SELLER OF CARNATIONS

SELLER OF CARNATIONS

The train stopped in Skopje station early in the morning. A tall thin man came off a coach. No one was waiting for him.

His relatives lived in Kostur. He did not know anyone in Skopje.

Filip Malenkov just arrived.

He felt good walking down the streets of the city in which, for a long time, he had dreamed and hoped that one day he would work. He was overwhelmed by a sense of pride and dignity looking and reading the signs displayed over the shops and businesses in the Macedonian language.

He approached the building where he was expected to report and submit all the notes that he had collected over the years. He confirmed that this was it. He knocked on the door and when he heard “Yes” he entered. He shook hands and greeted everyone warmly, addressing them with the words: “How are you brother?” Some mockingly replied: “Good, good,” and looked at one another. A stocky young officer picked up the telephone and asked in which shelter to place the newcomer “liberator”.

Filip Malenkov did not strike up a conversation with any one of those whom he had just met to discuss matters that one would discuss with his own people; let them know how life was on foreign shores and unload on them a bit of nostalgia from the insults received abroad. He was surprised that no one cared to know or to discuss anything, even matters of importance. “Perhaps I am a nobody…” he thought to himself and felt a bit suspicious. However, in his own mind he could not explain the word “liberator”. Why was he called a liberator? Was this mockery… irony… or what...? “Oh, Filip, Filip… what is happening to you…” he thought.

Filip Malenkov was a forty-five year old man who had just returned to his fatherland. He came back with a university degree in “History”. He was not just “anybody” he was a qualified historian. He was convinced that he would find his place in his fatherland. “So, what’s with the suspicion, eh Filip…? And why those angry

feelings against the people who called you a ‘liberator’… eh Filip?” he asked himself.

He pondered for a moment.

“Now that I have come back I will have to take it easy and spit at the past,” Filip said to himself. “If I were uneducated and had no degree then perhaps I could feel sorry for myself… but now what?” Filip asked himself. “Perhaps this is how things are done here… Perhaps things have not changed that much… but I don’t believe we are that much different from these people here…” he said to himself.

“We are the same people and that’s how we need to remain. We should not be treated like strangers, like we were treated on foreign shores,” Filip assured himself.

He remembered the days when he was getting the newspaper “Nova Makedonija” and reading it over and over again until the next edition arrived. He boasted to his fellow Russian colleagues of how wonderful Macedonia was and that one day he would go back again and regain the taste he had lost. Filip Malenkov was not a man without a life. All his life he had a permanent place to be. This was also true of all the other people who found themselves drifting there. But it was difficult for him to be there because our people are not comfortable living by themselves, without our people, without constantly discussing our narrative. We are a small nation in which the same blood runs and up to now no one was able to change that... Those of us there who came from this country had many thoughts and inflamed sentiments and, as compatriots and co-fighters, cheerfully embraced each other like brothers.

But Filip Malenkov, who had now returned, pronounced his own mother language ridiculously. He still bore the surname “is” and everyone thought he was someone else, someone from the south. But it was not his fault that Filip Malenkov had been thrown out of his home, out of his birthplace, out of his native land... That’s how he felt.

“Filip, you must leave those feelings behind... Get a grip and calm down. You need two things to live; a house and a job,” he tried to convince himself.

Filip Malenkov’s wellbeing got better with time and in the last several years he changed his furniture for the second time. He even bought a car. He set Saturday and Sunday aside for vacations, recreation and for short walks in the countryside.

One morning he went to the market to buy something fresh. On his way a hand grabbed his elbow and held on to it loosely. When he turned around he saw a pair of beautiful eyes curiously staring at him. When he had a good look at them he thought he had done something inappropriate. But those brave eyes kept looking at him, as if wanting something… an answer from the past… about something from the past perhaps…

Then a hand appeared holding a carnation and out of the person’s lips sprang a slight smile.

Filip Malenkov tried to remain passive, looking serious, calm and collected but secretly deep inside he was smiling. Looking serious he asked himself: “What does this seller of carnations want from me? I didn’t do anything...” He stood there holding his bags full of fruit, arms stretched down and fingers blue from the load. “What does she want? I don’t need a carnation? Leave me alone, woman, you can see that my hands are full. Leave me in peace...” he thought to himself and then decided to buy the carnation only because the seller was very persistent.

“How much does it cost?” he asked and immediately thought that this woman too needed to work. He could not deny her that. She needed to earn some money. Perhaps she had a family, he thought to himself.

“It’s a gift…” she said and her face lit up with a smile and her grip on his elbow became tighter.

“It is a gift for you, Filip!” she repeated. Filip, looking a bit guilty, remained motionless. His thoughts ran wild as he thought of friends

and relatives that he knew. After that he thought of those who he had cast into oblivion and in his mind they began to line up like a string of beads, but then they were young, without scars, with beautiful ringtone voices.

Filip looked into her eyes again. “Oh, how much sadness, how much sorrow there was in those beautiful gentle but tired blue eyes...” he thought to himself.

When he shook her hand he felt a hard strong grip. “Oh God, what time can do to a person…” he thought to himself when he realized he could remember nothing about this woman. But he continued to search his mind thinking: “Could it be her? No! Could it be her? No! Who is this woman with such courage? What would it mean if I took her carnation? I won’t accept it. Don’t accept it Filip…” he thought to himself.

He had to decide what to do fast in order to save his dignity.

But he could not escape the thought: “What does this woman want with this carnation? She is keeping me here, in front of the people passing by, like a thief caught in the act,” he thought to himself.

He wanted to ask her: “Tell me lady, what do you want from me. Don’t torment me, please tell me who you are. You must be the mother of one of my students, correct?”

While holding his soft hand, the carnation seller looked at him and said:

“Come on Filip, try and remember, eh?”

He was silent because it was difficult for him to say “I don’t know you.” At this point in his life he did not want to know anything about his past, about those times that tore through life and weakened the senses… about things that he had done… And perhaps of the things that he had done to earn his title “liberator”. But then he thought to himself: “Filip, that was joke, only one person said that and you understand that it was a joke!”

But no matter how hard he tried, Filip was now in a difficult position because “he had forgotten his past and was suffering because of it…”

From a long time ago he carried the idea and the thought that, at least he was loyal to his own nation, but what could he do if time flew and now it seemed to him that he had committed some sort of sin which would not allow him to recognize anyone. “It is best to forget everyone from my past…” he often thought to himself.

“Perhaps until now I may have been a minion but now I am an ordinary individual, a middle-ranking academic I think, with my own honorarium... and I tell people ‘to let me live my life in peace’…” he thought to himself.

“But Filip, why must you not know these people? You shared your life and spilled your blood with them. Why does it now bother you…? Go on, ask your question. Who is she…? She knows you well… and you…? She might have let you leave had you paid for the carnation… right?” he thought to himself.

“Who am I Filip… try and remember...” she asked again.

“I can’t remember... Only some faint traits...” he blurted out.

“I am Tsana.” she said.

“Tsana?! Our sergeant Tsana? I apologize Tsana…” he replied.

Filip put his bags down near the large bunch of flowers and gave her his full attention.

Tsana wanted to know many things about him and asked him a lot of questions. Filip kept shaking his head and trying very hard to remember. His thoughts ran back in time as he tried to remember things from his past. He watched Tsana deal with her customers.

“Take some carnations… take some for your wife… take some for your husband… Hey lady, take a carnation… one red and one white... take some more… They are pretty, take them home. Madam

you usually take three...” Tsana said to her customers and then wrapped the flowers in white paper to keep their stems moist.

Tsana had a gentle smile which spread over her sun-burned face. She had burdensome features which revealed that she had a difficult past, which also gave her a sign of respect.

“Is that really you Tsana? Our beloved Sergeant Tsana from twenty-five years ago?” he asked and continued: “From the days when we were still young partisans and you put us in rows and showed us how to carry our rifles, how to crawl in the ditches and divided out bread equally?”

Filip now remembered the time when Tsana used to read to her unit from the lecture material and from the reports provided by the “Agitation and Propaganda” department on the progress of the revolution, on the progress of the resistance, reminding them that all kinds of people can lead a revolution and not just the nobles. He remembered the time when Tsana asked him: “You, Filip, what do you want to be after we free ourselves?” and he timidly covered his young face.

How nice her partisan beret sat on the top of her thick hair! The wide belt with the bronze buttonholes, the embroidered star on a sergeant’s uniform; half Russian and half English. She taught us to walk like soldiers and to sings songs while we marched. I remember many perished in charges and half our unit was reinforced with new soldiers, from the reserves. They were replaced with younger men, children, old people, widowed women, religious people, cowards, quarrelsome people, non-revolutionaries, deserters who had returned, prisoners, enthusiasts, urban girls and craftsmen who were conscripted after attacks on the cities. It was Tsana’s job to sort them all out and turn them into revolutionaries… But after we lost the war, both she and I ended up going around the world, with just our bare souls to show for it...

“Filip did you ever think that one day we would meet again?” she asked.

“Yes, Tsana. But...” he replied but before he was finished talking she interrupted and said:

“Well you look good. You are well-dressed and you seem to be doing well in life. I am glad Filip my brother, I am glad. You were the youngest in my unit, as I recall, right?” she asked.

“Yes, Tsana, yes I was...” he replied.

“And you, Tsana…” Filip said wanting to ask Tsana about her life but she was interrupted by a customer wanting to buy flowers.

“Help yourself, sir… pick what you want… take some of these flowers here… they are fresher… take some joy home. These here are nice flowers…” she said to the customer.

She then turned to Filip and said: “This is what life has thrown at me… this is how it is Filip,” she said and then sighed a deep sigh. “I came back a few years ago but now my age has become an obstacle for me… I can’t find a good job... But I was not going to give up; I decided to start my own business… It’s seasonal work for as long as the flowers last, but it keeps me busy... When I was abroad I got a job in a factory and worked 100% to standard. I was praised for it but a working person can only achieve so much in life. I gave it my all abroad but...” she said, waved her arm in the air and then turned to Filip, looked him in the eye and said:

“Do you remember the lecture material I used to read to you back in those days…? Well, Filip, they were not telling us the truth!”

She paused and looked away. She then turned to Filip and asked: “What sort of work do you do? Professional work…?”

“Yes, Tsana, I am a historian,” he said but what he wanted to say was: “Tsana when I write that part of history I will be sure to mention you… I will write everything I know about that time… Tsana you deserve to be remembered… and now what...” Unfortunately he did not say any of that … Neither did he tell her about his honorariums.

He did however think of saying: “Oh, Tsana, if only you were educated? I would have given you one of my honorariums. I would do that because I know you and because you were my commander. But wait Filip…” he thought to himself. He had another idea: “Why does everyone have to be educated?” he thought to himself. But then immediately changed his mind and thought: “Be quiet, Filip. Drop it! Leave the past alone… they are waiting for you at home to bring them groceries…”

“I will go, Tsana. You are working…” he said.

“Good luck, Filip… Have you met anyone else from our people?” she asked.

“No, Tsana. I don’t hang around with anyone...” he replied.

“Carnations? Go ahead, help yourself. These are beautiful flowers. They will bring joy to your soul. They will bring beauty to your home. Sir, please help yourself…” she went about her business.