Chapter Nine
THE LEGACY OF ICARUS, THE DARKROOM,
AND HEINRICH HOFMANN’S HOLY OF HOLIES
Spring kept us waiting. Not until mid-May of ’58 did nature concede that its habitual rhythms were reliable. Maple, ash, and beech finally started bursting with buds, crocus and narcissus broke from the soil, swifts flitted through the sky, and on the village pastures the first lambs were bleating, like every year. The farmers went into the fields with their horses, harrows, and plows to prepare them for sowing while the Gypsies stood on the banks of the Tirnava for hours on end, staring at the roaring flood and praying the rising water would spare their dwellings again this year. Dimitru had barricaded himself in the library. I thought he was probably still groping in the fog of his speculations, uncertain about the corporeal Assumption of Mary the Mother of God into heaven.
It pained Grandfather Ilja deeply that in his naïveté he had turned Dimitru into a witness for the frightful Kora Konstantin, and he made all sorts of attempts to revive their former friendship. Sometimes he paid penitential visits to the library with a bottle of schnapps; sometimes he brought the Gypsy a Cuban from Bulgaria (thereby completely disrupting the rhythm of his own smoking habits). My aunt Antonia had understood how much her father was tortured by the loss of his friend and even agreed without complaint when Granddad wanted to take her last box of nougats to Dimitru. The latter accepted the gifts but uttered not a word and immediately bent over his books again, which misled Grandfather into assuming the Gypsy had broken with him forever.
There was one exception to all the character flaws attributed to the Blacks in our country. Not even the most prejudiced contemporaries could accuse the Gypsies of holding a grudge or being vengeful. Even if Grandfather had disqualified himself from being Dimitru’s ally in his historic mission, the Gypsy had long since silently forgiven Ilja, as he told me in confidence years afterward.
So I’m going to spring forward to April 12, 1961. I remember the date exactly because on that day, Yury Alekseyevich Gagarin became the first man to float weightlessly in space. On that day, Dimitru Carolea Gabor broke the silence that had lasted for years and confided his thoughts to me in a quiet hour. At the time I was sure his audacious, even foolhardy theories were hopelessly off course. Today, in my old age, I no longer presume to judge them.
“Pavel,” he said, “there was no one left and I had to shoulder the cross of loneliness by myself. No one else in the village was or is even close to being in a position to grasp in principio the world historical threat posed by the Soviet rockets. It was too much even for your good grandfather Ilja. He is incapable of calculating the danger. And it was my own error fatal to include my friend on my mission to rescue Mary the Mother of God. Ilja doesn’t have the strategies of deceit at his disposal. With all due respect for his honesty—it wasn’t what was called for against that idiot Konstantin and her sanctimonious crew. And Ilja talked too much. But it’s mea culpa maxima. He talked too much because I told him too much. And so I catapitulated. I decided to keep still. And I made a vow. Not one word would pass my lips until the day my search for knowledge was crowned with success, namely, with the answer to the question: What happened to Mary after the Assumption?
“Remember, Pavel, even Papa Baptiste had warned that ascensions are reserved for the risen Christ and his Mother. And now the Soviets have the presumption to imitate them. President Khrushchev has promised a moon landing, and his best rocket builder is supposed to make it happen. That hubristical Korolev is the only one who can do it. He’s a cunning master engineer, well read and crafty. A Marxist! That’s why I’ve been combing through the collected works of Karl Marx in the library. I was hoping to find firsthand a clandestine reference to resurrection and ascension. But forget it, Pavel, you won’t find anything useful. I intended to interrogate the works of Lenin with the same intentio, but then I made a discovery. I stumbled upon a book I urged you to read years ago, but you didn’t listen to me. It was lying open at the bottom of one of my many piles. When it looked up at me, I remembered Papa Baptiste once telling me, ‘Forget the Marxists, Dimitru! If you want to fight your way through the storms of religious doubt, read Nietzsches’ Friedrich.’
“So I reread the story I’d studied a dozen times before. In the middle of the day a madman runs around with a lamp in his hand seeking God. But he doesn’t find him. And then he goes and claims we’ve killed God. The guy rightly remarks that the deed of killing God was too great for mankind, who ever since (as I can verificize myself) has been stumbling through eternal nothingness in the cold of night. But can we even conceive of nothingness? Who would be able to stand it? Doesn’t it have to be overcome? ‘Must we not ourselves become gods?’ That’s the question, Pavel Botev! Keep it in mind. Nietzsche’s crazy guy asked the question, but now it’s going to be answered. And in the affirmative. By Korolev. Become gods ourselves! Be God! Engineer Number One only has the works of Marx in his bookcase to keep the comrades happy. But believe me, Pavel, Korolev’s read Nietzsche. That’s why he knew that the madman with the lamp was ahead of his time. His message came too soon. People were not ready for the news of God’s death, but now they are. The Russkies’ Sputnik verificizes that gravity can be overcome.
“To become gods ourselves! Fly to the stars! Find a home in the sky! Weightlessly! Relieved of the banalities of this vale of tears! That’s it, Pavel! Korolev is the heir apparent of Daedalus and Icarus, only much craftier. Those two Greeks were trapped in the labyrinth of the tyrant Minos, a labyrinth Daedalus himself had so cleverly constructed. Unfortunately, in old age the architect had forgotten where the exit was, but he hadn’t yet lost his ingenuity. Don’t forget, Pavel, when you’re stuck and can’t move right or left, forward or back, the only direction is up. Daedalus loses no time building wings for himself and his son. So far so good. His only mistake is using wax to hold them together, the idiot. And Icarus is so impetuous he’s not satisfied to escape from the labyrinth, he wants to fly up to heaven. Flies higher and higher, too close to the sun. As you can easily imagine the wax melts and wham! The guy falls into the sea like a stone.
“Korolev’s not that dense. His flying machines are solid work. The test Sputniks worked. The goal of the Project is evidentical. To become gods ourselves! Korolev is the new Icarus. You understand, Pavel? That big-mustache Nietzsche is the challenge. Papa Baptiste was right as always. But look around the village. People listen to the widow Konstantin, and their memories of Papa Baptiste are fading. No gravestone, no remembrance. And I’ll bet you, Pavel, the same causalities are behind the disappearance of his corpse and the disappearance of the Virgin of Eternal Consolation.”
With the late spring of ’58, life also returned to Baia Luna. The farmers brought out their seeds, the women gossiped by the laundry troughs, and parents hoped the district administration would send a new teacher to Baia Luna soon.
Meanwhile, our family was in poor spirits. Grandfather Ilja was as miserable as a drowned cat. He could hardly get up in the morning, was grouchy all day, and at night tossed restlessly in his bed. In the evening, patrons in the taproom encountered a touchy and grumpy host who slammed the bottles onto the tables and aside from a few mumbled sentence fragments didn’t utter a single friendly word. The dispute with Dimitru was harder on him than he liked to admit. Since Kora’s big moment in the church, the Gypsy hadn’t spoken a word to Ilja. Grandfather consoled himself for the painful loss of his friend by drinking a glass in the morning to meet the day with a certain measure of indifference. Since the effect of the zuika wore off in ever-shorter intervals and his foul mood increased conversely, he found it necessary to maintain his false equanimity with further glasses.
Then one morning Vera Raducanu asked for a pound of sugar, and Grandfather said nothing but “Kiss my ass!” Whereupon Vera huffed indignantly and cawed that the level in Baia Luna had sunk to an all-time low when the village peddler greeted his customers smelling like a distillery. That was the last straw f
or my mother.
“Enough!” she yelled at her father-in-law in a tone that left no doubt she intended to make a clean sweep in the Botev house. She got so wrapped up in her anger that it spilled over onto Aunt Antonia and me. Antonia spent most of her time dozing in bed, and I had also been completely neglecting my duties in the shop and tavern. We all put our tails between our legs and hung our heads as Mother’s storm raged over us.
“Whatever has happened in the village, life must go on. And it’s you men’s duty to do your jobs, goddamnit! If you don’t crawl out of your holes right this minute I’m leaving. I’ll move to town, I swear I will. You can go to the dogs in your misery, but count me out!”
Ilja and I had never seen my mother like this. And the shock of her anger was beneficial. We understood at once what we had to do. Just the prospect of going to Kronauburg woke me up from my lethargy and reinvigorated the powers of resistance I so urgently needed for my mission: justice for my former teacher Angela Maria Barbulescu. I got out a notepad and helped Grandfather take inventory of our stock. All our supplies were low. During the long winter months we’d run out of oil, sugar, and malt coffee. We only had enough salt left for the next few days. The last bottles of Sylvaner had been drunk up weeks ago, and the glass candy jar with the American chewing gum was empty, too. A trip to the wholesaler in Kronauburg was long overdue. While Kathalina scrubbed the floorboards and dusted the shelves, Grandfather and I got the wagon ready for the trip to Kronauburg the following morning.
Drowsy and yawning from getting up so early, we clung to the swaying wagon box and restricted our conversation to the minimum. If we spoke at all, it was about our worries that the wholesale prices might have risen again as they did every year. I shared Granddad’s concern that our modest family reserves might not be enough to buy all the stock we needed and sensed at the same time as we drove along that the profession of businessman and tavern owner was not a job I intended to spend the rest of my life in. But what else could I do?
At about seven we reached the Schweisch Valley. Its broad fields had once belonged to the richest landowner in Transmontania. The collectivization of the Kronauburg District had already reached this point, and the upland farmers of Baia Luna figured that their own modest parcels of land would soon fall victim to forced expropriation. Beyond Apoldasch we passed the future cattle and hog barns whose dimensions were as formidable as their alignment was monotonous. It followed a plan someone had laid out on a drawing board. Construction cranes loomed everywhere, bulldozers plowed up the heavy soil, and trucks arrived with construction material. Oversize placards proclaimed the official opening of the new People’s Agro-Industrial Complex Apoldasch II, scheduled for June 1, an event even the state president Gheorghiu-Dej was expected to attend. When we reached the feedlot for the hogs, we were astonished to see twenty-two brand-new tractors lined up in pairs and glinting orange-red in the morning light. No doubt the vehicles came from the new tractor factory Joy of the Fatherland in Stalinstadt. Grandfather pointed to the tractors. “Our Alexandru put them together screw by screw. I bet he’ll get a written commendation for a job well done.” For the first time in many weeks, I laughed.
We reached the outskirts of Kronauburg around eleven and drove our wagon to the grocery wholesaler we’d been buying from since the days of Ilja’s father Borislav. But instead of the old familiar sign HOSSU BROS. IMPORT-EXPORT AND WHOLESALERS, we found a new one that said STATE-OWNED ENTERPRISE. KRONAUBURG CONSUMER COMPLEX AND TRADING ORGANIZATION. We entered the warehouse to look for the eldest Hossu brother with whom Grandfather usually discussed the list of supplies he needed and calculated their price. It looked like the number of employees had doubled, and everyone had been given identical blue jackets. Most of them were sitting on wooden pallets and smoking. When Grandfather asked for Vasili Hossu one of the warehouse workers uttered “Lunch break” and jerked his thumb toward an office door labeled director. Ilja knocked. Since no one answered, he pushed down the latch, and we entered. A young woman was sitting behind a desk filing her fingernails.
“Lunch break,” she said. “Can’t you read?”
“The Hossus welcomed us at any time of day,” said Grandfather. “Where might I find those gentlemen?”
“Come back at one thirty. No information until then,” answered the secretary without looking up from her manicure. We left the warehouse and drove our wagon a bit farther on. The Hearty Appetite was still there, thank God. It wasn’t much more than a shabby shed, but there was water and hay for exhausted horses, and the wholesaler’s customers could fortify themselves with beer, bread, and meat patties from the grill. There were already half-a-dozen wagons parked in front of the Pofta Buna. Granddad unhitched and fed the nag and then sat down next to me on a wooden bench. We learned from the Pofta Buna’s owner that the Hossu brothers had been dispossessed at the beginning of the year and seemed to have disappeared from the face of the earth, but he was reluctant to say anything else. At the next table two men were talking excitedly about the pricing policies of the new trading organization. They didn’t seem particularly dissatisfied with them. The other customers had already gone to the adjacent barn and were taking a little nap in the hay to pass the time until the warehouse reopened. At one thirty a siren wailed. Lunch break was over.
The director of the People’s Shopping Cooperative was a short, round man in his midfifties wearing a light blue tie and a brown suit that was a bit too small for him. “New customers?” He squinted over the top of his glasses, sat down behind an enormous desk, and began shuffling papers.
“No,” answered Grandfather, “we’ve been customers for decades. The Botev family shop. Baia Luna, Number Seven, Street of Peace. Where are the Hossu brothers?”
The director offered us a chair. “From Baia Luna? Man oh man! No wonder you don’t know what’s going on in the world. The Hossus have been relieved of their private enterprise. Where are they now? Not a clue. Not here, at any rate. Are you private customers?”
Grandfather nodded.
“The trading organization doesn’t sell to private persons anymore. Directive from upstairs. But no problem. How big is your shop?”
Ilja calculated the square footage in his head and stated the result.
“But the greater part of the space is devoted to our taproom,” I remarked.
“Aha. You’re also running a gastronomic establishment up there. Must do a brisk business. There’s nothing much else to do, right? Do you have a concession? Liquor license?”
“Liquor license?” Grandfather’s initial wonderment gave way to anger. “Tell me something, do you guys have a screw loose? We’ve been doing fine without one for a few generations. Don’t you have anything better to do than think up this bureaucratic bullshit?”
“Take it easy. I’m not thinking up anything. But there’s got to be order, and the law’s the law. Otherwise everybody could do his own private wheeling and dealing. And then we’d have capitalism like the Yanks, where everyone does whatever they want. And the Gypsies would have their hands in our pockets.”
“But we need fresh stock!” Ilja was getting indignant. “Our shelves are empty, and the villagers are starting to grumble. You can’t just stop selling to private enterprises from one day to the next.”
“I told you, no problem. All you have to do is join the trading collective. It’s just a formality. Then your private shop will be deprivatized. Everything else stays the same. You’ll even get your stock under optimal conditions. You’ll definitely pay less than you did to those capitalists the Hossus. All you have to do is go to the collectivization office and sign up. And while you’re in town, you might as well pick up a state liquor license, too. Without a concession, we’re only allowed to sell you soft drinks here at the T.O. You’ll find the offices on Square of the Republic. It’s a short walk. The offices are open till four o’clock.”
With the worst fears and cursing the state, the party, and Socialism in general, we hurried into town and
twenty minutes later were sitting on a wooden bench in a deserted hallway. We were waiting outside a door on which hung a piece of cardboard with the hand-lettered directive DO NOT KNOCK. ENTER WHEN CALLED. A small sign was fastened to the wall next to the door: T.O. CONCESSIONS A–D.
We had only waited a few minutes when the door opened and a woman stuck her head out. “Well, why didn’t you knock? Please come in.” She was wearing a simple suit and radiated an unexpected congeniality. She offered us a seat and even asked if the gentlemen would care for a mocha to pep them up. We declined.
“So you’re from Baia Luna? I didn’t even know there was a shop there.”
Still smiling, the woman explained that in establishing Socialism, the state’s and the party’s most urgent task was to assure and continually optimize the provisioning of the population countrywide. By no means should even such a remote village as Baia Luna have to lag behind. The State Trade Organization guaranteed progress to their cooperative partners. Then she told us that Western capitalism was headed for a dramatic impoverishment of the masses in the near future while our new republic was close to achieving world-class status.
Grandfather interrupted her explanations. “But I want to know what’s going to happen to our business. There’s no sugar, salt, or oil in Baia Luna. We’re in urgent need of new stock.”
“You’re going to get it, too,” said the woman without losing an iota of her friendliness. Then she went over to a shelf of files.
“Here we are: Botev, Baia Luna.”
She opened the file and leafed through it. We realized immediately that it contained the packing lists and invoices the Hossu brothers had filled out for us in past years.
The Madonna on the Moon Page 25
