The Madonna on the Moon

by Rolf Bauerdick

  Cartarescu gave a surly shrug and urged his superior to inspect the victims themselves.

  “You fellows do it,” said Patrascu. “I’m retiring on the fifteenth, so why should I inflict that gruesome stuff on myself? After forty-five years on the job, I’ve seen enough.”

  When Plutonier Cartarescu and two sergeants finally returned from examining the corpses in the church, the other policemen were still questioning men and women from the village. Suspicious persons? Strangers in the village? Personal enemies of the pastor in his private life? What about clerical opponents? Unusual occurrences? A lot of money in the rectory? Religious art? Gold objects? They asked about the relationship between Fernanda and the priest, wanted to know everything about his habits, penchants, dislikes. Until finally Karl Koch had had enough.

  “He was against the party, against your goddamn Communism. And you know exactly who’s behind this cowardly murder. Your fucking Securitate! They knew very well that Johannes was going to preach against the kolkhoz in church today. So they killed him and Fernanda. That fatface Lupu Raducanu is behind this. The Security Service craps a load of shit, and then the police make sure no one steps in it.”

  The district commissioner’s Carpati sailed into the snow. He put on his uniform cap. “Do you have any proof of that?”

  “Proof? Fuck your proof! Those guys are all criminals, disgusting crooks!”

  “Bunch of crooks! Socialist hoodlums!” Now Petre Petrov and Kristan Desliu were also shouting. Petre’s father Trojan raised two clenched fists, and Avram Scherban the shepherd, who had been drinking already, rushed the Brancusis in a blind rage. “You Commie bastards,” he bellowed, grabbed Roman by the neck with both hands, pushed him to the ground, and started choking him. Of all people, it was Hermann Schuster, the guy Roman the stutterer had given the bird’s egg to, who pulled old Scherban off. Hans Schneider snarled at Schuster, “First you let him hit you and now you’re putting your tail between your legs?”

  Liviu Brancusi’s forehead was dripping with sweat. “We had nothing to do with this! Why don’t you believe us?”

  The Brancusis’ frightened cries were drowned in a hail of punches and shouts. Commissioner Patrascu looked over at his men and reached for his belt. The cops pulled their pistols and fired into the air. The crowd scattered, and calm was restored in an instant. Cartarescu shepherded the Brancusis to one of the cars and opened the tailgate. “A police measure for your own protection. It will be good for security in town if you disappear for a while.” Plutonier had hardly finished his sentence before the three brothers were huddled in the back of the police car.

  The policemen were still pointing their pistols at the sky when the commissioner announced that they were under orders to take the bodies to Kronauburg for autopsies. The driver of the hearse grumbled that he’d only been instructed to pick up one body; there’d been no mention of a woman. Didn’t any of the gentlemen at headquarters stop to think what it means to pack two dead bodies, heavy and stiff to boot, in just one hearse? It couldn’t be done without more bruises and contusions. What kind of meaningful information could you get from an autopsy anyway under the circumstances? For him personally, God knows, a proper autopsy was extremely important because as the driver and last link at the arse end of the chain, he’d get the blame if anything went wrong.

  “Shut up,” said Patrascu. “You think I don’t know how fucked up this is? We’re just cleaning up the shit ourselves. But next week I’m gonna put up my feet and keep my ass warm.” Then he turned to Karl Koch. “Let me give you a piece of advice. You people shouldn’t talk so big. Keep your flame turned down, or you’ll have a fire on your hands that will burn you badly.”

  One of the sergeants who’d been in the church must have overheard the word “fire.” “You’re Catholics here, right folks? You should go to church more often and make sure the Eternal Flame stays on in the house of God.”

  My fear that Kora Konstantin’s hour had now struck was confirmed.

  “The light is out! Johannes murdered! It has returned! Now it is back!” Kora ran around like a madwoman. In horrified rapture she trumpeted the return of the Apocalypse, shrieking, “The devil, the demon, the Beast from hell!” She threw herself on the ground, wallowed in the snow, and grunted like a pig. Julius Knaup started babbling about the return of the Antichrist, blood down the altar steps and out to the trough. “The hooves, the hooves!” cried the sacristan. “You all saw them. The Beast has returned! It lives! Johannes is dead. The light is out. The end is near!”

  The villagers, some rigid with shock and others repulsed, failed to respond to the sacristan or Kora’s swinish twitching, and the excitement gradually subsided. Supported by her brother-in-law Marku on one side and Julius Knaup on the other and panting from the exertion, Kora staggered off to her house.

  “You ignoramuses. Have you all gone mad? Didn’t any of you listen to what Papa Baptiste said?”

  Dimitru had emerged from his library and seemed to me the only sane person in this hour of insanity. I knew that the Gypsy had soaked up every word from Pater Johannes’s pulpit like a sponge. It was well known that the priest was exceptionally knowledgeable about the differences in the spirit world. He knew the fine distinctions between Beast and devil, Lucifer and Beelzebub, among ghosts, demons, and evil incarnate. Now Dimitru proved himself to be an apt pupil. He informed the assembled villagers that neither the Beast of the Apocalypse nor a demon could have been the cause of the evil events of recent days. The Beast fled at the mere sight of a church and avoided the Eternal Flame like the plague, so how could he have put it out? And whoever murdered Brother Baptiste, it was certainly not a demon.

  “Demons only spread fear. But they can’t kill, since they have neither feet nor hands nor knives. They wander around looking for a human husk that’s hollow inside, and when they find one and settle in, they smile continually because they’re happy to have someone to carry them.”

  “We gotta go! Pack up the bodies,” Commissioner Patrascu ordered his cops, “and then back to town as quick as possible.”

  Toward evening Istvan Kallay the Hungarian, Schusters’ Hermann, and Trojan Petrov came to my grandfather’s to buy pencils and paper. The three of them were going to go house to house. Karl Koch wanted desperately to be part of the delegation, but they had refused, saying he’d had enough trouble in the past few days and should stay with his wife and children and rest his raw nerves. Lupu Raducanu would show up tomorrow demanding the list. And he would get it, devil take him, but not from Karl Koch. He needed to stay out of the line of fire.

  That evening I learned an important lesson. I wanted to find out if I could influence people to do something for me against their will. It wasn’t hard. Just as the three men were ready to march off and visit all the families in Baia Luna, I hit myself on the forehead and cried out, “The hooves, the hooves, the blood on the altar!”

  That was all it took for them to rush back in concern. I felt terrible about it, but that was the price I paid.

  “The boy has seen too much. He needs fresh air,” said my mother. Everyone agreed, even Grandfather.

  I turned to Hermann Schuster, “I don’t want to go out there alone. Can I come with you? I’ll carry your paper and pencils.”

  And so I was with the delegation wading through the snow. None of the three was for the kolkhoz, but they had no choice. Fear had done its work. It had evoked the bitter realization that you had to be reasonable and accept the inevitable. To protect the village from further scares, every head of a household would add his signature to a list with no left and no right column. There would just be a list with the names of all the families. The question “Do you want the kolkhoz or do you want calamity to return?” was no longer necessary after the murder of Johannes Baptiste.

  We started at the lower end of the village. No signature was needed from the Gypsies. The Blacks didn’t own any land, they just leased the pasture for their horses from the farmers. First
Avram Scherban, old Lopa, and Vasili Adamski signed, and, as expected, Bogdan Brancusi, whose three sons were in Kronauburg waiting for the turbulence in Baia Luna to quiet down. Simenov the smith signed, saying it was “an act of common sense in difficult times.” We found Julius Knaup at the home of Marku Konstantin and his sister-in-law Kora. They were sitting around the kitchen table and even laid their rosaries aside to document their agreement. Of the Saxons the Schneiders, the Zikelis, and the Klein family signed with grim, dyspeptic expressions. When Karl Koch went to put his name on the paper, he was grinding his teeth, and the pencil broke.

  We finally reached the Hofmanns’ house in the upper village. I felt queasy. When I simulated the psychotic attack it hadn’t occurred to me that I’d encounter Fritz, my friend turned enemy. Hermann Schuster knocked. Birta opened the door and invited us in. Except for me none of them had ever crossed that threshold before. They admired the roomy parlor and the poster of the mighty female with her crown of light beams and torch against a background of gigantic buildings. Schuster explained to Birta that they had come about a serious matter and asked to see her husband.

  “Heinrich isn’t here,” she said and Fritz added sarcastically, “And he isn’t coming back either.”

  Perplexed, the men looked at one another. Heinrich Hofmann was always in Kronauburg, and no one in Baia Luna took notice of his absence, but the three of them couldn’t get it through their heads that he would never again drive his Italian motorcycle through the village. I couldn’t either.

  “Isn’t coming back? What do you mean?” Hermann turned to Birta.

  “I’ve put in my application! For papers. For myself and Fritz.”

  “What about your husband, Birta?” asked the dumbfounded Hermann. For him, applying for an exit permit was an incomprehensible act.

  “Heinrich’s staying in Kronauburg,” she answered in embarrassment. “Fritz and I are leaving. For Germany.”

  “But without your husband? How can that be, Birta?”

  “Just so you know”—Fritz gave me a poisonous look—“my mother is getting a divorce. High time, too. As soon as we have the papers we’re out of here.”

  Birta Hofmann blushed. Her son’s frankness was as painful to her as his cheekiness.

  “Yes, that’s how it is. Heinrich is currently trying to sell the house and the lot, but who’s going to buy property that may be expropriated or purchase a house in a village that has no future?”

  The men responded to that last remark with a halfhearted “Well, we’ll see about that,” but after what Birta had said, the delegation could dispense with Heinrich Hofmann’s signature and hers as well.

  As the steeple clock was striking nine, only one name was still missing from the list, but Kallay, Schuster, and Petrov would have no problem collecting it. Or so they thought. It was my grandfather’s. We walked back down to the village and headed for the back door, since the tavern was closed in mourning for Baptiste and Fernanda.

  My family was not affected by the impending expropriations. We owned only an insignificant piece of pasture that fed a few sheep and was so small it was under the minimum size for private land to be transferred to the collective. Besides, it didn’t make any sense to collectivize a little tavern and a couple of tables and benches and declare a small shop that supplied the village with only the bare necessities to be the property of the people.

  My aunt Antonia stood in the hallway, swathed all in black from the pain of losing the beloved pastor. With tear-reddened eyes she said only that Ilja and Dimitru were in the shop.

  “Pardon the interruption,” said Hermann softly. “Ilja, just sign and we’ll be on our way.” Schuster handed him the pencil and the list of names. Granddad looked at the paper and gave the impression he might refuse to sign.

  “I’ve got to find my glasses in the parlor.”

  Hermann Schuster was surprised because he’d never seen Grandfather wearing spectacles. I wasn’t surprised. Granddad didn’t have any.

  He plucked at Dimitru’s sleeve. “Come with me,” Grandfather whispered to his Gypsy friend.

  Ilja handed Dimitru the paper and pencil. “Quick, write my name on it!”

  “You . . . you can’t write?” Dimitru sounded sympathetic, not reproachful. “I always guessed it, but now, my friend, you know that your friend knows. From now on there are two of us.” Then he signed with a swift, sure hand.

  “Did you find your glasses?” called Schuster.

  Grandfather didn’t answer, just handed Hermann the list of names. At the very bottom, clear and legible: “Borislav Ilja Botev.”

  Kallay, Petrov, and Schuster thanked him and left. “Pray for us when that Raducanu comes back tomorrow” were the Saxon’s parting words. Grandfather nodded.

  But Lupu Raducanu didn’t come. All day you could feel the tension in the village. What would happen when he showed up? It took the men who were shoveling the graves for Fernanda Klein and Johannes Baptiste many times longer than usual for this sad job. Again and again they would pause, lift their heads, and gaze in the direction of the road to Apoldasch on which the jeep would appear. But it didn’t. Not on Monday, not on Tuesday, and not on Wednesday either. On Thursday afternoon the villagers hurriedly gathered when, from Cemetery Hill, Margitha Desliu spotted a black dot in the snowy distance. Once she could identify the slowly advancing vehicle, she ran down to the village. “The hearse! The hearse is coming back!”

  It stopped on the village square. The driver was different from the one who had transported Fernanda Klein and Johannes Baptiste to their autopsy in Kronauburg. He wore a black suit as did his young assistant. Both bid us a more formal than friendly good day and tried to look pious.

  The village had been anxiously awaiting the coffins, and it was decided to lay them out in the church and inter them the following day. When a priest died, the bishop or auxiliary bishop of the diocese usually officiated at the funeral. But since it was an open secret in Baia Luna that relations between Pater Johannes and the Kronauburg clergy were marked by mutual aversion, they asked the priest from Schweisch Valley to administer the last rites and see to the proper interment of his fellow priest and the housekeeper, and he had agreed.

  As a mark of respect, the village council had decided not to bury the deceased on Cemetery Hill as usual but in the churchyard. There was disagreement at the council meeting on what to do about the extinguished Eternal Flame. Some urged the solution of just relighting it with a match, but then someone suggested they could ask the pastor from Schweisch Valley to light a candle from his own Eternal Flame and carry the sacred fire to Baia Luna. In the end, this idea was also rejected, and they passed a resolution that the extinguished light would not burn again until the dastardly murderers had been apprehended.

  “Now we will carry the coffins into the church,” Hermann Schuster addressed the driver, who looked at him blankly. “What coffins?” He opened the tailgate of the hearse. There was only one.

  “There’s got to be two,” several voices called out. The men waiting to carry the caskets hurried over to peer into the black vehicle. “Only one coffin! He’s right, there’s only one. Have you taken leave of your senses?” The driver and his companion didn’t know what to say except “Quiet please!” and “Must be some misunderstanding.” But once people realized the obvious error couldn’t be corrected by making a fuss, they settled down.

  The chauffeur dropped his pious manner. “We had the clear order to transport a coffin with one body from Kronauburg to Baia Luna.” He pulled out a piece of paper. “It says so right here: ‘Cleared for transport: Johanna Fernanda Klein, d.o.b. July fifteenth, 1886, in Trappold, single, deceased November ninth, 1957, in Baia Luna. Signed, Dr. Petrin, Institute of Pathology, People’s District Hospital, Kronauburg.’ One deceased. One coffin. Those are our orders.”

  “Fernanda is not deceased, she was murdered!” Petre Petrov flew into a rage, and others joined in. “Where’s our pastor? Where’s Johannes? W
here is he?”

  “We don’t know anything about a priest,” reiterated the chauffeur and his assistant. “There must be some misunderstanding, some error in the planning. Happens all the time. The problem’s in Kronauburg. Best thing would be for one of you to come back with us and clear things up right there.”

  The assistant explained that, unfortunately, the hearse only had two seats, one for the driver and one for him. But they were happy to take two or three people back to Kronauburg as long as they didn’t mind sitting in the back. It smelled a little, but everything was clean—guaranteed. They just shouldn’t think about whom that space was normally reserved for.

  “Doesn’t matter to me,” Petre spoke up. “I’ll come along.” The other men hesitated at the thought of spending a good three hours bumping through the mountains in the back of a hearse, but they were also unwilling to send an impetuous seventeen-year-old to poke around the police station and the district hospital in Kronauburg.

  “You’re too young, Petre,” objected the Hungarian Istvan.

  “So go yourself then!” said Simenov the smith in a nasty voice.

  Istvan thought it over for a moment. “Okay, I’ll do it.”

  “But I’m coming with you,” Petre stubbornly insisted and left no doubt he was not to be dissuaded.

  “I’m going, too!” People turned around and looked at me with a combination of surprise and disapproval.

  “I forbid it!” My grandfather’s voice had never sounded so stern.