I became a mIlkman`s donkey

I became
a milkman’s
donkey
1.
I haven’t met you.
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I didn’t know back then
that you would appear,
I didn’t know your shape.
I’ve tried
persistently
to imagine your face,
that you don’t slip past
by chance.
In the streets,
between the arcades,
under the gate
of Saint Denis.
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Indeed,
I thought I saw you,
several times
you changed shape,
you danced
in different rhythms
or out of rhythm,
each time sipping a drink
of a different colour,
you smelled
of different perfumes
boasting about your
knowledge or ignorance,
you spoke languages,
poorly,
even your body language
would betray you.
Except,
when you changed
the colour of your skin,
I liked that the most,
it was soft.
All curious I caressed you
amazed by the contrasts,
but you would disappear
so quickly,
almost running away,
that I finally sensed
it cannot be you.
Our dance,
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would have to last longer
like a very long talk
with digressions, or like
an exciting exchange
without too many words.
True,
you’ve asked questions,
and all of them were fine
because I wanted it so,
I stayed pondering
over the answers
untill I snapped out of it,
realizing,
that you were not there
that you were
somewhere else,
dancing,
with another body
which could not
follow you easily,
but you danced well
nonetheless.
Equally absent,
you were asking
that other woman
some other questions
equally irrelevant,
while I was constructing
by myself,
answers
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which interested
only me.
Sluggishly slow,
you would stay
sometimes,
night after night,
without words
without questions
we would tumble
the mattresses
trying to find
a cozy place for you
to fall asleep,
and for me
to look at you asleep,
in wonder.
You would vanish,
in the morning
in a myriad of new ways,
you would leave
without finishing
what you’ve started,
without an explanation
and without lies,
your whole body
would betray you,
a body without a
language,
your huge mute body,
would leave mine
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lustful,
to talk to itself,
to entertain itself,
in a dirty bed
where you,
the night before slept,
or were wide awake.
in the shape
of an aroused animal
you were drinking
my blood
as if it were someone
else’s
blood of nameless me
some nameless you,
you without a name
you, with someone
else’s name,
which I deliberately
forgot or I thought
I had known,
that name,
a long time ago,
so I came here,
to look for you,
so that after
a whole eternity
of postponing
our encounter and
promises of happiness
No, that wasn’t you.
That was always me,
inclined to imagine you,
to invent you,
countless times
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you could finally
surprise me,
with your fearsome face,
and stunted hand,
and again
scarily mute,
with a smile too stupid,
to betray me,
one last time.
and again
tell lies and torture us,
by digging deeper
and asking you
to disappoint me,
betray me,
break me to pieces
one more time.
In that broken step
between you and you,
in the last jolt
of impatience
I finally met
myself.
making the mistakes,
all of those countless,
painful mistakes
to make room
for just one
bulls eye shot,
in the end.
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What sudden joy
or calm
now I know,
2.
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There was a poet there.
He worked at a bar that
had become my haunt. I
used to go there with Sanda. And with Žarko and
Viktor. I quickly fell in love
with them, we went there
often. I became like a milkman’s donkey, which has
finally narrowed its route
in this enormous city.
I was expected to devise and document the process concerned with how
much time it takes a person in a new
city – despite the fact that everything
was familiar, or appeared to be familiar – to start to feel at home there. To
create a familiar terrain for oneself. I
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was struggling for a whole month after
Asia, I tripped over and fell in a public
place, having a bruise on my knee for
weeks – that’s how poorly I’ve adapted,
in the wrong clothes, out of the habit of
dressing up, weaned off the idea of individualism, obsessed with the possibilities
of becoming aware of one’s personal position in the bigger picture, of the position
of an individual versus a group, a group
versus another group, my own self and all
ourselves, so lonely, dazed, self-indulgent,
in this part of the world. Us so insignificantly small, but so big in our own eyes.
I didn’t know what to do with myself, I
was feeling less worthy than all those
dressed up people who were suddenly all
around me, laughing at me from every
corner, shouting at me and sneering in a
language I couldn’t understand. I hated
the power of imperialism whose echoes
are hollow, but last a long time, although
I did use to eye those armed soldiers
who were guarding me from the façades
which screamed about the end of the
world. My bruise started to fade, and I
was wondering about the importance
of the fall, about the meaning and significance of the fall, even that final one.
Maybe the soldiers armed with empty
weapons were guarding the façades from
me, I was certainly the suspicious one, as
I got the door code for undesirable guests.
The cleaner there whispered the code in
a familiar language and became an accomplice in my encounter with myself.
She and the soldiers, the only ones who
knew how often I hadn’t slept alone, they
may have even had jokes at my expense.
When I occasionally greeted them they
looked down at the floor.
So I slowly started to blend
in, but only when I came
back from Marseilles. I went
there with Sanda, whom I
had only just met and who
other in the dark depths
that we touched together,
we appeased one another and got closer in love
for eternity. We enjoyed
the food, the dirt and the
laughter.
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seemed to me, after an
initial rapture, all of a sudden too biting, out of her
own anger aimed in the
wrong direction, aimed at
other women, unknown
and innocent women. We
are all so innocent, blaming one another and ourselves – we are blocking our
own paths. Mothers, sisters, daughters... Tired and
fragile, already during the
first night, in a bed that
we shared, we untangled
the knot, we hugged each
The sea! It is not just going to be a summer in the huge city harsher than the
roughest sandpaper but it’ll be the sea
and the sun and all the different skin
colours.
A naïve attempt in rebellion, a beginner’s mistake.
A dirty contribution to the
reproduction of a wrongly built system. In fact an
Marseilles was important, I had to leave
in order to come back, since only when
I have somewhere to go back to I maybe have a home. Anyway I only feel at
home when I know that departure is
imminent – uncertainty being the only
certain thing, Paris became my home for
three months.
From Cité through Marais, which I’ve never grown
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unconscious acceptance,
in fact a silent sustention.
Adding oneself to the given order, an inevitable
contribution to the order,
but latent defeat. Participation in a defeat. An obvious self-betrayal.
to love – there were too
many objects you could buy
and I felt unsettled even
more because of the number of those to whom they
could all be sold to – by
the Pompidou, most often
along the street where
the whores are, they are
important to me, maybe
because I am important
to myself, right under
the arcades where I always
get confused which one
is which, to the 10th arrondissement, my favour-
And while I, longing for a lasting relationship (physical at least, because I stopped
expecting long ago anything more than
that) was with Miša, who seemed affectionate enough and willing to be present
enough, in fact he was the only one brave
enough to shut my mouth when I would
start a conversation or a debate (it looks
like I expected more, in the end) and not
with arguments but brutally, with kisses,
all the while the poet was collecting my
glances that were not even secret, as I
would have taken both Misha and the
poet home with me had they been close
enough, but they were not.
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ite, to the liveliest of all
the streets, next to Sanda’s,
in which, in our bar, the
poet was working.
The poet resembled a restrained dreamer, dressed
up in last century’s fashion,
from the time between the
two world wars, in many
ways my ideal type or what
could have been my type
in the past.
A long time ago I lowered my expectations, for fear of being alone and lonely,
traumatized by some arrogant smart-asses from my youth, I allowed ignorance
in and gave it room. Relativizing what I
believed in (and my own worth too) for
years and years I, the silly one, was messing up with messed up fools.
The poet would respond,
sometimes with a glance,
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sometimes with an unintentional touch. I was
curious to know what
his poems were like while
Miša was following me
persistently, proud of himself for having me, silent,
he wasn’t speaking, he
wasn’t talking, even worse
– he never came. Never!
For days, for weeks, for a
whole month – never. Despite our continuity and
warmth, even though it
was silent, without words,
and in spite of an ulti-
mate pleasure I was coming closer to, for the very
first time. Maybe that’s why
I put up with him the way
he was, and the only thing
bothering me then was
the fact that I couldn’t get
French to read those poems and to ask Miša some
questions in order to remember their voices maybe. But Miša couldn’t get
the plural nor the tenses
right, our mutual understanding stemmed from my
patience, which is puz-
Still. I started to get tired of socializing,
most of the time I stayed on my own,
during the days and throughout the
nights, those boys were more of an incident than a habit or they were traces
of a routine that lasted for years, my futile attempt to achieve intimacy. A great
deal of time I walked alone, aimlessly,
along the streets, by the river across the
parks, I carried all my books with me,
having invested in a gadget which stored
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zling me even today. In the
meantime, the poet spoke
English sufficiently enough
for us to have inspiring
conversations on the importance of walks, identity, abolition of work and
psychoanalysis.
all of them, and which fitted perfectly
in the inside pocket of my raincoat. By
then I had already got the knack of my
style, my street skin started to suit me,
I stopped being an obstacle to myself
among the half-humans, which obviously
constitute more than a half of humanity.
I waited for the moments when the city
gets quiet, when everything turns silent
in its midst, I was collecting those rarest
moments of peace in restlessness, but I
didn’t take photos of such moments, nor
did I take any photos whatsoever. Topics
of great importance for me were invisible, all the questions remained mine, I
set to seek their answers within myself,
other people were just a random sample,
a test of potential understanding and desired exchange. I wasn’t too surprised by
the lack of it, as I was learning how to be
on my own. For the very first time in my
whole life I enjoyed my solitude and my
walks, feeling content was my responsibility now and knowing that power was
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hiding happiness. The world within was
so dynamic, every interaction with the
outside was a distraction, socializing became too easy and staying alone the
biggest challenge. A piano from a composers’ studio used to wake me up every
morning just before 10am along with the
light across my face, I enjoyed slowly
my rich breakfast, which I had prepared
with great pleasure, I walked for couple
of hours every day, in one and then another direction. The day lasted long as
the sun came down at nighttime. Night
still amused me, my occasional drifting
into night, but gradually I stopped asking or expecting anything from it, I just
started to laugh a lot. I was getting myself
prepared for a new intimacy, with a different kind of people, with hand-picked
people, in broad daylight in languages
we have in common. The more I knew
about myself the less time I had to waste.
On my very last night in
Paris, after avoiding seeing
me for such a long time,
Miša didn’t want to sleep
with me. As it happened
the poet called and wished
to meet me, me all in tears
and very drunk, miserable
because I had to leave, to
meet me on my way home,
for the first and last time,
so that we could spend the
night together, the two of
us. After a month-long relationship with Miša and
after a night in tears with
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the poet, more passionate
for its cinematic scenery
than for my involvement, it
also somehow happened
that all his semen ended by
mistake in me. I was left
disgusted, sickened by this
injustice or of my inability to perceive this string of
events as justice. I never
addressed the poet by his
name. Instead of a goodbye, like in a song that I will
get to love later, while
holding me tightly in his
arms – when will I come
again, he asked. He was
the only one who left the
building through the
main entrance, he didn’t
look back nor did he
wave, his swagger was of
a victor so full of himself. Maybe he was simply
happy which made me
angry or sad. His shadow
stretched long in the
early morning light, on my
last morning in Paris, I
knew that he was not the
one. Neither was it Miša,
nor Ulysses nor Tristan,
nor the fourth one whose
name I never knew. It was
not the stupid Pilot either.
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Certainly, and luckily, that wasn’t you. It
was your absence and in that absence a
sign that you exist. I thought – I had fallen in love with Paris, I thought – I want
to come back here. I wanted peace.
3.
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Even back then
I knew your name.
It was evading me – yes.
It has tickled the tip
of my tongue
like a familiar melody,
or a rare word
which I will recall,
which will surprise me,
the moment I stop
reminiscing
and evoking it,
at an odd moment
it will hit me,
between the wind
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and my breath
it will start to pulse,
I will then start to sing,
and that will be a call
for you.
Keen on listening to signs
and trusting what I hear
I went along that path,
in the opposite direction
of the Parisian cul-de-sacs.
So tender-hearted
I got carried away
and went to the hills
next to the sea.
I wasn’t expecting you.
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Neither your shape,
nor your face or voice
I didn’t mistake you
for someone else
I didn’t miss you
in the crowds.
I did recognize you.
At the very last moment
I hugged you.
I know
it is you
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and
what you are touching
that is me.
I became a Milkman’s donkey is a book about longing.
It is a letter from Paris that Katarina Šoškić wrote in Belgrade
in October 2015, to a person that she has never really met.
It is translated from Serbian into English by Svetlana Rakočević.
It is printed in three copies in Vienna in spring 2016.
Katarina Šoškić