Psalm 44

Jakob had stopped in front of the cabinet in which the achievements of Nietzsche’s Center for Scientific Research were on display. In alcohol-filled jars floated freakish little unborn children, monsters of artificial crossbreeding and experimentation. This was too much for Jan. So Marija led the boy on further, letting Jakob know by way of silent gestures. A group being led by a docent stopped in front of the cases with the little malformed creatures and listened to the monotone explanation, as professional and as indifferent as could be. When Marija heard the cicerone’s voice starting up again behind her back, she tugged on Jan’s hand. “Same disgusting old song,” she said to herself. “You drop in five marks and the money goes right to his tongue. And the record starts spinning. Lazy, indifferent. Hideous, stupid Tower of Babel. . All for five marks.” Then she saw that the disgusting old organ grinder was right in her path. So when the visitors, including Jakob, started shuffling their feet and snapping photos, she let go of Jan’s hand and walked without a word into another room. She wanted to be alone, right then and there. (There are moments when selfishness and loneliness can prevail over love.) She couldn’t bear to hear the guide’s voice or the footsteps of people entering a place of execution as though it was a bazaar. It was cool and mostly dark in the room she had entered. The touch of the cool air was pleasant to her sweat-covered palms. She was out of range of the guide’s voice now. That allowed her to calm down. She could sense that Jakob and Jan were moving toward her solitude, toward the open door. They were holding hands. Without turning her head she could see the two of them, Jakob and the child. Jan was looking at the welter of unfathomable, fantastical objects without daring to ask anything at all. And Jakob still held him by the hand, tense in anticipation of questions and preoccupied with preparing answers. They had agreed to show the boy everything he could comprehend and take in without getting terrified. But at this point Jakob would have preferred for the child to ask no questions of him. Marija would be better at explaining it all to him.

Then the guide’s steps were audible once more (he had a peculiar, irregular gait), and his dreary voice too. It ripped into Marija’s consciousness along with the realization that Jakob was going to leave it to her to satisfy Jan’s curiosity. She thought: he needs to get the child out of here. The three of them should have been alone in this place. Without an audience. And without that guide. They shouldn’t have come during the tourist season. Later would have been better. At the start of winter. Or in late fall. They lived in Warsaw. It wasn’t far. Jakob worked in a hospital. She gave German lessons.

Then she heard Jakob’s voice.

“Marija,” he said. “I have a surprise for you.”

He hadn’t shut the door. Only his head poked inside. It was still just as dark in the room. Music from a radio reached them. It seemed to her that the tune was similar to “The Girl I Adore.” But it was in fact just a march. Or a waltz, maybe.

“Are you crying?” Jakob asked. “You are!”

She pulled out a handkerchief to wipe her eyes:

“It’s nothing,” she said. “It’s. . I just felt depressed all of a sudden. What did you want to tell me? Jan must be. .”

Jakob was embarrassed.

“Right,” he said. “He’s talking with the guide.”

He pushed the door open all the way and Marija caught sight of Jan and the docent. They were standing together as if in front of a curtain on a stage. The two of them. Jan and the guide. Holding one another by the hand.

When the door swung open, they bowed to her. As if they’d been practicing. Wreathed in grins. “May I introduce you, at last, to your deus ex machina?” Jakob said. “This is Maks.”

Then the two of them, the child and the cicerone, started toward her. The man was lame in his right leg. Jakob stood to one side. With a mournful smile on his face.

Beograd — Herceg Novi, 1960

TRANSLATOR’S AFTERWORD