by Paul Park
On three legs, forefoot poised, Andromeda looked that way, then bent her nose into the trampled grass. The man had slid along here like a slug. When she found him, she did not recognize him—a black man in expensive clothes. He had dragged himself into a thicket of high briars and could go no farther. He sat holding his stomach, and when he saw her he started to cry and grunt and argue—not loudly, because he hadn’t the strength. He held onto his stomach, and she squatted in front of him under the thicket, waiting and watching, her head cocked to one side—he had nothing to fear from her. She wished him no harm. She herself was hurt and tired, yet still joyful, tongue lolling from her mouth. Maybe in an ideal world there could have been some communication of hurt spirits. But in that thicket, half a mile from that railway track, Andromeda listened to him groaning, watched his lips twist and falter, his chin tremble. He spoke words but she couldn’t understand them. Inside all the other stinks there was the stink of fear, which was unnecessary. She was waiting for his clothes.
She saw a silver cylinder lying in the mud. Andromeda touched the metal with her nose, but there was no smell. At least there was no smell that could compete with death.
In time, toward evening, clutching his stomach, the African slumped onto his side. He didn’t live to see the transformation. Andromeda got up and came to him and put her burning muzzle by his face. On the dirty leaves under his mouth she saw a tiny salamander, newborn, struggling to lift its head, warmed and invigorated by the man’s last breath. It was blue and red and yellow, lapidary in its nest of powdered leaves, and it had no scent at all.
Where that jewellike creature lived, she felt rather than thought, all creatures might lie down in harmony. And even the most elusive and beautiful, with her white-striped fur as delicate as gossamer or thistledown, and her white teeth as sharp as knives, might climb down from the trees and walk upon the ground.
17
Truth-telling
SEVERAL DAYS LATER, in the evening, Radu Luckacz, surrounded by policemen, stood on the steps of District Police Station Number Three, trying to understand the crowd. More than a thousand people had waited in the rain, newspapers and umbrellas above their heads, to watch the public exhibition of Count Sfetcu and the other conspirators. A scaffold had been erected in the center of the square, and the prisoners had been paraded briefly and then driven away. But in spite of the weather, the crowd did not disperse. What did that mean? Nor did the people sing, or chant revolutionary slogans, or raise their fists. But they stood glumly in their wet clothes.
Radu Luckacz knocked his fists together behind his back. The problem was, he thought, that he had made no public statement, issued no proclamation, commissioned no editorial to tell the crowd what it should feel. It was because of his own ambivalence. On the stone steps below the mural of the martyrdom of Kevin Markasev, he stood as glumly as the rest. This event was regrettable and sad, he knew. That it was necessary, he wished he could be sure, though he had signed the order of arrest.
At that moment he felt on his shoulders a burden of failure. And later in his car, as he was driven through the wet, dark streets to his evening meeting with the baroness, he reflected on the sadness of the day. How hard it was, he thought, to keep one’s own hands clean! At supper in his modest house, the police at watch outside, Radu Luckacz sometimes felt an overwhelming desperation as he sat in silence with his wife and teenage daughter. How could he explain to them what he had done that day? How could he explain it to himself? Yet wasn’t it a worthy goal after all, to maintain a functioning Roumanian state, a functioning parliament and post office and police force, even under foreign occupation? Wasn’t it a worthy goal for a freethinker and a liberal to oppose the minions (as he might have described them in his unwritten editorial) of monarchy and superstition? Even if he was forced to make a bargain with a snake like Ernest Dysart, wasn’t it still worth it after all?
And the baroness must be protected. In his mind she personified the spirit of Great Roumania. Her beauty, her artistic genius, her generous heart—the government could not exist without them. Now that she’d embarked upon the first of a new series of public performances, her people stood outside the theater in long lines. The house was limited, the audience kept small. Afterward, well-dressed men and women sobbed and whispered in the coffeehouses and the streets, conscious they had burned their hands upon some spark. Or else caught a glimpse of the white tyger, though Radu Luckacz despised the manipulation of these empty and outdated myths. Deeds were better, like the new pediatric hospital the baroness had opened and endowed with money from the German government.
His car turned up the Calea Victoriei. At the end of the street between the ornate stone façades, under the lights he could see a shoulder of the People’s Palace, a monument to the excesses of the old regime. The baroness lived in part of the south wing, while the rest had been turned into a museum. In the wet dusk Radu Luckacz saw lights shining on the second floor. As usual there were some people gathered at the fountain in the square, hoping to see the baroness’s shadow cross the blind.
He hung up his own hat and coat in the vestibule, and then walked up the stairs. On the landing, a horse-faced woman waited to let him pass. Dressed for the opera, perhaps, she looked familiar, but she bowed and hid her face and he continued on. He could hear the sound of the pianoforte in the small drawing room. It played a few notes, then stopped, then went on again.
He knocked. Jean-Baptiste was there, dressed in his old-fashioned, threadbare livery. He shrugged his high, narrow shoulders, put his finger to his lips, guided Luckacz in. A number of upholstered chairs were arranged in front of the piano, but they were empty. The baroness herself sat at the keyboard. A candelabrum stood atop the instrument, though the rest of the room was dark.
As always when he saw the woman, lit as if with inner radiance, he felt a mixture of unpleasant feelings that he had learned to call love. There was vertigo and nausea first of all. Then there was the desire to stumble forward, to grab hold of her and clutch her and rub his face against her bosom, though she was Baron Ceausescu’s widow and he was a married man. But what wouldn’t he give to go down on his knees and kiss the front of her dress? A cry came out of him, sublimated to a cough, and she started up. Then she stood away from the instrument and came toward him, smiling, holding out her hands. “My friend, I was expecting you!”
Jean-Baptiste had left the room. Luckacz struggled forward, his desire to clutch her now transformed, as always, into harsh, officious speech, buzzing and rasping in his ears. He scarcely knew what he was saying. But she interrupted him, held up her bitten fingers. “Thank God you’ve come! I’ve been so frightened. Please forgive a woman’s weakness, but I’ve made myself afraid.”
“Ma’am…”
“Oh, I’ve been foolish! And the night is so dark! Look what I have done.” And she led him to a sideboard under the candlelight where there were some plans laid out—a circular small building and a naked woman. He could make no sense of it.
“It’s my tomb,” she said. “My mausoleum. I’ve had the artist draw it up.”
He didn’t understand, said nothing, and in a moment she continued, “The statue is inside. Lying on the lid of the sarcophagus. But there’s no place where you can get a look—just perhaps a shoulder or an arm. The walls of the building hug so close. You can just see part of my body if you crane your neck—what do you think? It’s my own idea. The plan itself is like a birdcage. Oh, but my soul has been a prisoner!”
He stood staring at the drawing, which he now saw was beautifully rendered in pen and ink. But he couldn’t make out much of the detail, it was so small.
“Ma’am,” he said, then swallowed. “Did you pose for this?”
She laughed, touched his arm. “My friend—what do you take me for?” Then she grew plaintive. “I’ve been at my wit’s end. Tell me some good news! Oh, I can see it in your face. You’ve come from the execution.”
He winced. “They haven’t yet stood trial.”
&
nbsp; “And do you blame me for my morbid thoughts? Did they curse me? Did they curse my name?”
“No,” he said, which was the truth. She was distressed, and he yearned to comfort her. But it was hard for him to look her in the face, to tolerate her clear eyes and perfect skin, the bitter smell that clung to her. So he stood looking at the drawing of the naked woman until she turned away from him back to the piano, and he felt he had to speak again, grind forward in his nasty, nasal, Hungarian-accented voice. “Madam, I am pleased to have good news for you. This is from several sources, including someone who has come recently to join us. It is news from Antonescu, who can’t keep his men from running away. The so-called empress is on her deathbed. Valeria Dragonesti. She will not last the week.”
He couldn’t look the baroness in the face. She dropped the cover on the piano keys, which made the strings vibrate a little. “What about the train?” she asked. “The Hephaestion? That was Antonescu’s work.”
“But they achieved no benefit. Obviously there were armaments inside the baggage car. Whether they were meant for him or else for some other faction has yet to be determined. But they were detonated by the force of the explosion. The train was wrecked, but there were only several injuries, because of the heroism of—”
She interrupted him. “That’s your news? A queen of Great Roumania is dying? My friend, I had hoped for better news than that. What about Miranda Popescu? Have you found her?”
“No. There must have been another exit to the cave, though we have searched—”
“And how many of my citizens have gone to join her in Mogosoaia? Tell me!”
“Ma’am, there are always malcontents.”
“Tell me!”
“I don’t know the number. It is troublesome. That’s why I say the German ambassador—”
“Always it is you and your German ambassador! What does that say about my people’s love if I must call in the potato-eaters to protect me? I must call in the soldiers of our enemy—”
“Ma’am, they are not…”
He couldn’t finish, couldn’t hear himself say the words. But she understood him. “What do you say? Weren’t they the enemy when they burned Buda-Pest and drove your father from his house? When they marched into Transylvania? Haven’t they stolen my son and kept him away from me?”
She’d come close to him, put out her hand to touch his sleeve. He was staring at the pen-and-ink drawing, the small breasts and narrow thighs. “It’s so cold in here,” she complained, turning away. “I’ll have Jean-Baptiste lay a fire.”
“What I say, ma’am, is there is a worse enemy than they.”
“Tell me about that.”
“Ma’am, I’ve already—”
“Tell me!”
He ran his forefinger along the drawing of the woman, then put his whole hand over it and raised his chin. He turned to face her as she leaned over the sheet music, rubbing her arms—the music was handwritten. He could see that now. The light shone on her chestnut hair, tangled and unbrushed. He observed for the first time what she was wearing, a high-necked blouse, stiff and starched over a black wool skirt. She fumbled with a jeweled cigarette box, the property of the former empress. She drew out a sobranie cigarette and held it under her nose. “I must give these up,” she said. “They’re hurting me.”
“What does your doctor say?”
She shivered. “I will not let him touch me. What does it matter?” She flicked her jeweled lighter, lit the cigarette and sucked on it. “Tell me about this enemy who comes to fight me from another world.”
“Ma’am, I’ve already—”
“Tell me again!”
She turned to face him, blowing smoke in a long stream, and he could see her violet eyes. As always when she looked at him, he took refuge in lame-footed pedantry. “I believe the Germans can help us because of what they have achieved in their own country. This is in spite of their arrogance and the misery they have brought to weaker nations. Perhaps because of it—they are entirely modern in their own affairs. If there still remains some religious activity, it takes the form of nationalistic celebrations—public prayers to Odin, harvest festivals, occasions of that nature. It hurts me to say it, because of the harm they have done you and the contempt with which they treat you, but we can learn something.…”
He let his voice trail away. Blue smoke coiled above her in the darkness above the candle flame. He could see now there were dark shadows under her eyes. Had she been weeping? She stood hugging herself, and perhaps it was just an irritation from the smoke, but her eyes were full of tears.
“Tell me about Miranda Popescu,” she whispered.
“Well, as you know, we’d been alerted by the mercenary, Dysart. We surrounded the place with twenty men. Twenty-one, myself included. You know the place. It was the Aphrodite fountain where Aegypta Schenck was killed. A painful circumstance, although because of it I was able to introduce myself and offer you my services—I tell you only what I saw. The place was kept by that degenerate race of aboriginals that so disgusted your late husband, though I am a liberal in this matter, I assure you. We must build our nation out of whatever lumber…”
A tear dropped down the baroness’s cheek. “Miranda Popescu,” she whispered.
What would he have given to have taken out his handkerchief and wiped that tear away?
“Ma’am, I’m coming to that. Believe me when I say I have no explanation. She came out of the mouth of the cave, and I saw her. There was light from the doorway and the cave itself, lanterns on her aunt’s tomb. I saw her clearly. She is as I told you. It doesn’t help to tell these things again—”
“It helps me.”
“Very well. Only it reminds me of my failure. She is medium height and dark. She was dressed in riding clothes. When she saw me, she slipped from Dysart and ran back into the cave. My men were after her, except at that moment—how can I explain it? This was an illusion that came out of the ground. It rose out of the tomb, some miserable piece of prestidigitation, I can assure you. Something a magician might perform upon the stage. Smoke, colored lights, perhaps, and I am ashamed to say my men would not go forward past the entrance of the cave. There was darkness and some kind of electricity or thunder in the air. I am ashamed to say I cannot explain. For this reason if for no other, I wish I had a consultation with the German scientists, or else the extracts from the meetings of the scientific conference in Basel—”
“Please,” whispered the Baroness Ceausescu.
“As you know, I went in by myself. And she had disappeared. There was no crevice in the rock where she could hide. Of course when daylight came we searched the complete locality.”
“Of course.”
* * *
LUCKACZ HAD STOPPED speaking, and for a moment all was quiet in the little room. Nicola Ceausescu ground out her cigarette in the gilt ashtray. But her hands couldn’t be still. She picked a fleck of tobacco from her tooth and then gnawed briefly on a hangnail while she watched him. She rubbed her hands together, put them behind her back while she stood watching his starved, diminished face, his long gray hair combed back, his glossy black moustache. Next to the German ambassador he was the most powerful man in Bucharest, she had to remind herself. Now that he’d allied himself with German interests.… Then why was it that every day he looked more crowlike and unkempt in his rusty suit of gabardine?
“What would you suggest?” she asked.
“Ma’am, since the day you moved into this building, there have been no German soldiers here in Bucharest or tara Romaneasa out of respect for you. Now I think that is unwise. Mogosoaia is two stops on the train.”
How was it possible, the baroness thought, that in so short a time she could have lost her people’s love? Everything had changed since Miranda Popescu had come, since Kevin Markasev had left the house on Spatarul, and most particularly since she had thrown away the tourmaline. But no, it was a fake! It was quite obviously a fake, unless (and this would be a bitter injustice) Mademoiselle Corelli
had lied to her. How horrifying it would be, she thought now, as she’d lain awake thinking the previous night, to have thrown away the real stone, thinking it was false. How much worse than her reliance on a false stone, thinking it was real!
But no, the girl was too stupid for such a trick, and what would be the point? She had come during the day, and the baroness had fed her and given her money, spoken to her kindly in this room, though with an anxious heart. And the girl had told her about the safe where her father kept his jewels and curiosities, the secret place she’d mentioned in the street. Unless the girl was a spy, a creature of some foreign power, or else Radu Luckacz’s creature, or else the Elector of Ratisbon’s …
Tears in her eyes, the baroness imagined what would happen if Luckacz turned against her, because without the stone she had no hold on him. He easily might slip away once she had lost the secret of his affections. Tears in her eyes, she examined the roots of his black moustache. Without the stone there was nothing to keep him here, certainly not the charms of a defenseless, guilty woman in her thirty-ninth year.
“I won’t allow it.”
“Ma’am—”
“I won’t allow it. You must not suggest it to me. Go—you have upset me now. Do you really think I would consent to this? That I need foreign soldiers to protect me in my own city? Or is this just a plan to make me more unpopular? I notice you have tried to keep me shut up here. I notice the piata and the park are full of your men. I won’t have it—let my doors be open! I have no secrets—I’m an artist.”