Nightingale
Antonija Glavas

I knew him from a little picture and from Granny's stories. She loved him very much. I saw that from the flash in her eyes every time she talked about him. He spent his short life living very intensively as if he knew that his life line was not very long. He spent many nights singing, playing cards with his friends and having fun. She was a brave woman and the mother of two boys. She waited for him. After she asked him one morning: "How could you stay all night long?" He smiled and said: "You mean that's easy?" He took her next evening just to show her. The poor woman spent all night long in the bar sitting and drinking coffee.

Many years after she talked laughing about that night. She said: "The worst thing was meeting the neighbours bringing the milk into town, early in the morning. Everybody could see that I had spent the night in the bar. My face was flushed red, like a poppy flower when they asked me, "Where have you been?" That was the first and last trip. He asked her again to go with him but she thanked him saying: "Without me." She said: "He sometimes took our son with him." And people told her the little boy sang standing on the table like a nightingale. "He wore pants that I had made for him not longer than five six inches," said granny laughing and showing with her thumb and middle finger how long they were.

The first one was my grand father and the nightingale was my father. The people in my country said: "The pear does not fall under the apple tree." And of course I love to sing very much.