Ioana Pârvulescu - Life Begins on Friday

The door flew open and Mr Costache burst forth, without looking at anybody and without seeing him. Petre followed him and before the Head of Security could enter his office, he stopped him with a hoarse ‘Mr Costache!’ The policeman turned around and it seemed that only then did he remember him.

‘Ah, a good job you came and don’t make me waste my time with you, otherwise I’ll have you put in a cell downstairs, and then you’ll see how they ask you questions.’

Petre looked at Mr Costache in terror and the stump of his index finger started to throb.

‘What do you want to know?’

‘I want to know everything, and tell me everything you concealed the last time. What you took from that boy and why, and whether you shot him!’

‘No, not me, sir, I never even had me gun with me that day. I ran away from home, from me wife’s tongue, she were nagging me, ’cause she don’t want me to be a Jew’s servant all me life, she wants me to be a blacksmith and indebendent. I didn’t have no gun! First I saw him on the ground, the one that didn’t have no moustache, I thought he were drunk, he were trembling and I gave him me father’s overcoat, God rest his soul, and ten minutes later I found the blond one, lying there like he were dead, but he weren’t dead, and I bicked him ub.’

Mr Costache looked at him unrelentingly. When he wanted to, he could paralyse all those around him with a single glance; he could give orders without opening his mouth. He had never yet raised his hand to anybody, he lowered his voice to a whisper, but he could get his way like that more quickly than by using the old methods. He had a bearing that cowed even criminals, and Petre all the more so, since he was not a criminal.

‘I took it, sir.’

‘Took what?’

‘The burse.’

‘And?’

‘I threw it in the shi… er, in the brivy, so as nobody would find it. I don’t know why I took it, I thought I could oben a smithy and shut me wife ub and I knew very well that the blond lad didn’t have long to live, and so he wouldn’t need it. But I swear that all it had in it was a key and not one benny, I swear on the holy icon!’

Petre made a sweeping sign of the cross with thumb and one and a half fingers, and Costache dismissed him with his harshest glare. The coachman retreated backwards, — one advantage a man has over a horse, which doesn’t know how to walk backwards so easily.

Mama and Papa and Jacques left at half past four, in our carriage. I thought to myself: if I put my corset on and arrange my hair, he will not come. If I do not put it on, he might come, and then I will appear to him in the worst possible light and with the largest possible waist. Nevertheless, if I do not put my corset on, I have two advantages: I will be comfortable and if he does not come, I will not have gone to ridiculous lengths of preparation for nothing. Often I play the lottery with my thoughts in this way and always have the winning ticket. What a win! By the way, my cousin, who always has good initiatives, urged me to enter the New Year’s lottery, only she knows that I have bought a ticket, especially given we have financial difficulties. I have hidden it right here in my diary. I placed the numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 together, not being able to think of anything better, arranged as 12, 34 and 56. Vasilica chose hers at random: 65, 43 and 21. I cannot even imagine what we would do with ten thousand lei, but surely we should start with a bigger surgery for Papa, with the latest instruments, since his a very out of date. How much would a Roentgen machine cost? I have not the faintest idea. At a few minutes to five, I started to bustle around, I looked in the mirror, I arranged my hair a little, although whatever I might do, it will not stay in place, I suppose that it does not like what is inside my head, in my ‘cranial container,’ as Papa so nicely puts it. Oh, is there anybody who is exactly as she wishes to be in every respect, both inside and out? I have had no news from that person. Who knows from what great-great-somebody I inherited this black and unruly head of hair!

At five o’clock on the dot I almost fainted in fright, because I heard the front door and then Safta appeared. But I could immediately tell she was not wearing her Alexandru Livizeanu face. It was Mr Dan Crețu, seemingly in a better mood — who wished to thank us for lunch — how nice of him, he is well-educated after all! But when he heard that I was alone, he did not wish to stay, although I insincerely begged him to. He was in such a hurry that he did not even take his hat off, the man is very absent-minded, but he is very dear to me the way he is! Well, let us see how I shall recount what happened next, since at the Central School they never taught us such a thing…

After Dan left, I was so disappointed, having believed for an instant that the other man had arrived, I was so disappointed that I extinguished all the lights and withdrew to my room.

However, not ten minutes after Dan Crețu’s departure, Safta appeared, this time wearing her Alexandru face, which is to say a solemn and defiant mien, as if I were a mule for agreeing to see such a man. I did not even have time to regret that I had not arranged my hair, he entered and I cannot remember whether or how he greeted me. I quickly picked up Vanity Fair pour me donner une contenance . He sat down next to me on the couch, although I had invited him to take a chair. He looked deeply and steadily into my eyes, and I did likewise. When Jacques and I were younger, we used to play at looking into animals’ eyes, and they would never hold out, always quickly turning aside their gaze, especially dogs. I wanted to show Alexandru that I could hold out, that I was not a dog, but I could not understand what his gaze meant. Perhaps it meant nothing.

‘What does ‘green and red’ mean?’ he asked.

‘I wanted to ask you the very same question.’

It was not the first time that we had thought the same thing in the same moment. He smiled, although, not as luminously as Mr Dan Crețu smiles. See how objective I can be!

‘Nicu brought me a coded message, like in charades: ‘Five o’clock, green and red.’ Without a day, without a place, and the fact that I came today is boldness on my part, especially given that on Monday I had the honour not to be…’

‘But what about the letter?’ I said, interrupting, since I felt guilty about Monday. ‘My letter was clear!’

‘What letter?’ and as he said it his face took on that innocence it often shows when he is lying, and which so infuriates me. He was up to his usual tricks again — and my heart felt heavy. Nicu is renowned for never having lost any envelope or parcel that has ever been entrusted to him, by me or anybody else, and he told me that he gave him the envelope. Given the choice between Nicu and Alexandru, allow me to believe Nicu. I rose to my feet, but remembering I was not wearing a corset, I quickly sat back down, thus allowing me the better to conceal my lack of that item of attire, and I think I blushed slightly. It was obvious, however, that he had straight away noticed the lack, because his eyes remained on my dress, namely my waist.

‘Why did you come here on Monday?’ I asked and the question sounded colder than I had intended.

‘Iulia… I am in difficulties, I am in a situation that might turn out badly for me. I have told Mr Boerescu, but I got the impression that he did not believe me, just as you do not believe me when I tell you that I did not receive a letter.’

He had an utterly different tone of voice than any I had heard from him thitherto, but his eyes still had his “ home à femmes ” tone, although he panted slightly as he spoke, as if he had been running. And he quickly stood up to leave. My heart quailed, but just as quickly he came back and sat down, right beside me, and cupped my cheek in his palm. And then rather than telling me about his difficulties, he prepared difficulties for me; a host of future difficulties because the sole lamp could be easily extinguished and the flames in the hearth flickered softly, and because my lack of a corset helped things to happen there, on the couch. He aroused my breasts, alarming each in turn, and then there was an all-encompassing yearning, tighter and tighter, and a boundless compassion. Yes, it was something higher than us, higher than me, and he said: ‘you little face looked as if you had been born, it was like a child’s first scream.’ My body did everything it had to without anybody ever having taught it. I think Safta knows, because since then she has looked at me with a kind of annoyance.