The Madonna on the Moon (11 page)

Pater Johannes paused to ask for a refill of water, and I guess also to give us listeners a chance to ask questions. No one had any, so he continued: “I don’t see the world with the
eyes of a politician but of a pastor concerned with the spiritual needs of his flock. All the more so since I can feel that my days are numbered. And what I see concerns me. Really concerns me.
Where do we come from and where are we going? Those are the fundamental questions of human existence. The world knows only one answer: ashes to ashes and dust to dust. There is no God and no
heaven. But I believe in the Trinity of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. I believe in heaven and that there’s someone up there.”

“Laika the dog?” I interjected.

“Forget about that yapper. No, Pavel, I’m talking about a woman. I already mentioned that mysterious Vatican dogma of the corporeal Assumption into heaven of Mary the Mother of God.
Is it beginning to dawn on you why Korolev is building rockets? The reason that the Soviets plan to shoot cosmonauts into the firmament is so top secret that only Khrushchev, Korolev, and this
Gagarin fellow are in on it. They’re looking for an answer to the question: Does God exist?”

“Oh my God.” Dimitru groaned and hammered his fist on his skull. “The Bolsheviks simply fly up to the stars and take a look. Pure empiricism! The ultimatoric proof of
God’s existence! No more Thomas Aquinas!”

“You could see it that way. And I’ll wager that in the near future, when the first cosmonaut returns from space, there’s only one thing Khrushchev and Korolev will want to
know—”

“Did you see God up there?” Fritz chimed in.

“You’re no dim bulb, Hofmann Fritzy, but you’re not a good listener. You think you’ve got nothing more to learn, not in church and not about church. Wrong, boy, big big
mistake! If you’d only think back, you upstart whippersnapper, then you’d know what Korolev’s question would be and can only be: Did you see Mary up there?”

I registered a nervous tic in Fritz’s face. Not even Barbu’s pointer could shake his composure, but Father Johannes had unnerved him. He chewed his nails in silence. It was clear to
me that, privately, Fritz was determined to pay the priest back for his humiliation. He just didn’t know how yet.

“And why won’t Korolev ask after God himself?” I chimed in.

Baptiste patted my shoulder. “Put yourself in his place, boy. Try to think like he does! Korolev is a researcher—measuring, weighing, counting, testing—a materialist, a
self-declared atheist for whom only the scientific theory and its proof are valid. Nevertheless, he isn’t stupid. Of course he is aware that if God really does exist against all expectations,
his cosmonauts would never be able to see him. The Almighty is invisible, as the Jews already knew. He is invisible not only for the human eye, but for optical instruments of any kind whatsoever.
Ditto the Holy Ghost. The
spiritus sanctus
escapes every pupil for the obvious reason that he’s a spirit. With Jesus Christ, it’s a little more complicated. He lived, suffered,
and died as a man, and he rose from the dead as the Redeemer. As such he is obviously visible in the form of the consecrated bread and the gleam of the Eternal Flame in the sanctuary lamp that
attests day and night to the presence of divine omnipotence in our church. But what about Mary? Mary was a human being, and she remained a human being in death and after death. That’s what
Pope Pius (whom otherwise I don’t think much of) recognized so fittingly. In 1950, five years after the war, he issued the Apostolic Constitution Munificentissimus Deus. It says more or less,
‘We proclaim, declare, and define it as a dogma revealed by God that the immaculate, eternally virginal Mother of God Mary at the end of her earthly life was assumed body and soul into
heavenly glory.’ That means not only Mary’s spirit but also her flesh and blood are in heaven. Now just imagine what this Vatican dogma means for a materialist: it’s the supreme
challenge, pure and simple. If the dogma is true, then this Jewess from Nazareth beat Korolev to it. The first spaceflight in history, the first conquest of gravity. Without a rocket. That’s
why the Russians are firing cosmonauts in among the stars. They have to find the answer to the all-important question about God. If the visible Mother of God exists, then logically the invisible
Creator of All Things exists as well. And no one knows that better than Engineer Number One.”

“Oh holy shit!” howled Dimitru. “This doesn’t look good. Bad news for the Catholics. And worse news for Gypsies. Mary is our Mother, our queen, our advocate at the
heavenly throne,
Mater Regina
of the miserable! Without her, no deals with the Lord God. Uh-oh, I’m telling you, if Korolev finds the Madonna, then God have mercy on us. Didn’t
I give early warning that Sputnik would spell disaster? But nobody listens to a Black. Didn’t they laugh at me, slander me, mock me, spit on me? But I predict here and now that what began as
a beep will end in
desastrum.
”

“Hang on, hang on. Not so fast,” Grandfather jumped in. “There’s a way to stop Korolev.”

“I’m unable to see such a possibility,” Pater Johannes objected.

Dimitru took a swallow and agreed: “Where nothingness reigns, even the seer is blind.”

“It’s simple,” Grandfather continued undeterred. “The Americans have to get in ahead of the Russians. They can’t let this Sputnik beeping drive them crazy.
They’ve got to keep a cool head and build their own rockets. Better ones than the Russians. Rockets that fly higher and farther. After all, the United States of America has certain
obligations to the Virgin Mary, who protects the city of Noueeyorka from enemy attacks. So it’s high time for the Yanks to give Mary some protection of her own.”

Dimitru rose slowly to his feet, swaying slightly. He stumbled, caught himself, and fell into Ilja’s arms.

“Tha’s it! America’ll build rockets and save th’ Madonna! And the Soviets’ll bite their own asses. Why di’nt I think’ve it myself? That’d be
th’ answer!”

Ilja felt entitled to correct his friend: “That wouldn’t
be
the answer, Dimitru, that
is
the answer.”

Chapter Four

“Time to go,” said Johannes Baptiste, picking up his cane. “Until Sunday. In church. It’s time to confront the collectivists.”

He tapped the television set with his stick, grumbled something about an
apparatura diavoli non grata
whose presence transformed every tavern into a brawling dive, and gestured toward
the birthday present wrapped in brown paper that Ilja had set down next to the cash register.

Grandfather gave the priest his arm and offered to accompany him back to the rectory, but Baptiste waved him away grumpily before his weary steps receded into the blackness of the night.

Fritz and I stood up, too. I yawned but wasn’t tired. I felt like getting some exercise and fresh air. Fritz was silent, his lips clamped together tight as a vise. He was nursing his
grudge against the priest for the dressing-down he’d been given.

Dimitru reached for the bottle of
zuika
and held it up to the light from the ceiling lamp. It was empty. He spied the full glass of wine Pater Johannes had left behind and slurred,
“What th’ sainted hand disdain z’good ’nuffer th’ Gypsy.” Then he tossed off the Sylvaner and staggered out onto the porch. His hands groped for the railing but
found only thin air. Dimitru slipped, fell over, slid down the slippery steps on his belly, and landed headfirst in the mud. He moaned pitifully, cursed Saint Joseph (the patron saint of
carpenters) and the disasters associated with wooden steps in the rain. Then he ran his hands along his thighs, knees, and calves while the mud dripped from his hair.

“Morphine,” he groaned, “need morphine.”

Grandfather scolded him, “Don’t carry on so, you big baby.”

Dimitru shut right up, his mouth still wide open and his face distorted in such a painful grimace that I couldn’t help grinning in schadenfreude.

“Pavel! Fritz! Help Dimitru get home.” Whining, the Gypsy pulled himself to his feet and leaned on my arm. Then we set off, he limping, cursing, and crying while he sagged on my
shoulder like a wet sack of corn. Fritz trotted along behind us. The clock in the church tower was tolling nine thirty when we reached the gypsy’s cottage at the lower end of the village. His
niece Buba took delivery of her drunken uncle. Dimitru dropped onto the rug, pulled his knees to his chest like a fetus, and fell asleep at once. Buba took off his shoes, shoved a pillow under his
head, and covered him with wool blankets and sheepskins.

“Uncle Dimi gets a chill easily. He must have been a block of ice in an earlier life.” She laughed and extended her hand. Although the girl with the unruly black curls was usually
ready with some cheeky remark, she thanked us for our help and asked if we’d like to stay a bit.

“I’ve got something to take care of,” Fritz declared.

I shrugged my shoulders apologetically. “Maybe some other time.”

Buba insisted on shaking my hand again, then she smiled and brushed my cheek lightly with her hand. The smell of her hair wafted over to me. No, Buba’s locks didn’t just smell good;
they were fragrant with the tang of fire, smoke, and damp earth. I blushed and felt suddenly warm.

Then a voice screeched, “Bubbah! Bubbah! Is somebody there?”

“My mother’s calling. See you in school,” and the Gypsy girl disappeared.

In school! It seemed to me that an eternity had passed since this morning in school when the teacher Angela Barbulescu had assigned me to hang the likeness of the party secretary Stephanescu on
the wall. I could still hear her demanding,
Send this man straight to hell! Destroy him!
but as a thin sound from a gray distance. Nevertheless, I could picture Barbu again, standing
before me. Standing before the class in her rubber boots with Fritz’s sentence about his “thing” on the blackboard. And how she wept into the dusty rag for cleaning the board.

Silently Fritz and I left the Gypsy settlement. On our right, just where the village street began a slight rise, stood Angela Barbulescu’s wooden cottage, the cottage I had dashed from,
head over heels.

“Why’s there no light in Barbu’s house?” I asked.

“How should I know?” Fritz sounded annoyed.

“A light ought to be on. Barbu always goes to bed late.” I stepped toward the house and saw that the curtains weren’t pulled closed. “She’s not at home,” I
concluded. “She’s always in her house, otherwise. She never goes away.”

“She probably tied one on and went to sleep. Like that chucklehead Gypsy,” Fritz answered.

I shook my head without replying. We went back into the village. When we reached the wall of the church, I turned off to the left. I wanted to go to bed. Then I changed my mind without knowing
why.

“I’ll walk you home,” I said.

Fritz stopped. He glared at me in hostility. Then the dam broke. The resentment that had been building up in him all evening came pouring out. “You want to walk me home? I haven’t
got a home in this hole. Get that through your head! I just live here with my parents. Unfortunately! Everybody in this village is crazy. The crummy priest, the idiotic Gypsy, your stupid
grandfather, and you, too. You’re one of them, one of the idiots. You people don’t understand anything! The party, Barbu with her shitty poems, Korolev! Sputnik! The whole idiotic pile
of shit. Mary in heaven, what a joke! Absolutely ridiculous.” Fritz was working himself into a rage. “There is no heaven,” he screamed, “and there’s no hell
either.” Then he aped Pater Johannes: “‘We proclaim that the immaculate virginal Mary, Mother of God, was taken up into heavenly glory body and soul at the end of her earthly
life.’ Shit on Mary. Shit on the whole thing. She isn’t anywhere. And God isn’t anywhere either. God is dead. Your stupid God is dead, you blind fools. You’re all clueless,
chuckleheaded idiots.”

To my surprise I realized that I wasn’t afraid. I was only taken by surprise. I’d never seen my schoolmate like this. Furious, trembling with outrage. All the tirades Fritz had fired
off certainly hit me, but they bounced off. Bombs without fuses, ineffectual duds. But now our fight had finally arrived. I’d always been afraid of a moment like this, had sought ways of
avoiding conflict, but now it was here. And I was astonished at myself. The fight didn’t make me fearful or hesitant. The sluice gates of anger had been opened, and I was awake, alive,
courageous. And calm.

“Tell me something I don’t know. It’s been in the cards for a long time that you would leave Baia Luna someday. You aren’t really one of us. You don’t belong here.
But I also know you’ll pay a price for leaving. You’ll have to pay it.”

“I don’t have to do anything!” Fritz’s hot anger turned into defiance. “I don’t have to do anything for anybody.”

I laughed in scorn. Only when I was ripe in years would I realize why I was being unfair to Fritz by goading him on. “Five minutes ago you had to do something. You told Buba you had
something to take care of. Right this minute? At this time of night?”