JANKO POLIe KAMOV
323
than going to school unprepared when I expect to be examined. But, oh!
It was so easy, and-why hide it-no fun at all. My shoes were too small,
I could only think about going back by coach and I looked forward to that.
I didn't cry until we got to the cemetery. Then I sobbed because Matija
was sobbing and because my godmother came to comfort me....Strange.
I felt her scent before I could see her black and flimsy dress. Anyway, I
think it is not usual to cry at funerals, that's why women and children don't
walk behind the casket. The fact that they let me come only means that
they think I am no longer what I used to be. And I do feel somehow older,
stronger, more experienced. I've had an unusual experience, something I
will be able to tell about.
I no longer have a sister, so-
These words sound terrible now, maybe because I am alone and every–
thing around me is silent. The past two nights I slept in the same room
with my father and mother. We were all together these past two or three
days, day and night, and the house was full of guests, neighbors and rela–
tives...but tomorrow! The day after tomorrow, when Matija leaves, when
we are left alone, when Joso goes to his fiancee, Milan to his friends, Father
to the library, Mother visiting, and I remain alone in the big and dark
house, where my once healthy and solemn sister used to play the piano,
she who feared no one, who could walk at midnight all alone in the gar–
den and the woods, who made fun of Red Pepper when she started talking
about ghosts....How will I prove what I will tell the others-namely, that
my sister with whom I talked, walked, sang, ate, read-is now dead... .Dead!
Everyone already knows, even the papers wrote about it and they will all ask
me about it...but what shall I say, what shall I write for myself, how do I
convince myself?
It's terrible. I can easily talk about her, but it is hard to think of her. In
a word, I am afraid. When I'm alone like this, all kinds of thoughts come
to mind. When you dream that a dead person is laughing and beckoning
you as if they were alive, that means, according to Red Pepper, that you will
soon follow them....Will there not be many nights when I will want to
fall asleep in order to escape such thoughts and fear sleep because I might
dream such dreams. Terrible. My sister is dead. I dare not think about what
has been. Her dying, the death, the bier, the last kiss, the flowers; how
quickly she was losing weight, how her hair fell out, how she looked at the
pieces she spat out. When I am alone, I cannot think at all of the sister
whom I knew, whom I saw live and die.
When I am alone, I can only think of my sister in short skirts, the one I
have never seen, alive or dead, whom I kissed and mourned in the little draw–
ing-room; it is about her that I can think now that I'm alone; yes, I could
and would like to dream about her. It's just that..
.I
can't talk about her.
