The Big Water

Kejtin’s illness, the strange healing

Dreams were his illness. Curse me, dreams. He wasn’t happy when they freed him. I saw how difficult it was for them to drag him out of the cellar. He wanted them to leave him there, leave him to the mice. Curse me, to the mice. He looked even more mournful, more alone. Alien. Distant. As soon as he adjusted his sight, he fell onto the ground as though mowed down. Curse me, he was dead.

“Kejtin is dead!”

“Kejtin is dying!”

“Kejtin has died!” the children were screaming, all at once, all over the Home, the scary news spread.

“Kejtin no longer is alive!”

There was no way I could understand it at all. Curse me, if ever I believed in such a thing, in those liars. How can the son of Kejtin not be alive, I thought, how can he be covered by the earth, lying still, not moving; there was no way I could understand that his heels would be wiped clean in a funeral ritual, even less could I believe that he would not be laughing. Curse me, a laugh. What would happen with the day, the night, the sun, with the stars, the wind, the water, everything, everything on the earth would become deaf, a waste. I could not understand how he could endure such calm, the earth, to not fly, to not think, to not travel.

“Liars!” I wanted to shout to them all. “Cursed liars!”

The bell rang. Curse me, death. In an hour the whole assembly line in the Home was destroyed, all of a sudden you saw children running from all directions, kind, stupid, reckless they’ll smash open their heads, everyone wants to see his death. Curse me, the death of Kejtin. Oh God, God, evil children!

He was laid out, dead, motionless in the dusty, red-hot dust of the yard.

Death.

For a while that frightening image, that hard realisation, calmed down even the wildest and the most troublemaking children. That was the first time we could so closely, so realistically see our own death. The death of a child. Frightened by that thought, made wise without a word, by something even more powerful than words, it was totally unfamiliar, that unseen thought circled above our heads; you could see that warning had the strength to influence everyone present, at once they were stunned, mute, saddened. Curse me, servile. The deceased would need a white sheet so the sun would not burn him, and a sheet was brought straight away. The deceased needs a handkerchief to wipe the blood from his lips, and with tears, comrade Olivera Srezoska hands up her own. Curse me, she is crying. I swear, I saw, I saw.

“Oh, poor boy!”

“What a talented, strong boy was Kejtin!”

“Yes, he had strength!”

“There was something uncommon in him, something else, human! He was not an ordinary young man, no!”

“Yes, yes! He was a talent, energetic, brave!”

“He wasn’t afraid of anything, he endured everything!”

“Oh, fate!”

Curse me, that was what was said until the first handful of earthy and then those same tattlers would start at once out loud to snigger, and they would not fail to say:

“Well, at last his end came!”

“Dear God, it was time. There was no life in him!”

“Yes, yes! Now we are saved, what is done is done, may he rest in peace.”

“May God forgive him his sins, but he was asking for it! He earned himself an end just like this, he was a great good for nothing, stubborn, hard headed, always acting important, proud, superior. There was something devilish living in him, evil. He was like that, frightening. Bad blood, impure.”

“What if he comes back to life,” someone spread a rumour calmly, idiotically, and all of the voices went quiet, as though under command.

The Home doctor was awaited, uncle Sile Nikolovski. He will cut short the uncertainty. Uncle Sile Nikolovski got there quite quickly. He was sleepy eyed, they’d got him out of bed, he came in his slippers, without shoes, just as he happened to be. Just as he’d closed his eyes because he had a headache, he’d had a difficult operation the day before in the hospital and he still could not free himself from it. He’d had to take out someone’s wind pipe (a young man), there’d been no other alternative, a pear had got into his wind pipe. After fifty years when they see the way we heal, he said, they’ll say it was a slaughter house, butchers. Curse me, butchers. He was under a powerful impression from the event. It was obvious it had really hit him, he just kept complaining. And always, after such an excitement, other feelings quickly emerged, he was transported to the war. The event tied him with similar such events in the battle and it was impossible then to stop him, the patient can die; he’ll retell it all, in detail about the frightening storms of the war.

“Oh dear children, be happy that that cursed war finished! Throats were cut, my little birds! Butchery, butchery! Once it was in Slivovo, in the partisan hospital, once at Slavej, once in Aegean Macedonia, then Bogomila. Oh, dear children! I am telling you that was butchery... The backpacks were placed up on donkeys, we got lost, we found ourselves on a little hill, the poor little donkeys slipped on the hill, it was Winter time, the people rolled down into a gully, landing on their heads, on their crowns. Hey, hey, hang one, comrades, comrade Marko says to them, your names will be written with golden letters in history, long live freedom, long live the Revolution! Oh, dear children! There was no other choice... an operation had to be done in that very spot, take the axe, Siljane Nikoloski, comrade Marko ordered me, come on, what are you looking at me for! Come on, save the people!”

(Maybe they were our fathers. Curse me, our fathers.)

It was only at such a time, when he met our looks, that uncle Sile Nikoloski, curse me, would pause. He would shake his head and as if it was nothing, with a smile would say:

“Stories, stories, dear ones! Don’t listen to the fool,” he would use the biggest insult for himself, and only then would he return to the present event. Dreamy, taken, shaken, he muttered “Ah, what’s swallowed up the boy?”

Dear God, I was shaken. If he grabs him by the wind pipe, I thought, poor Kejtin, my poor friend. Curse me, uncle Sile Nikoloski had such strong healthy hands. It was enough for those hands to touch where it hurt you, once or twice, and you would immediately be healed. He would soften your bones, as though he’d healed you with the best medicine. Sometimes, uncle Sile Nikoloski was used for other things too, but that wasn’t his fault. He helped with the various functions in his own way, as they say, he cured, by sight. I still remember everything, how they carried away some of the older residents. Curse me, in any way. A general, visual examination would be organised, by sight with uncle Sile Nikoloski from child to child, he would stop at the unfortunate one and say:

“Now, young man, somehow you look really unwell to me. You have dark circles under your eyes, go on into the hospital with you so we can see what’s going on with you, how it is, in case it is something infectious, dangerous. To check it, little bird.”

After that, we already knew, it was bad luck for the ones who were transported to the hospital. For him, there was no coming back. Those poor people never gave themselves up, they fought until the last drop of strength was spent, they called:

“Don’t give in, brothers! No!”

In that moment I prayed to God for just one thing, strength to uncle Sile Nikoloski, don’t let them take Kejtin to the hospital. When they turned Kejtin on his front, we saw his staring eyes, his lips forcefully pressed together, frothing. With a little blood.

“He’s already set off, may God forgive him his sins,” said Sile Nikoloski. “Put him in bed, it’s all finished with him!”

“What if some medicine were given to him?” said the dear Headmaster, I swear, he said just that, medicine.

“What medicine, Ariton Jakovleski?” said uncle Sile Nikoloski. “It would be wasting the pills, it’s all finished for him, brother. How are you going to save him if it’s from some herb or some black magic, or if some spirit has taken him! No, no, it won’t go for long, Ariton Jakovleski. By tonight, at most by morning. Look at him, skin and bone, his whole little body will fall apart, one bone after another, each of his little bones will crumble, that’s what the illness does. If some wonder happens and he survives, it will be a horrible image. For show, Ariton Jakovleski. It is better for him to get his affairs in order a bit earlier. (He was thinking of the soul, curse me, Kejtin’s soul.) If by some chance he ends up alive, he will be blind, maybe deaf, but I guarantee you with my life that he will be mute!” Curse me, he will be mute, that’s what uncle Sile Nikoloski said.

Still, mine and Kejtin’s greatest hope was hidden in that black prediction by our Home doctor. We knew, curse me, we all knew, from experience, that if uncle Sile wrote off someone’s life, you could expect the best to occur, the person would live for another 100 years. I swear, if Sile Nikoloski gave you the worst scenario, you wouldn’t be afraid of it, you would be 100 per cent certain that God would relent, it would pass. Be afraid if he tells you otherwise; in that case you will not get up. Knowing this, knowing Sile Nikolovski could be counted on to always get it wrong, that was the biggest hope.

“He will get better, he will!” I was ecstatic, curse me, I went mad with happiness, I shouted “He will get better!”

And the dear Headmaster, and the others from the administration acted as though they had not heard me, they passed over this, my crazy outburst without a word.

Kejtin’s illness totally captured me. I saw neither when Spring nor when Winter came. I think that his illness was shared with me. Curse me, joint. Obviously, some evil, scary fever, fear, had burnt his soul. His whole face, his head, hands, feet, all over he had dark little red spots. For so many centuries he did not open his eyes. He lay in a dream, in some strange long dream. Curse me, his illness lasted a thousand centuries.

The salvation came suddenly from an unexpected quarter. In the Home a sweet, irreplaceable being lived, the wife of Ariton, Verna Jakovleska. Only rarely would you see her outside the little room in which she lived, closed in, quietly. Some said that the old woman was not all there, a little confused, the dear Headmaster keeps her under lock. In the war, her only son had been shot so, it meant that the dear Headmaster had had a son. Curse me, a son. They thought up other things too, but no-one had seen her face close up, she lived like a bat, like a nocturnal bird. Her presence in the Home wasn’t known about for a long time, as though she didn’t live amongst us, among people. We saw her for the first time that night by the water, then she seemed to me to be unreal, a shadow, a spirit. Now all of a sudden, she unexpectedly appeared in our sleeping hall. It was bed-time, we’d just put the blankets onto our beds. When she appeared at the door of our sleeping hall all of a sudden, all of us, every single one remained still, as if nailed to the spot. Certainly we were frightened by her unexpected visit, her scary appearance. We remained frozen at whatever we were doing, our hands were paralysed, with silent eyes we looked on this unusual dark woman. She was all in black. Curse me, black. She reminded us of something scary, of the death we’d seen in the yard. Seeing our confusion, she also remained on the threshold, uncertain, for a time, and during that time it was as if she was changing her mind. But then she seemed to remember something important and quickly, quickly she set off to Kejtin’s bed. At the end of the sleeping hall, in the comer. Curse me, she knew. Curse me, she threw herself at his little bed, we saw that she put a hand on his forehead, she gently stroked his injured face.

“My dear,” she said so softly, so gently that we were electrified. Just then we were freed from the stiffness, from the scary ice, we saw she was a mother, Kejtin’s mother. Curse me, our mother. Her hands were noble, her eyes sweet, and full of light, her voice soft and familiar, motherly, she woke him, “Dear son, dear son,” she said to him.

Curse me, we recognised the voice at once. It was in us, oh, the unforgettable voice of our mothers. That was the unfamiliar voice which called to us day and night, which led us to the Senterlev Mountain. Oh, if only that moment could be continued into eternity! I prayed, if sometime something can be held onto, then let it be the love of our mother. Oh, God, all of that was beautiful, scary, real, unreal, unique, close, painful. Curse me, mother. After the sun, surely the brightest light in the world is in a mother’s eyes, her immeasurable love. Oh, that unique, irreplaceable love, I swear. In his scary dream he heard her, her voice woke him, with parched lips, in a dream, in magic, in a trance, he said:

“Mother, my dear mother!”

I swear, at that moment his sick eye flashed. For the first time that day I saw in his eyes a shiny drop, curse me, he was crying. The son of Kejtin was crying, he was crying in his way, with sparks in his eyes, like he did everything in his own way. Kejtin, friend, I wanted to hug him, to never let him go from my arms. He was a still child, just like all the children in the Home. I swear, he was a child even though he could think like a devil and even though he could behave like an adult. I saw that he was a real and unfortunate child and that in his chest beat a crushed, young heart. Curse me, all the same he spoke, he repeated himself, he was rambling:

“Mother, my dear mother!” he asked for her over and over again, I saw, I saw, curse me, that unstoppable smile of his appeared on his face again. Curse me, he was smiling.

People, dear people, how I went crazy that day! I thought all fear had come out of me, all around I saw how the water rushed. I swear, a huge water, endlessly big hope. Curse me, hope.

Those who shouted at the tops of their voices acting like happy people, they were the biggest liars. Once I had the chance to see one such hero in action. Curse me, until then he had been very loyal to the Home and the administration. That day, I swear, all he needed was a part of a second. It was evening, after dinner, we were throwing away the rubbish, the good-for-nothing was the manager of the hygiene department. Curse me, he totally forgot about his character appraisal. This time, exactly the opposite occurred, the one who was allocated to watch us, to take care of us, the bad ones, shot through, without a word. To this day, I have never seen such a crazy, mindless escape. Certainly, he shocked the administration; certainly no-one expected such a repulsive, two-faced action. As far as the truth was concerned, it wasn’t as if you could say that anyone was overly excited; on the contrary, they said nothing, where the hell would he go, he will come back. Curse me, I prayed so much that that good-for-nothing would not come back. Soon a general revision started in relation to the character appraisals, some were proclaimed to be expired, incomplete; new ones were written. And it was right, no place remained for any sort of trust. Curse me, everything started from the beginning. The same lies, the same evil actions, the same worthlessness so that better character appraisals could be arrived at. That writing and rewriting of character appraisals lasted for centuries. That good-for-nothing really did come back, curse me, the following day, in the morning.