Jela Krecic Read online

  ‘Me neither, at this moment in time,’ he replied, racking his brains for some interesting, unproblematic topic. ‘In that case we’re left with the environment,’ he suggested, with hope in his eyes.

  ‘No, I don’t like nature,’ she swiftly rejected.

  ‘Me neither,’ he remembered suddenly.

  ‘I’ll do as much light polluting as I like,’ she added frankly.

  ‘That makes two of us!’ he said, quickly becoming enthusiastic about the idea. The two of them fell silent for a while, both absorbed in their own thoughts. She looked at him cautiously, and with a smile in the corners of her mouth she said, ‘We could talk about sex.’ She blushed as she said it, but it was too dim outside for anyone else to notice. Alarmed, Matjaž looked at her and said ‘No no, too early for sex. We need something more subtle for our first meeting.’

  ‘What about the weather?’ suggested Saša.

  ‘Of course, the weather, why didn’t I think of that before!’ Matjaž was impressed. ‘And what do you think of the weather today?’

  ‘Not bad. It could be a little bit warmer,’ she replied, stroking her bare legs.

  ‘You see, look how well we get along!’ cheered Matjaž.

  ‘Are the evenings too cold for you now, too?’ continued Saša.

  ‘No, this is ideal for me, but I’m entirely receptive to other opinions.’

  ‘In that case I can add that I love the heat, the real crazy summer heat. I even like the summer humidity,’ she continued bravely.

  ‘Really? Come on, that seems like a rather extreme position to take,’ Matjaž said, alarmed.

  ‘Didn’t you say you were open to all kinds of weather?’ Saša looked at him confrontationally.

  ‘If I’m completely honest, I’d be open to the odd drop of rain right now,’ he remarked modestly.

  ‘A drop of rain here and there never hurt anyone,’ she smiled sweetly.

  ‘That’s just as well. If I put you under an umbrella, could you withstand a proper, full-on downpour too?’

  ‘I wouldn’t go as far as a downpour, the most I can stand under an umbrella is a light drizzle.’

  ‘Drizzle’s one thing, but does that mean I can’t interest you in a summer storm?’ Matjaž asked, testing the boundaries.

  ‘Outside or at home?’ Saša enquired.

  ‘Wherever.’

  ‘OK, I’ll take the storm, if I’m safe and sheltered indoors. Can I take you, on the other hand, to a beautiful beach on the Dalmatian coast, midday on a lovely hot sunny day?’

  ‘You can, if you set me up with some sort of pine forest there.’

  ‘OK, there’s always space for at least a pine tree.’

  ‘What are your feelings on snow?’ he enquired.

  ‘No, I don’t get on with snow at all,’ she said decisively.

  ‘What? You don’t allow it even for a snowman?’

  ‘All right then. One snowman, somewhere around Krvavec,’ she allowed.

  ‘I guess that means sleet won’t make it through either, then,’ Matjaž suggested tentatively.

  ‘No, none. Anything remotely connected to ice does not do it for me.’ She sighed matter-of-factly and took a sip of her drink.

  ‘Not even a bit of frost around Christmas?’ he asked, trying his luck.

  ‘A centimetre of snow can fall at Christmas,’ she allowed.

  ‘I thought you said that you didn’t get on well with snow?’

  ‘I don’t, but for Christmas I’m giving you a centimetre of snow,’ she smiled.

  ‘Thank you kindly. May I offer you a pleasant summer’s breeze in return?’

  ‘Be more specific. To me, wind is fundamentally unnecessary.’

  ‘Gosh, if our weather reporters could hear you being so picky about the weather. It isn’t here to be questioned, it just is.’

  ‘But they’ll never find out about our dream weather,’ she said simply. Her point seemed an important one to Matjaž.

  ‘Would you be happy about the wind if it was thirty-eight or forty degrees outside? Can there at least be a small breeze in the evening?’

  ‘There can, but only enough to blow away any potential clouds.’

  ‘Fog doesn’t stand a chance then with you, then?’

  ‘No, only if I’m looking at it from afar, from a small sunlit hill.’

  ‘Not from Triglav?’

  ‘Nah, I’m not a bit fan of summits.’ She shrugged her lovely shoulders.

  ‘Me neither.’ They smiled and shook hands. She had a small but strong palm.

  ‘Anticyclones are the only things that get you going, clearly,’ Matjaž surmised.

  ‘Oh, no, I’m not anti-anything. I’m very positive; as long as the cyclones go where they’re wanted.’

  ‘Like to Africa?’ he asked.

  ‘I’ve no idea where they need them, just as long as they don’t come here.’ She lowered her head in embarrassment and took a small sip, as if she were being interrogated.

  ‘Agreed.’ He thought for a while, as if trying to put two and two together, and decided that he needed further clarification. ‘If I’ve got this right, even spring isn’t quite right for you.’

  ‘No. I think spring is really hypocritical. The afternoon can be warm, but in the evening you catch a chill,’ she explained.

  ‘I get you. What about the grey area that is May?’

  ‘You should know by now that I don’t like grey areas. I’m sorry, but to me the blossoming in May is just nature tarting around.’ She pulled a face.

  ‘No need to apologize, I’d just like to clear these things up. So for you life begins in June then.’

  ‘Basically, yes. When the days get long enough, I’m somehow longer, too. I mean, more lively.’

  ‘September?’

  ‘Maybe, if I’m by the sea – far enough south, obviously. By then it’s already a bit . . .’ She faltered.

  ‘Wow, you’re a demanding girl. I’d rather not ask about October.’

  ‘By then I’m slowly starting to prepare for hibernation,’ she said, rubbing her hands together.

  ‘Well, we’ve arrived at something!’ Matjaž was happy.

  ‘At what?’ She looked at him, surprised.

  ‘At a weather forecast.’

  ‘Yes, but what kind?’

  ‘Imagine: outside there’s your thirty-five degrees, it’s evening. You’ve cheered up entirely, I’m slowly dying and you take pity on me.’

  ‘No, sorry, I don’t take pity on you at all. My great-grandmother said to never take pity on a man.’

  ‘OK, well if we’re including your great-grandmother in this forecast, you can just decide that you’re going to put me in a slightly better mood.’

  ‘Are you in a bad mood?’ Saša worried.

  ‘Not really, but at thirty-five degrees in the evening I’m not at my strongest, if you know what I mean,’ he concluded.

  ‘So how do I put you in a better frame of mind, then?’

  ‘Like this . . . you take me to an air-conditioned dance floor –’

  ‘Oh no, I don’t want air-conditioning!’ she protested.

  ‘Seriously? You won’t cool things down a little bit, even for dancing?’ Matjaž finished his beer.

  ‘OK, if you want – but only a little bit. Only down to thirty degrees.’

  ‘Thanks!’ he grinned.

  ‘And once we’re on this air-conditioned dance floor?’ she enquired.

  ‘Then,’ he continued, as carefully as if he were trying to salvage peace negotiations in the Middle East, ‘then you spin me around, nice and slowly, and you softly wrap your arms around my shoulders, as if I were that gentle breeze that you never knew you needed until now.’

  Such a weather forecast clearly appealed to Saša. She embraced him gently and placed a delicate kiss on his cheek, which slowly shifted into a longer, sunnier, almost sultry kiss on the mouth. The movement of her body made Matjaž think that anatomy might be as interesting and appealing a subject as meteorology. />
  When Matjaž awoke the next morning, his memory of the previous evening was not good. His hand hoped to reach for a glass of water, but instead ran into a body. ‘Oops,’ he thought. He looked at what he’d poked, rubbed his eyes and said out loud, ‘Oops!’ The girl opened her eyes and gave him a big smile.

  ‘Kara, Lara, Anja . . .’ His head was spinning.

  ‘Good morning,’ she said.

  ‘And who are you?’ He looked at her confusedly, failing to remember who this girl in his bed was, with the tousled hair and smudged lipstick.

  Saša laughed. ‘I’m a mirage.’

  ‘I really have to stop drinking so much,’ mumbled Matjaž.

  ‘Why?’ she asked him, still smiling.

  Matjaž liked her response. ‘That is not a bad answer, Mrs.’ Saša blushed, smiled and snuggled up to him like a kid to a mummy goat. It was at this point that it became clear to Matjaž that he did not want her in his bed.

  ‘What are we going to do today, Matjaž?’ asked Saša, full of joy.

  ‘Who told you my name?’

  ‘You did.’

  He closed his eyes. ‘I have to start being more careful about who I tell my secrets to.’

  ‘I’m sure you’re not a secret,’ she said, stroking his shoulder.

  ‘Just ask my parents!’ He looked at her seriously and ran his fingers through his hair.

  ‘So, what are we doing today?’ Saša chirped happily.

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Great, that’s my favourite thing to do!’

  ‘No, no, Mrs – ’ Matjaž began with a hoarse voice.

  ‘Miss!’ she interrupted him.

  ‘So, Miss, my dear, you haven’t understood. We’re not going to be doing anything today, do you understand?’

  ‘Yeah, we can both laze around,’ she laughed enthusiastically.

  ‘No, no, no. You can do nothing wherever you please, but just leave me in peace.’

  ‘Yeah, what are you doing then?’

  ‘That is none of your business.’

  ‘But how can it be none of my business?’ Saša retorted angrily. ‘After all the fronts, seasons and dancing in testing climates that we went through yesterday, I deserve some kind of forecast for today!’

  Her words slightly confused Matjaž. He had only a fleeting notion that the fronts were something weather-related, and that the weather was related to everything else that he couldn’t remember.

  ‘The forecast is like this, Miss: take yourself away on that gust of wind that brought you here.’

  ‘I wasn’t brought here by any gust of wind, are you crazy? You brought me here!’

  ‘Mrs Miss, I’m sure that yesterday evening, or night, was unforgettable, but now I have to try to forget about it!’

  ‘But I don’t understand!’ persisted Saša. ‘Yesterday we got engaged in the most perfect weather!’

  For a moment Matjaž considered this, then quickly continued, ‘No, you see, it’s exactly those kinds of things that I have to try to forget!’

  ‘No, why would you do that? This ring, here, that you made from a ring pull and put on me, it shows that we promised ourselves to one another, and I don’t intend to take it off just like that!’ Saša cried desperately.

  ‘What am I supposed to say? You can keep the ring if you like, but there won’t be a wedding!’

  ‘You’re a . . . you’re a . . . you’re a scumbag!’ she stuttered, trying to articulate her rage.

  ‘Spot on – and a drunken scumbag at that. Now let’s go! Chop chop!’

  The young Saša got angrily out of bed. From the doorway, where she stood a minute later, she shouted curtly, ‘And that centimetre of snow that I gave you for Christmas? I’m taking it back!’

  ‘How did it end with the pretty blonde?’ Aleksander asked Matjaž the next evening, the two men sat outside the same Petkovšek bar once again. Aleksander couldn’t help but notice how the previous evening his friend had completely forgotten about him in the midst of female company.

  ‘In bed and with an engagement,’ said Matjaž, keeping it short.

  ‘Aah!’ Aleksander was impressed. ‘Well done, well done. The only thing I’d say is that you might be rushing into things a bit, mate. But the girl is cute and well, pretty gifted, so I’ll be the last one to judge.’

  ‘There’s no need for celebration. The engagement’s off, and she’s no longer in my bed.’

  ‘But why? I don’t get it!’ Aleksander protested. ‘How can you turn down an opportunity of such beautiful proportions?’

  ‘I think we’d have to know each other a bit better before getting engaged,’ Matjaž said soberly.

  ‘I agree, but maybe you could have held on to her for . . . well, you know, and then weighed up whether her personality suited you.’

  ‘I guarantee you that there was no personality there, and I am not that superficial,’ Matjaž replied convincingly, reaching for his beer.

  It was then that Karla arrived and sat down at their table. She gave a perfunctory kiss to her husband and turned enthusiastically towards Matjaž.

  ‘What are you smiling at?’ Matjaž asked her.

  ‘I heard you had a wild night with a stunning blonde. So? How is she?’

  ‘She’s not.’

  ‘What do you mean? Aleksander said that you confessed she was the woman of your dreams.’

  Matjaž scratched his head, not recalling that exchange with his friend. He replied calmly, ‘As I said to Saša, never trust the beer when it speaks from a man’s mouth.’

  ‘How long are you going to hide behind that beer mask?’ she snapped, getting angry.

  ‘Karla’, he turned towards her and said sincerely, ‘I think we both know that it is not a mask.’

  ‘That’s an easy way out,’ she retorted, a little more calmly.

  ‘Really? You think so? Why don’t you try manoeuvring a girl, full of alcohol, into your bed and then driving her out again when you wake up. That is hard work!’

  ‘You know exactly what I’m talking about,’ she said impatiently. ‘You’re not prepared to commit!’

  ‘Believe me, it’s at the top of my agenda, but I’m not going to marry every stunning Saša that comes my way just because she can stand the summer heat.’

  BRIGITA

  He met Brigita on All Saints’ Day. In the evening he had set out for the graveyard with his camera, looking for interesting subjects. As he lost himself among the numerous graves, the crowds slowly made their way back to the land of the living and the tranquillity of peaceful candles descended over Žale.

  It was then he caught sight of a girl on a bench under a tree. She was dressed in a long black leather coat, with a hat covering what seemed in the candlelight to be a heap of unruly red hair. She occasionally wound a strand of it around her finger, bringing it up towards her lips as if chewing it nervously. He noticed the cover of the book in which she was engrossed: Marx’s Capital. It seemed a bit out of place and heavy-going to him, but he decided it was worth a photo. It could make an amusing shot, he thought to himself. He was far enough away for her to not immediately notice his activities.

  As he focused on her face, he saw that he liked it. It was pale, distinguished by her severe, uneasy expression and stern features but softened by her lips. And, if he was not mistaken, by her big blue eyes too, although with the enormous amount of black eyeshadow all over them he couldn’t be quite sure of the colour. Her lower lip was punctured with a piercing, a decoration repeated once more on her eyebrow. A red-haired version of Larsson’s Girl with a Dragon Tattoo, he thought to himself, only in this case the probable tattoos were covered by her clothes. He took some time framing his close-up of this unusual beauty, but his photographic subject kept her gaze – quite an angry gaze – fixed elsewhere. Suddenly the girl stood up and shouted, ‘Hey! Hey! What are you doing? What are you playing at, you pervert?’

  Matjaž turned and marched away, but she caught up with him and firmly grabbed hold of his jacket.


  ‘Well, what are you doing? Go on, delete it!’

  ‘No, no, look, the photos are symbolic, they’re for the Marx . . . you can’t see you at all,’ he excused himself, clumsily.

  ‘And who are you taking those for?’

  ‘For a newspaper.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘For Delo.’

  ‘I got that, I’m asking for your motive.’

  ‘It’s All Saints’ Day.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And we’re commemorating it in the newspaper.’

  ‘What a load of crap!’ After a short pause, she continued, ‘I don’t care anyway, delete it. I don’t want to be dragged through the papers.’

  ‘But it’s not about you, it’s about Marx and the dead. That’s much more interesting.’ Matjaž replied, becoming somewhat more confident.

  ‘How funny that my life makes a useful representation of death, but still no thanks. My Žale is my own, and my Marx in Žale is mine alone, too.’ She was determined.

  Matjaž realized that she would be a tough nut to crack. He took his camera, pressed a few buttons and gave it to her. ‘Look how beautiful you are.’

  The girl glanced at the photos and snorted, ‘Oh piss off, will you, with your “beautiful” Delete them all!’

  ‘But I’m convinced this is the best photo from Žale that anyone has taken today, probably ever!’ Matjaž pleaded helplessly.

  ‘Listen, moron. Once again – I am not going to be your poster girl for All Saints’ Day, get it?’

  ‘Why not? Don’t you like the dead?’

  ‘Fine, let’s put it this way: given that the only people I like are those in a deceased state, I do not want to be in a newspaper for the living.’

  ‘I’m no promoter of the afterlife, but at the same time I don’t see any evidence to suggest that your deceased don’t read Delo.’

  That made her smile. They agreed to compromise between the living and the dead, and chose an image where her face was indistinguishable but where Marx could be seen clearly beside a grave.

  Such reconciliations must be celebrated. And where better than the Billiard House, a haven for persecuted smokers, the living dead of this world. Matjaž quickly learned that the girl’s name was Brigita and that she studied economics. She had applied to the Faculty of Economics to study the framework of this – in her words – quasi-science, so she could find a way of implementing Marx’s ideas within the world of modern economics.