Aleksandar Tisma - The Book of Blam

But Rakovsky gave his students a more generous and more regular break from work: his talks. After a quick and thorough presentation of the material for the day — he had an excellent command of German, though he pronounced it in the soft, Russian way, as he did Serbian — he would clasp his hands behind his back, thrust out his chest, pace back and forth in front of the podium, stumbling now and then and spurting the occasional jet of laughter, and sermonize in his shrill, piercing voice. He spoke of the crisis in Slavdom, whose most powerful branch, Russia, was being eaten away by the Bolshevik blight, an ideology of mediocrity and ignorance designed to bring about Russia’s downfall, an ideology sown by the Jewish nation, which was scattered around the world and which, like all parasites, fed on healthy plants. To combat the evil, he preached a new, militant society based on ancient Sparta, one that promoted might, bravery, and determination and discouraged softness and weakness as breeding grounds for the plutocratic Jewish plague.

Encouraged by both the attention of his audience and the obvious successes of the Spartanlike military regime in Germany, Rakovsky gradually intensified his rhetoric. Blam was understandably uncomfortable. Whenever Rakovsky came to the end of the brief question-and-answer session after the grammar lesson, folded his hands behind his back, and pulled his puny frame up to its full height, Blam, in his isolation (he was the only Jew in the class), felt cramps in his stomach, the blood draining from his head, and a stabbing pain in his chest, and while he suffered, his classmates heaved a sigh of relief, their faces all smiles in anticipation of a good time.

The nightmare was in no way mitigated by the fact that Rakovsky did not attack Blam personally. He evaluated Blam’s class performance fairly, even overlooking minor errors: his preoccupation with general principles made him in most respects a fair-minded teacher. But Blam sensed that behind the lack of personal malice lay the patience of a fanatic circling his victim with feigned indifference while waiting for the right moment to pounce. Blam found evidence for the circling in the fact that whenever Rakovsky did lose his temper, he aimed his barbs at Blam’s neighbor, Aca Krkljuš, though it must be said that Aca gave him plenty of ammunition, coming to school half asleep, failing to do his homework, not even knowing what lesson they were on, the very opposite of his deaf and dull-witted but industrious brother, and when Rakovsky discovered that Aca went in for jazz, he started singling him out in his talks as a degenerate Slav. At the same time, Rakovsky made Čutura, Blam’s other neighbor, his pet, addressing him personally from the podium, as if wishing to separate and shield him from Blam’s evil influence. The choice of Čutura as a pet demonstrated even more than did the trips and falls caused by his poor eyesight Rakovsky’s inability to grasp reality, because Čutura (whose real name was Ljubomir Krstić, though all the students and even all the teachers other than the infatuated Rakovsky called him Čutura, “brandy flask”) was even then a committed Communist — an unambiguous, provocative, self-confident Communist, whose older brothers were both known revolutionaries in town. But Rakovsky, isolated from the rest of the population by his in-the-clouds ideas and from the rest of the teaching staff by his unpopular political stance, failed to realize not only that in Čutura he had an ideological enemy but also that in Čutura’s pointed, robust simplicity and stoic hostility he had the very type of strong-willed young Slav he called for in his talks. Čutura did no better at his lessons than Aca Krkljuš—he simply had no time to take them seriously — yet Rakovsky gave him high marks for the most superficial answers and accepted anything he said to justify his absences, which were many, for Čutura attended every illegal meeting he was invited to.

Blam occupied a middle position between Krkljuš and Čutura in the matter of Rakovsky’s respect as well. But he was instinctively aware of the fragile quality of that position, and he feared the day when its equilibrium would be upset. When the day came, after a year or more of teetering, Čutura was the cause.

Rakovsky, in his usual precise manner, had asked Slobodan Krkljuš to conjugate an irregular German verb, but his Russian accent was too much for the hard-of-hearing Slobodan, who looked up at Rakovsky’s lips with a good-natured smile and asked him to repeat the question. Rakovsky was happy to do so. A cornerstone of his pedagogy was: If you don’t understand, don’t be afraid to ask. But just as he was about to formulate the question more distinctly, Aca Krkljuš, who had been hunching behind his brother, afraid he would be next if Slobodan got the answer wrong, leaned over to Blam and begged for the verb forms with his eyes. Blam whispered them to him, but he was too loud and Rakovsky heard him and took it for an attempt to help Slobodan.

“Blam!” he screeched, as if he had just been scalded, his head jerking forward, his clenched fists falling to his sides.

Blam stood up.

“What did you say?” Rakovsky croaked.

“Nothing to him,” Blam answered, flustered.

Either failing or refusing to understand what Blam meant, unable to accept anything but lies and treachery from Blam (perhaps for some time now), Rakovsky flinched at these words as at a leper’s touch.

“What did you say?” he repeated shrilly, his face red, his lips twitching.

Having to pass Slobodan’s desk to get to Blam’s, he bumped into it on the first step, but instead of laughing as usual, he bared his crooked teeth, regained his course, and moved on with short, clipped steps, holding his head high like a soldier on parade, except that his features were convulsed with hatred, his eyes were smoldering and his thin, curled lips were spotted with foam. He stumbled once more in the space between the desks, but undeterred, lifting his fists and waving them over his head, he made for Blam.

Suddenly Čutura rose from his bench and positioned himself by Blam’s desk. He stood there calmly, arms at his side, his composure making it clear he would not budge. Rakovsky sensed as much and hesitated for a moment, but then a hoarse sound emerged from his throat: a whimper or muffled cry. He was so much shorter than Čutura that when he got to him, his raised fists barely reached Čutura’s slightly furrowed brow.

“Don’t do it, Professor Rakovsky,” Čutura said firmly.

Rakovsky flinched again, his lips curling. Then he turned to Blam, as if to find a way past the obstacle and do what he had set out to do.

Čutura took a step backward in Blam’s direction.

“Don’t do it, Professor Rakovsky,” he repeated in the same firm but quiet voice.

Rakovsky turned to him, his eyes bulging as if he had received an electric shock, his white fists shaking above his head, his mouth twisting, his breath hissing. Then all at once something snapped inside him, and he threw back his head, opened his mouth, and burst into his broken wheeze of a laugh. The class, mute from the suspense, was slow in joining him, but once he lowered his arms, the fearful, obsequious sputter grew into a roar. Rakovsky then executed an about-face and returned straight-backed to the podium. Čutura motioned to Blam to be seated and slipped silently back on to his own bench. The class resumed.

ČUTURA IS CRUISING the city. He may be wearing a sweaty shirt unbuttoned at the chest, he may be wearing a suit and tie and driving his own car, depending on the position he would have had in postwar society. One thing is certain: he is carrying a list of all the Novi Sad Lajos Kocsises in his pocket, a list consisting of addresses alone, the names being the same. Čutura is gathering new, postwar evidence of diversity beneath apparent uniformity.