Norman Manea - The Black Envelope

“What’s the date today, honey?”

Hard to say whether he was speaking to himself or to his colleague Gina.

Anyway, he knew what he had to do. He’d ask for a short holiday. They’d all be flabbergasted. To leave the place of struggle at the decisive moment, when the strings are being pulled and the broadsides delivered, when everyone is trying to save their precious little skin? He’d go to the mountains, solve some crossword puzzles— perhaps also the puzzle of Mr. Marcu, le père de famille . He’d go on holiday when no one expects to take one. Such imprudence would show that receptionist Anatol Dominic Vancea Voinov, known as Tolea, has special links; that he’s not afraid of the pathetic office workers’ neuroses; that he’s master of the situation. Meanwhile, already from tomorrow, he’d start to recall all the most unfavorable details of his life story: the bourgeoisified brother in Argentina, the aristocratic Teutonic sister-in-law, even the cosmopolitan exploiter of a father or the sister who had gone back to the Bible, yes, even her.

“I asked you a question, honeybunch. I asked you something, my little chick. I asked you what’s the date. What’s the date today, sweetheart?”

So, March. Perfect! End of March, a sign of horny Aries. Perfect! Tolea turned the collar of his black shirt, the crease of his black trousers.

“If you can’t get what you want, said Terence, want what you can get. Have you heard of Terence, Doña Gina?”

Colleague Gina smiled: she was used to Tolea’s larking about. Unlike others, she did not think it was arrogant, not at all; she even rather liked it, really she did.

“And what about Baronius, have you heard of him? The erudite Cardinal Baronius! You must have. In fact, I’m sure you were rereading him just last week. Do you remember his monumental history of the Church, the Annales Ecclesiastici, from 1602? Do you remember how he opens his description of the tenth century? Of course you do. ‘Behold, a new century is beginning, known as iron because of its baneful severity, as lead because of the prevalence of evil, and dark because of the dearth of great authors.’ ”

Tolea stared at Miss Gina as he waited for her to reply, happy that he could have a friendly chat with such a well-educated listener. Her mean-street smile was a fine stimulus for his challenging lectures.

“And the extraordinary Gerbert, Pope Sylvester, what do you think of him, of his Roman imperial idea. Both remembrance and a hope of consoling the great sorrows of the world. Genere graecus, imperio romanus . Greek by birth, Roman by empire! — that was the dream they all had. He dreamed of world empire and absolute renunciation of worldly vanity. ‘A regime needs poetics no less than maxims of statecraft.’ Gerbert, our fantastic friend from Aurillac! Whose legendary knowledge assured him terrible renown as the prince of sorcerers in league with the devil. Do you remember, my little cauliflower? Do you remember the phrases he used in his letters? Cunningly embroidered yet full of love. Full of love, my little frog. ‘Dulcissime frater, amantissime.’ Do you remember? Dulcissime, amantissime …”

And Tolea again adjusted the collar of his black shirt, the crease of his black corduroys, bent forward and … evaporated, just like that. Yes, all of a sudden he left his place of work and sighs. He did sometimes vanish suddenly, for one or two hours more or less, to tramp the streets, doze on some park bench, or get up to who knows what tricks.

He had disappeared, then. At some point he may have returned to the side of cherry blossom Gina, in the hall of the Hotel Tranzit. What is certain is that he spent the evening at Dr. Marga’s, where he seems to have got drunk after some time; he could no longer remember whether he had slept there or eventually found his way home — which is to say, to the apartment of his friend Gafton, where he had his own little transit cell.

Anyway, he had slept badly, disturbed by dreams of huge metallic birds desperately tossing about in a completely empty space, colorless and noiseless and without end.

He had started in fear at daybreak, to stop the ringing of the alarm clock or telephone. But it had been nothing, after all — just a dream, a nightmare. He did not go back to sleep: the street hubbub was already pouring in, and the windows shook from the noise of buses and trams. He pulled his dressing gown from the back of the door and went up to the window. Right in front of the house, a huge prehistoric truck had broken down and was blocking the traffic. The hooting and braking of cars as they drove around the monster added further to the din. Mere trifles! Nothing could lessen the joy of having once more emerged into the realm of day. For Tolea nights were stupid and tormenting snares best unremembered; he would have liked not to think of them, however many enigmas they might contain. No, they did not exist, they immediately scattered to the winds. Oh, if the new day could be the only reality of his life! Spring, winter, autumn, or summer — it mattered not. If only the night could be a forgotten parenthesis, an aphasiac disorder!

The morning light had dutifully fallen on the sofa’s white bedspread. On the sofa, Tolea stirred the instant coffee at the bottom of his cup. Slowly, slowly … Soon, then, once again at the place of atonement. “Hasn’t the professor arrived yet?” woodpecker Gina would ask, this morning, too, if Tolea was late. Yes, let him be late: he did not feel at all like hurrying, so he slowly, very slowly, stirred the dark powder at the bottom of the cup. Gina would be arranging the accounts book, the pencils, the stools, the cushion on her chair, the telephone in front of her. Gina drank coffee at work, as everyone did, although it was impossible to buy coffee anywhere. No sooner had she arrived than Gina would disappear behind the office window and return with a freshly filled cup in one hand and her greenish orange dark-red blouse in the other, having forgotten that she was still wearing only a bra. She bent over the books, arranged the pencils, and only after some time pulled the blouse over her shoulders. It was the moment at which she blushed briefly, provocatively.

“Has the professor really not come yet?” the little mouse of an employee would, as usual, be asking as she did up the last button on her blouse. But no one would answer: the good-for-nothings had already donned their blasé masks. Gina, the comrades had decided, should be seen and not heard. Let the little gypsy girl remember her place!

In vain did she try to ingratiate herself by sharing their hostility to the buffoon. “Hasn’t the professor come yet?” But their sullen indifference did not allow for such complicity. “Hold your tongue over there. Leave him be — the loony’s got his reasons.” But if she forgot to point out that he was late, then it would be they who had a go. “Ah ha, our little wanderer is in for some big trouble! He can forget all his connections, all his bird talk, all his airs and graces. That won’t do him any good. They’re going to start checking up on him — his relatives abroad, his bourgeois family background, not to mention the windbag’s own present life. And as for his morals, we know enough about our colleague’s little foibles. We know about acts punished by the law. By the law, no less!” That was Titi, of course, starchy and oblique, with his delicate silver glasses and bony face, now thrilling to the subject. Corkscrew Titi, as he was called — but in the end less dangerous than the taciturn and seemingly tolerant Gic “Fatso” Teodosiu. Both passed with their noses in the air around pretty little Gina. Not because they disliked her or had some particular grudge. No, just out of the petty malice of people in a cage. “Watch out: call me when the ones in room 218 come down. Keep 33 reserved for me until three o’clock. No one goes into 105, not even for cleaning. When Olimpia comes with the coffee bags and the cartons of Kent, put everything to one side. You don’t ask anything, and you don’t pay a cent. I’m at the head office from ten to eleven. If anyone asks, I’m in a meeting. Unless it’s Comrade Pastram —in which case let me know at this number.” The day at work: adapting to necessity; the torments, the humiliation, and above all the equivocation. A cheerful and ugly equivocation, so you can swallow the shit and forget who’s watching your digestion — and your mark of contentment, so you forget about Titi and Gic and Gina.