The Black Envelope

~ ~ ~

THE PROFESSOR FELT THE burden of doubt, as so many times before. Moments of discouragement and loneliness when nothing made sense, and his weird occupation still less than anything else. Is the slave defined by his fear of death, the master by his will to take risks? Did fear or risk define his stubborn solitary resistance? Why can’t we all go to prison simultaneously? Why do I myself avoid prison? Why don’t I shout out loud my disgust?

The shades that visited him at night, and even the people he sometimes heard during the day, repeated the same petty phrases. “Mind your own business, stranger, stop interfering. You’re not going to change things, otherwise they’d have changed themselves. Get lost with those annoying questions of yours. What’s happening is nothing or anything, and it is not permitted to predict the future.”

He got up from the rack. To go out into the street, into the spring, where the humbled crowd was still surviving. To see what effect unshackled force has on a restricted medium. He took the lift, tram, trolley. That is, he went down into the street, into paradise. With a single thought: that he would go to the theater. He looked at the dirty street, the weary faces, the listless agitation. He stopped at a kiosk and moved antlike to the end of the line for a tasteless drink and a stale sandwich. Slices substituting for bread, with a red film in the middle substituting for salami. The substitute pedestrians moved forward awkwardly and in silence, salivating as they waited for the trophy.

When the time came to stretch out his hand, someone pulled his elbow back.

“What are you doing? Eating that garbage?”

He turned around apprehensively. The stern voice belonged to a stern gentleman. Should he recognize him, or should he not?

“Were you on your way somewhere? And why are you frowning like that?”

“Well, I’m going to the theater. On the off chance. Maybe I’ll find a ticket.”

“Bravo! And why the frown? Which theater?”

“The National. Where else?”

“What’s the play?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t got a ticket. Maybe I’ll strike it lucky.”

“What’s this, old man? Going to the theater like you go to the beach? Without knowing what play, what director, or anything else about it?”

“Well, come on now! The National. That means a national play. Like at the Comédie Française, where—”

“Okay, okay, but it’s no reason to be frowning like that. I won’t keep you. Anyway, you’ve still got some time: we can walk a bit of the way together. After all, we don’t see each other all that often: the thirty years’ peace — ha, ha — yes, that’s how long it’s been. Our thirty years’ war. You’re talking about a lifetime!”

A pleasant surprise, Fnic. Clear-cut judgments, icy objectivity. A nervous type, though. From time to time he rubbed his large dry palms together, and he kept adjusting his spectacles. He talked about his family. His wife is not one of those who stuff their pockets and bags with baksheesh, like so many people in restaurants, law courts, and everywhere. When it comes to his son, the conversation is broken: young people are too tough these days. As for Engineer Olaru, he works an enormous amount: he’s become pretty well irreplaceable. They stop at the corner of the street leading to the theater. Fnic bows briefly to a woman passing by. The professor had been staring at her already, before she came closer.

“Who’s the lady?”

“Oh, someone. It’s not important.”

Fnic is about to resume his family history, but Tolea is not paying attention. The woman in jeans has just turned the corner and disappeared.

“Who was she?”

“Just a. . Emilia. It’s not important. Emilia, her name’s Emilia Ianuli, I think.”

Fnic seems ready to say more, but his interlocutor is hurrying off in the direction of the theater, really speeding up to catch the comet.

But it’s no use: the magnificent woman has vanished.

The crowded pavement in front of the theater. The theatergoer makes for the box office. A doll with curly hair is chatting to a doll whose hair is tied in a loop. The theatergoer presses his head against the glass. The doll couldn’t care less. The theatergoer coughs provocatively.

“What do you want?”

By the time he replies, the toy has turned her head back, as if on a spring, to the one beside her. I want you to tell me who Fnic Olaru really is, the theatergoer was on the point of stammering out. I didn’t have time to confront him with his own version of things, to find out who the comrade is replacing. I was hurrying to catch up with the fairy-tale lady. I hurried off, but the opportunity was lost, a lost opportunity, mumbled the stranger, overcome.

“Did you say something?”

“Not yet. I haven’t started. I’d like a ticket.”

“What for?”

“Well, a lost opportunity — what else. For that.”

“What opportunity? Which that?”

“Well, this evening’s performance.”

“This evening we have A Lost Letter.”

“Exactly. The Letter. Yes, for this evening.”

“We’re sold out for this evening.”

She turned back to the clockwork doll on her left and continued telling her about the little boots the Libyan living with Mariana had brought for her, which she had then sold to Kati. But they were too tight, so they found their way via a student cousin to—

“What do you mean you’re sold out? It’s the national play, the hallmark of the national theater! It’s on every season, all the time.”

“It’s not on every season, I can tell you! Sometimes it’s not on at all. It’s not authorized, if you want to know. In fact, the rumor is that the season’s ending early, precisely because of this play, so that it’s not shown.”

“So now we’re following every little rumor, are we? The play’s lasted a hundred years and it’ll be with us as long as this country is, this sad jolly little country of ours. Anyone who bans this play bans the country, miss. We can’t believe every little rumor, follow all these — How could it be the last one, how could it be a lost opportunity. No way! The play, I mean. It’s a classic. It is a classic, after all, miss.”

“That’s just it! Because it’s a classic, sir! The crowds flocking to see it, sir. And stop holding me up: I’ve got things to do. I told you: we haven’t got any tickets. I’m sorry, there’s nothing I can do. You’re just unlucky.”

The theatergoer still did not move from the window. The cashier ignored him, although she seemed ready to cut him short if he asked anything else. But the customer no longer felt like asking questions, even though he would not move away. “Unlucky, huh! A lost opportunity — unlucky! That’s the national word: unlucky. Huh! We’re always unlucky — no more than that. It’s our character that’s the problem, madam! Nothing to do with being unlucky, monkey-face.”

Or better not: he didn’t have the energy for a rumpus. After all, the evening had been generous enough. Comrade Fnic had saved him from indigestion, then offered him an edible version of his life story. Then Fnic had greeted the magnificent, planetary passerby. Yes, it had been a hospitable evening, in the Lord’s garden of wonders.

So the former professor kept up his incursions. Whenever he felt tired and depressed, ready to drop the whole project, he went down into the hubbub of the street. Was it the immediacy, the avail-abilities, the fantasy of the real world? The blind alley of reality! Fermented energy, twisted and poisoned, which did not succeed in going public, in exploding — stifled before it reached the kinetic threshold. Was that also what Marcu Vancea had once believed? That nothing would happen, however much the dangers seemed to increase, however much the poverty and hatred and fears intensified — the obese, shameless, insatiable lie towering supremely over everything? Starving people and spies and guards, the gray of apathy without hope? Precisely in this somnolence of despair anything can happen to anyone, Irina said sometime or other. No one escapes the slow poison and no one escapes the blows of fate raining down on those you don’t expect them to.

He saw again the street’s long slim feline shape, and heard around him the wild shouts of the crowd: Whore! Mega-whore! The brief flame of the snake, lasting but a moment, in the toxins of the street.

Suddenly he felt capable of meeting the apparition again, of speaking to Mrs. Ianuli, if that really was her name. By chance he had seen her once in a bookshop. Spectacular, in green silk trousers, as at a fashion parade. Hair tied in a ponytail at the back. She was leafing through a book, next to him, in fact. He looked without seeing her. He felt her close by. A magnetic emission, impossible to avoid. He left quickly, moving away in panic. Then a century had passed. Again twilight, again languor. He opened the window, went down into the street. Hypnotic spring, giddiness, desire, indecision. He went into a café and sat down next to an aging man with a fine white beard and mustache, code name Marcel. He ordered a coffee, although he knew it wouldn’t be coffee that he received.

The revolving door turned merrily. Two phosphorescent women came in laughing, as in a normal world. He took out a handkerchief and wiped his brow. Unable to restrain himself, he turned around to the table behind him. The woman in red smiled at him. His hands were trembling: the barley substitute called coffee was giving off its vapors in the cup, which was trembling in his trembling hand.

“It’s painful, sir. Don’t keep turning around like that. Stop looking at her.”

“It’s as if I knew her. But I can’t hear her voice: I’d like to hear her voice. Maybe I’d recognize it.”

The man next to him gave a childish sort of laugh. He passed his rough hand through his white hair, raised a glass with the dishwater called lemonade, and screwed up his nose as he sipped it.

“You know her only too well. The whole country does.”

“What do you mean, the whole country?”

“Quite simple. She once said good night to us all. All of us.”

“Good night? I don’t understand.”

“The fairy who says, Sleep tight. She’s a TV announcer, for God’s sake!”

“It’s not true. I’ve never seen her on television. I know I never switch it on these days, what with all those endless speeches. But I don’t remember. No, I don’t think I’ve seen her.”

“Well, she was on TV for a short time. But that was many years ago. I knew her when she worked at the radio station. Won’t you stop turning around like that! The ladies are making fun of us. You’re acting like a kid! Sit still. Look, I’ll give you all the information, but you must behave properly. This is a select café, and this evening it’s empty as well. We’re making a laughingstock of ourselves.”

“Okay, Comrade Gafton, I promise, I promise. I’ve glued my neck in place. I’m listening, go ahead.”

“She’s a delightful creature, there’s no doubt about that. Generous, cheerful. Full of fun. Simple and sincere. Delicate, I would say. I don’t see why you’re smiling, I really don’t.”

“Too many epithets, my friend. An exaggeration, Mr. Gafton, that’s why I’m smiling. With so many qualities, she isn’t fun anymore. Everyone loses interest.”

“Oh no, they don’t. Don’t you worry about that side of things. The interest is still there, I assure you.”

“So why was such a joy kidnapped from our small screen?”

“As if you didn’t know! The qualities I told you about are not absolutely necessary.”

“But they don’t do any harm either.”

“Maybe they do, when it’s a question of repeating all that nonsense on TV. And anyway, she wasn’t the only propaganda beauty. If we’ve got so many beautiful women, why not share them around. You only have to look in the street, even in the misery of today.”

“I’d sooner you told me how she got into television. Or radio— which is where you met her. And how she left, and why. After all, not just anyone is allowed in anywhere. You have to be proposed and accepted.”

Mr. Gafton smiled and signaled the waiter to bring another glass of the hogwash called lemonade. But the waiter went to the ladies’ table instead, to make up the bill.

Their departure did indeed become visible behind. The round room with mirrors seemed to grow abruptly smaller. A dull evening all of a sudden, like any other.

“Yes, it’s simpler to answer simple questions,” the polite gentleman resumed, straightening the knot of his tie and drawing his chair closer. “Emilia got into radio because of her husband, probably benefiting from his prestige or his contacts. But her own qualities soon made themselves felt.”

“Let’s move on to when her qualities became unnecessary.”

“I don’t know: I wasn’t working at the radio station by then. I know she went to the small screen for a while. A promotion. It was a pleasure to watch her, to hear her, even when the little she-devil read from the jabberer’s speeches. The reasons why she’s no longer there? I only heard later and at fourth hand, so I’m not sure. But it seems a moral pretext was involved. As you know, that’s often been used in recent years. And it works.”

“Do you mind if we stay on this?” ventured the curious questioner.

“I don’t mind, my boy. You’re probably waiting to hear from the old duffer’s mouth what the public prosecutor had to say. You probably think the whole generation of mistakes, as you put it, was made up of bastards. Dreamers who were easy to manipulate — incurable schizoids. Well, listen. Emilia was a real stroke of luck for Comrade Ianuli, believe me. Despite a lot of—”

“I understand, I understand. You’re a poet, Mr. Gafton.”

“Is it true that paradise is flat, my boy? The image of the divinity is flat! It was only the devil who introduced a third dimension! A man like Ianuli represents something profound, just, and noble. Yes, my boy. But Emilia was precisely the missing volute, a boon if ever there was one.”

Mr. Gafton was on his feet. In a white suit, with perfectly trimmed white hair and mustache, he was substituting for a distinguished epicurean, calm and skeptical in his wisdom. Just fancy! Marcel the substitute. Incredible! “Let’s be going. It’s late. Madam Veturia can’t bear me leaving her alone for so long.”

They got in each other’s way in the revolving door. Gafton took a step back and put his big pale hand on the lost man’s shoulder.

“Emilia is a gift of nature, my boy. A nature which rejects artifice. The word you hear all around you is: if. If it was possible, I’d do it. If I’d spoken up, if I’d dared. When we escape from this original quarantine, everyone will claim to have been a victim and denounce everyone else, just like now. And they’ll fight for the new padded seats, the new gold braid. And they’ll lie and cheat, my boy, just like now! They’ll lie in freedom, as in today’s captivity. Whereas Emilia dared to—”

“Just a moment,” cried the novice. “Did you say captivity? You, Comrade Gafton? Captivity? Do you dare say things like that? Let me see your eyebrow! Quick, quick, let me see your scar,” and he fell upon Gafton and dragged him to the first lamppost. It gave no light, of course. It was evening and the streets lay in darkness. Only the tramping of guards could be heard. The stench of uncleared garbage rose over the city, in the soft and loathsome darkness.

“Joy deserves all the honors, Professor! When I was young and was fighting for paradise, they locked me up in a real prison. In captivity I despised those who looked too much at a flower, or at the starry sky or freshly fallen snow. That all seemed a subterfuge to me, a frivolity. But now I’m getting close to the day of reckoning.”

He stopped, ashamed of the rhetorical excess. Then they walked together, on their common way home, through Cimigiu Park, through the Park of Liberty, Pache Park, as far as their building with its lighted windows. In that long detour they did not speak about anything but the performance at the National, the clumsy improvisation, and the half-witted seriousness thrust upon Caragiale’s famous comedy. Nor did they refer anymore to the beautiful woman in the café. Tolea had forgotten her, for a while.

And at some point he remembered her. One evening when spring looked like autumn and when the fire serpent — the hallucination, the desire without name or object — was again writhing in the shadows of the window. Besides, he also saw her among the flurried pedestrians, in the rout and the tide of daytime aphrodisiacs. She was coming down the steps from the university. White fluffy cape. Huge, slender, with black, heavy, shiny hair the star of stars of the silent film. Incredibly she decided to wait at the trolleybus stop! The people there gawked at the rare apparition, forgetting all about the vehicle.

Receptionist Vancea followed the sequence from a distance. The wind coiled in hot blasts, the dampness grew thicker and thicker: everything was floating in a cold mist that soaked bones and thoughts. A short stocky man with a shopping bag overflowing in each hand moved closer to the star. They exchanged some words, like two neighbors, or like the mistress of the house with a servant from her parents’ estate. The swarthy man kept trying to free one arm so as to bow and kiss the princess’s hand. Suddenly she drew herself up over the whole of the surrounding gallery, higher and higher on her high-heeled boots. From her cape rose a long golden shaft, a long thin sleeve in gilded wool, like the metal embroidery worn at feasts in the Middle Ages. She waved excitedly at an approaching taxi. She gave a shudder of joy, cheered by the good fortune that was braking perfectly, right at the red beak of her little boot. Only then did she notice the agitation of the poor wretch who kept moving his bags and bowing to her, a changed man. She smiled, tapped him gently on the shoulder to calm him, and stroked his damp round head. She carefully inserted her long body into the chassis, just a last wee bit of cape, then the door went bang and the engine revved up. Receptionist Anatol Dominic Vancea made bold to approach the witness of the miracle.

“What are you doing here, Mr. Teodosiu? You and trolleybuses? What disaster could have—”

“It’s no joke, I can tell you. If even someone like me can’t get hold of some gas, then it’s gone beyond a joke. We had an arrangement, clear and stable. A driver at the hospital where Ortansa, my wife, works. I paid and he kept me supplied: perfectly straightforward. But now he’s got a nerve, I’m telling you, he wants goods instead. Goods, do you hear! He’s lost interest in money and wants the value in goods! Cheese, coffee, meat: that’s what he wants. Because he’s simply got to turn the money into cheese or wine, you know what it’s like. Well, it was too much for me. Such nerve! Am I supposed to line up for days on end, or find contacts with butter or paper for wiping your ass or cotton for women, because Mr. Costic simply doesn’t have the time?! That was the last straw! So here I am, standing in the sleet. Waiting for the camel on wheels to arrive.”

“There’s something to be said for that, though, Mr. Gic. You get to meet people, you see more of the world.”

“It’s no joking matter, believe you me. What troubled times! When even someone like me can’t get what’s necessary.”

“But you also have pleasant moments. That goddaughter of yours, for example, looked really superb. Or was it your god-mother?”

“What goddaughter? What are you talking about?”

“Well, the lady. You looked pretty glad to see her, like a godfather with his goddaughter. Or maybe she was the director’s wife.”

“Who? Mrs. Emilia — Mila? She’s in a different category, sir! Mrs. Mila is the wonder of the earth. A real princess, I’m telling you. Not like those who just smell of the stable if you take away their ointments and rags. The lady is a real jewel. And she’s the Lord’s bread. It never happens that she’ll refuse if you ask her for something. She’ll help anyone. Because Mrs. Mila has her contacts, all right. There’s no comparison.”

“So you’re not related?”

“Leave off! I told you, cut the wisecracks. I know her from the time she worked in that tourism business, with groups of foreigners.”

“Ah, so it’s from work.”

“Mrs. Mila got on only with me, worked only with me. The rest don’t even know her. None of them. Not even Corkscrew, not even you. I was the only one she trusted, because I know how to hold my tongue. You know what it’s like, one man or another used to come.”

“What do you mean: one or another?”

“Aha, that’s a professional secret. First-class woman, hard currency. Need I say more!”

“Really? Just like that?”

“No, it’s not what people think. Mrs. Mila wouldn’t go with a man just like that, just to get things from the dollar shop, whether she fancies him or not. But for her to fancy one, that’s it. She did it only occasionally, I can tell you, and in great secrecy. But she has a heart of gold, as I was saying. A real soul, a countess! She’s not stingy when you ask her for something: medicine, some clothing, a toy for your kid, anything. Because she gets around, wow, she’s always off somewhere.”

“How does she get around, as you put it? Where does she go off to?”

“To the big wide world, that’s where. The wide world that’s not for dumbos. Do you think everyone stays cooped up here, that no one gets out? Well, there are exceptions, I can tell you! There are also special interests. The world has shrunk only for some. Lots of things aren’t for the likes of us, you know. The earth goes round, it doesn’t stand still, even if we don’t see it moving.”

But the trolley cut short the lecture in philosophy. Suddenly prevented from offering other professional secrets, colleague Teodosiu Gic, known as Poxy, a.k.a. the Boss, made admirable use of his elbows and bags to force a way through the hysterical mass of people, to be first in the ark of salvation. Receptionist Anatol Dominic Vancea Voinov found himself alone once more, guilty at how depressed he felt and at how distrustful he was in the presence of his daytime and nighttime interlocutors.

But the woman reappeared in his nocturnal reveries, laughing, crying, neighing, rehabilitating the therapy of the heart’s desire, parodying pleasure as the grimace of liberty. And did Sleepwalker Tolea let himself be seduced!

Cool, lucid night. The absent dead, like the living; situated in eternity, from where everything could be seen perfectly, as if nothing could be seen. The woman reappeared, scrupulously, invented herself anew, at once immediate and fictitious. Sometimes he even saw her in the illegible daytime sky, the torrid blindness of the crowd. Attracted, intimidated. At once a longing for abandon and an immense fear. Death — yes, that was probably what she was, the beautiful and insatiable one. Tender, ravenous, hospitable, enveloping you in desire and faintness and panic: Death. The mask of indifference and joy, the voracious glitter, the frenzy, the extreme intensity.

Nor was she an abstraction. She had a name, an address, a telephone: she could be reached. But the sleepwalker did not have the courage. He just tried to forget the vortex of imponderables, and then to escape again into the confused murmur of the street. Despotic spring had made the prisoners hysterical. The heart of the ants had grown enormous, roaring like a compressor. Giddy intoxication, through stinking parks full of garbage and policemen, in the dark of lifeless boulevards, in the crowd standing in front of empty stores or trolley stops overcrowded with passengers, in the intense heat, and in the capricious rains of the underground. He came back exhausted from these sleepwalking adventures, but would go out again to rediscover the excess tiredness that cured him of despair. Back in the street, he found the tumult again. Chimerical series, accelerated emissions of magnesium, a pink smoky fog perforated by the tingling of aerials.

It was a strange twilight: spring was winter and he was in front of the Atheneum. The woman was on the other side of the road, coming from the Palace. He had seen her in the distance as she approached. She was wearing high boots, far above the knee, which gripped like funnels her brown velvet trousers. Her body seemed frail inside her large red fox-fur jacket. She crossed the street and walked up the drive. Her face had a gleaming pallor, eyes shining provocatively beneath a perfect forehead and hair carefully brushed around her temples. She moved among the groups of music lovers waiting to go into the concert. She responded to greetings with a youthful wave of her arm and hurried off toward the entrance. There she stopped for a few moments in front of a man who seemed to have called out to her. A merry conversation: her lively, luminous, unforgettable laughter rang out. The man could not be seen. Facing away, much shorter than the woman, he stood on tiptoe to kiss her hand as they parted. And as he turned after her, his face became visible — the spitting image of Pushkin! Long side-whiskers, thin beard. “Oho, it’s you, Doctor! I thought you liked your music at home, not in public.”

“Today’s the exception. A special case.”

“And the lady? Is she a patient?”

“No, no. No. I’ve known her a long time. The wife of a colleague.”

“What kind of a colleague is that? Combatants call each other comrade, not colleague. And I didn’t even know you were an ex-combatant.”

“I’m not. The lady was once married to the famous head of a clinic. I spent some time working under him: he was my professor.”

“She still looks young, the professor’s ex-wife. Now she’s married to an ex-combatant.”

“Yes, yes. There was a scandalous age difference. She was younger than his daughter from another marriage. If the old man’s still alive, he must certainly be missing her. And if he’s reached heaven, then I’m sure he’s still missing her. He’ll be bored without her. She was a wonder, a breath of life. A ray of sunshine.”

“Who? The Great Whore from the Bible? You know that’s what they call her.”

Dr. Marga refused to smile. The face shaded by its romantic beard remained unmoved.

“What nonsense! You just chatter away. The sources of joy are few and far between in this life, my friend. They must be cherished, you know. True happiness is an intangible force; and the lady warms the cockles of your heart. Don’t listen to the mob — it’s just stupid gossip you’ll hear from them.”

“But yes, I do listen. Do you know Toma? Manager Toma A. Toma?”

“Which Toma? The saint, or the other one, the doubter?”

“I’m not joking, Doctor. Toma, the exemplary deaf-mute! Who sees and hears and finds out everything, but only tells when and whom he’s supposed to. A very precise man, with a lot of experience and practical sense. He doesn’t give two monkeys about our fellow citizens; he doesn’t think substitutes are dangerous. But he keeps an eye on anyone who — or who might — or who—”

“Come on, quit the fooling. Let’s go into the concert.”

“Toma has no faith at all in our fellow creatures. He doesn’t think their improvisations are dangerous. Toma the professional could be mistaken, though. After all, he’s an expert in the real world. And well, this Lady of Delights is a substitute, too. That’s all she is, you know, Doctor.”

“She’s no substitute! I saw her not long ago: she came to see me at the hospital and—”

“So she’s a patient, after all.”

“No way. She’s a cure, not an illness.”

“Death, Doctor, that’s what she is! The Great Whore of the Apocalypse. The unclouded happiness, contented indifference, and superb vitality of death.”

“That’s enough of the metaphors, kid. She came to the hospital about a patient.”

“Ah, it must be her exemplary new husband, the ex-combatant. A gala patient. They’ve screwed him up good and proper, Doctor. His exemplary comrades have put death next to him in bed to finish him off. As I said, it’s only in exceptions like him that Toma sees any danger. The Exemplary Association knows how to manipulate the happiness and delights and temptations that will wipe him out. It’s possible that Toma thinks even I am dangerous, like the dreamer caught under the skirts of the Great Whore.”

“Cut the crap, for God’s sake. I don’t know the lady’s husband, and I’m not interested in him. I’ve heard something about the Ianuli legend, but I don’t find it interesting. I deal with reality, you know. The most burning reality. That’s my profession.”

“Well, our neighbor Toma also deals with reality. He’s an expert in reality, as I was saying.”

“You’re raving away, kid, and I’m missing the concert. The fact is, the lady came to visit a young student, a distinguished student. A splendid boy. And she asked about him with an infinite, angelic tenderness.”

Becoming irritated, Dr. Anton Marga undid the collar of his starched shirt. He was wearing a light summer suit, the color of forget-me-nots. A light summer suit, although the person talking to him thought it was a sluggish winter evening. In his right hand the doctor was holding a short rubber stick, the case of an umbrella. Now and then, using a fine white handkerchief, he wiped his face, which had been perspiring from the intense spring heat, and also his spectacles, forehead, and beard. “I had a chat with the student when he returned. He confirmed the extraordinary devotion and happiness that Mila represents for him. It must have been love — or sex, as they say nowadays — I don’t care. A sentimental education, you know what I mean. And not only of the body, you can be sure. A therapy in which the concentration is so intense it brackets evil out.”

“Well, why don’t you hire her, Doctor? You can even make a scientific report: the priceless idea will bring you fame and immortality. Bring her on board at the hospital! Madam Death, with her superbly gleaming mask, her charitable soul and therapeutic body. The vestal providing an initiation in futility. Land! Land! cry the mariners. Women! The shore woman who gets us used to land again. The first and last truth. Earth we were, to the earth’s belly we return.”

“That’s right, kid. Lilith, Adam’s first woman, was only earth, like him. She’s known for a single action. She seduced two angels, found out the code word from them, opened the gates of heaven, and flew off. She deserted Adam. Only afterward was there Eve, his wife. The earth woman cannot be held fast by anything or anyone; she takes flight. Paradoxically she takes flight and arrives back in heaven.”

“How nice! Is the worldly old rationalist Marga really a believer? We all wear masks, we’re all substitutes. Are you a believer, Doctor?”

“No, I’m just mad about reading. It gets me closer to heaven, to my patients. You see, I could have listened to this evening’s music at home, as you said. But I wanted to be in a hall, among people. It’s not church, and the Bach organist isn’t a priest. But still—”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t think you were in a lyrical mood. I’d have kept clear of the ribaldry.”

“Ribaldry? My God is an atheist and he likes provocations, alternatives, improvisations, as you put it. And jokes, of course. He’s like us. He did make us in his likeness, didn’t he? So I’m on the side of that woman you find so intriguing.”

“Death! Lies, jokes, accommodations. Indifference, the improvisations of survival. In other words, Death, Death.”

“Mmm, I’m with the nameless ones who survive. Fickle and skeptical jesters are not my enemies.”

“But they don’t have a right to testify at a trial! That’s the point! Your nice guys forfeit their capacity to act as witnesses. That’s what’s written in the Koran. Jesters like that lose their capacity to bear witness at trials. That’s what it says, Doctor, that’s what it says in the book.”

“Okay, I’ll have another look at it. Books aren’t perfect, and readers aren’t either. If that’s what it says, I’ll ask for an erratum slip to be inserted. A little humor wouldn’t spoil the Holy Koran, believe me. As for truth, it can’t do without deception. The two stay married together, have adulterous affairs with each other, and do not part even in divorce. They’re always in contact, inseparable. You’re too morose, my little professor, really you are. The concert would do you good, believe me. Go into Bach’s chapel and learn some peace of mind.”

The doctor was really hurrying by now: he ran up the stairs and disappeared under the twilight arches.

Morose. Huh! Mr. Fnic Olaru and tonic Toni Marga proclaiming peace of mind. “Listen to me,” Marga had shouted in farewell, turning back from the top step of the Atheneum. “Once they’re said, lies take their revenge. They come true. They become reality, and that’s the ultimate truth.”

Reality is not the ultimate truth, Doctor, murmured the patient, now sitting on one of the benches opposite the Atheneum. The conjuncture called reality can be negated, and waiting is not necessarily a lie, or an illusion, nor is resistance or truth a lie, or— After a long time he tightened the thick collar of his coat. Again he was far away, in winter, a stranger in winter, stuck in a long, implausible winter.