LOVE ALONG THE BORDER

by ALDO RUPEL

The rooster Gizdalin became a real beauty. On Rafuto, he conquered the yard sovereignly, but his hormones were annoying him and he was beating himself for the paws even on the neighbor’s. Feathers flew all over the place. It was dreamy. He had almost forgotten how, after his birth, it had pecked and hissed around his ears, after which boys came by with a song on their mouths: “But who are these young boys who are marching through you?” Why do they harass people when they themselves do not know that Gorizia is a city. And they cut off even more: “What is this young army that is marching through you now?” How did they win battles if they did not know which army they belonged to?

Behind them, crowds of people were coming past the homestead towards the city center. Gizdalin was not overly disturbed, because he was still a chicken and was not interested in chasing bipeds through the streets. That shouting about whether Gorica belonged to Zone A or B did not bother him. The same thing happened to him everywhere and the chickens cackled. After two years, the direndaj was repeated. He learned the word Dictationused by Our and theirs. In the autumn, uniformed men with various markings came past the homestead without shooting. They hung around the houses, looked around, measured, pointed their fingers at the Bohinj railway and towards the Isonzo. Among them were not only boys with red stars. Many used unfamiliar words, and in between there was a pig, black as night.

With lime, they drew a white line on the wall behind the barn. The smarties also stretched barbed wire. A demarcation line was formed. The dung heap was left behind. The domestic boys were no longer allowed to pee there, and the master was no longer allowed to carry manure in a wheelbarrow to a large pile that thundered under the barn window. The barn on the Yugoslav side, the manure on the Italian side. The manure flew from East to West in the hope that something would change over time. But it didn’t! The neighbors even slept in one country, and went to the toilet “on the scrap” in another.

A serious problem arose for Gizdalin. He was left without a neighboring harem and thought to himself: “If the manure flies through the window to the other side, I will try it too. Thus, for the sake of love, he illegally crossed the white line; once it happened that the window was closed due to an afternoon storm. He would almost have asked for shelter just to sleep somewhere in the shelter, but he did not want to harm the revolution: the Gorizian reactionary newspapers would certainly have written that not even poultry could survive under communism! His reputation among the cockatiels increased, but over time, his testosterone dropped due to stress. The bipeds were to blame!

The poultry farmer was not the only unfortunate man who was deprived of pleasures by the demarcation line. One morning, from Medana, through Cegla, Jazbine, Hum, Sovenca, Ščedno, Oslavje, Koštabon, across the Isonzo and Solkansko polje, came the roaring news about Prasco Basco, who was dragged by the owner of Lojza with him on a rope towards Subida and Krmin, at the same time as two cows, an ox team and his family, after he had made up his mind and opted for Lahonja. Within two days, he transported parts of the furniture and equipment to the West, because they convinced him that the system of “COOPERATIVES” literally meant working “FOR OTHERS”. When he stopped late in the afternoon at Čemajna to go to spray a roadside bush, Pig Basec took advantage of the opportunity and pulled the rope with which he was tied to the cart. With a half-loud croaking, he pushed her across the roadside ditch and then blown among the corn. He was drawn more and more to the paradise of Brda, where he had been hanging out with Pig Sausage for several weeks, who charmingly looked at him with pink-rimmed eyes between her fingers and they confessed their eternal love. When he reached the end of the field during his escape, master Lojze could no longer catch up with him all the way to the village. The border corporal, Likan by birth, pointed the sword, which he had accompanied since the battle of Knin, aimed at Lojzet; Already in the twilight, nothing to me, nothing to you, he crossed the internationally valid line. The guard added a slogan that we heard in public only seven years later: “We don’t want someone else, we don’t give our own. Capitalism is yours, and the pig is ours.” The soldier saved the love story.

A similar complication was known in Gorizia at the North Station. Barbed wire, and later a metal mesh, cut the path that connected the meowing hearts. Mačkon Baffon from Svetogorska Street and Muca Fuca from Blanča chased the devil in the spring months before they went for a hug. The international commission was supposed to cut the cat’s direndaj. However, a heart-wrenching meow began. Mačkon Baffon was looking for a solution, but on that section every night the border guard Brane patrolled with Volčjak Korenjak, who had been educated at the Cerknica party school during the war. In the course “how to germinate waiters”, he split a German parachute boot in twenty seconds. During an attempt to cross, he ambushed Mačkon Baffon. It didn’t help that he wore a red ribbon around his neck. Master Baldo cut it out of his garibaldine scarf in order to rip the nerves of his neighbor Benito across the road, because he was as sensitive to red as an Andalusian bull. Wolfhound Carrot attacked Mačkon Baffon, as he had in Baška gorge on bunkers, when the track was demolished a few years earlier, and he received a juicy bone in recognition. Hair flew in all directions, but Cat Baffon took away the whole skin. Cat Fuca then persisted night after night, meowing from behind a red star and the inscription WE BUILD SOCIALISM. It echoed the envious howls of Maccon, but as the sparrows in the scattered flocks flocked like clusters of pobalins scurrying back and forth now, flying freely over the web, even stopping on it in search of twitching mating.

It was worse with the sadness that took over Wolfhound Carrot in the night hours while on duty with Brane on a certain “dead watch”. He didn’t understand exactly what was happening to him: he wasn’t weighed down by the usual desire to join his wolf cousins in the depths of the forests on the overgrown plateaus. He couldn’t wait to detect a special bark from a nearby town during the night’s calm. It was velvety and inviting, soft and embracing. With glances and sniffs, he remained on “guard duty”, his ears pricked in the direction of the distant city courtyard. What if he once followed Cat Baffon to “her” dog hut? If some “son of a dog” or a night watchman on a bicycle tried to stop him on his way, he, a hardened guerrilla, would be crushed like in a movie a few years later by a vengeful Rambo. He thought about how the juicy trout had freely crossed a virtually non-existent border in the water while spawning over the mouth of the Pevmice.

Thanks to the many animals, the demarcation barrier was as potholed as the Emmentaler. People appropriated the phenomena described by way of passes, two-proprietorship permits, hiking, cycling, rowing, and in front of the North Station with volleyball.

P.S.: Human wickedness invented another obstacle for animals. Uniformed people on both sides, even as civilians, could not get out of their skin. During the New Year’s greetings with sparkling wine, they figured out how to trick the problem that hindered their sick hunting passion. When they organized chases through the overgrown border area, rabbits and pheasants retreated across the line into foreign territory. They could not mate freely and “cross-border”, as it was life-threatening on some days. International tension would arise if a single shot wandered “over there”. This caused them a real obsession. Therefore, they agreed to move along their own parallel guard paths at the same time with their “blowers”. They would pursue and shoot game always on “their side” without the pencils wandering abroad.

Over time, the wildlife found a solution to this predicament as well…