The Days of the King (11 page)

This much and thus wrote Siegfried on the yellow velvet, over twenty-two months during which the unpausing calendars measured the century and his claws were desirous to scratch. Of the six chairs, only two remained unscathed, indulgently receiving the shadows of twilight on the evening of the feast of Saint Elijah, as the stifling heat dissipated and through open windows could be heard far-off barking, raised voices, and, softly, very softly, the squeaks of bats emerging from attics. The dentist had shed his jacket and shirt by the side of the bed, he was stuffing tobacco into one of his pipes and striving with all his might to forget that in the kitchen, hidden in a flacon swaddled in cloth, placed in its turn in a well-stoppered jar (and the jar placed in a box bound with string, behind other boxes, behind sacks of lentils, flour, coarse sugar, buckwheat, beans, pearl barley, and oats, on the highest shelf in the larder), could be found that miraculous powder of
Amanita muscaria,
which had the power to wipe away many evils, bringing in their stead peace and joy. He smoked and did not manage to forget.

E
LENA
D
UKOVIĆ HAD
small hands and slender wrists, and when she alighted from the coach, permitting herself to be assisted, Joseph's heart shrank to the size of an acorn. Her hand grasped his, squeezed it softly, and there was a kind of caress as their hands parted, like a pale and indistinct breath of wind. In those circumstances, startled by carriages, coaches, barouches, droshkies, or coupés, oblivious to the splashes of mud and the clouds of dust raised by the wheels and the horses' hooves, Herr Strauss at no point felt afraid (and consequently his heart did not shrink to the size of a flea), but neither did he display an impetuous nature (and for that reason his heart did not swell to the size of a quince). He merely discovered the taste of care, the new, unfamiliar care that small hands and slender wrists, as fragile as glass, should not shatter. And, happily, they did not.

 

Firstly, he had found a small, elongated, bluish envelope, without a seal, name, or address. The envelope had been slipped under the door to his surgery and lay waiting for him on the parquet, by the doormat. He examined it closely, stroking it, turning it over, holding it up to the light, passing it beneath his nostrils. If it had a vague scent, it was more a brackish whiff of glue than any perfume. The dentist opened it using the first scalpel he laid hands on, one with a short, gleaming blade. The paper in the envelope, white, folded in four, was inscribed in violet ink on one side with a short, unsigned sentence. It was a curt, elliptical message, as between conspirators:
Holy Apostles, on the feast day.
After some moments of bewilderment, tallied by the clock on the wall as one and three-quarter minutes, Joseph all of a sudden let out a deep breath; he leaned against the cold stove and glimpsed in the blade of the scalpel not only snatches of his own smile, but also a pair of blue and haughty eyes. Throughout the rest of the day, as he tended to ailing teeth, he caught himself whistling a number of times. Oddly, into his mind and onto his lips returned a childhood ditty he had never liked but that had been dear to his sister Irma and her girlfriends. At one point, the spatula in his hand refused to grip like tweezers. He looked at it askance and laughed. And on the feast of Saints Peter and Paul the Apostles, in the morning, when according to local lore the cuckoo falls silent, when according to the course of the stars the sun had risen for the eighth time since the solstice, and when according to the Wallachian calendar but five days had elapsed since Saint John's Eve and more than two weeks since Whitsun, Joseph Strauss went out into the street early, hoping to rid himself of the hollow feeling in the pit of his stomach. All the color had drained from his freshly shaved cheeks into his cherry-red
lavallière.
He quickly traversed Lipscani Street, the section of Podul Mogoşoaiei this side of the river, and two short lanes on the other side, he skirted the mules of a water seller and some flocks of ducks, he managed to escape from a swarm of tattered urchins by handing out sweets, he passed the
ranks of beggars, the expensive carriages drawn up in the shade, and the prattling coachmen, he glimpsed the spires and belfry of Holy Apostles, then the church in its entirety, and pale as he was, paler than ever, he entered. It took him some time to accustom himself to the gray air within, because even the hundreds of candles lit on the feast of the church's patron saints were no match for the glaring sun outside. Later, when the air was no longer gray but had acquired yellowish and ruddy glints, in the midst of the liturgy and many genuflections, under the flowing voices of the priests and the ardent exhalations of the choir, Joseph espied a beige shawl in the apse to the left of the altar. That shawl, which covered the hair, nape, and back of a woman, had once sheltered a little boy and girl shivering in a mad June downpour. Trying to make out the distant figure, he remembered his intensifying twinges of joy since those seconds when Elena Duković, in the sprung carriage that bore them over the Outer Market Bridge, had whispered that she was not the children's mother, but a kind of nanny. The hollowness in the pit of his stomach now vanished, and other twinges, perhaps imaginary, crinkled the folds of his shirt. He emerged toward noon, one of the first worshippers to leave, and waited on a hummock of earth across the road. In the pale blue air he saw as though in the palm of his hand the lines, ornaments, and porch of that church, which, although not Serbian, was now in the custodianship of that nation. And through the broad doorway streamed variegated ranks of people wearing clean, festive attire, in whose tailoring and cloth could be read the weight of each purse. Toward the end of the crowd there appeared a green, billowing dress, like a miracle that had come to pass. They gazed at each other: he did not notice the lace collar, the amber necklace, or the shoes the color of rich butter; she did not discern the gold pin of the
lavallière
or the spherical buttons of the waistcoat. They went over to the poplar tree near the steps, where candles for the living were burning. They lit their candles, brushing each other's hand as if by chance. Thanks to that touch, Joseph Strauss departed with a new note, which he gripped tightly, while Elena Duković departed with a rose in her hand, a rosebud from his buttonhole. As she moved into the distance, she sometimes pressed the flower to her chest.

 

On the hill above Saint Venera, he hired a carriage at the Hereasca rank, where dozens of horse-drawn cabs gathered, and ordered the driver to take him to Hereşti. The journey was long and sweltering, proceeding first by way of the Beilicul Bridge to the south, then veering west between hovels and vegetable patches, losing itself once more in a southerly direction, amid pastures and stubble fields from which the corn had but lately been reaped, and finally heading west yet again, following the large flocks of crows flying in the same direction. The manor house, without a veranda, arches, or carved posts, had nothing in common with the boyar manses of the plain. From afar, as much as the scattered orchards allowed, Joseph could make out a grayish-white, rigorously geometrical shape upon which a bronze crust was now forming as the sun emerged from the clouds. He realized that he would not arrive late at the manor, that he had managed to keep his promise to the charming couple of princely rank, he neither short nor tall, solidly built and droll, with bristling mustaches, she tiny and pale, with a slightly querulous voice and an inquisitive mien. Out of habit, he grasped the handle of his calfskin bag, from which he had once scraped the initial'S, and placed it in his lap. He examined the instruments, powders,
and liquors therein, and flicked a fly off the brim of his hat resting beside him on the banquette. In his pocket was the note he had received on the feast of Saints Peter and Paul the Apostles. He extracted it with care and read it once again. He knew its contents by heart, as short and as opaque as those of the first missive, and he no longer sought the logic of the words, but rather the little truths hidden in the tracing of the letters, the way in which Elena Duković had held the pen and guided the nib over the paper. The horses at last ceased to trot and advanced at a walk up a graveled drive. And Joseph no longer delved into illusions and chimeras, but saw in succession an imposing church, an arched gateway, beneath which he passed, clumps of marigolds and cress at the edges of the road, a greyhound bounding idly alongside the horses, patches of azure sky between the plum-white clouds, an ash tree with a huge crown, long rows of vines descending a sandy hillside, the somnolent river in the valley. Elena Duković was sitting on the freshly mown grass with the children, her eyes fixed upon him, behind the gentleman with the bushy mustaches and the lady with the bluish-white cheeks. His hosts greeted him with courtesy and warmth, and the little boy and girl, blending whim with breeding (and bashfulness), decided to bow awkwardly and tell him in clumsy Romanian that they were delighted to see him again. As he was preparing to kiss Elena's hand, having uttered sufficient pleasantries to the masters of the place about the journey, the landscape, and the scorching heat in Bucharest, the greyhound took upon itself to sniff his boots and to jump up with its muzzle between his legs. Herr Strauss almost lost his balance, hesitated, and then, holding the dog by the nape of its neck, brushed his lips over Elena Duković's cool, delicate skin. They all laughed, and talking of lemonade and coffee—and of
teeth only in passing—they continued that theatrical performance consummately contrived by Elena Duković. Somewhere in the shade, without any inkling of the roles in which they had been cast (after Baron Nikolić of Rudna had called at Joseph Strauss's surgery on Lipscani Street on the exact day and at the precise hour announced in the note, to thank him for how gallantly he had behaved during the downpour at the Whitsun Fair and to invite him to his estate), they lit cigars on the hill above the plum tree orchard, they sampled a drop of cognac, and drank white wine (the men), they kept their ankles pressed together and the hems of their dresses below their knees, fluttering fans and eyelashes, and drank sherbet (the women), they munched walnuts, leafed through atlases, and poked each other under the table with blunt sticks (the children). Romanian, though spoken hesitantly and ungrammatically by both, proved to be their only common language, and the hosts abandoned it only rarely, when they addressed the servants and the dog, all of whom understood only Serbian. A dry breeze was blowing, presaging the noonday heat, and so they rose reluctantly and headed toward the oak doors that were waiting ajar. At the height of summer and, more especially, sensing the footsteps of Elena Duković on the flagstones, Joseph felt well in that spacious, cool house. He was conducted into a brightly lit room, where an armchair, clean towels, and a small table with arabesque inlays, on which to deploy his medical arsenal, awaited him. In the sunlit corner of the window, on that third day of July 1868, he examined in turn molars, premolars, wisdom teeth, and milk teeth, recording everything meticulously in a notebook, but from a certain point onward he refused to write any more, because he wished with all his soul to commit it to memory. Alone in the room, in the final scene of the performance, Miss Duković and he embraced, and in embracing they made it understood that their embrace might be endless. Or at least very long in duration.

 

For a while, the fates proved generous to Joseph Strauss. And adroit. At lunch after his consultation with his five patients, while he was absorbed in a piping-hot plate of cockerel borscht, they gave him the idea and, undoubtedly, they inspired in him the courage, to declare that the nanny's gums were ailing. He was met with an astonished look from the head of the table, where the master of the manor was biting into a chicken leg dotted with specks of fat. And from the adjacent chair, the mistress of the house, who was chewing a lovage leaf, stared at him sidelong. He did not hasten to enter into details, first tasting a chili pepper and then rapidly drinking a few spoonfuls of soup to douse the hot coals on his tongue. After he had blown his nose and his eyes had stopped streaming, he explained that the gleaming white of Miss Duković's teeth was mere deceptive appearance. He frightened them with strange words—extraction, alveolar pyorrhea, pathology, and so on and so forth—describing a hidden malady, which in both German and French was called
parodontose.
And that malady, of which Herr Strauss spoke learnedly and measuredly, induced dreadful pain. He drank some wine, examined the newly arrived platters, one with mushrooms stewed in cream, another with browned leg of roast pork, sprinkled with marjoram, paprika, and slices of beetroot, he sighed pensively, and said that for the young nanny a serious plan of treatment was required. He recommended two sessions a week for at least three months. He left the piece of roast meat on his plate to repose in its steam and sauce while he employed copious medical terms, giving a diagnosis for each
member of the Nikolić family, four bland verdicts, incapable of causing concern. They dedicated themselves to the chewing of tender meat and mellow mushrooms. A servant vanished behind a door, and from outside the supple and impertinent greyhound was heard to bark. Over dessert, as the flies buzzed gently and languor settled over the walnut table, they agreed that the dentist should pay them another visit that Friday. On Monday, for it was a Monday and according to Joseph's calculations there were another ninety hours until Friday, the nanny and the children withdrew for their afternoon nap. The children bid him farewell as if reciting part of a beginner's lesson in good manners. The others proceeded to take their coffee, to converse and yawn, until that gentleman who was neither short nor tall, with a tendril of cream clinging to his bushy mustaches, asked, at his guest's request, that the carriage be drawn up to the steps. And the fates were not idle. They kept tally of the hours without losing count. They kept watch over Herr Strauss, and saw to it that he slept at least part of the night, that he did not neglect to feed his tomcat, or squander his reserves of schnapps, that he made the journey over the Wallachian plain once more, that he tended to a canine tooth belonging to the lady with the pale cheeks, polished the yellowed incisors of the baron, and helped the little boy rid himself of his first milk tooth, that he took Elena Ducović in his arms once more, in the silence of that luminous room, and finally he rubbed the tip of her tongue with a thick camphorated paste, so that from her breath it would seem that the treatment had begun. There, at Hereşti, where the sun was still searing and the starlings more numerous than the crows, the fates decided that their protégé should listen and be mindful. He heard the drawling voice of Theodor Nikolić of Rudna describing the house, while they sampled a cloudy, cooling liquid that might equally have been called raki, ouzo, or mastika. The polished, grayish-white stone had arrived two hundred and thirty years before from the quarries at Rusçuk, and the manor house, highly symmetrical and full of right angles, with an upper floor, two entrances to the vaulted cellars, a pantiled roof, eight identical arched windows facing the plain, and six windows on the side facing the garden, had been constructed by Hungarian masons entirely according to the tastes and plans of two brothers, the Năsturel boyars, the oldest having had an old and strange name, Cazan, ("cauldron"), and the younger, a lover of calligraphy and printing presses, enjoyed the same rare quality as the liqueur they now savored, for he was known by three different names, in his case Oreste, Iorest, and Udrişte. The aroma of aniseed invigorated them and allowed them to imagine that the heat of that summer was pleasantly bearable, and so it was that they went on to explore the history of the house's large belvedere, with its two stories and redbrick walls, plastered to imitate stone, and built some three decades previously at the behest of the penultimate master of the domain. And that master, around whom swirled a host of tangled tales, exploits cruel or magnanimous, illustrious or shameful, lucrative, cunning, amorous, worthy, villainous, and astonishing, deeds dedicated in turn to his nation, to himself, to the Ottomans, to the Wallachians, to the Father, to the Son, to the Immaculate Virgin, and to the Holy Ghost, had been none other than Milos I,
knjaz
of Serbia for quarter of a century, forced to abdicate in 1839 and recalled to the throne nineteen years later, upon which, having meanwhile grown old, he rested and fretted until his ascension to the heavens in 1860. All these things were now recounted by his nephew, Theodor, as he sprawled on the soft cushions of a wicker armchair, running the fingers of his left hand through his mustaches and occasionally lifting, with his right, the mouthpiece of a hookah to his lips. He inhaled deeply and without haste exhaled thick clouds of smoke, through which the boundless expanses, the plains, the valley, the glittering water of the Argeş, and the scattered trees could no longer be glimpsed. Joseph preferred to puff on his pipe and sit cross-legged. And as he sat, puffing and idling, he learned that Milos Obrenovic had purchased the domain and the manor house from a descendent of the Năsturel boyars, Constantine, a general floundering in debt, that he had built the new outbuildings and stables and renovated the church (of the Holy Trinity), reinforcing the corbels, closing off the porch, and demolishing the wall between narthex and nave, that he had paid for two massive bronze bells to be cast and brought from Budapest, that he had bitten his lips until they bled when his oldest son, Milan III, had been killed just three weeks before his enthronement, that he had sighed heavily when his other son, Mihailo I, lost the crown to the family's deadly foe, Prince Alexander Karadjordjević, that he had knelt and sobbed, his shoulders slowly quaking, on the passing of his older brother Milan I to the world of the righteous, he too an erstwhile
knjaz,
whose red marble tomb could be found there, by the very church at which they, the dentist and the baron, were now looking. At this, they fell silent and waited for their glasses to be refilled. The silence was broken by the footfalls of a servant and on the graveled terrace in the shade they once again watched as the liqueur clouded like whey when mixed with cold water fresh from the well. They drank without clinking glasses, and Herr Strauss observed that the other liquid, in the glass bowl of the hookah, had also changed color, reddening as the tobacco smoke bubbled through it. At
last, the baron gave a vague frown; annoyed at his own thoughts, he scornfully muttered something about women, and moved on to a description of an aunt by marriage, Mar-giolitza or Maria, née Catargi, now Obrenovic, a widow who had stolen the wits and the vigor of Cuza not long ago and was now living in exile alongside the former Romanian sovereign, while her son, a lad of fourteen, had just been proclaimed Prince of Serbia. Although the dentist was by no means one for palace intrigues or alcove whispers, he pricked up his ears and shifted in his seat, startled by this revelation. He even gave a light cough, hoping that the subject would not be abandoned. And it was not. The gentleman who was neither short nor tall, who, it goes without saying, had himself aspired to the throne of his native land, was planning to go to Belgrade for a month, perhaps for the rest of the summer, because the gates of the city had reopened a few days before when the young Milan IV had returned the family blazon to its rightful place. Joseph wished to ask whether Elena Duković would accompany the little girl and boy over the Danube, but as he did not dare, he asked the baron where all those rusty anchors that looked like the claws of a dragon had come from. His host blinked, swallowed the liqueur he was rolling around in his mouth, and turned to look at the three pieces of iron, arranged around a robinia in the courtyard. They were from the ships of Miloš Obrenović, from the years when he had acquired a monopoly on salt, in the reign of Vodă Ghika, and his fleet tirelessly sailed down the river in the valley. On his departure, the dentist, still in the hands of the fates, heard through one of the windows, perhaps from the children's bedroom, the low voice of the nanny. She was humming a Serbian lullaby, to which he for one could have listened until nightfall. But the baron was extending his hand to bid him farewell.