Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
'We didn't go to the bar by the casino.'
'Yes we did.'
'We
did
?'
'Yeah.'
'Really
?' I could remember nothing of the night before other than a series of Bip Pivo beers passing
before me, as if on a bottling line. I shrugged it off, youthfully unaware that I was in a single summer disabling
clusters of brain cells at a pace that would leave me seventeen years later routinely standing in places like a
pantry or toolshed, gazing at the contents and trying to remember what the hell it was that had brought me
there.
We went on a bouncing bus to the far side of the island, to a fishing village called Komiža, had a long
swim in a warm sea, a couple of beers at a beachside taverna, caught a bouncing bus back to Vis town,
had some more beers, ordered dinner, had some more beers, told stories, compared lives, fell in love.
Well, I did anyway. Her name was Marta. She was eighteen, dark and from Uppsala and she seemed
to me the fairest creature I had ever run eyes over - though it must be said that by this stage of the trip even
Katz, in certain lights, was beginning to look not half bad. In any case, I thought she was lovely and the
miracle was that she appeared to find a certain charm in me. She and the other girl, Trudi, grew swiftly
drunk and loquacious and spent half the time talking in Swedish, but it didn't matter. I sat with my chin in my
hands, just gazing at this Swedish fantasy, hopelessly besotted, stirring to my senses from time to time just
long enough to suck back drool and take a sip of beer. Occasionally she would lay a hand on my bare
forearm, sending my hormones into delirious turmoil, and once she glanced over and absently stroked my
cheek with the back of her hand. I would have sold my mother as a galley slave and plunged a dagger into
my thigh for her.
Late in the evening, when Katz and Trudi had gone off for pees, Marta turned to me, abruptly pulled my
head to hers and swabbed my throat with her tongue. It felt as if a fish were flopping around in my mouth.
She released me, wearing a strange, dreamy expression and breathed, 'I'm fool of lust.'
I couldn't find words to communicate my appreciation. Then the most awful thing happened. An abrupt
startled look seized her, as if she had been struck by a sniper's bullet. Her eyes snapped shut and she slid
bonelessly from her chair.
I gaped for a long moment and cried, 'Don't do this to me, God, you prick!' But she was gone, as dead
to the world as if she had been hit broadside by a Mack truck. I looked at the sky. 'How could you do this to
me? I'm a
Catholic
.'
Trudi reappeared, tutting in a sudden maternal fashion and saying, 'Well, well, well, we'd better get this
one to bed.' I offered to carry Marta to their hotel for her, thinking that at the very least I might manage to lay
my tingling mitts on her splendid buttocks - only for a moment, you understand, just a little something to
sustain me till the end of the century - but Trudi, doubtless sensing my intent, wouldn't hear of it. She was as
strong as a steam train and before I could blink she had hoisted Marta over her shoulder and was
disappearing down the street, leaving behind a fading 'Good-night'.
I watched them go, then stared moodily into my beer. Katz arrived and saw from my face that there
would be no naked twining in the moonlit surf this night. 'What am I supposed to do now?' he said, sinking
into his chair. 'She was coming on to me outside the men's room. I've got a boner like Babe Ruth's bat.
What am I supposed to do?'
'You'll just have to take matters into your own hands,' I said, but he failed to see any humour in the
situation, as indeed, on reflection, did I, and we spent the rest of the evening drinking in silence.
We never saw the Swedish girls again. We had no idea which was their hotel, but Vis town was not a
big place and we were certain that we would run into them. For three days we went everywhere, peered in
restaurant windows, walked up and down the beaches, but we never saw them. After a time I half began to
wonder if it wasn't all a product of an overheated imagination. Maybe Marta had never even said, 'I'm fool of
lust.' Maybe she had said, 'I'm fit to bust.' I didn't know. And as it became clearer and clearer that she was
gone for ever, it didn't really seem to matter.
I wandered along the quayside looking at the sailing boats, then ventured into the sun-warmed lanes
and courtyards that form the heart of Split. Once this area, roughly a quarter of a mile square, was the
