The Madonna on the Moon (44 page)

Grandfather and Dimitru were fidgeting. I took out a piece of paper. “Here, I wrote it down so I wouldn’t forget what von Braun said on the radio: ‘Above all, we must honor God
who created the entire universe. Day by day, in deep reverence, man continues to explore and tries to understand it with his science.’”

“The German really said that?”

“Guaranteed, although a few years back, he built fairly nasty rockets for the Hitlerists. He seems to have cleaned up his act. Maybe he has something to atone for?”

Dimitru moved his head to and fro. “Cleaned up his act, you think? Could be. But Germans are sly and never forget. Wörner von Braun still has an account to settle with the Bolsheviks
now that he’s been forced to resign from the Thousand-Year Reich. Wörner won’t forget that he was liberated and had to scrap his lovely rockets. I bet Wörner von Braun would
stop at nothing to keep the Soviets from raising their hammer-and-sickle banner on the moon just like they raised it on the Reichstag. That must still rankle.”

Grandfather’s commentary: “And that’s why the Americans know they won’t find anyone else in the whole world to build them better rockets than this von Brown
German.”

“Right. On the radio they also said that Kennedy had pressed a few billion dollars on von Braun to build a gigantic Saturn rocket that will overshadow all the rockets the Soviets have
managed to construct up to now.”

“I’ll draw the
conclusio,
” said Dimitru, reaching out his hand to Grandfather. “Congratulations, Ilja. America doesn’t need us anymore. We’ve carried
out our mission.”

“What a shame,” sighed Grandfather. “I wanted so much to go to Noueeyorka.”

“You may still, someday,” I comforted him. “But for now you can be sure you’re on the right side. America will win.”

From the kitchen I heard some patrons entering the tavern. “How come you’re closed? How about some service?” Liviu Brancusi’s voice reminded me that it was Saturday. The
three Brancusis, who had gotten jobs fattening hogs in the new Apoldasch agro-complex, were in the best of moods and wanted to celebrate the weekend, i.e., they wanted to drink. The Transmontanian
Workers’ Party, boasted the Brancusi spokesman, had signed up its millionth member just a few days ago.

As I brought a bottle of
zuika
to their table, Liviu sang, “Socialism wins the day, whatever the pope and the church may say.” Then he started trying to recruit me again. He
pointed out that as a member of the Kronauburg State Trade Organization, it wasn’t just my commercial but also my patriotic duty to declare my allegiance to the party of the people. If not as
an active member, then at least as an observer at the big Party Day on the market square in Kronauburg. I could pay my respects and show solidarity with the accomplishments of the comrades.

“I’ll think about it,” I said. “When’s the shindig getting under way?”

“Two weeks from today, on Saturday,” Liviu replied. “There’ll be thousands of people there. All you can eat and drink for free, courtesy of the party. Everyone who is
anyone will be there. Gonna be an unforgettable event. By the way, you can’t miss me in the crowd. Because of the exemplary way I met the quota, I was chosen to carry the banner of the AAC
Two in the procession.”

“The what?”

“The banner of the Apoldasch Agro-Industrial Complex Two.”

I promised to think it over, since I needed to make another trip to Kronauburg soon anyway to purchase more stock for the store. I could do that on a Friday afternoon. And that evening I could
personally see to it that the Party Day would be really unforgettable for the Kronauburg secretary Stephanescu.

S
upply and demand, that’s what sets the price.” I had to put up with the owner of the Pofta Buna instructing me about why he had summarily
tripled the fee for spending the night on his straw. I paid without complaint. I wasn’t the only one wanting to spend the night in Kronauburg before the big party spectacular. Two dozen
loaded wagons belonging to trade organization concessionaires were parked in front of the cheap inn. They’d all used Friday to buy their stock from the central warehouse so they could party
the next day at the expense and in honor of the party. I sat down with my fellow shopkeepers and ordered beer, bread, and
mititei
—spicy patties of grilled meat. I gathered from the
conversation that no one had any complaints about doing business in the cooperative. On the contrary, they had good things to say about the improvements in the supply chain as well as state price
supports. The only people in the country who were always groaning and complaining were the farmers. When I commented that the party wasn’t exactly using kid gloves to introduce
collectivization, all I got in reply was the stale old adage about breaking eggs to make an omelet. My question if anyone knew what had become of the former wholesalers the Hossu brothers was met
with shrugs and sullen scowls. One of the older concessionaires did allow that in times like these, you were well advised to keep some questions to yourself.

Early in the evening, I strolled over to the Kronauburg market square to reconnoiter the situation. I was struck by the pompous show of red bunting and gigantic national flags with which the
organizers had transformed the façades of the buildings into a setting for their propaganda. If you believed what the twenty-five-yard-long banners said, then our nation was the most
progressive, most peaceful, and most productive of all nations, perpetually poised for above-average achievements. The slogans were filled with awakening, buckling down to work, and constructing.
Solidarities were proclaimed, friendships between peoples invoked, alliances reconfirmed, revolutions promoted, and much gratitude expressed: the fatherland was thanked, fraternal Socialist states
were thanked, the proletarians of all nations were thanked, and so was the International against capitalism, imperialism, and fascism. But above all, the party thanked itself in the name of the
people.

Hosts of underlings were busily putting the finishing touches on the market square. Radio and TV personnel were setting up their broadcasting equipment. Marshals were running here and there.
Soldiers from the National Guard were lounging around in their fatigues, and on every corner was a civilian in a black leather jacket, scanning the crowd and speaking into a walkie-talkie. In front
of the Socialist People’s Market, carpenters were nailing the final boards onto the gigantic rostrum where the dignitaries would sit. I was pleased to discover that from the speaker’s
platform, one looked straight across to the police station and Hofmann’s photo studio. I had seen enough and uttered a quick prayer that the market square would empty out that night.

As I lay on my straw pallet in the Pofta Buna, time flowed as sluggishly as the glue I’d mixed up in Baia Luna and poured into a marmalade jar. Beside me some concessionaires were snoring,
and now and then a horse would snort. Otherwise, all was quiet. At some point the clock in the tower of Saint Paul’s Cathedral struck four short strokes and three long ones. Time for me to
get moving. Despite the warm night I put on my coat and crept under my wagon. The rolled-up photos were in a cardboard tube I had attached to the front axle. I hid the pictures under my coat and
put the jar of glue in one coat pocket. Out of the other peeked a half-full bottle of
zuika.
Just in case.

A quarter hour later I entered the market square behind the speaker’s platform. The streetlights were turned off. Some soldiers were standing near the entrance to the Golden Star Hotel.
Their laughter echoed dully across the square, and the bluish smoke from their cigarettes drifted in the light from a lantern. I listened, but except for the muted voices of the soldiers, nothing
could be heard. When I had crept silently over to the three plateglass windows of the photo studio, I could see the soldiers quite clearly in front of the hotel. Sometimes their gaze wandered
across the square, but I was sure I was invisible in the darkness of the night. I unrolled the photos, smeared glue onto their backs, and pasted one onto each of the three windows. The cathedral
clock struck three thirty. The soldiers had disappeared.

The sound of heavy boots on cobblestones echoed across the square without my being able to locate exactly where it was coming from. The steps came nearer. They were heading my way. I closed my
eyes and took a deep breath. An image flared up in my head: Buba, carrying a jug of water. She handed it to her uncle Dimi, who said, Your Pavel, my dear, can stand the world on its head.

I pulled out my schnapps bottle and quickly moved away from the window.

“Hey! You bitch!” I bellowed into the dark at the top of my lungs. “You filthy whore, you c’n, you c’n, you c’n kiss my ass. Thassit, you c’n jus’
kiss my ass, you cheap slu—”

Immediately, two flashlights sprang to life. I heard someone give the order, “Safeties off!” The metallic clatter of submachine guns rang through the night. Then the soldiers had me
in their sights.

“Halt!”

I ignored the command, held up the bottle of
zuika,
and staggered a few steps to the left and then to the right. “Fuck’n women, goddamn buncha whores,” I babbled to
myself. Then I came to an abrupt stop, rolled my eyes, and gaped at the soldiers. I gave a clumsy salute and held out the bottle to the boys in uniform. “Here’s t’ th’ sake
. . . sake . . . sacred fatherland. Fuck’n fascists! Long live Fidel! Viflah revoloosh’n. Havva drink, comrades!”

The commanding officer walked up and grabbed me by the collar. “Piss off. This is a restricted area,” he snarled at me and grabbed away my bottle. “Beat it!” I staggered
off slowly. “Another drunken idiot,” I heard one of them say. I slipped onto a side street and ran.

It was just starting to get light as I hitched up the horse, and the sleepy patron of the Pofta Buna came out. “Where are you off to so early? I thought you were going to fill your belly
at the party’s expense.”

“I’m all set.” I swung up onto the wagon box.

“Wait! I need your signature. Every overnight guest has to confirm his arrival and departure. It’s a new law.”

“I wasn’t here last night, understand? I wasn’t here. I ate here yesterday and then drove right back into the mountains. Got it?”

“No,” he said, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes, “not when you’re right here in front of me.”

I bet on the power of a threat. “If you tell anyone at all that I was in Kronauburg last night, I’ll set the Securitate on you. You can imagine what they do with capitalist price
gougers who rent out straw pallets at triple the price. Remember the Hossus.”

Immediately the guy offered to refund the whole price of an overnight.

“Keep the money!”

“Thanks. I don’t know you. Beat it.”

I gave the horse the whip and was back in Baia Luna before noon on Saturday.

I stayed by the radio all afternoon, from which issued one report after another about the grand success of the party rally in Kronauburg. About four o’clock they announced the imminent
speech by President Gheorghiu-Dej, who had flown in from the capital especially for the occasion, to be preceded by an official welcome for the head of state delivered by the first secretary of the
regional party, Dr. Stephanescu.

I had lost. The Kronauburg party boss had not been overthrown. Instead, the usual big words boomed from the radio. I had overestimated the power of the pictures and my own power, too.

On Monday morning I asked my mother to look after the shop for me and walked to Apoldasch where you could buy the
Kronauburg Courier.
Spread across three double pages were reports of
the spectacular weekend rally. Nothing but paeans for the party. Many photos showed the aged president Gheorghiu-Dej. And Stephanescu: laughing, patting flag-wavers on the shoulder, shaking hands,
holding babies. Stefan Stephanescu obviously was more firmly in the saddle than ever before. Then I did a double take. Under the last article was the notice “All photographs: Irina
Raducanu.” It wasn’t the fact that Irina Lupescu had married her fiancé Raducanu, major in the Securitate, that surprised me. What troubled me was that it didn’t say
“All photographs: Heinrich Hofmann.” A week later I had a good idea why.

A
young man showed up in Baia Luna asking after a talkative Gypsy and an elderly gentleman with his grandson, about twenty years old. They sent him to
our shop, and I recognized him immediately. It was Matei, the nephew of the antiques dealer Gheorghe Gherghel.

“Man, what are you doing here?”

“I came to warn you,” said Matei. “Scary things are happening in Kronauburg these days, things I don’t understand. Last night they arrested my uncle for illegal business
deals and support of the counterrevolution. What a load of crap! Politics is the last thing my uncle cares about.”

“Who arrested him?” I was chewing my lips nervously.

“Cartarescu, the police chief of Kronauburg. And another guy from the State Security, a slimy guy who smiles all the time. Name of Raducanu.”

“And what did they want from you? Why did you come here?”

“They interrogated Uncle Gheorghe for hours. Raducanu kept asking him who had bought the photo-lab equipment. He wasn’t interested in the telescope and the camera, just the darkroom
stuff. Cartarescu said you had to register darkroom equipment to prevent unauthorized pictures of potential danger to the state from getting into circulation.”

I was really rattled. “Wha-what kind of photos do they mean?”

“No idea. That smiler was going on about the Cold War and plots by Western secret services paid by the USA to weaken Socialism and the party. Apparently some politcadres are being
blackmailed with photos showing them in—let’s say very delicate situations. That’s why Raducanu’s putting all his effort into finding everyone who has a darkroom. But that
seems like just a pretext to me. How would you guys way up here in the mountains have a chance to photograph officials in compromising situations? It’s laughable. But they’re after you
all the same.”

“Did you tell them anything about us?”