ALEKSANDAR TISMA
565
"Where did you say your house was?"
Funkenstein has returned to Blam after looking over the car.
"I don't own it anym05e, I told you," says Blam, annoyed. "It belonged
to my late father. Vojvoda Supljikac Square, number 7. You were his agent.
It
was the begiJ1Iling of the war. I dsm't know if you remember."
"Vojvoda Supljikac. ..Vojvoda Supljikac..." Funkenstein mumbles to
himself, lowering his head and pressing a short, fat index finger to his nose.
Suddenly he looks up. "Is your name Blam?"
"Yes. So you do remember."
"Vaguely," he said. "Well, what is it?"
"I was just wondering whether my father ever got the money for the
house. The whole sum, I mean. The man who bought it was a tailor.
Hajdukovic, I believe his name was. But then he sold it to somebody else.. . ."
Funkenstein does not let him finish. "If I was the agent," he says curt–
ly, placing his hands on his chest and stretching the white shirt, "you can
be sure it was paid in full." He gives him a quick nod and holds out his
hand. "Goodbye." And off he goes, stepping briskly on his short legs and
wide feet in the direction of the monument.
Vojvoda Supljikac Square lies not far from the center of town, in the
maze of narrow old streets that now abut on the broad curve of New
Boulevard. The houses form an oval around the square, and in its center is a
neglected park surrounded by an iron fence with spikes bent out of shape by
unruly arms and legs. The land has been so trampled that almost nothing
grows there. The few benches are backless, their seats furrowed with lovers'
initials that rain has broadened into illegible scars. Only the trees lining the
fence have been able to withstand destruction; they are tall and venerable,
and their leafY crowns rise above the square like a vast green umbrella.
Blam, too, was a participant in the dves truction of this oasis. On his way
home from school for lunch he and Cutura would jump over the fence,
trample the grass, climb the trees, ard eat the berries.
Before he made friends with Cutura, he had no idea that such things
were possible or could give pleasure. He had climbed before, but only onto
the hand pump of the well in the brick-paved courtyard of his house,
where the sole reminder of nature was the flower bed running along the
high, bare wall, which broke off abruptly at the separate apartment rented
by a widow named Erzebet Csokonay. The wildest his childhood ever got
was jumping from the cold, slippery pump onto the bricks and fighting
with his youvger sister Estera, which meant a scolding from his mother, or
with Puba Smuk, when Puba's mother came to visit the Blams and
brought him along. The house was a fortress under invisible siege. Only
relatives, friends of the family, and repairmen came to call-no strangers
