Ioana Pârvulescu - Life Begins on Friday

The man had either not heard or did not want to answer. Nicu examined his coloured footwear. Now he could see the lilac stripes against the green ones more clearly. The shoes didn’t look at all solid and they were still damp from the night before. He had slept with his clothes on, like a tramp.

‘Maybe they’ll give you a pair of galoshes at Universu’ . The best ones are the St Petersburg brand; all the young people wear them. They’ve got a double sole.’

Nicu took him by the hand, as he used to do with his mother when she didn’t really know what was going on. He picked his bowler hat out of the bucket and wiped it on the sleeve of his coat, wondering where it had come from. As he had told Jacques, he knew for sure that the man was bareheaded. The Margulis family’s cook had told the boys about people who walk in their sleep, when there is a full moon, as if they were wide-awake. They walk along the rooftops and if you call out to them, they fall, but otherwise ‘nothing happens to them.’ Might there have been a full moon last night? He hadn’t noticed. He gave the stranger a critical look. You’ll be embarrassed by him on the street dressed like that, he thought, what with that overly large greatcoat and him looking like he’s just fallen out of the sky. Obviously, he for one would have liked to be in a roofed carriage, with a gleaming equipage, seated next to a well-dressed, cheerful and healthy man, smelling of patchouli, rather than a Martian who smelled of poverty. But there’s no choosing your family. It was just like the lottery: some people win, some lose. Nicu had already adopted him as a member of his not very large family; this man Dan Crețu, who in the light of day looked gentle and ill. But what if, he now thought, what if it really was like that , if he had an unknown brother who had grown up far away, as happened in the family of that vendor from the fish market? When the brothers met, they both sensed it, like an electric current that passed through them both and made them burst into tears. It was as if he had felt the same current, when he saw the stranger for the first time, except that there had been no tears. But if you don’t feel like crying, does it still mean you’re brothers?

They entered Universul and old man Cercel, who had lately been having stabbing pains in his belly, stood up with a groan. While the stranger brushed the snow off himself, the doorman, surprise, surprise, communicated to the boy in a low voice that he at last had the lottery ticket: 98, 38 and 51. In other words, the coming year, as Nicu had advised, the year of his birth, and the year of his wife’s birth. They looked each other in the eyes, with excitement, the same as they always did when they put fate to the test. Old man Cercel, whose face was a little more congested than usual, conducted the two of them to Peppin Mirto. Nicu was unsurprised to discover that Mr Peppin was inclined to help with regard to the stranger; he was a man who filled any gap anytime and entered anywhere it was difficult. On the other hand, he had not understood very well why Mr Costache wanted to help the stranger, but nor did he trouble his head about it. He decided he must have his reasons.

He found Peppin working on a translation. He had just written: Second Part. The Genius of Evil … and was about to dip his nib in the inkwell when the motley group made up of the doorman, Nicu and a strange, mild-looking man, appeared in the doorway. The doorman explained what was what, Mr Mirto put his pen down, pressed a piece of blotting paper to the splendidly handwritten title, and in a booming voice invited Dan to sit down. He was surprised to notice that the man did not remove his bowler hat, which was pulled down rather too far over his ears.

‘Has Mr Neculai Procopiu arrived yet?’ he asked the doorman.

‘Not yet,’ said Nicu and old man Cercel both at the same time. ‘But he should be here any minute now. I’ll tell him to come up…’ added the doorman.

‘I’ll tell him too,’ Nicu made a point of saying and then withdrew along with the doorman, but not before giving his adopted brother a wink. It was a habit he had picked up at school from the older boys, who were always finding occasions to encourage each other, just as they were always finding occasions to niggle each other. Nicu they preferred to niggle, but he did not care; he took everything as it came.

Peppin did not know how to tell the stranger that he had forgotten to take his hat off and finally abandoned the subject, so as not to make him feel embarrassed. He sought a subject of conversation suitable for two men who did not know each other and had just said, in his melodious voice: ‘The snow has started coming down heavily! But fair weather has been announced for tomorrow, I think it must be the mildest winter since—’ when he heard, with relief, faint voices in the corridor. It was indeed Neculai Procopiu, who entered wearing a top hat far too elegant for an ordinary working day. Perhaps he will be going from here straight to the opera, thought Peppin, who was always yearning for music.

‘Good day, you must be —’ the editor-in-chief began to say, but then he faltered, his eyes fixed on the hat atop the stranger’s head.

‘This is Mr Dan Kretzu. Are you by chance a relative of Kretzu the pharmacist?’ asked Peppin.

Seeing the editor-in-chief’s look, the turn of phrase he had been seeking earlier suddenly came to him, as sometimes happened when he was translating and the right word popped up out of the blue: ‘If a man sits in a newspaper office with his hat and coat on, it means he does not belong there. Allow me to share this observation from a long-standing newspaperman, in the hope that we shall soon be colleagues. Perhaps you would like to hang your hat and coat on the rack?’

And he accompanied that wonderfully articulated sentence with a gesture of invitation towards the coat rack, next to which could be seen, just as in every other office, the calendar with the Canadian lady skaters. Unconvinced, the man took off his hat and sat holding it. He held it like a ball of rags. For the moment, Peppin Mirto did not feel any great sympathy towards the stranger, who was neither young nor old, and was pale, with dark rings under his eyes. Mr Costache had asked him as a personal favour to help discreetly. He did not very well understand why. As for the editor-in-chief, he fixed the man with a gaze that might mean anything at all.

‘Allow me,’ said Procopiu, and hastened to take the hat from his hands.

But instead of taking it to the coat-rack, he looked at the lining and let forth an exclamation that astonished the translator. Surely there must be something that eluded him.

‘He has come about a job,’ Peppin began, ‘he is a newspaperman… where have you worked, probably abroad, am I right? We do not wish to be indiscreet, although indiscretion is part of our trade, albeit not between colleagues, and I am sure you will tell us in your own good time, when you feel like it, and so until then.’

Peppin liked the sound of his own voice. Neculai Procopiu interrupted him: ‘If you will be kind enough to provide a sample of your work, Mr Peppin Mirto will give you instructions, and when you are ready, bring it upstairs to me, the last door on the right after you climb the stairs. I shall be waiting. Goodbye!’

Peppin felt rather awkward, without knowing why. He helped the stranger to take off his coat with the bone buttons, hung it to the coatrack, under the hat, and then handed him a bundle of letters: a questionnaire that the newspaper had conducted on the subject Why Do You Fast? , which was due to be published on Wednesday, 24 December. But the answers received from various subscribers, one hundred in number, had to be grouped by categories, then recopied, with the addition of an introductory sentence and a few closing words.