At the Bucharest Police, they had been taking fingerprints for almost three years, since before the arrival of Caton Lecca. They had first done so thanks to Dr Minovici, the oldest of the three physician brothers, who had experimented with ‘dactylloscopy’ on dozens of convicts. A year later, Costache had proposed that he himself take over the Judicial Identification Service, a department such as existed in other parts of the world to deal with the biggest malefactors, criminals, forgers and rapists. They had anthropometric records, with photographs and fingerprints. Costache had secretly conducted an experiment on Fane The Ringster: he had demanded that his fingerprints be taken the first time he was arrested. It was a real honour for a jewel thief like Fane, who had not understood what was happening and thought it was some kind of signature – which only went to shown his innate canniness – and all the while he had shouted at the top of his voice that he confessed to nothing and that he wouldn’t sign anything. Now, on his second arrest, Fane shouted no longer.
He merely looked at Costache from under lowered eyebrows and said: ‘What you want from me, Jean? Why do you keep forcing me to get me hands dirty? What you got up your sleeve? What you accusing me of? I work clean, so I do, I don’t maim or kill! I just steal.’
Costache requested the old fingerprints from the archive and studied them for an hour under a magnifying glass with an ivory handle. He could swear they were identical. But he did not know whether the two years that had elapsed were sufficient to provide conclusive evidence. We shall see in ten years whether they’re like tree rings or not! At home, he had dipped his own fingers in violet ink, but nothing clear had resulted on paper. Then he got the idea of using wax. He dripped some wax from a candle and straight away pressed his the tip of his right index finger into it. He would have to wait a few years before repeating the exercise. Yesterday, he had had the fingerprints of the foreign-looking gentleman taken, the rather curious man Petre had brought in, and not only had he not been at all surprised, but he had seemed to know what it was all about. Only one conclusion could be drawn: he was an international crook, perhaps from New York, where, as he had seen in a photograph in the newspaper, criminal files were kept in a room whose walls were covered from top to bottom in hundreds of little drawers. It was Costache’s ambition to have a similar room in Bucharest. He would have to keep this Dan Crețu under close surveillance, to see whether he had accomplices. Sooner or later he would give himself away.
Setting aside the snowflakes and his plans for reform, he went back into his office, rolled a cigarette, lit it, inhaled the aromatic smoke with great pleasure, and pressed a bell. A strident buzz was heard. When the balding head of the sergeant appeared in the doorway, he asked that Petre be brought in. Petre, known as Rusu, the coachman of the Inger family, knew the man who had been found almost frozen. Costache again recollected the advertisement for the cake shop adjacent to his announcement, but he swatted the thought away, like a fly.
‘I’ve called you here to tell me all about the hijinks of yesterday.’
The coachman twisted his cap in his hands, and his cut finger seemed to throb. He answered determinedly: ‘The man’s from the madhouse, your worshib. I think he shot that blond lad, but he don’t want to admit it. He kebt shouting: I recognize nothing! I recognize nothing!’
‘But why was that? After all, nobody was accusing him of anything, like the police...’
‘I accused him, like the bolice, I did! And he goes: I don’t know how to shoot a gun – imagine that! – and that I take him to the hosbital quick, lest he die, I ain’t got no gun, he says, I don’t know where I am, I don’t understand nothing, I recognize nothing, berhabs something hit me on the head! He’s guilty, your worshib! But what about the blond boyar, didn’t he die?’
Costache regarded the cake shop owner’s coachman carefully: ‘Why do you wish to know?’
Petre fidgeted and answered to the effect that it was a Christian sort of question. Costache changed his tone and threatened that if he were hiding anything from the police he would be in big trouble, and from the frightened expression on Petre’s face he drew the conclusion that he had not told him everything. He did not think it was anything important: perhaps he had taken a ring from the man’s finger or something of the sort, but sooner or later it would be revealed.
‘What was he doing when you found him? Was he awake?’
‘He was lying on his side and goggling at the horse, which was taking a biss, bardon my language, as if he’d never seen a horse bissing in his life. I found him just as I was about to go back to town. He could hardly sit ub. I was afraid he might fall off the box. I thought he was blind drunk.’
It did not seem that the coachman had anything else worthwhile to tell. He sent him away, first giving him an order to pass on to the confectioner, since on Christmas Eve he was invited to the house of both the Margulis family and the Livezeanu family (he had not yet decided which invitation to accept). He had not been hoping for very much from the coachman and he had not been mistaken. He rang the bell once more, calling the slow-witted old man back from the door and feeling sorry for him. He discovered that the coachman who had been assigned to follow the man named Crețu was in the building and he demanded to see him straight away. He received a report on all the details of the previous night, the man’s crazy journey around the streets, his encounter with Nicu outside the Central Girls’ School, his visit to the Icoanei Church, lasting one hour and twenty minutes, his knocking on the locked door of the deacon, something about a plump woman (named Epiharia) who presumably knew more, his departure holding a blanket, and the hours and hours he had gone round in a circle, at random, as if he were trying to make fun of those following him and had irked the trusty coachman more than he cared to say. He had tugged on the reins dozens of times, until the horse was dizzy. And then there was his chasing after a passer-by on Brezoianu Street, and finally, at the very end, his taking refuge inside a hovel next to the Church of St Stephen, also known as the Stork’s Nest. At this point, the Police coachman had cheated: between midnight and the first cock’s crow, he had gone home to bed, sure that the man was not capable of taking one more step, because, unexpectedly for a man of his status, he had not taken a single cab or coach ride during all his lunatic roaming.
‘I’ll bet you anything he’s a madman. We ought to ask Mărcuța, and Dr Șuțu on Plantelor Street, and Dr Marinescu, at the Pantelimon Hospital.’
‘Bravo, well said, Budac. I shall ask you to go there right away. I want an answer by this afternoon. And before anything else, go to the Hospice in Teilor to see how the young man who was shot is doing. If he is conscious, come back immediately. It is extremely important that I talk to him.’
Rather than clicking his heels and saying: ‘Yes, sir!’ the Police’s best coachman soundlessly moved his lips. He knew very well that at Dr Rosenberg’s Hospice, patients without any name or papers were taken in, many of them in a serious condition. The City Hall paid an annual fee to the Hospice for this service, and likewise to Dr Șuțu’s establishment on Plantelor Street, where persons with no means of subsistence were treated. And on top of this, his wife was expecting him at home, as he had to slaughter the pig. It was the Feast of St Ignatius, after all. You can tell the chief’s a bachelor! He thought to himself. Why had he got it into his head to make a suggestion like that, when he knew the chiefs’ working method: if you’re the one who comes up with an idea, then you’re the one who acts on it? He ought to be charier with his words. But he promised himself that he would go home first and then visit every madhouse in the city. That vagrant was a menace. Since Petre brought him in yesterday, things had been going badly for everyone. He was like a curse.
‘Who relieved you?’ asked Costache.
‘I sent Ilie, ’cause he’s got a fast cab. But if it were up to me, two legs would be just as good. You don’t need four wheels to follow him.’
‘All right, never mind. See you don’t stop off at home first! There’s plenty of time for the pig
this afternoon!’ called the chief after the coachman, confirming his reputation as a mind reader.
Costache then ordered that Nicu should be sent straight to his office as soon as he returned from Universul, with further instructions that the lad should not be left to come of his own free will but detained as a matter of urgency. He went back to the window: a fresh layer of snow had fallen and the city looked unwontedly jolly that Saturday morning. But it was obvious that the coachman had cursed him, because the sergeant now entered bringing the unbelievable news that the stranger’s chest had not been recovered, despite half of those on duty being responsible for finding it. After warder Păunescu took Fane back to the cell, the sergeant in the room with the safe had dozed off, but the door was locked and the box, likewise locked, was within. Quite simply, nobody had seen anything; nobody knew anything. They were all questioned. The sergeant was given a good hiding, Păunescu was likewise beaten black and blue, but there was something fishy going on, and nothing could be discovered. Now Fane was being questioned. Throughout this description, Costache’s face remained inscrutable, and the sergeant quickly left the office, making himself scarce.
At around one o’clock they brought in Nicu, at a trot, flanked by two soldiers. The lad was swivelling his eyes every which way, but when he saw that there was no escape, he looked Costache straight in the eye, with a kind of scrutinizing mistrust. He held his thin lips clenched in a straight line, like a man who had just had to swallow an undeserved reproach, but controlled himself with dignity. Costache disguised his sudden good mood. The lad was holding his cap by the visor in his left hand and shifting his weight from one foot to the other, leaving splashes of water and mud on the wooden floor. The cop signalled the other two to leave the room.
‘Are you left-handed?’
Costache had as keen an eye for details as did Dr Margulis, except that the cop had an eye for every single thing, whereas the doctor had an eye only for the symptoms of disease. The policeman knew by instinct when there was something untoward, as surely as the doctor knew when he had a stomach-ache. By instinct, Nicu lied to them both.
He unclenched his lips and determinedly said: ‘No, sir, I’m not! I’m right-handed.’
‘Sit down over here. Are you hungry?’
‘No!’
‘Just as well. Tell me to the last detail what you talked about with the stranger you met yesterday in front of the Icoanei Church.’
Nicu sighed and unbuttoned his tunic: so this was what it was all about. Not the accident with the icicles or the wallet, which he would not have like to come to the attention of the Police, because then he would not have received the reward. And nor could it be some roguery on his mother’s part. It was the first time he had spoken to Costache and at close quarters he looked less frightening than he did from a distance. He recounted what he could remember, starting with the nicest part, about the toy cow, and finally he gave his own opinion.
He chose his words with care: ‘I’m not certain of it, but he may be a Martian. I don’t know whether you’ve heard of them,’ he added. ‘It was in yesterday’s paper. You are sure he’s not Jack, the Ripper, I mean?’
‘Why?’ asked Costache, rather confused by the ‘you are sure?’ not knowing that Nicu talked to himself in the second person when he was flustered. The Prefect had indeed discounted the hypothesis about Jack from the outset. Every police force and every newspaper in Europe were in ferment because of the murderer.
‘Because he’s a good man: I’ve seen him. He looks a bit like Miss Iulia. You would think that they were brother and sister.’
Costache’s expression was inscrutable.
‘Where’s the toy he gave you? I want to see it!’
‘At home,’ said Nicu, resisting the urge to touch his pocket. He shrugged regretfully, as if to reinforce what he was saying.
In a sudden rage, Costache asked himself aloud what kind of subalterns he had and how they had gone about searching the stranger. Who knows what else they had missed? Even the case had vanished. Nicu waited for him to vent his fury; he was accustomed to the highly-strung, what with his mother, but he made a mental note of this item of new information.
‘Draw for me what he gave you.’
He handed Nicu a sheet of splendid bond paper. He sharpened a pencil with a penknife. Nicu liked to draw, but up until then he had only done so on a blackboard and in the snow. It was the first time he had had the use of a sheet of white paper and a pencil. He flushed and, stopping and starting, as if he were carrying a heavy parcel, he drew the most comical cow of his entire life, accidentally ripping a few holes in the paper as he did so. He gave it a black piratical eye patch, but did not succeed in drawing the legs, which came out as spindly as straws, each ending in a pinhead. He handed the drawing to Costache, after giving it a dissatisfied look, like a painter who had rushed his work.
‘She’s called Fira. That’s what I called her. She hasn’t got an udder. The only thing worse would have been a udder with three teats!’
Costache seemed able to view people like the mirrored surface of clear water, but when you looked at him the water grew murky and no longer reflected anything.
He announced his conclusions: ‘First of all, you lied about not being left-handed, since you hold the pencil in your left hand, and secondly, you lied about not being hungry, I know that without any proof, and thirdly you lied about not having the toy on your person. This I can prove. Empty your left pocket; don’t make me do it myself.’
Nicu very reluctantly obeyed. His eyebrows were at a more acute angle than usual, like upturned letters v. He kissed the toy cow and handed it over, glancing sideways. Costache examined it and then stood up and went to the fireplace. Nicu was convinced that he was about to throw it on the fire and tried not to cry out. Costache dropped it, whether deliberately or not, but the legs of Fira the cow got caught in the grating of the fireguard and there she clung.
‘You may take her,’ said Costache, without giving any explanation. ‘You may also take the pencil and the paper, as a present. But here’s the thing! Do you want to help the stranger or not?’
Nicu acknowledged that he did. The cop instructed him for a long while and then released him.
‘How’s your mother?’ he asked in lieu of saying goodbye.
‘Well,’ replied Nicu, ending his visit to the police station as he had begun it, which is to say, with another lie. How did he know his mother? Costache was a good policeman, so much was true, but that did not mean the police station was a good place. He ought not to push his luck. And so he left at a run.
3.
Dr Margulis looked at his doublé watch – he had sold his gold one, what with Jacques’s infirmity – and discovered it was only 11:48am. There were another three quarters of an hour until the end of his free consultations for the poor, which he gave every Saturday. His assistant was playing truant, an old habit of his. The doctor showed out the old man, who without a doubt had a liver complaint, caused, also without a doubt, by drink (he reeked of plum brandy and was yellow in the face) and was half-gladdened, half-saddened that there was nobody else in the waiting room. But he knew that the people who had need of him would not have read the . If the news spread, it would be from mouth to mouth. Margulis was a good doctor, but had few patients. The charlatans, feldshers and barbers ‘with diplomas,’ who provided ground aspirin, hair-restoring creams, and abortion pills for women, had queues at their doors. He earned enough to meet his needs, and sometimes Agatha sold an item of value from her dowry. He recalled the announcement about the stranger found out by the lakes, which he had read that morning in the Gazette, and the other item, from the Police, about the man who had been shot. It was he who had given the wounded man first aid: and because the patient had no form of identification, he had then sent him to Dr Rosenberg’s House of Health.
Dr Margulis looked out of the window. It was now snowing nicely. He decided to close his surgery early and rush over to his colleague Rosenberg’s establishment,
to see how the wounded man was doing. It was his duty. He was one of those physicians who felt a responsibility towards those they consult, even after they left their care. For Dr Margulis, the best school was applied medicine at the patient’s bedside, hour-by-hour supervision, in other words – hospital. Unfortunately, he had given up hospital work, after an unfortunate misunderstanding with a colleague, preferring to open his own surgery and to be independent. He would have very much liked to build and organize his own hospital, but that was but a dream, only possible if perhaps he won the grand prize in the New Year lottery. Without his family’s knowledge, he had entered the lottery with that sole aim. He took the ticket from his pocket and looked at the numbers yet again: 12, 21, and 42: the ages of little Jacob, Iulia and Agatha. He carefully folded the ticket, put it back in the hidden pocket of his portefeuille, and then placed the portefeuille in the hidden pocket of his coat. He picked up his large, heavy, brown leather bag, in which his instruments were arranged in separate compartments, and climbed the steps of the alleyway to the cab station in front of the National Theatre. Three cabs rushed over all at once at his signal, but the doctor climbed aboard Yevdoshka’s, not because he knew he was poor and needy, but because he knew he was a talker. The doctor himself was rather taciturn, and so he liked to listen.
‘To Rosenberg’s, at the Hospice of Health!’
*
Yevdoshka cussed blood-curdlingly from time to time, and his reedy eunuch’s voice was out of keeping with his words. It was amusing to hear such a childlike voice mention such things. Like everybody else, the doctor knew that the cabmen belonged to a Russian sect in which the men willingly castrated themselves, some while still young men, the majority only after they had sired two children. But Yevdoshka had told him many more stories, namely that last century there lived a holy man, Selivanov, from the Tula region, who had a revelation about St Matthew the Apostle’s verses about eunuchs, the ones that conclude with: ‘He that is able to receive it, let him receive it.’ That man, already renowned for the goodness with which he answered evil and for the other cheek that he turned when slapped, had at first not been able to understand a word of it, but afterward his mind was illumined and he understood that he must castrate himself. The heresy he preached spread much farther than you would have thought, and Catherine II, worried that her Russians would gradually end up incapable of multiplying sufficiently, tried to put a stop to it. Selivanov had been captured, bound, and beaten with the knout; molten wax had been poured over his head. Exiled to Siberia, he had remained there until Tsar Alexander pardoned him.
Life Begins On Friday Page 6
