The Big Water

Auditions, choosing the talented ones

Curse me, a circus. Poets, artists, opera singers, ballet dancers, musicians, cross country runners, talents. At that time, who knows how, a strange sick feeling arose in me. I thought them unfortunate people, sick, incurable. Poor unloved beings, I thought, brothers of man. It’s clear, they know life, they love it, they love life. Man is in their hearts, they know his own unfortunate face. Surely, when they are unfortunate, insulted, downtrodden people as well. They were apparently also hungry, probably pushed back over the threshold of many homes, inhospitably treated, Oh God, they know what to sing, to draw out the pain of man, they know what to tell someone, where to send him. That’s why I always listen to them with an open mouth and that cursed habit has stayed with me from my youngest years. Just say someone is telling me about the stupidest thing, for example, that he’d spent all day with his son’s bicycle (it had probably a blown tyre) and I open my mouth to listen to him. That wasn’t the reason later to hate them so much, to call them ruffians, the biggest liars. I didn’t know then they were special people, cursed, that for them, the angel comes from one side, the devil from the other. I wanted to talk about that, the talented, about that extraordinary event in the life of the Home.

That sort of thing happened on holidays. Curse me, holidays. It happened in order, we knew of it in advance. Seven days in advance. Probably so we would be prepared to greet the muse. Curse me, the muse. We thought the muse was Olivera Srezoska, member of the Investigating Commission. But we knew something else, and that, I admit, was the best thing about such a day. That day they fed us better, curse me, they stuffed us right up to the neck. I can remember that well, for breakfast we got abundant vegetable soup. With cabbage and enough pumpkin. Curse me, you’d eat it and enjoy it, it created all sorts of feelings. They didn’t give us so much potato for nothing. There were also seconds, you could eat as much as you wanted. You spoon it up and you’d think, today they are selecting talented ones, God, what will sing out of you, what is your talent. For what are you, you take a guess, you think you’ll try one thing, then you think perhaps another thing, and it is hard to decide because you see you have all the talents, you have them, God gave them to you. You have some more potato, that’s a good thing, no, they’ll make me recite something, you don’t know, that’s not a good thing — Okay, I’ll be an opera singer, you want to try, you’ve swallowed a whole potato, your voice won’t come out, you sweat — then, everything gets mixed up, milky heart, you get sad, you think, what if you don’t have anything in you, you feel a heavy weight, you feel sick, all the stuff you’ve wolfed down with great appetite turns to poison inside you. But you had to go to the audition, that was the rule. You felt dead. Curse me, dead. You get your courage up again, something pulls you together, something holds your soul together, they will somehow work out your talent, they know, curse me, they know how much you are worth.

From then, twenty, thirty centuries have passed, but I remember it all like it was yesterday, yesterday morning for breakfast. At seven o’clock, but you have been awake all night. A whole century, curse me. You see the eyes of all the children are aflame, full of some scary fire. The drawn little faces have become somehow strangely restless, very serious, you think them wise, beautiful, the line had never been so beautiful. From the first day when they told us about this very strange event in our lives, that fever grabbed us. Curse me, fever. It was even announced in the most artistic way. The instructor, the very good Trifun Trifunoski, poet, the master responsible for physical education and the literature club, with two regional contests in cross country running (the Spring and the Autumn races) — with one respectable republic championship result (thirteenth), he had been in the newspaper, awarded a certificate and those things which go along with it — in the best, in a one hundred per cent artistic manner, he announced the day of the audition. Dear God, what a voice, you know, that was my criterion for artiness, I thought, horses run to prove themselves, naturally poets shout to shout each other out, I thought what a voice, what a strong voice Trifun Trifunoski had. I have to say how he, reading, shook the lot of us, he crushed us. Curse me, we could stand dead still, as if mowed down. He read, word by word, grenade by grenade, varied calibre, depending on the aim — he would march from one end of the line to the other, it wasn’t any effort for him at all. On the contrary, he flew, you imagine, a bird, he spreads his hands and the gentle hearted Trifun Trifunoski flew. The excitement, the passion in the way even a meaningless little word is expressed, there you are, that’s what started a fire. Fires. Curse me, fires. There wasn’t a child who didn’t shift in the assembly line, who didn’t at least once, under the influence of Trifun Trifunoski, wave with his hand. You see a whole hand is going to hit you in the mouth, in your eyes. It is going to poke out your eye. He doesn’t take any notice of the fact you are standing next to him in the line, he’s gone blind. That was the first time the children let go, forgot about the assembly line, about the straight assembly line. I swear, it was the first time the instructors and the dear Headmaster permitted such a horrible criminal violation. Whose heart could stay calm when Trifun Trifunoski, with goggle-eyes, when, pointing a finger at you, he says:

Oh, yes! Oh no!

Why not!

I see you as a worm

Maybe there is an artist inside you

O, yes! O, no!

Why not!?

Maybe a devil,

Some other wondrous talent,

this-that, friend-brother,

brush, colour, new pattern,

O, yes! O, no!

Why not!?

Or maybe a poet,

a person with a flower.

(great applause, cheers)

Oh, yes! Oh no!

Why not?

Maybe a machinist,

a happy tractor driver, dear son!

Oh yes! Oh no! Maybe a pilot, bright wing

Maybe an opera singer,

ploughman,

planter.

Oh, yes! Oh, no!

Why not!?

Best worker,

Small cart,

pick-axe,

top labourer,

blood donor.

(still more applause, cheers, cheers)

O, yes! O, no! immediately you remember these meaningful verses, these verses which left the strongest artistic impression on us. You go and experience it, you say to yourself:

“Should I do this or not,” then you answer yourself:

“O, yes! O, no!”

That wondrous, powerful man, it became clear, was not only talented in his feet. He had a hundred times more in his soul, his heart than in his feet. Curse me, it was all so extraordinary, scary. Those seven days passed as if in a dream, as if our lives changed to the core. We forgot the wall, the disastrous mornings, the wake ups, the classes on character, the poor life, all the put downs. Curse me, your soul was rich, they were happy centuries passed in the Home. There wasn’t a child who didn’t wish this moment would last forever. Curse me, forever. Oh what water, what a Big Water started swishing in the deaf Home, our silent, deaf Home, our unfortunate lives all at once became happy. Completely. We would go to bed with that sweet happy dream, we would wake up with the same dream. Everything was possible then, you could withstand anything. Even the weakest boy found strength, he could easily withstand any sort of punishment. Curse me, nothing hurt. It was as if a dead bird came to live in the children’s breast; the ice melted. The mournful, scowling children all at once became others, they lifted their little heads as though they had been watered. Even the environment changed, the Home, the yard, all of it! The stinking, little mattresses freshened, the desolate yard, the black tree blossomed, it had white, it had red, it had blue, it had violet, it had yellow gold flowers. Bloodlike. The red letters on the wall turned into butterflies, huge wondrous new butterflies from the Antarctic. Golden bees began to hum in the air, probably attracted by the perfume of the beautiful flowers (they greedily gathered up the delicious pollen), beautiful things happened, golden fishes are swimming before your eyes. Oh God, what else could it be, other than freedom, other than a dream, a child’s fantasy growing more and more vivid. Again I could hear the Big Water, I stood on the highest cliff, again the unknown voice could be heard, that woman, mother. Curse me, mother. Everything, everything we could possibly want in those moments was ours. Curse me, how little you need to feel happy, full of delicious, rapturous dreams.

And you see some poor child has come unstuck from the ground, and is drifting. Curse me, drifting, he’s set off for somewhere far away. He’s dreaming. His look is like that of someone who’s very sick. He’s blind, deaf; he neither sees nor hears. Who knows where his mind has flown. So what if you address him, he doesn’t hear you, he doesn’t see you, nothing interests him any more on earth. Everything that’s happening around him is simple and ordinary. Don’t ask for him, he’s not here. It’s all strange to him. If you say to him:

“Where are you off to, brother, that’s a wall?!”

“Wall,” he looks at you compassionately, as though to say, “luckless wonder, what wall; I am high up, in between the white soft clouds, what do I care for your wall! Kill yourself if you have no talent, friend,” his distant look was saying. And he bangs the wall with his head, his forehead splits like a ripe melon, and red fluid flows out. Nothing hurts him, it’s not his head. Someone else is living inside him. Curse me, the talent. I swear, that talent is a horrible thing.

Everything we did, everything we worked at, even when we walked, our walk, our steps, everything we ate, our mouths, and when we slept, our ravings, all of it had some devilish connection with talent. In those days, more than once, a child would be startled in the middle of the night and would all of a sudden jump from bed, you think, he could see the sad situation he was in — something was simply driving him and flying, he leaves the sleeping hall. A bird. Curse me, there is a God, to go in that darkness and along those rotten stairs with only a few minor accidents — forehead, nose, eye, sprained leg. Oh there must have been some good angel here keeping watch all night. You see some climbing, some descending. No “good morning”, no “good night”, each is alone. Not speaking. Poets, tractor drivers, motorists, opera singers, ballerinas, musicians, choir singers, artists, river just flowing. I swear, at that time not even their own mothers would know them. How, how could you now recognise that beautiful Bosilka Kochoska who was as gentle as an ant. Oh God, her little head was lifted up, if she trips, nothing will be left of her pert, little nose, snubbed, sweet bird-like little nose. And her little legs are like that, restless she takes small steps when she walks, she walks on her toes, curse me, she is a natural ballerina, Bosilka, she takes your breath away. I swear, if you had thrown her into water at that moment, she would’ve walked, the water would’ve supported her. Curse me, she would’ve walked on water. Some of the children, tiny mongrels, bad characters, some without talent, brothers of Kejtin, devils, who, to make jokes, would address her for something, would ask:

“Comrade Bosilka Kochoska, what was your name?”

The answer was not at all important, because she wasn’t even listening properly; it wasn’t that she’d heard you — you could even ask her more stupid questions, the important thing was her bowing to the ground, when her little neck stretches out and her little pursed lips, unfamiliar, new, when she says to you in some sing-song voice:

“Please, yes, thank you!”

“No, nothing, you say, I beg your pardon!”

And she will answer you:

“Au revoir, do come again!” and saying that she makes a deep bow, wondrous, magic, she would paralyse you. And you see whether you want to or not, you stop and now, altogether seriously, you ask yourself:

“Was it her or not?” you interrogate yourself; you rub your eyes. You see you’re not as you should be, that it’s got under your skin. As they say, you are one sheep short of a flock. So you say to the wind:

“Goodbye. Until we meet again!” You’d been tricked by some shadow, you thought something scary had grabbed you. Curse me, talent is black magic, an illness.

What about what happened with Todorche Terzioski. You can see yourselves what an artistic name it is. A little ox, a greedy guts, all at once, he felt as though something was choking him. All night it was as though something was stuck in his throat, he said he could not breathe. It was gathering and growing and in the morning, at breakfast, all at once it exploded. Maddened, he jumped up from the table, he burst into song and he locked himself in a place which shouldn’t be mentioned. He was singing opera, the whole Home was booming. At first we were a bit taken aback, we were a bit frightened, we wondered what was going on. We left breakfast and we took off to see what happened.

“What’s up, Terzivche?” the dear Headmaster Ariton Jakovleski asked him delicately. “Aren’t you well?”

“No,” he sang, “I a-am we-ell, practising!”

“What are you practising, Terziche?”

“O-pe-ra-com-rade A-riton Ja-kov-le-ski!”

“Practise, practise,” said the dear Headmaster, he wiped his forehead, and with that we began to calm down a little.

After that he stayed in that cursed place for hours. What, didn’t it stink? Curse me, it was the sweetest thing for him, the most excellent. His soul was singing, could a person cool off and for the whole day, from morning to night stay bravely in a place like that. Was it some simple little passion. O, I swear, all the feelings were mixed in here, it was some frightful, deep force. Whatever you spoke to him about during those days, he couldn’t reply in a human way, normally. If you said good morning to him, he would reply in an operatic way:

“Go-go-go-od mo-o-orn-ing!” for the rest of the day he would mutter it. “Go-go-go-od mo-o-orn-ing!” It could’ve been evening, midnight, it was all the same, for him it was just good morning. Curse me, morning.

All the same, that wasn’t the only impressive change in the children. When your soul changes, you change the way you look on the outside, everything. Could they permit here such a great famous national ballerina, such an artist or poet in long frock coats made of thin worn blankets, poorly cut, and even more poorly dyed with chestnut leaves? Surely that wasn’t allowed, oh how new, colourful, strange that morning looked. If you knew nothing about the Home, you would’ve thought it was a carnival. The little girls made large colourful rosettes from their folksy, red scarves, and you see they have decorated their bust or their hair with safety pins. Curse me, red flowers. Others wove their hair with white ribbon and dropped them over their foreheads. You would see her but you wouldn’t believe it, she walks quietly, lightly, like a fairy, sorceress. The boys, too, tried to look better, more elegant. They worked on one thing for hours: they spit on their palm and you see them rubbing their uncooperative tufts of hair, taming them, as if they’d been licked by a cow. They look at themselves in small mirrors. After that, they would tie not-so-clean hankies over their moist hair, and with that, their souls somehow lighter, they slept, they dreamed. Curse me, that was peak perfection. Until the morning, it was skill and joy, and then you’d see the hair is a mess, so he would have to untangle it, then comb it, bringing hot tears to his eyes. But that is the power of talent, the poor kid starts everything afresh, he puts up with the biggest pain, bravely.

That day the dear Headmaster and comrade Olivera Srezoska and Trifun Trifunoski, and the whole Home were very elegant, in their Sunday best. The dear Headmaster had draped his army overcoat over his shoulders, for this occasion, he had on the war decorations, and Olivera Srezovska and Trifunoski were dressed in the cross country competition shirts. That was the first and last time we saw Olivera Srezovska in a shirt, free, unbuttoned. Curse me, unbuttoned. The other two instructors, comrade Koljanoski and the Meteor, acted as the orchestra. Comrade Koljanoski played the jug, an old skill, and the Meteor was able to drag out the piano accordion a bit. At the same time, all the flags were brought out along with the other things that go with such an event and you could already say the exam had started. Curse me, at that moment the bell-ringer struck the bell.

That was in the northern hall, in the freezer. The examining committee, the dear Headmaster, as president of the committee, Olivera Srezoska, as a member and Trifun Trifunoski, also a member, took their places in the most auspicious way at the examining table. At that moment, applause roared in the northern hall, hurrah! hurrah! hurrah! You can imagine the children’s hearts at that cursed moment. The candidate called by the committee came out as though swamped by cold water. His teeth chattering.

“Where does your talent lie?” the dear Headmaster would ask.

“M-m-m-my t-t-t-talent is in ev-ev-everything,” the candidate replied.

“Of course, that is certain,” comrade Trifunoski would say sweetly, encouraging him, “it’s evident, plain to see, but still, you, my dear little fellow, just pick one, the one closest to your heart, the one that like a Spring brook is burbling in your veins, in your bright, little veins, the one that like a sweet breeze waves before your beautiful shining eyes.” And, go on, just try and stop Trifun Trifunoski, he would totally forget himself, you could see it; he was shaking too, as though he were qualifying too.

“Yes, I thought the same thing”, says the talentless fellow, the block head shamelessly put his dirty, little finger on his peeling forehead (that cursed head), there, now, there is no way he can recall, slit his throat, he can’t remember or if he can remember it, it’s something he hadn’t thought of at all.

“Come on then, recite a poem,” comrade Olivera Srezoska would prompt him, “say something.”

“Okay, First of May,” a spark ignites but only briefly, quickly the spark fizzles, it’s made of straw, except for those first words, you couldn’t get more words out of him even if you used pliers, like a stubborn donkey which wouldn’t move.

“Well, you know how to dance,” the dear Headmaster would say, “do you know a dance?”

“Yes, I know how,” he says quickly, “aha! I love oro folkdance!”

“Let’s see then,” the dear Headmaster would say and would give a signal to Kolojan Nikolovski.

Then comrade Kolojanski would blow into the clarinet and those unfortunates would start, each in his own way, like drunkards, lunatics, totally mindless, black shadows, scary, flapping one way then the other, it seemed some bad wind was carrying them. They jump, screech, sing, cry, perspire, and they give themselves over to the abundant dust raised from the dirty floor. The dust and the sun got mixed up, the children are swimming in the golden dust, black, tired, shrunken. Afterwards, they fell on the dirty floor; they drowned in the dust. Oh God! It was even more delicate with the candidates for ballet, cursedness. The Meteor had done his own composition especially for them, curse me, ballet. Here you see they’ve thrown off their ugly, coarse frock coats, they’ve taken off their heavy army boots, some barefoot, some in socks, white and home made, some in silk socks won in the cross country (as a prize), some in panties, some in small, woollen, homespun, village dresses, some with long sweet arms, white, thin, oh God, one had been small but now grew taller, she’s sprouted, tall, to the skies, another became shorter, had slouched her shoulders, slumped, dear God.

One, two three,

three, three, four, cursed be unmerciful Meteor.

One, two,

three, three four, like frightening black butterflies fluttering in the abundant dust of the northern assembly hall. They danced long, they danced wildly, horribly. Certainly you can imagine such a terror, a black dance by hungry, sleepless, immeasurably tortured, unhappy children. Curse me, I thought I would die, I swear, I never felt a greater fear than I did that day. For many years after that I dreamed myself dancing, jumping in that dust, in that hell.

Kejtin, friend, how we danced, how we enjoyed ourselves, hooray!

All of the strictness was in vain, all of the penalties, the whole assembly line, when that wave would suddenly appear in your head, the Big Water. Curse me, a thousand small, bright little holes would appear then at the wall, they were looking through it, at the water. Under a spell. You could see, one hole after another, shining. It was the strangest, most magic labyrinth; go ahead and try to find where the look of a child has pierced the wall. The administration reviewed every section of the wall; the punishment was harsh. Every little opening was cemented at once. They were blind men, what benefit was there in cementing the holes, when an hour later, a thousand more holes opened up. At one time, to free itself of this problem, the administration organised the general dismantling of the “little windows”, an action personally supervised by Ariton Jakovleski. And no-one thought there would ever be an end to this problem, when from somewhere, who knows how, her voice could be heard, and she said:

“Come on,” she called out to us. “Why have you frozen? Go! That’s the Senterlev mountain.”

The same night, a thousand new openings peered at the Big Water.