566
PARTISAN REVIEW
except for an occasional beggar. Guests could always count on homemade
pastries and on fruit brought from the market and carefully washed.
Whenever he took walks with the family, holding hands with Estera
(attired in white or navy blue like him) and walking in front of his parents,
who kept nagging at them not to stray into the mud, Blam would look at
the oval park through the gate, but he never asked the names of the trees
that caught his eye by swaying gracefully in the breeze. For Blam a tree was
a tree, something big and strong, yet pliant, alive, in cheerful contrast not
only to the gray plaster of the street but also to the cartloads of raw, dry
timber that arrived at the house at the end of every summer to be hewn
into manageable chunks by woodcutters amid the buzz of saws and the
smell of shavings and sweat. And while he was vaguely aware that "beech
wood" and "oak wood" also came from trees, those trees grew in distant,
unfamiliar woods he had never seen and were chopped down by lumber–
jacks and transportedyto the city in open freight trains.
Then one day Cutura said, "Hey, let's get some of that fruit!" He
jumped over a bent spike between two slanting iron posts and stepped into
the bushes. It was about noon
~nd
blazing hot, the sun casting its golden
lances tltrough the leaves into Cutura's long hair and acned face. Blam fol–
lowed Cutura's lead cautiously, but caught a trouser leg on
th~
spike.
Looking for a place to leave his satchel and yfree his hands, he saw Cutura's
books scattered on the ground in the sun (Cutura had no satchel). But out
of habi t Blam walked on until he found a
sh~dy
spot under a tree for
his satchel. Only then did he look to see where Cutura was. He found
him
hanging from the lowest branch of the tree, his open shirt re-yealing a mus–
cular stomach indented at the belly button. All at once Cutura swung,
planted his feet on the branch, and in no time had hoisted himself up.
"Catch!" he shouted, throwing Blam three deep-red hawthorn berries still
connected by stiff stems. Blam cayght them but did not know what to do
next, until he looked up and saw Cutura picking more and popping them
into his mouth, chewing them, and spitting the tiny seeds out through his
teeth. Blam decided to try one. The moment he bi t into the berry, a warm,
pulpy sweetness flooded his tongue and coated the roof of his mouth.
It
was like nothing he had ever tas ted: it was like chewing spots of sun or a
dusty leaf or the rust on the iron fence; it was like eating raw earth,
dry
ard brittle, lying on the earth, burrowing into it. He kept taking fruit from
Cutura, popping it into his mouth, chewing it, andy spitting the seeds all
over, stuffing more and more into his mouth until Cutura grew tired and
sprang to the ground, lithe as a cat.
Translated from the Serbo-Croatian
by
Michael Henry Heim
