He sees everything shrink and blend: the houses into a dark, irregular line; the port into a white blot traversed by the little marks of masts; meanwhile, above the town the towering hills, bare, grey, mottled with the green of the vineyards. They increase in size until they become enormous. From within, from the road, the island seemed small, but now its power is made manifest: solid rock shaped into a kind of monumental cone, a fist hurled out of the water.
When they turn left, leaving the bay for the open sea, the island’s shore seems vertiginous, dangerous.
They are carried along by the white crests of the waves that strike the rocks and the birds disturbed by the presence of the boat. When they turn the engine on again, the birds take fright and take wing. There is also the vertical line of the jet that tears the sky into two sheets. The plane is flying south.
They are moving. Branko lights two cigarettes and gives one to Kunicki. It’s hard to smoke: tiny little droplets of water splash up from beneath the bow and land on everything.
‘Look at the water,’ shouts Branko. ‘At everything swimming.’
As they near a bay with a cave, they see a helicopter, flying the other way. Branko stands up in the centre of the boat and waves. Kunicki looks at the chopper, almost happy. The island isn’t big, he thinks for the hundredth time; from above there isn’t anything that can be hidden from the sight of that great mechanical dragonfly, it would all be as obvious as the nose on your face.
‘Let’s go to Poseidon,’ he shouts to Branko, but Branko seems unconvinced.
‘There’s no way through there,’ he shouts back.
But the boat turns and slows. They enter the cove between the rocks with the engine off.
This part of the island should also be called Poseidon, thinks Kunicki, just like everything else. The god had built himself cathedrals here: naves, caves, columns, and choirs. Their forms were unpredictable, their rhythm off and uneven. Black igneous rocks sparkle damply as though coated in some rare dark metal. Now, at dusk, the structures are all devastatingly sad – this was quintessential abandonment: no one ever prayed here. Kunicki suddenly has the sense that he is seeing the prototypes of man-made churches, that all the tours should be brought here before they’re taken to Reims or to Chartres. He wants to share this discovery with Branko, but the ruckus from the engine is too much for them to talk. He sees another, larger boat with the words ‘Police, Split’ written on it. It’s travelling down the steep coastline. The boats convene, and Branko talks with the policemen. There are no signs of them, nothing. Or so Kunicki judges, at least, because the mechanical cacophony drowns out their conversation. They must be reading each other’s lips, and interpreting the gentle, helpless raising of their shoulders, which doesn’t suit their white police shirts with their epaulettes. They indicate they ought to head back, because it will be dark soon. That’s all Kunicki can hear: ‘Go back.’ Branko steps on the gas, and it sounds like an explosion. The water stiffens; little waves like goose bumps spread across the sea.
Hitting the island now is completely different than it is by day. The first thing they see are glittering lights that become increasingly distinct from one another by the second, forming rows. They increase in the gathering darkness, becoming separate, different – the lights of yachts arriving at the waterfront are not the same as those in people’s windows; the illumination of signs and shopfronts are not the same as shifting headlights. A safe view of a tamed world.
Finally Branko turns the engine off, and the boat sidles up to the shore. Suddenly they scrape along stone – they’ve come up onto the little town beach, right by the hotel, a long way away from the marina. Now Kunicki sees why. By the ramp, right at the beach, there is a police car, and there are two men in white shirts who have clearly been waiting for them.
‘They must want to talk to you,’ says Branko, tying up the boat. Kunicki’s forces fail him – he is scared of what he may be about to hear. That they found the bodies. That’s what he’s scared of. He walks up to them with his knees weak.
But thank God, it’s just an ordinary interrogation. No, there’s nothing new. But so much time has passed now that the matter has become serious. They take him down the same – the only – road to Vis, to the police station. It’s completely dark now, but they obviously know the road well because they don’t even slow down at the bends. They quickly pass that place where he lost them.
There are new men now at the station, awaiting his arrival. A translator, a tall, handsome man who speaks – why beat around the bush – poor Polish, though he was brought in especially from Split, and an officer. They ask some routine questions, almost involuntarily, and he gradually becomes aware that he has become a suspect.
They give him a lift right up to the hotel. He gets out and makes as if to enter. But he only pretends to go in. He waits in the dark little passageway until they drive off, till the rumble of the car’s engine dies out, and then he walks out into the street. He walks towards the largest concentration of lights, towards the boulevard by the marina where all the cafés and restaurants are. But it’s late now, and although it’s Friday, there isn’t much of a crowd there anymore; it must be one or two in the morning by now. He looks around for Branko among the few customers seated at the tables, but he doesn’t find him there, doesn’t see that seashell T-shirt. There are some Italians, a whole family, who are finishing up their meal, and he also sees two older people, who are drinking something out of a straw and staring at the noisy Italian family. There are two women with fair hair, intimately turned towards each other, shoulders touching, absorbed in their conversation. Local men, fishermen, this couple. What a relief that no one pays him any mind. He walks along the edge of a shadow, right on the waterfront, and he can smell fish and feel the warm, salty breeze off the sea. He feels like turning and going up along one of the little backstreets that goes toward Branko’s house, but he can’t bring himself to really do it – they must be asleep. So he sits down at a little table at the edge of the patio. The waiter ignores him.
He watches the men who converge around the table next to his. They bring over an extra chair – there are five of them – and sit down. Even before the waiter comes, before they’ve ordered anything to drink, they are already connected by an invisible, unspoken pact.
They are different ages, two of them with thick beards, and yet all of their differences are about to disappear into the circle they’ve already automatically created. They talk, but it doesn’t matter what they’re saying – it almost looks like they’re rehearsing for a song they’ll sing together, trying out their voices. Their laughter fills up the space inside the circle – jokes, even hackneyed ones, are completely appropriate, even called for. It’s a low, vibrating laughter that conquers the space and makes the tourists at the next table over be quiet – middle-aged women suddenly startled. It attracts curious gazes.
They’re preparing their audience. The appearance of the waiter with a tray of drinks becomes an overture, while the waiter, just a kid, becomes their unwitting MC, announcing the dance, the opera. They liven up when they see him; someone’s hand goes up and shows him where to put things – here. There is a moment of silence, and now glass rims are raised to lips. Some of them – especially the impatient ones – are unable to resist shutting their eyes, exactly like in church when the priest solemnly places the white wafer on the outstretched tongue. The world is ready to be overturned – it’s only a convention that the floor is beneath our feet, while the ceiling is overhead, the body no longer belongs just to itself, but is instead a part of a live chain, a section of a living circle. Now, too, glasses travel to lips, the moment of their emptying practically invisible, taking place in rapid-fire focus, with momentary gravity. From here on out the men will hold onto them – the glasses. The bodies seated around the table will begin to describe their rings, tops of heads indicating circles in the air, first smaller ones, then larger ones. They will overlap, tracing new chords. In the end, hands will come up, first testing their own strength on the air, in gestures to illustrate their words, and then they will roam to companions’ arms, to their backs and shoulders, patting and encouraging them. These will in fact be gestures of love. This fraternizing by way of hands and backs is not intrusive; it’s a kind of dance.