The Twenty-first

/, Literature, Blesok no. 75/The Twenty-first

The Twenty-first

– Won’t you stop with the insults? – Gordan furiously stood up from his seat – Who the hell are you, after all? What have you done with yourself?
– I was riding, damn it! Half the time I was driving myself and half I was driven by others. What have I don? I made a child. What more should I’ve done? That’s the best thing ever. My life is a failure otherwise. And, you know what?
– Let us hear those words of wisdom too… – Gordan turned his head impatiently.
– Because of the likes of your father – Kiril pointed at him with the two fingers between which the cigarette butt was still smoking – I was a freakin’ dream-chaser. We thought we were saving the world.
Kiril stood up from the bench, threw the butt down, took off his hat and wiped the sweaty head with a handkerchief he pulled out of his pant pocket and went on:
– Unlike you, we were mostly thinking of others. The beatings I got for these ideals, the humiliation I suffered! So what? When I see you like this now, I’m still not sorry. At least I had a youth. We had an idea and what do you have, damn it?
– If you ask me, I’d agree, young man – the teacher added – Those ideas – like those of… the gentleman – I’ve never liked them, to be honest. I despised communism, but I’m like him, of the same mind…
– Of course you are, we’re the same generation! Although, you seem somewhat older – maliciously said the railwayman.
– I sometimes wonder, am I a failure at life? – the woman continued – I had a husband, God rest his soul, but we had no children. I used to think, alright, I don’t have children of my own, but I have my students. If not mine, I’ll raise these children, the new generations. They are all our children, the offspring of our people. Now I see what generation we’ve created… Them – the teacher said, pointing to Kiro with her head – and us. How come? We haven’t taught them to be rude and heatless. We’ve been teaching them work ethics, kind words, good behaviour…
– There you have it, that’s what we’ve created – Kiro sat back down on his bench, pointing to the young man.
– Right! – Gordan said, addressing both of them – You taught us and raised us well, but we turned out all flawed. What were you teaching us? ‘Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers’ and ‘Politeness costs nothing and gains everything’… Peter never picked anything but elbowed himself to the position of self-management unit director, and politeness here costs everything and gains nothing. Here you gain something by force or by pulling strings. Peter was the son of a partisan mobilized in ’44, then a second-generation party soldier, and the gains were behind steel gates in the houses, factories and stores of pre-war entrepreneurs. You’ve got your fairytales all mixed up. Peter’s socialism and Ali Baba’s cave!
Gordan got up and climbed on the nearby fence turning his back on them, looking somewhere in the distance from where the train was supposed to come. She was looking at him with troubled eyes, but answered to him with a steady tone.
– I haven’t mixed anything up. They took away our property and the rest of it my father handed over to the state. He was a noble man, even though he wasn’t a political idealist. ‘Expropriation – expropriation, so be it,’ he used to say. ‘If that’s what is meant to be, I’d rather it went to the people.’ It was easier to give up your property in those days. We honestly thought the rule was popular then.
– So it was, don’t tell me it wasn’t – protested the railwayman.
– It turned out the same people expropriated twice. First they took our properties, preaching socialism for all, and then the socialist factories, selling us capitalism, for themselves.
– Why delude yourself then? – Gordan asked.
– I thought it was a different story – the teacher answered – Not just me. All my colleagues. We called ourselves educators. We thought we were bringing literacy and educating, that we were bringing light to the darkness that had been swallowing our country for centuries. We thought we were teaching children how to be people, to love this country, small and modest it may be, but it was ours. Were we wrong?
– Absolutely! – the railwayman yelled and got up again, and she looked at him with surprise, eyebrows frowning, at which point Kiro sat back down again – I mean – you’re absolutely right… comrade.
– This country could’ve been a rose garden, become a rich orchard… – the teacher said.
Gordan turned to her, looked at her straight in the eye and started quietly declaiming.
– Fruits from the orchard: the Resen apple, Delicious and Golden Delicious, Karaman pears, Ohrid cherries… – he itemized.
Absorbed in her monologue, she didn’t even hear him and continued:
– … Where have all these broad-daylight criminals come from, these power-hungry, primitive boors, I sometimes wonder… – the teacher kept talking as if not even listening to him, while Kiro was confusedly glancing first at her, then at him.
But Gordan wouldn’t stop ironically reciting his imaginary lesson either.
– Gevgelija figs, Maleševo plums, Šar Planina blueberries, Šipkovica hips…
She got up from the bench, without interrupting her speech.
– … We taught them proper speech. Honest behaviour. Patriot values. Who turned them on to money, to bribe, who infected them with selfishness? When has this country fallen out of their favour? How come they made a home out of thievery, and a backyard of authority?
Gordan picked up the pace and raised his voice to outspeak her with his ironic games.
– Valandovo pomegranates, domestic actinides, imported bananas…
– The last time they’ve read a book was at school. They don’t read books, but they’re experts in false bookkeeping. Their pockets are full, but inside they’re empty. They’re building mansions, one bigger than the other, but who or what is to live there? Emptiness?
– Kavadarci grapes, Demir Kapija vine, Strumica mastika, Negotino gin, brandy…
– They don’t know what’s nice, only how much it costs. They don’t value people for their knowledge, but by the price they put on them then. If you have – you’re alright – if you don’t – you suck. Worth, they say, is calculated at the stock market, and they’ve lost all sense of human values.
– … Skopje medlars, white mulberries from Kumanovo, black ones from Karadak…

2018-08-21T17:22:53+00:00 December 21st, 2010|Categories: Prose, Literature, Blesok no. 75|0 Comments