You Asked for It, Jozo

In Brčko they said Jozo Grgić had more trucks than teeth, which was only half true, because he still had all his teeth. He had started with a single dump truck and gravel from the Sava, while the young men his age were leaving for Germany. In twenty years he had turned that dump truck into a concrete plant on the road out toward Bijeljina, three gas stations, and a company that employed seventy people. On the company building and on every truck it said GRGIĆ BETON, in big blue letters.

The only thing he lacked was something that cannot be poured into a mold. The Šimundić family lived in a house in the center of town, with a plaque on the facade saying that Brčko's first notary had lived there, back under Austria. The facade was peeling, the roof leaked, and Mr. Vinko Šimundić, a retired judge, still wore a bow tie to Sunday Mass. When Jozo proposed to his daughter Antonela, Mr. Vinko asked for a week to think it over. During that week Jozo's workers, quite by chance, replaced his roof. At the wedding, in a hotel by the Sava, Mrs. Ljerka Šimundić introduced her son-in-law to the guests as "our Jozo," in the tone people use for a plumber who does good work.

Antonela was beautiful and tall, she spoke three languages better than Jozo spoke one, and from the first day of the marriage she did not hide that marrying him had been a family decision, not hers. She lunched with her friends in Tuzla and laughed into the phone in a voice she never used to laugh for him. Jozo was building a villa on the hill above town, with a pool and a terrace facing the Sava, and he believed that once the villa was finished, everything would sort itself out. The design was being done by a young architect named Dominik, whom Antonela had recommended personally.

The first time, he learned the truth at the gate of his own building site. It was January, late afternoon, and Jozo was standing in knee-high rubber boots, spattered with cement, when a flower delivery scooter pulled up at the gate. A young man of about twenty took off his helmet, looked him over from head to boots, and decided he was facing the watchman. "This is for the lady," he said, and handed him a bouquet of white roses. "From the architect. Just make sure the husband doesn't see you, they say he's some hick with a concrete business, jealous as a dog." Jozo took the roses and asked the young man his name. Mateo, the young man said, and added, lowering his voice as if between friends, that this was the third time he had brought roses, that there was a card in the bouquet, and on the card it said Thursday, tennis club, seven o'clock.

When the scooter had gone, Jozo looked at the card for a long time. Then he said out loud, although nobody but the cement mixer heard him: "You asked for it, Jozo." And he went straight to his mother-in-law and father-in-law.

Mrs. Ljerka received him in the parlor, beneath the portrait of the notary. Before he could sit down, she explained to him, as she did every time, that in this house one did not say "mother-in-law" but "Mrs. Šimundić," and that muddy boots were not to be brought onto the Persian rug. Jozo took off his boots and stayed in his socks. He showed them the card. Mr. Vinko read it through his glasses, twice, and said that this was a serious accusation, and that in the Šimundić family serious accusations were not made behind people's backs. He phoned Antonela and the architect. They arrived half an hour later, each in their own car.

Dominik was calm, in a sand-colored coat, and spoke in the voice architects use to explain why everything will cost twice as much. He said the card was not his, that plenty of people in Brčko played tennis on Thursdays, and that he was deeply hurt to have his name mixed up in matters like this. He swore on the honor of his family. Antonela said nothing and looked at Jozo's socks. Mr. Vinko stood up. "Jozo," he said, "a man of honor has suspected, and a man of honor also apologizes. Stand up and tell Mr. Dominik that you are sorry." Jozo stood up in his socks and said it. Mrs. Ljerka made him say it again, because the first time, as she put it, he had apologized as if he were selling gravel.

The second time he prepared better. The following Thursday he got into a truck belonging to one of his drivers, parked it across from the tennis club, and waited. At ten past seven Antonela and Dominik came out of the club and sat down in a café on the riverbank, at a table in the corner. Jozo filmed them on his phone, then called his father-in-law and told him only to come right away and bring the lady. The Šimundićs arrived twenty minutes later. But through the glass Antonela had seen the truck with GRGIĆ BETON written on it, which in Brčko cannot be hidden even behind a block of apartment buildings.

When her parents walked in, they found their daughter standing by the table and, loudly enough for the whole café to hear, handing some envelope back to the architect. "I have told you once already, sir," she was saying in a trembling voice. "I am a married woman. My husband may be a simple man, but he is honest, and I do not wish to read your messages. I came here only to tell you so in front of witnesses." Mrs. Ljerka embraced her daughter and said she had raised a saint. Mr. Vinko turned to Jozo, who was standing in the doorway with his phone in his hand, and asked him whether he was not ashamed to be spying on his own wife while she defended his honor. Jozo apologized to Antonela, in front of the waiter and half the café.

That night, on the way home, he said to the steering wheel: "You asked for it, Jozo." The steering wheel did not object.

The third time he decided he would call no one until he was sure. On Saturday Antonela said she had been invited to a friend's birthday party in Tuzla and would sleep at her place. At one in the morning, from a window of the villa, Jozo saw her car climbing the hill, and behind it a silver car he knew well, because the architect had bought it with the advance Jozo had paid him. The silver car turned around at the bottom of the street and switched off its lights. Jozo locked the door from the inside, left the key in the lock, and called his father-in-law. "Come and see where your daughter sleeps when she sleeps in Tuzla," he said, and hung up before Mrs. Ljerka could correct him.

Antonela knocked, then rang, then called to him through the door for a long time, sweetly at first, then angrily. Jozo sat in the hallway on a pack of tiles that had not been laid yet and did not answer. Outside there was frost and the stone steps were iced over. Then from the other side of the door he heard a short cry, a thud, and silence. "Jozo," Antonela moaned, "my leg. I think I broke it." Jozo jumped up, turned the key, and ran out in his pajamas and slippers. Antonela was lying on the steps. When he bent over her, she slipped out from under his arm more easily than a cat, ran into the house, and locked the door. The key was still in the lock, only now on the other side.

The taxi with the Šimundićs arrived a few minutes later. Its headlights lit up their son-in-law in striped pajamas, wearing one slipper, pounding on the door of his own house. A light came on in a second-floor window and Antonela appeared, in a bathrobe, her hair down. "Mom," she said in a tired voice, "it's good you came. I've been home since ten. He came back a little while ago, I don't know where from, and look, he's shouting in the street. The third time this month. I don't know what to do anymore." Mrs. Ljerka brought her nose close to her son-in-law's face and smelled rakija, the one small glass he had drunk with his workers at the opening of the new gas station. That was enough for her.

Antonela would not open the door until her husband apologized. Mr. Vinko dictated the apology to him, sentence by sentence, like a verdict. In his pajamas, in a frost that burned his ears, Jozo repeated that he had been wrong, that his wife was a decent woman from a decent house, and that he would never again doubt her. Mrs. Ljerka demanded that he say it more nicely. He said it more nicely. Only then did the door open. Mr. Vinko went in first, then Mrs. Ljerka, who noticed in the hallway right away that the tiles had not been laid yet.

Jozo was the last to enter his own house. On the threshold he turned and looked down the hill. At the bottom of the street the silver car switched on its lights, slowly turned around, and disappeared toward town. "You asked for it, Jozo," he said quietly, and locked the door, this time from the right side.