Gregor von Rezzori - An Ermine in Czernopol

Against his usual custom, Seligmann, who had chanced to overhear the entire speech when he stood at the door (his knocking had gone unnoticed), felt obliged to share this information with Bubi Brill, who had been his friend since childhood. He was, furthermore, attached to Bubi’s sister, Riffke; in fact, the two of them were discussing certain common intentions. Bubi listened carefully to what the secretary told him, and then answered: “That is outstanding! So my old man was so scared he wouldn’t touch that deal with a ten-foot pole, you should have seen him running around the house and biting his fingernails because he was so scared it hurt. But what’s the risk if old Paşcanu wants some security for the stone he’s entrusting, that’s understandable. I’ll just sign over a few drafts in his name. And if he’s under pressure, so much the better: then I can talk to him about all the expenses, and so on. That the whole thing is just a maneuver on his part was clear to me from the beginning, the moment I heard about this business from Mama. Wolfi Merores isn’t the only Jew with a mother. What do I care how he’s going to pay for the other stone? I’ll be setting the whole thing in motion here once and for all. I’ll take a commission from the gentlemen in Amsterdam, that’s enough for me, I don’t need one from him as well. And if he does shell out — look, he’s capable of anything, what with the connections he still has, just between you and me — well, all the better. Then he’ll pay me as well, you’ll see. And Perko, I hear, is one interesting character, yes?

Bubi Brill had half a year’s leisure to ruminate on that, since Herr Perko had helped him cross the border — and at least as far as he managed to get. Bubi didn’t really have cause to complain about him.

“On the contrary!” he explained later. “When they grabbed me at the customs checkpoint, he very honorably intervened, until they told him they would take him in as well if he didn’t shut up. So to this day I don’t know where that little case really disappeared to, assuming one of the customs officials didn’t take it. It’s odd: I know Effi Perko quite well by sight, from Schorodok’s place. I was just never able to introduce myself, because I was usually with gentlemen from the regiment, and now all of a sudden I’m supposed to believe the man stole my luggage, while all he had to do was wait until I came back and then he could have snatched both stones at once if he’d wanted to. Psychologically speaking, the whole thing is a mystery to me.”

“When Jews are stupid,” commented his little brother Solly, “they are really stupid.”

In any case, the Trocadero once again united Bubi Brill and Effi Perko, and they remained friends.

What remained to be explained about the whole grotesque story was how old Paşcanu came to Perko in the first place, and how Bubi, instead of his father, found out about Perko’s planned participation in the business.

The answer to the second question is easier than the first: Perko was never so sure as Paşcanu that old Brill would get involved in the deal. However greedy he might be, Perko didn’t think the old man was that dumb. The “transaction” was “too good” and “too simple”—in fact, it stunk to high heaven. Old Brill had too much experience with Paşcanu’s other business customs not to immediately suspect something and steer clear of it, no matter how much that might annoy him. But not so Bubi Brill, the youthful habitué of the Trocadero. Perko was a good judge of people; he observed them carefully — Bubi Brill, for instance, sporting with the ladies of the establishment, or enjoying the camaraderie of the officers of the cavalry regiment, in which he was allowed to serve, if not with a saber then at least with his pen, thanks to his mother’s hefty contributions to Madame Turturiuk’s pocket money.

So on the same morning when old Paşcanu received Brill, Perko sent his “feelers to the right people” and had Bubi Brill informed on in confidence, namely through a telephone call placed by their common friend Schorodok, proprietor of the Trocadero.

The answer to the first question — how old Paşcanu came to Perko, or vice versa — seems baffling beyond belief, unless one is able to empathize fully with the spirit of Czernopol. To wit: Perko had won the friendship and confidence of the castrato Miron, most especially in the church of St. Parachiva — through his acts of piety.

He had long ago been baptized in the Orthodox rite, and his religious fervor went so far that when he was with his friends in the Trocadero, no matter how advanced the hour, he categorically forbade any and all disrespectful allusions to religious or churchly matters. Moreover, after Paşcanu’s death, he supported the scopit in the most generous manner, so that Gogeamite, the human mountain, whose voice was like the bright pealing of Easter bells, was granted a peaceful and carefree autumn of his life. Czernopol gained fodder for its laughter. Ephraim Perko was the hero of the day.

“I have to confess,” said Herr Tarangolian, “I can’t figure out how I can hang this person at the same time I’m supposed to build him a monument. For what he did to the unfortunate Russian refugees he undoubtedly deserves to be hanged …”

“Drawn and quartered!” exclaimed Uncle Sergei. “Every single bone broken, the nails slowly pulled off and the tips of his fingers immediately dipped in vinegar …”

“Of course, you are speaking from a very pardonable emotion, my dear Sergei Nikiforich. But for the business with old Paşcanu he deserves a monument. Not because he was able to out-trick the trickster — my friend Merores had already beaten him to that, and very thoroughly. But because in one stroke of genius he was able to dupe the swindler and in so doing taught Czernopol, this most intelligent city on the planet, a lesson, by showing that the man was basically as dumb, primitive, and foolish as on the first day he climbed down out of the woods. To show Czernopol that it had been taken in by a blockhead, that it had fallen for a masquerade, a legend, the old fairy tale about ‘the chosen one’—well, that, my friends …” Herr Tarangolian muffled his voice into an ecstatic whisper; he shut his eyes appreciatively and rubbed the closed fingertips of his luxuriantly ringed hand under his Levantine nose, as if he were sniffing highly aromatic spices. “That, my friends, is magnificent. One of a kind. Brilliant. That is something worth relishing. ”

MEANWHILE our appreciation for the sublime and magnificent comic spirit had yet to acquire the sophistication that Czernopol demanded. We looked at Săndrel Paşcanu’s attempted diamond swindle as no more, and no less, than an adventuresome and exciting tale, made all the more colorful by the figure of the old man, who for us belonged to Tildy’s retinue — one of the figures that surround the hero and provide a picturesque symbolism, like the shield bearers, unicorns, wild men, and lions on a princely coat of arms. And no matter how hard we tried, we couldn’t bring ourselves to see Ephraim Perko as anything more than a scoundrel whom we would have happily and eagerly sent to his doom, if he had chanced to fall into our hands.

Our unworldly upbringing failed to educate us in many areas, but thanks to our friendship with Solly Brill we were able to catch up on what we had missed by making several forced marches. Nor did this friendship suffer because of our other one with Blanche Schlesinger. As siblings of different ages, with strong internal bonds, we had always been essentially self-sufficient, and at the same time open with one another in sharing whatever came from the outside, and as a result we were never in danger of succumbing to the isolating exclusivity of those exalted childhood friendships that carry within them the seeds of anger, where disloyalty takes root alongside jealousy. Moreover, what we called our friendship with Blanche Schlesinger was really the lightest contact: she had set herself down beside us like a butterfly, and we marveled at her and loved her and took care not to endanger her fragile tenderness.