april 1959.

Judging by how many leaves are there on the trees, it was april or early may. We visited my grandad in Zajač. Lots of pictures remained - me wearing a straw hat (see hats), riding a horse (led by grandad, just strolling around the yard - see below), bear cubs in a woven basket in the rear of another horse cart, probably Gypsies' street circus on a tour, my grandgrandmother with Anica, then still a baby, then both Anica and Danica with my aunt. Of that picture I remember an incident... when my dad pulled the regula, Danica burst into tears and tried to run away. My parents figured out it was because the camera had a leather sheath with a leather strap... which probably looked just as dangerous as her dad's belt.

On this picture there's dad, grandpa, auntie Janja, grandgrandmother, me, Anica.

Now grandgrandmother was a special woman. Didn't speak much, but when she did it was all pretend wisdom (said I in a fit of retroactive clarity), ominous prophecies and worst kind of gossip and plotting. At times she managed to turn her two sons against each other, or their children, creating alliances and enemies among them as would seem to serve her interests - which I never understood what they were. I understand that she went through the WWI as a fresh widow, and had to learn to manage, so she obviously gained a lot of experience and cunning, but what would she benefit from applying those skills these days is beyond me. She was some piece of work.

Dad wore this sweater-cum-jacket, with a zipper (!), whenever the weather allowed. Grandpa wore this hat regardless of the weather. I don't remember seeing him outside bareheaded.

auntie Janja was not even a teenager then, but already promising to grow large. Back then, she was just lots of big bones with that weird mouth she got from grandad's second wife (who was well respected and somewhat feared for her gossip and plot skills; only much later when she was a decade dead, dad started talking about her as a lazy bum who never did any serious work and was the main reason the household was crumbling, but she got hers later when she had to wash dishes in a tavern).

There was a well, with a meter high concrete wall around it, with water clear and cold as if from a spring. That despite the fact that the river was only 100m behind the house, and that just upstream of the lot there was a huge chemical factory (making ammunition and explosives at the time - the village had a few glasscutters who'd occasionally get very busy).

Don't know how we got to Belgrade - some horse cart was involved, but don't know how far did grandpa take us, perhaps to čiča Rada, who was an official driver in some ministry or service in Belgrade. He drove an Opel Olympia and had some rights to the car (or he bought it when it was officially discarded). This time the other two aunts (daughters of grandpa's brother) and the husband of one of them followed us, on foot, to the bus station. They both lived in old apartments in downtown Belgrade, which is on the hill, so this was all downhill.

The cut of my jacket would look rather weird today - the body ends at the elbow height, and I wore rather deep trousers. The sleeves look long, even though their length is right. I was wearing a beret, just like dad always wore. And they weren't called beret, but beretka. Though the fashion of wearing berets slanted never caught, they were worn pretty straight or even like skullcaps. They bought me a ball in a net bag. Nice shiny plastic thing. Everybody wears raincoats, more or less Bogart style, even though it's full sunshine - perhaps it was still a bit chilly. I'm wearing a trenerka, with a zipper. Even my jacket and dad's sweater had zippers - these were kind of new and quickly started replacing buttons. And they were mostly well made and lasted for years. The jacket's cut would look weird today, the body is so much shorter than the sleeves, the trousers were deep then. The belt descended to hips about ten years later.

The uncle is a weird guy, with a rather tall voice, funny accent. They called him something related to Zagorje, but I guess he was a Dalmatian. Both aunts lived in huge, high-ceilinged apartments in strict downtown, not too far from Terazije and Tašmajdan. This is where I took my first bath in a real bathtub, which was an excellent slide, slips so smoothly until my butt hits the stopper. The water heater was fueled by coal. Tiles everywhere, miracle unseen. At home, we bathed in a larger lavor (washbasin vessel) - we'd heat up the kitchen, spread some old cloth on the floor, and hair was washed by someone else pouring warm water over the head from a pitcher. For the rest of it, one would have a cup with a handle and pour over one's own back. My folks bought one of the first electric area heaters then, all in black enamel with a chromed grille in front, behind which you could see three red rods, the ceramic over which the hot wire was wound. I remember they scared me with electricity possibly passing through water and the dangers of electrocution, so I got the impression those three rods were threatening me through the grille. One of my first nightmares was that heater, posed threateningly to jump at me.

The remaining few shots on this film are at home, some in the city center, with city hall in the background. I'm dressed rather warm, so it was either still springtime, or it was the year when they forgot to pack the camera for the vacation, so the remainder was shot in the fall. There's one with me shoveling leaves, with scarce leaves still on trees, so it could be october.

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Mentions: Anica Tešić, auntie Janja, Danica Tešić, hats, Radomir Sredljević (čiča Rada), regula, trenerica (trenerka), Zajač, in serbian