We saw we faced a long and hard road before we reached the Senterlev Mountain. Curse me, a whole century, a whole life time. Curse me, a life time.
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!”