The Days of the King (18 page)

Naturally, the new tenor of the times did not bypass Lipscani Street or the redbrick building at number 18. In the dwelling on the upper floor, Joseph was much busier than in the past; he ate in haste, as if he always had business that could not wait, even between the sheets he was changed, forgetting tenderness and enamored whispers in his rush to reach that secret place, hidden beneath black, crinkly Serbian hair, a place whence, he did not doubt, sprang a part of the wonder of the world. Elena, in her turn, no longer strove to make every stew, pilaf, roast, pudding, or pie a miniature work of art. She was frightened by the thought that, however much she
might wish for it and whatever she might do, her belly would never swell again. At first when she realized that no new soul was nestling in her womb, she had listened to the counsels of the dentist and plunged into bodily pleasures and love, but when that failed she had done the rounds of priests, quacks, and physicians, who had mystified her with strange services, strict fasts, and hundreds of genuflections, with powders made from grasshoppers' legs, beech mast, ducks' beaks, clay, kids' horns, and cuckoos' eggs, with potions of unknown roots, leaves, and flowers, and with a host of pagan charms that caused her to shudder. She showered all her pampering on the boy, who had long since ceased to gurgle, toddle, piddle in his nappy, and seek the teat, preferring now to suck his right thumb. She had tried every way to wean him from this bad habit, not scolding him, but pleading with him, sprinkling his thumb with ground pepper, paprika, and ash, dipping it every hour in vinegar, fish oil, and quinine. In the end she had left him in peace with his great passion, which he did not renounce even when offered sticks of barley sugar: holding them in his left hand, he would lick them joyfully and insatiably, but then all of a sudden he would remember his thumb and clamp it between his lips. Herr Strauss teased his son, claiming that he had never yet come across a judge, officer, postman, or carpenter who kept his thumb in his mouth all day long. Perhaps that was why, he would add, pipes and cigarettes had been invented, so that men would not make fools of themselves. Joseph and Elena doted on Sănducu. They crawled around on all fours neighing while he rode their backs like a cavalryman on the attack, they hid around the house, called to him, and when he found them they covered his cheeks in kisses, they imitated a multitude of animals and birds, bleating, cheeping, roaring, growling, grunting, lowing, and barking, transforming the house into a menagerie and making the tomcat mew at the top of his lungs, they discovered to their amazement that some games were Serbian, German, and Wallachian all at the same time and they slowly, slowly recalled their rules and rituals: one of them would be blindfolded with a scarf and try to catch the others, they chose to be an
uhlan,
sergeant, or hunter and chase the pigeons, thieves, or ducks, they pretended to be stone statues, waiting to see who would be the first to blink or flinch, they built castles from colored building blocks, they drew, sang, talked with the dolls, and sometimes they tossed an apple-red ball at yellow and green skittles. In the evenings, Otto Huer often demonstrated his peerlessness as a magician. The barber would wave his arms and mutter unfathomable words, he would watch how the small blue eyes grew large and bright, how the wavy chestnut hair quivered, how the pale little face flushed, he would make a broad, sweeping gesture and pull something out of his hat or sleeve, from under his coat or his trouser folds. Then with a deep bow and the endearment "
kleiner König!
" he would place in the outstretched palms a spinning top, a whistle, a jumping jack, a horsie, or a wooden sword. Sometimes he would produce halva, fondants, or pistachio cakes, but then would have to face the reproaches of Joseph, who did not allow the boy to eat sweets before bedtime. Similarly, when his conjuring tricks brought to light noisy playthings, such as a tin trumpet, a rattle, and a circus drum, Elena Strauss would narrow her lips and look at him reprovingly, knowing that the barber was trying to delight the boy and to tease her in equal measure. But in those hurried and good years irritations passed quickly, and once'Sänducu had been put to bed they would pour out schnapps and talk about everything under the moon and stars. Their conversations were priceless to Siegfried, who, on many of the barber's visits himself received a visit from the peerless cat, Ritza, as humans called her, Manastamirflorinda by her real name, who would arrive in a wicker basket like his own, the choicest of she-cats, with flecks in her fur like burning coals, with her sinuous walk and particular way of whispering to him and soothing him. At nightfall the tomcat would sprawl on the floor, dizzy, his warm muzzle seeking her wet one, and in the morning as he stretched in the same place on the floorboards, he would silently suffer the child's teasing, always assuming, whenever he was pulled by the tail, by his white or black ear, by his paws or whiskers, that the gesture showed friendship, not malice. In the afternoon hours, Siegfried would laze on the windowsills in the sun when Sănducu was out for a walk, exploring the large, bustling city, its lanes, its horses and carriages of every variety, its crows and ring doves, its single broad cobbled avenue, its motley crowds, its stray dogs and its rooftop cats, its shop windows, hats, spires, and belfries, its new boulevard and two magnificent parks—Cişmigiu and Bishopric, where his parents often took him. In the second of these he would run by himself down the lanes to the column in the center, which seemed to him terribly high, as he threw his head back and gazed for long minutes at the eagle on the top. He was not interested in who had carved it, even though it had been a German, Karl Storck, but he did want to know when he would be able to climb to the top, to clamber on the back of the stone bird. He asked this question so passionately that he did not notice that his lisping voice spoke now Romanian, now Serbian, now German. He had learned all three languages at the same time, because that was how they told him his bedtime stories.

The fresh and untiring breeze that still blew through the United Principalities (along with the icy northeasterly
krivec,
the dry southwesterly
austru,
and the warm southerly
băltăaret)
also filled the dentist's sails, making his occupation rise in esteem and the pennies jingle more merrily in his purse. There had not been any miracles, but things had begun to go well for him. There were plenty of patients to be found in his waiting room, and the chair with the blue velvet no longer sat empty except in the rare moments when Herr Strauss was catching his breath. He had not yet gone on to delicate work, such as gold molars and incisors (as he would have wished), but he was content with Bucharest's newly adopted custom of treating its decayed teeth. He kept a daily reckoning in a ledger with brown covers, wrapped in silk, taking care not to record the entire profits of any given day but only five sixths, and putting aside the rest of the money in a waxed envelope that he kept hidden behind the shelves that held his medical instruments. As for the tobacco pouch under the eighth floorboard from the door in the kitchen, he had not touched it for two years and hoped not to have to do so any time soon. It still contained three florins, a gulden, and five groschen, but it was as if he had forgotten those yellow coins, preoccupied only with those of silver and copper. He was always afraid that Elena might find out about the secret money and he had at the ready a number of explanations: that the bribes demanded by the pen pushers were large, that money put aside never hurt anyone, that a lady's coat with an ermine collar was expensive, or that he was planning a trip to a spa, their first holiday together. He knew that he loved her more than he had ever imagined he could love anyone and he also knew that the secret to which he alone was party, a secret as large as a hundred secrets, capable of demolishing a throne, of rocking the city and shattering marriages, must never reach her ears. And the hurrying times had also caused the girl with chestnut
hair, the blind whore who said she was no longer a whore, to turn up more and more often and to make ever greater demands. She had first reappeared outside the surgery window six weeks after her initial visit, dragging the tousle-headed little boy by the hand and asking insistently where the Dutchman lived. Joseph, on catching sight of her, did not wait until lunchtime. As ever, he fell for her ploy. He went limp, then hastily went out, with the aim of leading her far away. In a narrow passageway, by the şerban Voda inn, he gave her money. He begged her not to seek him out again and swore to her that he no longer had any dealings with the merchant or any idea of his fate. A month later, however, on a day of drizzle, he saw her again at the window on the street and this time he was overcome not only with faintness but also with fury. He wanted to speak to her curtly, threateningly, but before he could open his mouth, in that passageway which reeked of piss and whose shadow would have seemed the sun itself to her eyes, he felt something being stuffed into his hand. Linca whispered to him to look carefully, and he, Joseph Strauss, spread out the soft white cloth, smoothed it with his fingertips and could not tear his eyes away from the monogram. He recognized the insignia of Karl Eitel Friedrich Zephyrinus Ludwig, Prince of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, former captain of dragoons, middle son of Prince Karl Anton, husband of Elisabeth Pauline Ottilie Luise of Wied, father of Maria, the little princess (who preferred to be called Itty), and sovereign over five million souls. In his stomach, chest, and mind there arose a craving to drink some strong liquor, in great quantities and immediately. He begged her not to leave, and glancing at the child as he went, ran to the adjacent inn, crossed the huge courtyard, entered the tavern, and tossed back, one after the other, three glasses of plum brandy. Afterward, returning to the woman, he wanted to know who else had examined the handkerchief, how old the boy was, and where they lived. Her answers cleared up all but the final question, for he was unfamiliar with the streets of the Calicilor district. He did not give her so much as a brass farthing then, but he promised her that they would meet the following day, in the churchyard of Saint Catherine's at the third hour after noon, to settle a number of matters. While Elena and Sănducu were sleeping, he left a note on the table explaining that he would be away for an hour or two, that he had gone to attend to a Dutch merchant who was wracked with pain, and that he kissed them tenderly. Beneath a shady linden, on a bench, he came to an agreement with Linca that he would give her money every fortnight, a sum on which she could live decently and look after the child. The boy was called Petre. He was five years old, had a slightly hooked nose, prominent but not jagged cheekbones, and eyebrows that by all indications would turn out to be bushy. On the seventh or eighth meeting, in the snow, under the now bare linden, the girl grasped his arm and offered him her body. Whenever and however. He refused her.

 

As was to be expected, the six chairs in the day room, formerly upholstered in yellow velvet, then in plush the color of milky coffee, were once again in a lamentable state. The tomcat had required not four years to scratch, score, and shred them, but only one, especially since during that year, which he, with his feline powers, had named the Year of the Baby, no one had paid any attention to his psalms, as all the eyes in the house were fastened upon the suckling infant. When the young Serbian woman awoke as if from a long, deep sleep and looked around her, reclaiming dominion over each object and attending to each little detail, the backs of the chairs began once more to disturb her peace of mind. She had gone out one afternoon, while Joseph and Sănducu were building a kite from reeds and paper, with a tail of glossy red ribbons, and she had scoured the shops of Lipscani and the surrounding streets. She had asked to see hundreds of bolts of cloth, had felt materials and gauged their thicknesses, made up her mind and changed it countless times. Wearied by so much walking, dizzied by so many shades, patterns, and prices, and so many discussions with vendors, she had ended up drinking a mug of kvass and going home. It was not until she was preparing some French beans, rinsing them and leaving them to soak, that she made her choice. The next day, as the beans were boiling on the hob with some bacon, onion, and spices, she set out with the child in her arms, and without tapping on the door at the bottom of the stairs or saying a word to the dentist she went straight to Covaci Street, to a Greek trader, from whom she purchased forty feet of thick canvas, the color of mustard or yellow pears. By the end of the week, the six chairs had been clad in covers she herself had sewn, with tasseled edges.

Three years later, in March 1874, on the twenty-ninth day of the month, it happened that those sturdy chair covers, on which the tomcat did not like to sharpen his claws, were taken off and left to soak. Siegfried was alone in the house and once more he came upon the old coffee-colored plush. On one of the chair backs, among the other poems, he found a smooth, narrow patch, and at once set about writing.

(cat year fourteen thousand four hundred and twenty-one, month of Entwined Frogs, twelfth day)
Listen to me, thou, O queen, listen to me and be mindful, my master turned white as chalk and his voice choked, he kept
reading the rumpled newspaper, he did not close it, he did not leaf through it, he sat slumped in an armchair, with his back stooped, with his head bowed, with his head in his hands, he paced in a daze, I could not count his paces, nor how many times he sighed, he leaned against the window frame and gazed at the darkling sky, he did not look at the rooftops, at the birds, at the plumes of smoke or the clouds, through the darkness sometimes flit spirits and secrets, the darkness spoke to us, but it could not perceive us, the sadness whirled, whistled, thickened, I did not count his silences, nor how often he blinked, my master clutched his son in his arms, tousled him, caressed him, whispered to him, in the room it seemed hot and cold, seven candles flickered, Joseph took off his coat and sat down, I could hear something ticking ceaselessly, it was not the clock, nor was it the gilded pocket watch, I understood all at once what that ticking was, he unbuttoned his shirt, his heart was racing! Know thou, my love, that his eyes were soft and watery, Elena touched his shoulders, his crown, his temples, she pressed his brow to her belly, to her beautiful breasts, tears trickled down my master's cheeks and his voice quavered, he was saying gloomy things, incessantly, words that hid among the folds of her dress or remained unspoken, smoldering; he had read in the newspaper that a little girl had died, was he then crying only in pity ? I could not count his secrets, nor how many times he lit his pipe, the tobacco burned gently, the night did not drive away my fear, I would give my soul for Joseph, may thou forgive me, I rubbed against his ankles and I jumped into his lap, may thou not scold me, he kept twitching, starting, I thought of all our kittens, fifty-three, might any of them have passed away? I, too, sensed the taste of grief, I stretched out on his breast, I comforted him, I sank into terrors as if into aspic, I yearn for thee, my love!