An Ermine in Czernopol

by Gregor von Rezzori

  He called out three times: “Miron!” Then, louder and louder: “Miron! Miron!”

  The scopit, who had the same name as Czernopol’s patron saint, came waddling on flat feet across the yard. The eunuch’s fat rolled up the stairs and was still in motion when its owner came to a stop. Old Paşcanu, who hadn’t taken his angry eyes off his coachman, turned around without a word and walked into the next room, rapping his cane against the floor. The coachman followed. The room was in disrepair, with ugly plush-covered furniture, almost entirely darkened by the heavy curtains in front of the small windows. A covered picture hung on the wall—the Titian. Beside it stood a large iron antique safe.

  Old Paşcanu stepped into the center of the room and turned around. The coachman had stayed by the door. He was even taller than his master, and his back was so enormous it could have supplied five times the flesh the other had on his bones. When he was behind the two colossal horses, up on the box of the hulking old carriage, he looked natural enough, but on his own two legs he looked like a human mountain. The street boys of Czernopol called him Gogeamite, which was derived from the name of the giant boxer Gogea Mitu. His spongelike neck was covered with a network of delicate, sharply etched grooves, as if the skin of the oldest Indian temple-elephant had acquired the rosy color and the tenderness of a suckling pig. His body was shaped like a roller, and was wrapped around several times with a purple sash that must been miles long. His back was like a whale’s, beckoning to be harpooned.

  Old Paşcanu was clearly tempted to vent his feelings with his cane on that very back. He yelled at the coachman:

  “You’re sleeping, Miron! You sleep day and night, in the stable and on the coachbox. You sleep in your shoes. You just hang there in your pants and sleep like a pumpkin in a sack.”

  “I’m not asleep, sir, I’m awake,” the man said in a fluting voice that spilled out of his throat like some clear oil.

  “You were sleeping while I was on my knees praying next to my wives’ coffins!”

  Miron didn’t answer. Old Paşcanu looked him in the eye. His mustache was twitching.

  “Praying, you understand!”

  “Praying, sir,” the angelic voice echoed.

  “Now go to the Jew Brill, you elephant without balls. Go to his house. Tell him to come here right away, before he closes up his shop. Right this minute. I want to speak with him. Tell him to bring his magnifying glass. You wait for him and bring him here. Tell him you’ve been instructed to go to another Jew if he keeps you waiting. Bring him here. Then, while he’s with me, drive out to the Jew Perko …”

  “He’s not a Jew, sir,” the eunuch objected gently.

  “Are you contradicting me? Go to the Jew Perko, I say. Bring him here as well, and keep him waiting until the other has gone. They’re not to see each other. Now go!”

  “I’m going, sir,” said the voice from the whale, with heavenly unction.

  He rolled out the door. Old Paşcanu waited until he’d closed the door behind him, then pulled a bunch of keys from his pocket, went to the safe, and opened it. He bent over, panting, leaning on his cane, and plunged his arm up to his shoulder into the deepest place of the safe. He rummaged around a while, finally withdrawing his talon, which now clutched a fist-sized ball of newspaper. He unfolded the paper. A small box appeared. He pressed his calloused thumb against it, as if testing it, and then deposited the box in his vest pocket. With the fussiness of an old man he then relocked the safe, tucked the keys in his pocket, walked to the desk, banging his cane hard against the floorboards, and sat down on one of the plush-covered armchairs. In this way he waited, in the half-slumber of a very old man, slightly bent forward, lightly nodding with his upper body, with half-closed eyes and an occasionally twitching mustache. As soon as steps could be heard on the stairs, however, his eyes reopened, and his entire life force, sinister and incalculable like a violent force of nature, seemed to flow back into him through the crafty slits beneath his white eyebrows. Only his eyelids opened, nothing else moved. Tilting forward, he lurked like a huge forest creature crouching in the damp coolness of the deep leafy shade, awake and ready to spring out of the underbrush, dangerous, wreaking havoc, dominant. He was very striking. A narrow, dense band of light fell through a slit in the curtain at a slant in front of him.

  The castrato led in the merchant Usher Brill.

  “We want to be alone,” ordered Săndrel Paşcanu, without reacting to the Jew’s greeting.

  “Alone, sir!” Miron fluted, then rolled out the door and pulled it shut. Brill was breathing quietly, his calm as profound as a well. Jews are heroes.

  “Did you bring your glass?” asked old Paşcanu.

  “I did,” answered Brill from the depths of inexhaustible patience.

  “Here!” said Paşcanu, and reached into his vest pocket. He had stiff cuffs on his sleeves, clamped together with enormous barbaric cuff links that betrayed his background: lumps of gold studded with rubies. One of these caught on his watch chain. He fumbled with it, then impatiently tugged it off. His movements remained animated after he pulled the small box from his pocket. He tossed it onto the table so brusquely that it bounced. Something rolled out and onto the ground. Brill bent over to pick it up.

  When he stood back up he almost bumped into old Paşcanu, who had risen and was looming menacingly above him, his vulture’s nose jutting forward as if ready to hack something to pieces, his white mustache fluffed out, his claws digging into the back of the armchair. Brill glanced at him with sad, cyclamen-colored eyes behind eyelashes that had faded to a colorless stubble. The old man sat back down.

  The diamond Brill had picked up was as big as a dove’s egg. He turned it in his short fingers. The backs of his hands were covered with reddish hair, his skin spotted like the belly of a salamander. Steadying the stone in two fingers, he held it in the thick, dusty ray of light. The stone flashed blue and fire-red.

  Brill examined it at arm’s length, then brought it right up to his eyes, stroked the facets and edges with the tips of his fingers, finally took his jeweler’s loupe from his pocket, wedged it under his eyebrow, and continued his examination long and thoroughly. Finally he removed his glass, set the brilliant back on the table, and gave a deep, melancholy sigh.

  “Speak!” said old Paşcanu.

  “A beautiful stone,” said Brill, slowly, as if recalling a distant memory. “Very much a beautiful stone. A stone with hardly a cloud, hardly a spot of coal …”

  “You’re lying!” snorted Paşcanu. “It’s perfectly pure. I paid five million for it.”

  “You were cheated, Herr Paşcanu,” said Brill, troubled. “You should have bought from people you can trust, like Usher Brill.”

  “What you sell are whipcords,” said Paşcanu, disdainfully. “And bad ones at that.”

  “I have seen much in my life, Herr Paşcanu. Some of it thanks to you. And one time a remarkable diamond.”

  “Not one like this.”

  Brill rocked his bleached head back and forth. “You want to sell, Herr Paşcanu?”

  “I want you to tell me what this stone is worth.”

  “Nu, five million. You said yourself.”

  “I bought it before the war,” said Paşcanu.

  Brill nodded, resigned, with closed eyes. The lie was transparent.

  “What’s it worth today?”

  Brill sighed. “What it’s worth is from me my whole life, and from you a good laugh, Herr Paşcanu, that’s what it’s worth. Because you are a rich man, Herr Paşcanu, and I am a poor man. But if you ask me what it should cost … It should cost a fortune for whoever buys it, and bring a fortune for whoever sells it. But it’s another story again if you ask me what it’ll bring … Nu, Herr Paşcanu, it’s a beautiful stone, a big stone, hardly a blemish, so, what will it bring? What it will bring—there aren’t many stones like that on the market today …”

  “No,” old Paşcanu interrupted, vigilantly. “There’s not another one like it with the same cut. It has a nam
e. I won’t tell you, because I gave it another one. Now it’s called Ice Heart.”

  “A beautiful name, Herr Paşcanu. But sad. Why don’t you just rename it the Paşcanu Diamond? People don’t want to hear sad things.”

  “Just tell me what it’s worth.”

  “Why me, Herr Paşcanu? A stone like this has an international reputation. Why don’t you simply send a telegram to the bourse in Amsterdam: ‘Wire back estimated value Paşcanu diamond.” You want to sell, you make an auction. Rothschild makes a bid, Morgan makes a bid, the Prince of Linz or Wels or whoever, your friends, rich people, they bang with the gavel, going once, going twice, sold. All very simple. What need do you have for Usher Brill?”

  “What would you give me for it as a lump sum?”

  Brill swallowed. “A man can’t give what he doesn’t have, Herr Paşcanu.”

  “All I’m after is security. I mean to entrust this stone to you. Then you’ll buy for me a second one. One exactly like this. I need two.” He made a small, meaningful pause. “That one I’ll call Fire Heart. You’ll buy it for me. Never mind the cost. You understand?”

  Usher Brill looked back down at the diamond for the first time since he had examined it. He swallowed once again. He made a movement with his hands, as if to pick up the stone, but then let his arms drop. Once again he closed his eyes and rocked his head from side to side, as he said:

  “When I was twelve years old, Herr Paşcanu, I had a dream. I saw old Herr Paşcanu coming to me and saying, ‘Usher my boy, here is a diamond, a diamond so big as a cannonball. Take it and go and buy me another cannonball just like it.’ Nu, that was the dream I had when I was twelve … I am an old man, Herr Paşcanu. God forbid, not as old as you, and yet not everyone has your health, Herr Paşcanu, may God preserve it for you. My business is getting along moderately well. My oldest boy is a parasolnik, a nobody, a nebekh who plays at being a cavalry officer with tennis racquets and goes drinking at the Trocadero like a goy—you’ll excuse me, Herr Paşcanu, as we’re old friends. But I have a little daughter, may God protect her, a nice reasonable girl, and she’s going to marry a sensible man, and I have another boy, a good smart yingl, God’s blessing on our old age, by the name of Solly. They will take over the shop with the whipcords, and maybe even go a little further. But I am an old man, Herr Paşcanu. If I still dream it’s only about the men who come painting swastikas on the shutters at night. Not about great deals with profits in the hundred-thousand range. I have the tax man on my back enough already.”

  Paşcanu said nothing.

  “Besides,” Brill went on after another deep sigh, “if you’ll permit me to repeat myself, Herr Paşcanu: Why do you need me? What need do you have of Usher Brill? What you need is a telegram sent to Amsterdam: ‘Obtain identical piece Paşcanu Diamond same size form any price stop Paşcanu.’ If they don’t find one, well, at the worst they’ll cut a new one to match. They have enough raw diamonds in all sizes and good for all kinds of cuts. You don’t have to get personally involved, you have people here on the square with excellent connections. But me, I don’t deal much with stones anymore, Herr Paşcanu. I have my shop with whipcords, like you say, it’s getting along, may God protect it, it’s known better days, but I’m an old man, what more do I need, grow up poor and poor you stay … You have experts right here on the square. You have Merdinger & Lipschitz, you have Gottesmann & Rubel, you have Falikmann & Company. And if you don’t want to deal with them, you have Merores. An old acquaintance, Herr Paşcanu. What’s wrong with him? Is he suddenly too high class not to need a few hundred thousand? Maybe the boy, growing up with all those millions. But the old man?”

  Herr Paşcanu didn’t move.

  Brill looked past the diamond, concentrated. “I am an old man, Herr Paşcanu, of over sixty years,” he said. “You knew me in younger days. Back then, whenever you said to me, ‘Brill, I have some deal, this thing or that, it’s difficult, it calls for discretion, we have to be careful but it’s a good deal,’ well, did I hesitate, Herr Paşcanu? Tell me yourself—did I hesitate, Herr Paşcanu? No I didn’t, Herr Paşcanu. Today I am an old man. I have my business, yes, with whipcords, but there is a crisis in the whole world, and not everyone can take advantage of a situation like you can, and take refuge in stones, but in those days, when you said to me, ‘Brill, I have serious difficulties with the business, avoid making a fuss, a matter of trust’—you tell me! I hear lumber isn’t doing so well, but you are a chosen one, Herr Paşcanu, may God preserve whatever other businesses you may have, I’m always telling my Bubi, my oldest, look at old Herr Paşcanu, I say, the way he climbed down from the mountaintops and didn’t have a shoe on his foot, you’ll excuse me, Herr Paşcanu, but, you know, that’s how people talk, and for the young people it’s an example. So I say to my Bubi: ‘Look at him, this chosen man, who climbed down barefoot from the mountains and now he’s a meylekh, a king among the lumber merchants.’ But he prefers to go the kurvehs at Schorodok’s. So permit me, Herr Paşcanu, but it will be a very expensive purchase. You’ll have to pay in Dutch guldens, and the exchange today is nearly sixty-five to one—not just another order of net stockings, Herr Paşcanu, it will cost millions. And you will kindly permit me to ask: What kind of security are you offering, Herr Paşcanu?”

  “You have the stone, you ass! You take it with you, to London or Amsterdam, and show it, so that the other stone will be exactly like this one. You want me to give you some security for putting a stone in your Jew fingers? You need to leave the security here for me, understand? Not that I mean to cheat you, but you shouldn’t be able to cheat me, either.”

  Usher Brill rested his hand on his heart and smiled forgivingly with closed eyes. When he opened his eyes again they focused on the diamond on the table, and widened of their own accord. “You are a good man, Herr Paşcanu,” he said. “People can say what they want, but I say you are a good man. A hard man, but a good man. I have earned well by you. I’ve earned better by other people, just for your information, in terms of percentage. You are a hard man. Nevertheless, many people have risen high because of you. And the more you wanted them to grow, the bigger they grew. Why, I ask you, Herr Paşcanu, do you suddenly want to make the small people as big as the big people, and not, for instance, make the big people a little bit bigger? Aren’t you more in contact with Merores, Herr Paşcanu? Is Merores suddenly too high-class for a deal like this, now that he’s become a chevalier? Just between us, are there many noblemen these days who wouldn’t give their eyetooth for a deal like this? Merores wouldn’t? Don’t take me wrong, Herr Paşcanu, but what for do you need Brill?”

  “Miron!” old Paşcanu shouted so loud the room shook. He banged his cane impatiently against the floorboards and repeated: “Miron! Miron!”

  “It’s a very confidential business, Herr Paşcanu,” said Brill. “Better don’t tell me anything. Diamonds you could use to find like crumbs of shabbos-cake on Monday under the table, but these days it’s not so easy. There are different people involved: officials, detectives, what do I know. Everything is written down. Buying a raw diamond as big as a ball will come out very expensive, if you can find one before it comes up for auction. It will be extremely difficult to have it cut in this extravagant form, please understand, without it being talked around for whom and why. You don’t want to give your money out for costume jewelry, Herr Paşcanu, I’m guessing. It will be an expensive business, Herr Paşcanu, and a difficult one for whoever does it for you. More than one person will have to go to London or Amsterdam, not just one, and serious people, no bokher or nebbokhanten like my son Bubi. And you won’t want to leave the stone rolling around inside some foreign safe, Herr Paşcanu. You will want it back. But the import duty on stones is high, Herr Paşcanu, and the export is no simple matter. Do you want to give gifts to the customs inspectors, Herr Paşcanu? I don’t imagine you do. You’ll need reliable people to take the stone abroad and bring it back, along with the second one as well. The commission will be high, very high. All in all, it wo
uld be a matter of twenty or twenty-five million, maybe more, for certain. It’s an investment that calls for more than just one personal fortune, Herr Paşcanu. I can’t shake the impression that we’re rocking a dead baby here. You are a well-known man, so I beg your pardon, but please permit me to ask again, Herr Paşcanu: What kind of security are you offering?”

  “Miron!”

  The castrato appeared in the door.

  “Throw the Jew out,” said old Paşcanu.

  Brill stayed where he was.

  “Throw him out or else I’ll smash his head in, and yours as well!”

  Brill started to leave, anxiously burdened by all the misunderstanding and the futility of explaining himself. Just before reaching the door he turned around, resigned to one last attempt. He shrugged his shoulders and lifted his blotchy, red-haired hands, opening his palms up as if he were presenting his case to old Paşcanu one last time, as if he were weighing his arguments for the tough old man one last time, for his own good, so that Paşcanu would see how serious and at the same time how clearly simple the matter was. And what he was offering in those open palms was none other than himself, Usher Brill, a man trapped by fate, unable to do otherwise … His wise, despairing gaze attempted to force this stubborn old man to show a little understanding. It was an urgent gesture, tragic and ridiculous and very human, full of the frailty of the human desire to make oneself understood. He sighed, nodded sadly, and dropped his arms. The castrato towered next to him, his flabby, masklike Mongolian face showed no expression: eyes, mouth, and nose carved out of a moonlit pumpkin.