The Madonna on the Moon

by Rolf Bauerdick

  From the kitchen I heard some patrons entering the tavern. “How come you’re closed? How about some service?” Liviu Brancusi’s voice reminded me that it was Saturday. The three Brancusis, who had gotten jobs fattening hogs in the new Apoldasch agro-complex, were in the best of moods and wanted to celebrate the weekend, i.e., they wanted to drink. The Transmontanian Workers’ Party, boasted the Brancusi spokesman, had signed up its millionth member just a few days ago.

  As I brought a bottle of zuika to their table, Liviu sang, “Socialism wins the day, whatever the pope and the church may say.” Then he started trying to recruit me again. He pointed out that as a member of the Kronauburg State Trade Organization, it wasn’t just my commercial but also my patriotic duty to declare my allegiance to the party of the people. If not as an active member, then at least as an observer at the big Party Day on the market square in Kronauburg. I could pay my respects and show solidarity with the accomplishments of the comrades.

  “I’ll think about it,” I said. “When’s the shindig getting under way?”

  “Two weeks from today, on Saturday,” Liviu replied. “There’ll be thousands of people there. All you can eat and drink for free, courtesy of the party. Everyone who is anyone will be there. Gonna be an unforgettable event. By the way, you can’t miss me in the crowd. Because of the exemplary way I met the quota, I was chosen to carry the banner of the AAC Two in the procession.”

  “The what?”

  “The banner of the Apoldasch Agro-Industrial Complex Two.”

  I promised to think it over, since I needed to make another trip to Kronauburg soon anyway to purchase more stock for the store. I could do that on a Friday afternoon. And that evening I could personally see to it that the Party Day would be really unforgettable for the Kronauburg secretary Stephanescu.

  Supply and demand, that’s what sets the price.” I had to put up with the owner of the Pofta Buna instructing me about why he had summarily tripled the fee for spending the night on his straw. I paid without complaint. I wasn’t the only one wanting to spend the night in Kronauburg before the big party spectacular. Two dozen loaded wagons belonging to trade organization concessionaires were parked in front of the cheap inn. They’d all used Friday to buy their stock from the central warehouse so they could party the next day at the expense and in honor of the party. I sat down with my fellow shopkeepers and ordered beer, bread, and mititei—spicy patties of grilled meat. I gathered from the conversation that no one had any complaints about doing business in the cooperative. On the contrary, they had good things to say about the improvements in the supply chain as well as state price supports. The only people in the country who were always groaning and complaining were the farmers. When I commented that the party wasn’t exactly using kid gloves to introduce collectivization, all I got in reply was the stale old adage about breaking eggs to make an omelet. My question if anyone knew what had become of the former wholesalers the Hossu brothers was met with shrugs and sullen scowls. One of the older concessionaires did allow that in times like these, you were well advised to keep some questions to yourself.

  Early in the evening, I strolled over to the Kronauburg market square to reconnoiter the situation. I was struck by the pompous show of red bunting and gigantic national flags with which the organizers had transformed the façades of the buildings into a setting for their propaganda. If you believed what the twenty-five-yard-long banners said, then our nation was the most progressive, most peaceful, and most productive of all nations, perpetually poised for above-average achievements. The slogans were filled with awakening, buckling down to work, and constructing. Solidarities were proclaimed, friendships between peoples invoked, alliances reconfirmed, revolutions promoted, and much gratitude expressed: the fatherland was thanked, fraternal Socialist states were thanked, the proletarians of all nations were thanked, and so was the International against capitalism, imperialism, and fascism. But above all, the party thanked itself in the name of the people.

  Hosts of underlings were busily putting the finishing touches on the market square. Radio and TV personnel were setting up their broadcasting equipment. Marshals were running here and there. Soldiers from the National Guard were lounging around in their fatigues, and on every corner was a civilian in a black leather jacket, scanning the crowd and speaking into a walkie-talkie. In front of the Socialist People’s Market, carpenters were nailing the final boards onto the gigantic rostrum where the dignitaries would sit. I was pleased to discover that from the speaker’s platform, one looked straight across to the police station and Hofmann’s photo studio. I had seen enough and uttered a quick prayer that the market square would empty out that night.

  As I lay on my straw pallet in the Pofta Buna, time flowed as sluggishly as the glue I’d mixed up in Baia Luna and poured into a marmalade jar. Beside me some concessionaires were snoring, and now and then a horse would snort. Otherwise, all was quiet. At some point the clock in the tower of Saint Paul’s Cathedral struck four short strokes and three long ones. Time for me to get moving. Despite the warm night I put on my coat and crept under my wagon. The rolled-up photos were in a cardboard tube I had attached to the front axle. I hid the pictures under my coat and put the jar of glue in one coat pocket. Out of the other peeked a half-full bottle of zuika. Just in case.

  A quarter hour later I entered the market square behind the speaker’s platform. The streetlights were turned off. Some soldiers were standing near the entrance to the Golden Star Hotel. Their laughter echoed dully across the square, and the bluish smoke from their cigarettes drifted in the light from a lantern. I listened, but except for the muted voices of the soldiers, nothing could be heard. When I had crept silently over to the three plateglass windows of the photo studio, I could see the soldiers quite clearly in front of the hotel. Sometimes their gaze wandered across the square, but I was sure I was invisible in the darkness of the night. I unrolled the photos, smeared glue onto their backs, and pasted one onto each of the three windows. The cathedral clock struck three thirty. The soldiers had disappeared.

  The sound of heavy boots on cobblestones echoed across the square without my being able to locate exactly where it was coming from. The steps came nearer. They were heading my way. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. An image flared up in my head: Buba, carrying a jug of water. She handed it to her uncle Dimi, who said, Your Pavel, my dear, can stand the world on its head.

  I pulled out my schnapps bottle and quickly moved away from the window.

  “Hey! You bitch!” I bellowed into the dark at the top of my lungs. “You filthy whore, you c’n, you c’n, you c’n kiss my ass. Thassit, you c’n jus’ kiss my ass, you cheap slu—”

  Immediately, two flashlights sprang to life. I heard someone give the order, “Safeties off!” The metallic clatter of submachine guns rang through the night. Then the soldiers had me in their sights.

  “Halt!”

  I ignored the command, held up the bottle of zuika, and staggered a few steps to the left and then to the right. “Fuck’n women, goddamn buncha whores,” I babbled to myself. Then I came to an abrupt stop, rolled my eyes, and gaped at the soldiers. I gave a clumsy salute and held out the bottle to the boys in uniform. “Here’s t’ th’ sake . . . sake . . . sacred fatherland. Fuck’n fascists! Long live Fidel! Viflah revoloosh’n. Havva drink, comrades!”

  The commanding officer walked up and grabbed me by the collar. “Piss off. This is a restricted area,” he snarled at me and grabbed away my bottle. “Beat it!” I staggered off slowly. “Another drunken idiot,” I heard one of them say. I slipped onto a side street and ran.

  It was just starting to get light as I hitched up the horse, and the sleepy patron of the Pofta Buna came out. “Where are you off to so early? I thought you were going to fill your belly at the party’s expense.”

  “I’m all set.” I swung up onto the wagon box.

  “Wait! I need your signature. Every overnight guest has to confirm his arrival and depar
ture. It’s a new law.”

  “I wasn’t here last night, understand? I wasn’t here. I ate here yesterday and then drove right back into the mountains. Got it?”

  “No,” he said, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes, “not when you’re right here in front of me.”

  I bet on the power of a threat. “If you tell anyone at all that I was in Kronauburg last night, I’ll set the Securitate on you. You can imagine what they do with capitalist price gougers who rent out straw pallets at triple the price. Remember the Hossus.”

  Immediately the guy offered to refund the whole price of an overnight.

  “Keep the money!”

  “Thanks. I don’t know you. Beat it.”

  I gave the horse the whip and was back in Baia Luna before noon on Saturday.

  I stayed by the radio all afternoon, from which issued one report after another about the grand success of the party rally in Kronauburg. About four o’clock they announced the imminent speech by President Gheorghiu-Dej, who had flown in from the capital especially for the occasion, to be preceded by an official welcome for the head of state delivered by the first secretary of the regional party, Dr. Stephanescu.

  I had lost. The Kronauburg party boss had not been overthrown. Instead, the usual big words boomed from the radio. I had overestimated the power of the pictures and my own power, too.

  On Monday morning I asked my mother to look after the shop for me and walked to Apoldasch where you could buy the Kronauburg Courier. Spread across three double pages were reports of the spectacular weekend rally. Nothing but paeans for the party. Many photos showed the aged president Gheorghiu-Dej. And Stephanescu: laughing, patting flag-wavers on the shoulder, shaking hands, holding babies. Stefan Stephanescu obviously was more firmly in the saddle than ever before. Then I did a double take. Under the last article was the notice “All photographs: Irina Raducanu.” It wasn’t the fact that Irina Lupescu had married her fiancé Raducanu, major in the Securitate, that surprised me. What troubled me was that it didn’t say “All photographs: Heinrich Hofmann.” A week later I had a good idea why.

  A young man showed up in Baia Luna asking after a talkative Gypsy and an elderly gentleman with his grandson, about twenty years old. They sent him to our shop, and I recognized him immediately. It was Matei, the nephew of the antiques dealer Gheorghe Gherghel.

  “Man, what are you doing here?”

  “I came to warn you,” said Matei. “Scary things are happening in Kronauburg these days, things I don’t understand. Last night they arrested my uncle for illegal business deals and support of the counterrevolution. What a load of crap! Politics is the last thing my uncle cares about.”

  “Who arrested him?” I was chewing my lips nervously.

  “Cartarescu, the police chief of Kronauburg. And another guy from the State Security, a slimy guy who smiles all the time. Name of Raducanu.”

  “And what did they want from you? Why did you come here?”

  “They interrogated Uncle Gheorghe for hours. Raducanu kept asking him who had bought the photo-lab equipment. He wasn’t interested in the telescope and the camera, just the darkroom stuff. Cartarescu said you had to register darkroom equipment to prevent unauthorized pictures of potential danger to the state from getting into circulation.”

  I was really rattled. “Wha-what kind of photos do they mean?”

  “No idea. That smiler was going on about the Cold War and plots by Western secret services paid by the USA to weaken Socialism and the party. Apparently some politcadres are being blackmailed with photos showing them in—let’s say very delicate situations. That’s why Raducanu’s putting all his effort into finding everyone who has a darkroom. But that seems like just a pretext to me. How would you guys way up here in the mountains have a chance to photograph officials in compromising situations? It’s laughable. But they’re after you all the same.”

  “Did you tell them anything about us?”

  “Not me,” said Matei. “Believe me, I didn’t. They let me go because I said I hadn’t even been in the shop when the equipment was being sold. All my uncle said—over and over again—was that a Gypsy with a beard and an older man and a young guy, meaning you, were in the store. He didn’t know your names. He also couldn’t recall where you were from—just somewhere in the mountains. Then they searched my uncle’s private rooms. They found the television and confiscated it on the spot. They’ll show up here pretty soon; that TV set put them on the scent.”

  I could feel the fear rising inside me. “Are you sure?”

  “Yes. Raducanu smiled when he saw the TV. My uncle got out your receipt to prove that everything about the trade had been legal and he hadn’t received any stolen goods. As soon as the security agent took a look at it, he smiled even more, as if he recognized the piece of paper. But that can’t be so, can it?”

  “Yes, it can. Raducanu was up here once. They wanted to take the TV from us then, too, but my grandfather showed them the receipt to prove he was the legal owner of the set.”

  “I don’t get the whole thing. But tell me the truth: why do you need a darkroom in Baia Luna?”

  “Village festivals, weddings, ID photos, portraits,” I said. “I wanted to photograph life in the village and then sell the pictures. It’s too far to Kronauburg and, anyway, Photo Hofmann does good work, but they’re expensive.”

  “I can’t imagine earning any money taking photos here in this hole, but I’ll take your word for it. Especially now that you have no more competition from Hofmann the photographer.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You really are in the dark up here. Motorcycle accident down by Campina.”

  The color drained from my face. “Was Herr Hofmann killed?”

  “It was all over the papers: ‘Master Photographer Dead.’ He was doing seventy-five on a straightaway. Went right under an army truck, without a helmet. Took them hours to find his head—it was thirty yards out in a cornfield, sliced clean off. That’s what it said in the Courier, anyway.”

  “But how could it have happened? What time of day was it?”

  “I only know what I read in the paper: going too fast and lost control. When was it, now? Sunday before last, I think, the day after that big party shindig in town.”

  I felt dizzy. “Matei, did you know that Herr Hofmann was from Baia Luna? His son Fritz and I were in school together.”

  “No, that’s news to me. I only knew Hofmann from the newspaper. He ran around with the fancy crowd. I saw him a time or two in town on his way to the Star of the Carpathians. Not my scene. Too slick. They say Hofmann was thick as thieves with our party boss Stephanescu. But wait . . . now that I think about it . . . At the party rally I was on the market square—free food and drink, you know—so me and my friends were really helping ourselves. We even stayed when they started their stupid speeches. Stephanescu was standing on the podium next to the president. But Hofmann wasn’t there. I would have noticed, because he was always hovering around the big shots. But on that Saturday he wasn’t onstage. There was a pretty girl, a blond, taking all the pictures.”

  When I was silent, Matei continued, “No wonder you were so surprised by Hofmann’s death if his son was a friend of yours. The newspaper was full of eulogies, pages and pages of them. The longest was by Stephanescu.”

  “What’d it say?”

  “Something about eternal friendship lasting beyond the grave. If you ask me, he was laying it on a bit thick for my taste, if you know what I mean.”

  “No, not really.”

  “How should I put it? The expression of sympathy seemed a bit overdone, phony somehow. The magical gaze of the master, a life for photography, the unerring eye of a great artist, and so on and so forth. And that Hofmann would live forever in his pictures and stuff like that—when it was common knowledge that his assistants took the photos. He was an ass kisser who took portraits of the party cadres that looked just like they wanted to see themselves. Well done tec
hnically, sure, but where’s the art in it?”

  “It’s not something I can judge. But what made you come up here from Kronauburg just to warn us?”

  Matei looked surprised. “But that’s obvious. Maybe I’ll need help someday, too. Anyway, think of something before that Raducanu gets here. He’s a nasty guy and capable of anything.”

  As Matei was taking his leave to get back to Apoldasch in time to catch the evening bus to Kronauburg, I regretted being suspicious of Gheorghe Gherghel’s nephew instead of thanking him and accepting his offer of friendship.

  I was alone. I had poured oil onto a fire, and now it was flaring up and threatening to consume me. Keep your flame turned down, or you’ll have a fire on your hands that will burn you badly. That’s what Commissar Patrascu told us after Johannes Baptiste’s murder. The captain with wiry hair hadn’t had time to enjoy his retirement. Had it really been all that cigarette smoke that killed him? And now, Heinrich Hofmann. I had a fearful foreboding. My photographs glued to the windowpanes had been aimed at Stefan Stephanescu. But had they hit Heinrich Hofmann instead? Whoever had discovered the pictures had prevented them from causing any trouble for the Kronauburg party chief. But if Stephanescu had heard about the photo posters, which I assumed he did, then he would order his people to find the perpetrator, the person with the negatives. And wouldn’t he also be furious with Heinrich Hofmann? Shouldn’t the photographer have kept the revealing negative so well protected that there was no possibility of anyone stealing it? Did the friendship between the two of them end when Hofmann became a security threat to the party chief? Why wasn’t Heinrich at the party rally? And the motorcycle accident just a day later? Without a helmet, when I’d never seen Fritz’s father get on his Italian bike without a helmet?

  I needed someone to share the unbearable burden of these questions with. And my fear, too. They were after me. I was a monkey wrench in the works of the powerful. I’d lost control of the tiller. But there was no one to relieve me of my fear. Fritz lived in Germany. Did he know of his father’s death? I thought it unlikely he and his mother had come to Kronauburg for the funeral of his hated old man. I longed for Buba, would have liked to take her hand and flee, get out of there, go somewhere, farther into the mountains. Would we have made it through, like the rebels down in Walachia? Or to Germany, like Fritz? But I hadn’t the slightest idea where Buba was or who she was living with. I had asked her uncle repeatedly, but Dimitru had sworn a thousand oaths that he didn’t know where his niece had ended up.