JANKO POLiC KAMOV
Sorrow
"She
is dying!"
Our mother whispers too loudly. Her eyes narrow, her face becomes
wider; she looks all red and round. And my sister lies on the bed with her
back turned to us. Mother and I are alone. My sister seems narrow too. Her
hair is thin and looks as if she has a lot of dandruff. My mother is crying.
Tears stream incessantly and ever more densely from her eyes; she is biting
her lips and doesn't look me in the face.
r
am twelve, a sixth-grader. My sister's dying depresses me, but
r
can–
not cry. Perhaps because it all came at a bad time, when the sun is still very
high and all the rooms are full of light and the merry voices of the women
going home from work.
How different it was four years ago, when I saw a dead person for the
first time in my life! In the early evening, my teeth chattering, soaked from
the rain-I stood with other children in front of a two-story house and
watched with admiration a gentleman who pushed his way through the
crowd followed by the whisper:
"He's the first-born of the deceased...."
Then the women brought the children of the deceased from the
house: a boy and a girl.
r
immediately felt envy for the skinny and ugly boy
who was now the subject of conversation and interest, whom everyone was
watching. I envied him terribly, and the thought that he was much uglier
than I consoled me only slightly. But I pitied the girl.
They looked about in wonder and they didn't cry. The impression
they left upon me was stmilar to the exam at school when my colleague
had to recite a poem by Senoa while
r
only had to answer questions about
math and catechism. He declaimed from a chair next to the teacher's desk,
while I answered from the next-to-Iast row. Hence I too started thinking
about declamation: "That boy is stuttering, looking down, he looks as if
he hadn't learned the lesson...whereas I would hold my head up high
like the teacher when he reads, I would speak loudly and clearly like the
principal and wave my hands just like a teacher declaiming. This boy is
giving a poor performance! True, he's standing on a chair so he looks
taller even than the principal, and everyone is looking at him, but still-
his performance is poor. ...Wait, it's too early...next year, if they let me
declaim during the exam! ...Will I live to see the day when I can show
