Houses

by Borislav Pekic

  “When family homes in Paris, Vienna, and Budapest were adorned with gold, silver, silk, brocade, and elegant wood, what was there in our backward country? Here, we property owners were obliged to create everything! Property owners, ladies and gentlemen, among whom the late Constantine occupied a preeminent—”

  “—role of victim of your greed!” cried Fedor Negovan, at which point events began to get out of hand.

  “What does that mean?” I shouted.

  “It means that I’ve got something to say about it, too!” And the impudent scoundrel shouldered me away from the rostrum.

  “I demand that the order of this ceremony be adhered to!”

  “And I demand,” yelled Fedor at the rostrum, “that this man here”—he pointed at me—“tell us if it’s true that at the time of the accident Constantine Negovan was ill! And if it’s true that he visited the site where Constantine was building a house for him, and was dissatisfied with the progress of the work. And if it’s true that—”

  “Gentlemen! Ushers!” I shouted, as I and others tried to get the troublemaker away from the rostrum.

  “Is it true, I ask this man, that he went straight from the site to Constantine’s house and accused him of negligence, so that a violent quarrel broke out and Constantine, pressured by him, rushed off in a high fever to the building site and passed out on the scaffolding!”

  I cried out that this was calumny, that the accident occurred because the scaffolding hadn’t been erected according to regulations. But Fedor, now struggling with the grave-diggers, went on asserting that Constantine had passed out because of anxiety due to my malicious attack on him. In the general pushing and jostling, one of us stumbled and jarred the coffin from its low bier. As it slithered down the mound with a rumble, its lid fell off—why it wasn’t nailed down was never established—and Constantine’s swollen body sprang out of its violet satin-padded resting place like a jack-in-the-box, covered to the waist in its shroud. It was as if, by stretching out his black-gloved fist, he wanted one last time to touch the earth with which he had worked so long, before being committed to it forever.

  And now for the explanation due Isidor. It was true that, indignant at the chaotic state of Efimia’s building site, I went to see Constantine, and that I upbraided him and a quarrel broke out. But it’s a base lie that Constantine was seriously ill. He was in bed, perhaps with a temperature, but it was only an attack of the flu. Certainly he seemed basically healthy to me, enough at least to visit the site nearby. “Somehow I haven’t felt my best,” he said, and I asked him, “Shall I get someone else?” “No,” he said, “I’ll soon be better.” I answered caustically, “I can’t wait till you get better—I haven’t the time or the money!” Had I realized how ill he was, of course I would have been more considerate, though I do think I would still have taken him to task. I would have rebuked a dying man, had the fate of my houses depended on him! And then the scaffolding—why hide it?—was in perfect order. According to the commission’s findings, all its bolts were in place, all its points were solid. Yes, the scaffolding was in perfect order.

  •

  Constantine is dead. My son also: perhaps because what I wanted wasn’t a son but an heir. Ownership is maintained by inheritance. If you have no future you can have no past either. Katarina wanted a child—how she wanted one!—but I myself, because of my obligations toward my houses, could think only of an heir. Haven’t I said that I won’t write about that?

  And is there any purpose in writing at all, any sense in speaking out? Do words have any purpose if nothing more can be done for my houses? Quite recently—for how long I can’t say, but that recently is measured in hours—an unusual dejection has come over me, an indifference, an apathy. Ostensibly, as a businessman with a sense of reality, I evolved it from the conviction of an inevitable upheaval; but it could be that my mental paralysis has no connection with that at all, but originated of its own accord on the backs of the accounts and receipts, among the words concerned with my past. In ignorance of its causes, there can be no treatment. At first I suspected that my discontent—for that is what it is—had arisen from the fact that my assets couldn’t bear serious comparisons with the magnificent palaces, mansions, and castles that I had seen in my travels through Europe. But I was consoled by the fact that size, or rather volume, was never a crucial factor in building; some miniature Chinese pagodas are more beautiful than ill-proportioned emperors’ palaces. As everybody knows, a dwarf has all the attributes of a normal full-grown man. As for a soul, all my houses possessed a soul; on this count my mind is at rest.

  But did I have a soul?

  Without the slightest equivocation I can declare that I loved my houses more faithfully than any houseowner; that my devotion didn’t lapse even when they brought me no revenue; that I didn’t have an official relationship with my possessions, but a spiritual one of the purest kind; and that I sacrificed for them all that time which others would have squandered on social life and for their own enjoyment. And what was that if not a soul—a soul in action?

  No, the sources of my discontent have to be sought elsewhere. They are certainly to be found here somewhere, perhaps close by me; I can feel them like an elusive word on the tip of the tongue.

  It has long been dark; bent over my manuscript, I can see a pitch-black, empty sky in which the transparent reflections of the street lamps shine, and maybe even those of fires. Perhaps Belgrade is already alight. Now the fires are burning only in the suburbs, but at dawn they’ll reach the roofs of Senjak, Topčidersko Brdo, and finally our Kosančićev Venac. I have no idea what time it is. My watch has stopped. It no longer seems important to know the time. Nothing seems important anymore.

  Morning must be a long way off. I don’t feel cold yet. When I start feeling cold I’ll know it’s getting light. From down below on the river comes the wail of a steamer’s siren. Probably they’re bringing in reinforcements from the provincial garrisons: the Bolsheviks have barricaded the roads, so troops are being transported by water. But what sort of troops are they? Probably peasant riffraff, ready and willing turncoats! It was wrong to allow the workers’ suburbs to encircle the city; our cities are made for civil war and for massacres: the business center with its shops and offices, then a defensive ring of urban residents, and then the workers’ districts. The latter are encircled in turn by upper-class villas, beyond which lurk the peasants. Everyone lives behind everyone else in concentric rings: rows of the rich alternate with rows of paupers as far as the eye can see. So is it really surprising that instead of houses they put up barricades? Who knows if they’ve already occupied the radio station?

  The printing presses may be in their hands already; they’ll be issuing proclamations by tomorrow. And then the creaking of wheels in the distance, and the locomotive, that moving scaffold of the steppe snaking back and forth with its dead load, and its bell on the top of a squat pole, ringing, ringing.

  But nothing can be heard from the street; probably my hearing isn’t good enough, or the fighting is still some way off. But if they’re fighting around the barracks at Topčider, my Sophia is there; they must be encrusting her with bullets. That doesn’t matter, I can claim damages. If only they don’t set her on fire. If they’re up there on the hill, they’ll never reach Kosančićev Venac by dawn. Kosančićev Venac has no strategic significance. They’ll take it when the expropriation starts, when they come to drag us from our beds and batter us to death in the ditches. It’s a good thing Katarina’s not here. They wouldn’t touch her, but she’d be humiliated, and she’d have to watch; and if she tried to defend me, she’d suffer my fate, too. Poor Katarina, your life with me can’t have been easy. I don’t know of a single woman for whom things worked out well with the Negovans. It’s been especially hard for you since I retired, when you had to take on my business affairs and work with the houses you hated. And before that, when we lost our son, little Isidor.

  I’ve pulled down the blinds. I won’t raise them again. I’ve n
o reason to look out the window. From now on my attention must be directed toward the door. Toward the door and this will. I have only Emilian’s legacy to make. I have no idea what to leave him. What can you leave to someone who will share your fate? Things are very black for the clergy, particularly high church dignitaries. And for possessors. And for army officers. If George were alive, they would certainly have killed him, but he died in good time. And if he were alive, he would have stayed at home up there on Lamartine Street. Mlle. Foucault would have gone on knitting in the armchair, while son bien aimé et courageux général pored intently over the map of Belgrade, spread out on the dining table and held down at all four corners with coffee cups and little plates with biscuits on them—there might even have been some cognac in one of those cups. With the help of little poles, he would have moved government forces with irreproachable tactics, and finally won a textbook victory over the rebels at the very moment when, smashing down the double-paneled doors, they’d break into his staff headquarters. Lead soldiers and officers, little flags made of prewar toilet paper, clockwork tanks, cardboard fortifications, storm troops of tinfoil-models, nothing but models! Mlle. Foucault was only a model too. And for George I, his own brother, was a comical, old-fashioned, worn-out model which (together with my houses) could be ignored in his exemplary military operations. Houses could be razed to the ground and we could be taken as hostages, or we could be dragooned into digging trenches if we were unfortunate enough to be his compatriots. For George, I was a model made of expendable material which he threw into the wastepaper basket once its uselessness annoyed him. Or was it the other way around? I had consigned him to the wastepaper basket. Who can tell after all these years?

  I remember when he came to talk about the house on Lamartine Street. Mon général was in the full dress uniform of a brigadier general, with a yellow sash across his chest. In 1943—in a cab, it’s true—but in 1943! It would have been better if he’d worn his decorations at the right time—he died at the front door of the house in Lamartine Street, in slippers and a dressing gown with hussar’s tassels that Mile. Foucault had plaited for him from curtain fringes. Poor George, he’d always insisted on preserving his martial appearance, and since it wasn’t given to him to immortalize himself by operations that might have borne his name—the Negovan bridge-head or George’s flank attack—he was forced to pay attention to the personal impression he created. I’m not suggesting he was incompetent—all those mighty military schools in France couldn’t have given poor results. All I’m saying is that George had no luck. In 1914 he was the first Serbian soldier to be captured by the Austrians. And when the Germans attacked in 1941, George was again taken prisoner—this time, the third Serb captured. So much expense and effort, simply to slip from first to third place!

  We had inherited the house on Lamartine Street from our father; the whole house was in fact bequeathed to George, but for half of it I had exchanged a much more valuable property. After his return from captivity, however, George announced that he wouldn’t share the expenses of her upkeep. So I offered to buy my brother’s share from him, with the proviso that his tenancy would be rent-free for life. To my dismay, George declared that an officer of his rank couldn’t be a tenant. I pointed out that volens-nolens he already was, since he used that half of the house which belonged to me. He retorted angrily that only on condition that he pay no rent would he cede me his half of the house in exchange for—as he put it—that piece of wasteland at Mačva. I once again became angry: I could be accused of many defects, but never of money-grubbing! Most of all, I said, I would no longer tolerate his brazen refusal to take care of the house.

  “We’ll go to court, if need be!”

  “You can forget about that tout de suite!” The sash across his chest shone out in the half-dark room. “I’m standing in your line of fire, Arsénie!” (He was fond of juicy barrack-room expressions.) “And I warn you that I won’t spend a penny on the house, especially in the middle of a war!”

  “But she has to live, even in wartime!”

  “You’ve no room in your head for anything but houses!”

  “They deserve more consideration than some people!”

  “Don’t you realize they can all suddenly go up in smoke? They and all the rest of us!”

  “Tu es fou? Don’t you dare say such a thing!”

  “Brother mine, not a single one will be left standing when the real war starts! We’ll destroy everything with barrages or air raids! Everything! Bridges, factories, railways, towns. Everything will be blown sky high!”

  “You’re a madman!”

  “This house will be destroyed, too! Into dust and ashes. All your goddamn houses!”

  If Katarina hadn’t intervened, I’d have assaulted him.

  He was at the front door when I ran to the head of the stairs and shouted down that he was just a harmless lunatic—a lead soldier!

  “Tu es un soldat de plomb! De plomb—that’s what you are!”

  After that, he never entered my house again, nor did I ever again visit that half of the house in Lamartine Street which belonged to me. The very idea—my houses destroyed! My Sophia, Eugénie, Christina, Emilia, Katarina, Natalia, all razed to the ground; my Barbara, Anastasia, Juliana, Angelina demolished; my Theodora and my Simonida reduced to rubble. Really, the very idea!

  From where I’m writing, each of them comes within my range of vision: in the glass case to the left of the property owner’s map—on the right is the bureau with their files—are kept their faithful models. Perfect facsimiles to scales from 1:50 to 1:100, made with different model techniques and materials. Simonida, for example, is made entirely of ivory, whereas Theodora is sculptured from Rumanian amber which imitates her warm greenish-yellow color and noble bearing. It doesn’t follow, however, that all the models are expensive copies. Emilia, for example, is molded out of plaster with fine glass shells in the window openings, whereas Christina is built of blond maple with cork floors. For the larger flat surfaces of Juliana, teak is used; and for the pilasters and ornamentation in general, because it’s so easily worked, mahogany. Juliana’s windows are of celluloid. Tiny sheets of celluloid cover Katarina’s windows also, but her walls are made of ash, and the impression of her woodwork is conjured up by light-brown oak.

  I feel some discomfort in my rib cage, something like a slight muscular spasm. Probably I’ve been sitting in the same position for too long and the edge of the desk has been pressing against my chest. If it doesn’t stop soon, I’ll have to take my pills. They must be on the shelf, Mlle. Foucault set them out before she left. Really I ought to take them at once, but those drugs make me sleepy, and I don’t dare sleep. It’s stuffy in here. I was wrong to shut the blinds before morning. Perhaps it’s already light. Perhaps I was wrong. What was it that Isidor said? He’d been concerned only with himself, not with architecture. But my concern hadn’t been with myself. I’ve dedicated myself to my houses. To my beautiful But where are they Where are those houses Tout cela est un mod

  POSTCRIPTUM

  As editor of the manuscript of the late Arsénie K. Negovan and also as the self-appointed chronicler of the Negovan-Turjaški clan, I, Borislav V. Pekić, would like to explain how the manuscript came into my possession.

  On June 7 of last year I was summoned to Kosančićev Venac at approximately eight o’clock in the morning. There I found my cousin Katarina Negovan-Turjaški with Mlle. Foucault and Mr. Martinović, their tenant from the basement flat. Katarina informed me of her husband’s death. She had been out of town until that morning. Worried by the student demonstrations, she had hurried home from the spa.

  But it wasn’t Katarina who discovered Arsénie; it was Mlle. Foucault. She had arrived at Kosančićev Venac at six o’clock in the morning, her usual hour. As a rule Arsénie was up by that time, and Mlle. Foucault instantly suspected something was wrong when she didn’t hear noises from his study. She called him but got no answer. The study was locked from the inside. She aroused Mr. Martinović
, who broke down the door. Arsénie was on the floor dead. The manuscript was on his desk. Glancing through it, Katarina discovered the legacy to Isidor. I had been Isidor’s closest friend, so she asked to see me. She gave me the manuscript to decipher and use as I saw fit.

  My request to see the dead man was granted. I went into the study: a roll-top bureau containing a card index, an oak table, and a huge armchair were piled by the door. Arsénie had improvised a barricade, as if to defend himself against something. The shades were down. The desk lamp was still lit. Arsénie was lying in the middle of the room, his head on the carpet, one arm stretched out toward the window, the other squeezed under his body. Judging by the position of the corpse, the heart seizure had come just as the old man had gone to open the window. He was wearing an austere black suit and light summer shoes over black cotton socks. A semiprecious stone gleamed in his tiepin. In his pocket we found his watch, which wasn’t working, and a Mauser automatic. I don’t think the automatic was working either, but I can’t be sure.

  The manuscript was made up of two separate sections, the private notes written on one set of account forms, and the will on another, although Arsénie was not always consistent. Toward the end his generally legible and decorative hand-writing had become somewhat untidy, his thoughts rambling.

  From a purely legal aspect, the will was valid. However, except in the case of Katarina, its provisions couldn’t be carried out. All Arsénie’s houses had long ago been expropriated, and the more dilapidated ones pulled down. But even if that hadn’t been the case, and if by some chance the Revolution hadn’t come about, Arsénie’s will could still not have been followed as he had conceived it. At the time the will was written, Arsénie’s universal heir had already been dead for six months (Isidor committed suicide on October 20, 1967). The only other provision that could possibly be carried out concerned Arsénie’s gravestone, and that only partially. As stated earlier, some of his houses had been demolished, making it impossible to obtain a cornerstone from each. I can’t guarantee anything, but I still hope that, as the voluntary heir to Isidor’s obligations, I shall be able to fulfill at least this one wish of Arsénie’s—as soon, of course, as my financial situation improves.