Angela and the Serbian Mother and Child

One Serbian Mother, One Serbian Child

In our last page The Ghouls Challenged Sovereign England, at The Party we wrote about how Angela’s church calendar has been challenged, as if someone had all the time in the world to merrily sit there and ignore absolutely all that she has done. In reality, however, what she does is not wasted nor is it ever for nothing. One event leads to another, they are interconnected, there will never be a dead end save for something that never was in the first place.

Readers know that we went to Valjevo at the start, and that on our very last journey back to Serbia, we travelled one more time to that same city, only this time passing along a different route leading from Greece and through Bulgaria, to arrive in Serbia at Easter, just as the clock turned back one hour from midnight.

At the time, brother did not even know whether it was Easter, as this day on the calendar changes from west to east, not always being on the same Sunday in England, France or Italy as it is in Serbia. And while in Greece and Bulgaria, he didn’t pay much attention, just like he hadn’t in Italy either, as to when Easter would be, or in which month. It was Angela who declared at exactly midnight, just as the train crossed the border into Serbia heading on to Niš: We arrive eleventh hour in Serbia, Happy Easter, brother!

The Full Moon

When we reached Valjevo in the evening the day after Easter, we made our way to the church Presveta Bogorodica, a place very dear to my sister, and exactly over this church shone the Full Moon from heaven as we were approaching on foot along the road.

We found a place to stay just opposite, and here it came to be where she was to start stencilling that what she had learnt over the previous stays in Serbia.

She also did some writing on lined sheets after giving me some tasks to carry out in town with the purchase of pens and writing pads, and later got me to write out her shorthand in Cyrillic Serbian word for word in my own calligraphy, while she continued with her stencilling on what appeared to be carefully cut tanned hides, but more likely were beeswax surfaces made for imprinting.

Several weeks later, as we were on the Adriatic coast, the written pages in Cyrillic were gone with the theft of Angela’s satchel, but only later did I find out that her stencil work and the various inscriptions had remained hidden inside her jacket pocket, carefully sewn to the inner lining.

The Child

It was here, along the road leading up the Adriatic coast and in the last days of our stay there, that in a vision shared in communion with me I saw the Serbian Child standing in front of a building where Serbs displaced from Kosovo were residing.

He was talking in a language I could not understand, a heavenly language I reckon, looking at the building, and in his voice was a tone of appeal, and he was explaining something. Within a few more days, Angela and I departed for the last time through what had come to be known in my vocabulary as the trapdoor of Serbia, the place we had avoided on our very last return when we had changed our route in order to enter from the south.

It was later, after leaving there and staying in Liguria, that the Serbian Mother was to show me that there is only One Serbian Mother, and the young lad I had seen was Her One Serbian Child. Those who betrayed Her in the name of a different people, and after having lied pretty much from the start with false promises of funding, knew what they were doing!

They later went on to declare a state, claimed to be in the eurozone going by their currency, and would join NATO too! Currently they are waiting to join the EU.

As for Angela, it was not long before she was walking with me past the Russian Church in Liguria, situated on an avenue dedicated to an Empress, and we were following the afternoon sun west as it shone directly ahead of us illuminating the entire road.

There was something she had taken with her from Serbia that those others never managed to take back off her and hand over to the EU, no matter how many euros they were flashing about! All they managed to take was my Serbian calligraphy, and when I enquired of Angela for an explanation, she looked at me with a grin.

Well, I thought, at least I came in useful!