HE DOES NOT, of course. They have disappeared in the interim, swallowed by the crowd, or perhaps they are still there but no longer recognizable. People look different when you are on a level with them. The proportions of their bodies change. The relation of one part to another. Formerly conspicuous curves — foreheads, noses, breasts, shoulders — flatten out, and limbs scarcely visible from above jut in all directions. New conditions of light, new reflections affect hair color, eye color, skin color. Clothes seem to hang differently, the new angle accentuating certain wrinkles and shadows while attenuating others. From above, a person’s gait looks light and easy; at eye level, it is heavier, involving effort, with one foot always pressed to the ground. From below, it is clear that people are not propelled by an unknown force, not pulled on a transparent string by a concealed hand; they move by contracting their leg muscles and shifting the weight of their bodies in the direction they wish to go. Their connection with the earth is obvious. True, they push away from it, stand erect, but it remains part of them and to it they will return. At eye level, too, their variety — infant, girl, graybeard — arouses curiosity, but the progress of infant and girl and graybeard can be charted from start to finish and their mysteries unraveled.
THE MAN WHO appears before Blam to have his mystery unraveled is a real estate agent by the name of Leon Funkenstein. Blam sees him while standing in front of the Mercury surveying the far side of the square from the cathedral to the Avala Cinema. The area is full of parked cars because the street beginning behind the Avala and once called Jew Street is now sealed off at the other end by New Boulevard and thus closed to traffic. It is the destination of many idle strollers like Blam.
Seeing Funkenstein, however, Blam interrupts his stroll. He has no reason to avoid him, though he did go out to be alone or, rather, to escape the manhunt, his private term for the onslaught of present and past encounters and experiences, of which Funkenstein is unfortunately a part. He is not sure the old man will recognize him. Blam was still a boy at the time Funkenstein came to the house. But in the past few years, he has given Funkenstein several opportunities to refresh his memory, calling attention to himself with a shy smile, a nod, a barely audible greeting when their eyes meet on a narrow street. But this time there is plenty of room — the whole square beckons Blam to former Jew Street — and Funkenstein stands at the far end of the square bending over the radiator of a dusty gray Fiat, his bald pate so far down that he seems to be sniffing as well as inspecting it.
But as so often happens when he wants to steer clear of someone, Blam directs his steps straight at the man, crossing the square in such a way as to be most visible, justifying his conspicuous route by curiosity. Watching him fiddle with the car, Blam suddenly wonders whether Funkenstein hasn’t changed profession. It would be perfectly understandable, given that all rent-bearing properties have long since been nationalized, which leaves only small — and therefore cheap — single-family dwellings on the market like the house the Blams used to own in Vojvoda Šupljikac Square, the one that Funkenstein had sold for Blam’s father, Vilim. But he sold it just before Blam’s father died, so his father may not have received payment in full, or if he had, then he hadn’t had time to spend it all and it had fallen into the hands of plunderers.
He chafes at the thought that he will eventually have to talk to Funkenstein, quiz him on the particulars of the sale of the house to allay his doubts. He realizes he has postponed the talk too long as it is (and postponed putting to rest the doubts), but now he turns his head in Funkenstein’s direction and is surprised to find Funkenstein looking straight at him. He can hardly believe it, but there can be no doubt: from the old man’s broad, pink face, still lowered over the Fiat’s radiator, a pair of tiny but piercing brown eyes beneath unruly gray eyebrows and a shiny forehead are looking at him, Blam.
Blam pauses, whereupon Funkenstein straightens. The straightening does not much alter his spatial relation to the car — he is too short for that — but it does reveal his bold taste in clothes: he is wearing a white shirt with an apache collar over a pair of yellowish imitation-silk trousers. He sets his youthful outfit in motion by circling the car with a sprightly step — surprisingly sprightly for a body so stumpy — and plants himself in front of Blam.
“Hello, Mr. Funkenstein,” Blam says, taken aback.
“Hello, hello,” Funkenstein answers cordially, but without using Blam’s name, which indicates Blam’s assumption that Funkenstein would not be able to place him was correct. Funkenstein holds out his firm, fleshy hand, though casually, almost incidentally, and with no more than a glance at Blam’s face. “What brings you here?” he asks, clearly aloof and quickly turning his small twinkling eyes from Blam to something over Blam’s shoulder.
“Just out for a walk,” says Blam, made uncomfortable by Funkenstein’s lack of concentration, which obliges him to keep the conversation going. “Though now that I have you here, I thought I’d ask you about a house you sold a while back. Tell me, are you still in real estate?”
“Oh yes. Yes, of course I am.” Funkenstein trains his swift, piercing glance on Blam, but immediately looks over Blam’s shoulder again. “Got something to sell?”
“Not anymore,” Blam says with a shrug. Suddenly he feels hurt by Funkenstein’s indifference and decides to end the conversation, which was going nowhere anyway. “I see you’re interested in cars now.”
“In one only.” Again Funkenstein glances up at Blam, questioningly this time, as if debating whether to trust him. “It’s not mine, though. I’m watching it for a friend.”
Blam, baffled, turns to see a large green car parked alone in the middle of the square. Suddenly Funkenstein grabs him by the arm and twirls him around. “Don’t turn again!” he whispers, raising his wild, imperious eyebrows and pursing his rosy, wrinkled lips, the corners frothy with spit. “I don’t want to call attention to myself.”
Blam shifts uneasily, realizing that Funkenstein is using his bulk as a shield, that he, Blam, has taken the place of the dusty gray Fiat.
“Look! Look!” Funkenstein cries, triumphant. He is jumping up and down, bending over, peeking out from behind Blam like a child playing hide-and-seek. “See? They’re getting on the bus!” Then, suddenly relaxed, he straightens his back and explains offhandedly, “It’s a favor for an old friend, a business partner, actually. He’s out of town for a while, and I’m keeping an eye on his wife. I knew she was up to something when I saw their car in the square. Well, she’s gone off with a man on that bus. To his place, for sure.”
From the direction of Funkenstein’s gaze Blam can tell he is following the bus (with his eyes or in his mind’s eye) that runs past the monument, on to the Danube, and into the part of town filled with new residential dwellings for newly arrived officials, following the dark, young, nattily dressed man and the tall blond woman on his arm, her strong thighs tightly encased in a blue skirt. If Funkenstein’s “old friend” is Funkenstein’s age, getting on to seventy, perhaps the couple is not so young as Blam imagined. Perhaps the whole thing is a sham. He gives Funkenstein a quizzical look.
But Funkenstein is on his way to the green car in the middle of the square, bypassing Blam as if he were an object. Blam notices that the bus waiting at the monument only a moment before has gone.
“Where did you say your house was?”
Funkenstein has returned to Blam after looking over the car.
“I don’t own it anymore, I told you,” says Blam, annoyed. “It belonged to my late father. Vojvoda Šupljikac Square, number 7. You were his agent. It was the beginning of the war. I don’t know if you remember.”