01-XII-1970.: until 17th

News about the club - the police have same crazy good 16mm camera and other equipment, sound projector and specially the 1000W halogen lights. A guy from the HQ came to Zmaj on 1st (I was "doing films", whatever that meant, probably editing) and offered all this. It seems they had this equipment and nobody knew what to do with it or how to use it, so they asked Narodna tehnika, and they pointed to the club in the making.

(later, much later, Baja married this guy's daughter - they were both from ruža, small world)

Finally saw Duca on 2nd, and she's all clammed up. Whatever I ask she neither denies nor confirms, I get nowhere.

Her parents divorced on 4th. On 5th she was in the same mood as ever, slightly bright. I stayed in Zmaj late in the afternoon, so she and Dragana didn't find me at home, granma told her where I was. So we went to ruža soon. The gang went to the movie on šećerana (of all places), Dragana with them, while Duca said she's off to a different movie. "Which one?" "It's being made for me at home". This was the only mention of her home situation for all this time.

So I escorted her to her entrance into Lesnina and of course we stood there for quite a while and talked. "I missed you a lot these two weeks. I see you only briefly and even then we don't talk much... you have no idea how that feels" "I have no idea.". And that was it - next ten attempts to get her to say something got me more of "I have no idea". In the end, "it's nice to live lonely.".

And that was more or less that. Unofficially, we were off after barely two weeks. After some more minutes of this riddle talk, all circumspect, abstract and undefined, we agreed to part. She's a fortress.

Still we were both in the gang of four and kept seeing each other often. Somehow Tejka invited my parents (and me, of course) to come visit right away, which was unusual but why not, so we went with her. Duca appeared soon, and while our folks sat in the living room, we took the kitchen and just chatted. At some point when two of us were left alone (status still not officially off, but not substantially on)... tried to just plain talk with her. But she just dismissed all the talk and buried her face in her palms. Traces of crying, now or just before, when she emerged. Of course she is not in good mood.

Around this time (or was it on 29th, the long weekend? - there's no timestamp on the photos) tetka and the whole family were visiting. Made a bunch of ID photos for pretty much everyone. This time they definitely had the trabant, it's on the pictures. It was brand new and I examined it thoroughly - checked the controls, read the manual. It was all so interesting, the plastic sides and everything, the flat floor... and it was bigger than the fića, even though its engine was smaller, but then the 2-cycle behaves differently.

On fourth in Belgrade the Gazela bridge was opened, the Terazije tunnel was in the works, and a „dragstor“ was opened, also by Tile and Jovanka, in a modest ceremony. There was quite a media hype around the dragstor, because it was a sign that we're doing well, the capital needs a place where one may buy food and, above all, booze any time of day or night, so the ad hoc parties wouldn't fail for lack of provisions. The regular groceries were open until about 16:00 or 17, shorter on saturdays, and not at all on sundays, while this worked non stop. Until then, the „non stop“ meant that a shop worked without closing for lunch break, from early in the morning until late afternoon. The translators had lots of trouble trying to explain that out there the expression doesn't mean that, it's only mentioned in „non stop train“, the one which doesn't stop for minor stations.

Another part of the dispute was about the unfortunate choice of word, because a „drugstore“ is not at all that alldaily („povazdanka“, as noted a few years later in the „Slang dictionary“ by Dragoslav Andrić), it's a specialized shop which holds cosmetic stuff and light medications. Or was it picked intentionally, to have an english word, regardless of its source meaning, it means to us to have something that is a sign of raising our standard [of living]. The word, as such, became a part of the vocabulary, and of grammar as well, as one of the earlier exceptions from equalizing by aspiration, the gs should have become ks, but not here.

On 13th the trio convened and we started the decorations for doček. Mom said it was too early, the krep paper girlandes would catch dust, and when we start tearing them, the dust will fly around and on us. Duca: "they tear them down?" - obviously, wasn't on a real doček before. And she announced, the next day, that she's coming too. Though... she'll probably sit with my granma, watch TV in the other room. And other talk like that.

On the other side, Veca and Sneca won't come, their mom is getting some fix ideas into her head and... dunno, one of those. So no. Because of certain pride, we'll pretend that nothing happened.

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Mentions: doček, Dragana Vitas (Dragana), Dušica Tošin (Duca), fića, Jablan Škanata (Baja), Lesnina, ruža, Slavica Tejin (Tejka), Snežana Stojanović (Sneca), šećerana, tetka Mima, trabant, Vera Stojanović (Veca), Zmaj, in serbian

24-XI-2020 - 6-II-2026