Norman Manea - The Lair

Peter stretches out on the bed, Lu imitates the movements of Madam Artwein! Simulacrum! Betty and Lu turn their backs to their partners, who bend over Betty, over Lu.

Lost gaze on the screen. Lu is in the bathroom, the shower can be heard. On the screen Betty, bent under the man, receives the penetration, quivering. The bodies accelerate the rhythm, hands searching for each other, as well as mouths, the professional and the client panting and gasping. From the threshold of the bathroom door, Lu listens to the moaning, smiling. Now she’s wearing a red dress, short, very short. In her black bun there’s a small white bridal tiara. White gloves, a pearl choker at her throat.

A click to the ceiling and the copulation disappears. Peter is on his feet. Black suit, giant, patent leather shoes. White bow tie, white kerchief in the breast pocket of the lustrous jacket.

The couple arm in arm in the courtyard of the socialist town hall of Sector 4 in the capital. In the far end of the yard, alone, Madam Eva Kirschner-Ga par is waiting, diminished, seemingly lower in stature, drawn into herself, gray haired, with a grease-stained, wrin-kled and mottled apron over her golden dress. She lifts the hem and wipes her tearful eyes and dirty glasses with her apron. The festive couple passes by her, without seeing her. The entrance into the department of the city clerk’s office. The official charged with the union descends the stairs solemnly to meet them.

It’s Professor Augustin Gora! A little white beard, the gray goatee of a Slavic beadle. Nobility and the ridiculous in his timid manner, devoid of vigor.

The professor embraces the bride, kisses each cheek. He squeezes Mynheer’s hand discreetly. He looks at him insistently, fascinated by the famous character, whose acquaintance he finally has the privilege to make.

Gora wears a green dress coat and a wide band, red, yellow, and blue, over his shoulder and across his breast. He makes a cavalier gesture to the bride, then to her partner, inviting them inside the building.

The mother-in-law suddenly intervenes, shaking with sobs. The professor smiles at the uninvited, invites the trio inside. The bride and the mother-in-law climb the three steps, the groom stands still and stiff like a statue.

The professor repeats the gesture, he tips forward again, like a mannequin, but the groom shows no sign of life. Dead, but upright. Stiff, with glassy, phosphorescent eyes.

Professor Gora smiles, bows toward the bride and hands her a large yellow envelope.

Peter sweats, pants, moans, twisting, throwing off the flaming blanket and sheets. He holds on to the edge of the bed with clenched hands, jumps to his feet, frightened and determined to talk to Gora.

Professor Gora isn’t accessible. He sits for many hours in front of the computer, transcribing the agitated night from which he’s just escaped.

It’s not Saturday, it’s Friday. Tara isn’t bringing the mail, but reporting.

“I’ve become a suspect!”

“Who hasn’t?”

“What do you mean?”

“The investigation doesn’t exclude any hypothesis. Any suspicion. The easiest one: the reporter herself.”

“I didn’t report anything.”

“You brought the postcard. The threat. You triggered the action. You could be complicit.”

“That’s what Ms. Tang thinks. I went to see her. I understand that you didn’t like her either?”

“She was polite. As was Patrick Murphy, Special Agent FBI. Actually, I’m not supposed to tell you that I saw them.”

“You can tell me; I’m complicit. I’m going to see Patrick again, too, says Ms. Tang. With me she wasn’t polite. She asked me to transcribe the whole text from the postcard. In front of her. So she could compare the handwriting with those few words from the address on the card … All she had to do was get my file from the dean; she would have found handwriting samples there.”

“She’ll find and compare them, don’t you worry. So you might be the author of the letter. Is that what she’s suggesting?”

“She’s not suggesting, she’s investigating. Patrick is going to threaten me, I’m sure of it. ‘Either you tell the truth, or I’ll aggravate your situation.’ Tang suspects me. ‘How is it, then, that you take the professor’s mail? It’s addressed to him, not you.’”

“She’s right.”

“It wasn’t my idea.”

“Yes, it was.”

“When I saw how overwhelmed you get by the mountains of mail! Plus, I’m paid to do it! You pay me! I told that blonde. I was sure that it would shatter the suspicion.”

“The suspicion that you wrote the postcard?”

“No, that won’t go away too quickly.”

“Then, what?”

“That I sort the mail so I can come here.”

“She said that?”

“It’s a small college. If you try to hide, you just multiply the suspicions. My roommate sees me coming with the bag of letters for Professor Ga par. I sort the mail for the eccentric Peter Ga par.”

“Eccentric, yes… And what else did Tang ask you?”

“If I tell you, will I be able to sleep better?”

“Has sleep become a problem?”

“Not yet. I’m not the one with a death threat hanging over me.”

“We all have a death threat hanging over us.”

“You’ve said that before. Are you having nightmares? Insomnia?”

“Maybe. I’ve lived my whole life in the city. I don’t understand nature. I’m having a hard time adapting to nights in the woods.”

“So you’re alert. You’re prowling. That’s why you’re not sleeping.”

“Anxiety makes us childish. Only children are afraid of the dark. And the woods.”

“Do you want me to sleep here? On the couch.”

“Sleep here? No. Not in any event. It wouldn’t help me. Nor would it dissolve Ms. Tang’s suspicions. Why did the student provoke the professor’s neuroses? So that he’d become dependent on her? To get into his bed and blackmail him?”

“If she entered his house and his bed, she must care about the professor. She’d have no reason to torment him.”

“Maybe she’s a monster. Dracula.”

“A monster… it would bolster the attraction.”

Tara continues to scrutinize him, like a policeman. Ga par does the same. Tara smiles; Ga par smiles, too.

“Don’t be scared, there won’t be sexual aggression. The monster won’t attack the professor, and if the professor attacks me, I’ll defend myself. Don’t worry, I won’t denounce you. I know you need the salary.”

“No, you can’t stay. Small college. People talk.” “I don’t care.”

“I do. As you said, I need the salary.”

“You’d be less uneasy if there were someone here at night.”

“No, I wouldn’t. I’d be intimidated by another person. No, no. End of subject.”

“Even if the first hypothesis is true?”

“What’s the first hypothesis?”

“That I came up with the letter to make you need me, to make you dependent.”

“Precisely. I need to be careful. Youth is irresistible.”

“And if Patrick asks you to try? He offers you the plan of action: the neurotic who solicits the help of the student he took to bed. She’ll also become vulnerable and will confess to everything in the end.”

“ ‘She’ll also become vulnerable?’ What does Patrick know about her? We’ll wait until Tuesday, after the meeting with the FBI. I’ll tell you if I’ve changed my mind.”