Under a Croatian Sun by Anthony Stancomb Read Free Book Online Page B

from the street to order a tonsil-numbing liquor or a coffee so strong it almost dissolves the spoon and then striking up a conversation with anyone around is something I’ve wanted to do all my life. You couldn’t do that kind of thing in Fulham – or, at least, you’d get some very strange looks if you did – but out here the cafés were full of people willing to reciprocate.
    Marko’s was more of a coffee place than a drinking place, but it seemed that Western coffee culture hadn’t yet filtered down this far, so on the Vis waterfront there were no cinnamon lattes, decaf macchiatos or skinny mocha Americanos. Here, coffee was either small and black or largeand white, but at least it meant one didn’t have to waste time making up one’s mind.
    Acting on Karmela’s advice, as our second ‘regular’, we chose more of a watering hole – Zoran’s, a small rundown place near the front. It was more of a bar than a café, in that it attracted more of a bar-type clientele (that is, men), and its décor certainly wasn’t chosen by someone in touch with their feminine side. The interior was largely taken up by a bar and the remaining space was filled with a shabby collection of mismatched café furniture. There were also some chairs outside, but they looked as if they had started a fight and been sent out into the street to finish it, and were rarely used. Zoran’s regulars were largely impervious to the beautiful surroundings and preferred to stay in the dark interior where they could drink unobserved and weather down Zoran’s paintwork with the nicotine from their Walter Wolf cigarettes.
    Zoran had been born on Vis, but he had left for Texas in his twenties where he had picked up a Texan swagger and an addiction to wearing boots, and had added an American drawl to his gravelly voice. With his hawk-like features, meaty lips and wavy, long black hair, he looked like a bad-tempered Red Indian, but there was always a glimmer in his hooded eyes that hinted that a quip or a sardonic comment was never far away. He had sharp-tongued opinions about everything and everyone, but he rarely talked about himself, and, if he did, he would shroud it in humour. Usually, it takes me a while to get people into focus, but I soon had Zoran in sharp definition and I warmed to him – in particular, his way of treating the whole world as a joke that had somehow gone a bit wrong.
     
    On weekends, Zoran’s was full of people from the mainland, most of whom Ivana suspected of being skippers of smugglingboats or mercenaries on leave – at least she was sure they looked as if they had just come in from killing someone or something. Zoran loved the weekends. There was a lot of shouting and
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drinking, and he could hold forth like a compere on a TV show. Standing at the bar, he’d thump the top with one arm and wave the other, which sported an eye-catchingly large Rolex. Cushioned in a thick bed of arm hair, Zoran’s watch looked particularly unattractive. I must say, I do think those big chunky watches must be the most unbecoming male fashion accessory since the codpiece.
    We tended to avoid the weekends and saved our visits for the weekdays when his minion, Dragimir, did most of the work and Zoran could spend his time holding forth to the cabal of large-bellied men of the village, who, having nothing better to do, hung around his bar for most of the day conducting their conversations in a somewhat curious way. Like in a Greek classical play, Zoran and his bar-proppers didn’t so much discuss things, as make speeches to each other, and this did make exchanges of opinion a rather more protracted experience than usual. It certainly filled the hours, though.
    It wasn’t long before the subject of Croatia joining the EU came up.
    ‘I’m told you guys in the EU have towns you “twin” with. Right?’
    ‘Yes, but I’m not sure my hometown has a twin. I don’t think too many European towns were queuing up to twin with