‘Well at least one sister has some feeling for fellow humanity,’ Matjaž said, still trying to be funny.
But Brigita just snorted, then concluded seriously, ‘You see why me and you can’t get on? Because you turn everything into a gag. You only listen to me so you can twist my words into a joke.’
‘And you want to twist every joke into a political row, or a serious debate at the very least,’ he answered back.
‘Well excuse me for thinking about things,’ Brigita complained.
‘Try thinking a little less and living a little more,’ Matjaž flung at her fiercely.
‘And you try interfering a little less, and the world will be a better place for both of us!’ Brigita replied angrily.
‘Quiet, children!’ Sonja said, laughing. ‘This place is way too beautiful for bickering.’
‘It’s your sister creating a row out of every single innocent remark!’ Matjaž complained, almost like a child.
Brigita was ready to cut him down again, but Sonja said, ‘If you two want to squabble, go and do it somewhere far away from me. I think fate has punished me enough already, what with our parents arriving tomorrow – and Leon, too, as it seems …’
‘That, that … creep!’ her sister shuddered.
‘Who is “that creep”?’ Matjaž enquired.
‘Lovro’s brother, Leon,’ Sonja explained. ‘He’s the same age as Brigita and acts as if he’s really good-looking, really popular with girls. He tried to lead our Brigita astray, as well.’ A mischievous smile escaped from her mouth.
‘Seriously? So I should be wary of him, should I?’ Matjaž asked, looking at Brigita.
‘As you well know, I am a committed lesbian, so there’s no need to be wary of any man in my vicinity – least of all him.’
‘But you did have a little more patience for Leon, my dear,’ Sonja said, without looking up from her magazine.
‘That was a year ago!’
‘And what happened?’ Matjaž asked.
‘Oh, the classic washout. I don’t want to talk about it,’ Brigita said, turning away.
Her sister enjoyed repeating the story. ‘Lovro and I had been together for about two years, and we once invited those two, Leon and Brigita, over for dinner. Leon very clearly fell for Brigita over one of Lovro’s lasagnes. He was amiable and entertaining –’
‘Definitely not entertaining, just amiable,’ Brigita corrected her.
‘Anyway, he fawned over Brigita a lot and the evening resulted in him inviting her out on a date. And Brigita agreed. Their first date was amazing.’
‘Not so amazing the second time,’ her sister butted in.
Sonja continued as if she hadn’t heard. ‘He took her out for dinner at Špajza, brought her daisies and they then went for a walk around the old town. Anyway, after that first date, on which Leon stole a kiss, there followed a few other charming evenings.’
‘I wouldn’t exactly say charming,’ Brigita interrupted again.
‘How come he got a kiss on the first date, then? You didn’t even give me your phone number!’ Matjaž accused petulantly.
‘Ahem.’ Sonja looked at him in a teacher-like manner. ‘Just as our little girl started to warm towards Leon, he cooled off.’
‘He didn’t cool off at all, he remained very much on fire, just obviously for a new victim!’ once more getting angry over the inaccuracies in her sister’s story.
‘As I was saying,’ Sonja continued, ‘since then Brigita can’t stand the sight of Leon, even though he’s tried to renew his pursuit several times.’
‘Ah! How Jane Austen of you, Sonja – “tried to renew his pursuit”. He wanted to fuck me!’ she said coarsely.
‘If I may continue …’ Sonja looked at her sister a little crossly. ‘But of course our Brigita didn’t give in to that sleazeball!’ she concluded.
‘Your Brigita remained indifferent towards that moron,’ protested the protagonist fiercely.
‘Yes, and she is still clearly indifferent towards “that moron”’ Matjaž said ironically.
‘Quiet, you!’ Brigita rebuked him.
‘That’s enough!’ Sonja gave her a dirty look. ‘This is my story!’
The disobedient pair fell silent, as did the bride-to-be.
‘I’m waiting,’ Matjaž said expectantly.
‘That’s everything,’ Sonja said mischievously.
Afterwards, the need to talk subsided for a while and the three bodies surrendered themselves to the hardships of the seaside, such as swimming, sunbathing and now and then sifting through magazines. Sonja was reading Cosmopolitan and other similar magazines. When Matjaž asked her, somewhat mockingly, if she was enjoying her reading, she replied with a short lecture on the beneficial effects of these kinds of magazines. She explained that the nice photographs of new collections, examples of the latest fashion trends, advice on which eye shadow to use in summertime, smatterings of gossip about the rich and famous, are a great relief to a woman. Brigita’s raised eyebrows didn’t stop her from elaborating further on how all these trivialities were ways of people not thinking too much about themselves, and instead relinquishing themselves to a world that of course didn’t really exist. And, anyway, it wasn’t good to think about yourself too much, especially not three days before your wedding.
Matjaž was convinced that Brigita was going to respond to her sister’s declaration with a long left-wing protest about consumer culture, about all of its lies and connections with various forms of exploitation, but she agreed with Sonja. She went on, admittedly with the help of her first beer, to recall an inspiring story that she had read in one of these magazines. It spoke of a regular British woman, a working woman, a mother, who once got the irrepressible urge to take off her shoes. At first she was just at home barefoot, but then she began to take off her shoes at work, and then she started constantly walking around all over the place in bare feet. This emancipation of her feet caused her to lose her job, her marriage collapsed, she lost both her children, but she persisted – and remained barefoot.
At this point Matjaž raised his eyebrows and already had a comment at the ready, but Brigita intercepted it. ‘If you say that story isn’t beautiful then you really are the most soulless person I’ve ever met.’
‘Fine, I won’t say anything, but if you’re going to be barefooted too often I won’t be able to resist provocative comments!’
Sonja grinned, to herself more than anything. Brigita was disappointed, mainly because Matjaž assumed that she, a passionate activist, could be blackmailed like that.
When they had forgotten about the bare-footed British woman, Brigita offered to go and heat up the fish stew and, for a change of scenery, Matjaž decided to go with her. The joint preparation of lunch eventually led to Brigita debating the pitfalls of the global market with all her might, namely the paradox of buying vegetables from the Netherlands in a shop on Hvar, while Matjaž diligently chopped those imported tomatoes, heated the stew, tasted it, duly seasoned it, sliced the bread, set the table in the shade of the pine trees and chilled the homemade Malvasia. Finally, as Brigita was complaining about the lack of self-sufficiency with regards to food in Slovenia, he invited the by now visibly tanned, or rather reddened, Sonja to join them. After lunch, while Brigita recalled the Haitian revolution at the end of the eighteenth century, Matjaž saw to the dishes and cleaned up all traces of their ample meal.
Brigita, who was a little tipsy after the Hvar-grown Malvasia – ‘at least something’s local’, as she put it – took Matjaž by the hand and led him back towards the beach, humming the Marseillaise. He laughed uncontrollably, something to which the revolutionary didn’t take offence. Sonja, despite being a little better at handling her alcohol, accompanied her sister in her Malvasia-induced revolutionary zeal with the thinly veiled excuse, ‘That’s how it goes on the last day of freedom!’ Matjaž parked Brigita in the shade to relax in peace, which was of course an excuse for the fact that she had fallen asleep.
Sonja
and Matjaž lay similarly and comfortably installed on sun loungers in the shade.
‘Don’t take the question the wrong way, but Lovro seems so different to you. I find it hard to imagine that he’s the man you’d most like to marry. And you don’t seem like a girl who would have to compromise in that field.’
Sonja smiled. ‘Every girl has to accept compromise. Zala and Špela think similarly to you, too, though.’
‘Who are they?’
‘Friends from secondary school. You’ll meet them at the wedding …’
‘And what’s your excuse?’
‘I don’t need excuses. I love Lovro.’
‘But he’s not the love of your life …’ He looked at her curiously.
‘Oh,’ she smiled with a hint of melancholy, ‘with so many loves, who can ever really know who the one for life is? Was Ožbej, who I had a short and explosive relationship with, the love of my life? Was it that pathological liar and exceptional lover, Davor? Was it one of the others: Tadej, Edi or Aljaž? The first was completely engrossed in his own work and only rarely found time for me, even though I was supposedly the most beautiful, the most intelligent woman, and he was the luckiest man alive to have met me. Edi was the complete opposite in terms of work: unemployed, highly sociable and with friends every evening, extremely entertaining, no responsibilities, but likewise found it hard to make time for me. Aljaž on the other hand was overly attentive, overly dedicated, overly possessive – and my parents adored him. And as for Damjan, Luka and Matjaž – not you, obviously – let’s not even go there.’
‘You got tired of searching,’ Matjaž concluded.
‘No, it’s not that. It’s about how good it is to be around someone. My criterion became that it in order for it to be worth being in a couple, it had to be nicer than being alone. And with Lovro, it is. He loves me as I am and he’s just interested in different things. He’s protective enough without being possessive. He’s a good cook and doesn’t expect any domestic talents from me, although he can sometimes behave like a complete chauvinist. But I find that funny, too. I find it funny when he wonders about silly things and spends hours and hours on them. I even like it when he researches his symptoms like a hypochondriac, and I like it that he doesn’t judge me when I drink and smoke a lot. And as well as all that I like how he is with my family, especially with Brigita. In truth it’s not about how Lovro is or what he does at all, but that everything that he is and does is precious to me because he does it. I’m not sure if I’m making sense …’ She brushed her fingers through her hair, searching for the words.
‘I completely understand,’ smiled Matjaž. ‘That’s what they call the miracle of love.’
‘I hope you’re not being cynical, because I’m being damned serious. And if you haven’t noticed, Brigita is also fond of him and she’s a litmus paper for people. Obviously she’s an unpleasant misanthrope herself, but she’s really sensible and can smell a bore three kilometres away – a Tadej, or a selfish bon vivant like Edi, likewise an evil obsessive like Aljaž, and as for Damjan, Luka and Matjaž …’
‘Which wasn’t me!’ the real Matjaž jumped in. ‘Let’s not even go there.’
Sonja smiled at him. ‘Something like that. When I saw how she was protective towards Lovro, how she noticed when I spoke about him rudely, even scornfully sometimes – at the start, when I didn’t think it was serious – she made me realize that maybe Lovro wasn’t like that. And she was right.’
‘Where does poor Samo stand with our human detective, then?’ Matjaž asked cautiously.
‘No, that’s nothing, Samo just gets on her nerves.’
‘Oh, well that’s reassuring …’ Matjaž said. After a couple of seconds’ break he asked her, ‘How do you get on with his parents?’
‘A little better than with mine, but I still prefer them from a distance. Well, you’ll meet them. They’re mostly harmless, of course, but parents don’t know how annoying they can be, especially when they’re being so bloody well-meaning. Fortunately Lovro’s dad, Borut, likes his peace and quiet and interferes as little as possible, in anything. He avoids any kind of unnecessary interruption in his way of life, so he never quarrels with Zofija, Lovro’s mum. Now that takes skill. I think a part of Lovro’s craziness is down to her. You’ll never meet a louder, crazier, stupider woman. My father’s the only one who can stand up to her. My theory is that faced with her overbearing presence and, more than anything, the noise, Lovro started to retreat to parallel worlds of space, mathematical equations, studies and whatever else.’
‘Leon is obviously another story.’
‘Leon is a mummy’s boy, and he knows it.’
‘Are Leon and Lovro not exactly the best of friends?’
‘Oh, no way!’ Sonja avowed. ‘I’m not sure you’d find two brothers further apart, or two people – who supposedly have the same parents – more different from one another than they are. On top of that there’s a quiet resentment between them that Lovro has repressed, but it means he’s always distanced himself from his brother. Have you got any brothers or sisters?’
‘Luckily, no.’
‘Why luckily?’
‘I think one genetic cocktail like me is quite enough for this world.’
‘I think you’re too hard on yourself.’
‘Not as hard as your sister,’ he said, almost with a touch of bitterness.
‘I wouldn’t count on that,’ Sonja smiled.
Just as the bride-to-be had predicted, the two fisherman returned to the dock at around eight in the evening. Firstly the two of them gave a speech on the fish they’d caught. There were five smaller ones and four bigger ones – Matjaž forgot their names immediately – that made the mouths of the domestic trio start to water even before the (very detailed) explanation was over and the preparations began.
As Lovro was chief fisherman, the work of gutting these creatures fell to his loyal sidekick, Samo. He hinted to Brigita that they could share the task between them, but she replied that she had enough on her plate preparing vegetables of problematic ecological origin. And so Matjaž offered to help Samo. While they were preparing the fish, Matjaž gathered that Samo was a very mild-mannered being with many moral principles. He was a loyal friend, was passionate about fishing and – this surprised him – was a shrewd online poker player. He was aware of how unattractive this last hobby might be to young ladies who like attention, but on the other hand he didn’t actually have a young lady and so he wasn’t hurting anyone if he gave into debauchery every now and again.
Matjaž agreed with him and added that young ladies could cause an awful lot of grief. He himself still hadn’t recovered from the twelve – or however many it was – that he had met over the past year: some young, some not so much, some ladies, some not so much.
When they went back over to ‘Lovro the Great’s’ barbecue, it became clear that the two young women were hard at work sampling the Malvasia while the future bridegroom was seeing to all the necessary domestic duties himself. Pretty soon the other two joined in with the sampling themselves, while Lovro started to cook and fired off the odd order every now and again, ‘I need a plate! Charcoal! A pot! I need …’ Samo and Matjaž were happy to oblige him, while the sisters preferred to carry on smoking and drinking. At around eleven they eventually sat down for the feast, and thanked the fisherman, cook and organizer-in-chief for a job well done.
A game of tarocchi followed. Lovro was against the idea, especially when combined with alcohol. If he wanted to catch enough fish for the parents tomorrow, he and Samo ought to be on their way. Sonja’s idea, that they could all go into town for dinner, had seemingly fallen on deaf ears. In any case, Lovro wanted to get out and do his usual run in the morning; he’d got out of his usual routine far too many times already on this holiday. The remaining four were already far too rowdy and drunk to sympathize with his problems, but Lovro decided that this didn’t make him love them any less and even he reached for the homemade digestif.
Th
e consequences of the seaside merry-making were catastrophic, at least as far as Lovro was concerned. By the time morning had broken he had just about managed to put Sonja to bed, but with Brigita they gave up and left her to sleep outside on the beach, while Matjaž collapsed not too far away. And at five in the morning, Samo and Lovro didn’t have to strength to gather anything other than a blanket for those collapsed outside. Likewise they decided to leave the clearing up until the morning, even though now it was technically already morning; given the circumstances, an operation of that sort was just not doable.
THURSDAY
None of this would have been so bad, had Stojan and Anka not decided to surprise the wedding party by boarding the first morning ferry from Split. Luckily, they weren’t too familiar with the island or the town of Hvar and – after several missed calls – only found their daughters’ apartment in Podstine at around eleven. Their furious knocking was answered by a dishevelled Lovro in his underwear, who at the sight of them standing on the doorstep thought he must still be hallucinating from the potent herbal rakia.
Stojan’s scathing question ‘So when do people on Hvar actually get up, then?’ convinced him that his future in-laws weren’t just a mirage caused by his guilty conscience but were, in fact, fairly actual versions of the people in question. He sat them down in the kitchen and told them he would go and get Sonja. The father of the bride grumbled, ‘What about Brigita, where is that girl? Stuck in a corner, reading that filth of hers again!’
‘Karl Marx is a renowned theoretician, though, Stojan,’ Lovro said, trying to calm his almost-father-in-law as he walked towards the bedroom.
‘And the rest!’ Stojan shouted, pulling a face and looking over to his wife. ‘Go on, go and get Brigita, I’ll see if I can make something of that girl!’
Samo, who had been woken by Stojan’s booming voice, realized the dangers of a full disclosure of yesterday’s revelry and offered to fetch Brigita instead. ‘I think she went for a morning dip. No one expected you quite so early,’ he apologized, and ran off to the shore.
Jela Krecic Page 28