Dragan Aleksić

1.

Emil Farnik took a chair and sat down in the middle of the yard, taking no notice of the heavy rain.

By the time his mother spotted him through the window he was soaked. She lifted her hands to her mouth as if she wanted to stop words; pain came after the shock. She stood like that, watching her twenty-nine-year-old son, wet on a wooden chair in the middle of the yard.

She went out into the yard and stood beside the young man, who, with bent head, was looking at the gate and the water running off the camber of the concrete.

‘My son! What are you doing?’

‘...I ^,m hiding.’

‘What are you hiding?’

‘...My crying...tears...’

2.

Jozua Baraba1 took a chair and sat down in the middle of the yard, taking no notice of the heavy rain.

‘My son! My son! Oh my wretched eyes to see such a sight!2 ’

‘The assembly of the wicked have enclosed me: they pierced my hands and my feet.3 ’

1 Jozua (Joshua, Jesus) Baraba ( the Son of the Father)

2 Jicak Dov Berkovic

3 Marko: psalm XXII, v. 16

3.

He turned on the TV. It said who he was but when everyone was dead, who could he tell?

The girl had stopped walking round the room. The gate of the graveyard had been left open. The town was dead: dead Jews, dead Germans, dead Hungarians, dead Serbs, dead Rumanians. Dead towers. Full shop windows in Main Street and the dead eyes of the shoppers.

On the screen it said who he was. He closed his eyes and rocked from side to side, standing in one place.

A shit smeared cell with a high window; the bed of dream was dying in a bed.

A high fence with spears: in the toilet a man was hanging  with his balls next to his head.

On the screen it said: PREPEWITBUN

118.

Photograph 32. A panorama of the town from 1912, from a place behind the Serbian church.  The Rumanian church can be seen in the center, and to the extreme right the tower of the catholic church. On the edge of the town the barracks stand out. We see a garrison town, still blooming with prosperity in the light of an old monarchy shining over the roof tops.

4.

He was wearing a dark red shirt with small white flowers and a round collar and black trousers with elastic in the waist.

He was going to the Danfat as he did every day to play with the children from the neighborhood. The park was separated from the Catholic cemetery by a high un-plastered wall behind which the backs of several tombs and some black and white marble crosses could be seen.

There were two girls in the park, both a few years older than him. They called him over to play with them. They asked him: ‘Do you want to play with us?’ He said he did, although he had never played with them before. They went for a walk. They walked round the park and then left it and turned left towards the cemetery. He wanted to go back, they were already a long way away, but he was not brave enough to tell them. The girls were talking about something.

Together they pushed open the heavy gate into the cemetery. They went inside and continued on towards the center with him between them. He looked with surprise at the drawing of a boy with long hair hung up on the cross.

They sat down on a bench near the cross, in fact one girl sat and held him from behind by the upper arms. He stood while the other girl crouched in front of him and started scratching at the soil with a stick. Both the girls began telling him that he hadn’t been good and how they were going to bury him there in the grave they were digging. The girl continued to scrape with her stick and the hole, the grave, grew deeper and deeper. They asked him why he hadn’t been good, and he started to cry. The girl behind him held him hard. Through his tears he said that he had been good.

‘No, you weren’t, you weren’t,’ they said. He heard the one behind him at his ear. ‘No you weren’t, you weren’t,’ she repeated. He cried harder and harder. He listened to the scraping of the stick in the earth. The grave seemed to him to be growing. He cried harder, he couldn’t stop. The girls told him to stop, they shouted at him, but he couldn’t. He sobbed.

Then he couldn’t feel the hands on him any more. Both the girls ran off towards the gate and he was left alone, shaking with tears.

He was four years and two days old and he was alone and crying in the cemetery.

Through his tears he saw his mother at the gate. She had been looking for him for some time. He couldn’t run to her. He stood and stared at the hole in the ground and the little pile of fresh earth beside it.

His mother picked him up, kissed him and comforted him. ‘There.. there .’. she said and stroked his hair, but he could not stop crying. Then she put him down, took his hand and together they walked slowly towards the gates. Slowly he calmed down. The metal boy looked sadly down at him.

119.

Photograph 49: The entrance to the municipal cemetery on the Nera avenue with gates of wrought iron. The inscription above the entrance reads: ‘the resting place of the earthly pilgrim.’

Description: a high, strongly built arch at the apex of which is a cross. From the front the cross is formed of one vertical and one horizontal line of four-cornered pyramids. To the left and right of the entrance is the wall  of the cemetery with iron railings. When opened the two heavy gates run on two semi circular rails. The bare branches of the chestnut trees obscure the sky.

5.

Emil Farnik lifted the latch and pushed. The gate opened some 30 cm. With both hands he held the bars of the gate. He looked at the white path that led to the center of the cemetery. The cold seemed to pour out of it. Darkness lay over the path he intended to travel.

He held the cold bars, he felt every part of his body, he wondered whether to push the gates and enter or pull them shut and go home.

He pushed the gates harder and went in. He stood for a moment and looked at the rounded silhouettes of the monuments and  crosses with their white caps, then set off down the center of the path. He went on down the well trodden path and listened to the crunch of  the snow under his feet and the beating of his heart in his chest.

‘What am I doing here after midnight, on this freezing night all alone? Am I going mad? God, is this the beginning?’

He had come halfway to the white coated cross on which hung a metal Jesus Christ. The upper part of the tall cross and of Jesus could hardly be seen in the darkness. Christ’s left arm was wired to the arm of the cross, because the nail in his hand had loosened, as if Christ, with time, had started to free himself.

Slowly he started to turn round, he wanted to see all the forgotten, all those who were buried there. He wanted them all to rise up and gather round him and look at him, all the Grosses, Kleins, Engels, Schnabls, Tigermans, Schlesingers, Hirschlis, Konis, Leckos, Burgelis…

After turning several times around, looking at everything, he stopped and raised his arms to shoulder height, like the crucified Christ only without lowering his head to one side or the other but keeping it straight. He was silent for some time, with his arms raised in this way, alone in the Jewish cemetery, after twelve on the frozen night; and then he said out loud:

‘Shalom…. here I am ….I am: Gershon!’

101.

Federation of Jewish communities in Yugoslavia

11001 Belgrade

‘7^th of July’ Street 71a III

The Museum of Jewish History

Dear comrade Farnik,

We advise you to try the Registry office to see if the Rabbinical books have been preserved. In these you will find all the details that interest you. We wish you all possible success in your research.

Enclosed is a list of the Federation’s publications and a copy of the ‘Jewish Review.’

                      Yours most sincerely,

                      in the name of the museum of Jewish history

                      Ivan Brandajz

120.

Photograph 15. The municipal cemetery in 1915. In 1828 the old cemetery in the vicinity of the Vendelini chapel was abandoned in favor of a new site near the ‘old’ parade ground ( the artillery barracks and Dampfbad were not yet in existence). The first funeral in the new cemetery ( now the Catholic cemetery) was on the 26^th of May 1828.

Description: To the left of the pedestal of the crucifix stand a woman with two younger and two older children: three girls and a boy. The woman is wearing a gray dress and has short hair. To her left is a tree with high strong branches, which throws a shadow over the crucifix. Only the top of the cross is free of the shadow. A black plaque can be seen with the white letters:  INRI, RI under IN.  To the right of the pedestal is a man in a black suit with his hat in his hands. He is shorter by a head than the pedestal. Flowers are spread on the ground in front of the cross between the man and the woman with the children.

6.

The girl got up and walked naked across the room. She stood by the window and leaned a little forward. When her nipples touched the glass she seemed to tremble a little.

Autumn poured down the glass, evening was drawing in, it was cold. The girl stood by the window, she touched her stiff nipples with her fingers. Darkness spread over her slim figure. Evening was drawing in, it was cold. The girl shivered, she lowered her hands to her hips.

Emil Farnik was lying down, white lilies covered the bed. He watched the water on the glass getting darker. He heard the rain and the girl; he heard himself from within. ‘Your fingers are thin and your body: how can I tell you how beautiful you are? Think of all those who will love you, have you, just think of all the cocks you will take in your hands?’

Emil Farnik lay and chewed pain, he chewed his own pain, Emil Farnik.

7.

Half darkness filled the room and the rectangle of the window shone as if it were night on one side and day on the other. Seen from her side, the man in the window was a black silhouette on a ground of golden light. He was a man between light and darkness.

Milan Kundera

Emil Farnik sat alone at a table in the ‘Club.’ He rested his left arm on the white table cloth. On the table there was a clean ash tray, an empty Coca Cola bottle and an empty glass. Behind the glass, on the table cloth was a shadow composed of light and dark concentric rings. The shadow behind the bottle was dark, scattered with flecks of light. Behind the ash tray, right next to it lay light and dark crescents.

Emil Farnik turned round and looked at his own shadow on the white and brown tiles. It was black.‘ I don’t let light through ’,he thought, ‘almost as if I were not made of glass.’

9.

The Angel of Death came down to Emil Farnik’s room and looked at him with his own eyes; the eyes of Emil Farnik.

Emil Farnik sat on a big storage heater and looked at himself in the mirror.

To the right of the door there was the big storage heater on which Emil Farnik sat, and to the left was the mirror and a coat hanger on which hung a jacket and a pair of trousers, suspended by the belt loops. The heater was against one wall, the mirror was on the other, they were about two meters apart.

Emil Farnik sat, at times resting his back against the wall and then leaning forward with his elbows on his knees. He looked at himself in the mirror and at the road map of Europe fixed to the wall behind him. With his shoulders and head he covered North Africa, the Mediterranean, Italy and Yugoslavia.

Emil Farnik looked at himself in the mirror and Europe gently undulating behind him. He was empty, alone, abandoned. He was no one, nothing. He would have been dead, by now, if the Angel of Death had not landed in his room.

He felt the slight warmth of the heater. He felt the warmth spreading towards his heart and his heart carrying it out to every smallest part of his body. He shut his eyes; he could have left, ceased to exist. If only he could have lifted his arms and taken flight with the angel.

Outside it was cold, flowers of ice had been blooming all day on the window panes, but Emil Farnik could not turn his head towards it or open his eyes. He pressed the map harder and harder with his head and shoulders. The wall was cold.

Then he felt fingers on his face, but he could not open his eyes and look at the angel that was caressing him. He just smiled slightly at the touch. The fingers passed over his face at an even pace. They touched everything. It made him drowsy, he smiled  as if about to go to sleep.

He felt the touch of lips, the fingers and lips continued touching. The same even warmth and gentleness. ‘God, I’ve died, it’s nice, I’m dreaming’, he thought. He saw a road, thick, warm dust, his childish, bare feet; flowing water, and however much he washed his feet before going to bed the soles were always black and purple from mulberry juice; white linen, sleep. ‘God, I’m really dead.’

The same warmth, the same gentleness: fingers and lips on his face. He felt a movement between his legs, his trousers were tightening and he parted his legs.

How to fuck the angel of death?

10.

The line of the crack in the plaster started form the floor behind the heater, reached the border between Algeria and Libya, passed under the whole of Europe in a series of bends 1:5500000. It came out where Czechoslovakia bulges into the Soviet Union and thinned out to nothing under the ceiling. The line divided Europe along a diagonal. Poland, Czechoslovakia and Italy were cut in half, but elsewhere the zigzagging crack aligned with the borders, Austria-Hungary, Austria-Yugoslavia and a good part of Finland-USSR. Vrotslav, a town in the southeast of Poland was at the highest point of the swollen plaster as it bulged away from the wall. The Odra, which flowed passed Vrotslav and, on all other maps, ran peacefully towards its estuary on the Baltic was here divided into two. The water, from it s lower part, unable to make the ascent flowed back from Vrotslav to its source in the Morava mountains. In its upper part, despite the lack of water, it took on the appearance of a fast mountain river falling headlong towards Schechin.

11.

A heavy leather coat fell off the hanger, its loop had broken. It fell with a thud like a man; like a man would fall to his knees when shot, dying with his body propped against the wall.

The coat lay crumpled in the corner between the hanger and the door; after a while a pool of blood began to form around it.

12.

He stood in front of the mirror and watched his face fall to bits. His cheeks tore but did not bleed, bits fell off. His nose, falling off with the cartilage, pulled away his upper lip. The lower lip fell off with the chin. The teeth were showing in naked, pink gums. The skin of his forehead came away in several strips along the lines of his wrinkles. His hair fell off with chunks of skin still attached. He could see his skull pink and gray and white. His ears fell off.

His eyes remained without lids; green circles on whites shot with red.

‘Why don’t I feel any pain’, he asked himself. ‘Why isn’t there any blood? Will I die when my eyes fall out?’

His eyes were firmly fixed, lidless, between the arches of his brow and the bones of his cheeks, looking at themselves and the skull in which they were embedded. They were not frightened, they showed no panic or pain. They were only eyes in which he could read nothing.

He noticed a difference between the white of the skull and the white of his teeth and the white of his eyes. He noticed the asymmetry of his cheekbones. The more developed left point of his chin, the rounded bulges on his forehead under the hairline. Looking at himself in the mirror, he asked himself whether his eyes would fall out or not if he looked down. He wanted to see the collapsed  remains of his face, the flesh which had fallen by his feet. He lent forward, looked down and saw his nose, ears, bits of cheek, chin and forehead, all mixed up in a pile with long hair. Some of the bits were skin side up, some faced down. He saw the color of his flesh, but there was no blood anywhere.

It was at this stage that he felt pain for the first time. His eye sockets were empty and his eyes had fallen out onto the bloodless little heap of flesh.

After a few moments standing, blind and in pain, he fell.

13.

The girl went over to the cupboard.

‘Where did you get these little mice?’ she asked, pointing to two figures that stood on the upper shelf in front of the books: Johan Huizinga, ‘The Waning of the Middle Ages’, Cedomir Veljacic, ‘From Nepal do Ceylon,’ Runsiman, ‘Byzantine Civilization’. On top of these books, held together  with an elastic band were a university registration book from the Faculty of Philosophy, a Post Office savings book, an army service card, an employment record book, a passport and an out of date medical registration card.

‘They’re made of shell, aren’t they?’

‘Yes,’ replied Emil Farnik.

‘Where did you get them,’ the girl asked holding the mice on her palm.

‘I bought them at the seaside. I thought I’d give them to someone at first, but when I got back I didn’t know who, so they stayed there. After a while I started to like them. I call one of them Little Fear and the other Big Fear because they are not the same size. I liked them and they represented some of my fears, no fear in particular, just fears, pretty undefined. It was only after a few years that I pinned them down. I’d thrown out plenty and there were only two left, fear of madness and fear of death. The little mouse is madness and Big Fear is death. I’m not frightened of little fear anymore, I could make a present of it to someone, but I don’t want to split them up. Put them back, just where you found them.’

14.

University registration booklet / Faculty of Philosophy / History of Art / number 242/1977 / Emil Farnik/ born 15.5.1958. / date of enrollment 21.9.1977 / page 5:Emil Farnik , a student at the Faculty of Philosophy is granted permission to transfer from full-time to part-time status. 15.11.1977. / page 11: Emil Farnik is granted permission to transfer from part-time to full-time status. 3.1.1978./ page 15: Emil Farnik is granted permission to transfer from full-time to part time status. 8.12.1978./ page 21: accepted as a student of the sixth semester, academic year 1979/80. / page 25: accepted as a student of the sixth semester, academic year 1980/81. / Exam results: Introduction to the History of Art (B+); Basic National Defense SFRY (C-) ; Marxism and Contemporary Society ( C-), General Art History of the Middle Ages (A) Basic National Defense II (C-), Russian (B+), Museum Science and the Preservation of Monuments (A).

Post Office Savings book. Emil Farnik / 1958 / 4724 / withdrawals -  Sibenik, Budva, Piran.

Military Service Record / No. 024061 / Page 5: 1) Temporarily unfit for military service; 2) Fit for military service. Artillery / page 7: military post box 2613-2 Kicevo, from 6.4.1982. to 10..5.1983. / last page: The reasons for early dismissal from the Yugoslav National Army: 20 days of unused leave, 15 days less on account of exemplary service; signature: lieutenant commander S, Kostadinovic.

Employment record book / date of employment: 1.08.1985./ name of company: Youth Service - Gallery.

Passport / V 018797 / valid until (valabla jusqu’au ): 10.06.1991.

Entitlement to health care provided by municipal authorities / page 1: canceled

15.

On the table, to the left stood a wooden box like a draw in which was a card index of members of  the Service, and glass paints. On top of the little bottles of paint rested the books that Emil Farnik was reading. In the index there were 276 cards: on each card the personal details of the member were recorded and in the top left hand corner a photograph was attached, the size 2x3 cm.

Emil Farnik sat at his table. To the left between the table and the shop window stood Kosina with card number 206 in his hand.

‘What should I do?’ Kosina asked. ‘She’ll drive me mad, I don’t know what to do any more… I thought I’d write to her…’

‘Hey, you are married, remember,’ said Emil Farnik without looking up from the book he was reading.

‘…and tell her I don’t love her any more. But what’s the use, when I do love her? What should I do?’

Kosina held the card closer to his face with both his hands and started to stroke the small photograph. Emil Farnik looked up at him, the nail of Kosina’s thumb was next to the girl’s face; they were the same size. Damned desires, unattainable, he thought, unhappiness, I know how he is feeling.

‘Emil, I’ll write her a letter. This silence is no good.’ Kosina put the card back into the index. ‘And then let things take their own course. This isn’t going anywhere. ‘ He turned towards Emil Farnik:

‘Do you know, when I was a kid I used to imagine a woman like that. I told myself my wife would be just like that. It must be God’s punishment - yes, that’s what it is.’

‘Yes,’ said Emil Farnik a little ironically since he was used to Kosina’s monologues. He stopped reading.

‘But I don’t know why. What have I done wrong? Who have I wronged?’ He stood up and walked towards another part of the room and then turned around in the middle.

‘God!’ he shouted, ‘how have I offended you?’

Emil Farnik looked at him unmoved. Kosina turned around and walked towards the wall.

‘No, I’m not asking. If it’s punishment then He knows why. Let it be as He wishes. I’m not asking any more. Let Him be powerful, let me go mad.’

Kosina stood by the door and spoke looking out through its glass.

‘She’s Cancer and I’m Cancer, she fucks around and so do I. We’re the same. We’re both dark and thin, like brother and sister. Why shouldn’t we be together?’

Picking at the cover of his book with his finger nail, Emil Farnik  looked at Kosina. Black hair, handsome face; thirty years old and still a little boy. Slavica was due in about a month. It was as if Emil Farnik heard again what Kosina had told him, shouted at him, more than once, alone and with Dunojlovic. ‘Don’t talk to me about that! I didn’t want any of that!’

Kosina stood by the door in a blue coat, pale in the early afternoon sunlight of  a winter’s day.

‘My poor brother’, thought Emil Farnik,‘my poor friend. We got old together and together we’re still kids. We’re in the shit together. You can see it yourself can’t you? And who spat in our faces like that? God? Fate? Or have we made the nooses round our necks ourselves. Are we anything on our own? Who hates us so much? What are we paying for? Who’s blood are we pissing?’

‘If only the darkness wouldn’t fall’,wined Emil Farnik in his mind.‘Don’t do it… Don’t do it to him or to me. Stop. Just let our day - be day.’

16.

Card index of Youth Service members. Card No. 206./ Surname, father’s name, first name. Bozic (Milivoj) Olivera. Date and place of birth. 04. 11.1966. Vukovar / level of education: High School. Occupation: Economic Technician Courses:- - - Foreign Languages: - - - Address: Veljka Vlahovica no.30 / Telephone: - - - / Signature: (in the bottom right corner) / Photograph: (2x3 cm in the upper left corner).

17.

‘Snow is falling.’

‘Snow is not falling, flakes are falling.’

Kosina was standing beside the door, Emil Farnik was sitting at the table. Both of them were looking at the same piece of street, a part of their small town.

If he went out he would open his mouth and try to swallow a few flakes. He would position himself and wait for them, so that they would fall right into his mouth. He’d even run after a big flake if he spotted one. He would feel the touch, soft and cold on his tongue: one, two, three...

It was almost as if Emil Farnik could see himself through the shop window, turning  round, running in a circle crouching down and jumping up, head held back, mouth wide open. He saw how his neck was white and thin. Adam’s apple sharp, defined. A throat for cutting, a neck for hanging. He turned round and round like a drunk as the flakes continued to fall. He was ageless.

‘It’s snowing,’ said Kosina.

‘ Like something hurting you,isn‘t  it?’,said Emil Farnik.

 ‘What do you mean?’

‘I don’t know, I didn’t mean anything, I just said it.’

102.

Dr. VICTOR GROSS

NATHANYA, Weizmann 41

ISRAEL

Dear Mr. Farnik,

I got you letter of June 2^nd , about ten days ago and, I must tell you straight away, I was very pleasantly surprised.

I am most willing to help you in connection with you interest in Jewry. The question is complex and, as a result, I would first like to find out which languages you speak apart from Serbo-Croatian. I will send you a bibliography on the subject.

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

I would also advise you to try and get in touch with the president of the Jewish religious community in Belgrade, Dr Ladislav Kadelburg. He would certainly be able to give you a bibliography about Jewry in Serbo-Croatian.

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

I will be able to direct you to the source bibliography, if this seriously interests you. It is not possible to treat the subject effectively in one letter. To find the answer, you must read extensively, in fact a whole library awaits your examination!

                                   Yours most sincerely,

                                    Dr Viktor Gross (hospital director in retirement)

18.

leading into the distance to a crag collapsing out into the sea. To the left of the path was the sea, to the right a high cliff.

He clambered through a low tunnel in a cliff which was half filled with water…

He went forward along the path without thinking about return because he knew he could always go back through the tunnel. He went towards the distant crag leaving a similar bluff behind him: the beginning… he clambered through a low tunnel… “The resurrected God comes out of the hill and triumphs.”

To the left was the sea and to the right the high sharp wall of the cliffs. He looked at the sea that was beating against the sharp edges of the path, lifting it up and splattering it with spray. He looked up towards the top of the great stone wall and went on.

… then went a further ten meters through a part of the tunnel that was dry and high enough for him to walk upright ...

He asked himself if he were unable to go either forward or backward which would he choose? The sea or the cliffs? Which would he fear least: water and depth or cliffs and height? What would he fear more, to fall or to sink?

When he reached the halfway point of the path where the two bluffs that plunged into the sea were equally distant, the thought of return occurred to him. He started thinking about return because he sensed that in his mind the question was slowly taking form. Where would I go if I had to: into the water or up the cliffs?

how long would it take, when they are both already far away… He clambered through a low tunnel in a cliff which was half filled with water …

What was left was the thing he feared: there was no longer a beginning or an end. There was just a choice: the sea or the cliffs. Sea - cliffs? What would his hands and legs, his will be able to conquer? Sea - cliffs?‘My god,do I have to’, he asked himself. ‘How did it come to this’… He went away from the town…‘ Why don’t I run to the end? Who can see me? In whose eyes am I diminished? No one and nothing, and who will think me greater if I begin to climb, if I start swimming?’

 He turned from the cliffs to the sea, from the terrible height of the cliffs to the terrible depth of the sea.

‘How many before me have thrown themselves at the cliffs? How many have gone without hope or with hope into the sea’,he asked himself.‘How many went mad and fell in hesitation, at this very spot where my feet are now, on this stone?’ … emerging finally into strong light, on a narrow empty beach… ‘How many times has darkness fallen and the mind, for the last time heard or made some strange cry?’

103.

FEDERATION OF JEWISH COMMUNITIES

IN YUGOSLAVIA

11001 Belgrade

‘7^th July’ Street 71a III

The museum of Jewish history

Dear comrade Farnik,

We are writing in response to you communication regarding materials for a history of the Jews in your town.

We are very pleased that you have succeeded in realizing your plan to compile a register of the Jews born or interred in your town. We are very grateful for the valuable list you have sent us. At the next meeting of the museum commission we will discuss the possibility of compiling the list of monuments  that you were unable to make.

Thanking you once again we have the honor to remain yours sincerely,

For the museum, Aleksandar Mosic,

The secretary: Mirloslav Grinvlad

19.

On the wall dividing the Jewish part of the cemetery from the Catholic which was largely covered in ivy and wild vines Emil Farnik caught sight of a bunch of black grapes. He went up to the wall, pulled the vine lower and picked a grape. The juice of the grape stained the tips of his thumb and index finger black.

He let go of the vine and moved away from the wall towards a level concrete floor, a tomb, about ten meters from the wall.

He asked himself what a grape which had grown in a grave yard would taste like. He looked at the small hard grape, black as the covers of the Talmud.

He reached down, then flung his arm up; the grape flew up high. He moved his right leg forward a little, knelt down, threw his head back and gaped. He saw the sky and the small black ball flying towards his face. He moved his head to the left and the open hole of his mouth caught the grape.

With his tongue he pressed the grape hard against his pallet and the core meat parted from the skin. He tasted the sweetness of the fruit.

He went back to the wall, he pulled the branch down towards him, picked the whole bunch and went back to the grave, from the concrete slab of which he looked at the sky and caught the black seed that flew a long time towards him.

He put the bunch in the shallow mouth of a marble vase full of water. Behind the vase, on a tablet of the same black marble it said:

Josef Gross

ge. 18^th July 1877, gest. 8^th August 1939.

104.

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………  I am particularly thankful for the description and information about the Jewish graveyard. The Josef Gros you mentioned is my deceased father. In the same grave is buried my deceased son Ivan.

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

121.

behind, Tereza Gross; Jozi Sit (to the right of the entrance); Svetozar Jankulov (apprentice); Adolf Kaltenbach (apprentice).

Description: the owner and his staff stand in front of the entrance and display windows of the shop. In the left window can be seen table cloths and sheets and in the right men’s shirts and ties.

20.

Before dawn the smell of the corpse could be detected, even thought it was a cool night, particularly in its last hours.

Before the coffin stood a pyramid with the name, surname, date of birth and death of the deceased, and behind it, on the wall hung in a black wooden frame with yellow engraving, a picture of Tito from the fifties.

To the left of the coffin on a round table was a vase of flowers against which lent a picture of the dead man; over the right corner there was a black band. To the left of the picture pinned to a black velvet cushion were four medals.

Through the closed door Emil Farnik heard a woman whispering, ‘Yes, yes, everything is ready.’

The day of the funeral was warm and sunny. The rays of the late autumnal sun did not reach to bottom of the grave: the walls remained dark and dank, smelling of soil. The smell of the soil and the smell of the corpse mixed in Emil Farnik’s nostrils. The smell of late Fall and coming winter.

The sky was clear and high. By  dusk a few ribbons and patches of red had gathered, but not enough for it to be said: Tomorrow will be windy.

Passing through the thick crowns of the chestnut trees the sun made pretty patterns on the gravel path, the aisle which led, past the Danfant, the Catholic cemetery, the restaurant ‘Huntsman’ and on, two kilometers, down to the river, to the border.

Koriolan Ursu remembered the Danfat. The boys had played there all day and, in the evening, before the first darkness, the first heavy shadows, run home to their mothers’ laps.

‘Oh mother of mine! My dear mummy,’ he said to himself. He wanted to hear a young woman, as before calling him, ‘Kori! Kori! … my little lamb!’

He turned left at the cemetery gate, into the cemetery and along a path that was yellow and white.

At the mid point of the path in the middle stood Jesus Christ on a cross. Koriolan Ursu went towards him down the middle of the path. There, near the cross he could have been the boy he was looking for, expecting, the one he should meet at some stage.

From behind a grave stone appeared a handsome small blonde white boy. He came towards the center of the path; when he arrived he stood still, apprehensively. Behind him Jesus suffered.

Koriolan Ursu looked at the boy. The boy looked at him. Christ looked at them both. ‘Kori, Kori, Kori… my lamb!’ shouted Koriolan Ursu coming up to the boy and falling to his knees before him. He hugged him, touching his shoulder with his chin, his head resting next to the boy’s. ‘God, how great I was’,he thought.‘God, is this what I have become’, thought the boy.

Photograph 60. People strolling in the lower part of Nera Avenue.; winter 1931. From the left: Dr. Ziva Miletic, Berta Ban, Anton Osweld, Carl Helfer, Rozi Salai and Victor Gross. In front Jelka Miletic, Neva Milunov, Cura Milunov and Jani Kraus.

Discription: The men are in black coats with hats on their heads. They are not wearing scarves and their white shirts and black ties can be seen. The women are in fur trimmed coats. About them everything is covered in snow. To the right is a field and to the left in the Avenue, stretching off into the distance, pressed down on by the naked gray branches.

22.

A fine snow was falling, fine snow on the sidewalk. At the other side of the street the pigeons were pecking at the remains of discarded burek1 . Bits of pecked pastry flew into the air and fell again into the snow. Six pigeons, seven pigeons. Someone passed by, close to the wall, the pigeons stayed, walking about. Another passer-by came up, following the center of the sidewalk, the pigeons took flight: they made a circle above the street at the height of the gutters and landed again. They continued to peck at the scattered flakes of pastry; another person passed by and the pigeons took off again, only one stayed behind: it walked in circles and waited for the others to land. When a group of children came up on their way to school this last one also flew off.

The fine snow fell on the trodden bits of burek , the street was deserted. With his pen held over an open notebook, over a few lines, Emil Farnik waited for the pigeons to come back but they were nowhere to be seen.

1 a savory pie of thin pastry layers with cheese or meat

Kosina appeared suddenly at the shop window and approached the door. He came inside, slamming the door behind him, the loose upper pane rattling in the frame.  He was newly shaved, smiling, bright: After a month long absence he had returned to the Service.

‘Man! The exile’s over, I’ve done it, it’s finished. I’ll be back and tell you everything.’

Emil Farnik heard the glass rattle again: Kosina had left. Outside it was still snowing, fine and thick. The pigeons had not landed. It occurred to Emil Farnik that people like Kosina frightened pigeons. He rocked the pen between his thumb and index finger; he looked at the writing he had done, a few lines in a small illegible hand. He read the first sentence: ‘A fine snow was falling; on the sidewalk, at the other side of the street the pigeons were pecking at the remains of discarded burek: bits of pecked pastry flew into the air and fell again into the snow.’

In about an hour Kosina returned, white from the snow; he seemed less bright, the glass in the door hardly made a sound. He started walking round the room: he looked at the canvases as if it were the first time he had seen them. Emil Farnik said nothing, he hoped that Kosina would not start telling him how painters should first have to prove themselves as realists, particularly as portrait painters, and only then start with all the rest,  all that personal expression through art.

            ‘Writing?’ asked Kosina, coming over to the table.

            ‘Yes,’ replied Emil Farnik.

            ‘Koriolan Urus?’

            ‘Yes.’

            ‘Well? How’s it going?’

Emil Farnik sighed. A white pigeon landed on the sidewalk but flew off again immediately, frightened by a woman with a big black umbrella.

            ‘Badly?’

            ‘Yes. Very.’

23.

            It was a cold evening; Prolitelska Street was dark: three streetlights made three islands of light in a sea of street darkness. Emil Farnik hunched up in his heavy leather coat; his hands in his pockets. In his left hand he held the key of the Gallery and in his right a packet of chewing gum. He squeezed the plastic coated wrapper.

            The wind was in his face; he felt a tear trickle from his right eye; it moved quickly, like a bright pearl from a broken necklace leaving a wet track behind it: On his cheek there was a twisting watery snake. He wiped his cheek and his eye with palm and fingers.

            Two girls, about six or seven years old were walking near him and three or four yards behind them, two boys, about the same age. The girls looked back and laughed. The boys had their arms over each others’ shoulders: one of them was a little taller. As they passed by Emil Farnik the taller one said to the shorter;

‘Let’s catch them up and grab ‘em by their snatches.’

The boys and the girls started running at the same time, the girls screeching gleefully.

Emil Farnik passed over the next island of light; he wiped his cheek and eye again. He had arrived at ‘1^st October’ Street, Main Street.

Photograph 29 view of  Main Street (Hauptgasse) in 1913. Left, the jeweler’s and watch makers shop of Anton Arnold and the cake shop of Stefan Harac. Right No. 49 - bazaar, to the right and left of the entrance to the Romanian church. The Romanian church was designed by the town engineer, Rudolf Degen. After approximately fifteen months construction it was finished in 1872. It was built on the site of the ‘Turk’s Head’ hotel.  The builder was master mason, Kusman Coloka. The church is consecrated to the Holy Ghost. Up to 1919 Main Street was called, in  Hungarian, Fe Uca; In German Hauptgasse until 1941, in Serbian to 1941 King Peter and from 1941 and from 1941 to 1944 to every one it was known as Adolf Hitler Strasse.

24.

Koriolan Urus turned out the light, lowered the green blinds and stood next to the window. He looked out at the night. It was raining, at the other side of the street instead of a house there was a field; a man was walking around in the field, left and right, to and fro.

Emil Farnik sat on the heater, his hand on the light switch, ready to turn on the light if it was necessary, and stop everything. He watched Koriolan Ursu’s dark silhouette on the glass, rain on the road, the man in the field.

Koriolan Ursu watched the man.‘He’s waiting for me’,he thought. The road gleamed dully; the field: dark wet grass. ‘What side will we take?’

Koriolan Ursu knew that in the man’s back pocket, instead of a wallet, there were soccer cards which he had  won from him in the Danfat, on a concrete surface, next to the public baths in the spring of ’65.

Emil Farnik held his hand on the light switch but he did not turn on the light; he wanted Koriolan Ursu to go out to the field and swap duplicate pictures and win back the Partizan players: Soskic, Becejac, Galic, and most of all Hasanaginic.

25.

On a bench, left of the crucifix, sat a woman in funereal black, head lowered, hands in her lap.

‘Pieta’, thought Emil Farnik,‘pain like in a Pieta, but no one will take him down.‘

When he arrived in front of the woman he stopped.‘Good woman’, he thought, how can I tell you, explain. What words are stronger than pain, that he is dead, that you will never hold him again, in spite of resurrection.’ He watched the spiritually absent woman with her lowered head, and her hands in her lap.

Koriolan Ursu wanted to scream, the words seethed in him:‘And why don’t you, even for an instant, feel rage at all those who betrayed, killed  him, crucified him?!’

105.

1750: We know for sure that, by 1750 there was at least on Jew living in the town. Records from 1753 and 1757 show that there were two families of craftsmen. By 1773 there were already seven Jewish families in the town, three of craftsmen and three of tradesmen, in total twelve Jews. By 1796 their numbers had risen to eight families, eighteen Jews, and two years later (1798) there were only five Jewish families.

26.

Vana was trying to open the front door; Emil Farnik stood behind her, in the dark she couldn’t get the key into the lock, she crouched down to see better She touched him, lent against him, he put his hands on her hips and held her. They didn’t speak, she got the key into the lock, she stood up and turned the key; she lowered her head. In the darkness her neck showed white, he heard the lock click. He bent and kissed her neck. He felt warmth with his lips; the lock clicked a second time, he carried on kissing her. She wanted to turn but couldn’t because he was holding her tight in both arms. He kissed her warm neck; he turned her a little towards him, bending lower, she threw her head back; he pulled it further back, holding her by her hair: he kissed her throat.

Then they went into the house.

27.

The girl came back to the warm bed; she lent her head against Emil Farnik’s shoulder, looking up at the ceiling. She laid her left leg over his right. Darkness filled every corner of the room.

Emil Farnik went to sleep.

The girl lifted herself up and looked at him. In the half darkness it seemed to her that he was smiling in his sleep. Looking at him longer she realized that it was a smile of disillusionment.

28.

…when it gets dark you turn the light on. It’s normal. She turned on the light.

Leonhard Frank

124.

Photograph 41. The school yard of the Hungarian boys’ school in Stefanijina Street.

Description. A white, two-storied building, with a steep roof and four gables The left wing of the building is hidden by a lime tree, next to which is a bench. To the right of a narrow entrance, above five steps , three small windows can be seen, on the upper floor there are five. In the middle of the yard there is a pump.

106.

1851: At the end of 1851, with the aim of educating the Jewish youth a Jewish school was founded with one grade and the first Jewish teacher was appointed. In the same year the Jewish religious community paid 305 Florins into the Jewish school fund. In 1854 the Bible and a reading book were introduced as text books. In 1855 a second and third grade were opened and another teacher was appointed. In the same year a further text book and a Grammar were introduced. In 1856 the Jewish school was put under the supervision of the German Schools Directorate and a member of the Jewish community was appointed to the Local School Inspectorate. The first exams were held in 1856 when there were three teachers in the school. In 1857 an instruction was given to the effect that poor students should receive text books free of charge. 

125.

Photograph 43. Stefanijina Street (today Zarka Zrenjanina). In 1881, on the occasion of the marriage of Austrian heir-apparent Rudolf to the Belgian Princess Stefania, part of Pancevo Street, from Main Street to Rudolf Street was named Stefanijina Street. At the same time work started on the Neoclassical “Villa Radulovic” The builders were Johan Zanplon and Josef Sigl. For twenty years the Villa was the property of wine merchant Matias Beker, for the next thirty years it belonged to Doctor Milosevic and from 1942 to 1944 it housed a German women’s vocational boarding school. To the left, on the corner of Stefanijina Street and Rudolf street, at an angle to the street is the house of the first soda maker Erceyger Sit. His heir was Josef Caraj. Later owners were Hans Spahl and Hans Ficher. The photograph was taken in 1909.

29.

‘What girl’s name do you love apart from mine?’

‘What makes you think I love yours?’

‘Because you’re in love with me.’

‘Where did you get the idea that I love you?’

‘You’re in love with me.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Well you are, aren’t you?’

‘I can’t tell you.’

‘Why, are you shy?’

‘No it’s got nothing to do with being shy.’

‘What then?’

‘With love.’

‘You don’t love me?’

‘I love you but I mustn’t tell you that. I didn’t say what I just said.’

‘Why mustn’t you tell me?’

‘So you won’t stop loving me.’

‘That’s stupid. I’ll stop loving you if you tell me that you love me?’

‘Yes.’

‘Where did you get that idea.’

‘Nowhere.’

‘Where?’

‘I read it somewhere, I can’t remember, roughly speaking, women stop loving when they realize that they’re loved.’

 ‘Crap.’

‘Yea it is. Actually you’re not a woman, you’re still a little girl aren’t you? Come on, don’t get angry.’

‘So you don’t love the name Jovana but you love Vana.’

‘Ye..es...’

‘I’ll begin to hate my nickname.’

‘Don’t do that.’

‘What do you think about; Nada?’

‘I don’t know. I think I like the name Verica.’

‘Since when?’

‘From way back… when I was a kid.’

‘Surname?’

‘Rajic.’

‘I don’t know her.’

‘She’s a year younger than me, she’s got a child….. she’s not married.’

‘Your child?’

‘Of course not, I’ve never even kissed her. I was just a kid, didn’t know how. I kept putting it off, for months. Then she left, her family moved… ‘Love of our young summers / For both of us was sorrow / Now it’s real, now it flowers / When I’m no longer young.’[1] …. It’s eight or ten years since I last saw her. At the bus station in Belgrade. She was beautiful… But sort of thinned out, pinkish, sort of transparent… Jesus…’

‘And you’re still in love with her?’

‘No… I don’t know… How can you tell… maybe… ‘I’m still dreaming of my old love / And who knows where she is now / I’m still dreaming’1 …

‘Are you sorry?’

‘About what?’

‘Not what or who - just sorry.’

‘Yes I am.’

‘Do I look like Verica? You said once that I looked like a girl you loved.’

‘No. I thought you looked like her, but you don’t.’

‘I don’t love you.’

‘Little girl.’

‘I don’t love you.’

‘If you don’t love me then you hate me, or perhaps you’re just indifferent.’

‘I don’t notice you.’

‘But I’m there.’

[1] Arsen Dedic.
               1 Galija (Rock Group)

‘No, you’re not.’

‘Love me Vana, please.’

30.

Emil Farnik watched how the wind was drying the road. The dry white line down the middle of the road was widening. The radio was hissing . The reception was bad on the only station he listened to. He tried re-tuning it, without success, he twisted the dial from left to right but the radio didn’t stop hissing. He turned off the radio and turned on the tape deck. There was a moment of silence then he heard the shouting from the beginning of the Azra song ‘68’.

In sixty-eight Emil Farnik had been ten years old and had finished the third grade. A the beginning of June his class and their teacher Lausa had gone to Belgrade to visit the zoo. On the way he had thrown up twice in a bag. The teacher had held her hand to his forehead. On the way back he hadn’t thrown up, he’d sat next to Vana.

31.

On the postcard is a reproduction of the Mona Lisa; at the bottom, under her hands in a white box it says: Paris - le Louvre, and the name of the printer: Iris.

The Mona Lisa sits in an armchair on a balcony, the stone edges and columns of which frame a hazy panorama, the light breaking through clouds or smoke. It is executed simply, without adornment, while her hair, falling in free ringlets, is covered with a light veil. Her hair and the muted green of her dress in dark harmony and sharp illumination on the folds of the sleeves highlight and stress in opposition to the sfumato of the background, the mass of finely shaped hands and face; hands and face, the constant emotion of the face is captured by an endless number of transitions between light and shadow: Chiaroscuro.

On the other side of the postcard the legend reads: La Joconda par Leonard de Vinci / Collection Musee du Louvre. The text of the postcard, written in a small hand in blue ball point says: With this card I want to greet my old friend, and sometime enemy.

A month a go I was with Mica in Switzerland but it was a mistake. We wanted to go to India. We’d planned everything. And then, with no reason at all - he got married. So he ruined the whole idea, and I came back to Paris. It’s not bad here but I’m dying of boredom. I’ll go back to the lake, learned papers and meditation. I’ve given up weights completely, at thirty five, meat and alcohol, because they are not healthy for the normal growth of the organism.

                                                                              Dragan (Pigeon)

PS. Emil, do you think Leonardo really brought in the best musicians while he was working on this portrait so that Mona Lisa would feel good and smile like that?   

32.

                                                           The Encyclopedia of Fine Art  

33.

On a low display case with two doors, one of which could not be opened because of the desk in front of it, sat Melez, looking through the shop window; it was noon, the girls where on their way home from school.

Emil Farnik looked at his balding, thirty five year old friend, with his beard and mustache who had been coming to visit him at noon for the last two years.

 ‘You didn’t go to the police?’ asked Emil Farnik after a long silence.

‘No I didn’t’,said Melez, without turning round. ‘There’s no point going at noon, they’re never there. I should go in the morning. The one I need is only there in the morning, after that he looses himself somewhere.’

‘You didn’t find him yesterday?’

‘No.’

‘Well, get up some morning and go.’

‘Who’s going to get up?’

‘You. You’re the one that needs a passport… aren’t you? …I don’t, I didn’t work six years in Paris, or go to school there… Or perhaps you’re afraid of loosing what you’ve got now? Hope? If you go maybe they’ll tell you no. Maybe they won’t change your Passport, like they didn’t last year. What would you do then? Like this…’

‘That’s not it. They’ll give me a new passport.’

‘I hope so, but I doubt it.’

‘Yes, yes, they will…Take a look at this one ? Little sweety isn’t she?’

‘She’s just a kid.’

‘What do you mean? Just a kid.’

‘Dirty old bastard.’

‘What?’

Two years earlier, at the end of August Melez  had been sitting on the display case, He and Emil Farnik not talking. Then he stood up and said that he was going back to France that evening. He stood up and held out his hand and at the door he said: ‘Ay…’ without turning round. Emil Farnik saw him for an instant, in the shining rectangle of the doorway, then watched him pass the shop window. Three days later Melez came back; The French customs, ‘A little Hitler’ said Melez, on the Italian - French border, had refused to let him into the country. It was then that Emil Farnik learnt that Melez was barred from entering France.

Dunojlovic parked his bicycle next to the window; he was wearing a green GI jacket and soldier’s boots, a green beret on his head. Emil Farnik and Melez watched him.

‘Here’s the commando,’ said Melez.

Dunojlovic came in; Emil Farnik said: ‘One day you’ll come in here with an machine gun.’ Melez laughed.

‘Why? A…’ said Dunojlovic sitting down to Emil Farnik’s right, next to the table. He took off his beret and his right glove, straightened what little hair he had and pulled bits of cotton wool from his ears.

‘I lost the left glove the night before last, drunken idiot, good thing I didn’t loose the right one.’

Dunojlovic was the same age as Emil Farnik but, like Melez, he was half bald. Emil Farnik’s hair reached down his back. Outside it was a bright winter’s day, the girls were walking past. Inside, in the Gallery, it was dark. The three of them waited for the fourth in the dark: Kosina.

34.

‘What you fucking today?’ asked Dunojlovic, laughing.

‘Same as yesterday’ said Melez.

‘Dirty bastard Meki’s looking at kids his own age,’ said Emil Farnik.

‘Those kids are already fucking,’ said Melez, getting up off the show case and standing next to the door. From there he could see the girls on the sidewalk better, from the other side of the entrance. ‘Look at this one, big girl.’

‘She’s from my street,’ said Dunojlovic. ‘Do you know who her mother is?’

‘Yes, Ljilja, she was already fucking at that age.’

‘She calls me ‘Mister’ said Dunojlovic. ‘She says “good morning”. I cross over to the other side of the street so I don’t have to hear her.’

‘And me,’ said Emil Farnik. ‘In fact she doesn’t talk to me any more. A few years ago, when they were making a film here, I was collecting extras and she played some kid.’

‘Lolita? ’,asked Dunojlovic, staring at Emil Farnik.

‘Of course not, it was a war film.’

‘That’s the only kind they make in Yugoslavia,’ said Melez.

‘She was young, very polite, and later when we met she always said hello. She’s stopped now, she probably feels stupid, thinks she’s grown up now.’

‘And you didn’t fuck her?’ asked Melez.

‘Maybe that’s why she doesn’t speak to him anymore,’ said Dunojlovic.

All three of them started to laugh. Melez took up position by the window. On the street there were fewer and fewer passers by; They needed something new to talk about.

35.

‘Emil, do you see him, across the street?’

‘Yes, the one in the rain coat?’

‘Yes,that’s Kovac, I told you about him. He hasn’t taken of that dirty Mac in  years, and white gloves.’

‘He’s the one who peddles his but fags in Paris?’

‘Yes, it’s how he makes a living, but he does other things as well. Gambles, steals a little, bets on horses. He’s been in jail, in Sante, a hundred times.

‘Why?’

‘Immorality, stealing, once he beat up a woman, forging papers. He’s been driving around Paris for years without a license and that in stolen cars.’

‘Why don’t the French throw him out? You get banned entry for some stupid little thing and he does all that, and nothing.

‘They can’t stop him. They kick him out but he just comes back, without a passport. He never needed a passport: He has his place.’

‘Where he crosses the border?’

‘An Albanian Prince?’

‘Yes, he even wore a top hat for a while and told everyone to call him Rudi. He plastered down his hair and he looked like Rudolph Valantino

107.

1802: At the turn of the eighteenth century the number of Jews in the town was constantly increasing so that in 1802 there were already thirty eight and in 1819 the number reached seventy four, the most till then. However, between 1821 and the middle of the 19^th century twenty Jews moved out of the town.

36.

Outside darkness was falling, onto the white earth. Emil Farnik stood by the window and looked out. He lifted the green blind. In the room it was dark. He went to the door and turned on the light then stood in front of the mirror. Leaning a little forward with hands in pockets he looked at himself. His right eye lid fell at an angle, almost touching the upper lashes; his left lid folded normally into the arch above his eye. It seemed to him that his right eye was smaller. He examined his nose and cheeks: He didn’t like what he saw or the person he was looking at.

He lifted his hair with his right hand and pulled it back. He drew his palm across his face: over his forehead, eyes, nose, mouth and chin.

‘Don’t do it, don’t loose hope’,he thought.‘So what if we have nothing. We won’t offend others with our tempting death. In death it’s the same. Good is good and evil is evil there as well. And we’re there too. We as we are. It won’t change us. It won’t be any better… they told me… Don’t do it. We’ll stay friends.’

The double said nothing, with a smile at the corners of its eyes and mouth; it looked over Emil Farnik’s shoulder at the map of Europe.

37.

In the dark deserted bar an old man said to Emil Farnik:

‘Buy me a drink son, have a heart.’

Emil Farnik looked at the old man.

‘I haven’t got a heart, but I’ve got money. You need money to buy drinks don’t you?’

‘That’s right son,’ said the old man, blinking. ‘But why do you say you haven’t got a heart?’

‘Do you want wine or my heart?’ asked Emil Farnik, looking at the old man who reminded him of a character from an Andrija Maurovic cartoon.

The old man looked down at his empty glass.

‘Thanks son, I’ve got wine, don’t you see my glass is full?’ He lifted up the glass. ‘Cheers son,’ he lifted the glass to his mouth and drank nothing from the empty glass.

Emil Farnik looked at the old man’s throat: his Adam’s apple rose as if he were swallowing, then fell back into place.

‘Cheers,’ said Emil Farnik and made to leave.

‘Hey, son!’ shouted the old man behind him.

Emil Farnik turned round and looked the old man in the eyes: the eyes and the glass, the eyes and the glass were the only things that shone in the dark corner. Chiaroscuro, like in Caravaggio. He turned and left.

Outside all was as bright as heaven.

126.

Photograph 38. In the picture is the lower end of Silerov Street. (today Jovan Popovic Street). In the foreground to the right is the bar ‘Stadion’ which was earlier known as the ‘Hard Nose’. To the left can be seen the distillery, the Serbian Bank and the town scales.

38.

In a dark and deserted bar at a table in the corner sat an old man and Koriolan Ursu. The old man was talking to the empty bar and himself. Koriolan Ursu said nothing and stared into space.

‘I told them, openly that I hadn’t found an ounce of guilt in him. When I told them; ‘here’s the man’ they started shouting, crucify him, crucify.’ He was small and weak, tired, probably ill as well. To my questions he always answered, ‘you say’, or ‘you know.’ When the people there sneered he shook and closed his eyes. He was tired, and I could see he wanted it all to finish as soon as possible. I wanted to let him go. I went out for a third time and told them that I hadn’t found anything for which he should pay with his life. And they shouted ‘Crucify him, crucify him.’ I asked them what crime he had committed and they just screamed, ‘Crucify him.’

Koriolan Ursu stood up and went over to the bar, to the old barman, took a pencil that had been brought to a good point with a sharp kitchen knife and tore a couple of sheets from the note book for credit. He went back to the table and sat next to the old man who had broken off talking to take a sip of wine. Pausing twice for thought Koriolan Ursu wrote a poem straight off.

Joshua called Ga-nocri 

Said to the Fifth Procurator of Judaea

The horseman Pontius Pilate:

I present you with a metaphor

And a solution

After the dinner lie down

You will have a dream

World history

does not consist of people

Time and space

Understand better

Every grain

Of the Sahara

One walk.

Lido

And Verlen which guard Tadja

This devil is

beautiful

The old man did not pay any attention to what Koriolan Ursu was doing, he carried on talking:

‘I told them openly, “My friends, you’ve no chance with us. You’ve got the machines, the technology, but you haven’t got the People.” And, by God, the Germans surrendered.’

39.

The old barman went out of the bar and, with a pole with a hook at one end, which had been hanging from the door frame, pulled down a metal shutter to about a yard above the ground. The blind was of corrugated steel, painted green, and in the right corner there was a small rectangular plaque on which were written the words, Patent Paschka - Budapest.

The old man bent down and came inside. From within he pushed the shutter down a little more, to about two feet above the threshold. He hung up the pole on a nail in the door frame. He turned round and, from the entrance, looked at the small dark bar; he went to the bar. A golden rectangle shone in the door, under the shutter.

In the bar he could smell the tar on the wooden floor, alcohol and old dust. The old man savored the smells, the solitude, the darkness and the quantity of light from the door that he had, himself, determined. The narrow trail of light passed over a few black planks of the worn floor,  the shiny top of the bar and the old man’s hands.

The old man put his hand into a draw and pulled out a book from its depths. He read aloud in a low voice… ‘ and there was darkness above the void... And God said let there be light. And there was light.’ The old man looked again at the rectangle of light under the shutters and considered how he had determined himself how much there would be. He looked at the darkness around him… ‘And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness’… The old man looked again at the door and the other parts of the bar.‘I made this’,he thought, me alone… God forgive me.’

40.

Because of this we beg God to free God, for us we seek to understand the truth and always to live in it, in the place where archangels, the fly and the soul are similar, there where I was and where I loved what I was and was what I loved…

Master Ekhart, sermon Ockhard von Hocheim

41.

Something had woken him up. The room was in complete darkness, without the usual little rectangles of light, on the right wall, from the street lights. He trembled at the thought that there was someone in the room: someone standing by the door and waiting. Who was it and what were they waiting for? He didn’t dare open his eyes. When he did, just for a second, all was black. Fear prowled his consciousness and his body flooding him. He didn’t breathe. Silent fear, he couldn’t hear his heart. He should have turned over, lifted himself up and looked at the door. Something had woken him. Something had woken his fear. He had to turn round. The room was completely dark. He wondered how long he had been awake; he should turn round. He opened his eyes, nothing happened. The strength of the fear subsided, his heart started working, he could hear it clearly. He was sure it could be heard anywhere in the room. He turned round, lifting himself up on his elbow, and looked at the door. He shook with disappointment and relief. There was no one, nothing. He stared through the dark at the door. Something had woken him but there was no one. He stayed leaning on his elbows and looked. He heard his heart and smiled.

He began to distinguish things better, in the dark he could make out the muscled body of the dog. He waited for the fear to come, the same fear he had felt when, as a three-year-old boy he had gone to sleep under the gaze of the demonic faces that seemed to form in the patterned veneer of the wardrobe doors. But this time it did not come, nor did the terror he had just experienced return. He wasn’t afraid he was just amazed. The dog was dark green. It had a short, glossy coat of green hair and it was sitting on its hind legs with its front legs thrust out in front. The dog did not move or  stick out its tongue, its breathing could not be heard: it just looked at him. He took his weight off his elbows, felt a prickling in his right arm. He opened and closed his right hand so that the blood would start circulating again. He turned onto his side and pulled the covers over his head.

42.

The whole day he couldn’t remember the dream he’d had the previous night, the whole day, however hard he tried.

In the evening after the ‘Club’ he came back to his room, took off his jacket and hung it up on the hanger next to the mirror.

He saw himself, first with his coat on and then taking it off and raising his arms to hang it up. He turned round, took off his jumper, threw it onto the armchair and sat down on the storage heater. He saw himself again, sitting, leaning a little forward, his elbows on his knees, one hand in the other. He felt the warmth of the heater.

There is a field, Vana and some black dogs with shiny coats. Heavy storm clouds roll across the sky, rubbing against each other. There may be hail. Vana hurries before him without waiting for him, without listening. For some reason she is angry. He turns round, looks at the field. Everything is black, even the grass, as if before a terrible storm. He starts to be afraid, to shake. The wind starts and the dogs howl. Vana stops and turns towards him. He feels tears in his right eye. In close-up can be seen; first his face, then his eye and then the tear, a drop that the wind burst. Again he sees how Vana stops and turns towards him. In place of her own face, Vana’s face is the face of death. He kneels down and her dogs gather around him, tear him to pieces. He dies at her hand.

43.

He sat at the end of the bed, on the corner, and she sat in his lap. He held his hands on her knees and gently pressed them, she moved herself slowly up and down. She had her arms around his neck, her head back. He listened to her breathing and watched her neck and chin. He gently bit her chin and held her like that with his teeth for a moment. Letting her go he looked at the red marks he had left with his uneven teeth; his upper teeth in the flesh of her chin, two wider and two narrower lines from the incisors and two dimples from the canines. Above the red marks her chin glistened with his saliva. He lowered his head towards her breasts and, in his mind said, Vana, Vana, Nearing the end, in the last moment it came out, quietly.

‘Vana.’

The girl, who was still far from the end caught hold of him by the hair with both hands and angrily pulled his head back.

‘Idiot!’ she said.

127.

Photograph 33. The municipal park (Franc Josef  park, called Wilson park) situated between Main Street and Shiler Street (today J. Popovic Street), on the site of the old infantry barracks, built in 1742 and demolished in 1788. (the barracks had four wells, a large parade ground and spacious stables). After the demolition of the burnt out ruins (the fire was in 1800) in 1850 during the time of Mayor Jakob the park was laid out. From that time there also existed a ‘Park Society’. In 1889 a kiosk was erected in front of which the military band of the 43^rd Regiment of Foot gave concerts which were followed with great excitement by the towns-people. From 1914 charity performances were organized on that spot, with music, fire works and general merriment. The kiosk was pulled down in 1912 and replaced with a band stand, paid for by, Adrijan Karl Schmit,  Leon Gabner and Svetolik Jovanovic which was the match of any to be found in the spar towns of Europe. The stand was built, in a very grand style, by Johan Kun. In 1913, industrialist and merchant Franc Bauer financed the construction of a water main with a well house. Through the branches of the lime trees can be seen the old finance offices and the hostel of Panta Petricic  (later called the ‘Café Royal’) behind this is the Barrel-house and further behind the ‘Café  Stadt Wien’ (today called the ‘Park’ Restaurant’)

44.

Koriolan Ursu sat at his table next to the ticket booth of the ‘Park’ Restaurant discotheque.  Through the glass of the front doors he looked out at the park and at the band stand in the middle of the park that was illuminated with harsh neon lighting. In the glass he saw the reflection of a disco ball that spun in the center of the room, its fragments of mirror sending spots of light everywhere. Reflected in the glass door it looked as if it was in the center of the park.

Next to him sat Vana, her hair in a pony tail, her fringe stiffened with soap instead of gel. They were talking about her school, she was stroking his hand. He felt something on her left palm and turned over her hand. There was a wart between her index finger and middle finger. He didn’t want to touch it, he found warts disgusting, but, as had not been the case before, he felt that on her it did not bother him. This is the way we start to forgive the failings of others and compromise, he thought. Is it love or fatigue?

He asked he why she didn’t do something to get rid of the wart and she told him that it would go by itself in time. He looked away and let go of her hand. He felt tired hearing her answer. In front of the ticket booth stood some boys, he sold them tickets and the ticket-collector Pigeon tore the tickets for them.

‘The rush’ll start soon,’ said Pigeon who was standing next to the second set of doors, about a yard behind Koriolan Ursu.

‘A bit longer’, said Koriolan Ursu, watching a tall man who was coming in  behind the boy who was collecting the change from the semi-circular counter of the booth.

‘Christ, who’s this,’ asked Vana, staring with fright at the big ugly freckled face, and the crooked vulture-like neck between hunched shoulders.

Koriolan Ursu sat up in his chair, waited for the stranger to pass the second doors and circle round Pigeon, to stand behind him, a little to the right.

‘Poet,’ said the vulture.

Koriolan Ursu smiled bitterly, he had known that the stranger would address him like that.

Vana looked at him in amazement, then at freckle-face then at him again; she dropped his hand that she had been holding until then. Koriolan Ursu felt the wart scrape across his forearm. He smiled again. He turned to look at the stranger. For a few moments the eyes from below looked into the eyes above the those above looked into the ones below; then the man turned and left. Koriolan Ursu did not watch him go.

He felt Vana’s hand on his.

‘Who’s that?’ she asked.

‘That’s my other self, Mister Korovjov.’

‘Who?’

‘You don’t know…’

‘What does he want from you?’

‘To sell him my soul.’

After about ten minutes he got out and the black car drove off. He saw the light that burned above the entrance to the Club, and two windows were lit.

He crouched down; He was alone on the road; he hid his face in his hands.

128.

Photograph 11. In the middle of the last century there were many larger buildings around the Municipal park, that created an dignified urban impression. Far right. In 1846 a two storey building was constructed which served first as the taxation office and, in 1931 became a post office. The photograph was taken before 1906 since the wooden fence round the park can still be seen. Next to the post office can be seen the ‘Stadt Wien’ Café then a fashionable meeting place for elegant society. At the bottom of the picture is the ‘Pengesch-Bank’ Discription: A few lime trees and between them benches. A strong wooden fence, behind this the road along which two horse drawn carriages are passing. To the far right are the buildings.

45.

‘Poet!’

‘Yes.’

‘How’s things?’

‘You know.’

‘No, tell me.’

‘You tell me.’

‘Yes, that… Ha ha ha. .. You’re repeating other people’s words.

‘Yes.’

‘Are you writing?’

‘Yes.’

‘About that bastard…Judus…Taj… The voice of Sybil Lane,old streets, your dead Jews, Romanians, Serbs, Germans who left… your suicide… about those girls from the beginning… silence, longing, unhappiness, departures… about light and shade…’

‘Yes.’

‘Yes light and shade. Are you still hesitating? What side will you be on? Maybe truth?’

‘Yes.’

‘Truth, and which one? There are two truths: white and black. One is beautiful and the other ugly. Like a dove and a raven. And the two of them, always - Shit on you.’

129.

Photograph 37. Winter 1932 in the Municipal park. Ana Ebert (left) and Rosl Bandl are standing on a path in the park at the end of  which  can be seen the County Court, a corner of the Danica Trajan villa (to the left of center) and to the far right the Barracks at the far end of Main Street.

Discription: The girls in the foreground, standing a little apart. Both are wearing black coats and white hats. The girl to the right is holding a snowball about the size of her hat. Snow covers the barberries and the fur trees.

46.

‘Hey Poet!, you wake up at night: someone is pulling your covers down from both sides so you can’t move. You’re scared.’

‘Yes.’

‘You can’t scream.’

‘No.’

‘As if someone has seeped through the tight gap between door and frame.’

‘Yes.’

‘In the morning you know yourself it wasn’t a dream.’

‘Yes.’

‘You don’t tell anyone, but you think about it.’

‘Yes.’

‘You ask yourself what will happen the next night.’

‘Yes.’

‘When nothing happens the next night your disappointed.’

‘Yes.’

108.

47.

After about ten minutes he got out and the black car drove off. He saw the light that burned above the entrance to the Club. It was an ordinary bulb, it burnt ruddy-yellow; and two windows were lit.

He crouched down; He was alone on the road; he hid his face in his hands. If someone had been watching they would have been able to see the convulsed way in which he rocked slightly backwards and forwards, backwards and forwards.

48.

They all knelt, his grandmother knelt, he knelt. They all closed their eyes in silent prayer. He looked around and laughed. His grandmother whispered sharply to him stop laughing and close his eyes and hold his hands as she was holding hers.

49.

Dunojlovic sat on the show case next to the window, a few feet away from Emil Farnik; he pulled himself back and lent against the wall and stretched his legs out on the top of the case. On the wall above his head hung one of three engravings of seascapes by Brancic: A small arch, a stone paved street, fishing boats and the sea: all illuminated by the sun which had just set.

‘It’ll be three years this spring since the Youth Service and Gallery were set up, who can remember the first work and the first exhibition?’ said Emil Farnik, looking through the glass of the shop window. Dunojlovic said nothing and after a moment Emil Farnik continued. ‘On the 15^th of May I’ll be twenty-nine… and you in July. He lent towards the surface of the table and rested his head on his right arm.

‘Yes, the number two is still first. I’m glad about that,’ said Dunojlovic.

‘For the last time.’

‘How does it pass so quick…How can you help believing in something… in God… in life after death…’

‘The last time The. Last. Time.’

‘…There has to be something, when this passes, just like that. It can’t be just this - then finished, can it?’

‘In fact I was never only twenty-five.’1

‘We should get away from here.’

‘… It’s two years I’m not with Vana.’

‘We should… two or three?’

‘Is that important?’

‘It’s important how much you jerk off.’

‘… and from the first Vana… it’s seven… We should get away from here.’

Emil Farnik sat up in his chair and  rubbed his arm which had gone numb under the weight of his head.

1 Arsen Dedic

130.

Photograph 28. In 1818 the Serbian Religious Community erected a marble cross at the upper end of Main Street, on a spot said to be the site of a mass grave of Serbian soldiers who fell to the Turks in 1788. Before the marble cross was erected a wooden one stood in the same place. Erected in 1792 as a symbol of remembrance, the wooden cross survived only until 1818. In 1966 the ‘Serbian Cross’ (as the Germans had called it) was removed from Main Street and placed in the courtyard of the Serbian church in Church Street.

50.

On the other side of the street the children were passing by, on their way home from school. The children were of different ages. From seven to fifteen they went up the street to the Upper School which lay between the Russian and the Catholic churches in Church Street.

Koriolan Ursu watched one girl in particular with long curly brown hair. He could not see her face because she was turned away from him, talking to her friends. He saw her profile and her back. He looked at her hair and legs: she was tall and thin.

He tried to imagine the girl naked: The thin young body without pronounced firmness, budding breasts. He tried to imagine how she would look at him.

He stands before her looking at her; strokes her hair. She looks at him, he would like her not to. He kisses her forehead, his slightly open mouth slides down her nose to her mouth and chin, then he bends down and kisses her breasts, two funny thorns. He feels how she breathes, like a plant. He wouldn’t have the courage to touch her. He closes his eyes…

After eight o’clock the street was empty. Only one or two people passed by, on their way towards Upper Main Street, to the Town Hall or the police station. The wind was blowing.

The girl had black shoes with orange laces.

After half an hour reading Koriolan Ursu closed the book and leant back in the chair. He looked through the shop window. Outside he saw three bearded men in black coats and hats. All three were looking towards his window, all three had their hands behind their backs.

Two of them were the same height and looked much like one another. The other was shorter with a yellow face, yellow as the fingers of a chain smoker. The wind blew all three of the men’s beards to the right.

The street was deserted, icy cold. Three men, with their hands behind their backs looked at the person who was looking at them. He wasn’t sure that they could see him, or at least not clearly. Then one of them, one of the taller ones, started to cross the street, slowly, step by step. Koriolan Ursu jumped up, went round the table and towards the door. He searched for the key in his pocket to lock the door, but there was no key. He asked himself how he could stop the man. Again he thrust his hand into his pocket but there was no key. He felt his heart hammering. He looked through the glass of the door. The man in black with a hat and a long beard which the wind blew almost to his right shoulder had almost reached the sidewalk.

He heard the handle turn and the door opening. He said to himself, he’s come, and without lifting his head said out loud,

‘Tishe b’ov.’

‘My Tishe b’ov’, he thought and was amazed by his own calm, by the fine tone of his voice, his readiness.

‘What’s wrong man? What did you say?’ Asked Kosina.

Koriolan Ursu sat up and looked at his friend.

‘Nothing, I thought I was going to die.’

131.

(Empire Vases to the side, a spire with decorations, spheres and a cross) are gilded. On 23^rd September 1929 in the presence of Arch Bishop Rodic a new bell was consecrated. The biggest bell, 2,000 kilograms in weight, and 1.5 meters high was consecrated to St. Tereza from the child Christ. The middle bell was consecrated to the Virgin Mary and the third, weighing 500 kilograms, tuned to the note C, to St. Gerhard.

Description:  Taken in 1904 the photograph shows the narrow front of the church out of which rises the tower into a clear sky. The only dark spot on the white facade is the clock whose white hands show the time to be a quarter past nine. The lower part of the church is partially hidden by the crowns of three young planes in the foreground. Under the trees the small figures of some men in black and one woman in a white dress can be seen.

109.

INFORMATION ON THE SYNAGOGUE: Although as early as 1779 there was a religious functionary (Shehter) in the town, ( Certainly Solomon Samuel, who, in 1800, became the first Rabbi in the town and who was also the theology teacher and presided at Jewish religious services.)  the first synagogue was not built until considerably later.

Building began in 1835 and finished the next year. It was a small building of inferior material, mainly mud brick and wood, situated in the street then known as Jevrajska. To date its exact location remains unknown. Services where held here for less than 27 years (from 1836 to 1863) In 1836 the Jewish religious community was founded.

In 1863, due to its poor state of repair, the Jewish religious community  asked the Magistrate to make a survey of the building. Subsequently a protocol was issued which stated that  “the old synagogue is in danger of collapse and religious services can therefore no longer be held in it.” The building of a new synagogue in the town was soon authorized. Money was raised from other Jewish religious communities and the War Ministry contributed over 12 thousand florins in the form of a building grant. The new synagogue was built in Andrijana Smita street. The building was finished towards the end of 1864.

In 1898 the synagogue was extended and then ceremoniously returned to the Jews for their use. Services were conducted by a Cantor and continued until 1941.

According to some sources the synagogue was demolished by the Germans in 1942 but other individual eye witnesses maintain that this was not done until 1945. Be that as it may, after 1944 the Jewish religious community was never renewed because, in 1945 only ONE JEW returned to the town.

51.

‘And that girl, that little object of desire?’

‘Pretty isn’t she, but she’s 14 or 15 years old and I’m twice that.’

‘It doesn’t matter as long as she’s called Vana.’

‘No, it doesn’t. Ha ha ha….’

‘You could call her Little Vana.’

‘Yes, little Vana, or Kid Vana or Vana the Third.’

‘So that when  you’re day dreaming…’

‘I don’t day dream… about her… I can’t.’

‘Why?’

‘I can’t… I don’t know… There’s no light above / or tears in your eyes / Once you’ve made that crossing / over the deep water / I couldn’t again / be thrown down and pulled up / I dare not love you / I am getting old…1

52.

He went over to the cupboard and, through the glass, looked at the two little mice. Little Fear and Big Fear were six or seven centimeters apart. Big fear was made of slightly larger shells and his back was darker, brownish with white spots. His tail was long and black and made of stiff thread. Three hairs to the left and right of his snout were his whiskers.

He looked at two spots, eyes, one on the top, snout, whiskers, front paws lifted.

The eyes, little whiskers and the paws looked at him.

Little Fear, Big Fear and Emil Farnik Fear looked at each other, powerless to do anything, change anything.

Then he went over to the mirror and looked himself in the eye. He looked for a long time. He moved closer to the mirror, leant forward and looked; and he saw nothing but a great wasteland in green.

When his vision began to cloud and he began to feel pain he turned round.

He went to the window and lent his forehead against the glass. ‘Nothing, nothing, nothing… I can’t, I can’t, I can’t…not even to cry for myself.’

53.

1 Arsen Dedic

In the ‘Club,’ at a table near a semi-circular opening into another room with a box of plants in it sat Dunojlovic, Mira, Vana and Emil Farnik. Already a little drunk, Dunojlovic was entertaining Mira and Vana and Emil Farnik said nothing, feeling how his soul was gradually going blue with sadness. Sadness because of Dunojlovic’s inanities which he had heard a hundred times before, with which he amused the girls, which Vana laughed at.

The model Sonja who had been absent from the town for a long time, passed their table on her way out of the ‘Club.’ She was with a girl and her younger brother who was called Sonja by his friends, because of his sister. When she noticed Dunojlovic she smiled artificially, bent down and kissed him. Mira and Vana looked at each other. Emil Farnik didn’t miss it; Vana’s look, directed towards Mira, Mira’s feigned indifference. At almost exactly the same instant they picked up their glasses and took sips of their juice. Emil Farnik felt anger; because of Vana’s glance, because of Sonja - because she hadn’t greeted them. She had got to know them at the same time as Dunojlovic.‘Fucking dike he thought, I don’t care whether I kiss you or not, for the kiss, just so that Vana sees it, she’s stupid too…’

Sonja just said, ‘Hi,’ to him and ignored Mira and Vana. Anger had driven out the sadness, rage drove out the anger and rage was finally replaced by disillusionment. How many afternoons had he spent in the Library with her and the librarian Maja. She had been young, they had sent her to ‘Mogosa’ for Zito1 and whipped cream, which she brought in plastic cups. Maja had lent out the books while he sat in a low armchair and told Sonja how pretty she would be when she grew up. She had blushed and told him to stop kidding around. She sent him postcards from her summer holidays.

1 Sweet wheat porridge

When Sonja left Dunojlovic, full of himself but trying to hide it, pretend that nothing in particular had happened, turned to Emil Farnik and asked,

‘Have you already seen her?’

‘Yes,’ replied Emil Farnik, calmly, although he had not. The lie, ‘yes,’ brought him almost level with Dunojlovic. ‘Last night.’

‘Whereabouts?’ asked Dunojlovic, quickly, like a police prosecutor.

‘On the way back from the Catholic cemetery.’

‘What were you doing there?’

‘Looking for a couple of girls.’

54.

‘Who should I part with who should I get rid of near me so that things would be different’, wandered Emil Farnik, looking through the shop window.‘So that things would be different.’

Half way across the facades of the buildings at the other side of the street the morning sun cast a shadow of the building in which the Youth Service and Gallery was located, where Emil Farnik was sitting. One building was half dark yellow, half bright yellow, and another dark green and bright green. On the yellow building new guttering shone. An old man lent against the drain pipe to rest his tired heart and legs a little. After a few minutes he continued, almost without lifting his feet off the ground. He dragged his feet over the sidewalk like a child pretending to be a train. A few moments after the old man had gone an image of his gaping lips stayed with Emil Farnik sucking in the cold winter air.

The old man/train had stopped again, out of breath, to rest next to the drain pipe between the two buildings which were now completely out of the shadow. He looked happier, he was on his way home. He had done whatever it was he had set out to do, now he was on his way to his warm room. Maybe he was thinking, well,‘I’ve got that over with, thank God.’

He felt better, he smiled then started to laugh out loud. He laughed for a few moments.

55.

‘My son! What are you doing?’,asked the woman.

‘I’m hiding’,said the young man.

‘What are you hiding?’

‘...My crying...tears...’

132.

Photograph 93. February 1931 the then internationally renown tight rope walker Artur Strohsnider lived in the town. He performed amazing feats with a bicycle and without a bicycle on a cable strung across the middle of Main Street between the building of the Municipal Savings Bank and the house opposite it. ( Hepke’s bookbinder’s). In the following year this event was repeated at the time of the Easter carnival.

Description: A crowd of people in winter clothes, dark coats, bowler hats, ladies hats, fur hats, are standing in the middle of the road, watching the small figure of the tightrope walker who, at the moment the photograph was taken, was midway between the two buildings. To the left and right can be seen the facades of the buildings, richly decorated on cornices and above the windows. The branches of the trees have recently been pruned.

56.

Koriolan Ursu sat at the table in his room and prepared the tickets for the discotheque which he would sell that evening. Open on the table lay a brown briefcase and  several blocks of tickets.

With practiced skill he priced every ticket with a stamp which said 50. He pressed the stamp onto an ink cushion then onto the ticket. He turned over the ticket, lifted it with his thumb, slid his index finger under it and held it, marked with a price, between his index finger and middle finger, along with the other tickets already stamped. He would then press the stamp onto the cushion again, to take up ink, then stamp the new ticket.. On the left side of the table were blocks of tickets without the price and on the right were those he had already stamped. In every block there were a hundred tickets and to prepare five or six blocks it took Koriolan Ursu from half an hour to an hour. He worked calmly and it would have been obvious to the casual observer that he was well versed in the activity, that he had been doing it for a long time. Stamp on the inkcushion, stamp the ticket, the big blue number 50, lift the ticket, ink the stamp, the serial numbers on the tickets gets bigger, one block finished, the second, the third, the fourth the fifth the sixth…

In the right hand pile there were six blocks of tickets stamped with a price. Koriolan Ursu knew that that Sunday evening he would not sell more than 250 tickets. He put four blocks in the briefcase and shut it.

57.

‘I can’t… I don’t know… There’s no light above / or tears in your eyes / Once you’ve made that crossing / over the deep water / I couldn’t again / be thrown down and pulled up / I dare not love you / I am getting old…1

...

 (More is coming soon/Fortsetzung folgt)

Rezension I Buchbestellung I home 0111 LYRIKwelt © D.A.