29-IV-1986.

Or was it a day later.

Two bad news came almost simultaneously. Chernobyl and Deska. She finally died, after months of suffering of a particularly nasty form of cancer, in some clinic in Germany.

She was my sister-by-aunt, aka niece, daughter of Teja. This family was particularly unlucky; they first had a son who died very early on. Now this, a girl in her prime.

Dad was in the vineyard, which he just bought, so I got on the bicycle to tell him the news, thinking of just how much radioactive cesium may there be on the leaves. We didn't have a regular protocol yet, so I didn't know whether he'd hear me if I yelled across the river - he could be 100m deep on his side of it - so I rode the long and bumpy way on the other side.

He was very sad to hear the news. Told me a few stories of when we were kids, and were put to eat together (though I'm a couple years older than the girls, and this was about Jaca; Deska came later when weren't neighbors). We mostly sat in silence.

Otherwise, a perfect sunny spring day.


Mentions: Desanka (Deska), Jasmina Sentović (Jaca), Vesela Senić (Teja), in serbian