Infidelities Read online

  Now I couldn’t back out. What would my friends think of me? Gavrilo would laugh. Well, now I thought I was cowardly, but nobody else must know it. And what if I didn’t do it? Suppose that in fact I went over to a gendarme and told him about the whole plot. I could save the future monarch. I would have wanted to save his wife, who was a Czech, and at least she should be spared, but she was married to him, so she was a traitor as well, and if she went, so be it.

  I imagined the monarch would continue to oppress Bosnia, and all the Slavs in it. Everybody who wanted to advance would still have to study in German, and bow to the pasty and cheesy Germans as though they were higher beings. I’d have to bow even to the drunken Hungarian slobs. Anyway, if I told a policeman of the plot, I would get no credit, but would be jailed for being a conspirator. It would be a different matter if they gave me a nice apartment in Paris and a pension for the rest of my life. But of course, they wouldn’t do that, they would jail me. Even if they gave me an apartment, what kind of life would that be? Somebody from the Black Hand or Mlada Bosna would kill me as a traitor.

  And what if I just quietly slunk away, walked over the bridge to the other side of the river, and up the mountain all the way to Pale, to enjoy the fresh air, the beautiful views? Who was to say that the other comrades could actually kill the archduke? I had no confidence in the whole lot. So if I didn’t do it, who could?

  However, if I succeeded, wouldn’t I be sorry to die? I have never made love, nothing that would count, anyway; I have not yet finished reading Crime and Punishment. But so what? What kind of life do I have to wait for? Work, and shrieking children who’ll be starving to death, while I slave twelve hours a day in some miserable printing press outfit, sorting out letters and poisoning myself with lead, and if I get tired of that, what else could I do? Go into coal mines to feed the Austrian trains, so the gentlemen and the soft women with garters could frolic all over our rails? Plus, what’s left in the novel—I got stuck in the middle, and suddenly it grew boring with all the conspiracies and confessions and weeping.

  But now was no time to get lost in thought. The six cars were glimmering, reflecting shafts of prickly sunlight, so it looked like thin swords flying at me. What if I didn’t notice the archduke in time? What if I mistook the general Potiorek for him; the general was imitating the duke. I looked around. There was a gendarme some ten paces away from me. Did he notice I was looking at him? Should I have been scared of him? Well, now that I glared at him, he would be aware of me, and the best way then was not to be stealthy. I was tempted to tell him what I was about to do, just to amaze him. I wasn’t that foolish, though. I walked up to him, and said, Sir, could you please tell me in what car His Highness is?

  Oh, yes, in the second one, over there. He pointed out the shiniest car.

  Thank you for the directions, I said.

  Oh, don’t mention it. We are all excited—such an incredible privilege to see the next emperor right here!

  I moved away from the gendarme, and noticed the pea-cocky feathers above the duke’s head. I tore off the bomb cap. It was louder than I expected. I saw the driver in the approaching first car shrink back and look over and accelerate. Did he suspect what it was? Now it would definitely go off. I was stuck. What should I do with the bomb now? Throw it in the river behind? What would that do? Kill a few fish feeding on an Austrian clerk’s dung? How long could the bomb wait in my hands? Ten seconds, I knew that. I squeezed the bomb tightly in my pocket. My teeth chattered as though cold winter winds had suddenly begun to blow through my thin clothes.

  The second car was close, approaching from my left, slowly, some twenty paces away. Very few policemen stood at the sidewalk. I had expected more of them; maybe there were many undercover agents around? But maybe not. The archduke boasted that he did not need high security; he wanted to appear brave. Maybe he was brave. It was easy to be brave with so much army at your command, even if the army was away.

  Eight seconds. It looked unbelievably easy. I would never have such an opportunity again. Maybe just one strike, and I could liberate the Serbs—Austrians might get the message that they were not wanted, or there would be war, but at any rate, freedom from foreigners would come sooner or later. Maybe many people would die, but then the rest would live. Now, nobody lived.

  Six seconds? The car was twelve yards or so from me. The duchess smiled, basking in the hazy sunshine. She had moist lips, gleaming teeth, looked fresh, that’s what having underlings does for you. I knew that she hardly ever took trips with her husband, and she never rode with him in parades in Vienna because she was not of royal birth and therefore was not allowed to, but this time she must have done him a favor, or he had perhaps told her of the quaint beauties of the Balkans, and she could not resist the tourist temptations. She looked comfortable, pleasant, but what right did she have to her happiness?

  I pulled out the bomb, with maybe three seconds left, still sort of hiding it with my palm. At that moment the archduke shot me a glance, a steady, cold glance. For a second our eyes were locked, and I hated that calm, the superiority in his gaze, which analyzed me as though I were a specimen in a zoo. I thought he could read all my intentions, and that he derided me, convinced that I couldn’t do it, that he was so much above me that I was fit only to crawl at his feet and lick the shoe polish off his boots, and that even that would be a great favor to me. You will pay for this, I thought, and lifted my arm high and flung toward those eyes. But I had been too eager, and the metal slid from my clammy skin a little too soon. The bomb was flying in an arc above the archduke’s head. The duke, obviously understanding the bomb was flying at his wife on the other side of him, lifted his arm, and the bomb deflected from it, hit the car roof cloth, which was drawn back for the good weather, bounced off it, and fell on the pavement under the third car, where it exploded, with shrapnel whistling, and then ensued the screams of the struck pedestrians. The second car sped away, and a dozen men were running toward me. I took cyanide, wrapped in a newspaper, from my left pocket and stuffed it into my mouth, together with a bit of the wrapping, so I wouldn’t spill the powder, more than enough to kill me, but my throat was so dry I could not swallow. I pulled out the paper, and tried to make spittle in my mouth to swallow. By no means did I want to be caught by the police; now I’d have to die. I jumped over the fence and into the river, into the shallow water, which trickled among the rocks. I sprained my ankle, but no matter, why worry about that now?

  A dozen civilians and policemen jumped after me into the river. I did not run away, did not resist, but threw myself prostrate into the cold water. The policemen grabbed me, pulled me up, twisted my arms, hit me with their clubs over the head. I felt a trickle of warm urine in my pants—even if I thought I was not afraid, I was afraid, but didn’t have enough mind to pay attention to it; something in my body was afraid. Why did I have so much water down there, and so little in my mouth? My throat was still choking dry. The hits blazed in my head, they were hot.

  Don’t bother beating me, I said. I’ve taken poison and have only a minute to live. So don’t waste your time!

  As they dragged me away, I felt nauseated. The poison is working, I thought. Am I ready to die? Yes, I am ready. That’ll be easier than dealing with the police and the trials, and they’d kill me, anyway. How? Would they hang me on the gallows, in a public performance? Would they shoot me with my eyes covered in black cloth? Would a crowd gather? Would they all cheer, even those who hated the Austrians, would even they cheer, so they would not be suspected of wanting the end of Austria? Would they cheer the loudest? Would mothers bring along their children, so they would learn to obey and fear the authorities? Would Jovanka come out, and die from grief?

  I felt like vomiting, but could not vomit.

  Who are you? What is your name? a short policeman shouted into my nose, as though it were my nose that should have been able to listen, his breath stinking from rotten teeth and plum brandy.

  I am a Serbian hero! I shrieked. And that was true
, at that moment I realized it was true; my words worked faster than my mind. It felt good to say that. Now everything seemed worth it. I even straightened up, and my head and spine and shins all tingled—from a mixture of pain and pride.

  Name, what is your name?

  What’s in a name? I told you. Names come from fathers, but a heroic deed from deep inside. (I was thinking it wasn’t such a bad throw—I was just a second off, and considering I didn’t have a stopwatch, and didn’t really count, that was not bad; actually, the car would have been past me in a second or two—so I did pretty well. They certainly knew they were not welcome!)

  Name! the officer said, and kicked me below the kneecap, so I suddenly lost balance as my muscles jerked.

  They gave me blows as we went along. Old men with walking sticks jabbed at me. People hollered, spat. Blood flowed down my head and glued my eyes. I did not mind that warm feeling on my face; it felt as though it were enveloping me, protecting me, healing me. As long as there was blood on me, I felt safe. It doesn’t make any sense, but what can I tell you, that is how I felt. Actually, I even felt happy. I had done my job. I was free now. They could jail me, kill me, but I had done what I had set out to do. I had not believed I could do it. I smiled from joy. No matter what they did to me, they could not take away my heroic deed. I didn’t need to accomplish anything anymore. This was it. This was better than getting a doctorate or an Olympic medal.

  I don’t know how much time elapsed in a dark room in the military barracks, where I sprawled on a wooden bench along the wall, or whether the room was dark or only my vision failing. Several officers came in and interrogated me during the day, and again they came at night, and kept repeating the same questions, to try to catch me lying. I was lying at first, but later, it made no difference, except I did not want to give them any names, such as where I slept, because I knew that could get the people I knew into trouble. It seemed to me they were gullible, and I could tell them anything, and they would write it down and believe it. So, when they asked me whether I worked alone or with an organization, such as Black Hand, more for a joke than anything else, I said, I am working for the International Free Masons.

  I knew nothing about the Free Masons, except that Catholic Austrians were scared of them and believed in all sorts of conspiracy theories involving the Masons. I told them we were trying to create a world without monarchs, monarchies, and countries, just one peaceful world.

  Strange enough, they believed this and, from what I heard later on, kept bringing it up for months, in courts, in the newspapers—just one little joke threw them off so much. I wish I had given them more silly lies, but they kept harping on this one so much, without ever getting it, that I grew bored. They were not a fun bunch at all.

  The lamplight was right in front of me on the table, so I saw nothing beyond it, and the police voices came from behind it, from the dark. Not that I wanted to look at the ugly men, but having voices like that just coming at me was spooky.

  Who worked with you?

  Nobody, I answered.

  But that is not true, we know it is not true. Several men after you drew their guns and took shots at the crown prince. He is dead. Are you glad?

  I did not know what to think. I was glad, and I was not glad. So, someone else managed to do it! I thought I was the only one who could, and just trying was good enough, but someone actually did it, on His Majesty’s way back on the Quay.

  Did they kill anybody else? I asked.

  Yes, His Majesty’s wife.

  Who killed them?

  Gavrilo Princip. You know him?

  I knew of him. But I didn’t know he planned to do this.

  Strange to say, I felt jealous of Princip. I’d never expected him to succeed. So, he would be glorious, he would be a Serbian saint, and I would die in obscurity. But I was happy, too. I had many emotions, as much as I could in my dazed state. The tyrant was gone. We did it. After all, it was a beautiful plan, to have several men, one after another, shoot, and maybe none of them would have, if I hadn’t started it all, showed how possible it was. But how did the archduke even get the idea to drive again down the Quay? My bomb must have confused everybody and made the real assassination possible.

  The interrogations went on interminably. Sometimes they had to repeat a question two or three times because I just could not think and concentrate. They thought I was spiteful, and they pulled my ears as though I were a schoolboy, but they no longer hit.

  They manipulated me and toyed with my emotions. Don’t lie, a policeman said, we know Gavrilo is one of your best friends. But do you know what? He confessed he was tempted to shoot you after you threw your bomb and failed to kill yourself. He said if you hadn’t been so far he would have shot you and then himself, so nobody would find out about the plot, how do you like that?

  Of course, I didn’t like that. Just to think of it, the gall that boy had. He certainly made better friends with ideas than with people. Any moment, if he became a political leader, he’d shoot off his friends, if he thought the ideas called for it. I was disgusted. I guess he had what it took to become a great leader. But maybe they had lied to me.

  Are you sorry for what you did? They repeated that question many times.

  I certainly was not, and if I was, it had to do only with my failure to accomplish the deed. And I felt sorry for all the pedestrians I wounded. They were now in the hospitals, bleeding, maybe feverish, and considering our health care system, which was not ours, of course, but Austrian, some of them might get gangrene and die slowly, painfully, all because of my imprecision. I should have controlled my emotions better: I had thrown too hard in my zeal and rashness. Just one more second of aiming and self-control would have done it. I was a second or two too fast for history, or history was too slow for my nervous temperament.

  I was sick for a couple of days, vomiting. I could not keep any food down. The cyanide was working, to some extent, enough to burn my throat. I think it was old and stale. It would have been better if the explosive had been too old, and the poison fresh. I still hoped to die, but could not die. I was too weak to die. In my room, I slept terribly; my throat and nose burned. I shivered, though it was not cold, but then, my health was never robust. Whenever I turned in sleep, the chains clanked and clattered and rang dull. They were cold and heavy. Still, I managed to move around during the day. There was terrible shrieking and wailing coming out of the yard. I peeped through the window and saw the police clubbing dozens of men, Serbs. It was sunny and hot, and those who were not beaten were forced to look at the sun; many of them had their mouths open from all the heat and no water. There weren’t that many people who had anything to do with us. This mass beating was totally arbitrary and irrational. The wailing, the pain, echoed from the walls, grew stronger, and the echoes and the original screams mixed up in a dizzying, pulsating sorrow. There, we wanted freedom for our people, but this was a far cry from it. Some of the men doubling over were old, some weren’t men at all but children. I didn’t know what to do about it—clearly, I could do nothing but look. And I couldn’t even do that. When the gallows were raised, and men were being hanged—for what? for who they were?—a gendarme shot at me. He narrowly missed. The glass above my head shattered, one fragment cut into my cheek, and others splashed on the floor in smithereens. So now I could not watch, but I could hear even better through the broken glass.

  After the hangings, the following day, more beatings went on for hours. I was sorry for causing this grief, but at the same time this strengthened my hatred for the monarchy, and I wished I had managed to kill the monarch and the general.

  It was terribly lonely in the cell. I could not talk to my friends. I did come up with a system of messages—I wrote at the bottom of my plate, and the plates went from one room to another. Princip and Ilic caught on, and we exchanged drawings, jokes, and so on. We also tapped messages through the wall, with sharp and dull thuds—we had learned the code for each letter beforehand, we had got ready for this part; that h
ad been my idea, from a Russian manual. One day I tapped a code into Ilic’s wall, but he did not respond. I was sure he had hanged himself. So I tapped the message to Princip, who tapped back that he was saddened by the news. The next day Ilic tapped to me—I was overjoyed that he was alive, and so was Princip when I communicated the news to him. I had certainly jumped to conclusions too easily; I was so nervous and jumpy. But communicating through the wall in code was not good enough for me to have a sense of community, and I was lonely. If nothing else, I knew that tapping for a while would bring an angry Austrian guard, who would shout at me to stop. After he went, I continued, and then he’d come in again and shout. I was amazed that they could not decipher our code—maybe they didn’t even know we were communicating.

  WE WERE ALL GATHERED for the trial in the court and examined and cross-examined sometime in October. By now we all had small beards, goatees, from not shaving. None of us had firm black beards, we all looked Chekhovian. This was the first time I saw my friends since the end of June, so for a while I didn’t pay any attention to what the judge was saying. I giggled from happiness at being with my friends. After all we were just boys; and if only we had stuck to being boys. It felt like we were ignoring a lesson at school, and the fat judge’s bad temper made it only all the more entertaining.