Norman Manea - The Hooligan's Return

The return flight is very different without Leon’s cheering presence. The young Chinese man sitting next to me seems to divide his time equally between watching the in-flight movie and sleeping, with spasmodic fits of snoring and facial grimaces. I had bought The New York Times and the Frankfurter Allgemeine , and I had a book as well. I scribbled occasionally in my notebook, but time passed slowly. I would have liked to land in a bed as quickly as possible and sleep for a decade, suspended in emptiness. DEPRESSION IS A FLAW IN CHEMISTRY NOT IN CHARACTERwas written in the phosphorescent sky. These seemed appropriate words of welcome as I approached my destination. I repeat the message gratefully, the password of my re-entry, as I continue to glide through the sky.

“I just wanted to know if you’re safely back yet. We had a great time together in Bucharest.” It is Leon’s voice calling from the car taking him to Bard. Next Saul S., wearing a big white cap, swims into view. He is holding a map in his large, bony hands. His bushy white mustache has grown into a brush above his mouth. “Strada Gentilă,” he reads, smiling with delight, seduced by the names. Gentle Street, Concord Street, Rhinoceros Street … Yes, I am on my way back, rocked in the armchair of the heavens.

Leon’s voice is still floating upward. I see his long black car speeding up the Taconic Parkway. “We had a great time in Bucharest. Great time.” Suddenly the plane begins to swerve, people are startled out of their sleep, I hear moaning. I am too dazed and exhausted to try to re-establish contact with Earth. The flight resumes its motionless gliding. Leon’s voice comes back, crackling with static. “We had a great time in Romania. The best things that happened to you there were the bad things.” Is it Leon talking, or Saul? I am no longer certain. It might very well be Saul, who knows all about the East European child hiding in a corner of the room, listening to his father talking to the other men, looking at his mother, dressed in traveling clothes, and at his sister, with her beautiful hair … all of them, soon, fleeing to America.

“You’re coming home, don’t you forget that. Home is here. Here, not there. This is your luck, born out of your bad luck.” It is Leon’s voice this time, I’m sure, and I am ready to acknowledge, yes, I am returning home, in the snail’s shell, ready to talk about the graveyard in Suceava, about the new course I am preparing for the fall semester, Exile and Estrangement , but he doesn’t listen anymore, he never has time for long chats. I close the blue notebook with its stories about the Flying Elephant and Half-Man-Riding, Half-One-Legged-Hare. I put my notebook away, at the back of my seat, so that I can feel it. The plane is bouncing again and I am dizzy and shaken.

The flight attendant comes over. “Would you like a drink?”

I am offered wine, beer, soft drinks, and whiskey. I ask for a glass of mineral water. Evian, Perrier, Apollinaris, Pellegrino? I opt for Pelle-grino, the pilgrim’s drink.

The plane lands and I rush to the exit. The luggage comes down quickly, the Asian taxi driver speeds away, and soon we arrive back in Manhattan, on the Upper West Side. Dazed after the long trip and the lingering confusions, I have difficulty finding my way around the house. There is no place like the paradise of home.

Later that evening, after nine, my inner alarm goes off. I rush to the travel bag, unzip the first compartment, then the second, and start ransacking, in despair. I have a sinister foreboding, but refuse to accept the reality of the disaster. The notebook! The notebook is missing!

Suddenly it all comes back to me. Augustus the Fool had fallen into a fitful, delirious sleep, than drank his Pellegrino, then rushed to the exit door, eager to forget everything, to get home as quickly as possible. The blue notebook had stayed behind on the plane, nestled in my empty seat.

In a frenzy I call the airport, then Lufthansa, and learn that the plane will be flying back to Frankfurt that same evening. I am given polite assurances: whatever was found when cleaning the plane will be collected and classified during the night. The next morning, around ten, I should call back and they’ll know whether the precious object has been found. Among the pile of newspapers, bags, and other assorted items left behind on the plane? Germans will be Germans, I said to myself, they’re orderly and thorough. The notebook would be found. After all, I was traveling first class, and class privilege must mean something. I had reason to be confident.

My first night back in America is not a pleasant one. Fatigue, panic, rage, annoyance, impotence, regret, guilt, hysteria. The pages could not be lost, they must not be allowed to disappear! Yet somehow I felt that they would not allow themselves to be found.

The first American morning is no better. At ten my fears are confirmed. At eleven they are reconfirmed. At twelve an irritated voice explains that there is no hope of finding the lost item, but should a miracle occur, it will be sent to my home.

Home, to my home address, in New York, of course. Yes, the Upper West Side, in Manhattan.

NORMAN MANEA, Francis Flournoy Professor of European Culture and writer in residence at Bard, is a Romanian novelist and essayist. He is the most translated and rewarded Romanian contemporary writer and has been frequently considered a candidate for the Nobel Prize. Making his debut as a writer in 1960s communist Romania, he produced a string of aesthetically challenging and socially critical works and was forced to leave Romania in 1986. His writings have been translated into more than twenty languages, and he has received many important cultural and literary prizes, including the MacArthur Fellowship (U.S.), the Nonino International Literary Prize (Italy), the Prix Médicis Etranger (France), and the Nelly Sachs prize (Germany). He is a member of the Berlin Academy of Art and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, and the French government has named him Commandeur dans l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.

ANGELA JIANU is a translator and historian who currently teaches at the University of Warwick (U.K.). She is the author of A Circle of Friends: Romanian Revolutionaries and Political Exile, 1840–1859 .