At Žabar’s I ordered a tea while there were sausages and beer flying around me. I couldn’t take anything more. Robert ordered a Badel brandy (I haven’t seen that in a while!), and we as if discussed the book promotion of Sash. And we agreed on that when we put the book on the table. That was it. But it felt good, we spoke a while. His children are younger, and he is yet to buy an apartment. Many memories came back. Isakovski, I told myself later, you’re OK, why do you torture yourself? But the truce is sweet while it lasts.
For ten days now, every day except Sunday, I go to a back therapy. It snapped in the middle when I turned to Kalina carrying some bags. The bags were not heavy, and I didn’t turn suddenly. But, just like Orpheus, I fucked it up. Good that the trouble was on me this time instead of on my Eurydice. So here I am going to therapy, massages, all that shit. I recover, slowly… The fact that I spend a lot of time in front of the computer doesn’t help, but look at the first paragraph and you’ll see that I didn’t really have a choice.
In Macedonia there is an election campaign. Local and presidential. A freak show with a bonus program. I don’t watch TV. I don’t read newspapers, except for the comics and culture. But, it’s all in vain when the whole city is flooded with fucking full size billboards, as big as a house. They stalk you wherever you go. Just like in Noddy cartoons: Noddy gets a trip for an award, and everybody’s sucking on him. And everybody says: “Choose me, me! Choose me!” That’s what’s happening around me: a million faces and no character. Too bad. It feels that they made a poor selection for the elections. One of the faces came to my door. He brought a brochure on his program. Kate was visiting me, we had not seen each other for weeks. And we had so many things to finish. We even finished some of them that day. Others can wait. After I saw her off, Fari came to replace the boiler in the kitchen downstairs. Then Viktor came to make an offer for e-commerce site. Then Boban, the printer of Sash’s book came. When I finished with all of them, I sat down to look at the brochure. I was surprised by the move. Those guys from SDSM are always so detached. And now, here they are, knocking on doors. So I read the brochure, smoke and puff like a locomotive… It says: youth, future, blah-blah. So I say to myself, hello, why are you nominated then, when youth = future. Nominate somebody young. But really young. And the others are no better. They do not knock on doors. They leave it in your mail box. They guy who wants to be my mayor sent a team to fill in the mail boxes. You think they left brochures? No, it’s so, er, passé… In my mailbox there was an audio CD and a shamelessly expensive card for the eight of fucking March. “Choose me!” The kids liked the CD. Sara played it and they danced with Lina on some half-Indian half-Aborigine dances. Who knows what they found in those love pop junk. And they like U2, for several months now that have been playing them out loud. If it’s not the Irish, then it’s the Stones. Anyway, it’s better than any CD with children’s songs. Especially when I think of the children’s festivals in Macedonia and all the sickly ambitious parents who want to turn their untalented children into stars… Ambitious? They are just sick. Full stop.
Speaking of the children, I remember Ivce-Pivce, my old radio colleague who now has a daily program on Telma TV. Ivce drives around with some kid and asks him questions. They are on the back seat of some small car and chat. Then he brings the kid to choose a present. Then they go to McDonalds. Or the other way round, whatever. Well, I thought, it’s kind of cool that he saves on the studio and the light and they don’t spend a lot of gas with this small car. But! My girls’ godmother, Basho, decided to take her nephew to Ivce-Pivce in the show. And here comes the fee! One thousand to participate… Fuck it, where did the world go to? Why the hell do you have all the sponsors, for the kids to pay? The next thing is that Santa Claus stars a strike and asks for benefits. I ask that they children are paid, not charged. Fuck the show without children. So, I explained Sara why she would not go to Ivce-Pivce for her birthday. I will spend some time with her in the city and we’ll eat somewhere. She prefers barbeque chicken to hamburgers. “Dad, this is kind of rubbery”, she said when I first took her to McDonalds. Then she asked to go for a second time, it was even more rubbery, and now she goes around it. She wants specific meat, well done.
Three days ago she had a performance, Sara the folk dancer. We were all there, the whole entourage in the Army Hall. It went well. Sara was pleased. We all congratulated her. When the congratulations ended, when she took off her folk costume, she looked me with the eyes that are the same as mine (or at least I see them like that), and she said: “Dad, I don’t want to eat at home, I want us to eat out.” So, we sat at Pivnica. Kalina ordered her a chicken, I ate a pizza, we drank couple of beers and we celebrated the eights of March. Pivnica was the only place that was not packed. On the contrary, there were loads of free tables and it was OK. Besides staying there for a long time and then we ran home in order to make it on time. I had an agreement with some people to look at the apartment below. We agreed and we rented it for 17 days. Crazy, but I’m no better either. Then Dragan met us on the street, we told him with Kalina about the 17 days, and he said: “Well, rent it per night, huh-huh-huh!” I took the joke, and I said: “I’ll open a reception desk!” and he added “With towels and bed sheets, folded and piled.” As we move on with Kalina, I ask her: “How come he thought of piled sheets…?”
The apartment should be fixed. I bought a toilet aspirator today, a filter for the kitchen aspirator, a door knob for the entrance door, this and that. I spent two hours with the tools in my hands. I use the left one more and more. Since I broke the ankle on my right one a year or two (how I’m sometimes lost in the years), I have been working with the left one more and more. I’m freer in this way, I don’t depend on one hand only. And it felt good doing that. As Kalina was working on the counter, I was about to tell her: “Honey, if it’s needed, I also know this trade.”, but I didn’t say anything. First, because I know several other trades. Second, because it has been needed for some time, but we manage. I don’t know how, maybe it helps that we work like dogs…
As I dig in my recent memories, here comes a letter from Elfi, Triztan’s girlfriend. She says he went to the hospital for testing, and he simply fell. Then they discovered that his aorta had exploded, Triztan was big, also as an appearance. That is how one leaves, my Viking brother, with a bang. I will translate you, as I planned. I will only update your biography. I will add 2009 as a figure. No hard feelings, that’s it. Greetings to the team up there. Save me a warm quiet place. So we dangle our feet from the clouds
11.03.2009 00:47
Translated by: Elizabeta Bakovska