In an empty village street a single man with a square cap and profound lines on his face drives a pony with a whip at a crossroads, his cart on high wheels carrying an assortment of grass and hay. The sun is full upon the street and the houses; it is midday and time to take repose in the shade while the sky looms large. In another empty street but much wider and of the city, a family of four attired in bright colours has stepped out of a series of high apartment blocks and is preparing to get into a scooter with sidecar to make a picnic in the country.
In one more village, a silkily attired bride holds up in pride and joy the wedding cake for all the guests and neighbours to behold, an accordionist blowing his bellows in the crowd; she then retires into the kitchen to participate in the making of the feast. It is evening but next day, as on the next page, with sunshine stretching across sky and land, a family of three is running in unbounded joy across field and meadow; there is a single child but the mother must have borne many more since her features are so profoundly matronly, yet all cares of the home are left behind as golden corn sparkles on the horizon and the house yard beckons with its moistured ground, where a gallant barrel of drinking water awaits to be scooped.
These lands were subject to strict regimes of authority unmarked by the will of the people. Black-and-white photographs in the book showed uniformed dictators of the region with multiple ribbons and decorations, a large number of whom would be assassinated by one or more of their political or civil subordinates, who in turn would run a high risk of being put down bloodily by their own compatriots or underlings. The tradition of authoritarianism persisted in the time the other pictures in the book were made. Nevertheless, the eyes and the mind saw only halcyon sunshine and peace over the villages, fields, rivers, streets, houses and common people, with no trace of the agony of convulsive change but only the agony of labour in providing for and continuing this life.
The cover picture with the bare, moist backs glinting in the sun alongside the river flowing under a capping, otherworldly bridge was in itself sufficient to fuel the imagination and haunt it. On the inner pages, one was drawn to the empyrean radiance of a limitless agrestic earth and the strains of a rousing music far away in the hamlets of the countryside, as if this way of existence was how it always had been and always would be.
III
The yearning of the present is in some ways a yearning for that existence. In other ways, it is a consequence of the knowledge that an existence once glimpsed was not what it was thought to be. The dreams and feelings aroused by that apprehended existence still do not pass away. No saga or chronicle of repression, oppression, .bloodletting and internecine hatred allays the belief that if there was a condign way of life, it must still vindicate itself ultimately.
So one creates an idyll in the present that nonetheless attempts not to escape from all of reality. One passes into that distant macrocosm. Over a hilly, verdant and riant landscape, villagers wear dresses of a vanished century although they live in a new regime of collective ownership. Their village contains more than one community and more than one house of worship. There are wide fields for cultivation and pastureland for cattle close to a forest. The village follows old customs but respects the new authority. Such a village may never have been, but what is crucial is that two educated people meet and fall in love in that village. This is a hackneyed theme for the Balkans, but even so it shall continue. They meet on a cold morning in the grounds of the house of an old woman upon a high hill. Then, in the course of a celebration of rural thanksgiving, the two people dance the kolo on a lower spot on that hill and walk to the side, where the quiet countryside spreads below them. They establish a mutual understanding but they still cannot bring themselves to stay for long in each other’s company. However, one propitious afternoon, when they have nothing on their hands, they stumble upon each other on a street; they spontaneously decide to make a corso along the edge of the village stream, eventually sitting together on the far bank of that same leaping stream. From that moment onwards, they meet more frequently and talk to each other at length. One day they cross a bridge into a forsaken piece of territory and come upon tombs of the Bogomils, which induces them to reflect upon their affiliations. Then, on the occasion of another celebration in the open, the boy breaks into a tizzy over what he thinks is the girl’s kindness towards unsavoury elements in the village. But that evening he rushes to her home in repentance and asks for her forgiveness. All is still not well. Although their families tacitly consent to their closeness, they have to contend with local zealots who take strong exception to their supposed disregard of custom. Yet they are free: they visit the houses of poorer families of different faiths, including one in which a birth has taken place. One day they rush out from their own houses in the freshness of a sunny morning; yielding to the happiness in the air, they forget all passage of time and run together across endless open country, coming back to make a picnic at midday in the shade of trees. As the sun declines far away, they talk about their lives, their hopes, the lives of other people and the hopes of other people. They speak with prescience about the fate of the village in the light of the nationalistic vehemence of a neighbouring province and its marauding army.
In the end, they must flee from the rapine and extermination that will overwhelm the village. Can they still remain together? This is where the novelist must concede that what he has begun is a coming to terms with loss as he feels it. Loss may be permanent or it may change according to the perception of the loser. Nevertheless, if one is talking about a realm of which one was enamoured, then that realm remains with one in a basic sense. Similarly, love abides fundamentally even if two people in love are separated by the force of circumstances. And perhaps another book arrives and remains where words are pictures in homage.
Prosen, your writing is amazing.
How beautifully you write Prosenjit !