Hvar

Prior to arriving here in Hvar, we spent the week at another of Croatia's more-than one-thousand islands called Korcula in a little town called Vela Luka. For Cara, this was a week for welcome indolence, daily walks along the sea paths into town, and lots of reading. For me, it was a week of diving, which in Croatia means, mostly, playing with octopii.

I say "playing" of course in the same way a pre civil-war Virginian cotton plantation boss might claim to have had a "few Africans over for dinner and light entertainment." The harassment of Croatian octopii is this century's greatest civil rights issue.

The trick with octopii is to coax them out of their hiding spots by wiggling your fingers in a fishy fashion. Then, when the hapless creature investigates, you grab it and pass the terrified, ink-squirting creature from diver to diver for close inspection. ("You say they 'came from above, John, and probed you?' " says a concerned octopod therapist in a post-scuba encounter session. "Would you like to Reality Test this one, John?")

Octopii are extraordinary, curious creatures. You can approach them openly if your movements are slow, and you are polite. They will often tolerate--and even seem to enjoy--a gentle rub between the eyes. When an octopus grows tired of this, it'll glide a tentacle up and wipe your finger from its head. You can also place a small shell or stone at the entrance to a hiding spot, and in a few moments a timid hand will reach out and take the gift into its hole for further inspection. This is why it is wrong to eat them, and why the delicious octopus salad I had at Vino's Grill still troubles me.

Which brings me to this murderous fellow...



While we were dining on the harbour front we heard a sickening wet slap on the pavement. We turned to see the fellow above haul an octopus from the water and bash it to death on the concrete in front of the horrified yachters standing about attempting to look chic in their blue-and-white-striped shirts and bottles of expensive Croation wine, it now dawning on them that this is how their meal for the evening was beginning its journey to their plates. The next morning, we caught this fellow going for coffee and snapped his picture for the coming Day of Retribution (I've just finished reading "A Tale of Two Cities." If there is a octopod Madame Defarge, may she soon forget my goggled face.)

It is my temperament to look skeptically upon things, which is but one of the reasons I would make a bad travel writer, which is a profession devoted to capturing and sharing the romance of a place in order to make readers at home feel inadequate. But skepticism has only a slight hold here in Hvar. Yes, the harbour is crowded with yachts piloted by people who are wealthier than it is morally acceptable to be. Yes, it's difficult to see the ancient stucco walls behind the rows of restaurants and knick-knack shops. But the walls are nevertheless there in varying shades of ochre; rich and buttery in the Adriatic mid-day sun, pink and glowing as the sun sets. The marble paving stones have tiled the piazza for twelve centuries and have been polished smooth and gleaming white by the feet of sailors, merchants, warriors and tourists alike.

We are staying here in Hvar with Virginia, Mateo and his sister Maria. Maria in loose clogs, spends the day clopping around the courtyard, talking to herself, singing tunelessly along to the radio (what's big here is a revamped version of 'Super Trooper' by ABBA) and sometimes yelling at the stray cat who claims this place as her own. Mateo makes wine and "schnapps" from his own grapes, and olive oil from his own olives. The pensione reeks with the yeasty smell of fermenting grapes. By day, Mateo exercises his alchemical arts in the basement, and by night he cooks us whatever fish his friend has caught for him that day. Maria cooks the side dishes, which Mateo always invites us to admire at the end of a meal--'The Salada Maria! Good!'--so that she is included in the praise we heap on him for his skill at the grill. Virginia-who speaks English with a French accent, having spent a month in Southern Ontario as an au pair- breezes in twice a day to coo at her turtles and guinea pigs and to feed the chickens and two donkeys that reside in the back. As their only guests, we have fallen into the rhythm of this family; we have given up our itinerary, and do as they tell us to do, and eat as they tell us to eat. Which so far has not yet included octopus.