When Ivan and Karel came out, we would go one place or another. “Vehr to?” I would ask. I would look at Karel, because Ivan responded to everything with equal enthusiasm, no matter what somebody proposed … Karel wouldn’t answer at all … My attachment to him grew as fast as my revulsion … only occasionally would the antipathy lag. I perceived his proximity … from his head to his toes, from his eyes to his long pants belt that always flapped over his knee … as serious, precious, and unbearably annoying … Had he done anything to me? Not a thing! Had he done anything bad? No! But one day he would, and I had to get ready for that … Gisela, whom I brought with me once to the embankment, talked and played with him as though he were air. I envied her that she could relate to him that way.
We went from the antique stores toward Žabjak and Breg streets … that was a dangerous neighborhood, that’s where boys hung out who were stronger or at least more numerous than the three of us … You had to stay alert. One of those guys could come dog your heels, and if you didn’t pay attention or turn around fast enough, he could give you a kick … Karel and Ivan said that they were always invading the embankment, but if you just stepped on their territory, you’d get a rock thrown at you or delivered by slingshot. Ivan showed me where his legs had been hammered by projectiles … As soon as they hit you, they shout, “We declare war on you!” … and you have to beat it as fast as your feet will go … You have to do something so those wise guys stop harassing you or invading the embankment at the drop of a hat … An army ought to be formed that includes all the boys who live on that side of the water and nearby. If we have our own units, then nobody will ever dare touch any of us again, no matter if we go down to Trnovo or Žabjak or up to the castle … Creating an army on the embankment, I sensed, would be the secret glue that would bind our friendship together most tightly of all … I would have to think about that some more …
At that time we would go visit the public market … now and then some vendor or shopper would give you an apple … or we would climb down the ladders at the Triple Bridge to get to the gravel riverbed. Karel would slowly climb down the rungs one foot at a time, clinging to the ladder like a girl … it gratified me to see that … We undressed and waded through the shallow water to those catacombs under the road that used to be a dock in olden times … We drove the fish ahead of us and would try to bludgeon them with paving stones … Sometimes we succeeded, but the fish stank too much of the Ljubljanica and sludge … So instead we went looking for valuable objects on the bottom … once we found a burnt-out compressor that was as heavy as a steel cash register … When I went back to the gravel, I avoided the heap with Karel’s pants, belt and undershirt, as if he were still in them … I felt as though I would get stung or catch something … Every day I would strain to think of shortcuts or detours I could propose to strengthen our friendship … At home in the evenings I would make plans for the next day in feverish excitement … all kinds of imaginative games … I would consult with myself about what direction to head out in … what entertaining things we could try … what I would tell them about myself and about Basel, and what I wouldn’t … what games we would play … to the extent possible ones that I’d invented when I was all alone and had no playmates … The closer the time for us to meet, the higher my temperature would get, and when we met, I would become like someone possessed. In those few short hours that we were together I had to try out all those games I had invented and planned. My fear that it would soon be evening and I would have to go home intensified the wild pace of the games and ideas … But my apprehension about the short-lived nature of our fun sometimes took all the fun out of it. Besides that, I had to keep the reins on myself so that I wouldn’t go completely out of control and turn into a tyrant … Karel remained unfazed … Just when I thought that we understood each other best, I would be filled with the greatest revulsion and hatred for his hidden aggression, which I couldn’t flush out of him. Most of all I would have liked to do some irreparably nasty thing to him … punch him in the nose, which would have been least hard of all. Once, for fun, we tried wrestling. I could have whipped him like a pussycat, even though he was older, and pinned him to the ground, if I hadn’t always had second thoughts at the last minute about the force of some hold or blow … When he fell, I didn’t leap on his chest and force his wrists to the ground … The thought of touching his skin and his bones repulsed me … What sense did victory have if it was like a defeat? The tension stayed in the air like a burnt smell. But I couldn’t have parted ways with him and I was haunted by the fear that some day I might actually offend him. Ivan, however … he was a caricature of Karel. With him Karel’s sharp voice and disdainful laugh turned into a kind of hiccup and grin from ear to ear …