Miljenko Jergovic - The Walnut Mansion

His optimism seemed like a serious mental disorder, the kind that makes people become mass murderers, but in bad times an optimist only gets his own head put on the block. When they led him out against the wall and blindfolded him with a black kerchief, Gajo šeremet soiled his pants in an instant.

“Whoa, get a whiff of this traitor’s perfume!” was the last thing that Klara’s father heard, but fortunately he didn’t feel a thing when he collapsed in the mud and filth from which he had tried so hard to set himself apart.

Klara’s mother was taken off to a camp for ethnic Germans somewhere in Slavonia, but at the last moment she managed to foist her three-year-old daughter on Aunt Tereza, Gajo’s older sister and the wife of Pero Domanović, a partisan commander who died in the fight for Mostar. Tereza raised Klara, trying unsuccessfully for years to return the child to her mother, who would see her again only twelve years later. But by that time everything had already been decided; fate had assigned each of them their place under the stars, and Klara wasn’t about to move to Germany. Every winter she would go to Hamburg, feel that her brothers, sisters, and relatives were her own flesh and blood, but nothing more. After her Aunt Tereza died at the end of her studies, she continued on her own, without love and marriage, happy in fact.

“I’d like to see Mirna,” said the teacher, the first to speak.

“Well, I really don’t know,” Regina said and moved aside so that Klara could pass, although she hadn’t invited her in and didn’t intend to do so.

“Is she sick?”

“I don’t know.”

“Fine, then take me to her.”

“Why?” the old woman asked, squinting warily at her opponent. She tried to get her to go away, even if her grandchildren would be the worse for it, but without openly turning her away and slamming the door in her face because that wasn’t done in good houses. No one knew why it wasn’t done, but there you go; that was the custom, and one might as well follow it.

“I’ll see her because I’m her teacher,” Klara responded, used to all the local customs. And then she started for the wooden staircase that led upstairs.

“Wait, the girl isn’t well,” Regina said, coming after her.

“Which door is it?”

The old woman pointed at Mirna’s and Darijan’s room.

“Thank you very much. You’re no longer needed.”

The girl would have sooner expected to see the wicked witch from Hansel and Gretel in her room than her teacher. She pulled the bedsheet over her head and quickly curled up, like a hedgehog. She was going to stay that way no matter what the teacher tried because she would have to give up sooner or later and go away. Klara sat down on the bed, put her hand on the heaving white mound, and said nothing for a little while, as if she were unsure what to say or how to begin.

“Whatever happened, I don’t think it could have been that bad,” she said and fell silent again. “You haven’t missed anything important, and no one is unhappy with you. Do you hear me? Okay, you don’t have to say anything. I came because I was worried about you. Nothing else is important. Are you maybe sick? If you were, you wouldn’t be hiding. But that’s all right; we all feel like hiding once in a while. You can’t always do what everyone wants you to. I can’t do that either, and then I hide, and other people either notice or don’t notice. Those who love you and happen to be near notice. Mirna, are you listening to me? Of course you are; I’m really stupid, how wouldn’t you be? Does something hurt? If the answer is yes, just move your leg. Are you having a problem in school? Has someone hurt you? Did something else happen?”

Mirna straightened her right leg just a little.

“Is it something awful?”

She straightened it all the way out, so that it stuck out from beneath the sheet.

“Did someone say something to you?”

“No,” Mirna spoke.

Her teacher gave a deep sigh and patted the body under the sheet.

“I can’t show you,” the girl said.

“What?” Klara asked, beginning to sense what awful kinds of things a ten-year-old girl wouldn’t be able to show anyone.

“Fine; you don’t need to tell me. And you don’t need to show me now. But I’ll tell you something: nothing that you could show me will seem as awful to me as it does to you. I already told you that, right? Yes, I’m repeating myself. You know, when I was younger, and not much younger than I am now, I hid from people. Not from my pupils, but from my friends, people who liked me. I always did that when I was out of sorts and didn’t know why, and I was afraid that I would lose them if I let them see me like that. Today it seems funny to me, how I was, but the fear that I experienced still isn’t funny to me. If you don’t want to tell me what’s wrong, I’ll respect that and leave. You don’t have to come to school tomorrow, or the day after, but you can’t stay here forever. You’ll have to come out sooner or later. No one will force you to; you just won’t be able to go on like this. Now think about what will be easier for you: to get it over with now or to leave it for another day. Either is okay. But I think you think it’s better to get it over with now. Listen — I think that, but I’m not saying you have to think so too. Do you want me to leave now?”

Mirna didn’t answer. If she told her teacher to leave, she would spare herself more shame and would be left alone. The latter didn’t seem like such a good idea any more.

“Move your leg if you want me to stay!”

“Stay,” she whispered.

Then they both sank into a silence that lasted for a long while. Mirna knew that her teacher would stay as long as she wanted her to, and Klara was no longer in a hurry to go anywhere. She listened to that child’s breathing and felt unusually useful. This was what she most often expected of herself and was the reason why she couldn’t imagine living in Germany or taking retirement — she felt useful! This feeling had been accompanying her all her life, without there being any real reason for it — just as there wasn’t for many other things. Klara šeremet had simply been born that way, and it was only her eccentricity that made people make up causes and hidden and shameful reasons, although when she was alone with herself and under the heavens, which in the end determine all miracles, she was a very ordinary woman.

“You won’t hate me?” It was already very late when Klara heard a voice from under the sheet, and the room was already sinking into darkness.

“For God’s sake, Mirna, I won’t.”

At first her head came out from under the sheet.

“It’s dark,” said Klara.

“Don’t turn on the light,” the girl said and pulled the sheet off herself.

“Do you see anything?”

“Well, it’s dark. .”

“Here, something has grown on me. .”

“Where?” Klara asked, biting her tongue. “Oh, so that’s the problem! Your mother didn’t tell you anything about that? Fine; of course she didn’t because she hasn’t had time. Nobody ever knows when it’ll happen. Women’s breasts start growing at different times, when we’re between ten and fourteen years old; it depends, but this is normal. .”

“But only one is growing on me. It’s enormous. .”

“What do you mean, only one? Of course, they don’t grow equally fast.”

“No, the other one isn’t there at all.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, it’s not there. .”

“Do you know what, Mirna, that’s probably normal too. .”

“What do you mean — normal?”

“It’s nothing to get upset about. The other one will grow too.”

“Just like it’s supposed to?”

“Of course. You must have seen women on the beach. .”