The Madonna on the Moon

by Rolf Bauerdick

  “But the Yanks are blind. They don’t realize what the Soviets are cooking up. And not a voice to warn them. And Korolev is rubbing his hands with glee. America fell for his Sputnik trick and is boiling mad about that stupid beeping. Meanwhile time is running out. I would guess Korolev and Khrushchev are just counting the days until the real countdown begins.”

  “The real what?”

  “It’s the period between a point in time x and the rocket launch,” Dimitru explained. “When the cosmonauts have overcome gravity and are on the moon, the order will reach them, ‘Fan out and find Mary!’”

  “And if they don’t find the Madonna, they’ll announce to the world that there’s no God . . .”

  “And you know what that means?”

  I heard Grandfather refilling two glasses before he answered, “Not exactly.”

  “I’ll tell you: if there’s no God, it means the United States of America is done for. Exitus. Up to now the Yanks were always superior to the Soviets in everything. Higher buildings, bigger cars . . .”

  “Bigger statues of the Madonna and better cigars,” Grandfather added.

  “Exactly. Everything in America is better. But without God, it’ll be all over. Then the Americans will have to pulp all their money. Without God, all those lovely dollars are worthless. In God we trust! That’s English, and it’s written on every American bill, on account of the parable of Jesus about the master and his servants and the talents. If you have a talent, make it two. If you have a lot of money, make even more. That’s what an American does. Like in the Bible. I know about it from my cousin Salman. He once tried his hand at currency trading. But if there’s no God, then you can’t trust in him, much less in a currency that puts its trust in something that doesn’t exist. Without God, America might as well burn its dollars. Then comes the ruble.”

  “I understand,” said Ilja. “That’s why the Americans have to act fast. Faster than the Russians. Another shot?”

  “I’ll never say no!”

  “Someone should warn the president of the United States. But how?”

  “Sic est. But it’s still too early for an intervention. First we need to know if Mary really went up to heaven. Otherwise we’ll make a laughingstock of ourselves. Why do you think I study so much? I’m testing if it’s possible that the infallible papal magisterium is fallible. If it turns out that Pius in Rome made an error fatal in his dogma or, worse, knowingly misled the faithful, then we can close up shop. There’ll be nothing left of Jesus’s Mother but dust and bones, scattered about somewhere in the Holy Land. There’ll be nothing left but to verificize: forget the Assumption! That’s how I see it.”

  “That must be how it is,” Grandfather confirmed. “Exactly how I see it, too.”

  He refilled their glasses and stood up. The cash-register drawer squealed. Besides drinking, Grandfather was obviously breaking another habitual rule. He took out the new box of cigars I’d given him for his fifty-fifth birthday.

  “Here, Dimitru. Have one. Nothing beats a good Cuban.”

  Matches scratched and flared. The powerful aroma of tobacco permeated the still air. Then Dimitru said something long overdue, ever since the day when he lent my grandfather his hand to write “Borislav Ilja Botev” on the list of names demanded by Raducanu.

  “Your Cubans are classy, Ilja. The Bulgarians understand a thing or two about rolling cigars. But why they write the letters backward in their Cyrillic scribble isn’t clear to me. No one who knows Latin can make heads or tails of it. By the way, it’s time you finally learned your letters.”

  “I know, Dimitru, I know. High time.”

  “Starting tomorrow you’re going to have lessons, taught by yours truly. An hour per day. As a restaurateur you can afford the innocence of ignorance but not as my ally on this most tricky mission. How are you going to stand up to that sly fox Korolev if you can’t even write your name on a piece of white paper?”

  “And you won’t tell anyone?”

  “What a question! I’m your best friend! I’m pledged to silence. Feel better now?”

  Grandfather laughed. “Much better. But there’s something else . . .”

  “Out with it!”

  “Well, even if that box only works as a radio, believe me, Dimitru: your television was a wonderful present and makes me very happy. But sometimes I think the pleasure of owning such an apparatus is too great. The present must have cost a fortune, and you Gypsies have nothing saved up for a rainy day. I think now that we’re not just friends but allies, you can tell me where you got the money for the TV. Not that I think you organized the acquisition—how shall I put it?—outside the bounds of the law, but . . .”

  “Good Gypsies don’t steal!”

  I was sure Dimitru was about to jump up and curse and cancel the friendship. But things stayed calm. I opened my eyes and saw the Gypsy struggle to hide his emotion.

  “Dimitru,” asked Granddad in a worried voice, “what’s the matter?”

  “What a time you picked to remind me of my dead father Laszlo!”

  “But Dimitru, the accident by the Tirnava was twenty years ago. Your father’s been dead a long time and I’ll never forget the way he tried to pull my Agneta and Antonia out of the wagon. I’ll never forget how you jumped into the icy water with me either. But what in heaven’s name does the television have to do with Lazlo’s death?”

  Dimitru was sobbing. “It was Father’s idea—I don’t mean the television, but the way we would earn some money. Like Americans: if you don’t have any money, go where the money is. That’s how we came by all those little bottles.”

  “I remember. You’d bought bottles in Kronauburg, a whole lot of bottles.”

  “Not just bottles, little bottles,” the Gypsy specified, “tiny brown glass bottles with even tinier corks, brown for light protection, if you see what I mean.”

  “I don’t see anything!”

  “All right, all right. If you insist, I’ll explain the whole thing to you.” Dimitru downed his zuika and started his story. “The Gypsies’ fate—lack of money—had inspired my father to more and more elaborate methods of obtaining cash. One fine summer day in 1935, shortly after the tribe’s arrival in Baia Luna, Laszlo was lying on his back in a pasture on the edge of the village. Not idly, as one might assume: he was studying the farmers’ cows and thinking about how you could make money out of other people’s cattle without anyone suffering a loss. Not like the idiot gaje rustlers who steal horses and cattle all over the place and get caught red-handed at the next cattle market. Laszlo Carolea Gabor had a much better idea: milk! Before the farmers’ children drove the cows into the barns every evening to be milked, you’d only need to secretly draw off a little milk. Not much—just a shot glass’s worth at the most.”

  Dimitru pointed to his empty glass. Ilja uncorked another bottle and remarked that a few drops of milk would never make a man rich.

  “Exactamente!” That was precisely why Dimitru’s father had the idea of a clandestine premilking into tiny bottles. That’s why they’d borrowed some investment capital from relatives in Walachia and purchased five hundred bottles from the Kronauburg pharmacy.

  “But the business with the milk never bore fruit, since my good father lost his life in that blizzard. I waited for three times seven years of mourning and then came the hour when the son was able to put his father’s brilliant idea into action. That hour arrived last summer. And now? Has anyone in the village complained about not getting enough milk from their cows?”

  “Not that I know of.”

  “You see!”

  For weeks, Dimitru confessed, he had been secretly crawling on his belly through the pastures, relieving the village cows of a little milk before they went into the barns, then, following the law of principio duplex, he’d doubled his take with water from the Tirnava. Then he’d bottled it in the little brown medicine bottles, corked them, and sealed them with the wax of a red votive candle from the parish c
hurch. “And then the reliquaries were ready! The best I ever had.”

  “What reliquaries?” It wasn’t only Grandfather who didn’t understand where the Gypsy was heading with this story. Neither did I.

  “Milk from the breasts that once nursed Baby Jesus.”

  “You’re crazy!”

  “Not at all,” objected Dimitru, and explained that a few drops of milk from the Holy Virgin Mary were a highly prized devotional object that the Crusaders had once brought back from the Holy Land as a souvenir and excellent protection against the devil’s animosity. Which of course had its price, especially since the milk that nourished the Son of God was much more effective than a splinter of the true cross or a thorn from the crown Jesus wore for his Crucifixion. This piece of wisdom had unfortunately been forgotten by Catholics during the long years of Enlightenment, but not by the Orthodox.

  “But you’re a swindler! You’re not selling people the Madonna’s milk, you’re selling cow’s milk and water!”

  “Hang on, hang on! When you receive the host in church, what are you eating?”

  “The Body of Christ,” answered Grandfather without hesitation.

  “Correct. Only heathens, Bolsheviks, and people who don’t know what they’re talking about would claim all you are eating is a stale piece of bread. Faith transforms things. Water and flour just the same as water and milk.”

  “But bread was sacred to the Lord,” Granddad objected. “Jesus passed around bread at the Last Supper. And wine, of course. He changed them into his flesh and blood. But there’s nothing in there about milk. You’re swindling the Orthodox.”

  “I protest! I’m no crook! According to the laws of negative dialectics, a swindler who swindles other swindlers is no grifter; he’s a champion of justice. Look here: who’s going to believe a Gypsy? Nobody! But the Orthodox will believe anything a priest in gilded robes says. Every word. If a Black sets up on the market square and starts hawking bottles of Madonna’s milk, people will just laugh at him—if he’s lucky. If he’s unlucky, stones will start flying. That’s why my father already knew that you only make money with the people who want to make money themselves, with the greedy. So last summer I loaded up my cart with bottles and set off for Moldavia. Let me tell you, it was just one monastery after another. On the way, thousands of Orthodox were streaming into the monastery of Humor. I came right on the heels of the pilgrims with my wares. At first the head pope didn’t want to receive me. So I sent him a message that the Gypsies wanted to donate a new watertight roof for the basilica and money for the restoration of the frescoes of the Last Judgment, and I got an audience. I offered him fifty-fifty if he hawked my bottles.”

  “And was he in?” asked Grandfather.

  “Was he ever! The milk was sold out in two hours. People almost came to blows over it. The ones who got a bottle were happy as angels. The pope even served me a meal, the best of everything, and he opened a fine bottle of red wine and said if I come next summer and bring more reliquaries, he’d be honored to have me as his guest. Believe me, with that money the priest could have put three roofs on his church. And I was able to pay back my relatives with double interest, and I gave my cousin Salman my share to buy you a good television. There was enough money for ten antennas, but what did that chuckleheaded idiot do? He does an American: wants to increase his yield and plays cards with those crafty Gypsies at the Kronauburg train station.”

  I’m sweating so much next to the tile stove that I throw off the feather bed and sit up. Incredibly enough, the two of them still don’t notice me.

  “Here, you Doubting Thomas.” Dimitru fished a crumpled piece of paper out of his pants pocket. “Everything on the up and up,” he said to Grandfather, handing him the receipt for the television. “It’s for you. Take good care of it.”

  As Ilja was stowing away the receipt underneath the coin tray of his cash register, the amount the set had cost jumped out at him. His head reeled.

  “My God, Dimitru, you’re a sly dog, damned sly. Like David . . . David in battle with . . . what’s that giant’s name again?”

  “Our giant is Korolev. He’s our Goliath. We have no armor and no army, so we have to be smart. The stone in our sling is our cunning. That’s our weapon.”

  “And we’re not alone!” Grandfather twisted the cork from another bottle of Sylvaner. “We can depend on America. The Americans will build better rockets than the Soviets. The Yanks don’t want rubles . . . Oh, you’re awake, Pavel! Feeling better? Then bring us another stick of chewing gum, okay? I’m telling you, Dimitru, the real American kind is the best.”

  I’m going out to get a breath of fresh air. I’m still feeling a little low,” I said. My experience was that this always gained me permission to disappear for a while. There was no one looking after the library in the rectory. Dimitru had already started to squint a bit and certainly wouldn’t be returning there for the next couple hours. I threw on my coat and left the house.

  I waded briskly through the snow to the Gypsies’ settlement. When I reached the clay hut where Buba lived, I regretted not having agreed on a secret signal to let her know it was me. I guessed it was about nine, too late to call to her. Cautiously I lobbed a snowball against the windowpane I figured was my girlfriend’s bedroom. It seemed like an eternity until the window opened and a voice whispered, “Pavel?” Buba clambered out the window barefoot, dressed only in a thin nightgown. I put my coat around her shoulders, and we hurried through the darkness to the rectory. I groped my way up to the priest’s apartment and found to my relief that the spare key to the library was hanging on the board next to the wardrobe again.

  As I took hold of it, I saw a glint of silver: another small, elaborately decorated key. With a vague idea of what lock it might fit, I put it into my pocket.

  Two minutes later I was crawling under the blankets with the shivering Buba on Dimitru’s chaise longue. Angela Maria Barbulescu’s diary lay closed on our laps.

  “I have a bad feeling about this,” Buba said, and pressed against me. “For the last few days I’ve thought of nothing but Miss Barbulescu and what must have happened to her back then in the capital. Then I wished you were with me. But Mother wouldn’t let me out of the house. Our teacher must have been a mother, too. She let that creep Stefan get her pregnant. But she came to Baia Luna without a child. I want to know what happened to Barbu’s child.”

  “That’s just what I’ve been wondering the whole time.” I put my arm around Buba and with the other hand went to open the green notebook. Then the door flew open.

  Susanna Gabor had only to follow our tracks in the snow.

  “You slut! You bitch! Crawling in bed with a gajo. You whore, you filthy tramp.” Susanna stormed toward Buba.

  I jumped up to protect her, but I wasn’t equal to the raging fury of a Gypsy mother. Susanna pounded me and then her daughter with her fists as if possessed. She grabbed Buba by the hair and pulled out handfuls of curls. While Buba cried out in despair, “He’s my friend, my boyfriend. I don’t want anybody else, never, never, never,” her mother was screeching, “For shame. Be off with you! Get out, you slutty gaje-tart!”

  She dragged the whimpering Buba out of the rectory and pulled her through the village by the hair. Susanna’s hollering cut through the winter night like the howl of a mother wolf. Lights went on in the houses, and the inhabitants of Baia Luna shoved their curtains aside with silent alarm.

  I returned to the tavern. Almost blind with worry, I saw two brothers in spirit snoring on the wooden bench next to the stove, drunk on wine and self-satisfaction. Under my coat I had Angela’s green diary.

  How feverishly I had awaited the moment I could resume reading the missing teacher’s journal with Buba. But as I lay alone in bed clutching the green diary with both hands, the precious book had lost something of its value. My worry was not what had happened to Angela Barbulescu but what would happen to my sweetheart. Since I could find no path into the consolation of sleep, I l
it the bedside lamp in the certainty that, under the circumstances, Buba would never blame me for leafing through the diary by myself.

  I opened to the first pages and read for the second time the sentence Trinka Barbulescu had written into her daughter’s autograph book a quarter century ago, Christmas Eve 1931: Hope for nothing and you won’t be disappointed. Angela had hoped, against the advice of her life-denying mother. And she had been disappointed, disappointed by a man who had awakened her yearning for life. For hidden behind his jovial façade and his smile was nothing but icy coldness. “He’ll suck her dry,” Buba had said.

  November 3, 1949. Examined by Dr. Bladogan. She says, “Miss Barbulescu, it’s time to act if you don’t want to show up at the wedding altar with a big belly.” I couldn’t even cry. I’m in my fifth month. Maybe Alexa told him about it already. Haven’t seen S. since the summer. I’ll get my child through life by myself. Without him. At least I’ll tell it to his face. Going to his office tomorrow!

  A few pages and again I was absorbed in the past of my missing teacher without feeling like an intruder. Angela hadn’t hidden her diary in the library with the intention of hiding her thoughts but in the hope that it would be discovered. At least that wish had been fulfilled. As I continued to read, I was disappointed to discover that several pages had been torn out. My dissatisfaction grew when the following pages yielded no information. The handwriting became erratic, almost illegible, and often crossed out with wild, chaotic strokes. I was paging past this part when I saw something that gave me goose bumps and a chill. The right-hand page boasted a brownish cross. The way the color shaded off, you could tell that Angela Barbulescu had smeared it onto the page with her thumb, once up and once across. On the left-hand page were words printed in heavy block letters that looked like a gravestone inscription.

  THE MIGHTY FALL FROM THEIR THRONES

  THE LOWLY ARE LIFTED UP

  HIS HOUR WILL COME

  WHEN HE’S REACHED THE TOP

  BAIA LUNA, AUGUST 15, 1950