Free Stillness of the Sea by Nicol Ljubic

lasted far too long. I was absorbed by the sight of your toes, once you kicked off your girlish pink felt slippers, stretched out your foot and made your toes wander up my leg. As your foot climbed higher and you slid closer to the edge of your chair, your toes almost reached my belly and then clamped themselves onto the top of my thigh.
    You made me laugh when you showed me your toes for the first time, those small, wrinkled toes you didn’t like the look of. When you climbed out of the bath and walked barefoot across the tiles, you would always notice that I was staring at your feet and hurry into bed to hide them away under the duvet. And when I dived face first under the cover and worked my way down to kiss your feet, you defended yourself by pressing one foot against the other. You told me I should kiss any part of you but not your tiny, hateful toes.

 
     
    He sits at a table in the guesthouse conservatory and looks out over the restless sea. He can see white horses far into the distance. A couple of joggers are struggling against the gusts that sweep the promenade. From where he sits, they seem to be running on the spot. Nothing else suggests the strength of the wind: no litter flying in the streets, no creaking woodwork, no whistling and whining noises.
    There is something utterly unreal about the world outside. He visualises Ana down there, by the sea. She is wearing an anorak he doesn’t think he’s seen before. The hood is pulled over her head, and she stands waving to him with her back to the sea. Why doesn’t she sit next to him here? The table is laid for two. Opposite him there is a place set with an empty plate, a folded napkin next to it, a knife, a fork and a cup. But Ana is out there.
    Perhaps she simply woke early and, while he still slept, went over to the window and saw the sea. So she dressed, pulled the door shut behind her and ran towards the seashore, and whenever she comes back to the guesthouse, he will be there, on his seat behind the windowpanes of the conservatory.
    He imagines her running towards him and, when she reaches his table, pulling back her hood to reveal her ruffled hair. She bends over him, and her lips and cheeks are very cold. He watches her as she pours herself a cup of tea and butters a roll. He asks her if she has slept all right and recalls how they fall asleep, one body against the other.
    When he arrived late at night three days ago, the woman in reception let him have a double room for the price of a single, so it had two of everything, two duvets, two pillows, two large towels, two small face towels and two soaps. He tried to imagine which side of the bed Ana would have preferred, which towel she would have taken if she had been the first to run a bath, and which of the two small soaps she would have unwrapped. Every morning he has woken up in this place, he has found his head resting on her pillow.
     
    They were in bed together when he asked her. He was lying on his back and directed his question at the ceiling. He waited until she switched off her bedside light. Gently, he asked why she had left Višegrad, back then.
    The sound of her voice surprised him, it was different, so soft and vulnerable.
    “My father wanted us to leave,” she said. “He didn’t want us to stay. He sent us to Belgrade to live with his sister.”
    “Why didn’t he come with you?”
    He could hear Ana breathe. He placed his hand on her belly.
    “He didn’t want to go. Didn’t want to leave our house.”
    As he went on questioning her, his voice seemed to escape his control and he needed to work hard to modulate it.
    “Ana…” he began and paused. “Ana?”
    He noticed that her regular breathing was interrupted for a moment and the surface of her belly did not rise; at that moment he too held his breath.
    “What happened in Višegrad?”
    He no longer recognised his own voice. It was like hearing a recording of it, and once more he felt he couldn’t connect to it. He sensed that