september 1964.
Visiting Aleksandar and his parents in Vršac. I sort of remember the trip, but mostly from the photographs. Don't know how we got up on the hill, probably walked, as I remember the uncle had just a 50 cc moped then - worked in some agricultural outfit in a village out of town, some 20km away, and used that to commute, any time of year.
I had a šuškavac, which was a novelty. It's a raincoat, of some sturdy synthetic cloth, and it really protected from rain. Actually, all the cops had them at the time. It didn't have any other name, this nickname was the name, could be translated as shusher or whoosher, because of the sound it made on every move. Makes me wonder how did cops ever sneak up to anyone while wearing these.
The aunt was a true bosnian beauty, when she wanted to be. In their little home, however, she'd often frown, and her hair, tightly bound in a ponytail or a bun, gave her a stern expression. I guess she was suspecting that the uncle was fucking around, and probably got hints from several people, so of course she was upset and in bad mood.
There's also a couple of pictures with more people - there's aunt Milica with her husband, tetka Dara, in some yard with old style window and door behind, a stack of bricks and a wooden vat, so we may have went to the village as well (bus? don't remember anyone having a car yet). Also, this time of year there'd be a grape festival in Vršac, but I somehow remember that we didn't run into it, probably went the next weekend, to avoid all the hundreds of drunk people on the streets, peeing everywhere.
Some time this year the other uncle from Vršac also came, there's a shot of him and me downtown, in front of a huge concrete skeleton being erected on the edge of the main square - the vodotoranj was being built.
I guess this summer, or the one before or after, I got a real cowboy's gun... well, a lookalike. A revolver, but the barrel wasn't turning. There were such, which took six fake bullets, bright red plastic cups sized about 3mm in diameter and depth, with some gunpowder smeared on the bottom. The trigger would release the hitting hammer, which would kick over this pod, and the gunpowder would explode, and the mechanism would turn the barrel by one sixth of the circle. This mine one was much simpler, it operated a roll of tape, about 4mm wide, made of two layers of paper, glued so that between the layers there'd be at each, say, 12mm some tiny gob of gunpowder. Again the trigger squeezes the spring, a lever transpors the tape to the next gob, the hammer is released and hits the powder, it blows and there's your joy. The ammunition for both kinds was sold in kiosks.
There was also the third kind, the so-called engejac (the NG-nik), which was a starter gun for races, which used real metal casings, blanks of course. The trick was that it really looked like a real gun, probably resembled the russian Nagan, hence the name. I once held it in my hand and fired a couple. Looking at the vintage pieces sold now, there must have been several models, as none of the pictures resemble what I remember.
So it once happened that I fired it while really aiming at something, and some shard jumped into my eye. Of course, the tissue reacted, producing mucus and whatever was needed. I didn't dare say I held it so close, so they took me to a doctor, who concluded that I'm most probably alergic to gunpowder gases. This got dad worried, how will I [go] to vojska... It all came to nothing soon, because I soon ran out of ammuntion, late autumn came, we didn't spend so much time outside anymore. The gun malfunctioned next, the lever didn't push the tape properly because it was all some weak alloy, friction ate it. It still looked as if nickel plated on the outside, someone must have had good electroforesis process (but then that'd mean dipping it into a solution with metallic ions, and this was metallic on outside only).
This allergy vanished just like the first did (v. april 1961..
-stoj!
-stao sam
-gdre si bio?
-srao sam
(halt! I halted. Where were you? I shat.)
Mentions: april 1961., 25-VI-1969., Aleksandar Zarin, aunt Milica, šuškavac, tetka Dara, vodotoranj, vojska, in serbian
14-VII-2022 - 25-III-2026