Life Begins On Friday

by Ioana Parvulescu

  ‘Do you think there is any connection between the two?’

  ‘Both men were found on the same morning, by the same man, Petre Inger, the confectioner’s coachman. Both were unconscious, one wounded, the other not. I do not suspect Petre, he is from a different, unconnected world, and he would not have brought them in had he had anything on his conscience. Besides, I have interrogated him. As for Dan Crețu – if such be his real name, for he has not documents – we would have been able to find out a great deal from his luggage, a safe-type box, but unfortunately it has vanished without trace. The man was held in the cells for an hour, but the other crooks said that he did not speak to them, and nor did he speak to Fane the Ringster, the number one suspect in the disappearance of the box.’

  ‘But what does your nose tell you?’

  ‘I am inclined to believe that he is a high-class fraudster, an upper-class forger or a jewel thief of great panache, who has come from far away, perhaps from overseas. But...’

  With his eyebrows the General urged him to continue.

  ‘But it seems to me that his brain is addled, as they say.’

  ‘Why would the one preclude the other?’

  ‘What surprises me is that the editor-in-chief of Universul, the one who wrote the article about the other case – I understand you have read it – whom I asked to employ him, so that we could keep an eye on him at all times, told me that he has definitely worked as a journalist before; his experience is obvious.’

  ‘Why do the three preclude each other?’

  ‘I don’t know. It seems to me that they preclude each other, not in theory, but from what I have seen of the man. My nose, as you say. And apropos of noses, at a dinner I once saw a Turk with a cardboard nose, placed not over his nose but in its place. A strange sight, I do declare. Unless my nose is made of cardboard too, the man does not resemble an ordinary journalist: when you compare him with Procopiu, for example, you will immediately see why. Nor does he resemble the thieves and fraudsters that you can smell from a mile off. I will not hide from you the fact that for an instant I even thought of Jack the Ripper and I imagined that in his case there might be a razor and a saw. Ultimately, he resembles a normal person, with interludes of mental alienation, but Dr Margulis has assured me that although he speaks rather strangely, as if he had different reference points than the rest of us, he nonetheless speaks rather like the poets. Whatever path I pursue, there appears something that does not fit, I have never experienced the like...’

  ‘I have a single suggestion, but I do not know how much it will help you. It is a question of things that fit. In Saturday’s Universul three things attracted my attention: the young man who was shot, the so-called Dan Crețu, and a lost wallet for which the reward was entirely unusual. This is what puzzled me the most. What might it contain? Has the wallet been found?’

  Mr Costache did not know.

  ‘You see, Costache? I think that at least two of the three things are connected, and the third is the thing that throws them into confusion. But which of the two things go together is what you will have to find out. Pursue the announcement, if the other leads are dead ends for the time being.’

  ‘And there is another thing upon which I should like you to meditate, if you will allow me,’ said Costache, standing at the front door, taking his walking stick with the silver beak. ‘The young man uttered a few words before he died, which I wrote down: light, Popescu, light, Holy Mother and another word that was unclear, either dar or sar. If you have any ideas, I am sure you will let me know. I am most glad to have seen you, I missed you, and only now do I realize how much,’ he said, turning back beneath the entrance marquee and making a joking military salute. Ion Algiu watched him depart with a smile well concealed by his moustache. He had missed him too.

  4.

  Nicu took the envelope and placed it inside his coat, taking care not to crumple it. Then he bowed to Jacques’s sister, in the way he had seen important men bow (such as Mr Cazzavillan to the editors’ wives) but the girl burst out laughing and grasping his chin, lifted it towards her. In that way he was able to see that she did not look at all well that morning: one cheek had risen like sweet bread dough, the other was hollow. But both cheeks were rosy. To Nicu, Miss Iulia was like the lighthouses that Universul had written about not long ago: one, in Tuzla, had a red beacon, and the other, in Mangalia, a white one. With her too, now one beacon lit up, now the other, because the white one also shone. Now the Tuzla lighthouse was shining.

  ‘I am waiting for his reply – you will tell him, won’t you? And above all, deliver it to him personally. If that is not possible, deliver it to Mr Mihai Livizeanu, a man with a lock of hair that falls over his forehead. He is his brother, a student in Paris. If not, then bring it back to me, but no, don’t do that, please wait until he comes, do you promise me?’

  Now the red Tuzla beacon had gone out and the Mangalia one was shining. That was women for you! He set off towards the tram stop, preoccupied. Iulia Margulis was not a person he could refuse. You could refuse the doctor, because he was a calm man and an understanding one, the doctor’s wife you could refuse because she was a mother, Jacques you could refuse because it was between men, but your heart would not allow you to refuse his sister for any reason. Not even he could understand why. But he had absolutely no inclination, he was ‘outside working hours,’ proof of which was that he was not wearing his peaked cap, but rather a normal hat. He had come to play soldiers with Jacques, but still he could not get away from work.

  ‘You’re busy and ultra-busy, young man,’ he said confidingly to a dog on the street, ‘you don’t get a moment’s peace or quiet. A thousand chores...’

  The dog wagged its tail and followed him for a while, before abandoning him, as if having reached some invisible boundary. The City Hall had given the order that all house-holders and tenants clear the snow from in front of their buildings and scatter ashes, so that people would not slip and break their legs. But even so, his boots were still slippery and he ran and slid wherever he could. Reaching the tram stop, he waited. Then a girl came up, holding her mother’s hand, and he felt an electric spark (although he had never felt an electric spark), which tingled from his cap to the toes of his boots. He moved closer to the two and the scent of lemon balm enveloped him like springtime. It was as if the white of the snow was all of a sudden green and on the verdure he saw white flowers of lemon balm with yellow centres.

  ‘Mama, why is that thin little boy alone? And why is he dressed like that?’ he heard the girl say, and her mother jerked her hand and made a sign for her to be quiet.

  Whereas before he had felt suffused with love, now the tingles, still streaming from his head to the toes of his boots, were of double offence. Who does that little ninny think she is? Little was one way of putting it; in fact she was tall. Therefore he postponed yet again his much-wished-for encounter with his great love, with his beautiful fiancée. His attention was then drawn to a hole and since lately his imagination had been inflamed by the tunnels of moles and their life beneath the earth, he wounded whether it might lead to the dark houses and streets of the moles. He might have asked the lanky girl, but any conversation with her was out of the question now. He made a point of not boarding the tram so that he would not be forced, God forbid, to sit next to her and start smelling of lemon balm. He would take the next one. But it was obvious that it was one of those unlucky Tuesdays that the old biddies talk about. For, after he had been sent out into the cold, instead of being left to play by the fire, and after he had been insulted by a stupid little girl, albeit a rather tall one, instead of sinking into the arms of love, he saw the one man in the world whom he could not abide come to stand next to him at the tram stop, a man for whom he felt fear, and above all repulsion. He was a thief who skinned him like a rabbit whenever he bumped into him. Any attempt at self-defence was futile, and so were cries for help, and so Nicu, after weighing up the situation, either fled, if he was in a crowded place, or suffered himself
to be robbed and humiliated. Sandu, known as the Muzzle, one of the police’s regular customers, was always to be found wherever there was disorder in the Capital: in the recent events, the riots on Strada Carol, he had looted a number of shops. As he twisted his arm behind his back, Nicu could smell the stench of his muzzle – his moniker came from the shape of his mouth.

  ‘Hey, it’s the lad with the crazy ma, come here and hand over the loot.’

  The boy, who usually endured aggression like a bitter taste that would soon pass, remembered in horror that today he was carrying two things that the drunkard must not find at any cost: the cow he had received from Dan (Fira as she had been dubbed) and Miss Margulis’ letter. He therefore strategically produced the tram fare that Iulia had given him and made a show of reluctantly surrendering it, with lowered eyes. The thief straight away tucked it in an inside pocket, and then he started mocking the lad, now insulting him verbally, now twisting his arm behind his back, loosening his grip and then twisting again even harder. Nicu knew from the fable of the fox that he had to cry out when it did not hurt at all and to keep dead silent when it did, and so he kept dead silent.

  ‘Want some more, eh, you little tyke, what’s this, trying to stand up to Sandu? Standing up to Sandu, are you? To the Muzzle, eh, you little whelp?’ He thrust his muzzle close to the boy’s face.

  Nicu reckoned it was the moment to shout at the top of his lungs that he was hurting him, especially since he was crying real tears. But because the tram had just left, there was nobody at the stop to protect him. The thief started searching him, carelessly, pausing frequently, breathing plum brandy fumes into Nicu’s face. Nicu thought that he might get away with it, but no, the thief had found Fira. He looked at her without interest and tossed her into the ‘mole’s hole,’ and then straight away he found the envelope in the left-hand pocket of Nicu’s coat. He did not know how to read, and so he tore it in two and tossed it after Nicu’s cow, into the hole, like a shroud. After convincing himself that there was nothing else worthy of his attention in the lad’s pockets, he pummelled him a couple of times, and then told him to sling his hook. Nicu walked away, dragging his feet, and hid behind the first corner. The thief had not left; he sat down on the bench and took out his bottle. People began to arrive, who cast him suspicious glances, and then the tram stop began to fill up, and so the drunkard left, all of a sudden very humble, with his tail between his legs. Like all bullies, he was very courageous in front of the weak. His victims of choice were children and young maidservants. A flock of crows filled the sky with blackness and croaking, as if rasping against the firmament.

  Nicu went to the hole and assessed the extent of the damage. He felt almost the same as he had at his grandmother’s funeral, when, aged seven, no matter how much it had pained him, he had bawled and wept. That grim Tuesday was the first time he had ever lost something that had been entrusted to him and he was very ashamed. He pictured himself losing his job and his livelihood. The first rule for errand boys was not to lose or damage anything. Not even a petal, his boss used to say, although with some bunches of roses that was almost impossible. He thought of his mother, who had difficulty finding work in winter, and when she had her fits, nobody wanted her. He was terrified she might end up at Mărcuța’s and he at the orphanage, as a woman from his neighbourhood kept threatening he would. He took the envelope out of the mole’s hole; it was torn and wet. He could not take it like that to Mr Alexandru Livezeanu, and not could he take it back to Iulia Margulis, who was waiting for an answer. In fact there was nobody in the world he could tell about what had befallen him. He burst into a flood of tears.

  5.

  ...to get used to this world and I have to get used to life again, after not daring to look anybody in the eye, because of the pain... I asked what day it was and the man I share an office with told me, looking at the calendar: 23 December here, 4 January in the rest of Europe, including my mother’s country and the director’s. ‘What is your standpoint on the calendar question?’ It was lucky that he did not wait for an answer, the same as usual. But his melodious, radiant voice does me good; it keeps my feet on the ground. We went out together, the doorman saluted us, doffing his cap, and as if from some old habit that I had completely forgotten, I doffed my hat too. I have received a felt hat and a pair of black galoshes as a present. How quickly you get used to novelties, how easily wonders become ordinary. Ultimately, perhaps we were created to accept every evil and every good in order to feel our insignificance. As soon as we forget it, we are punished with blows. Perhaps we eke out our days on a prison planet, except that we have never seen our gaolers, and every time we try to revolt, we are dealt blows, but in subtle forms, invented with great imagination. I feel I am in prison. I’m not brave enough to believe myself free and I don’t know how to behave like a free man. My colleague asked me whether I wanted him to conduct me to the hotel and I barely dared to tell him that I would rather go for a walk. Politely, he didn’t insist, and bid me goodbye, and then he was gone, like a will-o’-the-wisp.

  ‘Mr Crețu! Mr Crețu!’

  I started, took fright. It was a man with a beard like maize silk, and he nimbly leapt out of a carriage. I recognized him: the doctor who had examined me in the police cell and asked whether I had tuberculosis. I would say he is a decent fellow; he invited me to his surgery, to have a chat.

  ‘It’s here, close by, next to the Lyric Theatre, the one that burned down, we go straight ahead and then down Strada Sfântul Ionică, behind the National Theatre. Many actors live next door and they come to me with various ailments. You would never imagine how tortured actors how, what sufferings afflict them, when you see them on stage, bathed in lights. Excuse me if I do not shake your hand just yet.’

  We both climbed into a cab.

  ‘To my surgery, Yevdoshka,’ said the doctor.

  ‘I am returning from a patient with typhoid fever, the epidemic has passed, these are the last cases, isolated ones fortunately. Look, we are just passing the house where Pascaly, the actor, died, perhaps you have heard of him: he was an Armand Duval, who broke your heart. I once visited him in the outbuilding of his house, where youngsters gather to rehearse all kinds of rôles; he was charming. He fell ill with tuberculosis and some joked: you’ve caught consumption from your lady with the camellias. After taking a cure at Reichenhal, which had not effect whatever, he came back, and one mild autumn day he gently faded away, like a candle burning out. They displayed his coffin in the Sărindar Church – it no longer even exists – and throngs of people came, actors and theatregoers of every generation, they came to see the poor Pascaly, in his final rôle, which is the same part for all of us.’

  We went into a building from which hung a small sign: Dr Leon Margulis M.D. First floor, and with a shudder I wondered who was the host and who the guest, for somewhere it was my house too. A young lad opened the door for us and took my hat and coat. The doctor put down his large leather bag with the snap fastener.

  ‘Before I do anything else, please allow me to wash my hands and to disinfect myself. It is the first thing I must do. Please sit down.’

  I looked around with a great deal of curiosity. A cupboard, a bed covered with oilcloth, a chair, a table and a screen with a floral pattern. Some shelves with coloured bottles and jars, green and blue and transparent, full of all kinds of powders and pills. On the highest shelf sat a bottle with a blue stopper, with a long slender neck, whose label read ‘Morphine,’ and another bottle, a red one, which read ‘Extract of Belladonna.’ Next to the cupboard were some anatomical charts, rolled up one next to the other. There was a white stove, with firewood neatly stacked in a niche alongside. Everything seemed very clean to me. I approached the bookshelf. Most of the books were medical. I saw Dr Petrini, Chest Complaints, Dr Felix, Dr Istrati, and a rather modest looking book by Charles Darwin, On the Origin of Species, with London, 1859 embossed on the spine. My host asked me how I felt and whether I had recovered. It was only then that he came and shook my han
d, very firmly and, I thought, warmly. He seemed up to date about what had happened to me in the meantime, for this city is like a village, everybody knows everybody else. Unlike my office colleague, the doctor did not give up until he had obtained some precise answers from me. He offered me a cup of tea with rum and a slice of bread with cheese and olives.

  ‘Doctor, is it possible for a healthy man to have the feeling that he is living in two different worlds at the same time?’

  He told me that in sensitive people it was possible for the imagination to play tricks on you, even to become inflamed, like another organ.

  ‘Doctor, I don’t think you have understood me: in two real worlds and with the same consistency. And in fact I was wrong when I said at the same time, I meant in succession. One comes to an end where the other begins.’

  ‘There are many stories, especially philosophical ones, about people who no longer know when they are dreaming and when they are awake.’

  ‘But I am not talking about a dream, I know the dreams, separately, in both the first world and the second.’

  I saw him frown. Something seemed not to satisfy him. He looked at me suspiciously, the same as so many people do lately.

  ‘Might you be using me as a screen...’ and here he pointed at the floral screen in the room ‘...which is to say, might you be concealing some evil deed under the pretext that you are mentally ill, that you have lapses, that you have two personalities? I read something of the sort ten years ago – my girl Iulia urged me to – a book by Stevenson, about the strange case of Dr Jekyll, who by day healed people and by night killed them. When Stevenson died I remember that the papers said that he had suffered from lung disease his entire life and that he had great courage in fighting the illness.’