The Days of the King

by Filip Florian

  Later that gloomy afternoon, the dentist tried to sleep, but tossed restlessly under the sheets, his eyes closed. Faces, phantasms, gestures, events, appearances, and deeds came all in a welter, without connection or logic, each enveloping him in turn, tender or paroxysmal, then vanishing as mysteriously as they had arisen. He had barely twisted onto his side and settled the pillow under his right cheek when he remembered the fantasy he had had in April in Berlin, in which beautiful women and impatient crowds waited at his door for him to quell their aching teeth. He had a few patients, some regular, some occasional, but he had understood from the outset that one of the local vices was that people did not care if they were gap-toothed. They did not brush their teeth, they ate as best they could, and they hastened to have bad teeth pulled. They pulled their teeth themselves, having first steeped them in plum brandy, mastika, rye brandy, and raki, or they went to barbers who wielded chisels and large pincers, whom they called toothsters. Such customs left Joseph with a bitterness in his mouth, one he could taste even then, in bed. He turned over onto his tummy and lost himself in a late autumnal landscape. Once again he saw a gray rabbit bound from behind the bushes and run zigzagging over a ploughed field, cleaving the fine mist, then suddenly encountering a bullet from the gun of Peter Bykow the baker and spinning over the clods of black earth. A dog fetched it, and Peter wrapped it in burdock leaves and crammed it into his pouch, alongside another four. On the Ciumernicu estate where they had hunted in the whitish light of dawn, queer shapes and outlines loomed, colored like the cold. The two Germans, one with a scarf and fur-lined cap, the other with a rifle slung over his shoulder, had come to a stop on the Wallachian plain, at the edge of a village of Bulgarians, and were gazing at a stocky, bald man wearing priestly garb, who was piling thick layers of straw onto some vine stocks. He was working slowly, with a pitchfork. He greeted them in Slavonic and Latin, then Romanian, mentioned his name in passing, and, in that mixture of languages, confessed that he was fearful of the frost, the angels' anger, and the darkness. He left his horse hobbled on the stubble field and led them to some low-roofed houses, beyond which lay the manor of the boyar Condurat. On the way, Necula Penov, the priest, talked continuously (pausing only to cough): about how the pumpkins grow, how for eleven years he had held services in a sheepfold, how they planted peppers and cauliflowers, how he administered the sacraments, how he scared away the crows, how he arranged christenings, and how, day after day, he confidently awaited a letter from the magnanimous and kind Pius IX, in reply to the one hundred and seventy-six epistles he had sent to the Vatican. At a crossroads shaded by tall poplars, the two hunters, a dentist and a baker, subjects of that same Pope, discovered to their astonishment that the ramshackle structure before them, with an iron cross on the peak of its roof, bore a blessed name: the Virgin Mary Queen of the Holy Rosary. It was a church of planks and earth, clad with reeds, Catholic in accordance with the desire of those peasants who had arrived from south of the Danube in 1828, during times of war. In his warm room, Herr Strauss also glimpsed the churchyard, swarming with sparrows as if there were grains of millet strewn throughout the grass. In the end, he did not find the path that led to sleep, and so, enervated, he emerged from between the sheets as the light outside was beginning to fade. He heated some water, readied his razor, shaving brush, soap, two towels, and clean linen. He washed thoroughly and shaved with care, meeting his hazel eyes in the mirror, eyes free of sadness and worry. When he went out the front door, he was wearing a gray coat, hat, and galoshes, and the hour hand of the pendulum clock rested halfway between five and six. Beneath the drizzle, Lipscani Street resembled a river, along whose course calmly flowed not water (puddles and pools), but people. Joseph walked side by side with the others, warmed by the throng. He heard snatches of conversation, replies, stray whispers, many in German, but plenty in Italian, Hungarian, and Polish, and even the laughter of some young ladies, whom he avoided. At one point, the river split into two branches, one swerving strangely uphill, as no river can do, toward the Lutheran church, the other flowing onward, down a gentle slope. And outside the walls of the Catholic Church there had gathered so many souls that for a few moments he could hardly believe his eyes. He found a place to one side of the door, out of the way of those who were still arriving. He climbed onto a heap of coal and looked out, scanning the fresh darkness. Amid the wet capes, umbrellas, and cloaks, he descried the profile of Mathilde Vogel, now cured of the chicken pox. At that distance he could not make out much, but it appeared to him that her cheeks were rosy and her chestnut curls were touching her earlobe. He wondered whether it was worth pushing his way through the crowd, whether the cold raindrops bathed her or bothered her, whether her boots were dry, whether her calves were quivering and puckering. He was thinking of many things and standing motionless when the first bell chimed loudly, the largest bell, donated to that church, Sancta Maria Gratiarum (Holy Mary Mother of Grace), by none other than Franz Josef, the emperor in Vienna. Soon, in the white tower, the smaller bells also began to ring, bells fashioned at the behest of the august sovereign Archduke Franz Karl and Princess Sophie, bidding peace between couples and contraries, and after them, the smallest bell, a gift from Maximilian, brother of the Austrian emperor and an emperor in his own right, at the other end of the world, in Mexico. The chimes heralding Christmas Eve pierced the clouds above Bucharest and, the dentist thought, dissolved in the glassy firmament, rising to the stars. Also there rose the music from the beginning of the Liturgy of Angels, Filius meus es tu, ego hodie genui te, and the chords of the organ struck the windows of the cathedral, then trickled through the wide-open doors, touched the bowed heads of the crowd, kindling voices and hearts, and in a corner of the churchyard, by the gate, tears gleamed on the face of Herr Strauss. Together with the others he intoned Laetentur Caeli and Tecum principium, plunging with his spirited voice into the spell of psalms 95 and 109, and at the end of the service when the calm river began to flow backward, from the Catholic Church to the congregation's houses, he strove to meet up with Mathilde, but glimpsed neither her nor her brother, Jakob Vogel the optician. So he stopped off at his own house instead, helped Siegfried to climb into his wicker basket, and carrying him on his right arm, he headed toward the home of his friend Otto Huer. They all sang in chorus, and even Siegfried purred along, by the stove. They drank raki and wine, they feasted on countless dishes, above all that steaming wonder, die Weihnachtsgans, roast goose. They remembered the old, the sick, and the poor, and even the ravenous stray dogs, for whom they filled two pots with bones. And they prayed for them all.

  A carriage had waited in front of the redbrick building, Number 18 Lipscani, for an hour and a half. A lieutenant of the guard, with sideburns, had orders to hand the dentist a note. It was from the prince, inviting him to the palace for tea by the Christmas tree in the library.

  In the Yuletide atmosphere, spending Christmas for the first time far from his family, Prince Carol had announced during the course of the evening that he was not feeling well, and had withdrawn to his office, refusing all company. For hours on end, without rising from his desk, he set down on paper, in five versions, many of the things that had burdened him in recent months. With varying degrees of intimacy, occasionally sipping a bitter cherry liqueur, he wrote in turn to his father, mother, sister, and brothers, adjusting tone and nuances to the face and personality of each addressee in mind. Events were compressed or detailed; descriptions that were cold in one letter grew impassioned in another. He placed the emphasis now on politics and affairs of state, now on feelings and sorrows. Sometimes he revealed himself to be strong, poised, and optimistic, sometimes he bemoaned his fate and gave free rein to his doubts. And in all the different versions of his brief history as monarch, one each for Karl Anton, Josephina, Leopold, Friedrich, and Marie, he referred to the large Oppenheim loan, the finishing touches to which had been made in Paris after his confirmation by the Sublime Porte, a lifesaving transaction that quelled the protests of officers and func
tionaries, even if it did involve the repayment of 32 million francs over twenty-three years, on a principal of just 18.5 million. Then he related how the elections to the two chambers of parliament in November had been not only an occasion for brawls, abuses, and manipulations but also depressing in their outcome, which had left the govemment without serious support. Likewise, in disappointed terms he described the first palace ball, held at his own personal expense, an act of normality and decency in his opinion, but also a target for vile attacks, on the grounds that he had squandered the country's money in a period of grinding poverty. Finally, long after nightfall, when the loneliness had become oppressive, the prince felt a need to chat and to forget. Smoking a cigarette, he thought of that intelligent, warm, discreet man, Joseph Strauss the Berliner, and of his miraculous tea, which inspired dreams and indolence. At around midnight, however, he was informed by an officer that the dentist was not to be found.

  Then, toward morning, he heard a murmuring brook and rustling grass; he saw a sunlit glade, with beeches, alders, and sycamores. He awoke bewildered and wet, and the stain on the sheets resembled neither spittle nor dried blood—it was different from other stains.

  4. The Dwarf on the Tightrope

  THE CANDLES HAD been snuffed out a short time before, and so in the rustling air only the gray soles of a pair of feet could be made out. When the darkness had diluted, the calves and thighs became visible, bared, tensed, sometimes entwined, then quickly unclenching. In the narrow bed, where the sheets smelled of lavender, two legs were slowly rocking, and another two were arching above them, trying to touch (the ankles, the heels), flexing back and then lifting towards the ceiling, as if they wanted to scrape the grainy whitewash. The rocking intensified, the broad motions became short jerks, the rustling air in the room ceased to rustle and was pervaded by heavy panting, by a faint whining and a groaning that burgeoned. The sheet slid from the hips, and amid the shadows of night a white bottom loomed, writhing wildly, up and down, back and forth. Then exhaustion descended, the beard no longer scratched against the plump bosom, it sank into its softness, the breathing settled into a normal cadence, moist lips twitched, a hand rested on a thigh, long, straight hair lay fanned out. Moments, plentiful moments, elapsed in this way, indolently, until the bodies separated and each lay stretched on its back, close together, giving off a warm mist. And in that mist, a small snub nose rediscovered the perfume it had forgotten for long minutes, a fine perfume of almond flowers, such as it had never encountered before, and another nose, hooked and prominent, sensed once more the lavender beneath the sheets, but paid it no heed and avid, astonished, and insatiable, it feasted on the moist odors of the woman's body. In his belly, something bunched up like a hedgehog and saddened when she propped herself on her elbow, rose (her right hand grasping the back of a chair and her left groping over the floor), took three steps, fumbled for the tin basin, the bucket of water, and the soap, washed long and thoroughly, calmly and languidly, dried herself likewise, at leisure, and drove away, at least for a time, the scent between her thighs, neither sweet nor bitter. The woman's palms settled, one on his shoulder, the other on his belly, they set out feeling and searching, they discovered the calfskin sheath with the drawstring at the mouth and the thread encrusted around it, they slowly removed it, like a scabbard, and immersed it in an infusion of sage, to cleanse it and keep it supple. Careful fingers grasped the tired, sticky phallus, bathed it, coddled it, caressed it like a babe, and as they could not give it suck, they allowed the breasts to embrace it and rock it. The man decided to light a cigar and uncork the champagne. He found neither an ashtray nor glasses, so he fetched a dish and some earthenware mugs. And in the iridescent darkness, the cork popped like a discharging pistol, it stirred up the dogs far and wide, it frightened the mice in the crannies and under the floorboards, it wakened the geese, and, far worse, provoked in the girl a dreadful shriek, followed by a leap as far as the table. He knelt on the jute mat, tousling her hair, he spoke to her continuously in French, he kissed her on the coccyx, on each rib and on her warm nape, his kisses made their way back to her soft, downy bottom, like a peach, but the kisses were no longer kisses, for he was already running the tip of his tongue down her spine, without giving the cigar or the champagne another thought. He descended lightheaded, smoothly, and he would have descended yet lower had she not twisted away. They stretched out once more on the narrow bed, propped against pillows and the wooden frame, they drank from the mugs without handles, then she moistened each of her nipples in the cold, fizzy liquid, gave them to him, and waited. It was a long time before her hands once more set out on their search. They found his member (which she petted with words such as he had never heard before: pulicică, sulac, coinac, and ştremeleag), thrust it into the mug, and they played with it, pampered it, scrubbed its tangled curls and rosy, childish head, and her lips wiped it well after its bath. Then the hands dressed it in its little kidskin coat, velvety and moist, they tightened the drawstring, and once more lost themselves in madness.

  A king is a king, even if he is called domn or domnitor, but above all, a king is a man, because no one has ever been born on a throne or with a crown on his head. And he, Carol I, after ignoring the laws of nature and the needs of the body for more than a year, three hundred and eighty-four days, to be exact, always monopolized by and caught up in the convoluted problems of the Principalities, by the languor, by the chaotic commotion and urgent business around him, had avoided treading the slippery path of seamy liaisons. The end of spring found him gloomy and irascible, incapable of taking delight in the warm breezes, the peonies, and the cherry blossoms. Nor was his brother Friedrich, who had accompanied him during a long sojourn in Jassy and on a visit to the Danube ports, capable of brightening his mood. It was also around then that he received the news that his youngest sister, Marie, was to be engaged to the Count of Flanders, news that gave him a start, in the shadow of which, had it not been for his beard and bushy eyebrows, a crooked smile might have been deciphered. He wrote without delay, mimicking joy, but in the letters, commas, periods, and exclamation marks, as if the ink itself consisted of astonishment and regrets, he saw only the irony of fate. The man who had refused the rickety and uncomfortable throne upon which Carol himself now sat, that very man, the one with the eight Christian names, Philippe, Eugène, Ferdinand, Marie, Clément, Baudouin, Leopold, and George, happy and carefree in his castle in Laeken, near Brüssel, was to receive the gifts of the hand, the laughter, and the wonderfulness of his sister, the creature whom he, far away at the ends of the earth (as many believed), missed most of all, while he strove to restore to health a strange land whose people did not wish to rid themselves of their ailments. On the third of the month, in the afternoon, Prince Karl gazed absently at the foliage in front of his window, indifferent to the preparations for the May 10 festivities, inclined to see only hypocrisy and operatic gestures in that collective eagerness to celebrate the lapse of one year since his arrival in Bukarest. As so often before, he thought of the miraculous infusion he had drunk in Istanbul, before being received by the sultan, and he desired a teacupful, enough for him to forget what was gnawing away at him and to be happy for a few hours. He sent for Joseph Strauss, with the specific information that he was expecting a cup of tea, but he doubted from the outset that he would get what he demanded. He had not summoned him since March, after he had been obliged to appoint Kretzulescu to the head of the council of ministers, given Ghika's weariness of politics, and after he had corrected the draft of a law whereby a new currency, with the rather comical name leul ("the lion"), was to replace piasters, francs, and all the other foreign coins in circulation. And, indeed, on the third of the month, as afternoon drew toward dusk, the dentist appeared with his calfskin bag, ready to explain why he would not prepare an infusion of Amanita muscaria, Fliegenpilz, snake's hat, or snake mushroom. As he stood by the door, Herr Strauss strung together his protective and sorrowful lies. He said that the powder had run out in Constantinople, that he d
id not know with what herbs it had been made, that he had been given the desiccated preparation in Berlin by a traveling apothecary who had vanished without trace, that he, too, longed for the enchanted potion. The prince listened to him carefully, with that attitude of his which passed as stern and distant. He understood what was to be understood, because he held the conviction that to a man in whom you have no doubts you should grant, when required, the right to concoct a story. He invited him to sit on the couch of yellowish velvet, he sat down beside him, and they clinked glasses of tart white wine. They sat in silence. The tree by the window swayed softly, a plane tree with large, young leaves. Then Joseph, with his chin resting on his palms and his elbows resting on his knees, gazing at the waxed parquet, banished shame (because at that moment, perhaps because of the wine, his loyalty and affection were greater), and asked him. And the prince, appreciating the tone of his question, replied, with his eyes fixed on the ceiling: No. No, he had not touched a woman for a long time, not since he had donned the uniform of a captain of dragoons.