translation

Fucking complicated, you think to yourself, as you walk along the smooth, slippery, shining surface and beneath your thin leather soles feel every joint between the paving stones. You’re afraid that you will get tangled up in this dress, to which you are not accustomed. If you do, that will be a sign, and if you do not, likewise; the whole street is somehow bulging, because of fear, rainwater, or time, certainly because of something. A few months ago you would have described this moment with the word paradoxical; now that word, along with several others, is stuck somewhere behind you, somewhere in time. Tell me which words you use and I’ll tell you with whom you spend time and what you are. You can still change your mind, in spite of the fact that the world has been speeding up from month to month, from week to week, from day to day; today it’s speeding up from hour to hour, and that’s all you can think of, that there’s no time left, and of how everything is so fucking complicated.

In front of you is the red, white, and blue flag with the checkerboard, probably there’s also one somewhere at the back, not to mention those left behind in the parked cars; around the flag are hired musicians who sing of the beauties of our homeland and about the beautiful Dalmatia that they will defend with their last drop of blood; everyone is singing along, Goran is walking beside you and behind you are a whole lot of people. All your folk from back home are here and you know exactly what they’re thinking, that this isn’t our kind of climate, it’s too hot. They’re mixed in with Goran’s people, brown, green, and washed-out pastel shades among black, blue, and colorful modern; your folk aren’t used to being away from home, the most elegant colors for them are brown and moss green, they’re not made for these hot white stones on this hot Saturday afternoon, but for you they’d do anything and what our Nuša does is always right. You don’t even know that at the pub your father is known as Our Nuša because he begins every sentence with your name. Our Nuša, he says, adjusting his glasses. Goran’s people are also dressed up. The men in elegant suits, on their feet sharp Italian shoes but no socks. This is another reason for that pain in your diaphragm. What kind of world is it where men dressed for a special occasion are not wearing socks? What’s wrong with them?