Life Begins On Friday

by Ioana Parvulescu

  With the small capital she received on finishing the school, she opened a modest workshop with another girl. The girls worked industriously, they lived spartanly, and they sought with all their powers to establish a clientele, working hard, tastefully and cheaply. However, for two years they struggled with all their might; the result of these efforts was the closure of the workshop. They could no longer pay the rent. One of them, the one whom we met, tried to work at home: a fresh struggle, without success, since she cannot find enough work to make a living. At the moment she is seeking an occupation, whatever it might be, merely to survive.

  This, in short, is the story of a graduate of our trade schools – and it is more or less the same story for all these girls. The ladies from the charitable society did not think of this. We have sought to uncover the causes of this failure.

  ‘And what are the causes?’ asked the doctor, who had read the article aloud, tonelessly, but had not had the patience to read to the end.

  ‘At least on that point they are not unjust. They say that the workshop was closed by the big shops on Victory Avenue and that the public is to blame, because people prefer to buy more expensive goods, as long as they are foreign, rather than buy from our girls.’

  ‘And how are you to blame?’

  Agatha now began to weep. After her tears abated, she told him in her most woe-begone voice that it was true, that the girls, Ana and Lenuța, are desperate and that she had tried to help them. But the journalist, who does not even sign his name –’as usual,’ interjected the doctor – presented the whole affair as if it were the rule, which it was not. Many of the girls they helped had succeeded, some had got married, but the newspaper presented her endeavours as if it were a game, a charade... But their society genuinely helped. Even if it was not mentioned by name, everybody knew...

  The doctor stopped her.

  ‘In this world there are sufferings you cannot even imagine, Agatha. Not a day passes but I see them. There are children who fall ill and die under their parents’ very eyes – we two know that – and some, aged before their time because of illness, seeking to help their parents, to make things easier for them, I have seen with my own eyes countless examples of agony -I will not even tell you what the typhus epidemic was like, but even a simple outbreak of influenza, although they have discovered the bacillus, there are still sufferers, who die young and ruddy-cheeked, as if they were healthy, eager for love, because tuberculosis is a kind of aphrodisiac, and the physician’s struggle against the disease is hopeless. Could I tell you about syphilis, which eats away the body, without traumatizing you for the rest of your life? Physicians grope like blind men, helping here, damaging there. Do you know that up until twenty or thirty years ago, that is, during our parents’ lifetime, medicine damaged more than it helped? It was a series of experiments on the poor patient, kept in a hospital, which more often than not left him in a worse condition than when he had entered. Today, even the dentist, our friend Steinhardt, for example, asks you: ‘With or without pain?’ But in the past, every operation meant unendurable pain. Do you remember Dr Biondi from the Brâncoveanu Hospital, the one who operated with Glück, when we were young?’

  Agatha nodded, in silence.

  ‘I have not told you the truth about him until now. He operated on five patients with pulmonary tuberculosis. He had previously done a number of pulmonary resections on dogs and the results had at least been encouraging. But the five patients died. All five! And then, in despair, Dr Biondi committed suicide. People sometimes died of the pain; their hearts stopped. And you...’

  And I, I complain about a newspaper article that does not even name me directly. I concern myself with girls who are healthy and who will marry. Ana is going to marry the very journalist who has written about her as if by accident. And I concern myself with such things, while you struggle against death, I know. But what if I need comfort and solace, even only once, even only for a trifle? And what if today, I care more about my girls and my petty troubles than about all the world’s misfortunes? And what if today I cannot suffer for the whole of mankind and I would like at least one member of mankind to suffer for me? The blood that had risen to Agatha’s cheeks showed that she was angrier with her husband than with the newspaperman. But she said nothing, and Dr Margulis postponed his consolation, because he had to visit a patient. Unfortunately, as is well known, illness does not take days off.

  Monday, 29 December: Time Passes

  1.

  The year has whizzed past me like an arrow. And although there are only two days left of it, what did I do today? I played and played the piano; I took each score in turn. Then I played without sheet music, from memory. I played worse than ever before, wretchedly and carelessly. As for the rest, I have begun to fill my inner staves with notes in the key of Alexandru. I do believe they are concertos in Alexandru major and I would repeat them over and over again, no matter how many wrong notes I might play. I suppose it is as hard not to play wrong notes when the music is inside you as when it is outside you. But if the Great Composer has made mistakes in the concerto, what then? I still have to wait before I will know for sure whether I am also playing on the inside. I know what I mean and I will not go into explanations here. Last night, when we were all in the salon, and Mama and Papa seemed upset, and Jacques cheered them up by reading to them from a book of jokes – Jacques reads very nicely, even jokes – Safta appeared and made a sign to me with her head, pointing at the door, without a trace of respect. Since Saturday she has been taking more and more liberties, blackmail, as my friends from Vanity Fair would put it. Jacques alone noticed her impertinent gesture, diverting our parents’ attention with a joke he pretended not to understand, and Papa gravely began explaining to him what was funny.

  What can I say but that my heart stopped when I saw the servant’s sign? I thought that it was Alexandru and I was lost. No, it was not he, but Nicu. I asked him why he did not enter. He told me that he was very busy and that he had business with me. I felt his little hand, colder than mine, opening my palm and in my palm I felt something hard and yet tickly. It was a box covered in velvet and tied with a little bow, but I did not open it, lest somebody see me. I took it to my room and hid it inside a clock: this is my hiding place. In the salon I was no longer able to pay attention to anything, although Mama and Papa each told me about their ancestors and about Greece, which I have never visited and probably we shall not go there even this summer, because we do not have the money and Papa does not have the time. And then Jacques and I withdrew. I quickly told him about the box and he was dying of curiosity about what was inside: ‘I think it is something imporrtant, I sense it, I even suspect what it might be.’

  We went to my room, he sat on the couch – and that memory pierced the very heart of my soul, like a bullet – and I went to the clock. I unlocked the door and took out the velvet box. I gave it to Jacques to open, to let him have the pleasure. And his round eyes were like the oily coffee beans purveyed by our Armenian, Levon Harutunian. In his language Levon means the same as Leon, Papa’s name: they are both lions.

  ‘There is a note, folded in four. Oh, and beneath the note there is a ring. Shall I read it?’

  I sat down, overcome by a kind of faintness, and my little brother read: ‘‘You and your family are invited to our New Year’s party. We must...’ underlined ‘...begin the year together. Al. L.’’

  ‘Is that all?’

  ‘That is all.’

  I felt like crying, and then Jacques added: ‘For us men it means more than for you girrls.’

  And he handed me the box, the note and the ring. I tried on the ring. It is mounted with a small ruby surrounded by a few diamonds, and it is indeed very beautiful, but it is too big for me. A pity, I will not be able to wear it. I was filled with sadness.

  *

  This morning, we resumed our usual routine, as if everything were the same, except that everything is different. Victory Avenue was different, the empty space left by Sărindar Churc
h was different, the people were different, the waters of the Dâmbovița were different, slower, and Jacques’ seagulls were flying in a different direction. But I thought: perhaps all these things are the same, perhaps the seagulls are flying the same as usual, the Dâmbovița is flowing as fast as usual, the people were the same, the empty place where Sărindar stood was the same, Victory Avenue was the same, but I am different. And why, pray tell, should I be different? Perhaps it is because the year has almost passed and the last grains of sand in the hourglass are now rushing down. Perhaps the waters of my rivers are approaching a cataract. Perhaps I am adding a circle to the trunk of life, like a tree, and I am growing (although I have not grown since the age of seventeen!); and I am seeing the world from a different perspective. I feel that time has begun to flow more swiftly: yesterday before I knew it night had fallen, and today likewise. Immediately after lunch – which was Spartan, since Papa takes care that we should not overeat at this time of year, when all the people stuff themselves; once he told us how to prepare a meal in accordance with the digestion time of each food and to combine foods with a low digestion time with sauces and broths, so that we would not tire our delicate stomachs and tender livers. Immediately after lunch, rather than resting, I went into town with Nelu, who was pale after his illness and could barely hold onto the reins. As for myself, I feel I cannot sit still! I went to Universul to pick up another box of Luminous Fountains, one with all the necessary parts, so that Jacques will at least be able to enjoy them at New Year. As I was going in, Mr Crețu was coming out, he greeted me, but without taking his hat off, and then he seemed to remember and quickly took it off, which made me laugh. He is very nice. I care for him, as for a muddleheaded brother. We talked and he mentioned that he was the guest of Alexandru, not in the big house, or rather the Livezeanu palace, but in a smaller residence of his in the centre of town. And so I have discovered some news. I half rejoiced, because it means he has a heart, and I was half aggrieved, because I know what such residences are used for. At least now it is occupied by a man!

  2.

  Nicu was tired and still had a long way to go in the pitch darkness. He sensed rather than saw the Muzzle behind him. He heard his panting. He broke into a run, but it was as if he had iron balls shackled to his ankles, like the ones old man Cercel had told him convicts wear. He thought that he would be able to escape only if he could rise above the earth and so he flapped his arms, seeing himself as if from the outside as he rose little by little, like a duck. At first, something was dragging him down, then he succeeded, he was now a metre above the Muzzle, then higher and higher, he escaped, it was now light, below him were houses, lots of little houses, he could see roofs and chimneys and church spires, he took care not to bump into them; and fields and forests, he could see the green tree-tops softly rustling, and then it was as if he were being pulled downward again, but he strained, he dug in his heels, and he kept himself aloft and nothing bad could touch him there. He heard a cock crowing, closer and closer, louder and louder. Oh, Lord, what joy, what joy, and what pain, what pain!

  ‘You were flying, you flew by night again!’

  It was dark, winter, he was below, on earth, but in his dream it was summer and he was up in the sky. But what if the world in the dream were real and the world, now that he was awake was the dream? He closed his eyes, trying to prolong the flight, but he did not succeed. No, unfortunately, he knew full well that flying was the dream and his bed was the reality. That he could stay as long as he liked in bed, but that the length of the dream did not depend on his will. His mother was already busy in the kitchen, which meant that she felt well. And he felt well now, for he was warm under the quilt, curled up, and he was wonderfully happy after flying, as if he had really been flying, he was happy that he had no cares that day, that his mother was well, that Alexandru’s little parcel had been delivered safely to Iulia, that they had not asked him questions, and above all, that the lottery was so near: there was only one day between him and the result. His arms and hands and fingertips and legs and toes and head and hair and ears and nose and mouth, and heart which today was nicely coloured, as on the doctor’s chart. All were waiting, not only for the next day, not only for the New Year and the wish you are allowed to make, because it will be fulfilled, but above all for the future, when he and Jacques would be grown up and stroll each with a charming young lady on his arm, who smelled of lavender and wore a colourful dress that rustled and glinted in the light. In the winter the young ladies would skate holding hands with them on Cișmigiu Lake. Strangely, he could also see Jacques skating next to a young lady. He was impatient, he could hardly wait to grow up and he felt that he was destined for great things, that he would be an important man, like Mr Dan Crețu or Mr Cazzavillan.

  ‘Mama?’

  She had come up to his bed on tiptoe and seeing that the boy was awake, she lit the gas lamp, kissed his hair and told him to come to the table.

  ‘It’s cold in here, there are ice crystals on the windowpane. Dress up warm, mammy’s little chick.’

  Nicu wondered which was his real mother, the one now or the one of a few days ago, with the cracked voice and insane eyes, the one who couldn’t recognize him? Who was it who took his mother’s place and tortured her and why did she torture and frighten him too? He hugged his real mother as tightly as he could, so that she wouldn’t go outside and run down a mole hole where he wouldn’t be able to reach her.

  *

  When he came home, after work, which had been tiring – five errands to addresses that were quite far away from each other – but which had also provided a few tips to match, his mother was doing the laundry, scrubbing the clothes on a washboard that tickled your palms if you stroked it, but which gave you calluses if you scrubbed properly. The shirts and handkerchiefs were boiling in a cauldron with starch. In the meantime, they ate and then Nicu offered to hang the clothes on the line. He liked the way the soft, steaming clothes stiffened in the frost and stuck together, and when you separated them, they creaked like a rusty door hinge. He was too restless to stay at home and he told his mother that he was going to visit Jacques, to take him the mammoths he had promised him. He showed her the drawing in Universul Ilustrat, and she laughed at their saw-tooth backs and their tails as long as a day of fasting. Her laugh reminded him of another laugh, her mother’s, as if his grandmother was still there in his mother’s laugh, the same as people who are far away can be inside the funnel of a telephone. He was little then, very little, and they were eating stony cherries together. His grandmother tore them in two for him so that he could chew them more easily. He took one and to his amazement he discovered that something nice was wriggling inside, like the horns of a snail. He showed his grandmother and she said: ‘Ugh!’ and when he started to laugh, they did the same thing with each cherry: when the little worm appeared, she would say: ‘Ugh!’ and they both laughed till their bellies ached. The cherries without worms weren’t funny, they set them aside; only the ones in which there was movement interested them. It was one of the happiest days he remembered, and ever since Nicu had reckoned that only when he laughed was it a good day. And today was a good day. His grandmother had told him that when she died she wanted to turn into a sparrow, that he should be very careful with sparrows, because maybe it would be her, hopping around among them, although it was hard to imagine her hopping, she had had a stiff back and found it difficult to move around the house. It was very hard to recognize her, since all sparrows looked alike, and so far none had seemed to take special delight in meeting him. He was sure that his grandmother would have drawn his attention by signalling him with her wings. On the way to Strada Fântânei, Nicu thought to hear a voice in his head, which said to him: it will be well! it will be well! it will be well! He didn’t know whose voice it was, for he could not believe the voice was his.

  Jacques was happy too: Dr Rizea had given him a new flute as a present, a real marvel. He played Nicu Handel’s minuet, tee-tum-tum, tee-tum-tum, and then, unexpecte
dly, he stopped in the middle of a phrase and said: ‘You are invited to come with me, I mean with us, to Alexandrrru Livizeanu’s New Year parrty. Mr Dan Crrețu will be coming too. Is that not wonderrful? Papa received an invitation for the whole family and I asked that you come too, Iulia said that she would give you my suit for special occasions from two years ago, I have worrn it only twice, it is brrand new.’

  He added in a whisper that Iulia and Alexandrru were ‘in love,’ and Nicu told him, putting on an uninterested air, that he had known that for a long time. Dr Margulis recommended that when you are ill you should always think about getting better and to keep saying to yourself: I’m getting better, getting better, getting better! Even when you’re not ill, it’s useful to say to yourself: it will be well, it will be well, it will be well! At least you get to wear a new suit at the end of a worn out year.

  3.

  ‘Will it be well?’

  Pavel Mirto’s eyes glittered ironically behind his round glasses, while Procopiu, from the other office, inspected his moustache, as was his habit, as if he were afraid it might disappear.

  ‘Yes, I believe that Romania is like an orchestra, except that it has yet to play in a concert. It is still rehearsing. One of the violinists keeps playing wrong notes, the soloist enters in the wrong place, the wind section plays out of time and the conductor loses his temper, stops the music, scolds them all, everything is fragmentary and has to keep starting all over again, but at the concert, the melody will come together flawlessly and Europe’s applause...’