Miljenko Jergovic - The Walnut Mansion

That evening Grandpa Niko didn’t tell a story. Mother said that he didn’t feel well, so they all had to be quiet. In the light of the fire in the stove the girl watched the nails passing from one box to another. And then the fire went out. The boys hit one another and wrestled under the quilt. She knew that she would never again go down into the cellar with Grandpa. And she didn’t want the caravan drivers to come, not ever. Or she wanted them to come but not to give him anything. He was in the next room, filled with bitter regret that he was too old for this war. If he’d been picked with all those in the third mobilization call, he would have met his end on the River Soča, in Galicia, Albania, or on one of hundreds of battlefields where the brave imperial army was fighting. He would have died like a man. He would have spilled his own guts in the snow; the smell of mustard gas would have sent him to hell; something ordinary and usual would have happened. He would have fared just like thousands of others. Everything is easy when you’re not alone but one of many. And everything is easy when your own kin don’t know what kind of misery and fear you’re made of.

On the twenty-ninth day the rain was gone. No one knew when or how it had stopped raining. With the first light people came creeping out of their houses, and it was gone. Clear weather was moving in from the sea; here and there the sun broke through the clouds. Children started running around. They hadn’t been let outside for days and had built up energy that they needed to release in wild play. They chased rats through the town; there were hundreds of them, and they poked their heads out of flooded cellars and basements, and when the children caught up with one, they would stomp on it, stopping it in its path and shouting, “The rat’s got falcon wings!”

In the middle of all that chaos something else happened that was supposed to be a secret. Hiding from one another, the elderly went toward Rijeka Dubrovačka with baskets, burlap sacks, and all kinds of bags. If two of them who knew each other met, they made up the wildest lies about where they were going with their empty sacks and bags. All in hopes that the other one didn’t know after all that the caravan drivers were coming and that it was true when the other one said that he was going to the hills to get something that he’d forgotten before the rain. They clenched a ducat or two in their pockets or a wedding band, medallions with the image of the Blessed Virgin, chains, earrings, wartime bonds and all kinds of money. Anything that might be of some value to the caravan drivers. Grandpa Niko and Dominko Pujdin were among the few that went together.

“Yeah, we’re going to see whether there’s any dry firewood anywhere,” Dominko said to Admiral Sterk, who was carrying a wattle basket on his back that was at least twice his size.

“If somebody loaded it with spider webs, he wouldn’t be able to get it back,” Niko whispered.

“And I’m off to the admiralty. They’ve informed me that my promotion to an officer has come in,” Sterk bragged. “It might be the last one because we’re losing the war!” he added without fear that the wrong ears might hear.

That was the first time that Admiral Sterk mentioned the possibility of Austria’s losing the war. Both Niko and Dominko felt equally awkward. The clockmaker was crazy, there was no doubt about that, but no matter how crazy he was, he’d never spoken about defeat. What could that mean? It was better to keep quiet and not jinx it, so they continued walking, each with his own dark inklings and bitter that the admiral had spoiled their excitement about the caravan drivers.

The meeting place was in Mokošica and not on the road to Trebinje. Probably out of fear of some plot, as a caution against highway robbers. And outside Mokošica there was something for them to see! A few hundred people had come there, along various paths, hiding from neighbors and friends; they’d come at various times, some even before dawn. And they kept coming. They watched each other grimly, and only rarely would they greet one another. In those glances, without words, the bonds of friendship and godfatherhood fell apart. A few chatted cheerfully and kept looking at their watches, wondering whether that caravan would finally get there. Those were people who’d come in pairs or even in small groups; if they’d antagonized someone, if they’d lied to their neighbors about where they were going, they nevertheless told the truth to those they were closest to.

The two of them selected a good spot given the direction that the caravan would be coming from. They spread out their sacks and sat down. Niko took out some cigarettes he’d rolled for the occasion; they lit up and watched the people. It had been a long time since so many people had met in one place. Maybe not since 1914 and the week after the assassination, when people had first mourned for the archduke and his pregnant wife and demonstrated against Serbia and then indeed smashed things up a bit in Serbian stores and shops.

None of them had actually done any smashing except Dominko Pujdin— he had! He had smashed the windows of Sveto Stojnić’s shop; it was well known whose side Sveto was on; he practically had a Russian flag hanging out of his butt, and Serbia was always close to his heart. Later Pujdin regretted it. Not so much because he’d smashed Sveto’s shop window; if he hadn’t, someone else would have. But he had gone into the shop through the smashed window, stomped on all of the pipes and chibouks, torn apart the sacks of tobacco, and given the owner a good slapping. For that he couldn’t forgive himself. He had slapped a man stronger than himself, and that man hadn’t defended himself. So he had hit him again and then again. And nine more times. He prayed to God for Sveto to hit him back. Or at least for him to dodge. But no! Sveto had stood there like Orlando, without moving or blinking. He had looked straight ahead, somewhere over Dominko Pujdin’s head, and had only mechanically flinched whenever he had hit him in the face. Finally he had fled Sveto’s shop, run through the town as if he were a Serb and people were chasing him, and couldn’t pull himself together for days. He lost the will to do anything that would take him to Sveto’s storefront. All he wanted was never to meet Sveto Stojnić again because he didn’t know how he could pass by him and live. He would completely die of shame if he ever came face to face with him, he thought. But why? Because he’d always greeted that man politely and had never been bothered by Sveto’s championing of the Serbs and Russians. He hadn’t thought about that as something that should concern him. If he had earned some money and wanted to treat himself to some good tobacco, he went to Sveto. Sveto would invite him to sit down and let him sniff five of the sacks. The tobacco was fantastic. He never cheated him or overcharged him. And so how could he have had something against such a man? There was no reason for it! Up until Ferdinand was killed and he’d lost his mind and then gone off and smashed up the first Serbian shop window he could think of and slapped a man stronger than himself. A man who wouldn’t pay him back because he’d ended up on the wrong side through no fault of his own. Dominko Pujdin had gone through a lot of anguish on account of Sveto Stojnić, and he wasn’t particularly relieved when in a couple of weeks he learned that Sveto had packed up his family and left for Serbia. This world wasn’t so big; sooner or later Dominko Pujdin would run into Sveto somewhere and die of shame. Even if he didn’t meet him, he wouldn’t be able to forget what had happened after Ferdinand was killed in Sarajevo. Maybe Sveto would forget it one day, though that wasn’t likely, but Dominko Pujdin would never be able to forget his shame. That was the kind of man he was. Screwed up and honest, as Niko would say.