‘GOGI, GOGI, GO-GI!’
‘Ye-es?’
‘YOU’RE A LITTLE GRO-GGY!’
Danijela laughed.
Zlaja cautioned me: a yacht and several sailboats had dropped anchor close to us. People were asleep in them, Zlaja believed.
That completely pissed me off:
‘Jeez, man! Do you have to go to open sea to be able to shout a little? Why in the world are these people even sleeping? They’re on holiday! They can sleep when they get home! I’m not even shouting that loud!’
‘Not so negative,’ Zlaja whispered. ‘It’s going so well now. Women hate that stuff.’
I dove down headfirst and back up again. I threw my hair back:
‘All that shit from your mum’s magazines, man. I don’t understand how you can be bothered to read all that shit!’
Isabella helped Mateja onto the raft. Zlaja and the two of them hopped on the spot in order to stay warm. I wanted to go back in the water straight away, but Danijela asked:
‘How’s it going with your lip?’
‘Bad,’ I said. ‘I think I’ll have to go to the doctor.’
‘Don’t say that.’
‘It’s swollen.’
‘Can’t I take a look?’
‘Mmmmm-no!’
She did it anyway. Her fingers touched my cheek.
‘It’s not that bad,’ she said and stroked me. ‘It just needs a little ciggy.’
Pause. One heartbeat. Two. Five.
‘Have you got any?’
She laughed:
‘Not here.’
Shit. It was completely maternal, that stroking.
CODE
Gogi was wrapped in my towel when we got out of the water. He was smoking a fag and complaining that he was now fucking cold.
‘Not so negative!’ I forwarded Zlaja’s critique. ‘Not so negative, Gogi!’
My teeth started to chatter when I was changing into my trousers.
‘What about nabbing a room in D3?’ Zlaja said.
‘D3?’ Mateja wondered. ‘What’s D3?’
‘A code!’ I laughed. ‘We can only speak in code for the rest of the night. Hey, U2? UB40 in D3?’
While Zlaja explained to the girls what D3 was, Gogi told me that Fric and him had recently broken into one of the rooms on the ground floor. On the other side of the building – the one not facing D2 – there was a gravel path down the incline. You could easily jump over the narrow drain between the path and the balcony and crawl over the railing.
‘Broke in is maybe going too far,’ Gogi whispered. ‘I opened the balcony door from inside. Sergio and I had to find a bedside table for my mum. Fric needed the room.’
‘Oh! What did he do in there?’
‘Slept.’
‘With who?’
‘Nobody. The shit at home again.’
‘Hm.’
‘The old man was going to kill him.’
I banged my shins on this and that while I searched for a pillow in vain. You couldn’t see a fucking finger in the dark.
The two beds in the room were pushed together, and we threw ourselves onto the bare mattresses. On the other side of the gravel path was a small private campsite. The guests and people who came past were the only ones who would be able to hear us. I was afraid of the latter, mostly. If there was one thing I did not need then it was to be caught doing something illegal by that psychopath Bruno. On the other hand there was a seventy percent chance that the madman was not out patrolling, but sleeping behind the counter. That was what he was did most of the times I walked past.
‘Draw the curtains,’ I said to Zlaja.
‘It’s already dark in here,’ he whispered. ‘Relax. He won’t come, he’s sleeping.’
There was not room for all six of us on the beds. Someone would have to lie on the floor, and that was Gogi and Isabella. Mateja lay on Danijela’s right side, right where I would have preferred to lie. When she got up to search for her lighter, I asked:
‘Is this spot free?’
‘Of course,’ Danijela replied.
We shared the last cigarettes. Zlaja, Mateja, Danijela and I lay partially leant up against the wall, with our hips close to one another I did not know what to do with my left arm. The silhouettes of the objects in the room gradually became clearer.
We talked very little and with gradually longer pauses. Most words came out of Gogi’s mouth. He told us about the time he was in the military in Slovenia. It was during the ten-day-war three summers ago.
He was stationed in Nova Gorica and did not care much for the city:
Either it rained, or the sun shone. It was enough to drive you crazy.
After the retreat he was discharged and sent home. He was given papers stating that he was not unfit. Of course he did not mention it that night.
‘Why?’ I had once asked him.
‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘Something about the psyche.’
He had screamed and shouted ‘I want to go home, I want to go home’ one night in the dormitory. The way he explained, he had done it on purpose. As if he was screwing with them. In reality it was the other way round. The YPA were screwing him. When he got home, a new war was waiting for him. One that was bigger. One where he was the enemy.
Now he threw Slovenian phrases about to impress the ladies. Zlaja yawned and answered ‘M-mm … m-mm’ to Mateja’s whispering. Danijela took a proper drag and handed a dying fag to Mateja. At that very moment my fingers settled on Danijela’s bare elbow. Entirely of their own accord. They slowly began to caress her forearm.
The others in the room had no idea what was going on, and it turned me on like crazy. Almost more than our whispering and the silence and the fact that it was forbidden to be where we were. It was a little like stealing grapes and figs, just with far greater bonus adrenaline kick. Bruno was asleep behind the counter and had no idea that we were here enjoying ourselves.
Danijela pretended like nothing had happened. She continued to participate in the conversation with the others, and I did the same.
If she moves her arm, I thought, I’ll die on the spot. If she does not respond – the same thing.
She did not move it, she twisted it.
I stroked the inside of her arm and continued down towards her fingers.
Yes!
Her hand in mine.
Micky the happy. Micky loves the world, I thought, nearly suffocated by the beating of my own heart. Micky wants more. And more and more and more!
Danijela placed her head on my chest and let her hand crawl up under my T-shirt. Ten centimetres from the spot where it counted! I guided our interweaved fingers away from my groin. I was sold. Naked and erect underneath the cut-off Diesels. The rough denim helped. The drop was on its way out. Gogi burped and excused himself. Everyone laughed.
‘Your heart is pounding like mad,’ she whispered in my ear.
‘Just guess why,’ I whispered back.
Her lips felt softer than I had believed possible. Her tongue was small and fat. It was no bigger than a ripe strawberry, but it just tasted completely different.
Stimulated by a mixture of peppermint, nicotine and the scent of hair conditioner; I stuck my nose into her moist hair and breathed loudly through it.
Goodbye, you stupid and uncomfortable rocks, lonely park benches and the city steps. A special day has arrived. Now I’m finally kissing indoors! Between four walls, on an actual bed. One day it will be with pillows, duvets and covers. Take that, Ukulele’s orange plastic armchair. You’ve been surpassed.
The closest thing to indoor furniture I have ever managed was with Jelena at Ukulele. She kept an eye on her digital watch while we tried to beat our old record. Kissing marathon, she called it.
Now I lay on my side on the not exactly aired out mattress and felt up Danijela’s bare thigh. Was it the very same leg she kicked me with? She had prickly hairs. They itched and needed shaving.
Zlaja, the shaggy beast, no longer spoke. Even Gogi kept his
mouth shut. I wished that they and their girls would take off somewhere else. Or that Danijela and I could. But outside it was getting light. The door to the corridor was closed and locked. All the empty rooms on the ground floor were so close and yet so bloody far away. All the beds behind the locked doors. All the locks.
If D3 really had been a code, it probably would have meant ‘a bitter place to be for Micky full of lust!’
CHURCH TOWER
Still frustrated, I swayed home with Gogi. At the entrance to D1, after a long period of silence, he let out a muffled and squeaking sound:
‘I have an iron the size of a church tower!’
‘Same here.’
We reached the second floor.
‘No,’ he said, ‘it must be something else for you. A mosque tower … or no … what is it called again?’
‘Minaret,’ I laughed. ‘Damn are you ever crude!’
‘Remember to check!’
‘You're mad!’
‘Good night, neighbour.’
‘Good night, Gogi.’
Mum and Dad were already awake. They sat out on the balcony drinking their morning coffee. Masturbating was out.
Onanism the same.
GERMAN AND ENGLISH
Radivoje Radisavljević, the popular actor from Belgrade, nicknamed Raša, made his career in a series of partisan films in the sixties and seventies. As a rule he played a young, brave partisan who shoots Germans in masses and very rarely was overpowered and killed in the most cowardly way. In the eighties he did advertisements for shaving foam, was a guest on various TV series and a host on the children’s programme, House, House, Small House, which I was a big fan of. Once I got the days of the week wrong and was so inconsolable afterwards, that Dad had to ring the TV station to find out if they could re-broadcast the episode in question.
I knew that Raša’s villa was in the vicinity of Zlaja’s house. And that like so many other Serbian properties by the sea it was uninhabited. But I had no idea that Zlaja’s mum looked after it, aired it out and weeded the garden. Not until Zlaja told me about Miraja, his Dutch chick with the strange name. Miraja had taken Zlaja’s virginity in Raša’s villa the previous summer.
For that reason I felt a little rush in my stomach the day after the D3 incident when he pulled out a bunch of keys from his pocket and started to rattle them in front of my nose. I knew what he was hinting at. I could figure out his plan.
We sat at the tip of the peninsula, drinking cans of beer and wine from two one-and-a-half litre Fanta bottles. A freckled guy by the name of Martin was partying with us that evening. Thanks to him I had my first Heineken. He was Miraja’s cousin or something along those lines, and Zlaja knew him from the previous summer. As far as I could understand, he had a friend stationed as a UN soldier somewhere near Goražde or Žepa.
Martin studied history at uni and wanted to write an essay about the former Yugoslavia. But he had to abandon it. It was too complicated. He zapped between Ustashe, Chetniks, the Kosovo Field, Ottomans, Tito, Austria- Hungary, north, south, east and west, all the while shaking his head and repeating what turned out to be his favourite phrase:
‘Complicated.’
I got completely exhausted from listening to him. He obviously thought I knew more about it than Zlaja. He only looked at me.
Then he asked how the war started in my hometown.
I gave him the shortest version. But that too was difficult. I got mixed up in loads of long, complicated English sentences about how our own people fired at us, while the Serbs shot at their own, since both one and the other kind lived on either side of the front. He said, ‘complicated’ yet again and asked:
‘And how did you manage to escape from Bosnia?’
‘Aargh, it’s a long story.’
‘Why?’
‘I don't know. We were evacuated.’
‘To Croatia?’
‘No. To a Serbian town.’
‘What happened then?’
‘Many things happened. We were in prison … and hungry.’
‘In a concentration camp?’
‘No, in prison. They took young men in a camp. Later. But it is a long story.’
‘What happened then?’
‘Nothing. They drived … drove men away and give us to Bosnian army. It is a very long story. Very complicated … and long.’
I had not even given all the details to Kaća. So why should I give them to you, mate, I thought. I may be drinking your beer, and you seem very nice, but I do not enjoy talking about it.
Martin rustled his bag and handed me another Heineken. I had a knot in my stomach and continued to have for several hours after. It was going to take a lot of cabs of Dutch lager to wash that muck away.
Raša’s villa was situated on a hill. The view was probably beautiful from the balcony, but we did not get to see it that night, when the lock opened and we snuck in. Zlaja stressed that we should not open the windows or switch on the big lights. Preferably no sign of life should be visible.
‘No big problem, just can’t be bothered to discuss it with the old one.’
‘Ah, so you nicked the keys?’
‘My present to you.’
‘Can I sleep in Raša’s bed?’
‘You can do whatever you like in it.’
Apart from Zlaja and I, the three Slovenian mermaids, Martin and Fric were also present. None of us could find Gogi that day, and Isabelle seemed a little moody at first.
‘Wow!’
Mateja was fired up about being in Raša’s villa. It was something.
I took a curved wooden sword down from the wall above the mantelpiece and started to wave the loathsome souvenir.
Fric replied with some karate kicks, but accidentally stumbled over an island of cow hides. The rug, which lay in the middle of the room’s parquet floor, was uneven at the edge.
‘Mooooo!’ I scorned him.
He got up and tried again.
Zlaja asked us to be a little more grown-up.
I fenced with the curved sword a little more. Waved it around like a tipsy musketeer. But the dark thoughts would not disappear. They continued to buzz in my drunken head.
It was Martin’s fault. When we put out the fire and headed towards Raša’s villa, he continued where he let off by the fire. I don’t know what he was fishing for. Personally I had never been very interested in any one of the same sex. The best thing about Zlaja, Fric and Gogi was precisely the fact that they never asked those kinds of questions. If there was one thing we did not talk about, then it was war. But Martin was indefatigable:
‘Are you Catholic or Muslim?’
‘No, no, I’m a pioneer.’
‘A pioneer?’
‘Yeah.’
‘A pioneer of what?’
‘Of Tito.’
Or when I told him that the Serbs locked us inside a gymnasium the first day after the evacuation:
‘And what happened then?’
‘Nothing. We slept well. Very well. And in the morning they took all young boys out. From ten to fifteen years.’
‘Really?’
‘Yeah, I was there too. I was fourteen.’
‘Oh! And what did they do?’
‘They put us into buses, two buses, and drove us to a big wood. Big green wood with trees and flowers and the water! And then …’
Pause.
I took a small sip of beer. I waited.
‘And then?’ he said. ‘What happened then?’
‘And then they gave us a ukulele each!’
‘WHAT?’
‘Yeah, so we could jam a little.’
Not even that made him stop. No matter how much I took the piss out of him, he just laughed along, took a break, spoke to the others and then returned with brand new questions. He got up every time I clocked him one.
Maybe he was still working on that essay, who knows. Maybe I had misunderstood him. No matter what, then he was well on his way to fucking up my night. All kinds of thoughts whizzed thr
ough my brain. All kinds of images followed:
Mister No in a tight blue cardigan. The bag with his clothes at my feet. Chinaman and Double-chin. Drizzle. The wailing woman wearing the headscarf. Mandić’s battered face. The soldier who grabbed Mister No and dragged him away, away, away …
I kept waving the sword, I laughed and talked a lot. I would not let go of the sword. But one image led to another, and the film I had not desired to see continued to play in my mind’s eye. Even the large sitting room in Raša’s white villa with the fancy furniture and peculiar things on the walls began to remind me about ‘the good old days.’ I thought about how obsessed I was with growing up back when I followed Raša’s programme. How I never wanted to be one of the children he called comrades, but him. How I could hardly wait to start secondary school, Mister No’s school, which I had heard so much about.
Now Raša’s programme, the car, the gymnasium and Neno were far away, and I stood in Raša’s villa in Majbule of all places and wished I could merge with the smell of the room’s fancy furniture. I wanted to lose myself in the bloody here and now just like the previous night, out there in the water and on the mattress in D3.
How could I be so far away from that now? That happened no more than twenty-hours ago. How could a couple of questions in fluent English thrust me aside from a super-cozy evening?
I shouted to Zlaja:
‘Hey, where’s the wine?’
He had found a small radio in the kitchen and was looking for a certain station with the sound at full blast.
‘Not Radio Zagreb, man!’ I protested. ‘They only play shit. And then there’s the news.’
‘No, you got to listen to this.’
He found a local station with a night programme and a host who was not too crazy. He also played pop between the good old rock classics, but despite everything not the worst shit like Dr Alban and Ace of Base and other commercial shit with synthesiser, digital drums and infantile lyrics sung by money-grubbing adults.
‘Welcome to the Hotel California, tant-ranta-tan-ta-ta …’ they played, and Danijela and I danced to the final two choruses. Plus the solo. Plus the next number. I drank more. I laughed more. I felt like dancing, dancing, dancing! I dropped to one knee in front of Danijela and asked her for one more dance. She told me I was the strangest guy she had ever met. I told her she was mean. I told her she was beautiful. I told her she must not go home and leave Majbule.
Ukulele Jam Page 24