Fifty years of marriage is no small thing, so the kids said it was time we went somewhere like normal people. Our son in Salzburg and our daughter in Banja Luka pooled their money and paid for seven days for us in Neum, half board, the Blue Cove hotel, a room with a sea view. Seven hundred and twenty marks all told, and in September at that, when it is cheaper, but Dragica does not know that, so do not tell her. I was against it. What do I need the sea for, I said, when I have the Bosna river right below the house. But once the kids had paid, it would not be right to let it go to waste.
We left Doboj on the bus at ten past five. Dragica had made enough potato pie for half the bus, and all the way to Zenica I explained to the driver that it was faster through Maglaj, even though he was already going through Maglaj. Behind us sat some man from Tešanj who talked on the phone the whole way, so twice I said loudly that other people have ears too. Near Jablanica we stopped for lamb, which I did not eat, because a portion was twenty-two marks, and I know what lamb costs in Doboj. We got to Neum at a quarter past three, forty minutes later than it says on the ticket, and I said so at the front desk too, so it would be on record.
On the second day, on the promenade, somebody shouted: "Dragica! Dragica Rakić!" Rakić is her maiden name, and nobody had called her that since seventy-five. Standing in front of us was Milenko Jović from Teslić, in white trousers and a hat, with every hair still on his head, which I did not like from the start. Dragica went out with him for two months in the spring of seventy-three, until I turned up at the dance at the community center, and from then on she was mine. That is how I tell it. Dragica says it was four months. Milenko was with his wife, Radojka, a big, cheerful woman who laughed even before anybody had said anything.
That very evening the four of us were sitting on the terrace, because they too, as it turned out, were staying at the Blue Cove, one floor below us. Milenko took out a deck of cards and asked if I played tablić. Did I play tablić. At the retirees' club in Doboj nobody sits down across from me without a shot of rakija for courage. We played until eleven, and I won three games out of five, and Milenko said it was because he was not used to this kind of light. The next day he won three out of five, and I noticed, though I said nothing, that Radojka kept sitting behind me and laughing just when I had good cards.
On the third day Milenko suggested bocce on the court behind the hotel. I had never played bocce, but what could be hard about it: you throw the ball and watch where it stops. Milenko, it turned out, had been champion of the bocce club in Teslić four years running and had a certificate, which he had not brought, but he talked about it. Radojka applauded every one of his throws and only one of mine, when I hit his ball, and it turned out that had been good for him. I lost thirteen to two. He gave me one of the points out of pity, you could see it. I said the wind off the sea was to blame, and Dragica said there was no wind, and right in front of him.
After that the walks began. Every morning after breakfast Milenko and Dragica would go on ahead, along the promenade toward the border, talking about the old movie theater in Doboj, about the fortress, and about people who were gone, while I walked behind them with Radojka, who told me about her blood pressure, about her grandchildren in Sweden, and about how to make proper ajvar the proper way. I timed it on my watch: forty-seven minutes the first morning, an hour and ten the second. The third morning I sped up and passed them, so they would see I could walk too, and I got back to the hotel alone, because in the meantime they had sat down for coffee.
That evening, when Milenko and Radojka had gone to change for the music, Dragica said, eating her ice cream: "Milenko was always a good dancer." She said it just like that, as if nothing were going on. "Then why didn't you marry him?" I asked. "He never asked me," she said, and went on eating her ice cream.
The music that evening came from a keyboard player from Čapljina, who played everything at the same tempo, sevdalinkas and pop hits alike. Milenko was the first to ask Dragica to dance, and I, so as not to sit there like a stump, asked Radojka. Radojka leads. I am telling you so you know, if she ever asks you: she leads and she does not ask. I kept trying to steer us closer to them, to hear what they were talking about, and that is how we ran into a waiter carrying three lemonades. The lemonades ended up on me. Milenko said even that had its charm, and Dragica laughed until she had to sit down. That night, for the first time in twenty years, we went to bed without saying good night to each other. I lay facing the sea, she lay facing the wardrobe, and we both pretended to be asleep, which she does worse than I do, because she only snores once she is really asleep.
In the morning I went down to breakfast first and sat at a different table, so it would be clear. Dragica sat with Milenko and Radojka and laughed at something. After breakfast I went down to the pier by myself and sat there for two hours, watching some man from Vienna fish and catch nothing, and that pleased me. I thought about what it would have been like if Dragica had married Milenko. She would have white trousers in the house and a bocce certificate on the wall. She would have a husband who knew how to dance. Do not think I was jealous. I was only doing the math. Around noon Radojka came out onto the pier, sat down next to me, took off her sandals, and put her feet in the sea.
"Stevo," she said, "you are a fool, but a good fool." And then she told me something neither Dragica nor I had known. For fifty years Milenko has been telling everyone in Teslić how Dragica Rakić left him for a tall fellow from Doboj who danced the kolo better than he did at the dance. "For fifty years I have been hearing about that kolo," Radojka said. "When we ran into you, he paced the room all night. He cannot beat you at anything, Stevo. That is why he cheats." "Cheats?" I asked. "At tablić," she said. "When I sit behind you and laugh, it means you have good cards. That is how I have signaled him ever since we got married. As of today I am stopping, because I feel sorry for you."
That evening I came out onto the terrace with a new deck of cards, bought at the kiosk, and told Milenko we would play one last game, for the title. Radojka sat down beside Dragica, not behind me. We played until midnight. Milenko was sweating, I was counting cards, and Dragica was looking at me the way she looked at me in seventy-three, over a glass of juice, when I walked up to her and asked if she would join the kolo. I won seven to five. Milenko held out his hand and said it had been a real game. I said it had, and neither of us mentioned Radojka.
When we got back to our room, Dragica sat on the bed and said: "Stevo, I left Milenko because of the motorbike." I asked what motorbike. "He had a Tomos and he talked about nothing else. At the dance you talked about me." "And the kolo?" I asked. "You danced the kolo terribly," she said. "And you stepped on my foot twice." So I laughed, and then she laughed, until Radojka on the floor below banged on the ceiling with a broom, or whatever she had handy.
We set off for home on Saturday. Milenko and Radojka saw us to the bus, and Milenko gave me his phone number, for a bocce rematch, and I said I would think about it, which with me means no. From Mostar to Zenica Dragica slept on my shoulder. My arm went numb by Jablanica, but I did not move, and Milenko, if you ask me, would not have lasted even to Konjic. When we got off the bus in Doboj, Dragica looked up at the fortress and said the sea was lovely, but we have the Bosna right below the house. I said that seven days ago. I did not remind her. Let her have it.