Before he was a writer, before the exile, the communist prison, the pages soaked in history and irony—Borislav Pekic was a boy at a piano, playing etudes for his mother while secretly reading Dostoevsky hidden among the sheet music. His fingers moved on instinct. His mind wandered freely. This moment—part mischief, part genius—contains everything: the refusal to be confined by appearances, the quiet rebellion against dull routine, and the lifelong compulsion to let ideas breathe.