Aleksandar Tisma - The Book of Blam

But as so often happens when he wants to steer clear of someone, Blam directs his steps straight at the man, crossing the square in such a way as to be most visible, justifying his conspicuous route by curiosity. Watching him fiddle with the car, Blam suddenly wonders whether Funkenstein hasn’t changed profession. It would be perfectly understandable, given that all rent-bearing properties have long since been nationalized, which leaves only small — and therefore cheap — single-family dwellings on the market like the house the Blams used to own in Vojvoda Šupljikac Square, the one that Funkenstein had sold for Blam’s father, Vilim. But he sold it just before Blam’s father died, so his father may not have received payment in full, or if he had, then he hadn’t had time to spend it all and it had fallen into the hands of plunderers.

He chafes at the thought that he will eventually have to talk to Funkenstein, quiz him on the particulars of the sale of the house to allay his doubts. He realizes he has postponed the talk too long as it is (and postponed putting to rest the doubts), but now he turns his head in Funkenstein’s direction and is surprised to find Funkenstein looking straight at him. He can hardly believe it, but there can be no doubt: from the old man’s broad, pink face, still lowered over the Fiat’s radiator, a pair of tiny but piercing brown eyes beneath unruly gray eyebrows and a shiny forehead are looking at him, Blam.

Blam pauses, whereupon Funkenstein straightens. The straightening does not much alter his spatial relation to the car — he is too short for that — but it does reveal his bold taste in clothes: he is wearing a white shirt with an apache collar over a pair of yellowish imitation-silk trousers. He sets his youthful outfit in motion by circling the car with a sprightly step — surprisingly sprightly for a body so stumpy — and plants himself in front of Blam.

“Hello, Mr. Funkenstein,” Blam says, taken aback.

“Hello, hello,” Funkenstein answers cordially, but without using Blam’s name, which indicates Blam’s assumption that Funkenstein would not be able to place him was correct. Funkenstein holds out his firm, fleshy hand, though casually, almost incidentally, and with no more than a glance at Blam’s face. “What brings you here?” he asks, clearly aloof and quickly turning his small twinkling eyes from Blam to something over Blam’s shoulder.

“Just out for a walk,” says Blam, made uncomfortable by Funkenstein’s lack of concentration, which obliges him to keep the conversation going. “Though now that I have you here, I thought I’d ask you about a house you sold a while back. Tell me, are you still in real estate?”

“Oh yes. Yes, of course I am.” Funkenstein trains his swift, piercing glance on Blam, but immediately looks over Blam’s shoulder again. “Got something to sell?”

“Not anymore,” Blam says with a shrug. Suddenly he feels hurt by Funkenstein’s indifference and decides to end the conversation, which was going nowhere anyway. “I see you’re interested in cars now.”

“In one only.” Again Funkenstein glances up at Blam, questioningly this time, as if debating whether to trust him. “It’s not mine, though. I’m watching it for a friend.”

Blam, baffled, turns to see a large green car parked alone in the middle of the square. Suddenly Funkenstein grabs him by the arm and twirls him around. “Don’t turn again!” he whispers, raising his wild, imperious eyebrows and pursing his rosy, wrinkled lips, the corners frothy with spit. “I don’t want to call attention to myself.”

Blam shifts uneasily, realizing that Funkenstein is using his bulk as a shield, that he, Blam, has taken the place of the dusty gray Fiat.

“Look! Look!” Funkenstein cries, triumphant. He is jumping up and down, bending over, peeking out from behind Blam like a child playing hide-and-seek. “See? They’re getting on the bus!” Then, suddenly relaxed, he straightens his back and explains offhandedly, “It’s a favor for an old friend, a business partner, actually. He’s out of town for a while, and I’m keeping an eye on his wife. I knew she was up to something when I saw their car in the square. Well, she’s gone off with a man on that bus. To his place, for sure.”

From the direction of Funkenstein’s gaze Blam can tell he is following the bus (with his eyes or in his mind’s eye) that runs past the monument, on to the Danube, and into the part of town filled with new residential dwellings for newly arrived officials, following the dark, young, nattily dressed man and the tall blond woman on his arm, her strong thighs tightly encased in a blue skirt. If Funkenstein’s “old friend” is Funkenstein’s age, getting on to seventy, perhaps the couple is not so young as Blam imagined. Perhaps the whole thing is a sham. He gives Funkenstein a quizzical look.

But Funkenstein is on his way to the green car in the middle of the square, bypassing Blam as if he were an object. Blam notices that the bus waiting at the monument only a moment before has gone.

“Where did you say your house was?”

Funkenstein has returned to Blam after looking over the car.

“I don’t own it anymore, I told you,” says Blam, annoyed. “It belonged to my late father. Vojvoda Šupljikac Square, number 7. You were his agent. It was the beginning of the war. I don’t know if you remember.”

“Vojvoda Šupljikac… Vojvoda Šupljikac…,” Funkenstein mumbles to himself, lowering his head and pressing a short, fat index finger to his nose. Suddenly he looks up. “Is your name Blam?”

“Yes. So you do remember.”

“Vaguely,” he said. “Well, what is it?”

“I was just wondering whether my father ever got the money for the house. The whole sum, I mean. The man who bought it was a tailor. Hajduković, I believe his name was. But then he sold it to somebody else…”

Funkenstein does not let him finish. “If I was the agent,” he says curtly, placing his hands on his chest and stretching the white shirt, “you can be sure it was paid in full.” He gives him a quick nod and holds out his hand. “Goodbye.” And off he goes, stepping briskly on his short legs and wide feet in the direction of the monument.

VOJVODA ŠUPLJIKAC SQUARE lies not far from the center of town, in the maze of narrow old streets that now abut on the broad curve of New Boulevard. The houses form an oval around the square, and in its center is a neglected park surrounded by an iron fence with spikes bent out of shape by unruly arms and legs. The land has been so trampled that almost nothing grows there. The few benches are backless, their seats furrowed with lovers’ initials that rain has broadened into illegible scars. Only the trees lining the fence have been able to withstand destruction; they are tall and venerable, and their leafy crowns rise above the square like a vast green umbrella.

Blam, too, was a participant in the destruction of this oasis. On his way home from school for lunch he and Čutura would jump over the fence, trample the grass, climb the trees, and eat the berries.

Before he made friends with Čutura, he had no idea that such things were possible or could give pleasure. He had climbed before, but only onto the hand pump of the well in the brick-paved courtyard of his house, where the sole reminder of nature was the flower bed running along the high, bare wall, which broke off abruptly at the separate apartment rented by a widow named Erzsébet Csokonay. The wildest his childhood ever got was jumping from the cold, slippery pump onto the bricks and fighting with his younger sister Estera, which meant a scolding from his mother, or with Puba Šmuk, when Puba’s mother came to visit the Blams and brought him along. The house was a fortress under invisible siege. Only relatives, friends of the family, and repairmen came to call — no strangers except for an occasional beggar. Guests could always count on homemade pastries and on fruit brought from the market and carefully washed.