CHAPTER ELEVEN – Rumena travels to Canada

CHAPTER ELEVEN – Rumena travels to Canada

Rumena took a trip to Canada to visit Frosina and see for herself how people live in that rotten capitalism.

One clear morning after breakfast Rumena left for Canada to visit her aunt Frosina. Dobrin and Delian stayed home. Dobrin took responsibility for looking after the house and doing all the chores.

“Please look after my Delian…” were the last words Rumena uttered before boarding the plane.

“And who else is going to look after him?!” replied Dobrin with an irritated tone of voice while waving his hand at Rumena who was boarding the plane.

After waiting a few years they finally got their apartment and decorated it with what little they had. It was simple in taste considering the way they lived and the kind of lifestyle they were used to. Iron beds, a table and a few chairs without armrests. Dobrin took over one of the bedrooms and converted it into an office where he had everything arranged to his liking. He was now working on his third book which bordered on fiction. He received negative reviews on his first two books which was quite disappointing. By switching to fiction Dobrin figured he would have better luck and forget that his work was judged inadequate. He now developed a philosophical attitude towards his offenders and believed that they could be forgiven but their insults could not be forgotten, so he tried to be understanding and forgiving. He decided to forgive others but not himself. Difficult as it was, he also seriously began to look at himself and concluded that somehow he was confused and the actions of a changing world did not exactly match his expectations. He also came to the realization that if he continued to move forward in this direction Rumena might leave him because she could no longer live with him. Dobrin had fallen from grace, and in Rumena’s words because he was a “purist” always seeking the truth. She now went to Canada to see her aunt Frosina and find out for herself how people in that rotten capitalist world lived.

The more Dobrin explained the course of his life, the sadder Rumena became. The many years of living in shelters, the endless conversations and arguments, the many attempts to right the wrongs, the personal disappointments… were all taking a toll on Dobrin. He eventually reached a point in his life when he said “It is time Comrades, for socialism to become not vanity but remorse, a poster of roadmaps, a quotation of the top leaders, spiritual food...”

His words become empty and Dobrin, discharged from the Party, found himself in the special composition of the unfit.

So, after Rumena left for Canada, Dobrin began to feel cold, lying alone on the iron bed, hands shaking and folded on his stomach. He lay there thinking of how to tackle the writing of a novel entitled “Persecuted”, an idea he had had for a long time. A lot of space in the novel was devoted to the secrecy and boredom of historic time during which he tried to convince himself that the everlasting passion and suffering of his people resulted from the fact that people were well-informed and determined and, as a result of that, in the end they lost hope. With his thesis he now had proven that the organized social shelters and camps were places for rehabilitation of human desires. He himself now felt differently and admited that earlier in his life he was not like that, earlier he loved the Party more than children, and was constantly saying that to Rumena. And that is why his initial choice for the title was “re-education”, a fiction novel. Now that his self-esteem was returning he was digging deeper in the secrets of his mind hidden in the tall ferns, looking into the essence of things, as if feeling with his fingers glued to the innermost sufferings and knowledge of the soul. Inakovich, one of his two eminent so-called critics of the time, wrote a book review in which, among other things, he said: “The about 250 page manuscript written by Suvogorski talks about the ‘Aegean syndrome’, the genocide of his Aegean people forced into exodus after the tragic ending of the civil war in Greece and after the destruction of the national liberation struggle. Therefore, this writer for the most part is preoccupied with the long creative period without any special values in his writing. Evidence of this is his sincerity in his writing with pathetic tones. Suvogorski has his own motives, but has no expression. Most importantly his expression is raped and he speaks with a political vocabulary, here and there amateurishly and

aesthetically inarticulate. The impression is that he is not an educated writer. His writing is like the writing of an amateur, with elements of opportunism. His talent is rudimentary, the kind that can be found far away from the main developments of contemporary Macedonian prose...”

Dobrin shook his head and smiled. His clean, sweaty face looked like the face of an honest person who firmly believed that now he had been completely freed from everything and had found himself in a special part of the unfit. He felt sad about having to explain the course of his life and the deeper he looked the sadder he felt. He had no idea how to heal or deal with his wounds residing in the deep recesses of his own mind. He lay on his iron bed feeling exhausted like an old horse, his heart trembling. He asked himself: “Is it possible that my homeland has abandoned me...?” He overcame his cold feeling and frailness while browsing through the letters, appeals and protests that were written by the USSR General Prosecutor. He felt that he must still talk about this? And why not?! The truth must not be avoided! “Be calm Dobrin,” he said to himself while thinking of another approach to his problem hoping to make some headway this time.

“Well things look clear from here,” Dobrin said to himself and shrugged his shoulders. He looked out the window. The sky was cloudy. It was early in the morning and the shelter seemed dark and cold. The sun needed to be high up before it could shine inside. He then looked up and thought of all the people that he had left behind. A slight smile covered his face when he thought of Rumena.

His son Delian was sleeping in the dining room next to him. He looked so innocent. He knew nothing about the kind of communism that was needed to enter a second phase... for the unfit… He knew nothing about religion either, except what he learned from textbooks in the newest program of targeted education. Dobrin, like an old teacher and lover of classical schooling, had his own categorical opinion about such a program and would often say that children could become as much prepared for the future as horses were prepared to carry straw. He dismissed the kind of education offered as culturally arbitrary, distorted and perverted. He relied on his own firm convictions and, more than ever before, he now wanted to

explore the essence of things. Having restored his self-esteem, he stepped out anew in the real world and was re-examining all he knew about himself in the socialist world. He often woke up in the middle of the night in his brightly lit apartment sitting among books of Marxist literature, surrounded by memories of imagination. He would sit there until dawn and then would open the window to listen to the birds sing and to the footsteps of pedestrians passing by. He had no hope. He was tired of the pace of going through his thoughts. The only thing he now had was his patience... He had been expelled from the Party a long time ago. He was expelled from his life as he knew it and from his views about the world. His face was weak and filled with exhaustion. It looked rigid and pale like the pages of his many yellowed books that surrounded him during his entire life.

He woke Delian in the morning to prepare him for work. To him Delian looked like a crippled sapling in a lush and fully developed socialist forest. To him even poor innocent Delian was perhaps guilty of something. But being free from ideological baggage, Delian was a happy person. After having to wait a long time to be offered a job, through a connection in Greece, he was now working for Manoli Dzimbrov’s private enterprise.

Dobrin kept everything that ailed him to himself. He was not ready to talk about it. He was patient and often told Rumena to be quiet… to be afraid of things… but to never discredit the revolution...

But as negative events continued to mount in his life he finally began to acknowledge his inability to face the truth. A certain fear began to engulf him from the moment he awoke. He was afraid of secrets and was beginning to forget things… everything. At the same time he realized that if he could not show his reality it meant that it did not exist. But if it did exist then he too did not exist. Now he could exist and not exist… to be and not to be… he was not there, he was different and he was not the same. “My Lord! My reality has become a dream!” he yelled out. He was overcome with despair… But his strong defense mechanisms in his subconscious mind quickly brought to light the real culprit for these dark thoughts. He said to himself: “I was an active participant in the Popular Resistance against the German occupation. I then participated in the Greek Civil War in the ranks of the Democratic forces and fought

against the reactionaries and against the Anglo-American intervention. The leadership accused me of treason… of treason… The leaders…” he concluded and stopped talking.