Holiday season
Olib, Northern Dalmatia, Croatia
IT WAS THE first day of the new holiday season. The tall, fair-haired, and most men would’ve agreed, strikingly good-looking woman could not have been a day older than thirty-one. On this warm, sunny day, there was not a cloud in the sky, there was no wind, not even a breeze, or a ripple on the turquoise-blue water of the Adriatic Sea surrounding Olib. The blond woman was the first holiday-maker of the season to arrive on the island. A lot more visitors were expected over the course of the season.
The two old women stopped their chattering mid-sentence when they saw her as she approached along the road leading up from the harbor past the barn where they were processing olives.
Cars were not allowed on Olib. Visitors who arrived at the island on the car ferry had to store their cars at the harbor and walk where they wanted to go.
The older woman, Marija, stared openly at the fair-haired woman, still a good hundred meters or so away, and noticed the backpack, hiking boots, and bright, multicolored blouse. As she got closer, Marija didn’t fail to also notice the shorts, and that the bright, multicolored blouse’s top buttons were undone. Very little, if any, of the clothing, features, and demeanor of visitors passing the barn ever escaped her and her coworker, Agneza’s scrutiny.
She kept on staring while she spoke to Agneza without turning her head. “This one is a wild one—trouble—came out here looking for men to seduce, if you ask me. Bare legs and no bra.”
Agneza shook her head. “Going around dressed like that, she’ll be pregnant before the holiday season is over—it’ll be a child without a surname.”
“Yes,” Marija added, “and what will happen to her then? No decent man will want to marry her.”
“Tsk tsk,” Agneza started, “she’d have to hire herself out to work in some family’s home, making beds and scrubbing floors. And she will prey on the unsuspecting husband, making him drunk on wine to the point that he wouldn’t even remember being seduced by her—in the barn. It always happens in the barn.”
“True, just so—always in the barn,” Marija agreed, still keeping her eyes fixed on the approaching stranger. “Poor wife. She’ll find out about the tryst and throw this seductress out on the street. Where will she go then?”
Agneza shrugged. “Prostitution in Zagreb, what else?”
The fair-haired woman was now opposite the opening of the barn, no more than five meters away, saw the two old women, smiled, waved, and greeted them in Italian, “Ciao!”
The Olibjani, as the inhabitants of Olib liked to call themselves, speak a dialect of Croatian which they call Olibian, and most of them also speak Italian because of their Roman history and closeness to Italy.
“Ciao, ciao,” the women replied in chorus and waved back at her with big, friendly smiles on their faces.
What nice people, the fair-haired woman thought as she continued walking.
Just then a third woman, hunchbacked, carrying a walking stick, shuffled into the barn. She was much older than any of the two already there. “Who’s that girl with the bare legs and unbound breasts?”
“We don’t know her name, or much about her, but she is a whore from Zagreb, out here looking for a man to bewitch,” Agneza said.
“Shame, shame, shame. Maybe she’s protestant?” the hunchback ventured.
“No, that far I won’t go,” Agneza protested, “but she did make a big mistake when she had sex with her employer’s husband in the barn when he was drunk. After that she had no choice but to sell her body in Zagreb.”
“Exactly what a woman can expect if she goes around half naked with bare legs and unbound breasts. It always happens just so,” the hunchback said.
***
OLIB IS AN island (otoci) of Croatia, one of between 1,185 and 1,246, depending to whose definition of what constitutes an island in Croatian terms one adheres to.
The Hydrographic Institute of the Republic of Croatia categorizes all landforms surrounded by water as an island (otoci) if its bigger than 1 square kilometer, an islet (otočići) if it’s between 0.1 and 1 square kilometer, or a rock (hridi) if its smaller than 0.1 square kilometer. By their definition there are 1,246, covering a total area of approximately 3,300 square kilometers in the Adriatic Sea on the western side of Croatia.
The Olibjani, numbering about a hundred souls, produce wine, olive oil, and cheese on an area of little more than twenty-four square kilometers. During holiday season, the island population explodes when families of the locals came to visit, and international tourists come to enjoy la dolce vita, the good life, sea, sun, ‘slow food’, and lots of wine.
Border control
THERE IS NO official immigration office on Olib. Marija and Agneza fulfilled that role, free of charge. They didn’t ask visitors for papers or passports or identification of any kind. In fact, their communication with the strangers visiting their island domain was usually limited to a friendly wave, a “ciao”, and if asked for, an explanation and a pointing in the direction of the accommodation the visitors were seeking. They plied the trade of customs official different than anywhere else in the world. They were sharp observers and accurate judges of character. In the time it took a visitor to come into view on the road from the harbor, about hundred meters from the barn door, to the time he or she disappeared over the hill, they made their assessment and delivered their verdict—this one is trouble, that one is not. And they’d pass their findings on to everyone on Olib who had to know, whether they wanted to know or not.
Not during their lifetime and, as far as they knew, neither during their parents’ lives, nor their grandparents’, was any serious crime ever committed on Olib. This they ascribed to their skillful screening and assessment prowess, passed on to them by their mothers, and grandmothers, which they in turn, just like their forebears, provided to the people of Olib—free of charge.
Hence, the closest semblance to a policeman on Olib was the harbormaster.
On the second day, Olib’s ‘immigration officers’, Marija and Agneza, took up position shortly after they heard the horn of the ferry announcing its arrival in the harbor about half a kilometer away.
All new arrivals had to pass by their barn.
A group of seven youngish tourists, ranging in age from early to mid-thirties by the sounds of it, French speaking, arrived. Three couples and a single man who stood out among them, not only because of his dark hair, tan skin, eye-catching physique, and designer casual attire, but also because he was the only one in the group who was single. He was in his mid-thirties, Marija and Agneza decided, a male model working for some fashion designer in Paris or Milan—no doubt. However, Marija was stumped as to why he didn’t have a female companion like the rest of his group.
“Unless…” Agneza started, then put her hand over her mouth, no, no, no that far I won’t go...
Nonetheless, the two ‘officials’ were in agreement; they were a friendly and harmless group, none of them were troublemakers, and thus the rumor mill bulletin didn’t contain any ‘BOLOs’ for the day.
***
OVER THE NEXT two days, at least thirty more people passed through Olib’s ‘immigration checkpoint’. Twenty-six of the strangers were assessed to be good people. They wouldn’t cause any trouble, they would swim on Olib’s pristine beaches and tan in its unblemished sun. They’d eat Olib’s wonderful food cooked in Olib’s unrivaled olive oil and drink of Olib's extraordinary wine, then go back home after a few days with only pleasant memories of Olib.
Four of the thirty were assessed to be in the neutral category—they would swim and tan, and eat and drink too much, be noisy, and make a nuisance of themselves, and then go back home remembering only the headaches caused by their overindulgences.
***
THE FIFTH DAY of the season was a special day, at least for Marija. There was only one arrival, the man she’d seen in her visions of many years. The man who would’ve been her son in law was it not for her daughter, Aria’s obstinacy.
When Marija caught sight of the dark-haired, tanned stranger with the big black dog by his side, she drew a sharp breath. She didn’t have to see more of him to know he was the one she saw in her forethoughts. And just looking at him filled in all the blanks for her. He was an educated and sophisticated man, not a violent hair on his head, a gentleman, and aristocracy—no doubt. The words ‘Prince of… whatever country’ might as well have been written on a board and hung around his neck.
She sighed deeply. Why did my Aria not listen to me? Instead she ran off to marry that good-for-nothing, Josip. He might as well have been born with ten thumbs. All his hands are good for is to hold a wine bottle and bring it to his mouth to drink from. No job, no ambition, no money. My poor Aria has to work day and night to keep them alive.
Aria, had you only listened to me when I told you so many times, ‘one day the right man for you will walk onto this island,’ I could’ve introduced him to you—right now.
When the ferry departed from Olib on the fifth day of the holiday season, Marija and Agneza did a recap of the visitors who’d arrived and how the holiday season had been shaping up thus far. They were satisfied that they’d done their job well, so far. None of the visitors misbehaved. Olib was as peaceful as always.
So far, the prince of whatever country was a standout because of his aristocratic mannerisms. As far as Marija was concerned, figuratively speaking, he stood head and shoulders above the rest. On the other end of the spectrum was the tall, beautiful, fair-haired woman who paraded her naked legs and unbound breasts, so she could be seen by men. Although, there were no reports of her misbehaving, not yet, they knew it was just a matter of time—no doubt. She brought misfortune with her, the harbormaster should not have allowed her off the ferry in the first place.
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