Slankamen (lit. ‘Salt-rock’) is a port village sandwiched, like a slice of ham (today roasted), between precipitous loess hills and an inlet of the Danube, where the water hardly moves at all. Mum and I approach the village on a descending serpentine road incised into brittle, yellowish sediments. Alas, no chance to stop the car to take in the postcard view… of red-tiled houses, boats and small yachts dotting the bay, and a church spire dominating the village as might a German governess.
Ten minutes later, we are pacing along the riverside. The Danube is teeming with swans, gulls, pigeons, ducks. The birds have found their cool respite.
We come across a man in an orange baseball cap, checked shirt, slacks and tall rubber boots. He has just locked up his small, shabby boathouse and is now on the move: in his left hand, a sizeable shopping bag. All smiles, as he gives us a rundown of the village’s main points of interest.
‘We’re looking for a weekend house to buy’, I say. ‘There seem to be plenty of empty ones’.
The man points at a couple of houses across the street, says they are on sale.
‘That one over there? 25 grand, the asking price. But, if you ask me, I’d forget it’. Indeed, the broken windows and heavy patina speak of decades of neglect.
‘Must be off now’, the man says. ‘Hunters’ meeting to attend.’
I sneak a look into his bag: it is filled with bottles of the local ‘Deer Beer’. I begin to wonder about this ‘hunters’ meeting’ on such a scorching afternoon.
‘So, what do you hunt in these parts, then?’
‘Partridge, hare, duck. You name it!’
The heat is relentless: Mum, now so dazed by sunlight she forgets where we are walking to. At last, the floating restaurant, ‘Quay’, with a terrace overlooking the stagnant inlet and its legions of birds.
As Mum and I gorge on pan-fried perch, a large fish jumps from the Danube’s muddy shallows, each time falling back with a loud splash. I sense it may be pleading, ‘Hey, that’s my cousin you’re eating there!’
From time to time
the flap of outstretched wings –
a windless afternoon
