Miljenko Jergovic - The Walnut Mansion

Every Saturday he went to the grandfather-to-be, sat with him in front of his house, and met the sunset with sardines and wine. He watched Kata’s belly grow and her face swell and listened to the father-to-be crack his knuckles as he tried to say who knows what. He shared a peace with those people that he’d never felt before. He declared the toy to be a secret and a surprise and wouldn’t give in for anything in the world and reveal what he was building. Kata would pester him, plead with him to tell her, poke him, and pull on his coat. She touched August, and if there was something that he couldn’t stand, it was for people to touch him, remove an invisible hair from his shoulder, cheerfully pat him on the back, or grab his forearm when they wanted to tell him something important. . But it didn’t bother him when she did it. He laughed, waved her away, and said that he was an old man and that he enjoyed it when such a pretty young woman wanted something from him. Kata would blush and run off into the kitchen, and then the grandfather would jab him in the ribs with his elbow, raise his eyebrows, and flash his eyes. Just like a pimp going around and offering his girls! But there was nothing unseemly in this, nothing behind it. Only the childlike happiness of old men who, you see, became a little silly waiting for a new life.

A month before Kata gave birth, a race began between August and the child that was coming into the world. Two rooms were still unfinished, and he still had to make the future residents of the house: a man, a woman, three children, and a dog. And a doghouse, too. The residents would also be made of walnut. Rag dolls had always gotten on his nerves and wouldn’t be appropriate if the child were a boy. Boys never played with rag dolls, but people and dogs made of walnut wood were as much a part of the male world as they were of the female world. Every joint on the figures needed to be movable; the people would sit, stand, walk, turn their heads, and move their fingers, and the dog would have a movable jaw so that people could see him barking. He also imagined what their faces would look like. At first he wanted the adults to look like Kata and her husband. But why would the child want to have toys that had the faces of its mother and father? He changed his mind. How had such a stupid idea crossed it?!

The last few days he had been working at night as well. Only so the house would be done on time. So then he had to give up on the dog and decide on only two children. Thus came the last Saturday, and the midwife said that Kata would have to give birth during the next week. August worked on finishing the gate of the house before dawn and then lay down for an hour before the tanner Ante came with a horse-drawn cart to take him and the toy to Dubrovnik. Everything was finished: the man and the woman were sitting in armchairs and looking at one another; the children were running around in front of the house; the clean, white kitchen was all shiny, and plates had been set on the table for breakfast. He hadn’t made the plates from walnut wood but from plaster. Why? Somehow it seemed inappropriate to make plates from that noble wood. They had to break easily when it came to family arguments and times of despair. But now, when everyone loved one another and lived in the comfort of modern life, the plates on the table changed like the seasons. Some were for breakfast, others for lunch, and still others for dinner. And then it started all over again. In the small world of the walnut house time passed more quickly. Five minutes of a child’s play were enough for a day to come to its end, and in half an hour a year would pass. In a year of flesh and blood, a century of wood had passed. In the world of walnut people lived longer. They lived for as many centuries as childhood lasts.

The only thing that was unfinished on the little house was the inscription over the gate. He thought about it for a long time, and all kinds of names came to mind, but none was good enough. Maybe it wouldn’t be important to the child, but August wanted a name for this work of art of his. For the most beautiful thing that he’d created with his hands, for something that it had been worthwhile to labor on all these months and that justified all the years of August’s life. Maybe he wasn’t a great artist, maybe he’d just imagined that he was an exception among so many woodcarving dilettantes, but this little house was something that no one could deny. No one in the world. And it had been created for a single child. That made him happy— that his most important piece of walnut woodcarving was meant for a child.

He had been sleeping on an ottoman that he’d lowered into the storeroom so that he wouldn’t disturb Matilda while he worked. He snored, ground his teeth, and wheezed like a woodland rodent as it slowly became light outside and the aurora illuminated the house of the happy people with its reddish glow through the open window. The glow passed over the wooden faces of the man and woman, which changed their expressions in the play of the shadows— from fatigue and thoughtfulness to a foolhardy cheer characteristic of people when they are seized by a happiness that erases any thought that ugly things might still occur in life. At the moment when they’d been most happy, Ante’s head blotted out the light: “Master, it’s morning, the light of day!” August jumped up from the ottoman like an eager private, and the day could begin.

They arrived at the last minute because Kata’s water had already broken; the midwife was running around the house and banging metal washbasins; the knuckle-cracking father stood pale as a ghost in front of the house and barely moved when grandfather and August asked him to help them. The midwife didn’t want to let them into Kata’s room.

“This isn’t for men!” she shouted. “You just push it in and then don’t worry about anything!” she continued as August tried to make order in the walnut house. “Get out, or may St. Elijah strike you with lightning and knock some sense into you!” she shouted as August arranged the little wooden children and parents in the house: the father knelt in prayer with his hands folded in front of the room’s crucifix, the children were sleeping, and the mother was looking over at Kata’s bed. The midwife pushed him out of the room before he managed to check whether the children’s heads were turned toward the wall. What was about to happen creates the greatest beauty in the world, but it wasn’t for their eyes.

The three of them sat down in front of the house, from which they soon heard Kata’s screams. She called to her mother, to Jesus and Mary, whined like a sick dog in the rain, and then screamed again and said, “Rafo, Rafo, Rafo, my good Rafo. .” It was then that the father cracked his knuckles and August realized that he was Rafo. Rafo and Kata. That has a nice ring, and one could age well with those names, August thought. And those names were somehow homey. Life would go well for them; they would work and make something out of their lives. . He philosophized like this so he wouldn’t have to look at the other two. The old man was smoking cigarette after cigarette, as if the world was coming to an end and not a baby coming into the world. He was so afraid for his daughter that he couldn’t show any happiness about his grandchild. That was normal. And August had also been worried about Matilda, and whenever she was in labor, he denied the child as Peter denied Jesus. If God had asked him then, he would have told him, “Stop this, o Lord! Don’t let there ever be any more births!” Fortunately, God doesn’t ask fathers or grandfathers about anything. Because if he did, children wouldn’t be born or only soulless people would be able to have them, those who don’t love their wives or daughters. But all would be well! It always was. Or almost always was. That day everything would be good. Rafo and Kata would have their child and be happy. One could hear that in their names. If August and Matilda could be happy, and their names were more suitable for Romanian circus performers than for married couples, why wouldn’t Rafo and Kata be happy today? In the end August also started cracking his knuckles. The little bones of four men’s hands popped, and it sounded like a hunter was stalking wild boar through dry brush. Grandfather smoked, clenched his fists tightly, and listened to Kata’s screams and cries to God. And finally, when the contractions stopped, she again said, “Rafo, Rafo, Rafo, my good Rafo!”