I spent fifteen days in Croatia, and just five of those with Cornelia, but she is the one I’m going to tell you about. 

Cornelia was a middle-aged Swiss woman who learned English from astrology columns in the newspaper. She wore blue eyeliner, a pony tail, high-waisted nylon pants, and she drove me fucking nuts.

“Cathy,” she’d say to me, although this was not my name. “Have you heard of this thing? That time and space do not exist?” I had not.

Croatia is not a country favorably arranged for public transport, so Cornelia and I became friends. We split costs, we split time, we split a car. In each other, we agreed to find the best possible candidates for companionship. Cornelia made me a metaphor; a bit part in the grand vision of spiritual purpose she called “existence.” I made Cornelia into “merely tolerable,” a blank slate on which I was determined to exercise a newfound sense of patience and personal willpower.

In this way, we were already doomed to failure.

So we plotted over maps and consulted our tour guides. We asked the owner of the hostel a million questions, and he approximated answers with hand gestures. “Left”/”Right.” We rented a car from somebody Cornelia “had a good feeling about” and who promised to drop it off at the hostel. 

“Cathy!” Cornelia said. “You really need the lemon juice right now. I can tell by your eyes.” 

“Car’s here,” I said, noting my mastery of quiet deflection. 

We left Pula on a Friday afternoon, brilliant sun and cement roundabouts. Never more than 70 MPH. 

Then, in the grocery store: “Cathy! Those bananas are too green, they’re not good.” 

“They’ll ripen,” I reasoned. “Just in time for breakfast.”

Cornelia put them back. Afterward, each new thing was not its own thing, but a symbol from the universe about whyit was smart to have left behind the green bananas. A sign. The significance of everything was crushing. When we met three Germans on dirt bikes, lunching at the only restaurant in the world’s tiniest town of Hum, talking about the dangers of large-scale agriculture, Cornelia turned from the conversation to the tap the side of her nose knowingly. 

“Just like the green bananas,” she said. “It’s a good thing we didn’t get them.” 

I smiled and slid wine down my open throat coolly. I looked at the hills that were green like a sound. Fishing boats trailing clouds of seabirds like angry hair-do’s.  

After dinner, Cornelia and I toured the olive groves. (“Are you sure?” That was me. There was a fence. “Yes, it’s meant to be!” You know who that was.) We lay on our backs in somebody’s field, complicit in our desire to see the stars come out; too boozed to move. Cornelia talked to me, and I listened, drifting in-and-out of conscious. I liked her then, for admitting she had a crush on one of the Germans, even though she was 49. I thought this meant we were getting to know each other. 

Afterwards, the cities were: Rivinj, by the sea, Korenjika, barely alive, Motovun, which grew groups of elderly tourists like mold.

We ate early so we could wake up hungry, before dawn. We drank grappa in the afternoon, by order of Cornelia, who justified the habit by claiming it cleared the senses and aided digestion. We got lost in mountain towns, orientated by the ocean in others.

Every city in Croatia is positioned for one of two things: war or trade. We were high in the mountains or down by the sea. Up and down, up and down. The days weren’t good or bad, just pure velocity. There was no time to think.

We swam at night or in the rain. I would feel my heart gather and thump against the cold, old water. 

“Cathy!” Cornelia screamed in delight. “It’s a sign! That we won, it’s a sign. Look at the number over there. 49, just like me.” 

Everything meant something important, to Cornelia.