The Big Water

Partners in the assembly line, the dream of the Big Water

They paired me with him in line. Curse me, my friend from the assembly line. They charged me with him, they weighed me down with him. Each one of the exemplary friends was charged with such a bad boy in the assembly line. I said “exemplary”, curse me, because that is a word I hate for life. Exemplary comrade, exemplary pioneer, exemplary member of the Youth Communist organisation, exemplary citizen. Exemplary, I don’t know what else, curse me, exemplary asshole. But that was the assembly line, I swear.

It was Spring 1946, the first Spring after the war. It seems like it was 1,000 years ago. I only remember a little, it was bad weather. Snow. A gale. A big snow storm landed on the Earth and all of the trees that were in blossom were turned to ice. Turned white. And everything went silent all of a sudden, all of the precious and innumerable sounds of the Spring that had just come were gone; nothing remained of that beautiful, strong light. Ice. I remember it very well because I was wearing short Spring pants which were made of a patterned Italian rug. The snow was high, to the waist. Everything, everything was covered; blanketed.

We were a sad group of hungry and dirty children, homeless. Bad, dark little villains as the good teachers called us. Hunted down in plains, in gardens, in forests, in barns, from cliffs, in the big snow. Curse me, we would not give ourselves up. We probably did not realise that they wanted to take us to a Home, under a roof, to a bed, that they would give us hot drinks with a piece of bread and marmalade, that they wanted to do us a good turn, to provide us with every last one of those stinking things that are provided for in the assembly line. Subject to regulations, curse me. All of that was fine but we still wouldn’t give ourselves up. I tell you, all that Spring, we were hunted like little beasts by Red Cross units, teacher units and all kinds of hunters.

I must admit that I changed my mind quickly; after seven days. Curse me, I gave myself up. Okay, I said to myself, I don’t want to sadden the hearts of my uncle Ilko Kostadinovski and my dear aunt Kola Kostadinovska. Okay, I said to myself, I’d better get out of the empty bam, I’ve spent enough time with the mice. But when my dear uncle Ilo, my good uncle Ilo, saw me set off, on parting, when I put out my hand to shake his, I swear, he left his pitchfork, he had been dragging manure out of the stable, wiped his hands quickly on his knees and his shirt front, hugged me so hard I thought he would break my bones. He said:

“Leme, son! Leme my dear little nephew, I won’t say goodbye to you, I would not be Ilo Kostadinovski if I didn’t bring you back from that evil place.” He said it so loudly that even those who were down by the river could hear him; it was as though he wanted everyone to hear him. All of a sudden, my aunt ran towards us breathlessly, with my cousins, Stojna and Mara, my dear little cousins. But my uncle remained firm, at that moment he didn’t pay attention to anything, he kept hugging me closer (he must not have felt my pain) and closer, stronger and stronger, shouting at the top of his voice “Believe me, Leme, I will save you (dear God, the grey, snow-filled sky, cheerfully opening above our heads, there’s a ray of sun, and that small light, triumphant, shows us that it is Spring. Curse me, Spring). Believe me, Leme, my little nephew, I will save you.” (At that, you should have seen my aunt pricking up her ears! As though her bulging eyes were saying “What?! What?!”) “Nothing, Leme,” said my uncle softly, with tears glistening in his eyes, “Just let these hungry years pass,” he said. “You can see for yourself, Leme,” he said quietly “You can see how hard life is, it isn’t very good for anyone, son. What else can be done, you have to go to that dungeon.”

Curse me, that’s what he said “dungeon”. I couldn’t have known what that word meant then, I was simple and ignorant. At the age of twelve, I wrote my name “EM”, because I couldn’t bear to think about the letter “L” as it reminded me of something awful. I had only been to school for one year, and that was about all the knowledge I had in me. At that time, I knew very few words, I must admit, and those that I did know were terrible swear words which I can’t bring myself to write down, because I now know what they mean. When I think of the way I spoke then, curse me, I begin to sweat, I blush with shame. I swear, just at that tragic and sorrowful moment, leaving the dear manure heap, I saw a young, wild rooster with a peppery red comb, swoop like a beast onto a gentle, young hen which was gingerly poking around in the manure, and all of a sudden, without any shame, he wrapped the little hen under him, for just a second, in the wink of an eye, curse me, and it didn’t even make a sound! What a great thing, I thought, they are having it off, but those were not my words, I swear. It was my grandfather Kostadinovski who taught me those words, may he rest in peace. As a matter of fact, he would have said it if he were alive, if he were lying there, under the eaves, warming himself in the Spring sun, getting rid of the ice from his chest. Curse me, in that sort of moment, my grandfather would thaw out completely, he would turn into a blue shining drop. “Oho-ho,” he would say, waving his hands about so you would think he was about to take flight, “oho-ho, they are having it off, Leme.” I was a favourite of my grandfather’s and he was always teaching me little things. I know why the cats spend all day and night miaowing during Winter. I know about the dogs and the cows; I also know why my aunt sometimes would pat me on the head, give me a piece of bread with cheese just so that I would go outside; I also know how angry my uncle would get at my dawdling on the stairs, he couldn’t wait for me to leave the house. “I hope you choke on that bread. Go on, go!” my aunt would blurt in such moments. I swear, I know lots of things like that; things I now had to leave behind. I had to set off at once, I saw tears in my aunt’s eyes. That made me get out all the more quickly. Curse me, if I had to see that for a second longer, I thought I would die, that my heart would burst.

“Leme, goodbye, go in health, but don’t go talking about us, because it would be unfair; I have raised you like one of my own, you know. I cared for you like a little bird!”

“Oh,” I said sympathising, “Oh, dear aunt,” I wanted to say something else, but she started to cry even more forcefully, and finally I had to go. Curse me, how I wanted that moment to be prolonged, to look at that dear manure heap. I was most saddened by the gentle little chickens, I felt a terror when I realized, my God, we are parting, it’s over. I thought there wouldn’t be chickens anywhere else in the world, let alone such dear and kind chickens as these. But it would have been altogether insensitive on my part to delay, I didn’t want to sadden the hearts of my dear relatives any more. Curse me, that’s my nature, I don’t want to hang around for a minute longer than I’m supposed to. And those tears in the eyes of my aunt; I prefer laughter. Curse me, I used to be a giggler, I thought no-one could match me, I joke at everything around me! But most often, I was alone, without anyone in my life. Sometimes I think about how sweetly, how stupidly I used to laugh to myself, like some poor idiot. Curse me, I would be overcome by crazy laughter and couldn’t stop. I remember he would laugh like that too, my friend, the son of Kejtin, you will see, he would laugh his head off. Some people in the Home, and especially those on the staff who thought they knew everything, said he was a bit mad, that even he didn’t know what he was laughing about. Curse me, he did know what he was laughing about. He got the better of them all. At the end, we couldn’t bear those shit heads any more, but we did laugh. Only he could’ve thought of that thing with the tree, curse me. Oho-ho, how all of them were taken in, even the Headmaster Ariton Jakovleski. But where was I? Yes, the parting, good, those tears drowned me. I knew they were false, I knew they were impure, curse me, why would she cry when, as soon as I leave, she would attack my uncle for saying he would get me back. I swear, I saw the hostile look she gave him at that moment, if she could’ve, she would’ve impaled him on the pitch fork. Curse me, during those seven days, while I was hiding in the bam, there wasn’t a single place she didn’t send my poor uncle to look for me. I swear, they were looking under rocks and up trees. Oh God! And now, goodbye, maybe I’ll return one day to save my uncle. “Go Leme, go my dear boy,” said his unhappy face. But really, I couldn’t tear myself away from the warm, enchanting manure heap. Curse me, that was really muddying my mind, I kept thinking there was something unexpected, some sweet mystery hidden in that manure heap. Anyway, I’ll have to come back one day, I thought to myself, I swore to myself.

“Goodbye, dear cousins.”

“Goodbye, Leme! Goodbye, lovely cousin.”

“Goodbye.”

“I hope you never come back,” my dear aunt couldn’t stop herself wishing me a good trip. That was the blessing of my aunt on the third step I took. Curse me, a blessing.

I left not altogether sad, I left with a strange, unfamiliar happiness, all the way to Baska, I felt happy. I swear, the Spring sun was blazing on the snow, getting clearer, stronger. Oh, what beauty, the visibility was increasing everywhere, all around, the snow was melting, going over the plain, something warm entered me like a current, some strange, beautiful shiver shook me. Curse me, it was in Baska, I can’t forget it. It was here we were herded from all the different areas, dirty, frightful little children. It was here they burdened me with him and that’s what I wanted to tell you about.

They brought him to Baska under guard. He was a boy, a spectre, seemingly my own age but who, it turned out, was really thirteen or fourteen. He was one ugly boy, the ugliest boy, tall, thin, bent over like a willow branch, with crooked shoulders, and then, his strange, bulging eyes, as though he’d never had any sleep, as though they’d never been shut. He was barefoot, dark, ragged and I don’t know why, he was always smiling. Curse me, he winked at me; he just winked. It was as if lightning hit me. “A bit touched,” I thought to myself, and at that moment he burst out laughing, as though he could read my thoughts. Curse me, he understood. After that, he stared into the empty sky somewhere far away, he didn’t pay any attention at all to what was said about him. Curse me, at that moment, he wasn’t there, he’d travelled away. After that I saw how much he wandered, I swear I was terrified when comrade Olivera Srezoska, instructor and Assistant-Headmaster of the Home, stuck him next to me. The damned family reputation. I wanted to tell her, having responsibility for others is not my personal character, it was my father’s, but she cut me off quickly.

“Leme, this bad boy will be next to you in the assembly line,” she said. “You are responsible for him, remember that.”

This word “responsible” was new to me, too. I didn’t know it. She should’ve said, “If he runs away, Leme, I’ll beat you like a dog, I’ll put you down.” Curse me, what could I do when my grandfather was shameless and taught me such shameful and appalling things. This word, at first, didn’t remind me of anything, or if I did recall it, it was as something ugly, dog like and unmentionable.

His endless rambling made the greatest impression on me; it was as if he were a bird. At those times, his unattractive face changed, became beautiful. Curse me, all of his being would change, and a mysterious, unknown and unnoticed light seemed to shine from him. Never seen before, I swear. The teacher, old Mr Verdev, could’ve spat on his physics, that light was not found in science. It was some great, wild fortune. That’s what I thought when I watched him hastening along the road, floating away. Curse me, it was as if he wasn’t in line, as though he was not walking along that bumpy, grooved country track. I swear, as if he wasn’t on the ground. He flew as if the whole countryside, all of the plain, was his. Curse me, he was far away from that bleak, muddy plain, far away from that black column of unfortunate children, gentle as lambs.

Olivera Srezoska paid him special attention, if another child did something wrong, she would shout at him:

“Why do you sway when you walk?”

or:

“Don’t wave your arms about, walk properly,”

or again:

“Why have you raised your head so high? Why are you laughing? What are you laughing about, you ragged good for nothing? Look at yourself; lower your head. Stop laughing.”

Then, for the first time, our eyes met. He looked at me warmly, with a cheerful smile, as though he were saying “Little fool, you are afraid. This barking, old hag has scared you! I am here, don’t worry!” Curse me, he acted as though he was the one who had been made responsible for me rather than me for him.

Distrustful, I gave him a sideways glance. At once, he understood my glance and now, without hesitation he said:

“You are mad, friend. You thought that about me but you are the one who is mad!”

He said the truth, curse me, as though he was inside my head.

“Come on, little fellow,” he said then, friendly, with that same crooked smile “don’t be a child. I know about little puppies like you, they just yap.” And in the same moment, he burst into a fit of uncontrollable laughter. Curse me, nothing could stop him. He’s going to laugh for a few centuries, I thought to myself, he’ll laugh until the very last drop. I swear, he was a terrible giggler.

“Why are you laughing?” I asked him.

I thought he hadn’t heard me, but that wasn’t true. As soon as we entered the gardens he suddenly stopped, pointing toward the setting sun and said:

“There, it is there, the water. The Big Water! There it is. Look! What, don’t you believe me, comrade?” he asked affronted, and started giggling. “Okay, come on, you blind, little bird, open your eyes, look, over there, there where it is shining like a flame, there...”

He spoke with such excitement, such joy that you just had to believe him. Curse me, he saw it, he already had it in his eyes. It was wicked, inhuman not to believe him. It was as though each word was a strong sapling. All at once he ignited in me a strong fire which my heart did not recognise until then. Curse me, I fell about a thousand times and picked myself up again from that road. I looked over to the side where the sun was setting, I was looking for the Big Water.

“What can I do with you when you are blind?” he said, smiling, rushing, happily waving his arms around as though he was about to take flight.

After walking for a while, in front of us unfolded the most beautiful, the most mysterious scene in my life. The Big Water. Huge. Wondrous. Oh, God! Dear God, it greeted us with motherly eyes, with a bright, sweet look. I went dumb, I swear.

The children stopped as though on command.

“It’s coming!” cried the boys like birds.

“She will come,” an unfamiliar voice spoke to us. A woman we did not know dressed all in black was slowly coming towards us. She was the matron Verna Jakovleska, the good Verna Jakovleska.

I can still see that water. The dream of Kejtin, our dream. Curse me, our whole dream. We could walk beside the water for as many days and nights as they made us, we could walk beside the water without resting for a century. The exhaustion, the difficult road, the hunger and the thirst that were with us as we were led to the Home disappeared at once. It was as if all of our pain, all our misfortunes were melted by the good soul of the Big Water. The snow, the mountains, the burned down villages, the abandoned farms, the barren fields. It was all left far behind; all that was in us was the Big Water. The water was all around us, curse me, it was as though the Big Water was waiting for us. I swear she recognised us, she recognised us at once. It was as if her gentle voice was saying to us, “Go little ones, my little ones, here is the road, go, don’t give yourselves up.” And we went, comrades’ honour, we went, I swear on the good name of comrade Olivera Srezoska, we went.

In a line, under command. Curse me, in line. Dear mother, in line. Remember that word if you don’t want to get kicked at each step. Those who thought of such a stupid thing as the assembly line must have been beasts. And there it was, like a prize for all that was lost, like in the most beautiful dream, we stood spellbound on the bank.

The dear water. The setting sun was lying above the waves, had given itself to them. Look! Thread by thread the golden ball of the day is unwinding. In that moment the Big Water looked like an enormous loom that was quietly, wordlessly, wondrously weaving. Following some secret path, you could see it being carried to the shore. Curse me, the trees and birds that had flown to their branches were woven with gold; spider webs were wafting over the shallows. Splendid nests, I swear. It was as the same thing was happening to the people who, with a strange excitement, were now appearing, now disappearing behind closed windows. Curse me, as though they were afraid to open them. But their looks gave them away, you could see everything in their looks. The water, everything has turned into a huge wondrous loom which continuously, tirelessly, gently weaves. Before we knew it, the twinkling southern sky opened over our heads. A thousand, no countless little lamps burst into flame on the southern vault. And it seemed the lake had been waiting for just this moment, you hear how she is letting herself go, how freely, powerfully she starts to roar. Just then she is everywhere, she reigns. Oh that golden wave! I swear, that was the voice of the Big Water.

“Come on,” Kejtin said to me softly, putting his long bony hand on my shoulder. “Come on, little one,” he whispered. “Can’t you hear, she is waiting for us!”

Curse me, that was the truth. I forgot about the punishment; what meaning did even the biggest punishment have before such beauty? I didn’t ask him where, nor why; softly, without a word I set off after him, like a captive giving myself up to his lead. Like a black demon, he slid down the bank, then, like a goat, he jumped from rock to rock waving to me all the time, urging me to follow him. We climbed right up to the highest point on the peak. Curse me, the highest one.

Everywhere around, there was water and stars.

A million little stars, curse me. Their soft light set fire to the whole sky, you thought they were shining, twinkling from everywhere. They’d descended into the water, they were floating. At one time, all of the lake and its banks began to blaze, green, blue — it called out to us with a human voice, enticed us. Curse me, maybe I am imagining it, maybe it was just the gentle dark waves but that voice was truth. Maybe it was the green soul of the water, what did we know — speechless, squashed, one next to the other, we sat on the highest cliff. In a dream, under a spell. Without a word we listened to the waters roll in and retreat; how the stars were quickly multiplying in the sky and how in the morning even more quickly they melted away, turning into a fine blue dust. Oh, beautiful stars of the southern sky. We watched how the snow was disappearing from the home fields, we were returning home, curse me, home. At the door, a dear face with big, very deep eyes, blue, clear, the most beautiful eyes greeted us. Oh dear God! One wave looks like Mount Senterlev. I swear, at that moment we saw all the dear images, all the lost images returned, everything was back in its place. Everything returned, we were home. You recall even some thing which had been totally forgotten, a small thorn stuck in your bare foot, you remember how your mother had carefully worked it out with a needle, and, so that it wouldn’t hurt you too much, she blew coolly over her work, with her own breath. Oh, my dear little one, mother’s heart! You hear her voice.

Everything was there in the Big Water. Curse me, all of it was that simple and that beautiful. It was a happy time, an unforgettable time which became eternal.

“Kejtin,” I called him by name like an old friend, “Kejtin, my brother.”

“Leme,” he replied, as a friend. He patted my head, like a little puppy, he stopped the tears which appeared by themselves in my eyes and said, “Leme, little brother.”

That night a wave entered us, a wave which no-one could take from us. Such a wave stays in a person for all time, I swear.

Where did his strength come from? Many sleepless nights, many difficult days brought me only one answer, I swear, it was his human goodness. So, I’ll have to tell about it all, oh God, how he knew about the dead; he knew how to give breath to inanimate objects bringing them to life, transforming them, making them authentic. Curse me, real. One time, in the Home, many people became suspicious that his was not a human birth. He frightened them with his spirit (even though they preached most vehemently against religion). Some thought that he was the son of the evil one. Curse me, offspring of the evil one. What other explanation for his sharp pointed head, pointed shoulders? Was it some frightening, midnight coupling between an unfortunate girl and the evil spirit? He didn’t have any sort of family character record. I don’t recall him ever saying even a word about his mother, father, brothers, sisters — curse me, he never mentioned the Kejtin family. What could his family have been like? One thing was known, I swear, anyone who reached for him would then lose his strength. And it wasn’t a single incident — he could see everything that was invisible; everything that was far away, unreachable, he could have. Everything which looked firm would turn to dust at the touch of his bony hand. Lastly, was he not the one and only cause of the death of Ariton Jakovleski? Wasn’t he the one who destroyed the wall and let in the water? Curse me, he was accused of the most awful things; things he certainly never did in his whole life. So you will understand how much he had to endure; at the end, he had to pay for it in an unthinkable way. Curse me, just that, he had to pay.