On monday, 22nd, went with Beštara to see the place in Čurda, where his grandmother lived (lives with his parents now, so house is unused). Good location, relatively hidden, a workers' colony, not too dense, not too far either. Then came to my place to watch the slides. Froze my ass on his motorbike. Rudolf wrote, sent a list of LPs he can bring.
Tuesday, answered chemistry, pulled a nice four from ŽGLJ (wrong day, no chemistry on tuesdays). NMN was fooling around, talks on and on, all tavern talk, and then okay enough of that, let's go back to curriculum "...and there was this guy in Perlez, what that one could eat...".
Seeing Duda often in the school now, the first girl I ever asked, in that bus from Ohrid to... well, Leskovac, when she went to sit with Bilja. At school she's not looking too well, but on the štrafta she knows how to show up in a better edition. Still, all in all, less than what I saw then.
Found more printed stuff for my walls in the club. Found also the reel with the big festival of junk. We plan to exploit the olympics - namely, in 1970 there was the first big province olympics for high schools, the SOŠOV, next year it's here. Big business for DC-99 on sight, to drop dead working, fall off our feet, get cash for the summer.
On thursday Marko Bozon brought me to the blackboard, but I knew it fine. Later he read the house rules, which "encompass the working hours of the secretariat, library and school, arrival and departure of students, duties of the dežurni and orderly, THE LOOKS OF STUDENTS" and I make a catcall: "not underlined in text". Class bursts into laughter. Reads on. When he came to stuff forbidden on the premises, "alcohol, tobacco" and I add "wait for this, three, four, now" "...explosive material", an even louder burst.
Of course, we complained and complained, and he kept writing into his notebook*.
The postman passed later, so I got her letter in the evening. In the letter, though, all regular except that she's unsure about (... 29 words...).
On friday the 27th I kept writing the diary, to make up for previous two weeks. Realized that it's more memoirs (just like the Byo is now, which is mostly based on diary text for this period), except no sane person writes it right away, they wait out the historical distance to look at the events in a different light. Prick the light, it's darkness, it all gets wrapped in darkness.
Dad packed and went to Romania for another smuggling trip, and I to school. The written work in russian, themed "revoljucionij romanćizm Maksima Gorkava". Troskok thought we'll be shocked, but got mocked - how is this fitting the period when we mostly did the early soviet SF, Aleksej Beljajev et al (but no Strugackis, so screw that), are you sure that Gorki didn't write about kosmonauts? What now, where it's revolutionary it's not romantic and vice versa, what to write? Well fuck its mother, I keep cramming ričažok (little lever), raketanasićelj (rocket carrier), ekran (screen), bort (deck) and other terms, and we get Gorki. (comments I wrote down) I bullshited (bullshat?) my way through it, just like I did last time about Kutuzov, pretending to praise him and she doesn't even notice that I stated that this is not art but rather a textbook.
Letter from Rudolf: kick those two in the ass for not writing to me. Dad didn't reach Romania, had a fender bender along the way. Because of the letter I missed the 19:45 bus, the leatherer** at 20:05 didn't even come, caught 2A five minutes later. Downtown I reseat myself into a tobaccoer** which took me to Groš at about 20:30. It's already quite crowded. she was dancing with R. who works at the bookshop where I buy records. We ordered some books for him to procure, for her the anatomy atlas, for me Živković's (i.e. BIGZ's, it'll take another 20 years until he becomes an entrepreneur publisher) edition of "1984". I leave my coat with Jež. Talking about the records that would come to me. How about recording all that for them? Some dummy chick in the middle of the disco plays neofolk on her tranđa***. She notices I have a new winter shirt (was it the one made of zenana, which was the stuff for womens' house gowns, kind of silky and smooth). I get a čvrga later.
Jež plays "Gyöngyhaju lány" while we dance. During a break after a pee, she absentmindedly picks her fingernails. Something white comes out. What's that? Ah, that's Dragiša. Who? That's what we call our corpse, on anatomy. The grease gets under your nails, can't avoid that. (... 27 words...)
On 27th sleepy all morning. Was thirsty all night, couldn't sleep. Told mom not to wait for me in the evening. She's not asking where'll I be, the better. At school some minor hilarity again. Bought half a kilo of bread, just to have some. Bosa loves the whole world if she gets something to nibble. Played fussball with Čombe (where? did we really go to Dom for that?). Marko Bozon is joking in his way, ŽGLJ is absent, no sixth class. I wait with Bajlo and Staša, just mucking around, waiting. (... 15 words...). I go downtown, buy the prošek and cigs, cram myself into the bookstore's door and wait. The chill passes through my soles, my hand is stretched - my schoolbag is awkward with the bottle inside, too thick. Tejka and Zova pass by, pretending not to see me, going to the ship to have a drink. (... 11 word...) There she is at 19:40, smiling. (... 19 words...) I tell her how Jolpaz treated each professor with candy for his birthday, only NMN got a vinjak (some 0,5l bottle in a brown bag).
(... 139 words...)
The next day she appeared, before leaving to Novi. I ran the junk festival reel and then didn't turn the light on until mom called us to coffee. Ate some cakes, had fun... escorted her to the bus. Then Lazar came with his wife, lots of talk about the arabian-jewish war.
On tuesday, 30th, surprisingly fast her letter arrives. (... 8 words...) describes the flu cure (her dad's cure involves a hat and wine - sit, put the hat on your foot, drink until you see two hats) and she loves me much.
ŽGLJ met my dad and told him about the case when he told us how it's possible toget butter from stone coal, and I asked whether it wasn't smarter to just keep milking the cows. Tejka tells, topsecretly, how the big maneuvers south of Belgrade were just a ruse, it was the Soviets passing the weaponry to Arabs through us, and if that is found out (and if she knows, then it is known) we're screwed. It's the thick of it and war can nick us too. Then she notices the hickey on my neck (its maker was surprised to see it too, "I did that?"), and Dragana says "just rightly so, grab the chance while you can". She understood(... 13 words...). There I was glad that I wrote in a letter that I'm happy to be young and see my youth passing so nicely.
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* he used to wear a workers' blue smock and he kept the notebook in its pocket, never with the logbook. He brought it to maturski in 1984 and probably 1989, but he just read a few lines, we never got it nor peeked into it. And he died and we never knew what he wrote in there.
** bus lines in the city were mostly named after the factories at their ends - so leatherer, tobaccoer, šećeranac. Beyond that, only the one to Čurda had a nickname, the rest were called regularly, "to hospital", "to little forest" etc.
*** transistor radio, also had a nickname, like many things did