Norman Manea - Compulsory Happiness

He was definitely on a roll, friend Ali, forced as he was to spout his tiresome truths that even children can figure out these days, figure out and then file away, which is just about all you can do with them.

The park was nearby. Night had fallen. A clear, cool night. The park was silent and empty.

Ali returned with renewed vigor to his initiation course. He’d recovered his composure, and his little expose was becoming more explicit, more didactic.

Al. I. Stoian even touched once again on that troublesome point, this time with a strange detachment. As though it weren’t an event they’d just been discussing, involving people they knew. He spoke of it the way people talk about scandals in the tabloids. As though he were only too familiar with weird occurrences, and they didn’t bother him in the least. As though he were utterly used to such things. He spoke as if he were describing to a child how the world works, when the child hasn’t even noticed the phenomena in question.

An official tone, an orderly presentation, a logic geared to the education of the ignorant: the appointments to which various people are summoned periodically, the places where such conversations take place.

His listener appeared extremely, exaggeratedly attentive. He listened, didn’t listen, seemed to be intercepting something else, another voice, or voices, imperceptible currents, the rustling of air, a subterranean gasp, staccato commands, a frightened moan, somewhere, close by or far away, all around, or just the reverie in which he drifted off, longing to return to his games, his den, a world of his own.

Not in official surroundings, of course … continued a voice, God knows where and when. Reports weren’t made in offices anymore, they’d given up on that, even though the people who ordered and organized such meetings were officials, obviously, I mean as official as anyone could get … The voice gradually imposed itself, its timbre, acquired its own personality … Unofficial surroundings, but official agents, wow! Even if the official assignment wasn’t legal, well, in this case, definitely illegal, couldn’t be more illegal, on the contrary … The voice was getting better and better at putting on a nonchalant tone, yes, yes, it was growing more distinctive, a familiar voice, wasn’t it, yes, yes.

The apartments? Copies of keys? With the permission of the tenant, obviously, even though, well, I mean, you never know, things can get too complicated for their own good, obviously. Obviously.

“How would they get the keys?” asked Felicia in astonishment. She was ready for bed, that time when her husband would tell her, very sweetly, the most outlandish stories. “You mean that Vasile would have given them permission to … You mean they had the keys and they knew when no one would be home or … but how … and why, how does that fit in, the coat, the overcoat, I mean the trenchcoat, the raincoat, not the overcoat — now you’ve got me saying things every which way. So it had nothing to do with our visit? Left there a long time ago and … she hadn’t noticed? Or else it didn’t turn up until the next day, after the dinner party? So she figured it out, or it’s precisely that she can’t figure it out? And the others, them, what kind of meetings — conversations, I mean — and why, why wouldn’t they use real offices for their interrogations, I mean their meetings, their meetings with them, those people, the informers, call them whatever you like, their stooges. Aren’t they, they’re on the official payroll, so they can use the offices. Why not, what do you mean they’re not stooges? What are you talking about, they’re not exactly their people? Forced into it? How are they forced into it? What, poor bastards, what do you mean, poor miserable souls? You mean that you, you’d agree to … No, no, I’m not talking about Ali and his theories, or Vasile, no, or their wives, no … You, you’d agree to … Why other people’s apartments, what does that mean? Family atmosphere, domestic environment, how, what, no, no, I don’t follow you, family setting, what kind, what mood … Excuse me, just talk, what do you mean just talk, an intimate atmosphere — what do you mean, intimate, private, how … What is this, increased efficiency … How can you say such … What does that mean, privacy, what privacy?”

This really isn’t the kind of story to tell at bedtime. Too upsetting, and it leads to no end of questions. After a while, the tension inevitably gets to both the narrator and the listener, and, in any case, ordinary daily life provides more than enough worries and fears. There’s no need to add to them, so why chase around after terrifying mysteries?

And so the couple decided never, ever, to talk of such matters again. To forget the whole thing, as though it had never happened.

The other couple, the Stoians, hadn’t even tried to fathom the enigma, it seems. Wiser, probably. And also, perhaps, indifferent to this kind of transparent mystery, or quite simply more cautious, unwilling to burden their days and nights — especially their nights — with unanswerable questions.

A few months later, however, the inevitable happened. The wife came home in a state of indescribable agitation, which couldn’t have been caused by the line at the butcher’s, where she’d wasted several hours in the cold and darkness, since she was used to that, after all.

Her mute distress and the way she kept rubbing and rubbing at her glasses seemed to suggest some extraordinary event.

The husband was busy proofreading the text of an article due to appear in the newspaper the following day, and doing so very carefully, because the piece had been more or less dictated to him on the phone by someone from the top floor of power. He raised his woolly black head and looked at his wife in annoyance. And waited, still watching her. The woman smoothed her short hair, glaring at him through her glasses. A sharp, green-eyed stare.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“What?”

“You know exactly what I’m talking about … I could feel there was something going on. I felt it, but I didn’t want to start asking questions. You never know, I thought, I could be wrong. I felt there’d been … that there were still things going on all the time with that business. I was waiting for you to tell me about it. I mean, I wanted to get to the bottom of it, too.”

“What? What are you talking about? What’s happened now?”

“What’s happened? You’re asking me what’s happened? No, I don’t believe this … You’d think the poor dear had just been born yesterday! You, exactly, you, the one who always knows everything, and before everyone else, and knows a lot more than he needs to!”

“I know what? What’s going on?”

“The romantic lady, remember her? The one who killed her father, the old man who died of a broken heart when the apple of his eye waltzed off with a bum, a faker, a creep who wound up becoming a great big zero, or maybe Zero the Great? Fancy-schmancy Madame, remember? With her priceless house, her priceless wardrobe, and her priceless way of talking! The statue, right? I saw her! I ran into her! Just now in the street. And I saw what’s happened. Only now you have to explain it to me. It’s too much of a shock, I can’t get over it. I want a clear explanation. Clear, you hear me? Clear, clear, clear!”

She was shouting. Her husband must have known she’d end up bursting into tears and pulling out all the stops. He set down his pile of papers.

“You have to speak clearly first. Tell me exactly what you’re talking about. Because right now I haven’t the foggiest idea. Calm down, explain what’s upsetting you, tell me what happened.”

“Come on, do you think I’m some kind of idiot? Or crazy? I saw her, I told you. I met her! I ran into her on the street, two hours ago. I stopped, if you want to know. We had a conversation. A normal conversation … an absolutely normal conversation, even. You know what she told me?”