After weeks upon weeks of dozing in the shade of sails—sated, dullwitted, and lazy—you will know that sleeping cannot possibly match such bliss, for doing nothing demands a presence of, as it were, mind, it demands an awareness, however indolent and dim, of the surrounding sea, that is, the universe, and a firm grasp of the last bottle of local red wine. Sleeping will then appear to you a shade too easy—a shade subhuman.

Addendum I (March 29, 1994)

I returned to Yugoslavia in 1983 for an entire summer after four years in the States, where I had to stay put in anticipation of my “green card.” Of course, I could always leave the country, but I would not be allowed to return without the green card. As my separation from Elise was a question of months, this time only Marko and I went to Yugoslavia. Elise stayed behind to find a job in preparation for my imminent departure. Of course, she did not find a job that summer, but only when I finally collected my things and left.

My father kept his boat in Sovlje, a village with a dozen or so houses around a little cove. The cove was dominated by a little shipyard, where local boats were repaired and where a few fishing boats were made each year. Sovlje was a few miles from Tribunj, which was a few miles from Vodice. Continuing in the south-east direction, the closest town on the railway network was Šibenik—among the largest towns along the Yugoslav part of the Adriatic coast. The nearest airport was further down the coast, in Split. My parents and I would go to Sovlje every single year, and thence we would make longer or shorter excursions to the nearby islands.

There were a dozen or so “regulars” in Sovlje, whose boats were moored close to each other. The boats attracted many friends and acquaintances from the hinterland. These people provided the only entertainment for the regulars, most of whom had known each other for many years. Among the regulars there was a woman a few years my junior, with whom I had struck a friendship when I was much younger. Her boat was always full of women of her generation, mostly from Zagreb. In 1983 she had two visitors for extended periods of time, and I became close to both of them.

Ana was the first of the two to come to Sovlje and stay with my friend. She was already there when I arrived from the States to join my parents. She had a little daughter with her. Her husband, a well-known film director from Zagreb, was too busy for a proper vacation. Ana was not beautiful, but she was attractive and very feminine. Her bikini left little for the imagination, and she was beautifully tanned by the time I arrived in Sovlje. It was immediately clear that she was attracted to me, too, and the only problem was to find an appropriate moment to make love with her. The cove was too small, the boats too full of people, and everyone there knew everyone else too well. Ana’s little daughter was in the way, as well. The amorous logistics were pretty tricky.

One day before Ana’s departure for Zagreb there was a big feast for a Croatian national holiday, and one of my father’s closest friends in Sovlje realized that this would be the best moment for me to meet with Ana in peace. He arranged for Ana and her daughter to sleep on his boat that night, and then he gave me the essential instructions about his mooring, the access to his boat, the key things on board we might need, etc. All this was done with utmost discretion and without much ado. When the party was in full swing, I slipped away and joined Ana on the boat. Her little girl was fast asleep in the cabin, and we enjoyed our quiet embraces in the cockpit, not far from the hubbub and merriment in the shipyard. Soon I removed her bikini and my trunks and started caressing her breasts, her stomach, her thighs… When she was ready, I had her sit in my lap and I entered her from behind. She was clearly starved for lovemaking, and she had several orgasms in a row as I kept caressing her, nibbling her neck, and kissing her ears. It was an immense joy making love to her because she appreciated everything I would do to her so openly and sweetly.

By then the party on the shore began to lose its momentum, and very soon people started returning to their boats, shouting from one boat to another, and flashing lights at each other. Ana and I had a few more tender kisses before I rejoined the crowd. Only then I noticed that I had a painful and bloody wound on my back, at the place where I was rubbing the side of the boat while we were making love. Before she departed the next day, Ana left a bewildered letter for me with her friend, and she later wrote to me on several occasions, but I had never replied. Even though I was very touched by Ana’s tender letters, I did not want her to get in trouble with her husband.

As soon as Ana left, Nada arrived from Zagreb. She stayed in Sovlje for a couple of weeks. She was jovial, full of energy. She had a wonderfully raspy voice, and a pair of stunning breasts for which she had endearing names—a different name for each breast. Sadly, I have forgotten these names. The first night she arrived we made love late at night on the deserted beach not far from the boats. The moon was full, and it was so very quiet that we felt blessed in the mild Mediterranean air. Nada enjoyed making love—no, fucking—and she was very explicit about it. Because it was not easy to arrange unencumbered encounters in Sovlje, we were together at most four times. When I returned to Belgrade that summer, before my departure for the States, Nada came to visit me, and we made love for the last time in Hotel Moskva, where she had stayed for one night.

One pleasing aspect of that summer that surfaces only now, after more than a decade, is that Ana and Nada were close friends, although there was some rivalry between them. In some special way it was nice to keep the good things within the Sovlje “family,” among friends, as it were. Ana and Nada will thus stay together in my mind for as long as I live. As Belgrade bums would put it, they will forever remain prick-sisters through me. I wonder whether they, too, feel the same way about the summer of 1983?

Addendum II (September 7, 1996)

At a dinner party last night Nada mentioned that she was forty-six. In 1983 she was thirty-three, Lauren’s age today. Back then I was thirty-seven. And Nada is still a desirable woman.