William Vollmann - Last Stories and Other Stories

His ex-girlfriend Victoria, who had gone to school with him and Ivan, was the only one who ever wrote to say that she was sorry. She was dead now. Remembering this, he felt his love for her return, as a dull lost yearning.

His anger at Ivan’s brother and sister fluttered like those white butterflies over the elderberries. He forgave Sam again, then hated him. If he ever happened upon Sam again it would be perfectly all right between them. As for Zrinko, he had become one more denizen of a bygone foreign land, so that his hateful and threatening behavior need not be taken personally.

He could not remember the first time he had seen Ivan or even what they had meant to each other when they were boys.

Perhaps if he had made up his mind to take some attitude, not about Ivan’s family, or the consequences to himself, but about that double death itself, which belonged not to him but only to Ivan and the other man, he might have been better to himself and others, but precisely which thought or feeling would have accomplished this? Or what if he had simply set out to remember Ivan from time to time? Well, he would not. He disbelieved that he had meant that much to Ivan, or even that Ivan had respected him; Ivan had been too far above him. And so it could have been said that he rejected peace, which is scarcely more or less than sleep.

Without his glasses Ivan had looked much younger; this was surprising. But perhaps the leader had never seen him in life, in which case it would have only been the dead Ivan that he knew. Ivan was smiling in all his press cards. When he smiled, the corners of his mouth did not turn up. In this respect his signature was the same, for it hurried across the empty space, narrow and flat. He was not handsome but his face was kind. There had never been wariness in him. The official stamps on the press cards remained unfaded. In these photographs Ivan had stopped being a man and become a boy, gentle and careless, much younger than the one who had survived him.

In the morning he woke up happy that they were leaving the place. The day was still cool. His wife’s knees hurt; he kissed her. At breakfast he ordered a coffee, and the woman smiled at him. He smiled back. His wife returned to the room to organize her suitcase. She was looking very tired. It seemed to him that he could not bear to outlive her. The woman brought his coffee. She was very pretty, and had sweet friendly eyes. He tried to speak a little of her language as he once used to do, and she laughingly encouraged him. Traces of words rose up on his tongue.

The coffee was Turkish, of course: bittersweet, blacker than dirt, thicker than paste. He felt joyful to taste it. Hoping to take his wife back to the market if there were time, and perhaps to buy her some plums, he drank it quickly. Again the woman was smiling at him. He wondered whom she loved. Now she was in the kitchen; he heard her singing. A little sorry to go away, he left a fine tip and went out quietly, not wishing to trouble her with anything. At once he forgot her face. He was worrying about his wife, so at first he did not hear the rapid footsteps behind him on the street. How could those have anything to do with him? But the young woman, out of breath now, had come running after him, just to say goodbye.

When Jovo Cirtovic sailed to Trieste in 1718, the place must have whispered to him, for he stayed on to become a merchant of Friulian wines, which his ships carried with magical success. Before the native-born citizenry could open both eyes, he owned a veritable fleet, supplying ports as far away as Philadelphia. Why the grapes of Friuli bleed so delicious a juice remains nearly as mysterious to my mind as Cirtovic’s triumphal accession to the trade, although just yesterday, in that breezy hour when bronzes begin to surpass the darkness of pigeons, three of my fellow drinkers persuaded me that what accomplishes vinocultural excellence is soil, while two others led me to comprehend that the most ineffable qualities of the Bacchic Tetragrammaton derive from atmosphere, as has been proved down at Cinque Terra, where one famous salt-fogged vineyard, unremittingly guarded against the sea, produces a crop of great price. The waiter proposed to bring us a bottle of that stuff, but we disregarded him, for he was no Triestino; had we indulged his advice, he might even have poured something foreign down our throats. Meanwhile my helpful friends had educated me concerning the absolute excellence of Friulian vintages, which indeed occupy so commanding a position that should the Devil in his malice uproot every other grapevine on earth, nobody would be worse off, excepting only a few charlatans in Bordeaux or Tuscany. Here they paused to ascertain that my intellect had in truth kept pace with their instruction, for they were warmheartedly solicitous academicians, whose very breaths were purple. Yes, I said. Accordingly, all that remained was my indoctrination in the seventh syllogism of the thirty-first demonstration. This required their coming to blows, so I thanked them one and all, uplifting my glass, forsaking them for a breeze, the sea, a stone wall, potted palms. Then I poured a libation over Cirtovic’s cenotaph. He was a good father.

Now, what about soil versus atmosphere? I know I am getting out of my depth here, since wine disagrees with me (I’m drinking smoky Dubrovnik loža as I write this), but I do seek your tolerance of my efforts, being myself a merchant of sorts, retailing paragraphs by the sailmaker’s yard. How shall I say why Cirtovic could sell every last barrel that creaked and sloshed on his shipbelly voyages? In the Caffè San Marco my friends are still arguing about it; their tongues have gotten winestained and their eyelids resemble those reflections of blinds which droop in the arched windows of lingerie shops. Not even they can explain wine. In the Piedmont, waiters dispraise Friulian reds; in Spaleto and Zara (which our hero preferred to call Split and Zadar), fat old nobles swear upon Mary Magdalene’s reliquary that Friulian whites are absolutely no good. Cirtovic never committed himself to any theory about grapes; nor could I imagine how such abstrusities would have impressed the hardheaded merchants of Philadelphia. Was his secret simply price, which must have been low enough to satisfy frugality and high enough to massage pretension? Or did the Tories of that epoch feel a yearning for far-off salty places, which they indulged only by the glass? Up until then, many an innkeeper in those Colonies had been wont to regale his guests on fly-infused vinegar, reminding them that such had done well enough for Christ on the cross. Then came sea-barrels of wine from Friuli. For a quarter-hour the thirsty Yankees knew how to be happy. In vain the skinflints who sold foul stuff invoked cabals and vigilance committees against Cirtovic — wasn’t he a tool of the Papists? Examining the barque Kosovo as a precaution against contraband, a certain customs officer, invited for a glass of wine in the captain’s cabin, spied above the bed an icon of the Madre della Passione, or Strastnja : mostly silver, it was, but the metal drew sharp-edgedly away from around those two golden faces; Marija fitted the young mother’s part, while Jesus could have been a watchful little Roman Emperor. Ah, that draught, how magically purple it was! Cirtovic began smiling; he seemed an excellent fellow. Rising, the customs man demanded to know whether his mariners obeyed the Pope. — Not us! laughed the captain. If you like, I’ll attest an oath to that effect. — Then what are you? — Orthodox, sir. And I am quite sure our Patriarch has no designs on these Colonies. — The cautious customs man held fast to the proverb Take counsel in wine, but resolve afterwards in water; after another glass of the Friulian vintage he forgot the second half. And so the cargo got landed; heaven came to earth. Safely alone, Cirtovic raised a glass to his true hero, Prince Lazar.