An Ermine in Czernopol

by Gregor von Rezzori

  In any event, when Tildy’s case became public it acquired a certain piquancy, which the local gossips made all the more delectable. As for the major himself, no one doubted that had he been free to act on his own he would have categorically protected his wife and assumed all of her liabilities. Unfortunately, however, he was in strict isolation for the foreseeable future. Aside from that, it was unlikely he could cover any debt at all, since he was now utterly destitute. And so it would have amounted to nothing more than a beautiful gesture, which would hardly have created much of a sensation, since the character of the last knight—or “the dumb German”—was already widely known. As things stood, the scandal was unavoidable. Suits, demands, and seizures rained down on Tamara Tildy. The bailiff had to arrange a forced entry. The small names among the creditors gave the affair its “human interest” as Herr Tarangolian remarked sarcastically. “The case is so embarrassing,” he said, “that there is nothing to do with it except turn it into a tale of the grotesque.”

  None of it caused old Paşcanu the slightest discomfort. On the contrary, malicious as he was, he actually gloated to see his daughter, who he was convinced hated him, and his son-in-law, who he was convinced despised him, in such a situation—and it would have given him great satisfaction to see them come begging at his doorstep. But, strangely—and Herr Tarangolian had certain suspicions concerning this as well—at about the same time the news was spreading that there was something almost deceitful about the way that Tildy—or his wife—had fallen into financial ruin, rumors started making the rounds that Săndrel Paşcanu’s own finances were far from rosy. People went so far as to doubt his fabled wealth, declaring that the business with the jewels he collected for his dead wives was a fairy tale, and that even his Titian was a fake. And what followed proved these sudden doubters right. The death of Săndrel Paşcanu set off an economic catastrophe that affected the entire city. The whole lumber business—which was of incomparably greater significance for Tescovina and its capital than the drug trade—was hit very hard, and that had grave repercussions for other trades. And not only that: certain transactions involving state funds were uncovered that were more than merely dirty, and a whole gallery of public figures was exposed in the most embarrassing way. And so the terrible events that would one night turn Czernopol into a witches’ cauldron, when the basest instincts ran amok, were preceded by other incidents that were disconcerting on any number of levels.

  But it would be wrong to suppose that old Paşcanu was simply trying to save what he could with his childish scheme. We later overheard a conversation between our parents and Herr Tarangolian in which the prefect had his own insightful explanation ready and waiting. But Uncle Sergei would have none of it.

  “You no understand what is proud man’s act of desperation,” he said. “Forgive me, my esteemed friend, but in this case your psychology is not enough.”

  “Don’t call my knowledge of people and characters ‘psychology,’” answered Herr Tarangolian. “That would do offense to my modesty.” He closed his heavy eyelids for a moment, as if he wanted to suppress a smile. “I knew the old man very well. It’s quite true that he was dumb enough to be proud—in his way. But not so dumb that he didn’t know exactly what chances his maneuver really had of succeeding. Even if the swindle had gone through, the winnings would have covered just a fraction of his debt—what am I saying!—not even enough worth mentioning … No, no, it was something else entirely …”

  Herr Tarangolian woke up from the idly relaxed and reflexive pose of the bon vivant. His perfect teeth flashed beneath his twitching mustache; his temperament gave wings to his hands, and they began to speak with him, forming and kneading his thoughts, sketching pictures in the air, sculpting his speech into strikingly animated forms. Animated himself, he leaned forward as he spoke, delighted by the liveliness that had taken hold of him.

  “How could you possibly understand old Paşcanu! Forgive me, but to do that you have to be a child of this nation. Pride, you say. Yes—but what kind of pride? Even you, a Russian, my dear Sergei Nikiforich, overlook the mythic element. He was a force of nature, this old swindler, a true son of our Romanian soil—personal pride has no part in this. He was always half wild, I tell you: they had to pin him down to get him to wear shoes, they had to chain him, like a wild horse being shod for the first time … Have you ever wondered what his secret was, how he managed to keep it all so well hidden for so many years, the fact that he was totally bankrupt? There had to have been at least a dozen people who knew of his circumstances, and not all of them were so entangled in his shady dealings that they thought it prudent to keep their mouths shut. No, the force of his personality outweighed any such prudence. Today we know he was never as rich as everyone thought. But he had the aura of a man of unlimited wealth. You see: he knew that this aura was suddenly in danger. Not that he wouldn’t have been able to slither past the catastrophe in the years still granted him. Anyone who’s managed to pull it off for as long as he had can manage a little while longer. But that’s not what he was after. What he was concerned about, if you will, was saving face. More exactly, in saving the aura that had surrounded him his entire life. Because he, too, was in danger of disgracing himself through idleness, like my chivalrous friend Petrescu, or like Tildy, if you follow me. It was again time for one of his strokes of genius, some fantastic, and if possible clever, coup that would have dazzled and amused everyone as much as possible. His dealings were always astonishing, witty, and sly, full of a con man’s grotesque humor. He would bluntly grasp a possibility that others overlooked either due to lack of spirit or lack of brains. As a result people were inclined to immediately forgive the more disturbing aspects. As a son of this nation he knew in his blood how to best impress his brothers. Force alone is not enough. You need wit, you need satire. That is the only thing our people truly value—and their respect is absolute—because of its symbolic character, because wit is both a symbol and reflection of life. Of course …”

  The prefect was practically glowing with joy at how vividly he had been able to summon the character of the man he claimed to know so well. “Of course, it was his pride that drove him to that act of insanity, the pride that had always been his most prominent trait—just like his nose. But it was a clown’s nose, you understand, a bluff, a joke for its own sake. By the same token, his pride was not that of a gentleman; it was the vanity of a great bluffer and prankster … the pride of a clown. Once more, and for the last time: he was never anything else but the wild man of the woods who climbed down from the mountains to live among people: a half-child with a fairy-tale imagination, a primitive peasant with a knack for hatching devilishly cunning plots and ruses, and intricate schemes that took a long time to devise and a long time to develop. He was a man full of superstitions, given to drastic images, unbridled emotions, plagued by twisted passions, a soul as coarse and colorful as a wood-block print from a calendar, full of uncouth humor and wily schemes. Ah, I always loved him, this prankster of my homeland, this great and fundamentally humble swindler. Yes, humble. Because what we see as pride was actually his humbleness before the world that he wanted to conquer. And his fear came from this exposed humility. Săndrel Paşcanu’s intended scam with the jewels was a childishly primitive attempt at saving himself from ridicule. It was his fear of being unmasked. He feared the spirit of Czernopol: the lurking vigilance so eager to reduce every claim to greatness to its true measure—to the satisfaction of all who are lowly—all in the service of one great unembellished reality. I know of no more potent form of blackmail than this spirit of watchfulness. It extorts tribute from everyone, and especially from those who have managed to deceive it for a while by giving it the run-around. It is a vicious profiteer, and whoever attempts to buy its respect winds up squandering all he possesses and sinking into debts no fortune can pay off. Whoever makes a pact with this spirit is bound to go under, just like Săndrel Paşcanu. Didn’t it come to fetch old Paşcanu exactly like the devil comes to fetch a soul? He d
ied on a great slide into the hell of ridicule, and his death was ghastly and grotesque—and thus only then did he finally achieve symbolic status … Ah …” said Herr Tarangolian, “I see that you don’t understand me …” He waved his heavily ringed hand in a gesture that was almost dismissive, and then draped his hands over the back of the chair, dandy-like, so that his pretty fingers with their clawlike nails dangled in the air.

  “We are trying with all our might to understand meaning of what you say,” said Uncle Sergei. “But as you know: tout comprendre, c’est tout mépriser …”

  Herr Tarangolian stared at him for a while with inscrutably melancholic eyes. “I think I understand what you mean,” he said. “But is there any other way to understand something except by interpreting it through our own person, or in other words, by uncovering in it the secret we are not willing to reveal about ourselves? Be that as it may, this misunderstanding, if you care to call it that, still gives us information about ourselves. And what else is there, I ask you, that we truly want to understand? What I meant to say was quite simple. I found myself moved by Paşcanu’s tragedy, by his figure’s tragic stature. Because in essence he was anything but the conscienceless rogue, the predator that people make him out to be. Essentially he was soft and gullible and compliant, so compliant that he was all too willing to become what the world he inhabited expected of a man. He was not the vulture that his nose suggested. Quite the contrary: he was a dove—one of the wild and shy doves that live in our forests and that occasionally fly past the city of Czernopol. One could have tamed him and placed him in a garden as a kind of ornament.”

  At the time, we were enrolled in Madame Fiokla Aritonovich’s Institute, which Uncle Sergei had recommended to our parents as an excellent educational institution. In this matter, our easygoing and charming relative found an unwavering advocate in Herr Tarangolian, much to everyone’s surprise.

  Madame Aritonovich was a Russian whom Uncle Sergei knew from St. Petersburg, where she had been married to a fabulously wealthy Armenian from Tbilisi and had presided over a large household.

  “If I tell you,” Uncle Sergei declared, turning to our father, who as a result of this description later had cause to say of course it was all to be foreseen—“if I tell you, a salon. Not only société but artists as well. Writers, intellectuals, theater, ballet, the choice is yours. She has been at university herself, Fiokla Ignatieva, she is very educated person, she knows life, is talented, une artiste, she has for instance a certain faible for my voice, wanted me to train for the opera, à tout prix. She danced, as well, naturally not on the public stage, only in private circles, but for experts and connoisseurs—just ask Krupenski, ask Dolgoruki, ask any of my countrymen here, she had great talent. Legat knew her and was great fan; Cecchetti was an intimate friend: he said it was tragedy that he could not get her for the Maryinsky. She spent thousands on her collections, poets—whatever you wish. Et une belle femme! Her neck—I can see like today—her neck was most elegant neck in all Petersburg. Un cou de cygne. Nefertiti is nothing compared to her, nothing at all. A neck that makes you wish you were an executioner—vous comprenez?”

  Herr Tarangolian completed this sketch by saying: “Fiokla Aritonovich is undoubtedly a personality. I have been her friend for years. And”—he said in English—“she is a lady. You will not regret your decision.”

  Because after the debacle with Herr Alexianu, the question of our further education had become critical. When they implored Miss Rappaport to come back she declined, saying that unfortunately she was about to accompany three charming children of an officer of the British Colonial Army to India. Apart from a postcard with a picture of the Taj Mahal, which we knew well enough anyway from the little forest at Horecea, we never heard another word from her, and because Uncle Sergei assured us that she could not possibly have been devoured by a “tyiger” because tigers despise Jewish flesh, and also even the fiercest beast would be afraid of her, we had to assume that she was grateful to have half the planet between us, and were probably correct.

  Madame Aritonovich had begun her institute as a ballet school, which was then expanded to include instruction in French. The institute’s popularity increased dramatically, and as a result it had very recently added all the subjects necessary to prepare students for the gymnasium and had—undoubtedly thanks to the prefect—been duly licensed.

  When further inquiries yielded positive results, our mother and her older sister Elvira went to meet Madame Aritonovich in person. They both returned with the unreserved impression that Madame was “quite formidable.”

  “Voilà ce que j’ai dit!”said Uncle Sergei, triumphantly.

  “Perhaps a little too much personality,” Aunt Elvira dared to object.

  “But she is a lady!” said Uncle Sergei, in English. “Don’t you agree?”

  “Of course, of course …”

  “She is a lady. So what else do you want?”

  With that our matriculation into the Institut d’Éducation, as it was called, was a done deal. We would have it to thank for a wealth of experiences that were both unusual and, without doubt, also educational.

  I don’t want to omit how much we were looking forward to the new school, and especially to our future schoolmates. We expected they would also become our playmates, that they would visit us and that we could visit them, and that we would finally be freed from the isolation we had experienced up to now. Our eagerness was immediately dampened, however, when we were told that we would never be allowed to go to school unaccompanied, but would always have to be taken to the institute and picked up later in the day. This supervision ultimately led to discoveries that caused our parents great dismay—though for no reason at all—and that sadly put a stop to our close relationship with our new friends.

  Today it seems obvious that we loved Madame Aritonovich from the very first moment, and we maintained our attachment and tender admiration for years, all the way up to our final departure from Czernopol, while she in turn rewarded us with her friendly affection. This is somewhat odd, considering that we must have found the general milieu of the school, and above all Madame Aritonovich’s own appearance, puzzling, even frightening.

  Madame Aritonovich was very thin, almost disturbingly emaciated, and she was the first woman we ever saw in pants. The day we met her she was wearing a kind of Chinese garment—a three-quarter-length black silk jacket with wide sleeves lined with cherry-red fabric, and broad white silk pants, with high-heeled slippers. She was ghostly pale. Her thick hair was parted severely down the middle and tied in a knot at the back of her neck, so that it lay like a narrow cap of shiny black lacquer on her slender head. She was smoking a cigarette through a thin jade holder the length of her arm.

  “You are a charming little flock of chickadees,” she said, with a voice that was alarmingly full and deep. “You, there—come here!” She pulled my sister Tanya over, ran the tip of her fingers along my sister’s dangling arms, then took her hands and raised her arms up to her shoulders. “Stand on your tiptoes!” she commanded.

  Tanya obeyed. Madame Aritonovich took Tanya’s right hand in her left and held it tightly by her fingers at a graceful angle over my sister’s head, then spun her in a quick turn, quite firmly but also amazingly tenderly. Thus supported, Tanya performed a pirouette as if entirely on her own, one that was full of grace.

  “Well, that certainly looks promising!” said Madame Aritonovich past her cigarette holder to Herr Tarangolian—the prefect had offered to introduce us. “What natural poise, don’t you agree, Coco?” She released Tanya with another artful swing, as skillful and gentle as before.

  “She reminds me of myself at that age, although I was perhaps somewhat less naïve. In any case, five or six years later my father said to me: Si tu continueras comme ça, tu finiras dans un bordel. To which I replied: En tout cas ce sera un bordel de premier ordre.”

  Herr Tarangolian tossed his head back and laughed, his pearly teeth flashing beneath his dyed mustache. “That’s
delicious, Fiokla, delicious! And your father?”

  “All he said was: J’en doute. But this one here could really become something, don’t you think, Coco?”

  She turned to us: “Did you understand what I said?”

  We had understood everything except for the word bordel. But her voice was so natural and had such a winning authority, that we would have gladly confessed if we had understood it. However, we had very little interest in that, distracted as we were by the discovery that one could call the prefect, whose first name was Constantin, Coco. We found this absolutely delightful, because the nickname made us think of a large, intelligent, and multicolored parrot, and in this way we gained a new and very informative image that illuminated the character of the prefect, and for a long time we only referred to him as Coco.