The Book of Blam Read online

  Blam trudges after the procession, at its tail end, slowly, because the path between the graves is narrow and people keep joining it on all sides. He comes up to Spasojević, who has been separated from Jović by the crowd, and nearly bumps into him, and although he and Spasojević have recognized and greeted each other before, Spasojević holds out his hand and, raising his black, almost false-looking eyebrows, says with a sigh, “I bet you didn’t expect it either. Our ranks are starting to thin now too, so it seems.”

  Blam nods, though his thoughts are still dwelling, almost longingly, on the comparison of different yet identical deaths. “It started a lot earlier,” he wants to say, “with Slobodan and Čutura,” but he is afraid it would sound like a boast or a hint at the sacrifices his own family has suffered—if Spasojević knew about them, that is—so instead he decides to say something that is in fact a boast and a hint at his own circumstances, though more in keeping with the occasion.

  “I went to see him a month ago. He asked me to come.”

  Spasojević is taken aback: his eyebrows go all the way up to his hairline, and he stops in his tracks.

  “Who? Aca?”

  Blam nods.

  “Yes. We sat next to each other in school, remember?”

  “I remember, I remember,” Spasojević says, passing over Blam’s explanation lightly and moving on to what really concerns him. “But that means he was perfectly healthy!”

  “Yes, perfectly healthy,” Blam says, “and even full of plans for the future.” But he suddenly feels terrible going on about things so obviously of concern only to them, the living.

  “No one can tell what’s happening inside,” he hears Spasojević say just as he is separated from him, mercifully, by the procession, which has now paused and is spreading along the narrow pathways between the graves.

  The coffin with Krkljuš’s body first rises in the pallbearers’ arms, then sinks to a pile of freshly shoveled earth. The coffin is yellow against the black walls of the pit around it. They swiftly and skillfully push it onto the two thick ropes that have been thrown across the pit and, releasing the pressure on them evenly, ease the coffin down into the earth. The priest and sacristan sing out in full voice; the two women wail. The shorter of the two bends over the grave, and for a second the veil reveals the delicate profile of Aca’s mother. She makes as if to hurl herself onto the coffin, but the two men in black have anticipated her move and grab her arms. The priest raises his voice almost threateningly, and the sacristan not only follows suit but also points his umbrella with unexpected bravado at the sky and pushes his tinny voice a third octave above the priest’s. The people around the grave bow and sprinkle the coffin with handfuls of earth, which hit the wood with thuds reminiscent of distant cannon fire. Now everyone seems in a hurry. The pallbearers, their hair dripping with rain, grab shovels that lay hidden behind a tombstone or tree and briskly, energetically fill in the grave.

  This is the end. Aca Krkljuš is now exactly what he would have been had he not returned from the Danube, and what Blam would have been had he remained with his family in the house in Vojvoda Šupljikac Square, had he not been so taken with Janja or perhaps with the salvation he sensed in her. Was it worth it? Inhaling the moist air redolent with freshly dug earth, drawing it deeply into his lungs, he feels it was: life is wonderful, sweet, fragrant, palpable, engrossing. He feels a thrilling, irresistible impetus in the cold contact of the raindrops on his neck, feels it in the sticky soil that cools the soles of his feet through the stiff soles of his shoes, feels it in his frozen hands that seek warmth in the pockets of his coat. Death is terrifying no matter where and when it comes, and life, though it brings us closer to death with every instant, is wonderful.

  ČUTURA DIED ON the day he left Blam’s Dositej Street love nest, having locked the gate behind him as he was told and having left the gate key and door key in the place agreed upon. He set off early in the winter dawn and by half past six was on the road to Bačka Palanka, where he was to find refuge with a miller whom he did not know but whose name and address he had been given. He moved quickly along the firmly packed snow on the right-hand side of the street, but stopped whenever a horse and cart came up behind him, raising an arm to beg a ride. But, given the dangerous conditions of the area and the not particularly prepossessing picture he made in his floppy hat and threadbare city coat, the peasants would turn their heads the moment they saw him and even whip their horses to get past him as quickly as possible. He also attracted the attention of two gendarmes patrolling the area between the railway barrier and the hemp factory far out in the fields: the way he kept raising his arm and his brisk, determined gait made them suspicious. They waited behind an abandoned woodpile and then set out after him, shouting, “Halt! Halt!”

  Čutura stopped, turned, and stood where he was until they reached him. They asked for his identity papers, and he showed them a work certificate that had been made out to a butcher’s apprentice in Palanka. They asked him where he was going; he said he had spent some time in the city and was on his way home to work. They ordered him to raise his hands, unbuttoned his coat, and searched his pockets and trouser legs for weapons. As he had been required to hand over his pistol to the contact who gave him the false work certificate the day before, they found nothing. He could therefore assume that they would let him go.

  But although their search had been unsuccessful, they remained suspicious, because two days earlier, in connection with preparations for the raid, they had received strict orders, which neither Čutura nor his contact could have known about. One of them blew a whistle, and the figure of a noncommissioned officer emerged from the hemp factory. The whistle was a signal that the two of them would be leaving their post. They then placed Čutura between them, slung their rifles over their shoulders, and set off for Bačka Palanka.

  Čutura was well aware that in Palanka his work certificate would be proven false, that he would be taken into custody, and that because he was on the wanted list, he would soon be identified. He naturally regretted having given up his pistol and halted at the gendarmes’ command, but it was too late to escape now: no matter how fast he ran, their bullets would catch him within fewer than twenty paces.

  But after they had been walking for a quarter of an hour and came to two bare poplars at a bend in the road, where the first houses of Bačka Palanka showed through the snowy mist, the chance for escape did present itself. One of the gendarmes, short, squat, and somewhat asthmatic, asked the other, the one with the whistle, to stop long enough for him to light a cigarette. The three of them stopped, and the short gendarme let the rifle slip from his shoulder into the crook of his elbow to free up his hands. True, the other gendarme moved back a step and aimed his gun at Čutura, but the short gendarme had trouble getting to his cigarettes—he kept them in the jacket of his uniform, underneath the strap of his knapsack—and since his fingers were stiff from the cold and he had to twist and turn his body to reach them, his rifle started swinging back and forth. At one point the tip of the bayonet grazed the gendarme’s fleshy, red double chin, and Čutura kicked the butt as if it were a football, sending the blade deep into the man’s jaw. The man screamed, threw open his arms, and fell backward, but Čutura grabbed the rifle before he hit the ground, aimed it at the other gendarme, who was staring terrified at his mate, and put a bullet through his chest. The second gendarme fell flailing, and Čutura leaped over both bleeding bodies without a moment’s hesitation, the smoking rifle still in his hands, and fled in the direction of Novi Sad.

  But the small, round gendarme had only been lightly wounded; he was more concerned with having nearly been killed by his own bayonet. Seconds after his head hit the snow, his mind cleared and he felt around for his gun. When he failed to find it and caught sight of Čutura running off, he realized the man was escaping with it. He turned to the other gendarme, whose death had taken place in the short interval the small gendarme was unconscious, and saw him stretched out in the snow, his gun at his side. He
struggled to his elbows and, paying no attention to the blood streaming down his neck and dotting the snow, crawled over to it. Knowing it was loaded, he scrambled into shooting position—legs spread wide, elbows firm on the ground, right shoulder steadying the butt. He was a good shot, and only because he was in too much of a rush did the first bullet miss its target. The second time he aimed slowly and calmly and hit Čutura just below the right shoulder blade. Čutura twitched, shook his head, losing his black hat, and slipped. He seemed certain to fall, but managed to keep on his feet and even made a half turn, as if to return the gendarme’s fire. Then, clearly lacking the strength to do so, he hunched forward and continued in his original direction, not running now but lurching from one foot to the other, his knees buckling with each step. The gendarme cocked the gun and aimed carefully again, this time hitting Čutura in the small of the back, in the spinal column. Čutura twitched once more, less violently, and after two short scraping steps toppled headfirst into the snow.

  Shortly thereafter two gendarmes from the hemp factory, alarmed by the shots, appeared on their bicycles, pedaling strenuously through the loose snow. They stopped just short of Čutura, jumped down, and approached him, guns raised. Čutura was lying on his side with one cheek resting on the snow and his eyes closed; he might well have been sleeping. They turned him on his back. Tiny opaque bubbles of blood were trickling from his mouth. One gendarme stood watch over him while the other ran over to their injured comrade, who had managed to get up on his knees and was pressing a handkerchief to his wound. He helped him to his feet, and together they went over to the man Čutura had shot. He lay there dead, white, his palms upward, seeming to beg, his eyes open, glassy. The gendarme who had helped the wounded man up asked him if he could hold out until first aid came, and when the latter nodded, the gendarme went back to Čutura, jumped on his bicycle, and rode off to Palanka for a car. By the time it arrived, Čutura had died without regaining consciousness. They loaded the two bodies into the car, and the wounded gendarme squeezed in at their feet, still pressing the blood-soaked handkerchief to his ample double chin.

  *

  “Are you Leon Funkenstein?”

  “I am. What can I do for you?”

  “I need to talk to you. But not here in the hallway.”

  “Come in, then. Here, have a seat. What can I offer you?”

  “Is this your apartment? You live alone?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “Sorry to be so forward, but it’s not an idle question. Have you always lived alone, or did you by any chance lose your family?”

  “I have nothing to hide, even though I never saw you before in my life. Yes, I did lose my family. And given my name, you can pretty much guess why and how.”

  “Did they die in a camp?”

  “Some did. Of my immediate family of four, three died in a camp: my mother, my wife, and my daughter. My son froze to death doing forced labor in the Ukraine. Of my extended family of nineteen, thirteen died in camps, two were killed during the raid, one was hanged at the very beginning of the Occupation for supposedly having opened fire on Hungarian soldiers, one aunt died here at home after being tortured, and one nephew poisoned himself just before he was to be sent to a camp.”

  “You keep a careful record, I see.”

  “You know how it is. You have them on your mind, and you go over and over them through the years. At some point you decide to sort them out.”

  “Sort them out? Why? For revenge?”

  “Revenge? Revenge is for the authorities.”

  “And if the authorities fail?”

  “If the authorities fail, we as individuals are all the more powerless.”

  “That’s not completely true. Surely you’ve heard of the agency in Vienna that tracks down war criminals. It’s run by a Jew. The one who brought Eichmann to trial.”

  “You mean Wiesenthal? Wiesenthal is an important man, an expert with a worldwide network and lots of money. We little people can’t do anything.”

  “You can’t do what he’s doing, but on a limited, personal scale. . .”

  “I don’t see how. Do you expect me to find the gendarme who packed me off to the camp? The officer who put my son on the forced labor list or chased him into the freezing cold? They escaped, they’re in hiding. Or they’ve been punished by now.”

  “But you’re looking at an isolated case, your family’s. What if I pointed out men guilty of making Jews suffer? Would you help to see them punished?”

  “I. . . I don’t think so.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because it’s none of my business. I’m in real estate. It’s not my job to catch and punish criminals. Let the people who are paid for it do it.”

  “And if they don’t? If, say, they can’t take up a certain case?”

  “What kind of case?”

  “This one, for instance. A highly respectable Jewish family has a tenant, a widow, whose lover, a scoundrel and Arrow Cross member, has moved in with her. Comes the raid. The Jews have already lost their Communist daughter in a skirmish with the gendarmes. The patrol naturally quizzes the man about the Jews, and on the basis of his information the family is sent to its death. There are no witnesses of what he told the authorities, of course, and no way of protesting: he would simply deny everything. But his physical presence in the house on the day of the Jewish family’s death is proof that he denounced them. All that needs to be done is confront the man with his crime, and he’ll confess. Would you help in a case like that?”

  “I might, but what could I do? I’m just a little man, an ordinary man. Weak, and old now too. I can’t cross-examine anybody, much less force a confession.”

  “You wouldn’t have to. I’d take care of that. All you’d have to do is get him to go with you to an inconspicuous place outside town, where the cross-examination and punishment could take place.”

  “But why me? Why would he come with me and not with you?”

  “Because you’re in real estate, because you were the agent for the sale of Vilim Blam’s house, the house this man was living in when he committed his crime. You can introduce yourself as the only living witness of the transaction and promise him a reward if he goes to a nearby village with you and makes a statement. He’ll agree to it because he needs the money: he drinks. He won’t tell his wife about it so she doesn’t find out about the money.”

  “You’re asking too much of me. What makes you think he’ll trust me enough to go with me? And how can I get him to a nearby village without being noticed?”

  “I’ll show you a tavern to go to, a place where no one will notice you. You have a way with people. He won’t think twice about going with you. He’ll be attracted by the reward, and his guilt feelings will do the rest. You’ll invite him for a little spin—to Kać, say—and provide the car and driver. I’ll be the driver. That’s all you need do. I’ll make sure that the man who has a score to settle with him—Vilim Blam’s son, that is—is on hand when we drop him off. If nothing else, you’ll see justice done. After so much injustice. It’s time, don’t you think?”

  Chapter Fourteen

  IT RAINS ALL day. The raindrops fall from the clouds, now tepid, now cold, now straight, now at an angle, in thick jets or one by one and big as bullets. They fall, splattering on roofs, walls, gates, and windowpanes, singing in tin gutters, drumming on roads and pavements, watering the earth, filling its invisible crevices, finding faulty joints between tiles and bricks, seeping into walls and leaking into cellars and basement flats, whipping faces and necks under umbrellas, soaking, drenching, dissolving form and meaning, people and things.

  Or the wind blows, biting and dry, mean as a lynx, sweeping dead debris—dust, trampled refuse—from cracked earth and faded asphalt into windows, under doormats and doors, down noses and throats, making people cough and choke, tearing posters from poles, bending trees in parks, and rattling the craftsmen’s tin signs till they squawk like frightened poultry.

  Or it is a magnificent su
mmer when nothing moves, neither air nor earth nor azure sky, neither the burning sun nor the shadows it casts on the streets, and the people walking, the cats stalking the pavement, the ants crawling through grass seem unreal and unnecessary in the general torpor of heat and fecundity.

  Or it snows, a blinding blizzard, rooms heated desperately hot, people rushing down streets, shoulders hunched and teeth chattering, slipping, falling, breaking bones, but then the clouds disperse, leaving a sugar-white cover, smooth as silk, pure as milk, soft as wool, until frost grabs and chains it, turns it into a wrinkled gray skin that stops outstretched fingers from piercing warm earth, tree roots, flowing waters, until the south wind and the thaw take pity and steam rises like a heathen prayer from the earth, dissolving the cold weight that rests on the streets, squares, houses, and people and planting on them and in them new strength and new colors.

  And because rain, wind, sun, and snow all take place in the city, the city seems created to accommodate the seasons, to serve as a retort for testing the fiber of man and material under varying conditions of pressure and temperature. The city is not an element in the broad scheme of change, no, it is a discrete granule, a richly variegated granule, and while the same might be said of the sea, the woods, or the mountains, the city is unaware of belonging to a whole, even the whole that is existence, so when city people say to one another, “It’s hot” or, “The wind is blowing,” what they mean is that it is hot or the wind is blowing here in the city and that they have revised their image of the city—the streets on which they live and the people with whom they live—accordingly.

  WHEN THE DEFEATED conquerors left Novi Sad in October 1944, they left not only with the jewels, furs, and rugs they had plundered but also with hundreds of accomplices who, suitcases in hand, stole out of the back doors of the apartments and houses they had confiscated. Predrag Popadić was not among them. Had he forgotten to reserve a place for himself in one of the military vehicles, as people later speculated, or did he simply go on believing in his luck and perhaps in favors for services rendered to the underdog? Or was it that he could not bear to part from the city that had afforded him so comfortable a routine, so beautiful an apartment, a standing window-table reservation at the finest coffee house, a multitude of women he had bedded and intended to bed, and so many suits of expensive material and silk ties and soft terrycloth robes that not a tenth of them would have fit in a refugee’s suitcase? The fact remains that he had published Naše novine as long as the paper supply lasted, and that the days immediately before the Soviet and Partisan troops entered the city he had spent indulging in the other side of his life—paying visits, giving and taking advice, making new acquaintances and deepening old ones, holding dinner parties and keeping amorous assignations—the side of his life he had always considered the more important.