Ioana Pârvulescu - Life Begins on Friday

Mr Mirto stubbed out his cigarette in the ashtray, next to Dan’s.

‘He immediately published the series of articles in a book, at the newspaper’s press, because like we do, they have their own printing press. The title was not quite understood, Histoire d’une fiction , and in Romanian it is more unintelligible still, Povestea unei ficțiuni (The Story of a Fiction). Some said that it was too abstract, others that it was metaphysical. Some of the opinions from that book would be worth discussing, but nobody discussed them, and hence the tragedy. Upon my word it is a great and very courageous book. Look, let me tell you honestly that I for one would not have dared to write such a book…’

For the first time the translator saw Dan smile and he was left almost speechless. It was something that completely illumined and altered him, it sweetened his features, as if he were emerging from one of the paintings in the Florentine churches Peppin had visited in spring, when he went to seek the southern sun and the traces of his Italian ancestors.

After a long moment he continued: ‘And after all that, George Lahovary wrote an article against the director of Epoca , Nicu Filipescu, whom he accused of being two-faced in certain unpleasant affairs that took place at the end of last month in Strada Carol, I will not describe them; cases of vandalism, in which some students were suspected of being involved, which is why the Rector of the University, Professor Maiorescu, I do not think you will have heard of him, after paternally urging them to keep out of such villainous tricks, nonetheless resigned, which is a great loss. Mr Filipescu, a rather impulsive, agitated man, as well as being from an opposing newspaper, immediately sent his seconds and challenged him to a duel. I wonder whether this was the drop that caused the cup to overflow…’

Here, Mr Peppin Mirto broke off what he was saying and rushed outside to speak to Miss Iulia Margulis, who was just coming downstairs. After about five minutes he came back.

‘As I was saying, forgive me for the interruption — Miss Margulis asked me for an opinion, she consults me about translations, and I assist her with pleasure. As I was saying, the political adversary sent his seconds. Nicu Filipescu trained regularly for two weeks, although he is a good swordsman to start with, but Lahovary had not laid hands on a sword for five years , according to his valet, a Frenchman by the name of Paul, and he was a little lame. He says that on the morning of the duel, 29 November — more than three weeks have passed already — he nevertheless did a few exercises.’

For the first time, Dan interposed a one-syllable question: ‘And?’

‘And they went to the fencing hall on the Dâmbovița embankment. Before the duel, his seconds said that they ought to abandon the duel, because it was very cold, but Filipescu would have none of it; they would fight as planned. The seconds later recounted what happened. By the end of the very first bout, Lahovary had been backed up against the wall; it was as if his fingers had frozen to the sword hilt. Victor Ionescu, one of Filipescu’s seconds, who had drawn the straw to oversee the duel, stopped the bout and allowed the adversaries to resume their starting positions and to stand en garde . Immediately after they engaged and their blades locked, Filipescu feinted, and then, with astonishing vigour and speed, he plunged his blade in Lahovary’s belly. But with such strength that the tip touched a rib and bent! He felled him on the spot. The rule had been that they would fight until one of them was visibly unable to continue. The duel was broken off, and what stirred even greater passion and compassion were Lahovary’s last words: ‘I die! I die! They have assassinated me.. .’

Peppin had recounted the whole duel with an actor’s mastery.

‘The Police have still not been able to established whether or not it was intentional, whether the director of L’Indépendance died for his ideas, for his principles, which were not to the liking of some, or whether ‘merely’ for his honour. Costache Boerescu interviewed them all, he invited them to dinner — first one, then another — taking a softly-softly approach. In any event, a great loss… I am greatly saddened. I knew him quite well… he was not a fierce man; he was balanced, honest, and rather jolly. His family is devastated… How are things with you? How do you like your new lodgings?’

Dan was about to say something, but Peppin sat back down at the desk. It seemed he shared that trait of people who talk a lot: he listened but little.

*

Upstairs, in the office of the editor-in-chief, the conversation came less easily. Peppin’s brother, Pavel, having been around garrulous people from a young age, had become taciturn, while Procopiu, who had a talkative wife, loved silence above all else. When he was not speaking, Pavel dreamed up all kinds of scenes that he wrote in his mind. You couldn’t even imagine what was going on behind his round spectacles. You had the impression that he half opened the door, spoke on the threshold to the people outside, and then abruptly slammed it in their faces, shut the windows and drew the curtains, broke off all possibility of contact with the exterior, and tumbled into himself, as if into a deep pit, crawling with the snakes of ideas. Every day, he woke up at the same time as his wife, at seven in the morning, washed, tied his lavaliere, made himself dapper, as if he were about to get engaged to “The Idea.” In the meantime, his wife incessantly nagged him, and so when he left the house it was a blessing. He chose the streets that were full of people, he looked in the shop windows, sometimes he even entered a café on the Boulevard, where he always ordered a cappuccino, which he sipped at leisure, keeping an eye out for public figures.

Today, he had ridden the tram around town for a long time, in search of a good story, from the Bishopric to St George’s, then as far as Moșilor Avenue, and thence along the Elisabeta Boulevard as far as the Cișmigiu tram stop. From the tram stop he proceeded on foot, along the edge of the park — in summer it was a joy to see the flowerbeds in all their bright colours and the solar clock — before turning right up Strada Brezoianu, and here he was, in despair at not having found any good event to turn into a front-page story. Everything was going too well and all the people that crossed his path were amiable and settled. But it was disorder and incidents, fires and thefts, that were a newspaper’s greatest fortune, the things that increased circulation. Should he write something about the City Hall’s ordinance regarding printing presses? That was not much of a novelty. Ever since the invention of the printing press, its toxic disadvantages have been known. Of course, the strictest tidiness and cleanliness reduced the risk of inhaling lead dust, but did not eliminate it altogether. And to speak of such a thing was somehow dangerous, when you were a large gazette with its own printing press and you boasted a rotary that had been brought all the way from Würzberg and which was the only one of its kind in Romania. Better the way other confreres do it; those that print American-style news items that astound you, but which don’t become subjects of debate: for example, a compositor sets twelve thousand letters a day. If you take into account the distance the hand moves when setting each letter is about two paces, then in a year, not including holidays, a compositor’s hand moves around six thousand kilometres. Which was about the distance to New York.

‘Do you think that Nicu Filipescu will be convicted?’ asked Pavel, lifting his head, as if he had sensed the anxieties of his colleague and wished to allay them.