Bratislav Milanović (Serbia)

I've Been Living Here Already, for a Long Time

I met Richard Berengarten in 1982. The Association of Serbian Writers organizes International Meetings of authors which gather prominent writers from all over the world. That year, Richard Berengarten, who was known as Richard Burns at that time, was a guest of the meetings and I was a member of the Organizing Committee. After a whole range of events in Belgrade, we visited Novi Pazar, a small oriental town in the south-west of Serbia, so that we could see the nearby Sopoćani Monastery, with its miraculous frescoes painted in the pre-Renaissance style and an old Serbian capital, Ras, both under the protection of UNESO today.

We had an impressive literary evening in Novi Pazar, after which our host treated us to a true feast in the “Vrbak” hotel, with a large quantity of wine. During the dinner we became quite close to our guests and the pleasant evening was made even more enjoyable by singing. The songs were in Serbian, Macedonian, Italian, French, English…

About two o’clock in the morning we decided to retire. Richard, open and intimate as if we had known each other for years, suggested that before going to bed, the British group and I take a walk around the sleeping Novi Pazar.

The best-preserved oriental town in Serbia was well lit. We wandered to the old quarter. Next to the mosque was an old stone house built in the Turkish style. The light was on.

Richard’s keen eye guessed its purpose immediately: “I would like to see how bread is made here. I saw how they do it in Greece.”

We approached the lit windowpane in the basement. The nondescript window opened and a head under a baker’s white cap appeared. “We shall have our first bakery goods ready in about two hours,” the baker said kindly.

I explained who my friends were and that they would very much like to see how bread is made in Novi Pazar. With a kind gesture the baker invited us in and, saying “if you please,” opened the door and we found ourselves in a spacious, overheated room; along the walls there were stone troughs full of dough. About ten workers, naked to the waist but bearing white aprons up to their necks, their heads covered with white caps, kneaded the dough by hand. Their biceps looked as if they were bodybuilders. Some of them were kneading the dough, some of them were shaping bread loafs, bagels, croissants, pretzels, arranging them in large round metal casseroles; the third group, using wooden shovels with long handles were putting the bakery goods into a brick wall furnace…

Richard nodded his head. “The same as in Greece,” he said. “There are no machines, although they have money to buy them. But they make fantastic bread…”

We came out and walked along the street in silence. “The Balkans are a miracle”, said Richard as we crossed the stone bridge under which the small Raška River made its watery noise.

I met Richard a few years later in Trg Republike square in Belgrade. We greeted each other like old friends. “When did you arrive?” I asked.

“I've been living here already, for a long time,” he answered in Serbian.

He returned to England several years later. In the meantime, he wrote an impressive poetic trilogy with Serbian motifs, diving deep into the Serbian spirit, history and ethnology. He was an English teacher at the Foreign Languages Centre and at the Philology Faculty in Belgrade. And had a daughter here whom he adores.

He would visit here from time to time, whenever invited or whenever he felt a need to. Whilst writing this small story I feel his presence.

Belgrade, March 2023

English translation by Vera V. Radojević

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