by Paul Park
All this was bought with Aegypta Schenck’s money, which the baroness had stolen from the shrine of Venus.
“Once when I was small,” said Markasev, “I watched a calf being born. The cow was crying out and crying out, and my father held the lantern. Dionysus was there and some other of my father’s men, and they were worried, because the calf was turned and wasn’t coming out. In the lantern light, I could see the wet hooves. I was just to go out for a moment to see before I went to bed. But my father was afraid for the cow, and he forgot about me. So I was there for hours until my mother came and got me. Dionysus had his arms inside the cow. There was some blood. Then from my window, all night I heard the cow crying out, until I fell asleep. But in the morning I went out, and both were resting in the straw.”
Lately Markasev had surprised her with these small recitations. They were more numerous as the days went by. But it was hard to imagine any of them were true. She knew this one was not. He’d learned this scene from a book she’d read to him. She’d bought him some books in the market stalls.
“What was your father’s name?”
“He was a red pig,” said Markasev, which made her laugh. The boy had regained some kind of a sense of humor! Whatever had happened at Cluj was now behind him. He never spoke of it.
When she had first moved from the house on Saltpetre Street, she had imagined she would send him away. She had packed some clothes for him. She had pressed some of Jean-Baptiste’s money into his hand, had taken him on two occasions to the Gara de Nord. Both times he had cried and begged until she had relented. She had not wanted to cause a scene in the crowded station.
Now he was thriving in these new circumstances, though their diet was meager and unvaried. He had a new habit of cleanliness, and washed himself every day in cold water from the tap. He was too tall for the baron’s clothes, so she had bought some trousers and secondhand dress shirts from the thieves’ market; she had always had a gift for clothes. The blue-green and apricot and plum colors helped his pallor and his lustrous black hair. She had bought him a razor, though he scarcely needed it.
She got a certain pleasure from seeing him in the light of day. It had been cruel, she decided, to keep him shut up for so long. Now she sat drinking her beer while he peered at her from under his single thick brow, his head cocked like a dog’s. And as so often happened in his presence, she found herself thinking about her son Felix, shut up away from his mother in the Institute for Mental Deviation, and no one to fix him sandwiches in the middle of the afternoon.
At the end of his life, because of his guilt, the Baron Ceausescu had become concerned with purity. In his laboratory he had labored over the most difficult of alchemical tasks, to find a way of separating out the pure ingredients of matter. In his governmental work he was responsible for a body of laws intended to purify and renew the country itself.
Citizens with mental imperfections were resettled into government facilities. The baron’s only child was one of these. And though elsewhere the new laws were ignored, he’d felt it necessary to set an example. He himself had delivered the boy to the stone building on the Soseaua Kiseleff.
The fees there were enormous, and sometimes the baroness tormented herself with wondering what might happen to her son, now that she could no longer pay.
As if he’d read her mind, the boy said, “Let us see it.”
She slid the jewel from her pocket now and opened her hand. She laid her hand on the tabletop with the jewel in her palm, and they stared at it for a few minutes.
Her house, the life she had left, had been full of beautiful things, of which only this remained. Since she’d possessed it she imagined it had changed color, and become more purple than green. Now it tingled in her palm, picking up light from the window and reflecting it back, glowing as if it itself were a source of light.
She felt comforted by it and Markasev, glad to keep them with her. But when she looked at him, thoughts of her son clouded her mind. Now as they finished their beer and cigarettes, she decided to go out again, to walk north along the Soseaua Kiseleff and stand outside the wrought-iron gates of the Institute for Mental Deviation.
Always she had taken pleasure in walking the streets. The sun had now decided to stay out, so she discarded her umbrella. And she brought Markasev with her as one might take a dog on a walk; he was happy to be included. He rushed down the stairs ahead of her. But he stopped when he got to the hall on the ground floor.
The door to their landlady’s apartment was open, and the woman herself stood on the threshold, glowering suspiciously, the baroness imagined, but no. She smiled. “Domnul Enescu,” she said. It was the name the baroness had given herself.
A savory steam came from the room behind her. “I tried to get your attention just now as you came in. Please, you must know we are a family here. I have been making supper this afternoon, sarmale and creier pane cu sunca—have you eaten? We don’t stand on ceremony. No, but I see you and your…” Her eyes, small in her fat face, moved uncertainly to Markasev and stayed there.
“Unfortunately—” the baroness began.
“No matter, no matter. I can see you are busy. But this evening, all right? We don’t stand on ceremony. Two young men such as yourselves, I know you have an appetite!”
“How strange,” thought the baroness. The woman seemed eager to continue speaking. The baroness, again, found herself making a pantomime as she slid out the door, this one of friendly dismissal and heartfelt regret. They had been here two days and already they had attracted attention, she thought. Soon they must move.
They walked north past the hill of Venus and the racetrack, and in among the grand houses. As they approached Floreasca Park they discovered many familiar addresses, which she had visited with her husband when she was rich.
Set back from the road, surrounded by walls, these mansions seemed as impregnable as fortresses now. Walking with Markasev, as she had instructed, five paces behind, she was reminded how isolated she’d become in these past years. When she reached the corner of the Calea Dorobantilor, she saw Helena Lupescu walking her borzois—a woman she had once counted among her intimate friends. Now she scarcely glanced at the baroness as she stalked past, dressed in a wolfskin coat.
The baroness felt her spirits rise. Herr Greuben and the rest, they would not recognize her, though they were setting traps all over town. Doubtless she would see him that same afternoon, watching outside the Institute for Mental Deviation.
How was it possible to extract her son? Or would they simply discharge him now that she no longer paid the bills? Or would they—terrible thought—remove him to some charity ward, maybe in some other building? Her mind, ordinarily so full of schemes, was helpless when she thought about it. In this context only, she felt she was a poor, weak woman, with all the world against her.
How much easier to fall into a rage. These Germans who plagued and constrained her, she would find some method to defeat them. Herr Greuben—she would find some method; what had Luckacz said? He had found the silver band that had held Kepler’s Eye. He wanted a sample of Greuben’s fingerprints—that was no good. For all she knew, it had been the simulacrum that had pried the stone out of its setting.
Fingerprints, weapons—Luckacz thought like a policeman. That was not her way.
She walked rapidly past a row of foreign embassies, and it was only when she saw the wrought-iron walls surrounding the institute that she slowed her steps. She crossed the boulevard to stand under the linden trees opposite the gate. She imagined she blended in with the crowd. Markasev, as he’d been instructed, stayed five paces away.
She stood for twenty minutes, looking for Greuben or one of his associates. The red-haired man, the dark man with spectacles—she had come to recognize several in his company as they waited at various addresses and houses.
The morning she had left Saltpetre Street, she had crossed in her secret tunnel under the street, in order to avoid the policeman Luckacz had left at her door. That had been the fi
rst time she was aware of Greuben waiting for her. He was reading a newspaper at the corner, not bothering to hide. That morning she had seen him from an upstairs window and again from the shelter of the wall. And since then she had noticed him several times, walking along the esplanade or in the student neighborhoods. She hated and feared the sight of his dark mackintosh and fedora, his yellow hair and moustache. It was hard for her to remember she had ever found him charming or handsome. Whenever she saw him now, it was his animal nature she was most aware of, the prowling beast inside of him, which she imagined left a stench that she could smell. Often she could sense his presence before she saw him. That afternoon she could not. There seemed to be no one at the gate.
She crossed the boulevard, forcing herself not to think, not to make a plan, and it was just as well. Because it was a trap after all, as she imagined when she had walked through the gates and down the gravel path toward the larch tree that obscured her son’s window on the second floor—it was full of sparrows. There was no one at the window, she saw. It was barred, and the sash was open. She felt light-headed, and a choking sensation made it hard to breathe. But then in front of her she saw Greuben coming down the wide steps, and with him were both the red-haired man and the dark man with spectacles.
A black carriage stood in the drive, marked with the colors of the German Republic. The horses were restive. The coachman sat on the box. Bare-headed, dressed in their mackintoshes, Greuben and the others opened the doors, and now she saw a boy coming down the steps behind them. He was led by a nurse, a fair-haired boy just approaching his tenth birthday; she stopped and stood still. The men took no notice of her, she thought. They looked through her as if she were a pane of glass, she thought, gripping the tourmaline in her pants’ pocket. But the boy could not be fooled by any of her disguises or by any space or separation. He looked toward her, smiled and waved. “Mother,” he said, perfectly clearly, the first word she had ever heard from his lips, and when they heard it, the Germans turned to look. Greuben pointed.
But they could do nothing to her, the baroness decided, in this public place. She was a Roumanian citizen, after all. “What are you doing?” she said, coming forward now, holding out her hands. “Felix—please, where are you taking him?”
Greuben smiled. “The elector has found a place for him in the new clinic in Ratisbon. You will see it is a lucky chance. Madam, I am pleased to see you. We have something to discuss.”
There was an animal inside of him, a small, feral beast that peered out through his eyes. “But don’t you see, there’s nothing wrong with him. Felix—please—what have they done?” She held out her hands, and the boy would have come to her, she was certain. There was a happy innocence in his face, in which she now saw traces of her own mother’s good looks, and traces of herself as well—he was so tall! These people had robbed her.
“Madam,” Greuben said, “the papers have been signed.”
“Oh, you are monsters!” she told him. “Please, for the love of God.” Still she tried to keep a pleasant voice and smile through her tears, because she didn’t want to frighten the boy, whose small face was clouded now with doubt. They were pulling him to the door of the carriage, but he turned to look at her.
Greuben said, “The elector did not expect us to be able to negotiate so soon. It is a simple transaction. You have something—”
Beyond him, suddenly, she was aware of an officer of the metropolitan police in his midnight blue uniform and crimson cap. His glossy moustache and brass buttons made him look like someone playing a part, a policeman out of musical comedy. His face was stern and grave, and he actually had a silver whistle in his mouth, out of which now came a little peep.
Greuben held out his hand, but she had taken a step backward. Who was this man with his ridiculous whistle? Had Greuben summoned him? Obviously not. His face showed both displeasure and surprise. The jewel belonged to the Corelli family, after all. No, this was the empress’s idea, thought Nicola Ceausescu as she stepped back and looked around. This was not the way to deliver her son, who was now shut up inside the black carriage.
No, the Germans would take her jewel and leave her with nothing. She held it in her hand. She would not give it up.
“You there—stop!” shouted the policeman. She turned and strolled back toward the wrought-iron gate, pretending not to hear. She imagined Greuben with his arm on the policeman’s sleeve, trying to restrain him while the baroness looked for other uniforms in the crowd. There were a lot of people now around the gate.
“You there!” shouted the policeman. “Are you deaf?” She could hear his boots on the gravel.
Two other policemen, one in uniform and one in plainclothes, were coming toward her from the street. As she approached them, she said a prayer to Venus, goddess of love. And something else, a small charm that she’d learned from her mother’s mother long before. She had never been a powerful conjurer like Ratisbon or Aegypta Schenck. She had learned a few things from her husband’s books, and remembered a few things also from her childhood in the mountains. This charm of misdirection was one of them, which she had learned with her uncle’s goats in the mountain pastures, used again and again on the audiences in the theater, and now here. Murmuring a charm, she stepped into the crowd of people around the gate and disappeared, one of a dozen strolling young men or women who now looked momentarily alike in their baggy, cheap clothes.
On the stage of the Ambassadors Theatre, the baroness had often seemed to appear and disappear out of knot of lesser performers. Now at the gate, the policemen lost sight of her for an instant. And it was only after their chief had blown his whistle, had seized hold of the elbow of a startled French tourist, that one of the others observed a young man in a linen jacket, his hat pulled down over his chestnut hair. He had already crossed the busy street, was already walking purposefully away, when the man in plainclothes raised the alarm and stepped off the curb. He waited for a gap in the flow of carriages and carts, all the while shouting and gesticulating until a boy ran up behind him, thrust his hand between his shoulder blades, pushed him into the path of a man riding a bicycle, who knocked him flat.
* * *
THE TWO MEN IN UNIFORM chased after Markasev, but he lost them in the park. Then he returned to the route he had followed with the baroness—he didn’t know this city. But as darkness fell he found himself once more in front of their student lodgings, and she was in the alcove, waiting.
She was the lady of comfort and tears, but that night she was angry. This was in spite of the kindness that she showed him. As soon as he appeared under the street lamp, she stepped down and put her arms around him—“I was worried. Are you hurt?” And she said many more small things like this, while at the same time pushing his hair back from his forehead. It was a gesture he imagined from his childhood, and his mother had sat with him when he had a fever. But when the baroness embraced him and crushed his face against her neck, her skin felt cold compared to his, which surprised him. Mixed in with the smell of bitter herbs that always clung to her, that night he was aware of a more rancid smell.
“Greuben,” she said. “Greuben.” Her eyes were red because she had been weeping. But they were dry now, as if her tears had all burned up. She grabbed him by the elbow and drew him inside the vestibule, which again was full of delicious smells. Their landlady’s door was ajar, but the aroma no longer came from there. Instead it seemed to lead them upstairs, where they found, next to their door, arranged in grease-stained paper bags, their dinner laid out for them, together with a note—Dear Domnul Enescu. Young men such as yourself, etc., etc.. The baroness unlocked the door, and after she had lit the lamp they unwrapped a container of dumpling soup and another of sarmales—stuffed cabbage leaves, which were a favorite of Markasev’s. The baroness was too angry to eat, but he sat down at the table and watched her pace the floor. He was breathing in the smell of the spiced meat, and after a while he served himself with trembling hands; she didn’t notice. He ate and ate.
The baroness stood at the garret window, looking down into the street. Then she turned, and he could tell she had come to a decision. Her beautiful face was smooth as always, free from grimaces or smiles, and because of this her expression was unreadable. Rather it was in the language of the body, as always, that she was preternaturally articulate; he watched her strip off her jacket and roll up her sleeves. He watched her rub her wrists and forearms as if washing them. He watched her rub and worry each finger in turn, until she came to the middle finger of her left hand, which carried with the band reversed her husband’s signet—the red pig of Cluj. This she drew off, slipped into her pocket, and then pulled out the tourmaline, which she held in her naked hand. “Please, ma’am,” he said, “there’s food for you,” but she shook her head.
Then she smiled not with her lips but with her shoulders and arms. “No,” she said. “But we’ll invite one more.”
Carelessly she threw the stone onto the oilcloth surface of the table, where it lay next to the paper carton of creier pane cu sunca—breaded brains with ham. Then she raised her fists to her face and stood without moving for a long time. Markasev chewed quietly and slowly so as not to disturb her. He knew enough about conjuring to recognize it.
He sat stiffly in the chair, his mouth full of food. Then the spell was over, and he swallowed and took a drink of warm beer, left over from the afternoon. He watched her shoulders relax, watched a new lightness come into her step as she moved over to the door and opened it, peered outside. “How lovely of that fat old woman!” she said as she shut the door, stood for a moment with her back against it; she seemed almost giddy. “How kind—I like this place!” she said. Then she was on her knees, pulling her old suitcase from underneath the bed, opening it, laying some shirts inside. “That smells so good,” she said.
“Yes, it is good.”