Trafika Europe 1 - Northern Idyll

even Josipina, even Karlo and Tata , who’s still at the barber’s.

Mama says that Albert and Srečko are very fond of each other. That they used to fish together in the pond, they rode bicycles together and wherever one went, the other followed.

How time passes, eh, Srečko, she says and looks through the window at the yard.

Now Tata is coming. We all see him through the window. He’s in the yard. He stops. I see the back of his neck and the straw hat. You can see his hair has been cut, you see it under his hat, on the back of his neck. When Tata ’s hair has been cut, I feel as if I want to cry, I want to sob, because he looks like a little boy, like Ivan when he goes to school or when they cut his hair for the holidays. We must look nice on holidays, says Mama, and today is a holiday, and she goes out into the yard where Tata is.

We’re all in the yard.

We’re standing under the chestnut tree, in which birds sleep at night, looking at the gap where, Mama says, Karlo will bring Albert. It’s nice in the shade, says Srečko, wiping his forehead. I see his hand, how it trembles. He wipes his forehead with a trembling hand and says: Oh, they should be back from Venice by now.

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