Ioana Pârvulescu - Life Begins on Friday

He lit his pipe and his guest joined him, lighting a cigar.

‘True, it was merely by accident that I came across the additional element. For you the words were written as follows,’ and he showed him the visiting card on which he had jotted them down: light, Popescu, light, with stars, Holy Mother, sar ( dar ?).

The adjutant entered, bringing his usual odour of boot polish, and asked whether the gentlemen would be eating at home, but Algiu waved his hand to signify that he did not have time for such things right now.

‘Understood, I’ll make something,’ said the adjutant, who knew just as well as the Head of Security how to interpret the General’s signals.

‘I knew about the story of the icon from Mrs Elena Turnescu, the surgeon’s widow, who makes large charitable donations. And then more or less by accident I came across a news item about army promotions and I saw that a few months ago Mr Popescu-Lumină had been promoted to sub-lieutenant. He was the one to whom Alexandru was to entrust the package, that is what the boy said, before he died, like a password, exactly what he should have told Alexandru. Therefore light ( lumină ) should be written with a capital letter. I went to see him and talked to him, because I know his superiors well: he seems innocent, but you never know. The same Grigore Cernea told him to expect Alexandru Livezeanu — he knew him by sight — at twelve o’clock at the Gara de Nord, by the first column of the portico. He said he waited twelve hours in the station, until midnight, thinking that he had got the wrong hour, but nobody came. Konets !’

‘You are formidable,’ exclaimed Costache. ‘Checkmate. Now everything fits. Grigore Cernea is no longer in the country and something leads me to believe that he will not be coming back. I found out from a porter at the Gara de Nord that he left on a train for Vienna. But I am not at all sure that he is the one who has the icon, because everything seems to rely on a chain of people who each know only the next link. It is the best way of planning a heist, if you want to keep it shadowy.’

And what about Mr Dan Crețu?’ asked the General. ‘I have read in Lumea Nouă things which, to put it bluntly, not even my adjutant would credit.’

‘Ah, yes, I found out that the man who talked to the journalists from Lumea is the assistant of my friend Margulis, from the surgery, an untrustworthy young man, whom I long ago advised him to dismiss. I hope he will do so now. Who knows what he overheard and what he concluded! In any event, I have found out absolutely nothing new about Dan Crețu. He has contacted nobody; nobody has contacted him. He seems to have burned every bridge with his past. His safe has not been found, but Fane’s mistress told us that it contained nothing but clothes. The Ringster swore to her.’

The sat down at the dinner table and changed the subject.

‘Are you invited to the Livezeanu family’s New Year party? I beg you to come, I would feel more at ease if you did,’ said Costache, and the General’s eyelids, after blinking indecisively a few times, closed to signify his acceptance. He raised his glass, which was filled with ruby-red wine that left transparent trails down the side.

‘To you,’ he said in a tone intended to be impassive.

There are just a few more hours before the end of the year. What have I done with the year or rather what have I made of it? I discovered the Handel minuet, the melody in Jacques’ musical clock. That was good. I met Mr Dan Crețu, who very easily became part of our family and befriended us all. That is likewise very good, if not somehow a miracle, because Papa, who is rather severe and demanding of people, rebuffs people, all the more so a man above whom float all kinds of unusual suspicions. I met a different Alexandru than the one I had known hitherto. That, I think, was bad, although it was good. I have been invited to begin the year 1998 — how silly of me, and how strange it looks! — The year 1898, I meant, at the Livezeanus’. That is neither good nor bad, it is not anything, especially since I shall be staying at home. I have still not finished Vanity Fair . That is good and bad: bad because I have not kept my promise, and good, because I always feel sorry when I finish a good book.

I thought of the people around me, on this last morning of the year, of all those whom I know and whom, most of the time, entre nous , I do not remember. I thought, for example, of old man Cercel, the doorman from Universul , who raises doves and who, Papa tells us, has problems with his health and is afraid of ‘going under the knife.’ What he must be going through! I thought of Mr Peppin Mirto, of how hard he works and how he does everything, and of how merry and polite he is, and how wonderful it would have been for him to have had a career as an opera singer. And of Signor Giuseppe, who is less talented, but has a bigger heart, although he lives from hand to mouth. I thought of Mama. And of Papa, who is killing himself by looking after all the sick people for very little pay or even for no pay, of how he fights disease, day after day, without a Sunday off, without anybody erecting a statue to him, for no other reason that his desire to make the suffering in the world a speck smaller. As if he could make a speck or ten or even a thousand disappear from the sands of the world’s suffering. I thought of Jacques, of how courageous he is and I thought of the future that awaits him. I do not know why I have more faith in him than I do in myself. And I thought of poor Safta, who had up until now been very confident in her fate and full of cheer, but who is now travelling home along snowy roads to a grieving family, a house where the grief is fresh, and again I felt like crying. I thought of Mișu, Alexandru’s brother, whose forelock I like and I thought of what he will do with his medical degree and immediately after that I thought of Dr Gerota, the man who has impressed me more than any other and who I know for sure will move mountains in Romanian medicine: you can read it in his eyes when he speaks. I thought of how I had not won the lottery and of how nobody I know won anything. I thought of not thinking about Alexandru and me, because I do that all the time. And I asked myself who caused us all to know each other and to live in the same time and the same place? Finally I thought that if and only if I go to the party, I do not have a suitable dress — perhaps only the one that is the colour of Parma violets, which is not exactly new — and so I won’t go. And nor do I want to!

Marioara Livezeanu looked at the table through the half-open door and could not take her eyes off it. It was as beautiful as a dream, like a jeweller’s shop window, like a festive gown. The white Holland tablecloth had absorbed a little too much starch: the corners did not undulate, but were stiff, like a woman whose corset was too tight. But she could find no other defect with the table. The cut crystal stars of the glasses glinted softly, but once the chandelier was lit they would flare, giving off rays. The delicately clinking champagne glasses had been placed at the ready on the serving table; their turn would not come until midnight. The bottles of champagne already rested in buckets containing large chunks of ice from Lake Cișmigiu. The thought that the best beverage in the world had come all the way from France to nestle among chunks from a frozen lake in Bucharest intrigued Marioara. A few days ago, in Universul she had read which lakes the people of Bucharest were allowed to take ice from: Floreasca, Herăstrău, Cișmigiu, Teiu Doamnei, Pasărea, Mogoșoaia, Fundeni. Floreasca would have been closer for them, but a groom had recently drowned there after being sent to collect ice, and so Hristea Livezeanu had preferred to send their servant to Cișmigiu.