Norman Manea - Compulsory Happiness

The husband dropped his mask of indifference. Bored? Relaxed? No, far from it: he was impatient, disturbed, frightened. It would probably have been impossible to describe precisely how he felt.

“You know what Madame told me? The story that’s going around all over Bucharest! Everyone’s heard it— taxi drivers, soldiers, old people, even children. The tale of the disappearing corpse. The story about the dead woman. You must have heard it a good twenty times.”

“I haven’t heard any story about any dead woman. I guess that means I’m not so well informed after all,” muttered the husband faintly, in a resigned tone.

“Poor sweetheart! As though anyone would believe you anymore! As though anyone would still believe the tiniest word from you, or even a lousy comma … And the latest edict, regarding the obligatory burial of deceased persons in the locality where they rendezvoused with the Grim Reaper? You’ve heard about that, have you?”

The husband remained silent; who could tell what he knew or didn’t know?

“From now on, the dead must be buried where they died, how about that! Sure, right, the poor dear is completely at sea, I’m the one who has to bring him up to date on all this, fine, fine … So you don’t know the story of the dead woman? It’s told hundreds of times a day in cottages, offices, schools, everywhere, but the poor boy hasn’t heard even a whisper! An old peasant woman … Well, she met Death, scythe and all, here, in Bucharest— not in her village, the way she would have wanted, with her old man by her side, in her old house that she’d lived in since forever. She’d come to visit one of her sons, here, in Bucharest. And the son? He wanted to take her home to the village, where the rest of the family was. To their own village, so she could be buried there. Forbidden! Against the law! The body goes nowhere, neither as is nor in a coffin. For-bid-den, courtesy of take one guess. Not even that, you haven’t even got that anymore, the right to die when you feel like it, wherever you feel like it, to rot in peace wherever you want, instead of where Comrade You-know-who says.”

“Ioana, if you could … Wouldn’t it be better if you calmed down, tried to get a grip on yourself, you’re talking wild, not watching what you say …”

“Not watching what I say? What, you want to see me die of fear right here in my own home? So what, what difference does it make? What do I care if they hear everything I say, what do I care if the walls have ears, fuck it, how about that, I really don’t give a frigging damn! The son wrapped his mother’s body in a rug. One of those big rugs, made a big, fat roll. And he put it on the roof rack of his car. He wanted to drive the rug to his mother’s house, so the old woman could be buried properly, with her family. He took along a friend from the office where he worked, and they went up north, to the other end of the country. They stopped along the way to eat, or sleep, whatever. So they entered a restaurant, and in the meantime, someone stole their rug! Someone stole the rug tied to the car! A huge rug, really beautiful and everything. They stole the rug, with the body wrapped up in it. That’s it … You never know what’s going to happen … So there you have it, that’s the latest hot rumor going all over town. And … and … Madame! A normal conversation … perfectly normal. Everything was quite normal, utterly normal. The same short, well-thought-out sentences, lapidary treasures. Superb diction, like in the theater. The same distance … that ultra-correct, conventional stiffness which humiliates you and drives you out of your mind. The same, the same, exactly the way I’ve always known her. Translating that story into stiff academic prose. That story, from her lips! A high-level lecture … from her prissy, aristocratic mouth.”

The husband stared at the floor, directing a heavy black look at the red flower in the precise center of the rug.

Ioana was pacing up and down the room; she stopped, waited, returned to the fray.

“Everything looked perfect. Expertly made-up, as always. Ultra-soignée, aloof, polite, just as we’ve always known her. Not a thing had changed. Except that raincoat … that’s all. Italian high heels, impeccable hairdo, freshly manicured nails. Freshly manicured, even that revolting thumb of hers. Hairdo, nails, silk scarf. Makeup … lipstick, mascara, eyebrow pencil. The perfect mask, Cleopatra, Queen Nefertiti, absolutely. This posture, conversation, everything flawless, as before. Except for the raincoat … A long one, a man’s raincoat. That trenchcoat!”

Ali studied the carpet; Ioana marched back and forth, extremely upset. She stopped, looked at her husband furiously, suspiciously — sometimes suspiciously, sometimes as though she were about to explode, ready to release all of her pent-up anger.

“The trenchcoat! You know what kind of raincoat they were wearing? Perhaps not … They were wearing the same kind. The same kind, both of them! The cheapest kind, you know, the one you see in all the stores, the one hardly anyone buys. Those big, man’s, faded-looking raincoats. A sort of cotton duck that used to be real material and used to have who knows what real color. Now it’s the color of wind, fog, our bleached-out boredom. Big, long, a raincoat from a long-dead army, no shape, no style, no color. The same, you understand? The same raincoat, both of them! You’d have thought they’d escaped together from a loony bin, from that camp years ago, or from the moon, or from the circus. The same trenchcoat, you hear, the same! I’m mistaken? I’m seeing things, I’m crazy? Nightmares, visions, sure, I’m exhausted, hysterical, right? Right? Right … So, tell me, tell me where, where does madness come from, like that, all of a sudden? From apathy, from cowardice, from fatigue and passive complicity and normality, that abnormal, vegetative, pathological, stifling normality that’s strangling us all? Just like that, all at once, from that sort of tepid sludge we put up with? Just like that, in the middle of the jokes and the rumors and the gossip and the harangues?”

Then, a rustling in the air, perhaps, trailed by the shadow of a long, thin, invisible snake. But no one heard a thing. The woman took a deep breath and fell silent. Her voice had sunk gradually lower, finishing in a sort of suffocated helplessness.

“So now you understand. And now I would like to understand, too.”

The man didn’t speak. His gloomy face had probably grown even gloomier. The woman watched him, waiting. Those little green eyes behind the thick lenses … and the pale, ever paler face, and the short hair, quivering with each nervous toss of her head.

“You must also know, I’m sure, who was with her … Perhaps you could explain that to me as well, while you’re at it.”

Her husband, naturally, kept his eyes fixed on the red spot in the carpet.

“Aha, you know that, too. So there’s an explanation for everything … You knew that as well, of course. And you never said a word to me. You should have seen me, I was thunderstruck, petrified. Petrified, I mean it. Just seeing her, first of all. You never know … was it her, or wasn’t it? I couldn’t tell anymore. And then our conversation, seemingly so natural, with her usual tics, her stilted phrasing. Aloof, imperial. Talking of this and that… the current gossip … the latest story, the body hidden in the stolen rug … as if everything were fine, as if her elaborate phrasing were perfectly suited to the story — as if she’d always been interested in such things and used to talk about them all the time! I tried not to see that raincoat of hers, way too big for her, she was swimming in it, so slender and elegant, the way she is. And just then, whom do I see coming out of the cigar store on the corner? The Learned One! The Researcher! I didn’t understand yet, I was going to wave, call to him. For all I knew, he hadn’t seen me … but the Learned One was heading, in fact, very calmly, straight for us. Here the Guileless One came up to me and asked — well, what do you think he asked me? How are you! That’s what he asked me, how are you! … That’s what that Simpleton asked me. Never said a word to her, the other one. I was openmouthed, rooted to the spot, I didn’t know whether I was coming or going, I was completely at a loss.”