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: