Norman Manea - The Black Envelope

“I’ve also done quite a bit of traveling. Five years or so ago they started sending me all over the place. I’ve seen what people are like over there. Sure they’ve got food and cars and contraceptives. But they’re not any happier, you know! Their happiness is in bad shape, believe me! At least we’ve got decency here — and that’s a precious quality! Of course, I’m not saying it’s hunky-dory here; I know why you’re smiling. But we haven’t lost our decency! And what isn’t possible isn’t possible. Life is short. Look, we’ll whirr around for another ten years or so and then phhh! that’s the end of us.”

Irina was fascinated. She looked at him with the clear wide-open eyes of a calf.

“Surliness, hm, yes. Look at those surly ones.” Comrade D Stefan Olaru pointed to a group of people in front of the bookstall, to the street, the world, the universe. “Yes, and you’re pretty surly, too! Why is that? Do you believe in the generations to come? And do you think that what they’re like depends on a clean conscience? Here and now! That’s the only proper code, you know.”

Irina looked at her watch — ah, she’d forgotten, she wasn’t wearing one.

She smiled, blinked rapidly, with new life. She no longer feared F nic ’s questions. “Things are nice at home!” “Intellectuals, political organizers.” “It asks and it gives, here and now, phhh, that’s the end of the generations to come. .”

F nic baby didn’t care. His code wasn’t new and he wasn’t the only one to invoke it.

But Mr. tefan Olaru suddenly became hurried. He consulted his watch, he had things to do — of course, he was also wearing a watch. For a moment he continued to rock from one foot to the other. “You mean I’ve joined the upstarts?”

She had to, didn’t have to answer — who was to say?

“It’s more interesting, believe me. I don’t like losers, declassed types. It’s much more interesting on this side of the hierarchy! Not just more profitable. More interesting.”

Irina rejoined the flow of the street. Old people with shopping bags, schoolchildren dressed in slickers, policemen in and out of uniform, housewives racing from shop to shop, line to line, urchins concealed in passageways, the hot dusty air of the daily gallop. Bulldozers, cranes, excavators. Everywhere the city was being demolished, everywhere invaded by caterpillar tracks, thudding blows, and the noise of collapse. Thick smoke and black clouds from the tar works, gray waves of dust from the cement trucks. The constant roar, the prefabs and pipes, the designs for collective happiness.

Irina lost herself among the neighborhood blocks, in a cloud of smoke and odors. She was struck by the inscription in front of a brick building. Yes, this was where she had dreamed of finding herself — in front of this door, in front of this inscription. She read and reread the inscription on the gold-plated rectangle. veterinary clinic. She glued her hands to the cold wall and remained with her eyes shut for a long time. Then she opened them again and saw a wide-open door. She went in. Completely deserted. She moved along to the end of the corridor, then came back. She pressed on the handle of the first door to her right and entered a long room. Two rows of large kennels — dogs. She had time to glimpse a doleful setter, cowering, with its chin covered in festering red sores. She turned toward the door and came across the housekeeper. The woman had been watching her all the way from the front door, with her hands on her hips. Fleshily built, wearing a white coat and slippers.

“Have you come to a patient?”

A strange formulation, and it did not seem either ironic or hostile. She was almost an old woman. Large black eyes, white curly hair.

“No. . I. . just to. .” Irina tried to smile as she took a step back.

“Dr. Pompiliu isn’t here; he’s at a congress. He’ll be back on Friday. If you have an appointment for—”

“No. I just wanted to—”

“Well, please come into the office,” the older woman decided. She had already moved on ahead. She seemed to have a limp, or perhaps she just staggered a little as she walked. She went into a third room. The visitor read on the door: DR. VETA APOSTOLESCU, UNIVERSITY TEACHER.

The woman went to the far end of the office, where she bent over and put on a pair of spectacles. So not the housekeeper but. . The academic made a sign for her to enter.

“Have you got a problem?”

What could she invent, what should she ask? About the disabled best friends of disabled man, mute, deaf, deaf-mute?

“How quiet it is here! Are those saintly dogs really mute?”

“No, no. . they’re just drowsy. It’s the drugs. They suffer. And we’ve got thick walls, so you can’t hear any barking. Otherwise—”

The pause grew longer. Fog. Some filament had to be switched on. Anything at all.

“Are there such things as mute dogs?”

The academic straightened her glasses. She looked with suspicion at the uninvited guest who was so keen on talking.

“Why are you interested?”

Irina, confused, took some time to answer, and her very hesitation produced a miracle. The doctor became considerate, ready to help if—

“Tell me, tell me what has happened.”

“Well, I work at — how shall I put it? — I work at the Association. But that’s not really the point. I can’t think how to — A friend of mine. That’s what it’s about — friends. Friends used to speak of such a case. Maybe from birth, or perhaps something had happened—”

“A mute dog, you’re saying?”

“Well, sort of. I think that — or maybe she was wrong, I don’t know. Is it possible?”

The university doctor stared her in the eye. The pause was so long that she seemed to have lost any desire to answer. “There is a type like that. In Australia.”

Irina remained silent. So did the elderly vet. Nothing could be heard from the drugged dogs, but then the building had thick walls.

“The dingo dog,” resumed the academic.

Another long pause, until the veterinary apostle Apostolescu decided to offer a short lecture in popular science. The star Veta looked bored, as if she was reciting a long-familiar text. Veta of all people! Looking down from the moon on a simple-minded little ninny who did not have a clue about the basics. “It’s a mute dog, but it has very good hearing. At first a normal domestic dog, it turned wild and soon multiplied in the huge spaces of Australia. It’s a ferocious beast — a creature of the outback. It doesn’t bark: it doesn’t make a sound as it lies in wait for its prey, in total silence.” Veta was sternly and distrustfully watching her audience, not at all convinced that it was worth the trouble. But she seemed unable to resist the pleasure of giving instruction.

“Such ferocity isn’t found even among wolves. It kills even if it is sated. Two dogs can kill a thousand sheep in one night. A thousand! Without making a racket. It doesn’t bark. It lies in wait, attacks and kills without making a noise. It suffers in silence and dies in silence.”

So there were cases of mute dogs, then — perhaps because of specially hostile circumstances? At certain times and places, things might happen to man’s best friend which— Could the friendly doggie carry a disease or condition which— But Irina did not want to keep adding to the possibilities, especially as Veta was calmly continuing with the lecture.