The Madonna on the Moon

by Rolf Bauerdick

  “Do you have any idea how big the moon is? One thing we learned in school, in physical science, was that it’s about two thousand one hundred fifty miles in diameter. That’s about a quarter of the earth’s diameter.”

  “Really?” Grandfather was surprised. “That’s pretty big.”

  “Voluminous, in other words,” observed Dimitru. “You wouldn’t think so from here.”

  “Exactly,” I said portentously. “And that’s going to be a problem for the Soviets.”

  “What kind of problem?”

  “If I understood you yesterday, you’re both convinced that the Madonna has been living on the moon since the Assumption and the Soviets intend to bring her back to earth.”

  “That’s right.” The Gypsy nodded. “And that rocket scientist Korolev is behind it all. A cunning materialist. Earth to earth. And since you’re so well informed, Pavel, promise you won’t tell anyone.”

  “Word of honor.”

  “Good. Our mission is to warn the Americans. They have to get to the moon first—in anticipation of the Russians—and protect the Madonna, see?”

  “I understand. But that’s where the difficulty lies, as I see it. In the size of the moon. Russian or American, it makes no difference, they’d both have to spend years looking for the Mother of God. Like finding a needle in a haystack. And maybe they’d never find her, if she goes into hiding.”

  The two of them looked at each other. You could tell from their expressions that they were following me.

  “From that I conclude,” Grandfather submitted, “that we have to more or less know where the Mother of God is located before we can write a letter to the American president or set off across the Atlantic.”

  “Exactly how I see it,” I said.

  “Man oh man.” The Gypsy groaned. “The stuff you have to keep in your head. But how are we supposed to find out where the Mother of God is? From down here you can’t see a thing with the naked eye.”

  “I think I know a way to make the distance sort of shrink and bring the moon closer.”

  Four eyes stared eagerly at me as I let the cat out of the bag: “You need a telescope.”

  The recommendation had the intended effect. I mentioned that just such an optical instrument was on display in an antiques-shop window in Kronauburg. Dimitru and Ilja were itching to get going. I continued that in addition to the telescope, the mentally ill antiques dealer by the name of Gheorghe Gherghel also had photographic equipment—including a camera with lenses. At first the pair of them didn’t see the use of such an apparatus, but they went completely nuts when I explained that although you could find the Madonna with the telescope, you needed a camera with film in it to have visible and lasting proof in the form of a picture.

  Dimitru started performing one of his dances of joy again until Grandfather brought him back to earth.

  “If you’ve been to this shop already, Pavel, did you ask what the whole shebang would cost?”

  “It’s fairly inexpensive, considering the quality. Fifteen hundred or two thousand at most. For everything. Complete.”

  Grandfather stroked his chin and nodded. “Sorry, but I don’t have that kind of money. I’d have to save for at least a year.”

  Dimitru swore. “What a dope I am. Why did I have to keep silent all those years? That meant I couldn’t hawk those relics. You really can’t unload stuff like that without talking, you know.”

  Then Ilja snapped his fingers. “I have an idea how to get some money. But I don’t know if you’ll get mad and stop talking to me again, Dimitru.”

  “Never again in my life will I be angry at you for anything.”

  “Your birthday present to me—we could sell it. You know, the TV.”

  “You’d do that? Sell my present to you? You’d really do without the set so we can foil Korolev together?”

  “It’d be worth it to me.”

  As the sun rose the next morning, I was sitting on the wagon box. Grandfather and Dimitru were sitting back in the wagon, their arms resting on a crate covered with a blanket.

  We reached Kronauburg early that afternoon. I drove the wagon to a square at the foot of Castle Hill, not far from the clock tower. After I’d made sure that Gherghel’s Antiques Bought and Sold still existed and the telescope was still in the window, I hauled the heavy TV into the shop.

  “Hang on, gentlemen,” called out a man in his seventies with snow-white hair. “I’m not buying anything more.”

  Dimitru pulled the blanket off the set, and Mr. Gherghel put on his glasses. He gave it an expert, appraising look.

  “Whew, you don’t see something like this very often. A wonderful set. A dream. Top-notch quality. Loewe Optalux, from Germany. The Germany in the West, mind you . . . but you’re too late. I’m really not buying anymore. By the end of next week I have to move out of this place. I’ve got a clearance sale on right now.”

  “What would you have paid for it if you were still in business?” I persisted.

  “A set like that would have just about brought me to the limit of my financial capacity. Sixteen, maybe eighteen hundred. If that’s not too low for you. And, of course, only if you can prove where you got it. I never took anything from customers without a receipt of sale. At least, nothing expensive. If I’d received stolen goods, I’d have one foot in Pitesti already. But as I said, I’m not buying anymore. I’ll be happy if I can get rid of the rest of this stuff.”

  I looked around to make sure all the objects of my desire were still present. Then I ticked them off: “That telescope in the window, the camera with the lenses, and the darkroom equipment with everything included—trays, paper, chemicals—what would all that come to?”

  “All together? Do you have that much?” Mr. Gherghel thought it over. “Around two thousand. That’s really more than fair.”

  Grandfather jumped in. “Let’s make a deal: we’ll trade. The TV for all that stuff. Is that fair, too?” And he put the sales receipt onto the counter.

  Gheorghe Gherghel was speechless. He went to the stairs leading to his private rooms and called for someone named Matei. His nephew came right down and recognized me from my first visit.

  “Hello! Are you still interested in the enlarger?”

  Before I could answer, Matei’s uncle said, “Take a look at this TV. We can have it in exchange for this optical stuff. What do you think?”

  The only thing Matei said was “Then you wouldn’t have to be bored to death staring out the window all evening long.”

  A quarter hour later, none of us had the slightest doubt that Gheorghe Gherghel was not just an honest but also a happy man. When we mentioned that we lived in the mountains, he threw in a somewhat-battered but still-functional radio set with a green dial. Matei asked if my friend from the last visit was still hot for one of his rifle scopes. When I answered, “Absolutely,” he added one of his army-surplus ones to our pile. “No private party’s going to buy these anyway, since they’ve made hunting illegal.” While I was imagining Petre Petrov’s shouts of joy, Gheorghe Gherghel took the telescope out of the window and explained that it had an achromatic lens according to Kepler’s principle with an impressive magnification factor.

  Dimitru asked, “Will an unchromed lens work for the moon, too?”

  Gherghel was momentarily at a loss, but then he assured him that the instrument was positively designed to see even the smallest details on distant celestial bodies. “You’re in luck. Along with the telescope I’ll give you an old map of the moon by an astronomer named Giovanni Battista Riccioli, a learned Jesuit from Italy. The map’s from the middle of the seventeenth century. It’s not the original, of course—that would be priceless—but it’s a good modern reproduction. It will help you get oriented in your lunar studies.”

  As the friendly antiques dealer unrolled the 1651 map Maria et Monti Lunae, Dimitru froze in astonishment. Then he shouted for joy. “Maria and the mountains! That scholar, that Jesuit monk, already s
aw Mary three hundred years ago. On the moon! And with a simple telescope!”

  “Who? Who did Riccioli see?” Gheorghe Gherghel shook his head.

  “The Virgin Mary. The Mother of God in person. That astronomer found her.”

  “How in heaven’s name did you come up with that?”

  “Right there!” Dimitru tapped his finger on the map. “It’s right there in black and white: Maria et Monti Lunae. According to my modest knowledge of Latin (thanks to Papa Baptiste, God rest his soul), that means ‘Mary and the mountains of the moon.’”

  Gheorghe Gherghel slapped his thighs and held his tummy, he was laughing so hard. “You folks up in the mountains are really loony. God in heaven, what a bunch of linguists. Maria! Maria! I couldn’t figure out what you meant! Maria is the plural of mare. And mare means ‘sea.’ The first astronomers took the dark spots on the moon for seas. That’s where they got the names Mare Australe, Mare Imbrium, Mare Vaporum: Southern Sea, Sea of Showers, Sea of Vapors. Now we know those seas are really giant deserts of stone, but we kept the names. And all the seas together are the maria, with the stress on the first a: mária, not maría. It’s the language of science, but how would you know that?”

  Piqued, Dimitru cleared his throat, but he and Grandfather were still completely convinced that what was behind the identity of the Latin names for “seas” and the Mother of God was anything but a coincidence.

  Chapter Eleven

  MARE SERENITATIS, TWELVE WHITE DOTS,

  AND A LITTLE PLAYACTING

  So as not to attract any attention, I hauled the optical equipment into Baia Luna under cover of darkness and stowed it away in our storeroom. Ilja and Dimitru were burning with impatience to set up their telescope, and what place was better suited to look for Mary on the moon than the peak of the Mondberg, Moon Mountain? They would have liked to set out on their expedition immediately, but for days clouds came up every afternoon and obscured the stars at night. Nevertheless, the two of them didn’t sit idle. To familiarize themselves with the terrain of earth’s satellite, they bent over the map Maria et Monti Lunae. Using pencils, rulers, and compasses, they made various calculations in order to be ready to identify potential locations for Mary even before looking through their telescope. Once Dimitru had translated all the entries on the moon map with the help of a Latin dictionary, he came to a conclusion.

  “Mary is enthroned in the Mare Serenitatis.”

  “Where?” asked Grandfather.

  “In the Sea of Serenity. We can exclude all the other seas.”

  “How can you be so sure? The moon is a big place,” Ilja objected. “Mare Imbrium, Mare Humorum, Mare Nubium. The blessed Mary could have landed anywhere after her Assumption. That means we have to look everywhere except for Mare Moscoviense. She would go out of her way to avoid the Russian Sea.”

  “I agree.” But then the Gypsy definitively excluded other locations as well. “Do you really think she would be celebrating in the company of the twelve apostles in a place as inhospitable as the Oceanus Procellarum, the Ocean of Storms? Or would the teeth of the Mother of Our Lord be chattering in the frosty Mare Frigoris? Or worst of all”—and Dimitru held his nose—“in the miasma of the Mare Vaporum or in the Palus Putredinis, the Swamp of Decay?”

  “You’re both crazy!” Kathalina was amused at first. But gradually she became really concerned about the mental health of the two friends and, finally, completely irritated. “The both of you are hopeless cases. Since Johannes Baptiste left us, your heads are full of nonsense. Mary on the moon! I pray the village gets a new priest soon who can bring you back to earth from your delusions of heavenly flights.”

  To their objection that they had the highest authority behind them: a papal dogma and the biblical word of God in Revelation, Kathalina replied she had no doubts about the truth of the Bible and the church, but she did about the influence of the Holy Ghost. Instead of illuminating the minds of her fellow men, it obviously was befogging their brains. “Only boneheads would come up with the idea of swapping a wonderful television set for an old radio and all this other useless junk.”

  Despite my mother’s annoyance, the radio became Ilja’s and Dimitru’s connection to the world. It delivered the latest news directly into our taproom. To be sure, only such reports as had been filtered through the state censorship office and embellished by the rank imagination of the propagandists. In addition, the information suffered some diminution in transmission by the outdated technology. After tinkering with it for a while, I discovered that the radio set had no difficulty in receiving broadcast signals, just problems in reproducing the tone. Dimitru conjectured that the plus and minus poles of the speaker magnets had possibly exchanged places while being transported on the jolting horse-drawn wagon. The defect was evident in the fact that the radio would sometimes deliver the very best quality sound for hours on end before suddenly starting to chatter again or fall completely silent for brief but decisive moments. The irritated Gypsy would snap the fingers of his right hand while continuously turning the dial with his left, which got on Kathalina’s nerves so much that she regularly pulled the plug from its socket.

  Shortly after the triumph of Gagarin’s spaceflight for the Soviet Union, we heard the news that Grandfather’s beloved America not only built inferior rockets but also was a bad actor on the world political stage. Ilja cocked his ears as soon as he heard the name Fidel Castro. Dimitru turned up the volume as high as it would go. America had obviously tried to topple a revolutionary revered in the circles of the Transmontanian Workers’ Party. Because Castro had chased all the capitalists out of Cuba, was proceeding apace to proletarianize the island, and now also had a pact with the Soviet Union, the USA was gearing up for a counteroffensive. If the newsman was to be believed, counterrevolutionary Cubans had been lured to the USA with a few lousy dollars, there to be armed to the teeth and sent back to Cuba to fight against their own compatriots. In the end, what exactly was happening in Cuba remained a mystery, since the radio started acting up again. But at least Grandfather and Dimitru had repeatedly heard the name of the American president who had already sent Khrushchev a congratulatory telegram after Gagarin’s spaceflight. Apparently, this John Eff Kennedy had also ordered the storming of Cuba to bring its citizens American liberty, which, however, was not appreciated on the island of revolutionaries. As far as Dimitru could determine, Fidel’s rebel guard had thrown all the invaders into a bay with pigs, whereupon my grandfather, who knew his Bible inside and out, merely remarked that Jesus had also once exorcized demons and commanded them to enter some swine that proceeded to throw themselves into the sea and drown. For me, the news contained a kernel of truth: Kennedy’s people had botched the overthrow of Castro. Logically enough, Ilja and Dimitru wondered if the Americans were not just smart enough to see through Korolev’s secret plan but also had a strategy to defeat it.

  “It’s high time,” Grandfather postulated, “for America to respond.”

  And it did respond. On May 25, 1961, the president of the United States gave a speech to Congress of utmost urgency for the nation. He spoke of the coming battle between freedom and tyranny from which, no matter how it ended, America would emerge victorious. As it would in the struggle to conquer space. Kennedy proclaimed, “This nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth.”

  Before Ilja and Dimitru could comprehend their good fortune, a radio commentator demanded their full attention. The chairman of the Transmontanian State Council Gheorghiu-Dej, a staunch supporter of Moscow, was going to speak in person. In a disquisition on the international political situation, he declared that the USA’s delusions of grandeur with respect to the conquest of space were in inverse proportion to its terrestrial failures. Kennedy had only announced his utopian plan to fly to the moon in order to create a stir nationally and internationally and distract attention from his Cuban disaster and his private sex sc
andals. When Dimitru heard that Kennedy’s compulsive infidelities with a constantly inebriated starlet who also took drugs had weakened him politically, he clapped his hands in joy.

  “The Bolsheviks are getting cold feet. They’re getting nervous. Now their bloodhounds are sniffing around in the president’s bedroom. When the Russkies have no other ideas, they always go for the balls. But a man who’s determined to get to the moon won’t get tripped up by peccadilloes with women. Believe me, Ilja, if anyone can stop Korolev, our John Eff can.” Dimitru suddenly stopped and slapped his forehead. “Man, Ilja! This story about the president’s girlfriend! It’s a divine coincidence! On Radio London they’re always talking about some Marilyn. You know what that means in translation? Marialein, Little Mary! Mary and John Eff! ‘John’ is short for ‘Johannes.’ Eff: Evangelist! John the Evangelist was the only person to whom the woman on the moon appeared. Understand, Ilja?”

  “The Yank gets it!” Grandfather was ecstatic. “Kennedy’s started his counterproject. He wants to go to the moon. And he knows that time is short.”

  “I’m guessing John Eff is going to throw the on switch for presses to start printing money. A moon flight costs a lot of dollars. If I understood the news from London, America’s even hired a German to build its rockets. Wörner Brown or something like that. I’m telling you, when a German has a hand in something, it’s going to work.”

  “If America’s got a German on their side,” my grandfather summed up, “Korolev’s holding a bad hand.”

  “You can take that to the bank. Pavel, zuika!”

  As always, the evening news closed with the weather forecast. For Friday, May 26, and the following days summer temperatures and clear blue skies were predicted for the Carpathians. At once, Ilja and Dimitru ran to the door. The stars twinkled in a clear night sky. There would be a full moon in two days. What could be more perfect for their telescopic observations than the last days of the Mary month of May?