Miljenko Jergovic - The Walnut Mansion

It took time for the two of them to pull themselves together and remember the reason for their arrival in that unbelievable place, in that city, which was bigger and more powerful than what any living person could imagine a city could be. Rafo still hadn’t realized that he was going to stay there, and Alija was already sorry that he was going to leave. He took a piece of paper out of his pocket. It said where he was supposed to take the boy but didn’t say in whose care he was supposed to leave him. That wouldn’t worry Alija, not a chance! — because the little boy was nevertheless the emperor’s godchild, and no matter how big Sarajevo was, everyone here also had to know what it meant to be a bud of the soul of Franz Joseph II. He wasn’t the godfather of just anyone! Because even if he were emperor a hundred times, he couldn’t be a godparent ten times. Seven or eight was enough! Alija was overcome with pride, and his self-confidence returned because he’d concluded that Trebinje had what Sarajevo didn’t.

On the left bank of the Miljacka, when one crossed the Latin Bridge, a three-story house had been built in the western fashion way back during the time of the Turks. Ivan Karadža had built it, an important merchant and a coach driver who maintained links with Dubrovnik and Venice that weren’t broken even during the time of rebellions and wars, when all links would be broken and trading caravans had to be accompanied by strong units of the sultan’s soldiers. Karadža, however, didn’t need the sultan’s soldiers, nor was he afraid of highway robbers. He always had agreements with all warring sides and rebels, and the highway robbers didn’t touch him because he always made efforts to have a reputation worse than those escorting the robbers. Two or three times, during a time of great hunger and Karađorđe’s revolts in Serbia, some wretches attacked Karadža’s caravan, but neither were any of his men hurt, nor did the robbers get away with any loot. No one knew for certain what happened to those robbers, except that it was well known that none of them made it back home.

People said that Ivan Karadža would cut out their eyes, that he would tear out their fingernails, and that on the night of the big party that followed every attack he would light a fire with his own hands and build it up to a great blaze. Then he would tie the leader of the robbers to a skewer with a wire and roast him alive. And it was told on the square that he did it so that only the man’s lower half, from the waist down, would be on the heat. The leader would live long enough to see when Karadža took a knife and cut a good piece of fatty meat and smeared it with a bulb of onion on the victim’s eyes. That was only one of the horror stories about Karadža, and there were more. Some concerned Karadža’s alleged taste for pederasty and sodomy— these contained even more horrible details, but no one knew the truth. Ivan himself never denied a single story about himself, so if anyone said anything ugly to him or accused him of anything, he just walked gentlemanly on by. He dressed in the latest bourgeois fashion, and around 1820 he was the first Sarajevan to walk the city in a top hat. He caught the eye of many a young woman, including Muslim married women, because he was handsome and strong. The Ottomans valued him, the local authorities respected him, and he allegedly had a good reputation with the merchants and diplomats of Istanbul.

When in 1878 Baron Filipović’s troops were already fighting for Pašino Brdo and entering the town, Karadža got out of his sick bed, dressed up, put on his hat, and went off to the city administration, taking one step at a time.

He was already almost one hundred. People had already started gradually forgetting both him and the legends about him, but he found it proper to go to the Turkish city administration, express his condolences on the ceding of Bosnia, and tell them that it was his desire to remain on the best of terms with his Turkish friends. The administration, however, was already empty, and he didn’t find anyone there except one servant, Haji Asim Brutus, the father of nine children, pious, but a savage man. Asim didn’t recognize him but knocked his hat off, livid: the infidel had gotten full of himself and put on a pagan hat even before his side took the city!

Terrible Ivan Karadža only looked at him in confusion and tried to bend down to pick up his hat but couldn’t do it.

“What the hell do you need a hat for if empires like this crumble?” he allegedly commented and expired the next day.

Does one need mention that he died unhappy? No, but that would fit into the legend about Karadža. It was a pity that Sarajevo wasn’t a city of songwriters, as was Mostar, and that there wasn’t anyone to compose a song about Karadža that would be sung accompanied by a tamboura or fiddle and preserve the memory of that unusual man.

Well, it was to that address, to Karadža’s mansion, that Alija was supposed to deliver Rafo. And he took him there and turned him over to two nuns who were temporarily residing there while their convent was being constructed on Banjski Brijeg, a picturesque glade next to a mosque and cemetery in the Mejtaš district. One of the nuns was named Rozalija and was plump, ruddy, and smiling. The other was named Paulina and was tall and thin as a pole for knocking down plums.

Alija laughed as soon as he saw them and grew uneasy. He became tongue-tied in his attempts to explain what he was laughing about. The two of them, however, knew what was going on with the midget and started teasing him. It seemed that at any moment the ground under Alija would open and swallow him up and that this was the only way that Allah could save him from his shame.

“Sit down here. Here’s some brandy if you drink, but if you don’t drink, then may we be forgiven for offering it, just as you are forgiven for the things you ask forgiveness for,” said Paulina, feigning earnestness.

Fat Rozalija showed Rafo his room: a military bunk with fine, embroidered sheets, an office cabinet, and a crucifix on the wall. Three tarps hung from wall to wall and hid the worm-eaten boards. It wasn’t a place where someone would want to spend the rest of his life, but on the other hand he felt the warmth people feel when something has been allotted and furnished for them. The boy put down his bag next to the bed as the nun waited to hear what he would say. She wanted to hear the boy say that he felt good there, and then she would laugh. Rafo didn’t say anything, but Rozalija still laughed. Rozalija believed that laughter couldn’t hurt and that laughter hadn’t ever done anyone harm and never gave up on that idea. She always laughed, as if St. Elijah had commanded her never to stop. That was the meaning of her mission and the way in which she intended to cure an unbelieving world.

After lunch, which they ate together with the masons building the convent, Alija said that he was going on a walk around town to buy a kerchief, roasted chickpeas, and sweets. He didn’t mention the low women in front of Paulina and Rozalija, who were serving the hungry menfolk. He winked at Rafo conspiratorially, more to encourage himself, and skipped outside.

“Don’t come back late,” Paulina called after him. “This is a house of God!” Rozalija hugged the boy and laughed again. She knew that this was what one was supposed to do when someone was alone for the first time. You hug him, and he has to feel better. If you see that he doesn’t, then you kiss him on the cheek. And he goes crazy because a nun kissed him on the cheek! And naturally, he feels better.

The scent of ash water on Rozalija’s sleeve moved Rafo. Or was it the smell of coarse peasant soap sold by women from the Sava region in all Bosnian markets, which was the first hygienic product for mass consumption in the history of that land? What exactly he smelled wasn’t important, but tears came to Rafo’s eyes. He thought that he would never see Alija again.