“How could I not remember? You’re Colonel Negovan!”
“You’re thinking of my brother, General Negovan. I concern myself mainly with houses, my dear lady.”
“Oh?” she said suspiciously. “Then you’re not from the Secret Police?”
“I don’t belong to any firm or company, madam. I concern myself with houses, if I may say so, in a special way, on my own account, for the love of it so to speak.”
“We don’t own houses any more.”
“Of course, I understand. Speculation. Gambling on a rise during a fall, a fall before a rise.”
At this Mrs. Martinović, with dismay out of all proportion to the sympathy I expressed, declared that she hadn’t understood a thing about all those speculations; in fact she said her husband hadn’t involved her in his shitty business affairs, in fact she hadn’t found out about them until the trial, and she had nothing more to add to what she’d said earlier under oath.
“I told him to leave all that alone!”
“I told him that too, madam. In any case,” I added cautiously, “I’m certainly far from disagreeing with you. But with your permission I’d still like to discuss this matter with your esteemed husband. If he’s at home, of course.”
Without turning around she pointed over her shoulder at the Moorish screen.
“Where else would he be? Of course he’s at home. He’s over there.”
She then explained that Mr. Martinović had been ill for a long time, was in fact paralyzed and barely alive.
“But he is alive?”
“Barely. His whole left side is gone.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. Truly sorry. With me it was my right side. Does that mean, my dear lady, that there is no way of communicating with him?”
“It depends. I’ll go see.”
She disappeared behind the screen; the cretonne flowers visibly darkened; I heard a scraping noise and saw a metal bedpan disappearing below the bottom edge of the partition like a tortoise beneath its white enamel shell. Then there was the creaking of the bed and mattress, and a hissing sound like escaping gas, followed at intervals by that bubbling, gurgling whistle with which sewage bursts through blocked drainpipes. Finally I could hear Mrs. Martinović:
“That Negovan is here. Do you remember him?”
I couldn’t hear the sick man’s answer so I thought it useful to add: “Arsénie K. Negovan from Kosančićev Venac!”
“Arsénie K. Negovan from Kosančićev Venac!” repeated the woman clearly. It was apparently difficult for the paralyzed man to give any sign of having understood. “He’s here, behind the screen. He says he wants to ask you something.”
When the woman reappeared from behind the screen she was holding the goosenecked bedpan in her hand.
“Try for yourself,” she said sharply, “only don’t move the screen. Bring your chair up. That’s right. He can hear quite well, but it’s difficult for him to speak. Especially when he gets excited.”
Before going out she turned around and said: “He’s suffered very badly.”
“Mr. Martinović? Can you hear me?”
Sheltered by the Spanish wall — I knew those difficult circumstances from my own experience — the paraplegic strove to control the contorted dam of his mouth. With my cheek to the brown patterned cloth I could almost see the two brittle, transparent wires of his bloodless lips twisting their still sound ends until their painful edge dropped down the stubbly chin, filled with a bubbling foam in which the agitated tongue was bathed as if in pink soapy water, seeking for words. At last I myself began to move my lips, as if only by mutual effort would we be able to squeeze a voice from his jaw. His voice finally broke through, greatly distorted by the unnatural position of the facial muscles, but quite intelligible:
“My time’s done.”
I tried hard to explain to him to what an extent his recovery lay in his own hands. A man must never at any cost resign himself to his misfortune. Medicines are mere palliatives. I myself had been in his position. Even worse, in fact, for broken bones had preceded the apoplexy, and even contusia cerebri for which there was clinical evidence. Yet here I am, thank God.
“You’ll still feed us all, my friend,” I said, having in mind his grain-trading business. But it seemed that his contribution to our meeting would consist solely of one and the same thought.
“They told me that my time was done.”
“Of course,” I said, “you’ll soon be out and about again.”
“What for? My time’s done!”
“Well now, you just need a bit more will power.”
Afraid that he might slip away from me again, I asked him if he remembered the house that had belonged to my cousin, Stefan Negovan, the building at No. 41 Kosmajska Street, which we used to call a monstrosity. “On March 27, 1941, at 1900 hours, a private auction was arranged for Niké, at which I, unfortunately, was late in arriving. And you bought it.”
There was no answer. “My dear Mr. Martinović, I most humbly beg you to give me some sign that you understand me.”
“My time’s done. What more do you want?”
“Bon, excellent, Mr. Martinović, everything will be all right, tout va être très bien. By the way, I suppose you didn’t know that I — how shall I put it? — was linked to that house by certain intimate obligations which aren’t worth speaking of here. It’s all over and done with, I don’t hold it against you, please believe that I completely absolve you of any impression that you acted disloyally toward me. Anyway, business is business. But while Niké—that house — never actually belonged to me, I was always sincerely interested in her development, until circumstances arose which for a long time hindered me from giving her my personal attention. And so, to make a long story short, I was left completely uninformed — about that house on Kosmajska Street, I mean. What exactly did you do with her?”
I’m ashamed to admit it, but my patience was beginning to give out. Nevertheless, I controlled myself once again and expressed my sincere sympathy for the calamity which had befallen him, to which the only answer through the screen was a dull groaning and the apathetic formula to the effect that his “time was done.” Simultaneously, I was considering whether in his wife’s absence I couldn’t remove the screen and “encourage” the invalid just a little more, when something happened which threw me quite literally off balance.
Mrs. Martinović had stolen unnoticed behind me and now wrenched with all her strength at the rickety chair on which I was sitting, so that I suddenly found myself on the floor. Yes, collapsed on the floor, almost knocking the screen down across the invalid. While I was getting up — quite smartly, considering my years — my hostess rudely disposed of my tentative conclusion that my mishap had been an accident, for she bent over me to knock me down the moment I got up again.