Miljenko Jergovic - The Walnut Mansion

Aris’s knowledge didn’t bother his father. On the contrary, he was proud of his son’s good memory because it was extremely important for a real attorney. Right until the day his son announced to him his intention to become a cat trainer when he grew up, since no one except for the famous Russian Yevgeni Milinski had succeeded in inducing a cat to do anything.

His old man was horrified and insulted at the same time. Between justice and the circus, his own son had chosen the circus! And not elephants or lions, which were the wonder of every urchin in Novi Sad, but ordinary cats! Something was odd about that child, and it had to be corrected as soon as possible, he thought, and told Aris that he was a big boy already, that he’d outgrown the circus, and that in the future he could think up what the award for fifty correct answers would be himself. Aris resisted, but it was no use.

“You’re a big boy now, almost a grown man,” his father lied, and a feeling of enraged contempt grew in the boy that would stain their relationship for good.

When he realized that nothing could be done about this and that his father wasn’t going to relent, he told him that he was a fat old ass. He’d thought up the insult with a clear head, completely aware that this would hurt and humiliate his father terribly. Namely, Jovan Berberijan never swore or even seriously raised his voice— except in the courtroom, where such theatrics were expected, and without which there were no well-placed arguments and presentations of evidence that the judges would remember. Quiet and monotonous lawyers were boring for everyone in the jury and the audience, and the judge would miss half of what they said.

When Aris screamed at him, he struck at what seemed most stable and firmest in Jovan Berberijan. Wherever he went, his good reputation went with him; people didn’t dare say a vulgar word in his presence, and he commanded equal respect among the good and wicked alike. Among the beau monde as well as among ill-mannered prison guards and murderers locked in the darkest cellars of the royal casemates. Even hotel receptionists and waiters in hotels and restaurants in cities where the reputation of his legal prowess was unknown had a special kind of respect for him. There was no fear at all in that respect. That he was a fat old ass was the first serious insult that he’d suffered since his boyhood.

However, all he needed was a good night’s sleep, and he appeared the next day with an unblemished aura, gentle and slow in the Vojvodina manner, and unstoppable like the English army.

“And what did you decide; what are fifty correct answers worth?”

Underneath the table the boy’s knees trembled from excitement. He could repeat that his father was a fat old ass or cry or howl that he wasn’t interested in anything but the circus and wanted to be a cat trainer and that his father could sell him to the circus performers for a thousand dinars so he could wake up every morning at four, feed the horses, wash the elephants, and clean animal shit! He would be grateful to him his whole life. But no matter how much he insulted him, his father would still be a fine attorney from house number 8 on Katolička Porta Square, for him and the whole world. No matter how he tried to persuade his father to sell him to the circus artists, he wouldn’t do it. He wouldn’t renounce his heir, his little pharaoh.

“Money,” whispered Aris. His father was strict with money, and the child hoped he wouldn’t agree. If he didn’t agree, then the argument about the circus would become stronger, in fact infallible.

“How much?” he asked.

“Fifty answers— a tenth of your pay,” the boy answered with a sense that his strength was returning. For the first time in his life, a power that made the world go round was coursing through his veins, a power that made rich men happy and drove them to become even richer. Jovan Berberijan swallowed the lump in his throat and looked up at the ceiling: above the chandelier a spider had spun a web; the cleaning women needed to be warned that they couldn’t sweep and clean like a cat with its tail. He lowered his gaze to his son, who was staring fixedly ahead, just as he’d been told that he should look at a judge and jury the moment after he made a crucial point— never blink; create the illusion that you have nothing to hide; the naked truth is in your eyes, and if they want, they can take it in their hands, turn it over, and check to see whether it has been falsified. This was just how Aris was defending his first business offer; he was doing it well and hadn’t blinked for half a minute already but was looking at his father like a fakir at a rattlesnake. The boy was strong; he would become something; it was just important to get that circus out of his head.

“Agreed,” he said and offered the boy his hand. Aris accepted but wasn’t sure whether he’d won or definitively lost. He was getting something he hadn’t expected and losing something much more important to him. Was there anything in the universe more magnificent than training cats, and was there anyone more extraordinary than a man who’d subdued the world of cats?

Thereafter the questions that Jovan Berberijan asked his son were much more difficult, but they never required information from legal books or documents. He played fair, like an English gentleman playing cricket or polo, but began to make serious efforts to keep his pay and did that as if he didn’t have a child in front of him and as if that boy weren’t his son. He found examples from legal practice that had become legendary, verdicts and defense arguments that had made judges famous, and turned them into questions that Aris had to answer.

By the time Aris was eleven, he would spend hours justifying his position, defending it with logic, and leading his father into labyrinths from which there was no way out. The moment of victory came when his father no longer knew what to say or would start stuttering. As soon as he started stuttering, his opponent raised his hand into the air like a boxing referee, and that was a classic knockout, without counting to three. On average Aris received half his father’s monthly pay. He put the money into a shoe box he kept hidden under his bed because he didn’t know what to spend it on. After the circus was dropped, there was little left for Aris except his school and the office. His mother woke him up every morning at six. He would have breakfast with his father as he read the newspaper and commented on events in the world. The increase in the price of diamonds on the London exchange heralded bad days ahead; in Germany a military strike loomed; there was one workers’ strike after another, one street fight between the right and the left after another; the older Berberijan worried that the major industrialists didn’t realize that they were playing with a bomb that might explode at any moment.

“And when it explodes, then justice won’t be served before courts but before firing squads,” he said at least once a week.

After breakfast they went to the office.

“Come to the office early even when you think you don’t have anything to do; it’s good for the concentration.”

And at twenty to eight old Janoš came and accompanied Aris to school. He met him after school, and they would go back to the office, and after an hour or two there was a lunch break. In the afternoon, father and son were again at work, until eight or nine in the evening, when he was supposed to do his homework. Such was the boy’s daily routine up until he finished prep school, and there was nothing that could be changed about it. Just as Jovan Berberijan went to work even when he was sick, so his son weathered all the illnesses of childhood in the law office, pressing his forehead on the cold windowpane.

The famous attorney had to exploit all his connections and acquaintances in his efforts to get his son accepted to the law school in Belgrade. He begged and bribed his way right up to Prince Pavle Karađorđević’s adjutant, but it was no use at all. For Aris had barely passed from grade to grade in prep school, always with D’s, and he only got A’s in Latin and history. They didn’t want him in the respected school, and it was possible that his father’s reputation didn’t do him any good either. Rejecting Berberijan’s son was a big deal, for some even the biggest success in their careers.