Norman Manea - Compulsory Happiness

Comrade Scarlat had a wife who was a nurse, or a bookkeeper, or a doctor, or a switchboard operator — in a hospital, which wife had a friend: “your former colleague,” that’s how Comrade Scarlat had referred to Comrade Doctor Bretan at the hospital where the emergency room was ready to receive Comrade B rbulescu, our Comrade Mu uroi’s aunt, who had been suffering a severe attack of asthma for several hours, to the despair of branch 46 … “Oh, I see, directly to Spineanu. Fine, on your say-so, right,” had been the conclusion of the miracle. Not even a trace of a smile had appeared on the face of Comrade Chickadee Moga, while Comrades Petroianu, Murgule , and Voicil , and even Comrade Mu uroi, were still open-mouthed, as though hypnotized by astonishment.

So then … you had, or rather, your wife had … but really, once again, it’s that dear little chickabiddy, quietly slaving away, she’s really the one who got us all out of this fix … That adorable chickling who comes to our rescue when we’re in need, as we so often are. We forget what our Comrade Chickadee can do, but she’s always ready to remind us generously, including you, Sugar Candy, who are a mite too inclined to be careless and snooty about things, and you, peppery Viorica, always full of resentments and venom, and even you, Comrade Carmen, our fine matron, who’ve become rather high and mighty ever since your smooth operator managed to land himself such a cushy job at our Circus Cemetery.

They’d all come rushing over, except for Geta, who’d shot out of the office like a rocket. They’d crowded around the hero of the hour, who’d vainly tried to play down the whole thing, but it was no use. They showered him with questions and with thanks, in the hope of finally establishing — and it had taken long enough — the complicity they’d been expecting for ages, and which he’d always stubbornly and sullenly withheld. Now here he was surrounded in a flash, an object of unbridled interest, whatever you do don’t let him escape this time, he’ll have to listen to their stories, their complaints, their opinions on movies and children and recipes and America and condoms and horoscopes and washing machines … No, he was trapped good and tight, this time they’d really got him! One little emotional slipup had triggered an avalanche: now he’d have to listen day after day as one after another besieged him with her personal problems and hysterical crises and quotations from her favorite authors, until he was beaten, softened up, until he finally unlocked his own word-mill and started churning out stuff about his brother and his daughter and his mother and the comrade manager, whom he’d known ever since childhood, and the comrade manager’s father, things like that, which he’d slip smoothly, discreetly, into future conversations, yes, they’d find out in the end what all those visits to the manager’s office meant, what was going on in there, because there was something fishy about it all, they’d known something was up ever since those September phone calls, those pseudo-conversations, Comrade-Scarlat-speaking-is-he-there-he’s-not-there wham goes the receiver …

For the moment, Comrade Scarlat was holding up fairly well. He’d exchanged only a few words with the noisy invaders, who’d relayed each other constantly around his desk, chatting among themselves — but for his ears — about this and that, about the same old daily grind. He hadn’t started to frown or hunker down over his papers the way he always did. He’d listened to them, smiled two or three times, fidgeted a bit, cleaned his glasses perfunctorily, blown his nose, straightened his tie. But he really had listened — benevolently and politely, if somewhat vaguely — to the voice of the people, gushing impetuously and tirelessly from all these mouths full of warmth and lipstick as they whispered, whirred, and cranked out, stitch by stitch, the soiled and rumpled material of the moment.

The day was approaching its soft, translucent edge, becoming flabby, sluggish, ready to fall apart.

Two hours had quickly passed since Sugar Candy’s departure and the shift in the current of office gossip. The conversational waltz was still going strong in the Scarlat orbit.

None of the women had deigned to glance, even obliquely, toward the one who’d made all this possible.

Their quiet colleague, sly Chickadee with the heart of gold, this hypocrite, was busy working, calmly, unobtrusively as always, aloof from the bustle of activity she’d set in motion.

III.2.

In the early and mid-1950S, with our party plagued by deviationism on the left and right wings, Comrade Cotig remains steadfastly devoted to revolutionary principles. He distinguishes himself at meetings by harshly rejecting all criticism of the Party line, all indulgence toward the serious failings of comrades who may have once been examples of self-sacrifice and revolutionary fervor, but who are now plotters practicing splinter tactics. He leads an energetic campaign against decadent conciliatory policies, liberalism, and the petit-bourgeois tolerance of inefficiency. Doesn’t hesitate to attack the reactionary tendencies of former comrades, denouncing their past political waverings as evidence of corrupt foreign ideas (c.f. the case of Petre Petru, his former friend, expelled with Comrade Cotig ’s consent).

He is promoted to head of the industrial department at the Party newspaper, a key position in the organizational and ideological structure. In constant contact with important ministers, directors of the nation’s large industrial concerns, authorities in charge of planning and statistics, and even members of the Politburo, whose decisions he implements and whom he keeps informed of developments.

Works steadily and selflessly from seven in the morning until ten in the evening, sometimes after midnight. Information from this period in his life emphasizes his punctuality, energy, peerless dedication, and strict discipline— qualities he demands from his subordinates, participants in a vital military campaign that must be carried out day after day. Failure to reach a determined goal is always severely punished. His colleagues fear his devotion to duty, his extraordinary capacity for work, his honesty, and his steadiness of purpose. They call him “the corporal.”

In addition to working at the newspaper, teaches courses on topics of revolutionary interest, does propaganda work as well, speaking at political-awareness and self-criticism meetings.

Comrade Valentina Cotig heads an important health agency in the capital; she also serves on numerous work committees, competently fulfilling the duties assigned to her.

During this period, the Cotig s travel, as members of official delegations that often go abroad for conferences, congresses, missions of cooperation, or fraternal visits of friendship.

In 1959, during a campaign to fortify and purge the Party ranks of suspects and undesirables, Valentina Vrînceanu is expelled because of her unhealthy social background, which is discovered to have tainted her career. When called to account for her actions, Dr. Vrînceanu is unable to explain satisfactorily why she has allowed her reactionary mother to live with her for several years; above all, why she has allowed her — the wife of the engineer Vrînceanu, incarcerated as a known reactionary and rumormonger who ridiculed our socialist achievements — to supervise the education of Dr. Vrînceanu’s only daughter, Dolores, ten years old at that time, an exemplary Young Pioneer in a special school for children of Party officials who should have been spared all contact with obsolete elements of the former social order. When asked if she knows about the packages her mother sends to Mihai Vrînceanu in prison, or if she has read the postcards her mother writes to this criminal, Dr. Valentina Vrînceanu does not provide clear answers. Ex-director Vrînceanu is also unable to justify the hospitalization for two months of the ailing Rodica Vrînceanu, her mother, who had no right — although gravely ill at the time — to avail herself of medical facilities not available to the general public.