On the street next to the entrance to the tavern, three little girls imitated swimming movements. They scooped the air, which smelled of sand and manure. Their necks craned and their mouths affected a photogenic smile. They were wearing tiny, neon-coloured shorts with patterned t-shirts that revealed their rapidly growing legs and arms.

Behind the children, the window of the tavern was blurry with dirt. It was time to turn on the TV. Beer flowed, the ashtrays filled up, and husks of sunflower seeds fell to the floor. The men sat quietly. The competition that was soon to be broadcast did not excite them in the way football did — it was, after all, just women in a pool. 

Now, shh.

The TV crackled for a while before the image of the swimming pool settled on the screen. The tavern keeper’s fingers, yellowed from nicotine, turned the volume up. A strange language could be heard as an echo under the commentator’s voice.

The screen homed in on the colourful swimsuits, the tight hairdos and the tense faces, identical in their makeup. Music filled the room, a place so far from the world depicted on the TV that it could have belonged to a different time altogether. Teeth cracked open the salty sunflower shells. Mouths made observations about the half-naked bodies.

Despite the feigned disinterest on the men’s faces, their feet, stomping against the floor, betrayed excitement. Maybe the girls weren’t the most beautiful and talented competitors, but they belonged to them, like the berries and fruits growing on their soil. Even if the other country had claimed them. And so they waited.

But their turn never came. Other girls, beautiful indeed, delicious in their colourful swimming suits, but foreigners nonetheless, appeared. The blue of the swimming pool dissolved into their empty beer glasses. The TV went quiet. A hand stubbed out a cigarette on the counter with a disappointed gesture.

The tavern keeper spoke first. Well that’s that, he said, clearing his throat and grabbing a grey rag. He looked at it as if expecting confirmation.

Maybe they chickened out, said a half-blind man who was sitting right in front of the TV, gloating, with his hands protectively around his pint. And now they are hiding, embarrassed, in a corner somewhere.

How does that saying go? With their tail between their legs …

A sudden slap put an end to the discussion and the faces turned to the tavern keeper, who had thrown the rag down.

Goddamn! he shouted. They escaped, don’t you get it? And they aren’t coming back, those wenches.

He had created the kind of silence that only people of his status can create. The faint outrage gathered like phlegm in the patrons’ throats and then it was coughed away. The men rubbed their salty palms against their thighs and got up. The door of the tavern inhaled dust and slammed shut.

Two men loitered inside. They tucked their shirts in their pants, tied a dragging shoelace. As the tavern keeper disappeared into the kitchen, they assured each other, with the solemnity that comes after drinking, that there was an explanation for everything. 

Maybe the girls won after all, one of them suggested. Then with more determination: And soon the whole world will talk about that victory!

Reporters will come here, the other added. They’ll want to see where those missuses lived and swam. How great the land that raised them actually is! 

On the street, the little girls were about to start their performance. They raised their arms into triangles and each lifted one leg up, preparing for a jump, like they had seen on TV. A small sandal slipped out of place. 

That show was over, too, one of the two last drunkards leaving the tavern decided. He squinted his eyes; both the sun and the children’s silly excitement, completely indifferent to anything around them, weighed on him. Off you go, he yapped at the girls, frozen first in alarm, then in anger. The foot returned reluctantly to the sandal. And then came the final sentence, loud and simple: Don’t you have anything better to do, heh?