Berane - Montenegro

P R O M E N A D E

There is a story of one silent street, a mysterious building and the door on the building, the door that leads to a beautiful garden full of pleasures and gentle scents. A man by chance finds that green door, is let inside to spend some time, and then leaves to run his own errands. Suddenly one day, he realizes he cannot live without the light of that garden. He goes to search for it, but cannot find neither that street, nor the house, nor the green door. He opens all the gates on his way, and everywhere he finds some unknown corridors, and maybe even some other green gardens. But, those are worthless to him - he needs only that lost garden behind the green door, and it seems that one has completely vanished.

The readers who grew up in pre-television era might remember one of the magic words of their youth? Promenade!

Maybe for a moment they will be able to experience again the excitement that does not happen again, excitement that would overwhelm them without any reason around 7 in the evening, when, dressed up in the best and only suit they owned, they would go to the promenade to welcome the festal procession of love. The promenade - never stopping circulation directed by boredom and love - equally powerful passions; exchange of glances, whirlpool of love caused by boredom, or boredom caused by love; promenade - that obscure pavement on which the yearning engraved the strollers'  routes once and for all, convicting everyone who even once steps into the magic circle to the eternal walk...

In attentively selected clothes and carefully hidden poverty, generations of lovers passed that same route, brushing each other's shoulders, pretending indifference, hiding the feelings, acting disinterest. This giant walking cocktail had the rules determined by a long lasting ritual. It was necessary to pass through all of it: moving wall made of faces that mean nothing to you, and at one moment you would meat the one that you waited for a long time, the face deserved by countless paces, the face that will in a moment dive into grey river, lost until it passes by the next time.

You could have missed that face, or the face could have missed you! If you turn, she will know you care too much! If she turns, she will show far too much of her affection.

And there it is - the simple magic that kept the promenade going for centuries, until the people deserted it and closed themselves in TV cages of their new homes. And that old promenade, which we visited after the long trips even before we would visit our families, was killed by the common comfort.

... From time to time when the fate smiles on me, I find again the promenade passing through some province town, whose inhabitants - due to poverty or the habit? - have not yet succumbed to hypnotic lullaby of TV.

At that very moment the promenade captivates me, and all of a sudden, even against my own will, I start following the same circles from the 50's. Again I meet the familiar faces and expect that on the next turn, passing by, they will smile to me.

I feel then that I have found the green door from the story of the enchanting garden. And when everyone leaves the promenade, leaving the gloom of the main street in all its nakedness, I feel that all those faces passing by have been a lie, and that they have come from the sweet, mysterious darkness of the time long gone, the time that I witnessed.

Momo Kapor

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