Miljenko Jergovic - The Walnut Mansion

Niko Azinović had never been a big hero. He lived precisely according to the principles that children are raised by. People told him: you shouldn’t steal, you shouldn’t use bad language, you shouldn’t kill, you shouldn’t lie. Rather you should always wait your turn, obey the laws of men and God, work hard, and life will give everything back to you. Fathers told other children the same thing, just as their children would tell it to their children, and those children to theirs, as long as there was a world, people, and children. There were few who would adhere to all that and act just as their parents taught them to. Niko, to his detriment, was one of the few who did. Everyone would say he was a coward, but he wasn’t a coward; it was just that he had been told that nothing was gained by force and with curses. He could see with his own eyes a hundred times that these were lies and that brutes always got on better, but no one could change just like that and change from one thing to another. Just as thrashings and hard labor wouldn’t teach a thief not to steal, what a genuinely respectful man saw with his own eyes couldn’t convince him that he wasn’t better off. If people insult you, steer clear of them! He kept to that because he thought it was better but also because it was easier for him like that. What property he inherited, he would also leave to his children. He never drank or gambled any money away, nor did he earn anything. He had as many grapevines as his father had left him. He had lived in his house and patched his father’s boat for years, until the wood was completely worm-eaten. And then he had built a new one himself. His way of life could hardly have offered him anything more. That was the way it was in Niko’s time, and who knew whether it could have ever been any different? If it could have, people couldn’t remember that time.

But it’s wrong to say that honest men were at a loss. They had it good because they could live their whole lives like that. Just as it was easy for murderers to kill people, it was easy for those who would never do it. It was difficult, however, when fate mixed up the roles and nothing depended any longer on how one lived.

He was standing with his arms spread wide while the quiet one dug through his pockets. The fat man held out the open sack and looked him straight in the eye. Maybe he was checking to see whether Niko recognized him, but if he did that, he quickly gave up. How couldn’t he recognize him?

“I thought you were smarter!” he said with regret in his voice. “You didn’t let us into your house because you were afraid that we might steal something, and yet you believed that the caravan drivers were coming. Damn— what caravan drivers?! We thought we’d fleece five idiots, but half the city came! They came, okay, but how did you end up out here?”

Niko said nothing, but he was searching for some way to show him that he wasn’t afraid of him. He thought Fatso would understand if he looked him in the eye, but Fatso didn’t care. It was quite clear that he didn’t care. As he spoke, he began to scan the clearing again, afraid that something might happen there or that a search party would arrive.

Just then the leader on the black horse rode up. “Well, who do I see here? Our buddy! Is there any vinegar, buddy? And where’s the child? See, I’ve collected some gold, and now it’s time to find a bride, and well, I’ve been thinking like people do. .”

The rider hadn’t finished his sentence when Niko leaped over to the quiet one, grabbed the rifle from his shoulder, and gave it a jerk. The sling broke; the quiet one fell onto the ground, his hat flew off, and cries rang out among the people. Niko Azinović pointed the rifle at the man who’d insulted Regina and without hesitating pulled the trigger. Before the hammer struck its empty chamber, the steel of a bayonet plunged into him between his ribs. He fell with a clear and pure feeling of being cheated in life. The fat man dropped the rifle, whose bayonet remained in Niko, and he started running toward his horse. But it was too late. After one man had openly resisted, the others jumped to their feet and ran in a mad charge.

In an instant the crowd swarmed the two robbers, the one who’d wanted to run first and the one who’d wanted to stay to the end. Their revenge didn’t last long because there were too many of them who wanted it. Their toes popped as they kicked into the half-dead bodies. Coarse laborers’ heels smashed their temples. Someone’s thumbnail remained stuck in a nostril. Their fists hit into the deep folds of the fat one’s body. Someone remembered the rifle and smashed its ironbound butt into his skull; his brains popped and turned into the slush that paupers feed their piglets in wartime. It was all over in no more than two minutes. Then the crowd stopped as if on command.

“Don’t kill them; they should be tried!” someone blurted out, probably so he wouldn’t be held responsible.

“It’s over; they’re dead,” said another.

The fat robber lay with his head smashed, on which the only thing left whole and recognizable was one wide open dark eye, framed by long, girlish eyelashes. However, while Fatso’s hood had been torn from his head, the other robber was still in disguise. Someone had to unmask him, but for some reason the people began to hesitate and hem and haw, moving away from the corpses and withdrawing into the mass of people. Soon no one would know who’d been in the front rows, who had hit the most and broken their fingers, nor would they know whose thumbnail had remained in the nostril of the one-eyed fat highwayman.

“Hand the sack with the gold over here!” shouted the men who’d pushed their way closest to the dead men. “That’s right; let’s get the valuables! Everyone gets what he put in!”

Shouts and yells followed concerning what was whose and how much had been taken from whom. Whereas one could still figure out who the jewelry belonged to, Franz Joseph’s and Napoleon’s ducats were everyone’s and no one’s. Stricken with panic at the thought of being cheated or robbed once again, people forgot about the dead highwaymen. The fat mare grazed peacefully at the end of the clearing and would only raise its head and blink whenever someone shouted because someone else had stepped on their foot or already stolen their gold crucifix and their medallion of the Blessed Virgin from the robbers’ sack.

Niko’s head was resting in the lap of his friend, the top of the bayonet was sticking out of his chest just below his right breast. The old man looked with interest at how the hole in his shirt widened every time he sighed or exhaled, and the steel blade on which no blood was visible grew upward to the sky. That sight amused him and took his mind off other thoughts. If he concentrated enough, he no longer even felt pain. Dominko Pujdin spoke without stopping, asked him questions, and wiped the sweat from his brow with his hand. He tried to call someone over and for no good reason fidgeted continuously, like a child that couldn’t calm down. Like a child that asks, “Why this? Why that? How come?” and you patiently answer it until it falls asleep. But there were no answers that could be given to him. Because Niko didn’t understand a single word that he was saying. That was strange because Dominko Pujdin didn’t speak any foreign languages. So what language was he speaking then? Well, who could know what happened or didn’t happen in the meantime as he lay on the ground sleeping and people were stampeding all around him?! The people were hurrying somewhere; they ran like crazy but didn’t bother him. He had his nap in peace and wondered at himself. Before, everything would have bothered him; he would have woken up at any rustling and felt envy for heavy sleepers. But now everything was perfectly fine for him. He had had to grow old to get real sleep. Not even crazy Dominko bothered him now. He felt that he would fall asleep again, and he was happy about it. Kata wouldn’t be angry; she would mend the hole in his shirt easily. That was easy for her. She’d inherited hands of gold from her mother. What was most important was for a person to get a good night’s sleep.