A COMPLETELY LOYAL CITIZEN
I can slaughter. Yes, a man.
Specially if he is one of those clowns. I would not waste a bullet on any
of them. All I need is an order, but don't make me dig a grave. Digging is
hard work and what I like best is to have a pit ready to throw the thing
in. I would slaughter them by day and by night. It doesn't make me sick at
all.
A few days ago I had to kill my hog. To
kill a hog you have to have someone else hold it while you put the knife in
its throat. To go to call Cvetko, Spiro, you, him... While I go, while I
tell him, while you find out whether he can or not and to go somebody else
to beg... Fuck it, I said to myself.
Woman, I called my wife. Boil water for
the hog. Because as soon as you kill a hog, you have to scald it with hot
water. The hotter the water and the warmer the hog, the easier it is to
fleece the hide. It's boiling, she shouted to me from the kitchen after a
while, and I took the axe. It's heavy axe. The hog was enjoying the mud in
the yard. I got it by the hip and it started to run around. I got mad and
ran after it. I struck it a few times. It became all bloody but finally I
got it in the head and it fell down. After that, in a hurry, because it
might get up, I took the knife and plunged it in its throat. I worked with
the knife in its throat thoroughly and the showered it with hot water. It
was still alive, fuck it, but as soon as it would move I would pour hot
water in the wound on its throat. It was still making certain moves when I
was opening its stomach, but it was nothing, fuck it. What I want to say is
that I don't mind killing. There are people who are afraid to kill a
chicken. For a chicken I don't need any knife. I do it with my hands. Fuck
it, it is so easy. I overcame my fear at the time when we got the order to
exterminate the dogs in the village. Then the orders were called
instructions.
I'll tell you right now how it was.
Listen!
My cousin came back from the committee
and called the peasants to the school for a meeting. At that time everybody
used to go to meetings. Some because they liked it but most because they
were afraid, dependent. And then my cousin told the people: listen, the
dogs have to be exterminated. No more dogs in the village. We are going to
be civilized. That is what Restoration and Construction requires of us.
There shouldn't be a single dog left in the village.
There was deep silence when the people
heard that. Even your dogs are to be destroyed but no one asks your
opinion. Only Dine Popovski stood up.
This is an "order" for the dogs, he said.
As soon as he said that, I jumped up. I
was a socially conscious youth at this time. Really. I jumped up and
shouted at him. It's not an order. It isn't your capitalistic regime any
more. It's an instruction, I told him. No more orders. They were orders at
the time when your father, the priest, was getting the people drunk with
religion and took his fee--it didn't matter how poor one was. And sat down.
You've been told by the child, my cousin
said to him. I don't have anything more to tell you. Well, what was told
was told, and now we have to start. My cousin made it clear--immediately.
Since it was unanimously decided to do
it, now on the agenda we had to choose people who would kill the dogs. When
my cousin opened up that subject, I stood up and volunteered. Me, I said.
Accepted, said my cousin. After me, Bodle declared himself. The hog, it's
his nickname. If you want to offer him a drink, give it to him in a glass
and take care of the bottle because he'll grab it from your hands. God save
him from entering your house while there's nobody in it. He'll eat up
everything and drink up the whole barrel you've saved for winter. He is
never full nor does he have any shame. He offered as well, but my cousin
said to him:
No, you can skin the dogs, carefully,
because all the skins should be collected and sent to the committee. It
means that they need one more for killing. Then I stood up and proposed,
let us choose someone from among the reactionaries.
No, said my cousin. Reactionaries will
dig the hole. You should throw all the corpses somewhere.
My cousin knew everything. Such a
secretary our party never had nor will have. He was a politician. Can't you
see how high he is now? They say that he bribes, signs false documents to
say people took part in the Liberation war. It's not him who takes. It's
people, the people who give him. Why shouldn't you give him something if,
thanks to his signature, you get a rich retirement! It's not bad if someone
throws your bread. Or money, which is much better because you can buy
whatever you need. Each month the money comes right in your pocket.
And then my cousin nominated first of all
Dime Popovski to dig, because he was the first to raise his voice against
the progressive action which was to take place. There are different sorts
of reactionaries, some not so big. The real reactionaries were killed
immediately after the Liberation. Like those women whose husbands send them
dollars from America and some others. You know them, fuck their mothers...
When the reactionaries finished with the
hole, my cousin went to inspect it and told them to dig some more. He told
them! This hole is not to be small. It's as it should be because you, being
the reactionaries you are, wouldn't give a hair more for our socialistic
society. Because of that you have to double the hole by depth and by width.
When they finished the hole, we were notified, we the killers and skinners.
We went there, in the field of Tome Manov and there, by the hole, there was
an oak tree. I don't know whether it's still there or whether Tome has cut
it. That oak tree had a branch which seemed put there especially so as to
hang the dogs. According to our instruction, we were to kill the dogs here
and the Hog to skin them over there. As for the dogs, everybody was obliged
to bring his dog personally.
If they have one. There were some who had
two, even three dogs. For the house, for the sheep, for the barn. Those who
had sheep might have even five dogs each. To our people dogs were like
tools. Because there was a lot of cattle in our village. Ten thousand sheep
were pastured on this mountain around the village. Every household had ten
to twenty goats, oxen, cows, horses, everything. In the morning when they
used to take them to pasture it was hard to move through the streets, and
the mountain around was echoing with the bells on the necks of the cattle.
It was not like now when we've forgotten what milk is. Nobody gives a damn
for the cattle. They want to buy from the shop. Why shouldn't they? He's
some fool to roam through the mountains if he can sit here and wait for the
postman to bring him the pension he never earned.
At that time about five thousand goats
were slaughtered. Because of the instruction that came from the Committee.
Almost everybody in the village got diarrhoea because of all the goat meat
they had to eat. People from the this village never ate or will eat as much
meat as they ate at that time of exterminating the goats. The meat from a
dog you can't eat. I would still have meat from that time. Because of that
we had to throw it in the pit.
Tome Menov gave his field voluntarily. He
pretended to be progressive but I know why he offered the field. We dug up
half of it. Then we killed over two hundred dogs. He knew that it would
fertilize the field for the time when all will become private again. Why
shouldn't I take advantage? he thought. He was shrewd although he was
progressive. He is a fucking devil. All the time while we were in the
cooperative he was sending meats, apples, cheese, wool, and everything from
the common store to Jane in Skopje. Jane was a big shot. Remember when once
we had elections with more than one candidate? Jane was one of the
candidates and nobody threw a ball in his box. People hated him. But Tome
knew what to do. Tome went to Skopje beforehand and asked Jane to tell my
cousin to nominate him to be guard oh Jane's voting box. And so when the
time came to count the votes, Tome spilled all those rubber balls from the
full box into Jane's empty box. So Jane won although nobody liked him.
Well, because of that, all of Tome's five children got education free of
charge and today Tome gets the highest pension in the region. He was
constantly on the progressive side. That's the truth, although during the
war he never even saw a partisan.
So Tome was the first one who brought his
dog. He came there in his field with the dog on a rope tied around dog's
neck. We were ready. Mitre, the second one who was chosen to kill the dogs
with me, wrapped the dog's neck with barbed wire and was ready to hang it
on the branch while I was ready to strike its head with the back of the
heavy axe. The Hog in the meanwhile looks devilishly at the dog and at Tome
and sharpens the knife for the skinning. Tome appeared to be soft, with the
heart of reactionary. He almost cried. Please, he said, I cannot stand to
look at it. The Hog said to him, You are going to watch it. If you don't
watch, you align yourself with the reactionaries. And while Tome was
hesitating, Mitre hung the dog on the branch and, as soon as the dog
started to struggle I struck its head. You should have seen how its head
exploded and its brains all in blood flowed out. I don't know how I did it,
but I was covered with blood. Over the aprons, the face and since I had my
mouth opened, even my mouth was fill with blood and brains. Warm, very
warm.
And so we were killing dogs a whole week.
Some people couldn't come with their dogs because they were busy. Some
didn't like to come. Some were hiding their dogs or making excuses. Finally
everybody brought his dog. My cousin was persuasive. And we did the job, no
mistake.
Only two dogs were saved. All the rest
were skinned and thrown in the pit. No, I wouldn't lie to you. Three. Three
didn't go in the pit. One of them I hid.
While we doing that job, one night Mejo
the drummer came and asked me: Please, I need a dog's skin for my drum. I
will give you one, I said. Next day, Mitre hadn't come yet and while the
Hog was busy with skinning, I killed a dog and threw it down in the bushes
and took up another. You know, in the morning we had more work. People
would bring the dog, tie it up some place and go to work. Also, they didn't
like to watch. So I easily took another dog and that fool the Hog didn't
see anything. Later, when Mitre came, I pretended to go home for something
and got the hidden dog in my house. That dog had very sick skin. Mejo was
very pleased. Do you know how much Mejo paid me? More than my monthly
pension today. He was so pleased with the dog I had chosen for his drum. I
had to steal it because the skins were counted. For the industry which then
started to work against capitalism and imperialism. And the Committee was
very strict about the number of the skins.
Only one dog we didn't succeed in
killing. Mihajlo's dog. Mihajlo brought it and said: "Here it is. Take it
and kill it."
"Put it on the branch with the chain," we
said to him.
"No," he said. "I wouldn't kill any dog
myself. Just take it from the chain and kill it."
The dog all the time barks and growls at
us. No way to approach it. He would bite you. We couldn't put the barbed
wire around his neck. Even the Hog, of whom all the dogs in the village
were afraid, couldn't approach it. A sharp dog. Real beast. We finally let
it go. "Leave it," said the Hog. "I'll get it," he said, having something
in mind. Finally, when we saw that we couldn't manage it, we let it run
away. In the evening, at the meeting, we self-criticized but it was not
very bad. "You should not let dogs get away," said my cousin. That was it.
The second dog which had saved was Timko's dog. I don't know how it
happened. It happened while I was striking it with the axe. I missed it
somehow, loosened it from the barbed wire, and it ran away. As Timko told
us later on, the dog first came right in his yard, then Timko wanted to
leash it on a chain and hide it some place. But the dog saw the chain, it
ran away once again. Who knows where it went? No one saw it any more.
It was at that time that I rid myself of
the fear of killing. It was not easy. Nights I was dreaming angels. People
dressed in white were visiting me. I would step in front of them and say, I
will kill them. What could they do to me? And I didn't tell anybody what
dreams I was having. Religion was forbidden. Such were the instructions. It
was said that no one should believe in any god. And I really didn't
believe. Not only me. All of us who were progressive didn't believe. Mostly
me and the Hog. One day we started a competitive conversation. I don't
believe in God more than you, I said to him. No, he said, it is me who
doesn't believe the most. It is me, I said to him. No, he said, if it was
you who doesn't believe in God most, you would have shit in the church as I
did, he said. I already have shit in the church, I said to him. Have you?
Yes, he said, and I did it first. No, I said, I did it first for sure.
The priest himself later told the people
that he had found two shits in the church. Those were our shits. The Hog's
and mine. Only I am not sure who did it first. Him or me. If he ever comes
back from Australia, I will try to find out. I simply want to know which of
us was the first.
At that time, according to my cousin's
report which was confirmed in the committee in writing, we killed one
hundred sixty-seven dogs. And our names are there in the report. If someone
wants to write the history, he will find our full names. All the other
villages did it much later and nowhere else were the dogs exterminated so
thoroughly as in our village. Thanks to us. Me, the Hog and comrade Mitre.
But not every village has my cousin. He was a rare Secretary of the Party.
Nevertheless, I wonder why people detest
killing. I told you about my hog. As for the enemies, all I need is an
order. Or just an instruction, like it was then. I'd started it
immediately. That's all I need. An instruction...
Translated by Jeffrey Folks
