248
PARTISAN REVIEW
"Well, 'one may ask,' only one isn't likely to get a concise answer in
passing at a railroad station. But if I nevertheless had to say in one word
what it is that's driving me out of Bosnia, I would say: hatred."
Maks suddenly stood up, as if he had hit an invisible fence in his
speech. And
I
surfaced to the reality of the cold night at the railroad sta–
tion in Slavonski Brod. The wind was getting stronger and colder, lights
shimmered and passed at a distance, tiny locomotives whistled. Above
us, even the tiny piece of the sky with scarce stars had disappeared, and
only fog and smoke made a blanket worthy of these flatlands where, it
seemed to me, man sank deep into the black, rich soil.
All of a sudden, I felt an angry and pestering desire to refute his
claim, even though it was not sufficiently clear or understandable. Both
of us were quiet and confused. Silence lay heavy between us in the night,
and it was not possible to predict which one of us would speak first.
At that instant we heard the roar of an express train from the dis–
tance, immediately followed by its heavy whistle, muffled, as if coming
out of a concrete tunnel. The entire station instantly came to life. Hun–
dreds of previously invisible figures rose in the darkness and began run–
ning towards the train. The two of us jumped up as well, but the crowd
that we fell into separated us more and more. I only managed to shout
my Belgrade address.
About three weeks later, in Belgrade, I received a hefty letter. I could
not recognize the large handwriting.
It
was Maks writing to me from
Trieste, in German.
My dear, old friend,
During our accidental encounter in Slavonski Brod, our conversation
was chopped and difficult. And even had we had a much better oppor–
tunity and more time, I don't believe we would have understood each
other and cleared everything. The unexpected meeting and abrupt
departure made it completely impossible. I'm getting ready to leave Tri–
este, where my mother is living. I'm leaving for Paris, where I have some
relatives on my mother's side. If I'm allowed, as a foreigner, to start a
medical practice there, I'll stay in Paris; if not, I'm really going to South
America.
I don't believe these few disconnected paragraphs that I'm writing in
haste will be able to completely explain the matter and justify in your
eyes my "running away" from Bosnia. I'm sending them anyway,
because I feel that I owe you an answer and because, remembering our
school days, I don't want you to misunderstand me and see in me just a
