Miljenko Jergovic - The Walnut Mansion

“You have to get out of here, tonight! Any way you can! I can’t help you any more,” Franjo said, shuddering. “Here, I’ve brought you what I have,” he said and pulled out a loaf of bread, a slab of bacon, and three onions from a shopping bag. “But you have to move on; you’ve got to get out before midnight!”

They each sat on their ottomans and couldn’t understand what the janitor really wanted.

“Did the contact arrive?” Klein asked.

“There isn’t any contact. You have to take care of yourselves. Now just go!” He said that the director had announced that the attic was to be cleaned, that he’d waved his hand and when he did, each of his fingers had caught a spider’s web. Ivo wondered whether they were from one spider or whether there were more.

“But what will we do; where will we go?” Klein shilly-shallied.

“How should I know what you’ll do?! You’ll do just great! You’ll put one foot in front of the other until you get somewhere!” the janitor insisted.

Ivo looked at him, smiled, and didn’t believe anything he said. Cleaning the attic, right! No one did that in wartime. And what director would tell a janitor what was to be done the next day? Rather, the man simply wanted to be rid of the both of them and was telling lies. And in the end it didn’t matter what the truth was because if the host says he’s had enough of his guests, then they really have to leave.

“But they’ll kill us,” Klein said almost with the voice of a child.

“C’mon, dammit, didn’t you yourself want to jump off the roof?! I barely held you back, and now you’re blubbering that they’ll kill you. They won’t kill you if you watch out for yourself!” Franjo said, laying out the things he’d prepared for their trip. When that was done, he clapped his hands as if to show that their conversation was over. “I’ll be here half an hour before midnight, and you’d better be ready!” he said and disappeared.

“What was that?” Klein asked, breaking the silence after about ten minutes. The ruddy light of dusk penetrated through the vents in the roof, and the muezzin’s call could be heard. “I’ve never seen him like that,” he continued when Ivo didn’t answer. “He’ll probably be over it by tomorrow.” He wanted to see what the communist thought. He was convinced that Ivo was a communist because he looked like one of those figures on Soviet placards for spring harvests. Klein didn’t want to leave the attic, and if there really was going to be a cleaning, he thought about asking Franjo to hide them in the cellar or in some other place while that was going on, anything but throwing them out into the world. Coincidentally, he’d just started to get used to the idea of living the rest of his life in the prep school’s attic.

“I don’t know whether he’ll be over it by tomorrow, but we’re going tonight. At least I’m going — you can do what you like!” Ivo said, and Klein broke out in a cold sweat. Faced with the thought that he would have to go out that night, he was overcome with fear like he hadn’t felt in all of his panic-stricken life. His fear was all the greater because it had nothing to do with the reasons why he was there. He forgot about the Ustashas and their knives, about gallows and medieval methods of torture, about which he’d read as a prep school student in a French monograph with pictures that had aroused feelings of erotic excitement in him. He was no longer concerned that he was a Jew in a world that had decided that Jews could no longer be. Nor was he worried that he didn’t have strength in his legs and that he would croak from fatigue if the guns and knives didn’t get him. Klein was simply afraid of going into the outside world! It didn’t matter what was happening or who was out there. He couldn’t bear the thought of the wide sky being over his head instead of a low, slanted roof. He grew short of breath at the thought of that wide expanse and didn’t know what was wrong with him.

“I can’t do it,” he whispered, on the verge of tears. “Don’t leave me, for the love of God,” he squealed. Ivo didn’t know what the man wanted from him. He stared dully at him and tried to figure out if the little man was joking. He wondered whether the spiders were sorry about their demolished webs or whether they didn’t care.

“Listen to me good,” he said; “I don’t feel like dying here, and I’m going for sure. I have no idea whether this fool is lying about the cleaning, but I don’t want to find out. And as far as you’re concerned, you’re your own man, and you can decide for yourself. It’s better for you to come with me — we’ll both share the same fate. It’s easier if there’s two of us. Don’t interrupt me, and don’t fucking lose it like a bride at a wedding feast. You won’t get anywhere like that with me because I don’t understand it. I’m a sailor, you understand?! I’m not a city boy, and life hasn’t treated me with kid gloves. I’ve always taken care to keep my head on my shoulders, and I’ve been in worse situations than this. I’m not saying this to put you at ease — it’s just true. You don’t know what ships are, what the sea is!” he said angrily as tears streamed down Klein’s face.

“I know what ships are; I’ve had ships,” he stammered. Ivo felt the urge to slap him like a little child because the ugly little man was also a little child, unreasonable and spoiled. Maybe he’d had a little boat and had called it a ship.

“I’ll tell you a story,” Ivo tried to speak as if telling a fairy tale since a slap would have been indecent. “I sailed for two years on a ship called the Leonica . .”

The little man’s face lit up and he stopped crying, just like a child at the beginning of Snow White.

“That was the most beautiful ship in my career — clean, powerful, and secure. The majority of merchant ships are old junk and wrecks, in worse condition than the worst fishing boats and two-masters because the owners are only trying to make a profit. They couldn’t care less if the ship takes on water everywhere and the engines are falling apart. .”

Klein nodded and folded his hands in his lap, as if he’d completely forgotten his fear.

“But the Leonica was something else, a ship like in the movies. Only the crew wasn’t like in the movies. Sailors are a filthy lot. I haven’t been in prison, but prisoners are like that. Just like sailors. They gnaw at one another and hate one another. They sail, but the only thing they care about is when they’re going to moor. Instead of enjoying being on a ship from a fairy tale, the likes of which they would never sail on again, they hated the Leonica. They were insulted that they weren’t on a rusted wreck where they could give vent to their vices. Of course, such a ship had a real dining hall, like on a rich man’s passenger ship. Everything was in its place, and the furniture was in the style of Louis XIV. .”

The little man shook his head, wanted to object — that wasn’t anything like Louis XIV. .

“Listen; let me finish my story, and then you have your say,” Ivo said, unwilling to let himself be interrupted. “And on the wall of the dining hall was the ship owner’s portrait, and everyone swore at that picture and spat on it. You see, I’ve been thinking about that man my whole life, and I can’t decide whether he was the biggest fool in the world or a saint who wanted to show that people aren’t content when they have it good. I wasn’t content either, but I felt good on the Leonica. It took years before I realized that I felt good on that ship. Whenever something isn’t around any longer, you realize that it made you feel good. But you see, I learned something from that man. You never know how you really feel at the time. Not when you think things are good, not when you think they’re bad. Maybe it’s good fortune that we’re leaving tonight. Do you even understand what I’ve been saying, or has it all been for nothing?”