VERONICA SCHMIDT

(Variation on Pushkin - The Queen of Spades)

Once upon a time – it was twenty years ago – Veronica Schmidt sat at the window and read a book in German. Veronica Schmidt did not know German, but she held the angular mysticism of the Gothic letters in very high esteem. Every word she read aloud, for someone had told her that a learned text could be much more easily remembered if read aloud.
By the way, this Veronica Schmidt is not the renowned Veronica – that uncouth, enchanting and luxuriant poetess Veronica Schmidt, the corner stone of all literary evenings, the shining star, the Morning star itself on the gloomy skies of Serbian poetry. Here we speak of Veronica Schmidt, born Berndorf, a Volksdeutscher, a divorcee; we speak of a humble ashen maid around thirty, a half-literate servent who lived her monotonous and God-fearing life in an unfailing and strict keeping of order, cleanness and peace in the home of Dragoljub Todosiyevitch.
As she sat at the window with the heavy German book in her hands, Veronica suddenly saw Dragoljub Todosiyevitch, her employer and benefactor, all clad in black as an Orthodox priest with a beard reaching to his waist and beyond, strolling along the street by the sweetshop and showing his large penis to the passers-by in the breezy day.
She lowered her head and sank into the lettering of German text; when she looked again five minutes later, the young Dragoljub Todosiyevitch was still jumping near the sweetshop, fervently explaining something to the assembled fellow citizens, pointing to his hanging penis with his finger, spreading his arms as if he would be telling them one of the incredible fishing stories or something of the kind.

Veronica, who did not accept the custom of the fashionable women to stare shamelessly in the nakedness of crazy exhibitionists, stopped looking at the street. Although all kinds of thoughts rambled through and various pictures appeared in her head, she continued to read aloud the incomprehensible German words. She imagined that she is reading gospels, the prayer; she belived that she is reading something that will save her from the Satan's temptations and protect her weak soul from sinking in the pound of sin.
When dinnertime came, she rose, closed the book, and looked at the street, and there again was Dragoljub Todosiyevitch, wearing on his cock a red five-pointed star cut from crepe paper. And he was not running after the passers-by, revealing his fleshy prick to their sight, but rather walking in circles with his head upright, singing. This seemed quite strange to her, for she knew that the handsome Dragoljub had been christened, went to mass every Sunday and did not think well of former communists and their barbaric transvestism.

After dinner, Veronica went back to the window, feeling most uneasy within, but Dragoljub was no longer there – and so she forgot all about him …


Rasa Todosiyevitch, Belgrade