Norman Manea - The Hooligan's Return

The “thaw” of the 1960s meant more for him than the loss of his official function, and the Communist fell into a delirium. It was not, however, a fear of democracy — which he considered a game for retarded children — but the nightmare of resurgent Fascism that triggered his crisis. He literally hid under his bed, terrified of imminent execution. Committed to a psychiatric clinic, he could think only of Fascism and execution. He seemed to have lost even his ability to read and write. A renowned psychiatrist, a writer himself and a friend of the patient’s, finally found a way to reach him, by reciting to him famous selections from familiar literary masterpieces. It worked, and the patient’s memory gradually started to regurgitate the words, the lines, the pages, helping him to regain his reading and writing abilities.

By the time I met him, the former militant had become obese and sedentary. His only link with politics now was gossip and sarcastic asides. He had not lost his literary fervor, however, and was writing excellent novels and short stories. What remained in his revolutionary arsenal were barbed shafts aimed at American imperialistic capitalism, socialism turned National Socialism, and the games of the literary world. His ailments multiplied, but his tenacity endured. Moving from one chair to another became a physical feat. When questioned about the state of his health, he invariably answered, “I’m happy, sir. Happiness is the only thing I’ve got left.” Those were hard times for Donna Alba, too. Her incongruous fur coat could be glimpsed in the long lines waiting to buy cheese, lemons, or medicine. This woman, who had never even made a cup of tea for herself, was now heroically doing her duty in looking after her ailing spouse. Formerly aloof, never replying to people greeting her in the street, she now chatted with the elderly pensioners standing in line for hours on end to buy a bag of potatoes.

The real survival test in the unheated rooms in the old apartment building next to Cişmigiu Park where they lived was the winters. Like the besieged population of Leningrad during the blockade of World War II, the frozen couple resisted by reading. The ailing critic and his wife became partners in a bookish dialogue, her austere beauty complementing the sick man’s pathos, her aesthetic detachment a foil for his frustrated militancy.

By now, however, the couple’s biography had become history, and the woman I was on my way to see was, like so many others, a mere survivor, living at a different address. I decided to bring flowers, and in the flower shop the florist addressed me in English. The price of a small bouquet of roses was the same as in New York, a staggering sum for Bucharest. I did not even bother to protest that the flowers weren’t fresh enough.

The street was in the cold belly of a cloud, the passersby unnaturally alive. The only thing I perceived was the fear of touching them or of being touched in turn. I suddenly felt shy, as I followed the meandering twists of the street. Donna Alba’s new home was somewhere nearby. I had been walking for quite a while, uncertain of ever arriving at my destination.

The elevator creaked its way up to the top floor. The door was flung open even before the doorbell stopped ringing.

“Oh, you are finally here, dear man.”

Her voice was unchanged, I knew that from the telephone. I would have liked to embrace her, but such gestures of intimacy had never been her way and she always seemed to discourage them. I kissed her hand formally, as in former times. She took the bouquet, which I was holding awkwardly, as usual.

Ten years had passed since our last meeting. In the meantime, her mother had died, and so had her husband, and she herself had attempted suicide. The post-Communist nightmare had succeeded the nightmare of the dictatorship. She could no longer afford a hairdresser, or maybe she no longer paid attention to such details. She had lost her feminine allure, her mystery, her ostentatiously cerebral manner. Her hair was now white and she was wearing an everyday sweater. Neither the early-afternoon hour nor, as it were, the time of her own heart allowed for more fashionable dress, as in the past. Before me was the pale face, the sunken Semitic eyes of old Leah Riemer, my grandfather’s sister, the face that, as a child, I thought was biblical. I instantly felt older myself. She motioned for me to sit in the armchair. She did not offer to show me the apartment. The small hallway was divided by a glass door, beyond which I could see a table covered with papers and a straight chair. Somewhere at the back, probably, were the bedroom and a small kitchen. It all reeked of poverty and solitude. I did not recognize the worn furniture. Gone was the literary salon of Sfîntul Pavel Street, along with the red velvet coverings and the red silk gowns.

I remembered that autumn evening when, intrigued by the voice of the woman who had called me two weeks before, I was at her door and rang the bell. She appeared in the doorway, then as she did now, and for a moment I again beheld the romantic vision of yore. The woman came straight out of a period portrait. She had a small white porcelain face, with black eyes, her forehead encircled by a white headband. She wore a sumptuous red gown and moved with restrained, refined slowness. She had a slender waist and ample, Oriental hips under the velvet folds. Only her hands displayed something sad, unfinished. Her fingers were as thin as a child’s, her elbows brittle, unlikely to bear touching. She gave off an aura of inviting, anachronistic adventure, amid all that socialist vulgarity.

“Well, you shouldn’t look around too closely,” she said. “Better tell me about America, but not the America we see in the movies, with all that moronic gun fighting.”

I was silent, not knowing where to start.

“I heard you came with a conductor, or something like that, someone who is also a historian and speaks German, too. So, it’s not all barbarians, sex, and money in America.”

The prejudiced views of America do not seem too different from images that foreigners have of Romania. I responded by painting a flattering portrait of the conductor.

“So, a European, then, I see.”

“Yes, American and European.”

I looked at the cake on the plate in front of me. At Donna Alba’s literary soirées the refreshments consisted of only light sweet drinks, liqueurs, vermouth, and a piece of cake, usually a rich chocolate cake, heavy and sweet. Each forkful would release a mass of cream and sugar. Later, when there was a shortage of basic foodstuffs, such gastronomic torture became impossible, and the lack of heating finally spelled the end of those extravagant soirées. This time, the cake was not too sweet, and I was spared the torture of the past. What I was eating was a decentenough cake, bought from a trustworthy pastry shop in town.

Unable to ask her about the last months of her mother and husband, or to discuss old age and poverty, I gazed in bewilderment at the table covered with books, papers, and notebooks, trying to identify the dusty, dilapidated ledger that I remembered. I almost asked her about it. I was looking at the clock, not knowing what to say and secretly hoping for the miracle that often occurs when you feign indifference, that I would catch a glimpse of the mystery ledger lying somewhere about, a survivor of all the calamities.

This had been one of my accidental discoveries, during one of my visits to the great litterateur, Donna Alba’s husband. I had arrived at two o’clock, as usual. The novelist went to bed at dawn and woke up late, so meetings took place after lunch. I had rung the bell and the door was opened, as usual, by the mother-in-law, an old Russian lady. She spoke only a bare minimum of words, but I knew she liked me, because she called me ruskii pisateli, russkaia intelligentsia , the Russian writer, the Russian intellectual. I was flattered by the error. She invited me into what she called the salyon , the living room. I sat in the usual chair, at the table covered in red velvet, which held a framed portrait of Donna Alba and a copy of À la recherche du temps perdu . I gazed at the photograph, mindful of the noises coming from the adjacent room, shuffling steps, panting breath.