Front Matter - Part 06

Right next to the old wooden house was a well-built two-story house. It was a house on the corner and next to it was a well-traveled street that led towards the city centre. There was also a one story stone house inside the courtyard of the big house. An elderly woman lived in the big house. Her two sisters were married to Serbians and lived in Belgrade. The old woman had a serious accident and wasn't well and often behaved erratically. She lived on a disability pension but no one was sure if she was actually disabled or was pretending so that she could get disability. She was unpredictable. She dressed nicely, wore expensive clothes, had her hair done by the most expensive hairdressers and was visited by various people. She even managed to marry a pensioner who'd served in the military.

During the summer months her sisters and their families came over and vacationed with her. The house belonged to all three sisters.

They had inherited it from their parents and, by mutual agreement it was equally shared by the three.

After her husband died the old lady was left alone in that big two-story house. But when her new neighbours, Branko and Rada arrived, they changed her life.

I found out about the old wooden house being sold when its new owners, Branko and Rada, began to paint the stone house. Passing by it one day I noticed that it had been painted with a thick layer of brown and dark green oil paints. Soon the little stone house that stood in the front yard had been transformed. A wooden-framed glass window was added on the front, through which they intended to sell sandwiches. After it opened many people, especially young people, came to buy snacks. Rada and her two daughters could hardly keep up. Soon after they opened they began to sell all kinds of ice-cream flavours which attracted passers-by, especially children.

They added large tiles and flowerpots with colourful flowers in their yard. They then added tables and chairs and began to serve coffee, juice and other drinks in the outdoors. Days later I noticed they had added a thin decorative canopy made of canvas, to protect their customers from the hot summer sun. People who wanted to sit down and refresh themselves by the lake with coffee and cold drinks flocked to this place.

Over time I became more and more convinced that this well-organized family lived in perfect harmony. Even their eight-year-old son had to work. He collected the cups and saucers from the tables and carefully and meticulously wiped the tables. I was having coffee in their café one day and decided to praise the boy for working so hard. The little one told me that his parents paid him for the work that he was doing. I was worried that he might be missing school but I was reassured that all three of the children also attended school regularly and that they all were excellent students.

Gradually this café, which apparently was growing into a restaurant, began to serve all kinds of food. It attracted even more people both during the day and late in the evening. The family had to employ several waiters, cooks, etc. Serving good quality food and providing excellent service, this restaurant evolved into a great place to dine in the city.

As the children moved up in grades and needed more time to spend on learning, their parents reduced their work schedule in the restaurant. But they were free to work of course, if they wanted to help during their free time.

When the two girls were ready to pursue higher education one went to study abroad and the other went to Skopje. Their brother stayed with his parents while he was a student.

While all this was going on, a number of new and major events began to develop, things that had been brewing for a long time, especially after President Tito's death. Yugoslavia began to disintegrate into its constituent parts. The two northernmost republics, Croatia and Slovenia separated first, prompting the others to do the same. Some separated in a peaceful manner and some through armed struggles. Fortunately for us, Macedonia separated without a military conflict. Our separation was achieved in a peaceful way with the expressed free will of the citizens in a referendum. Our president Kiro Gligorov did his best to prevent bloodshed and achieved our independence with an agreement. The separation, unfortunately, had a great impact on all our lives.

Borders were set between the small, new states which hadn't existed before.

The moment the borders between Macedonia and Serbia were opened the two sisters who lived in Serbia and owned the big house at the corner took the opportunity to come to Ohrid. After the new borders were raised they feared that they wouldn't be able to travel to Macedonia and would probably lose their house in the future.

During their visit, one of the sisters sold her part of the house to Branko. It was the part which had a window with a view of the lake.

A little later Branko and Rada partitioned the part, built several smaller apartments and started renting them out to tourists, mostly foreigners.

As could be expected, the second sister who lived in Belgrade also sold her part of the house to Branko and Rada. That part too was partitioned into small apartments and rented out to tourists. The old lady whose name was Fime still owned the third part of the house but it had a separate entrance that led to another street away from the lake.

Being intimidated by Macedonia's independence and having to cross a border, the two sisters who lived in Serbia stopped coming to Ohrid. Their sister, who continued to live in the same house, felt even more alone and more vulnerable so she turned to Branko and Rada for attention and she eventually became part of their family, especially after her health began to fail with age. She frequently ate her meals at Branko and Rada's restaurant; it was handy for her, so to speak, since it was located in her backyard. That's how Fime spent the last few years of her life. After her death, her heirs sold her part of the house to Branko and Rada.

It was unbelievable how the dice of life rolled with the destinies of these families.

Taking risks can be rewarding sometimes with big returns. But other times one could lose a lot. But the smart investment Branko and Rada made, depending on their own skill, creativity, and above all tireless energy, contributed to the construction of a huge three-story hotel with a restaurant on the lakeshore where the old merged with the new.

All of Branko and Rada' s children graduated from university, majoring in professions of their choice, but still they helped their parents, working in this beautiful building by the lake, even after they had their own families. Many other people were also employed by Branko and Rada. Their facilities were enjoyed by a large number of guests, both domestic and foreign from all over the world.

Every time I went to visit my long-time friend Nevena, in whose house we had been vacationing for fourteen years, I passed by the hotel and looked forward to see if anything new had been added.

Nevena's house was located next to the hotel and as I recall she always welcomed us with open arms every time we went there. She cleaned the rooms for us and covered our beds with bright white, ironed bed sheets. She was more like a close relative to us than a hostess. Our special request was to put us up on the ground floor and she always did.

The rooms she rented to tourists were never empty. There was always a demand for them during the summer. Nevena was a hardworking and lively person who always smiled. She walked up and down the stairs to the upper floor of the house more than a dozen times per day. She made sure everyone was looked after. She was always nice to everyone. Even after I finished building my house, I couldn't help but go to Nevena's place for a visit and to at least have coffee at her clean tables in her yard. Nevena's hospitality and sociability was passed on to her children and grandchildren. She came from a prominent family. Her brother was a famous photographer, one of the oldest in the city. Everyone in her family was well-educated. Her daughter, who lived in Skopje, was one of the most noble and extraordinary women I have ever met. She built a house in Nerezi. There was no one in that village or in the surrounding villages who didn't respect and love her. In the years when she lived alone she painted several landscapes. She wanted to leave something behind after she died; she knew she wasn't going to live long.

And now, back to my house.

After the supports and framework of the second slab were removed I left for Skopje. A few days later my lead worker called me on the telephone and asked:

"Since we have some extra material left why don't we build the next set of pillars?" I said, "You can do that but you know that I have no money to pay you. I probably won't be able to pay you for a long time. Also, we still haven't decided what we are going to do next and when. I need to discuss this with my children first." "Here's how we're going to come to an agreement," he replied.

"When you get the money you can pay me. What could your children possibly say? Once the house is built, it is build... I'm sure they'll agree with that." "I don't know what to tell you..." I said before we lost the connection and the telephone went dead.

I decided not to talk to anyone at home about this but the lead worker called me again a few days later and informed me that the work was completed.

I immediately left for Ohrid to see what they had done. The new concrete pillars were up and the building material was gone. The only things that were left were the forty new large beams lined up in the yard, side by side. I called the lead worker and left a message to inform him that I was at my house in Ohrid.

The next day he called me back early in the morning. He said that a baby, his granddaughter, had been born and that it would make a big impression on everyone in his family if I went to his house. I decided to go. I knew that Labunishta was a large village, populated mostly by Albanians. Most of those people were Macedonian speakers who had accepted the Muslim faith. And because they were isolated these people spoke archaic Macedonian, which was considered more pure than the literary Macedonian language. I went to the village by taxi. The lead worker was waiting for me in front of a huge, recently built mosque as we had agreed. Just as we greeted each other, he proudly boasted that it was his brother who had provided the money to build the mosque.

When we arrived at his house, there were several women sitting on the ground, on mattresses, and six or seven children and grandchildren were running around them in the middle of the large living room on the ground floor. His wife whom I knew from before, because one day she had come to the construction site, immediately welcomed me with open arms after which the two daughters-in-law and another woman I didn't know greeted me.

They offered me sweets and beverages. I gave them a gift for the new baby and the toys I had brought for the other children. We then chatted a bit about this and that. The children immediately took the toys and began to play with them, occasionally looking at me curiously. The older ones asked me what my name was.

Before I left I praised the lead worker and his sons for their hard work. The lead man's wife said that they were grateful to me also for offering them employment. I promised them that I would come and visit them again another time and left by taxi back to Ohrid.

When I got back I gathered the beams and, one by one, secured them in a room on the ground level, which we used as a warehouse. I also had stored bricks in the same room.

A few days after I'd come to Ohrid, I met a close friend of a relative.

She had an apartment in the city and often stayed there for several days. She was a widow and had no children from either her first or second marriage. She had inherited two flats from her husband who had died a few years ago and, as a bank clerk, she was making good money. As we continued to walk she asked me why I was in Ohrid. I told her about the troubles I was having building my house... That's when she offered to loan me some money... for a longer term and with low interest... She said that she had a lot of money in the bank and it wasn't making much interest there anyway.

I called my family in Skopje.

My children advised me that it was up to me to decide what I wanted to do.

They were pretty sure which way I would decide and how to go about solving the problem. They knew I was already a prisoner of the house that we were building and the only way out was to finish it.

The amount of money I asked to borrow was close to what I needed to add the next slab on top of the pillars that had already been built.

The day after I received my loan from the lady, I called the workers and invited them to come back to work. The next day they did. They also brought with them a cement mixer. It was a rare kind made in Slovenia. It looked more modern than the others and worked more efficiently. To safeguard it they tied it with a thick chain to one of the sturdy bars on the ground-floor window and locked it with a huge padlock, as they had done before with their other mixers.

The lead worker wrote down what and how much material I should get in order to continue with the construction job and left for his village. He said he would come back in two or three days. I too left and went to Skopje to get some necessary things.

A day later he called me and said:

"Do you know anything about my cement mixer? It looks like it was stolen." I was surprised by his question. I said to him, "How could I possibly know. I wasn't there. I left for Skopje immediately after you left.

And even if I was there, I wouldn't have been in the house because I don't stay in the house during the evenings and overnight." "Come to Ohrid as soon as possible... " he said, "let's see what we can do." I took the first bus from Skopje to Ohrid as I had many other times before, and got off at the stop closest to my house, near the high school. From there I walked down the street that led to the lake, where my house was located. On my way I passed by a house that was being built. This house had been started almost at the same time as mine, so I wanted to see how far the construction had progressed.

When I looked in the yard I saw the same kind of cement mixer as the one my workers used. I thought it was curious that this group of workers would be using the same kind of cement mixer, given how rare they were and right after the one was stolen from my house.

There was something fishy about this... If the cement mixer was stolen the thieves wouldn't dare use it so close by. Then I suddenly remembered. The lead worker who was building this house was a relative of the lead worker who was building my house...

I became suspicious that something was going on here but I couldn't quite connect what it was. Could the cement mixer not be his and the real owner came and took it without telling him? Was the cement mixed his and he forgot that he'd loaned it to his relative to finish some work? Or was he telling me that it was stolen because he didn't want to work for me because he had been offered more money to work somewhere else? In any case I wasn't happy with what was happening.

He was sitting in my yard when I arrived. After greeting each other I asked, "Did you report the theft to the police?" "What are you talking about? If I did that they wouldn't believe me anyway, they would think I was lying," he replied.

"You should have," I said.

"You don't understand," he replied, "you haven't dealt with the police. What's worse, I now have nothing to work with. I won't be able to work..

"You will manage," I said. "You will borrow a cement mixer from someone..."

"No one will give me one... They need it to work... " I opened the front door to go inside. I was still hesitating to tell him about the cement mixer I saw in the yard where his relatives were working. I was afraid of what situation he would find himself in if he realized that he had been caught in a lie. He didn't know that I knew that the workers working at the other site were his relatives.

The engineer supervising the work had told me they were relatives.

In the end I decided not to tell him that I'd seen the cement mixer and where I'd seen it. After we got inside, we sat down and in a categorical tone of voice I reminded him that he was fully capable of managing the work and that he needed to build the stairs from the ground floor to the first floor. I then asked him to immediately measure how much and what kind of materials were needed to build the formwork, how much rebar was required as well as how much sand and cement!

"All three of my sons have gone to work in Italy, so I will need one more worker and for that you will pay me another hundred euros in advance," he said.

I thought about it for a moment and said, "Okay, now let's have some coffee." I put the coffee pot on the gas stove and lit it. I then went outside the front door and telephoned my friend, the husband of the friend where I was staying, and asked him to come over as soon as possible. He arrived while we were still having our coffee. I took out a sheet of paper and said to the lead worker:

"My friend here, in front of you, is a lawyer. I will draft an agreement and we will both sign it. I will write down that you agree to start building the stairs immediately and that you are asking for another hundred euros for that, despite the fact that in the previous agreement it was agreed that you would build the stairs for the money I already paid you. I agree to pay you another hundred euros after you build the stairs because, as you said, you will also hire a worker. I will write all that down on this paper..." After I had drafted the agreement I read it back to him. The man looked at my lawyer friend several times inquisitively and then signed where I had written his name and I signed where I'd written my name. I dated it at the bottom of the page. I had to do this because I wasn't sure if I could find a new lead worker if he left.

The stairs needed to be finished urgently.

My lawyer friend and he then immediately took measurements for everything that was needed to be procured to build the stairs. After that we drove to the lumberyard where they cut planks for us. On our way we also hired the extra worker needed to help out from those waiting at the market to be hired. They started working the moment we got back. The next day, late in the evening, the staircase was built. I gave the lead worker the extra money he'd asked for and asked him when he was coming back. He said he would come back by taxi to pick up his tools in a couple of days.

When he came back he didn't look like he was going back home. He was dressed in working clothes. I mechanically memorized the number of the taxi and the company it belonged to. An hour after the man had loaded his tools and left, I called the taxi company and asked them to send me the same taxi. I told them that the passenger in the taxi had forgotten one of his tools and he needed it for his next job. So he'd asked me to send it to him where the taxi driver had taken him. When the taxi driver came, I told him to take me to where he had taken the worker with the tools.

He remembered where it was and he took me to a house that was being built. I told the taxi driver to drop me off at the main street, nearby. I paid him and he left. I returned and saw the man up on the scaffolding working. I walked home.

Again I was left without workers... Perhaps now was the time to delay the rest of the construction. But during a conversation I'd had with a catering inspector, with whom I often had coffee at my favourite restaurant he had suggested that I shouldn't stop the construction

"A house without a roof," he said, "is like a man without a head.

You should continue with the construction even if it's a bit at a time.

You shouldn't abandon the building, even for a short time, especially since you aren't in town all the time. There are many mean, envious people who could do damage." "They can't really do anything anymore," I replied.

"You don't think so? You just don't know what bad people are capable of..." he said.

Almost every time I went to see my house I passed by the other house that was being built. A few days after my workers left I again passed by the other house and saw the cement mixer was still there... But I didn't care anymore.

One day I went to the market to buy some fresh fruit and on my way back I ran into Boris, the man who had done some work for me. He was standing there with several other workers waiting for someone to hire them.

He was happy to see me and immediately asked me how I was doing with building my house. I told him about the problems I was having and he said, "You know, there is a group of local workers with whom I have worked before; a son-in-law, a brother-in-law and a nephew. I don't know if they are working right now but I can ask..."

"Okay," I said, "if they are free then ask them to come over to my house tomorrow and we will see what we can do..." The next day the workers came by. They looked over the construction site to determine what else needed to be done. They examined the material I had on hand and determined how much more I needed to buy. We agreed on how much I would pay them for the work. They also agreed to start work the next day. After that they left. I was delighted that we were going to continue with the construction and finish building the third and final slab.

The engineer I had hired to supervise the construction came over less and less. He said he had many obligations. I couldn't decide if I should replace him or not. He had been recommended by a friend and we worked well together. Without him I had to do the supervising myself and, because I wasn't experienced, I had to rely on the experience and competence of my construction workers. I knew what to do with many of the elementary things because I had learned them from my previous workers.

My new workers started working early in the morning because they lived locally and didn't have to travel far. The agreement was that they first finish all the stairs before they could work on the slab. I reminded them of that and they agreed that they had no problem with finishing the stairs first. All three workers were middle-aged men and had confidence in their abilities. In terms of materials, I told them where to find them and that there was everything they needed to make the slab, as well as the planks and beams that were needed to build the stairs. We bought sand and rebar and they started working immediately. Because they were working high up on the house I couldn't see what they were doing. They used an unstable wooden ladder leaning against the outside walls to climb up, which I didn't dare climb so I relied on them to do things right. More importantly I trusted Boris, he was a good person and wouldn't have recommended these people if they weren't competent.

When I came to the site and went inside on the ground floor I could hear them working non-stop. But several days later the stairs still weren't built.

Once again I mentioned to them to finish the stairs first so that they could use them to climb up. I said it would be easier for them to climb up the stairs instead of that rickety, long wooden ladder. But they insisted that the slab needed to be build first and that the staircases would come next.

Occasionally the lead man's son came over to the site to help them procure the necessary material they needed. He drove an older car.

But despite my recommendation, they decided to build the slab before they built the stairs. They also tried to convince me that the third slab should be lighter, that is, they should build it with bricks, through which they would drive rebar, just like they had done with many other houses. I told them they should consult with the civil engineer the moment he arrived before they did anything. But they said the engineer had already agreed.

A few days later they told me that everything was ready and that tomorrow they would pour the concrete for the slab. The next day they attached a pulley with a cable and an electric hoist to the same large plank on which they lifted the wheelbarrow full of concrete, which they poured into the prepared formwork.

It was Sunday. After lifting several wheelbarrows of concrete they ran into a problem. The fuses blew. The lead man's son went to the store, bought fuses and climbed up to install them. They continued to work. Less than an hour later the fuses blew again. They had to stop working again. Another set of fuses were purchased and the work resumed.

I prepared food and at noon I invited them to come in to eat. After they ate the lead man told me that we were running out of cement and that we needed at least three more bags to finish the job. I told him that I had purchased exactly the same number of bags for this slab as I purchased for the other two slabs we'd built. He persisted. I reminded him that it was Sunday and that there were no stores open where it could be bought. He said he had a friend who guarded one of the warehouses and he would let his son in to buy the cement.

"If we run out of concrete it will be too late, what will we do then, and you know that the job can't be interrupted while we pour the slab," he warned me.

He left me no choice so I gave his son the money and he went and brought three more bags of cement. After they worked for a while the lead man called me from above and told me that they needed at least three more bags of cement. I looked over to where the bags were stacked and noticed that they were indeed decreasing, but I wasn't convinced that they would all be used up. At the same time I convinced myself that even if I bought too many bags it wouldn't be a problem. There was still a lot of work to be done... And so again I gave his son more money and he bought three more bags.

When the son came back I noticed he parked his car on the far side of the sidewalk and didn't unload the three bags he had just purchased. He left the site, went somewhere and came back half an hour later. I told him to unload the bags and move his car off the sidewalk because he was going to be fined. He pretended he didn't hear me and went somewhere again. The pouring of the concrete was coming to an end. One of the workers announced that this was the last batch of concrete they were mixing.

At the same time I saw the lead man's son leaving in a hurry. He drove his car away without unloading the bags. I didn't know what to do. If I accused him of taking the bags I would have a problem with the workers, most of all with his father, and that would mean that I would be left without workers again. So I pretended I hadn't seen anything when in fact it was premeditated theft. I counted the rest of the bags and found that I had five left. I began to distrust the workers and wasn't sure if they would rob me blind when I wasn't there. I also began to suspect that in the past they were taking other building materials without my permission. They probably took stuff when I wasn't there; the several hours in the evening when I was with my friends.

A few days later when they came back to work they immediately started laying the bricks. Again they didn't bother to build the stairs.

In the meantime, without the engineer's or my permission, the workers began to hastily build the two remaining staircases. When I asked them why they were rushing, especially after it was getting dark, they told me they wanted to surprise me.

A few days later, after the concrete on the staircases had dried and the workers removed the framework, I noticed that the stairs weren't built well not like the previous stairs. I complained to them but they tried to tell me that they had no choice because that part of the house was narrower and they had to adapt to the asymmetric shape.

Unfortunately it was a fait accompli and there was nothing to be done.

There was still my roof that needed to be built. I paid the workers for the work they had done and sat them down for a chat. I asked them if they had built a roof before on other houses. They assured me they had so I hired them to build a roof for my house. After they cut the beams to size they began the work. In time the new roof took shape. It looked solid.

Then we went to the store (this time we went with my car) and bought emery cloth, which they nailed to the beams and on top of it the boards on which the ceramic tiles would be laid. The roof was ready in a few days. The ceramic tiles were then arranged. When they called me to go up to the attic and have a look, I easily climbed up the new staircases and up a short wooden stepladder. I was so happy that the job was done I forgot all my troubles. Lake Ohrid looked beautiful from my upper floor.

A few days later I found and hired a master electrician who installed all the cables and sockets in the new part of the house. I purchased all the necessary materials and paid him in instalments for the work he'd done. I already had electricity in the lower part of the house before we started the upgrade and all the electrician had to do was wire the upper floor. The man really knew his job well and wired my house in no time. I now had electrical outlets and lights all throughout the house.

Unfortunately, I still had to deal with connecting my house to the city's water supply and drainage system. But thanks to my good friends and above all to my son, who was friends with the director of the water supply and sewage departments, we were finally able to complete that job. On the day that we were connected a team of people from the water department came to my house in an official van and delivered the tools and necessary materials to complete the connection.

First they dug all over my yard until they found the underground water pipe. Our next door neighbours from behind us, from whom we had endured much torment in the past, came running to see what was happening. The workers found out that the original water pipe through which our house was getting its water ran through the next door neighbour's yard so they decided to dig a new ditch close to our house and connect us directly to the main that ran along the street. While digging they discovered that there was a special pipe through which water came only to our house but it had been cut and plugged about one metre before it reached the house. The moment it was revealed that the pipe had been cut our next door neighbours disappeared out of sight. They had probably cut the pipe a long time ago.

After this was revealed many of those who saw what had been done wondered when and how the pipe had been cut, and if there were any witnesses. Unfortunately even if people knew no one dared speak.

Both the water and sewage systems were soon installed.

Eventually after each member of my family contributed as much as they could, the debts incurred for upgrading the house were paid off.

Soon afterwards we installed new doors and windows and added new carpets in the living room and the hallways. We also purchased new couches, dressers, a stove, a washing machine, a refrigerator, tables and chairs. The house was now well furnished. We added railings to the staircases and balconies as well as ceramic tiles. We bought outdoor chairs for the balconies and sat and enjoyed the sunrise and sunset every day. The scenery was so great that even if you weren't a poet, you would become one. The natural beauty was sure to make you restlessness and fill you with the desire to create.

Everyone who was born there and lived next to this unique gift of nature felt great, not only in body but also in spirit.

We could now say that our house was built and we no longer had to worry about any further investments. But we would be wrong because a house was never finished; it would always require new things...

My brother-in-law, the doctor, finished building his weekend house at about the same time as I finished mine He too endured just as much as I did but his love for his native land gave him strength and filled him with joy for what he had created. He was proud to be able to leave his son and daughter this beautiful house at the foot of the mountain with a view of the lake and its unique landscapes.

My sister and brother-in-law's house became our family's second home where we all gathered together from time to time. My children and their children always shared everything. My daughter and my sister's son also shared a profession. They were both directors.

With time we continued to slowly improve our house in Obrid.

Almost simultaneously my sister and I added a façade by the skilled hands of a group of young workers.

One could see my cream-colored three-story house with large glass windows from the lakeshore. It had risen in the same place where a small, dilapidated one story house had once stood.

EPILOGUE With her latest novel, our well-known Macedonian novelist Dragica Najcheska, whose work we have been following for a long time, continues her series of successful narrative works, in her recognizable style, and in a form that logically follows on from her previous novel, "Lifelong Noose".

The novel "House on the Lake" deals with a seemingly simple topic, easy to read, contemporary and current. The main character, Violeta Nikolovska, buys a small abandoned house on the shore of Lake Ohrid. But immediately after buying it, with her first attempts to prepare it for living and vacationing, things in her life become extremely complicated. Even in her wildest fantasy, Violeta couldn't have imagined the trauma and painful moments she would go through and how long they would last in the following years, until she finally lived in it.

The main plot, the purchase of the house, continues in a whole series of subplots, starting with the most personal one - relations with her husband and her family, and continues with her relationship with her neighbours. An entire series of even more complex relationships are created in the new environment in which quick decisions have to be made and a new coexistence has to be started.

Her first conflict begins with her next door neighbours, who were offered to buy the house but refused. It soon becomes clear that they were hoping to get this small house for free. After failing to do so, they gradually damage it so that one day it will collapse and they can have it condemned. But their plans are disrupted because Violeta decides to buy it and restore it. Her next door neighbours refuse to accept that fact, that the house now has a new owner, and continue to use all possible pressures, still believing that in this way they can dissuade the new owner from renovating it. In fact, Violeta's dream, who is an artist, is to own a house overlooking the lake, hence the name of the novel.

One of the most important, complex and current threads in this novel is the fact that it is linked to bribery, servitude and personal interests before peoples' interests, and thus before the law, deeply embedded in the mechanisms of the state's institutions. In that sense, it is valuable to show a large number of officials -representatives of the government who are well paid by the state, and with many privileges, who are charged with protecting the interests of the citizens, guaranteed by existing laws, while they mostly break the laws and, on the contrary, work exclusively for their own benefit.

The suffering and absurd occurrences experienced by Violeta, the main character, are caused by the corrupt, often bribed officials from the judiciary, the authorities in the Municipality, the Public Revenue Administration and the local land registry office. Bribery is not only in the form of money, but also in large loan services and even blackmail. The direct cause and effect of this development is precisely linked with her next door neighbour and his contacts and connections because he himself is employed in one of the key positions in the local bureaucratic machinery.

Despite all those painful experiences and injustices, even rigged court trials, with invented, non-existent facts, Violeta manages to move into her house and realize her ownership rights. She is helped in this by several good people who are in key positions in some of the city's institutions.

Representing people from different layers and profiles in society, although in a small geographical area, Dragica Naj cheska, author of the novel "House on the Lake", paints a picture of the development path our social community has taken in the past decades, starting from the mid-eighties. At the same time, many of the mechanisms discussed, recognizable in a completely different socio-political system, sound more relevant today than ever before.

As in all her previous works, Dragica Najcheska wrote about contemporary topics, with a realistic approach, immediately winning over the reader from the very first events of the action. Her highly recognizable artistic statement, on the other hand, incorporates a new form of storytelling, first introduced in the novel "Lifelong Noose". This novel approached the topic from three angles, three aspects of the same story: the first, the most basic, in which the main protagonist, who drives the action, speaks in the first person about the events and experiences she encounters; the second, from the point of view of the storyteller, the author, in the third person, but only treating the actions and feelings of the main protagonist, separated by bold letters; and the third, the dialogues, the events that happen independently of the main narrator and the protagonist to other characters, antagonists, those who are directly confronted with the intentions and actions of the main protagonist, is presented by italic letters.

The kind of language Dragica Najcheska is using here provides a special dynamic, and also puts the reader in a privileged position, to be able to find themselves on several different sides that make up the mosaic of relationships, the complexity of which can be followed and understood more easily in this way.

Dr. Georgi Stalev