Ratko Adamovic

The pigeons are angry, but they do not swear, bite or despair at the sudden appearance of some scrupulous fool in the gunner’s tiny room in which, above which and around which there are countless pigeonholes. No. These stupid birds, who are undeniably pretty thanks to God’s idle fancy, are able, just like all other chickens, to
understand only so much as that the slamming of the door of the gunner's tiny room is a signal for fleeing, flying away and escaping from their holes in good time before the unbearable sound of the old cannon, which is meant to announce, whether anybody wants it or not, and regardless of what the day may be like: rainy, clear, dull, unsuccessful, trivial, special or unforgettable - that it is Noon.
Who are the fleas and the pigeons angry at? Who is driving them away at a time, which does not belong to them, which they do not care about? Are they angry at the gunner? Nooo. Are they angry at that Nameless one who is for the city, the cannon and the gunner much more important than the gunner himself, because he must wake the gunner just before Noon. The gunner is responsible for finding his own waker and he, by fixed tradition, brings a waker from his own village. A waker, looking after his flock, is trained to be always alert, awake even when he is snoozing. But after several years in the city the little mountain beast hidden in the waker, who has now become the gunner's shepherd, gradually loses his instincts and his vigilance. That perfect unity with nature to which nothing goes unnoticed, gets covered by dust, concrete and stench, dispersed by the wild, strange shadows of buildings, roofs, streets and millions of windows. The shepherd starts to wither away, drying out and losing his vigilance. So the gunner, with heavy heart, takes his waker to the market and sells him as a porter or a servant. At the same time, a new little beast ?an always-wary shepherd ?is rushing in from the gunner's mountain village.
Are the fleas and pigeons angry at the shepherd-waker? Nooo. Not at him. Because he too works for time although it is not his and he is also its victim. His time unfolds only when some coins drop from the always drowsy gunner’s pocket, or from around his wide belt. For in the tiny room of the city tower in which the gunner snoozes there is a sacred rule: anything lying on the floor belongs to anybody. To be honest, sometimes, when supplies of bread, onions and beer run out, one can pull out a note or two from the pocket of the sleeping owner and let it drop silently to the floor. And it is anybody's right and free will to pick it up.
As the fleas in brotherhood with rats, shoulder to shoulder with people have established and populated towns and cities, they know that their anger at the calculation of stupid time is fully justified - time that does not exist except in people's minds and nowhere else in this world even less in the depths of the dark universe. Together with rats, pariah dogs and people, the fleas are traditional inhabitants of cities so all this jostling and screaming about the calculation of time has thrown them into despair.
The fleas are most angry at the opera servilia ?servants by profession, an always-grumbling Opera. They are angry at innkeepers, butchers, jugglers, actors, magicians, alchemists, millers, weavers, saddlers, dyers, bakers, shoemakers, painters, carpenters, blacksmiths, accountants, administrators, clerks, pimps, prostitutes and merchants. At them! Listening to the cardinals and the nobles cursing the Opera and calling them unworthy, the fleas decide to blame the opera. Why them? Because these confirmed grumblers want to know exactly how many hours they have to work and when they start and finish their daily shifts, at what time they can take a break so that they can have a bite of stale bread with onions, if, on rare occasions, they have onions with their bread which is usually so hard and sour, that it is beyond description.
This Opera, opera servilia, does not become calm until city clocks appear in the streets to tell them exactly how many hours they have to work and when they can have their breaks. The Opera knows it cannot rely on the decorative clocks mounted on cathedral towers and church portals, as these clocks do not care about a particular time or the working hours of some despised Opera. They only care to listen to people boasting about them. The Opera knows this. The owners of such church clocks cannot care less about Time for humans. Labourers, apprentices, servants, head workers, helpers, all the divine grumblers go all-out for city clocks.
But before such clocks could be installed, daytime should be clearly and sharply divided and calculated. Nobody is prepared to divide and calculate the hours and minutes of Night, as most people in those times were afraid of night, scared from the first signs of dusk. They cannot wait for the dawn, another great illusion in addition to Time. And so, people have believed for millions of years that a dull day can save them and that the Light belongs to them by nature. But if there is Light anywhere, then albeit only threadlike, it is buried deep down in people's souls. Blinded by the Sun's endless indifferent brilliance, who on earth would care to descend into the soul of stinking man to dig into the true wells of light.
So the founders and inhabitants of cities, together with fleas, rats and pigeons, besides all their worries, are given - Noon. And at Noon in numerous cities a cannon from the tallest tower would be fired and in the tower there would have to be a tiny room in which, from noon to noon, a gunner would doze. Before the firing which heralds noon, someone has to wake the gunner and for this purpose a waker-shepherd is required and consequently every fifth or sixth year from the gunner’s distant mountain village a new descendant of the virginal forest and fragrant meadows is torn away and sent to replace the poor, miserable, blunted shepherd in the city.

While he is still wondering if he could see anything, if it was light or some mystical veil over his eyes, if these were his eyes, could his eyes see anything at all, could they be real and see anything material, instead of cannon fire, Stefan hears music drifting gently and softly from the peak of the tower on which there is a huge city clock. The music announces that the day and the always-unpredictable light, have reached the peak of Noon. This is what he really hears. And what does he really see?
Fogbound London was bottomless, shapeless, but was black, as dark as a sea gulf full of rocks and miserable black galleys. Their masts, wedged in the dark sky did not hoist the happy, silken banners of the blue sky. London was all black and stinking like an ugly carcass.
Its thin and curved bridges appeared like weak ribs. The black galleys did not put their lights on. They stood there scared, gazing in fear into the black night. They were afraid of the sun, they were full of stolen treasures. And they washed, hidden in the dark, their flanks and their sterns smeared with blood, moaning in the wind with horrible memories.
And on London’s dark bridges, on its wide steps, before its temples, shadows stood.

'Excellent! My eyes are not deceiving me. They are just reading the lines of an unusual shoe seller in London, while I am quietly sitting in my room. All troubles are out there, somewhere outside. All my doubts about daybreak, about a light that can Eventually defeat the ubiquitous Darkness, all this is taking place Out There, in the world with which I have no contact.
Or maybe it is not so. No, it is not, because I can hear music coming from the big city clock. There is no doubt, I can hear it, as I am humming the tune which is echoing over the city.'
It is the powerful Big Ben and it is obvious that Stefan is not in his room in Belgrade. He can only be in London.

'If I can hear the music of Big Ben which is announcing noon in London, then where in London am I? If my eyes can receive the ever erratic light and send a signal to my head (if, lost in the world, they can find it) of what they see, then I will know that I am standing at the corner of a little street as if preserved for a museum, Dorset Rise. This is where I am.'
Dorset Rise climbs uphill from the Thames wharfs in the very heart of London. Delightful and glistening from positive energy, as if it was forgotten (if there is such a chance on earth) by planners, reconstructioners and insolent investors. As if somebody had lifted a glass dome of time and let Stefan enter the narrow street, old fashioned Dorset Rise. From which galleys, battleships or pirate ships in the service of the Crown, secretly and publicly, was booty from far lands plundered on the high seas spattered with blood and cries of the defeated was carried up Dorset Rise? Carried by the odd atmosphere of Dorset Rise, he is checking his memory - yes, it is the year 1993, still in Dorset Rise, a street in the heart of London, while the music coming from Big Ben is dying out, a cart full of fresh, colourful vegetables is pulled up the road by a donkey. A donkey! Yes, a donkey. Scornful of the constant, unbearable sounds of the city and the deafening noise of engines of all the factories on earth designed in the most incredible fashion, the donkey is pulling his fragrant cart quietly and with dignity and with incredible ease up the little street left over from the 16th or 17th century.
'Maybe Darkness is everywhere after all. Maybe this is not a day that, as I have naively believed, is routinely dragging towards its noon, if such a thing exists at all out of people's heads and their immature, stupid attempts to divide the Light? Maybe nobody on this so-called day is brave enough to wake the sleeping gunner?No. No. One has to be honest and tell what the eyes can see. No more retreats. My eyes can see a donkey, so likable in his bewilderment, and, in the year 1993 around noon in the heart of London, not far from the Thames, the donkey is pulling a cart full of fresh vegetables.'
The donkey is trotting with such ease as if it was not hitched. Stefan is fascinated with this ease and confidence that is relocating the scene into some other space and some unknown physical law. It is trotting as if it knew exactly where it was going, contrary to the bewildered Stefan. The donkey's master, though it was hard to believe that such a nice, self-conscious animal could be owned, is walking behind the cart, calm and composed.
Carried by the slow and sure trot of the donkey, Stefan automatically follows him up Dorset Rise.
He stops in front of an unusual shop window. It looks like the oldest shop, store, who knows what, in Dorset Rise which itself resembles a petrified scene.
It is an antique shop and above its door and window, there is a sign with the calligraphic inscription:'Rosslyn Gate.'
There were not many things that attracted him as much and at the same time separated him from every day events, as antique shops. These were, although very rare, the only shop windows in front of which he had to stop, no matter how pressed he was by obligations he was pressed or how ever fast he was hurrying. He would always stop, if just for a moment, but he would stop. Most often, he would be completely absorbed by the period and the area from which the artifacts came, so everything would end up in a disappointing return to the banal brightness of the day and everyday obligations.
'Has the donkey, whose light step I was following, brought me before this window?'
But now there is no donkey, neither is there the donkey's fragrant vegetable cart nor the quiet man following the cart. For a moment, feeling very lonely, Stefan asks himself if there was some little diabolic creature or perhaps the Master of evil himself hiding behind the image of the donkey and his light step so unusual for an animal, the step of someone who owns all of London, which was, no less, but a city of charming donkeys. Or maybe it was Satan himself who came to interrogate his apprentices at one of the gatherings of banking luminates from this part of the world.
It does not take more than just a glance for Stefan to realize that all the exhibits are originals. Already after the first superficial glance at the objects in the window it was evident that this was a rare antique shop. Stefan’s experienced eye did not miss the fact that these were not copies.
Stefan is deeply engrossed in an old compass with unusual engraving, a ship’s sextant, richly decorated silver cutlery, several cups with emblems and something that specially attracted his attention ?in the corner, on an antique stand, there were several walking sticks with most beautiful handles. Stefan is wondering which one would suit him best, always longing for the time when sticks were obligatory parts of male outfits.
His gaze stops by an ancient telescope. Yes, this must be a very old telescope. Stefan is trying to guess who the people were that were losing their breath over views and visions Up There, seen through the lens of this magic instrument.
'It was in Ravni Kotari, in Islam Grcki, at the castle of Stojan Jankovic, a descendant of a family of Serbian nobles. At the time, the Desnica family was living there, sons and daughters of an outstanding writer. The castle and its tower were demolished two years earlier by the hatred of their neighbours towards anything that the Vatican used to call Eastern Schismatics. It was demolished, burned and ploughed over. Every tomb, every cross which was not Catholic, everything to the last beetle in the great writer's grave was completely erased.
I was sitting on the highest terrace of the castle gasping over the beauty of the surroundings, when an old man with great difficulty brought out an unusual telescope ?huge and with a heavy stand.'
»You may take a glance if you promise that you will resist this dream, all this beauty, and this superhuman contagion. There are no people so mad, unusual and so impractical as those who peep every night through this aorta of love and wonder, watching what is going on Up There in the Darkness, on condition that it really is 'up there' and that it really is 'darkness'. Have you ever asked yourself why these observers of the heavens are the quietest of creatures? When they are among other people, they seem as though they do not exist. They see so many wonderful things looking from one star to another that all they can do in the presence of a stupid crowd is to remain silent. You must have heard stories about samurais. Do you remember, when the grand teacher trains a student in a fencing school, what the most difficult part of the training is? Two almost superhuman skills. First, you must always be able to sense the saki, the death threat, no matter how secretly it is born in someone's evil mind, how shrewdly it is sneaking behind your back or lies in wait for you from a well hidden ambush. And the second? The second is always the first and basic in a samurai's skill and all his being; from the moment when a samurai starts unsheathing his sword, all his being and all his consciousness start passing through his body towards his arm and the blade of his sword. When the sword is out, the samurai's whole being, all his soul and his last thought are already concentrated between the hilt and the tip of the sword. Whatever is left on this side, all the way from the hilt to the dusty ground is only a well-coordinated and respectful obedient machine carrying a sword and the spirit within it. The same is with a researcher before a telescope. Only when one learns how to transfer all of his being into the space between the outgoing lens and Up There, into the vast spaces of heavenly oceans, whilst his body remains but a dutiful mechanical instrument, only then can he become an astronomer, a champion of diving into the depths of cosmic illusions.
Now, promise me that you will not put on a telescopic diver’s suit without caution.?br> »Do I have to??br> »You must. I wouldn't like to lose you just like, long ago, I lost myself Up There. Now say 'I will resist'.?br> I said nothing.
»Say it.?br> »I will resist.?br> »That's it. Now grit your teeth and tell your soul to be calm. Loosen these huge bolts on the stand. Do you see that far blue forest? Do you see the roofs of a monastery beyond the forest??br> »Barely.?br> »Now, I am turning the telescope towards that 'barely' beyond the old blue forest. Tonight Summer will change to Autumn. This is why I asked you to come and visit me now. Have you adjusted the lens? Now move it slowly and focus on the turret of the monastery church, right beyond the blue forest. Is it alright??br> »I think I’ve got it.?br> »Now, I will step back, because very soon you will be overpowered by a great force and all that great power and energy could harm my old bones.?br> »What is it I should see??br> »You should never ask that before an open telescope. Most often you see something that cannot be expressed in words. And even if it could be nobody would believe it. Quiet now. Be careful and watch.?br> »I can only remember that my whole body became numb, almost petrified. It was becoming stranger and stranger and unknown to me, until I stopped feeling it at all. And there, beyond the densest curtains of forests, a delicate fabric, a lace-like transparent substance was performing its dance. One moment it formed a circle, another moment it scattered in the form of heavenly flowers. That translucent something would suddenly fade away in the forest, and then it would come back in most unusual forms constantly coming closer to the tip of the monastery bell tower. When the lacy, transparent image stopped for a moment above the monastery belfry, I realized that it was a beam made of the ghosts of our forefathers and the dancing lace-like substance supporting them and lifting them high up into the sky and bringing them closer to the top of the turret, were fairies. I was not surprised to see the ghosts of the forefathers or the translucent, cobwebby and lacy fairies. What surprised me was their number. As many water drops as there are in a giant wave created by a hurricane on a high sea, so there were as many fairies, companions of the swaying forefathers. When the fairies stopped their waving dance for a moment as if they were waiting for something above the belfry, a spark of light appeared at the edge of one of the bells: embers turning into a metallic red-hot drop. Then the fairies lifted the forefathers' ghosts again and they started a rare dance, never before seen by human eye. The heart of this new dance was the grasping of the red-hot drop from the edge of the bell. They took the melting drop which was echoing with the gentle music of the church bells, and, dancing along, spinning and twisting they formed the drop into an arrow. When the arrow was all shiny, glistening with red-hot melting metal, they threw it up into the sky, and the arrow came out like lightning in the approaching twilight. A quick dazzling flash lit up the dusk and the arrow descended rapidly into the darkness of the deep forests.
»Autumn? said the old man shaking behind my petrified back. Quietly, with a sob, the old man whispered: »Thank you, dear Lord, once again.?
The heavy door of the 'Rosslyn Gate' antique shop suddenly opens and a strong, trustworthy hand takes Stefan inside.
'Only those who had been in the Rosslyn antique shop before might know what I am talking about, as one has to see it with his own eyes. It was not just a shop, store or a room with a show-window in which some artifacts were exhibited for sale. It was not a museum either. The Rosslyn looked like a temple for antiques, a world itself far from everything that was taking place in London.
I know that I had always wanted to come at least once to a place like that. In addition, instead of a smell so characteristic for a room full of antiques, sometimes even pleasant but most often heavy and almost sickly, there wafted through the Rosslyn the restful scent of herbs and healing aromatic teas. '
A bony old man with a short white beard and an expression in his eyes of mythological kindness shows him in and gets him seated in a comfortable armchair. The old man says:
»Thomas Dickinson. And this is the 'Rosslyn Gate', one of the oldest antique shops in London and maybe in all of England.?br> The melodiousness of his voice, its depth and its familiar tone pour over Stefan like a gentle healing balm over burns. As if the voice was not coming out of the old man's mouth and throat. As if it was coming from an unknown place, briefly brushing the old man's friendly face and reaching the unexpected guest.
'The old man's serenity, his kindness, his frankness at this first meeting, help me relax. Instead of accepting the situation, I am feeling an unusual tension, the stupid feeling of a foreigner, an intruder who does not belong here. That wretched eternal Balkan poverty and the feeling that we do not belong to the big developed world were pushing me onto the edge of immeasurable suffocating mire and an eternal struggle for every breath. I was so keen to undertake this trip and now, comfortably seated in an armchair in the 'Rosslyn Gate', I am wondering what the hell I am doing so far from home.'
'The man who said his name was Thomas Dickinson left the room to fetch a bottle of water and some glasses leaving me alone in the shop. '
'I was looking at the antiques, as if I was stealing their beauty, deeply impressed by the order in which they were arranged. On a wall, among numerous paintings there were two crystal mirrors each in a frame that itself would cost a fortune. Standing out from the gilded decorated frames and crystal glass, in a simple frame, there was a charter witnessing that Thomas Dickinson had been awarded a knighthood ?Sir Thomas Dickinson. It was signed in a script typical for royal charters: Her Majesty, Elizabeth II, Queen of Great Britain, Canada, Australia and the Commonwealth.
While Sir Thomas was pouring drinks, I was thinking about my countrymen and their obsessive habit of taking every stranger that may appear at our doorstep before a fresco in one of our medieval monasteries featuring the apostles sitting at a table and there, on the table, oh, how magnificent and dignifying for my people who spent a better part of their history under Byzantine, Turkish, Austrian and Communist rule, slavery and tyranny, there are knives and forks, placed on the table so nonchalantly. And it is the fourteenth century and it is our nobles in the images of the apostles, while Europe had no knowledge of knives and forks.... Every time, every foreigner would be informed of this, shown the same fresco and welcomed with the same story pushed right under his nose.
At the 'Rosslyn gate' there are beautiful things of high artistic value, personal belongings of kings, queens, lords, dukes and duchesses, archbishops and cardinals from the 12th, 13th and 14th centuries. This is the place where one should not make a stupid mistake. This very moment I am making a stupid mistake, asking a stupid question:
»You are one of those big collectors??nbsp;
»I am a big fool, unable to resist our family tradition. Or maybe there is a trickle of spite and love and a bit of admiration for one of my ancestors.?br> »But Sir Thomas...?br> »Thomas. Only Thomas, please. You are not a customer, neither are you a tourist. We will take another road. The right one. But let us first have a drink. I think you may need a glass of this good old cognac.?br> 'I did not like cognac. Whiskey would always help and cognac made me feel sick. But I accepted the wide glass with the thick silver emblem of a gracious old church with the inscription: ROSSLYN CHAPPEL!'
»How did you know that I intended.... That I felt as if on uncertain grounds...I think.... you have literarily saved me from...?br> »There are no mysteries. It's age. My age and my experience. But I do not believe in experience. One is always but a beginner.
In the last two centuries, the Dickinsons were historians, archeologists and researchers in new elements, alloys and far lands as well as counsellors to powerful British families as far as Buckingham Palace. While I was still teaching, I was often face to face with students, generations and generations of them from all over the world. I learned how to read their minds long before they would start talking. A close look into somebody's face is more important than half of the 'Encyclopedia Britannica' whose pages and registers in human speech most often open at random and by chance.
The children in our family, no matter what they studied, had to spend a day helping at the Rosslyn. That was a tradition. It was, and this was later confirmed, a better school than many universities. And finally, it was firm in our tradition that one of us after retirement should take over the Rosslyn. Naturally, the Rosslyn is not only what you can see here. This is only one finger of the whole body of the Rosslyn, which is collecting, researching, dating, acquiring, searching and placing each object into a proper context and time.
This shop window is at the same time a microscope and a scanner and something beyond words. When one has been looking for many years at the faces of people stopping in front of the window, of course most often just to fix their clothing or hairstyle, he learns to read from their faces ?what they are looking at, why the particular object, what their reaction is. Are they astounded? Amazed? Pleased? Did they plan to shop at the Rosslyn? Naturally, there is a big difference between those people who stop to look at old coins, jewellery or some senseless vases, undeniably beautiful and valuable but still senseless, and a person who stops losing his breath and all his being over an old telescope. When I decided I should leave you alone to look at the telescope, I noticed that your face was becoming shadowy, transparent and almost invisible. And when your body started losing its normal density, I knew that you were a part of .... It was my duty to quickly interrupt it and quietly bring you inside. Finally, you are not English; you are not from London and in situations like this you can be in great danger. Believe me, I experienced it myself. Long, long ago, while I was still practicing archeology, before my appointment at the university, down in New Mexico, an old Navajo took me to the Gates of Death.
All unexpected perceptions and mental pictures, expeditions, fears and confusion were less difficult than the moment of Return. Nothing is more painful than a return from other worlds and times to unknown lands, settings and surroundings in which you are even at the moment of return only just ?a stranger. This is why I rushed to your aid as only the dear Lord knows where you would end up passing through this unusual old telescope or what could have happened to your being in this unknown little street. It is not hard to depart, neither is it hard to return. No, on the contrary. But it is easy only when you are returning to your own environment, known, friendly and familiar from the moment of Return. And it makes me laugh when I say 'friendly' as it is also one of our silly naive illusions. You are far from home. Remember my words.?br> »Have you seen the donkey??br> ' I blushed and was terribly ashamed for asking such a stupid question. While Sir Thomas was talking about travel to other spaces and times, and the skills of Departure and Return, I was talking about a donkey!'
»Oh, our George! Of course! George is our pet. God knows how hard they tried to have him removed. But, thank God, they failed. And they will fail again.?br> »Who, the people who live in this area??br> »Oh no. Big corporations. A powerful car industry made a contract with the municipal administration for the provision of practical little pick up trucks. But we had our donkey and we refused to give in to the company. They were mad. It obviously wasn't a matter of profit because this little street is almost forgotten. I say almost, as this quiet old street in the very heart of the city is so exclusive that big companies get very interested in it. They simply could not believe that anybody could resist them thus spoiling their plans. They thought that if they introduced in this little street their computerized deliveries, acquisitions, organization, time tables, priorities and these special pick up trucks, all this just as a first step, then it would be simple and easy to make the next step and start replacing our old shop windows with all that glass and steel and eventually throw us out of our old shops. These are people who would delight in buying everything in Dorset Rise, in throwing out and changing everything existing, bringing in their own automatized, uniformed heartless servants, the same people who are ready the same day, for business is business, to pay enormous amounts (in fact enormous promises and small amounts) for the destruction of a whole country or a whole system. For them, it is the same thing seizing Dorset Rise or rich oil fields in a poor country. But here they did not succeed.
First they offered a decent amount of money to George's master, then an even bigger amount and eventually one so enormous that it was ridiculous. We immediately published it in the media through our contacts. And then they hired some rascals to have the poor devil poisoned. But this did not succeed for my friends professors of veterinary surgery, rushed to help and saved our George. After the second attempt at poisoning, we hid George so well that they frantically tried to find him and even offered high awards to potential informers. Animals! They make no difference between murdering a donkey in London or a whole group of businessmen who are in their way somewhere in the world. Then all at once it seemed as if they had given up on George and all of us. But as soon as George reappeared, that very same day they tried to run him over with a jeep, to break his bones, kill him. What they did not know was that our George was a champion in traffic exhibitionism. When a robust jeep attacked, George made an elegant swing and the jeep passed by him at top speed. Unable to stop at the crossing the vehicle caused a serious accident. Tens of cars were on fire, smashed overturned, God save us. Sheer luck there were no dead. The company owning the jeep had to pay damages the amount of which was dizzying. And then our respectable friends with connections at the court had a quiet word with the Queen: a mob of parvenus and unscrupulous financial magnates were trying to ruin one of the symbols of the old London and English tradition. As the Windsors detest anyone showing off under their noses taking lion shares of wealth without rich presents and secret oaths, the Queen, outraged, took the first opportunity at an important celebration to say how very angry she was at frequent assaults on the relics and symbols of London and that those who carry on with this practice may soon be left without important contracts and privileges. Period! Since then some people from Dorset Rise have been calling our pet ?‘King?George. ?br> »In the Balkans such problems are solved by a brief, brutal and bestial action, not much talk. Down there on the Adriatic Coast, in the beautiful bay of Boka Kotorska, there was a young dolphin that had become very friendly with a little girl. Amazing. Whenever she would go down to the beach to start calling him, he would always come to her. He would come close to the beach, let her cuddle him and would make incredible exhibitions. The word spread and the newspapers wrote about this. A few people at once began to believe that the dolphin was an incarnation of a wonderful young man who had drowned and who they could not forget. They compared and were saying that.... But the majority of our people, always grumbling and frowning, thought all this was too nice and too romantic. And as more and more people enjoyed the event and even felt that they were somehow special so that they were inflaming their imagination to undreamed of possibilities, that other, bigger group of people thought all this resembled the exciting, sensational stories from the big world, which they could not stand. And then, one day a man with a rifle, without even batting an eyelid, shot the dolphin. And? Nothing. No king, no queen, no important or unimportant friends.
The search for the little girl lasted for two long days and an even longer night. The poor mother was worried out of her mind that her child, delirious with love and grief might have ended up in the deep sea.
When the girl was found among the cliffs and rocks eternally washed down by sea foam, her face all screwed up with pain, she looked like a prehistoric pearly seashell that the sea had wedged, almost secretly, between sharp, inaccessible rocks. The people who have found her are still talking about how she looked like a little glass statuette through which the sun was sending glistening threads of cobweb never seen before. Those were her tears. A child's tears of defeat often turn to glass and leave the petrified creature speechless.
The local king-murderer cut it short: 'Don't tell me. Shall we all bother about this now. Kids are easy on tears. Spoiled brats! Smack the child and you'll see how quickly the glass will break and she will start to talk again.?br> »And what about the villagers??br> »The girl was found and that was enough. But soon they were saying with some strange pride enveloped in a strange evil joy 'Pejo Mikov saved us shame and disgrace. We don't need any tourists coming here to watch our great trouble and misfortune - our children talking to fish. Always unlucky and hopeless, all we need is a circus.' Unprepared, they must have been struck by panic that their shore could become anything other than a painful border between a difficult life on the land and a dangerous life on the sea.
To my people anything pleasant, warm, enjoyable, comfortable, free, gracious and unique is always, just and only - shameful. The following spring, when he heard that his child was talking again, the father said: 'We are a simple and ill-fated people. God saved my child from insanity. We were not suited to all that. It is for those rich, silky assholes from the West.'
Sir Thomas gets up. Gently as if there was a sick man before him, he takes a glass from the strong grip of Stefan's hands. He brings a glass of water and pours in it some crushed, fragrant grass and the water turns green.
»This will help you relax and feel stronger.?br> Stefan waves it away and Sir Thomas pulls his armchair closer and puts the glass in Stefan's hand.
»Calm down. You are on a journey. You are far from home and only the dear Lord knows where you are going. Rest for a while. You see, when you get to Oxford, they will tell you proudly all about the University, its history, reputation and tradition, all about the people who have studied there with the names of all the famous people and their achievements. But they will also tell you about members of a well known family the grandfather, father and son of which were in turn thrown out and removed from the University. Each one of them during the course of their studies would succumb to a bloody temptation. Each one would shoot an arrow at a beautiful stag from a herd of deer which had been living there for centuries, grazing and tended as a natural part of the University. It is not always easy to win over a primitive hunter hiding inside a human soul.?br> Sir Thomas mimes and with lifted hands urges Stefan to drink up his healing drink.
»Now if we have managed to stop you leaving completely unprepared through this old telescope, tell your old friend where you are actually going??br> »To Dorset. Sherborne Castle.?br> »I see! You are going to a meeting of the 'School of Night-! The 'School of Night'!?br> »Yes, if it is still there.?br> »Well, when I see how easily you can enter the time of an object, I'm sure you'll find them gathered there. That was indeed an excellent group of people: Sir Walter Raleigh, spiritual father of the School, delightful and terrible, brilliant Christopher Marlowe, Chapman, Harriot... Did you know that Harriot was Descartes' tutor? Harriot was one of the most splendid minds of his time. Yet one person got them all together, inspired them in their work and free ideas, a complex person of unusually broad views ?Raleigh.?br> »Sir Walter Raleigh is the person I am going to visit in Sherborne.?br> Sir Thomas is silent for a moment. Than he claps his hands.
»Just a moment, please.?br> Sir Thomas is searching among the books on his shelf. He pulls out a thick, heavy book. He finds the page he was looking for and says:
»You look like him! So that's it ?kinship by resemblance! And if you have spiritual contacts with the 'School of Night'... And here am I telling you stories about Oxford as if you have only just heard of it.?br> »You must be wondering how come that we from a nook of Eastern European poverty and ignorance know about the 'School of Night??nbsp;
»I'm not. And why all this bitterness? I had the opportunity to learn a lot about what you call an Eastern European nook when I visited the Balkans as a professor of archeology and history from a southernmost Greek island all the way up north to the great old Danube. An archeologist always knows more about a country than its people may ever dream. And history. My dear friend, astronomers, geologists and archeologists - the AGA ?are part of a most unusual tree of man. If, as it is often claimed, there has been an independent civilization of monks from the third century, then certainly this trinity, if not a separate civilization, must be a distinct kind. The AGA belong to a unique school where, like nowhere else, both God and Satan have equal shares in the classes. Sometimes, if you are lucky, you may even attend a lecture where both of them teach at the same time. They speak, explain and lecture in two parts. But back to your voyage. Why did you come to Dorset Rise? Because of its name? Maybe you thought that Dorset Rise had some direct connection with the town of Dorset??br> »If, completely innocent and by some mistake, I were accused of a terrible crime and if I were interrogated for nights on end and if my presence in Dorset Rise were the vital proof of my innocence, I would be sentenced to death and executed. As I would never be able to explain what I was doing in this lovely old street. There are a few similar little old streets in my hometown Belgrade and the old part of Zemun, that survived, only God knows how, centuries long destruction and bombing whenever fighting was going on in hysterical Europe. But this is not the reason why I have come to Dorset Rise. Please believe me, Mr Dickinson, that I do not know how I found myself down there at the corner of Dorset Rise. I know that I am going to Dorset. That I am going to Sherborne, that I know. That there is a train to Dorset, to the south, in the afternoon, I know. And, yes, I know that before entering the ‘Rosslyn?I was in Ravni Kotari on the roof of the castle of Stojan Jankovic, that I was looking...?br> 'I stop. This gentle old man must think that I am hiding something, that I am cheating in our well known Balkan way, that I am trying to escape trouble pretending that I am somebody else and that I am trying to find shelter in his antique shop. Maybe he thinks that I am a member of an organized criminal group who was sent ahead as a scout...Or simply that I am not prepared to respond with the same sincerity to his candid reception and his frankness.'
»Sir Thomas, will you please excuse me, I would like to take a rest. To...?br> 'I am feeling ashamed and I do not know what else to say. Something must have cracked inside me here in London. I am lost, no doubt. From that stupid feeling of a stranger I moved to the uneasy feeling that I was disturbing other people's peace and interfering into somebody else's life bringing my own... I do not know where I am. Let us see: I am sitting in the 'Rosslyn', a shop with rare antiques, in a room that is not really a shop nor a store and I am holding in my hand a glass with the silver emblem of the gracious 'Rosslyn Church'. I am talking to a stranger who does not bother about his title of Sir who treats me like a close relative or a good friend who has just returned from some land of no return. What am I caught up in? What is this voyage about? I know it will be easy to squeeze through time to the 'School of Night' to my favoured sixteenth century. That I know. But, everything else...'
»Mr Dickinson, thank you so much. I would like to take my leave now.?br> »All right. But you are wrong. I am not an idle professor who drowsy with boredom, is sitting in the 'Rosslyn' waiting for any opportunity to pull in an unexpected passerby to tell him my stories, neither am I a pervert intending to cheat you and drag you into some filthy tricks.
Go now. You are departing and after all this long talk you do not care to tell your name. That 'something', as you think, that has brought you to Dorset Rise and to 'Rosslyn' is no mystery, a dark power or a product of your madness, it is a simple and pleasant spontaneity. Spontaneity is always saved only for special people. It is not for the tumult in the streets, this simplicity I am talking about. Take two alchemists. When they talk using their specific language codes, they understand each other very well. Other people who understand nothing can easily accuse them of some intrigue, conspiracy or devilry. Only a person who, when looking through an old telescope, starts vanishing, fading and waning is the purest and the most welcome guest at the 'Rosslyn'. This is why I am offering you my stories, my ideas, my old weak heart and some of my frail knowledge. And, of course my support.?br> 'I guess I should have had that glass of cognac after all, though cognac usually makes me sick no matter how good or old it may be. Or perhaps that glass of Thomas' green herbal something. I should have thanked him for his help and hospitality, accepted the conversation, made myself comfortable, taken off my jacket and asked him to talk about his archeological excavations, to.... I simply could not. For a long, long time I had not been a man of dialogue. Passing through time always proceeds in an unworldly silence and only this silence could offer me rest. No, Sir Thomas Dickinson is not a senile old man hunting for someone to talk to. Neither is he a pervert. That gentle voice that is coming from some superhuman place sounds as if man and nature were one - a man and a quiet flow of water. That voice from places where earlier beings dwelled, places where human beings lived still untouched by idiotic technical discoveries, whom, without any firm grounds, we call our ancestors whereas they have nothing to do with us. Nobody wants to do have anything to do with us any more. Not even the wind. It blows over the land heavy with accumulated wars, reigns of hate and hypocrisy. It roars, whistles, howls or blows gently and does not give a damn for us. Not even the rain that used to respect people as brothers so that it would humbly wait for an agreed date in a season, would auscultate to hear prayers before important works in the fields, or would come just to water the thirsty. Today it pours, it throws itself down whenever it feels like. Even idle God who, one day, without any prior notice to his tutors, stopped picking his nose and started to create humans. And, naturally, like every other autistic person, he gave up half way or maybe his elders told him that the game was over and that he should go to bed.
It is I who am perverse, not Sir Thomas. I had been longing so much for this voyage, trying so hard to take on a form that would bring me to the doorstep of the Academy of Night and, look, my first day in London and I am meeting a man who recognizes me as one of his brother-admirers of the antique and a traveller on unexplainable voyages. And? I should be pleased and calmed, but I am torn by doubts and fears, I am feeling lost and ashamed because I come from a country which has always been looked down upon here (although here is but a crushed Empire). And honestly, whenever they thought it was necessary to make order in the Balkan region, someone in London would request that the Serbs be shut up once and for all. 'They constantly rebel, offer resistance and cause local wars', they would say. Members of the imperial force could not understand that we simply could not bear centuries long slavery. And, look, I yielded to the most primitive thoughts despite the frank and sincere welcome by the serious and precious world of the 'Rosslyn Gate'.
This sudden tormenting thought struck me. I am wrong. At the British Council, when I told them I was writing a new book, I was immediately given a grant to undertake research at Sherborne and in Dorset. In a gentlemanly way they have never given up their awareness of our miserable, poor, difficult life. Obviously, it was just financial aid, but they wrapped it in the form of scientific research. Isn't everything all right then, I wonder standing before the kind old man, a cultured erudite and at the same time, what I most appreciate, an unconventional and relaxed person? It is not. As, whenever the door to the big world opens, that unpleasant mouldy tail drags behind us. It is the tail of Balkan disgrace: The tail of stinking flooded toilets. The tail of an eternal longing for and worshiping of a leader. The tail, huge and greasy, born in the ancient tribal furs of the Slavs always miserable and bewildered when without strong leadership. The tail of shepherds and nomads, of a naive Serbian tribe who so tragically trusted the story of a jester that out there, beyond those mountains which, surrounded by their flock they could see in front of them, there was an endless, beautiful land and that the next day they should be leaving for it. The tail born in stinking bladders and wineskins stirred by naivet?and credulity. The tail born in an eternal search for a wonderland where people never growl like bloodthirsty beasts, where kindly people live in woods with dandelions and thyme. The tail of a flea empire in which every hair, bloody and covered with mud, hails a leader - a brutal satrap and a tyrant. When unable to find a suitable tyrant among the people, a cheat would do, they would send an impressionist prepared for the nations of Eastern Europe by secret communist conventions mysteriously financed by a giant eraser of traditions and nations which did not fit into their plans of overall obedience and who were not prepared to recite slavish poems by heart. The owners of the giant eraser saved gentle Christmas carols for their own warm homes and kith and kin in God-forgotten Siberias, Balkans and the misty banks of the Danube, Volga, Dnepr, Visla and Vltava, with mangy impressionists they sent the trash ?the International.The stinking tail was the only place where gulags and dungeons for whole nations could comfortably fit. In these dungeons, thanks to the muddy tail, at family gatherings instead of traditional songs, millions of people would sing 'Proletariat of the World Unite', an epochal deceit of the big West, all the way from the Urals to the Danube. No further. The greasy tail was afraid of water, so the Danube was the border of this forsaken hive. The Danube was ashamed of us, the people. It was not the beautiful blue Danube of Johan Strauss, waltzes, music, balls, luxury boats made of first class timber plundered in some wretched colony; boats in which gracious young maidens rock on Sundays competing with the refined lacy edges of their parasols always at hand on the boats rowed by flushed bridegrooms or suitors.
The huge tail, always there behind our backs, rolls down the banks of the Danube which struck by horror, flows quietly past us, the worshippers of our loving leader. And the Danube, always quiet and dark, turns thick and murky through Belgrade, as it was always fired at here from the other, European side. On its waters, while in European courts new perfumes and new erotic grips were being invented, in order to deaden, destroy, smear and turn to decay the hearts of the naive Serbian peasants and shepherds for the next five centuries, there was wonder of wonders: an endless fleet of ships and schooners pregnant with the Asian extortionists of Suleiman the Great.
With the wisdom of an old man, running past miserable, muddy shores, the Danube hushes the tiny crystal drops still echoing with Strauss' waltzes. Looking forward to a rest from the tailed kingdom, the Danube rushes down to the gorge to refreshment in its deep waters surrounded by the shadows of the ancient people of Lepenski Vir who lived freely by their own rules, measures and wits.
Alas, even for the gushing divinity, the Danube, there are only rare, fragile moments of a happy and relaxed flow. As, ridding itself briefly at the Djerdap Gorge of our misery and slavery, warmly welcomed by the shadows of the ancient people of Lepenski Vir, it continues to flow into a yet deeper darkness. All the Danubian legends, memories and traditions disperse forever down the muddy Romanian delta, the scene of a never-ending lament. As an innocent witness of our everlasting slaughters, the Danube is offered release in the disgraceful disintegration of its waters in the Black Sea. What a sad destiny for one of the four sacred rivers! Running from the early delights of refined waltzes and on through the lands of fat tails, flowing through the Balkan mists and shades, the river empties into the Black Sea.
I was not aware that I had such a big tail, heavy, plain and muddy and covered with open wounds, not until I was to depart on my first trip abroad. When I discovered this misery, I employed many tricks and methods to rid myself of the tail and leave it behind, locked at home or lost in the city on the way to the railway station or the airport before departure. I was trying to cheat it as if I were not going; I was pushing it under a train, down the plane wings... No use. Only once did I think that I had managed to trick it and was able to depart without it.
It was my first trip to the States. I asked my family not to come to the airport to see me off which turned out to be very nasty, but I insisted, as the trip was very important for my future career. Eventually they accepted it, attaching to me behind my back attributes of an extravagant kind, of a man of the world, a conceited imposter, but what can we do? I took off to the airport by detour almost a day earlier. It looked as if I would make it. But I kept checking, I kept constantly checking, sneaking closer to the airport with every step well planned, taking the risk of being arrested as God knows who and God knows why.
When the plane finally left the continent and was flying above the blue desert of the Atlantic, I kept getting up, walking about and searching all over the plane, looking, opening, overturning things, going into every detail until the crew of the huge Jumbo Jet got extremely upset. They thought that I was going mad from the fear of flying, that I was a member of a group.... they thought they should tie me down to the seat, give me a tranquilizing shot, that they should call the flight control and let them know... But despite the irritating situation, I simply could not tell them what I was looking for.
And we landed and I was still looking back, even at the customs and the passport control. I was all on pins and needles. I was expecting it to jump out of my passport quickly becoming bigger, larger, heavier, stinking, the tail covered with the eternal Balkan wounds. It was not there. Goodness Gracious! In the new world and without the tail of Balkan inheritance, the tail of slavish psychology, the tail of disregarding rules, the tail of indolence and tedious sweat, the fratricidal tail of treasons, the tail of Byzantine replications and painful vassal service, the deadly communist tail.
I felt so light, excited, ecstatic, almost transparent that I thought the New York Hilton's polished and shiny luxurious elevator would be unable to register my weight and would refuse to take me up. But the very moment I entered the bathroom (which at home many of my countrymen would immediately turn into two little rooms with enough room left for upper class washing and bathing facilities) I started to fear that my flight was unsuccessful.
When I realized that everything in the bathroom was so sophisticated that I was unable to locate the taps, to work the shower or find out which knobs correspond to certain commands; while I was touching the tepid ceramic wall trying to find a bar, a ring, anything that would react to my touch and disclose a tap or a distant association of a shower head, suddenly, I saw the huge, greasy, hairy tail sprawled out in the bath tub. It filled almost the entire bath dressed in that typical gray suit of a party secretary with the unavoidable pin of a hero of socialist labour stuck in its lapel.
Under his smeared fur, two white socks peep out and the legs of his trousers were pulled up so that when the delegate of the people's authority sat, his hairy male legs could be immediately noticed. Under his tight jacket, over his puffed up belly, the shirt scarcely resisted bursting. The collar of his shirt was too tight and it cut into his fat neck. It was beyond help. Our average man, as a draftee would be told by the draft board, when they measured him all over, that his size was 43. So he would wear size 43 all his life no matter how much weight he would gain. His neck and shoe size was 43 and there was no discussion. If it was too tight, very tight or even loose, if he were unable to button up his jacket, no matter. He had to. He was told, it was recorded in all his documents ?size 43. If he bought a larger size, if he dared to wear comfortable clothes, if he could fit a finger or two between his collar and his neck, other people would think that he had suddenly lost weight, that he was seriously ill or that he had to wear his father's or his brother's suit because he was so poor. In his head from the centuries long slavish living anything nice and comfortable would be either too shameful or showing off.
Anyway, maybe I would have borne this suffering if I had not seen my red pioneer scarf around his hairy neck. The scarf that one morning long ago my mother, with tears in her eyes, put round my neck saying: it is a must, my son, they are in power and they run everything including the schools and one has to go to school even if it is theirs. And at this school, to the schoolteachers' pride, the children wrote »I love Tito more than mum and dad.?br> Alone with this tailed hack in the bath in the prestigious Hilton, in New York, with the miserable hope that I would be able to impress my hosts and that my lectures would open opportunities which would ... I let go of the door handle of the heavy wooden door of the ‘Rosslyn?which I was gripping like mad so that it almost broke from my highlander's hand. I approached the armchair in which I had been sitting before, sat down in it and accepted the glass of golden yellow cognac.

(translated by Mira Orlovic)