We traveled through the night, speeding to Ohrid. But I was in no hurry. I wanted to be on the road, to keep changing my location, to meet people. Even if they were not as pleasant as the cop awhile ago.
I leaned my head on the seat, listening to the song that I long wanted to hear, and I watched the sky above us. We were there somewhere, the three of us, disturbing the order of the cosmos, as when a star shoots out of its place. Suddenly, there was a thud outside and the driver stopped. He slammed on the brakes. He turned toward us.
– I hit something, he said.
– What? Luna asked.
– I don’t know … Something like a rabbit … What should I do?
– Wait here, I said, and I went outside. He shut off the engine. Sometimes, a frightened man does unnecessary things.
It was colder than in Kičevo. We were on the open road.
I took ten steps behind the car and saw it. It was lying there as if asleep… I approached it, kneeled over it, I placed my fingers on its neck. I’ve seen them checking people that way. In films. She was warm. Nothing moved under my fingers. She was dead. Killed on the spot.
– Come here, I told him.
He reversed the car and got out.
– A fox! he said, approaching.
– She’s beautiful, I said. Even like this.
Blood began to ooze onto the asphalt. Out of her head.
– What do we do now? he said, scratching his head. That’s what they always do.
– Open the trunk.
He obeyed.
– I’ll put it in, I’m already bloody …
He looked at it, then at me, and I winked at him and put it in. Slowly, gently. As if it were still alive. Human sympathy is a strange thing.
– Are you gonna take it with you when we get there? he asked.
– No, what’ll I do with it?
– What about me, what do I want with it?
– Take it to a tanner, and give it to your wife.
He laughed.
– Thanks, he said.
– Don’t mention it. You killed it. Give me some water to wash up in.
He poured me some water and I washed the fox’s blood from my palms.
– Now we’ll go. As soon as I take a piss …
– O.K., he said, getting into the car.
I stood there, somewhere in the middle of the road between Ohrid and Ki?evo, pissing and looking at the sky. It was very wide, clear. Many stars. Like fingertips scraping the sky. Steam rose from under my feet. At that moment I wasn’t thinking of the fox; I looked at the sky, and while buttoning my jeans, I shivered from the cold of the Macedonian winter.
– My wife had a birthday a couple of days ago, he said when I got back in. I didn’t have money for a gift… This will make her happy, he said.
– Greetings from Vampire and Luna, Luna said.
We got into Ohrid about two in the morning. We got off at the marina. I helped the driver put water and oil in the car, and he left. He thanked us again for the fox.
We stood at the marina and waited for the others from Skopje to arrive. We had an agreement that we could sleep in their apartment.
They didn’t come. It was cold. The sky above Ohrid was like a half-harvested cotton field. From the harvested places, stars appeared. When I closed my eyes I could still see the sky at the place where the fox was killed. It was cold: steam came from our mouths and it froze and fell at our feet like transparent leaves of silver.
They didn’t come. We went to look for a room. It was already after two in the morning.
Around the Uranija family museum were several houses in which I had enjoyed staying before. But it wasn’t the right time to enter a stranger’s house. But I had to knock at someone’s gate. To wake someone up to let us in. I saw light behind one of the windows, stopped below it and called out. A disheveled head appeared.
– Who is it? the disheveled one asked.
– It’s Igor, I said.
– Igor who?
– Vampire.
– Is it you?! I’ll be down in a minute.
– You came at just the right time, he said when he let us in. Vampire! Hahaha! Everyone was laughing.
– Hello, Goran, I said.
– You have nowhere to sleep?
– Uh huh.
– I moved upstairs, with my wife. I have a room for you here.
We went into the room. It was a good room; it had a bed big enough for both of us, with pillows and lots of blankets. A good room. There was a bath next to it. That’s where Luna went first, then I; when I returned to the room Goran had left and Luna was crouched under a lot of blankets, and she smiled when I lay next to her. I kissed her goodnight and listened to how the lake slapped at the shore beneath us. I dived into the coziness of dream. The stronger waves of the lake sounded like the thump of the car against the fox. “You killed it,” I told him, “you killed it”… Maybe my desire for travel had something to do with it…
– Vampire? she said softly.
– Mmhm.
– Sleeping?
– No…
– …
– …
– You thinking about something?
– Mmhm.
– …
– About the fox.
– It was sad.
– … Sad.
She turned in the bed and curled around me like a puppy. She was dear to me. I kissed her on the forehead.
The morning came with all its might. The sun was bright. There were no shutters on the windows, no curtains, nothing to protect us from the murderously bright rays of the sun. They hit me right on the head … The lake did not slap the shore.
We sat with the old folks and drank brandy. I liked the old folks. I liked the way they made jokes, the way they looked at life. They told me about the old names of the months, they looked at me as if I were their grandson, they always had brandy and a warm word for me. And a kiss when I left. The grandpa always threatened that he would find himself “a new grandma.” The grandma said that in that case she could finally get rid of him. They couldn’t do without one another. He was a very tall man, and he defied his age. He had silver hair and bushy eyebrows. Bushy black eyebrows that could protect his eyes from any kind of weather. But they couldn’t protect him from the years. He was losing his sight, and the grandma often read the newspaper out loud to him. Neither of them said a word about it; they behaved as if establishing a new ritual between themselves.
We sat there, moving closer and closer to the stove, our bodies trembling from fatigue, we sipped the brandy, and the grandpa talked about his orchard, about his apples, about the sun in them, about the music he heard when they were in blossom, about waking up when it was storming, when the wind bent the branches of his apple trees. He told us how brandy was made, how the apples were prepared to make brandy from them. Good brandy, with a chain of bubbles on the surface and with the sun in its depths.
– I’m going to the lake, I told them as I left.
They sent their regards to my parents and to all those I had mentioned to that point. They knew none of them, least of all my parents, but they sent their regards anyway. I mentioned the fox to them while standing in front of the gate. They said it would turn out all right.
We sat on the shore. The lake rippled below us, the sun was bright. It was a beautiful day in Ohrid. Goce was with us. His soul was full of winter sun. He was happy in that city, he was aware of the blessing that had been given to him and told Luna how we met; we tell that story whenever a third person joins us. We almost got into a fight when we first met. We were like mad dogs at that time, a few years ago. Several days later it was clear that we would care for each other like war buddies; the years behind us taught us to respect the veteran stench of our souls. We were like brothers in arms. Luna laughed. Everyone laughs when they hear that story. It’s all right.
I closed my eyes. His voice. Her laughter. The breath of the lake. The thud. The fox. Did it screech when we hit it? What did it think at that moment? To where did it depart, did it find its place among the stars that like fingertips scraped the sky? Why did I have to sleep with Luna?
The lake beneath me danced with the sun above me. There were small waves, and the light played on the surface of the great water. The stars were there, within reach of my hand. I didn’t reach for them.
Translated by: Zoran Ančevski and Richard Gaughran, from the forthcoming “Change of the System: Stories of Contemporary Macedonia,”, Skopje, 2000, MAGOR.