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there was some raw form of comfort in thinking that I
never would. My childhood memories of him had faded
away, and washed like water over watercolour paint,
blurring the colours over the years. The most telling
thing for me was that I could no longer remember his
face. It only came back to me through photographs, but
its direct image had been scraped out of my memory. I
recalled him now through several black and white
photographs from various birthday parties, or his driver’s
license picture, which featured a boyish, tender face, at a
time when he barely resembled himself. Back then he
didn’t have the bushy brows that met in the middle when
something confused him. I couldn’t recall his dark eyes
that strained to see the TV without glasses. I didn’t see his
full, mobile lips, which pushed and prodded pieces of
food while my mother incoherently regurgitated details
of her day’s work, every lunchtime. I couldn’t picture how
he would pinch himself with impatience at the Arena
cinema, waiting for the Partisan film of the week to start,
yet I knew he did it every time.
In my memory, I only saw him from afar, a distant
humanoid figure rising on the horizon, like a brazen
statue. I saw his elegant officer’s uniform hanging in
front of the mirror at home, just before Yugoslav People’s
Army Day; saw his body in a bathing suit, lying on a towel
that was too short, telling me to come out of the water
because my lips were turning blue. I saw his white parade
shirt, bought in Trieste...