Zbornik Mednarodnega literarnega srečanja Vilenica 2004 - Ljudmila

Barbara Simoniti
I could not sleep. The hotel room was soullessly comfortable. Distant,
irregular sounds were breaking in from the street.
I lay on the bed and tried to think. A late fly was humming round the
light. I switched off the light, drew the curtains and opened the window
so that it may find the way out. The urban way of fighting the flies, my
Grandma always laughed; in the country, they would eat you alive.
When I relighted the lamp, I went to my suitcase and dug out, from
among the bright layers of clothes, a battered book: large, bound in dark
brown leather, with gilt edges. Poesie, by Gregorčič. My Grandma got the
book as a present for the confirmation from her godmother. When they
had to flee, after the war, she only grabbed a few books and her jewellery,
and they were gone.
I spread out the yellowed pages, and the memories revived.
Once, when she read to me from them again, her tongue slipped and
then she told me:
»You know, my little Kristina, this book was not a confirmation present.
I got it from Vojteh. – I can tell you this, now that Grandpa is gone.«
She fell silent and looked back in time.
My imagination immediately drew a dashing young man with a softly
ringing name.
»Were you in love with Vojteh?« I was eagerly interested. I uttered the
name as if tasting a new, chocolate coated sweetmeat.
She only nodded, very slowly.
The delineation of the story seemed magically mysterious to me, and
in no way connected with my Grandpa.
»Why haven’t you married him, then?« I wanted to discern the pattern
of all the stories.
»Because I was not allowed to. At that time, he was merely a poor student.
But later, he became a very good lawyer,« her eyes shone unusually.
Again she fell silent for a long time, and it was only after a while that
she went on with a ragged voice:
»Finally, he even decided to approach my father and ask him for my
hand. So that we’d get engaged until he finished his studies. He didn’t
want to tell it to me, as long as he had no answer. He wanted to surprise
me. We had almost no hope; he merely wanted to put in his sincerity and
his love. – He came on the very day, it was a sunny Sunday, after the mass,
when my parents announced my engagement to Martin. I had had to gave
in. I had no choice at all. We were standing in the drawing room, with
glasses of champagne in our hands, when he entered. I shall never forget
his horrified look, when my father offered him to drink with us...«
Vojteh always read poems to her, she often told me afterwards. She
remembered him more and more often. They sat somewhere in the grass
under a rustling tree – at least so I pictured them – and read Gregorčič.
»Read to me the way Vojteh could,« I asked her. She sadly looked into
the emptiness and smiled like the winter sun. It was only after a while
that she started the poem – half by heart and half from the book.
When I spread out the pages, I can still hear her.
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