Death in the Museum of Modern Art. Alma Lazarevska

was sitting by the fountain. Now he was Boy with Ice-Cream. And he looked as contented as every boy licking an ice-cream did. Boy with Ice-Cream – that was an unusually striking image of innocent self-satisfaction. And, generally, everything there, between Orlando and Onofrio, was fine and noble.

      It was only Otilija T., pushing her pram in front of her up there inland, who left a mournful track. The track of the pram imprinted in the melting asphalt was accompanied by the track of her heels. The track of the pram reminded one of abandoned tramlines. Beside them, one heel left a deeper mark, the other a shallower one. That was just the way Otilija T. walked. Stepping out more vigorously with one foot, in an inspiration stimulated by the fever in her eyes. With the other foot, it was as though she had changed her mind in mid-step.

      In the autumn, when the first grey rains were falling and our summer suntan was fading, I discovered that the fever in Otilija T.’s eyes had been given a diagnosis. She went to hear it, when they took her away, after something terrible happened to her and her child.

      She was sent to a hospital on the edge of the city, somewhere I never had reason to go. It is only when a city becomes a besieged city that you acquire a burning wish to reach its edges. Then you are drawn by a strong desire to step over the ring imposed on you by force. Then you gradually realise that there are always rings around you, albeit invisible and not always imposed malevolently. You cross them on those quite ordinary journeys the aim of which is a summer holiday or distance that may easily be attained by the simple purchase of a ticket. And all that interests you then is that edge of the town where such journeys start. Not remotely the one where sorrowful hospitals are built, in dead-end streets.

      In the spring Otilija T. was back with her son. She was leading him by the hand now. When I met her like that for the first time, I greeted her, but she replied drily, not like that grey-haired professor, but like an automatic telephone answering machine:

      ‘Would you remind me? With whom do I have the honour?’

      I was taken aback and watched her as she walked away, without turning round. She was dragging the boy, just as red-haired as she was, determinedly. Even his clothes were red. In one hand, the one that was not clutched by a hand with nails painted with bright red polish, he was holding the end of a string at the other end of which hovered an overfilled pink balloon. It must have been Otilija T. who had blown it up. With all the strength of her lungs. It looked as though it was going to burst at any minute. Perhaps that was why I went on standing there for a while, watching Otilija T. There are some scenes that you simply must see. And not only scenes that afect you agreeably. Sometimes even unhappiness is seductive.