Out of courtesy Matjaž agreed, although he thought that this place would be an awful lot better without these haughty Slovenes.
‘Did you start to get bored of the company?’ Matjaž asked politely.
‘Well, they all love that Yugo music, even Nada got really excited over it, but me, I don’t get that nostalgia, that feeling that settles in every new generation and makes them sing ‘Stavi ruke na moja ramena’ like it’s the latest fashion trend.’
‘I’m not convinced that this is about nostalgia,’ considered Matjaž.
‘What’s it all about, then?’ Matevž looked at him challengingly.
‘Maybe Yugoslavia’s only function was that in some strange way, in spite of everything, it enabled the creation of so much eclectic and quality popular music,’ he replied.
‘So now even you’re going to sing this band’s praises without thinking about it,’ Matevž looked at him sharply.
‘No, not at all. I don’t have a personal affinity towards them, but I can understand how you can listen to Azra or Bijelo dugme just because you like the music – just like you can listen to the Beatles, the Rolling Stones or Pink Floyd. It’s got nothing to do with longing for Yugoslavia. Maybe you listen to ‘Jesen u meni’ just because it reminds you of your first school dance. You wouldn’t say that respect for classic Western rock is about British nostalgia, would you?’ Matjaž addressed the question to himself as much as Matevž.
‘You know what, if you can’t see that there’s still a kind of pathos lingering in these songs, a kind of longing for the good old days that never really were . . .’ Matevž said, more calmly.
Matjaž did not feel like debating Yugoslav bands any more, and so the two of them smoked a cigarette in silence.
Eventually Matevž began again. ‘Have you noticed that everyone here only thinks about sex? A holiday about memories and comradeship is just an excuse. It’s actually a holiday of completely new memories and a completely new kind of comradeship,’ moralized Matevž.
Matjaž laughed. ‘No, I hadn’t noticed, but it sounds to me like you didn’t get the ration you were hoping for.’
‘You don’t mince your words, do you? I think even the married couples haven’t had what they were hoping for,’ he chuckled.
As if that sentence somehow brought the two men together, over the next hour they chatted about women, relationships, travels, and became sociably drunk. Feeling at ease, Matevž said, ‘I do think you overdid it at lunchtime, though.’
‘What do you mean?’ asked Matjaž, having already forgotten about anything that might have happened over lunch.
‘You offended her,’ the bloke replied.
‘A little honesty doesn’t hurt,’ Matjaž said, almost angrily.
‘I’m not sure if that’s true. It is not enough that her husband left her? Do we have to then take away the dignity of her new-found freedom? Sometimes it’s better to at least make it look as if you agree.’ Matjaž couldn’t really argue with that, so he kept quiet.
‘But you comforted her earlier, though, didn’t you?’ Matjaž made a dig at him.
‘A little, maybe. I wouldn’t quite say that she likes me, but she likes the feeling that men are still interested in her.’
‘And how did you lose her?’
‘Oh at some point she started dancing with Elvis, and it was clear that the southern temperament does something for her. He obviously flattered her. Pair that with all this property, the man was most likely irresistible,’ Matevž explained, without any bitterness. ‘What’s up with your Melita?’
‘I don’t know, you tell me. I thought she actually liked me, but it seems a similar thing happened – that what she liked about me the most was that I liked her. After that she obviously needed to be liked by someone else.’
‘Sometimes feeling lost is clearly the same when you’re young as it is when you’re older,’ Matevž observed wisely.
‘Or there’s no big difference between mothers and daughters,’ Matjaž added.
‘But then who would blame them?’ Matevž blew out his cigarette smoke. ‘The world can be so cold and lonely sometimes. Why shouldn’t they have trophies of their own, too?’
Matjaž was enjoying his chat with Matevž, who, once he’d relaxed over a beer and a cigarette, acted like a wise old priest with an insight into the wounds of the human soul and no need to judge people, who could easily put himself and his own needs aside. The two men drank, smoked, looked at the stars and were quiet for a long time.
They eventually heard a young female voice shouting ‘Come, come!’ Both stood up immediately, thinking that the Slovenes had started a fire, but it was just Selma with an urgent request for them to come to the dance floor, where there was a desperate lack of men. Matevž decided to comply with the charming Selma, even though Matjaž would have put money on her actually having come for him. But it was better for him this way; he didn’t need any additional complications with young women. One per trip is quite enough, he said to himself, and he raised his glass.
An hour or so later the poor Bosnian’s garden looked considerably different to how it had done when Matjaž had left it earlier. Everyone was on their feet, they were dancing on the tables, some were jumping into the pool and shrieking – as if this throng of middle-aged people had realized that this was their last opportunity to go crazy, to let go, before they eventually reconciled themselves with the fact that one day they would die. The orgy-like atmosphere was already palpable as married men circled around Nada and Melita, while Matevž kissed Selma in the shadows, not so discreetly. The host, too, had decided to show the largest and oldest of the women what hospitality really meant, and was spinning her around wildly. Matjaž, who for observational purposes had chosen quite a faraway table for himself, was soon approached by one of the women who he hadn’t really noticed before. Out of breath, she panted, ‘It’s not very nice, you sat here, when there are so many girls wanting a dance.’ She led him to the dance floor. He looked around, but try as he might he couldn’t see a single girl who compared to Melita. She, meanwhile, was having no problem finding suitors to dance with. Thus he politely explained to the woman that he had sprained his ankle and unfortunately he wouldn’t be able to satisfy the lovely dancers. At the end of the day he was wanting for nothing, sat there at the candlelit table. He was cheered by the thought that by the next day he’d be home, safe in the hands of Aleksander or even the whole crowd. Just as he was enjoying the thought of Petkovšek Embankment in late May, he was startled by Nada’s voice.
‘May I join you?’
‘Of course,’ Matjaž said.
‘You know, you’re a really good guy,’ she said. ‘I know you’re not mean,’ she added, uninhibited.
‘How can you be so sure?’ He was almost disappointed that she wasn’t ascribing even the slightest bit of malice to him.
‘I can tell that you’re suffering, too, deep down inside,’ she said sympathetically, looking at him with her dark eyes, still beautiful. He knew that those kind words were going to cost him something.
‘And if I tell you that I’m not in any such deep pain, except perhaps just a little that stems from the fact that I’ve found myself on this goddamn trip with all of you? What will you say then?’ he asked, provoking her.
‘I’ll nod, as if I understand, although obviously I won’t believe you,’ she replied, the corners of her mouth outlining a secretive smile.
‘Of course you won’t. Women have to make victims out of men so that then they can save them!’ Matjaž blurted out.
‘Who says I want to save you?’ She looked at him alluringly.
‘What will you do with me, then?’ He now saw Nada as a woman who knew exactly how the dramaturgy of games between the sexes played out, and it pleasantly unnerved him.
‘I’ll torment you,’ she said suggestively. It didn’t so much excite Matjaž as rouse his curiosity. And so Nada – on this warm evening in this ample, remote corner of land belonging to a friendly Bosnian w
ho was partying with a crowd of wild Slovenes – got a chance to torment Matjaž. Only in order to do so, she had to use all of her feminine charms and the skills of a seasoned lover.
The palm of her hand seemed to love savouring the surface of this man; it seemed to know how to reconcile itself with his reflexes. Whereas with Melita he had to seek out the path to joining their two bodies himself, now it was Nada who was leading the game. She discreetly removed his clothes, and set her body forth in a slow, consistent snake-like motion. Every time she made contact with his skin it roused all of his senses, which were increasingly heightened by her movements – or, more accurately, by her flowing hips, by her impressive cleavage that now, after this natural progression into love-making, offered itself up to him for exploration. He was surprised by how well she knew the game of two bodies; not a single breath, touch or impression of her body was ever out of place or too much. He was fixated by how she aroused him almost to the point of pain, but then alleviated the tension with a soft, almost maternal kiss. All of her measured sensuality, which occasionally overflowed into a passionate kiss or a cry of delight, invited and drew him in further and further by the second. As if she were conducting an orchestra, she linked his excitement into an artful rhythm; at first still slow enough for each new movement, every new touch – still so gentle – to be all the more arousing, until it eventually became unbearable and demanded his reaction – his wild, uninhibited finale.
The next day, the atmosphere on the bus was completely different to that of the previous evening. All the passengers seemed downcast, traces of shame on their faces – as if the evening before they had all taken part in a collective misdeed that now bound them all with an invisible thread, and they could not speak of what they had done to anyone, not even among themselves. That was how Matjaž saw his fellow sufferers, as he boarded the bus with the last few. It had been true, he thought; an entirely unique type of memories and comradeship.
He identified the disgraced souls through his sunglasses. Pale Patrik and Matevž, also hidden by sunglasses, were looking out of the window. They nodded at him, but neither of them felt the need to strike up a conversation. Milica was resting her head on her Martin, who was also dozing off. Lojze and Anica were completely the opposite: Lojze was resting his head on his wife’s shoulder, while she was acting as if she’d never even met this foreigner and dreamily gazed in another direction. Melita and Nada were almost a perfect picture of mother and daughter – their pretty heads leaning on one another, making them look like one organism with two heads, both drifting off to sleep. Even Vika and Uršula, always in the mood for chitchat, this morning sat quietly in their seats, flicking through Gloria and Story, not taking any notice of their surroundings.
Matjaž sat down to the right of Albert and Dušan. Dušan was already snoring by the window; Albert, meanwhile, was writing something in a notebook. When he saw Matjaž he said, ‘Well, we’re off.’
‘We are indeed,’ Matjaž said, confirming the obvious.
‘It was nice,’ continued Albert, and wrote some more in his book.
‘Nice, yeah,’ said Matjaž.
‘So will you come on another trip with us?’ the widower asked him expectantly.
‘Without a doubt,’ Matjaž quickly replied, knowing that he’d had enough of memories and comradeship, death to fascism and freedom to the people, to last him a lifetime.
Aleksander was thrilled. ‘Mother and daughter!’ The two of them were sat outside Bar Petkovšek, just as Matjaž had so longed to do; he could finally touch down on home soil and put aside those vivid memories from Bosnia.
‘Mate, but that’s crazy! That’s every man’s dream, that’s it!’ Aleksander continued in envy.
‘Come on, it was nothing special,’ remarked Matjaž, not feigning modesty.
‘Nothing special, there’s something wrong with you. One trip, two women, and relatives at that! Nothing special. You know what’s really nothing special? Spring cleaning. Yep, that’s nothing special, and, what’s more, it’s so completely not special that it pushes even happy couples like Karla and I right to the brink,’ Aleksander complained crossly, ruffling his mane of dark hair.
‘Really? Where is Karla? I kind of hoped that she’d come to say hi.’
‘Where is she? She’s taking a break from a lot of serious TV-watching,’ his friend answered, still angry. They gazed up at the dense canopy of treetops, then Aleksander looked to Matjaž pleadingly.
‘So, take pity on me and tell me, how was it?’
‘You know that I am a gentleman, one hundred per cent, and I never reveal details about my ladies.’
‘Oh, come on!’ his friend complained.
Matjaž looked at him patronizingly, played with his cigarette lighter, and after some consideration said, ‘I can only tell you that there was a clear difference, but not so much for me to say that one was better than the other.’
‘What the hell is that supposed to mean?’
‘It simply means that it can be nice to tame a youth, and it’s also nice when you’re the youth being tamed . . .’
‘I don’t believe it. That’s all you’re going to give away? That first you were the hunter and the second time the prey?’
‘If you want to put it like that,’ he said, remaining enigmatic.
‘I don’t want to put it like anything, I want lurid details!’ raged Aleksander, which quietly amused Matjaž.
‘Ha, well then I suggest you become an AVNOJ delegate and get a good close look at that Jajce for yourself!’
KAT AND THE THREE HORSEMEN OF THE APOCALYPSE
Aleksander, Karla and Matjaž had agreed to meet at the usual time in the usual place on this particular Friday. Matjaž was inspecting the spring-summer collection of Ljubljana girls, and did not appear dissatisfied. He was enjoying his beer, surrounded by people who were likewise sipping beer and chatting. He, too, was about to throw himself into the conversation at any moment, enriching it with his own nonsense. He, too, was going to phase one beer into a second and then a third, suddenly making the defined edges of the world and his own words slightly more rounded. Thought – if you could even call it that – was going to gain its own kind of independence, its own kind of freedom, so that it didn’t take into account the feelings of those who expressed it or of those to whom it was expressed. No guilty consciences, only the prospect of a Saturday spent sleeping, after which the previous evening always – well, maybe not quite always – seemed like an episode of a beloved sitcom.
That was, of course, provided that Aleksander and Karla came out to play . . . actually, that they even turned up, it occurred to him. He looked at his watch. They were already fifteen minutes late. He pulled a face, and was already reaching for his phone to enquire how much longer he was going to be left alone with his thoughts – which when left to their own devices never garnered anything intelligent – when in the distance he caught sight of a long-legged girl with long chestnut hair, coming towards him. Convinced that she was going to sit down at the neighbouring table, he continued to look for Aleksander’s name in his contacts. But the pretty girl came and stood at his table.
‘Matjaž?’
‘Can I help you?’
‘I’m Kat.’
‘I’m more of a dog man myself.’
‘Nice to meet you,’ she laughed with a cheerful smile full of slightly curved teeth. Matjaž was convinced it could have cleared a cloudy sky. ‘My name is Kat.’
‘Oh, I see. Matjaž,’ he said, placing his hand into the one she had offered. Confused, he looked around and signalled for her to sit down.
‘I know,’ she said confidently.
‘And who carelessly gave that secret away?’ smirked Matjaž.
‘Karla!’
‘That, that . . . that traitor! She’ll pay for this,’ Matjaž said, pretending to be aggrieved, once he realized how his friends had tricked him. ‘And you’re supposed to be just right for me?’
‘No, I heard the opposite version. Y
ou’re supposed to be just right for me.’
‘What a careless lie!’ Matjaž declared.
‘Well, OK, there’s nothing for me here then,’ she said, feigning a sad voice and starting to leave.
‘Well, hey, if you’ve already made this long journey to disappointment, then you’ve certainly earned it,’ Matjaž stopped her, almost too enthusiastically.
‘Pint of Laško, please!’ she said to the waitress who appeared at the table.
After that, they began to chat almost as if they were friends. Kat was an architect, and worked as an intern at some small but up-and-coming studio, the name of which Matjaž forgot immediately, of course. He was surprised by how sensible she seemed. He felt relieved that for once while out for a drink with a girl he wasn’t saving the world, solving hunger in Somalia, global warming, the aftermath of tsunamis, the illegal war in Iraq or one of the many conflicts in the Middle East – and let’s not even mention Haiti. Kat lived in a rented flat on Trubarjeva Street, liked to drink beer, didn’t like working out, liked to dance and didn’t like eating bio-eco-organic food. She liked to sleep in and she didn’t like going to bed early. So work was a bit of a pain for her and it encroached upon her natural rhythms. She looked forward to parties and she hated her working hours, even though her work was creative. Her hands were the most productive part of her body, she said.
‘But I think that’s the same for everyone,’ countered Matjaž, demonstrating how he took photographs.
‘Yeah, but most people look at their hands as useless weapons that just translate orders from the brain; I can see real artists in mine,’ she said. ‘I often feel like the hand dictates the creative tempo, and that the vision of what’s being created develops through it . . . A hand can sometimes go beyond that point where the brain comes to a halt.’
Matjaž nodded. He was a little disappointed not to have any cynical remarks to make. Then he noticed her lips, which became even more appealing as she was speaking. Her artistic hands tossed her hair skilfully over her shoulder, just enough to reveal her neck, which looked long, soft and smooth. The thought of how happy he would be to shower it with kisses crossed his mind. As she rolled a cigarette he noticed how slight and rather long her fingers were – they had a gentle echo of long legs about them, and an almost shy but self-assured gait. She talked to him openly about her family – about her mum, who had found some esoteric god who was in all of us, naturally, and to whom you just had to open all the chakras inside you.
Jela Krecic Page 14