The Use of Man Read online

  This careful cataloging is of a piece with the novel’s insistence on the book as our stay against oblivion. It is also reminiscent of the notoriously meticulous record-keeping of the Nazi authorities, in which atrocities were conscientiously noted and the terrible fate of each individual tracked. Reminiscent, too, of images we retain from that war: of piles of shoes or suitcases, piles that appear indiscriminate but every item of which pertains to, and gestures towards, a unique individual, to a personal history, an infinite repository of event and memory. The form Tišma chooses here evokes both impersonality and individualism; it is a shape, at once unwieldy and strangely effective, born of this particular war.

  In addition, Tišma “tells,” rather than “shows,” a great deal: Much of his storytelling seems almost summarized. This is a mode presently unfashionable (although there are many apparently traditional scenes in this novel). He provides us with very little dialogue. Not only is The Use of Man notable in its looping refusal of the linear (as if to emphasize that our end is always in our beginning, that the future is as much a presence as the past) but also in its refusal of traditional plot structure. There is no building towards a climax—or if there is, it is a climax all but invisible beside the enormity of war’s events: the reunion of two survivors. And even the import of that reunion can only be understood in light of their renewed separation. Tišma will not grant us simple narrative satisfactions, easy hope.

  You cannot fail to be intensely moved by this novel—unless, that is, you find it too unbearable to read. But in spite of this embrace of darkness and weakness, Tišma’s enterprise is one of hope against despair. The stakes are of the highest. And these—a cheap diary full of private jottings; the memory of a snowball fight or of a dancing lesson; the weary embrace of two battle-scarred souls—these are the fragments we have shored against our ruins. This—like literature, potentially everything and possibly nothing—is all we have.

  —CLAIRE MESSUD

  THE USE OF MAN

  I

  Fräulein’s diary was small and oblong, with a coarse-grained red binding of imitation snakeskin, and in the top right-hand corner was the inscription “Poésie” in embossed gold letters. It was one of those albums that little girls used to be given as presents, to keep the memorable jottings of their nearest and dearest. But in a small town such as Novi Sad on the eve of the Second World War, this was the only tasteful, attractive, and yet intimate kind of notebook money could buy.

  Anna Drentvenšek, known to her pupils as “Fräulein,” bought it one spring day at Nahauer and Son’s on Main Street, the stationer where she regularly made such purchases. The store was the biggest and best stocked, and in addition belonged to a German, which pleased her, a German herself, and inspired her with confidence. She turned the massive iron knob in the shape of a drooping fern leaf and opened the glass door between the two display windows, in which were set out, in neat, regular rows, textbooks, note pads, fountain pens, pencils, paper knives, and two typewriters, an Adler and an Underwood. She entered the long, narrow, pharmacy-like solemnity of the shop’s semi-darkness, with its smell of wood and glue. She made her way around a stocky customer who was methodically rearranging, on the counter, the heavy tomes handed him by a lanky, saffron-haired assistant wearing a protective black apron and perched on a stepladder. She stopped in front of a second, much older, assistant with silver-rimmed spectacles. “May I help you?” he asked, a smile barely moving his thin lips as he linked his fingertips across a small, round belly that bulged beneath the same kind of serge apron worn by the first assistant. Or, rather, he said, “Sie wünschen?,” knowing she was German and preferred to be addressed in her own language. This was not the case with all the Germans in Novi Sad in the thirties, when, with the arrival of the first refugees and the first Kulturbund uniforms, there was already the feel of another war in the air and the settling of old scores. Shyly, for it would be the gratification of a secret wish, she raised her head—shaded by a broad-brimmed hat—and pointed a finger in a black silk glove at the shelves above the assistant’s head, to where her gray eyes had timidly risen. “A notebook, but with fine paper, please.”

  He bowed slightly, with an expression of comprehension appropriate to the price of the article requested, for such was the demand of his calling and of his experience. It was this all-knowing expression that won the confidence of his lady customers, who vaguely and with timid, hesitant gestures asked to be served. He turned to the shelves and, stretching nimbly, began to take out and lay on the counter two, three, seven, eight different notebooks and jotters, with hard and soft covers, slim and thick, till finally, tapping the back of the shelf to make sure he had taken down the whole selection, he spread the notebooks out, opening them and riffling their pages, as a shoe salesman bends back soles and uppers to show their lightness and suppleness. Fräulein’s eyes, slipping over the gray and dark-olive bindings and the squared and lined pages, came to rest on the one with the gold letters “Poésie” printed in the top corner. She picked it up and opened it; its thick, yellowish vellum pages crackled. “How much is this one?” When the assistant told her, she replaced it on the counter. “I’ll take it.” She dug into her handbag and paid after he had swiftly wrapped the book in thin, silky, white paper. She put it in her bag and took it home. Once there, she opened the package, turned to the first of the book’s stiff yellow pages, then sat at the table and, dipping her pen in the inkwell, wrote, “May 4, 1935” and, below, “With God’s help”—all, of course, in German.

  The notebook was now a diary. Gradually it filled with the words Fräulein used to give form and sense to the important happenings in her life—until one day, November 1, 1940, when she wrote the words “A new illness,” as she had done many times before, but this was the last time, for the new assault on her body was to exceed her reason’s power to describe it. She would go from doctor to doctor, stretching out on low tables covered with white oilcloth, and with eyes glued to the ceiling would suffer the painful and embarrassing probings of expert fingers. In Dr. Korkhammer’s laboratory, they would take blood from her vein and from her finger, and urine in a glass vessel. She would take their findings to Dr. Boranović’s sanatorium. Finally, Dr. Boranović, a surgeon then at the height of his powers, a thickset, lumbering, fifty-year-old man, told her that she had an inflammation of the gall bladder with an attendant stone, and immediately proposed a date for the operation. “Does that suit you?” His small gray-green eyes, set deep in rolls of fat, looked up at her from the calendar on his desk. She was shocked by the nearness of the date, and asked for time to think. “Well now,” he said with a crookedly pitying smile, “if you take too long to think it over, I may not be able to take you into my clinic at all, because I like my operations to be successful.” The veiled threat hit like a thunderbolt.

  Fräulein went home to pack her things, as if for a journey. Nightdress, underwear. Something warm in which to lie with her arms outside the covers, as she had seen on a recent visit to the hospital. But what? A cardigan? None of them was suitable; they were all too dark, utilitarian. She rushed into town between lessons—telling her pupils she would be gone only temporarily—to buy a warm, yet feminine piece of clothing. But everything available was made of coarse material in loud colors. She was dropping with fatigue, running from shop to shop, until she finally found a liseuse, as she discovered it was called from the kindly proprietress of the Lady boutique, Mrs. Ekmedžić, to whom she confided everything. The liseuse was a light-mauve woolen bed jacket, thin, without buttons, and with wide sleeves, which were a little too short, so that when she tried it on at home they rode up to her elbows. Now she had everything she needed.

  Evening found her, cold, in her tiny room. The piercing light from a naked bulb mercilessly exposed all these clothes thrown onto the bed, ready to be packed into a bag as if into a coffin: the pink nightdress, the slightly darker liseuse, the panties, pink and white, and the snow-white bra on which she had just reinforced a button that had been
loose for some time. Everything went into the bag. If anyone should see her on the way to the sanatorium, they might think she was going shopping (perhaps to the market, which was on the way). And what about the diary? Her eyes went to the wardrobe, where she kept it in the shadow of hanging dresses and an abandoned spring coat. She opened the wardrobe door and moved the dresses aside. The little red book was there at the very bottom, and she bent to pick it up and add it, like an overlooked valuable, to the things she would take with her. But would she want, or even be able, to write anything in her diary under the eyes of the doctors and the good sisters? If she just kept it with her—under her pillow, say—someone might find it when she was distracted or on the operating table, and read it uninvited. She shuddered, as if someone had surprised her naked. And what if . . .? Trembling, she imagined herself dead and the diary left to the prying eyes of all. But if she left it at the bottom of the wardrobe, who might find it then? Mrs. Šimoković, with whom she intended to leave the key to her room, or her sister, urgently summoned by telegram? (She had written uncomplimentary things about her sister in it, too.) Whoever it was, it would be terrible. But inevitable, because she would no longer be able to protect or hide it. She saw herself lying dead, far from this room, very far, alone, lying still and colorless, knowing nothing, but her diary would still be there, her secret. The thought was so unbearable that she stooped down, clasped it to her chest, and threw herself on the bed, sobbing. For the first time, she fully realized that she might die, and what that meant: complete isolation, complete abandonment, complete oblivion, powerless to do anything for herself. She wept deep into the night, alone in her room, the small iron stove long since grown cold. She knew that crying was harmful to her, but she couldn’t help it. Finally, worn out, she crawled, still dressed, beneath the eiderdown and fell asleep, still shaken by sobs and sighs.

  The next morning, she had to make the fire quickly, wash, dress, divide among her neighbors the duties she herself would no longer be performing, say good-bye to everyone, pack her things, and go. But the decision about the diary remained to be made. Should she burn it then and there, on the bright morning fire? She held back superstitiously from such an act, which seemed almost like extending an invitation to death: Here I am, I’ve nothing left, come for me. Then she thought of writing something in the notebook under that day’s date, a note about her departure, something businesslike to blunt the earlier effusions of tenderness, which revealed, perhaps, too much. But she was afraid of bursting into tears again, of not having the strength to leave the room (that might even be for the best), but since no time remained for hesitation, she walked out with the problem unresolved, turning back to bid farewell once again to Mrs. Šimoković, who, caught with a tub full of washing, wiped her hands quickly on her apron before responding.

  Fräulein felt she was already forgotten, but that was not the case. In the poor quarter in which she lived, where people took little note of important happenings, the news of her departure spread like circles in a pool of water, soon reaching Slavica Božić, the mother of one of her pupils. Mrs. Božić continued to inquire around, eventually discovering that Fräulein had had her operation, performed by Dr. Boranović himself, and that she had regained consciousness at the proper time, which meant that the operation had been a success. The ambitious thought struck Slavica, who was normally at a disadvantage compared with the well-to-do parents of Fräulein’s pupils, that she should make a show, if not of position and wealth, then at least of concern. She took her son’s best suit from the wardrobe and brushed it, ironed his white shirt, picked out white socks, and thought of buying a large bouquet that would add the final touch to such a display—seasonal flowers. She had just seen them in the market—autumn roses. When asked for his approval, Milinko obediently agreed, as always. At school he took his friend Sredoje Lazukić into his confidence, and, at their evening rendezvous, his girlfriend, Vera Kroner. Sredoje and Vera spread the word to their own homes, and there, too, the step met with approval, and the projected bouquet increased threefold (autumn roses—all exactly alike).

  Eventually, a whole delegation of pupils trooped along to see Fräulein in her white-walled hospital room on the first floor of the two-story sanatorium. She received them that day, Thursday, because she had neither the means nor the strength not to, although the night before, her wound had begun to pain her and now she felt the pain spreading through her whole body. Her cheeks burned, her chest felt heavy, she had no appetite, only thirst, but water gave no relief, her lips remaining dry and hard even after she drank some. Weak as she was, she was torn by a desire to leap from her bed and run away to a place that was cool and painless.

  The children crowding around the bed made it harder still for her to breathe, and the good sister, instead of holding them back, was so delighted by the profusion of flowers that she rushed off to find a larger vase. The children were noisy as well, asking Fräulein to tell them how she felt, if she was in pain, how soon she would be allowed up. Fräulein was suddenly struck by how senseless it all was, how unreal—that she was going to die after all. She closed her eyes, and the whiteness of the room at once became a glimmer of red under a drawn-back curtain of hanging dresses—the very same sight she had seen not long before. Fräulein started, opened her eyes, and saw the good sister—whose return she had not noticed—frantically motioning the children to leave. She saw them looking at her in surprise from a great distance, and raised her hand in farewell. At the same moment she understood that she was parting with other human beings for the last time in her life, that this was her last opportunity to do something about her nightmare, and she called, or she thought she called, for her lips could only whisper: “Vera darling! Come here.” And to the girl who approached from the doorway, drawn not by the feeble whisper, which had been unintelligible, but by the intense, staring eyes, she said, “Come closer,” and whispered (now intentionally), “If I die, go to my room, take the little book from the bottom of my wardrobe, and burn it.” The effort of speech exhausted her. With no saliva to moisten them, she could barely move her lips, and more in an exhalation than a voice, she asked, “Will you?” Vera nodded. Fräulein closed her eyes and sank into a heavy fever, no longer aware of the nurses’ anxious bustling, no longer aware that they were stripping her, injecting her. She died that same night.

  Vera got the news from Milinko the next day, and the funeral was held the day after. She attended it reluctantly, as a matter of form, along with her mother, observing all the while just who greeted her mother (if they were men, how they did so) and also how her mother behaved, whether she was pretending sorrow like the rest of the ladies (like Sredoje’s mother, elegantly pale and ugly), and whether anyone noticed that her mother was different from the rest. Tension prevented Vera from being sad or even shaken by the knowledge that the person she had spoken with only two days before was now prayed over and lowered into the ground, a person whose hand she had touched and from whose lips she had received a last request. The request was constantly on her mind, and as soon as the earth was rounded into a mound over the grave, she left her mother with the dry remark that she had something to do in town, and set off in the direction of Stevan Sremac Street, more to think the request over than to carry it out.

  Once she found herself in front of Fräulein’s house, however, she had no choice but to go through with it. Of course she had to wait for Mrs. Šimoković, who had also attended the funeral but who needed twice as much time to return home, arm in arm with her cousin and pausing frequently to pass remarks (among them, the mumblings of the priest that the dead woman’s sister hadn’t made it to the funeral). Mrs. Šimoković was pleased to see Vera, for the girl’s visit made the day’s events last longer, and she gladly and not without curiosity opened Fräulein’s room for her. They both stopped short at the door: it proved to be colder in the room than in the courtyard. (“And it’s only been a week since she had a fire in here,” Mrs. Šimoković said with surprise.) They turned the light on, and Vera went
straight to the wardrobe and opened the door, as if she had done this many times before and knew exactly where to find what she was looking for. And indeed she immediately saw the bound red notebook at the bottom of the wardrobe. She picked it up and casually opened it, moving her eyes and lips as if to convince anyone around of her right to the article; then, with a smile, she made her way past Mrs. Šimoković, who was too awed by the written word to entertain suspicions of any kind. Neither of them spoke as they parted, yet Vera felt like a thief. That feeling stayed with her all the way home and troubled her even when she read the diary that night in bed. She was not supposed to do this, she knew very well, but she could not bring herself to burn it unread. Once it was read, the knowledge of its contents prevented her from burning it at all.

  Vera had the feeling that the diary contained a whole human being—someone unknown to her until now, or known in a completely different way—and that if she destroyed it, she would never again have the chance, once the shock of surprise had faded, to come to know that human being more clearly. She was seized by a fear she had not felt at the funeral: Was it possible for the content of a whole long life to vanish so easily, so abruptly? (From her own vantage point, it seemed very long indeed, more than forty years!) She told Milinko of her hesitation, but he, forever upright, advised her to be true to her promise. She couldn’t bring herself to do it, but hit upon a compromise: She wouldn’t read the diary any more at present, but would put it out of sight, for a later, more mature decision. Looking around for a hiding place, her eyes fell on her own wardrobe, but she drew back instantly, almost superstitiously, from such a blatant repetition. No, it would be better to put it in her book cabinet, where no one ever looked. She found the right place for it, between two textbooks— introduction to biology and math—which had been abandoned and were of no further use to anyone. But before doing so—burying it, as it were, instead of cremating it—she thought she should validate her decision—which she experienced as both a denial and a betrayal—by recording it. With this in mind, she sat down at her desk, opened the diary, and, as a continuation of the confidential entries in Fräulein’s firm, slanting hand, wrote on the next empty page, in her own rounded characters, the succinct, stark, tombstone-like inscription: “Anna Drentvenšek died December 19, 1940, after a gall-bladder operation.”