An Ermine in Czernopol

by Gregor von Rezzori

  “God is just. May he protect you, Herr Paşcanu,” said Usher Brill and walked away, disheartened.

  A few minutes later Miron led a man in who barely reached his belt, and who sauntered into the room with overwhelming casualness, his hat tilted back on his neck, his hands in his pockets, and his shirt billowing out of his open jacket, like the clown in a tragedy. Without ado he plopped down in one of the plush chairs across from old Paşcanu and smartly crossed his short legs, showing off his elegant, orange-colored shoes.

  “Salut, esteemed prince!” he squawked. “What a fine morning! Well, is he going to take it on or not?”

  “He is,” said old Paşcanu.

  “Perfect, very excellent, wunderbar! You have not drink for me: shorbet, soda water, orange juice—sans alcohol? Because it’s heating up outside, bozhe moi!”

  It was Herr Perko, “the angel of the emigrants.”

  He had earned this epithet with some daring undertakings in Russia during and after the revolution, smuggling packs of refugees across the border—not without having first relieved them of the last valuables they had on them. A certain Prince Krupenski, a fanatical connoisseur and breeder of roses, for which he had had mile-long greenhouses constructed on his vast estate, was one of his victims: on market days he could be seen on the cobblestones at the Theaterplatz, where he helped a small garden stall sell radishes—a man of seventy. Now and then he came to the villa district, where we lived, to work in a garden. One exaggeratedly tactful lady, who had heard his name whispered about, had a tray taken out to him with a ham sandwich and a glass of sherry during a break in the work. He thanked her kindly but requested to be treated as what he was, namely, a day laborer.

  Herr Perko was also associated with the shady story involving the rescue of a purported daughter of the tsar, who through some miracle supposedly survived when the ruling family was shot. It was a proven fact that he had saved the lives of other members of the high nobility—and thereby acquired fabulous jewels. Uncle Sergei was of the opinion there was no point in hanging him, because the noose would refuse to touch his neck.

  13 Ephraim Perko; Old Brill Visits the Baronet von Merores

  NO ONE will ever know exactly how old Paşcanu planned to carry out his swindle, because he never managed to pull it off. His intentions had made the rounds in Czernopol before the business ever really started. Bubi Brill, who had been crazy enough to get involved in the deal, was arrested as a diamond smuggler at the Dutch border just a few hours after leaving Amsterdam, and although the stone could not be found on his person, he spent a half year in jail, and was ultimately sentenced to pay an outrageous fine, which he avoided, but only because his father paid bribes amounting to nearly as much as the fine itself.

  Herr Perko, meanwhile, had disappeared, along with the diamond.

  It will also forever remain a secret how Paşcanu ever managed to come up with enough money to buy the diamond and smuggle it into the country in the first place. At his one and only hearing, which was conducted following the arrest of Bubi Brill, he was informed of the charges that would be brought against him: attempted fraud, smuggling, tax evasion, bribery, embezzlement, and other similar crimes, but he scarcely said a word. That same evening he was dead.

  Nor did he betray Ephraim Perko. No one understood what might have motivated him to forego this final—and, one would think, justifiable—act of revenge. People said he was simply a broken man.

  The opposite sounds more convincing: he was anything but broken, anything but ready to resign what was clearly the game of his life. And so, presumably, he said nothing so as to be able to exact his revenge in a far more thorough manner later, without incriminating himself by showing his hand now.

  The word among the Russian emigrants was that the old man had succumbed to the unique charm and the astonishing powers of persuasion of Ephraim Perko just like everyone else. But that, too, is highly unlikely. Săndrel Paşcanu was not the man to be fleeced by a brazen scoundrel like Perko, who was as brash as a blowfly. Paşcanu did not feel the aristocratic constraint that required having a creature like that on hand to take care of all the troublesome logistics, the plotting and planning, making the rounds of officials or else going around them somehow, and whose services also helped his clients overcome their own inhibitions. The aristocrat stood to gain much more than he might forfeit by dealing with such a person, of whom he only has a faint picture anyway. The institution of the house-Jew, who feels tacitly permitted to cheat his master at every turn, was an ancient tradition within the feudal caste of the eastern lands. And ever since we met Solly Brill, and had tasted the delights of his amusing directness and admired his juggler’s adroitness in all practical operations, we had nothing but understanding for such an arrangement.

  But Săndrel Paşcanu was a peasant and a greedy rogue himself. A man who comes from severe poverty but manages to become a millionaire, and who associates with the great men of the world as with his own kind, is not so easily blinded by the audacity of a cheap crook.

  Incidentally, Ephraim Perko casually resurfaced in Czernopol a year later as jaunty as ever. Not the smallest infraction could be proven against him, not even the knowledge that anyone else—much less himself—had ever intended to break the law. Nevertheless, coming back was a risky thing to do. Presumably he wasn’t prompted to do so because of his utter innocence: So what did bring him back to Czernopol?

  He wasn’t poor. Counting the Paşcanu diamond with all his other jewelry, which he owned thanks to the misfortune of the Russian refugees, not to mention his cash holdings and the return from diverse transactions—he kept very busy—Perko must have acquired a fortune sizable enough to have allowed him to settle on the Riviera, for instance, where he could have had incomparably greater hunting, with more game in the preserve, so to speak. But he chose not to leave Czernopol. He belonged to this city, just as the city belonged to him. I’m certain that old Paşcanu realized this, and that he had counted on it.

  Only in Czernopol was Ephraim Perko allowed to be exactly who he was; only here could he count on an utter and unchallenged acceptance. What need did he have of the déclassé duchesses of the Côte d’Azur, when the ladies of the Trocadero, which was owned by his friend Schorodok, were just as well (if not much better) built? Did the band leader at the casino in Monte Carlo launch into the tango “Ay-ay-ay” the minute Ephraim Perko walked through the door? Gyorgyovich Ianku never failed to do so, even if this meant interrupting the national anthem, which he was expected to play at three in the morning, as a signal that the official portion of the evening was over and the unofficial part could begin. And begin it did when Effi Perko arrived! What need did this diminutive playboy have for yachts in blue bays—he was afraid of water. A Rolls-Royce? Here he happened to be one of two or three people who could afford one if they wanted. But did he? He did not. He preferred the sweet, romantic carriages that swung back and forth, dipping deep into their long leaf springs, and the homey tang of the horses, the brittle old protective leather, and the musty smell of the coachman’s coat. Although he was born in Odessa, Czernopol was Effi Perko’s true homeland. He was attached to this town with a natural, gleeful dedication, a lucky boy in perfect, sunny resonance with the place that was both the source of his good fortune and its stage. And Czernopol rewarded his loyalty by providing him with a willing realm that blossomed forth like King Laurin’s rose garden.

  It was also the only place on earth where people could understand his speech.

  Effi Perko spoke Russian, German, Romanian, Ukrainian, Polish, Yiddish, French, English, and Italian all in the same way: namely, gurgling, croaking, and choking—like someone dreaming that he’s spitting out his teeth. You had to have a keen and well-trained ear in order to understand a single one of his sentences, and you had to have a similarly keen and well-trained spirit—the spirit of Czernopol—in order to fully appreciate the wit behind his words, both the intended as well as the accidental.

  It wasn’t so bad when he explai
ned that he was an aficionado of opera, while his wife preferred comedy—at that time he had been married three times, and two more wives would follow, each more beautiful than the last—and sank his teeth into the sentence: “I likh verry mutch goink to opera, but my wife she prreferrs more the comedies.” But it was quite a stimulating challenge to decipher, for example: “I shut go for makingk bisness vit Peshkaner? I shut vant for go making caca in bucket!”—by which he meant: People think that I got involved in some dealings with Paşcanu; do they think I want to get locked up in a cell where to relieve myself all I would have at my disposal would be a bucket? Even the metaphor he used—“making caca in bucket”—was not some regional turn of phrase but his own coinage, invented on the spot.

  And the remarks he casually tossed aside were downright brilliant, as for instance his appraisal of a sensually languid—not languidly sensual—woman: “she snorrs vit de oygen”—she snores with her eyes.

  The man clearly possessed great charm as well. No one who saw Effi Perko dancing at the Trocadero, with great abandon, agility, and grace, and with women two or three heads taller than himself—he only liked tall blond women with beautiful skin, ample bosoms, and long legs—could deny a certain admiration for this lucky dwarf with the character of a hyena. He deported himself with the elegance of a racetrack devotee: the high narrow collar of his silk shirts joined with a gold pin clasped beneath his narrow tie, a gray homburg with a bound edge and black band, tilting off his forehead onto the back of his neck, his jacket unbuttoned and opened to reveal his exotic belt of crocodile leather or snakeskin, his hands permanently in his trouser pockets, and more often than not sporting a toothpick in his mouth. He smelled of high-priced fragrances, like a harem beauty. One time he asked old Brill, point-blank: “Say, Brill, who wears such tidy shmattes vat you sell?” It was no wonder that Bubi Brill, for deeper reasons than “simply business,” as he said, sought out Ephraim Perko’s friendship. It was even less surprising that Herr Tarangolian found this highly amusing.

  “If Tildy can be considered the only man in Czernopol with a true face,” opined the prefect, “then we rightly have to concede to my friend Perko that no one else—not even Năstase—could boast such nerve.”

  As for Bubi Brill, we later had more than enough opportunity to get to know him as he was an avid member of the tennis club near our house, which we eventually convinced our parents to let us join. The clubhouse had been the officers’ salon of the former Austrian military shooting range pavilion and was built in the classic style of the fin de siècle: it was too large to be a weather station packed with barometers, thermometers, wind vanes, and hygrometers, and too small for a bathhouse or public library. The old bullet trap could still be found behind the building: as high as a house, long since overgrown with the most beautiful meadow grass, and hemmed in by streets lined with nut trees—a paradise for the happy children who were allowed to grow up without much supervision, and for the soldiers from the nearby barracks, who on warm summer nights attempted to ravish the servant girls they lured there. The tennis courts were managed by an attendant, who also served as the municipal dogcatcher, or hitzel, setting forth in that capacity twice a week with a cage mounted to a cart and a wire snare affixed to a long pole, to reduce the prodigious numbers of strays that roamed the streets. He was only too happy to round up pedigreed dogs as well, and charged their owners a handsome fee for their release. The president of the Czernopol Lawn Tennis Club was Wolf Leibish, Baronet von Merores, Junior, who was quite devoted to the sport.

  It was he who effected the connection between Bubi and Effi Perko.

  It happened on the same morning as the altercation between Bubi Brill and his father, after which the father, Usher Brill, paid a visit on old Hirsh Leib, Baronet von Merores, Senior. What happened was as follows:

  Bubi showed up at the tennis courts as Wolf von Merores—his middle name, Leibish, was usually suppressed—was winning his game against the director of the Anglo-Maghrebinian Bank, a certain Dr. Sudbinsky, with one final well-aimed overhead smash. Herr von Merores was walking up to the clubhouse, a towel draped casually around his neck and half a dozen first-class rackets bunched beneath his arm, while Bubi Brill idly surveyed the tennis courts, still morose following the “scene with the old man.”

  “Good morning,” Wolfi shouted, in English, in a comradely way. “What’s new?”

  “Morning,” replied Bubi Brill. “Just the usual. Are you done?”

  “Yes. I have to be in town at eleven. You missed an interesting game. I’ll have to take away Sudbinsky’s handicap if he keeps playing like this. He nearly beat me.”

  “I’d like to talk to you about a small matter,” said Bubi Brill.

  “Sure. Come on over here. I just have to take a quick shower.” He carefully wrapped his towel around his neck. “Evidently there was another scandalous incident last night that everybody’s talking about,” he mentioned casually. “Have you heard anything more about it?”

  “Not a thing,” Bubi lied, since his mind was too focused on something else.

  “People are talking about a Nazi demonstration on the main street. Your father’s store was hit as well?”

  “Oh, the usual slogans smeared on the shutters. Not worth mentioning,” Bubi admitted sullenly.

  “Wait just a minute,” said Baronet Wolf, “I just want to tip the ball boy.”

  “It will just take a second,” said Bubi, on the way to the clubhouse. “I’m sure you’ve read in the papers about the delegation from the Ministry of War coming to town.”

  “Naturally,” said Wolfi von Merores. “Border security, so the story goes.”

  “Exactly. I’ve found out from a dependable source that they’re going to contact old Paşcanu.”

  Wolfi looked up and smiled. “Interesting,” he said.

  “Supposedly it’s about developing a preliminary contract for lumber consignments to the army.” Bubi paused a moment. “I figured the information would not be entirely uninteresting to you, just as you said. Should the occasion present itself, I hope you will keep me in consideration?”

  Wolfi went on smiling his fine smile. “Where does the information come from, if I may ask?”

  “From a reliable source. By the way, have you thought of me in regard to the person we were speaking of yesterday?”

  “Effi Perko? Yes, I have been thinking of you. Speaking of which, what are you doing tomorrow? Why don’t you come up to my office for a few minutes. Let’s say at eleven. Perko will just happen to be there. It’s the perfect opportunity.”

  “Fine, I’ll be there. Then I’ll tell you more about the other business. In any case: old Paşcanu is still very active.”

  “Evidently,” said Wolfi. “So, tomorrow at eleven. Ciao, my friend.”

  They each waved a friendly goodbye, and Baronet Wolfi disappeared into the clubhouse. Bubi Brill sauntered down to the courts and soon found a game among the young people there.

  By the time Wolf Baronet von Merores had changed, shaved, and combed his hair, the Chrysler was already waiting out front. His chauffeur held the door for him, then climbed behind the steering wheel and gave an impressive blast of the three-toned horn—the signal he used to inform the members of the club of the arrival and departure of their president. At the same time, the vehicle surged forward.

  The splendor of the trees in the Czernopol Volksgarten was without comparison. Seated in the back of the Chrysler, he had taken off his gray homburg and set it beside him, and the summer light floated down through the treetops onto the avenues like smoke spilling from a censer, occasionally flashing in the baronet’s smoothly parted black hair. Wolfi von Merores was of less than medium height, a little on the chubby side, with a delicate bone structure. He carried himself with the distinction and elegance of a businessman at the peak of his power. With a hint of dreaminess in his dark almond eyes, he peered through the raised windows of the sedan into the park, which glided past him like a tapestry, the consummate background for
a princely profile, but once the vehicle reached the officers’ casino and the backdrop shifted abruptly from handsomely cultivated nature to the uncivilized doings of the main street, his manicured hands reached for the paper and he spent the rest of the drive into town reading.

  In Neuschul Street the Chrysler gently braked in front of the von Merores’ house. Baronet Wolf, who never failed to deliver a personal word of thanks to his staff, gave his chauffeur a friendly nod: “Thanks, Kozarishchiuk. I won’t be needing you before five o’clock bridge.”

  He made a very lordly impression as he climbed out of the car, folded his newspaper, and stepped into his father’s house, carrying his gray homburg.

  The von Merores’ house was well tended, with an air of patrician stability. In the nineties it had belonged to a very rich Armenian. The front rooms exhibited an Oriental sumptuousness, with mosaic floors and deep window niches. Corridors that were almost devoid of light led back to a variety of small rooms that once may have sheltered servants, or perhaps even harem wives—one never knew what kind of family arrangements prevailed among the Armenians.

  A slender man who served as the Merores’ secretary met Wolf in the corridor, which they referred to using the English word “hall,” took his hat, and said: “You have a visitor. Old man Brill.”