On 12th I touched a bit in Acc157 and interest calculation for the cooperative in Čurda, and I think that was it with them.
Actual date of this was lost, damn nineties when records vanish. But by the logic of it, Go's graduation from gimnazija had to happen somewhere between 15th and 25th of may - before that and they're still going through final exams, and after that it's already too late, everyone's either already scrambling for the college to pass the qualifications for, or simply off somewhere the longest vacation they'll ever have in their lives and beyond - the classes at the universities begin only in october.
So then, the solemn academy wasn't held in the theatre, but rather in the KC (kulturni centar, previously Home of youth, Dom mladosti, previously Home of the youth, which was built on the burnt ruins of Dom, sorry about your language). I gave Go a ride but not to the door - dropped her off either by Crveni krst (Red cross) or in Tereza dead end street - both are entrances to Plankert (Planck's garden, the little park behind the KC) - so she wouldn't be seen coming in a trabant in her fancy dress.
The hall, truth be told, doesn't look bad, it's a good building and suffers, just like vodotoranj, only from being built over the dead body of another good building. The director made a speech (don't remember who was the director of gimnazija then), Slavko's choir sang something, and then the generation made a solemn and dignified entrance down the stairs, from both sides of the auditorium. I was in this hall some fifty times, and should know it by heart, but still that time it looked somehow different, despite my current position, somewhere high on the left wing, being not unusual at all. As if I saw it via some remote projection.
And watching them march in, converge on the scene or in front of it, „Gaudeamus“ being sung by pretty much everybody - most of the staff and more than half the parents attended gimnazija - with everybody knowing the first stanza, half the second, nobody the third. And they just stand there, so young pretty and smart, and I remember what shit of a society, of country, we have waiting for them outside. And it got really tight in my throat. In the end I decided to do what I can to fix that, at least for our children - here I'm already a year on UA, and got to know people, saw that I'm not faring bad when compared with the majority there, well fuckitsmother I'll have to do something, best if I could work from here for someone out there.
After the academy they moved to the hotel, where I didn't enter (or perhaps I did - what happened with that first waltz one was supposed to dance with a parent? - don't remember at all, poking around my memory, pulling out a blank).
20-III-2023 - 12-XI-2025