Jela Krecic Read online

  Even though they got on well and had a good time that evening, neither Matjaž nor Brigita had felt the need to share their most intimate thoughts with each other. However, by the time they were eventually kicked out of Petkovšek, they both wanted to invest further in their new closeness. Brigita took Matjaž’s hand and said, ‘So . . .’

  ‘So, what?’ Matjaž looked at her fondly.

  ‘Maybe it’s time we do something about my piercing, as it intrigues you so much.’

  ‘Really, like what?’ Matjaž smiled and let the red-haired girl press her lips against his. The kiss was slow and he liked it. He liked it so much that he invited Brigita back for a glass of whisky.

  ‘As much as I like the idea, I think we ought to go for a few more beers before we jump ahead to the whisky.’

  ‘Aha’, Matjaž said, somewhat disappointed, ‘but only if you bring your piercing with you.’

  ‘I rarely take it out!’ she consoled him.

  ‘You’re torturing me,’ he groaned, as he imagined her naked with her intimate jewels. She smiled at him nicely. ‘And there’s something else you still owe me, too!’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Your phone number.’

  ‘No, that’ll come next time,’ she said, so assuredly that Matjaž didn’t push it.

  He set off home without even realizing that all night he hadn’t given a single thought to his ten-year relationship with Sara.

  ‘You’re in love,’ Aleksander affirmed. He looked searchingly at his best friend’s face as he put some crisps into a bowl.

  ‘I’m not in love; I’m intrigued,’ Matjaž replied, making himself comfortable on his sofa, in front of the television. The football experts in the studio were already opining on the Spanish league, on the strongest and most expensive players, on goals at home and away, on the advantages of both of these, on the significance of home turf and the right tactics for the away team. The ball being round was also an important factor, or, rather, it was all about the leather being spherical. Even better, they expressed that irrefutable, although unwritten, rule of football: that you never lose a game if the opponent doesn’t score.

  ‘Because she didn’t want to go for a whisky?’ Aleksander asked, refocusing his attention.

  ‘Because she’s got style, because she does things her way.’ Matjaž chose his words carefully.

  ‘You’re such a player, jeez,’ jibed Aleksander. ‘Of course you’re intrigued, but are you interested in the girl or just her ‘decorations’, as you stupidly call them?’

  ‘Not sure about that yet. I get the impression that she’s quite a challenge.’

  ‘What woman isn’t?’

  ‘I know, but at my age a man has to think long and hard before he decides whether a young woman is worth all of that effort.’

  ‘I can see already that your efforts won’t bear any fruit!’

  ‘No, no, my friend, don’t be so pessimistic . . . it’ll soon become clear where we’re at. We’re meeting up on Friday, and then, if it goes as well as last time, I get her phone number . . .’

  ‘You mean she hasn’t given it to you yet? How do you communicate then?’

  ‘Gmail.’

  ‘She really has set the pace.’

  ‘Yes, and it’s andante,’ quipped Matjaž.

  ‘No wonder you’re intrigued. But I’m still worried about what happens when you finally get her phone number.’

  ‘She promised me that maybe then she’ll come over for a whisky.’

  ‘Please tell me that whisky means . . .’ Aleksander sighed, impatiently.

  ‘Yes, it does,’ smiled Matjaž.

  ‘Fucking andante. Now even I’m nervous.’

  ‘No need to be. I have a very, very good feeling about Brigita,’ he said, reassuring his friend.

  ‘I wouldn’t get too carried away with those feelings of yours. Just remember your poker-playing days.’

  ‘Oh that!’ Matjaž waved his arm dismissively. ‘We’re both still here, alive and well.’

  To that Aleksander gave only a knowing cough, reached for the crisps and his beer, and turned up the volume on the television. What was one girl in comparison with El Clásico between Barcelona and Real?

  For their next date, Matjaž went with Brigita to the Kolosej cinema. The film was crap, but it gave Brigita the perfect cue to discuss all the problems with Hollywood. There was a time when they still made good films there, even under the pressure to make profits, but they just didn’t know how to any more. Matjaž told her that she sounded like his grandma, to which she answered that his grandma was clearly a very intelligent young lady. Matjaž replied that he couldn’t agree with that; sure, maybe she was young, but she had certainly never been a lady. Brigita persevered: OK, she was just intelligent then, but Matjaž protested that time, too. He replied diplomatically to Brigita’s question as to whether he agreed with what she had said about Hollywood, saying that the Kolosej never did its films any favours: it was smelly, dirty, scruffy and anyone could see that it might collapse like a house of cards at any moment.

  He suggested that they go and consolé themselves at a similarly smelly, dirty and scruffy place – McDonald’s. To his surprise, Brigita happily agreed, as if the bad film had given her an appetite. When he asked whether she was bothered by the capitalist reputation of this mega-corporation, she replied that at least the issues with it were obvious and out in the open.

  So they sat for some time over two small cheeseburgers and a large fries, musing over this and that. They set themselves the task of finding crucial lapses in the McDonald’s experience and devised ways in which to redeem them. They both agreed, for example, that the fries needed to be cooked in seriously hot oil, and to be taken out and served straight away; otherwise they lost their crispiness. Brigita felt that the taste of the ketchup was too artificial, but that was where they fell out; Matjaž believed the very essence of McDonald’s was its artificiality – it was naturally fake. It became apparent that each of them would save this company in completely different ways (of course, the fact that the company was doing fine without their interventions didn’t bother either of them). Brigita would take a naturalizing approach, using the best-quality ingredients possible, whereas Matjaž would go for an even greater use of chemicals and replace the already artificial foundations of the food with even faker ones. Brigita analysed his theory with suspicion, while Matjaž only smiled at her apologetically.

  When they’d had enough of saving the culinary world, they arrived at Brigita’s favourite topic: art in the context of its historical conditions. She told him about how during the fifties the CIA had supported American modern artists, including her beloved Pollock, as part of their Cold War strategy to expand the USA’s influence in the world. She spiced up the story with a fact about how the American intelligence agency swayed between Pollock and her other favourite, Rothko, but in the end settled upon Pollock because he was more established and behaved like a cowboy. Matjaž expressed his regret that the secret service had not taken an interest in his own photography. It bothered Brigita slightly that he didn’t care if his art were used in order to further specific political propaganda. Matjaž replied that an artist did not always have the luxury of being able to adhere to her Marxist ideals. When he saw Brigita’s somewhat disheartened expression, he said, ‘You know I only say things like that to wind you up.’

  ‘I know, yes. But I don’t see what’s so funny about it.’

  ‘I think that comes from your tendency towards antagonism,’ he tried to explain gently.

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘You know, when you draw attention to all this antagonism in the world, I’m longing be some kind of antagonist for you.’

  ‘Sorry, what?’ She was not going to be convinced.

  ‘Isn’t it kind of beautiful, if the two of us are one big antagonism together? And then we create some kind of beautiful dialectical love?’ Matjaž said, entangling himself.

  ‘I don’t know, maybe it
’s beautiful, but at the same time it’s seriously tiresome.’

  ‘I did think that you were definitely too young for all this antagonism.’

  She looked at him seriously. ‘How can you be so indifferent? Do you have any idea what they did to Haiti?’

  ‘Something bad?’ he smiled.

  ‘Yes, they stifled one of the most authentic revolutions of the nineteenth century. Then, in true colonial style, the French still demanded debt repayments when there had been freedom and independence there for years, as if they still hadn’t taken enough from that subjugated country.’ She paused briefly, then added, ‘Antagonism really is tiring with you! You’re so uneducated.’

  ‘Well, then enlighten me,’ he implored her.

  ‘Didn’t you say I was too young?’ she said to provoke him.

  ‘Oh believe me, you can’t be younger than I am, and as you correctly identify I’m in serious need of an education.’

  ‘Don’t take the piss!’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because I’m very sensitive,’ she added, this time without a jokey or impatient tone. A glance at this strange and vulnerable warrior softened Matjaž, making him stop in the middle of the car park to kiss her.

  ‘Oh, not here, not in public . . .’ She pulled away and looked at the floor, blushing.

  ‘Do you mean to say that you’re ready for that whisky now?’

  ‘Not just yet,’ she smiled. ‘You have, however, despite your shameless provocation, earned my phone number.’

  ‘I don’t understand what all of this antagonism between the two of you is all about, at all,’ Aleksander smirked as he hung out the washing.

  ‘Antagonism is what happens when you are here keeping house while Karla is out getting wasted with her workmates. That is antagonism between the sexes.’

  ‘I know, because all of my joints are hurting after changing the sheets today,’ moaned Aleksander.

  ‘That’s it, aching joints are also a form of antagonism,’ smiled Matjaž.

  ‘And what do you do about it?’

  ‘How should I know, I hardly ever do housework. Ask your wife. She’s got to do something for you, too.’

  ‘Don’t be unfair, you know full well that she sometimes helps me with the cooking,’ said Aleksander, sticking up for Karla.

  ‘Let’s get back to my problem.’

  ‘Antagonism, right.’

  ‘In any case, I don’t understand why she shrinks away like that. It comes to the point where we get close, and then she pulls away.’

  ‘We used to call that being shy,’ theorized Aleksander.

  ‘Stop joking about it. Does it seem normal to you that she doesn’t want to drink whisky, even after the third date?’

  ‘Nothing about you two seems normal to me. How could it, when you go looking for girls in graveyards?’ Aleksander replied, becoming slightly irritated.

  ‘You know full well that I wasn’t looking for her. I just found her there.’

  ‘Same thing. I don’t know why you’re worrying about it, though. You got her phone number, and in my book that means that she’s opened the door.’

  ‘Opened the whisky, you mean?’

  ‘Fifth time lucky, or will it be sixth?’ he said to himself as he got ready for his next date with Brigita. They met at the café at the Ethnographic Museum, where smokers had the honour of outside heaters and blankets and were protected from the wind by a plastic shelter.

  This time she seemed more nicely dressed and made-up, which confirmed his suspicions that this would be the evening for stiff drinks. They started, of course, with something more innocent – a beer – and dedicated some conversation to this light beverage.

  ‘Last year, when I had terrible gastritis, I felt awful all the time – even though I was drinking tea, eating carefully and not smoking, not to mention taking all those tablets – and beer saved me.’

  ‘I know, when you’re hungover and – ’

  ‘No, seriously,’ she interrupted him. ‘It was the first time in half a year that I felt a sense of huge relief. The fog cleared, the darkness lifted – ’

  ‘Are you sure that it actually lifted?’ he observed doubtfully, looking at her pretty but very black outfit.

  ‘You never take me seriously!’ she complained.

  ‘Rubbish. At this moment there’s nothing I take more seriously than you.’

  ‘Really?’ she asked softly.

  He nodded, preoccupied trying to look as it he were thinking seriously. He knew it was the only way he would earn a bit of sweetness. Then he steadied his palms and softly stroked her hair as he kissed her.

  When their lips softly parted, they fell silent for a while and then lit their cigarettes at almost exactly the same moment.

  ‘We never talk about love,’ observed Brigita, without any kind of explicit undertone.

  ‘I completely disagree. Last time we talked about food, today about beer . . . You talk to me about Marx. As far as I’m concerned, love is the only thing we talk about,’ he remarked playfully.

  ‘No, I don’t mean that kind of love. You never ask me about my past,’ Brigita said.

  ‘If there’s anything you’d like to talk to me about, I offer you all the ears I have,’ he replied encouragingly.

  ‘But then I don’t ask you either,’ she added, as if anticipating his answer, ‘because I’ve got a feeling you don’t want to talk about it.’

  ‘Just ask!’

  ‘OK, what happened with your ex-girlfriend?’

  The question threw Matjaž but he very quickly returned a smile. ‘I don’t want to talk about that.’

  ‘You see . . . you’re impossible!’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he began seriously. ‘I just don’t understand what the fact that I once had a girl that I loved has to do with the two of us. It’s in the past, where I no longer am; neither is she, and that’s how it should be,’ he said with self-assurance.

  ‘I know I’m taking this too far, but it’s always seemed to me that love isn’t just when you love someone now and in the past, but also onwards and for ever. In that sense love is eternal – because you love somebody past and future, before you’re even together.’

  ‘Young lady, you seem to be talking as if you are on the brink of love yourself,’ he said, wanting to somehow ease the gravity of her words.

  ‘But that’s exactly what I’m doubting, because neither of us have any interest in falling for our past selves, only from now onwards.’

  ‘Maybe we just want to start from zero,’ he said cautiously.

  ‘It’s impossible to start from zero,’ she replied irritably.

  ‘And you’re supposed to be some kind of revolutionary!’

  ‘Revolution’s got nothing to do with it,’ she said, looking down.

  ‘Of course it has, revolution counts its own time, a new time for love!’ Matjaž finished grandiosely.

  They drank and smoked a bit more, and told each other childhood stories. Matjaž found out, among other things, that Brigita was a very clumsy child who by some miracle had never sustained a serious injury, while her older and much daintier sister was a frequent visitor to A&E. The funniest thing was that Brigita was jealous of the plaster cast that her sister got for her broken arm – it seemed so chic and fancy to her to have a plaster cast on which children could leave drawings and messages such as ‘Ana was here’. Brigita learned that Matjaž was a very calm little boy, endlessly stuck in books and with no wish to play with other children his age – so much so that his parents took him to see a psychiatrist when he was seven years old. It was the psychiatrist who established that the boy was very bright and had fairly stupid parents, although he didn’t tell them that in quite so many words. He promised them that puberty would do its work, and it really did – and some more. It contributed to such changes in Matjaž that for a time his secondary-school-educated parents started seeing councillors and psychiatrists themselves.

  ‘And? How did it all work out?’


  ‘As you see now. I grew into a quite handsome and exceedingly honourable young man.’ Brigita burst out laughing. ‘And your parents?’ she enquired.

  ‘They didn’t come off so well. They separated, and each one regularly sees a therapist.’

  ‘Do you know what?’ she asked, as she lit a cigarette decisively.

  ‘What?’ he looked at her dreamily.

  ‘I’m thinking that today I’d go for . . . for a whisky. But I’m not sure – ’

  ‘O, revolution!’ he interrupted her, with an over-enthusiastic smile. ‘I’m not sure if whisky helps with gastritis, but if you don’t have gastritis it definitely can’t hurt.’

  The improvised quip clearly worked. They quickly settled the bill and headed to Matjaž’s place.

  They hadn’t even touched the whisky when they started kissing more clumsily and Matjaž began to stroke Brigita all over her body. As he did, she started flinching and smiling.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Nothing, I’m just ticklish,’ she said, embarrassed.

  Matjaž tried again, this time more passionately and enthusiastically. It was clear that Brigita had surrendered herself to his caresses, but the giggles kept escaping from her. Despite this, Matjaž had somehow succeeded in removing her long jumper so she was now just in her bra. As he went to undo it, she pulled back with a start. He looked at her questioningly, and when no words came out of her mouth he said softly, ‘Maybe we should chat a bit more.’

  She nodded ashamedly, and they sat silently drinking whisky. It seemed to Matjaž that time was dragging on and that he’d no longer be steaming ahead on his previously imagined trajectory. After a few difficult minutes of silence Brigita said, ‘I thought it would work . . . you know, because I like you. And because you’re one of the rare good guys and silly and funny . . .’