Aleksandar Tišma - The Use of Man

Vera felt sorry for him. She picked up his hat — it had been cleaned many times, and the manufacturer’s name was printed on its silk lining — and gave it to him. “Go now, Uncle Jacob.”

It was as if he had not heard her, but after several minutes he got up from the chair, tilted his hat to his left ear, and wound his scarf around his neck. “I’ll bring you your mother’s letter,” he mumbled without looking at Vera. “She lives in Frankfurt. She begs to be forgiven, wants you to go and live with her. She’s all right. Married again. They keep a tavern.”

For a second Vera felt a shock of amazement rise up inside her like a sob, but it subsided as suddenly as it had come, and in its place was the image of herself copulating with her mother’s messenger, an act in which she had even found pleasure, and she was nauseated. “Go, go at once,” she ordered, and opened the door. She almost pushed him down the stairs, so she could lock the door as quickly as possible and forget him.

But no sooner had he gone than her disgust disappeared. She saw him again as he had been when he was younger, as in an old photograph, with other youthful faces around him: her father, mother, Gerhard, Erika. Gerhard and Erika had perhaps even been in love a little, in an innocent way; they would go off together into the hollows and woods when their families took excursions in cabs to the hills around Novi Sad. Her thoughts went back to the pleasure of that slow drive, the clatter of the wheels and the horse’s hooves, the old driver’s back bouncing up and down, his dark coat and tall black hat, the smell of the horse’s sweat and droppings blending with the perfume of plants and the breeze from the Danube, which was a silver ribbon in the distance. Even so, Vera had not enjoyed those outings. She would sit opposite her father and mother, always aware of the tension between them, the fixed smiles, the words held back. She could hardly wait for the cab to stop. The adults would spread out the blanket in front of the cabs after the drivers unharnessed the horses and led them to the edge of the woods to graze, and on the blanket they would sit and play cards. Gerhard and Erika would go off, and she in turn would walk as far as possible, as far as she was allowed, enjoying her solitude among the weeds and bushes. But vegetation didn’t inspire her; she couldn’t lose herself in it, too conscious of the proximity of the group to which she reluctantly belonged, to which she would have to return, and in fact Vera waited impatiently for the time to pass, for teatime, when they went back.

Bernister, she remembered, used to visit them at home, sometimes alone and sometimes with his wife. He had long discussions with her father in the study, nodding solemnly at her father’s discourse, or correcting him on some point, for Bernister, a trade representative and agent for big foreign firms, was well informed about the movements of commodity prices in the world. Meanwhile, his plump wife chatted affectionately with Vera’s mother about needlework and cooking. Afterward they would all sit at the freshly set table in the dining room, drink coffee, and eat kugelhopf, but Vera would feel distant and impatient, sensing the falseness of that friendly gathering. And she had been right; for the Bernisters, as soon as the trouble began between Germany and Yugoslavia, broke all ties with the Kroners. Vera saw Erika only once after that, in the white socks, shirt, and blouse of the Hitler Youth; she did not see the rest of the family again. But now that Bernister had reminded her of it, she suddenly wanted to return to that time of abundance, tense and false though it was, to the brightness and simplicity of those afternoons.

Also, she no longer thought of her mother with aversion. At her mother’s side, she would rest, she would be cleansed of the murkiness that led to her shame and defilement. She remembered her mother’s quick, light step, the energy with which she had brought her food and medicine when she was ill, or a dress just ironed. She must join her mother, she decided, and suddenly felt better.

During the next few days Vera waited for Bernister to arrive. She jumped up at every little noise in the hall. But Bernister did not put in an appearance. Having gone away ashamed the last time, perhaps he would never come back. Finally she dressed and went into town to find him. She tried several shops, asked the assistants and managers, all young men, but they looked at her blankly: trade representatives, as one floor manager explained to her, no longer existed. Desperate, she went in circles, but at last, in a newly opened “people’s store,” in a glass-partitioned area behind a row of counters, she caught sight of a stocky man with smooth graying hair and wearing a dark-blue suit. She stepped forward and knocked at his door. He raised a pale, bloated face from his papers, listened to her attentively, but after a moment’s thought said that he didn’t know Jacob Bernister. He got up to show Vera out, but she remained standing in front of his desk. He asked her why she was looking for the former trade representative. When he heard that Jacob Bernister had been a friend of her father and that her father was the late Robert Kroner, whom he had known personally — he said — and respected, he asked Vera to sit down, picked up the telephone, dialed some numbers, spoke to several people in Serbian and in Hungarian, then pushed a slip of paper with an address toward Vera.

The address took her along the main street past the Post Office, down the road to the station, into a narrow side street, and to a two-story house with a dingy staircase. On the second floor Vera found a door with the name she was looking for. She rang the bell, and the door was opened by Bernister, in a short, shabby dressing gown. He stepped back in dismay, was about to shut the door in her face, but in the dim light of the hallway Mrs. Bernister, now a gray, shrunken woman, appeared. Bernister pulled himself together and introduced Vera. “You remember, Robert and Reza’s daughter, Erika’s friend.” He invited her into the living room.

A desk and a large typewriter with a black metal cover were all that was left of the trade representative’s office; beyond them, a low, wide couch, armchairs, and cabinets crowded together. “Make us some coffee, will you,” Bernister said to his wife, and as soon as she left the room, he leaned over to Vera and whispered anxiously, “You mustn’t say anything about my coming to see you. Or about your mother’s letter. My wife knows nothing.” But he opened the desk drawer, took out a pencil and a piece of paper, and hurriedly wrote in printed letters: “Theresia Arbeitsam, Frankfurt a/M, Forellenstrasse 17.” “Put that away. We’ll talk as if you had found the address by yourself.” And they did talk, first the two of them, and then in front of his wife, who brought in the two coffees and stood by the door listening. The former trade representative explained to Vera that she had to apply for a passport, told her where, promised to help her fill out the forms if she found that necessary, and, looking at his wife, timidly offered help with expenses Vera could not meet. The coffee was barely warm; they drank it quickly, and Vera got up. They were all victims, Bernister said in parting, though Vera had certainly suffered terribly. The truth was coming out now, things no one ever dreamed of. The Germans, too, had had their calvary; they had barely survived, and poor Erika had perished, so young. Every family had its pain, he concluded awkwardly as his wife wiped her eyes.

Vera went to the police station, filled out forms, handed them in at the counter with the fee. A young clerk told her she would be notified. When? He couldn’t say. She was not pleased with this answer, for suddenly she was in a hurry. She felt she had wasted those long months since she had come back from the camp, trying to adapt to a life alien to her from the start. Then she received a letter from her mother, not in German, curiously, but in Serbian. It was difficult to read because the handwriting was poor and her mother had forgotten certain expressions.