REVENGE
for Todor Nikolovski
Starchev,
from the Resen village of Kriveni
It was no comfort for me that the
village was empty and that the others who remained felt as badly as I did,
that their houses were as empty as mine (at least mine had no padlock,
rusted and black, like black magic), that the people left for the wide
world, that Jovan Terziovski, whose two sons were burned one day at a steel
plant in Port Campbell, was mad with grief for his children and,
occasionally, when the pain was too much, paced the village as naked as the
day he was born, yelling to high heaven, look at me, people, hear me, I’m
alive, I'm alive, but there was no one to hear him and see him, the poor
bastard, he was alone, like me, in an empty house in an empty village, with
not even a horse to hitch to a cart to take the dead to the graveyard, the
village was so empty, no child born for five years, at least to provide a
little joy, a drop of blood that might drip into the aorta of this human
entity…
For me the most awful thing was that my heart was empty,
desolate, like a barn that has seen not a grain of wheat for years, my eyes
and my heart were empty, my hands, my head, everything, everything, and
there was no hope that something might change, neither in my house, nor in
Jovan’s, nor in Bogomil’s…
The children deserted us, they went to Australia, may fires
consume it and floodwaters wash over it, my four were snatched up by that
dragon, they were dug up like young pine trees, three sons, each more
handsome than the next, they left one after another over a three-year span.
Meglena, their mother, wept and pulled her hair, don’t go, you won’t come
back, and they said, what are we going to do here, no road, high taxes, and
everybody who left made money, we want to as well, and on top of
everything, they took the girl too, they wrote every day, come, they called
after her, if you stay there, you’ll never get married, there are no more
guys there, they've all left, there are lots of us here, we speak our
language all the time, there's a whole street where you meet nothing but
our people, don’t be afraid of the outside world, we have found you a good
man, he has a two-story house, he just needs a wife, they convinced her and
she left just as they did…
We stayed behind, Meglena and I, two corpses, we didn’t speak
and we didn’t look at each other, day after day, and after six months my
Meglena died of grief, her mother’s heart shattered, she could eat nothing,
really nothing, for days, no bread, no salt, she would take a bit of water
and vinegar once in a while with a slice of onion, she couldn’t eat
anything else, I can’t open my mouth, she would say, my jaws are locked,
and then she would start crying, and she would cry every day, for two weeks
before she died, she was blinded by crying… It was around St. John's Day,
it was freezing cold, rocks split open, the ground was frozen, icy, I dug
for two days with a pickaxe, digging, digging, something you can't do
alone, not a child, not a relative, to help me, I was over sixty, and as I
grew weary from digging, my head burned less, and I barely dug a hole to
cover my Meglena, God save her soul, then I visited the graveyard all
winter and spring, every day, not to light a candle or a lamp, but because
I was afraid the dogs would dig her out of her grave.
Some letters came from the children, they were well, they had
money, they had children, now, Dad, you have fourteen grandchildren, and
they listed some names, but they were neither heard nor seen, and I shed a
tear for Ljube, my oldest son’s daughter, she was very pretty, I wanted her
to study to be a teacher in the city, but they wrote that she worked in a
factory, making as much money as her father, her hands were like gold, she
had been like that here as well, you wanted to tell her something and she
would fly off like a bird, but they closed the village school, there were
fewer and fewer children, until the school closed down completely, and
there were only two girls remaining, and the teacher also left, seeking a
better fate …
I handled the days somehow, I cut down the tall apple tree in
the yard so I could better see the road that passes through the center of
the village, so I could see who was coming and going, but sometimes not
even a bird would fly by and not a dog would bark, I would walk through the
fields, the deserted, neglected orchards, they needed spraying, and work,
and I would cross Golema Reka, and my day would somehow go by until I
returned. I couldn’t handle the nights, I couldn’t sleep normally, sadness
would come, waters flowing through my mind, like when the lake roars with
great winter storms, and I heard, I imagined, unknown voices, not the
voices of my sons or Meglena’s or Ljube’s, not gentle voices, but
threatening ones, and I couldn’t catch what those voices wanted from me, it
was all so muffled and unintelligible, I couldn’t figure out what those
voices asked of me, if I could have, I'd have let them take it, and the
nights would pass in this manner … Sometimes, though, the threatening
voices were clear, and I knew what they wanted, they asked for money, not
just a little, but sacks, miracles I've never seen, and sometimes, on the
other hand, they gave me money, piles of it, but what can I do with money,
people, I'd protest in dream, I don’t need anything, everything I had I
have no more, what do you want from me, money, money, take it or we’ll kill
you, they put knives to my throat, and though I was not really afraid, my
misfortunes had hardened me, I'd fear knives, at night and during the day,
I'd jump out of bed like a slaughtered rooster, I'd grope in the dark for
my tobacco sack, to light a cigarette, God help me, I'd cross myself,
either save my soul or take it…
I could do nothing good for my life any more, so one day I
thought that at least I can prepare for my death, and I started digging a
grave in the middle of my house, in the middle of the room, I remembered
the pain and cold when I dug a grave for my Meglena, and for a long time I
thought, who will dig mine like that, if God wants to take my soul in the
winter, who will go through the trouble, who, who, nobody, I have the
hammer and the anvil; at least in death if not in life, and I dug, a bit
every day, I dug a grave in the middle of my room, by the bed, I knew that
at least I wouldn’t bother anyone, whoever that would be. When I felt like
the end was near, I would just slide off my bed, hoping I'd have that
strength, and then I'd be back where I came from, with nobody to close my
eyelids, but I don’t want them closed, let them stay open, aimed at the
road, toward the center of the village, to wait for those who will return,
if they ever return. But, while I was still alive, I’d pray to God every
day not to punish me too much, not to allow the dogs to tear apart my body,
let there be justice in death if not in life…
Once, as I was sitting on the porch dozing, something entered
my mind like a bolt of lightning, suddenly, as if a road had opened up
before me, a road, a road, it echoed inside me, if there had been a road
some twenty years ago, the people from the village wouldn’t have gone
abroad, maybe my children wouldn’t have left for Australia, mine or anybody
else’s, and my road, here it is, my revenge, here it is, you’ll see now,
I’ll show you…
I started looking through the wooden trunk I had since I was
a soldier, I looked through the papers, but I could see nothing striking,
as if my eyes were clouded over, my hands shook, what a fever I had, if
only you knew, and finally I snatched the roll of banknotes of
stale-smelling paper, I’d spent nothing in years, the money came from the
children, and I just added it to the roll and keep it in the trunk, at
times I felt bad about spending any, at times I felt sick, there was no joy
in this money, it could not serve a good purpose…
I washed my hands and locked the door, I found a tin dish,
got some matches, let out a sigh, then another, God help me and spare me
this madness, I said aloud, and I started my revenge…
The sound of the match bursting into flame made my body
shudder in a strange way, as if my hands were frozen, my fingers felt cold,
as if made of wood, and I started taking banknotes from the stack and
placing them on the little match on the metal plate, the fire burned
slowly, as if it had no air, it burned slowly, slowly, I put them on the
fire one after another, like that endlessly, and I watched the fire and saw
nothing, I just remember that I became somewhat lighter, as if I had no
hands and no body anymore, nor clothes on, nor did I feel a thing, until
the last banknote, on which a woman with a crown on her head smiled at me…
It was a revelation for me, that feeling of lightness, joy, I
hadn’t felt such a thing for a long time, I was a living corpse, but this
joy was strange, it slowly became a kind of odd expectation, I was waiting
to open letters, but now I didn’t want to read what was going on with my
sons, their families, because I had nothing to do with their lives, nor had
they anything to do with my life, oceans and seas divided us, I waited for
another reason, I opened the envelopes quickly, hoping there would be a
banknote inside, looking forward to the secret flame to return and heal me,
and if there wasn’t any, I was deflated, I just spat several times in a
row, I put them into my pocket unread, for years I never read what they
wrote anyway, and I didn’t read them at all after Meglena left me…
When some dread pressed upon me, some kind of heat, I went to
town, fast, like a mad dog, walking, straight to the post office, is there
a letter, I asked in a frightened voice, my eyes wide, there isn’t, they
said, oh, there is, there is, you’re stealing them you sons of bitches, you
know, you’ve learned that letters from Australia are not common, but they
are full of banknotes, I’ll deal with them, not you, and I entered there by
force, I looked for them in the pile of letters as if searching for my own
eyes, and they, from behind counters, stared at me, the man has gone crazy,
it’s finished, I hear them whispering, and I slam the door and go out, and
the hot and indistinct wave within me slowly withdraws like the tide…
But if there was one, oh, if there was a banknote, then I’d
immediately go to the house, lock the door with my hands trembling, with
the metal plate on the table, the matches, I sat down, I waited for a
while, there was some pleasure in waiting before I began, in postponing the
act of revenge, the familiar warm, healing waters started flowing inside
me, my body became like a feather again, light, just like the first time,
as when I burned the whole pile of banknotes, and my whole life with it… I
put the almost expired match close to the banknote and it would start to
burn slowly, this fire quietly burned before my eyes, and I’d slowly go
blind, meting out revenge, losing my sight, seeing only darkness as I held
the flame in my hands…
