The priest fell in step beside them and asked, “Where will you go now? Do you have a place to stay?” When they said no, he nodded as if that was what he had expected. “I’ll go with you to the inn and we’ll make arrangements with the landlord.” They quickened their pace back into town, taking the same streets. The priest asked briefly how Rastko had met his end, wrinkling his nose at their answer. Lazukić stammered out a question about the funeral expense, but the priest with a wave of the hand murmured that there was plenty of time for that. “Now we will have to help one another more,” he added after a pause, lowering his voice confidentially and casting a glance at the two of them.
It was dusk now, and there were fewer people on the streets, but the inn, the same inn they had entered upon their arrival in Ub, was if anything more crowded, and at a table in the center two German soldiers sat with glasses in front of them. The priest motioned to the proprietor to come out from behind the counter and talked with him for some time; then the proprietor came up to Lazukić and told him that he had one guest room upstairs and would prepare it for him. The priest said good-bye to them and left.
“Would you like a bite to eat?” asked the proprietor.
Lazukić shook his head indifferently and asked where the room was. But at the mention of food, Sredoje felt a hunger as violent as a blow in the stomach. “I don’t mind waiting for something to eat,” he said.
While the proprietor took his father upstairs, Sredoje found an empty chair at a corner table next to a man who was half asleep. It wasn’t until he sat down and leaned against the back of the chair that he felt how tired he was; his whole body throbbed. The proprietor came back, looked for Sredoje, and walked over to him. “I only have beans, but they’re good.” Sredoje nodded. The food arrived, and he threw himself at it, savoring the warmth and flavor of each spoonful he swallowed. After polishing his plate and drinking his fill of water, he slumped back in his chair, covered with sweat. The proprietor lit a kerosene lamp behind the counter (evidently there was no power), and the customers, as if at a prearranged sign, began to leave. Even the man at Sredoje’s table came to life, got up, and hobbled off.
But several guests stayed on at the middle table, gathered around the two German soldiers. The soldier who sat facing Sredoje, a fair-haired, middle-aged man, took out of his jacket pocket letters, photographs, cigarettes, and a penknife, and displayed them to those assembled, precisely pronouncing the German words for each—meine Frau, mein Sohn, meine Tochter, Deutsche Zigaretten, Taschenmesser—as if introducing them to parts of himself in order to become closer to them, to be better understood. The locals — one a dark, stout, older man in a worn suit, another bony, with close-cropped hair, and another wearing a hat, his mustache drooping — obediently observed these objects, nodding, and with smiles described to each other in Serbian what they saw, as if it were something of great value and importance. Then they in turn, poking their thumbs at their chests, gave their own names and professions. The stout man was a barber, and as proof he produced a razor from the top pocket of his coat; the man with the close-cropped hair was a leather worker; and the one with the hat and the drooping mustache was a cobbler. All had their businesses on the main street, they informed the German, calling him over to the door and pointing, after a few misunderstandings, to their shops.
When it seemed that subject was exhausted, the German beckoned them to the table; the proprietor, too, approached. Then the German took out a pack of cards and, grinning at his own cleverness, started to cut and shuffle with the fingers of one hand. He laughed, showing a row of metal teeth; everybody else laughed, too, except for Sredoje, whose eyes were too tired to watch the lightning movement of the brightly colored, smooth surfaces of the cards. His head ached, so he got up, left the laughter and exclamations of approval, and went up the stairs. At the top he found a half-open door to a little room and in the dimness recognized his father on the only bed. Sredoje undressed and lay down next to him. His father sighed, “My Rastko, my Rastko,” let out a moan, then continued snoring fitfully. For a long time Sredoje was kept awake by his headache and the laughter from the room below, which now and then exploded into roars of mirth.
The following morning he was again awakened by shouts from below. He opened his eyes and saw his father sitting on the bed, barefoot, staring into space, fingering his three-day growth of graying beard. “Poor wretches that we are, my son,” he muttered, shaking his head. They got up, dressed, and went downstairs.
Sredoje saw the same faces he had left the night before: the barber, the proprietor, the leather worker. Only the Germans and the cobbler were gone. He said to his father, “That dark-haired man is a barber. We’ll ask him to shave you.” But the proprietor, who had overheard, laughed loudly. “Shave you! Don’t you know? They cleaned us out!” That started the rest of them talking, interrupting each other: their shops had been broken into and looted; everything that could be taken had been taken, everything.
“Even our razors and scissors,” said the barber in disgust. “Our needles, too,” said the leather worker. “All the bottles, glasses, all the money from the till,” said the proprietor in despair. But the thief was not named.
Nemanja Lazukić, unaware of the Germans the night before, asked what had happened, but the only answer was a dismissive wave of the hand. The talk of possessions disappearing prompted him to inquire about the suitcases Rastko had with him in the military cart: Had anyone seen them? Had the soldiers who brought in the body? But no one knew anything about the suitcases or the soldiers.
“There’s no hope at all,” the proprietor told him. “Since this morning they’ve been taking the soldiers away, and your men are probably among them.” For breakfast, all the proprietor could serve was sherbet and bread. “I couldn’t give you anything else if you killed me,” he growled. “They even took my coffee. I don’t know how I’m going to feed my family.” But after breakfast he invited Lazukić and Sredoje into the cold kitchen, where he let Lazukić shave with his razor.
Once in the street, Lazukić and Sredoje saw a group of Yugoslav soldiers, without rifles, walking two by two, escorted by armed Germans. The local people stood on the sidewalk, watching this silently, solemnly, but with no sign of life in their eyes. No one paid attention to Lazukić and his son anymore; it was as if they had been absorbed into the occupied and looted town of Ub. They went to see the priest.
They found him in front of his house, without his surplice, in trousers and an old coat, feeding the chickens. They barely recognized him. He did not put down the basket filled with maize or ask them into the house; he simply accepted the money that the lawyer put into his free hand and nodded.
“Will you look after the grave, please, until I am able to do so myself?”
“I will, I will,” replied the priest, turning to the chickens, who were piping impatiently around him.
They went out to the cemetery and found it deserted, not a single visitor. Lazukić wept before the fresh mound, caressed the cross, which bore no inscription. “We’ll come back soon, we will,” he whispered. Then they walked back into the town.