Norman Manea - Compulsory Happiness

Felicia let herself get carried away by this flood of banality, and quite without meaning to, went overboard. “Now, since Vasile isn’t there, you’re all alone, you could stop by and see us.”

Her husband gave a start in his armchair when he heard this invitation, and flung his hands up in despair. Startled in turn by his antics, Felicia temporarily lost her voice, but Lady Di seemed to have sensed this element of hesitation in time.

“I don’t know, I don’t think so. I’ve got too much work at the moment. It’s been getting harder and harder these last years. I’m in court every day, there’s an endless stream of lawsuits. The laws are constantly changing, always new restrictions, more and more hopeless situations. It’s not only the people who are fighting among themselves, institutions are at war with one another as well. You can feel how fed up people are in the courtroom, too, not just on the milk line. The judges are overwhelmed. Oh, I wanted to ask you … Did you perhaps forget a raincoat when you were here?”

Taken aback, Felicia has trouble finding something to say. She answers with some difficulty. “What? Excuse me? No, no, I don’t believe so, maybe Ioana, try Ioana, I wouldn’t know. What? Oh, no, Ali, I see, yes, perhaps Ali, I don’t know.”

“Someone left a raincoat behind the evening you came. I mean, I didn’t see it until the next afternoon, when I got home. That morning, when I left, I was in a hurry, and too tired to notice a thing. Perhaps Ali, yes, or maybe Ioana. I forgot to ask. She just called me, too, a little while ago, but I didn’t remember to ask her about it. No, it’s not important. Nothing, really, I’ll just call her now and find out.”

In fact, it seems that Dina Beldeanu did call the Stoians right away, but no one answered.

It was only two days later that Ali had a long, friendly conversation with the wife of his absent colleague, at the end of which he was asked the same question and gave the same reply.

“A raincoat? What raincoat? No, it’s not ours … Absolutely certain, it’s not ours. No, me, I don’t wear them. Besides, when I stopped by your place on Monday, around noon, yes, it must have been around noon, I didn’t see any raincoat on the coat tree. Well, I didn’t look very carefully, obviously — so I don’t know, haven’t a clue.”

Two days later, however, Dina called back. “Ioana? You know, I spoke to Ali the other day. I don’t know if he mentioned it to you …”

Silence. A long pause. Each waits for the other to speak.

“Well, it’s not important. I asked him about a raincoat. I don’t know if he spoke to you about it.”

Another pause, even longer. But the dialogue finally gets going again.

“You asked him about … about what? A raincoat? What raincoat?”

“I don’t know, a raincoat, that’s all. It’s silly, excuse me, I must be overreacting. The next morning, after you were here for dinner, I noticed a raincoat in the hall. I mean, no, not that morning, that afternoon, when I got home. I asked Ali if it belonged to you by any chance. He …”

“He told you he doesn’t wear a raincoat. I suppose that’s what he answered, right? He said no, and that’s true. As for my raincoat, it’s hanging right here. No, I’m positive, it’s not ours.”

“I’m sorry, it’s irritating, I don’t know why this silly business is bothering me so much. It’s just a stupid little thing. But it’s … how can I put this, it’s unpleasant, simply unpleasant, I’m very sorry.”

“I understand, I quite understand. You never know, a strange object that turns up in your home, I understand, it’s aggravating, naturally. There’s an explanation, don’t worry, these days nobody’s simply going to abandon his belongings. Someone will claim it, you can count on that, especially since … you’re not dealing with careless people who can’t remember where they’ve been or what they were wearing. I suppose you’ve asked …”

“Yes, yes, I spoke to Felicia, too. I bothered them as well with this mystery.”

But Dina — big surprise — couldn’t resist calling the other couple again.

The telephone rang a long time, a long time … Finally someone picked up the receiver, although no one actually spoke. There was no voice, even though someone had answered the phone at last. And yet, yes, yes, it seemed someone was there, hesitating to speak.

“Hello, yes, who …”

“Oh, it’s me, Di …” Then she fell helplessly silent. She hadn’t expected him to answer, she couldn’t manage to go on talking, she was completely lost… Now, what use was it to bring up … that idiotic business of the raincoat … No, it didn’t make sense anymore … She didn’t know where to start, had forgotten what she’d intended to say.

“You wanted to speak to Felicia, right? Hmm, yes, I’m not usually the one who answers the phone. Well, what can I tell you, you’ve got no choice, you’ll have to chat with me, that’s just the way it goes.”

Dina tries to protest, what a nice surprise, for a long time now she’s been wanting to … but it’s too late, his monologue is off and running. All attempts to interrupt, to object, or to qualify the suppositions and reminiscences that pour forth in a torrent, in a frenetic hodgepodge — all attempts would prove useless.

“I’m not an easy person to talk to, am I, we haven’t had a conversation for a long, long time, since childhood … a lifetime. And even then we didn’t really talk, just those weird games, in the courtyard of the Berg house, with your cousin and my classmate … what was his name, whatever was his name, Snookie, Mookie, I can’t remember, but him I remember perfectly, with those big teeth, buck teeth that stuck out beyond his lips, a sweet boy, really kindhearted, I heard he’d become a soldier, it surprised me, maybe he never even had a choice, everyone in that country’s gotten tougher, too big a clash between ancient ways and new ones, yes, yes, the climate, the Arabs, the waves of new arrivals, wars, neurosis, yes, I remember Hymie perfectly, oh yes, Hymie, that was the name, yes, yes, your cousin, the big courtyard, with all those trees, and that sort of ‘penthouse’ we had … up in the attic, you had to climb a ladder to get there, remember, too precocious, the two of us, weren’t we, yes, yes, a lifetime ago … Thirty years, a lifetime, we haven’t spoken to each other since those days, that’s how it goes, growing more and more set in our ways, losing that spark, that lively curiosity, yes, yes, curiosity and playfulness just fade away, don’t they, experience wears them down, the spark dies out, we turn into lumps, trapped inside our own images, stiff, uncomfortable, inside our legends, our coffins … An arrogant woman, why not say so, arrogant, elegant, privileged, yes, that stupid word is the most appropriate one, isn’t it … I’m taking advantage of this unexpected phone call, who knows if we’ll ever … I mean, I’m not very talkative, practically a recluse, yes, yes, I’m not very sociable, not much for conversations, something different for me … I hope I’m not offending you, my naïve sincerity, isn’t it, another experiment, isn’t it, yes, yes, cruel, I mean, and there’s no reason for it, no reason, but still, it’s a sign of sympathy, with me sincerity is a sign of sympathy, and it’s only with people close to me that I try this experiment, yes, I’m constantly ex … ex … An arrogant, vain, stupid woman, that’s what I wanted to say, that’s what you seemed to be … then there was that legend, wasn’t there, when you ran away or were kicked out of, you know, during your last year of high school, the great love affair with your classmate Vasile Beldeanu, of all people, why him, was it, I ask you, inexplicable, inex … ex … inex … Young girl at a difficult age, that must have been it… Completely unforeseeable, I mean, who could have imagined that this poor clod, how shall I put it, just impossible to foretell the future, not an option, ruled out, excluded, ex … And even if we’d known, yes, known what was coming, it wouldn’t have made any fundamental, essential difference, would it, well, that’s not the question, no, no … Not even your father, poor old Berg, I’m sorry, that terrible episode … No, he couldn’t have known what would happen, not even your own father, but it wouldn’t have changed a thing in any case, would it, hardly likely that we’d ever be able to talk to each other, I know, a conventional woman who in the past, however, did defy convention … I mean, when, you know … when the father curses his daughter, I mean the malediction, the expulsion and ritual burial, as though his only child were dead, you know, as though the old man, without knowing it, without suspecting that, without, no, it’s not possible, he had no idea that within a week he would be, he of all people, I mean, he was the one who, well, barely a week later, his own funeral, he was actually dead and buried, poor old Berg, the old bigot, poor man … And yet social conventions are back in favor, except that now these standards are perfectly stupid, frivolous, superficial, whereas that dramatic faith, as irrational as it may have been, was still, yes … Well, that’s not the point, the old man couldn’t stomach his daughter’s relationship with, well, with those who, yes, yes, the age-old psychosis of the ghetto, right … No one knew what the future would bring, and anyway it wasn’t important, I know, the years at the university, years of poverty, estranged from your family and friends, then suddenly the career, it’s been an outstanding one, hasn’t it … Although his wife’s background hasn’t exactly helped him along, I know, that’s the least one can say, otherwise he’d have been ensconced in a choicer position a long time ago, right at the top, just look at the big shots we’ve got now, lousy employees with their pathetic privileges, yes, yes, Vasile could have gone much further, a remarkable career … What I meant to say was, we’re all prisoners of our images, our past, it was hard for us to communicate … And the stories about me, the legend of course, the non-violent protests, giving up my scientific career, a sort of Gandhi, one would have thought, who knows, I was some kind of hero, not at all, far from it, a tired man, worn out, yes, all the reading, yes, a joy, I won’t deny it, and the book, well, I won’t deny it, a success, yes, yes, one shouldn’t exaggerate the success of a book, crisis, no more, no less, the expression of a sense of impasse, absolutely true, but mine wasn’t the only dilemma, we’ve all been there, it’s the story of our generation, the children of the war, not only the war, there’s something else, we haven’t found the right label yet … I’m rarely off in a trance like this, very rarely … It’s the morphine of boredom, that’s what it is, another experiment, isn’t it, ‘developed multilaterally,’ that’s what all those newspapers say, stuffed with lies, no, it’s not society that’s developed multilaterally but boredom and poverty and terror … We’re used to it, of course, we’ve been used to it from childhood … Yes, yes, let’s keep things in proportion, sure, I was talking about boredom, I mean, that deadly monotony and the multilateral boredom of language, of submission, conventions, don’t forget those murderous conventions, incurable, real killers, unless we can find something else, a new experiment, an explosion, an ex, yes, we know exactly which one, but before then there will be other ones, ex, extra-, lots of others, soon, extra-, always more, plenty more …”