“I love and I hate life on the water,” Djellah admits. “Those open seascapes, being able to breathe it all in with all you’ve got! And on the other hand, the boat itself, which really is an extremely constrained space. You’re sleeping and eating with the other person right by your side all the time. Even in the toilet you feel that your companions are only a few metres away. I get these moments, when I need to just wave good bye and say “Adieu, I’m off on my own now, back in a few days…””
Oh, that’s a cop’s blue shirt in the crowd! It’s a good thing my sixth sense made me look up.
I know already what I have to do. I stick my notebook under my arm, slip between the beach towels in the stand next to mine, and from there to the next aisle, but not before getting a nod from my neighbour: he’ll keep an eye on my jewellery. The cops and I must not meet!
The geometry of relationships
Djellah and I have met five times for this coming feature and each time I have had more and more questions. Of course, five times less would have been sufficient for a story, but in my own way, I’ve completely fallen for her. She is me in the future! That’s the life that waits for me: always on the go, just a touch melancholic and exciting at once, captivating. Except I’ll be a new and improved version of Djellah, an evolutionary step, for not only will I experience all the rough edges of the rocky path through life, I’ll write about them too. If she feels stressed just writing postcards about how she’s doing, then I’m equally suffocated by not being able to write. This is the only major difference I’ve found between her and me.
Djellah wants to meet me too, time and again. She seems to have developed a maternal or older sister kind of sense of responsibility towards me. For me that is baffling, yet endearing.
“Epp, I don’t think that Marco is serious about you,” she keeps telling me. “Do you know what he calls you behind your back? La rusa! The Russian girl! He can’t even get your nationality right! Don’t trust him. I’ve seen so many of his affairs…”
Djellah and Marco have known each other for a long time, their relationship goes back to when she was a hippie chick with long braids and he was a white-capped marine school cadet. It was back in the 1970s, that Djellah first arrived at the fishing village of Arguineguin. She was on a trip and just passing through, but Marco was actually from here, his roots on both sides of the family firmly planted in this island and in this village. From what I gathered, these two, who were the most important people in my life at that period, had also partied together back in the day, because Marco used to hang out with members of the local hippie community. Djellah stayed at the hotel that is owned and operated by Marco’s father and mother. Later on, Marco sailed the world seas as the captain of a ship, but he still came back from time to time to visit his mother, meeting Djellah sometimes, too.
“By the way, have you seen what kind of a conservative witch his mother is? How can you even picture being in a serious relationship with a man who has that kind of a mother?” Djellah rhetorically asks. I don’t know what to think of that. Somewhere on the top floor of that hotel, in an apartment with the best view of the sea is where Marco’s mother Maria lives: an old woman wearing a head scarf, always dressed in black and walking along the very sides of the stairways. She always bares her teeth to me in a way that’s left me puzzled as to whether she’s smiling or growling a warning. I also have no idea how much she knows about the relationship between her son and me. But that doesn’t matter to me – I smile at Maria and I’m happy that life has introduced me to this type of person.
“My mother has always said that Djellah is not right in the head,” Marco tells me. “And the more time goes by, the more I see that my mother is right. My mother warned me about her a long time ago already! A long time ago… well, I kind of had a thing with Djellah.”
When I ask her about this the following day, Djellah only laughs. “That was really nothing even worth mentioning! I’ve never been Marco’s type and he’s never been mine. Marco collects interesting, international, young specimens, who are never lacking on this island. Before you he had a Norwegian girl.”
I guess that makes me Marco’s type… but is he mine? He’s of a medium build, with black, slightly curly, short hair, a dazzling smile and a strong, sharp manner of speaking. I don’t know if I’d like him just from seeing his picture. But I like the scent this strong man gives off, because my own world right now is so dangerously feeble and insecure.
I have the hardest time choosing between Marco’s or Djellah’s company, they both have their friends on the island and their own events where they keep inviting me. These are two separate worlds: one day I’ll go to Djellah’s fake wedding that she’s putting on to generate gossip among the villagers for her amusement, with the whole expat community in attendance. The next day I’ll go dancing with Marco and his friend at a salsa club meant for middle-aged Canarian locals. Harri, the third most important person for me on this island, thinks that Marco is a “person of unfortunate genetic inheritance, with lacking intelligence”. However, Djellah does get a break from Harri. What’s more, he even gives Djellah work: she joins us walking around the markets in the morning, carrying around handfuls of fans, hats and necklaces. In the evenings, she plays the piano and sings in the restaurant of an expensive hotel: in her low, raspy voice she performs songs in an unbelievable style: a mix of Latin American rhythms, Indian melodies and French chansons, topped off with Djellah’s own personal brand of jazz. I think she’s divinely talented, but fate just hasn’t given her the opportunity to become a world famous singer.
In the afternoon, we like to sit by the window in her hotel room.
Both of our eyes on the horizon, sitting on the windowsill, we’ve suddenly started talking about relationships. It’s funny how Djellah seems to be the type of person who should appreciate the allure of unattainability, but in reality she’s extremely straightforward in matters of the heart, sharing her words of wisdom with me as well. “It’s so not true that men love women who are hard to get!” she says. “They love women who have enough courage to approach them and get to know them! It’s also not true that distance makes the heart grow fonder! Most men forget. Very fast. Period.”
“But… what’s the problem then?” I’m searching for the right words, trying to figure out how to ask: why did the dozens of relationships that you’ve had all fall apart and why are you still alone?
“Look!” she starts to laugh. “I’m the one who needs unattainability!” The laughter then stops, sharply cut off. All of a sudden Djellah is sitting there like a broken doll, head sunk to her chest.
“What happened?”
“I’ll tell you… There’s this American guy. Michael… Wait!”
I’m waiting. Djellah has decided to spend the last of her money on a bottle of red wine and returns a few minutes later from the store downstairs – yes, Marco’s store. The wine and Djellah’s story start flowing… first to the 1960s.
Once upon a time there lived a romantic young man whose name was Michael. The propaganda worked and he volunteered for the war in Vietnam, where he tortured and killed Vietnamese people, and where his best friend was killed right in front of his eyes. For two decades, Michael succeeded in stuffing his nightmares far into the corners of his subconsciousness and lived a proper life, but then snapped. At the time when Djellah met the man, he’d lay in bed for days on end, without wanting to even move a muscle.
“Look at him!” The photos show melancholic eyes in a manly face and a slack pair of lips.
Djellah is squatting on the hotel floor, next to the mound of photos she’s dug out of the chest of drawers and her long blond hair makes her look like a helpless child. “I still feel this incredible passion! See… there have been many times when I’ve severely fallen for severely difficult types, I want to help them in their severe turmoil