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PARTISAN REVIEW
seem to care little about the sorrow of others and are not interested to see
how their sister is mourned.. . .Maybe Milan will write a poem, like he did
four years ago when our uncle died, and that poem still hangs framed in the
drawing-room and all visitors read it silently and exclaim: "How beautiful!"
Joso will take flowers every Saturday to our sister's grave, like he does for
our brothers who died before I was born. And I? How will I show my love
and my sorrow? I cry like a baby....Ugh! I despise myself. .. .I too shall
write a poem. I'll go to my sister's grave instead of to school. ...
No, indeed I am not as childish and weepy as my family believes. I
don't cry just out of fear, sorrow or anger. That first spring when I got my
first F, I came home in tears and Father did not say one harsh word.
Otherwise he might have beaten me. At school also, when I don't know
my lessons, I cry and the teacher only says "Sit down" and doesn't write
anything into his book. He thinks that I am crying out of fear and that I
don't know the answer out of fear. I cry like that when the catechist is
about to box my ears. Others laugh, so he slaps them, but he leaves me
alone, he doesn't touch me. The same when a teacher wants to write a
comment on me into the class-book. I laugh too, but only silently. I am
smarter than all of you! So there, if you really want to know what kind of
child I am! ...Oh, God! Oh, God! So I am not sorry for my sister-I am
a great sinner. ...Oh, God! Oh, God! What am I to do?
Red Pepper says I am not to walk behind the casket. This is already
the third day that I haven't been
to
school, and I won't have to go tomor–
row either, maybe even the day after tomorrow. . ..And when I do go, I
will not be examined for another week, the teachers won't do it, out of
consideration. Especially Jaric. That's what it was like for Ferko, when his
father died that first spring, when they were still living in town ... .In the
meantime, I don't even pretend to study, and now that cannot and must
not irritate my father. I won't have to study for a few more days. My sis–
ter died, so who would think of school now?
And after all, what is one F, even ten Fs, compared to a single death?
They laid my sister out downstairs. Today after dinner I saw her. A
wide white veil over her face, probably because of the flies. Neighbors–
women mostly-keep coming, sprinkling holy water on her, whispering.
Praying and talking. I cannot discern about what. The room smells, reeks
actually, of wax. My sister's face is squeezed tight, her lips are very thin and
pale, barely visible. A frown on her face. She is not smiling, and that is
good, because Red Pepper says: "When the dead smile, they are inviting
someone to follow them." All that leaves no impression on me. The sun is
as strong as yesterday, the same murmur on the street, everything is exactly
the same, only the scent is different. My stomach hurts. Mother sent us,
