ALEKSANDAR TISMA
561
peek through the blinds, stare wide-eyed and trembling at him out there
while a man with a pistol appears in the doorway. Where can Blam turn?
His heart is pounding; he presses against the railing, clutching it convul–
sively, his head bent over the side, his only way out. He refuses to let them
corner him again, let him force him to await their orders and to comply;
no, he'll jump, he'll swing his body into the air and plunge headfirst into
the street as if diving into a swimming pool. He feels a cold stream of air
rushing through his mouth, a void enveloping his shoulders, a lack of sup–
port, the vanishing borders of space. His legs flop as freely as a rag doll's,
they come undone, his whole body loses its shape, its conventional solidi–
ty, his blood runs in all directions, everything falls apart, the whole world,
the street he is about to crash into.
His hands tingle, his fingers burn, the bar of the railing digs into the
bone. He spreads his hands, turns them, observes the red stripes slowly
broaden and lose their intense hue. Meanwhile, down below, people keep
strolling along the street, going about their business, stretching their legs.
The stubborn pedestrian is still there, but the beautiful woman has disap–
peared; maybe the man she was waiting for actually came. They have no
idea what is going on inside Blam; they cannot share it, they would not
understand his fear, his terror, his certainty that the patrol will come for
him and push him to the railing. What is wrong with him? Is he mad? Or
is everyone mad but him? Though it amounts to the same thing. For if he
is different from everyone, then he is a monster, a freak, an aberration, ripe
for being split open and having his thoughts read, for being crammed into
a cage and exhibi ted in an anthropological rather than zoological garden,
exhibited naked, the better to be seen and poked at through the bars until
he produces the incoherent howls and shrieks expected of him.
The bars behind him rattle: someone is letting down the blinds. The
noise comes from the left, which means it is either the retired woman
with bad lungs or someone in his apartment. He does not turn to see, how–
ever; he fears the sight he would offer to the person looking out of the
window; a twisted head on a body still facing the street, the abyss, with a
face showing signs of an overactive imagination, an imagination more real
to Blam than anything going on behind his back. Yes, he admits to him–
self with embarrassment though with a certain malice as well. That
intimate world back there, so sure of itself-Janja doing some sewing, per–
haps, his little girl doing her homework-is very much a part of the
manhunt, if not in its service. When passages are occupied, a home like that
is disastrous. Any home is disastrous if it is alive, if you depend on it for
your life's blood, if you cannot live without it. Then the bullets hit not
only you, nor can you even fling yourself to the ground, take cover. There
