11-IX-2010.

The usual maturski of IV_5pp, for the nth time since we graduated in 1974. Staša came to pick me up in the morning, then we picked Dragana. She's good looking and still quite lightweight - I took her in an embrace and swirled full circle when we met. Then we went off to Taraš, at Bajče's place. I guess there was about half the class - or at least half of the survivors (we lost two people in the last six years). Now from pictures, the others: Mima, Savka, Mandža, Čombe, Bajlo, Jasmina and then later her husband and daughter. Some neighbors came by, too.

It was raining the last few days, so there were about 100m of mud between the road and his place, which Staša negotiated easily.

Drank a lot of moonshine and some beer, had two plates of fish čorba, some fried fish (excellent, both), made a few dozen shots, talked with everybody, had to endure the basketball match against the Turks (obvious theft, but I wasn't moved - don't care about spectator sports at all) and then it was too cold to sit further so we dispersed.

Bajče is a lot taller and bigger than I remember him. He's a year younger than us, and was slow to grow, so he was the kid of the class. He lives here, on the river, his wife and children had run him out of the house. The rumors have it that he had a few ladies on the side. He kept on and on, in turns, how he's actually right and wife is wrong, and how he hoped at least the son, if not daughter too, would one day understand and come to his side. He drank a lot, but to no visible effect, as if he toed the line, pushing it up whenever it slid down.

I guess everybody's still not in the clear about my story. It was Savka (presently a redhead, stayed so in the following years) who explicitly asked me to tell about life there. Anyone who returns from abroad is either filthy rich, or a total failure. I obviously am not the first case, as I didn't have a car, didn't wear anything expensive, my smokes were the same category as ever, I didn't even have a cell phone. But then I didn't complain, as a real failure would, and kept mentioning the houses there, and most of what I said made sense but they still couldn't put together any kind of plausible picture out of the pieces. So, confusion.

The limits of human comprehension.

I guess I was drunk enough to be scared by the narrow and zigzagging road back. Because, for a moment, I imagined myself driving on it. Decided that it's not worth having a car around here - most of what I may need can be reached on a bike, and for the few times when I need to carry anything heavier, a cab will do. And I've sort of had enough of the decades when I had to skip the best times to have a drink just because I was dežurni driver. Now I don't have to.

Mentions: Branislav Bačikin (Bajče), čorba, dežurni, Dragana Vitas (Dragana), IV_5pp, Jasmina Vlajin, Joško Čobzanin (Čombe), maturski parastos, Merima Tabarski (Mima), Nenad Bajlo (Bajlo), Savka Čajkanić, Slavoljub Mandić (Mandža), Stanoje Serdarević (Staša), in serbian