The Hidden World (A Princess of Roumania)

by Paul Park

  Uncertain, Clara Brancoveanu turned her back. Sometimes it was easier not to see people’s faces. Now she could just listen to the condesa’s voice, and it was clear to her the woman didn’t believe what she was saying. This was a matter of a dream that Miranda didn’t even remember anymore, apparently. Clara went to the window and stood looking into the kitchen garden. She could see where the glass had been repaired. The mullions had not yet been repainted. This was the window that had shattered on the night Jean-Baptiste had died.

  He had bled to death there on the hearth, and Clara had stolen her husband’s gun. How was a woman to protect herself? Terrible things had happened that night. Was she the only one who remembered? “I’m surprised to hear you say that,” she said.

  And then after a moment: “Anton,” she continued, “will you excuse us?”

  Something must be done. When the man was gone, she turned around. “You know she is not herself.”

  The condesa shrugged, smiled. How could she be so dense, so cavalier? Surely she cared about Miranda’s health, Miranda’s future.

  “I know Miranda has not been well,” she said. “Because of that unfortunate occurrence. But I believe she is stronger now, day by day. I have not done nothing while you prayed at your altar. I believe I can accept some credit.”

  “She is not herself,” Clara repeated.

  “Yes, of course. But whose fault is that? All that time she lay in bed she was fighting a battle, something we will never know. Now she has won, or almost won. You can see it in the way she sleeps—”

  “Or doesn’t sleep. She didn’t sleep last night.”

  “I wouldn’t worry about that. She has a lot of rest stored up.”

  “How can you laugh about it? How can you make a joke?”

  It was because Inez de Rougemont had not seen Jean-Baptiste walking and talking in the library with his breast shot away. She had not been there. She had not heard his soft, harsh, woman’s voice. If she had, she would not speak like this. “You know she needs a doctor’s care,” Clara continued. “Or an exorcist.”

  Dear Inez had put down her books. She wore wire-rimmed spectacles, and now she stripped them off. She rubbed her eyes, rubbed the bridge of her long noise.

  “Really, Clara, why do you trouble your head with these things? They take years of study, and even then there is much we cannot claim to understand—”

  “You didn’t see him! You didn’t see him chase those men away. You didn’t hear him talking in Nicola Ceausescu’s voice. Ask anyone!”

  Exasperated, dear Inez scratched her unattractive chin. “You know there is no one I could ask except Miranda. Lieutenant Prochenko has gone away. And Miranda says nothing about this—Nicola Ceausescu is dead and buried. You should be happy that you did not harm your daughter more than you did.”

  “But I did harm her! I did her terrible harm!”

  Inez de Rougemont pinched her nose, patted her cheek with her fingertips. She held her spectacles in her other hand. “Really,” she said, “I don’t understand you. We are leaving the day after tomorrow. If she needs a doctor we will find one in Bucharest. We will take her to a specialist in Floreasca. I am sure Magda de Graz has some names. We will take her to every specialist in the city, if you desire. We will do whatever needs to be done. Now, can it wait until then?”

  It couldn’t wait. Late that night, Clara was awakened by the sound of Miranda laughing and chattering in the adjoining room. There was a line of light under her door. Clara saw it as she came into the hall, carrying her candle, and at first she was tempted to knock. But then she hesitated, turned away, promising herself that she also would not flinch when the time came. She also would do what needed to be done.

  * * *

  THAT NIGHT THE farmhouse went without sleep. Miranda laughed and chattered to herself, while her mother tossed and turned in her own white bed. But in a separate room at the front of the house, a peaked chamber overlooking the stables, Inez de Rougemont sat alone.

  She was at her desk below the diamond-paned window. Toward dawn there was dry wind from the valley. It clattered through the pine trees, rattled the glass, pushed against the creaking house. At such moments the house seemed to the condesa to be capable of motion, breasting the elements, a ship under sail.

  Whatever she had pretended to dear Clara, she was not glad to leave this house, this refuge, this room where she pursued her scientific researches. But they had no choice. Bocu’s invitation could not be refused. Was it a terrible thing, therefore, to accept it?

  Packing up her library earlier that day, she had been deliberately obtuse. She regretted that now. She had not wanted to confuse poor Clara, who annoyed her so. She had not wanted to remind Clara of her willful carelessness in the matter of the gun.

  She had not wanted to, and yet she had. At the same time she had reminded herself of her far greater culpability—Prince Frederick’s daughter had been under her care. Nor could she pretend to herself that Miranda hadn’t changed, changed for the worse, changed in alarming ways. And if she could not believe in Clara’s theory that the girl was possessed—if that seemed like ignorant and superstitious nonsense to her—it did not mean that something was not wrong.

  But in Bucharest, perhaps, there would be people to consult, now that the anti-conjuring laws had been repealed. There was no one here.

  As if to confirm this fact, she stood up from her uncomfortable chair—an alchemist’s armchair from China, with a smooth horseshoe rail. She unlatched the casement, and drew it back. The wind blew the stacked-up papers from her desk, made a mess of her hair, blew out the candle—it didn’t matter. She stood looking up at the far ridge above the town, the main thrust of the Vulcan Mountains. She scanned the icy, windswept peaks, looking for a glow, a glimmering. Somewhere, she thought, her friends met in secret; Zuzana Knauss from Germany, Jeanne Petite from France, and Mrs. Chatterjee from Bengal Bay. In their tiny and overheated refuge on Borgo Pass, they restitched and rearranged the torn fabric of Europe—the work was never done. At the same time they debated causes and effects, which grew out of their roots in the hidden world deep in the valley, a place they could not go.

  For example, had Cornelius of Tyre been correct when he asserted a multitude of worlds, all expanding from a single point? In that case it was possible to imagine that Miranda might discover the lost places of her childhood just where she had left them, the people waiting for her there unscathed. Perhaps, for example, Miranda had already disappeared into that world and she was happy there. Perhaps this odd, immodest version of her that they were taking to Bucharest was some kind of simulacrum, animated (who knew?) through the effect of Treacle, the black eel. That was something to be wished, the condesa thought, if she could prove it. But even so, how could she take up her empty place again among the old women of the mountain, who had had such hopes that now, finally, they could achieve the solution to these mysteries, if they could hear about Miranda’s travels from Miranda’s lips?

  No, she had failed in many things. And perhaps the core of it was this: She had not, when it was necessary, kept herself apart from evil men and women. It takes a peculiar kind of arrogance, she thought, to imagine you can use evil to do good. Now she shuddered to remember what she had said to dear, poor, innocent Clara Brancoveanu that same day, how they could use Colonel Bocu’s interest in Miranda to accomplish … what? Something virtuous, no doubt, and something that could not be accomplished otherwise. And surely the condesa would not have used the girl herself, but only this soulless automaton that preened in her bedroom over her pile of clothes. She would not have used Frederick’s daughter.…

  And yet, in the past, she had not been too good for those kinds of bargains. When Miranda had first come to Great Roumania, she’d been there. When the Elector of Ratisbon had hunted the girl along the Hoosick riverbank, the Condesa de Rougemont had been there, disguised as an image from thirty years before, a painting from a wall, from a time when she’d been young and beautiful—the elector had not eve
n been aware of it. No one had been aware of it except the Chevalier de Graz—no wonder it had been necessary to sequester him, and enlist Madame de Graz to help keep him away.

  But that day on the riverbank she had protected Miranda, kept her from harm. Or else she couldn’t quite remember—through the image in the painting, Ratisbon had been able to make use of her. But finally she had added her strength to his strength, and together they had brought Miranda safe across the ocean. He never could have managed it himself.

  Before that she had traveled all the way to Berkshire County, Massachusetts, where Aegypta Schenck had kept her refuge—a weary way through the Port Authority Terminal. And she had even seen Miranda on the basketball court, and sent messages to Nicola Ceausescu, again without her knowledge. All that had been for the best, hadn’t it?

  But the price she’d paid was this: Miranda had not trusted her. She had not recognized her from Massachusetts, and had not seen her on the Hoosick riverbank, but even so she had not trusted her. And if the girl was lost now on the mountain below Kepler’s tower, perhaps it was because of that distrust.

  Shivering, alone, Inez de Rougemont latched the casement window, turned again into the dark, disordered room.

  16

  The Masquerade

  SOME DAYS LATER in the city of Bucharest, Sasha Prochenko lay in bed at one o’clock in the afternoon. Drunk the night before, he had slept in his clothes. Now, looking up at the cracked ceiling, he wondered how he had found his way back to this small roominghouse in Floreasca, a sagging wooden structure at the end of a mud lane.

  The streets of the city were dark after nine o’clock, because of the war effort. Many essential products were in short supply. The ministry had announced a general curfew, and required all householders to close their wooden shutters after sunset, or else seal up their windowpanes with canvas or oiled paper. Even without the curfew and the threat of a fine, people might have cowered inside their houses and kept their lamps dim, because of a new kind of danger. Closer to the front, Oltenita and Giurgiu had both been set on fire by Turkish airships, huge gas-inflated balloons, powered by some kind of internal-combustion motor. Appearing suddenly out of the night clouds, they had dropped incendiary bombs onto the wooden roofs.

  So the streets were empty after dark, except for thieves and staggering drunks trying to find their way home, and except for the families of refugees who now lived under canvas in every public park or square. Every road to the battlefront was choked in both directions: men and equipment moving south, an army of refugees escaping north, carrying in wheelbarrows, suitcases, or cloth bundles the detritus of their lives.

  But Prochenko had found his way back to the hotel, evidently. Now he lay on his back in his trousers and undershirt. He studied the mildewed splotches on the ceiling, which suggested various anatomical and vegetable shapes. The air was musky and sour. Clothes were strewn around. A chair lay on its side.

  Prochenko had not unlatched the opaque shutter to the window over the street. Light came from the transom above the door. There was no meat to be had in the city; greasy turnip soup, the remains of some previous supper, had congealed in a broken dish on the floor. He must have upset it taking off his boots, upset the ashcan, too. He had no vodka and no cigarettes.

  Since he had returned from Stanesti-Jui, he had lived inside this room like an animal inside its den. The money the condesa had given him was all gone. He had none left for the rent, which was exorbitant.

  Thirsty, hungover, nauseated, he licked his pale lips. His hands couldn’t stay still. He scratched at his scalp and armpits, wiped his mouth, smelled his long fingers. Then they were gone again, down around his lower body where he rubbed his crotch, the inside of his thighs. His hands made a circuit, returning always and forever to his upset stomach. He pulled up his undershirt, slid his long fingernails though the silver hair around his belly button, wondering what was happening inside, what kind of creature might be growing in there or—God help him—litter of small creatures. And though his stomach remained flat, still he felt bloated and distended, sick at heart.

  He was a man who always tried to live in the present moment, to wake from dreams he couldn’t remember, to leave the past behind him unexamined, foggily retained. He had come down from the condesa’s farmhouse, trusting to a kind of hatred that had drawn him forward like a fragrance in the air. And that was all right, and there wasn’t much to be done about it. The Brancoveanu Artillery was in the city. They had set up barricades around the People’s Palace. Beau-cul never went anywhere without a motorcade and an armed guard.

  So that was difficult. And the rest of it was also difficult, difficult to understand or even to remember. Difficult to maintain a sense of purpose. A creature, some kind of creature from another world—what did it smell like? Where could he find it? That other flying manikin had come to him, stung him over and over until he had caught it in his hand and crushed it, releasing a bloody stink that brought the dogs and wolves. But this other one, he guessed, was far away. If it fed on corpses, then it was south of the city in the front lines or at Staro Selo, where there were mountains of fresh corpses every day.

  So it was all vague and all unsatisfactory. Pieter de Graz was in Brasov, Prochenko read in the newspaper; he was the toast of the town. The Turks were defeated daily on the road to the Tutrakan bridge. And Miranda and her mother were to be welcomed at the People’s Palace, where there would be a celebration in their honor. Beau-cul had no use for the old feasts, Lupercalia and all that. He had invented new festivities unrelated to the old Roman calendar. This one was in praise of beauty, and was to involve a masked ball, a display of country dancing, and a beauty pageant, judged by the colonel himself.

  Would it be possible, Prochenko thought, to cadge an invitation? Would it be possible to use some manner of disguise? He could wear a wolf’s skin. He imagined himself in a wolf’s shape, loping through the galleries—he had run that trail before, the night he’d released Nicola Ceausescu into tara mortilor, dragged her through the brass gates by her throat.

  Miranda, obviously, had woken up. Miranda and her mother were in the city. What did that mean? Had they come of their free will? A naïve question—Bocu had a plan for them. One day he had sent his thugs to chase them from their refuge, even kill them. A week later he had advertised his idiotic bal masqué.

  But it wasn’t in the newspaper that he’d read the announcement. It wasn’t in the same issue with the article about Captain Gross. Now he remembered, and when he did he sat up suddenly, swung his legs over the side of the bed. Now he remembered. Before dark he had watched a man put up a poster in the Calea Mosilor, an old man in a cloth cap.

  Already drunk, Prochenko had watched him, a defeated old man with his bucket and paste, soaking the wall with a brush that seemed too large for his frail hand. Smoking his cigarette, Prochenko had waited until he was gone, then strolled across to street to read the proclamation from the new unity government. There were several older posters on this corner of the wall, along with some obscene graffiti. Prochenko read the recruitment notice for a new battalion named for Kevin Markasev the brave, hero of some former patriotic struggle. Male citizens between the ages of forty and fifty years—the war must be going worse than you might guess, Prochenko reflected, if you believed in the official news. In the meantime: Kevin Markasev. Prochenko brought his face to mind, his dark single eyebrow. The world was a peculiar place.

  The next poster contained a list of deserters and wanted criminals. And the third was all for him. Prochenko found himself staring at a line drawing from an old photograph: a portrait, admirably precise. And a list of names and aliases: Sasha Andromedes, Alexei Prochenko, etc. There was notification of a reward.

  The list of names did not include the one he’d used to register for this disgusting room. Thank God. The drawn portrait was worrisome, though. It was obvious the situation required a new kind of urgency, something you wouldn’t necessarily have guessed, Prochenko thought, by looking at him no
w. But he got to his feet, staggered to the washbasin on its stand. There was some dirty water at the bottom of the bowl.

  He would not let himself be hunted down in a dump like this, turned in to the authorities for a bucketful of the new and increasingly worthless Roumanian lei. Nor would he run to find some filthy refuge to conceal himself, or else wait to see whatever filthy, misbegotten or else stillborn beast came out of him. He was a man and he would die like a man, not like a dog or a sideshow freak. He was an officer of the Ninth Hussars, who had made his oath to General Schenck von Schenck in the old days. He was a man, and a brave man, and an officer of Great Roumania, but he could not tolerate … this.…

  There was a knock at the door. Prochenko raised his head from the basin. The sound was a soft one, a furtive scratching. So he went to the door, unlatched it, opened it a crack. A woman stood on the landing, a tall girl in a white, embroidered dress. He didn’t recognize her. She had a letter in her gloved hand.

  He opened the door, gestured her inside; he didn’t care about the mess, the smell. “What name did you ask for?”

  “Domnul Andromedes, or else Prochenko—sir, it’s on the envelope. Please, sir—you haven’t dressed.”

  Oh, for Pete’s sake. “What name did you tell to the concierge?”

  “They hadn’t heard of you until I gave them a description. The princess told me what to say.”

  He felt an urge to strangle her. “Princess Clara Brancoveanu,” she went on. “I’m from the palace. I’ve been looking for you up and down the street.”

  She was a tall, bony girl with mouse-brown hair. He wanted to grab her nose, pull her ears. Instead he seized her by the wrist, yanked her inside so he could shut the door; she tried to twist her hand away. She was frightened, he could tell. “Please sir, your overshirt—”

  “Did she give you any money for me?” He let go of her, pulled the envelope from her hand, tore it open. “I need an invitation for the bal masqué,” he said. “Do you understand me?”