The Walnut Mansion

by Miljenko Jergovic

  “Wow, look at that smoke!” he whispered when the big black cloud of smoke appeared on the screen again, and Regina jumped up from her seat and began to push her way to the door.

  She stepped on people’s feet. A woman squealed like a mouse because Regina had stepped on her corn. The woman’s husband cursed God and the blessed Virgin Mary. The rows in the cinema began to stir; the people stared at the girl who was running in sobs toward the exit. Luka couldn’t figure out what was going on. It was the first time Regina had done something he couldn’t explain. That was the moment, or so he thought, when her disagreement with the world began.

  But it was more likely that the disagreement had occurred at least six years earlier, when Luka wasn’t yet nine, and his sister had fallen in love with Aris Berberijan, a law student from Novi Sad. His rich father had sent him to the Adriatic so his tuberculosis could be treated with fresh air, though Aris actually wasn’t even suffering from tuberculosis. He was suffering from something else, however, which led him to bribe doctors and pay enough money to buy a house in the center of town to a Dr. Mušicki in exchange for a confirmation that he had tuberculosis, in which two open caverns and six more months to live were mentioned rather dramatically.

  “Of all the medicines in the whole world none will be better for your son than sea air, dry and warm, full of medicinal salts and fennel that the wind brings from the mainland and the sea. I can’t give you a guarantee that Aris will find his cure in the sea; I don’t know whether it’s too late for him or how the illness will develop. There are various kinds of tuberculosis, just as various people get it, and each kind takes its own course. We can only hope that Aris’s type is one of those that Adriatic winds carry away,” Dr. Simeon Mušicki wrote, embellishing his story for the older Berberijan, who cried like a small child in the middle of Mušicki’s office in front of the nurses, who were trying to comfort him, and his son Aris, who was coughing into a handkerchief.

  But it wasn’t clear why exactly the older Berberijan was crying. Was it because the best doctor in the kingdom was telling him that his only son was going to die? Or was it because his law office was going to be closed down— the oldest in Vojvodina— which had been established by his grandfather Aleksej when he came to the Austro-Hungarian Empire after leaving Erevan and studying law in Berlin?

  Jovan Berberijan was a good lawyer and a “patron of the poor.” His rates for those who went around town bragging that he was handling their legal affairs were exorbitant, but he represented any pauper or wretch who was accused of something by the state or a wealthy landlord for free. At the same time, that compassionate man was an unbelievably harsh father. He punished his son for anything that he thought might turn him from the path that had been laid out for him from the moment he’d been conceived.

  Aris was two years old when he brought him into his office “so that the child can study and grow fond of the job that he’ll do his whole life.”

  His mother, Saveta, tried in vain to tell Jovan that it was too early for such things and that it was better to let Aris play with the other children.

  “My father Sokrat took me to the office when I was two. The first word I learned after ‘mama’ and ‘papa’ was ‘law.’ My father’s father, Aleksej, took him to the office when he was two, and the first word he knew was ‘justice,’” Jovan would answer, and at that point his mother would give up.

  In the beginning he let the boy play in front of his black desk while he talked with clients. How surprised people were when in the middle of their talk a blond child would peer out and say that he had to pee or poop! Then the famed Berberijan would tap on a little bell, and Janoš, his hunchbacked, gray-haired assistant, would come running, take Aris by the hand, and lead him to the toilet. No matter how serious and dramatic the case that brought the lawyer’s clients to him— and there were people who needed to save their sons and brothers from the death penalty— each one of them thought that the appearance of the child was a good sign. And when Berberijan revealed the reason why the boy didn’t leave the office, they were even more confident in his expertise. Especially because it had never occurred to them to prepare their own children for their future careers in that way. That man was a little crazy and what he did with his child was abnormal, but he was a lawyer!

  When Aris turned four, his father began to pose fairly simple problems to him, to test his son’s intelligence, his power of reasoning, and his sense of justice.

  “Who is more guilty, Laza the drunk because he stole from the cashbox of the rowing club or the treasurer Steva because he left the cashbox unlocked . . . ? Mr. Jozika’s chickens kept passing through his neighbor Milka’s fence for a year, and the whole time she warned Jozika about that problem, and then one day she wrung the neck of his rooster. But she didn’t do it in her yard but his— who’s guilty . . . ? Two men are stabbing at each other with pitchforks and they both die, and the wife of the one who started it seeks compensation. Is she in the right, and what does the other one need to do . . . ? It was raining, Mr. Ištvan’s cellar flooded and all his wine was ruined, and now the tavern owners, who had paid in advance, are taking him to court. He’s willing to return their money, but they aren’t happy with that because they’ve suffered more damage than the price of the wine. What should the court decide?”

  Jovan Berberijan questioned the boy, and he would answer as long as it was fun for him, and most of his answers were correct. But a boy’s attention span is short. After ten or so minutes, Aris would grow tired of his father’s questions. He would want to play or would give the wrong answers on purpose out of pure mischief, whereupon Jovan wouldn’t stop, as anyone else would, but would keep asking newer and newer questions, with the patience of an old village horse that cannot be annoyed and provoked into tossing off its saddle and an awkward rider. It rarely happened that he even realized that the child was giving the wrong answers because it didn’t enter his mind that there could be someone in this world, even a small boy, who might give frivolous answers to questions of justice and injustice.

  Soon Aris began to give wrong answers from the very first question, and then Jovan Berberijan introduced a system of rewards for correct answers. For five correct answers, a soft drink; for ten correct answers, cotton candy; for fifteen, ice cream; and for fifty correct answers, a trip to the circus. In this way he captured his son’s attention, or it would be better to say that he bought it, convinced that making a deal always worked. It worked for five full years, whereupon the idyll of his law office was again destroyed, and for the first time there was an open conflict between father and son. He came home completely out of sorts because Aris had told him that he was a fat old ass. Saveta tried to comfort him, but her comfort was as sincere as the Sunday confessions of Melita the prostitute. His mother knew well what was going on between the two men and what the little one had decided to do to the big one, but she’d given up on trying to explain it to Jovan.

  But here’s what happened: there was a long time in which Aris got the bonus for fifty correct answers once, twice, or even three times a week, and Jovan had to take him to the circus as many times. If by some chance no troupe was appearing in Novi Sad, they would go to Subotica, Sombor, Bačka Palanka, or even Vukovar or Belgrade. Wherever there was a circus. They would stay the night in a hotel and return home in the early morning. And so alongside law, the circus became the only work that Aris saw and knew something about: the names of all the elephants who set foot on the territory of the kingdom, the lions, tigers, horses, rattlesnakes, and white mice that could find their way out of a labyrinth from which a man would never emerge— he knew all of them even better than the circus owners. He also learned to tell the difference between the lions whose teeth had been removed out of caution and those that could really bite off the trainer’s head when he put it between their jaws. He became an expert in acrobatic figures and magic tricks, and at seven he could already argue with authority about whether a particular clown belonged to the Russian or the French scho
ol.

  For Aris, the difference between those two schools was a fact of the utmost importance, and in his eyes the French and the Russians were two bitterly inimical nations that would sooner or later, on a battlefield with hundreds of thousands of dead, decide whose clowns would rule the world. From somewhere, probably from the circus performers, he found out where the French fared better and where the Russians did. He circled cities on a map with colored pencils: blue marked cities that valued the Russian clowns, and red marked those that were inclined to the French ones, and he circled Berlin, Belgrade, and Bucharest with green because in those cities people were equally enthusiastic about both kinds of clowns.

  Aris’s knowledge didn’t bother his father. On the contrary, he was proud of his son’s good memory because it was extremely important for a real attorney. Right until the day his son announced to him his intention to become a cat trainer when he grew up, since no one except for the famous Russian Yevgeni Milinski had succeeded in inducing a cat to do anything.

  His old man was horrified and insulted at the same time. Between justice and the circus, his own son had chosen the circus! And not elephants or lions, which were the wonder of every urchin in Novi Sad, but ordinary cats! Something was odd about that child, and it had to be corrected as soon as possible, he thought, and told Aris that he was a big boy already, that he’d outgrown the circus, and that in the future he could think up what the award for fifty correct answers would be himself. Aris resisted, but it was no use.

  “You’re a big boy now, almost a grown man,” his father lied, and a feeling of enraged contempt grew in the boy that would stain their relationship for good.

  When he realized that nothing could be done about this and that his father wasn’t going to relent, he told him that he was a fat old ass. He’d thought up the insult with a clear head, completely aware that this would hurt and humiliate his father terribly. Namely, Jovan Berberijan never swore or even seriously raised his voice— except in the courtroom, where such theatrics were expected, and without which there were no well-placed arguments and presentations of evidence that the judges would remember. Quiet and monotonous lawyers were boring for everyone in the jury and the audience, and the judge would miss half of what they said.

  When Aris screamed at him, he struck at what seemed most stable and firmest in Jovan Berberijan. Wherever he went, his good reputation went with him; people didn’t dare say a vulgar word in his presence, and he commanded equal respect among the good and wicked alike. Among the beau monde as well as among ill-mannered prison guards and murderers locked in the darkest cellars of the royal casemates. Even hotel receptionists and waiters in hotels and restaurants in cities where the reputation of his legal prowess was unknown had a special kind of respect for him. There was no fear at all in that respect. That he was a fat old ass was the first serious insult that he’d suffered since his boyhood.

  However, all he needed was a good night’s sleep, and he appeared the next day with an unblemished aura, gentle and slow in the Vojvodina manner, and unstoppable like the English army.

  “And what did you decide; what are fifty correct answers worth?”

  Underneath the table the boy’s knees trembled from excitement. He could repeat that his father was a fat old ass or cry or howl that he wasn’t interested in anything but the circus and wanted to be a cat trainer and that his father could sell him to the circus performers for a thousand dinars so he could wake up every morning at four, feed the horses, wash the elephants, and clean animal shit! He would be grateful to him his whole life. But no matter how much he insulted him, his father would still be a fine attorney from house number 8 on Katolička Porta Square, for him and the whole world. No matter how he tried to persuade his father to sell him to the circus artists, he wouldn’t do it. He wouldn’t renounce his heir, his little pharaoh.

  “Money,” whispered Aris. His father was strict with money, and the child hoped he wouldn’t agree. If he didn’t agree, then the argument about the circus would become stronger, in fact infallible.

  “How much?” he asked.

  “Fifty answers— a tenth of your pay,” the boy answered with a sense that his strength was returning. For the first time in his life, a power that made the world go round was coursing through his veins, a power that made rich men happy and drove them to become even richer. Jovan Berberijan swallowed the lump in his throat and looked up at the ceiling: above the chandelier a spider had spun a web; the cleaning women needed to be warned that they couldn’t sweep and clean like a cat with its tail. He lowered his gaze to his son, who was staring fixedly ahead, just as he’d been told that he should look at a judge and jury the moment after he made a crucial point— never blink; create the illusion that you have nothing to hide; the naked truth is in your eyes, and if they want, they can take it in their hands, turn it over, and check to see whether it has been falsified. This was just how Aris was defending his first business offer; he was doing it well and hadn’t blinked for half a minute already but was looking at his father like a fakir at a rattlesnake. The boy was strong; he would become something; it was just important to get that circus out of his head.

  “Agreed,” he said and offered the boy his hand. Aris accepted but wasn’t sure whether he’d won or definitively lost. He was getting something he hadn’t expected and losing something much more important to him. Was there anything in the universe more magnificent than training cats, and was there anyone more extraordinary than a man who’d subdued the world of cats?

  Thereafter the questions that Jovan Berberijan asked his son were much more difficult, but they never required information from legal books or documents. He played fair, like an English gentleman playing cricket or polo, but began to make serious efforts to keep his pay and did that as if he didn’t have a child in front of him and as if that boy weren’t his son. He found examples from legal practice that had become legendary, verdicts and defense arguments that had made judges famous, and turned them into questions that Aris had to answer.

  By the time Aris was eleven, he would spend hours justifying his position, defending it with logic, and leading his father into labyrinths from which there was no way out. The moment of victory came when his father no longer knew what to say or would start stuttering. As soon as he started stuttering, his opponent raised his hand into the air like a boxing referee, and that was a classic knockout, without counting to three. On average Aris received half his father’s monthly pay. He put the money into a shoe box he kept hidden under his bed because he didn’t know what to spend it on. After the circus was dropped, there was little left for Aris except his school and the office. His mother woke him up every morning at six. He would have breakfast with his father as he read the newspaper and commented on events in the world. The increase in the price of diamonds on the London exchange heralded bad days ahead; in Germany a military strike loomed; there was one workers’ strike after another, one street fight between the right and the left after another; the older Berberijan worried that the major industrialists didn’t realize that they were playing with a bomb that might explode at any moment.

  “And when it explodes, then justice won’t be served before courts but before firing squads,” he said at least once a week.

  After breakfast they went to the office.

  “Come to the office early even when you think you don’t have anything to do; it’s good for the concentration.”

  And at twenty to eight old Janoš came and accompanied Aris to school. He met him after school, and they would go back to the office, and after an hour or two there was a lunch break. In the afternoon, father and son were again at work, until eight or nine in the evening, when he was supposed to do his homework. Such was the boy’s daily routine up until he finished prep school, and there was nothing that could be changed about it. Just as Jovan Berberijan went to work even when he was sick, so his son weathered all the illnesses of childhood in the law office, pressing his forehead on the cold windowpane.

  The famou
s attorney had to exploit all his connections and acquaintances in his efforts to get his son accepted to the law school in Belgrade. He begged and bribed his way right up to Prince Pavle Karađorđević’s adjutant, but it was no use at all. For Aris had barely passed from grade to grade in prep school, always with D’s, and he only got A’s in Latin and history. They didn’t want him in the respected school, and it was possible that his father’s reputation didn’t do him any good either. Rejecting Berberijan’s son was a big deal, for some even the biggest success in their careers.

  “If he’s accepted, I’ll chop up my podium with an ax! I’ll shit all over honor and doctorates, and this school and this town will never see me again!” Professor Matuszewski yelled when someone arrived from the Royal Palace to inter-cede. The old Cracow ace couldn’t fathom the idea that students could skirt the rules and regulations to enroll in a course of study that was supposed to teach justice and the law.

  But in the end Aris got in, and Gregor Matuszewski was retired by a ministerial decree. He was awarded the Karađorđe Star for his particular achievements, those in the First World War. An article was published in the daily Politika, along with a photograph in which Prince Paul was pinning a star on the professor’s breast and thus “crowning with the glory of immortals a man who knew when to pick up a rifle and when to pick up pen and ink to defend and build the fatherland with legal expertise.” One could detect a wince in the smile on Gregor’s face, as if the prince had not only pierced the lapel of a borrowed tuxedo, but also one of the nipples on his chest.

  For years Petar Pardžik, the palace photographer, showed none other than this photograph from Politika to his assistants as an example of poor work.