Zvezdan Georgievski
THE GIRL WITH THE DRAWINGS
It is almost 10 pm. The guests in the coastal restaurants gobble up their clams and shrimps. Two couples on two tables look at each other amorously, while they coyly take sips of their white wine on tap. On one of the tables, a girl is engrossed into the drawings she is drawing at the present moment, as if she has transferred into another, magical world. Three fishermen stand on the pier, guarding in vain their hooks in the murky waters. Children are running round their legs, using the last moments before their tipsy parents put them in bed. The cheerful company of a dozen young men, sitting in a circle on the emptied beach, is laughing out loud. Not far from them, a woman is laying down, as if sunbathing on the new moon.
“Look at the ship! Look at the ship!” one of the panting children around the fishermen’s legs is shouting. Nobody pays attention. They are all used to the colorful tourist ships that sail near the coast this time of the night. Some of them are decorated with fluorescent lights like Christmas trees. Various kinds of loud music are mixed on their decks.
“Look at the ship! Look at the ship!” the child is shouting. The other children stop and watch intently the dark horizon.
The girl with the drawings suddenly surfaces from her mysterious world and observes the horizon. “Oh, the ship,” she whispers and starts crying. It is the mark which makes most guests in the restaurant raise their heads and look towards the sea. And almost as if obeying an order, they all get up and stand on the edge of the restaurant terrace. And they watch the sea admiringly.
There, further away from the usual path of the tourist ships, a ship sails which looks like it was lit up by flames.
“What illumination! What a miracle of technology,” the wise gray-haired men with a pipe in his left hand comments.
“I want you to take me to this ship. I want to be on it,” a girl, covered in a transparent lace gown, through which her bikini is clearly visible, addresses the men in shorts standing next to her. “Of course, honey, of course,” her partner answers without much will or enthusiasm.
“They are taking a night swim,” someone who has a good vision notices. And, indeed, if you concentrate well, you can notice dark shadows jumping off the ship. But the ship does not stand still. It moves slowly, but it does move. And it leaves red traces on the dark water.
The fascination with the unusual ship ends quickly. The people return to their wines, fish, and octopuses. The fishermen check their hooks in vain.
Only the girl with the drawings is sobbing inconsolably. “Oh, the ship. Oh, the ship.”
That same night, the local television broadcasts the news that a ship sailing from port A to port B caught fire. There are 14 victims, and 17 persons are declared missing.
The following day was declared a day of mourning. The tourist ships did not sail. There was no music in the restaurants.
Only the girl continued to draw her imaginary world in silence.
DEATH IN SARANDË
- Where are you going? – my wife asks, watching me pack the bag.
- I’m going to Sarandë – I say. – Today I saw Death on the market in Aerodrom.
- Nonsense – she says. – It couldn’t have come for you.
- Whatever – I answer. – I have to eat those clams again.
I enter the Punto and I set off to Sarandë. My wife goes to the market in Aerodrom and sees Death.
- Why are you scaring Zvezdan? – she asks.
- I have not come for him – Death replies.
My wife and Death drink macchiato in the nearby coffee shop. They have casual conversation. At a certain moment, my wife invites Death for lunch.
- A sisterly thank you – Death says. – But I can’t. At midnight I have urgent work in Sarandë.
(based on Somerset Maugham’s retold story “The Appointment in Samarra”)
TRANSLATED BY:
KALINA MALESKA
Rene Karabash
OSTAJNICA
DHANA
when I was born I realised son meant something good because mommy once told me my dear girl you’re pretty as the son and the son was shining then so it must be something good
Bekija, go fetch the sandpaper, it’s in the cabinet above the wash basin, next to the razor, this dovecote won’t get built by itself, he would shave at this wash basin every day, then he would swab his face with the towel, he would slowly wipe the razor on it, carefully, both its sides, as if he were sharpening it, then would stick it into a crack in the wooden frame of the window, there isn’t much sun in Albania, it’s rather foggy, you can see for yourself, that day, for once, there was sun, I went into my father’s room, the sandpaper was there, in the cabinet, I took it and looked into the small round mirror over the wash basin, the sun was shining for the first time that year, I saw my father’s razor sticking out of the window frame, its slim shadow fell on my face like a moustache, dark and clammy, a moustache that curved downwards, I saw myself into the mirror, I felt the coolness of the razor above my upper lip, my arm rose of its own accord and my rosy fingers, the fingers of a child, touched it, it is hard to say what I felt, it was some kind of force or joy, I can’t explain it but I wanted my dad to see me like this
it was like putting on a new piece of clothing which fits you and it’s neither too big, nor too small, it just fits you, I stood still, the blue curtains behind my back billowed, a pale moustached boy was staring back at me from the window, he looked like Skanderbeg, the hero, once mommy showed me a picture taken before I was born, she and my father together in front of the monument of the great Albanian hero Skanderbeg in Tirana, the only time they left the village after I was born they went to the wedding of a cousin of my father’s and
someone’s knocking on the window and my body shudders, I thought it was my father, at the window instead was the great-Granddaughter of Granny Canê from the neighbouring street, the girl lived in Bulgaria and came to the countryside for the summer holiday to visit her grandma, she was my age but much more beautiful and taller, no one played with her because she never said anything, Dhana with the translucent skin is standing at the window and smiling at me, her teeth are white, I can still see them, milk and shame, broad as shoulders, embraced me and moved me a step aside from the wash basin, the moustache clung to the blue curtain behind me, I could still feel it but it was now behind my back, like a presence, like a relative who was making me feel ashamed and I wanted to hide it from her, and she was staring at me with her white teeth, I didn’t know what to do, whether to ask her what are you staring at, stupid, or to smile at her, I swallowed hard, my throat was dry, Dhana, come back home right away, Bekija, where are you, come on, quick, the sun will hide soon, I looked at the door, then I moved my eyes to the window but Dhana was no longer there, only her silhouette was still there, in the retina of my eyes, like an icon in the frame of the window, I clutched the sandpaper and left the room, I could still see her silhouette wherever I looked, I squeezed my eyes shut then opened them wide to see her again but Dhana was getting smaller and smaller every time until, in the end, she turned into a small dot which I last saw on my father’s forehead
TRANSLATED BY:
IRINA IVANOVA
Boris Dežulović
WHO GIVES A FUCK ABOUT A THOUSAND DINARS NOW
Papac, on the other hand, was a volunteer, a member of the CDC, a champion.
Together with Čep, he was in Vukovar, at a time when there was still talk in Blagajevac that the Yugoslav
People's Army should arrest all of those scumbags and establish a confederation, like Switzerland.
There, in the hell of Vukovar, Papac and Čep were wounded, and based on that story, the legend of the
heroes of Blagajevac in Vukovar was created in their hometown, because of which everyone in the town
went out of their way and were paying them tours with drinks.
What they didn't know in Blagajevac was that Papac and Čep were actually in Vukovar just five days
before the first shell fell on the city, that they received four lunches there, including two pairs of deep
shoes from the Borovo program and emblems of the 204 th Vukovar Brigade, that during those five days
slept in a school together with a few dozen people from Hercegovina and were waiting for something,
that no one actually knew what that was, that in the end instead of a ‘stinger’ or a ‘wasp’, Papac
borrowed some ancient van and that the special task in which he and Čep were wounded was actually
them driving a van full of dirty military underpants and socks to the dry cleaners in the Dalmatian street.
What Papac and Čep didn't know was that the old van was of English manufacture: that vehicle proved
more important than it would have been in anyone else's life. In theirs, Čep was sitting in the passenger
seat and rolled the window all the way down, and as the Vukovar road was hot, he put his hand out the
window to cool off, as people far more intelligent than Čep usually do in the summer in passenger seats
in all the cars in the world - in all but the English ones. Because in all English vehicles – including English
vans - the passenger sits on the left side. And Čep, who had never thought about anything in his life,
could hardly be expected to start thinking exactly then and only about this. Thus, on European roads,
where one drives on the right side with one's hand extended out of the window from the passenger
seat, in an English van, more often than not (and how often could driving an English military van on
Slavonian lanes be) one could risk, for example, to hit at full speed into a rearview mirror of an Audi
coming from the opposite direction, and the driver could not keep it and could lose control of the
vehicle because of the strong impact and the scream of the unfortunate man in the left seat. And in the
end, the old van, full of greasy mud, engine oil, old tires and military underpants, ‘danced down’ the
alley, hit a post with an advertisement for a vulcanizing workshop and ended up in a ditch.
Papac and Čep were taken to the hospital in Osijek - Čep with a concussion and all the fingers on his left
hand broken, and Papac with all bones in his body broken - returning to Blagajevac after a few months,
crowned with the glory of Vukovar heroes who they died defending the city from the Chetnik aviation.
When and how exactly that aviation story began, no one knows, much less cares. Papac and Čep came in
plaster casts and whenever someone asked them what actually happened in Vukovar, they would simply
answer that they were wounded on a special mission. At first, the reason was the shame of admitting
the truth about the stupid accident of the van full of smelly men's socks. The lie about the wounding
would have been much easier to come up with if only one of them had been in the van - so at any given
time there was at least one other person in Blagajevac who knew the truth.
On the other hand, with their silence and mysterious looks when asked how it all happened - Papac
mysteriously whispered "it doesn't matter", while Čep shook his head to simulate a concussion - they
only fueled the legend of Papac and Čep, the heroes of Vukovar drama who are reluctant to talk about
those days. And the few who knew before the war how to sometimes make fun of Čep's short stature
and even lower IQ were now buying him drinks and avoided the jokes about Čep and the goldfish.
Nenad Saponja
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF GRAVITY
Come Back:
Because in Returning One Exists
Easily, yet wickedly,
everything we don’t want happens.
Sharp and clear,
I stare
at the very stuckness,
at the confusion between you and me.
I follow the deepest silence
in which you walk.
I follow the elusive
and lasting transience.
I regularly measure
the duration of events
after they have occurred.
I feel around for the point
where things move.
My ineffability,
heedless,
I’ll ask you where I am
and where I’ve been.
Because I did everything
to expose nothing
and nothing hid
me from me.
My Geography:
It’s Called Psychology
I transcribe the sounds of time,
porous and reliable all at once.
How old do you need to be
to remain young forever?
Yet how easy it is to fall asleep
and not wake up.
To be within yourself and on your own.
In complete safety,
because that’s where everything is.
Who Owns the Space:
Through Which I Move
In the midst of childhood,
in this skin and body,
that is fifty-five years old
I move around the world
with the eyes and mind of a five-year-old.
No one believes me.
But everyone’s prepared to hurt me.
We always go where we’ve already been.
And all that was still only
the moment’s temptation.
The one
in which you
can’t find me,
not any form,
nor in the notion of initiated intimacy!
The Psychology of Gravity
You’ll be enchanted.
And disappointed.
You will be.
And you won’t.
Intangible.
But present.
My body is a bomb.
Someone else holds the fuse.
Violeta Tančeva-Zlateva
BELA SAMA
* * *I found the diary from the year I was born. But it seems Mum rarely wrote in it, and when she did, it was hurried and fragmented – passages without dates. There are brief notes about her pregnancy, a little about my birth and the miracle of life, then suddenly, it's about my first steps and the walks in the park and around the apartment with Grandma Nevena. She mentions problems enrolling me in kindergarten, the construction of our house and weekends spent in the village… I felt disappointed. I expected much more – something as rich and detailed as the albums filled with photos of me growing up. But instead, I found barely twenty written pages. But as I bite the inside of my cheek and wrestle with my vanity, I remember her words: “It’s nice to write about life, Bella, but it’s much more important to live it. Because everything that happens, happens only once. There are no replays.”
* * *
How little we know our parents. How little we talk to them about what truly matters. Until we become adults ourselves, it seems as though they have no life outside of parenthood. Maybe I’ll be like that one day. If I have a child, I’ll probably feel uncomfortable telling them about my life before they were born. I might fear they would suddenly see me as a bad person, unworthy of being a role model in their life. I’d fear the judgment in their eyes, the coldness and distance in their voice. I might delay those conversations, thinking things will reveal themselves in time or that parts of my life aren’t relevant to them now, that they need to build their own path independently. Is it possible for a mother’s life and a child’s life to remain separate, to unfold on two different paths, flowing in completely independent directions? They are like two distinct pieces of cloth, but sewn together in the middle, fused to create something new, different and more beautiful.
* * *
When I climb the hill above our house, I see the cemetery on the other side. Two and a half years ago, when people started dying from COVID, the village bought Grandfather Boris's large field, which stretched just behind the small half-ruined wall of the old cemetery, so they could expand – to accommodate the new residents of the underground. The earth devours us insatiably, yet remains hungry. We reluctantly return to her and she gathers us generously in her arms, like children she once let out to play, only to call them home when night falls. The homes of death are scattered across the slope. "Cemetery" – a word that carries the weight of death itself, the scarecrow meant to terrify us. Everyone tries to avoid death, to delay the inevitable meeting as long as possible. Healthy diets, supposedly natural nutritional supplements, expensive oils and creams, massages, sweating in gyms, smoothing wrinkles, plastic surgery, fillers, Botox, organ transplants, transfusions of young blood, witchcraft – people will do anything, anything at all, to stay young for just a little longer. To hide the signs of old age, that traitor leading us to death’s door. I’m not afraid of her – death. What I fear are human scarecrows. I fear the death of the soul. As for death herself... I know her. I’ve already managed to tame her. We are friends. She breathes in every cell of my body. What truly frightens me is my personal darkness. The darkness hidden deep within me, waiting for its moment to leap out and consume me.
TRANSLATED BY:
PAULINA JAMAKOVA-PEJKOVA
Mike Downey
ISTRIA GOLD
The letter was from Janey.
He’d recognized the girlish curlicues of an unsteady hand on the
envelope straight off. No one understood better the level of betrayal
that had taken place more than Marco. But it still wasn’t enough
to know what it had done to Janey. Deep down in her being, this
level of betrayal meant that she would never be able to trust another
human being again. Ever. He took another slug of the Misterioso,
fastened his literal and metaphorical seat belt, and dug in for what
was going to be a bumpy flight. He opened the envelope and pulled
out the lined A4 sheet.
Dear Matt:
Actually, I don’t know what to call you because I have been in a
relationship with a completely different person for the last two years.
In all this time you have been the centre of my world, my alpha and
omega, my everything – and yet you didn’t really exist.
I suppose this is what they must mean when they say that life is an illusion.
The weird thing is I can’t stop loving you. But I know I must. Because
of what you have done to me, I can now never trust my own judgement
about anything ever again.
Can you even begin to imagine how that feels?
I know you as Matt and if you are the same person as Marco or
whatever it is your real name is, I know that nothing I say can hurt you as
much as you will be hurting yourself about this. And believe me. I would
really like to hurt you.
Matt, I had nothing to do with what happened at your place tonight.
This is something that the guys have started, and they will persecute you
until they feel they have had their pound of flesh and have ruined your
life as best they can.
I will stop loving you. I just don’t know when.
Never contact me again.
Nothing can come of nothing.
Janey
Then the tears came freely, like a silent rain. No noise. Not
tears of self-pity. Just loss. A gaping sense of emptiness came
over everything.
With tears.
The blue-uniformed Ryanair stewardess whisked past him.
‘Another one in the Mile Cry Club,’ she quipped loud enough for
him to hear, and went on her way to the galley.
She returned two minutes later with tissues.
‘Here you go, my darling,’ she said quietly in his ear, ‘take a deep
breath. Have another glass of wine and try to stop before we land in
half an hour. I can lend you some of my make-up if you want.’
Marco looked up and smiled. Sluiced back the tears and slush.
And pondered on the moment. A moment made more magnificent
by the fact that in a quarter of a century flying on Ryanair, man and
boy, this was the first genuine act of human kindness he had ever
received from anyone working in the fleet. It made him almost want
to cry again. But, as was often with Marco, he turned adversity into
humour, saw the funny side, and pulled himself together. And had
another glass of red.
*****
‘ENGLISH MOTHERFUCKER!!!!’
The first words that Marco heard above the din of arrivals in the
terminal as he came through customs and out on to the welcome
area at the Friuli Venezia Giulia Airport.
‘Where have you been, you dirty English Serb Motherfucker!!!’
At once he was lifted into the air by a bearded bear of a man, spun
round in a sweeping jive-like dancing movement, and put down
again with three very large kisses on the cheeks, followed by, quite
literally, a bear hug.
‘Three times for Serbs!’ boomed Zvonko, Marco’s best friend from
childhood, as he presented three more loud, smacking kisses on his
friend’s cheeks. His brother, his minder, his keeper. His only friend.
The only man he ever loved. And when he wanted to be (which was
often) a complete and utter lovable pain in the arse. His parents had
wanted to call him Zeljko – the child that is desired – but after the
first 48 hours he was so noisy and larger than life that his parents
changed it to Zvonimir, or Zvonko – loud like a bell.
‘Good to see you, brother,’ said Marco, catching his breath.
It was turning out to be an eventful morning.
‘How did you know I was coming?’
‘The old man. He called me. I was in Motovun sleeping one off
at Kaštel. And how could I resist coming to pick up my little baby
brother from the airport?!’ He picked Marco up again and spun him
round. A small crowd was gathering.
Marco stood back to take in the full scene that was Zvonko.
Three-piece suit. Grizzled beard. Two metres tall. Big sunshine
smile.
‘Let me look at you,’ said Zvonko, giving Marco the once over.
‘Let me look at you!’ said Marco, looking him up and down.
‘Zvonko: is there something you want to tell me? Are you going to
make me an uncle? Twins, maybe?’
He lunged for Marco, who neatly sidestepped. Zvonko brought
himself up to his full height and extended his not inconsiderable
belly to its maximum girth. He looked at Marco, pointing. and
swung his hips, as much for the crowd as for Marco, and said: ‘Girl,
this isn’t a beer belly – it’s a fuel tank for my love machine!’
‘Right,’ interjected Marco, ‘it’s time to get out of here. Where are
you parked?’
‘Out front. Come on, move it. I got your bag. We’re just in time
for drinks in Grožnjan, lunch in Motown, and dinner back home.
It’s about time you and I had a proper catch up. There’s lots to tell.
Not all of it good.’
Vladimir Pištalo
MILLENNIUM IN BELGRADE
CHAPTER 2
Transformation
Belgrade rock-‘n-roll was never as good as it was after the
death of Josip Broz Tito. With his eternal love and hate for Marija,
my friend Bane Janovic kept putting together New Wave bands
like Acoustic Shadow, Youthful but Fat, Crippled with Fear, and
Kafka’s Fiancés.
With the advent of New Wave, such energy was unleashed on
Belgrade that even its statues were startled. A lot of excited chatter
spilled out into the streets. There was a spark in every eye. I could
say: This is mine. This city is finally mine. This is something from
my world.
It all started when Bane Janovic found a medal of valor from
World War II. He flicked his Zippo lighter open and heated the
needle. He pinched his breast and pinned the medal through his
skin. He ground his teeth and said: Let’s go! Bane succinctly defined
his music thus:
1) I’m desperate.
2) I have no girlfriend.
3) I can’t play music.
4) There are many who can, but they have nothing to say.
5) I have something to say, but I don’t know how.
Until they learned how to play, Bane and Marija recited texts
from a primary reader, accompanied by a drum machine. They
embraced the Zenith avant-garde movement from the twenties,
parodied Socialist Realism and pop songs from the sixties. Crippled
with Fear fell apart just before they were about to record an album.
The best keyboard player in town left the group in order to
dedicate himself to black magic. They had to phone a friend in
Zagreb to cancel a gig at the Kulusich Club. When Kafka’s Fiancés
became a fixture on the scene, Bane started to mug for photographs
in Jukebox Magazine.
“There’s a dearth of reality in our town,” he stated in an interview.
“I can’t stand other people,” he said in another one. “Because
they are the Other, and anyway – why should I…”
“Do you consider yourself famous?” they asked him.
“I am famous when I’m happy,” he responded in the words of
Ian Dury.
On a May evening in 1982, Kafka’s Fiancés played in a little
squat castle-like building which once was called the Officers’ Club.
Seventy-nine years before, Dragutin Dimitrijevic Apis and his
co-conspirators left that same building on their way to assassinate
the Serbian King Aleksandar Obrenovic and his wife Draga Masin.
Kafka’s Fiancés tore it up at the very place where, at one point, the
members of the Black Hand organization pledged their vows.
Whenever I think about Bane and Marija, I remember the name of
their first album: How Many of Them Do We Have and What?
The Kafka’s Fiancés bassist’s hand reminded me of a paw of a
dog scratching itself. In the cloud of stage fog, the drummer was
barely able to pound his kit. Wearing a jacket with padded shoulders,
Bane looked like Frankenstein. He was standing in the circle
of a spotlight. He straightened up and threw off his jacket. The
medal of valor from World War II shone on his bare chest. The
fans were a huge dancing faceless body. They were a black
Quasimodo. They responded to Bane with screams of encouragement.
What I witnessed looked like a mixture of macumba and a
nineteenth century Neapolitan opera. The stage became a magical
site of transformation. The soles of our feet tingled from the powerful
loudspeakers. The bass shook our kidneys.
In the circle of spotlight, Bane started to twitch his shoulders.
He moved his feet more from nervousness than from the music. I
sensed he was struggling for control over his body and was slowly
gaining it. At one point he broke the shackles of stage fright and
barked into the mic. He started to dance in powerful disjointed
movements. The fans went wild. Bane Janovic, who had been
barely able to manage his own body a moment before, now danced
through the bodies of everyone in the audience.
It occurred to me that this was what Belgrade New Wave was
all about – gaining control over oneself. I’d never seen Bane so serious
in my entire life. He was the Indian chief Crazy Horse. He
was a dervish in a swirling trance. Bane held the mic with both
hands and kept the beat with his foot. I felt pride and envy. He
dared to do what I had never dared to do. He dared to be himself.
On the stage, Bane turned into a fire walker. He became a prophet
who opens the skies with his gaze and the springs with his heels.
Behind him, smoke billowed. The most beautiful and frightening
thing in this world billowed through him. As I watched him at the
concert, I realized that all the institutions of this world are merely
security fences built around charisma. That prophetic power can
turn a desert into an oasis, heal the crippled, wake the sleeping, fill
eyes with tears…
The floodlights changed, and Bane’s color changed. Now he
was green like the spirit of peyote. Was that the man I grew up
with? Shivers went down my spine when Marija stepped on the
stage with her saxophone. She too was transformed.
Bane looked tragically serious. His bosom with the medal of
valor swelled with pride. Sweat ran down his temples. He quit
singing and looked only at Marija. She raised the saxophone and
blew. It sounded like Behemoth’s whistle in The Master and
Margarita. She blew and raised tempestuous winds. She blew and
the curtains ruffled. She blew into the sails of our souls. A great
wind lifted us. Marija bent backwards like a pilot of a sailboat and
lifted us with her saxophone. The concert hall of dancing bodies
turned into the Flying Dutchman. Marija blew into its sails and the
ship flew above the city and the world. We all believed that we
would all fly into space inhabited with iridescent, searing jelly fish,
genies and the spirits of peyote.