Sibeasterus's blog

It's second part of the story. First part is here

A couple of minutes expired, and my new Serbian friend and I stood up against each other again. This time, Nikola did not wait, but immediately rushed forward, trying to take single-leg takedown. I mechanically sprawled my legs back, leaning, as in the first fight, on the opponent and grasping him across the body. But this time we were both wet from sweat, and therefore did not hold our grip and again stood up.

As soon as we stood up, Nikola rushed forward and grabbed my waist. That's what youth and speed mean! I just did not have time to react to such a quick change of attack and missed the hold. The opponent stepped up to me, lifted me off the ground and threw me on the grass.

I was on the verge of instant defeat, because I was falling on my back. Fortunately, we were both wet with sweat, and I managed to roll over onto my stomach when falling. Now the situation was unpleasant, but not catastrophic. I lay with my chest and stomach pressed to the ground as Nikola piled on top of me and gripped me tightly across my torso. Now, being in defense, I appreciated the strength of my new friend. His mighty hands strong from the constant peasant labour squeezed my chest, crushing my ribs, and from above Nikola crushed me with his weight. I am used to grappling, and for me it is more familiar to be face to face and chest to chest of the opponent, but now I did not see his face and could only guess his further actions.

At first, Nikola tried to tear me off the ground to throw me again, but on my back. I strained my sinews as hard as I could, trying to increase my weight and not let myself be thrown. Suddenly, Nikola squeezed my ribs even stronger (it turns out that he could even more!) And began to roll me, as freestyle wrestlers usually do. I fought back but still rolled once. Then the second time. If we wrestled competitively, I'd be close to losing on points without any points on my side

"You have lost, Alex," Nikola whispered in my ear, "I'm stronger than you.

"You forgot that once I pinned you," I answered him, "and you have not pinned me yet."

"Well, I'll do it now," Nikola cried.

And again Nikola began to roll me. But either he was already tired, or he spent his energy on talking, or we were too slippery from sweat, but at the top point of the roll I managed to turn around to face him in his capture, and... our roles changed. Now he was under me, with his back to the ground, and I grabbed his neck and arm, trying to pin him. This change of position happened so quickly that we both, perhaps, stopped for a moment, not believing in what had happened.

But nevertheless, now I was close to victory, and Nikola under me tried to resist and not to be pinned. We clutched each other in an iron embrace: I tried to break his muscle bridge and pin him to the ground, and he wanted to throw me aside or at least turn his breast to the ground. A casual witness would have thought it was a life-or-death battle. We both breathed heavily, our muscles tightened and swollen, our breasts pressed against our chests, face to face. Mixed with my sweat smell was strong smell of my adversary friend's sweat. At one moment it seemed to me that the arch from Nikola's muscles began to feed down, at another moment, on the contrary, Nikola almost pushed me away with incredible force. We seemed to have become in those minutes a single multi-armed and multi-legged monster. The tension was so great that each of us growled curses through our teeth in our native languages (and since our languages   are similar, we understood each other), each wanted to win

It is unlikely that we could have been in this position for a long time, but it feels like hours have passed since we started our second fight. I'm afraid that everything was decided by a drop of sweat that drained from my forehead and hit Nikola’s eye. He blinked for a moment, was distracted, and so I managed to press his back to the ground. Although... I am very pleased to think that I won honestly.

The heated struggle was changed into a minute of relaxation. I lay on top of my defeated opponent, still holding his head and arm in my grip, with Nikola hugging me across my torso. Our breathing gradually calmed down, and the furious embrace became friendly one. Finally we could look each other in the eye without the fury of battle.

"I don't understand how you managed to pin me again, because I was on the verge of victory," Nikola finally said.

- I suppose I'm just stronger than you, I laughed.

We stood up. To wash off the sweat and dirt from the bodies, we swam in the stream, after which we dressed, and I was finally back on the way to my bus in Usce. With my long hiking trip from Usce to Studenica and the battle in the forest on the way back, I was already late, and in October it is dark early in the mountains. On the way to Usce, Nikola talked about his peasant work, and I only wondered how much natural poetry was in this village guy. I said that I would live in Kraljevo for a couple of days (I planned to travel to two more remote medieval monasteries), after which I would go further south - to the Muslim Novi Pazar.

In Usce, I said goodbye to Nikola, he returned to his car, I got on a passing bus, which drove me through the gorge to the north - to my hotel in Kraljevo. A long hike, an inspection of the beautiful frescoes in the monastery and the tiresome wrestling with Nikola in the forest so overwhelmed me with impressions that I soon dozed off in the bus and woke up already at the entrance to the city. I got off the bus at the bus station and headed to my hotel through the station square with a monument to the Serbs who were killed by Nazis in the last World War.

Suddenly I was called out by name. In the shadow of the monument, I saw... Nikola, with whom we parted an hour ago in Usce.

"I thought you should give me a rematch," he said innocently. "I called home and said I had to go to Kraljevo on business. And then I followed your bus in a car.

Whay could I answer? We hugged friendly and went to my hotel to resume our match.