It scared him that this was all everything was – a multitude of repetitions, a multitude of the same faces, scenes and words that pretended, in a series of permutations and combinations, to be different to what he already knew but merely recycled the same boring formula for living. The melancholy of late summer, he smiled to himself, as he walked towards his friends. But when he caught sight of them again, he was happy, even if they were only repetitions in slightly different outfits. In this they were just like Matjaž, who had made sure while shopping the sales that he would continue to look like a new-age gentleman who artfully gave the impression that he was entirely indifferent towards his appearance.
They greeted him with a smile. Karla waved as soon as she caught sight of him, as soon as he turned off Butchers’ Bridge.
‘So you’ve finally shown yourself!’ she exclaimed.
‘What sort of a welcome is that?’ asked Matjaž, sitting down. He looked around to see Jernej and Aleksander already giving him welcoming nods; only Suzana was preoccupied in explaining to Katja the magic of the United Left party. The expression on Katja’s face clearly indicated that she’d rather be left to wind up Matjaž and the others, if only the political debate could be resolved. ‘Come on Suzana, we haven’t seen each other in over a month and you’re already wasting your energy on political debate,’ Matjaž said, leaping to his friend’s rescue.
Suzana looked at him askance. ‘Have you got something against the United Left?’
‘Nothing, actually, unless they take away my Friday evening with friends,’ he shot back at her, and lit himself a cigarette. Katja took advantage of the moment of silence to ask Matjaž, ‘And where have you been this summer?’
‘Nowhere, actually, my dear. While you were all lazily roaming around the world some of us were working,’ he said cheerfully.
‘You know what, you’re not calling me lazy! I worked bloody hard for every minute of my holiday,’ Katja protested.
Suzana rolled her eyes, turned to Matjaž and said, ‘So, now do you see why I have to talk about politics?’
Matjaž picked up on her harsh tone and politely asked Katja where she had been. She’d been to Sicily with friends. No, not with Suzana; Suzana had gone to Istria. ‘And how was it in Sicily?’ It was wonderful, Katja explained. Such a beautiful place, and to think that there in Syracuse Plato was received by the ruler, who brought him over from Athens to explain his vision of the state in the hope of trying to realize it, and to think that Elizabeth Taylor visited Taormina, to think that they named the village Don Corleone after the film by Francis Ford Coppola – that’s when you know it’s a special island. The friends decided to leave Katja in blissful ignorance as far as The Godfather was concerned, while Matjaž turned to Suzana and asked, ‘And how was Istria?’
‘Istria is Istria, Matjaž. Nothing special at all. The campsites are campsites, the bars are bars, the beer is beer.’
‘I see you’re not going to waste words on the best holiday of all time –’
‘For the best you have to go to Sicily!’ Katja interrupted him.
Suzana overheard and said, ‘I’ve discovered that the success of a holiday depends on who you go with.’
Katja’s eyes lit up. ‘I know exactly what you mean. Borut and Janez were such good travelling partners, so thoughtful … without those two –’
‘Oh, please,’ Suzana interrupted. ‘Those two gays are the most boring people I’ve ever met.’
‘What do you know! They’re great gays!’
‘Particularly when they’re enquiring after every detail of every single flavour on offer in the ice-cream parlour,’ Suzana replied vehemently.
‘You know what, the locals are happy when people show interest in their ice-cream industry,’ Katja retorted, not giving in.
Matjaž stepped in. ‘Good, well, go on then Suzana, did you not get on with Saša or what?’
She wrested a heavy sigh from deep inside her, after which she had to light a cigarette. ‘No, Saša’s problem is that she’s the best person in the world.’
‘What a fine cynic you are,’ he smiled.
‘But it’s true! She’s not of this world. She’s patient, kind, helpful, sweet and gentle as can be – she even gave me cold compresses when I burned myself on the beach.’
‘And what’s the issue there?’ Matjaž asked with a smile.
The look on Suzana’s face told him that he ought to have recognized the implication by now. ‘You know what I’m like around people like that. A monster!’
‘Well, you’re always a monster!’
‘Thanks, but you can imagine what that boundless kindness did to me. I had to challenge her, I had to test her.’
‘But she didn’t give in, right?’ Matjaž was still laughing.
‘No, she didn’t,’ Suzana said bitterly, and took a long drag on her cigarette.
‘And how did it all end?’ Matjaž enquired.
‘Dishonourably,’ Suzana said quietly.
‘Dishonourably for whom?’ Matjaž teased her, although he knew what the answer would be.
‘One evening I’d had quite a bit to drink and I was quite, well, more than usually, insulting towards her. That time she stood up to me and said she could see that it’d be better if she left. That she hadn’t wanted to tell me before because she felt sorry for me, because I was so alone and sunburned, but she wasn’t going to put it off any longer. She had fallen for a guy at the campsite who was going to take her away from the awful Medulin to Dalmatia. She packed up and left. Along with the car, of course, as she drove me there; I had to hitch a lift back.’
‘Do they not have buses in Medulin, or what?’
‘Oh, of course, but on that drunken evening I had managed to lose my phone, my purse and all my documents, so the only way back was to beg.’
‘Someone once told me that bad things happen to bad people, but I never believed them,’ Matjaž quipped, after hearing her story. Suzana only nodded remorsefully.
Matjaž thought to himself for a moment and then turned towards Jernej, who up until then had been immersed in Aleksander and Karla’s dispute over biodegradable carrier bags. In answer to Matjaž’s question of whether he’d had a good time working as a waiter on the Slovene coast, Jernej just said, in his particular manner, ‘It was crazy mate, crazy!’ And he really did look quite tired.
So here they all were, together again, everyone apart from him nicely tanned and healthy – in principle, at least. Acting youthfully and trying to maintain the appearance that they had not yet come into contact with adulthood – just as if summer had not yet met autumn.
‘Do you think any of you will ever grow up?’ asked a smiling Jaka. He stood right next to Matjaž, with Sara on his arm. They said hello. They looked like a Hollywood couple: he with his slender, chiselled physique and thick fair hair pushed back behind his ears; she with her fairy-like presence, vital white smile and slightly tinted lips, flushed as if someone had woken her from sweet dreams. ‘How are you guys, then? I haven’t seen either of you all summer,’ Aleksander greeted them, shaking Jaka’s hand and giving Sara a hug. The two of them sat down and explained about their break in Mauritius.
‘Were you inspired by our former prime minister and his wife, Urška?’ Suzana asked sarcastically, but she was sitting far enough away that the recently returned guests didn’t hear her. Matjaž didn’t have Sara down as the type of girl who could have a good time in Mauritius. And given that it was only Jaka speaking about the island in superlatives, clearly impressed by the infinite opportunities that the resort offered to the budding golfer, he concluded that Sara must have had plenty of good books with her.
‘We actually only went for the golf,’ said Jaka self-deprecatingly.
‘We actually went because of your boss, Sandi, who plays golf,’ Sara corrected him with a smile that revealed her mischievous side. She then admitted to Karla in rather a mitigating tone that Sandi’s wife, Sabina, was quite a handful.
This conversation
was of more interest to Matjaž than Suzana’s resurrected tale of groundbreaking new politics. He gathered from Sara that Sandi and Sabina were two people of good standing – nouveau riche as Sara loathingly called them – who were nevertheless good-humoured and generous enough. ‘Although you can afford to be with that sort of wealth,’ she added.
Sabina had totally worn out Sara with her incessant schooling on where to find the best sales in Milan, or at which shops just over the border you could get a Fendi bag for a snip at 500 euros. Next was Pilates and her infallible instructor, who came to your house for a very reasonable price. She could list all of the truths and misgivings about vegan nutrition, and in particular specialized in which colours of foods must be eaten at certain times of the month. Her astrologer had revealed this to her. Sabina believed in science, of course, but obviously thought that we had to admit that in addition to science there was a little part of life that eluded us and that remained – thank God – unclear. ‘How else could she put up with a banker, where there was no room for mystery?’ Sara concluded sarcastically.
Of course, Karla still wanted more. She questioned Sara on how old the banking couple were, how many children they had, where they worked exactly, how much their holiday cost and if Sara had had a good time with Jaka. To that final part of the question, Sara answered in a way that only she knew how; she concealed every possible bit of tension between them with the truth. ‘He was with Sandi all day; he left me with Sabina. There wasn’t a single evening when we went out for dinner or even just a drink together. Yep, Jaka has ditched me for his boss!’ she said, placing her head on his shoulder and casting a concealed glance over towards Matjaž. Jaka stroked her curls mechanically, and then explained to Aleksander about the toughest scenarios within the game of golf. Aleksander was doing very well at pretending to be interested, thought Matjaž, as he watched his friend’s face. Once Jaka had finished his tale of happy golfers, golf courses and his fantastic boss, Aleksander eventually let slip, ‘Did anyone actually ever have sex on Mauritius?’
While Matjaž waited in quiet anticipation for Jaka’s answer, he noted that Aleksander’s comment had caused a slight contortion on Jaka’s face – mainly, Matjaž imagined, because he’d realized that his tales about golf had failed to impress his conversation partner. But then he caught sight of a familiar female character. It was moving along Pekovšek Embankment beside a male figure and a pushchair. ‘Ronja!’ he called out. She waved at him, left the pushchair with her husband, said something to him and came over to the group.
‘Is this where all the interesting people hang out on Fridays?’ She looked at him fondly.
‘You come over here and you’re insulting us already,’ Matjaž smiled and immediately rushed to find her a seat.
‘No, it’s fine, I just came to say hi.’ She and Sara looked at each other, and quickly asked how each other were.
‘And how are you? Have you caught up on sleep?’ he asked her seriously.
‘After our party, you mean? Not yet,’ she smiled at him, with an unusual glint in her eye.
‘So you’re not going to introduce us to all of your men, then?’ he asked in embarrassment, gesturing towards her nearest and dearest. He was happy that the others were all occupied with one another, and it was only Sara who he noticed looking towards Ronja.
‘No, one half of my men needs to eat and sleep, and the other half has to complain about the first half.’ She smiled again, but with a slight bitterness. Her cheeks reddened slightly when Matjaž patted her on the shoulder, and with that same arm she waved goodbye to the others and left. Still embarrassed, Matjaž quickly looked at his phone as if exciting events were unfurling there.
‘What about you, Mat?’ he heard Sara ask.
‘Sorry, what?’ He looked up, confused.
‘When are you going away?’
‘Tomorrow. Well, today, in fact,’ he replied, puzzled.
‘Where are you off to?’
‘To Hvar.’
She nodded with a faint smile, which once again concealed more than it revealed. ‘Hvar is beautiful,’ she said, filling the strange vacuum of their exchange.
‘I’m don’t know if it will be this time. I’ll actually just be working – I think I told you, that wedding. So it could well be the ugliest Hvar of all Hvars.’
‘Here’s to Hvar, then!’ Sara raised her beer, her chin raised proudly. The others joined her, abruptly wrenched from their own conversations and therefore with no sense of what Hvar might signify within her toast.
Before Matjaž was able to shake off the confusion that Sara’s smile and eyes had caused him, the group was interrupted once more by a new female voice, ‘It’s Matjaž, right?’
‘Depends who’s asking,’ he replied, and turned around to see who was bothering him. It was Mini, with some guy – or rather, some boy – at her side.
‘Don’t panic, I just came to say hi,’ she said, smiling. She quickly asked how he was, and he confessed that he was most excellent and due to leave for Hvar shortly.
‘We met some super Greek tourists in that restaurant over there – a really super, big Greek family with a sense of humour,’ said Mini, and it became clear that she didn’t just come over to say hello. She carried right on, her bored boyfriend meanwhile just watching people walk by. ‘They gave us a gorgeous idea for a holiday. Mediterranean, Greek Mediterranean – I always say that. They recommended this gorgeous little island to us.’ She turned to her boy. ‘Bor, what was it called again? God, don’t tell me you’ve forgotten already. I want to go there! That’s where we must go, we absolutely must,’ she said, looking at Matjaž.
‘Sorry, you said you met some Greeks?’ Matjaž asked suddenly.
‘Some Greeks, yeah.’
‘What are Greeks doing in Ljubljana?’ he asked her with a completely straight face.
‘What do you mean by that?’ Mini asked, completely confused.
‘Isn’t there a crisis in Greece?’ he asked, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. ‘It doesn’t seem right that Greeks are travelling all over the place while they’re in crisis,’ he said decisively.
Mini suddenly lost her temper. ‘And what about Slovenes travelling around, even though we’re in the wors –’
Her boyfriend stopped her, then leaned towards her and whispered something. A great big smile appeared on her face. Then, with her anger barely concealed, she said, ‘You haven’t changed at all, Matjaž, and you never will!’ She and the little guy turned and walked away.
The entire group, who until not long before had been engrossed in various conversations, had to laugh at this performance – even Jaka and Katja forced their facial muscles into a smile.
‘What? I didn’t know that saying anything about the Greeks was a no-go!’ he said innocently.
‘That’s enough now!’ Katja righteously intervened.
‘It’s true, that’s a bit close to the line,’ Suzana joined her.
‘What have things come to? Next you’ll both be saying that ugly people should be allowed on Petkovšek Embankment, too!’ Matjaž protested.
Suzana and Katja exchanged glances. It was no longer clear to them whether or not Matjaž was joking.
Taking advantage of their confusion, Aleksander continued in a similar tone, ‘As far as ugliness is concerned, you’re right. Don’t you two think,’ he asked, looking towards the political correctness camp, ‘that this part of Ljubljana is so beautiful, so tidy, that it’s just not – how to put this – that ugly people just don’t fit, walking around here?’ Suzana and Katja could only stare at each other.
‘It would make sense to divide the country into aesthetic zones.’ Aleksander went on. ‘The good-looking ones in the centre, that would be Zone A, and then we allocate the others in the same way, in alphabetical order up to somewhere around D.’
‘And of course you’d be on the committee that decides who fits where?’ Suzana looked at him, outraged.
‘Of course, but I wouldn’t
be alone. There’d be a few other beautiful people in the select committee, too,’ he quipped. The group laughed. Suzana and Katja were the only two who were unable to force a smile.
‘And presumably ugly people would be barred from the centre?’ asked Jernej ironically.
‘Exactly,’ Sara reiterated. ‘There’d be special permits to allow the ugly ones who would like to bring food from the fields and supply other goods.’
‘What about the good-looking ones, would they be allowed into zones B, C and D?’ enquired Katja, whose temperature had now risen dramatically.
‘Of course,’ uttered Jernej seriously. ‘They’d organize safaris around those zones. The most expensive one would naturally be around Zone D, where the most hideous specimens would be. They’d have guides to steer you around the extremely dangerous regions, which would obviously be heavily fortified for safari purposes, and to lead the beautiful tourists around.’
‘And what happens to the beautiful ones if they, say, put on weight or – heaven forbid – get old?’ Suzana asked, horrified by this vision of civilization’s last stop on the road to Nazism.
‘They’d have to gradually move out, too. Beauty knows no mercy,’ Jernej replied.
‘What are you lot getting so het up about?’ Matjaž heard yet another familiar female voice.
‘Kat!’ Karla called out, and rushed over to hug her friend. That was the end of the debate on aesthetic zones, but Matjaž was certain that this idea had to be noted down somewhere.
Kat sat down next to Matjaž. ‘What was that hot topic all about?’ she asked interestedly.
‘Nothing, we were just saying how the standard of sewing on trainers made by Asian kids is getting worse and worse,’ said Matjaž, trying to sustain the tasteless conversation.
Jela Krecic Page 25