Norman Manea - Compulsory Happiness

The Kid hasn’t said a word all evening, although he’s seemed extremely attentive, tolerant, approving, he keeps nodding yes and keeps his eyes glued to Dina’s thumb. The club-like thumb of the left hand. As though he wanted to convince himself that this thumb is the same one he knew quite a long time ago. Delicate, slender hands, so very slender, with a pale purplish-blue tinge, a faint reddish flush, her circulation, isn’t it, she’s got poor circulation. Delicate hands, certainly, but the left thumb mars the picture: clubbed, inflamed, it looks as though the tip has been sliced right off. Delicate hands and a delicate profile to the oblong face, with its bluish, Oriental shadows, and a delicate figure, with a slender waist — and that horrible thumb on the left hand. There have been many changes, of course, but this unnerving thumb has remained just as he remembered it. The passage of time hasn’t softened this distressing detail one whit.

It’s late, very, very late, Felicia’s sending desperate signals to Ioana. The train at dawn, the trip, her mother, the hospital, her boss Chibrit, Ioana had promised they wouldn’t stay a long time.

Bazil senses the discomfiture. He knows, you bet, that his guests can say all the nasty things they want on the way home, but still, they’ll have to admit that this so long delayed get-together has been a success. A pleasant, luxurious evening with perfect hosts, charming people, unpretentious, attentive, convivial, the guests will agree, these are good, honest folks, they’re bound to agree on that.

He takes a last mouthful of cognac, savoring it at length before swallowing, and closes his performance on a melancholy note, with an important announcement.

“What do you want, I’m an apparatchik, a self-serving little apparatchik. No, don’t contradict me, I know what I’m saying. After all, I’m not stupid. Perhaps a bit of an ass, now and then, but not stupid, no way. An apparatchik, that’s what I am, you bet. On that point, can’t do a thing, to each his own. Jedem das Seine, as the others used to say … Oh yes, I even know a smidgen of German, you bet, it’s not so surprising, I’ve done a lot of traveling. I’m just saying that all this isn’t that simple anymore, the way some people seem to think. No, it’s not at all simple anymore, believe me. They’re mistaken, those who think that this new social category is a simple, homogeneous one. No, not even those guys in the Securitate … No, not even them, they’re not all in the same bag. And let me say that there are lots of people who get us mixed up with them. Especially these last few years, people figure everyone’s a snitch, on the payroll of the secret police. Well, that’s more an expression of widespread exasperation than the truth. A shortcut like a lot of others, you bet. But what… what was I saying? … Oh, yes: the newspapers say that the Party official is the true hero of postwar life. Or else the true hero of postwar literature, hey? What do you think?”

Proud of himself, he looks around at his audience. And his audience is attentive, his audience hangs, breathlessly, on his every word, and follows as well, and just as attentively, his faithful observer, which is to say the innocence and astonishment and childish participant enthusiasm and torment of the bookish man suddenly fallen among down-to-earthlings, but also the joy of the researcher, the pure joy of the scientist.

“So, which one? The true hero of life or of literature? And, not or … The hero of postwar life and its literature! The same old line. Pure demagoguery, everyone’s fed up with that blah-blah-blah. And yet! And yet … if you think about it … the paradox is that … yes, yes, it’s even true! Days and nights and years wasted in Party meetings and campaigns for a goal that’s … unattainable. The authorities have no desire to admit this, you bet. If they admit the truth, which is becoming clearer and clearer to them, well then, it would be obvious that the heroes of these gigantic and useless efforts, dedicated to an absurd and never-ending mission, yes, yes, you’ve got it — they themselves are the heroes. It took me a while to realize this, little by little … We’ve all realized it, the dreamers and careerists and hangers-on. I won’t mention which category I belong in, oh no, forget that. I’m simply saying that all I am is a poor parvenu. An apparatchik, a postwar hero …”

The hero has finished his number, but the Learned One continues to gaze at him in fascination. He’d like to add a comment or two, but his lips are moving too rapidly, silently. He’d really like to say something, though, and he makes an effort, but still can’t get the words out, and, turning back to Dina, gives his full attention once more to the club thumb of Madame Beldeanu. Yes, the same thick, stumpy, truncated thumb of their adolescence. For here is a flaw to which time has brought no stunning remedy, has it, no remedy, how about that! And yet the fine wine and the delectable meal and Felicia more beautiful than ever in her noble serenity and discretion, and Ioana so vivacious, so scintillating, and Ali so generous, so at ease, even Dina, hitting just the right note of gracious warmth, don’t you think, yes, yes, even Vasile with his imposing, majestic belly, a classic paunch, isn’t it, and his bristling pepper-and-salt mustache, and his thick, unruly iron-gray hair, very distinguished, isn’t he, a patrician bon vivant, affable, courteous, yes, even Vasile, and everything, everyone is perfect, a really perfect evening, isn’t it, such blissful relaxation, away from the bitterness and depression and fear, yes, far from the fear that permeates our daily lives, yes, yes, a moment of respite, a moment stolen, wrenched from the system, as it were, an escape, a stubborn, rebellious, and passionate disregard for our present predicament.

The evening ends in a flurry of handshaking and cheek-kissing. A real but agreeable feeling of fatigue. Even the Stoians, initially reserved and anxious not to seem too thrilled about the whole thing (because you never know), so that they wouldn’t seem like close friends of the Beldeanus — even the Stoians have loosened up, they’re having a grand old time, bubbling with enthusiasm and pleased with the success of this little get-together, so it looks as though an evening at the Beldeanus’ isn’t the last word in utter boredom, you can have quite an enjoyable time there as long as you accept the kind of relationship involved, obviously, obviously.

The gratified hosts accompany their rowdy guests to the door with affectionate zeal, Don Bazil’s hoarse voice booming out paternally, “Make sure you haven’t forgotten anything! Drive carefully, that wet asphalt is slippery. Watch out you don’t skid, be careful, careful, don’t forget!”

In the courtyard, near the car, the Guileless One manages, belatedly, to utter the word he’d tried in vain to produce after their host’s speech. “Ma-magisterial! Magi-magisterial,” stammers the Kid. “Ex-periment, ex-quisite, ex, wasn’t it? Magi-magis …” mumbles the Learned One, dead-drunk, clinging to the arm of that beanpole Ali, who’s just as drunk, soused, pickled, bombed.

“Perfect, perfect, obviously, ob-vi-ous-ly,” agrees Ali, while the Kid agrees with him, “Mar-mar-marvelous, I sw-swear.” And they stagger around like that, in each other’s arms, slowly, so slowly, teetering around the cosmic, yellow, aerodynamic craft that awaits them.

Ioana’s the one who takes the wheel, ticked off but sober, full of contempt for masculine weakness, but sober, in control of the situation.

The rain stopped quite a while ago. The air is cool, the night clear, the city lost in darkness, in sleep, and galaxies. Overhead, an ocean of stars, and the moon, here’s the moon, glacial, somnambulistic, cadaverous, the ancient moon, lyrical, demoniac, the vigilant moon, perfidious, all-seeing, surrounded by the ocean of harmless stars. The ocean above and confusion within us, beyond us, before us, chance and the law, stars and the moon in the sky up above and the gamble of daily life here below, for us, Terra incognita, confiiusa, chance and the law, the enigma of tomorrow, and tomorrow, and after tomorrow.