This Translation Tuesday, we present a short story from Macedonian author Blagoja Ivanov, about the niggling twists of fate in the wake of the earthquake that flattened Skopje in 1963. A young couple buy an antique mirror from a family about to leave for a holiday. The earthquake happens; the family’s apartment is leveled; miraculously, the mirror survives. The catastrophe is too enormous, too terrible for words, and it blurs accordingly in the memory, but its suddenness sharpens and sweetens the memories of the times before. We see the old Skopje in a hot summer, a city of “comfortable homes” and people with happy aspirations, heedless of the disaster.
“The summer of 1962 began with intense heatwaves. Everything was melting from the heat, acquiring a gray color, occasionally interspersed with the shades of dried grass. And yet,” says Martin, “for me and my wife, it was the start of a beautiful season. So, after a few years, in collaboration with a few friends, we built small houses at the foot of Gazi-baba, thus replacing the damp rented rooms with comfortable homes. After so many years since getting married, we still hadn’t had children, and today it seems funny that we were so unhappy wandering around the old neighborhoods of Skopje, searching for a more comfortable room, which, at a minimum, wouldn’t be in the basement and would have some sunlight. No matter how much our memory may have betrayed us, those difficulties are forgotten, just as we forget many unpleasant things from our youth.
“At first, we stayed at my parents’ place, not worrying about work, food, or clothing, but a person still feels constrained in such moments, struggling to reconcile their needs with those of the community they have lived in for so many years. It is, perhaps, the urge we know from birds — as soon as they hatch, they fly away from the nest. My wife and I were very happy in our new apartment,” says Martin. “Around the little house, there was a small garden or rather a place that still needed to be transformed into a garden. We were completely drained of money, two rooms remained empty, and the garden also required some funds, but the easy part was already ahead of us after we had passed the tricky part. We marveled at the view we had from the balcony — in front of us, below, the city extended towards the fortress Kale and the French cemeteries, while on the left, distant high-rise buildings showed us where the river Vardar was.
“When a person is young, there are so many trivial things that make life difficult. For example, arranging the apartment. We somehow arranged the few objects and furniture we had in the kitchen and two rooms, while the others remained empty. During the first winter, in one room, we pondered earnestly about what to do next. Ideas were born and multiplied. To be this way or that way. In any case, it would be best if it happened immediately. If not immediately, at least by tomorrow. Those conversations were, in fact, essentially wonderful. We constantly drew sketches of furniture pieces and rearranged parts of the apartment. We knew by heart all the measurements of the rooms, all the angles and uneven spots. Sometimes there would be disagreements between my wife and me, but they passed quickly. Nervousness and impatience would sometimes take hold, then pass like a spring breeze, with one side always giving in… which one? It doesn’t matter,” says Martin, smiling, as he takes a bite of the mezze and sips on the rakija.
“But after some time, when we gathered enough money, we reached a common decision: Let’s furnish the living room in an old-fashioned style, like the former traditional rich masters did: oriental sofas, large room closet, low tables with three-legged stools, and woven homemade rugs on the floor. But where could we find all that? It was neither made nor sold. We gave up on that idea. We bought what we could find. And it seemed like we made peace with it. At least until the next room came into play. You know, the more you eat, the hungrier you become.
“All of that happened somewhat later, and in the first days of July in that earthquake year, we came across a small advertisement in the newspaper: Antique precious mirror for sale, Karposh II, Building Fourteen, Second Entrance, Apartment number such and such… The unfulfilled longing to find something antique took us there. It was dusk when we arrived in Karposh, as we had to travel from one end of the city to the other, by bus but mostly on foot. We found the building, the entrance, climbed up to the highest floor, the fourth, and caught our breath before ringing the doorbell. We were greeted by a large family: a man and a woman, slightly older than us, two children, and an elderly woman with glasses and a headscarf. As it often happens, they offered us sweets and coffee. Conversations touching this and that. There were suitcases and bags scattered around the apartment.
“‘Excuse the mess,’ said the man. ‘We’re going to Ohrid on vacation early in the morning. And when you have two children, you’ll be bringing a whole house with you: from dresses to diapers, from pacifiers to potties…’ The woman looked at him pointedly. Apparently, they had exchanged sharp words about it before. In one of the rooms, naturally the hosts’ bedroom, cramped with heavy furniture, there it was on the wall — the antique mirror. It was marvelous but somehow too large for that space. Cast in crystal glass, with decorations on the crystal frame, adorned with rosettes on all four sides, it shimmered tremulously under the meager light, colors played, appeared, and disappeared, depending on how we moved or turned our heads. It was a magnificent display of colors, shapes, and light.
“‘This is it,’ muttered the host. ‘It’s from my mother,’ he said, wiping the sweat that constantly glistened on his forehead. ‘Even with the new apartment, it feels cramped. My wife is afraid it might fall on one of the children’s heads and hurt them.’
“He averted his gaze. ‘She thinks of it all the time, what can I do? And mother won’t let it go.’
“‘And how much will it cost?’
“He waved his hand. ‘What do I know? The old lady says my father brought it from Czechoslovakia, from Prague, where he worked as a confectioner. And he bought it second-hand. What do I know?’ he said again, and he paused for a moment, thinking, then mentioned a sum, which made me exchange glances with my wife.
“‘Is it too expensive?’ the host asked anxiously.
“‘No, it’s not expensive, but right now we don’t have that much money on us.’
“‘Doesn’t matter, take it. You can bring the money later.’
“‘We’ll definitely take it. It’s just that we don’t have a way to take it right now. We’ll have to ask one of our friends with a car… You’re going on vacation tomorrow?’
“The host sighed, ‘Yes, tomorrow, after the sun cools down.’
“‘Then, when you come back. Here, this is our address. Let us know when you come back. We’ll take it.’
“The host nodded, and looked at the note somewhat absent-mindedly, somewhat disappointed. We returned to the living room. The children were bickering among themselves. The old lady lifted her eyes towards us, with an anxious look. It seemed she wanted to ask her son what he had done. But he stubbornly avoided her gaze. The wife looked at him with pursed lips and asked, ‘And?’
“Then he spoke softly, ‘They’ll take it.’ The old lady bowed her head.
“That was the evening of July 24th, one day and night before the earthquake,” says Martin, looking towards the city as it settled before the onset of darkness. “How could one express what was happening back then? Who is the one capable of articulating everything that was taking place? We, from beneath Gazi-baba, when we emerged frightened from our homes and went uphill, among the black locust trees — we could see it during the second hit: first a rumble of destruction, and then dust rising into dense clouds up to the sky, that was somewhere near the center of the city. ‘People, those buildings are collapsing,’ someone said with a hoarse voice.
“And now everything is known, it is all in our memory: The days and nights melted into one, the hours and the search for the missing, the burials, the unraveling… How can all of that be described? It’s difficult to tell the story of the earthquake.”
Martin remained silent for a while as the shadow of melancholy covered his eyes. He stood up and without a word went into the room. After some time, he returned, carrying a slightly yellowed piece of paper.
“Here,” he said. “Something I wrote after hearing that the infamous thirteenth building in Karposh, the one we went to for the mirror, had completely collapsed… Read it, come on.”
Am I really alive? Am I truly alone now? Without any neighbors or friends from the thirteenth building in Karposh? Am I to be a living witness to the fate of a large family that lived in the thirteenth building, with all the little quarrels and shared joys, with all those tantrums when the children ran and shouted in the afternoon chasing a ball? Will all those little ones no longer draw their people, children, trees, and houses on the concrete, intertwined in wonderfully unintelligible worlds? Will they no longer paint on the walls with chalk, ‘Peter loves Vera?’ Will we no longer go out together in the morning hours, bustling with the tasks of the day, and no longer return together in the afternoon, carrying the tiredness and the desire for a little tranquility, for another reunion with loved ones? Will there truly be no more peace?
“What do you think?” asked Martin.
“Good.”
“Sentimental. Scared. There’s nothing in it that compares to what I truly felt back then. It’s a bare, superficial image. An earthquake is an indescribable event.
“One evening, it was already October,” Martin continued, “some neighboring children came from the street, and said, ‘Some people are looking for you.’ Who could be looking for us at this hour? At the door were the man and the woman we went to for the mirror. Weren’t they living in one of those buildings that was completely destroyed in the earthquake? So many people perished. But they were supposed to be in Ohrid, on vacation. They saved their skins. And here they are, unexpectedly.
“‘We came to bring you the mirror,’ the man said.
“‘Why didn’t you call us? We would have come,’ I said.
“My wife and I looked at each other: Do we have that much money now?”
“The man waved his hand. ‘Shall we come in?’
“We apologized that we didn’t immediately invite them to enter the house. They came in, placed the mirror on the table, unwrapped it, and it shimmered, instantly reflecting the joy with its rich light in the room it cast around. An abundance of glimmers, colors, and rainbows played on the ceiling, on our faces, on the surrounding objects.
“We sat down, this time at our place, for sweets and coffee. ‘The money!’ I said, nodding to my wife with my head.
“‘No,’ the man snapped. ‘No need!’
“‘What do you mean, no need?’
“‘No need,’ he said.
“And then he began to tell us how they went on vacation and how, after two days, they returned from vacation when they heard about the disaster that befell the city. They left the old lady with one of her daughters; she is alive and well.
“The man fell silent, and after a while, he said, ‘Our apartment collapsed.’ He slumped over in his chair. What could we say? What words of comfort?
“‘And as I approached the building with my wife there are only ruins. Next to the ruins sits my mother, on a stool, just as she used to sit in the old neighborhood in front of the gates when it started to get dark, and she waited for her man to come home. She sits there, and next to her is the mirror. Only that remained intact amidst the ruins! I felt like crying: Is that all we have left?’
“‘We remained too,’ she says. ‘We have each other, and God is with us. He will multiply it again; we will have more.’
“‘And of all that was, that’s all we have left?’
“‘It wasn’t yours,’ she says. ‘It belongs to those who were meant to have it. That’s how it was said: Yours is ruined, but it will be created again. What strength destroys; unity will rebuild. With a united life — there will be abundance.’
“The man rubbed his temples, still overwhelmed by the memories of that day, by the thoughts he couldn’t articulate, by the feeling that one cannot escape fate.
“‘There you go, we brought you the mirror. It is yours. We should have come right away, but you know how it is today. And money — it’s not necessary. I swore to the old lady.’ He fell silent again. His wife, as if guilty, hardly raised her head. After some time, they got up.
“‘Maybe you’ll find time to visit us? We’re staying at my sister’s. You know — plenty of money and fools, but few friends. Here’s where we are,’ he said, handing me the address written on a card. “‘Come. The old lady will be happy to see you.’
“That’s the mirror,” Martin said, and he pointed to the wall. “Now you know. And what else is there to say? It’s so difficult to put such experiences into words.”
Translated from the Macedonian by Pavlina Manavska
Blagoja Ivanov (1931-2022) was a multifaceted Macedonian storyteller whose literary journey encompasses roles as a novelist, essayist, critic, and playwright. Throughout his professional journey, Ivanov served as the chief editor of the Cultural Department of Radio Skopje, held the position of director at Television Skopje, and imparted his knowledge as a professor at the Faculty of Dramatic Arts. He was a winner of several awards. In 1958, he became a member of the DPM (Macedonian Writers’ Association) and later held the prestigious position of its president for two terms. Throughout his illustrious career, Blagoja Ivanov’s literary prowess has left an enduring legacy, enriching the Macedonian literary landscape with his imaginative narratives and insightful reflections on life and society.
Pavlina Manavska is a teacher and literary translator from Macedonian and German. She is a graduate of the M.F.A. in Literary Translation at the University of Iowa. She holds an MA in Applied Linguistics from TU Dortmund in Germany. She lives in Cologne.
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