Sometimes I meet Krstivoj on the promenade in Lapad. And this morning, as usual, he was holding the thin gray-haired old woman under his arm. They walked slowly, with downcast eyes. The spring morning was fresh, a yellow street dog ran past us, the chirping of birds came from the silence that was slowly disappearing. Krstivoje took his mother out for a walk whenever he could, and the Lapad promenade was the best place for that. The two lived alone in a nearby family house with a small iron gate and a garden full of cats, yellow, gray and black.
Krstivoje Jovanović was a professor of English and worked as a translator at Mediteran , one of the most famous travel agencies on the Adriatic. Sometimes I would meet him alone. He always walked with his head down, with a mouthpiece and a lit cigarette in his left hand, thoughtful and quiet, as if he felt uncomfortable taking someone else's place under the Dubrovnik sun.
"And how are you, Gojko?", he would ask me, since he would say that he was fine.
When his mother died, Krstivoje was left alone. He was about forty years old, but there was no evidence that he had ever slept with a woman. "Krstivoje, when are you going to get married?", the clerks he worked with would tease him. If it were summer, Krstivoje would answer: "Maybe in the fall, when the heat is over." Autumn would pass and winter would come, and Krstivoje would satisfy the wickedly curious by saying: "Maybe in the spring." Sometimes he would go in the company of a stout, skinny Montenegrin woman, a courier at a local catering company. He walked a step ahead of her, as if he was not happy to be seen with a woman who was not interesting in any way. They were reportedly seen leaving his house together in the morning.
Well built, Krstivoje had a mild, attractive appearance. He had messy blond hair and blue eyes. He didn't go to coffee shops and birch trees, and when his company would invite him for a drink after work at the agency, he would excuse himself that he had to go feed the cats.
"Kristivoj, when I die, don't forget the cats," his mother used to tell him. "I have twelve in the garden and I know every name."
It was Sunday when Krstivoje got up and went to the garden. He found a terrible sight: all ten cats and two cats were lying spread out in the garden, motionless as if asleep. Someone poisoned them. Someone to whom Krstivoje did no harm. Because Krstivoje never looked at anyone the wrong way in his life, let alone insulted him with a gesture.
He entered the house and began to cry. At least he had those cats who saw him off and welcomed him by jumping around his legs. Now they won't have them either. He lit a cigarette and walked around the house shaken.
Even though it was Sunday, Krstivoje went to SUP to report the case.
"Whom do you suspect?" the duty inspector asked him.
"No one," said Krstivoje.
"Me neither," said the inspector sullenly. "A little while ago I sent a team to investigate, two people died in a traffic accident in Rijeka Dubrovnik. And you're screwing me with your cats. And what's that name: Krstivoje?"
Krstivoje remained silent.
When he returned home, he looked once more over the entire garden. His cats lay motionless, each where they had last stretched. He went into the kitchen and came back with a shovel and a bucket of quicklime. A large fig tree and three orange trees grew in the garden. Krstivoje dug four holes next to the fence itself and gently laid three cats in each, then carefully poured white liquid over them and buried them with earth and fallen leaves. Then he rested his palms on the handle of the shovel and stared at the fresh graveyard of his cats.
The day was bright, the breeze was blowing and the autumn leaves were fluttering on the trees and falling noiselessly to the ground.
A dog was barking in the neighborhood.
Krstivoje loved his job. He was considered the best translator in the agency, but after losing his mother and his cats, he became depressed at work as well. And tourism is a profession of cheerful people, in charge of relaxing their guests, who have paid for this service in advance. The courier with whom he was seen married a taxi driver in Trebinje, and Krstivoje said that he had nothing to do with her and that she only maintained his apartment and sometimes cooked a meal. In the evening, he was reluctant to return home, so he began to spend his time sitting in the cafe Under the Plane Trees . He would drink a beer or two and stare blankly out of the big window. One could feel the breath of the coming winter, the depressing days that replace the accelerated rhythm of summer.
But Krstivoje did not surrender to fate. He decided to do something for himself, but he didn't know what. That he might try to be what he really is not and what no one knew him to be? He started going to the Casablanca restaurant in Gruž, where no one knew him. At the end of the sixties, it was opened by Captain Zuanić, who sailed on ships under the English flag for years, together with his rich wife from Liverpool. They named it after the famous film with Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman in the lead roles. They found good cooks and skilled waiters, brought a bar piano player from Sarajevo and the restaurant soon became a favorite haunt of sailors, local prostitutes and smugglers of whiskey and American cigarettes. Krstivoje began to feel comfortable in an atmosphere full of alcohol, tobacco smoke and rudeness. His father was also a sailor. He was sailing on a cargo ship that sank in a big storm along with all the crew members. Krstivoj was seven years old at the time.
In Casablanca, fights often broke out among drunken sailors. Krstivoje sometimes wanted to get involved himself, but he found no reason to do so. He usually sat with Leila, the most attractive of the harbor prostitutes, so it looked like he was her pimp. This impressed Krstivoje, and in fact she was the only one who paid attention to him, knowing that Krstivoje was a stranger in that dangerous society. He once came to work with bruises under his eyes.
"What happened to you, Krstivoje, that you didn't fall somewhere?", they asked him in the office.
"Last night in that restaurant in Gruž, I had a fight with two Greek sailors because they were rude to my lady. I beat them both up. And they didn't caress me either," replied Krstivoje.
"Kristivoj, will you treat me, I'm hungry?", Lejla asked him one evening as they sat together at the table and watched the drunken, noisy and aggressive sailors. She ordered steak with fries and a salad. Whores always take the best dishes.
"Krstivoje, take something too," said Lejla.
"I'm not hungry, I'll have a beer," said Krstivoje.
After a while, a young, strong Irishman approached their table. He didn't even look at Krstivoj, he whispered something to Lejla and she immediately got up.
"Krstivoje, pay for this," she said, kissed him on the forehead, and left with the Irishman. When he got home, he opened a can of fish, drank a glass of beer, and fell asleep.
Frequent trips to Gruž, which like every port had its own Casablanca , and spending time with Lejla made Krstivoj different. Now he was waking up confident in himself - no one would fool Krstivoj anymore.
Once we met in Galeb cafe and Krstivoje told me a good story. He bragged to me that he hunts good women, but not at any cost. He was bothered by the behavior of his young colleagues from the agency. They wore strictly miniskirts, and if they sat opposite Krstivoje, they would spread their long legs so that their panties could be seen. But Krstivoje successfully resisted such temptations. He always kept in mind the warning of the director of the agency, a young, plump and capable technomanager: "Krstivoj, I know you're a famous fucker. I love a pussy too, but remember one thing - I don't want love affairs between my staff!" I have never heard Krstivoj talk about such things before. I knew he made it all up. But he didn't let himself be stopped. "I wear jeans to work, but I never sit with my legs apart, even though I have big balls and something to show," he said, covering them with his big fist. "Krstivoje, don't fuck everything. My mother used to say to me: 'Krstivoje, son, don't deal with all kinds of women. You can catch some kind of infection.' And Doctor Job told me: "Kristivoje, don't drag him into every hole. There's also AIDS, just find a smart girl and fuck her." But I crush every good woman."
That's how Krstivoje became what he really wasn't and entertained society with his fictional stories.
The last time we met was on the same promenade. We were alone, the two of us and a yellow dog that was running around. He stopped by us and watched us for a few moments. We didn't give him the expected attention and he ran on. The cloudy sky and the silence of late autumn caused me a slight restlessness. Oranges were ripening in the surrounding gardens.
"I'm not well on Sundays," said Krstivoje. "It was a Sunday when my father drowned. And my mother died on a Sunday. The morning was similar to this one. I made coffee and waited for my mother to appear. And she was lying dead in her room. It was also a Sunday when I lost my cats."
“Are you still single?”
"I hang out with whores," said Krstivoje and continued in the opposite direction from me.
The yellow dog ran after him.
A few days later, a news appeared in the local newspaper with the headline: "Krstivoje Jovanović, translator at the Mediteran agency, found dead in the garden of his house".