X is for Slovenia

X is for Slovenia

or
The Toilet Witch

by
Kim West

Arriving here after a torturous journey, I crane my neck back to
snapping point, but still I can't see the top. It feels like these
mountains have no tops. Only a few days later do we reach that other
land. Our funicular ascent feels almost vertical through a forest
clinging to the mountain side at thirty degrees and I daren't look down
because it's so far down that it feels like peering back at a past
life.
The other land we reach by funicular railway is above the cloud line
and feels like a wasteland. It is the ski resort in summer, the
scruffier under-snow world not matching its winter paradise.
So now as I sit at my screen, scanning in holiday photos, I come to an
image of myself flattened out on a bed of steely grey water. I had
floated into the middle of the beautiful Lake Boheme.
Now I realize that the membranes of my spinal cord must already have
been un-picking themselves. The arthritis that was diagnosed a year
later, was even then loosening that supportive compact that we always
had: That agreement that I was a kid who had learned to swim in gravel
pits in March and had grown into the kind of person who could dive into
rockpools starkers and float into the middle of cool Slavonic
lakes.
So I treasure that photo of me lying in the vast steel grey lake far
below where we had floated cloud gazing and naked.

From the carriage of the funicular railway only half way up the
mountain that lake has already become a mere puddle.
In lightness of the air on the mountain top we are suddenly plunged
into an orchestral melodrama of Slavonic thunder. The primal thrill of
other mountain tops slashed by lightening transfixes us. Yet anxiety
counterpoints with the beauty of stunning laser show illuminations and
so soon we run for shelter and order wild boar stew, in case the
lightening does a U-turn and points its summons at us, and a stentorian
voice peels forth from the clouds: "Thor needs you!" (Hey "Wild Boar
Stew" when you are a vegaterain is a massive thing.)
The next day we plodded upwards forever to reach a glacial ice-melt
pool fed by a searingly chilled waterfall. It taunts and tempts all
comers to frost biting dips of the toes.

So here we were in Slovenia. We had landed at Geneva a week previously
to collect our hire car and drive to the French Alps for our first
week. Then back to Geneva for the night train to Lubliana. This journey
and its return are probably the most harrowing nights that I may ever
experience. We slide out of Geneva with the lake water lapping. We have
a cabin to ourselves. The guard is reasonably friendly but he has
already warned us about "the Italians who may come in the night and
creep in to rifle through our possessions and relieve us of valuables
while we sleep". We are instructed therefore to tie up the door handle
with the curtain sash and draw our curtains tightly shut.

Suitably a-feared, we retreat into the solitude of our cabin and the
only engagement with the dreaded foreign thieves comes when they
clatter onto the train in the middle of the night with no regard to
sleeping folks. (Not that we can sleep with the constant clatter and
yatter of the train upon the track as it trudges its way through Europe
on its crazy border breeching route. )

Not ever wanting to bump into my own ghastly potential I was amazed
three days later to hear myself muster an exceptionally Posh Brit voice
to reprimand a cursing, prematurely aged gypsy crone over the price of
a sojourn on a toilet seat in Boheme. She is chucking Evil Eye my way
and I'm stunning myself with what I discover I will resort to under
such stress. I clearly represent the oppressor supreme. I am the enemy
and she will denounce and publicly shame me. Maybe she will stone
me.
Her road out of repression is a very angry one, as she realises that
her suffering was built on the contructs of the devil.
Here I am.
I did not help her people.
I would eat her children if I felt like it.
I disobey the simple rule to pay for a seat to urinate on.
I am thwarting the authority invested in her by some big arse town
councillor. Those 50ps for the use of the town toilet are the
difference between her begging and having a job to feed her family. In
her mind the big arse at the town council will require blind obedience.
It's the only kind that she knows. All leaders are oppressors. All
Westerners are to be fleeced in order to redress then balance of the
ages.

At my screen I find photos of our boat ride out to the small island in
the centre of Lake Boheme and back. Neither of us particularly relished
being seen as tourists, but it was unavoidable in this town.

So here I am, really stuck, having used her bloody toilet without
paying first and then finding I had no cash on me and then being unable
to persuade her that I will wait for my husband to come and then pay.
She has my arm manacled in her toilet witch grip and this Hyacinth
Bouquet in me pops out squawking under her interrogation. It seems that
when I'm in a corner like this, my "bottom" line is to talk posh Brit
and lecture peasant women on the difference between "listening" and
"hearing", like I'm offering her a short course on international
relations.
This woman from the mountains, from a small poverty-striken community,
rigged out by Big Arse at the town council in national costume, defends
her toilet with Biblical tenacity. I think that she would have followed
me forever shrieking and clamped to my arm with her vicelike
grip.
Summoning all my middle class Brit-ness, my actual "bottom line"
finally plumps upon a word that it seems to believe she will
understand.
In my desperation I yell:
"This is ridiculous!" hoping that she can understand that and she does.
Excited by the glimmer of understanding that has emerged I yell even
louder:
" Ridiculous! I have no money, but will soon get some and give it to
you. Don't be RIDICULOUS!" and I wrench my arm free.
Here we take a dip into Grimm's Fairy Tales for a peek at all the
witches that ever frightened children ever, as my toilet attending
adversary's lip slowly curls around the word in the delight with a
communication that she can finally understand. She reflects my word
back to me with enough contempt to reclaim Slovenia from tourists now
and forever. Spitting and lending the word her own vernacular she
sprays into my face
"RIDIKOOLUS!"
At this point, my husband appears. He is very taken aback when he
rounds the corner following the din of two culturally incognizant women
screaming the word "Ridiculous " at one another.
He coughs up the money and we depart . But my furiously chuntering Posh
Brit persona is now going on about maybe she would like to call the
police and have me arrested. Ha! just try it bitch witch! The toilet
witch though is incandecantly triumphant.
She got the rich bitch English pig tourist to pay. She swirled the
skirt of her national costume and scuttled back to accost some Italian
women who might have been considering not paying after the show they've
had. Every penny has to earned.