by Paul Park
No, but it was lucky she had taken the photographs. Her dead body had been so damaged, no artist could have worked from it. Prochenko took no comfort from the fact, no comfort from reflecting on any of this. The doubts still snatched at him—why had he summoned Elena Bibescu to this place? Was it to express a feeling or a need? Or was it to demonstrate the forces that constrained or imprisoned her as well, imprisoned both of them? No, it was not generous, not kind to make her take such risks. The cemetery was public, after all. The gates would open at ten o’clock. But the tumbled section of the wall was not a secret.
No, he would not do this to her. He would remove his boots and run away. But he would leave something, perhaps a handkerchief or a glove here at the tomb where a marble plaque was set into the step: Nicola Ceausescu, and then a simple line indenture of a tiger. Many others, after all, had left their keepsakes here—flowers, candles, letters, coins.
He dropped the glove and turned away. But then he heard a voice behind him, “Oh!”
It was a habit she had, and he couldn’t tell if it affected him or irritated him. But when she first saw him, and later when he kissed her, she gave at intervals a little breathless gasp, as if he’d pricked her or hurt her or deflated her suddenly. Now, ambushed when it had been his intention to run away, irritation was uppermost. He strode toward her through the tombstones down the gravel path. She must have taken the limousine.
“Oh, I had a premonition you were here. Oh, I’m so glad!”
A premonition? Was she trying to make a fool of him? She was wearing her hat and veil and long lavender coat. Without preamble he thrust his naked hand in through the buttons and opened it, crushing her to him, forcing the little gasp from her—there on the flushed skin over her collar bone, a row of bites.
But she was laughing as she submitted. She never pulled away. He lifted the veil, kissed her, covered her charming little mouth while she was trying to talk. “I can’t stay. Just a minute,” etc.
And was it possible to have her here among the graves, or else bring her back to the shelter of Ceausescu’s tomb? He pulled her up the little slope while she was laughing and pretending to resist. Could he actually possess her here as thoroughly as his woman’s body would allow? On the step beside the baroness’s gravestone he pushed her down, pushed his hands beyond the slit in her skirt and into her underwear while she opened her mouth to him, leaned back, surrendered her breasts to his other hand. Her body was so cool and fresh and young. Part of him wanted to punish her for coming, for yielding to him against her best interests, which was neither fair nor good. (Had he always been like this? He couldn’t remember.…) But there was another part that yearned to please her, and he supposed it was the combination that squeezed that little breathless gasp from her. She was not this way with everyone, not with her pig of a husband—“Beau-cul” as they called him in the graffiti near the river—how old was she? Scarcely twenty years!
“Oh, you’re burning me,” she said. “You have a fever.”
She was used to it. Ever since the accident at Chiselet his flesh had been on fire. He burned like a dog in heat—something like that. And why was he even thinking about dogs? It was because he heard a barking dog, an Alsatian by the sound. It was barking by the wall. “Come with me,” he muttered into her neck. It was obvious she had been followed.
Obvious, but not to her. “Oh,” she said. He was pulling her up and she would not come; she was laughing as if this were a game. She had her arms around him. How could she be so stupid? He snarled at her and wrenched himself away. He would not be caught like this. Not in this trap. Though it was clear already that whatever happened, it would be his fault.
And he could smell them now, the oiled leather of their boots—Bocu’s thugs from the Brancoveanu Artillery, a private regiment of bully-boys and torturers, whose barracks were in the city—he could smell them now, their frightened farts and dirty fingers. He could hear their shouts and whistles, and Elena heard them, too. “Go,” she said. She got to her feet and tottered off down the row of stones without looking back, a brave girl, a champion who deserved better. And he—there was no place to go. They would have secured the outer circuit of the wall.
But he had some tricks up his sleeves. He was different from ordinary men, which was both a burden and a gift. No normal person could have fit between the slender columns of the baroness’s tomb, slid in through the narrow arch. No one was so supple or so oddly jointed. But in just a dozen seconds he was in the hidden sanctuary, his body thrust against the bronze, naked statue. His nose was full of the stone and metal smell. He was straining to listen. Whoever it was had come into the cemetery and was guiding Elena back. Prochenko could hear the murmur of the conversation. He was listening for the bark or the snuffle of the dog, not far away. He could hear Elena’s voice now, and her husband’s voice—he recognized it from the radio broadcasts, a forthright manly tenor. There was even some laughing as if at some small joke, which was Bocu’s way. The posters on the boulevards showed him in poses that were not traditionally inspirational. He was always smiling, for one thing. A man in his fifties, powerfully built, with short hair and a gray moustache—he was not tall. Prochenko saw him in his mind’s eye as he was straining to decipher the language of the dog, saw the amused, ironical expression that could not hide the coarseness and cruelty of his jaw and mouth, saw his gray or cream-colored uniform without any military insignia—where was the dog? Did someone have him on a short lead? There was a strangled desperation to the barking now, and Prochenko could hear him scratching at the steps of the tomb. The beast could smell him, he was sure.
No, there he was, there was his nose snuffling at the screen. So Prochenko spoke a word in a soft voice of command, a tone beyond the frequency of human ears; he scarcely had to make a sound. The beast knew who his master was. Suddenly there was a baffled whine, and the dog pulled away, ceased his barking, and Prochenko could hear the murmured conversation—Elena was going to pull it off! This was an unlikely place for a romantic assignation. It was not a hotel, or a restaurant, or a parked automobile. There were other more likely explanations for her presence, which were … he couldn’t guess. But then he heard Colonel Bocu laugh and say, “… and what is this? Your glove?”
It was not her glove, Prochenko knew. It was a man’s leather glove still damp with sweat.
He couldn’t hear Elena’s voice. But the man laughed again. “… no, no, I don’t think so. Unless your hands have grown. We will see what Rex thinks of these. Rex, what is wrong with you? Thank you, Sergeant. Ah, you see here in the bushes we have found a walking stick, a hat, a linen coat, every part of a man except for one—where is he, please?”
He spoke Roumanian even to his wife. It was an element in his political program, the reintroduction of Roumanian at all levels of society, the prohibition of English and especially French. And his voice—tense, light, musical—was also compelling: “Oh no,” he said, “no, I don’t think so.”
What would he do to her? Divorce her, send her away—it might be for the best. Maybe Prochenko’s stupid selfishness and her stupid self-abnegation might have combined to locate a way forward that was better for both of them. Nothing tied him to this country, except for an as yet unrealized duty to Miranda Popescu.
A sharp intake of breath. A curious sucking sound.
“Sergeant, come. Give me a handkerchief. He must have jumped over the wall.”
Prochenko laid his face against the cold metal buttocks of Nicola Ceausescu. He was listening to every sound. He was trying to make an image of the scene he couldn’t see. Had she been on her knees before her husband, her lavender coat open and her throat exposed? Was Colonel Bocu able to appreciate the line of raised bumps where the demon had bitten her? Or was that what was impossible to forgive? Prochenko could feel the tickling along his own imprisoned arm, the creature scratching him, burrowing under his shirt—of course it had followed them here. The pain, when it came, would cause him to cry out, give himself away.
Always before when he had grabbed at it the demon had eluded him. It had been buffeted upward by the wind from his hand. Delicate and gossamer, it would drift upward to the ceiling. But here it was controlled in a small space, and he jabbed with his spread fingers using all his animal quickness—yes, success. He had it by something, its little arm or its little leg, and he tightened his grip, pulled it into his hand, and crushed it. He felt the breaking of its bones and its wet blood.
When the time came for him to extricate himself, he found his shirt was caught. He had to leave it behind. His boot was jammed between two columns, and his foot pulled easily away. He crept out into the morning. The sun was breaking through the clouds. Elena was still there where they had left her. Doubtless they were searching the adjoining streets for a man without a coat or hat, but they would return before the gates opened. Doubtless Bocu was speeding north in his automobile, leaving his wife behind, collapsed on the step of the baroness’s mausoleum, her face immobile in a last little gasp of astonishment. There was a patch of blood over her breast as if her heart had broken.
And as the lieutenant prowled near her, touched his nose to the rim of her whorled ear, even slid out his long tongue to lick her cheek, he imagined a different source for her astonishment. It was not every day you saw a man become an animal under the bright, sweet, morning sun. Back and forth, back and forth next to her cooling body, while he felt himself grow hotter and hotter; he raised his mouth, his muzzle to the sky. And if at that moment what he felt was not exactly suffering, still he reassured himself that someone would suffer for what had happened here, what he had done, and it would not be he but someone else.
4
Miranda Popescu
THIS IS WHAT PETER’S LETTER SAID:
Dear Miranda, it’s been dry weather for more than a week, which gives us something to be grateful for. Not much action either, just a routine to fill up the day, you know, like high school. Do you remember when Mr. Donati gave you detention for missing an assignment? I’m sure it was very unfair. Anyway, it was the first time we’d been in a classroom together since grade school, and I was very excited. You were so angry. You sat in the front row working away, not looking up from your French homework. I wish I knew then what I know now. I would have aced French for sure, though knowing me you never know. Anyway, you just sat there looking impatient, and you have this habit, you pull some of your hair back and hook it behind your ear so it won’t fall in your face. I just sat there in the back row looking stupid I am sure. I had to read this stupid animal adventure book called Gray Wolf, and I refused. I was reading good stuff with my mother after school. Do you remember the food in the cafeteria? Here we get bread and bacon and brandy before an attack, not the same. I think about you often, and I don’t just mean every day. I know I must have confidence in the good intentions of Madame Inez de Rougemont, even though …
Lieutenant Prochenko knew a love letter when he saw one. But he was familiar with the background and the references, which gave him an advantage. For Colonel Victor Bocu, the translated text was as perplexing as the original. He suspected a code. And he was intrigued by the name Miranda. It was obvious whom this letter was for. “Miranda P.” was on the envelope.
On the evening following his wife’s death, riding through the streets of Bucharest in the back of his limousine, Bocu perused the letter once again. It was not his first priority to hunt down refugees from the previous regime. Miranda Popescu—everyone knew this name. She had been the baroness’s prisoner, caught up in some failed intrigue.
No, but it was more than that. It had been a political conspiracy, after all. It had involved the scattered followers of General Schenck von Schenck—old women, mostly. How stupid Elena had been!
Bocu could have overlooked adultery and treason, he suggested to himself. But his wife’s stupidity had been a constant irritant and could not be forgiven. Her lover was quite obviously a spy. No, worse than that: a stupid, inept spy. Here were his passport and identity paper—efficient forgeries. Here was his ration card. Sasha Andromedes, his name purported to be. Here was his photograph. An effeminate face. Bocu had seen him before, he thought, in a hotel restaurant.
In the backseat of the Duesenberg he studied these documents one at a time. He squinted over them, held them up to the window, so he could see them illuminated in the fitful streetlights. Not just his coat—the fellow had left his trousers and his boots and shirt behind. But no one had seen him in the streets around the cemetery in the middle of the morning. What the devil! Bocu sat back, put his feet up on the plush banquette.
No, he was too trusting. He must not be distracted. This was a puzzle, a box he must unlock, not just for his own pride. Miranda Popescu was the key to it, perhaps. He must ask her what it meant. And, as it happened, he knew where to find her—a beautiful young woman, he had heard. Or maybe not—a man could dream. He pulled the unlit cigar from between his teeth and smiled.
Oh, he thought—but when he found Sasha Andromedes, or whatever his name was …
He went over some possibilities in a joking sort of way, and at the end of it he found himself in need of relaxation. Already he had had a busy day, a busy evening, a busy night. There had been meetings with ministers and generals and members of the assembly. And after dinner he had gone to see his mistress, a pouting girl even younger than his dead wife. As he lay in her arms, he wondered what he should do with her now, whether she’d expect something different. By the time he returned to the palace from her hotel, he’d already decided to dispose of her.
The Duesenberg turned into the Mycenaean Gate. The chauffeur opened up the door. Victor Bocu smiled, nodded to the saluting guards, and hurried up the steps into the enormous building. He took the elevator to his apartment, from which he’d already had Elena’s clothes, jewelry, soaps and perfumes, and all other traces of her removed.
He was a sociable man. Friends from the army visited at midnight, and he sat up smoking cigars and drinking brandy. After they had gone he put on his jacket, retied his cravat. He picked up two clean glasses from the sideboard, two bottles of champagne, which he held by their crossed necks in his right hand. Exiting his apartment, he took the elevator down below the level of the street.
He’d decided he had an interest in Miranda Popescu. Not entirely for her own sake. She had been the Baroness Ceausescu’s obsession, and the baroness was dead. But she was after all the only heiress to a defunct imperial dynasty that still commanded, he supposed, a nostalgic loyalty. He could make use of that. Any loyalty, of any kind, was tenuous among his political followers.
Besides that, he had his own needs. Urgently, more every hour, he found he needed the location of Sasha Andromedes. He couldn’t get the fellow’s long-jawed face out of his mind. When Bocu found him, he would make him beg for death.
The doors opened in a brick-lined corridor. There were guards among the flickering lanterns. Smiling, he ignored these men and their importunate saluting, their attempts at conversation. He passed the desk where a game of cards had been abandoned. But at the end of the corridor, he stopped.
“Please unlock this,” he said to the fellow there.
A square glass window had been set into the door. A lantern glimmered on the other side. There was always supposed to be a light.
And as the man fumbled with the lock, he continued. “Do you find you have fewer keys in your pocket than a year ago?”
“Sir?”
“There was a time I had many keys. Recently. Now I have none. So I have an idea. The fewer keys you have, the more these doors stand open of their own accord.”
The guard had several keys. He was searching for the right one. “Up to a point,” continued Colonel Bocu. “When I was young, no doors were open, and I had no keys. So you could say my success consists of first accumulating them, then giving them away. But you must be approaching the maximum. When I see you again, I hope you have fewer than you have now.”
“Sir, I hope so.”
It was hard
to get a smile out of these jailers. A little joke went a long way in these places, which were depressing as a matter of course. “I have good news for this particular prisoner,” Bocu said.
Keys or not, maybe he should have sent a subordinate, one of the phalanx of efficient and dedicated fools he had accumulated recently. Or else one of his new friends—they were all his friends. But it was impossible to trust them with a private matter. “Thank you,” he said, and the door stood open. “Please take this bottle. It’s too heavy. You may drink to the time when you have fewer keys.”
What would it take to get the man to smile? There is a tendency when a joke is unsuccessful to repeat it again and again. Bottle in one hand, keys in the other, the fellow made an attempt at a salute—a funny gesture. Bocu had no problem granting him a small guffaw. Then he turned his back.
Once inside the door, he placed the remaining bottle of champagne onto the table beside the lamp. He laid down the two glasses, turned up the wheel. As the flame came up he put his hands in his pocket. It was cold in here. But not, he saw as he looked around, otherwise uncomfortable. The prisoner was motionless in bed. He had blankets and a pillow.
There were some books on the desk, and a notebook, and two framed photographs. One showed a fat, middle-aged woman and her daughter—the prisoner’s family. The other was a posed photograph from one of the Baroness Ceausescu’s performances. She had signed her name. “To my old friend.”
The colonel smiled. Nicola Ceausescu wore a metal headdress and a halter made of leather straps that crossed between her breasts, leaving her arms and shoulders bare. Lesser artists might have used a body stocking, especially at thirty-nine years old. Bocu had no doubt he could have smelled the odor of her maturity from the second row. He and Elena had had tickets to see her last performance, the night of her suicide on the boards of the Ambassadors. Who could have predicted he would never have another chance to see her naked backside?
