The escort for Joseph Strauss arrived at half past nine, just as he was finishing off the stewed cabbage left over in his mess tin from lunch. He dusted himself down, smoothed his uniform, put on a large cape and set off alongside the two elite cavalrymen with rifles slung over their shoulders. They proceeded behind the trenches and earthworks and skirted the huge corral in which the cavalry horses were snuffling. The doctor thought for a moment of the blind woman and how the world must seem to her like a miry cave. They went around the back of a copse and stopped when a sentinel cried out at the top of his lungs and cocked his rifle. Then one of the cavalrymen pronounced a comical password, which sounded like the name of a fowl, and they disappeared behind a hillock and into a vineyard, out of the range of Turkish shells. At the next sentry's cry, they stood still in the cold, viscous darkness, in which not a star was visible. From a building with lights burning in the windows, surrounded by tall trees, which must have been poplars, a man with a torch emerged and approached them. It was a lieutenant, perhaps a clerk or secretary, who gave Joseph a textbook salute. The cavalrymen who had escorted him vanished in the direction of some gray outbuildings, and the two officers headed toward the small manor house. On the veranda, Major Strauss was greeted by a short infantryman without a cap, who set about cleaning his boots with the dexterity of a shoeshine boy. Once inside, in the empty hallway, he was asked to take a seat. After ten minutes, he rose to his feet, stood to attention as best he could, and studied the generals and colonels who were leaving the conference chamber. When the voices giving orders had died away and the rumble of the horses' hooves had faded into the distance, the prince appeared and invited him into another room. They sat in wicker armchairs, eight years and three months since their last meeting (or ninety-nine months, according to the dentist's reckoning). At first, they were silent, they cleaned their pipes, filled them with tobacco, lit them, looked at the bare walls, one of them coughed and the other ran his fingers through his hair, they clinked glasses, they each took a sip of cognac and rolled the warm liquid around the insides of their cheeks, and then the prince, as always before, poured out the things that were most on his mind: he told of troop movements plotted on charts by the general staff, hinting at the vanities and rivalries of the high-ranking officers, he spoke of morale, placing soldiers, horses, and cannons on an equal footing, each with their own requirements, for warm clothes and cartridges, for horseshoes and fodder, for cannonballs and gunpowder, he showed concern about the impending winter and the patience of Osman Pasha, who tolerated the interminable siege and would not emerge to counterattack, he alluded to his old dreams with regard to independence, trains, and a dynasty, and at this point, Joseph suddenly interrupted him and began describing his son, Alexandru. It seemed pointless to him to bring up the other son, Petre. His hazel eyes looked deeply into the blue eyes of Karl Ludwig, but he found only puzzlement and new dreams, nothing of the shadows of the past. It was midnight when the prince, sitting by the warm stove, unbuttoned his tunic and felt the need to take off his boots. He rang a little bell and the short infantryman entered with a basin in his left hand, a jug of hot water in his right, and a towel over his shoulder. He carefully pulled off his master's boots, removed the damp socks, rolled up his trouser legs, and washed his feet, soaping them twice. Then he brought some checked slippers, bowed, and left with the boots under his arm, ready to grease and buff them, for they would have to be worn again at dawn by the sleepless man with the bushy beard, the commander of all the Romanian and Russian regiments that encircled Plevna. Carol poured more brandy, stretched out in his armchair, and, his hands interlocked behind his neck, he enquired whether the reserves of lint and bandages were sufficient, whether he, Joseph, could bear to see so many men maimed and dying, whether he managed to sleep, and whether he thought that the Turks' tasseled fezzes brought them luck, in addition to their bellicosity, their stratagems, the logic of battles, and the seasons. At last, after much gloomy talk, the prince yawned deeply, and Herr Strauss made a single request. He wanted a letter to arrive in Bucuresci, without fail, at number 18, Lipscani Street, not like the letters before it, which had been scattered to the winds.
On parting, noticing that a frost had settled, the doctor looked at his pocket watch with the gilded lid and saw that it was five to three. He peered at the plains, he had an inkling that the dawn, not long thence, would be bloody in the major assault, he melted with yearning, imagining Elena's face on the pillow, and her body hidden beneath the sheets, he knew that neither Karl Ludwig nor anyone else would ever find out that the prince was Petre's father, he remembered the first love-choked lines of his letter and he thought of everything he had asked for from home, most of all, at that moment in the depths of the night, woolen socks and coffee. Near the tent, he saw a fox rooting in the ash where a fire had been burning. It was lame and frightened.
Now that he was living alone with the tomcat once more, Joseph had given up the pipes that had consumed his time and nerves, and switched to cigarettes, smoking three times as much. He coughed in the mornings, always waking Siegfried, he would heat some water, wash, shave, and however the light of the new day shone and however much he wanted to forget, looking in the mirror as the razor glided over his cheeks he remembered Elena's shrieks, her tears, her blazing eyes, and her devastating fury during which she had smashed windows and plates, torn paintings from the walls and trampled them underfoot, slashed curtains, sheets, and drapes, screaming continually and cursing him for lying to her his whole life, for cheating on her and humiliating her, for having a blind mistress and a bastard child, kept hidden away and provided for. As a rule, while he revisited the devastating crisis and heard again the explosions and curses, the tomcat would sit by the washstand, on his hind paws, with his tail raised and his black ear pricked up, studying him. They moved together when the dentist placed the coffeepot and the pan in which he fried eggs, ham, or slices of ewe's cheese on the hob. Again, Siegfried would be waiting when they sat down at the table to chew in silence. They would both gaze at the alpine landscape, which hung on the nail Elena had hammered into her chosen place, a painting that now had two large holes, one in the middle and one in the lower left corner, made by her shoe heels. Sometimes, at night, when he could not sleep, the painting haunted Joseph, though his eyes no longer saw it, because in the larder he had found a flacon wrapped in cloth, placed in a sealed jar, a jar hidden in a box tied up with string, behind other boxes, sacks of lentils, flour, coarse sugar, buckwheat, beans, pearl barley, and rice. And therein was the powdered Amanita muscaria, which had lost none of its potency. It was not until October 1880, eight months after her departure, amid thunderclaps and bolts of lightning, when valises, chests, and bundles had tumbled down the stairs, when Sănducu had been thrust from behind like a stubborn foal, when the blue Serbian eyes had flashed like the blade of a dagger and her threats had whizzed like bullets, that Herr Strauss discovered a crack in the iciness with which his wife now treated him. She had sent him news, via a servant of Baron Nikolić of Rudna, that she would receive him once every four weeks in the small wing of the house in the Udricani quarter, so that he might see the boy. And during a snowstorm, on his third visit, shortly before the German Christmas, he had permitted himself to ask for a cup of hot tea, taking advantage of the fact that she had thanked him for the presents in the child's stead. Sănducu, who was now more than ten and a half, was out sledding on a bank above Saint Venera Church and was supposed to return soon. While Elena was boiling the water in the servants' kitchen, Joseph remained alone in the room, in an armchair with a rounded back. He was sitting cross-legged, his head resting on his right hand. He wanted to smoke, but he touched neither tobacco tin nor matches. And because since the war he had been left not only with nightmares but also a weapon, he felt his chest pocket, over his heart, to convince himself that the pistol was inside. As he waited for the tea, which seemed to be taking an eternity, he watched a large, groggy fly, brought back to life by the warmth of the candle on the ni
ghtstand. He took out the pistol, and passing it from one hand to the other, he thought of the answer he had given, the only answer he had been able to give that furious and unforgiving woman; he repeated it in his mind five or six times, It isn't true! He opened the chamber, saw the bullet inside, closed it, and spun it as hard as he could. After all, he had fought for more than a year alongside Russians and learned what they meant by roulette. Finally, he closed his eyes, pressed the barrel of the pistol to his forehead, and squeezed the trigger. He heard nothing but a soft, brief metallic click. When Elena entered with a tray on which there were three steaming teacups and a sugar bowl, the dentist was bathed in sweat. He wiped his forehead with a handkerchief and sipped his tea, taking care not to scald himself. It was good. Lime tea. From all the cigarettes, his chest felt like a rickety stovepipe, full of soot and spiderwebs.
8. The Parade
AND WHEN THE TENTH of May came around yet again, in the year 1881, unparalleled festivities commenced, celebrations at which the now gray-haired Prince Carol, after bringing the country tranquility, trains, statues, a resounding military victory, street lamps, independence, a new province (Dobrudja), a Western breeze, and cigarettes instead of hookahs, was to be crowned king. At dawn, Bucuresci awoke to a twenty-one-cannon salute, and a little after one, when the royal cortege had long since covered the distance from the Tîrgovişte Station to the Metropolia and after the lengthy service to consecrate the crowns had come to a close, the city once more quaked, this time to the sound of one hundred cannons, for the peace of the souls in Heaven, for long life to the monarchs, and for the joy of that crowd, awash in cheers, flowers, tricolor flags, and more cheers. The royal coach, drawn by eight white horses, then crossed the Dîmbovitza, slowly advanced down Podul Mogoşoaiei, flanked by squadrons of cavalrymen and lancers, and came to a stop in front of the palace, once more allowing the throng to marvel at the crown, fashioned from the steel of a Turkish cannon captured at Plevna. The festivities continued in the throne room, from where, since there still was no Romanian anthem, the strains of "Got erhalte," the Austrian anthem, resounded as far as the surrounding lanes. Four thousand envoys from towns and villages laid large bouquets on the podium, until it seemed that not only all the lilies, roses, and peonies of Romania had been heaped there, but those of an entire continent.
Reading Goethe for the fifth time and knowing all too well that Faust's Margarete had not one drop of Serbian blood, Joseph Strauss refused to take part in the commotion on the streets—the cannons, uniforms, and battle flags would have reminded him of the war and of the brilliance of Karl Ludwig. He chose instead to watch the parade of allegorical floats the next day, hoping that it would be a calmer spectacle. And on the morning of May 11, he found himself in the front row of onlookers, with the wicker basket hanging from his arm, its lid raised, so that Siegfried, now seventeen years of age, old and frail as he was, might still taste something of life's pleasures. Beside him stood Petre, whose hair would not stay combed flat and whose mustache had begun to sprout. Won over, they watched together the slow procession of those stage sets on wheels, drawn by dozens of oxen and young horses, bearing rich, carefully crafted tableaux, each outdoing the last in its resplendence of color, abundance of gilded stucco statuettes and ornamentation, perfection of detail, length of velvet, satin, and silk, and the artistry of its protagonists' gestures and movements, as they moved toward the viewing stand where Karl Ludwig and Elisabeth Pauline were sitting, enchanted. In the slow parade, the float of the jewelers, watchmakers, and silversmiths had just passed, followed by the float of the masons, carpenters, and painters, which represented an ancient city, with a priestess atop each tower and a temple to the goddess Juno rising above the ramparts. Violins, cobzas, and zithers resounded from the float of the gypsy musicians and flower sellers, and then came the floats of the hatters, tailors, cobblers, quilt makers, upholsterers, and many more. As the float of the confectioners and pastry makers was passing, and Joseph was gazing in wonder at the gigantic cake, with its multifarious crèmes melting in the sun, Siegfried jumped out of the basket, mewed at the top of his lungs, and shot across the road. He was not as agile as he had been, and he slipped in the splashes of liquefied butter and landed under the hooves of a horse. He let out a terrible howl and then lay limp on the cobbles, much to the amusement of the crowd. Crying out something in German, the dentist broke through the line of gendarmes and ran over to the tomcat. However, from the other side of the road, a woman with a sun hat and tiny boots, like a doll's, had already burst through the crowd, lifted Siegfried up, and was clutching him to her breast. It was Elena Strauss. Behind her stood Sănducu. He was pale and trembling. Together they moved away from the route of the parade, without hearing the whoops and whistles around them, they emerged from the throng, and stopped under a chestnut tree. The tomcat's mouth was lolling open. He was barely breathing and twitched from time to time. As their damp cheeks glistened, Elena noticed the other boy. He was older than her own, and he had a slightly hooked nose, bushy eyebrows, beveled cheekbones, and a cleft in the middle of his chin. She turned her head, looking now into the distance at the royal podium where Carol was standing, now at Petre's face, as if trying to make out something through the trees, beyond the allegorical floats and the tops of thousands of heads. With the cat in her arms, she was unable to embrace Joseph, but she pressed up against him and covered his cheeks, eye-lids, and lips with kisses. And there, in the shade, as the days of Siegfried the tomcat came to a close, the days of the King were about to begin.
Notes
Political Background
The Ottoman Empire
When The Days of the King begins, in 1866, the two principalities, Moldavia and Wallachia, which in 1918 were unified with Transylvania, Bukowina, the Banat and Maramureş (provinces formerly part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire) and Bessarabia (part of the Russian Empire after 1812) to become Greater Romania, were under the suzerainty of the Ottoman Empire, referred to in the book from time to time as the "Sublime Porte." The term "Sublime Porte" is a synecdoche for the Empire (as we might say "London" or "Washington" for England or the United States) and it originally referred to the gate of the headquarters of the Grand Vizier in the Topkapı Palace in Istanbul, where the sultan held the greeting ceremony for foreign ambassadors. The Ottoman Empire, which had been in existence since the thirteenth century, was declining in political and military power. But its capital city remained a site of architectural splendor, especially the Dolmabahçe Sarayı, the sultan's palace, built between 1843 and 1856. Some other Turkish vocabulary that may be useful: a "firman" was a royal mandate or decree; a "hatti-şerif" was, similarly, an edict; a "yatagan" is a type of Turkish sword; and the "başbuzuks" were irregular soldiers of the Ottoman Army.
Moldavia and Wallachia were not part of the territory of the Ottoman Empire per se, but rather vassal states, required to pay a yearly tribute; the Turks also exerted a strong influence on the succession or election of the local Moldavian and Wallachian rulers. In 1857, councils of citizens of the two principalities convened to discuss their political future. These councils were called the "ad hoc Divans" ("divan" being the Ottoman term for "council"), and they concluded that the two principalities wanted unification under hereditary rule by a foreign prince. The Days of the King begins just after the abdication of Alexander John Cuza, a Moldavian nobleman and politician who had served as the Domnitor ("lord" or "ruler") of the United Principalities from 1859 until 1866, in lieu of an acceptable, available foreign prince.
The Days of the King Page 18
