Status Updates From El elefante del visir

“The claim that between 1941 and 1944 Belgrade was the ‘unhappiest city in Europe’ is perhaps not altogether valid, but it is true that it was a scene of unparalleled evil and baseness and, at the same time, of greatness as well as of acute suffering. Of all this the house on Tolstoy Street had its share.”

“The only thing left to him of his youth was his reading habit. But even his reading had been, for a long time now, confused and accidental. Like many people who read books primarily in search of comfort and oblivion, he grew selective, and only with difficulty found literature that could remove him from his real life.”

“In the ‘kasaba,’ where men and women resemble one another like sheep, it happens sometimes that chance will bring a child, as the wind brings seeds, who is depraved and stands out from the usual order of things, causing ill-luck and confusion, until it is cut down itself and the old order re-established.”

“So the ‘charshiya’ lives in anticipation of fresh news and reliable information. The people suffer, whisper, protect themselves, and if they cannot do it any other way, they do it through stories in which their unclear and indestructible desire for justice is perpetuated, for a different life and better times.”