My Father’s Books

Contents

v Con­ tents Translator’s Note ix Part One My ­ Father, Our Fam­ ily, the Books Love 9 The Fate of the Books 10 Dif­ fer­ ences 11 The Gar­ den 12 The Foun­ tain 14 The Bal­ cony 15 The Cab­ i­ net 17 Iden­ tity 20 The Life of the Books 23 The Death of the Man­ u­ script 24 A Se­ cret 25 Learn­ ing about the ­ Deities 27 vi My ­ Father’s Father­ lands 28 My ­ Father’s Lan­ guages 31 My ­ Father’s Dic­ tion­ ar­ ies 33 The Radio 34 Old Age 36 The Books and My ­ Father’s ­ Friends East­ ern Dream and West­ ern Dream 39­ Friends 42 Auto­ did­ acts 44 Li­ brar­ ies 46 A ­ Boarder in Babel 47 Lan­ guage Quar­ rels 49 Bal­ kan Babel 51 A ­ Choice 52 Sac­ ri­ fice for Books 54 The End of Time 57 The Books in One’s Life 58­ Father’s Books, Mi­ gra­ tions, Sta­ lin­ ism, the Bal­ kan Wall The Spy­ glass 63 The Globe 68 The Fam­ ily Clock 75­ Travel 77 The Bomb 79 Flags 82 The ­ Mother ­ Tongue 84 The Holy Books 88­ Dreams of a Lost Time 90 The Power of Lan­ guages 92 Ra­ kija and Meze 94 The Taste of the Dough 96 vii Hol­ i­ day Ti­ kush 97­ Stalin’s Por­ trait 98 Shock Work­ ers 101 The Sil­ ver Mir­ ror 102 The Medal 103 Hol­ i­ day 105 Ra­ tion Books 106 A Coin in the Trevi Foun­ tain 108 La Ri­ nas­ cente 110 The Bal­ kan Wall 116­ Prayer 121 Tears 123 Part Two The Mar­ gins of My ­ Father’s Books: The Con­ stan­ tin­ o­ ple Dream, in ­ Search of Lost Time The Third Exit 131 The True Path 133 At a Cross­ roads in the Lab­ y­ rinth 135­ Between Con­ stan­ tin­ o­ ple ­ Heaven and Bal­ kan Hell 139 Mis­ sion 141 The Game of De­ feat and Vic­ tory 143 Ja­ nis­ sary Fate 145 The Key of Des­ tiny 148 The Waves of Il­ lu­ sions 151 The Debt to Time 153­ Between East and West 155 Sea Dream 158 Hol­ i­ days in De­ feats 160 Lost 161 Tat­ tered Fate 163 Bar­ ter­ ing with Fate 167 viii The Dream of the Books 170 The East­ ern Sword of Dam­ o­ cles 173 The Fe­ dora 175 Time Dis­ cov­ ered Doc­ u­ ments I 183 Doc­ u­ ments II 186 Doc­ u­ ments III 188 The Mean­ ing of the Si­ lence 190 The Doc­ u­ ments (Epi­ logue) 192 Per­ haps the Real End­ ing A Bor­ rowed Book 197 ...