by Daša Drndic
Enough, Pupi! Stop it!
If we were able always to free ourselves by weeping from the misery that overcomes us, obscure illnesses and poetry would disappear. But some innate refusal, intensified by upbringing, or some defect in the functioning of our tear glands, condemns us to the torment of dry eyes.
Stop!
Consequently, we are all sick, each of us lacks a Sahara where we would be able to shout at the top of our voices, or the shores of a dark, savage sea, with whose crazed sobs we could merge our own, still more furious.
That’s enough, Pupi! Listen to what they are saying, Pupi. Listen to what Herzog and Matilda have to say.
Printz does not like the story of Cinderella. He finds it a horrible story because it has too much tension, like King Lear, because those wicked sisters remind him of Herzog. That is why. Herzog is his brother, Printz’s brother. But he likes the glass shoe. He likes that. It is a little fragile shoe. Lovely. Pupi likes that part of the story.
Herzog and Matilda are standing at the door, waiting.
When they catch sight of Printz, Herzog and Matilda do not say “oh daddy” because there is no daddy, daddy is standing on a shelf with Ernestina, in the depot, where it is cold, where a deathly, corpse-like coldness, unimaginable, reigns. That is why Herzog and Matilda do not smile, that is why, because neither Rikard nor Ernestina is here.
You’ve got ugly slippers, Printz says again. And your name is ugly. You’ve got an ugly name, Matilda.
Herzog says: This is my flat now. Move out.
Matilda says: Yes, move out. We have to expand.
Herzog adds: Take what you need.
Matilda adds: Yes, take what you need.
Printz says: All right.
Printz has a Samsonite briefcase, it is unbelievable how much it holds and it is easy to carry. Printz’s Samsonite briefcase has a coded lock so no one can break into it. Apart from that, it is black, gray-black, anthracite. When Printz bought it (at Zurich airport on his way back from Oslo, 1987), anthracite was a fashionable color, and the salesgirl had told him: Take this one, it projects power. You are a powerful man. Nowadays, Samsonite luggage is produced in a lot of bright colors, but Printz’s briefcase, black, never gets dirty.
This briefcase never gets dirty, says Printz.
Printz adores his Encyclopædia Britannica in 32 volumes. He bought it with a 20% discount for $796, when it normally cost $995. He gets all sorts of facts out of it, for Printz loves facts. Printz trusts facts, he believes in facts. Facts do not invent anything, facts do not deceive, as for example church facts deceive, faith facts, facts about God, which are not facts at all, but lies. Such facts irritate Printz because in recent years there have been a lot of them, more and more.
Faith facts get on my nerves, he says.
Printz reads and prepares to leave. He reads the Encyclopædia Britannica and tears out the pages he intends to take with him because 32 volumes will not fit into his black Samsonite briefcase. Printz also tears pages out of the books piled up in the corners, in the remaining corners of the amputated flat. (The room with shelves, the library, is in Herzog’s part, partitioned off, but as soon as Printz leaves, that wall will come down and the flat will be spacious again.)
Yes, they will expand.
Printz buys fifty liters of milk. For a week he sits on the floor, in his pyjamas, reading. He chooses pages and puts them into his Samsonite briefcase, gray-black. He does not wash, he does not eat.
Where is your strength to refrain from the compulsion to breathe? Why should you continue to put up with the dense air that blocks your lungs and oppresses your body? How can you overcome those opaque hopes and petrified ideas now, when at one moment you imitate the solitude of stone, and the next you feel as rejected as spit stuck on the edge of the world? You are more distant from your own self than from any remote planet, and your senses, focused on graves, suspect that there is more life there than in the senses themselves . . .
Printz reads all kinds of things like that. He enjoys them, those bitter lines, they give him a miraculous strength. His eyes then come alive, the wrinkles around them ripple, Printz has wrinkles, he has more and more of them. Printz is getting old.
I’m getting old.
It is the sixth day that Printz has not been out. Herzog and Matilda occasionally, increasingly often, press their ears to the partition wall. They ask: When’s he going?
Printz says: I’ve run out of milk. I’m leaving today. He says that in the direction of the partition wall. Printz is clever.
In addition to the torn pages and a few books, Printz puts into his Samsonite briefcase some underwear, his scissors and an Oral-B toothbrush. It is spring.
Printz puts the thirty-two volumes of the Encyclopædia Britannica into the large suitcase with wheels, Ernestina’s suitcase, red, plastic-coated and rough to the touch. It is an expensive suitcase, robust, transoceanic, with coat-hangers and compartments so that stage dresses do not crush. So that they only crush a little. They are ironed in the hotels in any case. Ernestina is dead. There are no more stage dresses.
Leave that suitcase, says Matilda. I need that suitcase. She says that standing in the doorway, with her hands on her hips. Her hair is in rollers because ever since Ernestina died, she has been rolling her hair up, it is full of curls, her head is covered in blond ringlets that touch her cheeks.
Fuck you, says Printz.
Maybe Printz does not say “fuck you” just like that? Maybe Printz would have screwed Matilda, she irritated him so much that he might have screwed her, and that is why he said “fuck you.” But Printz is in a hurry, he cannot think about what Freud might have said, he cannot elaborate on that little indecent thought, that little desecrating thought, even perhaps a bit incestuous. Printz is in a hurry, he is in a hurry because Herzog and Matilda are driving him out of his father’s flat, out of the flat which his father Rikard Dvorsky was given in exchange for the Villa Nora, that is why he is in a hurry.
Printz goes to the small hunchbacked dealer with knobbly fingers and white hairs in his ears and nose. The small hunchbacked dealer is a talkative dealer, like a magician, he pulls antique ornaments once in the possession of wealthy and murdered Jewish families out of a heap of piled up objects. Maybe Printz really would have screwed blue-eyed Matilda, that cow with a dried-up udder. He had not screwed anything for a long time. Why had Printz not fucked for so long?
I’m getting ready like a cicada. In the little cage of a long-dead sophist, I’m waiting for the sun to warm me.
Printz is sluggish again, sometimes he seizes up.
I’m tired.
There is no inner liveliness in Printz, he is sinking and vanishing like foam. When he makes holes in himself with his scissors and waits for milk to pour out of his little holes, but there is no milk, only blood that scrawls over his torso in quiet, thin little paths, he is not lively even then, no. He is turning into Pupi, that is all.
Fuck you, Matilda, says Printz again and Herzog asks:
What have you taken?
I’m going, says Printz. And asks: Where are Ernestina’s dresses?
Printz is not sure whether Herzog asks him anything else, because he is already on the stairs, he is going down, he is dragging Ernestina’s suitcase, crammed full of books.
The dealer whom Printz had engaged to find out whether there were any living descendants of the Leder family, the original owners of the silver salvers from the confiscated Villa Nora, is called Ugo Tutzman. Ugo Tutzman telephones Printz while he is drinking milk in his pyjamas for a week and says: Come at once. It is 1996, perhaps 1997. Printz can no longer say confidently what year it is because time is getting smudged in his head.
I have temporal blotches in my brain.
Printz is aware of those blotches in his brain; they spread like a crumbled cow pie, they are dark as cattle dro
ppings, they spread, flow, cling, cover his brain cells, they are odorless.
Leder, you say, says the dealer Ugo Tutzman. It is stuffy in the room, the blinds are down and rotting.
Did you manage to sell the silverware? asks Printz.
No, says Ugo Tutzman. I found some distant relatives. I’ll tell you everything. In detail.
Printz does not want to listen. He is not interested in a detailed account of the Jewish family, in whose house, after the war, the victorious communist government installed his father, the chemist, communist and spy Rikard Dvorsky. He is not interested in that. Printz just wants to sell the silverware or give it away because it is in his way. What? Who’s Benjamin Vukas?
No need to go into detail, says Printz.
Printz does not want any particulars, either verbal or physical, he does not know what to do with them. He has decided to remove particulars from his life. That is why he is clearing up, clearing out.
Ugo Tutzman is very insistent. He talks while Printz sits on a Louis XVI chair. The chair is rickety and covered in crimson velour, worn. Printz is not comfortable on the Louis XVI chair. He wriggles.
I’m not comfortable on this chair, he says.
Perhaps you would like some tea? asks Ugo Tutzman.
Oh, why does this man mention tea! Pupi cannot bear tea, any kind of tea. He can only bear milk. And wine. White wine, or perhaps red, he can increasingly bear wine but that does not stop him from still drinking milk, no, Pupi adores milk and will never give it up. Unless he really must.
I’d like to sit on your bergère, I like that bergère, says Printz.
Ugo Tutzman is sitting on the bergère. It is covered in stripes of black and white satin, horizontal. It is shabby too, that bergère, soaked with greasy stains and time. Everything at Ugo Tutzman’s is dilapidated and shabby. Ugo Tuzman is shabby too. He is also half-blind.
I’ve got glaucoma, he says.
That’s an insidious disease, says Printz. Hereditary. I would prefer not to listen to your story.
It’s an exciting story, says Ugo Tutzman. It contains a little enigma.
I’ve brought the Encyclopædia Britannica. It has 32 volumes. It’s an expensive complete set. Preserved. A few pages are missing, but no one would know. Palm my set off on someone. I’ll call in from time to time, maybe I’ll bring some other things. Do you need paintings? Let a bit of light into the room. I’d prefer not to hear your story. I know it all. I know as much as I need.
I’ve heard about a person from the Leder family, says Ugo Tutzman.
I could bring you a small Babić, an Aralica from 1935, quite atypical, 100% original, I have Tartalja and Ćelebonović, says Printz.
The man is called Eugen Vukas, and he is the son of Benjamin Vukas.
Who is Benjamin Vukas? asks Printz Dvorsky.
I’ve just told you. Benjamin Vukas is dead. Eugen Vukas is his son. Eugen Vukas brought me some old photographs. He said, try to sell them, they are very rare, Ugo Tutzman waves the photographs around in the dark room. Raising dust. There is a lot of dust in the room. It is mostly the dust of the past.
Ugo Tutzman does not understand: Printz is not interested in the photographs of Eugen Vukas, Printz is busy:
In addition to the Encyclopædia, in this red case there are several old books of almost antique value. It is my mother’s suitcase, you know. It’s the suitcase she had for her travels, for her performances. But she is dead, so she doesn’t travel anymore, she doesn’t perform. She used to sing. Perhaps you have some milk? I’d prefer to drink a glass of milk. I don’t like tea. These are small prewar books: The Palace of the Poor; Clown; The Crisis of Bourgeois Democracy; Stalin: On Lenin.
Ugo Tutzman: Benjamin Vukas was a friend of the Leder family. That letter “H” in the monogram “HL” on your trays and cutlery, represents the name “Hedda.”
Printz: Hedda means “war.” In Greek.
Ugo Tutzman: Benjamin Vukas had a daughter, Julijana, and that son, Eugen. Benjamin Vukas worked in a Mr. Cohen’s photography studio. The studio was called Jacques. The daughter died as a Partisan fighter in 1944, somewhere in Bosnia, in 1942, the studio was confiscated, but Eugen is still alive, and old.
Printz: Don’t heat it. I like cold milk.
Ugo Tutzman: Julijana Vukas had a friend, Isabella Fischer, whose mother was called Sonja and her maiden name was Leder. Otherwise, the Leder family lived in Chemnitz.
Printz: In socialist days, Chemnitz was called Karl-Marx-Stadt. Now it’s Chemnitz again.
Ugo Tutzman: Sonja Leder, married name Fischer, had a sister, Hedda. Their paternal grandfather, owner of a leather processing factory, built the Villa Nora in 1880. The factory was also called Leder.
Printz: In a glass if possible. It’s best to drink cold milk from a glass. It’s logical that the factory should be called Leder, that’s logical, isn’t it?
Ugo Tutzman: In 1940, Sonja Leder, married name Fischer, came to visit her sister Hedda, with her daughter Isabella. Naturally they stayed in the Villa Nora. Isabella left with Julijana Vukas, Julijana Vukas died.
Printz: So you said.
Ugo Tutzman: But Isabella crossed onto the island of Korčula, then to Bari. Her mother, Sonja Fischer, née Leder, went back to her husband in Chemnitz. In Bari Isabella met her future husband, Felix Rosenzweig, co-owner of a chocolate factory in Austria.
Printz: Lucky. Felix means Lucky.
Ugo Tutzman: Isabella and Felix live in Salzburg.
Printz: Mozart kugeln are made in Salzburg.
Ugo Tutzman: Isabella’s husband dies at the end of the nineteen-seventies and she moves back over here.
Printz: Where over here?
Ugo Tutzman: Isabella finds Benjamin Vukas and in his name opens a photographic salon Bon-bon.
Printz: I don’t like bonbons. Especially not chocolates. They make me constipated. Except maybe the ones filled with cherries and cognac. They are good. Bonbons with marzipan are also good.
Ugo Tutzman: Eugen Vukas claims that Isabella Fischer, married name Rosenzweig, is the only one of her family to have survived the Holocaust. There are no more Leders or Fischers. In other words, this silverware could belong to her. Eugen Vukas is prepared to find Isabella Fischer although since his father Benjamin Vukas died, he has no news of Isabella Fischer.
Printz does not want to listen to Ugo Tutzman. He has more important business and Ugo Tutzman exhausts him. Printz sips the cold milk that Ugo Tutzman brings him, but the glass is small and greasy and that revolts Printz. That is why he drinks slowly. Who is Benjamin Vukas? Who is Eugen Vukas? What have they to do with his life? What is this Ugo Tutzman talking about? Printz no longer wants to listen to Jewish stories, when he hears Jewish stories, little animals come into his head. Then come out of his head. And gaze at him. Or crawl over him.
One louse creeps over the back of his neck. Printz puts his thumb and forefinger under his open collar, catches it, that louse, turns its body, soft, but still brittle as a grain of rice, turns it between his thumb and forefinger and then lets it drop. Does it want to live or die, wonders Printz. Cornelius a Lapide says that lice were created from human sweat, and not made by god on the sixth day with the other animals. The itching on his neck annoys Printz, irritates him. the life of his body, badly dressed, badly fed, a body eaten by lice, drives him to close his eyes and he, Printz, shuts his eyes in a sudden spasm of despair and in the darkness he sees the shiny brittle bodies of lice falling out of the air and twisting rapidly in their fall.
Printz wants to leave Ugo Tutzman’s warehouse. He wants to go. In Ugo Tutzman’s warehouse Printz loses his identity. He knows that he is called Printz Dvorsky and not Stephen Dedalus, he knows that, but still, he feels, he sees lice crawling over his body, emerging not just from his collar but out of his sleeves, th
e seams of his trousers, and Printz is afraid that they might reach his eyes, as happens when he is attacked by ants. Or worms.
I’m going, says Printz. I lose my identity here.
Eugen Vukas is very old, he’s eighty, says Ugo Tutzman. Before the war he helped his father Benjamin in Mr. Cohen’s photography studio. The studio was called Jacques. After the war, he had several different jobs but never worked as a photographer again. He worked in a public kitchen, in a leather company, in a sugar factory, he was a dealer in eggs and manager of a traveling circus.
This biography, this little biography, seems familiar to Printz. He does not want to listen anymore, absolutely not. That is why Prinz tells Ugo Tutzman: You’ve got your lives mixed up. That’s someone else’s life.
Maybe, says Ugo Tutzman and his eyes water. From glaucoma and dust and the dark and old age. They are soft tears, amorphous, like puddles, they are not pretty, clear and round. Ugo Tutzman’s tears are not the limpid tears produced by young eyes, they are the opaque tears of the old.
You have ugly tears, says Printz.
Ugo Tutzman says: They aren’t tears, they’re a reflex. Then he adds: Maybe none of us has his own life. Is your life unconditionally yours?
Sell my books and send the silver to that Isabella, says Printz and leaves Ugo Tutzman’s dark room. It is dark outside as well, but it is still spring. Outside there is springtime darkness. Some would say — a mild spring night.
I’ll come by to pick up my pension, says Printz to his brother Herzog.
It’ll be waiting for you in the mailbox, says Herzog to his brother Printz. Your pension will be waiting for you in the mailbox, Herzog says again so that there is no misunderstanding.
So he goes. Printz. He goes.
It is a lair, we know. There are lairs like this all over the world, they resemble each other. There are also quite a few lair-people, they are all over the place, it is nothing new, they resemble each other and their lives in their lairs are on the whole similar although