THE UNDERWEAR

In enrolling at the First Belgrade Gymnasium, I realized that the third-year curriculum consisted of two starkly different tracks: math and sciences or humanities and social sciences, also called "social." Since math was not my forte, the latter track seemed the obvious choice. But then I had a fateful encounter.

The first Monday in September 1965, I anxiously entered the school's crowded hallways looking for Dee. We had become friends while our fathers were on diplomatic assignments in the Middle East: his father in Syria, mine in Lebanon. Dee attended a boarding school in Mount Lebanon and used to spend weekends at our place in Beirut. He had returned to the First Belgrade a year earlier.

I felt lost amid the chatter of the returning cohorts. In a quiet corner, I started to tuck my shirt into my new pair of jeans. Mom had insisted on buying one size larger so that they would survive repeated washings. While trying to yank the jeans up my waist, I noticed the smiling eyes of a dark-haired lad. Pointing to the lacy ruffle of my underpants, he exclaimed: "Wow, you have red and blue elastic! Here you can only find white underwear. I'd pay good money for a pair like that. My name is Jo, by the way."

"Hello, my name is Don, and I'm looking for Dee," I responded. "I'll give you a pair of Arrow briefs if you take me to the third-year 'social' classroom."

"Social! Are you out of your mind? In here, smart guys and gals take the math and science track. Dee is in my class. He has the same last name as I do, but we are not related. So you better come with me. I'll introduce you to our homeroom teacher."

In horror, I raised my right hand to make a "no way" sign.

"Math is my Achilles' heel. I studied geometry in high school."

"Don't worry!" said Jo. "During the exams, I'll pass you the correct responses on a piece of paper. The math professor won't even notice, I promise — provided you give me a pair of your Arrow underwear. Come with me now."

Fifteen minutes later, we entered the classroom, and I saw Dee waving at me in surprise.

"Marhaba, Don, good to see you! But you are in the wrong place. This is a math and science classroom."

Before I could say a word, Jo exclaimed, "Hi, Dee! This friend of yours looks bright. So I convinced him to switch from social to our class, and Grandma Hadza has already agreed."

Dee looked at me with dismay and said, "Wow, that's a surprise Don! Last time we spoke, I also tried to convince you to join my class, but you said that social was your thing."

"Both you and Jo ended up convincing me. I guess it's just a matter of studying math."

"Inshallah! Because it's not only math. Physics and chemistry are also tough nuts to crack, believe me," said Dee.

Jo only waved his hand in disagreement and retorted, "Come on, Dee, don't scare him off. I just promised to help him in math. We can also study together the complicated physics and chemistry chapters."

"Fine, Jo, all's fine then," responded Dee in a conciliatory tone.

Turning to me again, he said, "But you should also know that we have a big handicap here."

"And what might that be?" Jo looked at him wide-eyed.

Dee got closer and almost whispered into my ear: "Well, look around the classroom. We are thirty-six students in here, and there are only eleven girls. In the social track, it's the other way around."

And he raised his voice slightly. "Whatever you may think, Jo, in my opinion, all the best-looking girls are in the social track. So, that's one huge handicap."

Jo's riposte was instantaneous. "Oh that's ridiculous, Dee! We have a smart guys' reputation. The best-looking girls would be a distraction in here. And we can always pick them up from the other classrooms. If you need my help, just ask."

The homeroom teacher assigned me to the third desk in the third row — close to the window — and next to a tall, gangly fellow with watery, light-blue eyes. He extended his right hand, with elongated, nicotine-stained fingers, and said matter-of-factly, "Welcome. My name is Vito. You'll start liking it here in a couple of months."

Changing schools is a traumatic experience, especially so late in high school. Thanks to Dee and Jo, I gradually entered their circle of friends. Jo's end-of-semester comment was, "It was not only thanks to your underwear, but also because you do play some football."

DEE

Wide-faced, wide-shouldered, and blond, Dee, or Dejan Mijovic (pronounced DAY-un ME-yo-vich) displayed a self-assured image of worldliness. In addition to speaking fluent French, English, and Portuguese — a rarity in our time — he had an opera-like tenor voice. Dee liked to sweep us off our feet with his impromptu singing of "O sole mio," "Garota de Ipanema," and "Marjolaine."

His parents, Velimir and Leposava, met when Tito's partisans entered Mostar, Herzegovina, in 1944. His mother was born and raised there. His dad hailed from Virpazar, overlooking Lake Skadar in Montenegro. Together with three brothers and one sister, Velimir joined the partisan movement in the wake of Italian occupation. Velimir's sister, Danica, died in combat in 1942, and he named his only daughter after her.

The family property in Virpazar was known for its fine vineyard and quality red wine production. In 1943, an Italian military unit burned the place down after depleting the wine cellar. For their Belgrade marriage ceremony in 1947, Dee's parents received a special present: a case of red wine, bottled in their cellar shortly before the Italian raid.

Velimir joined the diplomatic corps, and Leposava became a medical doctor. They had four children — unusually numerous for postwar Yugoslavia — three boys and a girl. Dee, the oldest, and the next in line, Mladen, were born in Belgrade. Danica was born in Ljubljana, Slovenia. And the youngest, Vladimir, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Since childhood, Dee had dreamed of becoming a nuclear physicist, so choosing the science and math track was natural. But most of his neighborhood buddies had chosen the social track. It took him a while to become comfortable in the new environment.

His sense of estrangement and loneliness was alleviated by football. Even though not especially talented for this sport, he dedicated most of his spare time to improving his game. In addition, the homeroom teacher, nicknamed Grandma Hadza, took special care to integrate the "poor Syrian boy" into her class. Two girls took turns sitting next to him and explaining the tough assignments.

After a couple of months, he felt that his gymnasium colleagues were more important to him than his neighbors. The building Dee lived in was huge and brand new, full of large-windowed apartments. Located next to the Question Mark Café and close to the Orthodox patriarchate, it rose amid the rubble of several buildings destroyed by German bombardments in 1941.

The iconic street he lived on used to be called King Peter's, after the supreme commander of the Serbian Army during World War I. King Peter the Liberator was the last sovereign of Serbia (1903–18) and the first monarch of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes (1918–21). An avenue in central Paris bears his name, as well a tourist resort on the Montenegrin coast, Petrovac.

The new authorities changed the street's name to July 7th to honor the popular uprising against the German occupation of Yugoslavia in 1941. The street boasts several city landmarks: the Orthodox Cathedral, the oldest primary school, the oldest café, the Bajrakli (the remaining mosque in town), and the Jewish Center.

But instead of walking to school down July 7th Street, Dee preferred Prince Mihailo's, the main Belgrade Street. He liked to window-shop at the cultural centers of Britain, France, and the United States, and the best bookstores and art galleries. After saluting the equestrian statue of Prince Mihailo at the Republic Square, he walked down French Street before arriving in front of the First Gymnasium. It was his twenty-minute chemin des ecoliers.

PUFF PASTRY

After the first day of class, Dee invited me to the Zerek Pastry Shop to "get me into the swing of things." Even though the Pelivan — established in 1851 — had the best Turkish pastries, since childhood, we had been addicted to Zerek's baklava. The shop was conveniently located on July 7th Street.

In Belgrade, most of the pastry shops were owned or operated by Albanians. In addition to several kinds of baklava and tulumba, there were assortments of kadayif, halva, sudzuk, and sutlijas. And all were served with Turkish coffee and boza, with its spritzer variant: half boza, half lemonade.

But baklava had a privileged status because of both its form and its substance. One could choose the larger square pieces or the smaller diamond-shaped baklava. Both had a delicious, crunchy crust topping and countless layers of fluffy dough. Its abundant chopped walnuts and cinnamon swam in honey syrup but never tasted too sweet.

The unassuming pastry shop accommodated more than a dozen seated guests. To the left of the entrance, there was an open counter with fresh pastry, a refrigerated showcase, and the cash register. To the right, against the mirrored wall, there was a long, narrow table with several high chairs, and in the far corner, two low tables with neatly squeezed-in booster chairs.

After picking up our coffee and baklava trays, Dee and I sat at one of the low tables.

"Did you see that showcase fridge, Don? That's new here, just like in Beirut cafés. Let me tell you, things are improving in our country."

"What do you mean, Dee? More imported things?" I asked.

"Not only that. There are dozens of supermarkets, with nicely packed and presented goods. Mom is thrilled. Before, she had to wake up at dawn to buy fresh vegetables at the farmers' market before heading to work. Now she can buy the fresh produce in the afternoon or evening at the next-door supermarket."

"I remember," I said. "Three years ago, we used to leave empty milk bottles on our doorsteps in the evening. And early the next morning, milkmen replaced them with full bottles. Now, both milk and yogurt are sold in tetra-pack cartons."

"That was a big change. But there are others: American blue jeans, for example. You can buy them at the Komision. They are expensive, though. Did you know that wearing blue jeans is forbidden in the Soviet Union?" Dee asked.

"Why is that? It does sound crazy."

"My dad told me that the Russians consider blue jeans a symbol of American capitalistic society. And in the US, they represent the young generation's protest against that same capitalistic society, just like miniskirts, long hair, and rock and roll."

"So we are wearing blue jeans, and the girls are flashing miniskirts. We dance to rock, and many colleagues have long hair. Are we moving westward, Dee?"

"Our authorities seem to be tolerating it. Some even say the Old Man is stimulating the Western fashion to spite the Soviet Union. But nobody knows how far it will go."

"You know, Dee, last month we returned by car from Beirut — a four-day trip through Syria, Turkey, and Bulgaria. And Mom read to us from a Time magazine about our country. The article was entitled 'Yugoslavia, Half Karl, Half Groucho Marx.'"

Dee's laughter made several faces turn to our corner. I lowered my voice.

"I see that good American movies are shown in our cinemas."

"Oh yes, new movies arrive almost as fast as in Beirut. But it's not only American movies — also Italian, Bergman's films, and especially the nouvelle vague. Can you imagine? Jo watched Le Repos du Guerrier eleven times!"

"But that's an old movie, and not precisely nouvelle vague. I saw it in Beirut."

"Yeah, but it takes time and money to see it eleven times. And it's because of a single scene."

"But we still can't get Playboy here. In Beirut, I used to peruse its back issues at a bookstore next to the Arts Institute."

"True, but we have four local girlie magazines: Start, Magazin, Eva i Adam, as well as Cik. I'm sure we'll be able to buy Playboy pretty soon."

"It's interesting, Dee, to compare Beirut and Belgrade. Geographically, we are to the west of Lebanon, but western culture seems to have penetrated there much faster. Take the soft drinks for example. In Beirut, we drank Coca-Cola, Pepsi-Cola, 7 Up, Crush, and Canada Dry. Here, we still have none."

"But Don, Beirut is the shining light of the Middle East. Damascus, for example, where my family lived for four years, is much more conservative. By the way, Arandjelovac Mineral Water has just announced production of Pepsi for the next spring."

"Let's hope so, Dee, but I bet you cannot buy puff pastry in the supermarkets."

"Oh no, that's one of the few things my mom still buys at the farmer's market. They give her the best quality because they know she is a medical doctor."

"My mom makes both the salty and sweet pita with this fluffy dough. There is zeljanica with spinach, gibanica with eggs and cheese, and also the cherry pita. And puff pastry is the same as in Beirut."

"It's because the entire Middle East belonged to the Ottoman Empire, just like we did. Or maybe it's the Byzantine Greeks that had invented it before the Turks.

"Or maybe the Romans, Dee. My Latin teacher at the American Community School was convinced that the ancient Romans had invented pretty much everything."

"Don't worry, you'll receive a mouthful about history from our homeroom teacher, Grandma Hadza."

THE FIRST BELGRADE GYMNASIUM

After completing their elementary education, students can enroll at a gymnasium, a high school that prepares for the university. It roughly corresponds to a grammar school in the United Kingdom and a prep school in the United States. Its name derives from ancient Greek gymnasion, a training facility that combined intense physical exercise with philosophy, literature, and music.

On August 26, 1839, Prince Milos Obrenovic signed a decree that established the First Belgrade Gymnasium. It was founded nine years after Sultan Mahmud II conceded suzerainty to the Serbian state, two years before Belgrade became its capital, and twenty-eight years before the country regained full independence.

Our gymnasium started operations with two grammar grades, two professors, and forty-four students. The ministry of education instructed the professors to instill in their students the desire to work conscientiously — not just mechanically and casually — as well as develop students' ability to understand and reason correctly, and to avoid repetition from memory.

At the time the school was founded, Belgrade had some seven thousand inhabitants and a strong Ottoman influence. But the strategically located border town was essentially a multicultural mosaic composed of Turks and Serbs, Hungarians and Czechs, Greeks and Jews, Albanians and Vlachs, and so on.

With a population of some seventy thousand in the 1890s, Belgrade displayed a motley architecture that combined the Eastern and the Western influence: hundreds of narrow, cobbled streets flowed into newly constructed squares and boulevards. The incipient metropolis boasted sixty cafés, thirty hotels, six hospitals, three Orthodox and two Catholic churches, three synagogues, and two mosques.

One sensation at the turn of the century was the Streetcar No. 1, aka the City Railway. When inaugurated in 1892, it was horse-driven, and its path went from Kalemegdan Park to the Slavija Roundabout. The tram turned electric in 1905.

In the decades that encompassed the two world wars, First Belgrade became one of the centers of the country's cultural life, and a promoter of innovation and independent thinking. Its instructors were state employees that were considered equally prestigious as the university professors. And le tout Belgrade used to attend the school's graduation ceremonies.