The Big Water

Hair cuts, separation from the son of Kejtin

The general dirtiness, the poverty which weighed the Home down eventually reached its inevitable conclusion. The fleas multiplied in large numbers in a short time in the Home. From the dormitories to the kitchen. And the lice were hungry. In the first instance we had no hope. The children, like cropped grass stalks quickly began to wilt, they could barely move through the huge yard. Our legs were heavy and we just managed to drag them along. We were covered in fleas from head to toe. They bit us day and night. Curse me, without rest. Every dream was lost in the Home.

For the first time, too, the food stopped. We were full. Curse me, full. No-one had any peace in the Home, even the administration openly showed its concern and great fear. Everyone was frightened by the fleas. Those cursed fleas, it seemed, respected no one, they did not know about the assembly line in the Home. What about all the times that a big fat flea, a flea as big as a button, would suddenly flash across the dear Headmaster’s face. A shiny bug. However unpleasant it was even for our teachers and educators, however brave they were, in the spirit of the time, hardened, brave people, self sacrificing, they could not easily overcome the fleas. After that they gave up the front, as they say, they didn’t defend themselves all that much, as if it was a normal thing, unashamedly they undressed before the eyes of all the children and they scratched all over their bodies, scratched until they drew blood. And the fleas, and this was the worst, had a habit, of getting into every little part of the human body. It seemed that even the crust of bread that you had in your hand was full if those black little bugs. The scratching became some kind of physical culture for us. Curse me, blood. Only Comrade Olivera Srezoska resisted that weakness; for the whole time she remained fully buttoned up, firm, in the assembly line, even though even she looked tortured and pale, poor thing.

It was hard to beat the fleas. Those days, while the reign of the fleas in the Home continued, everything was dead. A real wasteland governed the Home. It was as if the plague had been through the Home and it had destroyed everything. A grave. Curse me, a grave. Most of the children lay on the ground, as if mowed down, it was all the same to them whether it was day or night, no one worked at the assembly line any more. In those days teaching and similar things stopped. The whole yard darkened from the fallen, mowed down, harvested children’s bodies. And the sun was strong and relentless, it had never lingered in the Home. Now it was as if it had joined with the fleas, was crawling in the yard, black. Small.

For a certain time the entire Home was a wall.

In those deaf, wasted hours, I most often dragged myself to the place in the attic. Like a drunken man, with a blurry perspective, with weak legs, with trembling hands. As if nailed down I sat there for hours. Oh God, how was it I wasn’t scorched by the sun. (I didn’t know that it wasn’t good to stay in the sun so much). Defeated, I lay for days.

The sky above the Big Water was red. Curse me, in flame. Now and again, when my consciousness returned, I heard the dry frightening winds roaring. Just like that, red bloody winds. They said that the winds came from the sea, from Africa, from the desert, curse me, if we knew where they came from. It seemed that, with fires all around, everything was burning. With every touch of objects you feel the death bringing white heat. Just like that, it’s in the water, in the earth, in the rock, in the trees, in the houses, in the touch, in our hands, mouths, in our breath. Curse me, in our souls. O God, everything will melt, you see it. Dust. Curse me, dust. Even the stars are melting, you see it, before your eyes, the stars rain down. Fine black dust. The sky is empty, desolate. The dry wind will take everything away. Curse me, everything is turning into dust, into nothing.

And you, you poor little man, dizzily, you wait on the roof for the voice of the Big Water to contact you. You still hope. Curse me, you look like that stubborn lone star of the south. High above the water, you think that the sky is too small for the star, that the sky cannot fit all of the stars in it.

One morning, at dawn itself, at the end the fishermen appeared in their little row boats at last. Everywhere around a great morning peace reigned. It was as if the dry scary wind had disappeared. You see with half an eye, you feel that peace, that strange change. Universal deafness. Curse me, the earth and the water is calming, even the air was still and mute. Somewhere far away on the horizon, as in a dream, a morning fire crawled. The fishermen were coming in the direction of our Home, they were hurrying toward the closest bank. You could hear their troubled, abrupt voices, they were tirelessly rowing, rushing toward the bank. The black water came after them like a crumbling bank. Was it a wave, a storm, I won’t ever be able to remember. Every moment you thought it would swallow them.

The unthinking escape of the people, the hungry cries of the birds, the motionless picture of the morning, the shorn children in the huge yard, the fleas, the dead water, the mute air, the dry wind, the fires — they created in me a new and as yet unseen fear. In that hell finally I saw the whole of our miserable life, the war, the dark armies, the familiar and unfamiliar corpses in the fields, on the roads, on the army trucks covered by canvas wings, we thought they were sleeping, we were foolish children who stole bombs from the army trucks; after that the Home is before my eyes, the tragic death of the bell ringer, the good matron Verna Jakovleska, uncle Lentenoski, the few stunned escapees, the dear Headmaster, his dark fate, comrade Olivera Srezoska, the old, unhappy spinster, our poor teachers and instructors, Trifun Trifunoski, his sick, dark soul noble, bright, oh I swear, that was the path which led to the Senterlev mountain. The son of Kejtin, when he saw me, the whole of him convulsed, as though he’d trodden on a fragment of glass, barefooted. He said:

“What is it little Leme?” he mouthed the words, deadly frightened seeing me with bloodshot eyes. “What’s happened friend?”

“The birds,” I said without spirit.

“What about the birds, unhappy little boy?” he asked. “What birds?”

“The birds have gone mad, son of Kejtin,” I said, “The birds have thrown themselves into the people. I saw bad birds, Kejtin!”

I cried out loud.

He now went quiet, as though he didn’t understand me, mutely he looked into my crying face. With real pain in his voice he said:

“Poor Lem, poor Lem!”

“All the birds went mad, Kejtin,” I rambled.

“Cursed birds,” he said, and after that, as attentively as he could he took me by the hand and like a little child he took me down to the bedroom. He put me in my bed to sleep. Curse me, so that I could sleep.

Many of the children thought that that was the end, the last hour. They didn’t defend themselves any more, they let the fleas eat them through. In that overwhelming heaviness we at last got something that, until then each child could only dream of. The administration resolved to take us to the water’s edge so that we could be cleaned of the fleas. No fear existed any more that one of the children would turn into a bird and fly away. All of the children looked like captured birds that had had their wings cut off. Curse me, if any one of them could walk properly let alone fly. Children like old men, curse me. Their decision wasn’t at all risky now, it turned out that it was the only possible decision.

It was ordered that everyone’s hair was to be totally cut off. That was the most humiliating hair cutting that could be imagined. They lined us up, one grade after another, and like that, in a line, two by two, they took us to the bank. In line, curse me, in line to have your hair cut. Once there, comrade Mijanche Deloski, our hygiene instructor, would grab us. He was a self taught barber, and no-one was mad enough to joke with him after you had put your head in his enormous hands. Curse me, like lambs, submissively we gave in to the shears.

When they first opened the little gate, when we found ourselves eye to eye with the Big Water, I thought that at least one child would gather a little strength and would fly away, that nothing could hold him down. I thought we would grow new wings, that they would take us over there, the place our hearts beat for, day and night. Cursedness, that fire was real, the water was burnt, drawn back. I swear, the water was running away, it was being lost. Curse me, it had all been calculated, immediately after shearing, with huge tears, bewildered we returned to the Home. While that was happening the instructors, a bit taken themselves, at the tops of their voices called:

“Come on, fly you little bastards! Go fly! Wherever you go, you will always return to this little Home, like dogs you will come slinking back!”

Curse me, that was the truth.

We could hardly wait for the hair cutting to end. We ran back to the Home as if we’d lost our minds.

In the yard, the others were waiting, the unshorn ones, the upper grades. We, the ones who’d been shorn, were put in the laundry to leave our clothes and while there, the man from the hygiene institution covered our heads with a white powder. Because there wasn’t enough clothing, we had to stay half naked those few days, in underpants. Such a frightening scene had not been seen in the yard of the Home before then. Thin, undernourished bodies of children, barely kept together, as though stunned we were turning around our own small, mutilated shadows. We didn’t know what to do with our broken hands, as if we were meeting in that cursed place for the first time. Curse me, centuries had to pass before we would recognise each other again.

It must have taken Kejtin a long time to find me amongst all of the shaven mice. Obviously, not even he could hide the emotion and pain, not to tremble at seeing me for the first time. Dear God, I was crawling along the wall like some lizard, black and small. Without command, he left his grade and flew to me. Curse me, he flew. I ran away, I hid, I was pressing into the wall so that he couldn’t see me, so I couldn’t see him. Dear mother, how horrible it was to see. When at last he unstuck me from the wall, curse me, if I could have, I would have completely entered the wall, I would have bricked myself in, when he saw me like that, he released that happy generous smile and said:

“Be a man, little Leme. Be a man, comrade. Hair grows back quickly, you’ll see, your hair will grow back straight away, my dear one,” and then gently, very carefully, he took my head to him with his bony hands and most gently, most dearly, he kissed me on the forehead. He pricked me with his protruding upper teeth. Curse me, I was shaken. My dear friend, I swear, as if scorched quickly withdrew. He looked long at me, oh his look! Curse me, he didn’t believe, I saw a tear in his eyes. The first time that the son of Kejtin cried, he just couldn’t believe at all, no! no! no! At that moment, it was as if someone had pierced his heart, he let out the strongest, most horrible cry.

“Oh Mother! My dear Mother! I’m scorched. I’m dead,” he said and mindlessly started to run, up, down, all over the Home.

The boys, like hungry, wild electric current, hounded him, they chased him, they called out cheerfully:

“Hooray! Hooray!”

From then on, many centuries passed; at the end we even left the Home, we lived through happier and more bitter moments, but those few incomprehensible moments, in my young and inexperienced heart always remained like the worst dream. Whenever I see crazed birds, bloodied people, scorched water, fires, devastated fields, dead people, abandoned villages, deserted mute roads, white short lightning, a sign of drought, queues of people, assemblies, curse me, I think someone is being separated in that moment, one person from another. Curse me, I can hear that cry.

“Kejtin,” I jump from the deepest sleep, I go mindlessly, I look for him. “Kejtin.” That’s my cry. Curse me, mindlessly, madly, we separate and lose each other. I go and only one question strikes me like lightning in my soul. “How and where will I find him now?”

The Senterlev Mountain showed white on the other side of the Big Water. It came with a luminous shine from the same side of the water as the wind. That must be where the sun is born. To get to the Senterlev Mountain, you had to pass over all the water. Many of the children were already passionately preparing for such an expedition, through the water. Even if it was stupid, the whole thing was very appealing and we prepared for such a trip. Curse me, we believed in such a possibility. Of course, that was just one possible plan to reach the mountain we loved. The plans ended up in waste. The whole thing ended up in wasted plans, it was a total disappointment. The same Spring, some children from “Progress”, a similar home, who’d managed to escape, reached the town and heard about our Home. Without a second thought they took off and went back to where they had come from. Now, that gang was something to cry over, you felt shame and disgust for those poor unfortunates. None of them had eaten for days, they hadn’t slept, they’d been hiding in barns and gardens, dirty from weariness and hunger, they looked like thoroughly beaten farm beasts. They could no longer think oh see, they were lost because they had no place to go, they were blinded. It showed it was best in the Home. Could you survive a bigger disappointment, a greater misfortune than one you see and hear from the mouth of your brothers who for days and nights, for centuries had also prepared for escape. I was so afraid the alluring mountain did not exist.