“Well, you’ve never purchased in large amounts. And as I can see, meat, sausages, and fresh vegetables are completely absent. The farmers in your village probably supply such things themselves. Privately, each for himself?”
Grandfather nodded. “There isn’t much money to go around in the village.”
“That’s going to change. Join the cooperative and you’ll see: supplies will improve and become cheaper, too. You say you need oil, salt, and sugar. Since it looks like the planned quotas are going to be exceeded, the government dropped the prices for basic foodstuffs by half last month.”
We looked at each other in silence. “And we can continue to sell everything as we have up to now?”
“Yes. But not as a private enterprise anymore. You can’t set prices as you see fit to make your profit. You’ll be an employee of the T.O., receive a set monthly salary, and take delivery of all stock on the basis of a commission with a monthly statement. And you will have set hours of operation of your T.O. branch: weekdays from eight to twelve and three to six. Saturdays only until noon, of course. But just between you and me, nobody’s going to traipse all the way up to Baia Luna to check up on what hours you’re open.”
The mere thought of no longer being able to operate as an independent businessman and tavern owner was sure to be unbearable for Grandfather. I could tell he was getting stabbing pains in his bowels. He was shifting back and forth on his chair and trying his best to suppress the gas. But when the official mentioned the amount we would be receiving every month from the postman as a salary, he let one fly. It was about twice as much as our usual net profit.
Grandfather thought it over. I asked, “What alternative is there to the cooperative model?”
“None,” said the woman, taking a blank contract out of her desk drawer. “You don’t have to sign. No one’s forcing you. But then you’ll have to go back to your village empty-handed. If you don’t want to be unemployed, you could of course apply for a job at one of the new state enterprises. From what I know about what’s available in your area, you might have some luck at the new agro-complex in Apoldasch. But just between us, do you seriously think anybody who hasn’t understood the need to have his private business collectivized is about to be hired by a state enterprise? I ask you, gentlemen.” She was still smiling. “Sign this agreement and I guarantee you won’t regret it. And let me assure you, up to now there’s only been a single self-employed person who didn’t sign. And guess what happened? Upset as he was, he slammed the door shut, stormed out into the street, and ran right in front of a truck. The poor man is still in the hospital and will never stand on his own two legs again. How’s he going to feed his family now? Wife and five children. If he’d signed the contract two minutes before, he would have been insured by workman’s comp from the T.O. cooperative. But as it is? Nothing. Here’s the contract. It’s all set down in black and white. Take your time and read it all through. Care for a mocha now?”
We read. The contract seemed a pretty straightforward deal with no hidden tricks or pitfalls, as far as I could judge without understanding all the details.
“What about our taproom?” asked Ilja. “They said I needed a liquor license.”
“You have a tavern, too?” The young woman was confused.
“I’m a tavern owner and a shopkeeper. That’s been the tradition in our house for generations.”
“And all that on the same premises! Only in the mountains, is all I can say! Groceries being sold and alcohol dispensed under the same roof? Unbelievable!”
“Where else would you suggest?” I interjected.
“Well, I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that. Food-handling hygiene isn’t part of my job description. You’re in the wrong office for a liquor license. You’ll find that two floors up, T.O. Division of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Food Services. They’ll offer you the same contract we do here in the division of retail food sales. No contract, no sale of alcoholic beverages.” The woman paused to think it over. “You know what? I’ll take care of it for you. Running around from one office to the next can’t be very pleasant. Especially if you’re from the mountains and don’t know your way around. I just need your papers.”
Grandfather fished out his ID. The official looked at his pass and shook her head. “This isn’t valid anymore. It must go back to the days of King Carol. And this photo? Is that supposed to be you? No, no, you definitely need to renew your papers. Down on the market square there’s a photo studio. Photo Hofmann. You can have a new picture taken there. With the best will in the world I can’t get you a liquor license without a current ID. Come back tomorrow morning with the pictures.”
As we left the collectivization authority, all I said was “We have no choice.” Grandfather nodded.
On the market square across from the police station, the modern Socialist People’s Market again caught my eye, the one that had made such a powerful impression on me last November when Istvan and Petre and I unsuccessfully investigated the disappearance of Baptiste’s corpse, something people in Baia Luna seldom talked about anymore. Now, in the spring, the villagers had other things to worry about than the empty grave in the churchyard. As I stood on the Kronauburg market square in front of the gigantic glass façade of the T.O. store once again, it seemed much less impressive than I remembered it. The banner with the red lettering THANKS TO THE REPUBLIC! THANKS TO THE PARTY! still hung limply above the entrance, but it had visibly weathered during the winter months.
I asked a passerby, “Photo Hofmann, is it somewhere around here?” My knees were trembling with excitement.
“You’re almost standing right in front of it,” the man answered. “There, where the government car is parked.”
Grandfather was just starting to rant that nothing in the world could get him to let that Securitate informer Hofmann take his picture when I shushed him up. “Be quiet. Take a look at that!” I was staring at the black limousine with chrome bumpers parked in front of the photo studio. A uniformed driver with a peaked cap opened the trunk and put in two valises. I recognized the chauffeur; it was the same guy who had transported Petre, Istvan, and me to Kronauburg after the murders in the rectory, when their bodies were supposedly going to be autopsied. The driver threw open the car doors and raised a hand to his visor. Heinrich Hofmann emerged from his studio. Then I saw the man I probably knew more about than anyone else after reading Angela Barbulescu’s diary. Behind Herr Hofmann, Dr. Stefan Stephanescu walked out of the photo shop. Both of them were wearing dark suits. They were joking with each other and clearly in high spirits.
I almost blacked out. My knees threatened to crumble beneath me. I barely made it over to a lamppost and held on tight, unable to believe my eyes: the pretty woman emerging from Hofmann’s shop behind Stephanescu couldn’t be Angela Barbulescu, but she looked just like her. Like the young Angela in the photo, puckering her lips. The woman coming out onto the sidewalk was in her early twenties. Her blond hair was gathered in a ponytail, and she was laughing. The similarity was frightening. I saw Heinrich Hofmann obviously giving her a few last instructions before he got into the backseat of the limousine. The blond went over to Stephanescu and shook his hand. He casually stroked her cheek, then got into the front passenger seat. The chauffeur closed the doors, wiped off the wing mirrors with his handkerchief, and got into the driver’s seat. They waved good-bye.
Only young women . . . All pretty and all blond. That’s what Fritz had said after snooping in his father’s moving crates and finding all those filthy photos.
As the state limousine accelerated off, my gnawing doubts disappeared. Angela Barbulescu had spoken her own death sentence at the very moment she had reached bottom and cast off all fear. She had written in her diary that the pictures Hofmann had made in Florin’s office with all his disgusting friends were repulsive. They kept my mouth closed for a long time. But no longer. As far as I’m concerned, Hofmann can send those pictures to the village priest. Do whatever you want with them. Ha
ng my picture on every lamppost. I’m not afraid anymore. I realized that Angela was the victim of a tragic mistake. These two gentlemen would never dirty their hands. The power of Heinrich Hofmann and Stefan Stephanescu consisted in creating fear. Threat was their weapon. Only those who ignored their own fear got eliminated, people like Angela who decided to speak out because she had nothing left to lose. Had Angela Barbulescu really put the noose around her own neck? Or had these two staged her supposed suicide at that tree on the Mondberg?
“Did you see that?” Grandfather asked me breathlessly. “That’s the priest betrayer who just left. I’m telling you, that bastard Hofmann is thick as thieves with the bigwigs.”
I was thinking and didn’t reply. Two valises, two men, one chauffeur. Hofmann and Stephanescu would be gone for several days. The mighty fall from their thrones, Angela had written in her green notebook. She was wrong. One impression I definitely didn’t have of the Kronauburg party boss was that that prophecy would be fulfilled anytime soon.
“They sure are thick as thieves,” I finally replied. “But now Hofmann is gone. Let’s take a look at his shop.”
I hadn’t pictured Heinrich Hofmann’s photo studio as so big. Three wide windows on the market square displayed an impressive sampling of the maestro’s work. Three huge portraits hung in the middle window, two of which I was already familiar with. I had hung one, in a smaller format, on the wall in Baia Luna next to President Gheorghiu-Dej. Here in the window, the Little Stalin seemed even more imposing and statesmanlike, and the deceptive smile of the Kronauburg party chairman Stephanescu radiated its winning charm even more convincingly. The third photo was a group portrait of the seventy-nine members of the Central Committee of the Communist Party. The other windows were set up to induce ordinary mortals to have their pictures taken, too. On the left, hundreds of small passport photos were arranged like pieces of a large puzzle, which also suggested the volume of the photographer’s business. On the right, black-and-white wedding pictures in elaborate gold frames were displayed against a background of wine-red velvet.
A set of brass bells jingled melodiously as we pushed open the door to Hofmann’s studio. I was so keyed up I could barely say “good afternoon,” and I began looking furtively around the roomy store. I was disappointed that the blond beauty who looked exactly like Angela Barbulescu was nowhere to be seen. There were two other female employees, however, neither of whom had to hide her looks under a bushel either, as far as I was concerned. Both were blond. One was engaged in gift wrapping a small silver frame for an older gentleman. We sat down on a leather sofa next to a green potted plant that was definitely not a specimen of the local flora. To our right, the other employee with the fluffy blond hair of an angel was advising a young couple seated at a kidney-shaped table. The couple was holding hands, nodding incessantly, and exclaiming “Beautiful, very very nice, wonderful!” while she turned the pages of an album for them. Any customer would surely have melted beneath the gaze of her blue eyes.
All in all, the photography studio exuded a cool tidiness that reminded me of the Hofmanns’ sparsely furnished living room. The long counter was made of light, polished beech wood and behind it stood glass cases with cameras on display like little artworks of technology. The attractions on the side walls were photographic portraits of uniformly beautiful women.
The young couple stood up. “That’s how we’ll do it,” I heard the young man say. “So we’ll see you at Saint Paul’s Cathedral at eleven o’clock on Sunday? You won’t forget, will you?” The glance of the employee with the angel’s hair alone would have been enough to dispel the fears of the bride- and groom-to-be. “You can count on us. I’m sure it’s going to be a perfect wedding.” The doorbells jingled, and the couple left the store behind the gentleman with the picture frame.
I hadn’t noticed the white door behind the cash register until it opened. There she was. The young woman with the blond ponytail surveyed the salesroom briefly and then turned to her colleagues. “Almost four thirty. I’m sure there won’t be much more business today. You can go home early if you want to.” Then she smiled in our direction. “I can take care of these gentlemen by myself.” A minute later the doorbells jingled again, and the two salesgirls walked off into town, arm in arm and giggling.
“Please forgive us for making you wait,” said the blond. She was really beautiful. Although her similarity to the young Angela Barbulescu wasn’t quite so striking from close up, it was still there. I tried to imagine this woman twenty years older, standing at the blackboard in the Baia Luna school, wearing rubber boots and a grubby blue dress and with carelessly pinned-up hair, but I couldn’t. She gave our clothes a once-over without betraying any reaction. “Would you gentlemen be looking for ID photos?”
We nodded.
“Then please follow me into the smaller studio.”
In a back room stood a gigantic photographic apparatus on a tripod, large spotlights, and a portrait stool.
“Don’t worry.” The woman laughed. “It won’t hurt. By the way, I’m Irina Lupescu, Herr Hofmann’s right-hand girl.”
“Isn’t the boss here?” I asked hypocritically.
“No. He’s often on the road. He just left for the capital—some party congress or other. Herr Hofmann photographs the highest political officials exclusively. My colleagues and I take care of the small jobs: weddings, anniversaries, ID photos. No offense, of course.”
I was genuinely surprised. “But Herr Hofmann . . . doesn’t he take all those wedding pictures himself?”
“No, no,” laughed Irina. “He hasn’t done that for years. My predecessor took care of those. And today it’s my job to see that couples have happy reminders of their wedding day. Especially this time of year, in May, we can hardly keep up with the weddings. Just today a dozen couples were in here making appointments.”
“Yes, yes,” put in Grandfather. “In the spring the sap rises.”
Irina gave a mischievous laugh. “I don’t think you can blame spring. It’s more the fault of the long winters. On cold nights people have to huddle close together, if you know what I mean. And then in May the brides throng to the altar. It doesn’t have to be immediately obvious that there’s a wee one on the way.”
“You said your predecessor took all the wedding pictures? She did a nice job. Even a blind person can see that from your window display. What became of her?” I tried not to show how curious I was.
“I don’t know. One morning last November she just didn’t show up for work and was never seen again. I didn’t even have a chance to meet her, unfortunately.”
“Then you haven’t been working here very long?”
“Just since January. Before that I did an apprenticeship in a studio in the capital.”
I wasn’t sure if Irina Lupescu thought I was being too inquisitive, but I forged ahead anyway. “So why didn’t you stay in the capital? There’s a lot more culture there than in Kronauburg.”
Irina laughed unself-consciously. “Let me put it this way: someone I care a lot about wooed me away and introduced me to Herr Hofmann. And your Kronauburg isn’t as uncultured as all that. But now we’ve got to . . . I see you weren’t necessarily foreseeing the need for an official photograph. I mean, judging from what you have on.”
“If we’d known we would need new passes I’d have brought my suit along,” Grandfather apologized.
“We are prepared for such cases. Afterward you can take a look at the pass photos in the window. There’s more than a thousand of them. And I’ll bet every fourth . . . probably every third man is wearing the same sport coat, the same shirt, and the same striped tie.” The salesgirl opened a wardrobe and took out some clothing. “Pick something that more or less fits. In the next room there’s a brush and comb by the mirror. I have to go down to the lab in the basement for five minutes. I’ll be back here to help by the time you’ve changed.”
“Who would have thought Hofmann had such a nice colleague?” asked Gran
dfather.
“That scumbag doesn’t deserve her.”
I pulled off my sweater, put on a white shirt and a dark blue jacket that fit me fine. Instead of the striped tie I chose a dark one but had no idea how to tie the damn thing. Although Grandfather had worn a tie a time or two in his youth, he wasn’t making any progress with the unfamiliar item either.
Irina Lupescu’s high heels clattered up the stairs from the basement. With a “May I help you with that?” she knotted my tie quick as a wink.
“What a difference! Clothes make the man,” she joked. “May I ask where you’re from?”
“Baia Luna.”
“Are you kidding? Then you must know the boss personally? He lived up there in the mountains with his family for years. It must be beautiful, especially in the summer. Although to be honest, Herr Hofmann isn’t the man for village life. I wonder how he ended up there. Don’t you hear wolves howling at night?”
“Yes, and even more during the day.”
“You don’t say.” The joke went over Irina’s head. “No, that’s not for me. Too bad you missed Herr Hofmann by just a few minutes.”
“Really a shame. Our bad luck.” I realized that Heinrich Hofmann’s assistant had no feel for irony. She was gullible in every bone of her body. With a gentle hand Irina positioned me on the stool. Chest out, chin tilted a little forward. Then she adjusted the camera and reached for the cable release.
As the flash popped I felt bad for Irina because at that moment, I knew I was going to play a dirty trick on her. I had a daring plan that was going to make this trip to Kronauburg mean more than just carting sugar and oil back to Baia Luna. All winter long, crippled by enforced inactivity, I’d been deep in depression. But today I could take an important step forward in my campaign against the machinations of Heinrich Hofmann and Dr. Stefan Stephanescu. I just had to exploit the pleasure and care Irina Lupescu took in her work and her guileless nature for my own purposes. I took off the borrowed clothes, and Grandfather struggled into the very same ones (except that he chose the striped tie) and submitted himself to the photographic procedure.
The Madonna on the Moon Page 26
