Life Begins On Friday

by Ioana Parvulescu

  Perhaps also because of Safta, for whom my heart breaks, perhaps also because I have dark rings under the eyes of my soul, I have decided not to go anywhere on New Year’s Eve. I feel sorry only for Jacques; I know only that he would be glad if I came too. Why should I not spend New Year’s Eve asleep? I value sleep more and more, and I feel sleepy most of the time. Nevertheless, despite everything I have written above, hidden away in my soul is a feeling of wellness. Everything seems very curious to me, most of all the fact that I am alive!

  2.

  It is obvious that there is a God of journalists, even when they imagine the Creator as a mechanical engineer in white overalls, constantly sabotaged by a devil in black overalls, with a hole in the seat. And the God of journalists made Mr Neculai Procopiu productively fill his morning reading the Universul collection from May 1896. It was the collection that happened to be the handiest. Mrs Procopiu wanted to take advantage of this rare occasion when her husband did not leave the conjugal domicile early in the morning, and she embraced his shoulders, chair back and all, full of the tenderness of an intimate winter morning, in a warm house, with wood crackling softly in the stove and the scent of coffee wafting through the room. But her husband was in a mood that did not allow for dreaming. He gently released himself from her embrace, kissing the back of her hand, and plunged into rereading the news about Metropolitan Ghenadie. His wife had of course taken the Metropolitan’s side when he was deposed, but she had a heart in her head, not only in her chest. Betimes, her thinking was affected by that heart in her head. As for him, he was mistrustful by nature and did not allow details to lead him astray. The articles had been written by two editors, who no longer worked for the paper. He did not know where to get hold of them now at short notice, probably they were away for the holidays, and time pressed hard. He reviewed the facts.

  17 May: The members of the Holy Synod gathered, having been invited to do so by the Ministry of Religions. Archbishop Atanasie of Craiova read the Act of Accusation for the sins of argyrophilia, hierosilia, and simony. From the judges came a murmur of horror, amid the sound of their rustling beards and cassocks as they shifted in their seats. For the benefit of the newspaper’s readers, Procopiu added in parenthesis explanations of the words: excessive love of money, sacrilege, and traffic in holy objects, punishable with defrocking and excommunication. It was unanimously decided that he be brought to trial. ‘A locum tenens was hereby appointed and a commission of three apostolic nuncios who would convey to him the three canonical invitations.’ The newspapers played a decisive part in the decision, through ‘the grave accusations levelled at H. H. Ghenadie.’

  18 May: The decree suspending him was published. On the same day, Dreptatea gave the signal for a campaign ‘of the greatest violence’ against the Government and in support of the Metropolitan. All the opposition newspapers followed suit.

  19 May: In the Dacia Auditorium, N. Fleva, the founder of Dreptatea, and his friend, Nicu Filipescu, organized the first meeting in support of the Metropolitan. Others, more violent, were to follow. N. Fleva was also the Metropolitan’s lawyer.

  20 May: H. H. Metropolitan Primate Ghenadie Petrescu presented himself before the Holy Synod (after receiving the three canonical invitations), accompanied by lawyers N. Fleva and C. Dissescu, who were, however, not allowed into the chamber on the grounds that their presence would have been contrary to the Canons, as the judgement of the Synod was ‘a private confession more than a public trial.’ The Metropolitan rejected the accusations and handed the Synod a written contestation, before withdrawing. The Synod began its deliberations, ‘rejected the defence as unfounded,’ and sentenced the Metropolitan to ‘loss of the gift of the priesthood’ and ‘defrocked him from the rank of Metropolitan,’ demoting him to the rank of an ordinary monk at the Căldărușani Monastery.

  24 May: Procopiu underlined the day, reckoning that here lay the key to events. Like in a childhood game, he sensed he was getting closer to the hidden object and that they were shouting from the side: ‘Warmer! Warmer!’ He sipped his coffee (which was getting colder, colder) and once more read the news from the day of Ghenadie’s arrest, at the Palace of the Metropolia at seven in the evening. Two bishops from the Synod were present, namely Silvestru and Gherasim Timuș, along with Mr Sărățeanu, who was General Prosecutor of the Court of Appeal; Lilovici, the Chief Prosecutor of Ilfov Tribunal; Paul Stătescu, the Prefect of Police before Caton Lecca; Ștefan Sihleanu, the Secretary General from the Ministry of Religions; Dragomir Dumitrescu, a director from the Ministry; and ‘agents of the forces of public order.’ The Metropolitan refused to receive them, saying he was ill. They burst in, read the sentence to him, and invited him to depart immediately for Căldărușani Monastery. The Metropolitan contested the ‘legality of the Synod’s sentence,’ in which he was supported by the venerable former Prime Minister Lascăr Catargiu and by Nicu Filipescu. The two had entered, thrusting aside with their canes the policemen at the gate. But ‘the prosecutors resorted to the force allowed them by law, gave the order to empty the buildings and then forced the former Metropolitan to leave. They put him inside a carriage, took him from the courtyard of the Metropolia by the gate facing Filaret, and then from Bucharest by the Șerban-Vodă barrier, where the Prefect of the Capital’s Police formally handed him over to Mr Dobrescu, the Prefect of Ilfov, who took him to Căldărușani, where he arrived without disturbance at one o’clock in the morning.’ In the meantime, Fleva had gathered some protesters, but they arrived too late.

  After the opposition newspapers and the female public shrieked in a chorus against the brutality of this deposition, and based on this, had wholly taken the Metropolitan’s side, despite the Synod’s sentence; and after the ministers’ wives had dared to contradict their husbands in public, after Fleva and Filipescu organized demonstrations at which the opposing sides “came to fierce blows, with many being struck by canes and chairs, and with windows being broken,” before the “combatants were separated by the police,” monk Ghenadie from Căldărușani was seen once more, in a good mood, smiling or perhaps laughing into his beard. A few days later, as if symbolically, Baronzi, the author of the novel The Mysteries of Bucharest, died.

  Procopiu thought he was dreaming: he had found the answer in that very passage! He underlined it in red pencil: “the prosecutors gave the order to empty the buildings.” The buildings (casele) or the safes (cassele)? He was annoyed that he had not asked the question earlier. His editors were very careless; a good job they had left. No, it could only mean the safes (cassele), otherwise they would have said ‘the rooms’ or ‘the Palace of the Metropolia,’ not ‘the buildings’ (casele). He called his wife and told her his reasoning. The icon, which the Metropolitan probably kept in a safe, had been taken by one of the prosecutor’s men on the evening of the deposition. Therefore matters went up to the highest level. It would make an eminent front-page article! But his wife was unimpressed by his conclusion and said: ‘How do you know it did not vanish before that? If the Metropolitan was accused of simony, which I can hardly credit –’ she hastened to add ‘– then perhaps it was the sale of the icon that was behind it all.’

  Now she did not have a heart in her head and made a cool judgement, whereas he was aflame. Perhaps it was because she had placed on ice the lemon cream she had made for the last day of the year.

  The servant arrived with an invitation.

  ‘Look at this,’ said his wife, ‘we are invited, together with your friends, the Mirto brothers, to the Livizeanu house on New Year’s Eve! Isn’t it rather short notice?’

  3.

  This time old man Cercel’s belly woke up before him. The doorman immediately awoke from his light sleep, wondering what it was he could hear, and then, when he realized it had woken him and was making a din, the same as when his daughters were babes in arms and bawled for their mother’s milk, he was reassured and at the same time not reassured one bit. He promised himself yet again that he would go to Dr Margulis, of whose verdict
he was nonetheless afraid. Anything except the surgeon’s knife! In any event, he would go after the New Year. Now wasn’t the right moment. And then he turned his mind to something more pleasant and said to himself: ‘Today we find out the lottery draw numbers! What will we do if we win?’

  Ever since she started hearing her husband speaking sweet and soothing words, which she genuinely imagined were addressed to her, his wife had softened and was no longer as quarrelsome as before. She answered in her voice from her youth that she would like to have a carriage with handsome horses, with elegant bridles, like the upper crust, and at least one or two servants to help her around the house, because she ached all over and could no longer do all the work herself: washing, ironing, dusting, tending the vegetable patch, turning the manure over, checking to see whether the hens had laid, cooking, laying the table, making everything spick and span, and then just when you think you’ve finished, starting all over again as if... Old man Cercel interrupted her: ‘I’d like to extend the coop, buy some more pigeons and give Nicu some money to get married or send him to a big school, because he chipped in for a third of our ticket.’

  ‘Don’t count your chickens before they’re hatched. Go to work, and if you win, then you won’t have to stay there, because we won’t need you to, but come home quick and tell me the news.’

  Old man Cercel felt a stabbing pain inside and gripped his belly with both hands, doubling up with a gasp as if he were drowning.

  ‘Wife!’

  ‘She’s not at home,’ she quipped, because her thoughts of horses and servants had put her in a good mood.

  ‘I’m not going to work today, I’m going to the doctor’s,’ he said in a faint voice. ‘I think there’s something wrong with my belly.’

  The woman took fright. Looking in the wardrobe, where all the things were arranged as neatly as soldiers on parade, she gave him his best underclothes. Then she took out his Sunday best and helped him to get dressed. The doorman left, clutching his belly and groaning.

  *

  ‘Is it bad, doctor? Will I have to go under the knife?’

  Old man Cercel was lying on the oilcloth-covered bed in Dr Margulis’ surgery. He had received him immediately, bringing him to the front of the queue, when he saw him clutching his belly. First of all he asked him countless questions, about childhood illnesses, about what he ate and drank, about how often and since when it hurt, and in what way. Then he told him to take off his coat and shirt and vest, to lie down on the bed and with a light hand he began to press, constantly asking: ‘Does it hurt?’ ‘Is it painful here?’ Then he lightly rubbed his hand in a circle over Cercel’s belly, which was soothed as if by magic.

  ‘Is it bad?’ asked Cercel again in a choked voice.

  ‘I cannot say for sure yet, we will find out in a few weeks. It does not seem to be a... anything suspect. You did well to come immediately.’

  Then he reeled off a series of explanations, of which Cercel understood not one jot, although the unfamiliar words horrified him, and finally, speaking in Romanian once more, he gently told him what he had to do from then on.

  ‘You are going on a diet. No more of your plum brandy, even if it is very good; no more of your wife’s sour soups; no more garlic onions and pepper, nor even raw fruit and vegetables. No more freshly baked bread. The drier the bread, the healthier it is for you. Instead, eat olive oil, boiled meat and steamed vegetables with butter. Boiled eggs. And let us have a look at you in another two weeks. You can go to work now without any worry.’

  Reinvigorated, old man Cercel set off on foot towards No. 11 Strada Brezoianu. No sooner had he talked to the doctor than he felt healthy again. He would have to bring the doctor a demijohn of plum brandy, especially now that he wasn’t allowed to touch it. But did the doctor touch the stuff?

  From joy and worry, he started talking to himself like a madman. The newspaper was off the press, but old man Cercel did not open it. Nicu had to be there so that the two of them could look at the lottery numbers together.

  4.

  Numbers 98, 38 and 51 – Nicu kept saying to himself as he passed in front of the soldier of L’Indépendance Roumaine and the bells, as if to tell him some good news, started to chime. As Nicu went on his way it was as if he were floating and as he entered the door on the left, as ever, the door which said Editorial and Administrative Offices, he took a good look at old man Cercel, trying to read whether or not the numbers were good. But the doorman’s face was inscrutable, it was as if he were laughing and crying at the same time; you couldn’t tell anything from his face.

  ‘Have you... have we won?’ asked Nicu, barely able to articulate the words in his excitement.

  The doorman calmly picked up the newspaper. All of a sudden his face lit up and he began to laugh, and Nicu could not believe that his dreams had come true so easily: if he was laughing, then they must have won. But instead of the lottery numbers, the doorman showed him a big photograph. It was Victory Avenue, the avenue down which he came every day. In the photograph it was a sunny day, with lots of carriages and cabs and long icicles on the buildings. A short distance from the L’Indépendance building was a gentleman, oh, he recognized him: it was Mr Costache, furious, raising his cane threateningly. And on the other side, among the carriages, was a lad running in terror, in danger of being run over by some horses. He could also see a cabman pulling on his reins, open-mouthed. Nicu had never seen himself in a photograph and he was dissatisfied to the point of indignation. He looked small and ragged, and his smart red cap was grey. He could not remember being scared, as he looked in the photograph. He almost felt like crying, whereas old man Cercel was full of merriment. The doorman took the newspaper back from Nicu and looked for the lottery results. He scanned each page carefully, holding the newspaper, with its small, crabbed type, as far away from his eyes as possible, while Nicu read the other side, getting as close as he could, as if he wanted to climb inside and replace the photograph of himself. Finally, old man Cercel found the announcement and read it out loud: ‘12, 21 and 20. It’s not us. Look, out of all them numbers, they’ve all got a 1 and a 2. I had 98, which is the coming year, and 38, which was the year of my birth, and 51, that of my wife’s. But I got it wrong. She told me yesterday she was born in ’52, the same year as they built the Theatre.’

  ‘Maybe we shouldn’t have chosen just years, because not all years are winners. Should we have chosen house numbers?’

  The doorman said that other things were important in life, like a healthy belly.

  ‘How is Speckle?’ Nicu felt duty-bound to ask, although since she decided to leave him, he didn’t love her any more.

  ‘She’s eating, drinking, shitting, and sends her regards.’

  But the lad didn’t care about her regards or anything else to do with the past. He cared about his New Year’s wish. Because those wishes – as every boy knew – came true and you had to be very careful, like in the story of the golden fish, not to squander your luck. Mr Peppin brought him his commissions and Nicu set off, in more of a hurry than ever. There was one day and eleven hours left until the end of the year.

  5.

  General Algiu was in the yard trying to train the hound. The snow was covered with the quadruped’s footprints. Mr Costache saw him from the carriage. The fence was not high; Algiu was not afraid of burglars. The General must have sensed him, although he had his back to him, because he turned around immediately and one might have presumed that beneath his white moustache he was smiling, although it concealed his mouth.

  ‘Forgive me, but I received your invitation only at midnight on Sunday, when I returned from the opera, and yesterday I was in Giurgiu.

  ‘What was the opera?’

  ‘Rigoletto, with Miss Olympia Mărculescu in the role of Gilda. I have never seen the like. There was a storm of applause, and flowers like in the month of May, rather than December.’

  Remarking in passing that Mr Costache had told him who played Gilda, but not who was cast in the role of
Rigoletto, the General invited him inside. The borzoi led the way, turning his head to see whether they followed.

  ‘I have solved the riddle, but I have not solved the mystery,’ Costache hastened to say, holding a cup of Marghiloman coffee. ‘I have had occasion to discover that logic is like a drill, but you cannot control the outcome of the battle, for only therein is the truth to be found.’

  ‘I do not like to philosophize, Costache, but I do not understand what the truth is, when you yourself know that every truth takes a different form.’

  ‘I am beginning to believe that it is something above us and maybe the poor in spirit are riper, more prepared than those with an iron logic...’

  He was unable to develop the thought because the borzoi jumped up and placed his paws on his knees. The General drove it away with difficulty and urged his friend to continue. Costache told him that after he had searched high and low, almost at random, all the mysteries turned out to be connected to an icon with diamonds on its shoulders, which had once been kept in the Sărindar Church. After the church was demolished, it came into the possession of the erstwhile Metropolitan Ghenadie Petrescu. Here things became complicated. Either before or on the day when the Metropolitan had been deposed, during the confusion, somebody had taken the icon. Or else Ghenadie had given it to a bishop who died, after which the trail became tangled once again. Whatever the case, the icon had ended up in an iron safe to which there were at least two keys. The man who was to remove the icon from the safe, as a mere intermediary, was Rareș Ochiu-Zănoagă: he had received two identical keys, placed separately in two deer-skin wallets. One he kept about his person, the other he had entrusted, as a precautionary measure, to the lawyer Movileanu.

  Costache paused to drink some coffee laced with cognac, giving a slight smile.