“We do… but we’re not in touch anymore, since we came to Zagreb.”
“Why?”
“You’re really pushing it today. I don’t know, we haven’t seen them in, like, a hundred years. No one’s been pushing for us to get together.”
“I’m not pushing it—I just want to know. And what about your friends from the secret club? Are you still in touch with them?”
“Why do you care? No, I’m not in touch with anyone from Međimurje. What more do you want from me? I haven’t been there in twenty years. It’s crawling with rednecks and hicks. I don’t know what I’d do there or who I’d talk to.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means you’re giving me the third degree, the sun’s burning my skin, and yesterday we overdid it with cocktails so my head’s pounding. I’ve had enough of the beach. Can we go?”
“We just got here an hour ago. What’s wrong with you?”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake. You always stay on the beach until you’re, like, cooked. I can’t just sit in one place for a couple of hours, I go bananas. I get nauseated.”
“What’s going on with you?”
“I’m going home. Call when you want me to come get you. Bye.”
“Fine, go—you’re acting weird anyway. There’s always something going on with you. What a crank.”
“We have to be honest. Lay out the brutal truth, come what may. Likewise, we have to be good at separating the big things from the minor shit. No sweating the small stuff.”
“It was hilarious, you should’ve seen it. Book events are high-society shindigs in these backwaters. The middle-aged ladies—teachers, the doctor, the registrar—go to the hairdresser’s to have their hair done and then dress up for the evening…
“…and they make their mediocre absent husbands put on suits they can’t zip up anymore. They hover by the tables with the hors d’oeuvres and drinks…”
“They’re all stiff and have sticks up their asses, like they’re at the theater and not at some talk about a book. You should see it. They’re all poised, like, what’s going to happen next? And you were totally cool, so sweet.”
“Oh, I know, I can’t help myself. Yes, like Dina said, they don’t laugh so they won’t spoil the performance, the scene—who knows how they see it?—and only applaud after the reading, and when it’s over and they go eat.”
“And talk about how literature was at its best in Balzac’s day, and how now everyone uses crude terms, they curse, they write about sex for no reason, they use all these English words—no respect for the Croatian language. Hey, tell them about the guy who began reciting.”
“Oh, right, the local sheriff, old as the grave, came to a reading at Matica hrvatska, got a little tipsy and started reciting Tadijanović, but got it all wrong. He was rocking back and forth on his feet, holding a glass of Sauvignon—a real catch for the over-sixty-five set.”
“And one of them says, ‘You can see he’s a real gentleman. His pants are perfectly tailored.’ I’d bet you money the old geezer got lucky that night.”
“And you should’ve seen Dina, she was doing the supportive girlfriend thing. She grabbed my book, cozied up to ladies by the hors d’oeuvres, and then she’s like, ‘Honey, remind me what you were thinking about when you wrote…’”
“When was that, exactly?”
“What do you mean, when? Last week, at the book event. C’mon, you were in fine form…”
“Right, I remember the event, but I don’t remember saying that to you. Don’t overdo it.”
“C’mon, Dina, there’s no harm in strutting our stuff…”
“Right. Of course. With your 150 copies, you’re the bestselling author on Šišićeva Street, and I’m your groupie.”
“What do you mean? C’mon, we’re just messing around. Your friends want to hear what your life is like in the Croatian literary fast lane. People, this is, like, totally high society, you have no idea. Chivas Regal, Dom Pérignon, snorting that white stuff.”
“Don’t lay it on too thick, love.”
“You should’ve seen Dina the rock star. She talked to the ladies about how tough it is living with a writer, how restless I get, how I work all night, and the next day I’m so—”
“Okay, hon, take it down a notch. When did I say that?”
“Well… when you were standing with the ladies by the hors d’oeuvres. You don’t remember…”
“What kind of jerk are you? Holy shit, do you even know how much you lie? Tell me, do you even know you’re lying?! Or do you believe it yourself?”
“Hey, what’s wrong? I’m just teasing. Try to remember, the three ladies—”
“Seriously? Now you’re making up my memories, too?! Are you out of your mind?! You can’t tell me what I remember! I know who I am and what I did and where I was. Unlike you!”
“Every day we have to tell each other one thing that upset us and one thing that pleased us.”
“I’ll listen to all your stories.”
“I hope you’re patient. I can talk a lot. And when I run out of new things to say? What then?”
“Then start again at the beginning. For the hundred thousandth time.”
5.
After she let him have it, they all stopped talking for a moment. Not knowing what to say, they each sipped their drink and looked around the bar, and eventually someone changed the subject. Dina and Matija stayed another fifteen minutes or so, finished their beers, pretended they always bickered like fashionable lovers, briefly feigned a quarrel about whose turn it was to pay, and then, smiling, left. In the car, suddenly somber, they said nothing. Something had finally snapped. They say lies are what keeps a couple together. For Matija and Dina, it was lies that were driving them apart.
He was precious to her because, thanks to him, she was part of things she otherwise never would have understood. He was her link to a world she’d watched from the sidelines since she became an adult, trying to make sense of it like a kid watching from a balcony to see who was playing below in the street. The enticing world of culture and art was, strange as it might seem, tied in her mind to humanitarian work and the environment. All that was foreign to her, and that’s why it could all fit in the drawer where she shoved everything new, along with a few poems she’d read in her literature classes (over the years she’d forgotten both the poet’s name and the poems’ titles; all that remained were orphaned lines of verse, probably misremembered), broadcasts of the Viennese Philharmonic’s New Year’s performances, and a poster of a Klimt reproduction. Before Matija, she’d never known anyone connected even remotely to that world, aside from the so-called celebrities who systematically appeared on posters for animal welfare organizations, flaunting their humanitarian sentiments to promote themselves. The only solid link she had was her bank account, from which she paid fifty kunas a month to UNICEF, and her copy of Janson’s History of Art, and Bulgakov’s novel The Master and Margarita, which she reread at least once a year. Needless to say, Matija went wild when she confessed this to him. Dina had an image in mind of the colorful “alternative crowd”: women in scarves and men with beards and linen trousers who worked for nonprofit organizations, watched slow-paced, opaque European and Iranian movies, bought books, climbed mountains, and persuaded one another that unknown bands with weird musical stylings were the world’s finest. Matija was her link to that world. As if lacking inspiration herself, she outsourced to Matija the job of compensating for her totally irrational feeling of intellectual inferiority.