Jela Krecic

by None Like Her (retail) (epub)

  It seems that Peter became thoroughly acquainted with rakia yesterday,’ Lojze winked at Nada.

  ‘That’s right, this morning he had big black rings under his eyes and he could barely wave when we said hello,’ announced Milica.

  ‘Well, that really is worrying!’ smiled Albert. Matjaž wouldn’t have had him down as the sarcastic type.

  Not long afterwards, Milica and Anica said their goodbyes. They wanted to take a short walk, as the doctor had ordered. Thus the men remained alone with Nada, who had treated herself to a sandwich and a shot of rakia. ‘This occasion calls for a tasty drink . . .’ she said, as if excusing herself.

  ‘And even without an occasion, we can easily create one for a drink as tasty as that.’ Matjaž couldn’t resist. Luckily all of the men laughed and Nada only gave him a stern look, like a teacher who might punish her student but in actual fact has already forgiven him.

  Nada succeeded in persuading the men to also have a drink themselves, which soon put the group in a much livelier frame of mind. They were no longer concerned with AVNOJ, battles, victims, Liberation Day, but instead only with trivialities – from the love lives of Slovene politicians (‘That Urška really is a beautiful woman’ the men agreed) to the promotion of Prince William in the Royal Court (Duchess Kate is very attractive, established the men, and little Prince George is so cute, Nada had to add).

  ‘And how about you?’ Lojze looked at her enquiringly.

  ‘I’m sorry?’ she smiled with her mouth full, embarrassed.

  ‘How are you finding things without the husband, what’s his name again?’

  ‘Oh Lojze, I can’t tell you how good I’ve been feeling since we went our separate ways. It’s only now that I see how totally trapped I was in that marriage,’ sighed Nada, and it was clear from all the men’s faces, except Albert’s, that they too were thinking of their marriages as cages.

  ‘I’ve really started to discover myself,’ she summarized. ‘Now I’m finally doing things that I couldn’t do before, things that I had no idea I even wanted to do.’

  ‘Such as what?’ Matjaž asked innocently.

  ‘Doing cultural things, for example. I’ve always loved culture. As a young girl I regularly went to productions at the national theatre, Drama, but then after giving birth and getting married I completely neglected that.’

  ‘And you’ve started going to the Drama again?’ asked Matjaž, involving himself.

  ‘Exactly, to Drama, and other places . . .’ said Nada resolutely. Matjaž only just resisted the temptation to ask her for theatre recommendations.

  ‘But enough about me. Tell me, Dušan, how are you? Are you still waiting on that grandchild?’

  ‘Jesus, don’t remind me! Ah, that son of mine is such a slacker. He and his Karla still don’t feel ready. They’re still waiting, as if it will become easier with time.’

  ‘No, nothing easier about it,’ agreed Martin. ‘It gets so much harder.’

  ‘And doesn’t your genetic material get weaker every year as well?’ attested Lojze, the self-proclaimed DNA expert.

  Albert turned to the photographer. ‘What about you, Matjaž, when are you going to have a kid?’

  ‘Not just now, it seems,’ he replied.

  ‘Why not, Matjaž?’ Dušan looked at him with a scolding expression.

  ‘Well, they say that having a womb helps these things, and if you don’t have one of those it helps to have some sort of woman,’ he explained with a sad look on his face.

  ‘You’re not trying to tell me that a handsome young gentleman such as yourself doesn’t have a girlfriend?’ Nada leaned towards him seductively.

  ‘Would you like to have him for yourself, or what?’ Dušan burst into laughter, and the rest of the group with him.

  ‘And why ever not?’ Nada winked at Matjaž, who pulled a wry face in return. She presumably wouldn’t have winked at him had she suspected what had happened with her daughter the night before.

  ‘And what about that beautiful daughter of yours, Nada?’ enquired Dušan.

  ‘Who knows,’ she sighed worriedly. ‘Young people at that age are impossible to tame,’ she said, excusing her ignorance as she checked her phone to see whether it held some sort of answer as to her daughter’s whereabouts.

  ‘Yeah, it’s true, I saw her walking around Jajce arm in arm with two boys,’ said Lojze purposefully. ‘I was having coffee with Anica and we saw her. She appeared to be cavorting rather a lot,’ he added.

  Nada looked at him sternly, so much so that he immediately added, ‘But only as young people usually cavort on a nice spring day. And Patrik and Matevž really are very young.’

  ‘And well behaved,’ added Matjaž, not without irony.

  Towards the evening Matjaž wanted to be alone. He decided that he’d go and have a look around Jajce for himself. After half an hour he was fairly certain that there was nothing to explore.

  ‘How’s it going with the combabes?’ chirped a text from Aleksander. He was grateful to him for not having ended such an obviously cocky message with a smiley face. Combabes. What should he write? ‘I’m sickle of them!’ he typed, and pressed send. He did not expect the evening ahead to provide any relief.

  Elvis had quite a large estate some ten kilometres outside of Jajce. At its heart was a villa, which reflected the owner’s healthy financial situation and unfortunate lack of taste. He had, for example, decorated the entire house in a bright apricot colour, covered the interior with a reddish marble and, naturally, crammed the enormous space full of rustic furniture adorned with garish patterned velvet. There were numerous statues, with a particular focus on lions, adorning the baroque entrance, arranged around the garden, suspended in the water fountains and, of course, populating the interior. Elvis did not actually show everyone around the house; the majority of people decided to remain in the safety of the garden. Matjaž discovered all of this through his own initiative, when he went to look for a toilet that was slightly more private than the bathroom of the small, overpopulated cabin that stood by the pool.

  Yes, Elvis’s enormous garden included a cabin, which was actually a house in itself and quite a luxurious house at that, and a pool – similarly luxurious and utterly tasteless. He also had a wife, Azra, and some children. There were allegedly more, but on this occasion it was only Selma and Damir who kept the Slovene Yugophiles entertained. They were both around twenty years of age, twenty-two perhaps, and quite pleasing to look at – exotic beauties, actually, with black curls and dark eyes. During the awkward introductory pleasantries Matjaž discovered that Selma was named after the very popular rock ballad, and that it was not something of which she was proud. She would have much preferred the inspiration behind her name to have been Salma Hayek – that’s how she explained her name whenever she travelled. Although anyone capable of basic arithmetic would surely know that Salma Hayek wasn’t anywhere near Hollywood in time for the naming of this Bosnian Selma.

  Elvis’s pigs, which were probably crammed into one of the neighbouring properties, clearly brought in a lot of money. Martin was nevertheless convinced that there had to be a mafia-style story behind all of this, although he didn’t voice this too loudly as they were there as guests after all. Besides, it didn’t seem overly important to question why they had been blessed with such luxury – bordering on wantonness – on what had been presented as a fairly modest excursion.

  Albert was more concerned about the fact that Elvis was raising pigs willy-nilly in a Muslim region. But Peter comforted him, saying that he mainly sold his pigs to the West where it wasn’t a sin. In the end the guests forgave Elvis of all potential sins as he told them with pride about the part he played in Yugoslav history, in the Partisan resistance, and that he was also a descendant of those who took part in the liberation of Jajce and in one way or another, whether as soldiers or even as cooks or pot washers, took part in the second AVNOJ assembly.

  On the large terrace by the pool, Elvis prepared tables set with tablecloths
and flowers for his guests. Matjaž couldn’t fathom why anyone would make so much effort for a cousin and a handful of strangers who were travelling with him. Dušan was convinced that Elvis was bored of this country, that he wanted news from abroad – as if he lived in the Middle Ages and had to wait for passing traders to bring him news from the wider world.

  Later it turned out that maybe Dušan wasn’t too far wrong. Well, in terms of the Middle Ages of course he was, but as far as Elvis was concerned he was right. This greying, tall-grown Bosnian welcomed everyone as one of his own, engaged in conversation with every single one, asked who, where, what and why, how ‘the Slovenes’ were, how the EU was. When the polite expedition members returned the question and asked how things were going in Bosnia, he just shrugged his shoulders and said, ‘Well, it’s still going!’ When he’d had a bit more to drink, he elaborated a little further: yes, the situation was difficult, tensions were running high, the financial outlook was catastrophic, but on the other hand Bosnians have always been the best at knowing how to survive in the face of turmoil – as Meša Selimović would say, ‘Man is always at a loss.’

  Matjaž thought this observation seemed a little inappropriate, especially given that it came from someone who had never had first-hand experience of surviving that turmoil – his children even less so, at least as far as he could tell from the spoiled Selma and the boisterous Damir. The former sneered at the Slovene guests here and there, or appeared visibly bored when listening to their stories. If she had only a small expression of disdain on her face, this was a peculiar compliment to whoever had tried to amuse her. Her brother, on the other hand, artfully recruited the non-smoking Slovenes to the joys of smoking, and politely lit cigarettes for them.

  Regardless of whether you agreed with the political stance of Elvis the great butcher, it was impossible to overlook his genuine desire to give the flock of Slovene guests the best possible celebration. Here there was an abundance of food, dominated of course by meat, especially pork, but he was not short of other delicacies either: from various types of little pies to salads and bean stews. The wine was flowing, too, as well as good, homemade rakia aplenty. It wasn’t entirely clear who had created this feast. Azra only took credit for one lot of baklava, and her vivacious, casual and tidy appearance was not that of someone who had spent the past two days in front of a stove.

  When the evening reached the point where everyone was acquainted and had steeled themselves with food and drink, Matjaž ended up at a table with Patrik, Matevž and Nada. He hadn’t had anything more to do with Melita, who was now giving Peter generous amounts of company. He rather stoically resigned himself to the situation, whatever that even was.

  ‘Actually I’m discovering that women only start to realize what they want from sex somewhere around their forties,’ Nada said, breaking the silence within the small group of youngsters for no specific reason.

  ‘Forty-five, even’, Matjaž mischievously thought aloud.

  Patrik and Matevž were about to run off when Nada, overlooking that comment, continued, ‘It’s the age when a woman achieves a kind of confidence, when she’s already made something of her life and doesn’t have to worry about the kind of impression she makes on the male sex. It’s all about emancipation from men, actually. And that can only happen after many years, when experiences have already uncovered all the weaknesses of your sex but at the same time have made you realize the strength of womanhood.’ In a daze, she occasionally caressed her cleavage and looked suggestively at all three men.

  ‘That’s no doubt true,’ began the shy Patrik. ‘Only I wouldn’t know too much about that; my wife left me when she was thirty-four, saying she was a lesbian . . .’ Matjaž felt sorry for Patrik and thought about how to reply sympathetically, and whether he ought to admit that a girl had once left him for the other team, too. But Nada beat him to it.

  ‘She obviously set out on a path of self-discovery very early.’

  ‘But, in her case, she at least put herself on that path,’ snapped Matjaž. Patrik looked at him questioningly, and Nada’s face became serious.

  ‘What are you trying to say?’ she asked seriously.

  Matjaž, who at that point regretted having spoken so freely, tried to ease the situation and said gently, ‘Nothing, nothing, I just meant that some women explore on their own initiative, while others need a little encouragement.’ The moment he uttered those words, he realized that he had made the situation even worse. Nada, obviously picking up on the unkind implication, stood up and left the table. Matevž followed her, and Matjaž noticed him hugging her and starting to comfort her. Then they both disappeared to the other end of the garden.

  ‘Rascal!’ roared Patrik, looking at his new friend. That was the first almostrude word that had come out of his mouth on the whole trip, and probably ever. Matjaž looked at him enquiringly.

  ‘I told him to at least let me have Nada!’ he hissed.

  ‘Everyone needs at least a little tenderness,’ Matjaž tried to comfort him, not being sarcastic.

  Patrik thought to himself and, true to his reputation for kindness, said, ‘You’re right. Matevž has also been through hell with his Breda.’

  ‘Really?’ asked Matjaž, interested mainly in what Patrik considered to be hell.

  ‘The year they tried to conceive, they went from one doctor to the next, did goodness knows how many expensive tests – Matevž paid for everything of course – only for her to run off with his best friend, who then immediately knocked her up.’

  Patrik placed emphasis on those last words, to show his disapproval of Matevž’s ex.

  ‘But weren’t you that friend?’ Matjaž joked.

  Patrik didn’t get the joke at first and got very angry. ‘Of course not, do you think that we’d then go together . . .’ At that point he realized that Matjaž was grinning at him, and burst out laughing himself. ‘Matjaž, you son of a bitch!’ And they raised their glasses.

  Not long afterwards Uršula, Vika and Milica came and sat with them.

  ‘Why the long faces, boys?’ asked Uršula chattily, immediately after the ladies had sat down at the table – without asking, naturally. Each of them had a glass of red and they were in quite a good mood.

  ‘We don’t have them,’ said Patrik unconvincingly.

  ‘All right, where have your friend – and your new lady friend, if I may call her that – gone then?’ Vika burst out into a friendly laugh.

  ‘Ah, everyone’s left me!’ Patrik shook his head.

  ‘And where’s the pretty Melita?’ enquired Milica, who was clearly bothered by the fact that Uršula and Vika were more up to date with happenings than she was.

  ‘She’s around somewhere. Perfect Peter invited her to sit at his table and she went over there,’ grumbled Patrik.

  ‘And after you’d been out on the rampage all day together, too!’ Uršula patted him in consolation.

  ‘We weren’t on the rampage at all, we just walked around, went for a coffee and something to eat, looked at the river . . .’ Patrik corrected her.

  ‘Well, maybe there’s your problem – your Melita needs a lot more male attention,’ Vika smiled playfully, but Patrik didn’t really understand what she meant by that. ‘Oh look, now Damir’s gone and sat beside her,’ she added with a hint of glee.

  Soon the dancing began. Elvis had clearly thought of everything and had procured a real musical troupe of eight men with various instruments, who knew how to sing traditional sevdalinke and classic rock and pop numbers, too. The ladies jumped to their feet, so Matjaž excused himself and fled to go for a walk before the dancing euphoria set in.

  Elvis’s garden offered several small, alluring hiding places. Matjaž investigated all of the charms concealed by the greenery, and soon discovered that many people had already gone on the same investigative mission and were sitting down on the benches. He finally found a place to sit for himself, which the gods – hallelujah! – had laid out for him beneath an enormous treetop that had been l
eft unlit. Solitude suited Matjaž; it allowed his soul to unwind a little.

  He realized above all just how tired and listless he was. The mass of new faces, the group of Yugoslav enthusiasts, the images of history, had all left him completely drained. He didn’t have the strength to think about his past, let alone about the future. The night with Melita now seemed like an old, dusty postcard. When he got a text from Aleksander, asking him for more concrete information about everyone on the trip, he decided that he didn’t have the strength to explain. Images of the women who had made their mark on him in the last six months, including the beautiful Melita, were blurred and he didn’t try to bring any of them into focus. He was content with them sinking into oblivion, and happy that with the help of Elvis’s rakia he could once again forget even himself.

  ‘Is it something about this country, or what? I stopped smoking ten years ago but here it’s impossible to resist tobacco,’ Matjaž heard the voice of Matevž, coming out of nowhere, over his shoulder. All of a sudden he appeared under the tree, puffing passionately on his roll-up. Matjaž wondered how the hell he’d ended up here, and then figured that maybe he had needed a quiet corner, too.

  ‘I can’t resist it in Ljubljana either,’ remarked Matjaž.

  ‘True, true,’ considered Matevž, and with that took a deep drag of tobacco. ‘But there’s something about this place, something . . .’