They each lit a cigarette of mint and tobacco. Good news had arrived, and it wasn’t proper to be stingy with people, including oneself. They sat enjoying their cigarettes for a bit, and then Grandpa asked:
“And how will we know when they’re here?”
Dominko Pujdin grinned as if he were Admiral Sterk:
“I’ve got it all arranged. They’ll let me know!”
Since he was waiting for the caravan drivers to come, Grandpa completely forgot about the uninvited guests. The girl hadn’t forgotten, but she was happy that he had. They hadn’t felt so good since it had started raining. Or they hadn’t felt so good since the beginning of the war. It was hard to remember good days since things had gone bad. And it had been a long time since things had started going the wrong way and against the order of the priests and the emperor. For those who had to have the sky fall on their heads to figure out that something was wrong, things had gone awry when Ferdinand had been killed in Sarajevo. That was when Dominko Pujdin had gotten the jitters. Others had already had a bad feeling during the Balkan Wars, when the underlings quartered what was once Turkish. Somewhere quite close, two or three hills away, blood would be spilled for land, and that was never good. No land was worth that, but the bigger trouble was that after the first man fell for land, the price of land began to rise to dizzying heights, and it would suddenly turn out that every inch of it sought new masters. And then blood would flow endlessly. People had to know that once doubt had been cast on what was Turkish, the same would happen with what was Austrian. Istanbul didn’t have the strength to keep its land, so let’s see if Vienna does! That was why Ferdinand had been killed in Sarajevo and the great war had begun. People waited for when their turn would come and their lives would be on the line. There was less and less food, and robbers and brigands again ruled the roads. The news that the caravan drivers were coming was therefore more valuable than the goods they were bringing. They would confirm that there was still justice and order in the world and that there was still respect for earthly laws, which were more important than the laws of states. And sometimes, it seemed, more important than God’s laws. The caravan drivers would prove that custom was still respected! And the word for custom in Dalmatia was the Turkish adet, one of the few Turkish words that had remained there, on the coast and even out on the islands. It was no wonder because how could one say that the caravan drivers were coming except according to the old Turkish adet.
They didn’t doubt that this was true at all, though it had been fifteen years since the last caravans had come. But since the war had started or since the merchant ships had become sparse and the trains stopped more often than they ran, people had been talking about caravan drivers. Someone had been to Sarajevo and had seen them. The Turks had realized that it was better to trade than to fight for someone else’s benefit and had activated the Izmir connections; Austria had overrun Serbia, and there was no longer anything to prevent smuggling; Syria had an abundance of dried mutton and kid meat and was planning on transporting it to the West; there were potatoes from Anatolia, corn and wheat from somewhere, spices, sugar, wine, brandy . . . The people’s fantasies ran wild, and all fantasies were connected to the East. The Turks, Arabs, matchless Jewish merchants; Damascus and Baghdad; the secrets of serpentine writing that writhed from the right to the left; the legend of Moses, who’d led his people through the wilderness; mosques facing the rising sun; incomprehensible customs and habits began to take hold of the Christian peoples who were torn between the Austrians and the Italians and whom now hunger had led to believe that salvation would come from the other side of the world, the one that didn’t smell the odor of mustard gas, phosgene and diphosgene, and wasn’t taking part in this war of ours that was from day to day less and less ours. As no one knew hardly anything about the East, except that caravans came from the East, their hopes for salvation came down to stories about caravan drivers.
People even knew which way they were supposed to come. It was the same way they’d been coming for centuries. The Turks would drive their goods to Ljubovija, where they would be taken over by men from Foča. Before the Smrdan watchtower near Banja Koviljača they would be reloaded.
“You don’t go on a caravan without two hundred horses!” Dominko Pujdin said, sounding off and exaggerating. Then a new caravan would be formed and cross the Drina by ferry. It would have been simpler if the Turks crossed over to Bosnia before reloading, but they didn’t do that, nor had they done it when Bosnia had been theirs. Their nasty beliefs drove them from that river, and those beliefs reached back to an earlier time when the sultan Mehmed el-Fatih had begun his conquest of Bosnia. At that time the river was called the Zelenka. It was high, and no one except the brave Kujundžićka, the mother of three brothers from Ustikolina, had ventured to go by ferry to fetch the sultan. More than anyone else it was that woman who had helped el-Fatih to conquer Bosnia. She arrived for him and his horse, but the beast got frightened in the middle of the water, fell into the river, and drowned. Then the sultan shouted, “Bu su derin!” which in Turkish means This water is deep! From the word derin the River Zelenka has been called the Drina ever since, and due to the death of the sultan’s horse, the Turkish caravan drivers crossed it unwillingly. Well, after the Foča caravan crossed the river at the Smrdan watchtower (Dominko Pujdin knew all kinds of things about it, but there were those who knew better than he and went into more detail), it would start toward the rich Semberija town of Janja. There it would be additionally loaded with corn and wheat and start along the Drina, making its way through the canyons and high mountains along the river, and then, God willing, it would arrive in Dubrovnik five days later.
“Now it’ll take them ten days,” said Grandpa Niko. “These are dangerous times, and the caravan drivers have to be cautious.” Dominko Pujdin nodded self-importantly. Father returned to his nails. Grandpa was evidently thinking about whether to roll three more cigarettes, but that seemed to him to be too extravagant. They still didn’t know how much treasure would come along with the caravan and how much it would cost. When he realized that the smoking was over for today, Dominko Pujdin went home. He would let them know as soon as he heard that the caravan was nearing the city. They didn’t need to worry; soon the house would be full of all of God’s gifts.
The phantoms were evidently waiting for the guest to leave because Dominko Pujdin had hardly made it down the stairs and they were already knocking on the door.
“Help us, neighbor, the rain is killing us!” shouted the one with the French hat. Contritely and already far away from the good news, Grandpa put on his coat; Mother looked at him reproachfully and said nothing. How could you tell a man, and your own father, such things? The girl stole off after him. She took care to be as inconspicuous as possible because she was sure the day would come when her mother wouldn’t let her go to the cellar with Grandfather any more. That would be her way of telling him that it wasn’t good for him to be letting those men in.
He poured some diluted vinegar, and the goblet went from one mouth to another. A little light still came in from outside, and they could see one another better than they had the day before. Fatso was short, with thin, short arms. One could tell that he’d never done anything. Horse Face wasn’t elongated in his face only. He was all like a reed bent at the top under the weight of its seed head. His palms were large, like shovels, but he didn’t look dangerous. The small-headed one with the French hat was, however, terrible. Whether it was because of the disproportionate size of his head in relation to his body or because his body was really huge, the girl thought he was three times taller and more powerful than Grandpa Niko. The day before she could see him only in the glow of the cigarette and he hadn’t been like that, but he hadn’t been that way the day before that either, when they’d come around noon and there was enough light to see by. Two days before Horse Face had also been a little shorter and fatter, and Fatso hadn’t had a boy’s hands . . . They changed every day, she thought. Grandpa opened his mouth silentl
y, like a red porgy when a net is lifted out of the water, because he wanted to say something, but he didn’t know what. He couldn’t tell them about the caravan drivers. And maybe he too saw that those men were sometimes smaller and weaker and sometimes bigger and more wicked.
“You say the priest claimed that the boy didn’t have a soul,” Horse Face spoke first.
“Ugh, shame on them,” Fatso said, jumping up.
“Priests have no shame,” said the Monster with the French hat.
“Hodjas do, thank God,” said Horse Face.
“And what do you care about hodjas— do you have them in Dubrovnik . . . ?” asked French Hat.
“I don’t, I’m just saying . . .” said Horse Face.
“Forget that. What was that about the soul?” Fatso interjected. Grandpa kept moving his lips without managing to say anything.
“As if they would wash their bottoms so much if they were thinking about the soul . . .” Horse Face said.
“Who do you mean? Are you talking about hodjas again?” asked the French Hat.
“No, I’m not, dammit!” Horse Face answered. “You think about hodjas as soon as I mention bottoms.”
“Come on, people, get serious. The man’s child died, and the priest didn’t want to bury it,” Fatso shouted.
“Don’t talk about it now,” said Grandpa Niko.
“Why not?!” Horse Face objected. “It can’t be that you don’t care any more?”
Grandpa didn’t answer. His lower jaw quivered as if he were about to cry or he was very angry. The girl grew frightened. Her heart was beating like crazy. So it’s here after all, she thought. But her fear didn’t lessen.
“How can he not care?!” Fatso said and slapped his knees. “It’s not like he’s an animal and he doesn’t care. He’s a man. A baptized man! Right, old man, aren’t you baptized?”
Grandpa said nothing and looked at the tips of his shoes.
“Tell us, dammit, are you baptized? Look at him; he’s not saying anything. You come in to get out of the rain, and he doesn’t say anything. It would have been better to stay outside. Wouldn’t it have been better to stay outside?” Fatso said and raised his hands as if to say “Got me.” Monster stood up and paced around the cellar; the tip of his hat nearly brushed the beams on the ceiling. He paced around and was very nervous. And he wanted everyone to see how nervous he was.
“You, little girl,” he said, putting his index finger on her forehead. “Do you have a soul?”
She looked at her grandpa, but he didn’t seem to notice what was going on. He sat there with his hands folded, leaning on his knees, and watched what was going on in the mud floor. Monster didn’t take his finger away; he poked her to get her to answer, and she was waiting on what her grandpa would do. She waited for a very long time. Maybe hours passed, maybe even days, time that couldn’t be measured by anything. He never told her what to do. The girl would forget what happened further, and by virtue of that it was as if nothing had happened. The phantoms laughed for a long time; one by one they patted Grandpa Niko on the shoulders, hit him on his back as if he were choking, embraced him, and slapped him on his cheeks, and he sat in the same position; tears were streaming down his cheeks and falling onto the mud floor of the cellar, which soon turned into a little lake.
“The old man’s afraid we might spend the night at his place,” said Horse Face on their way out. It was as if Grandpa couldn’t hear.
That evening Grandpa Niko didn’t tell a story. Mother said that he didn’t feel well, so they all had to be quiet. In the light of the fire in the stove the girl watched the nails passing from one box to another. And then the fire went out. The boys hit one another and wrestled under the quilt. She knew that she would never again go down into the cellar with Grandpa. And she didn’t want the caravan drivers to come, not ever. Or she wanted them to come but not to give him anything. He was in the next room, filled with bitter regret that he was too old for this war. If he’d been picked with all those in the third mobilization call, he would have met his end on the River Soča, in Galicia, Albania, or on one of hundreds of battlefields where the brave imperial army was fighting. He would have died like a man. He would have spilled his own guts in the snow; the smell of mustard gas would have sent him to hell; something ordinary and usual would have happened. He would have fared just like thousands of others. Everything is easy when you’re not alone but one of many. And everything is easy when your own kin don’t know what kind of misery and fear you’re made of.
On the twenty-ninth day the rain was gone. No one knew when or how it had stopped raining. With the first light people came creeping out of their houses, and it was gone. Clear weather was moving in from the sea; here and there the sun broke through the clouds. Children started running around. They hadn’t been let outside for days and had built up energy that they needed to release in wild play. They chased rats through the town; there were hundreds of them, and they poked their heads out of flooded cellars and basements, and when the children caught up with one, they would stomp on it, stopping it in its path and shouting, “The rat’s got falcon wings!”
In the middle of all that chaos something else happened that was supposed to be a secret. Hiding from one another, the elderly went toward Rijeka Dubrovačka with baskets, burlap sacks, and all kinds of bags. If two of them who knew each other met, they made up the wildest lies about where they were going with their empty sacks and bags. All in hopes that the other one didn’t know after all that the caravan drivers were coming and that it was true when the other one said that he was going to the hills to get something that he’d forgotten before the rain. They clenched a ducat or two in their pockets or a wedding band, medallions with the image of the Blessed Virgin, chains, earrings, wartime bonds and all kinds of money. Anything that might be of some value to the caravan drivers. Grandpa Niko and Dominko Pujdin were among the few that went together.
“Yeah, we’re going to see whether there’s any dry firewood anywhere,” Dominko said to Admiral Sterk, who was carrying a wattle basket on his back that was at least twice his size.
“If somebody loaded it with spider webs, he wouldn’t be able to get it back,” Niko whispered.
“And I’m off to the admiralty. They’ve informed me that my promotion to an officer has come in,” Sterk bragged. “It might be the last one because we’re losing the war!” he added without fear that the wrong ears might hear.
That was the first time that Admiral Sterk mentioned the possibility of Austria’s losing the war. Both Niko and Dominko felt equally awkward. The clockmaker was crazy, there was no doubt about that, but no matter how crazy he was, he’d never spoken about defeat. What could that mean? It was better to keep quiet and not jinx it, so they continued walking, each with his own dark inklings and bitter that the admiral had spoiled their excitement about the caravan drivers.
The meeting place was in Mokošica and not on the road to Trebinje. Probably out of fear of some plot, as a caution against highway robbers. And outside Mokošica there was something for them to see! A few hundred people had come there, along various paths, hiding from neighbors and friends; they’d come at various times, some even before dawn. And they kept coming. They watched each other grimly, and only rarely would they greet one another. In those glances, without words, the bonds of friendship and godfatherhood fell apart. A few chatted cheerfully and kept looking at their watches, wondering whether that caravan would finally get there. Those were people who’d come in pairs or even in small groups; if they’d antagonized someone, if they’d lied to their neighbors about where they were going, they nevertheless told the truth to those they were closest to.
The two of them selected a good spot given the direction that the caravan would be coming from. They spread out their sacks and sat down. Niko took out some cigarettes he’d rolled for the occasion; they lit up and watched the people. It had been a long time since so many people had met in one place. Maybe not since 1914 and the week after the assassination, w
hen people had first mourned for the archduke and his pregnant wife and demonstrated against Serbia and then indeed smashed things up a bit in Serbian stores and shops.
None of them had actually done any smashing except Dominko Pujdin— he had! He had smashed the windows of Sveto Stojnić’s shop; it was well known whose side Sveto was on; he practically had a Russian flag hanging out of his butt, and Serbia was always close to his heart. Later Pujdin regretted it. Not so much because he’d smashed Sveto’s shop window; if he hadn’t, someone else would have. But he had gone into the shop through the smashed window, stomped on all of the pipes and chibouks, torn apart the sacks of tobacco, and given the owner a good slapping. For that he couldn’t forgive himself. He had slapped a man stronger than himself, and that man hadn’t defended himself. So he had hit him again and then again. And nine more times. He prayed to God for Sveto to hit him back. Or at least for him to dodge. But no! Sveto had stood there like Orlando, without moving or blinking. He had looked straight ahead, somewhere over Dominko Pujdin’s head, and had only mechanically flinched whenever he had hit him in the face. Finally he had fled Sveto’s shop, run through the town as if he were a Serb and people were chasing him, and couldn’t pull himself together for days. He lost the will to do anything that would take him to Sveto’s storefront. All he wanted was never to meet Sveto Stojnić again because he didn’t know how he could pass by him and live. He would completely die of shame if he ever came face to face with him, he thought. But why? Because he’d always greeted that man politely and had never been bothered by Sveto’s championing of the Serbs and Russians. He hadn’t thought about that as something that should concern him. If he had earned some money and wanted to treat himself to some good tobacco, he went to Sveto. Sveto would invite him to sit down and let him sniff five of the sacks. The tobacco was fantastic. He never cheated him or overcharged him. And so how could he have had something against such a man? There was no reason for it! Up until Ferdinand was killed and he’d lost his mind and then gone off and smashed up the first Serbian shop window he could think of and slapped a man stronger than himself. A man who wouldn’t pay him back because he’d ended up on the wrong side through no fault of his own. Dominko Pujdin had gone through a lot of anguish on account of Sveto Stojnić, and he wasn’t particularly relieved when in a couple of weeks he learned that Sveto had packed up his family and left for Serbia. This world wasn’t so big; sooner or later Dominko Pujdin would run into Sveto somewhere and die of shame. Even if he didn’t meet him, he wouldn’t be able to forget what had happened after Ferdinand was killed in Sarajevo. Maybe Sveto would forget it one day, though that wasn’t likely, but Dominko Pujdin would never be able to forget his shame. That was the kind of man he was. Screwed up and honest, as Niko would say.
The Walnut Mansion Page 59
