The next time the captain put in an appearance, with no mention of the message or of what had passed between them, he was received as a family friend. He, too, felt this unmistakably and visited Lazukić more often, not only to see what was for sale and also to buy, which he did without haggling, and sometimes just to talk. He came with a bottle of slivovitz under his arm and a box of foreign cigarettes. He would take a comfortable position in the armchair, cross his legs, light a cigarette, and, sipping brandy from the glass Lazukić poured for him, ply his hosts with questions. What were they doing? What was new in the neighborhood? In the world of business? How did Sredoje occupy himself? Gradually, Waldenheim penetrated to their past — their life in Novi Sad, Lazukić’s career as a lawyer, and his politics. But he spoke little of himself, and when Lazukić reproached him for that, he laughed. “What you find out about me will be of no use to you. I am not a typical German. I do not drink beer. I do not carry with me a photograph of my wife and children; in fact, I have no wife and children.” And he went on to discuss the character of his countrymen, their habits, even their defects — above all, their coldness and arrogance. “We are still provincial,” he said. “We are not mature enough to rule. Instead of earning respect, we often arouse hatred through ill-considered actions.”
It was Waldenheim’s view that the Germans should win the confidence of the people they had recently begun to rule by adapting themselves to the local ways of life. “Like the British,” he added. If the talk turned to the shooting of hostages and to arbitrary requisitions, he would sigh, lifting his eyes to the ceiling. He didn’t hide the fact that as an intelligence officer he had to take part in reprisals against the resistance movement, which was gaining ground in Serbia, and in an almost humble tone he begged his new friends not to take part in any disturbances, especially Sredoje, whose youth could easily lead him astray. Lazukić was touched by this expression of concern for them, but Sredoje laughed to himself, because in his wanderings in search of carnal pleasure it had never occurred to him to shoot at the Germans. He wondered if he should confide in Waldenheim, tell him of his secret love for Germans, but he never had the chance to be alone with him, and besides, he didn’t completely trust him. Even physically Waldenheim was different from the Germans Sredoje saw in the streets or in the remote taverns on the outskirts of town. Blond, stocky, and not particularly neat in his dress, with cigarette ash on the pockets of his creased jacket, he had a gentle, almost mocking smile, which played around his full lips and twinkled in his wide blue eyes. Whereas the other German officers and soldiers ignored the civilians in the streets, or kept their distance from them with a disgust they did not bother to conceal, the captain’s blue eyes, looking slightly misty, rested on Sredoje with warmth and attention. But somehow this acted as a warning instead of inspiring confidence.
However, when, at the beginning of summer, it was his age group’s turn to be enlisted in the Serbian National Guard, which he had not the slightest wish to join, Sredoje, at his father’s insistence, approached Waldenheim for help. The German once again was understanding and discreet, passing over in silence the young man’s motives for getting around the law, and said that he would look into it. The next time he called on Lazukić, he had a solution: he could get Sredoje, who knew German, a job as a police translator, which, because of the service’s importance, would exempt him from the grueling and perhaps even dangerous duties of the National Guard. Father and son looked at each other and hesitated — the police under the Occupation were despised as traitors — but this consideration was outweighed by the evident and immediate advantage, and they accepted the offer gratefully. Waldenheim took a calling card bearing only his name and rank from his pocket and wrote “Sredoje Lazukić” on the back in his familiar small hand. The next day, Sredoje presented this laconic recommendation at the Police Department, which was located in a grimy old three-story building.
They gave him a number of forms to fill out, and he had to be photographed and go out twice for tax stamps, but evidently everything had been arranged beforehand, because after ten days an official letter of acceptance came in the mail, engaging him as a junior clerk with the city police. He arrived for work on the top floor of the building where he had submitted his application. It was a long, bright room, which could easily accommodate a desk for the new arrival, in addition to the desks of the two men already there: Rudi Streuber, a German from the Banat, who was in charge, and Peter Kilipenko, a Russian émigré, who was a clerk. Young, brilliant, but lazy, Streuber gave the orders, and industrious old Kilipenko would hunch over his documents and battered dictionaries. The two were translating from German all the German Command orders for the Southeast and the orders of the German Military Police, and into German the decisions of the city police, which they sent in three copies to the department secretary, who passed them on.
There was not a great deal to do, a few notices and three- or four-page information bulletins a day, a relatively simple job, since the documents contained much the same vocabulary. Kilipenko jealously guarded every paper until he had translated it roughly in his hooked, clear handwriting, and it was left to Sredoje to polish the language and sometimes retype. He spent a good part of the eight-hour day smoking and reading the newspapers, but when he realized that Streuber, himself not overzealous, had no objection if his new assistant, recommended from higher up, disappeared when there was little to do, Sredoje left the office to take walks, the kind of walks he had taken before from home.
In his new circumstances his lust became more deliberate. In place of occasional pocket money he now had a salary, by no means negligible; he was protected by his position, carrying a card complete with photograph; and he also carried in his pocket, out of a kind of bravado, since joining the police, a snub-nosed revolver, which someone had pawned with his father. Only now did Sredoje realize how timid, anxious, and even risky his earlier excursions had been. But that was in the past. He no longer entered taverns with the feeling of committing a crime, but with the confidence of the elite, almost like his heroes, the German soldiers. When he caught himself imitating them, he smiled. It was easy for him now to start conversations with women there, and with some of them he even had amorous encounters. But the constraints and banalities of the main rooms were carried over, however much he tried to avoid it, into the little rooms to which the women took him for their hurried embrace. This ceased to satisfy him. Led by instinct, he ventured farther afield, prowling the town more boldly.