I remained silent and stubbornly gazed at my boots. One had a mud stain.
‘Yesterday you praised my voice when I sang from La Bohème. Do you know how many times you have praised me since you grew up? Three times – I went over them in my mind last night. And yesterday you seemed amazed that I could sing. I have the feeling that you are amazed whenever you see that I am a man like any other. I thought of these hands when I learned the aria. They are always cold,’ continued the voice behind me.
‘I did not know that you needed praise,’ I ventured to murmur, my eyes still fixed on the mud stain on my boot, and I wished him to understand what I meant, not to take it as a criticism, and so I added: ‘You are a strong, wonderful man, I admire you as much as I do Mama and Papa.’
I think I must have said exactly what he did not want to hear, but I do not know, because never had I thought very much about such things. And from a kind of pain in my soul I went on: ‘But you are even dearer to me.’
He seemed heartened: ‘I shall go all the way, Iulia. I have quite a busy life, I do what I do with passion, and to fight against evildoers, against evil, consumes all my spiritual strength and all my time. I am invited everywhere, I go to the theatre, to me, the opera is a kind of opium, I have admirers... including female admirers. But my life is like a musical scale that lacks one note. It is as if I had to sing without using one note, G, let us say. Think of your piano if it lacked one white key, the note G. And you to me are the note G, which would fill my life with joy. I would like...’
‘Please, no, you will be angry with me and I do not want that, in no wise do I want that, I cannot bear to see you angry with me, I want everything to remain like this, until the end,’ I said in despair, not precisely those words, but something similar, I cannot remember very well which words, and I stood up so that I could see him. He had the most tortured face in the world and indeed it was very hard for me, because I wanted to do what he wished, but I could not, because of the accident that caused there to be somebody else more important to me. But when he saw my frightened eyes, he controlled himself, he took my hand, which was cold (how could it be otherwise?), and in a different voice, one distant and almost malicious, which made me feel as if he had pushed me down a flight of stairs: ‘Women like you, comme toi, have a custom: they invest their feelings in an insolvent bank. In the most insecure and inauspicious place possible. They cannot even see the men close to them, they ignore them if they know their presence is assured, and they always look at the man who is far away, at the man who tortures them, the man who is with another woman.’
He released my hand and began to pace up and down the room. I did not dare look at him, but I could feel his voice enveloping me.
‘Perhaps I was wrong to tell you what I have told you, but have I not the right to a normal life, a good life? I know that I could make you happy, little by little, the same as he would make you unhappy. Alexandru Livezeanu is involved in a nasty affair. I invited you here to warn you! He has no future!’
I felt now that he was wounding me deliberately. Then, he told me what was to be said, but the effect was completely the opposite to the one he desired. My dwindling feelings for Alexandru were suddenly replenished, like rivers after the rain. Mr Costache is right, and that is what breaks my heart: I invest my feelings in the most insecure and inauspicious place, I look at the man who already has everything and nonetheless I am sure that without me he will drown or that I am on this earth solely to save him. In an alien voice, Mr Costache asked me to be discreet and assured me that he had told my parents exactly as much as it was necessary for them to know and there was no need for further explanation. Then he summoned a man to show me out; he did not even go to the door. But from the moment I left his office, I knew that I would never be able to look at him as before.
2.
The velvet curtains were drawn and from outside the house looked dark. Costache had gone to bed already, at four o’clock in the afternoon. He had drunk two glasses of hard liquor and wanted only to plunge his body and mind into sleep; a dreamless sleep. Zaharia, who had only ever seen him in such a state a handful of times, was walking around on tiptoe, somewhat livelier than usual. On other days, when the adjutant was gloomy, Costache used to encourage him and cheer him up. But when his master was ill, gloomier than the adjutant could ever be, since, as Zaharia suspected, the depth of one’s depression matched the height of one’s intellect, then he tried to keep the house in balance and encourage his master. Liza, who merely wanted her daily portion of affection, after she was rebuffed, had also withdrawn, with her tail between her legs,.
The knocking on the door surprised and disturbed all three. Mr Costache had fallen asleep a few minutes previously, Zaharia was darning some trousers, and Liza was lying with her head resting on her snowy paws, thinking her own thoughts. The first to get up was Zaharia, in haste, the second Liza, without haste, while Mr Costache merely turned over to lie on his other side, determined that nobody and nothing would disturb him until the next morning. But after five minutes of hearing the adjutant’s voice at the door, interspersed with the voice of a woman, which was not loud enough for him to identify, Zaharia came in and said peevishly: ‘She refuses to leave till you get up.’
‘Who?’ In the darkness Costache’s voice was hoarse and full of hope.
But the answer was unexpected: ‘Mrs Movileanu, the lawyer’s wife. Has to give you something really important. What should I do?’ asked Zaharia, who just as in wartime, was prepared to carry out any order, no matter how perilous.
Costache groaned as if in pain, a thing he did not often do in the presence of others. Without answering, he turned the knob hidden under the mantle of the lamp on the bedside table and a mushroom of light enveloped his groggy face. He asked for his dressing gown and as he was went out of the bedroom, tousled, reeking of liquor and frowning.
It was not until he saw her that he realized who Mrs Movileanu was: the lady full of airs and migraines who lived on Strada Teilor, the one whose husband was having an affair. Just as she had done the first time he met her, she extended him a plump, dimpled hand, but this time Costache pretended not to notice and unconvincingly apologized for receiving her like this, since he had not been expecting anybody and did not feel well – a catarrh. The lady looked very well, she was wearing exactly the right amount of powder and was attired tastefully, in an elegant dress with an embroidered bodice and long sleeves, closely fitting at the wrists. She looked at Costache in concern, the way only women know how to look at men, knowing their nature and their ways and wishing to help them. Costache needed such a look and noticing how naturally and gently she treated such an unsightly man and how pleasant she was when she was not upset and angry, he thought that something was not as it should be in this world. Mrs Movileanu apologized for having come unexpectedly and said that she had wanted to detain him when he left her house two days previously. Despite what her husband imagined, together with that impertinent Trajan, who always took his side, she knew about his escapades. She also knew who the person was. She would divorce him, if she could, but she had no other source of income, and to divorce a lawyer of Movileanu’s calibre meant being left without a roof over your head.
‘But I did not come here to talk about my own tribulations, forgive me and please do not be too angry with me. If I have done so now, a little, it is because I do not have anybody else to talk to, I am very lonely, as lonely as only a woman married to my husband could be, if you take my meaning. I came here because I heard from the maid – the one who brought you coffee when you visited – what you spoke to my husband about the other day. The servants keep me informed of what is happening in the house, in town and in the world, whether I like it or not, and so I do not have to read the newspapers.’
Costache nodded, he was of the same opinion, and Mrs Movileanu smiled, looking at Liza, who had come up to her and was sniffing the hem of her skirt.
‘But it is not true that the wallet disappeared. If I have been b
old enough to take advantage of my husband’s absence from home – he did not even stay home with me yesterday, on Christmas day – and to come here to you, it is because I have the wallet and I am determined to give it to you. I got your address from the Prefecture, where I went first. Mr Caton Lecca was also there, and he too asked where you were.’
‘But that is impossible,’ said Costache, leaping to his feet, ignoring her final remark with a shrug. ‘Do you have any connection with Petre, the coachman from Inger’s confectionary shop?’
‘No. Who is Petre? Who is Inger? Forgive me, but I do not see how it could be impossible, and nor is it, as proof of which, let me give the wallet to you.’
And thereupon she handed him an deer-skin wallet. As he took it, Costache kissed her hand, to make up for the kiss he had denied her earlier. Then he opened the wallet and rummaged in its numerous compartments. In it he found nothing but a gilded key with elaborately cut extensions like lacy wings on each side of the shank.
‘There was nothing in it except this key. I think it is from a safe. I took the wallet from the table because I believed it had some connection with her. When I discovered that it did not, I would have given it back to the young man in person, as I intended, but I did not have the opportunity. I found out what had happened to him before my husband did, also through the servants. You should know that it is not true that I vent my nerves on them, as the young Trajan told you – I found out everything from the maid – on the contrary, they take my side, even if they pity me, and that is very hard for me.’
‘Madam, I cannot thank you enough, forgive me for having received you in this state. I thought that Petre had stolen the wallet, but it would seem that the man who gave me the information was lying or mistaken, and in any case he is not a man I trust.’
Costache took her hands and felt their softness and warmth in his. He tensed slightly, as if remembering something, and then he told the lady with the same naturalness as she had spoken to him: ‘I would like you to remain. Your presence has done me good, it does me good.’
Mrs Movileanu smiled. It had done her good too. The proposal itself did her good; it was obvious from her smile.
‘I have nothing left to lose. I could remain. But I shall not do so: I do not wish you to judge me later... as men do in such... in situations such as this. And there is something else: I sense that I would yet again take second place. I am tired of being second. But who knows? It is possible that we shall meet again... after the divorce, because in this very moment I have decided. Come what may! Do you know a good lawyer, one who is not a friend of my husband?’
Costache spoke for another hour with the woman who was still Mrs Movileanu, he spoke as he had never spoken to a woman before, and afterwards, the blackness having lifted from his soul somewhat, he went to bed, warning his adjutant: ‘Until tomorrow I do not exist! Not for anybody. Do not dare to disturb me. And take Liza for a walk!’
3.
The soldier clock at L’Indépendance Roumaine showed four o’clock, and Alexandru did not know what to do. He had left home driving the horse by himself, and as always had left sufficient time for any eventuality, but he did not have the courage to go to the Margulis house. Rather, he ought to find the little errand boy, but he had no idea where to look and no red caps were to be seen in the usual places; it was as if they had vanished into thin air. The one who had answers to such questions and knew the addresses was Nicu, but he could not ask Nicu where to find Nicu, and if he found him, he would have no reason to ask him where he was. How stupid! It was as if he were going out of his mind. ‘Five o’clock; green and red.’ What could it mean? A meeting, of course, but where? He pulled on the reins and slowed the horse to a walk. Was there a place of green and red in the centre of the capital? Perhaps a park, perhaps a shop, or a confectioner’s? He looked at the shop signs but none were green and red. And on which day? That damned child had not told him a thing.
Victory Avenue was quiet except for a few coupés, people dressed elegantly and warmly, since it was a cold day: they were going on visits or coming back from long lunches, and they all looked carefree. But the smiling people just made Alexandru feel all the more, unhappy. It was as if somebody had put the evil eye on him, as if somebody had wished him ill. Everything started well and turned out dreadfully, things evolved du mal en pis. In front of him on the pavement he saw a comical man in an over-large overcoat, walking along with his gaze in the air, and he remembered the overcoat aria. He had seen La Bohème in Italy, and when he thought of Italy he smiled unwittingly; for him it was heaven on earth. The overcoat aria was an aria of poverty, but Alexandru in that moment would have rather been a philosopher forced to sell him an overcoat than a Livezeanu in the mood he was in today. The man was certainly a starving philosopher or poet, all his clothes were too large for him, like cast-offs, and his head was in the clouds as he walked along slowly, looking in wonderment at the long thick icicles that hung from the eaves. It was the way people walk when nobody is waiting for them. Before he overtook him, the man slipped on a patch of ice, for an instant seemed to regain his balance, but then he fell flat on the pavement. Alexandru stopped the horses and jumped down, immediately reaching the man, who was having difficulty getting to his feet. He tried to pull him by his arm, but the man cried out and then bit his lips in pain: ‘I think I have sprained my shoulder,’ he said with clenched teeth.
Alexandru hesitated: he would have liked to help him, but at the same time he did not want to miss the opportunity, no matter how slight, of meeting Iulia Margulis. But then, seeing the fright on the face of the man lying on the ground, he took hold of his other arm, and almost lifting him off the ground, he helped him climb into his carriage.
‘I think it is dislocated, I have seen something similar before. I will take you home, if you agree: my brother is a medical student and he will help you, unless he is out.’
The man said nothing. He was groaning and kept biting his lower lip. Silence signalled assent, and so Alexandru mounted the box.
‘I will drive slowly, but please hold the handle with your other hand, lest you come to any more grief!’
In less than half an hour they reached the entrance, beneath the marquise. The house was lit both outside and inside. Toader came out, as cheerful as always, although now was not the time, and with his master he helped the man out of the carriage. Toader said not a word, although he was not surprised, and made no suppositions. He was used to Alexandru getting into all kinds of scrapes.
‘Run and fetch my brother, tell him to come to my room, please.’
Mișu arrived immediately and because Toader had delightedly told him that there was a man knocked to pieces, he brought his medical bag with him. The man was sitting in an armchair, beneath the two portraits of Alexandru’s great-grandparents. Toader removed his galoshes, and Alexandru helped him off with his coat, which was a highly delicate operation. In the end, Toader fetched some scissors and cut open the coat. The physician immediately saw that it was a dislocated shoulder.
‘What have you done’ he asked Alexandru severely, but received such a pained look in response that he hastened to add: ‘You are lucky, sir...’
He looked at Alexandru, who shrugged at his brother, over the top of the stranger’s head – he was unable to make any introductions, since he had forgotten to ask the stranger his name. The man opened his eyes, which he had been keeping clenched, and said faintly: ‘Dan Crețu.’
The brothers looked at each other in amazement, and Alexandru felt the sky was crashing down on his head. This was all he needed!
‘You have met my brother Alexandru, and I am Mihai Livizeanu.’ He continued with the positive disposition and confidence which, as he had learned, were part of a good physician’s obligations: ‘You are lucky, Mr Crețu. It can be pushed back into the socket, but it will be painful. We give you permission to scream. I learned in Paris how it is done, but I have never had occasion to try it. I am delighted to do so now. There are many methods an
d I shall employ the simplest... Alexandru, be so kind as to fetch a large glass of cognac for your patient.’
The lock of hair that fell cheekily over his forehead was the only detail about Mișu Livizeanu that contrasted his cold seriousness. He went to wash his hand and returned to find Dan drinking the cognac, grimacing, although it was the finest Courvoisier; Napoleon himself, had he still lived, would not have been so finicky. Then, they laid Dan in Alexandru’s bed. Mișu felt the place and without warning, pushed the bone back into the socket, with an abrupt, powerful shove. There was a clicking sound. Dan screamed, then moved his shoulder gently and felt only the trace of an old pain, but no new pain. They tightly bound the shoulder with a bandage and the physician told him that he should try to move it as little as possible. If he were careful, there would be no need for plaster.
4.
Returning to the hôtel late in the evening, Otto discovered that he had nobody to chatter to, although he had been dying to recount how he had passed the day and what he had managed to find out. Otto was garrulous, and at home in Transylvania he had always had a brother or an aunt or a neighbour to listen to him. The few items laid carefully on his room-mate’s bed, tied with a bow, were an indication that he had not left the hôtel and that some good person was concerned about the stranger’s fate. Otto stripped and washed himself thoroughly, before getting into bed. He was exhausted and it seemed to him that the smell of insect powder seemed to be stronger than the day before.
He had worn out the soles of his boots and lost a seg from the heel while walking from church to church to ask whether there was work and where he could earn some money, but everywhere he had received the same answer: work begins in July, in June at the earliest, and nobody starts renovations in the winter. But even a barnyard hen could have told him that! For the time being, Otto would have to make do with what was on offer at the hôtel. He took a cart to the nunnery at Pasărea. Thence he was sent to the monastery at Cernica, some ten kilometres away. A beautiful gypsy girl, with a sulky mien, who hoped to scrounge some pennies from him, on hearing where the nuns had sent him asked the abbess, her eyes glittering in amazement: ‘Why do you live here when your husbands live ten kilometres away?’
Life Begins On Friday Page 20
