Aleksandar Tišma - The Use of Man

At the end of May, deck chairs appeared on the grass that had come up between the house and the office, and the children sat in them and ate snacks. A few weeks later, Vera brought out a light, gray blanket, spread it on the grass, and, glistening with oil, in a two-piece bathing suit, lay in the sun. Every day, for hours, she lay patiently on the blanket, turning over, from back to front, from front to back, bending alternately her left, then her right knee, to be more comfortable and have every part of her body embraced by the sun. Now and then she would disappear into the house to shower, as one could tell from the droplets on her sunburned skin and the streaks on her bathing suit. Armanyi thought it sacrilege for her to bake her transparently white, smooth skin to a dirty pink and then a bright red. But once it took on a copper hue, it showed off still better the firm and gentle outlines of her young body, making it so alluring as to be almost unreal.

One afternoon, they met at the gate, and though she was fully dressed and wearing stockings and sandals, Armanyi could not resist telling her the impression she had made on him. “You really do not need to lie in the sun all the time.” He removed his hat in greeting and held it in his hand. “I was going to speak about this to your esteemed father, but I restrained myself, and I am glad now, because it gives me the opportunity to address myself directly to you.”

She expressed surprise. “You think the sun’s not good for me?”

“Well, perhaps not good in such large doses,” Armanyi replied, embarrassed at having failed to make himself understood. “But I really meant your appearance.”

“My appearance? You don’t like my appearance?”

Instead of making her blush, it was he who blushed. “On the contrary, your appearance. . I find your appearance lovely. You’re a beautiful girl, and watching you sunbathe every day is for me a privilege I never hoped for, especially here in a store, where in every other respect I am in despair, doing a job for which I am not equipped and for which I have not the slightest inclination. But still, it is a shame, because your white skin compliments your hair so exquisitely.”

“You don’t think a tan is becoming? It’s fashionable, you know.”

“Perhaps I am a little old-fashioned. Or old. That’s really the trouble.”

“How old is old?”

“Thirty-one. Much older than you and very much older than I would like to be now, talking to you.”

“Why? That’s a fine time of life….”

“Perhaps. But not here. In Budapest it is. In a big, carefree city open to all pleasures and all ages. Have you ever been to Budapest?” Vera admitted she had never been. “Oh, you really should. Surely Mr. Kroner or Mrs. Kroner will take you someday to see our one and only capital.”

“There’s been talk of it, but no plans. We can’t go there without a pass, you know, and one needs a special reason for a pass.”

“Oh, if it’s only a question of a pass,” Armanyi said ardently, pressing his hat to his heart, “perhaps I can help. Besides”—he blushed again, realizing in which direction the conversation was headed—“you could come with me when I return to make my report. Traveling as my assistant, you would need no special authorization. What do you say? Would you like to?”

Vera shrugged hesitantly. “I don’t know…. Yes, I would. But I would have to talk to my father first.”

Armanyi coughed, uncomfortable. “Perhaps your father would not consider my offer entirely correct, at least not now. Perhaps it would be better to say nothing about this for the time being. But you and I, we are agreed, are we not? One day we will take off, escape from this boredom and have a taste of a fuller, more exciting life.”

Saying good-bye, they left it there. But they were both a little frightened by this conversation. Armanyi asked himself whether it had not been underhanded of him to urge the daughter of the house, a house in which he represented the civilization of his country, to run away with him, and whether he had not greatly overstepped his authority and courage in promising to break the law. Vera was amazed that she had agreed to go off somewhere with a strange man, alone, without her parents’ permission. But thinking it over as she lay in bed that night, she came to the surprising conclusion that she was not at all ashamed. She was sure of herself, convinced that Armanyi was in love with her. Recalling his misty-eyed look, the change of color in his face, the way his hand desperately pressed the soft hat to his chest, she almost laughed out loud. She was proud at having won such a big, strong, mature man, and was excited at the thought that she could, by her looks alone, by her body, which she was in a position to place in his way any time she wished, attach him to her still more strongly. She waited impatiently for the morning and the sun, when she could again show herself, almost naked, to his eyes, and with that thought she fell asleep.

And, indeed, the next day she lay on the blanket, in the sprouting grass as if in an embrace, her smile triumphant. For Armanyi, who feared that he had frightened her with his aggressive approach and that she might tell her parents everything, her reappearance on the grass was a clear sign that he had not made a mistake, that on the contrary his amorous advances had gone a long way to being reciprocated. He began to dream. He saw himself and the girl in a compartment of the Árpád express as it arrived, whistling, in Budapest’s eastern railway station; he saw himself with her in a taxi taking them to his bachelor apartment; he saw himself handing her his pajamas from the wardrobe — for some reason he imagined her leaving home in a hurry, neglecting to take anything with her, and therefore lying next to him in bed in that too-large man’s shirt, which emphasized the svelteness and vulnerability of her body. Crisply starched, the shirt crackled under his hand as he drew her toward him. The only thing he didn’t know was what legal framework would surround that embrace. Would it be achieved with a promise of marriage, or was marriage impossible with a Jewess? Would she consent to become his secret mistress? Would this mean that he would have to resign his post in Kroner’s store and make use of his connections and influence to be transferred back to Budapest? Or would their relationship receive the blessing of Vera’s parents?

Vera, too, had her dreams. She saw herself on a busy street crowded with people, streetcars, cars, glittering window displays, where she would pass unnoticed, no longer Vera Kroner, daughter of merchant Robert Kroner, but a nameless creature, reduced to her own healthy, supple body, in which she had full confidence. No longer would there be obstacles to her traveling, to her changing towns and places of dwelling, escaping from the closing trap that was the house of her parents. In these images there was little room for Armanyi; he stood at the edge, head bent, hat pressed to his heart, looking at her with misty eyes. But her reason, which also played a part in these fantasies, was prepared to allow him to approach her, to be next to her, even to possess her if he kept his promise and delivered her from the trap. The two of them waited, observing each other through the windows and through the veil of grass as if across the sights of invisible rifles. Days passed.

Sometimes Vera’s mother came out into the courtyard to caution her daughter (but absent-mindedly; her thoughts were on her son, who was away all day long) that she would get burned, or sometimes the maid brought out freshly washed fruit in a white dish, or sometimes Grandmother Kroner emerged, stooped and cautious, to heap muttered reproaches on her granddaughter for exposing herself, a Jewess, to the eyes of Gentiles. Sometimes Gerhard, returning home from his training in firearms, scornfully indifferent to the presence of his sister, wove his way lazily across the yard and, moving gracefully, like a panther, pulled himself up to the top of the fence in one movement and cast a swift glance toward the grass widow’s house. She, waiting for him there, at that sign would change her dress and come over, to go down with him into the cellar. Milinko, too, came in the evening hours, after a day spent with his books, to chat with Kroner and then with Vera, who by then would be bathed, cool, dressed, ready to listen to him in boredom and to exchange an occasional kiss.