The tavern where (I frequently sat while) I studied.
The above sentence was spoken many times, and, guess what, I learned how to pronounce the parentheses.
It was, for lack of better description, a hungarian place. The owner was hungarian, most of the guests spoke hungarian, the waitress was one, it's only the steward (for lack of better expression) who could be slovakian or even russinian or any kind of mix.
The place wasn't much - a bar, 4-5 tables to the street, plus as many in the back. It had a terrace but we visited the place in winter. The only thing we drank was beer, and they had only one kind - the Jelen (deer), which I couldn't possibly drink unless here. One night we had our usual two beers (never really had money for more) when a guy we knew from home (actually my kind of neighbor, used to live nearby until those blocks were torn down in 1980) invited us to continue in the village where he had a room, nearby, and the restaurant is famous and is open after midnight. They had the same beer and I couldn't take more than half a glass. Thought I'd puke. Incredible. Then we went to his place and he promised a bar full of rakija. Right, it's landlord's, in a locked cabinet, and he didn't have the key. So the crazy night petered out, we somehow went back.
As to the closing time, this place was an exception. Everything in Novi closed at 21:00, this place closed at 24:00, on weekends at 01:00. But if there was any fight or anyone calls the cops, the time shortens for one hour, for two months. Then if the thing repeats within the while, one hour earlier. I think they never got worse than 22:00, and the main line of defense for this privilege was the steward. He'd know whom to let in and whom not (allegedly he once refused even Lepa Brena, though it's hard to tell - she wasn't that famous yet, but he did have some jokes about her). There was also the economic solution to the space problem (popular place with barely a dozen tables): he'd direct you to someone's table if there was room at it. Likewise, you were expected to accept other people at your table if it was the peak of the evening and you had vacant chairs. His responsibility was to know exactly which people to put together and which not.
He knew a lot of jokes, and never confessed that he heard a new one from me. But then I had a fresh one from Rudolf and knew he didn't know it, so when I told him the joke, when I got to the punchline I just said "but what's the point, I see that you already know that joke" and turned my back on him. He came back twenty minutes later (do I imagine there was a beer on the house, or is my memory embelishing the triumph) and said "Alright I don't know it, how does it end?". Later, he came three times with fresh jokes. Good trade.
There were some pitoresque characters. One youngster, called crazy Branko, was a veritable idiot savant. He couldn't even speak right, he'd fumble the syllables and even the stuff he said were phrases he learned by rote, and often didn't turn out right. But he played chess at some decent level, and whenever he'd happen to be at our table - which would occur when we'd put more tables together, for some ten people - someone would ask about the last match, which was paused with him having the upper hand, and he'd fire up a „I'm standing like a state and am not afraid of anyone“ („ko država stojim i ne bojim se nikoga“ instead of „...i nikog se ne bojim“, which rhymes). Most of the time the guys would mock him lightly, taking care to keep it okay, never to cross the line where he'd unglue and make a scene... As soon as he displays sings of upset, the subject is switched.
Everyone's favorite waitress was some Katica, of whom we never knew whether she was a Hungarian or not. By likeness she was pretty much my aunt, two sizes wider, therefore quite a chick but just not my type. The guys from the hungarian programme on the radio were specially attracted to her, to the point „I got up from the sick bed to come see you and you won't even bring me a beer“ - „and what's wrong with you?“ - „me nothing, wife got a flu“.
The tavern's doyen was the old man Hauzer, whom we called Kaspar Šopenhauzer, who was at least four score, or maybe few years short of it but just looking that. Once he and I happened to hit the two pissoirs, which were at two fingers' distance (fuckit, the whole idea of plumbing was an afterthought, so it was made to fit available space), and he'd go „so happy that pissing is free, or else the beer would cost double“.
17-XII-2019 - 20-XII-2025