The Madonna on the Moon (30 page)

A few men clapped. “True, true!” Others were surprised to hear the normally reserved tavern owner take the floor so energetically. Kora, however, had her brother-in-law announce that
if she were interrupted again, she would throw a cloak of silence over what she knew, forever. Istvan again called for silence, or he would see himself forced to adjourn the assembly. Kora
continued her recitation, repeating what had long since been circulating as a rumor.

“The Barbulescu woman came to the rectory to ask for the holy sacrament of confession. But her misdeeds were mortal sins, unpardonable sins. That’s why Pater Johannes refused her
absolution. Some mortal sins weigh so heavily that not even the Holy Father in Rome has the authority to forgive them in the name of the Lord. For the Lord God reserves the worst sinners for
himself at the final Judgment Day. Before our dear pastor was so foully murdered, he only had time to do one last thing in pursuance of his duties as a priest. He commanded that person to leave our
village. We can confidently assume it was on account of the harmful influence the harlot had on our children.”

I was furious and called out, “You’re nuts, Konstantin. You and your slimy fantasies belong in the loony bin.”

There were some muted murmurs of support, but mostly people shushed me, “Quiet, quiet, or she’ll never tell the rest.” Istvan found it necessary one last time to call for
unconditional silence. Whoever broke the rule from then on would be immediately ejected from the church. The Hungarian was applauded for his announcement, and Kora smirked and resumed reading.

“An hour after the Barbulescu woman entered the rectory, she came slinking back out. I saw the hate that glittered in her eyes. Hate for our pastor, hate for our mother the church. And
hate for the Lord God himself. At that moment Barbu showed her true face, and I said to my brother-in-law, ‘Look at that face, Marku. Barbu’s plotting revenge. Something terrible is
going to happen.’” Kora looked over at her relative.

Marku nodded and said gravely, “That’s more or less what happened.”

“Later, under cover of darkness,” Kora Konstantin continued, “Barbu crept back to Pater Johannes with a sharp knife under her coat. First she frightened the poor housekeeper to
death, and then she assassinated the priest. She silenced him forever so he couldn’t peddle the story of her ruthless sinning.”

Kora’s fantasies were so insane I couldn’t even shake my head in consternation. I looked past her, and on the wall to the right of the altar caught sight of the sanctuary lamp with
the extinguished Eternal Flame. I thought of Fritz Hofmann. Nothing would happen, he had said as he put out the little lamp. But things were happening. Baia Luna was tumbling into an absurd
nightmare.

“Murdering people didn’t bother Barbu!” Kora proclaimed in a screech. “I know it! Know it for a fact! Since last summer! Since I was in the capital. ‘Everything
that’s hid away will finally see the light of day.’”

Everyone remembered Kora strutting around for weeks the previous year, boasting about her impending visit to her aunt in the Paris of the East, and in August she had actually gone there. The
assembly listened in spellbound silence as she depicted how much she had suffered in the bad air of the capital because of her asthma. Her aunt took her to a pharmacy, where she had been waited on
very solicitously by a gentleman with graying hair who gave her the kind of service it was hard to find in Baia Luna. He not only prescribed excellent medicine for her shortness of breath but also
kindly inquired about where she was from. There then transpired a long—a very long—conversation about Baia Luna in the course of which it was inevitable that the alcoholic teacher would
come up.

“When I mentioned the ill-fated name Angela Barbulescu the pharmacist jumped. ‘Do you know the woman?’ I asked. ‘Yes,’ the man said, ‘I remember her. But it
was years and years ago. A young woman of that name came in almost every day to buy heart medicine. Expensive medicine for her mother, whose name was Trinka.’”

“So what?” Karl Koch called out. Kora maintained her composure.

“Then the pharmacist confided that from one day to the next, this Angela had stopped asking for the heart medicine. Instead, she asked what cheap vitamin pills he had that looked exactly
like the medicine her mother needed. The man even remembered that in the following weeks, this customer (whose clothes had always been shabby) started wearing an expensive dress with a sunflower
pattern. Exactly the dress she strung herself up in to try to atone for having slipped her mother ineffective medicine from which the poor woman died a miserable death. Presumably.”

That gave me a scare. In her diary Angela had in fact hinted that she really ought to have a bad conscience and that her mother hadn’t noticed the change in her medication. Moreover,
I’d noticed that in the years after exchanging the medicine for vitamin pills, Angela had never again mentioned Trinka’s name.

“Anyone who murders their sick mother just because she’s getting in the way of their dissolute lifestyle is also perfectly capable of killing a pastor who refuses to give them
absolution.” Kora sensed that the mood in the church was swinging in her favor. People who were inclined to believe her rumors before saw their suspicions confirmed. Others who had shrugged
off her nutty fantasies started to wonder. Kora exploited the situation.

“Once the perpetrator Barbulescu silenced Pater Johannes with her knife, she sees the blood staining her hands. She runs to the watering trough on the village square to wash off the traces
of her dastardly deed, but she knows she has lost her soul. Forever. She is the bride of Satan now. And now she commits a crime against God himself. She breaks into the church, dances with the
devil on the altar and knocks over the lectern with the Holy Scriptures. Then she climbs onto a chair and puts out the Eternal Flame. On the way out she smears the chancel steps with her menstrual
blood. Then she storms into her house, puts on the obscene dress with the sunflowers, grabs her friend the schnapps bottle, and climbs up to the Mondberg. She uses black magic to make the Virgin of
Eternal Consolation disappear, and then she hangs herself.”

The assembly was silent. I felt the impulse to jump up and wring Konstantin’s neck. But I could also sense the mood in the church. An impulsive act, a careless word, and I would become
part of her idiotic madness. Of course Angela Barbulescu hadn’t murdered the pastor, any more than she had put out the Eternal Flame. But what were my possibilities for action? Should I stand
up and bring the truth to light? Who would believe me? To blame the extinguishing of the Eternal Flame on someone who had emigrated a few weeks ago and now lived in far-off Germany—everyone
would just think it was a cheap way to shift the blame, especially since they all knew of the feud between the Botevs and the Konstantins. For a moment I considered exposing Kora’s lies with
a justifiable counterlie by myself taking the blame for putting out the Eternal Flame: I did it! Although it wasn’t the truth, it would have taken the wind out of Konstantin’s sails.
The sick edifice of her delusions would collapse like a house of cards. Then they would drive me from the village in disgrace and shame. Under the circumstances that was all the same to me, but
Grandfather Ilja, my mother, and Aunt Antonia would have to live with the dishonor of having raised a boy who desecrates churches. Suddenly I understood how my beloved Buba could see no way to
defend herself against her clan’s code of honor. I was ready to pay the price of giving up my family. But what good would it do? If I took the act of desecration onto my shoulders, it would
clear Angela of putting out the Eternal Flame and explain the blood on the chancel steps, but not the murder of Johannes Baptiste. Some suspicion would linger on forever in Baia Luna. After all,
the villagers now believed that Angela Barbulescu was capable of anything—a woman who would give her sick mother the wrong medicine. I was the only one who knew that her mother had been as
spiteful as Kora Konstantin.

Karl Koch spoke up. In place of the usual village practice of addressing everybody by their first name, he said quite formally, “Mrs. Konstantin, on November sixth you saw from your
kitchen window the teacher Barbulescu entering the rectory and—”

“Slinking, I said slinking!” Kora corrected the Saxon. “Don’t twist my words around.”

“So you observed Miss Barbulescu on her way into the rectory. And you also saw that the teacher had to ring the doorbell for a long time.”

“Exactly so.”

“But from where you sit from morning to night in your kitchen you can’t even see the door of the rectory.”

“Yes, I can!”

“No, you can’t!” chimed in Erika Schuster and a few other women. “From Konstantin’s kitchen window you can only see the street.”

Karl Koch became more energetic. “You are lying, therefore, when you claim to have seen Miss Barbulescu at the door of the rectory from your kitchen window.”

“I’m not lying,” Konstantin hissed. “And besides, I never claimed that. I definitely observed Barbu ringing for at least ten minutes. But I never said I was in the
kitchen at the time.”

“So you slunk after Miss Barbulescu as she proceeded to the rectory?”

“I had to, considering what we know about that slut today!”

I abandoned the stone pillar I had been leaning against the whole time and walked slowly to the front of the church. Kora blanched and put her hands up in front of her nose. I looked at Istvan
Kallay. “May I ask a question, too?”

Istvan nodded. “That’s what we’re here for.”

“Not him. I won’t answer him,” Kora cried, but her brother-in-law Marku spoke to her with unaccustomed sharpness: “You definitely will, and make sure it’s the kind
of answer he deserves!” Kora calmed down.

“Well,” I began, “if you followed Angela Barbulescu and saw her coming out of the rectory an hour later, did you speak to her at that point?”

“Me? Speak to that woman? What a stupid question!” Kora was indignant. “Only a Botev would be stupid enough to ask such a thing. ‘By their fruits ye shall know
them.’ Your grandfather can’t even read. That idiot can’t manage to read a single line.”

Grandfather shot up from his seat, hurried up the aisle, and to everyone’s astonishment balled his fist. “You lying witch, don’t you dare say another word.” Ilja grabbed
the Gospel Book lying on the altar and held it aloft. “Name a chapter, Kora Konstantin, and I’ll show everyone here in the church what a liar you are.”

Kora was so dumbfounded she couldn’t say a word. The sacristan Julius Knaup came to her aid. He called out in a loud voice, “We’ll just see, or rather hear, if you can read.
Gospel of John. Chapter three, verse four!”

Ilja leafed awhile until he’d found the passage. Then he read, “‘Nicodemus saith unto him, how can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter the second time into his
mother’s womb, and be born? Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, except a man be born of water, and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of
the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is—’”

“Thank you, Ilja. That’s plenty,” Karl Koch stopped him and turned to Kora. “It’s high time that someone shut your lying mouth for you. What makes you think you can
accuse our shopkeeper and tavern owner Ilja of not being able to read?”

Kora turned red as a turkey and was boiling mad. “That Botev deceives us all. He cheats us. I was not lying. He must have secretly learned how to read. Everything I said about the Barbu is
right. I swear it! I swear it on the grave of my mother Donata!”

“All right then,” I took the floor again. “So you can finally answer my questions instead of slandering my learned grandfather in front of everyone. So what’s the answer?
Did you speak with Angela Barbulescu when she came out of the rectory or not?”

Kora said no.

“And did you speak to Pater Johannes after the teacher left the rectory?”

Kora said no again.

“Then how do you know that Angela Barbulescu went to the pastor to confess? If you didn’t speak to Johannes Baptiste yourself, how do you know that? I’ve looked into the
question. For an ordained priest, the seal of the confessional is still valid even if he refuses to absolve the sinner of guilt. Johannes Baptiste would never, ever have told anyone what was
confessed to him in confidence.”

The murmuring grew louder, and Kora began to squirm. She stared in turn at Marku and the sacristan Knaup. The veins in her neck swelled, and her chest trembled. Then she screeched so that the
assembled crowd shook from the reverberations of her hoarse voice.

“I know it! I know it! I know it! And I swear by the Almighty that I’m telling the truth.” Kora threw herself to the ground, all her limbs atwitch and grunting like a stuck pig
as she often did when she felt she had to fend off an attack by the devil. A few of the men grabbed her by the arms, stood her up, and shook her. Karl Koch gave her a resounding slap in the
face.

Kora collapsed, howling, “But I’m sure!”

“How can you be sure?” asked a dozen voices at once.

“With God as my witness. There was someone who heard what Pater Johannes said to Barbu, a person who wasn’t bound by the seal of the confessional.”

“And who the devil would that be?” asked Karl Koch in the name of everyone present.

The name Kora Konstantin tossed out into the sanctuary struck the inhabitants of Baia Luna like the blow of a club.

“Fernanda Klein. The housekeeper told me everything.”

In an instant, the church was silent. Abashed, everyone looked at one another. No one doubted that Kora Konstantin was speaking the truth at this moment. And no one could imagine that Fernanda,
the loyal soul of her pastor, was capable of lying. I, too, was so taken aback that I knocked my fist against my skull to formulate a clear thought. Then I walked over to the Konstantin woman.

“Kora, it’s extremely important that you tell everyone exactly what Fernanda said to you.”

She nodded vigorously. “I’ll tell it all, exactly as it was. After Barbu came out of the rectory, I waited for a while. Then I went to the rectory myself. Not out of curiosity. No,
just to keep abreast of what was happening in the village. Fernanda opened the door to me and took me right into the kitchen. She said I should be quiet so as not to disturb Johannes’s midday
nap again. ‘What do you mean, again?’ I asked. I had to play dumb. Fernanda told me to guess who had just paid a visit to the worthy old pastor at this unusual hour. I guessed a few
names, then Fernanda whispered, ‘It was Barbu.’ Believe me, I’ve had many an intimate conversation with Fernanda and I know that trollop was a thorn in her side, too, although
Fernanda never made a big deal of it. She assured me she was an accidental witness to the way Barbu greeted the pastor with the words ‘Please don’t send me away. I need to confess after
all these years of hate.’ Johannes Baptiste at once ushered Barbu into his study and closed and locked the door.”