Norman Manea - The Black Envelope

The rhythm of a truth from which it is not possible to escape forever, professore . Irina would have helped you to rediscover it, perhaps. And to lose the ham actor’s mask beneath which you have been hiding for too long, and behind which you still hide when old Marcu Vancea finds you and summons you night after night to see him again, to give birth to him again.

CHEST OUT! HEAD UP,seeming not to notice the other heads around. The star of the street, towering over it with no thought for the audience. Red scarf, under the open collar of a white shirt. Among signs and shop windows, the day-colored comet: the master pedestrian, available cheat. The roles all payable to bearer, already prepared. The tittle-tattle, the backbiting, the jokes, the pedantic quotations, the banter. Soft, gentle trampling underfoot, ever so carefully. Thick-soled shoes, plush, the kind in which you sink pleasantly and yet also have a firm grip. The duck’s foot settles elastically over its full width, lazily, unhurriedly curves and raises itself, shuffle-shuffle, one step after another.

Misshapen, tottering like a duck. Free; hurrah, how free I am! What do I care, na na na! Never ever too busy, mon cher . Free, m’sieur, because we don’t let ourselves be eaten up. Huh, we’ve a real raw deal ahead of us, there’s no escape: but it doesn’t bother us. Na na na, boredom pirouettes tantrums, no? Call me, ciao , stuff them, ciao , see you soon, anytime, sure sure anytime notime, of course.

But the eye is watching. Watery, without color. Suddenly green gray blue. The lashes blink fast fast. One frame, then another, at great speed. He sees them, oho! he sees them very well. He lies eagerly in wait: he suddenly records films develops stores their faces. They are in the air, in the sky, among the shadows of the street which sleepily rolls along, a starry chimera in which you move crazily forward, without moving. As if everything were true, close, here — so that you can touch smell see crumple pieces, the pieces, and so break absolutely everything, grinding your teeth, hopping about for joy, and set it alight: ash, dust, air, circus. As if it were true, oho! if everyone everything really existed, if if if. Including the conjuror, the tinsel, the mask, the mime. The cynic, the arrogant jester, the impassive swallower of swords and disasters, with his big shaven head of a Roman consul. If they only existed, if if if, if he and they existed now, when he sees them, sees them again, dreams of them, without wanting to, as usual as always, anytime notime, boredom pirouettes tantrums, no? Yes, he sees them, all of them.

Here is the first: the electrician fallen from the pole. Small lips, red eyes, hatched yellow forehead. Sailor’s vest. Thick, huge, bluish fingers. The hunter of leeches. That’s what he called them, leeches. An old cure, the circulation of the blood. He collected them from the street, from parks, cinemas, museums, swimming pools, anywhere. He drugged them with civilities and the gear of his old Taunus car. Then suddenly, as at an unexpected traffic light, he braked. Eye-to-eye contact. Without warning, brief and direct: Okay, let me give it to you, I’ll make you happy. Let’s go to my place — I’ll fill you up, make you happy, you’ll chase after me like a crazy woman; that’s what you’re all like, crazy. They did not resist— out of three one fell. Afterward the real madness: letters, phone calls, threats, whining: you’re not allowed to prolong the madness, boss, so ended the patient’s story, you’re not allowed to, damn it, sweeties are wild beasts, leeches are wild beasts, that’s what our dollies are, wild beasts.

Here is the next: the monk converted. Long white beard, pale sunken cheeks. Long thin diaphanous hands, and that kind knowing old-fashioned smile. “In the name of Joseph, Vissarionovich, and Holy Stalin, amen.” In vain do they explain things to him and give him pills: he cannot accept that the greatest strategist of all time, the best friend of children, the mastermind of science and the magic arts, the most beloved earthling, no longer exists — has simply snuffed it, like all earthlings. When he was arrested, thirty years ago, the father of the peoples sat night and day in his brightly lit pulpit at the Kremlin, deciding night and day the fate of each mortal. They arrested the poor monk for his unswerving faith in the hereafter; they tortured him until he suddenly began to pray nonstop — to Saint Joseph of the Kremlin. Today no one can convince him that Saint Vissarion Vissarionovich really has disappeared, that his Name is even prohibited, dangerous to pronounce, although his huge shadow guards and constantly activates our cave of deaf-mutes. Today he still mumbles his prayers and crosses himself in the name of the most beloved father and the most beloved son and his immortal holy spirit. He nods distrustfully at every piece of information or advice, at every injection he is given. Yet sometimes he appears overwhelmed by the insistence of his well-wishers. He smiles archly and mutters into his immaculate beard: “What does the name matter, what does it matter?” But then he immediately falls to his knees, frightened and guilty, begging forgiveness, amen, and calling on the Great Departed to give him protection, amen.

Here she is: elegant, Frenchified, painted as in the times of the whoring King Carol. The former beauty, frail and exotic, of fun-loving Bucharest, petit Paris of yore; the former aristocratic lady of great wealth, unable to hold up under interrogation, sobbingly denounced her former spouse, the former leading international lawyer, and put her signature beneath the aberrations of which he had been accused. And today she continues to write ever crazier denunciations, even though the poor man died in prison a long time ago.

Here she is: huge sleep-filled eyes, heavy black plaits, nun’s habit. Flower girl, dancer, spinner, what could that splendid gypsy girl be? No way an engineer! Top of her year at the electronics faculty, the pride of her neighborhood, joyful, beautiful, saintly, married to a fellow engineer who was then posted for two years to Syria. Waiting with pent-up tears, desperate to see him again: wailing, cooing, screaming. The fat, garrulous husband does not hold up under interrogation: he jokingly admits his indiscretions: two years alone, what was he supposed to do? He wasn’t a eunuch but a man, yes, like other men. Shock, hospital, injections, divorce, hospital: no prospect of recovery, decreed tiny Marga. She got involved for a month or two with one man or another, but it never lasted; she was just a crumpled rag, the poor thing, said the great doctor of madmen.

And here is another: a short fleshy peasant of uncertain age. After they took away his land and forced him to join a collective farm, he refused to work on any other strip than the one that used to be his. He toured all the prisons of the fifties, but all he could do was repeat the same name: Ioana, Ioana, the name of his best-loved cow.

Look at this one: a nagging woman. Small, wooden, cloudy head. Fear, stuttering. A dull, sluggish way of speaking. It used to be the ideal marriage, Doctor; the difficulties just brought us closer together — the war, his foot wound, the Fascist terror, everything, the hunger, illnesses, postwar hatred, all strengthened the ties between us. And then came the arrest, when they took away our boys. Suddenly he caved in, the mountain of a man crashed down to earth— just like that, you don’t even have time to recover your senses. And I’m certainly not all there anymore: I can’t think properly, Doctor, I can’t keep still.

And now: the gentle, witty giant with no memories, no feelings, who gaily, intangibly crosses the streets, parks, public conveniences, strewing funny stories, questions, roars of laughter and indifference, as is indicated by the board around his neck bearing the diagnosis in large red letters: EUPHORIA WITH PUNNING TENDENCIES.