“And who took your house?”
“My uncle, the late Viktor Schwartz, had no children, so I was sole heir. Once the war was over, the government renovated the pharmacy as a monument and then took it.” She stopped for a moment and gave Nora a penetrating glance. “Do you, by any chance, work in television?”
“No, no . . . elsewhere.”
“Well, I called them to come and have a look. At home I have five boxes of fully indexed papers. I used to work, you know, as an archivist, and I’ve kept everything in tip-top shape, but nobody’s willing to show up, nobody cares. Now they’ve moved into the building and are playing dumb, as if it’s already theirs. The fellow—you know, what’s his name, the one who peels potatoes?” Nora caught on slowly. The former agriculture minister, a high-ranking politician, was one of the people convicted of fraud for millions of kunas for selling state-owned lands; he wasn’t sentenced to prison time but to community service. Photographs had been flooding the media of him, as one of those making amends, as he peeled potatoes in a soup kitchen. His political party had apparently been using the home of Viktor Schwartz and Melania Gmaz as their headquarters. The building was a baroque edifice in the center of the city, which, according to famous Serbian and previously Yugoslav writers such as Momo Kapor, was nothing but a provincial, countrified copy of a baroque building, tantamount to an architectural slap in the face. The great Croatian patriots, however, saw it as war booty and moved their corrupt party right in, while for Melania the building had been her childhood home. No matter which of these stories Nora dug into, she found evidence of crimes, pits that could be covered over only by institutional lies.
“And I have another house—or, I should say, half a house.” Melania smiled gently. “It is up on Priljevo, near the port. They offered me a thousand deutsch marks for it—sorry, damn it, euros.”
“Who offered?”
“The people from the city, who else. They said, ‘Grandma, that’s the most you’ll ever get for it.’ Well, screw you! I showed them a thing or two. I couldn’t care less what happens once I up and die, but while I’m alive and kicking they will not get their grubby little hands on it.” Her eyes filled with tears, and on she went: “I saw them the other day hanging around my house with that Chinese fellow; there’s big money at play . . . They drove up in this big black car, and when the Chinese fellow left they were there in the parking lot. The mayor nearly came to blows with the man who has his fingers in every pie. Who knows what this is about? I wanted to call the police when I saw how he was picking the other guy up by the collar, but then they left.”
“You’re certain it was the mayor?” Nora wasn’t entirely convinced by the story about the dustup in the parking lot.
“You bet I am. . . . The other man—the one who runs the hotel; you know who I mean—lifted Mr. Mayor up and threw him against a car. What animals! He’s the one who actually runs the city anyway . . .” she added bitterly. “And then they stopped, so I didn’t call it in.” She fell silent, and after a pause, added:
“But they’re not getting their claws on my house. As long as I’m still present and accounted for.”
“Good for you,” was all Nora could add. Melania pursed her lips and said nothing for a long stretch. She smoothed the lace on her glove, her eyes fixed somewhere deep in front of her. Nora, also, was quiet. She had no clear plans for the rest of the day. She could feel the city seething beneath the surface; why, only that morning she’d been thinking she’d be able to wrap up her assignment by nightfall, might write a few pages at the hotel and sign off on most of the story about the dragon lady. The article would be built on guesswork, packaged as presentable only thanks to the tools of the trade, and that was what was most repugnant to her. All she’d accomplished up to that point was a stuttering exchange with Ante’s mother in the doorway to her house, a meeting with the former high school principal which had been put off to the next day, a weird invitation to an evening of poetry by a poet who penned elegiac verse about a city that had been smashed and murdered while he worked on advancing his international career. Still, she might run into interesting people at the poetry reading; it was worth going purely for curiosity’s sake. On the other hand, she could always pick up a bottle of wine and spend the evening at the hotel, listening to reverberations from the deep inner life of the walls.
“You are so young, yet so pensive.” Melania’s voice interrupted her. “When I was your age I was leaping over buildings in a single bound, but that was a different time; everything has been lost . . . There’s no more joy . . .”
“Gotta go,” said Nora, feeling restless.
“Off you go, dear; don’t let me keep you. It was a pleasure.” Melania looked at her gently as Nora stood. She had already begun to walk away when she heard the voice behind her: “And go somewhere where there’s sunlight and sea! Get away from this hole!”
Nora did not turn around.
ÄÄÄ
Like it used to be
we trade our night
for someone else’s day
The doorknob to the room dated back to the hotel’s original inventory, brass and round. The door was opened by pressing the button
