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“No violence, please, Comrade Krstić!”

“You keep quiet too, Funkenstein. Now would you look behind those bushes and see if Blam is coming? And hurry him along if he is.”

“He’s coming.”

“Good. This way, Blam, this way. I want you next to me, both of you. You will now join me in judging this bastard, who, as you can see, would do anything to get away from us.”

“Mr. Blam!”

“Mr. Kocsis. I’m sure I don’t know…”

“Well, I’m sure you will as soon as the trial begins. Lajos Kocsis, you stand here. In the name of this citizen’s court I hereby accuse you of having denounced and defamed Blanka Blam and Vilim Blam, the parents of Miroslav Blam, here present, on 22 January 1942, as a result of which they were shot to death. You are therefore an accessory to their murder. I recommend that you be shot to death. Are there any questions?”

“But that’s…”

“Just a minute, Blam! I think we should give the floor to the accused first. Have you anything to say for yourself, Mr. Kocsis?”

“This whole thing is a farce! I don’t know what you’re talking about! I never denounced anybody!”

“Is that so? Then I’ll have to refresh your memory for you. Fact by fact. Tell me, do you deny that on 22 January 1942, the second day of the Novi Sad raid, you were in the residence of your mistress, Erzsébet Csokonay, number 7 Vojvoda Šupljikac Square?”

“I do not.”

“And do you deny that on the aforementioned day a patrol of gendarmes and soldiers entered the aforementioned house and carried out several searches?”

“No.”

“Do you deny that the patrol entered the Blam residence first?”

“No.”

“Do you deny that after searching the Blam residence, they entered the residence of Erzsébet Csokonay?”

“No.”

“Do you deny that the patrol leader asked your opinion of the Blam family.”

“Yes! Yes, I do!”

“Nonsense! You’re lying! Which is the clearest proof of your guilt! All the patrols questioned their countrymen about people of other nationalities. Now you tell us what you said about the Blams to the patrol leader, Kocsis, or else!”

“I didn’t say a thing, not a thing! I swear! I said they were fine, upstanding citizens.”

“You’re lying again, Kocsis! Which confirms our worst suspicions. Because if that was what you said, the Blams would be alive today. Alive, understand? Their death is proof of your crime.”

“I didn’t do anything.”

“You caused the death of two innocent people! You fanned national hatred, intolerance, blood lust, racial insanity; you sought revenge and booty; you aided fascism to cut down two of its opponents. In their name and the name of thousands of other raid victims I pronounce you guilty and sentence you to be shot to death. Here is a pistol, Blam. You will carry out the sentence.”

“You must be crazy!”

“Take the pistol, I tell you. Take it and shoot him. Don’t be afraid. Nobody will ever know.”

“Have pity on me!”

“Yes, Čutura! Let him go. Please let him go.”

“It’s too late. We’ll end up in prison if we let him go now. Shoot him, I tell you!”

“I can’t.”

“You’re the only one who can. And you must. You’re the only one free of guilt: Funkenstein and I lured him here under false pretenses. We could be arrested. So you’ve got to shoot. If only for our sake.”

“I can’t.”

“Look, Blam, I’m warning you. This is your last chance to be a man. Either you kill him, or I hand the pistol over to him and have him kill you.”

“I can’t.”

“Is that your final word?”

“It is.”

“All right, then. Let’s see what he wants to do. Here’s the pistol, Kocsis. It’s loaded. Shoot Blam.”

“What for?”

“It’s the only way you can stay alive. Shoot Blam. Good. Shoot him again. I can’t believe it. You killed him, and it only took you two bullets… You know, Kocsis, I’m beginning to respect you. I even think you’ve earned the right to live.”

Chapter Fifteen

BLAM IS LISTENING to music. He is leaning back in his seat in one of the middle rows of the Novi Sad synagogue, completely at ease, surrendering to the tones that enter and pervade his being like a second bloodstream. The melody caresses, quivers, thunders, evoking images that to Blam’s captivated mind appear random, even chaotic, but are in fact causally connected. He sees himself running bare-armed and bare-legged through a gently undulating meadow into an evening still sunny yet cool; he feels the tall, firm grasses lashing against his calves, while from a distance comes the ringing of bells, spurring him to run faster. It is the memory of a late summer spent in the mountains, when school had begun but he was convalescing after a bout with pneumonia. He encounters a hazy warm female whose face he cannot see but whose breath, sweet as anise, he can smell. He sinks into a raging torrent, leaps into towering, chalk-white waves, struggles, rises and falls, but never tires, merely fades into the roar tearing him apart. He is perfectly aware that these images are no more than the play of his senses, because his music-glutted senses continue to deliver — with less force, perhaps, though with equal clarity — information about his surroundings: the domed space high above, the rows of benches filled with hushed people, and on the altar, now a stage, the musicians with their instruments, the Novi Sad Chamber Orchestra, producing the notes and through them the images, emotions, and thoughts. He can even, should he so desire and without abandoning the play of notes he has succumbed to, follow the course of their making: the conductor waving his arms, the string players hunching over their violins and cellos, the wind players puffing their cheeks out and running their fingers over keys. He can pinpoint odd, amusing details: the trombonist assiduously licking the mouthpiece before putting his pursed lips to it in a kiss, or the long-armed, bald cellist carried away by the rhythm and swaying to and fro like a pendulum, or the conductor going up on his toes, spreading his arms wide and, when his tails fly open, revealing a tightly trousered backside. Ever the observer, Blam takes it all in, but, as always, from a distance, coldly, avoiding the standard reactions of laughter, anger, or malice— as he avoids them in everyday life, because he senses, knows, that this too is a game. Everything here is a game: the powerful tones, the musicians who create them, the audience, the space provided for the music, even the inner experiences triggered in him by the cumulative effect of the notes. None of it is, as in life, irrevocable, fated. For such is the collective covenant, the ancient, mythic, everlasting covenant: that the magic of a harmonious progression of notes should transport us into the world of our impulses and injuries, and that we are unafraid of being led astray by the former or trapped by the latter, like a dream made to order, a dream whose course we ourselves direct.

THE STRING OF notes comes to an end with the end of the piece, and the magic is rent by silence. But then applause breaks out like a death rattle or like the wail of a newborn wrenched into the world and knowing instinctively that by gaining a full, independent life it is losing the warmth of its mother’s womb. The warmth fades: up on his podium the conductor turns to the rows of benches, bows, wipes the sweat from his low forehead and fleshy cheeks with a handkerchief, then gives the orchestra the signal to rise and share in the honors. Here below, the people clap, leaning over to one another and exchanging impressions, or stand, impatient to leave the place of harmony destroyed. For they sense that what they are leaving behind is not the musicians but the music, their common cause, without which both performers and audience are superfluous.