Houses Read online

  —BARRY SCHWABSKY

  HOUSES

  Make thee an ark of gopher wood; rooms shalt thou make in the ark, and shalt pitch it within and without with pitch . . . And, behold, I, even I, do bring a flood of waters upon the earth. . . .

  —Genesis

  Since I have now reached those years in which man’s allotted span comes to its natural end, and moreover since my health is no longer of the best, I, Arsénie Negovan, son of Cyrill Negovan, rentier here residing, have decided, being fully lucid and in possession of all of my mental faculties as prescribed by law, to set down this testament, and in it to state my final, incontestable will regarding my movable and immovable possessions, and whatsoever may concern their preservation as follows . . .

  Being of advanced years and in declining health, I, Arsénie Negovan, son of Cyrill Negovan and owner of this property, have come to the decision on this third day of June, 1968, being fully lucid and with all my mental powers unimpaired, to compose my testament on the basis of the right I have by law, and in it to divide up my movable and immovable . . .

  Bearing in mind all that I experienced in the course of that evil morning, and being conscious of the serious threat that very soon I shall be in a position where in all probability I shall be unable to express anything at all, most particularly my legal will, I have lost no time nor allowed myself respite . . .

  •

  As I take up my pen to explain in more detail this haste to write my will—haste for which my advanced years and my declining health are only a pretext—it will be best for me to begin without the hypocrisy of so-called introspective reflection and by admitting that on that morning, which I’m convinced was decisive for the course of my hitherto uneventful life, I was very upset, filled with anxiety, not to say disturbed. I hadn’t been in what for me, a man of substance and Vice-President of the Chamber of Commerce, was such an exceedingly unseemly state since 1941, when I formally submitted my decision to retire from my business affairs. For it was already apparent to even the feeble-minded that those who were left with the decaying Monarchy around their necks were rushing headlong to destruction. So I entrusted to that misalliance of my wife, Katarina, and the family lawyer, Mr. Golovan (former King’s Counsel) while still myself retaining overall control, of course—such matters as the routine collection of rents and loan interest; all that degrading business connected with the presentation of promissory notes which had expired as a result of broken leases; and even that more attractive aspect—the only one among all the financial advantages which allowed one something unselfish, passionate, and truly constructive: the maintenance and expansion of the property owner’s capital.

  But considering my careful, self-centered mode of life and advanced years—they total seventy-seven, unfortunately, and I hadn’t crossed my threshold during the last twenty-seven—everything that I had in mind to undertake immediately upon my wife’s departure (for which she had already largely prepared herself), and that required from me a much more substantial sacrifice than that which I had made long ago in resigning my active functions, was without doubt near to remaining simply a mournful fantasy reserved for some more courageous year. Indeed, almost the same distress had seized me in 1919 when I first encountered the Bolsheviks in the eastern suburbs of Voronezh during a ghostly raid by Semyon Mikhailovich Budyony’s Red Cavalry, with their pointed green-felt caps, and their leather overcoats strapped tightly round by the many bands of their cartridge belts. With that immediacy peculiar to the Negovans, I had understood that I had no wish ever to encounter them again, even in some benign form, even among the harmless nonpareilles announcements from the Soviet Union. That same distress seized me yet again in 1924 (and with this, except for my feelings of shame at the March Putsch, the list of my states of exceptional anxiety is completely exhausted), when I took possession of my first house, the first of those noble, luxurious, excellent model buildings which today, I hope to the satisfaction of all, embellish the capital.

  In the feverish anticipation of at last being alone, I had dragged the armchair to the western window earlier than usual. At that observation post (although the term firing position would have better suited that fat, turret-shaped dormer window jutting out over the grimy, worn roofs of Kosančićev Venac, and the aggressive mood in which I took possession of it) I would stay sometimes from noon on, until dusk, spreading its black dust down the river, impeded any further contact with the view and the New Township, whose construction I had continuously followed through binoculars of varied type, size, and range. The day before yesterday I was “on station” early—thus did I designate my favorite armchair when it stood up close to the window; in any other position it lost that honorary appellation and reverted to the anonymous status of furniture—I was, I say, “on station” from dawn on, running the risk that Katarina would notice my agitation, interpret it as an outward symptom of my illness, and put off her departure for the spa.

  I even pretended not to notice Mlle. Mélanie Foucault, who was sitting behind me, sterilizing surgical needles in a tin bowl; or rather, seeming totally absorbed with the area I was scanning with a pair of Mayer artillery binoculars, I manifested a complete absence of respect for the presence of my brother’s housekeeper. At a favorable moment I would ask for George; yes, that would do, if only to conform to the established rules of that senseless game in which I and his combined companion, nurse, and maidservant indulged ourselves—a game providing still further confirmation of my already ample observations of the general’s way of life. But now, I confess, I restrained myself. In the ensuing quarrel which would undoubtedly get out of control, I might have given myself away. On any other occasion, care for my considerably undermined health and my mood—which was as changeable as the sun’s movement in the heavens—would have been welcome, even though I usually countered such care with ill-humored refusal; now, however, any excessive interest in my person could easily have turned into a trap which could end my plan before it had even started. For it was necessary, more than necessary, for me to be left without surveillance as soon as possible, and for my solitary morning to be assured of Katarina’s absence in order to be spent exactly as I intended.

  But I just couldn’t restrain myself. When Katarina again came into my room in search of the tortoise-shell combs to put in her hair, I impatiently inquired why, if she were really going on a journey, she hadn’t packed the day before.

  “Some journey!” she said before going out. “I’m going to Vrnjce and you call that a journey!”

  Then Mlle. Foucault said, “Madame Katarina isn’t going until tomorrow, Monsieur Negovan. For the moment we’re only going shopping.”

  “For me,” I replied, “crossing the threshold is a journey, Mademoiselle Foucault. Outside the house, everything’s a journey.”

  And so, in the irritated anticipation of my wife’s going out for a reason which, in these exceptional circumstances, in no way aroused my curiosity (normally I liked to be informed about everything), I went on investigating that part of the plain which, cut in half by the river Sava, stretched off to the west and ended in a yellowish, sulfurlike glow at the edge of the horizon. My view of the plain was set by a dark oak window frame which formed an extended rectangle around an airy canvas—oak that, dried by the June sun and the pearl-colored dusk, looked for all the world like some gilt-encrusted frame. The changing picture in that oblong frame, resembling a coat of arms composed of four identical fields, was shielded by a double barrier of glass whose clarity I cared for meticulously with a chamois cloth. A third glass wall belonged to the complex mechanism of the lens of my most powerful binoculars. Its brass chain clinking, it crawled across the window; whenever it stopped, it bored a large medallion, stamped with a cross with minute divisions on it, out of the magnified landscape.

  During the long period of time that I had dedicated myself to it, the view had changed gradually but continuously before my eyes, making me aware that everything was being transformed with the same insistency—not
just that part which was in my vicinity but all the rest too, all that area I couldn’t verify with my own eyes because of the limiting frame of the window, the range of my binoculars, and my voluntary immobility. Nevertheless, the changes which grafted themselves naturally on one another—like those of a tree from one year to the next, continuing imperceptibly like sleepers of some unending railway line—were not rude or unrestrained enough to cause me the kind of bewilderment, disbelief, or aversion that you feel when, returning home after a long absence you find your family changed, intolerably different from the attractive faces which hastened your return. Although I was present at these changes, even taking part in them from afar, I hadn’t lost the inborn Negovan capacity for awaiting and accepting new features only with suspicion until they had been subdued, assimilated, digested, as it were—just as hungry amoebae absorb life from around them, making it part of their own composition, and in so doing of course transform it in accordance with their own characteristics, simultaneously separating out the harmful, indigestible portions. On the contrary, my integration with the changes was conditioned by the fact that I had already assimilated the majority of them, especially the appearance of newly built-up areas, and adapted them to myself.

  The changes have gone on everywhere, except on the river. Only the age-old water, with its constant color and unhurried, tranquil flow, gives to the view that consistency without which its transformation, however otherwise imposing, would be to the highest degree suspicious, in the light of that inbred wariness of which I just spoke.

  The embankment is paved with rough granite slabs and little mounds of flowers which change color every three months, while in the center is a glistening flight of steps which for some reason attracts my attention, even though there is nothing exceptional about them, just a few pale-colored steps with a break halfway down, nothing more. Then comes that clumsy construction of broken lines—like a concrete silo under a triangular glass roof, before which, surprisingly enough, no grain wagons have ever been unloaded; an inexplicable building, quite unsuitable for leasing, which I wouldn’t own even if it were given to me, despite its favorable position facing the delta and the War Island. Then the King Alexander Bridge, now completely rebuilt. And high above everything, I see an arrogant palace with its asbestos shine, which is said to belong to the royal government—those monarchists really know how to spread themselves!—and which my binoculars, quite impartial in their magnetically attracted service, hold briefly in their hostile eye, then leave to pass on over the scantily tree-lined avenues and gardens, and alight rapidly on the New Township which, with its useless parks of wasted foundations, is the destination of all my imagined wanderings.

  From my somewhat oblique vantage point at a kilometer’s distance, the newborn town has the untidy look of an unfinished model. With a certain nostalgia it brings to mind that heap of matchboxes, cubes, cardboard towers, and paper greenery which I used to see in Jacob Negovan’s studio whenever I dropped in to ask my enterprising cousin how his plans were coming along. The buildings themselves bear no resemblance to those I built through Jacob’s architectural firm or selected for purchase through the legal firm of Golovan & Son. They are somehow sad, poignant, abandoned, as if just barely managing to get along despite the great company of their fellows. They are all identical, empty, hardly giving any sign of life; their flylike eyes, lit by the morning sun, remind me piteously of a dovecote with its little glowing lamps. Most of all—and this is what causes me the greatest difficulty—they are quite impersonal, with nothing noteworthy on their expressionless façades to set them apart physically or spiritually. No individuality. They are not truly ugly in the accepted sense of the word; they are simply without character. Humped together in the plain, they are pitiful to look at, lined up like a despondent column of convicts whose individual identity has disappeared inside their coarse prison clothes.

  None of my houses could suffer such a sentence. They were all personal, highly independent, and exceptionally conscious of their own architectural uniqueness—sometimes, I’m not ashamed to say, even of their own arrogance. Those intended for the masses also had a quality which distinguished them from the rest. Squat, close to the ground, built with unbaked clay bricks and roofed with ordinary tiles—they might be said to deprive their tenants of everything except a cavelike shelter—even these possessed, perhaps in their very unseemliness, something peculiarly their own. But those new buildings on the other side of the river in no way counted on the honor of attracting or pleasing the eye. One might have been deceived into thinking that they were too proud for that. I doubt it. They are not indifferent to the unfavorable opinion which their ponderous aspect has aroused, they have just become resigned to it, they have come to terms with their own unsightliness. They exude an air of inhuman fatalism which, ugly as it is, must sadden the heart of any true property owner.

  I had studied those houses closely over a long period. I had to admit that from a purely commercial viewpoint they were extremely efficient, more efficient even than my own houses. In my houses too much expensive space was used up for no purpose at all. If the furniture that encumbered them were removed, they would look like the empty caverns of the Pharaohs’ tombs. Their ceilings were excessively high, like domes above a church nave (the living area below averaged five hundred cubic meters), and their disposition was irrational, vainly wasting expensive space on entrances, hallways, corridors, verandas, terraces, and balconies, turning the house into an impassable labyrinth dear only to the hearts of children. (I say this despite the fact that I myself spent a childhood among just such mysterious alcoves, transformed by my own imaginings.) These superfluous rooms did nothing to raise the rentable values in proportion, and the excessive size of the stairs simply ate up useful space, not to mention the area wasted on coal elevators—yes, coal elevators!—and on cellars, storage rooms, attics, laundry rooms, and porches. And then, the building materials: the finest stone, the hardest wood, the best plaster, the most durable paint. Marble from Venčac—sometimes even from Carrara! Porcelain, mahogany lamps, plaster rosettes, ceramic floors, wallpaper made in Prague! Finally, all those decorative and expensive eaves, loggias, oval niches in which we placed impressive standing figures, and the charming alcoves, chains, balustrades, candelabra, bas-reliefs with mythological scenes, and ornaments—all that stone flora and fauna which at my insistence blossomed from the façades of my houses.

  You could have got an extra floor out of each and every one of those houses with no trouble at all, and on each floor you could have squeezed out at least one more apartment. Assuming an average monthly rent of 500 dinars for the four two-story apartment blocks, and reckoning in, of course, that possible third story, one could have collected, after taxes and upkeep, about 4,500 dinars monthly, or 54,000 a year. If this calculation were applied to all my houses, I could have collected more rent in one year than what I’ve earned until today. But I never allowed myself to sink to the mere taking of profits with the same coldly calculating approach as do the present-day owners.

  Indeed, it would have been futile for me to bother with something irrelevant. I was no longer capable of doing anything worthwhile for my “old ladies,” as I called them. This was not because any such venture would have demanded a considerable contribution, or because it would have run into administrative barriers (my influence, though long unused, is still considerable), but because any such adaptation, conversion, or extension would have undermined that fatherly relationship which had grown up between myself as the guardian, and each house as my ward. As we grew old together, we also grew to understand each other and began to behave like an old married couple. It was the kind of relationship which I had never managed to preserve with any living being, with the partial exception of Katarina. Such a disloyal act could have seemed like getting rid of a long-time servant at the very moment when, completely exhausted by years of faithful service, he had become undesirable.

  But with those imposing buildings in the silent circle of m
y binoculars I still had nothing in common. I had not ordered or financed their construction. Perhaps, I can’t deny it, I had once been of two minds about buying them up. I say “perhaps,” for even then I didn’t believe that I could make any real contact, not to say alliance, with them, although as an experienced owner and landlord I couldn’t entirely exclude the possibility.

  Running my inquiring gaze down the curve which like some sleepy many-headed snake was formed by the largest of the buildings, I often asked myself what I really knew about them. I had never been near them, touched or inspected them from any side other than the front which was visible from where I was; I had never sniffed their walls to sense and memorize that special smell which—despite the lime, concrete, plaster, and paint—is the property of every house. Indeed, the only thing I was sure of was the pragmatic concept behind them—a concept which I had never respected or blindly agreed with, but which I am somehow inclined to take into consideration. I was fortunate that, thanks to the position of the window overlooking the river, I was obliged to give them my attention and, restraining my prejudices, to watch the growth of their sinewy family. I thought: I’ll always have time to buy them, if it comes to that. First just one, of course. I’d buy that light, chalk-colored one or that pockmarked one on the other side of the railway line. Houses are like people: you can’t foresee what they’ll offer until you’ve tried them out, got into their souls and under their skins. If they don’t come up to expectations, I said to myself, I’ll sell them. If they show up well, I’ll keep them. Then I’ll buy the others, until the whole new district is mine and I can make them independent and individual so that they’re known by a name and not just referred to in passing as a general concept: subdivision, new suburb, quarter, region, blocks, or district. I’d think about that when they were really mine, entered in the land register under the name of Golovan. I must confess, despite all the advantages that it would offer by way of revenue, I’ve never been able to possess a house which I wouldn’t have the courage to show to my friends and clients and, touching its dignified façade, proclaim proudly: “This belongs to me!”