The play began at seven, and Tajib Terzić sneezed at half past. The clerk from the city administration had bought a third-row ticket at the employee discount and was so looking forward to the evening at the National Theatre that he would not admit, even to himself, that his throat had been scratching since morning. Directly in front of him, level with his nose, sat a bald gentleman in a dark suit. Tajib knew him from the newspapers and from two formal ceremonies: Štefan Sokolović, a department director at the ministry, a man on whom loans and transfers both depended.
He sneezed loudly, without warning, and all of it landed on the top of Director Sokolović's head. The gentleman slowly took out a handkerchief, wiped his head and neck, and without turning around muttered, "It's nothing, it's nothing." Tajib turned red to his ears. He did not see a single line of the first act. At intermission he ran to the foyer, found the director by the bar with a glass of juice, and said he was endlessly sorry. "For heaven's sake, man, it's a natural thing," said Sokolović. "Forget it."
At home his wife Staša listened as Tajib retold the scene for the third time. "He didn't tell you he was offended," she said. "He said it was nothing." "People in such positions say that out of politeness," Tajib answered. "Tomorrow I am going to the ministry to apologize properly." Staša shrugged, because for seventeen years she had known there was no arguing with him once something lodged in his head.
The next day the secretary received him. Tajib said he wanted nothing, only to apologize once more for last night's incident, and through the half-open door the director looked at him as if he were seeing a stranger. "We have already spoken," he said. "There is no need." Tajib walked out into the hallway convinced that it was not enough. On the third day he sent a letter of two pages. On the fourth day he sent flowers with a card that said only "Forgive me." On the fifth day he stood in front of the ministry from eight in the morning, to catch him before his first meeting.
"Mr. Terzić," said Sokolović, when he finally stopped him on the steps. "You will not leave me in peace." "I only want you to know I didn't do it on purpose." "I know you didn't. I've told you five times." "And what if you are only being polite?" The director closed his eyes. "Perhaps this will be clearer: if you do not get out of my life, I will sneeze on you." "Forgive me, I did not take that as a joke," said Tajib, and then Sokolović struck the railing with his fist and shouted that he should disappear, get out, and never be seen by him again.
Tajib walked home, across Baščaršija and along the Miljacka, noticing nothing. He took off his tie, lay down on the couch in the living room, and lay there until dark. Staša glanced at him, saw that he was breathing, and went back to the kitchen. At three in the morning he woke, sat up, and said into the silence that thirty-eight years of service was enough.
In the morning he found the form for early retirement in a drawer. His department head was astonished but signed. By the end of the month Tajib and Staša had closed the apartment in Grbavica and moved to her mother's house below Trnovo, where a few beehives had been waiting for years for someone to take them over. Tajib learned to blow smoke into the comb, so as not to upset the bees, and not to defend himself when he was stung.
That first winter the neighbor Šućrija came to borrow an axe. He stood at the gate, the cold air tickled his nose, and he sneezed, about three feet from Tajib's face. Tajib wiped his cheek with his sleeve. "Bless you," he said, and went to get the axe.