Prologue
Early
2000s
What wonderfully
friendly people Rovinjians are Nicole thought as she followed her new
friends from cafe to cafe. It was a sultry Mediterranean night, a Croatian
summer night -- Rovinj Night, to be exact. Nicole had arrived in this coastal
town just a week ago, and here she already had pals for what they assured her
was the biggest party weekend of the year in Rovinj -- maybe in all of Istria.
Since she was 22 and fresh out of college, pals and party rated high with
Nicole.
Oliver waved her towards himself. "Come on, there is
stage near Cafe-Bar Riviera with E.T. playing. We get as close as we can,
yes!"
E.T.? Nicole
wondered. I didn't know that little 80s
alien had his own rock group. She shrugged and followed Oliver and the
others into a roiling crowd, bottlenecked into a passage that led up the Medieval
cobblestone street to St. Eufemia's Church, the Mediterranean pink building
standing like a crown jewel at the top of the stone-developed hill. Nicole
managed to keep sight of Martina, one of her new pals, by virtue of the young
woman's height -- not to mention her orange hair cut in a punk style. She
followed the bobbing orange swoop through the late-evening crowd.
As the buildings, built before the concept of city
planning, edged into the street like curious eavesdroppers, the crowd grew
tight. With booths for beer and tables with tourist-wares for sale framing the
throng, movement became something like swimming. Nicole kept her eye on the
orange swoop and pushed past her fellow revelers as gently as possible,
uttering her newly learned phrase with each step, "Oprostite. Oprostite." Excuse me, over and over again.
Just as the orange swoops seemed to disappear around a
bend, another friendly face appeared in front of her: Matija, a blonde young
man who had explained he was the new English teacher at the local high school.
He smiled all the way to his warm brown eye. "Too many people, no?"
"You're telling me!" she shouted over the
noise.
"This is a good band, though." He beckoned with
his head. "Idemo -- let's
go." They did, deeper into the crowd.
On the far side of the Cafe-Bar Riviera a mid-sized pier
stretched out into the Adriatic Sea. At the base of this pier stood a festival
stage with a clearly-human band playing: a curvy blonde singer, stolid-rocker
keyboardist, and two trendy beefcakes contorting their bodies in time to the
techno beat. The crowd before the stage jerked less-gymnastically in time to
the rich tones of the club music.
Nicole stood with her small group -- Matija, Martina, and
Oliver -- jostled by the pulsing crowd around them. Their body heat added to
the humid air settling damply onto her skin. She felt like she could be back in
Denver on a Saturday night at one of the crowded college bars her ex and about
a thousand of their closest friends favored because of its dollar-a-drink
specials. Except instead of graffiti-covered ceiling lit dimly with white
fluorescent, above her stretched a clear black sky dotted with white stars. She
could smell the heated bodies around her, true, but she could also smell the
sea, visible as a black mirror beyond the stage. Then an explosion erupted on
stage -- a show of pyrotechnics, masking the salty air with its acrid smell.
Nicole plucked at the halter of her silk dress, feeling like a wet lily was
lying limply on her chest. An elbow-jab in her ribs -- flung by an enthusiastic
dancer apparently oblivious to the closeness of the crowd -- caused her to jump
and bump her own self into the nearest body. "Oh! Oprostite!" It was Matija.
He grinned down. "Nema veze -- no problem."
Nicole grinned back, thinking Hmm," nema veze" means "no problem." And what did
he say before? Um... "idemo"? And that means "let's go"?
Hey, I can learn some of this language! She bounced in time to the beat.
After another ten minutes of what sounded like the same
song, though, Nicole realized her buzz had worn off. She nudged Matija with her
elbow. Before she could make the universal sign for "I'm going to get a
drink," he winked. "Nema veze
-- except that one felt on purpose."
Nicole giggled. "No! I mean, yes." He arched
his eyebrows in question. Smile still wide, she offered, "I'm
going for a drink. Want one?"
"I'm still finishing the one you spilled on my
shirt."
She winced. "Oh, yea, sorry again about that."
He flicked his head playfully then looked her straight in
the eye. "Nema veze."
Nicole tapped Oliver on the arm and did the "going
for a drink" sign. He shook his head and waved her off. Martina had moved
closer to the stage, out of her range, so Nicole decided she was on her own.
She started working her way back out of the crowd, feeling resistance until she
got to a wider portion of the street again, further down the hill.
Treading carefully on cobbles worn smooth by the passage
of centuries, she made her way back to the main square, Trg
Maršala Tita,named after the
famous Yugoslav leader. She got to the end of a line that snaked at least
twenty people deep for a glass of wine. Beverage finally in hand, she sat at
one of the
trestle tables, largely vacant now that dinnertime was long past. Since there
was no breeze to stir up the hot August air, Nicole plucked again at her halter
before taking a long drink of wine to satisfy her thirst. The young, fruity
wine tingled her tongue but did little to quench her thirst or cool her down.
She took another sip anyway since she knew it would, at least, return her
pleasant buzz. She relaxed, glad to be sitting, thinking her heeled sandals,
while undoubtedly fashionable and a clear match to her flirty dress, were a
menace to her toes on smooth stone streets. As she sipped more of her wine, she
let her eyes wander over the crowd.
On the main stage, set up in the center of the square, a
group of roadies worked quickly to set up for the next performer. Nicole had
been enjoying the Euro-rock sounds of one of Croatia's most popular bands, Prljavo Kazalište, before
Oliver had suggested they go check out E.T.; obviously the band had finished
its set.
Nicole noticed a group of
young teenagers enacting a drama near the central fountin. A boy with mauve
spikes had his arm around a cute litte brunette as he laughed with a buddy. Two
other girls stood nearby, one dressed plainly for summer, but one dressed in
clear imitation of the boy's style: pink streaks in punky hair and ripped
clothing stretched tight across her chunky body. Chunky Punky pretended to talk
to her friend, taking time at regular intervals to glare at the cute little
brunette. Nicole sent a message out to the universe for Mauve Spikes that he
ought to pay attention to Chunky Punky since Cute Little Brunette could be
anyone's girlfiend; if he was trying so hard ot be unique himself, he should
check out the uniqueness of the girls around him.
"Oni niju opasni, samo mladi."
Nicole
started and looked over her shoulder; she caught immediate sight of a hunky
dark Croat -- all shiny black hair and tanned skin over an athletic body. Every
girl's inner-flirt would awaken; Nicole responded by cocking her head and
looking up at him. "Oprostite?"
He spoke again in Croatian; his meaning was clear as he
indicated the seat across from her. She felt her lips curling up as she nodded,
"Oh, da."
"Hvala,"
he thanked. He started chatting her up in Croatian.
Nicole smiled like any uncomprehending foreigner and
finally admitted, "I really don't speak any Croatian yet. Do you speak
English?"
Hunky Croat's dark eyes sparkled as he looked directly
into hers. "Yes, of course I do. I'm Luka. And you?"
Hmm, Luka.
"Nicole." She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, drawing the
lock across her neck. Also drawing Luka's eyes.
He looked into her face again. "Where are you from,
Nicole?"
She loved the way he said her name. "I'm from the
States."
He nodded. "I thought so. You don't sound British or
Australian." His dark eyes looked across her shoulders and down her arm,
seeming to note the light tan of her semi-olive skin. "You don't look like
them either." He continued, "Where in the U.S.? Denver?"
Her jaw dropped, and she felt faintly uneasy, like this
man could have come across the information covertly. "How did you
know?" she demanded.
Luka, for his part, looked equally astonished. "You
are? Truly? I only guessed Denver because I am leaving for there tomorrow to
attend the University of Denver." He was obviously proud, especially when
he added, "Graduate study." He looked more pointedly at her.
"Tell me that was your university."
"It was," she agreed, relaxing. "What a
coincidence."
"Yes, it is." Luka reached across the table. He
took a hold of Nicole's hand and directed, "Kiss me, Nicole."
"Excuse me?" She felt a slight tingling in her
hand, but the audacity of the suggestion took her by surprise.
"This coincidence -- we must kiss because of
it."
Nicole tried to laugh the directive off. "I'm not
going to kiss you." She did not, however, remove her hand.
"Why not?"
She stated what seemed the obvious, "We just met,
like, five minutes ago!"
"How long must we know each other before you'll kiss
me?"
Nicole felt her thoughts tilt, as if the wine or the
atmosphere or just the situation had finally permeated her mind. She shrugged
one shoulder and flirted, "I'll kiss you on our one-hour
anniversary."
Luka nodded. He checked his watch. "It's 11:05.
Since we've known each other five minutes, our one-hour anniversary will be
midnight." He looked into her eyes again. "Just like Snow
White."
"I think you mean Cinderella."
"Maybe." He squeezed her fingers. "But I
know there will be fireworks."
The intensity of their exchange -- particularly as
reflected in Luka's black eyes -- threw off Nicole's equilibrium. She ducked
her head to break the tension, letting the fall of her long hair partly shield
her eyes.
The skin around Luka's eyes tightened for just a moment.
Then he relaxed, sitting back. "So, tell me, Nicole, why are you in
Rovinj? Are you on holiday?" He looked around. "And if so, where are
your friends?" He looked into her face again. "Or your
boyfriend?"
That was fairly
smooth, she gauged. Knowing the game, she admitted, "I don't have a
boyfriend."
Luka looked
satisfied by this answer. "But surely you're here with friends,
then."
Nicole flashed on Matija and the group, but answered,
"Well, I'm not here on vacation, so I came here to Croatia alone."
City-breeding, prompted her to add, "But I met some cool people." She
looked over her shoulder, as if she expected them to be approaching.
"Hmm." Luka tweaked one of her fingers, to
re-draw her attention. "You didn't answer my question."
Wasn't the
boyfriend part the answer you wanted? She scrolled back to remember the
first part of his query. "You mean about why I'm in Rovinj? I just moved
here."
Luka looked taken aback. "Why?"
Now that he was relaxed, no longer so intense in their
flirtation, Nicole felt equally comfortable. She told him all about the program
she'd heard about through her study in hospitality management, an opportunity
to work abroad for a year while gaining experience in her field. Keeping the
conversation light, she omitted her father's reaction to her entering the
program, relating an amusing anecdote instead from her meeting with her new
boss, Dorinka Tomljenović. "I kept massacring her last name so badly she
finally told me to call her 'Dorinka' -- I mean, I had no idea the 'j' is meant
to sound like a 'y'. Why don't you just use a 'y'?"
Luka laughed. "Croatian names are spelled crazy. But
we can't use 'y' for that sound because it doesn't exist in our language."
"Seriously? I mean, you're missing a whole
letter?"
"But we have plenty of others to make up for
it." Nicole thought to pursue that line of conversation, but Luka asked,
"So, besides working in a hotel for Dorinka Tomljenović, what will you do
with yourself here in Rovinj?"
She relayed to him what a fun town she found it to be,
reiterating how she had already made friends. She told him about the
twice-monthly trips she needed to make to a large town nearby, Pula, to study
Croatian culture -- tittering in discomfort when Luka made a derogatory remark
about Croatia's hardly having a culture of its own, but rather stealing it from
the Italians, Austrians, and Turks. In response to his comment she explained
how truly beautiful what she had seen of the country seemed to her, and
beautiful she found the language, how friendly the people.
Luka stared into her eyes. "But are we beautiful
like our country and our language?"
Nicole tittered again, not sure how to answer such a
question.
Rather than relieve the tension this time, Luka leaned
forward and directed, "Poljubi me."
"Sorry?"
"Kiss me," he translated.
She ducked her head. "It's not time yet."
"What a pity."
She took the initiative this time to lighten the mood,
asking him about his study plans at the University of Denver. Pride entered his
voice as he related the Masters degree in economics he would earn from an
American university. He squeezed her fingers. "Only now the timing seems
bad."
"What a pity," she echoed him.
She noticed the music had started up again. A solo artist
sat perched on a stool strumming a guitar with a keyboardist discreetly in the
background to play back up. The singer's deep voice caressed the words of the
ballad; the unfamiliar Croatian syllables whispered in Nicole's ears.
"Oh," she breathed, "It's so beautiful."
Luka cocked his head to listen then nodded. "Ah,
Gibonni, yes. His most famous song, 'Libar'."
Gaze into her eyes again. "It's a love song."
She swallowed. "I know." And she did; she
didn't need to understand the words to feel the sentiment, to comprehend the
deeper meaning.
Luka took the opportunity her distraction provided. He
led her closer to the stage, positioning himself close behind her. He was just
touching the sensitive skin of her bare back, and she shivered. She did not
move. He whispered in her ear. "He is singing of love. Ljubav."
His warm breath on her air raised more goose bumps.
"Ljubav," she repeated.
The word felt exquisite in her mouth.
"Ljubav," Luka whispered
in her ear again. Her nerve endings tingled. The whole night seemed like it was
weaving a spell around her.
Ljubav,
one of the first words she learned in Croatian -- along with "sorry."
My Hub Pages
No comments:
Post a Comment