Aleksandar Tisma - The Book of Blam

It was evening. He had just paid his visit to the house in Vojvoda Šupljikac Square, and a cold, disconsolate visit it had been, like sitting by the bed of a corpse. Yearning for contact with the crowd, he circled Main Square and had just reached the Avala and the pillars supporting the editorial offices of Naše novine , when he felt something brush his elbow. It was different from the listless, unconscious pressure of the crowd that kept his body steady as he made his way forward; it was a cautious yet deliberate prod. He turned, frightened. In the shadow of a pillar he made out a figure in a broad-brimmed hat and a heavy winter coat with a turned-up collar. Only the angular line of the chin, lit up by a patch of light from the lobby, told him it was Čutura.

Čutura’s disguise as a vagrant or day laborer made it immediately clear to Blam that he was in hiding and that it was dangerous to be seen with him. But numbed by his solitary wandering and anxious thoughts, Blam responded to Čutura’s wordless request and stopped. Čutura took a step back, to hide his face in the dark.

“I need to spend the night at your place,” a tense whisper reached Blam from the darkness. “Cross the courtyard slowly. I’ll follow.”

Blam did as he was told. Instead of walking around the Avala’s rectangular courtyard, gazing at the posters of coming attractions and immersing himself in the temporary security that they and the people who came here for pleasure afforded him, he cut through the crowd and proceeded along the narrow passage between the walls of the cinema and the courtyard apartments. The squeaky sound track of the film showing inside filtered through the bolted doors, but the passage was dark and deserted, the people in the apartments having withdrawn behind their curtains to have supper or go to bed. Not since Blam had become obsessed with death had he ventured into a place so isolated and unfamiliar, and he felt extremely uncomfortable. Stumbling on in the dark, he sensed more and more that Čutura had descended upon him when his defenses were down and was dragging him into something against his nature.

Čutura wanted to spend the night at his place. Blam could not imagine how that would work, it was impossible, and seeing how impossible it was, he saw all the more starkly the impossibility of his own situation, of his life as it was. In a series of disjointed images he pictured Čutura entering the Mercury and climbing to the mansard; he pictured himself letting Čutura in and explaining to Janja who he was and Janja, perhaps suspicious, perhaps accepting, giving him something to eat. But through those images, he felt, more, Čutura’s penetrating eyes on them, assessing the new things Janja had brought into Blam’s life — Janja herself among them — conjecturing what their relationship was like, sensing the discord, the division, deducing from a word in passing what Janja’s new job was and perhaps even who had obtained it for her, the editor-in-chief of the collaborationist Naše novine and the Blams’ former tenant. And thus Čutura would pronounce a pitiless sentence on Blam’s life. Blam did not want Čutura to condemn his life: he wanted that life to disappear without judges or witnesses; he wanted the shame of that life to disappear with him.

Thinking these thoughts, he reached the far end of the Avala. Here the narrow passage broadened into a street of sorts — one side consisting of apartments not unlike those in the courtyard, the other of scattered hovels and ramshackle workshops — and the sound track, fading, was replaced by other, closer sounds: the banging of a less than firmly closed door each time the wind blew, a child’s voice calling out. Blam stood still. What was he to do? How could he go back on his word? He turned to survey the passage, now as black as an abyss, and the dimly lit courtyard beyond it. Not a soul in sight. No Čutura. Had he walked too fast despite Čutura’s instructions? Yes, of course he had; his unpleasant thoughts had driven him like a fugitive, and he now remembered having all but run over the uneven cobblestones in the passage. But, then, he could indeed run, race through the next courtyard and vanish without a trace by turning down one of the side streets. It was an attractive possibility. He stared into the dark and through the dark to the far-off lights, seeking the figure of Čutura, seeking a decision, and saw that the lights did not come from the courtyard, they came from two windows above it, in other words, the windows of Naše novine . You could easily get there from here in the dark without anyone’s seeing you, avoiding the square. Had Janja ever sneaked in like that? Maybe he’d see her instead of Čutura, see her scurrying along the passage, still flushed from her parting embrace. But no sooner did this thought flash through his mind than it was replaced by another: the thought, no, the picture of the parting embrace of Janja and Popadić, and not here but down by the customs office, a definitely more cozy and less conspicuous meeting place than the editorial offices of Naše novine . He could just picture it, a room in an apartment belonging to a friend of Popadić’s or specially rented for the purpose, their naked bodies intertwined… and suddenly the image of the room with the enormous peasant bed and dark-green threadbare curtains came back to him: his own little love nest on Dositej Street.

Something moved in the darkness of the passage. It was Čutura’s hat, bobbing in and out of the light behind it. Even as Blam pondered whether to wait there for him, he knew he would let Čutura down, go back on his word, but he decided for now to follow Čutura’s instructions. He turned and proceeded through the courtyard, this time walking very slowly, trying to show Čutura by the sway of his gait just how slowly. At last he heard Čutura’s footsteps approach and waited for Čutura to catch up with him.

For a few steps they walked wordlessly side by side, like friends accustomed to strolling together in silence. Blam could hear Čutura’s breath. It sounded unnaturally loud for their slow pace.

“You go ahead when we get to the street lamps,” he whispered. “I don’t want anyone to see us together. I’ll follow at a distance.”

Now Blam had the excuse he was looking for. He slowed down even more, hoping to give a credible imitation of surprise.

“No, that won’t work,” he said, carefully choosing his words to make them sound spontaneous. “I don’t know if you’ve heard, but I live in the heart of town now.” Then he added in a more positive tone, “I have a better solution. A place you can go without a chance of being seen.”

“Where? Who does it belong to?”

“Nobody,” he said, with an almost inaudible laugh at his own joke. “It’s a sublet. For bachelors. You know, a love nest. That’s what makes it unobtrusive.” He was on tenterhooks. Would Čutura object?

“Is it far?” came the wheezing response.

“No, not at all. A five-minute walk.”

“All right, then, take me there. But you first. The way I said.”

His caution was justified, because the lights along the street were now brighter. Blam picked up speed, while Čutura maintained his slow pace and gradually fell behind, thus giving possible onlookers the impression of a man out for a stroll who just happened to be going in the same direction as the man in front of him. Only the two men knew of the invisible thread connecting them, and that knowledge, which had been such a burden to Blam back in the Avala courtyard, now brought him a certain relief. What ran through his mind now instead of nightmarish images of shame were the words and gestures he would use to ensure Čutura’s safety. He knocked at the gate of the familiar Dositej Street house. When his former landlady appeared, as hunched and plodding as before but also as eager, he reminded her who he was and asked whether his former room was available, and although she shilly-shallied and pointed out that the bed was unmade and the stove unheated, she let him into the courtyard as she spoke. In the kitchen she removed his former keys from the steel key ring in the cupboard drawer and handed them to him, accepting a folded banknote in the same hand without a word. He then left, closed the door behind him, and went out into the street, where Čutura stood waiting behind the nearest tree. He showed Čutura in, locked the gate, and unlocked the door to the room at the far end of the courtyard.