Norman Manea - The Hooligan's Return

“There’s been another invitation, of a personal nature,” I say. “A former lady friend of mine. Ken used to know her.”

My dinner companions prick up their ears.

“Well,” I go on, “Ken knows a lot of people here.” Ken confirms this. “He once sent me to see a famous literary person turned politician, an arrogant, shallow man. Then he sent me to a publisher who thought I was an American, so he apologized for not knowing English, only French. When I started to speak French, he called his secretary to translate. He waxed nostalgic about the time when culture was subsidized by the state and was the focus of the nation’s attention and respect. People who were never guilty of any dirty deeds under the dictatorship suddenly found themselves, after 1989, disgusted with the masquerade of democracy, with the West’s rhetoric, with the rush with which each and every underdog wanted to become top dog, not on the strength of the Party card, but by dint of the bank account.”

“I understand very well,” Leon says. “Have you met any of these guys, the new anti-capitalists? Look, I’m letting you off from your duties. Tomorrow you don’t have to come with me. Meet one of these people, talk to them, find out what they believe.”

“That would be a very awkward conversation.”

There is a silence. I must not let the pause go on for much longer.

“As for the woman who asked Ken to let me know she wanted to see me …”

“Is she a democrat or a traitor?”

“I am the national traitor, and I won’t give up the title so easily. It was bequeathed to me by Captain Dreyfus.”

“Okay, Okay, but you must meet with at least one of these anti-capitalists, that’s an order.”

It is late when we return to the hotel. I ask for the key and am surprised to see that the young receptionist does not understand Romanian. He is from Denmark, working alongside a German woman. Some things have changed, I have to admit, even in the former annex of the Securitate.

The Bard logbook duly records the long, eventful day. It has reminded me of Milena Jesenka, so it deserves my gratitude. It is past midnight when, under the entry Wednesday, April 23, I write down another Milena’s name. My gaze is fixed firmly on the past. I should leave my room and wander along night’s potholed alleys and find Transylvania Street, Maria’s last home. I would knock on the window, the ghost would emerge, and would listen to me, as she used to a long time ago, when I was her undisputed prince and she had not yet heard of Communism and universal happiness. The Communist wife of her Communist husband had fallen victim to disease and illness, slowly destroyed by the infernal machinery that had joined her to her militant spouse, himself slowly destroyed and finally left to die, senile, drunken, discarded on the ash heap of the utopia. Holy Maria would ask me, in the Yiddish she had learned from Avram the bookseller, to tell her about what it was like to be there, in the American paradise. Peace, charity, kindness? No, Maria, competition. Paradise is no longer the boring place it used to be, a new game keeps its occupants busy around the clock. It’s a different game, but every bit as engrossing.

There is no longer a Transylvania Street. There is no Maria, no past, only the stray dogs of night. Their relentless howling reaches the occupant of room 1515.

We are at the Composers Union, located in the former palace of Maruca Cantacuzino, wife of composer Georges Enesco. Leon makes inquiries about the archives. We discover the desperate condition of thousands of the composer’s manuscripts. Our hosts mention the complex copyright issues raised by Salabert, the French publishers, and tell us about the lack of funding. We learn that there is an acute need for archival equipment, photocopying, computerization, expanding the editorial activities, and, above all, a new agreement with Salabert, since the contract of 1965 allows for the use of Enesco’s scores only in the countries of the former Soviet bloc.

At this point, Leon interrupts. “It so happens,” he says, “that the new owner of Salabert is my neighbor in the Hudson Valley.” There are smiles all around. Then Leon goes a step further and offers to support the “relaunching” of Enesco in the world. He asks for a detailed list of requirements, which includes the restructuring and computerization of the archive, the reissuing of recordings, the international publication and distribution of the works, a new, authoritative biography.

Leon, as if waving an imaginary baton, brings the discussion to a crescendo. “If we can bring Enesco’s whole body of work to the concert halls, then the history of music in this century will reserve a place for him right next to Bartók and Szymanovski. The present century, as you know, is haunted to the point of obsession by Schönberg and Stravinsky. Bartók, being Hungarian, is marginalized, and so is Enesco, as a Romanian, while the Americans are marginalized as Americans. This picture will have to change. Enesco will no longer be regarded as an exotic but as the master of syntheses, the creator of highly original musical ideas. Communist Poland adopted Chopin, the Czech Republic did the same with Smetana, though not with Dvořák, while the Hungarians had difficulties with Bartók until Kodály intervened in his favor. Enesco needs a triumphal re-entry into the world. We have a good opportunity, let’s take it.”

As we step out of the elegant building, we both have the feeling that, beyond the minor and the major circumstantial difficulties, something important and enduring has happened, which has revived our spirits. Was this the state of well-being of those who do good? “Enesco was a democrat, you know, somewhat of a rarity among Romanian intellectuals. He was a Western European, in the best sense of the term,” Augustus the Fool recites, like a zealous tourist guide. I stop, however, annoyed with my own self-complacency. The prospect of a major international “Operation Enesco” has also taken hold of Leon. He speaks about the Bartók archive in Budapest; he is scandalized by the provincialism of Romanian Communism, by the fact that Enesco is visible only as statues. Had the Romanian Communists been put off by the fact of the composer’s Parisian exile, by his having an aristocratic wife? Why is the archive in such a state of disaster? I get no chance to respond.

It is the evening of the second concert. The entrance of the Atheneum is blocked by scaffolding, the courtyard is muddy. The red plush seats are worn, the auditorium looks like the set of a period film. In the lobby, housewives, sitting behind shabby little tables, are selling concert programs, two thousand lei each. I also buy a newspaper for eight hundred lei. The woman has no change. “You know,” she says, “not too many people tonight, it’s Holy Week, people have gone to church.” The cloakroom charge is five hundred. I give the young woman a larger bill, she thanks me, I do not wait for the change. The audience starts to arrive — pensioners modestly but neatly dressed; a few foreigners, possibly from some embassy; a couple who look like bit players in a Mafia film; a white-haired gentleman, with the appearance of a monk, the son of the famous avant-garde poet Saşa Pană, looking exactly as his father did thirty years ago; a group of students from the conservatory; another group of schoolchildren, carrying schoolbags; elderly widows.

I find my seat, number 12, in box 18. The hall is only three-quarters full, and I am the only occupant of my box. “Good evening, ladies and gentlemen,” a clear, melodious voice addresses the audience. “We wish to inform you that the next concerts will take place on May 7 and 8, Maestro Comissiona conducting. We would also like to remind you that the Dinu Lipatti Festival and Competition will open on May 5. We wish you a pleasant evening and a happy Easter.” The orchestra comes onstage, and the players tune their instruments. Leon appears to the sound of applause.