And in Italian the captain said: “Italians are no good either. Why,” he shouted, pointing at the delicious-looking mess simmering in his kettle, “why do you people come here and stare at our food? Do we stare at your food?” He gestured toward the yacht riding at a distance on the ultra-clear sea. “Do we go aboard your fine ship and watch you while you eat your food?”
“Well,” said Marella, as we walked away, “the old boy has a point, you know.”
“Personally,” said Eric, “I think he ought to be reported to the Tourist Bureau.”
What new can one say about Dubrovnik anyway? It is like some section of Venice drained of its canals and stripped of color: gray, medieval, Italian without Italian brio. In autumn and winter it must, in its emptiness, be most impressive; but in summer it is so crowded with excursion-fare vacationers, one can scarcely keep to the pavement. And for those holiday-makers the government has arranged a quite startling night life, altogether unlike any this diarist has seen in other so-called Communist countries (which, excepting Albania and China, includes the lot).
Above the city, nightclubs with sea-panorama vistas throb through the night; one in particular, an al fresco affair attached to a full-scale gambling casino, puts on a floor show reminiscent of those erotic hoedowns in pre-Castro Havana. And in fact the star of the show turned out to be that old-time Cuban legend: Superman!
All those who remember Superman from Havana will be interested to hear that his act, which formerly consisted of vigorous sexual intercourse on a brightly lighted stage, has changed: He is now the male section of a dance team. He and his partner writhe around to the banging of bongo drums, gradually removing one another’s attire until such nakedness appears that Superman seems ready to go into the routine that once made him so famous—but there it stops. The whole thing is fairly humorous, though God knows the audience doesn’t think so: Their response is a kind of stupor, the dazed attention of pimply boys at an Ann Corio exhibit.
Now, leaving the warm moist southern climate, we steam steadily northward into spheres where the air, though it is only late August, trembles already with a beyond-September chill. It is as if a cold crystal ball had descended, enclosing and stilling the green sea, sky, the growing-greener coast bobbing by: gone is the harsh and stony Montenegrin grayness, the subtropic pallor, for now each northward-going day the scene is more fruitful, there are trees and fields of wild flowers and grape vineyards and shepherds munching close to the Adriatic’s edge.
I feel touched by some extreme magic, an expectant happiness—as I always do when that sense of autumn arrives, for autumn never seems to me an end but a start, the true beginning of all our new years.
And so our voyage stopped in the mists of a Venetian evening. With sea mists blurring the lights of San Marco, and sea buoys mournfully tolling watery warnings, the Tritona entered the saddest and loveliest of cities and anchored alla Salute.
The mood aboard is not all sad; the sailors, many of them Venetians, whistle and amiably shout as they swing ropes and lower launches. In the salon, Eric and Allegra are dancing to the phonograph. And I, huddled in the dark, on the upper deck, am very pleased myself—pleased with the air’s promising chill, and the oily flickering lights, and the thought of an imminent visit to Harry’s Bar.
I’ve starved myself all day because … Oh, what joy to step out of the night into the chattering warmth of Harry’s Bar and wash down those little shrimp sandwiches with an icy martini or three!
1967
The End
