december 1977.
Slave broke his glasses. Whether the lens fell out and shatered, whatever, didn't have a spare. Shorsighted as he was, he still had no trouble at the classes, he at least saw what he was writing, but for beyond three meters there was trouble already. It took some two or three days until he got new lenses, and meanwhile I was in charge of two things - to watch out while crossing the street, and if I spot a good chick, to describe her. Now just like photography teaches you to look at things differently, this likewise taught me to take a different look at the girls, and to even develop the vocabulary and art of describing the female beauty. It also helped him understand how bad his eyes were, when he'd ask for details of some ugly trunk and I'd tell him he was lucky for not seeing her. And then I also spotted hidden beauties I otherwise wouldn't notice.
On another occasion, this very winter, we woke up in the morning, readying to go and he suddenly couldn't find his glasses. We both criscrossed the room with our eyes for whole three minutes, found nothing. Gone, fell into earth. He found them while washing his face. On his nose.
We went into making yogurt. Out of sheer whim, who knows why, regardless of quite good yogurt being available and not even expensive, but no, homemade must be better.
Possibly I brought some powdered milk, smuggled from Romania, I seem to remember it was hard to find here, and mixed it all up as it was written down in some recipe he acquired. One ingredient we couldn't possibly provide for, the temperature at which this mixup should sit under for at least ten hours. It simply died, the fermentation didn't go through, because during the time we went to lectures and practical and returned, the room completely cooled. Perhaps if we had tried this in may, but no.
What should we do with two liters of this neither milk nor yogurt? We poured it into the dogs' pot, the big one would eat anything anyway. If it wasn't barking, one'd think it's a pig, there's no bad swill*. The next morning, along the path to the outhouse we saw six dogs' turds spaced about half a meter, each next paler and paler. Insatiable as it was, it devoured all of it in one go, and got the runs.
We started cooking again, that is he cooked and I washed the dishes. Was easier now, we had a sink and hot water. The water heater was not quite tankless, it had a handy reserve of 5l of hot water, and it wasn't under pressure - turning on the hot faucet would just push cold water to the bottom of it, and the hot water from the top would go out. I guess we had soup (the so-called instant, from a bag) and this is when I was frying something on the rešo.
Nope, now I've found a better version of this photo, not scanned from paper but reshot from same negative, and that's pliers and two screwdrivers in my hands. No idea what I needeed them for, surely not fixing the rešo, I would surely have disconnected its cable first. Could be I was heating the pliers a bit, if this was when we needed them for cleaning up soot from the oil burner, which we had to do twice a season.
This month we drank a bit more often, mostly beer. We already acquired quite a stock of empty bottles. Had wine at times, and mineral, and sometimes vinjak. The occasional beton (concrete) went the best - one beer, one vinjak, the cheapest academic trick to get drunk quickly, specially when from a supermarket, it always costs at least double in a tavern. That's probably the cost of having a seat, roof, not being outside and having someone bring it and charge you.
He recounted how once, some time this fall, he had a lot to wait for a bus home, had some cash at hand, so he sat in the station restaurant and ordered a beer and a vinjak. The waiter comes, who is the beer for, me, parks the beer, and who is the vinjak for, for me. Waiter is amazed, what can he do, parks the shot next to the glass, asks „so what will you do with this now?“. „Drink it, won't wash my feet“. And gave the waiter a sharp look, which he properly understood and vanished immediately. Later he saw him peeking from behind a pillar, to see that miracle, someone drinking vinjak and beer.
Once he also mentioned some girl from his past, who went with him for a drink. He ordered a vinjak and kisela, thinking she'd go for something lighter, perhaps a coke or something. To his surprise, she ordered just a vinjak, no water - „what do I need water for, to wash my teeth?“.
We'd usually do that on mondays, when we returned from the methodics class, because the mrtvozer (originally mrtvoser - deadshitter, from „like when a dead man shits“) would stun us to sleep. She and I, on the other hand, would meet up on tuesdays, sometimes wednesdays, and then on thursday Slave would go home to be with his wife - the fourth year had a privileged schedule with not too many classes, most of it crammed into the first three days of the week, something left for thursday and done by lunchtime. (... 58 words...)
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* „there's no bad swill for a good hog“ is actually a derogatory term for he lowest of drunkards, who don't care what they drink, as long as it contains alcohol.
Mentions: Radovan Tomić (Slave), rešo, vinjak, yogurt, in serbian