The Madonna on the Moon

by Rolf Bauerdick

  “He’s a German!” someone yelled, and they all started screaming. “The Germans are here. They haven’t forgotten us. They’re bringing food. The Germans don’t forget!”

  “But that one’s not a German!” The orderly was putting in his two cents again, and when the howling started up anew, I withdrew.

  “Fritz, I can’t go into this place.”

  “Okay, Pavel. I’ll give it my best try.”

  I returned to the car while Fritz asked after a certain Ilja Botev from Baia Luna. The orderly said no, as did the men, who apparently knew nothing of first names or family names.

  “Are you really a German?”

  Fritz turned around and found himself face-to-face with a young man who introduced himself as Dr. Adrian Bacanu, the director of the hospital, and beseeched Fritz, “Please help us.”

  Bacanu explained that he had taken over the place only two weeks ago. His predecessor Dr. Pauker had gotten himself transferred to the army. For his part, Bacanu never imagined in his worst nightmares what horrors would await him in Vadului.

  “I wanted to be a doctor, not a gravedigger,” he said, and Fritz could see he was telling the truth. When Fritz introduced himself as a photojournalist, Bacanu almost hugged him. “Please photograph the wretched people here! Show the Germans what miserable conditions they live in.”

  “No! I’m not here to take pictures now. But I give you my word I’ll send my colleagues from the capital up here in three days at the most.”

  “Three days? Okay, we can wait that long.”

  When Fritz Hofmann saw Adrian Bacanu’s quiet satisfaction, he knew that he would never again in his life press the shutter release of a camera. Then he explained that the man he was looking for, Ilja Botev, would be very old by now if he was still alive at all—well over eighty and possibly living here for more than twenty years.

  But Bacanu also denied knowing the name Ilja Botev. There were certainly some very elderly men among the three hundred patients, but he couldn’t imagine that anyone would have been able to survive two decades in Vadului.

  “There was hardly anything to eat, thin soup at the most. No medications. No heat in the winter. Even if patients survived their illnesses, they died from the lack of kindness. They dried up like flowers without water. No one wanted them. They have no home, no sense to their lives, no goal, not even to arouse our sympathy. Some have left the world entirely and spun themselves into a cocoon of their own invention as if protecting themselves against a doctor pulling them back into this reality.”

  “Like the blind guy in the bunker,” the orderly interjected, “the crazy New Yorker.”

  It had been only a few days since Fritz Hofmann had said in the Interconti, “When I see the pain of others, I feel alive.” As he descended the steps to the cellar hole in Vadului, he felt ashamed to have said it.

  “Don’t be shocked,” Dr. Bacanu said and pushed open the door to an empty coal bunker. Fritz stepped inside. “I’ve been with him a few times already,” whispered Bacanu, “but he won’t talk. I’ll leave you alone with the gentleman. Maybe you’ll find the magic word to release him from silence.”

  “Okay!”

  And with that, Fritz Hofmann had uttered the magic word.

  The bundle of rags turned its head toward him. “Are you from America?”

  The man sat in the shadows. From behind him, a ray of light fell from the narrow slit of a shaft onto the blackness of the opposite wall. Long ago something had been scratched onto the naked stone: the outline of the Statue of Liberty. When Fritz’s eyes had adjusted to the semidarkness, he saw that the silhouettes of skyscrapers had also been scratched on the walls to Ilja’s right and left.

  “You haven’t answered. Speak! Are you from America?”

  “Yes, I’m from America, from New York.”

  “Can I trust you? Do you know my name? Do you know where I’m from?”

  “You are the tavern owner Ilja Botev from Baia Luna. Your grandson Pavel is here. He wants to take you home. I’m his friend. My name is Fritz, and you can trust me.”

  “I can’t see you, but I recognize your voice. Pavel’s not going to take me home. He is tired. I don’t trust you. You want to spoil my mission.”

  “Your friend Dimitru is here, waiting for you, too.”

  “Dimitru will never abandon me. Never. We are friends. But you! You know too much. You want to know my secrets, but I’ll never tell them to you.”

  “Trust me, Ilja. The Conducator is dead. You’re free. You can go home, Ilja. Everyone’s waiting for you: Dimitru, Pavel, Kathalina, and your daughter Antonia, too. You’ve completed your mission.”

  “The Conducator is dead, you say? No, no. He’s alive. He is a Titan! You’re trying to trick me. The Vatican sent you, the Fourth Power. They want to destroy the Madonna, the Jewess, the resurrected.”

  “Forget about the Fourth Power. It’s lost all its might. The Mother of God is much, much stronger. She’s doing fine.”

  “What about the Conducator? Did the American president help him? Did they save the Madonna? Did my letter reach him?”

  “Of course. Your letter reached the right hands. Everything’s okay. Believe me. Before he died the Conducator took care of everything. What can the Fourth Power do to a man who outshines the sun? The Conducator even installed a new pope in the Vatican, a Pole. He’s made the protection of the Mother of God a priority. Believe me, the woman on the moon is doing fine. Everything’s tip-top. The Virgin of Eternal Consolation will soon return to Baia Luna. And the Eternal Flame is shining again.”

  “You’re lying. Wachenwerther sent you. You’re a spy from Rome. Can you prove you’re from America?”

  Fritz reached into his jacket and took out a couple of dollar bills. As he went to hand them to the old man, something fell on the floor, something silvery. Hofmann put the money back in his pocket and picked up the stick of chewing gum, which he pressed firmly into Ilja’s outstretched hands.

  Ilja Botev fingered the silver wrapper like a precious stone. Then he slowly bent the strip of gum back and forth, unwrapped and sniffed it. He nodded, put it in his mouth, and chewed.

  Then Ilja Botev stood up and said, “America. What a country! The best. Take me home.”

  When people could move around Transmontania freely again and hordes of reporters from all over the world were filing stories from the Realm of Shadows, a French journalist even found his way to Baia Luna. It must have been in March or April 1990 that the man sat down at our kitchen table to interview my aunt Antonia.

  “You came all the way from Paris? Well, I’m going to disappoint you. I can’t imagine I have anything smart to say into the microphone of a reporter from Paris. But if you insist, I’ll be happy to answer your questions as best I can.

  “My name is Gabor, Antonia Carolea Gabor. I’m sixty years old and was born here in Baia Luna. Maybe you noticed a wayside cross on the bank of the Tirnava on your way here? No? But you can’t miss it! The tragedy at the river happened in 1935. Today I think my fate was determined on that day. I was six years old and it was winter when my mother Agneta and I fell into the Tirnava in our wagon. My father Ilja and my future husband, the Gypsy Dimitru Gabor, pulled us out of the icy water. Dimitru’s father Laszlo died trying to save us. Mother died later of pneumonia. Isn’t it strange that I lost my mother in the accident and Dimitru lost his father? But it took a long time until Dimitru and I became a couple. I slept through half of my life. Why? Something inside me was so heavy that I had no desire to bestir myself. What was it, you ask? I don’t know. But I think it was my disposition. I’m doing better today. When Pavel goes to Italy with his wife in the spring, I’ll see to the tavern business. You know, Socialism, Communism, democracy—in Baia Luna it’s all the same thing. Zuika is zuika. And the men always need it. Oh, forgive me! I haven’t offered you a glass of schnapps.”

  “Non, non, merci, Madame Gabor,” the journalist declined. “I want to ’ave a c
lear ’ead.”

  “If you’re sure, monsieur. At any rate, after the tragedy at the Tirnava my father Ilja and Dimitru became friends and stayed friends their whole lives until they died. My father died on December twenty-eighth, 1989, and my husband Dimitru followed him three days later, on New Year’s Eve. They had lost sight of each other for two decades, but the bonds of friendship were strong. No power on earth could tear them apart. I traveled cross-country many years with Dimitru. He was looking for his friend, and I was searching for my papa. Then my Dimi became melancholy because the story about the Mother of God was wrong. It’s in the Bible, pretty near the end, in Revelation. Lord knows what it is with that woman with the moon under her feet, but she’s sure not Mary, the Queen of Heaven. When Dimi died, I think he had an idea who the woman on the moon might be. But he never talked to me about such things. I always left him to his secrets. It was enough for me to be near him. We didn’t find my father until very late, when Dimi had almost given up hope. How could we have known that they locked Ilja away with the crazies in Vadului?

  “People here in the village also said my father was sick in the head, because he was always dreaming of America. But he wasn’t crazy. He just got on the wrong track. And, monsieur, would you like to know why he lost his way? Because he believed the pope and the story about the Assumption of the Mother of God. Mary was supposed to have been assumed body and soul into heaven, right? But in Scripture it says something quite different. Only Jesus was resurrected, no one else. Shall I read you the passage in the Bible?”

  “Non, non, madame. I don’t think people are interested in these tales.”

  “What a shame. They could find out how little there is to put their trust in nowadays. The apostle John writes that only the Son of Man ascended into heaven. But the pope declares that Mary the Mother of God did, too. So who’s right? Can you tell me whom to believe? My father believed the pope, at any rate. That’s why he and Dimitru were looking for the Madonna in the sky. On the moon! You find that absurd? No, no, young man! My father Ilja and Dimi were no more crazy than John the Evangelist. My Dimitru was a smart man. It may be that my father’s brain waves lost the beat from time to time, but only because he had epilepsy and ran out of pills.

  “On the Wednesday after the revolution, December twenty-seventh in the year ’89, we found Ilja. That is, Hofmanns’ Fritz found him. Just imagine, my father lived in a dark cellar hole for twenty years. We were terribly shocked when we found him. I scrubbed him for hours until he started to look like a human being again, and Fritz gave him some of his clothes.

  “My Dimitru was heartbroken. His friend Ilja didn’t recognize him at first. Father was blind and couldn’t remember anything or anyone, not even me or his daughter-in-law Kathalina or his grandson Pavel. At least Father pretended not to know us. He was skeptical. But one day after he got back to the village a miracle happened. What? You don’t believe in miracles? Then let me tell you about it.

  “Precisely on December twenty-eighth—Holy Innocents’ Day, that is—our Virgin of Eternal Consolation came back to the village. Petre Petrov carried her back on his own shoulders. And she’s heavy, let me tell you. She’d been lost for more than thirty years. But eventually, everything comes to light. The Securitate in Kronauburg had stolen the Madonna. But I guess she wasn’t valuable enough for some rich man to pay money for her. Petre found her all covered with dust in the cellar of the Security Service. When he entered the village with Mary that afternoon, you wouldn’t believe the commotion it caused. There was no end of rejoicing. Pastor Wachenwerther instructed Petre to carry the Madonna into the church. Then my nephew Pavel stepped in. He snatched up Petre’s carbine, held it under Wachenwerther’s chin, and said, ‘Your time’s run out here. I’ll give you an hour to get out.’ Pavel told me afterward that the carbine wasn’t even loaded because Petre had used up all his ammunition during the revolution in the capital. In any case, Wachenwerther was in his Volkswagen within the hour and away he went in the general direction of Austria. Then first off, Petre Petrov set up the Madonna on the counter in our old tavern. That’s when the miracle happened.”

  “Oui, Madame Gabor. And now you’re going to tell me that your father Ilja suddenly regained his sight.”

  “No, no such luck. Where’d you get that idea? He stayed blind, and he died blind that night. But he died happy. He was redeemed, on account of the Madonna. Once she was set up in our shop, Dimi tru took Ilja by the hand and led him over to her. For what seemed like an eternity, my father very carefully ran his hands all over her. I think he was checking to make sure she was the genuine article: first her face, then her gigantic breasts, then the little Baby Jesus, and finally the crescent moon under her feet. I don’t know if you can imagine it, but when my father felt that funny sickle, he began to beam. He recognized the Madonna. And at that very moment, he called us all by name: Pavel, Kathalina, me, even Hofmanns’ Fritz and Buba Gabor. And his Dimitru, of course. The two of them fell into each other’s arms, and Ilja said that now he could set off on his final journey. Mission accomplished. But if you ask me what mission Ilja and Dimitru were on, I don’t really know what to tell you. If it had anything to do with Mary, the two of them could be real mystery mongers, the way two old friends are when they always . . .”

  The tape ended in midsentence. The reporter from Paris had forgone recording any more of Antonia Carolea Gabor.

  On the evening of Holy Innocents’ Day my grandfather Ilja expressed a last wish. He asked his family and his friend Dimitru to let him die under the open sky, on the very spot where everything had started early on the morning of his fifty-fifth birthday. Fritz and I carried Ilja’s bed outside onto the veranda in front of the tavern. On the night of November 6, 1957, Grandfather had stood right there with a tin funnel to his ear, trying to catch the sound of Sputnik beeping through space. Antonia and Kathalina brought out blankets and pillows and bedded Ilja down beneath the cold, starry night sky. All of us sat around Grandfather: I and my Buba, Fritz Hofmann, Ilja’s daughter-in-law Kathalina, Antonia, and Dimitru. Dimi held Ilja’s hand. I think it was the first time since the accident on the Tirnava that the cold didn’t make Dimitru shiver.

  I went into the taproom, opened the old cash register, and got out the wooden box that hadn’t been opened for an eternity. Then I gave Fritz and Dimitru each a cigar and also lit the last of the Cubans for myself and my grandfather.

  “America,” sighed Ilja. The moon rose above the mountains. Ilja pressed Dimitru’s hand and asked softly, “Do you still remember the nights we spent looking through our telescope on the Mondberg?”

  “I don’t just remember them, Ilja my friend! It’s as if it were yesterday.”

  “Good. Very good. And Dimitru? Did you really see the Queen of Heaven back then? The woman with the crown of sunbeams?”

  “Absolutely I saw her! Only briefly, mind you. But I saw her clearly. Brighter than a thousand suns, just like Saint John the Evangelist saw her. Exactly like that!”

  “And was she beautiful?”

  “Beautiful? She was more than that. Believe me, she was wonderful, magnifica maxima.”

  “I would have liked to see her—very much. Not just white dots on black paper.” Ilja’s breathing was labored. The Cuban slipped from his fingers. Buba leaned closer to him and laid her hands on his blind eyes. In the light of the moon, we saw that Grandfather was smiling.

  “You see her now, don’t you, my friend?”

  Ilja nodded slightly. “Yes.” He sighed again. “I see her, Dimitru. And I see more. She’s not alone.”

  “Who else is there?”

  “Many people, very many.”

  “Do you recognize any of them?”

  “Yes, of course. I can see my son Nicolai. Your father Laszlo. Papa Baptiste. And my dear Agneta. She’s waving to me. And I see many, many other women.”

  “And the Queen? What is she doing? How does she look?”

  “She’s smiling. A child is s
itting on her lap, a boy. Or a girl, I can’t tell which. The child is blond, just like its mother. Her hair is blowing in the wind. She smells of roses. And she’s wearing a lovely dress covered in sunflowers. I know her. I know her from somewhere, but I can’t remember where.”

  “That’s her! That’s exactly how she looked when I saw her in the Sea of Serenity. So she is doing well.”

  “Yes, Dimitru, she is.”

  The Gypsy kissed his friend’s forehead and whispered, “You go on ahead, Ilja. I have one more thing to take care of, then I’ll join you.”

  On the morning of December 29, Dimitru asked me to carry the red chaise longue back into the library, the one that Antonius Wachenwerther had ordered stowed away in the cellar two decades ago. Then the Gypsy had me throw open all the doors and windows of the rectory.

  For the last time Dimitru entered the library where he had once pursued his studies in Mariology. He lay down on the couch and asked his niece Buba, Fritz Hofmann, and me to gather round.

  “I have one final song to sing. Then you can bury me and the bones of my father next to my friend Ilja. And see to it that Papa Baptiste also gets a nice place. And please, also a grave in our midst for the teacher Angela Barbulescu, one with a white cross. You’ll find a good place, I know you will. And now sit down, all of you, because I have a confession to make.

  “I spent many, many nights here in this library. I studied. Oh yes, I read a lot of books. But that’s not all I did. There were nights when I wasn’t alone. Man needs warmth, and I got some for myself from a woman who also needed warmth. And yet we were never man and wife. I didn’t want to commit myself to her, and Angela couldn’t commit herself to me either. My angel, that’s what I called her, but that was a lie. It was only flesh. And after pleasure, an empty sadness that longs for more pleasure so it won’t have to confront itself.”

  “What? You, you and Angela Barbulescu were lovers in secret?” I uttered the question before I had grasped its enormity.