There was a room, or rather an old store with a large window and a glass door, facing the street running alongside the National Theater in Belgrade, where teenagers from the neighborhood and an assortment of harmless bums used to congregate in the afternoon. I think that it was a youth aeronautical club of some sort, although no-one who ever came there had anything to do with airplanes, gliders, rockets or anything intended to fly or otherwise conquer the sky. Most of the stories recounted there had to do with the staff entrance to the National Theater, where one could always see clusters of ballerinas of all possible shapes and sizes, who appeared to us as symbols of sexual freedom and experience. We were fascinated by their legs and their gaits, which suggested a locker-room proficiency utterly foreign to us. One of the frequent visitors of this club, if it was a club, whom I remember particularly well, was somewhat older than the rest of us, as witnessed, I guess, by his small mustache and his carefully combed black hair, and he thus commanded some attention among the eleven and twelve year old boys, although, or perhaps because, his adventures contained outlandish inventions and embellishments. This fascinating mythomaniac was so deeply committed to his inventions that no-one there actually perceived them as lies. Some of us would mock him playfully when he went a bit too far, but we no doubt enjoyed his enthusiasm and his art. If I am not mistaken, his heroic exploits never involved any of the ballerinas from across the street, and this most likely made his stories less improbable in our minds.

I still remember one of his adventures, which impressed me primarily because of his concluding argument and its rationalistic foundations. This particular adventure is also the only connection between the place, the room with a big musty window facing the street and ballerinas, and aeronautical endeavors of any kind. Namely, he was alone in an airplane, his mission accomplished, flying to his home base in the late afternoon. Everything ran smoothly, and he described the peaceful landscape gliding underneath him. A masterful performance, I must add. Glistening rivers and marshes, cornfields, white roads and red tractors… But, all of a sudden, one of the two engines showed signs of trouble. Fire, if I remember correctly. Yes, it must have been fire, for he would have been able to get home with the other engine if it was something potentially less dangerous. The instruments, he told us, showed clearly that he was losing altitude. As an experienced pilot, he immediately started to think about his options, and to look for places where he could land safely and then call for help. Thus far, all the technical details, at least from the perspective of an eleven-year old, sounded so true to life that most of us were gaping breathlessly at him, suspended. He had the following alternative, he continued: to the right, a toy factory; to the left, a glue factory. The stark choice was presented with sharply pointed fingers. And, he concluded, he decided to crash into the glue factory, because glue was softer. By triumphantly raising his arms and grinning, he demonstrated with his entire body that his choice turned out to be correct: there he was among us, telling us about this predicament. And, truly, glue is softer.