Mate Dolenc

Morje v času mrka
Študentska založba 2000

Mate Dolenc (b. 1945) is a writer of satirical and fantastic novels and short stories, as well as a deep-sea diver and fisherman. A real blockbuster in Slovenia was his travel journal in the form of short stories, describing his experiences of different seas all around the world, though most of all his beloved Adriatic - a sea dotted with a thousand islands, or as he calls it "the constellation of the Adriatic" (1998). An Adriatic archipelago is also the setting of his novel The Sea at the Time of the Eclipse (2000): The Dalmatian island Biševo, with a blue cave basking in emerald light, part miracle part real. Old Sebald's story is both miraculous and real: Diving in the unfathomable Depth and Distance of the sea, time and love. The sea, which forever keeps changing and remains the same, is like time, which flies and stands still; and both are like love, which calls from the past and kindles the flames of the present: Ivana comes to settle on the island, a girl who rejuvenates Sebald's old age and lets herself be transformed into a mermaid, a seal from the enchanting blue cave. Will the old man manage to catch his fish at the time of the eclipse? Will he be able to return alive from the depths? Will he know how to sail into death with love?

Vanesa Matajc
Vanesa Matajc is the Winner of the Best Young Critic ("Stritar") Award.
Translated by Tamara Soban.
Published for the Slovenian presentation at the Frankfurt Book Fair,
October 2002, by the Center for Slovenian Literature.

The pasara (excerpt)
"Miloš's dead." The news made the rounds of the island, traveling from hilltop to hilltop, from valley to valley, from headland to headland, from kitchen to kitchen, from boat to boat, from ear to ear, from heart to heart. Death on the island. For someone, the sea had died. For someone, sunrise had been extinguished, and he had been engulfed by sundown. For someone, the vineyards had perished, and all the fish.For someone, the island had died; for everyone else, a part of the island.For Miloš, Dina had died; for Dina, Miloš. The island's phones kept ringing, those with cords and those without, CB stations and cell phones competed with calls shouted from one hilltop to the next; only a few years earlier such shouts had been the only means of long-distance communication, and women in particular had unusually strong voices which carried, cutting a gash through the air for miles, like sharp wire. Many of them still pass on messages in this fashion today. The tidings of the death came quickly, one hour after the arrival of the regular ferry. Every piece of information always spreads around the island like wildfire, leaping from tree to tree, from rock to rock, from vale to vale, flowing over saddles and ridges, reaching the remotest and loneliest of houses in the shortest possible time. Also, the bell in the head of the white woman on top of the island, next to Miloš's house, tolled. Miloš's son-in-law, who had caught the early morning ferry to the island and gone in search of Miloš when he had failed to return home by nine a.m., pulled on its thick rope. Dina's wails were incorporated into the bell's tolls. Foka immediately took the ferry back to the big island to fetch the doctor and the priest. The former is here called dotur, the latter fra.
Several men went to get Miloš. Because of the steep incline in the road they could not transport him any other way than on Kenja's back. Also picigamorti came back with him, the black bream, his first companions. They were carefully stored in the icebox.
The kitchen was cleared and tidied up, the table pushed to the side, the couch placed in the center and Miloš laid on it, the shutters closed, and the candles lit. Night fell inside the house, while outdoors daylight shone bright. A day without a cloud, without a breeze; a day when the sea lay unruffled in the archipelago, calm enough for Frazy Grant to run from island to island-and not only her, everyone.
One hour later Foka made the return trip on the ferry, with many other people also on board: Both of Miloš's daughters, his relatives, the dotur and the fra. Fra Jozo. Rumor had it that he had painted his church with the money made for him by the Ukrainian girls he peddled to the tourists. Nobody mentioned that now, and nobody laughed. By noon, Miloš's death was known in Australia and in California, also in San Pedro. Invisible bottles with messages flew through the air, not by sea.