They barely mention the fall of Communism, the name Tito a distant memory, a fragment that still scares their parents. They seem enthralled with the new Croatia, a country on the edge of Europe but not allowed in it. We eat out a lot, drink pivo and rakija, talk with her friends. Our relationship is built on these tenuous periods. My job requires tri-annual visits, each lasting a month at a time. It has been three months since I was last here. Near the river I hear the clanging of the tram and see, as it turns the corner, old women staring out from the dirt-smudged windows. In the crisp November light the concrete buildings are thrown into sharp contrast-rectangular outlines flat as monoliths dominate the skyline. I drive Saskia’s Yugo from her tower block in the east section of Novi Zagreb to the center of the city. She snorts and wraps herself in the sheets. Saskia knows this, yet has offered no thoughts on me leaving for good. Soon there will be no reason for me to be in the country. The project I have worked on all these years is coming to an end. “Do you want to go out for breakfast?” she says. I know she would like to do the same thing for Serbian, but the languages are too similar, and I have seen her say Josip Jović in pain. By disentangling the language from the land, she would be able to discover the purity that existed before the invasion. She once told me she learned Italian in her gimnazija in order to claim Dalmatia back. Saskia has the mind of the philosopher, an existentialist forever questioning meaning. For her coursework she wrote long analytical essays on notions of the real in Zola, and she now keeps the papers stacked on her nightstand, pinned by a statuette of Marianne. She worships Voltaire and Sartre and likes to quote from Candide or Huis Clos at dinner or on our walks. She studied French literature at Sveučilište u Zagrebu and then completed an intensive summer course at the Sorbonne. She can slip between languages, navigating complex ideas with more insight than I could ever muster. Her fluency in English has always thrown me, kept me off-guard. I pass her the glass and slide back into bed. Our meetings blossomed into dates and then a long-distance relationship that has been atrophying for the last seven years. She worked as a translator, coordinating the paperwork and liaising between the Croatian government and the company I worked for. Several power plants had been crippled by JNA artillery and aerial bombardment. My job was to facilitate the rebuilding of the electrical grid. We met on a reconstruction project eighteen months after the war. Sometimes I barely know her at all, and I think this is because of the age difference. Her honey-colored skin and natural blond hair appear unaffected by her chain-smoking and short sleeping hours. She’s a decade younger, her body thin and muscular. ![]() In her bedroom, she opens one eye and looks at me-scanning my potbelly and gray hair at the temples. Saskia joins in, sings “The Bold Fenian Men,” and dances around the living room. He works out and likes to roam the place in his black silk boxers and play his Martin guitar through the night. I have never been happy with her sharing an apartment with a man. ![]() As I fetch a glass of water from the kitchen, I want to forget about Colin and his cultural analysis. The British were his oppressors the Serbs for the Croats. He argues both countries are perennial underdogs, always will be. The people, he tells me time and time again, share the same spirit of rebellion. ![]() He loves Croatia, especially the city life of Zagreb. She shares the apartment with Colin, an architect from Ireland. Later, in the warmth of her sheets, this image of her still strikes me as troubling, even as I roll out of her bed and take a piss in the bathroom down the hall. Saskia waits for me at the airport, cup of bijela kava in one hand and a cigarette in the other, yet she seems impatient, unsatisfied.
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