Norman Manea - Compulsory Happiness

The girls had listened to her indulgently; it was only natural for Geta to be upset, she was very fond of her aunt, who’d raised her since she was tiny.

All people think about is getting their hands on as much as possible of anything at all as fast as they can, and they don’t care if there’s none left for tomorrow … The setup’s just perfect, have you noticed? Charlatans of every stripe, all the thugs and crooks — the trash can of the universe! You can look high and low for an ounce of honesty, but you won’t find it. They’re all thieves, every last one of them!

Sugar Candy was off and running on her favorite subject; she’d turned as red as a beet. She waved her plump little arms around like crazy, so pissed off that her rather low-slung rear end seemed even more droopy than usual.

“Try calling again,” Chickadee had murmured.

“Vy don’t chou go out to your aunt’s place?” had been the contribution of Tovaritsna Murgule .

“Here, you can take the afternoon off, if you want,” added Boss Lady Carmen. Like talking to a wall!

“But what am I zuppozed to do, where can I go?”

“Get a taxi and take her to the emergency room,” urged Comrade Petroianu.

“Come on, the emergenzy room? Zo they can let me wait around for hourz or tell me Comrade Zo-and-zo izn’t in today or haz already left or maybe that I need permission from my neighborhood committee or zomething? You know perfectly well what they’re like,” said Geta, brushing aside every suggestion.

They finally caught on. Even Viorica had figured it out, because she didn’t say a word. She scribbled/signed/stamped at top speed. All sorts of papers, figures, clearings of accounts, but in absolute silence — Viorica, who would have kept chattering even in the electric chair … She was silent, that’s all there was to it. Everybody knew: Amazing! Viorica had a brother-in-law who was a doctor. Some time ago she’d asked him to help out Comrade Petroianu and Chickadee and Ina Nikolayevna. Even Geta, too, of course, before Viorica fell out with her because Sugar Candy Geta let the cat out of the bag. It was when Viorica, the betrayed wife, had told Sugar Candy in confidence about her husband. Sugar Candy Geta, in turn, had gone and told Comrade Carmen. How could you keep this one under your hat! Then it had been Kamaradnaya Inouchka’s turn to be brought up to date on the country weekends of Comrade Captain Voicil , Viorica’s husband. Which meant that Chickadee was then let in on the secret, and Chickadee wouldn’t have breathed a word; she knows how to keep things to herself, that one, the kind that would rather have the goods on you than betray you, but she’d burst out laughing. She’d had a fit, pure and simple! Viorica had realized what was going on, obviously, how could she have failed to understand, it was the only thing that could possibly have made Chickadee laugh, that shtick, with her rumbling underground voice, taking everyone by surprise, making them turn around in astonishment to meet her wide-eyed, candid gaze, and I mean candid, guaranteed one hundred percent… Besides, who on earth could keep from laughing? Even a statue would have cracked up! So: Comrade Husband Don Giovanni goes off on a business trip, so he tells his wife, of course, with a suitcase and everything he needs — to shack up, in fact, with the little neighbor on the ground floor! He’s holed up in there the whole time he’s supposed to be away on this trip. He’s got all the essentials: grub, mood music, a comfy pad, and coochy-coochy. I’m going to take out the garbage, announces Coralia, the mistress, one fine evening. It’s like the North Pole out there, I’ll go instead, the boyfriend, Don Juan, pipes up gallantly. What do you mean you’ll go instead, chirps the floozy in surprise. It’s late, no one’ll see me, answers the poor bastard, picking up the garbage can. He tiptoes out. Complete silence, not a spy in sight. So our guerrilla, Casanova, in pajamas and slippers sneaks down to the trash bins without being spotted. He raises the cover and empties the garbage can, which he carries back to the elevator, this idiot, where he presses the call button. He takes the elevator … up to the fourth floor, where he lives! His apartment is right next to the elevator. Then the ass rings his own doorbell! As usual, to be let back in. There’s the rub: instead of the adulterous ground floor, he’s on the conjugal fourth! Memory can play these tricks on you, just when you least expect it. So the poor guy is standing there in his pajamas holding the garbage can, face to face with his own wife, our Viorica! I mean really, how can you not laugh? Even that goody-goody Chickadee, obviously! How could you not laugh, and how could you ever forgive the person who’d made you such a laughingstock?

That’s why Sugar Candy had started blubbering when she’d seen that Viorica wasn’t paying the slightest attention to all her complaining. Those tears were supposed to be her last resort, but even this final effort wasn’t doing the trick: Viorica couldn’t have cared less. She hadn’t said a word; in fact, she was deaf and dumb to the moaning of her ex-confidante, now simply her fellow office worker Geta Mu uroi, whom she had no particular reason to help.

All the others were clustered around Geta when Comrade Scarlat returned from the manager’s office. Ever since October, Mr. Victor had been summoned to the manager’s office about twice a week. He never mentioned why, not one word. Even Comrade Pia, the manager’s secretary, didn’t know what was going on, because if she had, it would have gotten around. All of a sudden, sometime around September, Comrade Scarlat had started to use the telephone, like everyone else. Whereas, before, he wouldn’t even have called home … Mind you, no one had ever called him, either. Then, in the same way, out of the blue, just like that, he’d started these little visits to the management, so who knows what he was up to …

This time Comrade Victor Scarlat didn’t stick his nose right back in his papers the way he usually did. He’d been transfixed by the sight of the chorus of mourners. Impossible to tell whether he actually saw them or not. Behind the huge dark lenses of his glasses, it wasn’t all that easy to tell what he was actually looking at. He seemed to be listening to the disconsolate mumblings of the women when Chickadee came over to his desk and leaned down, enveloping him in her musky, May-apple perfume …

That little hussy Chickadee had never done anything like that before. She never left her lair — she was always on guard, never springing to attack. If she was now launching an assault on Mr. Victor, it was because she’d carefully considered her chances and the possible consequences.

It didn’t last long; in fact, it was all over very quickly. Comrade Scarlat got up from his chair. He dialed a number on Comrade Carmen’s phone and spoke briefly, apparently unintimidated by the pouty lips, batting eyelashes, and soft cooings that formed the triple threat of Comrade Chickadee Moga, who was already modestly making her way back to her sanctum. Mr. Victor, sir, hadn’t blushed, or blanched, or stammered.

There was quite a lot of activity around Comrade Mu uroi, plus the constant jabbering of her colleagues, as they tried to calm her down. Branch 46 wasn’t much frequented by the public. At this hour, with the weather so variable and rainy, there wasn’t a soul. Which meant that the voice of Comrade Scarlat, who was normally so closemouthed and only rarely used the phone, had registered immediately on all ears, despite the persistent noise. All ears pricked up, on alert, at the first words; by the second sentence, silence had fallen; at the third, the first chair had swung around. And so … well, in short, it was obvious, after all!