Slowcoaches (The Montenegrins)
By Pavle Radonic
Wash off the ants from the banana. Not going to let it go to waste like that. (And forgetting for the moment good Buddhist principles.) In this case some splitting of skin had perhaps opened the door. From reports from locals it seems banana skins of any sort could not keep out a colony of hungry tropical ants. In cooler parts one did not get ants of this calibre, this speed and determination. Another version of the Asian tiger.
It was still a mystery how they had entered the honey jar on two occasions now in the room at Four Chain View. Special care had always been taken with the screw top and the jar kept on a wet shelf in the bathroom. To no avail.
Unable to let it go to waste. If one or two ants had drowned in the liquid, how much harm? Finally the best measure was a little moat construction: a plastic container half-filled with water and the jar placed in the middle. The year before the same resort had been taken. As the jar emptied the problem of flotation arose that brought the jar tipping over to the plastic wall. In that case an appropriate sized weight could be added on top of the lid.
The speed more than anything surprised. There was no tardy crawling along here, no meandering. This was rapido get on with it, chop-chop no hanging back. It reminded of a joke told by an old Croat woman outside a Brunswick Street bookshop in Melbourne, where you sometimes still got more than arty/hipster types.
One blissfully cool afternoon looking in the window at the display. That was always more interesting than browsing over dusty shelves in any bookshop. Old kinda leftist chap seemed to be the owner, nice smile; not too sangfroid a bookworm.
An ethnic woman like that exiting a secondhand upscale bookshop was not so common. She had been in need of directions possibly; that may have been it.
Mid/late-sixties, easy to pick. Romanian or Magyar otherwise.
We worked each other out pretty quickly. Croat; Montenegrin, yeah.
Lady of the old Yugoslav school, robbed of her country, resisting all the ugly nationalism. Good cheerful soul, cheeky and sociable.
Did you hear of the Montenegrin in the hunting party, then?
…Ah, no auntie. How did that one go?
Well. There they were going along, climbing hill and dale. No faun or deer about, no wild swine. Trekking. Whereupon the Montenegrin notices a snail behind.
Oh.
Fellow goes on.
Gurgling rivers, rock-strewn ground, green all round. Turning casually behind, the snail.
Hey! Taking better note this time. Snail.
No time for stopping. Onward. Goes and goes. Not having much luck with the game.
Only every time the hunter, the Montenegrin, pauses for a bit, the snail. Where his companions, the other hunters, have gotten to the chap doesn't know and the Croat doesn't say.
Shadows lengthening. Long story short, the Montenegrin has not shaken the snail on his tail. (Usually there was a Bosnian, Dalmatian and Slovene making up the remainder: Doh-doh, Boozer and Miser. Not relevant here.)
WTF?... Gotten jack of it this marksman. Finally slinging round loses all patience.
You damn devil! Whadya mean tracking me like this, curse you.
Without further ado, BAM-BAM-BAM. And one more for good measure: BAM. Every bullet on target.
One snail that nevermore will hang on the tail of a (tardy) hunter outta luck.
In the Former Yugoslavia the Montenegrins were maligned as lazy, wouldn't work in an iron lung, layabouts. Philosopher types like our great prince poet celebrated by Goethe, Petar Petrovich Njegos. Handsome young tall gangly rake. Tuberculosis was a cover for the pox. But hush, hush.
Croat smiling quietly. Somehow she knew she was not going to offend.
That's how fared the Montenegrin hunter.
Proverbially, the old Montenegrin would ride the donkey while his wife lugged the firewood back home; &etc. A race of giants, loafers, talkers, famed for their hospitality. (The Montenegrin Best Man officiating at a wedding took the first night with his mate's wife, getting the blood part over with, presumably.)
Soaring spirits, like their eagle emblems. How in this late age to witness the celebrated Montenegrin kolo, the slow step dance similar to the Greek of Zorba fame
Arms out-stretched like their totems. Beautiful national costumes. Survived in the mountain wilds on tatters and goat cheese. Curled moustaches. Devilishly handsome. (Short uncomely ones would apologise for blighting the wondrous race.)
In Asia, in the year of 2016 when Lonely Planet pronounced the town of Kotor the No. 1 global destination for tourist travel, they needed to know a little more about the land. Look at a historical atlas of the latter centuries of the last millennium you will find the Balkans covered by the Ottoman horde: Greece, Bulgaria, Serbia, Hungary for a good time and the gates of Vienna besieged. A small little red dot proudly free and independent. Black Mountain. Named by Venetian sailors more than likely from the partial view of the galleys. The interior, the glorious hills, stand all dotted white karst. If one ironed-out Crna Gora, Montenegro, we would be bigger than Amerika.
Geylang Serai, Singapore
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Australian by birth and Montenegrin origin, Pavle Radonic has spent eight years living in SE Asia. Previous work has appeared in a range of literary journals, including Ambit, Big Bridge, Panoply, New World Writing Quarterly and Citron & Antigonish Reviews.
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