Houses

by Borislav Pekic

  Stefan’s first reaction was one of such complete surprise that he gave no answer to my offer, but only mulishly asked what had got into me all of a sudden, after two whole seasons had passed since the house had been built, especially since it was a well-known fact that I’d never had a high opinion of it, and that at one time I had actually called the house a monstrosity, an abomination which ought to be destroyed. Given all this, he said, he decidedly couldn’t grasp what I really wanted after having exhausted all those villainous, cannibalistic, and yes, even criminal means of driving him from his own house!

  “Anyway, I don’t know where you find the nerve to suggest something so vile, as if I didn’t exist, as if I were going to sit back and watch you hurl yourself at my property. And all this because of the obsessed principles of your somnambulist taste, in a town which, I hope, despite all the houses that you already possess, isn’t yet yours and never will be. I’ve been patient only for the sake of peace in the family. Until this meeting I kept receiving you into my house with esteem, even though I never had any particular liking for you—nor you for me, no doubt, that’s something we both agree on.”

  He insisted on seeing in my hysterical offer some ulterior motive, perhaps a roundabout way of pulling the house down, or of rebuilding it so radically that its architect wouldn’t recognize it. “What the hell was all that nonsense about the portal?” (In the heat of the discussion, I had mentioned the possibility of altering the entrance door, although I’d limited myself to that wretched piece of glass above the doorway.) “Why the devil do you have to bother with a door which I go in through? You don’t have to go through it except as a guest. You’re allowed through it as a stranger. No one makes you visit me. Never mind remodeling the door-way.” And with all this in mind, his answer to my whole jeremiad was a single, simple, definite, Serbian NO.

  “And as for your habit of talking about houses as if they were human beings, and usually women at that,” he added with mocking concern, “with that in mind, I advise you sincerely, as a cousin, to have your head examined!”

  Quite frankly, that he called me a madman didn’t in the slightest affect me; Stefan was the crazy one not to see the exceptional nature of his house, and that was why he didn’t deserve to possess her. What worried me more was his peasantlike stubbornness, for this excruciating conversation was repeated several times, but always with the same negative outcome. What’s more, since the day of my despondent confession, his indifference toward Niké was transformed into hatred which in time would reach drastic proportions, but which already could be recognized in his coarse behavior toward her, as toward an adulteress, and a house beneath the dignity of a Negovan. To make me suffer too, he had the magnificent dome painted a bright red, so that under the sharp, stinging rays of the sun it looked as if it were bleeding. Deep under its copper skin, it was in fact dishonored. And he threatened—through mutual acquaintances, for I myself had stopped visiting him—to treat the columns with equal brutality, and, in a word, if need be, to smear the whole house with shit, to make it repellent to “that crazy Arsénie!”

  However, his insolence didn’t deter me. As I was about to give up all hope for Niké, I heard that Stefan, in order to cover his dealings with the German aniline dye industry, had issued a large number of bills of exchange for vast sums which were just about to expire, and that he could neither extend nor cancel, since he had already extended them several times before, and all his funds were committed to the hilt in his gangsterish plans. I knew that I had him, and that he could no longer keep me from Niké. Through Golovan’s office I bought up his bills of exchange from all assignees willing to endorse them over to me. Even as he was devising plans to have them extended further, they were presented to him face downward so he could see both to whom they now belonged, and the answer to his misplaced hopes. At last Stefan surrendered, but not like a man, honestly and openly, as fitting between relatives and businessmen. Instead of simply selling me Niké at a moderate price, he decided upon an auction, and to that end sent me a letter which for its unparalleled effrontery I have kept to this day. Above an illegible, impatient, completely flattened signature, was written:

  “Your insanity has at last infected me. I’ve come to the conclusion, on the basis of facts which I can let you have—but you alone, of course, as I have no wish to be shut up in an asylum—that this house, which you call Niké, detests me. She has tried to kill me by dropping one of her supporting lintels on me. You have probably read about it in the newspapers.” (If this was not a shaft in my direction, then it must have been Stefan’s maniacal fancy. Niké was far too dignified to make use of so crude a means as a blow on the head with a blunt instrument; if it had occurred to her to commit murder, she would most probably have poisoned Stefan by emitting toxic vapor from her otherwise benign wall coatings.) “Consequently, our life together has become impossible. I am therefore making arrangements for a closed auction to be held at 7 P.M. on March 27, 1941. Although I’m in no way obliged to you—especially since it’s you who have come between us and brought us to this—be informed that I’ll sell the house with no regard for the market price, even if it’s below the construction cost. Stefan.”

  Clearly, the immediate danger posed by Niké was only the less serious half of his true reason for selling; as the owner of Y.B.C. (Yugoslav Barv Company), he was entering into important business agreements with I. G. Farben and was in need of credit and liquid funds. The idea of arranging for an auction had no other aim than to inflict harm on me, for he knew that no one could match my bid for Niké.

  All the same, when I received Stefan’s announcement of the auction, I couldn’t have cared less; now at last Niké was within my reach. All the rest—Stefan’s intention of harming me with this vulgar contest, his shameless letter, his unpatriotic collaboration with the German aniline dye industry—all this had to give way before the prospect that tomorrow Niké would be mine, and I hers. So with my heart brimming over, as they say, I set off for Kosmajska Street, carrying in my saffian notebook all the house’s vital statistics (her architectural carte d’identité), with the unchristian intention of revenging myself on Stefan for his disloyalty toward both me and Niké. Couldn’t that deceitful horse trader have telephoned me and chivalrously saved Niké from the humiliation of being fingered all over by the dirty hands of the house buyers—for all the world like some African odalisque at the slave market? And couldn’t he have saved me from the even worse humiliation of being present as a helpless onlooker, since, according to custom, such sales had to be preceded by an exhaustive viewing of the article put up for auction? I would revenge myself upon him, therefore, by laying bare certain features of the house of which even her original architects were unaware, and which of course wouldn’t be noted on my cousin’s auction inventory.

  But between me and Niké, alas, stood that inopportune mob.

  •

  And what did you feel when you first saw the mob, Arsénie?

  Fear.

  Fear of what? Of the mob, of the masses?

  Only partially. To tell the truth, it wasn’t fear but rather anxiety that I might be late for the auction. I couldn’t count on their waiting for me, or on Stefan’s postponing the sale until my arrival!

  But why then did he ask you at all? Couldn’t he have sold Niké without you? If he wanted to humiliate you, wouldn’t he have excluded you from the contest by selling the house to someone else?

  I believe it was a question of loyalty. We didn’t like but simply tolerated each other. Nor did that mutual tolerance at any specific level of danger attain a selfless clan solidarity. In exceptional instances that included even legal matters; nevertheless, there were accepted limits which only outcasts such as George’s son Fedor ignored. Because of this passive loyalty, I hadn’t gone all out earlier to force a decision through the Town Hall to get the house pulled down.

  But putting the squeeze on bills of exchange was permissible? To drive him into a financial dead end like a dog—that you
could do?

  That was business. Nobody stopped him from paying them off!

  So you believe, then, that you didn’t hate the mob taking part in that procession?

  Perhaps I did hate them, but only in the sense of their being an obstacle in my path, just as I would have been frustrated by a moat or a fortified wall. I had to be at Stefan’s at a definite time!

  So from the beginning it was only the will to break through the barrier which urged you on?

  At first it seemed impossible to get through—those creatures were stuck together thick as dough. I reckoned that with luck and a good deal of effort—I was really in good physical condition then—I would need at least two hundred meters of street length to get across by working my way diagonally to the opposite pavement; that meant coming right up against the cordon of police who were closing off Pop-Lukina Street from the Sava side.

  But wouldn’t that have been the answer? The police would have let you through: you were a well-known figure, Vice-President of the Chamber of Commerce, the spokesman of our Trade Association. But most of all you were a Negovan, a name which had figured in every cabinet since Unification. They would surely have let you through and given you an armed escort.

  There wasn’t any time for explanations.

  Is that why you tried to work your way around the procession?

  Yes.

  But you weren’t successful?

  No.

  So you went back to the corner of Pop-Lukina and Zadar Streets. What next?

  Next? Well, I stepped into the crowd, intending to get across the street.

  Into that mob? Surrounded by frenzied people?

  What is the point of these superfluous and unseemly details?

  Are we carrying out an inquiry or not? Haven’t we decided to discover what kept us locked up there in Kosančićev Venac for so many years with that ivy-framed window facing west? With all those binoculars which could bring the world, defined by the parapet and the oak window frame, so near to us? With Katarina and her sobriety worthy of respect? With the property owner’s map—that work of St. J. Sušić from which the pinheads burgeoned like yellow pollen and sky-blue fruit, alongside the registers and leather folders with the carefully folded cartes d’identité of our houses? With the sided 30 × 30 photographic enlargements and several portraits in oils of the most outstanding of them? How can we find out the truth, if we conceal everything that was unpleasant or humiliating?

  Perhaps after this pilgrimage you won’t go back like a disappointed fugitive to Kosančićev Venac and your imprisoning attic. Perhaps you will again conduct your business affairs without an intermediary. Simonida would not be in despair at the threat of pickax and crowbar if you hadn’t retreated—deserted, so to speak. And weren’t you not an hour ago sitting by the west window holding the Mayer to your tired eyes, dreaming of how you would extend your ownership to the other side of the Sava—if you took a liking to it, of course—when you had looked at it from close up?

  At the very beginning, after I had cast myself into the mob, nothing particular happened. I stood there, at the spot where the ragged line of the asphalt joins the macadam, while in front of me pressed the galvanized throng. I could hear it breathing like an antediluvian monster flopping over a marsh on its belly, across its tertiary homeland. Most of the placards had been carried past. Now, above the tumult, the demonstrators turned their white, ragged backs toward me; the red banner was bleeding down there like a wound, a purple slash on the clear stone of Brankova Street. I still hesitated, though I knew I’d have to make up my mind quickly. Then suddenly I was sucked into the mass. A dozen or so demonstrators had been forced out by the pressure of the oncoming waves, and had swirled into Zadarska Street, like a crackling stream forced out of some giant tube, and when this group had hurled themselves back, they carried me along with them.

  And you—did you hold back, did you resist?

  Resist? Why should I have resisted? I wanted to get across.

  That way?

  Why not? I can’t honestly say that I was altogether passive in giving way to the pressure which was carrying me toward the center. Somehow, I held myself up. Instinctively I must have pushed with my back, on which I felt more weight with each linked step. I let my legs drag along the ground like two crooked black brakes, while my hands in their light-blue suede gloves pushed against someone in an overcoat of rough cloth from which one epaulet had been torn, its ribbon with a brass button dangling like a piece of torn yellow skin stuck on with a yellow Band-Aid. He was not in fact a soldier; inside the ragged collar I could see the bluish-white folds of a scarf, like a bandage flecked with dark blue iodine, and a web of gray, greasy hair with a cap pulled down over it. While I was being crushed like grain by these two millstones—the invisible body from behind and that foul-smelling one in front—at that fraction of a second which divided me from the rushing torrent of the procession (with greater presence of mind, a single bold step to one side might have saved me), I felt panic swift as a shot, powerful as a heart seizure, and so unbearable in its sudden acceleration that I began to scream for help.

  Doesn’t it seem improbable that the imperturbable Arsénie Negovan should have given way to panic simply because he got caught up in a riot, which even so was no more unbearable than the rush hour on the Paris Métro?

  In that crisis, no jovial comparisons with Paris came to mind. The thing I was absolutely certain of was that I was screaming for help as if someone were about to cut my throat. The sounds that came from my throat weren’t words. Probably that’s why I can’t remember them. We were all behaving like wild animals.

  The Honorary Vice-President of the Chamber of Commerce, a Negovan, behaving like one of a pack of wolves!

  At Solovkino Station, in 1919 . . .

  Unconventional behavior, to say the least.

  And then my hat fell off.

  How did that happen?

  Those hooligans knocked it off my head. For a few seconds it bounced against my shoulders like a frightened gray bird against a wall (a rather stiff Borsalino with a curled brim, and a wide black band around its crown)—bounced like a gray bird with black feathers around its throat, then disappeared.

  A hat! They’re trampling you underfoot like so much dog shit, and you’re carrying on about your hat!

  A gray Borsalino with a stiff crown, a deep fold at its crown, an upturned brim, and a black silk band around it. Constantine gave it to me for my birthday.

  Anyway, the people, caught up in a national dance, accepted you as one of them: you were striking out with your fists just as they were, and you were shouting just as they were. Deceived by your eagerness for battle, they grabbed you under the arms and took you along with the main stream?

  Carried.

  All right, carried—carried you off like a sack from the market, carried you off like a cripple, like a helpless paralytic.

  True. At that moment I was a kind of paralytic. And not just in the physical sense. Everything had happened so quickly. It was all so incompatible with my tranquil, cork-paneled, lavender-sprinkled study where, behind the cotton curtains which tempered the harsh March daylight, I had leafed through my saffian notebook, glancing at Niké’s carte d’identité for the last time before the auction. So incompatible with the Regency drawing room where I had said good-by to Katarina and her guests for afternoon tea. God, how sincere I had been, how approachable, even exhilarated, if such expressions weren’t out of character with my normal habit: “They say it’s us they’re auctioning.” “It’s my Niké they’re selling, madame, but we’re up for auction too.” “They say that the only thing we have is the Army.” “I don’t know, madame, I’m not a recruiting officer.” “They say that if there’s a war, we’ll be in Vienna in three days.” “Perhaps, madame, but with our hands tied behind our backs.” “My husband says that the English will land.” “Well, madame, the English are always landing somewhere.” “He says that it’s not a Putsch but a national revolution.” “It’s
an officers’ game, madame.” “What does General Negovan say about it?” “Madame, General Negovan is a complete idiot!”

  Yes, it was incompatible with that entrenched world between the fortress walls of No. 17 Kosančićev Venac, where everything from the furniture to the people, their thoughts and feelings, their actions and conversations moved, glided noiselessly, like railway cars over permanent, well-oiled rails laid down long ago.

  But here in the street everything was unnatural, so that from the beginning I was unaware of what was happening to me and to my attention—if one can term “attention” that blind absorption with extraneous details of the situation: details such as my hat with the fold down the middle of its gray crown, its stiff, upturned brim, and its five centimeters of black silk band; or the semitransparent back of the placard carried in front of me, on which, since I could only read the inscription from behind, I persistently and foolishly scanned the same words: “retteB raw naht eht tcaP, retteb eht evarg naht eb a evals.” My attention was disoriented, not fixed; it seized on every detail that rushed into my nightmarish field of vision, yet I could make no sober assessment of the situation. Furthermore, I had forgotten why I was there, what I was looking for, and why I was tumbling down the street like a stone.