My aunt Aurora laughs in a very contagious manner. Her guttural cackle, high-pitched and melodious, is almost indistinguishable from most desperate sobs, and this perhaps contributes to its unfailing success. I have not met a person, no matter what his or her mood was prior to being exposed to this spectacle, who could endure it for more than a few seconds before bursting into riotous laughter as well. In order to amaze my friends and acquaintances, I often prompted her to tell us one of her funny stories, just to get her to the point of emitting that shrill, and yet pleasing, concoction of sounds, when the entire company would join her in utter merriment, that often lasted for a few hours afterwards. One particular story worked best, as it was short and precise, and thus prevented her from wandering off at a tangent, embellishing it, or otherwise improvising. I would just say the following words: “Aunt Aurora, tell us about the rally.” With a predictable pious sigh, her hands clutching her slightly parted knees, she would start telling us about a rally organized in her village, Banatski Karlovac, immediately after the liberation, about the throng assembled around a rough scaffolding erected hastily for the occasion in the middle of the central square, either muddy or dusty, depending on the season, and about the local luminaries who climbed onto the platform together with the speaker dispatched from the regional party organization. The expectations were high. Everything was ready, and the speaker raised his arms to preface his performance, theatrically, when, suddenly and irrevocably, before he had a chance of uttering a single word, the scaffolding shook and swayed, made a smooth, quarter-circular, and quiet descent, together with the speaker, all the rigid luminaries, and all the banners and slogans attached to it, and then disappeared into the sea of peasant heads and hats… At that point aunt Aurora would always exclaim the same words: “Where are you?” Presently, the African cackle would be discharged, undiluted and unchecked, her eyes would close shut and start lacrimating, the upper part of her body would start rocking back and forth, her eyebrows would collide high up in the center of her forehead, and she would go on and on, moaning, sighing, and shaking all over for a couple of minutes. When she would calm down somewhat, while the cackle would become intermittent and softer, she would add the following words in a weaker voice, referring to the speaker who had vanished: “And we have never seen this man again!” This last remark would only exacerbate her condition to my unabashed satisfaction.