detail from: KRK Art dizajn

WHITE WHALES

I work as a roofer. Twenty years in Canada and that’s all I do - cover and repair roofs. I pay no attention to the weather, inclement or otherwise, nor to working conditions or dangers. I uphold my grandpa Jovan’s truisms: “Death does not come until the destined day” and “While there is life, there is a cure”. And, thank God, until now I’ve had no injuries and I’ve never been ill. To be sure, people ask how it is that everything is so easy for me, and more and more I believe that it is my escape into my dream world alone that saves me. It’s what protects me from physical illness, from losing my mind.

I remember once reading the thoughts of the Bosnian writer and caricaturist, Zuko Džumhur, published in an interview before the war in which he stated that he opposed hard work, that no one should have to work hard because it’s not true that it enriches or improves life. Hard work just exhausts you. “Perhaps it fills our saddlebags”, he said, “but it empties our cerebral cortex and our entire body; it sucks our blood, our cheerfulness and vitality, and everything that is good in a person. Actually, hard work is a punishment, not a reward. “

I thought about his words constantly – when I worked, on my way there and home, before falling asleep, and in the morning as soon as I opened my eyes. But I also remembered how he had said that there is only one cure for hard work - and that is escape. And he said something else which is etched in my memory like a prayer, namely, that he had spent his entire life escaping and celebrating his escapes and his escaping, and how humans had invented art to find refuge from a hard life - and from hard work too. Since I could not escape hard jobs, and an artist I was not, I clung to his words: I escaped into my own world. I created my own illusions. 

Yes, illusions. Because a man who possesses an imagination, as I always have, can visualize everything for himself, even the most exotic places. And he can create the illusion that he has already visited them, enjoyed them. How many people are there who pay for the most luxurious trips, spend a lot of money and after seven days have no idea where they’ve been? All they remember is how they drank cocktails at the edge of the pool to the point of total inebriation, and then urinated in the warm water! Yes, indeed, I firmly believe that to escape into the world of the imagination, to be able to create illusions and fantasies - these are crucial for a person’s happiness.

At the beginning of spring this year my wife suddenly fell into an unexplainable depression, a listless and deep melancholy. One morning, after yet another sleepless night, she said she would like us to travel somewhere - to some lonely and secluded place. Without giving it a second thought I agreed:  I love my wife, immensely. She is a good, upright soul, one of those rare spirits, and I let her choose where we would go. She told me that ever since her early youth she had been fascinated by lighthouses and that somewhere around the age of twenty, before she met me, she had imagined (like me, she is not lacking imagination) going to some isolated place to work in a lighthouse. To help sailors and shipwreck victims.

And so, carried by that desire, she suggested that we go to Nova Scotia - to Halifax - more precisely, to the fishing village of Peggy’s Cove on the Atlantic Ocean which, she had learned, had one of the most famous lighthouses where tourists come to admire the giant waves pounding the rocks along the coastline.

 So, we headed out to Halifax, and from there directly to the cove. The day was partly overcast with dark grey clouds covering the sky like a sheet. We parked our rented car at a nearby parking lot and headed on foot to the rocks. From that elevation we could watch the ebb and flow of the tidal waves. We removed our sandals to feel the rough surface of the rocks sprinkled with fine sand. Standing on an elevation near the lighthouse we naturally grabbed each other’s hands, just as we had done in our younger days. At that moment, I was once again assured by how much I loved my wife, as much as I had the first day we met.

Then I noticed something in the distance, about a hundred meters in front of me - a white, smooth, moving mass. “Whales!”, I exclaimed. And indeed, I could clearly see three white whales. Two of them appeared to be in some sort of courting dance, rolling closer and farther away from each other, their gigantic, smooth white bodies touching momentarily. I thought to myself: a pair of whales caught up in romantic excitement and mischievous children’s play. And I pondered how God had created a perfect world and how, even here in a small fishing village on the shores of the Atlantic Ocean, I was witnessing a spectacle of perfect harmony - the love between two of God’s creatures - two white whales. 

But what’s the third whale doing, the one who is quiet and motionless in a little distance from them? A thought passed through my mind that perhaps this was a love triangle and that the third white whale, rejected and unloved, could at any moment become angered and rush toward the two lovers. I shuddered at the thought and my stomach tightened with anxiety and anticipation. But nothing else happened. The third whale remained still. I listened a little more closely and then I heard a sound, at first muffled and hollow, and then a distinct, thunderous and frightening howl reverberating under the water… Buuuuuuuuuuuuuuu. All the while the waves were undulating around my two white whales, washing, splashing and flowing over them repeatedly… Still holding hands, my wife and I automatically stepped back from this display of energized and agitated marine might.

I turned around and noticed a group of Chinese tourists nearby. Five of them had giant cameras. I couldn’t resist sharing my excitement with them and called out: “Whales! White whales!” and they yelled almost in unison: “Where? Where are they?” And I pointed to them. Without hesitation, almost running, they approached the elevation near us and started photographing my white whales…

My wife stood motionless at that spot for some twenty minutes, uplifted as though we were in some unreal world. During that time the Chinese tourists were taking photos incessantly, of this unique scene:  white whales in foaming waves. And then suddenly, without warning, the waves started curling and withdrew. It was low tide. One shorter Chinese tourist wearing a raincoat and a narrow brim hat yelled:

“Those are rocks in front of us, not whales. Only white rocks.”

Hearing that, the rest of the tourists in the group let out a good, hearty laugh and sent me a friendly wave. Indeed, when I looked more closely, it was as if a magic spell had been broken. Resting before me, as though run aground, were giant smooth rocks whose blunt front portion reminded me of a whale’s head. Certainly, an illusion. An optical illusion which even my wife and the group of Chinese tourists had believed at first. My wife and I backed away, somewhat stunned by the uncomfortable and unexpected outcome.  But I wasn’t the least bit unhappy or disappointed that I had seen whales in the white rocks. As I said at the beginning, it was another confirmation that everything around us is some sort of mirage, vision or fantasy and that all a person needs is a little imagination to experience the most magnificent landscapes.

 

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