His heart starts up again, rasping inside his chest as though it had outgrown the rib cage. He knows this comes from the unsettling thoughts he has been having, but he is fairly sure it is not dangerous; it is dangerous only when Janja is present. Hers is the hand that can and must undo the knot of his life and death. The rest is waves and reverberations.
He goes from the appliance-filled kitchen into the entrance hall, the crossroads between the main room and the outside. Here the air is close and stifling; outside it is a brisk, sunny morning. All he has to do is open another door and walk across the terrace, and he’ll be out in the wind, under a blue sky. Or even in the sky. All it would take is a leap, headfirst, that would be best, abandoned as he is. Janja would be coming out of the building about then, and he would land smack in front of her like a frog. “You forgot to kiss me!” he would say with his last breath as she bent over him, dumbstruck. Yes, he would like to shock her. Though she might simply run back upstairs to see whether the jump had woken the Little One. The Little One’s head, not his bleeding one, would be the one Janja pressed to her breast.
The room he now enters is enshrouded in a darkness the consistency of india ink, so tightly are the curtains drawn. He knows his way, however, knows it almost better than he knows his way around the room he lives in: everything has its natural place, in an instinctual sort of way: wardrobes on one side, table in the middle, settees in the corner flanking the tiled stove, and plenty of space along the soft rug leading to the window. His outstretched hands soon feel their way to the cord for the roller blind, which with a creak of the slats lets a beam of light into the room.
The girl is lying with her back to the window, so Blam must go around the bed before talking to her. The pillow has cast a shadow over her face, but her healthy baby complexion shines, conquering the dark. It is oval, her face, and simple, with blond locks strewn over forehead and cheeks, the face of a young Janja, a Janja still in the making, still gentle and tender. And of whoever sired her. Popadić? Or any one of the many casual lovers Janja surely had at the time when the Little One was conceived. He never asked Janja about it; the scene he witnessed from the tram was all the proof he needed. He observes, and the child’s face confirms an already firm conviction. No, there is nothing of him in those features. And this calms him. He may admire her, watching her burgeon into an individual before his eyes and with his help, but he feels no special, dangerous parental affection for her. If she were thinner, more fragile, if her hair or skin were dull like his, if she had his deep shadows or closed expression, it would upset, even pain him. He would worry about what lay buried in the lines and shadows, seek out familiar patterns in and behind them, severed, shattered connections, as on the face he saw that morning in his dream. This face does not bind him to anything. It belongs to another world, a world with other thoughts and other problems. He is glad when the child is healthy and happy, growing fast and doing well in school; he is full of compassion when she falls ill, distressed when he goes for the doctor or for medicine, sorry he can’t take the pain, the fever, the fears upon himself; she is so small, so innocent, so trusting; he is absolutely certain he would give his life for her; he would give his life for Janja too, he wouldn’t think twice, it would be a relief, it would make up for his lack of emotional attachment, his deficient love.
His guilt probably makes him a gentler parent than Janja with all her zeal. Leaning over the Little One, he carefully lowers his hand onto the thin arm resting on the quilt. It is so tiny, the skin so smooth and glowing, that he is loath to wake her with his sullying touch. Still, he taps her two or three times, and she stirs, stretches, opens her eyes for an instant, then shuts them again. But in that instant his face has registered, and it has comforted rather than frightened her: her lips draw into a vague, sleepy smile.
“Time to get up, darling. Mama’s orders.”
She stretches again and purses her lips. She and Blam have developed a playful way of conspiring against Janja, the embodiment of rules and obligations but also of love.
“Why?”
“I think she said you’ve got a lot of studying to do. Is that right?”
Her eyebrows twitch just like Janja’s when Janja tries to recall something. Her face is motionless for a moment, but then she opens her eyes wide and gives a serious nod.
“There, you see?” he says and, raising an index finger like a conductor’s baton, gives her the signal for their ritual repetition of a sentence he once taught her in jest when she complained how strict Janja was: “Mama is always right.”
They laugh.
“Good girl,” he said. “Now you get dressed, and I’ll go and clean up.”
Back on his own turf he is somber again. How many of his comic and tragicomic quips and gestures will remain when he leaves? None: the need for them will disappear when he does. Their life will run its course without him, might even be better when Janja takes over. There will be less confusion, less uncertainty.
He hears a door creak: she’s climbed out of bed and crossed the entrance hall to the toilet. Soon she’ll be in to wash, and he wants to have his bed made by then so she won’t be embarrassed: she’s a big girl now. That problem too will disappear once he’s gone: the women will have the run of the apartment; they’ll move around freely, without inhibitions. There will be more space too: they’ll remove his bed from under the window and put it somewhere else or sell it, and the room can go back to being a bathroom with a few kitchen utilities added. “I have a combination kitchenette and bathroom,” he can hear Janja almost boasting to one of the women in the restaurant. “It used to be a studio apartment, but we did it over.” She may mention that they did it while he was alive, that he gave them a hand, that it was his idea, forgetting how much he was in their way. But she may also tell the Little One that he isn’t her father and so spare her the pain.
She comes in. He makes the bed while the water splashes into the sink. He feels his pajamas — they are nearly dry — and sticks them under the pillow.
“Did Mama leave me a note?”
He turns and looks at her. She is wearing a meticulously ironed pink dress; her hair is neatly combed. She has her mother’s well-groomed look.
“A note?” he asks, feigning surprise. He is well aware that the two of them constantly leave each other messages about errands to be run and deadlines to be kept. “You know what your schedule is for today, don’t you?”