Borislav Pekic - Houses

Before going out she turned around and said: “He’s suffered very badly.”

“Mr. Martinović? Can you hear me?”

Sheltered by the Spanish wall — I knew those difficult circumstances from my own experience — the paraplegic strove to control the contorted dam of his mouth. With my cheek to the brown patterned cloth I could almost see the two brittle, transparent wires of his bloodless lips twisting their still sound ends until their painful edge dropped down the stubbly chin, filled with a bubbling foam in which the agitated tongue was bathed as if in pink soapy water, seeking for words. At last I myself began to move my lips, as if only by mutual effort would we be able to squeeze a voice from his jaw. His voice finally broke through, greatly distorted by the unnatural position of the facial muscles, but quite intelligible:

“My time’s done.”

I tried hard to explain to him to what an extent his recovery lay in his own hands. A man must never at any cost resign himself to his misfortune. Medicines are mere palliatives. I myself had been in his position. Even worse, in fact, for broken bones had preceded the apoplexy, and even contusia cerebri for which there was clinical evidence. Yet here I am, thank God.

“You’ll still feed us all, my friend,” I said, having in mind his grain-trading business. But it seemed that his contribution to our meeting would consist solely of one and the same thought.

“They told me that my time was done.”

“Of course,” I said, “you’ll soon be out and about again.”

“What for? My time’s done!”

“Well now, you just need a bit more will power.”

Afraid that he might slip away from me again, I asked him if he remembered the house that had belonged to my cousin, Stefan Negovan, the building at No. 41 Kosmajska Street, which we used to call a monstrosity. “On March 27, 1941, at 1900 hours, a private auction was arranged for Niké, at which I, unfortunately, was late in arriving. And you bought it.”

There was no answer. “My dear Mr. Martinović, I most humbly beg you to give me some sign that you understand me.”

“My time’s done. What more do you want?”

“ Bon, excellent , Mr. Martinović, everything will be all right, tout va être très bien . By the way, I suppose you didn’t know that I — how shall I put it? — was linked to that house by certain intimate obligations which aren’t worth speaking of here. It’s all over and done with, I don’t hold it against you, please believe that I completely absolve you of any impression that you acted disloyally toward me. Anyway, business is business. But while Niké—that house — never actually belonged to me, I was always sincerely interested in her development, until circumstances arose which for a long time hindered me from giving her my personal attention. And so, to make a long story short, I was left completely uninformed — about that house on Kosmajska Street, I mean. What exactly did you do with her?”

I’m ashamed to admit it, but my patience was beginning to give out. Nevertheless, I controlled myself once again and expressed my sincere sympathy for the calamity which had befallen him, to which the only answer through the screen was a dull groaning and the apathetic formula to the effect that his “time was done.” Simultaneously, I was considering whether in his wife’s absence I couldn’t remove the screen and “encourage” the invalid just a little more, when something happened which threw me quite literally off balance.

Mrs. Martinović had stolen unnoticed behind me and now wrenched with all her strength at the rickety chair on which I was sitting, so that I suddenly found myself on the floor. Yes, collapsed on the floor, almost knocking the screen down across the invalid. While I was getting up — quite smartly, considering my years — my hostess rudely disposed of my tentative conclusion that my mishap had been an accident, for she bent over me to knock me down the moment I got up again.

“You feel sorry for us, do you? But you want more anyway. Can’t get enough, you greedy monsters, can you? You’d take all we’ve got — money, belongings, our very souls! Well, that to you!” Here, believe it or not, she actually demonstrated it, in vivo . “There’s nothing more for you to take and divide up. And you made my children emigrate, you filthy gangsters. Go steal from each other now!”

“Oh, mon Dieu! Pull yourself together, madam!”

“What sort of madam am I, you bastard! A madam in a calico dress, a madam who eats once in a blue moon, a madam who washes fucking old men’s fucking drawers! Thieves! Pigs! Godless mobsters!”

“ Moi, je ne comprends rien, parole d’honneur. Je suis un homme de grande renommée! ”

“Pigs!”

“ Pardon, pardon! Vous avez eu la bonté de vois souvenir de moi — Arsénie K. Negovan, rentier de la rue Kosančićev Venac, numéro dix-sept! ”

Although I’m free to leave out this sordid scene in pleno (have I mentioned that I’m writing on the back of tax forms and rent receipts?), and although for my own posthumous memory and the Martinovići’s reputation it would be well to do so, nevertheless I have included it since these events, together with other events that awaited me on my walk, were clearly and prophetically significant. And so, with a certain restraint regarding the choice of words but not the events, I’m writing down how, pursued by the lady’s oaths, I cautiously beat a retreat toward the door, reflecting meantime that if there were no other way, I should have to make use of my cane. For the time being, however, the enraged woman contented herself with the coarse oaths whose sense was quite beyond my comprehension, nor was I, quite honestly, in any mood to puzzle it out.

“Why don’t you leave him in peace for once, you filthy cheat? Can’t you see that the man’s dying? Do you want to finish him off altogether? Hasn’t my husband done his time? Fifteen years he served in prison — innocent — so that those no-good bastards could get fat on our estate!”

“Madam!”

“Get out!”

“Please, I can explain—”

“Explain? What did you explain to us back in forty-four? Get out of here, and tell those who sent you that the Martinovići have nothing more for you to confiscate. You can still get this!” She brandished her clenched fist. “Just look at him, all dressed up with a hat and a tie! Don’t you think I can tell a secret policeman when I see one?”

Obviously, any explanation was useless. Also, her shouting might alarm the neighbors and involve me in a scandal. I managed to reach the stairs, but as I was going down, trying to maintain an appearance of businesslike haste in my withdrawal, Joška, the horse dealer’s daughter, leaned over the wooden handrail and continued to hurl imprecations down at me:

“And that house that so caught your eye, you couldn’t take that away, bloodsucker! The bastards knocked it down, thank God, leveled it to the ground. You could only take the stones, and take them you did, and how! You even took the rubble away from us! I hope they use them for your grave! And you can come back with the police if you want, I don’t give a damn!”

I quickened my step to a pace just short of a run and didn’t stop until I was in Topličin Venac. The woman’s outburst at the top of the stairs had ended in groaning, sobbing, shouting, and the devil knows what else.

My Niké, then, was hit during the Allied bombing and couldn’t have been repaired at all, even if she had been in my hands. So from all the evidence, I could be considered neither guilty of, nor even an accessory to, her destruction. Unfortunately, I had to pay for the merited relief with shame at being so eager to accept it. Had I really so little feeling left for the house, that I preferred it to have been razed to the ground in order to preserve my own peace of mind?