The Fig Tree by Goran Vojnovic

Author:Goran Vojnovic [Vojnović, Goran]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: General Fiction
Publisher: Istros Books
Published: 2020-02-15T00:00:00+00:00

VII

1.

I was in love with her; with her loud, wanton fits of laughter, with the way she twirled her hair as she listened to you, with her big eyes that opened wide when something took her by surprise, which shut tight and pretended not to be there; with the way she tutted right before she said Oh, come onnnn! Nobody else could say it so sweetly, so innocently. I was in love with her voice, especially with those whispers as she turned around in the middle of class; with her quiet, suppressed fits of giggles.

I was in love with her, but she was in love with Željko, a student at the Economics Faculty two years her senior, who played handball and went to the Balkan nights at Club El Dorado and hung out at the bar with his teammates until he’d drank enough to go and hover at the edge of the dance floor, obligatory whiskey and coke in his right hand, nodding his head and feebly wafting his left hand in the air. But he was also tanned, with dark features, darker than mine, thick hair and even thicker eyebrows, and dark eyes, which hid beneath his forehead. I don’t know where Anya met him, he was probably a good friend of a friend and they’d gone out together a few times, but there was probably nothing going on between them, because he had a girlfriend.

There was, however, enough between them for Anya to follow him and his handball mates to El Dorado every Wednesday – a place which I, a skater, and she, a stoner, hated. But the hatred was not strong enough to keep her away from Željko, nor was it strong enough to keep me away from her.

Anya knew that I was in love with her but she never said a word. And I was also waiting for something to happen that might make her say or do something, despite her having announced, via Eva, that I didn’t have a chance. I’d go out with Edo before him she said. Edo was the school caretaker. He had a moustache. And only a couple of teeth.

Eva was also the one who encouraged me to follow Anya to El Dorado.

You know what girls are like when they’ve had a few drinks, she said to me.

Eva thought all this was hilarious. When she fancied someone, she went up to the guy and told him. And then they were going out. Which is why she could not understand why I found it so hard to admit I had a crush on Anya. She didn’t understand why I didn’t dare tell Anya that I liked her, why I didn’t ask her out for a drink or to the pictures, or, more straightforwardly, why I didn’t go up to her at the school dance and make out with her. She suspected that all I wanted was to get Anya into bed, and that I was only pretending to be in love with her.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.