Front Matter - Part 01

Butterfly with soaked wings

A Novel

By Dragica Najcheska

(Translated from Macedonian to English and edited by Risto Stefov)

Butterfly with soaked wings

Original in Macedonian - Skopje, 1969 Translated to English - Bitola, 2023

A Novel

September 28, 2023

A SEVEN DECADE STEP THROUGH THE LABYRINTH OF LITERARY CREATION

The end of last year was the 50th year since Dragica Najcheska wrote her first novel Butterfly with soaked wings, published by “Misla”. The novel was reviewed by academic Blazhe Koneski who suggested that it be published. It wasn’t only Dragica Najcheska’s first novel but also the first novel published in the Macedonian language by a female writer.

This is the novel’s third edition. The second edition was included in the six-volume edition of Najcheska’s Selected Works. It was edited by Vele Smilevski, a famous Macedonian writer, and published by “Dialog”. Her five novels, two collections of poetry, short stories and unpublished short stories, as well as short stories for children, were also included in her Selected Works.

Blazhe Koneski’s handwritten review has been added to the jubilee edition of Butterfly with soaked wings. (See Macedonian version Пеперуга со натопени крилја)

When she was an assistant at the Faculty of Economics in Skopje, working at the Department of Political Economy, Dragica Najcheska was sent to Belgrade to complete her postgraduate studies at the Faculty of Law. This was from 1962 to 1965. At that time she had already published several short stories and poems in newspapers and magazines all over Yugoslavia.

Some of them were included in the Macedonian and Serbian Anthologies.

While pursuing her studies in political science at the Faculty of Law in Belgrade, Najcheska devoted a large part of her time to getting to know the works of the top writers of world literature. At the same time, she had the opportunity to attend many events in the field of art and culture and socialize with some of the cultural elite. During her stay in Belgrade, she quickly expanded her acquaintance with important Serbian writers, including Mihailo Lalich, Stevo Raickovich, Skender Kulenovich, Dusan Kostich, Branko Kiopich...

All this contributed to Najcheska writing her first novel in 1965. She immediately translated the novel herself from Macedonian to Serbian and, towards the end of her postgraduate studies, sent it to Dushan Kostich and Branko Kiopich before she left for Skopje.

Among other things, this is what was said in a letter of reply dated February 22, 1965:

Dear friend Dragice,

Here is a brief summary of what we think about your novel, this is my opinion and that of Branka Ћopiћa, who I also let read the novel, he also likes your novel, it is interesting and honestly written, contemporary, has warm lyrical passages and it gets out of hand... ...Most of the novel is strong in terms of confessions of today's young man... ...The novel... deserves to be published... ...If you agree about "Bagdalu" - no problem...

A friendly greeting Dushan Kostichћ Otkako

Encouraged about the values of her novel, after receiving such a positive response from Kostich and Kopich, on February 22, 1965 Najcheska, without a moment’s hesitation, decided that her first novel should be published in the Macedonian language. Soon she proposed that “Misla” in Skopje do the publishing.

After some ups and downs that lasted several years, the novel was finally published. In his review, Blazhe Koneski said that the novel fell among the significant works for the development of Macedonian fiction, as an addition to the psychology of women, highlighting its pedagogical value, especially for the young generations. In his review, Professor Koneski, highlighting the artistic values of the novel, concluded that it deserved to be published and proposed that it be done.

In addition to this novel, Najcheska also wrote and published some of her most famous poems in Belgrade described as “anthology”

from which her poetry collection “Nespokoj” emerged, which was reviewed by Mihail Rendzov, a famous Macedonian poet.

Little is known about the fact that, together with twenty-two of the most famous poets from all the Yugoslav republics, Najcheska was invited and participated in the World International Congress of Women Writers from all over the world, in Paris, as well as in Nice a few years later. This trip encouraged her even more to create poetry because her poems left a great impression on famous poets like Desanka Maksimovich, Mira Alechkovich, Vesna Parun, Florika Shtefan..., who during the trip tried to recite them several times.

Supported by the DPM, on Najcheska’s initiative, some time later the Yugoslav poetry elite visited Macedonia and held a number of poetry performances.

As a result, after the novel Butterfly with soaked wings was published, the door for new literary achievements was opened for Dragica Najcheska. The series of novels she wrote after that included the titles Another Mother, Crossroads, Deep Hatred, Lifelong Noose and House on the Lake. Also published were a collection of Short stories and poetry published in the collections Restlessness, Give me back my sleep, And blood and death and hope and Crucifixion of souls.

Like Najcheska said she “is not entirely indebted to her short stories”. With them she continued her journey through the labyrinth of literary creation but she began with the publication of her first short story in the magazine Idnina, edited by Atso Shopov in 1950 when she was only seventeen. Nowadays Najcheska is preparing another collection of short stories for publication entitled Search for the Hidden.

Prof. Dr. Georgi Stalev Skopje, 18 February 2020

When he opened the door, I only heard her very soft, stretched out voice. I recognized her. I recognized her immediately… perhaps by the colour of her voice, which I had only heard once before and perhaps by instinctively sensing some danger that was hidden in it. I heard her enter quietly, slowly, as I became fully aware of her presence and perhaps a silent hug and kiss between the two of them. I had already entered the room and closed the door, so I couldn’t see what was happening.

And what had happened before that, before the doorbell? What had happened before his sharp jump at the ring of the doorbell and my flight into the room?

...The music played softly. We were snuggled up in the half-dark hall on the couch... We hugged each other gently, intimately... we caressed. Then, tired, we debated as usual whether we would spend the afternoon rest together or separately.

He kept forcing me to go to the room and sleep there because he said couldn’t sleep next to me. My presence, my breathing excited him and woke him up every hour, as if being afraid that maybe with some situation in his dream he would prevent me from sleeping normally or that by moving he would wake me up and he wouldn’t sleep because he would be worried...

He said that to me even now and I continued to cling to him, feeling that his hands, although he was saying the opposite, were drawing me closer, so masculine and beautiful, and with such warmth and love that no woman would want to leave his embrace, that incomparable feeling of being together.

At one point I wanted to overcome my desire for him and exit his embrace just for his sake, so that he could sleep, rest and then work. But then he shifted himself and almost wrapped his arms around my waist, like the branches of a tree, telling me all the time that I should go. This was quite impossible to do, so I clung to him even more and dozed off like a satisfied cat in a warm corner.

Then somehow, half asleep, I allowed him to turn his back to me so that he could fall asleep, but even in that position he was still

touching my hand, as if to make sure that I was still there, that I existed, and that I wasn’t part of a dream.

We were sleeping. Only the soft music which was playing slowly was awake.

Maybe that’s why the sound of the doorbell seemed so rude to me. Like someone had suddenly hit it so hard.

After finding out that she had arrived and that she was in the house, I couldn’t help but feel helpless and in despair.

Then, half asleep, I heard her ask about me.

“She is in the room,” he said.

I felt like a frightened, wild animal and looked for an opportunity to escape, if only there was a secret exit from the house, and then I would immediately disappear. Helplessness overwhelmed me even more because of that... There was no other way out. I had to look her straight in the face, eye to eye. That was the reality. That and despair...

Then I was startled by her voice. She called me by my name.

I answered but it was like with someone else’s voice:

“I’m coming,” I said.

Then I went into the bathroom, like some wound up doll, washed myself, went to the room, got ready and left. They were both there. Before I left I heard myself say politely:

“Oh, it’s you! You haven’t been here for a long time! As far as I remember, you only came here once, no more!

God, only I and no one else could have such a hearty and cheerful expression on my face at a moment like this. She looked at me smiling sincerely. It was obvious that I had won her over; that she believed me and that I had lied to her. She was younger than me, she

had lived less than me. Then we talked like we were friends. I even felt her humour was working on me at that moment.

I didn’t look at him. I couldn’t. I could see that he was completely confused by everything that was happening at the moment, maybe mostly because of my composure, my beautiful artistic game.

It seems that I really played my part too convincingly, even for him, so that at one point he was so free that he hugged her, rather timidly.

I know that at that moment I wanted my eyelids to be closed. I’m not sure if I did that but I felt like I had been blindsided.

Soon after that I left the apartment. I said I had to visit a friend. Of course, with that I wanted to show her that he was free, as far as I was concerned, and that I would leave them alone... together. And him too.

Why did I do that? Was it a game, a sacrifice for him...? No... I was no longer able to bear that mask of kindness on my face, that fierce role which was exhausting me... I looked miserable to myself and yet helpless like a child.

Let everything be... Let them be together... Everywhere in the apartment where he and I had been had our touches and caresses together...

I wanted to shout, cry hysterically, or laugh cynically, recklessly tell the truth, openly to her face, and to his...

I knew I wouldn’t do any of that. I knew I would remain calm, serene, with a smiling self-loathing face which, I hope, I would be able to keep until the exit door. The door which she’d entered a little while ago, like a monster unaware that was going to destroy everything that was so beautiful... everything that was our dream.

She was a decent, good and carefree girl but couldn’t even guess what was happening between the two of us. She was far from that happiness and love herself and as she entered the green hall with her uncertain step, just a moment ago, she destroyed it.

As I was going down the street, leaving the scene, it felt like my face, eyes and body were about to give up on me... I felt like I should immediately sit down on the walkway or the street. My lips were salty. I knew why. Maybe I would have run down the street if those people weren’t there, I should have run, but from whom - from those people, from him, from myself...

I had to win for myself. The most important thing was not to think about both of them. No, I mustn’t let the idea come into my mind that they would now caress, make love, perhaps in the same way, perhaps in the same places in the house... No, no, that’s not right! I will go back immediately, I won’t allow it, I will stop them... It’s too wild, I won’t allow them to be anywhere where we had been, those are sacred places, no one dares touch them and no one dares go there. I will immediately say that no one, least of all her, dares to spoil our place, defile it, at least what happened, what was born there and rose to perfection... I will stop them in that... That place, that apartment is sacred to me...

He loved me. If she was here now, why would she be reaching out for what there had been for her before? I’ll go there right now...

I knew I wouldn’t go, that would once again allow helplessness and despair to overcome me. The only thing I would do was stay on my feet, I wouldn’t fall, certainly because of that small presence of awareness where I was and the superhuman will in me would keep me on my feet.

...Why did I run into the room? Why didn’t I just stay on that couch of ours... without hiding my love... Who lied to me and told me that love must be allowed, defined by some law, between the one with right and the one without right, moral and immoral. At that moment I was ashamed of the part of morality which I had played before that woman, like before a portion of public opinion, which my sacred sense would have called by the most derogatory vulgarities, to hypocritically conceal the true opinion of life and love.

Even from her, from that child, I had to hide my sad truth, just because I had a man with whom I lived legally... And that this love

of mine, if revealed, like this... could cloud the “purity” of that so-called morality! Really?!

Despair overwhelmed me more and more. It was as if I was sinking into some kind of lifelessness. Mostly because I couldn’t run back into that room and, in front of that child, in front of her, jump into the arms of my beloved man, selfishly, defiantly, not allow her to enter his life, much less remain unconcerned, not knowing that with every glance fixed on him she pierced my heart, tore apart the brightest corners of my soul.

However, I never once hated her. She lived in a carefree world with her feelings for him not yet fully formed. And even if she had any doubts about us, she couldn’t allow herself to believe in such things that were beyond her reach. What’s more, she had been separated from him for months because she lived in another city. And she had never become a part of him, so that with the intuition of her being she could feel what was happening in that other, not your, but her part...

Her existence in his life, even before our life bond, seemed to me to be harmless so I just forgot about it.

I had only seen her once before, for a short time. She had left quickly. Now her presence was real and impossibly fierce. It simply threw me out of my place. It felt like my veins had been cut, I had no blood left. I had no strength anymore. What was going on...? Where was I now...?

No... that’s impossible. Who could take away anything from love... and those arms around the waist... and the warmest hug that would never let you go... the touch of lips, the only touch, only the lips that loved each other... Maybe most of all because of that I wanted to cry... maybe that’s why I cried...

I wouldn’t have been so sad if I’d had to give my love away to a stranger, maybe I would have given it away... No, I shouldn’t have left home... I should have been defiant and stayed... if only I had defended my love!

Now everything was done. I wouldn’t be going back there. It was almost nightfall. I was going to sleep at a friend’s house. I couldn’t stay and sleep there, in that apartment, next to the two of them, in the other room. I couldn’t.

I realized that I was wandering the streets aimlessly and should immediately go to that friend of mine, and... everything would be fine.

It would have been best if my aunt hadn’t gone to the baths and my husband hadn’t traveled with the children to his mother’s place; he would have had to ask my aunt if he could keep her there for the night. Well, even if she stayed, she wouldn’t have been allowed to sleep in his room.

But everything was different now. There was no one to help me... He was there with her.

I would be back though. It was my apartment, my aunt’s apartment and that meant mine, even more so since I’d lived in it for so long.

Why had I done that, convince my aunt to accept him to live in our apartment? I don’t lie! I was lying to myself. I could never abandon that most beautiful, like a dream, part of my life. That would be like agreeing to have part of my body cut off. An even more, stronger, part of being... I don’t want it, I can’t do it... Even at the cost of everything that happened today... what is happening... Nothing would defile the purity of my feelings, my being with him, least of all her.

I’d go there right now. I’d return. My place was there. I would hide all the pain and horror... I would overlook things. I would still feel his presence, existence, even in her embrace, which I wouldn’t see consciously, deliberately...

Running away from the house was a sign of a weakling, a cowardly surrender to the fight. I would go back so that I could remain dignified, true to myself, to my feelings...

For the first time this afternoon and this evening I felt like I was walking with a firmer step, directed, with a purpose. I was going there, and that meant to him, to our dear spot, where everyone in the house for us was like that. I remembered how once, when I was away for a long time, he said: “Don’t ever leave this house again. It’s empty when you’re not here.”

I had to go there now. And she? And if she was there...? So what if she was there! I would go into my house proudly, defiantly.

I became frightened when I realized that I was really in front of the house. But then I felt very happy. They weren’t there. The lights were off everywhere. But at the same time the most bitter thought pierced me, “They were making love in the dark.”

I just ran into the house, trying to escape from myself but where? There, from where the danger came, in the wake of it.

I quickly unlocked the door and tried to sneak a glance inside his room. His door was closed, which was unusual. I figured they were there.

Perhaps the loudest screams are in the soul and without sound. I was suffocating... My love... Was it possible, that you... Then I went out into the hall and with my hands, like I was blind, kept touching the green cover of the couch... caressing it...

My love, well... just a moment ago... We dreamed the most beautiful dream here... You and I, just the two of us, in this house of love… He carried me in his arms like a child around this room, he fed me there in the kitchen with his hands, caressed me, put me to sleep.

Oh people, whoever invented hugs and feelings, you invented them for yourselves... otherwise at this moment I would have yelled at that girl – who was she, what was she looking for here, I would have told her – this is my love, and you will confirm that won’t you dear...

It was all in vain. I couldn’t even cry. All parts of my nervous system were working so intensely that it seemed like they would tear me apart, blow me up.

The only thing I was able to do was play music, from the same radio, in the same hall, where we’d had our last dream.

At that moment I heard the lock of the outer front door and, as I understood it, someone was unlocking the door. They both came in cheerfully. They had been out watching a movie. So they weren’t here, in his room!

I immediately pulled myself together and made a kind of clownish face.

She immediately came to my room and started telling me her impressions of the movie. As usual he followed her. The three of us sat down and naturally had a simple conversation.

Once in a while She made small gestures of tenderness towards him and he towards her.

There was a small break in the conversation. Not believing what I had done, somehow, patronizingly, mothering I said to her:

“Do you want to sleep with me in the room?”

I listened to my heartbeat as I waited for her answer.

What made her agree - I don’t know. Maybe she wanted to call attention to her chastity. I was afraid to look at him! He fell silent.

I hastily prepared the beds, rushing at every moment, as if somewhere deep inside I was subconsciously afraid that they might change their minds. It was getting close to midnight.

Was it because of all the tension or because of something sadder, that he was constantly making jokes? This way I felt that this was a good way to get him to relax.

We went to bed. Her and I in the same room.

He stood at the half-open door and I heard him say:

“You know what? I sometimes walk around the house like a sleepwalker, so don’t be surprised if I come into your room.”

Even though I knew he was joking, the very idea was terrifying: for him to come into the room where she was next to me.

I don’t know how long after he’d made that joke and yet cynical statement, that I got up and quickly turned the key in the door of the room.

Relieved I took her to my room, thus isolating him from both myself and her. Perhaps he would never have dared to come to her in my presence, nor would she have gone out to him in my presence, but I did this to avoid even the slightest possibility of him committing the most despicable act.

Then, probably as a kind of self-defense, I tried to put him out of my mind. I focused on her indulging in a superficial display on a variety of topics.

Neither one of us was aware that the display in the dark and that sleeplessness brought us closer. We found a common female vocabulary, perhaps – human.

Only occasionally I strained to hear the noises coming from his room and it seemed to me that he was restless and not sleeping either.

At the same time, I felt good about putting him in that situation, I felt like I’d punished him, made it impossible, and maybe even helped him.

We both fell asleep talking and thinking about the movie.

The next day passed in the same way as the previous, starting for me with a terrible moment. He came over to her bed (I was still in mine) and with a vigorous movement of his hand he ruffled her hair.

I lowered my eyelids and then daringly sought his gaze. He left.

I quickly got up and went to the kitchen.

I sensed him more than I saw his presence in the kitchen. She was still in my room. He gently reached out to me and with his hand tried to give me one his imitate hugs.

I said, “No!” and left in disgust. “Don’t you dare to do that! After going to her in the room you now come here to appease me. I don’t live on scraps!”

He tried to somehow explain the whole situation, provide another non-existent solution, a way out, after she had come suddenly, uninvited... He wanted to justify himself... I wanted him to shut his mouth, not to speak, to be quiet because the situation was already quite disgusting and painful.

She went into the kitchen. I felt that somehow the day would be easier for me if I was close to her, maybe because she’d confided in me the night before. I was gradually realizing that she wasn’t to blame for unknowingly defiling my love and neither was I for stealing hers.

We had coffee. Then we had breakfast, the three of us. Then in a kind of naive voice she said to him:

“Come here, sit next to me,” He was sitting on the sofa in the kitchen next to the window.

He sat down beside her. In the same voice she then said:

“Put your head here,” and pointed at her lap.

I didn’t see him but in a muffled helpless voice I heard him ask illogically:

“Where?” even though it was quite clear to where she had pointed.

I fought terribly with myself deciding whether to leave the kitchen or not. Overcoming my impulse I decided to stay. It was my invisible fight for him, for my love.

I had the feeling that we were both, he and I, stretched to the limit of our possibilities. And only she was spared in all this.

What made us preserve, fence off everything that had happened and was still happening to us? Did her chastity and guiltlessness force us to create barriers?

She stayed a while longer before leaving. She got ready quickly and left to catch the train to go back to where she was living.

I couldn’t even put my finger on how she was feeling before she left.

It was as if I was burned out, understanding the unavoidability of everything that had happened and that might continue to happen. Recognizing how small my or rather our chances of stopping her made me feel empty inside.

Then something happened that became an undeniable fact, and yet also illogical. I felt her hand being extended to greet me and she kissed me.

I was completely confused, lost. Her heart was truly young and pure. Was there some sense of kinship between the two of us, choosing the same man to love? I was mortified and she was still uncertain... In any case, the moment I felt her almost shy lips on my cheek, I felt like hugging her, crying and, now like a woman to a woman, telling her all my sorrow. I smiled, hugged her lightly and wished her a safe journey.

“Come again,” I heard myself say and at the same time I noticed his appearance looking like a lost, completely unhappy man. Standing in the hallway he was probably feeling that way because of the

incomprehensible nature of what had just happened. He looked like he didn’t know what to do with his hands, with his eyes and with his lips. He took an unsteady step to accompany her to the train station.

Suddenly I realized that the most terrible thing to come was the moment when he and I would be alone again, the two of us in this apartment face to face.

Where should I run, what should I do? No, I didn’t believe he would come back from the station straight here. Certainly not immediately! He might come later, tonight, after midnight.

I didn’t hate him. But I was horrified by the thought that he would approach me with the same hands with which he’d hugged her at the train station just a little while ago, with those same lips he’d kissed her. I would hate for that to happen, I would be disgusted. No, that must not happen. Maybe it would be best for me to leave the house after all.

No, I would stay; I would endure until the end.

In no time at all I heard fast moving but indecisive footsteps in the hallway. It was him.

It appeared that he had decided not to run away from the truth, to stand up to it; immediately and without delay. I was surprised to see that he stayed in the hallway listening to the music on the radio.

His presence filled the house. I felt better that he’d come back… as soon as he came back. He sat motionless in his armchair smoking. The music flowed calmly and it was the only sound in the house. I felt like everything had died... including us.

The door to my room was half open. I was overcome by a kind of numbness… I couldn’t move. It was as if I was afraid that, with the slightest noise, I would spoil the silence, this silence, which was only possible after everything that had happened.

I was subconsciously listening to the words of the song that a duet was singing on the radio. I was amazed... Were those the actual

words of that song or were they just forming in my head? Had I made them up?

Every word of the song matched everything that had played out in these last twenty-four hours between him and me. I stood up as if lifted by something stronger than myself in the wake of those words, or running away from them I just came closer to him, to see if he was listening to the song.

Even before I took the first step forward, his face was already turned towards me before I stood in the doorway.

His face trembled... He had the pitiful helpless look of a child who had sinned.

I was sobbing... I was sobbing. It seemed to me that at any moment now he would grasp and desperately press me against his chest.

He turned his face towards the wall. He couldn’t find enough courage to face me maybe because of my harsh words in the kitchen this morning, when he tried to hug me. And at that moment, this morning, I believed something terribly strong had drawn him to me. I knew it wasn’t a comforting gesture. On the other hand, I didn’t understand the logic of maintaining a relationship with her. Perhaps that logic was not unlike the one that sustained my marriage, although it was worlds apart...

A beautifully harmonized duet sang at the end of the song.

I didn’t stop sobbing. My entire body was shaking. At that moment I felt like someone had pulled out my soul and placed it in lyrics, that song and the tune from the radio were composing themselves. My head was spinning. For the first time in my life I found justification for people dying on purpose in moments of despair.

I took slow steps back into my room. I was expecting him to call me at any moment and come after me.

He didn’t! He didn’t even move.

We’d missed the chance to reconnect in this amazing match of the song’s words to our sad truth.

The end of the song “never again mine, never again”, which at first seemed to me like it was a possible, fair, punishment for him, lost its content and didn’t find a place in my heart.

Gradually I became aware that love was again present in this house. That it came out again from every corner. It was like it was hidden only temporarily, for a little while.

His whole motionless presence in the hallway spoke that our love had withstood a great test. Through some invisible thread that came from him to me, I felt that he still loved me, perhaps more than ever... He was mine...

I stretched out my body on my bed in my room like a motionless statue. Voiceless. The slightest movement he made startled me.

Moments later I heard him lie down quietly almost silently on the green couch, appearing like he had lost all his strength.

Some time later two women inside of me began to fight... One was hurt, humiliated, thrown away and the other, the stronger one, was the one who loved him… their fight appeared to be irreconcilable. They showed each other their teeth, shouted, growled.

“You are the most ordinary coward, without dignity, without pride, you are nobody. After all he’s done to you, you should despise him, reject him, forget he exists”, shouted the first woman.

The other woman had only one single argument, but a powerful and undeniable one. That was love; the love that engulfed her entire being and drew her towards him. It was unstoppable like fate. She longed for his every slightest touch, for the whisper of his beloved lips, for the trembling of his excited body, for the silent and clear conversation of his beloved eyes.

The first woman looked at her with contempt and, unable to bear her, left the dispute with dignity.

The second woman quietly enjoyed her happiness and didn’t betray her love...

...For the first time in the last two days he stood before me with an open face and a clear view. I didn’t hear when he came in. Maybe that’s why I felt his presence as some kind of apparition, so loved, so loving.

I accepted his hands extended to me and his lips, which had no trace of the kiss on the lips of that other woman. It was just our kiss, just our lips and only our love.

Our lips and faces were moist and there was more than tears in our eyes.

I said, “I love you,” with a whisper which, according to our old custom, only he could hear, or rather sense.

“I love you, I love you very much, the most”, he pressed me to his chest, whispering words with his lips that he could barely form between kisses.

I knew that only apparitions had the power to utter these words like he did... to whisper of love like this.

Even now I’m not aware of what it was that made me utter the following words, as if in some way I was seeking assurance that my existence in his heart hadn’t ceased even for a moment. I said:

“And yesterday, right, and today, dear?”

No one could describe the expression on his face, nor the voice by which he said:

“Even more yesterday, darling, even more today...”

There was something terrible and wonderful in that voice, infinitely terrible and wonderful.

The woman in me who loved, defending his behaviour, said to the other woman, “Don’t listen, not to the words themselves, listen to what is contained in the voice... Words can lie but not the hands, nor the lips, nor the whisper of spiritual beings.”

Every quiver of his body belonged to me again. We hugged each other; we loved each other until oblivion like apparitions, until exhaustion, until complete exhaustion...

He only held the little finger of my hand, like a child, as if to make sure we wouldn’t be separated, as if just enough to convince himself that I was there, that I existed, that I wasn’t torn away from his strong embrace even by the painful things that had happened to us.

Darkness reigned over the house and love floated everywhere in the apartment.

My eyes became blurry again... Why again now…?

I felt that I’d forgiven him and that’s why I cried with happiness.

* * *

The night was quiet, mild, with a shining, full moon. The street lamps quivered in the dark.

I was standing on the balcony, as usual, waiting for my man, who regularly came late. I was lonely and feeling empty. Then I stretched out on the old but comfortable armchair. Sitting in it was a real pleasure.

The moon sank between the black silhouettes behind the poplars, awakening some longing, nostalgia, some immense desire for beauty.

In moments like this I was pleased that my husband wasn’t here, that he was late. I had pretty much stopped being tied to him long ago.

My old aunt was dozing on the bleached hemp in her room. I could barely see her silhouette in the darkness through the open window,

like a picture from a fantasy movie. For years she didn’t go to bed before my husband arrived. She always waited for him. Then, after he’d come, she would get up and wander about the room sleepily, displeased, muttering words criticizing his coming late.

The house was located in the suburbs, so there were various smells coming from the surrounding gardens, the chirping of crickets cheering up the nocturnal setting.

All that was around me dragged me back to my past, to those restless carefree maiden days, filled with restlessness and dreams, full of beliefs about the wonderful things in life that were yet to come.

Maybe there was a need to go back because right now I didn’t know how to dissect events in my life, for or against what was and how it might have been.

A long time ago, my parents were left without their little girl, as my father liked to say. Children gradually, imperceptibly break away from those who created and raised them, and began to live their own lives...

I was alone, without brothers and sisters, and perhaps that’s why my mother and father took care of me with extra tenderness and care.

My father was a good man, a rare intellectual, with a great wealth of spirit and persistent optimism.

My mother was calm and gentle, unable to anger or offend anyone, excessively patient.

My first impressions of life were tied to books of various colors and titles, arranged with dignity in a huge library, which reached almost to the ceiling of the living room in our apartment. I had learned to read before I started school.

I was constantly surrounded by a large number and variety of toys, picture books and books.

My first contact with friends at school and going to their houses began to reveal something else to me, a world that wasn’t always and was almost never the same as the world that I carried in my soul as my own, as the world of my family.

I remember how scared I was when, while doing a school assignment with a friend at her house, I heard her father calling her mother in a harsh, for me, terribly harsh voice. I was even more surprised that she, my friend, paid no attention to it. I realized that her parents behaving in this way was something ordinary for her. Then, I don’t know why, I always dragged her to come to my house to do our assignments.

Another example, which saddened me a lot and remained in my indelible memory for the rest of my life, was when I ran into a drunk. We were walking down the street, when a friend of mine and I suddenly ran into an unshaven man wearing an untidy, dirty shirt and half-fallen pants, whom we hadn’t noticed before. He quickly grabbed my friend by her arm and forced her to go with him. She just looked at me with sad eyes and left. I wanted to cry, to shout for people to take her away from him. I wanted to run after her but was afraid to meet the sight of his bloodshot eyes. He was almost dragging her. But at that moment my friend yelled:

“He’s my father!”

I felt like someone had hit me hard on the head. I quickly ran home. I ran to hide there, in what was our sanctuary, where, at that time, it seemed to me, I could be safe.

For a long time my mother tried to understand what was wrong with me, what had happened to me. But I remained silent like I had sworn, like I had been entrusted with some hideous secret, which I couldn’t divulge. This, of course, was my school friend’s secret, which I would have never known if I hadn’t happened to go back with her that fateful day.

I never did tell my mother and father what I’d experienced that day; it was like I was afraid that they wouldn’t allow me to go out again in order to keep me in the harmony and kindness of their quiet

happiness. That evening, lying in the dark, I felt a deep gratitude to my parents for creating the loving atmosphere in that world of ours in our home, a world of deep warmth, care and carelessness, a world of humanity.

After several years of school, the books drew me irresistibly, so that I devoted myself to them for days and nights, tirelessly seeking the truth and answers to all the questions that tormented me. They became my second close and loved world.

Sitting in the house in the evening together with my father and mother I often told them everything that interested me. I occasionally even found myself resisting the defined, established truths which they sometimes advocated.

That resistance was often expressed in small things like, let’s say, not wanting to wear a black apron to school, solely because the principal had issued the order.

In that regard, my father would have made a complete analysis of the necessity and logic the school used to make such a request. If the director of the school, understandably, on behalf of the college, made a decision that students should wear black aprons, then my father would have thoroughly considered the reasons and would say “there was nothing to think about. You will wear it.”

Or, let’s say if there was a rule that “a student must not walk alone on the street after eight o’clock in the evening,” which also meant that students couldn’t go to the theater without their parents. To that my father would say, “That’s not allowed.”

One evening I said to my father, coolly and even a bit provocatively, “Father, tonight I’m going to the theater with a few friends.”

After a short silence he said:

“You know that’s not allowed.”

“But why father, it’s a theater, it isn’t a place where the student’s authority is violated.”

To that he said:

“I know but you know very well that, according to the school’s regulations, it’s not allowed. If you wanted to see this show you should have told me earlier, I would have accompanied you and I believe your mother would have too.”

I knew that he would do that for me but the performance itself wasn’t important, but rather a kind of defiance which in those years I loved to exercise against something that was prescribed, established, or ordered.

Of course I went to the theater that night, with my class group anyway.

My father didn’t even try to talk about it the next day. Only my mother reprimanded me slightly but more because of my attitude towards my father, which in that case looked like disrespect to her.

No mother, it wasn’t disrespect, in the least. Maybe young people wanted to live with less restrictions and rigidity, and more so with flexibility. The older we got the more restless we became...

I was restless and impatient... But when I was sitting in the theater I was really surprised by the extraordinary acting abilities of the actors and actresses. I imagined myself being a great, famous actress, an actress with a reputation worldwide, all in flowers, bouquets, masses of fans, strong applause… After the performance when I got home, I stood in front of the mirror for a long time and, in the semi-dark, studied the features of my face and imitated the facial expressions the actors had made in the tragic roles...

Watching the graceful actions of the ballerinas, I didn’t consider it impossible to learn even the most difficult moves and make the most delicate hand movements...

I danced secretly in my room. The young lady in me did the dancing.

I watched many movies. I read more and more of the most beautiful world literature and no one could dissuade me from believing that only the good and beautiful won everywhere in the world.

However, my happiest moments were at my desk in our classroom. I liked to hang out almost equally with both girls and boys, if they were good friends.

But at the same time, I also sank into that boil of students with worries and unrest almost every day. There were all kinds; from too withdrawn, good-natured, to too bold, even impudent. However, all of these problems were somehow similar, even the same, not because of the black colour of the aprons and blouses, but because of the fact that we carried them inside of us every day when we came to class and again we carried them inside of us when we went home.

What happened that day I couldn’t even attempt to explain…I didn’t understand it then... He looked at me with his clear blue eyes, straight into my eyes and then was embarrassed. I don’t know why but I too was embarrassed... Actually, our embarrassment was caused by something that we felt independently, somewhere deep in our consciousness. It felt like we were independently startled by something unknown to us.

Then we avoided looking at each other; afraid of running into that thing again. But somehow, indirectly, I had the feeling that we wanted to do that again; to look into each other’s eyes. Even though we avoided looking at each other we stole moments when we did look when the other wasn’t looking. That was the start of the game.

It seemed to me that everyone in the class already knew what we were doing. Even though we both barely knew what it was. In any case, it was some kind of special relationship we had, the both of us and it was ours... That realization excited me and confused me terribly, so that in his presence I behaved awkwardly, sometimes even funny. He did the same.

Although I absently followed what the professor was teaching during class, I felt that I was completely transported to the boy,

burning with impatience - what would happen next. At the same time, I dreaded the school bell going off.

From time to time I instinctively felt his eyes looking at my hair, and there was nothing in the world that would have dared me to turn and meet his gaze. And even if I had turned, he would have immediately turned away to avoid my gaze.

The following days were filled with new and miraculous previously unknown excitement, restlessness, weakening our resistance more and more and raising the restlessness to the ultimate limit.

We wanted to be alone but we were afraid.