When my parents sold their apartment in Belgrade in 1993, most of their things were first stored in another apartment, which was being sold by the same agent, and then shipped to Reading. They arrived in 1994. My oil paintings from the late Fifties and early Sixties came to Reading, as well. Most of them used to hang in my room in Belgrade. My mother has been pestering me for years to put them up, but there has always been some reason to postpone this chore. Until today, that is. The stairwell connecting the two floors of our apartment in Reading is now crowded with my paintings. The earliest is from 1959 and the latest from 1963. All of them are quite colorful, but their subjects vary widely: a bullfight, a small town on the Adriatic coast, a house by the harbor in another Adriatic town, flowers in a vase, pine trees along the sea, a portrait reminiscent of Modigliani showing two ageing parents and their youthful son, and a pack of wolves chasing a majestic elk. The last painting, dated 1960, went up last because it was largest and most awkward to hang. It ended up on the wall above the landing window. Only when it was up, I realized that the painting was so palpably symbolic that it must have meant a great deal to me back then, when I was fourteen. But what? Did I feel I was ahead of the pack? Did I feel that the pack was hostile to a solitary animal like me? Did I feel threatened by the pack, which was about to catch up with me? Forty years later, I have no idea whatsoever.