, I told you that I’d bring in a boogeyman if you don’t behave. Don’t worry, just pretend you understand everything I say and if I ask you something just say anything.” Then professor Radović came into the class together with the school principal. The students knew what it meant since rumors flew fast at school and they generally favored the eccentric philosophy professor who really did give them freedom to do whatever they wanted in his class while he was reading his books at the desk in the last row. As for the lectures, he delivered only one during the first class; he briefly explained what science of philosophy was and what it dealt with and added that he couldn’t make anyone interested in it. He then showed us the textbook explaining that it contained the basics and if anyone was interested he would be there for us to answer any questions, ‘just see me, I’ll be sitting here at the last desk.’ And his classes were exactly like he said; I’d sometimes come to him and ask a few things (like where was the error in Zenon’s example about a turtle and a rabbit, the fact that the rabbit would never reach the turtle since it seemed that despite of Zenon’s convincing proof there must have been some error involved). He would patiently and passionately explain things not paying attention how long it took him to answer all the questions even the most stupid ones that had nothing to do with philosophy as a science since he’d constantly remind us ‘that it’s important to ask questions, the answers are less important.’ So the party secretary and school principal came to check the teaching capabilities of a Ph.D. who was by the way translating philosophical works from five different languages (two of which dead) and who had published two collections of contemplative lyrics. Travar stood in front of the blackboard and started his class in fluent ancient Greek writing and citing the whole parts from Plato’s or Aristotle’s works on blackboard in its original form. To make things even more comic all kids pretended to understand everything he said, nodding their heads and paying full attention to the lecture. Travar was talking in dead languages and after each point made he’d turn to the math professor asking: “Is that right, Radović?” Occasionally he’d address the school principal (who was also a history teacher) too: “What’s your opinion, principal?” He’d then make a short pause and pick the party secretary again who had started at him in disbelief: “What do you say, Radović?” At the end of the class the exhausted commission just shrugged the shoulders and asked the students what they thought of the class. They said they loved it and that it followed the curriculum plan and program, after which the secretary and principal had just left and given up on checking professor Travar again. Nevertheless, Travar had spent quite a few more years teaching as a high school (which on the socialist hierarchy was pretty low) before he finally moved to another city and republic where he got a position at the University in the Philosophy department.
The sound from The Internationale marked the end of the radio program at one am. We listened to the latest news and the report from the panel of doctors in charge of Tito’s health. Gojko leaned back in his chair staring vaguely into the distance. His rifle rested on the table and his head was falling down onto his chest. His breathing was becoming deep, in equal intervals, when he suddenly jumped looking around bewildered and he said scratching his head:
-Well, it is what it is; we can’t do anything about it. I’m going to have a nap now and you have the phone numbers of local police and the committee written if needed; the ammunition case is in the drawer but don’t use it unless absolutely necessary.
Gojko went upstairs to find a suitable place to rest. He laid his jacket across the back of the chair (as a sign that he was still there as if he’d just gone out for a short break in case someone dropped in, like for instance the police patrol who’d sometimes pay a visit to civilian guards on duty. Not to check on them but simply to kill their own time and potentially get a drink). Gojko used to dress weirdly like many of my teachers did anyway. He’d always wear the same brown suit coat with the Lenin pin on his left and the soccer club ‘Željeznicar’ on his right lapel; a square or rhomboid checkered V-neck pullover typically in gray or bluish shade, and as a rule he always had grey worn trousers, white socks, and bulky shoes with deep tongue cut. At first I thought that he had no taste (which was probably true) but I later realized that he simply wore the only decent clothes he had since he couldn’t afford to buy new ones. I lit up my ‘Marlboro’ and took a long sip of ‘Cesar’ brandy which cut through my throat instantly hitting my head. The radio was making a rumbling noise in the void frequency; it was deep into the night and I realized that I had total freedom to do whatever I wanted around the school. Being on duty was sometimes a nice thing as one could find the keys to the math professor’s office and enter it (with a flashlight of course so that no light could be seen from outside) where there would be his black bag with assignments ready for a next test, so one could write them down (which we had done once; we handed out the solutions as needed – better students were given all, those who needed a medium grade got two or three, and those who just needed to pass were only given one or two. We were not as stupid as our authorities or the complete education system for that matter, to make all students get an A in the test, so everyone was ‘served as needed’, a fair deal, like any other smart students in the world would do anyway.) One could also add a few phantom marks in the gradebook: it was actually pretty easy; simply check a calendar to see when the last time that a particular teacher conducted an oral test and if it was, say fifteen days earlier, you’d add a mark so that first the teacher would deduct a final mark based on the one you had added a month or two before the end of the term, and second you’d be spared from further quizzing. However, we were smart in this too – we didn’t add marks to ourselves but rather to each other during the time spent on duty, generally to students who were in true jeopardy of failing the year, which was usually somebody’s girlfriend or a girl you had a crush on since the good-looking ones tended to be worse students. So, it was my turn to add a “D” to my best friend’s girlfriend. I did it as soon as Gojko had left the room and luckily so, since he returned just half an hour later.
- Damn, I couldn’t fall asleep at all. I keep thinking about things.
Then he added noticing that I hastily put the bottle down:
- No, no, finish your drink. Give me one too. Do you want to sleep a little? - I can’t comrade professor. - You can’t? Maybe you wanted to write some poetry and I am on your way, right? Just joking, that’s good. I used to write poetry when I was your age too. - You wrote poems?
Back then I was so into poetry and I honestly thought that everyone was capable and should write poems, but I would have never thought in my wildest dreams that Gojko would do it too.
- Of course. You know, sky, stars, and such. And when Yuri Gagarin took off into the space I gave it all up and joined the “National Technical Rocket Section”. I’ve always been active, a little bit in the “National Section”, then in the youth movement. I also participated in the country rebuilding work actions when I had been granted a stipend but I was denied entrance to the Military Academy. I’ve always wanted to be a pilot but since I’ve never had good teeth, nor any connections, I ended up at the Pedagogical Academy to graduate as a teacher of technical education. Who cares about that but tell me – did you really drink wine and smoke in Mira’s literary section class?
- But aren’t we drinking and smoking now too? - Yeah, It’s different now though, that happened right in the school. - We are in the school now too. - Like I said, this is different.
Truth be told, during that same teachers’ session, professor Mira was accused of allowing students to drink and smoke during the literary section class. This was only partially accurate since it didn’t happen at school as we would often go to a pub after the literary meetings at school, which were kind of obligatory, and it would typically be some rotten place, a gathering spot for ‘chronic’ drunks, pensioners who’d usually play chess and dominos, students from the Academy of Arts and other youth ostensibly interested in the purpose and meaning of life and similar follies. Rumors were later spread that Mira had a relationship with one of the students. She was actually only a couple of years older than us, but that was definitely not true and by the way, she did have a boyfriend, a bearded guy who played a guitar and he’d often join us in the pub. Mira later managed to get out of teaching and got a job at the local newspaper in charge of the ‘culture column’.
I looked at Gojko. He was still waiting for the right answer.
- Yes, we once opened a bottle of champagne when we won the second place in the city competition of young poets. - That’s all right then, it was just a symbolic drink. -Yes, just symbolic, I confirmed. - And you won the second place, right? How come I’ve never heard of it? That’s good. Nonsense, I thought. What’s good about being forced to compete with poems, they make us read them on the stage of a local ‘community center’ and judges give us points like in the ice skating competition. -Yes, here is the flag we got.
And really there it was, standing on the shelf; the interim flag from the Literary Youth of the City for the second place won until the next ‘review of the youth creativity’.
-That’s great, good for you, mumbled Gojko while pouring brandy into his glass and checking his watch. It was getting a little lighter outside before the dawn.
-Are you staying till afternoon? -Yes, I am replacing my friend tomorrow, he is sick.
In fact Goran wasn’t sick at all. Just a few days earlier he had complained to me that his parents were going to the cottage for the weekend and he had to be on guard duty. Well, we were resourceful in finding ways to be alone with our girlfriends, you know, mainly in parks or apartments when someone’s parents went away, which was mostly the girlfriends’ though since if mine were away my friends would instantly show up starting a party; we could go to another room but to be truly alone with your girlfriend, that was difficult. My parents were considered to be liberal, as they say, like my girlfriend would come to listen to the records with me or something like that, and I’d simply lock the door. My parents were fine with that but other people’s parents were not and it wasn’t easy. So there he was complaining to me so I said I’d replace him, that’s OK I had nothing better to do anyway.
-Listen, Gojko said, I have to visit my father in the hospital in the morning, just for a short visit, can you stay alone for an hour or two?
- Sure, no problem, comrade professor. - Good. Now go get some sleep, I’ll wake you up in the morning.
I lay down crouched on the table. When I closed my eyes I thought I was asleep while brandy was spinning around the axis in my head; I could simultaneously hear every sound even when the radio started playing at five a.m. with the early-morning farmers’ show full of joyful sounds of kolo (circle folk dance) followed by the news and the doctors’ panel report. I could hear Gojko talking to himself: something about Yuri Gagarin and the Russians in the space, Americans who made it to the moon, fuck it, but it’s important who went first into the space and that communism will win in the space race in the end; we’ll be the first to go Mars, it’s not named a red planet for no reason after all, fuck it! Then he made a call and kept repeating the same story over again. I am still not sure what idiot was willing to listen to him babbling so early in the morning. I remember he said that in ten years our social self- governing socialist system, together with the other non-aligned nations, a future potential of human kind, would join the space research and it wouldn’t be long before Yugoslavia went into space. I’m telling you, man, you know that our ‘Orao’ (Eagle) is the best airplane in its class and the structure of ‘Galeb’ (Seagull) has been studied by both Americans and Russians and they still haven’t got a clue why this plane is so amazing and have no idea on its specifics. The next thing I could hear was just a quiet and persistent beep from the phone receiver. When I got up I saw an empty bottle of ‘Cesar’ brandy with some still leftover in a crystal glass rudely filled to the top; a phone cable stretched over the table with the receiver hanging down swinging back and forth; Gojko, purportedly covered over the shoulder with his brown suit coat together with the Lenin and soccer club ‘Željeznicar’ pins on, his head bent over the wooden chair; he was sleeping like a log and snoring and releasing wheezing sounds in gasp for breath; his rifle slid down his knees with a barrel sunken into the black parquet floor coated with resin.
I had to shake him a few times before he opened his eyes and looked at me absent-mindedly with a headache. He was staring at me not clear what was going on. His stare and silence lasted for a while. -Comrade professor, you said you had to go to hospital…
-Oh, fuck! For God’s sake…his fingers pressed somewhere in the root of his nose and he rubbed is eyes. He stumbled over to bathroom; I could hear the tap water running for quite a while.
- I am totally fucked up. These cheap drinks are the worst. I remember when I was at excursion in Leningrad, we used to drink rivers of booze like ‘Stoličnaja’ fuck it, and I’d wake up the next morning fresh like new. These drinks are all artificial, mass production industry, only nicely packaged with a bow to rob poor people.
He lifted the bottle with a cap in a shape of an antique pillar like he meant to say – look at this rubbish. He then left mumbling to himself something like ‘it’s not really the drink, it’s you, fool’.
I could hear him yelling from the hallway:
-I’ll bring some beer, which one do you like? -I don’t care; whichever you want. - Sarajevo or Niksić beer? - Sarajevo beer is fine, it doesn’t matter. - Sounds good, I’ll be back soon.
I picked up the phone out of pure boredom and called Goran at his girlfriend’s place just to wake him up and tease him that he was late for his duty. The phone rang twice when I hung up, stop this nonsense I thought. Then I called my girlfriend turning the radio off before dialing. She was still sleepy. She said she was in a disco with her girlfriend. She oddly emphasized ‘with my girlfriend’ so I asked her which one and she replied I didn’t know her. I said I knew all of her girlfriends and maybe she didn’t remember that; perhaps she was with another one but she said no, she was in a disco with Nerka and why I was questioning and doubting her? I pretended to loosen up a bit and asked her which disco she went to, who else was there, anyone interesting she met, how long she stayed, etc. The conversation dragged on and I mentioned some allegedly important incidents like when she recently checked out a guy and didn’t mind his compliments, well, she must have encouraged him to do so and she accused me of being with that crazy girl smoking pot in a bathroom at the New Year’s eve party to which I responded that I was drunk, you fool. So we argued for about half an hour or so and in the end, being tolerant and understanding, I asked if she could just tell me who she was with last night. It doesn’t matter, I trust you, and its’ perfectly fine. You can go out with a friend, not only your girlfriends, I am your boyfriend, but it’s fine, you know… And just when I had hoped that she would admit it and that my jealous masochism would be justified, she said: “Well, I told you, I was out with my girlfriend and nobody else was there (referring to her ex-boyfriend knowing who I had in mind).” And, fine, in the end I said “I love you” and she was like “Love you too”. “Really?” and she confirmed: “Really.”
I hung up. I saw that the ashtray was full of cigarette butts; I drank the leftover ‘Cesar’ from the glass when acid hit me all the way to the throat. I ran to the bathroom drinking water with from hand. Then I went out a little in front of the school; it was already sunny and full daylight, who’d say for God’s sake. People walking around with bags full of groceries from the market, carrying onion, carrots, cherries, spinach. As soon as I returned to the hallway I could hear the phone ringing like crazy. I picked up the receiver. “Here is such and such from the Committee, who is there?” a serious voice asked. I said my name and answered “I am on duty today.” “Well, why don’t you pick the phone, I almost wanted to call the police.” “Don’t worry, everything is fine, it must be that the receiver wasn’t hooked properly...” I tried to justify myself. “Okay, he said. Watch that phone and call us regularly. The situation is serious.” “Of course”, I said thinking to myself “Fuck you, it’s always something serious to you.” As I was wandering around Gojko came in carrying a bag full with beer bottles; Niksic beer.
- Have they called from the Committee? -Yes, I said. -Did you tell them where I was? -They didn’t ask about you. How’s your father? - Not good, fuck. He won’t last long. - Oh, no, that’s bad. - Well, that comes with age. And what’s life anyway – he’s stressed out – you’re here today and the next day you’re gone. Nobody can escape it. Here is the beer, you said Niksic, right? - Yes, I did, it doesn’t matter. - Actually they didn’t have Sarajevo beer. - Niksic is good too, it doesn’t matter really.
Gojko opened a beer bottle at the door frame with foam bursting all over and dripping to the floor. He then opened the second bottle. We were drinking from bottles; the beer was mild and lukewarm striking directly into the head mixed with last night’s brandy and producing a feeling of strange dullness. The bright daylight was hitting the eyes, sleepless and tired, getting heavier and more distressed as if the pure act of eyesight exhausted them.
-Let’s clean up this place a little; someone might drop in, Gojko said. I picked up the greasy paper and used it to rub the leftover onion and spilled drink. Gojko collected the empty bottles and took them outside in the garbage container so no one could see them during next day’s class. I washed the crystal glasses and brought them back to the principal’s office. Finally, I picked up the rifle from the floor; it was much heavier than it seemed while I was only watching it. -What would we do with this rifle if we were really attacked? By the time we open the ammunition case we would be killed.
- We are not alone, Gojko said seriously. Put it away.
I placed the rifle in the corner behind the glass cabinet. “Fuck your rifle. I am not going to open the ammunition case whatever happens” I thought.
-OK, we can now relax and have a beer. Want a smoke?
He asked opening another pack of blue ‘Morava’. -Sure, I said. I had run out of ‘Marlboro’ for quite a while so even ‘Morava’ sounded good. - Do you want to eat? Why don’t you go and get us some food.
Indeed, we had not eaten anything since the night before. The sandwiches I brought for the duty were eaten within an hour upon arrival.
- Like what? - Do we want pie or cevapcici? - I’d rather have pie. -Cheese or meat? - It doesn’t matter. - No, tell me, seriously, do you want meat pie?
He handed me a hundred dinar red paper bill.
- I’d rather have cheese. - Well, get both then. - Okay.
I crossed the street and entered the pie store (burekdzinica) with white tile flooring; the radio was playing some wailing folk song; a pensioner standing next to the window was breaking a greasy pie with his hands eating slowly and swallowing bites with an effort. I waited for two soldiers to order a quarter of spinach pie each when the store owner asked me: “What do you want” so I placed the order.
-Do you want yogurt? -No, thanks.
I went out with a bundle wrapped in a greasy paper; I could feel the warmth of a freshly baked pie on my palm. When I returned to the teachers’ staff room Gojko was already drinking another beer complaining about his wife who kept fucking him up and his kids who didn’t give a damn; we opened the wrap and ate the pie with greasy hands drenching it with beer.
- Yeah, said Gojko, one wants new running shoes, not any shoes mind you but only the ones with stripes, you know, like the ones you wear. The other one wants a bicycle, like where would I get that money from? I don’t steal. My wife is nagging me about everything, like this and that and why I’m not like others, she said I could have made it to the regional committee and I refused the position and if I hadn’t I could have become the school principal by now and maybe we would have got a new apartment. I have no idea why she thinks I refused the position, I was only nominated and they elected someone else. And how does she know what we discuss in the meetings, anyway? Yes she is the party member but in a different organization, she teaches in elementary school, we are both in education, you know. Fuck, it’s not easy, trust me. And here’s my father falling apart. Cancer, fuck it; there’s no hope to save him; if only I had some money to bribe doctors and nurses to help him but, no, fuck. Yes, I do have a brother in Germany who said we didn’t have to worry about funeral cost, he’d cover it all. Like he is a gentleman now and he wasn’t even able to graduate from elementary school; he’s the street cleaner now and makes more money in a day than I do in the whole month, what a fuck.
- Yes, yes, I nodded my head sympathetically.
Then the phone rang. Gojko picked it up. His face turned white and his hands started shaking. His voice was trembling as he tried to say something but he only muttered “Yes, I understand”. And after he listened for a bit he repeated the same “Yes, I understand.” - Is it your father? I asked bashfully.
No, it’s worse. Much worse, Gojko kept walking around the teachers’ staff room nervously.
- Go out, you fool, put the flags down!
I ran out into the school yard plateau where three flags were flying on three masts: federal, republic, and the party one. I loosened the rope and slowly lowered the tri-colored Yugoslav flag with my greasy hands. It was already completely silent. Just a random passer-by who hadn’t been aware of the news would walk around confused by a sudden change in the sounds of the city; a car here and there would zoom by with squeaking sound of brakes. An officer ran out of the building closing the pistol belt and hastily putting on his officer hat; a woman crouched on the pavement in tears; leeks and lettuce spilled all over the street. As I was lowering the third flag an older man approached me in puzzlement:
- Hey, boy, what’s going on? Why are you lowering the flag? - Comrade Tito died. - Oh, fuck! What are we going to do now? - Just go home – I told him as I felt like I was a kind of official in the circumstances.
I walked back to school. Gojko was already standing there with a rifle over his shoulder.
-What should I do?
-Stay by the phone. The committee will give us instructions.
I went back to the teachers’ staff room. A drawer was open; a torn cardboard case on the table. Gojko had already unpacked the ammunition.
There’s only one thing that remains unresolved, the one about Zenon: like Dr. Travar once explained, the error was in interpretation of time. Zenon saw time as a series of dots, to say like in Euclidean fashion. Dotted time does not exist and it was nice to believe the contrary, but any fool is now perfectly clear that a rabbit would always outrun a turtle.
