(excerpt from Private Gallery)
 
For the first time now I sleep in this flat, and of course, I am convinced that some sort of rat sooner or later will appear from somewhere.
I lay in bed in someone else's living room overfull with dust, scattered books, cigarette butts, overturned demitasse caps with dried dregs of coffee, piles of various Russian and foreign newspapers, picked apples and half-eaten cucumbers, photos, ashtrays that haven't been washed since the beginning of perestroika, a pot containing peanuts, unusable pens and the most varied glasses for drinking several kinds of alcohol...
There is also a framed family picture (a man, a woman, a child; sickly sweet illusions of the seventies, Ala Pugachova, cosmonauts and Yevtushenko; one man has a ridiculous moustache - actually, all moustaches are ridiculous), great library, a chandelier that is not without a certain elegance, an icon of Saint Peter - late XIX century; a seedy empire-a scent of failure ? walls painted in peach color, tainted peaches, of course; a Buddha made of jade, an oil painting of A. S. Pushkin, a pot with initials of bygone czars, an unopened Marlboro box next to the broken angle lamp... The Russian malodor, so unique.
The flat is situated close to the Rikshan vokzal: sounds from the lighted street, enduring semi-darkness in the room. There were notes written in different handwriting and expressive manners about the water taps being unusable placed on every tap in the vast flat: 'As an empty bottle of vodka,' it says above a washstand in the toilet. In the kitchen: 'The Tap, Model - Sahara. Wish you a good thirst!'
In some of the rooms is sensed a discreet smell, almost a patina of the odor of old vomit. The overwhelming impression: the kind of dump that's hard to conjure up.
Home of a great writer.
I try to sleep (waiting for a rat; sometimes we do such a different things at the same time) in the flat of Andrei Bitov. The critics say (Mihail Epstain) that Bitov is the author of the first Russian post-modern novel - 'Puskin's Home'. He is probably the best living Russian prose writer, and, in an alcoholic haze of late middle age he waits for his Nobel.
(Yesterday, in front of the Hotel Radisson Slavyanskaya - Russians call it Radisson Chechenskaya - a girl, a certain Marina as I was soon to find out, approached me and asked, pointing at him standing six to seven meters away: 'Is that great Russian writer Bitov')
He is the current President of the Russian PEN center, and now he is trying to be a good host to the very popular Günter Grass. They left today for St. Petersburg - Averkin, my Russian friend, says 'Peter.' Bitov left the key of his Moscow flat ('He is there only when receiving awards and when getting drunk', my host says.) with Averkin, 'his loyal secretary' and 'spiritual son.'
The Congress of International PEN has just closed in Moscow. Russian postmodernist (whatever that means) Averkin participated in this really complicated event, and I myself was a delegate of the Montenegrin PEN Center.
When we wake up we will both go on our own journeys. Averkin goes to his home in Vladivostock, and I will go to the opposite direction, to the very west, to Podgorica.
But, now, as I expect a rat to appear. I am staring at boundless semi-darkness. 'How deep the darkness is in flats of bards,' I am thinking and eavesdropping.
Behind this 'I' who is thinking and awaiting a rat (what sort of rats are these in Moscow?; do even Russian rats possess imperialistic judgment?) stands all that that gives meaning to the name of Bartholomew, surname Braunović.
Let's say, a cynical bystander, someone who thinks that art redeems and that, in spite of everything, God exists, and that the above BB will manage once to be the owner of a luxurious gallery (the most beautiful women will be present on the opening night, of course), that to be in the minority, simply, is a matter of style, and not of destiny, that life is meaningless for sure, but that such games as love, literature, chess, theology and football can make exciting this somnambular span called life.
At the same time, someone who is very insecure and neurotic and unbearable sometimes. Indeed, sometimes unbearable in many luxurious ways.
Maybe all of that could be said in a different way.
Let's say, that name and surname belong to an insensitive egomaniac, someone to whom 'to meet someone' means 'to keep his distance,' who is 'that much obsessed with himself; person that he simply is not capable of love or understand another.' (the formulation of my ex-wife), who sincerely considers alienation to be the greatest achievement of our civilization, who is in an inadmissibly frequent way malicious and stubborn, furthermore, someone who is 'able from the most faithful possible love to create a miasma,' who like a drowning man is throwing himself about in endless self-analyses, the only purpose of which, in fact, is to substitute true reality, something that is really happening (And what is really happening? - that is the question); on top of that, someone who sometimes, maybe even desperately, is trying to find modes that would make this world rather more than less bearable.
Or, in some other, some third way? This could be, as well: BB is... And so forth, endlessly. And all that is exactly what earnest is -to the extent that, if taken together, all different ways to say something, probably representing - a lie. Because, what does it mean to put words in a line and say 'He is that?' How much of anyone can be put in, at most, the most perfect formulation?
Briefly - whatever I am going to tell you about myself ... I will lie. It is not my fault; the language must do it that way. And, if I am already lying, then the better way is to do it - as briefly as possible.
That will be all about Baki from now on. That's what people in Podgorica call me. Averkin addresses me constantly, neatly as 'Bartholomew Josifović.
I am terrified when I think to what extent in such a flat (the building was built during the Stalin era) an encounter with a rat is certain.
In movies, similar flats are the favorite meeting place of the most screwed up rats. When my rat fear becomes unbearable, as it is at this moment in this Bitovian home, I try - certainly - to explain it.
I am exploring the root of my negative fascination. And, I think, recently, during a film discussion (Baki and Lydia are recalling numerous movie titles, and they retell the most varied scenes until dawn) that I reached the desired answer. In other words, I remember that as a lively four-year old boy, one evening ? maybe as a result of some celebration, I don't remember - I got permission to stay up longer than usual.
A movie was about to begin on television. I had noticed before that adults watched movies. At last, I was in position to do the same.
All of a sudden it all appeared incredibly exciting. Heedlessly, I plunged into celluloid adventure. But, to my misfortune, the movie that was shown that night on state television was 'What Ever Happened to Baby Jane' starring Bette Davis and Joan Crawford.
When the scene came with the dead rat that Bette so innocently brings to her disabled sister, I think I experienced such a tender shock that mother had to make a lot of effort (inclusive of explanations of this kind 'Son, it's just a movie', and 'Movies are not reality') in order to calm me.
Anyway, I think that overcoming rat fear was one of the most effective ways of gaining an understanding of my life.

My next thought, together with taking notice of the daylight, was that no rat had appeared. At least, not until I fell asleep. It's morning, and Averkin has already prepared coffee.
'How did you sleep', he asked.
'Excellent' I say.
'I dreamt of a recycled scenes from an old American movie', I add.
'Stagecoach?'
'No, What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?'
'With Bette Davis? I saw it, but long ago,' says Averkin, and straightaway after, adds: 'I dreamt of my wife.'
'Do you often sleep in Bitov's house?'
'Every time I am in Moscow,' this Russian says.
'Did you ever see a rat in this flat?'
'No.'
'But, if found here, they would be very educated rats in terms of literature,' I say and point
at the books - piles of books all around, in the library, on the floor, on beds, on the table?
'I tried to sort out his books last year, but I didn't manage. I will do it during the summer', he says and pours some coffee for himself.
I am telling Averkin about my first contact with Bitov's prose.
I think back to my recovery after a terribly complicated operation (our illnesses give form to ourselves) in 1983 in Belgrade and my mother whom I asked then to bring to the hospital a recently published Prosveta edition entitled 'Unloved Albina' by 'some new Russian writer.' Back then it was believed that new Russian writers existed.
Averkin is telling me about his hometown. He says that Vladivostock and Moscow are the richest towns in Russia.
'Everyone drives Japanese cars,' he says.

Yesterday's lunch was in the rotating restaurant on TV tower Ostankino.
We looked down on Moscow from more than 340 meters, and I asked Averkin the exact number of citizens in this city.
'Bartholomew Josifovich,' he answered, 'who would know that? Between twelve and fifteen million people.'
'Great numbers are a fiction, Averkin. What's the difference between twelve and fifteen million of any importance whatever? We simply cannot comprehend the difference. All great numbers are nothing but theoretical constructs, aren't they?'
'In old Russia, in the day of czars,' he is explaining to me, 'all great numbers, everything that went over one million, let's say, was described by one word: legion. For example, that word covered equally three millions as well as ten millions,'
'Their name is legion, I say. 'The same is said by Montenegrins for immeasurable profusion.'
While we (PEN's driver Zenia, Averkin, certain Palestinian writer who fly to Budapest and I) are driving to Sheremetyevo airport I try to remember yesterday's scene from Ostankin. Other Moscow images are coming to my mind: monumental 'Stalinesque' edifices adorned with Coca Cola or Sony posters (the perfect embrace of hollow symbols; Warhol would be thrilled); workers at night, painters, swindlers, drunk musicians; sandblasted churches; hysteria in karaoke bars; two girls approached me - 'Give us ten Rubles', ' Why do you need them', 'For pool', one says grinning, ' Do you play good', ' The best' she says, 'Why do you need money, then?' I ask them; a visit to the famous Peredelkin village (superbly perverse idea - to house all writers in one place); to cry for a new Almodovar movie; Joe Cocker's concert in 'CSKA' Hall; architect and jazz bassist Mitrofanov who is trying 'to integrate Confucius and Plato' Bella Ahmadulina's 'meowing' at a literary evening at the Radisson; Russian love for all German products; and Russian fears: of Chechens; of a some new hunger; their fear of Europe; fear of Asia...

'How heavy the books are,' I think while entering international airport Sheremetievo Eight carrying the bag, which is, in comparison with arrival, heavier by at least twenty books, which are mainly weighty ones. ('The Kama Sutra' in luxurious Russian binding, 'Encyclopedia Bulgakovskaya', a Russian translation of Pound's 'Cantos,' a selection of Memleiev writing in four volumes, 'Pushkin's Home', an American monograph on Mark Rothko, 'Moscow - Petushki' by Ierofeiev, Brodsky in paperback...)
I arrived early as usual, and was wandering aimlessly about the airport building. (An airport is one of the 'sacred places' of the New Age and the new global religion - a traveling cult, a change of place, running away - some say, a new, emptied religion of feverish motion, a religion in which movement replaces all spirituality; airports offer a vague remembrance of the Tower of Babel, with an aquarium-like glitter, secret Babylonian embassies are dispersed all over the face of the Earth... Shops with the most unneeded goods that could be imagined. Kind people. Uninterested, too. That is perhaps the most beautiful impression of them: everyone here is passing through.
And less kind ones, off course. It is impossible to pass by a Russian custom officer and not be reminded of everything that this function meant at some time: evil dull-wittedness and Orwellian associations.
At the same time, the fact that everyone here is passing through, it makes it possible to encounter - exactly anyone.
I want to say, an airport is a place where it would be possible for just anyone to come in
view, as at this moment is appearing a person I happened to know exceptionally well, but long ago.
She walks somewhat casually (a feigned female manner) and pushes a few biggish white bags on a cart.
There, in Sheremetievo Eight, I see the girl I loved in 1983 right after the illness and operation that was to bring to me the copy of Bitov's book 'Unloved Albina.'
She is now a relatively successful Belgrade actress, her name is Vana Zig. Many accuse her of having a close relationship with Belgrade's junta.
'I can't believe this,' she says. 'Why are you here?'. She wears a sort of woolen cap (Russian - Asian folk motif), which almost entirely covers her luxuriant black hair. I remember those big curls; in fact, they are unforgettable.
We had a relationship for half a year, the better half of 1983. We met at a literary evening in Belgrade in a bookshop in Andrićev Venac. She was fifteen, I was seventeen.
Once that summer when she was traveling from Hvar to visit me in Montenegro she missed the ship. The captain sent a boat back to pick her up. Later she retold this anecdote in her early interviews.
I am watching her confused. Straight away I say that she looks nice.
'How are you?'
I know that in the mean time we had moved away from each other, much more than was imaginable seventeen years before.
For example, she endlessly supports Milošević, and during the war she went to the battlefields to read poems to Serbian warriors. I don't know how, but she turned into a banal nationalist. However, this encounter makes me happy; sometimes we forgive our ex-lovers even more than we expect ourselves to be forgiven.
'Don't ask', she says, 'I had relapse and had to go into treatment again.'
I remember reports that she had been seriously ill.
'How do you feel now?'
'Well, fine? '
I remembered the first time we met. I had just gotten over my illness adventure.
'What are you doing in Moscow? I ask.
'I was a guest at a very beautiful all-Slavic film festival.'
'Some pan-Slavic foolishness?' I say sarcastically.
'Don't start the old story again,' she says. 'You are the kind of Slav who is selling himself to the West. You know that I despise that.'
I tell her that to meet somebody unexpectedly on the other side of the world is always a surprise, but meeting her in Moscow is not so unusual.
'Not unusual? Why?', she inquires.
'You always loved Russia unreasonably. When we used to talk on the phone you would read Dostoyevsky to me. Pages and pages on how he negates the West. Something like the West would remain speechless at the appearance of the face of some Slavic God. Ready for diagnosis. Do you remember? Josif refused to believe the telephone bill. He bought a ticket for me to fly to Belgrade and to, he said "speak to you and read Russian classics until you both two get wild. The plane is cheaper," he said, and gave me the money'
She lost her breath laughing while I was retelling the story.
'What was it that I was reading to you? It must have been something from 'Demons',' she says.
'Probably. And that novel, together with your commitment to read Dostoyevsky to me during basic love conversations are only proof that Slavs are sickly literary-centric. Also, everything that happens to them they experience as if it is text, and they find literature inherently more authentic than reality.'
'Perhaps you are not a Slav any more?' she inquires ironically.
'Of course I am not. I am of Celtic origin. Can't you see that?
I managed to recollect a few other things.
She giggles, in an airport-like manner, carelessly. However, a little bit later the conversation brings us to different, so called political topics. Vana says:
"You think I didn't read how that critic of yours jeered at my movie. What is her name?
'You speak of Lidija Barbarić. She writes excellent articles.' For a second, before my eyes, I can see the face of my favorite movie critic, L.B.
'Excellent? She made me politically ineligible', she says, quite infuriated.
'You know, Vana', I speak as gently as I can, 'you made yourself politically ineligible.You are part of Miloćević’s propaganda apparatus. You read poetry to butchers, you see. You agreed to be the part of that game. The very least you have to do it is to learn to endure when somebody spits at you for that. Do you understand it at all?'
'Oh, you are very harsh.'
'Actually, I feel it was sort of like signing a contract with the Devil. You sold your soul. Only, in your case, I cannot really see how he paid you,' I say.
We talked about mutual friends until we boarded the plane. An encounter with a person one used to love is necessarily an encounter with himself from other days. And often we are more surprised with that apparition of former self than with a person we used to love. Lord, how much of every human being walks in this world in the deceitful form of a personal apparition of a beloved remembrance?

At Belgrade's worn-out airport Vana asks me to help her. I carry her bags and prepare myself for an embarrassing encounter with Serbian customs officers.
This embarrassment means that they will ransack my luggage, ask me about unreported money and dig their heels in to give me a hard time as soon as they find out that I am from Montenegro.
But, as the companion of Milosevic's beautiful propagandist I get off lightly. The customs officers recognize her and give a sign to skip the queue and passport control as well. To my relief, the same implies to me. I am nodding and passing by.
'Go ahead, artists', one of them say. In relaxed manner, Vana Žig rewards them with a graceful bow.
'They think you are a Russian actor,' she says in undertone three steps further and smiles before she goes to meet her mother (noisy, dark, gay, Opium perfume) who came to meet her.
'Your charisma irradiated me,' I say. 'It is strong enough to cause that unwary customs officer to mistake Celt with Russian', I make this comment while she is delivering another artificial smile enfolded in her mother's reliable arms.

Two hours later I am in Podgorica. It is still daylight, and during the landing I look through the plane window into the burnt summerscape of Zeta and Malesia. It is only early June, but the heat is already like late August. The year of jubilee.
The day finishes with a bath: I try to wash away the malodor of travel.
I filled the tub and almost in a ritualistic manner I stepped into the very warm water.
I notice attentively how water carries away everything unnecessary from my tissues. Fatigue, smells, and even superfluous feelings... Names, quotations, noble and less noble intentions, everything, exactly everything, I would let go of?
I can do it; in the end I am in command of my home.


Translated by: Jelena Vujović