Miljenko Jergovic - The Walnut Mansion

Niko couldn’t understand that. Why did the grandfather in her imagination have a hard time bending down so that she had to tie his shoes? Everything else in Regina’s little wooden house was modeled on his house. The only difference was that the grandfather underneath the kitchen table was weak and feeble. If he was still there. If Regina hadn’t kicked him out of her house.

As the minutes passed, the highwaymen became more and more nervous. They were in a hurry because it would soon be evening and someone’s crazy wife might get the police to start searching for her husband. Or maybe their wives might start coming all on their own, and there would be a huge, noisy scene; soldiers would appear from somewhere, and all kinds of things could happen. The fourth one started helping the fat one with the sack and the searches. He beat people, tore open their clothes, but continued to say nothing. Niko concluded that he had to be someone from the city who had reason to be afraid of being recognized. The first thing he’d done when he jumped down from his horse was put a rag over Admiral Sterk’s dead face. That meant he knew him.

Those whose turns came later could hide a few ducats or a ring without much of a risk because there was no time to dig through people’s pockets thoroughly. Čare Nedoklan tried to take advantage of this and held out one ducat and a ring with a blue stone for the fat man. This might have satisfied him, but it wasn’t enough for his crony. The latter whispered something to the fat man; poor Čare had to undress, and they found four more ducats, two chains, and seven rings in his pockets and socks. He shivered from fear and the cold as the gold coins disappeared one by one into the darkness of the sack.

“For this we’re going to stick you exactly thirteen times,” said the fat one. At that instant the quiet one unslung his rifle from his shoulder, and with an agile movement, as if he were pitching hay, he thrust his bayonet into Čare’s belly. Čare groaned and doubled over, and the quiet one stabbed him next to his shoulder blade. He stabbed him exactly thirteen times, even when Čare Nedo-klan was already lying on the ground. Afterward the robbery proceeded much more quickly. People threw everything they had into the sack. The fat man’s voice was shaky, and it seemed that he wanted to get it all over with as soon as possible.

When the sun went down, Kata was already half-crazed with worry. Grandpa Niko hadn’t come back; the boys where roughhousing all over the place; her little girl wouldn’t come out from under the table and wasn’t saying a word; Rafo was picking through the nails more and more nervously, sighing like a furnace, and softly farting the whole time. She could kill him now! Instead of going to meet the old man and help him carry the goods home, he was messing around at home and exercising his butt. Everyone in the house farted out loud; he was the only one who was embarrassed. He thought his farts would be quiet, but it didn’t work out that way, and his backside produced a whine that made the children laugh at him. He could have just farted like a man. But that didn’t matter. What had happened to Grandpa Niko? Where was Angelina? Not even she would have gone looking for him but would have wandered around all day long. She argued back and forth with herself like that and then left her bread dough unkneaded, put on her shoes, and ran out. She stopped on the top of the cliffs and didn’t know in which direction to go so that she and Grandpa wouldn’t miss each other. And so she gave up and went back home. The boys had just gotten into a fight, and Rafo was trying to pull them apart.

“C’mon dammit, c’mon dammit, c’mon dammit. .,” he said trying to get them apart, but it didn’t work, and he finally sat down on his chair. She swore to them that she would go get Niko’s whip and thrash all of them if anyone’s nose started to bleed. Luckily, that didn’t happen, and they settled down all on their own.

Underneath the table Regina was burying the grandfather in her little house. He’d died from varicose veins and tuberculosis. She’d made him a coffin from an old, cracked dough tray, put together a cross from a broken wooden spoon, and softly hummed a Mass through her nose. She’d never heard a Requiem Mass or what priests said at funerals, so she made it up.

“Grandpa croaked because he was no use to anyone,” the priest said in a nasal tone. “He was good, slaughtered piglets; Jesus and Mary have mercy on his soul. He spilled the cup in all four directions. A piece of shit, a cow’s cunt, catgut, whore, leprosy, slobber, and holy cross, have mercy on his soul,” he continued devoutly, already so carried away that he started talking too loud and forgot that others could hear him. “Grandpa croaked, for all the saints and Jesus; the diarrhea has been passed, shit, fart, leprosy, slobber,” the unusual priest spoke almost in a shout from the girl’s lips as she sat with her hands folded. “God let the worms eat him, in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghoooooost, aaameeeen!”

As she lowered the dough tray into the imaginary grave, she felt something tugging on her ear, like hot pliers. She suddenly became afraid.

“Have you lost your mind?” her mother asked and gave her a bloodcurdling look, as if she would devour her whole then and there. Even her father was on his feet again:

“To hell with you and those women’s games!” he said as harshly as he knew how. She felt like putting up a fight, to fall down on the floor and hit and kick until they kneeled down and begged her to stop. But her mother didn’t let go of her ear and only held onto it more tightly. Tears started flowing down Regina’s face all on their own. It hurt and burned, but even worse: she knew that she hadn’t done anything wrong, and yet no one would believe her. She’d been burying the grandfather in her little house. She hadn’t been thinking of theirs. Their grandfather had ceased to exist for her after that man had tried to take her soul with his finger. Or he’d done something else; it didn’t matter. Their grandfather hadn’t defended her, so the priest wouldn’t hold a Requiem Mass for him. Her priest! There was no Requiem Mass for those who had no souls.

Darkness had fallen, and the robbers had about thirty more victims to go. On the far end of the clearing, where those who’d already been robbed were sitting, it was already apparent that the daring of the mass of people was growing in proportion to the amount of valuables that had been lost.

Someone would swear out loud: “Fuck you and your three mothers!”

Others made threats: “I’ll find you wherever you hide and wind your intestines around a pole!”. .

People were squirming, and it wasn’t certain that one or two hadn’t already fled, soon to return with a search party. The fat man in charge of the sack had already appealed to the leader to let them quit— the sack was already full enough; they shouldn’t overdo it. But the quiet one wouldn’t let him. He was determined to get the last gold-plated ring. He slapped people, tore open their shirts and pants. One could hear blows, slaps, and groans, but not a sound came out of his mouth.

“That one must be a mute, but I’m surprised he’s not deaf; he can hear what the others tell him,” said Dominko Pujdin, failing to understand.

“Either he’s a mute or he’s from town,” said Niko gloomily. “The others aren’t!”

“How do you know they aren’t?”

“I just do,” he answered. He had no desire to try to explain, and how could he explain that in recent days he’d drunk three liters of vinegar and spent more time with them than with his own children?

But that couldn’t end so simply! He didn’t know how it might end, but he was sure it wouldn’t end like this. A ducat wasn’t a big problem (though he’d stuck three into the ground as if it were sweetbread for a party); the rings of his dead wife also weren’t such a problem (they should have been thrown into her grave, but people wouldn’t let him, saying that the living might have need of gold); the slaps that were waiting for him weren’t a problem either. If he ended up looking like an ass, he wasn’t a bigger ass than all the others who also ended up looking like asses. He’d fare just like everyone else. He wasn’t any better or any smarter than these people. But those three men had pestered him for days and abused and insulted him. And it was on him that they’d tested out their courage for what they were doing now. And damned if they hadn’t! The finger on Regina’s forehead was like the finger of God. He hadn’t dared to take a stand against it.