Aleksandar Tišma - The Use of Man

One evening — she had not yet switched on the light — she heard a soft knock at the door, almost a scratch, and when she opened it, she found herself face to face with the secretary. He looked haggard; his eyes were mournful. She kept him in suspense for several seconds, then stepped back and with a gesture of her hand invited him in. As soon as he shut the door, she pressed herself against him. Because his hands shook too much, she unbuttoned his trousers for him, and gave herself to him, right there in the kitchen, on the table, almost fully dressed, not letting him take her clothes off. Then she quickly refastened his buttons and pushed him outside. “That’s it,” she said sternly. “If you turn up again like that, uninvited, I’ll call the police, and complain to Jurković to boot.” She locked the door, drank some wine from the bottle, and lay down. The encounter had been too abrupt, it had come nowhere near satisfying her, but had shaken her up and left her moist. She vowed never again to give in to that kind of weakness. She ignored the secretary, who waited for her in the corridors of the Post Office with humble, imploring eyes, and turned an angry face to her other suitors.

But news of her indiscretion rippled through that swamp of collective lust. One evening, the dispatch clerk knocked on her door, a strong, mature man, and, without a second thought, she did with him exactly what she had done with the secretary. Then it was Voja’s turn, who held her timidly, embracing her awkwardly with his one arm; then the handsome postman, tall and slim, with whom she happened to have shared a table at lunch; and finally her boss, with whom she had hardly ever exchanged a word, a clever man who had been a banker before the war. She was not worried about not knowing them better, but let them come in the evening, when drink and boredom had prepared her for weakness. All she asked was for them to keep silent, not to ask for an explanation or for the light to be turned on, or for her to show herself naked.

Afterward she felt remorse, disgust, but she was accustomed to that, and decided it was an inseparable part of sexual coupling. And again she would wait, sometimes in vain, if no one came. That made her happy, gave her the feeling that she had escaped something ugly; it was not unlike those days in the camp house of pleasure with no visits, when she pretended that she was free, in a town where no one knew her. But then someone would knock, and she came to terms with that, too. Men she didn’t know swarmed around her now that they found out she lived alone and was available. They waited in the street near her house, approached her with a deep bow and flattering words, and if she so much as nodded in reply, they knocked on her door at twilight and begged her to let them in. Occasionally one of the strangers would bring a bottle of wine, or cigarettes, or a length of material for which one needed coupons as well as money to obtain. She accepted. She even took the money they placed on the table in the darkness after she had given herself to them, though they waved it in front of her eyes beforehand, so she would know who it came from. But these visits left her cold, disappointed, and she began to drink more and arrive at work late because of her hangover and the sense of futility.

On a few heavy, rainy days in autumn she didn’t go to work at all. Jurković called her in for another talk, this time harsh. The absences of a person morally upright, Jurković said, could be pardoned, but she no longer intended to make allowances for Vera. The threat was carried out one December morning, the third in a row that Vera had lain around at home: the Post Office messenger, smiling as he surveyed the disorder in her kitchen, delivered a thin, folded paper on which were typed legal clauses, numbered, and, beneath the notice of her right to appeal within eight days, in large, widely spaced letters, her dismissal. Vera no more than ran her eyes over the document. She offered the messenger some slivovitz — she drank brandy now, liking it better than wine — and smoked a cigarette with him. The fingers of his right hand were missing, blown off by a mine, he said, in his Partisan days. They talked on, but his tongue ran away with him and she grew bored. Besides, it was too cold to sit in the unheated kitchen, so she stood up and saw him to the door.

She was out of work and surprised by how pleased that made her. The office, the inquisitive faces, the men’s eyes glued to her body, openly desiring to undress her, to run their hands over her — all that repelled her. She was better off with these frankly sexual encounters, for which she answered to no one. She would not go to the dining room anymore, she decided, though she still had some unused vouchers; she would eat however she could, wherever she could. So she lived on gifts. As if knowing of her dismissal, no one came empty-handed anymore. The gifts sometimes were things of ridiculously little value — a pair of stockings, a half-dozen handkerchiefs wrapped in newspaper, or small change placed in a neat pile on the table. But, to make up for that, the man who came once a week in the early evening always left two hundred-dinar notes, practically enough for her needs.

He introduced himself as a local landowner, but his elegance and his fine-quality suits and shirts, although worn, told her that he was lying. No longer young, with thinning hair and glasses on his long, sharp nose, he was humble toward her and at the same time feverishly hungry at her touch. He reminded her of someone from the past, who, she didn’t know; Count Armanyi, perhaps, but older. Was that why she felt drawn to him? Or was she pleased at his generosity? She couldn’t make up her mind. She waited for him more eagerly than for the others, and her heart beat gladly when she recognized his careful knock at the door and saw, through the frosted glass, the silhouette of his wide-brimmed hat, always slanted to the left. After several meetings, in addition to the money he began to leave messages on the table, small scraps of paper typed out beforehand. They each contained a single sentence: “I love you,” or “You’re dear to me,” or “It’s wonderful to know you’re mine.” Later, more boldly, they referred to her body, her lovely derrière, her tiny, scented ear, her armpit with its little tuft of hair.

One evening, after he got dressed, he stayed longer than usual in the darkness of the room to recover his breath. Sitting in a chair, he asked for a glass of water and, at last, for the light to be turned on. Vera hesitated — it was against her rule — then did as she was asked. Her guest was reaching for his hat, which had rolled to the floor. He lowered his eyes, and suddenly they were filled with tears. “I’m not worthy of you,” he stammered, wiping his eyes behind his glasses. “I’m a friend of your father’s. I lost a daughter the same age as you.” He turned his face toward her, his eyes half closed behind the glasses. “Don’t you recognize me?”

Vera looked at him and thought hard: In the contours of his face she saw another, firmer, face, full cheeks free of glasses, strong teeth, thick brown hair that fluttered in the wind against a background of green hills, and in an instant the parchment of age was unrolled. “Is it you, Uncle Jacob?” He nodded and stifled a cry. “You knew all the time that it was me?” He nodded again, took off his glasses, reached for a handkerchief in his pocket, and wiped his eyes.

“Your mother wrote to me,” he said awkwardly. “She asked me to find out what I could about you. I followed you. It was as if I were following my own daughter, our Erika. You remember Erika, how you all played together, you and she and Gerhard? But something in me went wrong, went crazy. You were alive and she was dead. I was alive and your father was dead, and your mother had left you, betrayed you. It seemed like such an injustice. Why didn’t I have my daughter when those who were no more had theirs? An absurd thought, and I rejected it at once.” He was silent for a moment, his mouth working. “But my sinful body,” he shouted suddenly, beating his fist against his sunken chest, “it gave me no peace.” He lowered his head. “I began to lust after you with the vicious lust of an old man. I could see the path you had taken, that you gave yourself wantonly to anyone. The first time I came here, I came to warn you, to try to turn you from that path. But your scent, your youth bewitched me in the darkness when you took me in, put your arms around me. Suddenly, after so many years, I felt that I was still a man, still alive, that I could be of use to someone. Forgive me.” He shook his head in disbelief and closed his eyes.