The burger seemed a commemoration of sorts. Rebel Whopper, hold on the cheese Bud. (Sliced and pre-packed no doubt.) Not from Rebel the sports outlet, Veki had smilingly explained when he brought one over on one of his visits. HungryJacks. There was an outlet up near his place in the shopping strip where mornings he went for his café and the newspaper. Here the nearer one was only a couple of kms away, with the leg around the water from there going opposite the usual route providing the exercise component for the day. Maccas sat over the road and KFC immediately adjacent. On the other side of the service road past the latter stood an even larger outlet than these three called Habitat. Those were dog paws in the illustration: a pet supplies place, presumably doing more than just canines. On the bicycle paths it was dogs predominating. Indoors the felines would greatly outnumber, hazard the guess, after at least twenty years of the pussy love surge. Surely Habitat was not a recent start-up exploiting the renewed interest in pets following the virus. In the morning’s news there were arrests at a KFC after a customer refused to be moved on by police. Clinging to the counter at the Colonel’s with the checkerboard tiles wasn’t so amazing, an outing and human contact of a kind. Second time round the burger nothing like as tasty. Where to savour had presented a problem, with the bike added too. Just by Hungry’s drive the bus stop sprang up. Going in initially drive-through had been wrong for bicycles. Chaps sat in the cars in the park in front and were delivered their burgers there through their windows. Traffic churning on the main road, always a chance someone from the neighbourhood making sighting. Pimply-faced young lads serving and Indians again, the lad at the register somehow noticing the channeled friendliness and offering a warm smile in response. Burnt veggie pattie, a few strands of lettuce, unripe tomato and the mayo—$6.18?! There may have been a drink offered for a meal deal. One odd element that had not dislodged from the evening conversations with Veki over the sljivovic was his mention of his emotion at Bab’s funeral. On that occasion he said he had felt even more than at his own mother’s and father’s funerals. That was strange and unexpected. Bab had often called Veki “my second son.” His relish of her pasulj, the bean soup had rather charmed her. Perhaps Bab’s kind of bright feeling was the thing. The dark Balkan display at the funeral had possibly acted upon Vek too. It had been a large turnout and a number of the older mourners had shed tears. Another Australian friend too had been overheard telling his partner on the phone what a remarkable event it had been. At the time Veki’s feeling hadn’t been noticed. We had polished off 1 ½ bottles of Zuta Osa, Yellow Wasp by the Thursday night when the lockdown was re-instituted, Vek making off soon after 10:30 in order to beat the curfew. Some recent positive developments were worth recalling. Since his break with Jenny the Whatsapp angling had eventually drawn from the pair of them an exchange that brought Veki some pleasure. Jen had always loved him of course, well in excess of his appreciation and respect for her. After their resumption we had shared a sly, wry chuckle when Jen had stoutly maintained in one of the earlier exchanges, apropos nothing, that she did not miss him at all. With a little more time decent friendliness at least might have developed. A mail that had been shown him from G. gave a boost too. Love the man, G. had proclaimed at the end of an exchange. The strength of the friendship with a couple of other chaps had emerged recently too. This morning G. had talked about the genetic inheritance, the father Laurie’s bypasses at the same age and then the tender frailty of the mother Flo, —as if she was apologising for being there, G. had memorably remarked, unconsciously echoing our university Dickens it might have been. Certainly inescapable parallels. Double-barrelled destiny in essence. In the last couple of weeks in one of his captivating emails without the spacing after periods or commas, Frane, never a religious man and now in his eighties, had conveyed what was pointed as a sharp message. Know you are dust, Frane had declared as a necessary insight. Prah; dust. The term had never been heard before in our language for that particular usage, not even in church services. That was strange from the old jokey raconteur. It now sat in the midst of this event. Poor Jen was hyperventilating on the phone when she was told. Despite Covid Veki’s sister had received a personal visit from a close friend for the news. Jen was less lucky. Two days later there was a wait for the delayed shock. Why was there none? A friend had been discovered dead on his bed, stiff, one arm raised, open-mouthed and with eyes ringed with dried blood it could only have been. Under direction from the girl on 000 he had been pulled down onto the floor and John, the other friend who had been enlisted for the searching out, supervised for CPR. Veki had talked about death for a long time and more so lately in his undiagnosed breathing difficulties. But that wasn’t it either. Death was familiar for some of us. Some of us who had endured early lessons and come under a particular tutelage from the practised elders. Sto se mora nije ni tesko, the Montenegrins say. At least those in our former mountain refuge community above Boka used to declare. What is necessary cannot be hard. They also say, Umrijet se mora. Dying is necessary. Jedina pravda, Bab used to comment on occasion, probably echoing her father Grandad Rade, who in early years had studied for the priesthood before his own father died early. Grandad who through the war had also been the President of the Communist cell on Uble—far more elevated-sounding than the simple reality under his thatched roof at the base of a ridge. The sole justice that encompassed all equally. Jedina pravda.
