Under a Croatian Sun (12 page)

I
t was at Zoran’s that I got to know Marin, a Bosnian in his mid-thirties who was the skipper of a power boat belonging to a Zagreb footballer. A handsome young man, he was tall and broad-shouldered like most Southern Slavs and, with his chiselled features, olive skin and grey-blue eyes, he looked like a darker version of David Beckham. He even had the slow grin and that slightly serious Beckhamish air about him.

Marin was another casualty of the war. After graduating, he had worked for his family’s business in Bosnia, but when the war started he had to flee to the coast with his mother and two sisters, and had provided for them by doing menial work until it was safe to return. But, on their return to their village, they found that most of their family had been ethnically cleansed and their house and small factory burned down. Their savings now gone, he left his mother and sisters in the care of the surviving relations and went back to the coast to find himself a proper job.
With most of Croatia’s shipyards now closed down, unfortunately his degree in Marine Engineering didn’t count for much, and he had to settle for the job of a skipper on a power boat belonging to a Croatian footballer.

The reaction of the village to a Bosnian was a further insight into the way the islanders viewed anyone coming from the outside. I was sitting with him outside Marko’s when Karmela went by and threw me one of her Mrs Danvers-like glares before passing on. When I got home, I asked her what it was all about.

‘He might be as good-looking as Montenegrin pirate, but he comes from Bosnia so don’t you let him get too near. You can never tell what they’re up to, those Bosnians.’

‘Well, I’ll make sure we count the spoons whenever he leaves,’ I said, trying to make light of it, ‘but don’t you think it’s a bit unfair to treat someone who seems a nice young man with such suspicion?’

She pursed her lips and I was fixed with the Mrs Danvers look again. ‘“The more beautiful the lizard, the more it wants to be a crocodile,” as we say.’

‘For heaven’s sake, Karmela! If God made everyone equal, as you’re always telling me, that kind of attitude is very un-Christian, if you don’t mind me saying so.’

‘Sometimes God doesn’t see all that we do. Never trust people who don’t belong!’

‘Come off it, Karmela! That’s just not fair. He’s polite, kind and hardworking, and just the sort of man you want around if there’s any kind of trouble. Whatever has he done to deserve this kind of tarring? The village will be suspecting
us
of something at this rate!’

‘Well, now that you mention it,’ she said darkly, ‘people do ask why you and Mrs Ivana came to their island. You must have a hidden reason, they say.’

It wasn’t the first time we’d heard this. Neighbours had also asked why we had chosen Vis. Vis might be very beautiful, they said, but it was so primitive compared to other places we could have gone to. Not wanting to offend, we couldn’t say that was precisely why we had chosen it, and we’d mumble something about the sunshine and the beauty.

The female members of the community also wanted to know how we lived in England. All they knew about it was what they saw on the old BBC series and sitcoms that were still doing the Balkan rounds, and they had a rather confused picture of what went on. However, an opportunity to find out more about us was provided when Ivana caught the flu that was going round and Karmela brought some neighbours to administer to her (I being deemed too untrustworthy to carry out such a task). I was working on the terrace while they were in our bedroom and Ivana was in the kitchen, and I heard them opening drawers and cupboards and making a careful examination of the contents. Ivana’s bras, particularly the more insubstantial ones, seemed to attract the most interest and were being handed round for structural analysis…

‘And you can see right through it. Look!’

‘How embarrassing! We couldn’t wear anything like that. Our husbands wouldn’t allow it!’

‘Well, I suppose it doesn’t look so shocking if you’re small. The English aren’t as big as we are.’

‘Their shops must have all those small sizes.’

‘What ever would
we
do if we lived in England?’

They also went through my drawers making disparaging remarks about my flowery boxer shorts, but they were most impressed by my M&S sweaters. (These were actually the only items of my wardrobe that didn’t produce derogatory comments from Ivana). Good old M&S – an unsung icon of our
indomitable and fearless country. M&S should be kitting out Her Majesty, the Cabinet, the SWAT Task Force and anyone else up at the sharp end of our once proud and ancient land. But M&S has to make do with late middle-aged codgers such as me trying to cut a dash on the Med in their ‘Blue Harbour’ range. Mind you, even the ‘Blue Harbour’ choices didn’t always escape Ivana’s censure. Some of what I put on still elicited cries of: ‘My God! What
are
you doing in those?’

I did point out that God was probably even less well versed in the niceties of fashion sense than I was, but it didn’t cut any ice.

I was enjoying my time at the bars. The only downside was the unreasonable demands made on my knowledge of English football – some of them got quite stroppy when I didn’t know things like how many goals George Best had scored or what position Manchester United held in the current league table. Similar demands on my knowledge of technology also verged on the unreasonable at times. When I offered to lend my computer to Domigoy so he could email his girlfriend, Mara, I was asked to explain the workings of Microsoft Office and Student Word and Excel.

‘I’m really not up to speed on that kind of thing,’ I answered.

‘But you must understand the principle of it,’ said Domigoy’s brother.

‘Well, I’m afraid I don’t.’

‘But you use it all the time,’ said Filip. ‘How can you use something you don’t understand?’

‘Well, I just don’t. Sorry.’

‘But you’re working with it every day, and so does Ivana,’ he insisted. ‘How can you say you don’t know how it works?’

‘I told you,’ I said testily. ‘I just don’t. For Christ’s sake, you guys, give me a break!’

‘Maybe you could put Domigoy on this Facebook thing we’re always hearing about,’ said kind Bozo, trying to steer the conversation into less contentious waters.

‘What’s that?’ asked Domigoy.

‘You send pictures of your birthday parties to your friends or something like that,’ said Bozo.

‘I don’t have any friends except my Mara,’ said Domigoy gloomily.

‘What about all your old school friends?’ I said.

‘Oh, they count, do they? Well, I’ve got some of those.’

‘I heard on the radio that an American singer kid called Justin Bieber has three million Facebook friends,’ said Zoran acerbically.

I ignored the comment. ‘And, if you’re on Facebook, Domigoy, you’ll make lots more friends. My daughter has twelve hundred people who follow her page.’

‘Twelve hundred followers!’ said Sinisa, the geography teacher. ‘And to think that Jesus only had twelve. He could have taken over the world if he’d been on this Facebook thing.’

One evening, Zoran took me aside to say that, because I frequented more than one bar, I was looked on as something of a ‘floater’.

‘The guys think it suspicious. “What’s he up to?” they say. “He’s shiftin’ aroun’ like a dog that can’t find a corner to settle in. They’re always cookin’ somethin’ up, those Northerners; especially those Germans.”’ He paused to scratch his stubble. ‘Suppose they gotta point there. Look what happened the last time the Germans took an interest in what was goin’ on down here.’

He suggested that it might stop the talk if I settled on a particular bar. His bar.

Karmela told us that my bar-going had gone down well. Apparently, people who didn’t frequent bars were considered to have anti-social tendencies – or, worse, to be up to something they didn’t want anyone to know about. This explained something that had been puzzling me. I had heard the bar-proppers saying things like: ‘We never see much of Ivo ever since he started working at the post office. He must be having an affair with one of the post office girls and doesn’t want us to find out.’

This was out of character, I thought, since most of them were a pretty uncurious bunch, but, when I mentioned this to Marko, he said that it was important to be seen. Even the promenade acted as a kind of roll call, and if someone was missing – and no doubt up to something they shouldn’t be – their absence was noticed. This is one of the ways a small society kept its members on the straight and narrow.

From our experience so far, nothing escaped the eyes of the village. They peered out from doorways, shutters, car windows, shop fronts and church pews. One evening, I was at Marko’s discussing my boat-chartering idea with three brothers from Komiza, and the next morning I found the whole cabal waiting for me at Zoran’s.

‘Don’t do business with anyone who isn’t from the island!’ said Zvonko, a grizzled-faced wine grower who looked like he had been dug up from a potato field. ‘You never know what’ll happen once you get involved with outsiders like them.’

‘But the Marovi brothers told me they were born on the island.’

‘Yes, but sons of immigrants –from Montenegro. They’re probably Albanians!’

‘But they don’t seem different.’

‘Ah! They don’t to you,’ said Bozo, ‘but they do to us. You
be careful. Don’t trust them. They probably speak their own language at home when no one’s listening.’

‘And heaven knows what they worship,’ said Sinisa, the geography teacher.

‘They probably face east when the sun goes down and no one’s looking,’ said Zvonko’s brother, a nice man apart from a tendency to dwell on his health problems and his heroic days with the Partisans.

‘And they probably have boiled goldfish for breakfast,’ said Sinisa.

‘Well, at least no one’s seen them riding a camel down the high street yet,’ said Zoran.

‘Well, they wouldn’t do that sort of thing when anyone was looking, would they,’ grunted Zvonko.

‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ I said.

‘You be careful,’ said Filip sombrely. ‘They may seem friendly enough and laugh and sing with you, but before you know it they’ll be taking your money and you won’t ever see it again.’

‘What’s more, they could get you into trouble,’ said Bozo, wagging a chubby finger.

‘But what kind of trouble could they possibly get me into?’ I asked incredulously.

‘Ah, you never know. But you take care! Before you know it, you’ll find yourself involved in a drug deal or something like that. They’re as bad as the Gypsies, those Albanians. If you went into their house, you’d probably find it’s full of stolen goods.’

‘How else would they have two cars?’ said Domigoy, nodding solemnly.

‘It’s good to have people around who really have their finger on the pulse of things,’ said Zoran looking despairingly at his cousin. The remark went over Domigoy’s head.

‘You all sound just like my grandmother talking about the Irish,’ I said. ‘Do Montenegrins keep pigs in their living rooms and coal in their baths, by any chance?’

Zvonko looked puzzled. ‘Well, I’ve never seen a pig in their house, although I wouldn’t put it past them.’ He paused. ‘But no one has any coal. We have wood for our fires.’

‘Why do you want to know about their pigs and their coal anyway?’ said Filip.

Luckily, I was saved from having to explain by the arrival of a one-armed man whom Zoran introduced as Mr Ilic, a cousin of his from the mainland. Talking with Mr Ilic, I learned that he had lost his arm in Sarajevo during the war. He was having a drink in a bar with a friend who was telling him about an affair he was having with an incredibly sexy married woman, when the husband of the incredibly sexy woman appeared at the door. He had just come back from the front line and had an assault rifle, and, before the other drinkers could subdue him, he had winged both Mr Ilic and his adulterous friend. The jealous husband was sent to prison for two years and the adulterous friend recovered, but Mr Ilic’s arm had to be amputated, and, although the court awarded him damages, the gun-toting husband had no money.

I murmured sympathetically.

But the worst part of it all, he said, was that, when he got home, his wife took one look at his arm and screamed – and she’d gone on screaming ever since. ‘That was five years ago,’ said Mr Ilic dolefully.

I never used to have these kinds of conversations in the wine bars down the Fulham Road.

I was still thinking about Mr Ilic and the war the next day when I went on my early-morning walk. At that time of day, the line
of houses along the shore looked like a row of staunch matriarchs, hardened by the wind and the sea who had raised countless generations beside the water. Solid and stark, their shapes were softened by the flowers on their balconies and the improvised alleyways that ran haphazardly down to the water – I presumed improvised, as I couldn’t imagine an architect ever designing such a turmoil of steps.

Their shutters were closed when I started off, but as I progressed round the bay they began to open and I could hear the muffled strains of women’s voices cajoling their families out of sleep. Never hearing the voice of a man, I always wondered if there were any men there for the children. Here you never knew. Maybe they had been carried away by the winds of war that have blown around here for so long. There were few families that hadn’t lost someone, just as there were few that hadn’t experienced actual physical fear – something that we who’ve lived in relative security since 1066 have been largely spared. It was easy for us with all the sunshine and bustle of the summer going on to forget about the recent terror, and it always came as a jolt when something happened to remind us.

At the end of May, Tomas the town librarian invited us up to his hamlet for Sunday lunch, so we drove up to the hills at midday and parked below the hamlet. It was a collection of a dozen stone houses, defensively stacked around a central yard and most with slits in their walls to keep out the sun and the enemy. On one side was a sloping meadow from where the sounds of bleating lambs were coming, and on the other was an orchard where Tomas and Mariana were laying out lunch on a ping-pong table, while children tumbled about on a grassy knoll beside them. The scent of the flowers and herbs crushed by their bodies wafted down to where we stood as Mariana came running down to us. Attractively petite with sparkling eyes and
a frizz of springy dark hair that bounced as she ran, she hugged us as if we were long-lost cousins and took us into the meadow to pick some flowers for the table. Tomas went down to put the fish on the grill in the communal cookhouse as other family members brought up bowls of food. Once the children had been rounded up, Tomas brought up the fish and stood at the end to dissect them. On the island, serving fish is a ritual and has to be done correctly, and Tomas’s bespectacled face was creased in concentration with his tongue sticking into his cheek as he sliced carefully away, while Mariana dished out the contents of the bowls – potatoes with garlic and parsley, French beans with bacon and olives, and three different types of salad gleaming with olive oil.