“I can’t see what’s written on their placards,” I said.
The colonel handed me a pair of bulky binoculars with a black metal casing. “Here, use mine.”
“They look powerful.”
“Artillery binoculars. None stronger.”
“Thank you. But then they’ll be too close.”
The colonel looked at me askance. “They will be, very soon.”
The man behind me, against whom I was pressed, spat noisily. I could feel his breath on my neck.
The colonel was right. Soon, even my binoculars couldn’t keep them back. Now the pictures that they were carrying on poles could be seen with the naked eye. One was Lenin. I didn’t recognize the others, but they surely belonged to the same coterie. Scrawled across one of the placards in red was: FREEDOM, TRUTH, JUSTICE! DOWN WITH CORRUPTION! (I had no quarrel with that, though I would have added, “and banking.”) NO MORE UNEMPLOYMENT. I HAVE BEEN BEATEN UP. (I was, too, I thought, looking at the young man with the bandaged head who was carrying the placard.) THE REVOLUTION IS NOT YET FINISHED! (It needs to start first, you son of a bitch. But it looks as if it has started already.) DOWN WITH THE RED BOURGEOISIE!
Yes, take good note of that, Isidor: down with the red bourgeoisie! They probably meant bloody, but they said red. For them the bourgeoisie was bloody. For them Arsénie Negovan was bloody! Arsénie, whose forebears had built this ungrateful town with their sweat and skill. Arsénie, who let people off from their rent, and whose building workers were the best paid in the country—that same Arsénie was bloody, and ought to be dragged out of his house and clubbed to death in a ditch like a dog!
All at once I was conscious of something which in my excitement I hadn’t noticed: I was standing on a wooden tie between two rails just as I had at Solovkino, where beneath me the track had lain glistening in the rain. There had been firing in the town from all directions, but I can’t remember whether the Reds were entering and the Whites fleeing, or the Whites entering and the Reds fleeing. I only remember a small shunting engine that rumbled slowly toward me, on whose engineer’s platform was fixed a pole where five men were hanging from a single wire noose. Because of the unbalanced load, the engine was tilting to one side, and it rocked like a boat sliding down the ways to the water. It clattered on past me so quickly that I had no time to read the sign hanging around the necks of the dead men. It went on around the gentle bend behind the railway station and, picking up speed, disappeared into the gray steppes of the Ukraine.
The rioters stood opposite the cordon of soldiers, singing. I’m not sure that I can remember the words exactly, but they went something like this:
Awake the East and the West,
Awake the North and the South,
Steps thunder into the onslaught,
Forward, comrades, shoulder to shoulder!”
But still they hadn’t attacked; the lines simply rippled as if the force of the rear ranks, who could see nothing, carried forward into those in front with a violence that didn’t abate despite the sharp warnings from the soldiers.
“I wouldn’t even talk to them,” said the colonel, taking the binoculars from his eyes. “If they’d let me, I’d teach them a lesson!”
The man behind me spat again. “What would you do then?” he asked.
“I’d go straight at them—what else? Attack both sides. I’d surround the column and smash them before they knew what was happening!”
“It’s easy to attack,” said the man behind us. “Why not meet their demands?”
I had to intervene. “In heaven’s name, sir, de quoi parlezvous? Can’t you see what they’re demanding? They want our property!”
“Only property unjustly accumulated,” said the man dryly.
“The only property unjustly accumulated is what belongs to the banks!” This was my own ground, on which I acknowledged no superior. “I’ve always maintained that those damned Yiddisher banks would be the end of us! On no account should they be allowed to make a middleman’s profit. Yes, by the law of the land, those industrious people who’ve been bearing the whole weight of social progress for centuries . . .”
“I wouldn’t even talk to them!” repeated the colonel. “They’ve been given freedom, and now all kinds of scum are wandering about the country!”
“. . . before the most illustrious gathering of the C.S.S., but to be honest with you, they didn’t listen to me then, nor do these people now.”
“Hirelings, that’s what they are,” said the colonel bitterly.
“Of Moscow,” I added.
“Not just of Moscow. All sorts.”
The man behind us spat again.
“Why are you spitting all the time?” asked the colonel. “Are you on their side?”
“I’m not on anyone’s side. If all were well they wouldn’t be worked up, that’s what I’m saying. I spat because I feel like spitting.”
“Well next time you feel like spitting, just read that.” The colonel pointed his finger at the placard: DOWN WITH THE RED BOURGEOISIE. “Who’s the ‘red bourgeoisie?’ Me, do you think, because I own a house?”
“You own a house?” I was sincerely pleased.
“Over there, to the left,” he said. “That yellow two-storied house. A beautiful house, don’t you think?”
I took the binoculars and directed them toward the house he indicated. The building was revolting from every point of view—squat, with harsh colors that reminded one of an Oriental eunuch. But it was his, and judging by the pride with which he spoke, very close to his heart. It was a primitive stage of the feeling of ownership.
“A fine house, colonel,” I said, putting the binoculars down. I felt almost ill just looking at it. “C’est une vraie perle!”
“Those hooligans have almost destroyed it! Smashed the windows with rocks—not a single one left! They opened the hydrants and turned them on the police! And after that you expect us to talk to them? If it was up to me, I’d get rid of them all.”
“That’s a political error,” said the man behind us.
“It’s an urbanist error, gentlemen!” I shouted. “C’est une faute urbanistique! The workers’ suburbs have been located in an encircling belt which grips the commercial heart of the city like a vise. This has concentrated the proletariat in breeding grounds of revolt and destruction. Why, gentlemen, didn’t they place those people in closed-off Soleri cones?”
“What’s all that crap about?” said the colonel.
“I’m speaking of Paolo Soleri, who designed a town like a beehive, or rather a conical anthill with internal passageways. All its exits can be easily controlled, and production carried on without any fear of revolutionary ideas or attitudes. In a word, a real town for workers. Si l’on avait appliqué les plans de Solerie, cela ne nous serait pas arrivé, je vous le garantis, messieurs!”
Suddenly the crowd below the embankment became agitated and began to sing:
Arise, you prisoners of starvation,
Arise you wretched of the earth.
It was my last chance to leave. I had to think quietly. Although I knew what conclusions I would reach, I had no idea that afterward it would induce me to write my will, and to make the decision that I’m now carrying out. One thing, however, was beyond all doubt: Arsénie Negovan’s city of thirty thousand inhabitants would not be built, nor would any of his houses ever again feel the hand of a true property owner.
The man behind joined in the chorus:
’Tis the final conflict, let each stand in his place,
The Internationale shall be the human race.
“What in God’s name are you singing about?” Despite the cramped space on the tracks, the colonel managed to turn around; from the side, his profile stood out like a worn ancient coin. “Well?”
“Why shouldn’t I sing the Internationale? I’m a Communist.”
“I’m a Communist, too, but I’m not singing—not with that rabble. I fought for this country, comrade!”
“I fought too, comr
ade!”
“For what?”
“That’s just what I’m asking myself!”
I couldn’t understand a word of it. They sounded as if they’d taken leave of their senses.
“Gentlemen, get a hold of yourselves!”
But they’d already come to blows. They were grappling with each other as violently as the cramped space allowed, and in doing so pushed me right up to the edge of the embankment, above the sandy field where at that very moment the military cordon was under growing pressure from the frenzied mob.
I cried out once again: “Mais s’il vous plaît, messieurs!”
(Whenever I was excited or in a difficult situation, I always resorted to French, probably because I went to school in Grenoble and first began to think maturely in that language.)
But already I was falling off the embankment. I have no proof that the two of them intentionally pushed me (although I wouldn’t vouch for the man sympathetic to the rioters), but they didn’t hold me back either. And so, still clutching my stick and my binocular case, I rolled down toward the ditch, and surely couldn’t have stopped myself at the foot of the embankment had I not been taken back into the terrible past and imagined that I was falling from the mob’s shoulders in Pop-Lukina Street after my talk about banks and bankers. As it was, I understood that if I didn’t manage to stop myself I’d once again be trampled underfoot, and this time—considering my advanced years and health—without any hope of recovery. And so, thanks to my earlier experience, I arrested my fall without great bodily harm; my stick and binocular case were still firmly in my grip, nor were my pince-nez broken. But my hat was no longer there: it had fallen off and rolled right down into that rioting mob. Having a wide, stiff Boer brim, it rolled easily. I followed it with my eyes for some time, for it was black as pitch and its width made it clearly visible. And its quality, of course. Miraculously, no one had yet trampled it: the rioters’ heels just pushed it away, and like some lame black bird it continued to bounce elastically over the sand.
I was proud of it.
I followed it until at last it stopped under an enormous heel, crushed. Bitterly I raised my eyes: it was the red standard-bearer. He still held the red flag aloft, even though he was being beaten. The soldiers had formed a circle around him and were hitting him with their batons, but the great ox wouldn’t let go of the flag. He was brandishing it like a club and fending off the soldiers. All around, as George would have said, they were fighting “hand to hand.” I couldn’t discern any enthusiasm among the soldiers. They were shouting “Charge!” and “Kill!” but they weren’t shooting or using their bayonets.
Crouching there in the ditch, it seemed to me that this wouldn’t stop the mob. I’m not disputing that the soldiers were hitting them in the back, grinding their boots into their stomachs, trampling them down unmercifully. I couldn’t see everything that was going on in the field because bodies continually blocked my view, and anyway I had no stomach for violence. The standard-bearer hadn’t fallen yet. He was bloodied but still on his feet, waving his flag like a battle-ax. Hammering at him from close quarters, the soldiers were trying to force him into the ditch, where the cramped space wouldn’t allow him to defend himself. They were pushing him toward me and hitting him all over his body, which jerked convulsively but wouldn’t give in.
“A la tête, frappez-le sur la tête! Hit him on the head!”
Let me elaborate the reasons for my unseemly involvement dans une bagarre. Though the riot was of direct concern to me, since on its outcome depended the safety of my possessions and my personal status, it was unlike me to become involved. Without question, angered by the soldiers’ incapacity to deal with the hooligan carrying the red flag—and all the more, since it was he who had trampled my hat—I shouted loudly: “On the head! Hit him on the head!” Of course they didn’t hear me over the screams and cries of battle. But I have no reason to hide it: I urged our soldiers on. But my encouragement was devoid of passion: a business commitment, so to speak, rather than participation from sheer enjoyment. I did not throw rocks. The soldiers and rioters were throwing rocks at one another—I actually saw that. Completely forgetting myself, I had recourse to what were in fact only ordinary pebbles, no bigger than a child’s fist. Anyone who has ever been on this embankment knows that there are no large rocks there, only a few round pebbles. And I threw them only at the man who was holding the red flag.
It seemed, however, that new and more decisive orders had been given, or that the soldiers roused themselves of their own accord, for they charged into the mob with savage and heroic force that would have pleased even my brother George. The attackers wavered, yielded ground, and then, pursued by the soldiers, took to panic-stricken flight across the field, where only the injured and unconscious remained and among them my trampled hat.
With a certain effort I got up off the ground and went to pick it up. Perhaps I should have gotten away from there as quickly as possible, instead of wandering around after this very ordinary hat. But it was a question of principle: That hat was mine; it belonged to me by inalienable right of ownership. One might say that all revolutions began with hats, with the destruction of the outward signs of dignity.
I had to get it back and put it where it belonged.
“Well, pop, do you want a bash over the head, too?” The soldier blocking my path was pressing a blood-soaked handkerchief to his cheek. “Is that what you’re looking for?”
“The man whom you intend to strike,” I said with dignity, “—only intend, since whether you’ll do it or not remains to be seen—has reached the age of seventy-seven. Sir, with due deference to your situation, I inform you with pride that I am Arsénie K. Negovan, property owner of Kosančićev Venac, Who is only looking for his hat. There it is! Over there! Here are my papers. Voilà.”
Unfortunately, I didn’t have time to show them. The mob was swarming back again, pushing the soldiers against the embankment. I found myself at the very center of the fray. But I didn’t care: in such circumstances the best thing to do is not to submit to events but be oneself. So I continued to search for my hat, which unfortunately lay once again under the mass of infuriated feet. At that wretched and brutal moment it was the sole guaranty of Arsénie Negovan’s dignity.
A young man was lying crumpled on a torn sack of cement. Judging by his appearance, he was seriously injured, but since his eyes were open I assumed he was still conscious. I went up to him and asked if by chance he had seen a rather large hat, un chapeau de Boers?
He didn’t answer, as if he hadn’t heard me. Indeed, there was so much noise that any normal conversation was impossible. I described the hat with my hands.
“Black—large—a Boer hat?”
I don’t know how long I wandered about. Probably I went around and around the same spot repeatedly. I did receive a number of blows. At one moment I stumbled and was pushed. What then followed was as incoherent and absurd as a nightmare. Did I really kill that Bolshevik flag-bearer, beat him to death with my stick with the silver greyhound’s head on the handle? Judging by the strip of red cloth that afterward I found in my hand—it’s right here on my desk in front of me—I would say that I certainly came in contact with him. But that still doesn’t mean that I attacked him because he refused to help me find my hat. When I asked him about my hat, did he provoke me by his foolish flag-waving while there on his knees (for he’d already been brought to his knees)? Did he so frighten and confuse me that I raised my stick in self-defense and felled him with a blow to the back of the head? Did all that happen near the underpass or was it much, much earlier—way back in 1919 when that man, or at least a man very much like him, seized the merchant Mr. K. S. Pamyatin by the hair and dragged him out of his house, where I’d been hiding during the worst of the pogrom? Did it happen when he herded us all—me and Mr. K. S. Pamyatin and his friends in fur coats, cloaks, and capes—into the ditch in front of the house, and raised his club to strike me, but I wrenched the club away from him, knocked him down in
the mire, and kept hitting him and hitting him and hitting him?
Whatever actually happened, I must be prepared for all eventualities, and so:
•
Article 8. As an exceptional legacy, with no possibility of modification, I determine that, should an untidily dressed, dark-haired, thickset man with a reddish birthmark on his left cheek make application to the executors of my will, and show undeniable proof that on June 3, 1968, around noon or shortly after, he was at the underpass of the Zemun embankment with a red flag, then to that man, if he be so injured as to be unfit for work, financial compensation shall be paid, the sum of which is to be decided by my lawyer Mr. Golovan and my nephew, the engineer-architect Isidor J. Negovan. If by chance the said person is no longer living, but all the above conditions can be satisfied, then the compensation shall be transferred to his heirs in direct line of succession.
•
I was sitting on the seven steps which led down to the quayside, sitting on my handkerchief which I had spread out on the third step down, and resting my feet on the fifth; but I couldn’t have said how I had got there. That wasn’t important; though after all that had happened, many things were no longer important. Even the steps weren’t as I had imagined: seen through binoculars from Kosančićev Venac, they had glistened out of the clump of graying ivylike shiny purple sealing wax; but only now could I touch their rough gray crust. It was somewhat blurred before my eyes. Everything around me, particularly things near to me, were somehow vague and blurred, because my pince-nez had been lost. My stick was there, however, resting between my legs, and the binoculars were in my pocket.
I couldn’t yet feel the effects of my participation in the incident at the underpass; I certainly had bruises on my body, but they weren’t giving me as much pain as now. All I really felt was fatigue, as if I’d had a heart attack. Indeed, I had been fortunate, for the circumstances of my tour might well have provoked such an attack.
But what had really happened?
Houses Page 19