Miljenko Jergovic - The Walnut Mansion

“What was she like before she got old?” she asked Dijana, hoping to make things right.

“I don’t know any more. In any case she was normal. .”

“You’ll get over it. I can tell that you’re strong.”

“You’re just saying that. You don’t know me.”

“I don’t, but you can tell when a woman still has fight in her.”

“So you believe in things like that?”

“I have to. Otherwise I couldn’t do it. .”

“What, you mean work for the police?”

Marija laughed, and only then did Dijana notice the years on her face; she realized that this woman wasn’t in a position to do anything. That was probably why she hadn’t sent her away.

“No, I didn’t mean that, but get by in general, in life. Do you want me to order us some coffee? That’s really the most I can do. .”

“Fine, that’s at least a start,” Dijana said and hung her purse on the back of her chair. That was a sign of trust that didn’t go unnoticed.

“I feel a little better now,” Dijana said after a boy in a black-and-white waiter’s outfit brought the coffee. She took a look at him: he was black-haired and pimply, with thin black whiskers under his nose.

“He’s in his first year of waiter training,” said Marija after he went out. “They send them to the police to get practice. It’s easier than paying a professional. .”

“Wow, you really sound like someone in the police! Nobody would call a waiter a professional, ” she said and laughed.

“I’m glad you’re feeling better. .”

“But you still think I’m crazy, right. .?”

“I’ll be honest: I’m not thinking anything. I just know that you’re not having an easy time of it. Nobody does if they’re coming in here. Unless, of course, they’re just getting a new driver’s license. .”

“I really want for you to believe me. For someone to believe me. .”

“I do believe you, every word you’re saying. Why would you lie to an old archivist? That hasn’t happened yet. And it won’t. I’m retiring in only three months. .”

“You already have to retire? That can’t be,” Dijana lied; “you don’t look that old at all. .”

“And I’ll never set foot back in this building. Take a look at that wall. There used to be shelves with files of unsolved sex crimes. They reached from the floor to the ceiling, a whole wall full of rapes. Before me some guy from Trebinje worked in here; they fired him because he read all that filth and they caught him masturbating. Can you believe it? He was pleasuring himself over the rape of a fifteen-year-old girl! I think they put me in here because I was a woman and probably wouldn’t have that kind of temptation. So there you have the story of the police and my work here. . And where are those files now. .? I suppose most of the cases were tossed out due to the statute of limitations. Who would keep documentation of rapes from thirty or more years ago? The archive was mostly computerized not too long ago. Since then I’ve been sitting here and doing nothing. .”

“And so nobody knows about any of it any more. The train has left the station, as if none of it had ever happened. .”

“That’s right. More or less. .”

“No, that’s not right. Someone did that stuff. The rapes, I mean. And some women suffered. That stays with you your whole life. .”

“Most of them are no longer alive. .”

“It’s still not just. .”

“I agree, but it’s all over now.” Marija thought that maybe this woman had been raped. You never know when you might say something you shouldn’t. That’s why it’s always better to make sure you speak of the bad things in life as cautiously as possible, no matter what they are. And so she probably shouldn’t have said what was in those files because maybe this woman. .

“This doctor is going to be charged with murdering my mother,” Dijana said, “and what should I do now? He didn’t kill her, and that person wasn’t her any more.”

Marija was sorry that things were getting back to where they had been at the start. She wanted Dijana to calm down but without burdening her with something that — no doubt — could only be the cause of harm and mutual shame. She felt it to be an imminent danger that could only be averted if Dijana gave up on her intentions.

“It would be best to wait for the trial,” she said; “the police don’t give up easily. When they bite, they don’t let go. My advice is to wait and not say anything to anybody. This is a small city, you know.”

“What are you trying to say?” she asked frowning and sat up in her chair.

“That vicious stories get started easily. People are just waiting for a victim. .”

“But I’m not the victim; the victim is a young man who will end up in jail even though he’s completely innocent,” said Dijana, already wondering whether she should get up and leave without saying anything because there was no point in this, talking to someone who was so insensitive she couldn’t tell sandbox fights and children’s games from the plight of a man, no matter who, who was completely innocent, who might suffer and pay with his life for something that could and should have been avoided if only everyone had been decent.

“If this story gets out,” said Marija, trying to calm her, “then everything will be pointless. Not even a court will believe you. I’ve seen such situations a thousand times.” She was lying; she’d never even been in a courtroom. “You tell the truth on the witness stand, and then the other side makes a lunatic out of you. The prosecution brings witnesses, usually neighbors, who say you’re crazy and that you were always like that. You didn’t greet them on the stairs; you tormented your own mother, who, naturally, was a wonderful woman, and so on. I’m warning you; that always ends the same way,” Marija said. Her self-confidence was on the rise, and she made up a story on the fly: “A long time ago, it must be thirty years now, it happened that an old man, a retired harbor master who lived in Lapad, perished when his house caught fire. The police concluded that it was a suicide, but his daughter (who later had to emigrate to Australia) told everyone in Dubrovnik that her father hadn’t killed himself but was murdered by his own son, her stepbrother, for his inheritance. And how do you think that ended? Whom did they believe? So you just wait for the trial and then tell the truth. Maybe people will be shocked, maybe they’ll say all kinds of things behind your back, but at least you’ll be in the clear. .”

“Is that what you think? I don’t know how I can live if I don’t do something for that young man. .,” Dijana said, and that sounded to Marija like a pretty lie told by someone who spends his whole life threatening to sacrifice himself for something. But no matter what, she wanted to avoid getting caught up in this story, especially now when the end was so near. Marija Kablar didn’t think of that end as going into retirement, but as the end of a life full of misunderstandings and deceptions with which she’d never been able to cope. It all seemed instead like an endless course in a driving school. The instructors changed from time to time, shouted at her, and lost their nerves because with so many years she still couldn’t learn what others did in two months. In such a life there wasn’t too much suffering or sadness because it passed easily, but it passed without any kind of goal or real satisfaction. After her husband left her, she realized that she’d never loved him, but she didn’t do anything because she had nothing with which to compare her love or the lack thereof. Someone else would find solitude after years of marriage to be terrible, but Marija continued to live her own life the morning after he left, as if she’d always been an old maid, with rituals that were all like the one with the hourglass. She only felt unease at the darkness and what couldn’t be seen in it and at the fact that after he left, she never spoke with anyone for more than ten minutes. She began to notice who all had died, disappeared, or left town and so had decided to leave this empty place in her first month of retirement and return to Glamoč. A whole life had been definitively wasted, but she didn’t regret it. She only wanted what would come afterward to be just like the time before she’d become aware that she was alive. Dijana’s arrival was the first serious threat to her peace.