CHAPTER TEN – I have read the statute of the party in my dreams

CHAPTER TEN – I have read the statute of the party in my dreams

“They gave us lunch,” said Rumena looking excitedly at Dobrin. Dobrin spent the entire day with Strogov. He looked pale.

“What’s wrong Dobrin? What happened?! So here too they opened a file on you?! Oh, my God, this torment has no end... how ironic? Oh, my dear Dobrin. You are my misfortune. I am 35 years old and still wander around the world and still I have to read the statute of the party.

I never wanted to be close and cuddle with your party sycophants. My dear Dobrin, I only did what was absolutely necessary in order for me to comply with their requirements. That’s it!

We have been turned into machines, all the time you are leading me into some kind of obedience... You are all typical soldiers, armed citizens and party majesties... It is time that you, my dear Dobrin, learn to think with your own head, and then I think maybe we will be free from the Party... Your collective is like a flock of sheep grazing in May grasses, but when the wolf comes each one of you runs all alone. Is this what is happening to you revolutionaries? I wanted to tell you a long time ago, during our wanderings, to stop believing in the political Party pyramid. Do you think everyone is blind with hatred like you? They are your comrades, right? They now think they love their motherland, but that is destructive work, my dear Dobrin, especially when everyone is allowed to do whatever they want in the name of the people... This is how it is now. Time provides an opportunity for fanatical beliefs and that’s how it’s going to be. Everything that is under your control you expect to be obedient. You then bend over to everything that is above you with only one purpose, to be obedient... And too bad for those who lose the line of balance, like us… we are persecuted in the name of the people... This is our fate my dear Dobrin. And now you can wait for the truth to win. And if by any chance it comes to that, do you think it will undermine the conscience of your tormentors the likes of Firsov, Panteleev and now Strogov?

Our value is what people say it is, or I should say those who think they represent the people…” concluded Rumena.

Forty-five year old Dobrin had literally been through everything, even more so than anyone should. He sat there looking at Rumena. He then turned his blurred eyes and looked at the books lying on the table. The books left him with an impression of something alien, hostile and unnecessary... He pushed them aside and leaned on the table. Thoughts from yesteryear began to enter his mind stirring up old memories.

“Our people’s commitment to the CPG was truly great,” said Dobrin looking at Rumena and feeling like a culprit, and continued: “My uncle Iovan had a horse and a wagon; you know the kind that you flip to unload. He was proletarian and delivered sand to construction sites in Lerin. To get the job done faster he took me with him to help him. I was less than fourteen years old at the time. One day, sometime in 1936, we were out of town and followed the river to dig-up more sand. My uncle Iovan took some leaflets out of his breast pocked. They had a large red design of a hammer and sickle stamped over the text. He then stopped the wagon, shoved a number of them into my hand and said: ‘Run up to the road and scatter them along so that people can learn what communism is all about.’ He then turned to me, looked me in the eyes and said: ‘This is our party, the party of the poor and oppressed people... it would be great if we voted for someone who wants us and understands us. This is a party that will allow us to speak in the city in front of everyone, not to hide when we speak Macedonian...’

My uncle Iovan’s words left quite an impression on me. My father thought the same but never spoke to me or told me anything about communism... He worked day and night so that I could become a teacher, but I became a revolutionary instead, which my father now would not accept. When I was in Siberia he became heart broken. He loved me very much, I was an only child and he wanted me to be a teacher,” concluded Dobrin.

“Each revolution is paid for with casualties. Nothing is gained without casualties…” replied Rumena as if seeking justification.

“Also, and most unfortunate, the road to our destiny is now more intricate, my dear Dobrin…” added Rumena.

“What? What strange reasoning is that? What are you trying to say?” asked Dobrin.

“I clearly remember when you were in power, and the first thing I learned about relationships was how to behave with the party elite. It was an important moment to be part of a powerful man, to be ready and to be in the mood to dance the tango with him. In those days I believed in you and you stretched a smile of satisfaction on your face. Yet, still you were afraid of inviting the first lady, because that depended on the mood of the one we called the ‘wise leader’…” replied Rumena.

Dobrin seemingly felt calmer and accepted the fact that Rumena was in one of those moods and that it was best to allow her to calm down normally. His silence was the best medicine for that.

Unfortunately Dobrin could not remain silent for too long and said: “Just at that very moment my first protest boiled over in me, for the first time I had met an elite with a concerned conscience of preserving party hegemony. I admit that those moments were strange... It seemed that something subconscious drove me to try to smile, as if something satisfying entered my pleasure centre and made me happy. These were not insignificant things, but evidence of something that had taken root in many of us.

You know that the language of love is in your eyes... This is how I fell in love with you. Sometimes you met my eyes with your kind smile and for a long time I did not know why. I did not know what that was. And what was it? Let us go back there to that thing that never was… Are you saying that in the whole history of mankind everything is sacrifices? This is the first time I ever heard of that in my entire life,” said Dobrin and smiled with a big smile.

“Is that the kind of history you communists are going to leave behind? You should be able to see for yourself Dobrin that people are not interested in being reminded of casualties, especially by a person returning from the camps. It is in poor taste and rude to them.

The moral constraints of most of these elites have moved away and gone somewhere else. But not yours, you have put yourself in a position by remaining true to yourself. You still defend the purity of your Party line... Why? Is this not the same Party which has decided your fate by convincingly pointing a finger in our direction? Have we not suffered enough already? How long must our fate rest in its hands? Are our lives going to be a puzzle even here in our homeland? Will there be more Firsovs, Panteleevs and now Strogovs that will want to profit thanks to the insensitive lies with which they are making attempts to discredit you? I can never forgive myself for letting myself be so unhappy! In the past I dreamt of receptions, solemn moments in large salons, meeting with decked out people, chatting with carefree people… All this made me go nuts for you my dear Dobrin... Perhaps you should have tried harder to conform to your beloved ‘wise leader’ and maybe today you would have been in better humour. Maybe we would have succeeded in having everything we wanted. But now you are just stuck in these camps and shelters,” concluded Rumena.

Dobrin lowered his head, looking guilty and said: “Tomorrow we will be moving to a shelter in ‘Kisela Voda’…”

“You never said anything about moving before. In the last ten hours you spent with him, did Strogov say anything about us, about our future?” asked Rumena.

“No. He said nothing about us. He was mostly interested in the regimes in Siberia and in the ‘re-education labour camps’. He was also interested in knowing more about the interrogation techniques employed in ‘Butirka’ and ‘Lefortovo’. He made detailed notes of the Bolshevik methods of interrogation. You know that these camps are of the most perfect type, right? Strogov himself admitted that they are still experimenting there...” replied Dobrin.

“Do they want to build similar types here?” Rumena asked flippantly.

Dobrin smiled and said: “Maybe my conversation with Strogov will yield nothing. But I can tell you this, I asked him: ‘Now that I have gathered my family at last, how long is it going to take before the

investigation that is now opened against me is completed?’ And do you know what he said? He said the investigation against me was opened when my comrades and co-fighters Apostol Marakovski, Risto Kolarov, Lazor Rogozharov, Filip Hadzievski, Silian Liliakov, Manol Forevski, Olivera Petochka and Neveska Timianova arrived here. They all made statements accusing me of having betrayed the NOF leadership. Strogov said to me: ‘Dobrin, I am part of the ‘iron fist’ of the Party... We presume… we do not argue, because all this is testimony... that is why we think you are an agent…’ He did not say whose agent I was but from our conversation I assumed that I was now a Soviet spy...

And as I remember, Firsov also told me that he too was an ‘iron fist’ of the Party. Yes, so far the entire communist police are an ‘iron fist’ of the Party,” concluded Dobrin.

“A Russian spy?” said Rumena with a surprised look on her face. “Are you communists all related? Zahariadis accused Markos of being a spy and sent him to Russia to be treated for a mental disorder. When the wheel of history turned, General Markos sent a letter to the KPSS Central Committee in which he accused Zahariadis of being a spy and an international traitor. According to Markos, the main reason for sending the letter was not to indict Zahariadis but to clear the air about himself. Markos wanted to dissociate himself from Zahariadis and from speculation and gossip that he too was an agent of British intelligence just like Zahariadis. So, you are a Russian spy now!? Oh, my dear Dobrin, what next? In Russia the Russians said that you were a large caliber English spy and because of people like you the partisans lost the civil war. And so this will become one of the historic reasons for the defeat of the progressive movement. Even Stalin accepted this.

Yes, you communists are all the same. Who else would have done this to you but your dear friend, comrade and co-fighter Apostol Makarovski and your other closest associates? Now have a good look at how things are unwinding. Zahariadis committed suicide in a Siberian village and Markos is in Athens. Makarovski has a villa and you live in a shelter. Here you can see that the line in the horizon is blurring. But what is most interesting about all this is that

all you communists do this in the name of the people. Why?” asked Rumena.

Rumena’s harsh talk forced Dobrin to listen to her well and for some reason listening to her made him happy, but Dobrin, as usual, always thought of the worst: “When a man is hit from the inside he needs to be durable!” he thought to himself.

After a short pause Rumena looked at Dobrin, all slumped forward, and said: “Don’t get me wrong, my dear Dobrin. But the real communists are gone forever. They are long gone, and less and less of them exist in the world. They have been replaced by those of the ‘iron fist’ and those who descended at the end of the fist, the likes of Firsov and Strogov... If we had real communists in power we would not have these slimy leeches pushing us around. Why would real communists need interrogators? They would not fear the truth and man’s capabilities. But your kind of communists, the current strain of communists are the ones who invented the camps, the torture chamber, the slogans, etc., and you say your main concern is the Party and the welfare of the people,” concluded Rumena.

Dobrin looked at Rumena and said: “I could never do what Makarovski did. I could never abandon my co-fighters and talk like that behind their backs. I always wanted to be together with them, to share their fate. Up to this point we were characterized by something no nation had, and the least I wanted to do was to save the heads of our leadership. This is why my dear Rumena, I wanted to go back to Tashkent to the prison camps and stay there until all our people were returned. I wanted to bring back all those people who during the war had confidence in us, in NOF, and not in the Greeks.

I was completely puzzled when Strogov, as if feeling sorry for me, said: ‘Dobrin, you should wait for some future revolution…’ But I will not allow them to break me. I will not give them the satisfaction… I am Macedonian and nothing else, my dear Rumena.

When I refused to accept the award of merit from Zahariadis, which he gave me for NOF having awakened the national consciousness of our people managed by the slogan ‘Young and old into the ranks of DAG’, I wrote that I was not going to accept it as a symbol of

protest against the Party hegemony over the Macedonian people. Also, during the ceremony I said: ‘The mass participation of the Macedonian people is an expression of their need for national liberation and not for the sole victory of the communist system.’ And because of that I said I was accused of suddenly developing an ‘anti-Party’ attitude. I was then removed from office on charges that I was only supporting the heroic struggle of the Macedonian people irrespective of the needs of the Greek people. Makarovski and the others were all there but said nothing. Later, when Zahariadis decided to take revenge on us, we all became the same. All members of NOF who were in the secretariat were stuck in the ‘re-education labour camps’ in Siberia to share our fate with the Sabbatarians, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Greek Catholics, Old Believers, Belarusians, SS and Gestapo, Ukrainians and Moldavians, smugglers and spies from Iran and Turkey, Hungarians and Poles, Bulgarians and Yugoslavs… all convicted under the Russian Federation Criminal Code Article 58, Paragraphs 4 and 11.

Do you see Rumena, the kind of burden the USSR Central Committee and our esteemed ‘wise leader’ Zaharidis saddled me with? But things have changed since then and still I don’t know why Marakovski, and who ever else, is doing this to me today,” concluded Dobrin.

The next day they were put in a van and transferred to the “Kisela Voda” shelter and placed in a room with four beds and with a view looking at the “Sveti Giorgi” monastery.

The room was long and poorly ventilated and when they opened the windows the aroma of candles flooded the interior. That day was a holiday, “Giurgiovden”, and people were gathering in the monastery and preparing for a celebration.

After the liturgy, the people sat outside and enjoyed eating the food they had brought with them. Some of the larger groups were Gypsies. They left a positive impression on the newcomer Suvogorvski family. Rumena and Dobrin spent the entire day leaning on their elbows at the window, enjoying the aroma of roasted lamb with garlic and onions, and watching the Gypsies dance to Gypsy music. Dobrin was envious of their freedom, of their

happiness. They seemed like a happy people without the worries that plague modern man.

“This is true socialist freedom…” said Rumena with enthusiasm.

“Yes, a man can raise his head up high when the same noble feeling is shared by all the people... Indeed, these people would never have acted in bad faith in their hearts. Those are the benefits of freedom…” replied Dobrin and began to prepare the bed by removing the dirty covers, which obviously had not been washed for a long time, and replacing them with the graying sheets and covers stamped with the words “social” which had been long boiled and washed in military laundries.

To the left and right side of each door in the hallway there were several ragged boots of various sizes for walking outside and going to the common toilets, which were quite a distance from the residence. The elderly always had trouble climbing up the steep slope, especially in muddy weather. That is why Gele Madzhukovski, God rest his soul, an old resident in the common dwellings, built his own invention, a staircase to the place where the male and female toilets were separated. He suffered from inflammation of the bladder for a long time and going to the toilet became a concern for him. But besides his personal problem he had also observed that many of the residents were relieving themselves in the corners of the building. One morning he saw Malina Turimandzhova squatting, relieving herself under the Suvogorski window.

Gele Mandzhukovski is also remembered for another act of kindness he did for these people. He hammered out a large nail, slightly inclined, and placed it inside the toilet door. This was used as a hook for holding cut pieces of newspaper that were used for toilet paper so that people did not have to bring paper with them every time they went to the toilet. Unfortunately the free toilet paper was used excessively by certain people and dropped outside of the toilet hole. It was not a big deal until someone decided to turn it into a political problem. One day a piece of newspaper became glued on the cement pad and everyone began to pee on it. The photograph in the newspaper was peed on every day until someone decided to report it

to the authorities. A few days later Mile Mitsaikov examined the spot and concluded that it had been done by certain residents of the building.

Typical pornographic images used in latrines like these did not exist in these days and this looked like the work of some youths who were still under the influence of the “Komsomol” in those countries, and there were rumours that they were also peering through the cracks in the women’s toilet.

The hallway was crowded every morning with people aggressively passing one another. But then there were also those who showed great respect for the women. One day Rumena was rushing through the hallway and came upon a man who had come from Czechoslovakia. The man made a gentle gesture by raising his hand, seeming like he was inviting her to tango with him.

For years each of the residents were referred to by the country from which they came… Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Russia, etc. Those who came from Czechoslovakia always moved aside to let others pass and none of them left their wooden crates they traveled with stacked in the halls. The crates belonged mostly to those who came from Tashkent and Poland. Those who came from Poland argued the most and were the most likely to insult you by calling you “holera iasna” (pure cholera).

Almost every door was opened in the morning as the people moved through the narrow hallway. Warm and heavy odors radiated from the rooms into the hallway which made Rumena move fast through certain zones. Inside diverse music was played until late evening. The more often played songs were “kozachok”, “Linka Malinka”, “Volga, Russian River Volga” but sometimes they offered a tango. The news was carried in the morning, with the obvious obstacles, and when selecting a desired station, on which a lot of time was spent, men were becoming increasingly nervous and showing it by sudden coughs. Listening to the news gave the men something to talk about during their daily game of dominoes or while playing the game “Dzhandar” (cop). And while looking for the desired station and hearing the speaker say “Moscow is speaking” or any other station from Warsaw, Bucharest, Sofia, Athens, etc., the people in

the rooms would suddenly go silent, only the voices from outside the hall could be heard.

These people also had their own problems, not only with the common hallway and facing crowds but also personal problems. Like Gele Mandzhukovski who had an acute inflammation of the bladder, others too had similar problems which drove them to and from the toilet all night long, dragging the dilapidated boots on their feet. Rumena Suvogorska also had a problem. She was unable to find a solution for these people and bring order in the building and thinking about that made her stay awake all night. She was unable to sleep because of the irritability of her sensitive nervous system. Her fussing often woke Dobrin.

“Dobrin, Dobrin, are you asleep?” she asked twisting, upset in her creaky single bed.

“Where were you this late?” asked Dobrin drowsily.

“Oh, my dear Dobrin, you wanted to live in a base... Now it seems that you are enjoying the fruits of your accomplishments as a revolutionary,” snapped Rumena.

“Okay, okay… stop your whining,” replied Dobrin.

“Of course, I practically knew nothing about such shelters. In fact, I did it because of love. Do you find it nice here! How nice do you find it here? We take baths in a bucket. I pour water on you… you pour water on me… out of a pot… very economical, right? I really don’t understand you... I will be honest with you, apart from your face and body there is nothing else about you that is nice...

Think of your education, which you all call ‘revolutionary’. Thank God, I am in no need of such an education…” said Rumena ironically and continued: “Whatever you say, I don’t believe a word of it. I could have been a queen, and not a peasant woman to be washing my body with a pot full of water in shelters. Thank you, you are a good man, but you have to understand that you are not going to have immunity as a revolutionary forever. I will never forget the time when we were at a reception at the trenches in Vineni

when Zahariadis presented all the NOF leaders with medals. Those who have now turned against you were also there and they too received medals even though they did not want to return back to the base. They received their medals and looked like heroes, and you? Listen my dear Dobrin, they are politicians and you are not a politician. Are you seeking revenge for the Greek communists having deceived you? And now that you have an audience how successful have you been in convincing them that you have been wronged? Believe me when I tell you no one cares about that and about you. Which politician from your communist lineage has so far recognized his errors? And if they do recognize their errors you can bet that they will be removed from the list of eligible cadres for promotion...

You knew even then that the medals your ‘esteemed wise leader’ gave you were a farce. Your own conscience was eating away at you from the inside because you knew those medals were given to you on account of you surrendering the Macedonian people to the Party. It was due to the success of the Party’s hegemony over the Macedonian people that earned you those medals and as the slogan said, to ‘totally eradicate the Macedonian people’. We should not have had any knowledge of that, my dear Dobrin, except for the wisdom to survive along with the ‘elite’ and they in turn would have respected you. But no… and now I am reading your memoirs in which you say that tendentiously you were brought down, as a ‘party element’ charged with saying positive things about the Macedonian people’s effort, and not wanting to go international. But in regards to that question, none of you have any merit in the matter, because as declared leaders of NOF, you were completely entrusted to the command of the Greek communists. About which you as revolutionaries whine to this day. People remember well that they trusted you and not the Greeks. How can people forget that it was you calling on them to sacrifice themselves… It was you calling on them to give up their children by the thousands… evacuated from their homes to supposedly save them. These were children less than fifteen years old... This was an act worthy of Hitler and of you, the communists ‘elite’... Now I look at you and see a guilty conscience but where is the conscience of your close associates who were also involved in this? Do you think your sincere attitude will be reflected in your memoirs? Why would you think that anyone would believe

you after your close associates, your ‘elite’ sold you out to the Russians as a Yugoslav spy? And now that they are back here they even dare to label you a ‘Russian spy’. Oh, my dear Dobrin, one thing is for sure about them, they will soon forget internationalism… but not you, because you want another fight for justice, in the base, in Tashkent where the fighters are, the same fighters who were not even under the influence of NOF, but were ordinary soldiers. They are a defeated army that has nowhere to go. And you still haven’t realized that the Greeks no longer need you. They are done with us Macedonians and you helped them do their job… now we don’t exist. As you can see, the Greeks, your partners, are now returning to their homes, and we? We can’t return because they tell us we are not ‘Greek by genus’.

This also applies to the leaders. It equally applies to all who raised a hand against their own life! Tell me, what wife of an official will afford herself such a thing? In time, my dear Dobrin, you will realize that our fate is sealed. It is a power thing when a man realizes that proving something is not important, especially when no one wants to know about it. Even the interrogators themselves treat this as an enigmatic game until the culprit dies and his exclusion remains for generations. On stage even confusion must be clear…” concluded Rumena.

“Why do you allow yourself to talk to me like this on a daily basis?” yelled Dobrin in a high tone of voice wishing to be left alone.

“Not so loud… you will wake up Delian… at least he shouldn’t be feeling guilty. Tomorrow is a busy day for him at school. But he is a strange child; history is not an important subject for him. Let him be an engineer, maybe he will forget all this and will have a peaceful future...” replied Rumena.

“Oh, some stormy life we have... Do these pale men and women here even care how early in the morning they get up…?” Like soldiers…?” said Dobrin while stretching on his creaky iron bed.

Dobrin looked at Rumena and said: “They line up in front of the toilets, after that they go for some warm bread and whatever… after

that they want to be free for lunch when their wives call them from the open window. Some life ha…?”

All men except Dobrin played dominoes under the big leafy trees, telling their stories with quieted down tones. In the streets they are known as the “Aegeans” a group of embittered people who fought in battles at Gramos and Vicho and who constantly criticized the military tactics of one General Gusias who by profession was a shoemaker, but was a loyal member of the Party with much experience in politics...

Dobrin painstakingly worked on his pensive project which he called “Denunciation of the Greek policy towards the Macedonians” and spent all day hammering on his typewriter, densely writing several copies, giving particular importance to citations that showed impositions made on the Macedonian national question by the various leaders, and strictly taking good care to capture every statement made, which today the western world might find important. He worked on this project for years, but he never published it because those responsible for publishing books were asked in advance to prevent it from being published. They were asked to say that the manuscript was not reviewed from the right angle. This naturally resulted in Dobrin having to go back and review it and provide more proof. A never ending cycle…

As the years went by, Rumena increasingly entered into the essence of things. She remembered when she was a young girl and how she made life difficult for her mother because her mother would not give her permission to join the partisans. Of course now she knows why and accepts that she knew nothing about communism, with the exception of a few quotations from Stalin, which she had heard in her youth assemblies.

One day Mitse Dinevichin appeared in front of the door with a smile on his face. Mitse was a resident of the shelter “Chair”. He was an honest man and a decent fighter who always spoke as if giving a speech. He was a teacher, a graduate of a two-month course he had taken during the Greek Civil War. He often visited the Suvogorski family because he respected their old friendship since the days of the war. But now he was there to further discuss the failure and the total

disintegration of the revolution in Greece. Rumena participated less and less in these contentious issues and appreciated that a lot of the memoirs circulating around were lies and full of contempt. Rumena’s heart had become insensitive and her thoughts about these issues were becoming distant. She appreciated that there was no sense in continuing to analyze the lost revolution. After having a stormy argument the men came up with a question: “Twenty years have passed. Why haven’t we been recognized as fighters for national rights in a common struggle with the Greeks? Why do we continue to live like guilty culprits?”

“To be recognized by whom?” asked Rumena angrily. “By the communists…!? They have returned to their homes, and we? We continue to wander in shelters…”

“We need to be recognized by our own people!” thundered Mitse Dinevichin.

“Ah, by our own people…?! I misunderstood... Why, you don’t have a card? They gave us one from the Social. Here, this is what is written on it: ‘Board of Aegean issues and care for returnees from Eastern European countries’…” replied Rumena.

“My dear Rumena, the people of every country do that for their fighters…” answered Mitse with a hidden expression that there was more to the “Aegeans” than meets the eye.

“We did not come back to our homeland to live in the ‘ghettos’ in ‘Avtokomanda”, in ‘Kisela Voda’, in ‘Chair’, in ‘Gorche Petrov’, in “Tri chesmi’ and in other such shelters. What have we fought for if not for Macedonia? Are we not part of this nation!?” added Mitse.

“Oh, my dear Mitse…” replied Rumena laughingly, with an ironic tone of voice. “I don’t understand you either, but it’s good that you are still committed to your revolutionary ideals… you and that Dobrin of mine. Thank God, that you both still have that revolutionary spirit. The divisions you are running into, my dear teacher are ideological and not Macedonian. Many times I have said the same thing to my Dobrin. Our history is full of divisions, divisions that come from inside but mostly from outside. Do you

remember the divisions our predecessors faced during Ottoman rule when Macedonia fell into their hands? The Ottomans began to divide us, turning us into Muslims. Some of it was voluntary some by force, but nonetheless, they divided us into Muslims and Christians. During the 19th and 20th centuries we were again divided into Serbians, Bulgarians, Greeks and Albanians. Their goal was to turn us into Serbo-philes, Bulgaro-philes, Greco-philes, Albano-philes… Our uprisings were failing because of our divisions. Then came the Balkan wars which inflicted the most tragic of all division. They partitioned our Macedonia and created four pieces out of it: Vardar, Aegean, Pirin and one part that is not even named by the Albanians. We welcomed the Second World War with a little sigh, thinking that perhaps now we could overcome our divisions? We created our own republic, but again it was in the hands of others at gunpoint… both foreigners and Macedonians. When one part of us in the south (Greek occupied Macedonia) rose up and rebelled our brother in the north moved only one finger and allowed a column of Macedonian children to pass through and then to be scattered throughout Eastern Europe. For many years this part of our homeland had forgotten us. Then it remembered and began to collect its children. Now we are back, of course, but we have to go through the corridors of Idrizovo Prison so that the likes of Strogov and the Secretariat of the Interior can take security measures. If the enemy does not exist then we will invent it, so now we have been declared second-class citizens. Not only that, but we have been divided into Aegeans and Vardarians and we have left the Pirinians in Bulgaria to cry under Mount Pirin. And of those who were left behind in Greek occupied Macedonia? What is to happen to them? To be more confident in ourselves, we ordinary Macedonians were divided into eligible and ineligible citizens…” said Rumena and stepped out into the hallway to boil some coffee.

The hallway smelled like a cafeteria kitchen from the aroma of the various foods being cooked. The most aromatic of all was the food the “Hungarians” cooked. This is what the residents called those Macedonians who had returned from Hungary and who were masters in cooking goulash. The Romanians were famous for “momaligat” (cornmeal). The Poles for boiled greens, the Czechs for fried potatoes, and the Russians for boiled “borshch” (sauerkraut) pretty much advertised as the healthiest food that was socially

recognized in the entire socialist camp under the motto “healthy food, healthy body”. And this is how the aroma of all those foods circled around the hallway on a daily basis except for Fridays, when beans were boiled. The food naturally attracted cockroaches which appeared in the hallway for the first time. No doubt they were brought there from the different countries people came from. These were more aggressive cockroaches than those found in Macedonia. They were not afraid to come out in the light. The residents used a variety of toxins but the cockroaches became immune to them. In desperation the people began to call them “B-15 Russian tanks”. Then as the cockroach population grew the cockroaches expanded into a larger habitat and moved into the other shelters occupied by the “Aegeans”.

“Dobrin, it looks like Rumena is disappointed in all this… She no longer holds the ideals. It is good that she endured for the last six years. My Lina thinks differently. She often says: “So what if we remain under state care for a little longer…” said Mitse and angrily stepped on a cockroach that was rushing by him.

“The coffee is ready…” announced Rumena smiling.

“You at least have clean water here. The pumped water in “Chair” smells like shit…” said Mitse while slurping his coffee.

“Are you saying that the groundwater is polluted?” asked Rumena and then turned to Dobrin and said:

“You, go to the General as soon as possible. I can no longer live in these shelters. I have turned into a cockroach killer. I can’t take it any more. My nerves are shattered. I crush them with my hands and I don’t know why I despise these vermin so much. The entire place smells of food and naphthalene. We are mired in mud here and I hate wearing those filthy boots. Oh, my dear Dobrin, not even Genghis Khan’s soldiers served for this long...” concluded Rumena.

“Calm down my dear... Be strong. You know what they say about the communists… they are a special breed of people...” replied Dobrin.

“Oh, my dear God, so far I have never met a communist and I really don’t know what they are like or if they are like us or not... I don’t want my son Delian to have a gene from the caste of the schemers, egoists, suck ups, opinionated and stubborn internationalists... God forbid he will rot in shelters, let him remain a pure Macedonian in mind only, without any ideology. And you my dear Dobrin, you will understand that one day, but unfortunately a lot of time has to pass. You like to write about the worm of division from a long time ago, which ate away into our souls and stopped us from becoming organized and at the same time you talk to those who offer you no understanding. God, where is the benefit in that!? Can I ask you something? ‘What people in the world accept outsiders to determine their extent of justice and freedom?’ No one! But you, the leaders of NOF, trusted the CPG and the CPY; basically you trusted the Greeks and Yugoslavs, strangers, to decide your destiny. Oh, how strange and capricious is that?! And here you are with your comrades. Have you read the reviews of your book reviewed by Deliplashovski, Peshodomski and Bezlikoustov? Here, I will read you what Deliplashovski said. He said: “...Dobrin Suvogorski’s work is nonsense and does not offer any benefits. It contains text and provocative statements that are against the Yugoslav leadership and therefore I suggest this book not be granted the use of a wider audience’.

Did you get that?! You don’t matter. I don’t matter. So must Delian too not matter? Oh my God, when will those people who have Macedonian feelings materialize?!

Maybe when that happens all the outsiders will be silenced and we will dance to the beat of our own drums.

Oh dear God, bring back our divine origin!” concluded Rumena.