Aleksandar Tišma - The Use of Man

There were a number of suggestions, but it was finally Gerhard’s — to cut his body into pieces and bury that in the cellar — that prevailed. But how long would the body remain undiscovered? When a soldier didn’t return to his unit from leave, how much time would the authorities need to establish where he had been staying, and hold the hosts responsible? The youths concluded that even if the four of them managed to make good their escape and link up quickly with the Partisans, the Kroner household — and most probably the families of the others as well — would bear the brunt of the reprisals. For this reason, the whole project was shelved. Thus it was that the uncle continued to strut around the Jewish merchant’s house, totally unaware of the danger he had been in.

Because he did know, Gerhard, his cheek resting on his arms folded lazily on the table, observed his uncle with even greater attention, sitting with him gladly during the idle morning hours when his mother and the maidservant were cooking, his father was in the office, and Vera was putting creams on her face. He, too, noticed his resemblance to the man, a resemblance that was more than a resemblance: it was a prediction of his own adulthood. And probably of his occupation, for Sep Lehnart was exactly what Gerhard Kroner wanted to be: an armed killer.

He questioned his uncle ardently about the life of a soldier — the marches, the battles, what it felt like to wound or kill a man. Sep answered, but less willingly than he would have to a stranger or to someone he hated, for he knew that his words were filled with images too strong, too full of terror and temptation for a person as young as his nephew. He did his best to avoid telling him of the more gruesome scenes of war, emphasizing the humorous episodes, such as misunderstandings with the locals in Ukrainian villages through lack of knowledge of the language, or the adventures with girls who came secretly to a hut specially kept for that purpose to sell themselves for a can of food or piece of chocolate.

Gerhard found these boastful tales loathsome but did not reproach his uncle for them, because he was determined to draw out of him more and more information about Russia, the country on which the outcome of the war depended, and about the German army, which had to be outwitted and defeated. And, in any case, his attitude toward his uncle was a divided one, for along with the disgust he felt for his arrogance, he also had a certain sympathy for the man and for his principles. For Gerhard, too, the Occupation, despite its deprivations and humiliations, had been responsible for his first amorous encounter — with the wife of the Hungarian next door who had been called up into the reserves.

She came to take shelter, during the air raids, in the Kroners’ cellar, which was more solidly built than her own. A gentle, easily frightened woman with round black eyes and a mouth that turned down at the ends, she trembled and clung to the person nearest her — and that happened to be Gerhard — at the first rumblings of distant bombs, and in the darkness of the cellar let him push his hand down between her breasts. From then on, he had only to bang on the fence that separated the courtyards of the two houses at any time of the day, and she would appear immediately at the gate, ready to go down to the cellar with him. Gerhard told his uncle of this affair, which he had kept secret from the other members of the household, during one of those long, unhurried conversations in the quiet apartment, unable to resist the need to counter one baseness with another. So nothing now was left unsaid between them, apart from Sep’s experience as a killer and Gerhard’s intention to kill him. But while Gerhard’s secret in no way tormented him, since he shared it with Schlesinger and the Karaulić brothers, Sep wished desperately for someone to confide in, since he was unable to do so with his nephew.

Usually he spent the morning at home, hanging around the house and its courtyard, looking out through the windows, or trying to draw someone into conversation. But after lunch — which his sister served him separately, in the kitchen, as if to a servant — he got dressed, shaved (although his face was far from needing the attention of a razor every day), put on his cap in front of the mirror to make sure its peak came down over his low forehead exactly level with his brows, buckled on his revolver, and went out for a walk. He would walk for hours, paying no attention to the fact that the farther he went, the more painful it became to bend his left leg, where he had been hit by a bullet in battle. Often, he would buy a ticket for the first or second matinée and watch a film. Then he would sit down in a restaurant and order five ćevapčići or some other light snack, for although he was hungry, his innate stinginess begrudged spending his soldier’s pay on what he could get free a few hours later at his sister’s. But he did not keep so strict a curb on his drinking.

He watched as young people came into the restaurant in twos, in threes — sometimes even soldiers — but all complete strangers to him. They were relaxed, noisy; though his own age, they seemed more assured, more nonchalant than he, perhaps because they were from town — this town or some other. They would casually remove their outer garments and hang them on a coat-rack near the wall, take cigarettes out of their cases, and quietly negotiate with the waitresses, who bent low over the table to give them the menu. He would have liked to get to know them — at least the waitresses — but whenever he spoke to one, he always seemed to say something trivial, and it was received with a distracted half-smile. But he went on hoping that someone would approach him, and so stayed there slowly drinking his beer, which from time to time he had to reorder. Gradually the beer made him intoxicated; visions of war in which he was all-powerful began to rise before him. Looking around with new eyes, he thought bitterly that all these clever townspeople who paid him no attention had never been through such exciting experiences, nor were they capable of it. He got quite drunk.

They had all left the restaurant with their girls to go to other, previously arranged, appointments. Only he was left, sitting with his elbows on the table, straight-backed, meticulously shaven, motionless, numb. The waitress brought him the check, and he, angry that it amounted to so much, totaled it again to himself, screwing up his face. Spluttering, he paid, leaving no tip, for he was certain that he had been cheated. Then he put on his belt, made sure that his cap was at just the right angle on his head, measuring its position with reference to his part, and with ringing steps, careful that no one would notice him swaying, went out.

He headed for home, walking along frozen, empty streets, here and there running into someone hurrying home to bed, or lovers, or a married couple. The town was retiring, settling down in its houses. Behind the walls, behind the darkened windows it slept peacefully. Sep Lehnart was sure that nothing could disturb that peace, that calm, that indifference toward him as he made his way — with difficulty now, dragging his leg like a heavy walking stick — outside those walls. Nothing, no wish for change, no war, no amount of killing. He had the unpleasant presentiment that all the towns would survive all the killing, that no matter how many of their inhabitants were stood up in front of a machine gun or finished off with a bullet in the back of the head, tomorrow, when the army had finished its bloody, exhausting work, there would still be enough people left to lie around in those houses, to light fires, cook, wash, and clean, and do all those unwarlike things that diminish the vital forces and distract them from the march to victory.