Norman Manea - Compulsory Happiness

A METHODICAL SCHEDULE, REPEATED DAILY, FROM FIVE in the morning until ten in the evening. Without any modification, the same ordeals, over and over, repeated indefinitely. To humiliate, intimidate, destroy. From morning to evening. Sometimes at night as well.

The same precision, the same cruelty, for several months now. And then, suddenly, a change.

One Tuesday morning, without any warning, an unbelievable change. They hadn’t beaten her, and instead of beating her, they’d moved her to a bigger cell, on the first floor. She was allowed an extra hour of exercise, alone in the courtyard, before lights out. In the evening, a fat, grumpy guard replaced the toilet can with an enameled chamber pot.

The next morning, hot sugared tea; the meals were better than usual, too. In the afternoon, at the time formerly reserved for her harshest punishment, she was taken to the shower. When she returned, she found a sheet on her bed, and a clean blanket, and some clothing, neatly folded. The most astonishing thing of all: the small rectangular mirror and the slender tube of Nivea lotion found among the clothes.

Thursday morning, they took her through a maze of corridors, going left, right, down, up, left again.

A room with white walls, like a doctor’s office. A woman was waiting there, smoking, sitting on a couch covered in brown oilcloth. She seemed like a former colleague, or a vaguely remembered acquaintance.

They were left alone together for almost an hour. The unknown woman sat with her legs crossed and wrote in a notebook propped up on her lap. Above her white knee, an elegant little fountain pen flew back and forth; every once in a while, the knee would twitch.

Then a doctor entered the room. Judging from the questions he asked, he had to be a psychiatrist. The unknown woman listened to all these routine tests with a bored or, rather, a blase air. She must have been a person of high rank, because a simple gesture from her was enough to dismiss the doctor. Later she explained to the prisoner the reason for the unexpected changes of the last few days.

But only after making her stand completely naked for an hour, during which time the woman did invite her to sit down, true, and offered her cigarettes (which she herself chain-smoked), but she would not allow her to go anywhere near her clothes.

“Leave them alone,” she’d barked imperiously. “Later.”

The woman had carefully studied the different parts of her body. Without malice, with a cold, professional eye. The inspection finished with a smile.

“Sorry about your hair — I can’t make it grow back in three days.”

So it seemed she was the one who had thought of, or at least supervised, the details of this new program.

“Too bad they shaved you. Did you have pretty hair?”

She didn’t seem bothered by the lack of a reply. Her questions were more in the line of amused hypotheses.

“As for everything else, you’ve taken fairly good care of yourself. And you haven’t even become too bitter. Actually, that’s quite a triumph, I must admit.”

She smiled again, as though giving a handout to a poor relative.

“Today you won’t have to follow any schedule. This afternoon, a nice hot bath. It’ll do you good, you’d be silly to refuse. I’ve had some magazines and newspapers taken to your cell. If you need or would like anything in particular, let me know, I’ll take care of it. Here, I’ll make a note of it right now, if you want something.”

She took a blank sheet of paper from the desk. She waited, unruffled by the stubborn silence of the naked woman sitting before her. She folded the piece of paper several times and then slipped it into the breast pocket of her black satin crepe blouse, which had a pointed collar and long sleeves.

She stood up. A dainty brunette, almost tall, her waist tightly encircled by a wide leather belt. Hair worn loose about her fragile shoulders. Slender legs, arms too long, nervous hands. Bluish circles under her eyes. Very, very white skin, like the milky white of her short skirt, which didn’t quite cover her thighs.

“We’re getting you ready to see someone. An important meeting for you.”

A tense, pinched smile.

“The gentleman would like you to look nice. In other words, normal, at least. He can’t stand violence. He’s a sensitive soul, you see.”

Her eyes seemed to have changed color, grown even blacker, with a steely blue glint, and her voice was stern.

“As you’ll find out, he’s doing you a favor. A lucky break, you’ll see.”

She lit a cigarette, then turned her back, looked out the window, her thoughts elsewhere. Suddenly she whirled around, her hands clenched tightly together. Her face flushed, her expression pained. She slammed the door on her way out.

She didn’t come back. The only indication that she might have remained in the vicinity came two hours later, when a somewhat panicky young man appeared, obviously instructed to be polite.

“Sorry, they forgot you were here.”

Yes, the prisoner had put her clothes back on quite a while ago and was waiting, sitting rigidly on a chair. “Please follow me.”

She saw that her cell had been swept and aired. On the cement, a pile of newspapers and magazines.

At around three o’clock, her reading was interrupted. Two of them escorted her. She went downstairs, around corners, along lengthy corridors. This time, to a bathroom. Not the shower she’d already used. A gleaming white bathtub. Big, colorful, fluffy towels. A cake of perfumed soap. All sorts of little bottles. Slippers, nail polish. When she got back to her cell, a cup of hot tea was waiting for her.

And now, here it was, the fourth day. “Would five in the afternoon be convenient? Would it be convenient at five?” the woman had asked, as if speaking a line from an opera libretto, tired of the absurdity of what she’d been told to do and say.

So, the appointed day. That morning she was taken to another wing of the building. An elegant room. Thick carpets. Beautifully paneled walls. She was seated in an armchair, before a round, glass-topped table in a corner of the room. The table shook, the silver coffee service and china tea things tinkled. Croissants in a basket. Cherry preserves. Butter. Honey, apples, sugar cookies.

A large desk, running almost the entire length of the room. Not a single picture. Bare walls, except for a big round clock resembling a barometer, over the desk. Two windows, heavy drapes. Three chairs, including hers. Beneath one of the windows, a credenza with two shelves; on the lower one, a radio. A telephone and a lamp on the desk.

Lunch at two o’clock. Carp’s eggs, green salad, deviled eggs, pork spareribs, slivovitz, tiny meatballs, spicy sausage, pickles, wine, mineral water, baklava pastries.

She fainted. Before passing out, she’d vomited until she was exhausted, and vomited again. She was taken to the bathroom, the one with the tub; she hadn’t realized it was right next door. They cleaned the stains off her collar, they rubbed her temples and forehead with a damp washcloth. They stretched her out on an air mattress, to let her recuperate. . They took her back to the same room, supporting her under the arms. Eggplant caviar. Meatballs. Deviled eggs. Carp’s eggs. Slivovitz. Rum. Spareribs. Escalope Milanaise. Wine. Cake. Everything came up again. They caught her at the last moment, as she was falling. She sat down at the table once more. She picked up the knife, the fork. Then the bottle, the glasses, one after the other. . When she awoke, the table was bare, cleared. There was only a slim black bottle, with a golden label marked Eau de toilette, and beside it, a tiny flask, hardly bigger than a thimble: Perfume. She looked at the clock. Four-thirty.