An Anthology of Croatian Literature

Ivan Slamnig (1930-2001)

Ivan Slamnig (1930–2001)
A son of the Dalmatian coast, though he was a longtime resident of Zagreb, Slamnig was known as poet, dramatist, and prose writer for his playful use of language, especially of the several dialects of Croatian. He was a master of parody, of both classical and modern texts. A scholar of comparative literature , he brought much to Croatian literature from American modernism. He was an early voice of Croatian liberal thought, as a member of the Krugovi group of poets in the 1950s, and he retained his free-spiritedness throughout his career. The following story, entitled in the original “Priča o Zvjezdani” (1959), was translated by Graham McMaster and appeared in Relations 3– 4/2000: 234–38. An Anthology of Croatian Literature 252 Zvjezdana’s Tale Young bloom/Went with him/Maybe living/Happy where [Song of Zvjezdana] The Moon was somewhere low down by the horizon, red and huge. It seemed so close, so like a person. As night drew on, so the moon rose higher and turned increasingly pallid. And as the night drew on, so the preliminary alert began and the street lighting didn’t turn on, and the city was left to the moon. As time went on, the houses seemed ever larger, the shadows ever stronger. The moonlight was very pale; the moon was at the full. Worried people could be seen hurrying to their houses; since the cinemas hadn’t started, you could see couples in love taking care of each other; the preliminary alert, the darkness and the moonlight were quite welcome to them. You could see them passing over the big milk-white thoroughfare and disappearing into the shadow of another block of houses. The trams weren’t running and people went in processions through the city. I too was walking through the city, but without any particular objective. I had also wanted to go to the cinema, but it seemed that the show wouldn’t start tonight, because after the preliminary would come the full air-raid warning and then the full alert. I walked alone, and knew her from her gait. Zvjezdana was walking in front of me, and however slowly I went, she went still more slowly, in her dark blue, silk overcoat. When I spoke to her, she started and then smiled at me, as if my hello had reminded her that I even existed or that people even existed. We were both young; neither of us had turned seventeen. Since she was female, you might say that she was older than me, since people brought her into society in front of me, accepted her as a more or less completely grown woman, ready for marriage, although I had read more books than she ever would and although I had a hundred well-mulled views of the world. But since many men older than her might desire her white and rounded little body, she was received into a circle of people much older than herself. It seemed that she was pleased to see me, although a little earlier it had appeared that she was pleased to be walking alone. For some time we walked on. Then she said: “If you’re going somewhere, can I go some time with you, if you don’t mind?” “I’m not going anywhere.” And so we set off. We walked on very slowly and looked at the walls of the houses blanched in the moonlight. She took me under my arm, which I liked. Ivan Slamnig 253 “I’m feeling down,” she said after a time. “Well, it’s dark, and there’s a war on,” I said. “Yes,” she replied. “But I have a special reason.” I was strongly tempted to ask her what the matter was, but I controlled myself. It was then clear that we were a part of all this. I in my grey coat, and her in her dark blue. The houses were gloomy in the moonlight, and we were gloomily nervous. The air we breathed in was the same that many had breathed out. We were both out of the war—I still had another year or so to go before being called up, I was still a high school boy, and she was a girl. We walked around the city like two ghosts, parts of the air. And so we met Željko. “I met Zvjezdana,” I said...