Chapter 19 Chapter Eighteen

A hard-earned fine weather, the day is as open as the mountain sky, and spring has entered Slovenia with our footsteps.Lake Bled is really nice.In the center of the lake is a castle that looks like it will collapse if touched. I entered the castle, turned from the blinding window to the next room, and found in a glass and wood coffin the skeleton of a small woman, dead about BC, with a yellow cloak decoration on her breastbone, blue The yellow ring slipped off his finger. When I leaned over to take a closer look at her, she suddenly smiled at me from two identical eye sockets as deep as black holes.

On the grounds outside the church, the host brought us a pot of tea in a white china jug. "Thank you," said my father.There was a vague pain in his eyes again. Again I noticed that he had been very tired lately, very thin.Is he going to see a doctor? "Honey," he said, turning his head to one side, and all I could see was his silhouette against the cliffs and sparkling lake.He paused and said, "Would you consider writing all this?" "Write these stories of yours?" I asked.My heart is constricting and it beats faster. "yes." "Why?" I finally asked back.

This is an adult question, not at all a trick to cover up a child's tricks.He looked at me, and I thought there was kindness and sadness behind the tiredness in his eyes. "Because if you don't write, that means I have to," he said.Then he went to bow his head for his tea and I knew he would never bring it up again. That night, in the dark little room next door to my father, I began to write down everything he had told me. At breakfast the next day, my father said he would sit quietly for two or three days.It's hard for me to imagine that my father would really sit for two or three days without doing anything, but I saw his dark circles and hoped that he would really take a break.I can't help thinking that something must be wrong with him, some new unspoken worry he has.But he just told me that he misses the beaches of the Adriatic again.

A few days later, we came to a small town by the sea.The small harbor is full of fishing boats, bumping into each other on the translucent water.The father intended to spend the night on a nearby island, so he summoned a boat owner by sign.I stuck my head out over the bow and felt like a statue adorning the bow. "Be careful," my father yelled, grabbing the back of my T-shirt with his hands. We are nearing the harbor isle, an old village with a stone church. The owner threw a rope around a stake on the pier, then held out a gnarled hand to me and helped me ashore.His father gave him some colorful bills, and he touched his hat in thanks.He was about to jump back into his boat when he turned back to his father and asked, "Your child?" He called out in English, "Daughter?"

"Yes." Father replied, wondering. "I bless her," the man said simply, crossing himself in the air near me. My father found us a place facing away from the land, and we ate at an open-air restaurant near the pier.Twilight is slowly falling, and I can already see stars on the sea.A slightly cooler breeze than in the afternoon brought bursts of my favorite scents, coniferous cypress, lavender, rosemary and thyme. "Why is the fragrance stronger after dark?" I asked my father. I really wonder why, but it also prevents us from talking about other things right away, at least not looking at Dad's trembling hand.

"Really?" He asked casually, and I finally breathed a sigh of relief. I took his hand to keep it from shaking.He also took it absent-mindedly and placed it in my hand.He's too young to just grow old like this.