“Washington, January 1, 1967. The American vice president Richard Nixon named February 21 as the launch date for the first American Apollo manned spaceflight.”
“Moscow, January 2, 1967. The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics is confident of sending cosmonauts to the moon by the fiftieth anniversary of the October Revolution.”
“Cape Kennedy, January 27, 1967. Huge setback for the Apollo lunar flight project of the United States of America. During a test involving a simulated countdown, fire broke out in the space capsule. The astronauts Gus Grissom, Ed White, and Roger Chaffee died from smoke inhalation. The son of Commander Grissom told the press after the accident that his father had received death threats and was fearful of becoming the victim of a plot. Possible sabotage has not been ruled out.”
“Moscow, March 27, 1968. Yury Gagarin, the Russian cosmonaut who seven years ago set a milestone in world history by becoming the first human in space, is dead. He died at the age of thirty-four in the crash of a plane he was test piloting. It is considered possible that the crash was the result of an act of sabotage.”
“June 6, 1968. Robert Francis Kennedy killed at the age of forty-two. Kennedy, who was following in the footsteps of his brother John Fitzgerald Kennedy as a leading contender for the Democratic nomination for president, died of gunshot wounds inflicted by an assassin.”
The evil is stronger than we are,” said Dimitru resignedly. “It’s all over. Our mission has definitely failed. Marilein, John Eff, his brother Robert, Korolev, Gagarin, three American astronauts. To say nothing of the many unsung cosmonauts who went before and got blown up in test flights—they all had to die: burned, poisoned, shot, crashed. Some may even be buzzing around in the cold vastness of space, unable to return. And no one hears their calls. And you don’t hear a peep out of Khrushchev either. Do they have to execute each other like this? What do you think, Ilja, is it worth it?”
Grandfather said nothing. Kathalina could have seen the defeat of the two friends as a triumph of reason, but instead the Gypsy made her sad when she saw his distress and despair. I was also plagued by a bad conscience. After all, the two of them had no idea how much I had manipulated them for my own purposes. The telescope, the white dots on Dimitru’s photos of the Madonna, the playacting for Lupu Raducanu—all that drama, now already several years in the past, had left me indebted to them both. I had some reparations to make. Like my mother, my dearest wish was that Dimitru and Ilja could be their old selves again.
And our wish came true on a warm summer day in 1969 when Grandfather and Dimitru had gone on one of their walks. Panting, I raced to catch up with them with some exciting news. I found them at the roadside cross marking the spot where Laszlo Gabor had died trying to keep Grandfather’s young family from falling into the Tirnava. The two friends were sitting on the bank, chewing blades of grass and staring silently into the river.
“Haven’t you heard?” I asked. “The whole world is talking about it!”
“What do you mean?”
“Apollo Eleven is about to take off. In a few hours a rocket with Americans on board will fly to the moon. The general secretary has announced that he’ll be on the line continuously from launch to landing—on television, no less, round the clock. If you hurry, you can make it back before they start counting backward.”
“That, my dear Pavel, is known as the countdown!”
Ilja looked at Dimitru and shook his head. “A moon flight! I don’t believe it. Murders, accidents, assassinations. Everyone who’s important to the moon project is dead, on both sides, Russians and Americans. They’re in a war.”
“Almighty God.” Dimitru groaned. “You’re mistaken, Ilja. You’re right that they’re at war, but not everybody’s been killed off yet. There’s one guy left, one rocket builder! The German! Wörner von Braun! Didn’t I say so? The Germans never forget.”
Although Grandfather was sixty-six, and Dimitru wasn’t the youngest either anymore, they ran like rabbits to the house of the Kiselev family. The only television in Baia Luna stood in their parlor on a veneered corner chest.
Petre Petrov greeted them with the words “You’re too late.” Like many others, he’d invited himself over to the Kiselevs’. “The countdown just finished, and Apollo is airborne.”
When Dimitru and Ilja looked at the TV, the only thing still to be seen in the middle of the black screen was a bright, fiery trail getting smaller and smaller until it was no bigger than an aluminum coin, an image that reminded me of Dimitru’s Madonna photos. When the tiny, pinhead-sized dot had finally winked out in the night of outer space, the Gypsy asked, “Everything went smoothly?”
“Perfect liftoff,” Petre answered. “The best. Too bad you missed it.”
“And how many men on board?”
“Only three. Collins is going to stay in the command module while Armstrong and Aldrin go down in the lunar module. Two hundred thirty-nine thousand miles, just imagine! They’ll be up there in four days if all goes well. The announcer just said Nixon’s speechwriters have already slipped their eulogies into his pocket, just in case.”
“Did they say where the two astronauts are going to land?” Dimitru was almost bursting with curiosity.
“Man, Dimitru, don’t bother us with such stupid questions,” grumbled Petre’s father Trojan. “They’re landing on the moon, where else? Haven’t you got that through your skull yet?”
“But where? Where exactly? In which mare?”
“Haven’t a clue.” Trojan shrugged. “Some dusty place. There’s plenty of room up there for the Igel.”
“For what?”
“That’s what they called the lunar module,” explained Petre. “We’ve been wondering why the Americans couldn’t come up with a better name.”
As in days of yore, Petre’s remark was a welcome excuse for Dimitru to launch into a sermon about human ignorance. He explained patronizingly that Igel in American doesn’t mean hedgehog. It’s the name of a gigantic bird of prey.
While the other men left Elena’s parlor one after the other because the pictures of Mission Control in Houston bored them, Grandfather and Dimitru stayed on for four days, staring at the screen in such concentration that the Gypsy didn’t even need any attention-enhancing liquid refreshment.
July 20, 1969: the Kiselevs’ parlor was full to bursting. Elena passed around canapés and good salted crackers from the capital, but no one was having any. All eyes were glued to the TV screen. At 4:18 p.m., a hundred two hours and forty-five minutes after launch, the lunar module landed. No one noticed that sixty seconds later, Dimitru put both hands to his head in horror. The others watched the screen impatiently. Any moment now a man would step onto the moon for the first time. The Gypsy didn’t care. He sensed—no, he knew—that it was all for nothing. At 7:34 p.m. the spokesman announced that Armstrong and Aldrin were donning their space suits. It took a while. At 10:39 p.m. Neil Armstrong stood on the steps of the lunar module in his padded overalls but didn’t hurry down. Ten fifty: “Come on, already,” Petre Petrov shouted. Six minutes later Armstrong stuck out his left foot and became the first man to touch the moon. Then the astronaut said something in American, which nobody in Baia Luna except Dimitru understood. Thank the Lord the TV announcer translated the sentence in such a proud voice you’d think he was standing up there himself. Everyone cheered and hugged. Dimitru stayed seated. He was weeping. Everyone thought he was very moved. But the small step of a man and the giant step for mankind didn’t move Dimitru. He plucked at Grandfather’s sleeve, took him aside, and whispered something in his ear. He motioned me over, too. We left the Kiselevs’ living room and sat down outside on the bench next to the watering trough where Karl Koch usually sat, staring at his hands.
The Americans’ Marian mission had failed. That was already clear to Dimitru the minute the lunar module landed. Commander Armstrong had called Mission Control in Houston. Houston responded, asking how things looked, and Armstrong spoke into his mike, “T
ranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed.” But where? “Tranquility Base!”
“The Yanks have messed up again,” groaned Dimitru. “They’ll never find Mary, not even with the help of Wörner von Braun.”
“How can you be so sure?” asked Grandfather. “The astronauts only just arrived up there, didn’t they?”
“Armstrong is clambering around in the Mare Tranquillitatis, not in the Mare Serenitatis. Mary’s enthroned in the Sea of Serenity, not in the Sea of Tranquility.”
“Oh shit” was all Ilja replied.
I had to react, say something, anything. The two friends were utterly deflated: clueless, speechless, helpless. It all made no sense, had no point, no goal. And no hope. With the purest of intentions, I wanted to fan a spark of reassurance and give them the courage to go on living. But I had underestimated Grandfather and Dimitru. I had seen their Madonna madness as a crazy obsession but hadn’t realized the genuine earnestness of their despair. And so with a foolishly clever argument, I provided the impetus for the next act of a tragedy whose course I would be unable to control.
“Dimitru,” I said, “that German, that Wernher von Braun—you always said the Germans were cunning. What if this von Braun didn’t miss the Sea of Serenity at all? What if he meant to miss it? On purpose! What if he intended to send Armstrong and his colleagues to the wrong mare?”
“What did you say, Pavel? It was planned? An act of sabotage! Do you think Wörner wants to keep the Americans from finding the Madonna?”
“I don’t know, but could be.”
“But it isn’t evidentical! The Americans pay Wörner von Braun a lavish salary. Is the German plotting in secret with the Soviets, against the Yanks?”
“Never, Dimitru,” Grandfather objected. “The Germans—I’m talking about the Germans in the West—would never revolt against the Americans. That would be the end of the airlift over the Wall into Berlin. And that can’t be what the Germans want. But still, I don’t trust that von Braun. Did he really repent having built rocket bombs for the Führer’s Thousand-Year Reich? Is he really a new person? An ally? The savior of the Mother of God? Or is he secretly pursuing different ends? His own shadowy goals?”
“My, oh my, oh my! Ilja, I get you! To recapitulate: the Soviets want to fetch the Madonna from the moon to undo the Assumption, so they can continue to believe in their atheism. The Americans have to prove that God exists. They have to find the Mother of God because they don’t want to have to pulp all their dollars. But the German is in the middle. He doesn’t want either the one thing or the other. He wants Mary not to be found. And that’s why Wörner von Braun is sending Armstrong and Aldrin to the wrong mare. And that’s why they all had to die: the Kennedys, Korolev, Gagarin, and all those astronauts and cosmonauts. Wörner’s outlived them all. He’s behind everything. I just wonder why. I mean, what does the German get out of it?”
“What did you just say?” Grandfather interjected. “What sea did the lunar module land in?”
“Mare Tranquillitatis.”
“That’s no accident. The German wants to finally have some peace and quiet, some relief,” Grandfather explained.
“Relief from what?”
“Man, Dimitru, you as a Gypsy ought to know the answer to that. They wanted to rub out all you Blacks, too, back then. Don’t you see? Since the Thousand-Year Reich didn’t work out, the German wants some relief from all those murdered Jews. And Mary is a Jew! The Mother of God is from the Children of Israel! Mary is the only one of her people who has corporeally risen from the dead. That’s what the papal dogma says, too. Now imagine that this von Braun finds her. Mary would certainly have a few unpleasant things to say to him about how her people were treated and would constantly keep the Germans from forgetting. The best thing for the German would be if Mary stayed up there in the lunar dust. She can party with the apostles and not disturb the progress of the world with her memories.”
“Sounds logical, Ilja,” Dimitru said without a trace of enthusiasm. “Or better: it sounds too logical. But Papa Baptiste taught me to test every theory by collecting contradictatorial theories.”
“Explain what you mean.”
“Perhaps Wörner is really nothing but a clueless rocket builder, a curious scientist who just wants to know what’s happening up there on the moon. Perhaps he’s really not a German anymore but a true American who regrets having built rockets for the Thousand-Year Reich. After all, he was a friend of Kennedy’s! John Eff forgave the Germans, didn’t he? He didn’t constantly remind them of dark times in the past. He even converted to being a Berliner.”
“Your theory’s not without interest, Dimitru,” I jumped in, conscious of the risibility of these speculations. “But that would mean that some entirely different power is pulling the strings. Neither the Soviets nor the Yanks, and not Wernher von Braun. Someone hidden. Someone who wants to prevent the Madonna at all costs from being discovered. Someone who really has something to fear from the Jewish Mary.”
“Sic est!” Dimitru was bowled over by the force of his insight. “I draw the conclusio: a power—we’ll call it x, hypothetically—has used Wörner von Braun for its own ends. Perhaps lured him into the wrong mare. Neither the Americans nor the Soviets nor the Germans—none of them is pulling the strings for the conquest of the heavens. It’s the Fourth Power, Ilja. I’m telling you, it’s the Fourth Power that’s behind everything. And I’ll tell you something else: Papa Baptiste knew it. That power raised Mary onto her heavenly throne, declared an incarnate Jewish woman to be the Regina coelestis of heaven in 1950, after the world had left her people so shamefully in the lurch here on earth.”
“And who do you think that Fourth Power is?”
“Well, the Vatican, of course.”
Like everywhere else in the world, in Baia Luna the first lunar landing was the topic of much conversation. But only for two days. The three American astronauts hadn’t even started on their return voyage when the village was consumed by excitement about something else entirely.
A gray, factory-fresh limousine rolled into Baia Luna. The Conducator’s grandiloquent prophecy that under his leadership the agrarian state of Transmontania would blossom into an industrial nation was not just empty rhetoric. The First Man of the State had kept his word: the New Nation possessed its own automobile factory. The name “Dacia” was proudly spelled out in silver letters across the trunk of the car from which two gentlemen in black were emerging. They greeted everyone in a measured way, raising their right hands and bowing their heads first in one direction and then in the other. Primly conscious of his own dignity, the older of the two introduced himself as the vicar-general of the diocese of Kronauburg.
“The parish of Baia Luna,” he said, “will soon have a new shepherd to lead it.”
At first the bystanders didn’t know how to react to the news, but then the Saxons started shaking one another’s hands in congratulation, first shouts of joy were heard, hats began flying into the air, and finally a torrent of joy burst forth to which the shrieks of the Gypsy children made a significant contribution. The representatives of the bishop in Kronauburg found this reaction very gratifying and asked that the young priest, whose name was Antonius Wachenwerther, be received with due respect, since his calling had led him from his native Austria into the diaspora. His installation would be celebrated little more than a week from that day, on the last day of July. The men and women promised to have the rectory and the church dusted out by then and to decorate the village.
“If I might be allowed to make a comment to your honored excellencies.” The sacristan Julius Knaup unctuously sidled up to the visitors. “Our Virgin of Eternal Consolation was stolen years ago, and the Eternal Flame over the tabernacle is out as well. And if you ask my opinion, satanic powers were at work in the person of a sinful female by the name of Bar—”
“You still stink of rosewater,” called out Petre Petrov, and the other men who were standing around laughed so hard they
had to hold their bellies. The representatives of the clergy looked uncomfortable and then laughed a little themselves.
Then the vicar-general explained that at the installation of Father Wachenwerther, the extinguished light would burn again as in pious bygone days, reignited by an altar candle lit from the consecrated light in Saint Paul’s Cathedral in Kronauburg. As for the theft of the Madonna, the diocese noted with burning concern the growing number of thefts of sacred objects and saints’ statues. The vicar-general would venture no opinion as to the identity of the perpetrators but could not help mentioning that members of a certain national minority well known for habitual thievery were smuggling precious cultural artifacts and icons into the capitalist art market via an international Mafia based in Moscow. He would therefore caution Pastor Wachenwerther to leave the church door locked except for services.
A new priest! For me that meant the tabernacle in the church would be needed for clerical purposes again. I realized in dismay how long it had been since I had thought about the teacher Angela Barbulescu and her diary. The fire in my heart was still glimmering, but it wasn’t blazing anymore. It was painful to look myself in the eye. The youthful fighter who had run risks and met dangers without a second thought had become a tavern keeper and trade organization concessionaire, a congenial and respected but lukewarm man pushing thirty, doing his best to deal honestly with everyone and not alienate anyone.
I had only myself to blame for my lack of passion, although maybe I blamed time a little, too, blamed it for creeping along in Baia Luna in uneventful monotony. I did my work, sold my wares, waited on my guests, and drove to Kronauburg once a month to replenish my stock. Sure, I saw the signs of change but had long ago been infected by the virus of lassitude. My will to life would only flare up from time to time, usually when I felt a sexual urge. When that happened, I would seek relief with the women who sold their favors in the district capital, although they supposedly didn’t exist in Socialism. By the time they were whispering into the ear of their next john that he really knew how to put it to them, I was already thinking wistfully of the promise I had given Buba Gabor on the wondrous night of my sixteenth birthday and of the promise she had given me. After my visits to those women, that night Buba and I had become man and wife stuck in my conscious mind as a mere thorn in the flesh of memory, no longer able to make me cry out in pain. Whenever I recalled in my loneliness Buba’s promise to wait for me, I was overcome by a rush of tearful sentimentality. I would get drunk, feel strong and full of fight, but I awoke the next morning with a throbbing head and unable to act on the brave resolutions I had made the night before. What could I do? Buba was gone—somewhere. Angela had been wrong. Stephanescu had not been toppled, much less destroyed. Instead, the news was filled with stories of his successes in the district capital. Heinrich Hofmann was long dead, and no court in Transmontania in those days was about to rule on whether he died by accident or at the hand of Stephanescu’s goons. There was no justice in this world. Would there be at the end of days? What was one to think about the Last Judgment in which my grandfather still put all his trust? Could be that there was something to it, but could be there wasn’t.
The Madonna on the Moon Page 37
