Vera V Radojević (Serbia)

A Few Glimpses of Richard

A Visit to Belgrade

Richard arrived at Belgrade one evening in autumn 1999 to participate in the annual International Meeting of Writers, organized by UKS (Association of Writers in Serbia). The streetlights were out, hoping that it would make it more difficult for NATO’s gamers with their joysticks to let their “Merciful Angel” sow its merciless bombs again. Usually, Belgrade is as alive (if not more so) by night than by day. But not that evening. Parts of the city were in ruins. I met Richard at the Airport Terminal in Slavija square. The moment he stepped out from the coach he looked up at the gloomy skies, not noticing poor lights and almost empty streets and said to himself: “God, I love this city”. Those words, which he was unaware of speaking, and his face at the moment he uttered them are carved in my heart forever.

Šumarice

All those who have read Richard’s Balkan Trilogy no doubt know the story about his encounter with a blue butterfly at the entrance to the “21st October” Memorial Museum in Kragujevac in 1985. The Museum is situated in the park called Šumarice (Woodlands) and the annual October event of paying respects to the victims takes place there to this day.  

I shall not speak about the massacre or the Trilogy. I want to take you for a walk with Richard in Šumarice on one of the many mornings we spent there.

Richard and I would usually arrive at Kragujevac a day earlier – we liked to visit the park when it was almost empty. In the middle of the park there is a clearing with mildly raised oblong hills of mass graves covered with grass, wildflowers, bushes, and randomly scattered rocks, with brass plates bearing the names and last messages of the executed men and boys. The area looked like a large green lake, peaceful and somehow reassuring. The air was clear, dew drops turning to diamonds before vanishing in the early morning light. 

I was standing under one of the nearby trees watching Richard walk slowly away, sensing that he wanted to be alone. He climbed one of the hills and stood there, his back turned, unaware of anybody’s presence, looking down, one of his hands stroking his chin, the other on his hip. He just stood there against the bright sun so that, to me, he looked like a shadow. Suddenly I had a feeling that he would spread his arms and embrace all the people lying there under his feet, lift them up, console them and tell them that everything is all right.

Much, much later that day, as we were sitting in a restaurant sipping coffee, I told him about my impression. “Oh,” he said, “I was looking for blue butterflies,” and smiled. “But it is the same thing, isn’t it?” I told myself silently.

Tabor

One evening in the late eighties Richard (who was known as Richard Burns then) invited several of us to celebrate his birthday at a well-known Belgrade restaurant called Tabor – a name for an open-air military camp usually set on the top of a hill.

The food and drinks were excellent; everybody was merry, laughing and talking at the same time. I was sitting opposite Richard who was drinking wine and smoking. Silently and slowly, without anybody noticing, Richard drifted away to some unknown places, his elbows on the table, his slightly bent head between his hands. When he returned, he sighed and said to himself almost inaudibly: “Yes, Richard burns….” I watched him pull away from wherever he was and thought: “Like a candle, at both ends…”

Working with Richard

Something that Richard does not write about is that he was quite a celebrity throughout the former Yugoslavia. At that time, literary festivals were held all over the (former) state, and writers from all over the (former) six republics would attend, not caring about individual nationality, but reading their work, praising or criticizing, making new or acknowledging old friendships, welcoming new fellow writers and usually ending the days in one of the local restaurants with good food and drinks. Richard was always invited to those festivals; his knowledge of several languages, even Serbian, made it possible for him to communicate with almost everybody, his own charming and modest personality endearing him to the people he met. He was already good friends with some of our most eminent poets, a few of which attended Cambridge Poetry Festival at Richard’s invitation. Whoever spoke English was interested in and taken by the poetry of this young foreigner, as were those who read some of his poems either in English or translated into Serbian and published in prominent Yugoslav literary papers, journals and magazines or broadcasted by the state radio channels.

The first book I translated for Richard was In a Time of Drought. I had never even attempted to translate literature before, let alone poetry. I felt inadequate and insecure, although I was tempted to do it, attracted by the beautiful, girlish, innocent verses spoken by dodolas – beautiful even when they sang about hard times, always praying for rain and for goodness in the world. My doubts dispersed when Richard gave me the best piece of advice, the one I always remembered when starting a new book: “Vera, you can say one thing in many ways, just play with words”. And I did.

When I say this, it sounds easy, however it was anything but. Richard and I would spend hours and hours over each verse, expression, word. With infinite patience Richard taught me how to read poetry, how to understand it, how to interpret it in my mother tongue. He would literally take a piece of paper and a pen and would draw for me what he wanted to say, enabling me to see and feel his words, his thoughts, his idea and then, luckily for me, he would check my translation, never criticising but suggesting, never underestimating but encouraging. For instance, when I began translating The Blue Butterfly, I was so desperate thinking I was incapable of relating the multiple meanings of his words that I rang him and told him I could not do it, would he please appoint someone else. Richard cried: “Vera, you are only having a crisis, don’t worry, it will pass, just carry on”. The confidence in me myself which I heard in his voice inspired and spurred me on. Many translations of his poems followed, turning hard work into such an imaginative creative pleasure that I translated some of them just for myself, for sheer enjoyment, knowing that there were no plans for them to be published.

Shortly after we met, Richard and I, his poetry and our talks helping us open up and expose our selves to each other, became friends who recognized and intuitively knew the other’s innermost reflection, without words. The many miles that are now between us, time flitting by, are of no consequence. Once, Richard told me: “Vera, we could live a hundred years, why not?!” Why not, indeed. I know he will live forever.

Belgrade, February – March 2023

Back to introduction here.

Next contribution here.