An Ermine in Czernopol (20 page)

There was no reason to doubt the sincerity of the prefect's grief. They said that his wreath of white camellias covered the entire grave. He asked for Aunt Aida's photograph, which he placed in his apartment, where, years later, it continued to be decorated with the same tenderly glowing, romantic flowers on every anniversary of her death.

In fact it was unfathomable how the idea could have taken hold that Herr Tarangolian took double pleasure in the role of the prematurely bereaved bridegroom: first to conceal his relief at having escaped the marriage, and second because his sentimental attachment to the deceased provided a welcome barrier against all future endangerments to his long-established bachelorhood.

During Aunt Aida's illness he had developed the habit of showing up shortly after meals for some black coffee—in other words, at an extremely unconventional hour, which suggested more than a merely casual friendship. His heartfelt expression on those occasions and his compassionately muted voice when he asked our mother, without letting go of her hand: “Do you have any news?” and later, after Aunt Aida's death, when he continued to visit, his daily exclamation of “
Ma chère!
” uttered in deep sympathy with my mother over their shared grief, while the red carnation of the old playboy flamed in his lapel and faint tinges of green and ruby could be seen in his raven-black, freshly dyed mustache—all that caused us so much wicked pleasure that the tragic death of a near and beloved relative wound up being treated as a highly amusing anecdote.

Part of this was certainly due to the fact that Herr Tarangolian's natural temperament never allowed him to display such sympathetic concern for longer than a few fitting moments. No sooner had he had his first cup of mocha, which he sipped in silent and pensive dignity, then he began to relate whatever news he had to tell, in his incomparably lively manner, full of wit and insinuation that captivated and delighted his listeners, so that in the end he sat there, completely engaged in entertaining his circle as best he could, cozily leaning back in his chair, a cigar in his comfortably perched hand, legs crossed, outdoing himself with sparkling wit, while our mother and her older sister, Elvira, sat beside him, their own grief undiminished.

“You are listening to my stories with the kind of flattering attention, Ladies,” he said, with a malicious laugh, “usually reserved for indiscretions. Permit me to say that I expect this. As it happens, I am so bold as to hold my own views on the subject of discretion, and how much it is worth—or not worth.”

He took a nip of his chewy brandy, gently blew a thin trail of cigar smoke from under his large Levantine nose, and again showed his overly perfect teeth. “Most people consider me to be an incorrigible gossip. Well, they are right. But they should know I have good reason to do what I can to earn this reputation, since this allows me to take the wind out of the sails of the other gossips in our city. Where nothing stays secret anyway, where rumors are entrusted to unbridled imagination, to suppressed hopes and desires, to scarcely concealed calculated lies and, finally, to a deeply ingrained craving for jokes and witty anecdotes, where—as I may safely say among friends—the press prints more and dumber lies than all the other liars put together, there has to be, ladies and gentlemen, a different source of information, one that circulates nothing but the pure facts, nothing but the unadulterated sequence of events. As you can imagine, in my position I hear practically everything there is to hear, reported to me from the most varied sides and the most diverse points of view. I know who stands to gain by presenting something in this light or that—in my position one gains a certain overview, a certain instinct for associations. I know what to add in each case and what to take away. In a word, what you learn from me is the purest, so to speak the scientifically sterilized, pasteurized news. And because objective presentations are always a little dryer than biased ones, I enhance my report with the piquancy of a confidential communication. I am indiscreet, my dear ladies, in the service of truth.”

He gave us children a quick glance, screwing up his eyes in a comic way, as if his jokes were part of some conspiracy with us, then, raising one of his black, artist's eyebrows into a diabolical arch, he turned back to the grown-ups: “But in no way does that mean I wouldn't at any moment fiercely deny having said a single word of anything you might claim to have heard from me. Just in case anyone should have the unfortunate thought of citing me as a source. But I have nothing against spreading stories without using my name. I am a servant of truth, but I prefer to be an invisible servant. For you as well. And now you will have to excuse me, but I must leave … Nothing is dearer to a poor and increasingly lonely man such as myself than these hours with your family, surrounded by such good, close friends, showered with such kindness. But—
hélas—
my burdensome everyday duties are calling once again.”

He finished his brandy, stood up, took our mother's hand, looked deeply into her eyes, and said in a voice only she could hear: “
Soyons forts, ma chère!
” And with that he guided her hand quickly and fervently to his lips, turned on his heels as if overcome by painful memories, and left the room with a sad wave, his head somewhat obscured.

Most of us had a hard time restraining ourselves from bursting out in laughter—of the kind that quickly escalates into full-fledged fits capable of bringing relief to the tension that always lurks in nerve-ridden families. Once, I recall, we managed to avoid a catastrophe at the last possible second when a visiting teenage cousin pinned an enormously long mourning band onto the prefect's straw hat. Luckily the tasteless prank was discovered before it could do any harm. Otherwise Herr Tarangolian never would have entered our house again—and he would have been right not to.

But we will never know how much snickering, presumably hidden behind his back, how many quick winks and suppressed laughs and evident breaches of tact the prefect intentionally overlooked, for instance Uncle Sergei's very indelicate habit, when our aunt was still alive, of warbling “Celeste Aida” each time he saw Herr Tarangolian, as if by chance—and off-key on top of that by whole quarter- and eighth-tones. Such gross disregard or crude violation of taste, directed against an entirely natural sensitivity, as well as against certain pardonable weaknesses—which would have been bitterly taken amiss if directed the other way around—was probably what prompted our family friend to be so sharply critical of us, as we later found out. In any event, these infractions from our side were far more worthy of blame than what we, in our arrogance, referred to as the prefect's “unreliable traits.” Only our mother was spared his merciless judgment: he called her “one of the most lovable women” he had ever met, a woman “of the most tender sensibilities and equally rare stupidity.”

It was Uncle Sergei who took the most interest in Tildy's case, and who persuaded Herr Tarangolian to provide us with a detailed report—or at least a more detailed report than the prefect would have provided anyway “in the service of truth”—and to keep us well informed as to any developments.

Naturally the incident at Colonel Turturiuk's and the events that followed immediately became the biggest sensation in town, and the mere possibility that a duel with real weapons might be held in Czernopol was a subject that could not be talked about enough. Uncle Sergei, as a former member of the imperial Russian
garde à cheval
, was regarded as an expert on the subject, and over the course of things came close to offering to face Tildy himself, “to give the gentleman opportunity to wash his honor clean, in the only possible manner—
nu vot, voilà
!”

“Ha!” he called out with all the ebullience of his Russian soul, which was ready to burst, overwrought with passion and underfinanced by his measly allowance—and smiled as if he were parodying himself with every word. “This is conspiracy! They are wanting to destroy this man! Murderers,
da
, dogs—but not officers! What is left for him to do if no one will shoot with him? He will need shoot himself—
nu vot
!” Uncle Sergei was beaming in the full glory of his charm. “I am telling you, is same case exactly as my fellow officer Vinogradov—he was also Nikolai: Nikolai Pavlovich Vinogradov. Nikolai Pavlovich became tangled in some affair—while playing cards—and a certain somebody says to him—as joke—after drinking, you understand—well, so this certain somebody says to him: Nikolai Pavlovich, are you sure there is nothing funny going on here?—or whatever people are saying when they are cross because they lose—he was of course a frontline officer with no manners, this certain somebody—I was always telling Nikolai Pavlovich: If you lie down with dogs you wake up with fleas—
voilà
! So, in short, Nikolai Pavlovich breaks off the game, just like that, does not touch his winnings, not one kopeck, arranges to meet the other one the next morning at seven o'clock sharp at such and such place, then he goes home and goes to sleep. They wake him up at six o'clock exactly, he eats a little bit, takes his coach, and at five minutes before seven is ready and waiting—but who is not there? The certain somebody. Nikolai Pavlovich waits one half hour, one whole hour, two, three hours—who does not come? The certain somebody.
Nu vot.
They search all over Petersburg to find him, but who has gone and disappeared? He has. So Nikolai Pavlovich goes to his best friend and says: You must shoot with me, there is no other way. This certain best friend comes up with one excuse after the other, he has just become engaged, he is afraid of his father-in-law, one doesn't simply come and ask a man to duel like that, and so forth, he has obligations—all what people say in such a situation—in short, what do you expect? Nikolai Pavlovich, he takes his pistol and shoots this certain best friend dead, and then he shoots himself.
Voilà.
” Uncle Sergei looked around the room, in a good mood, as if expecting applause for the delightfully simple and obvious way in which everything had been settled. “Fate had it that I was not in Petersburg at the time. I would have said to him: Nikolai Pavlovich, I understand your situation—of course! If you lie down with dogs you wake up with fleas—but of course! As I have said: I was unfortunately not in Petersburg. Otherwise, of course, naturally! Because what else is there for him to do,
je vous en prie
? A certain somebody offends your honor, you want satisfaction, and he—the swine—invents excuses—
nu vot
! I say if you lie down with dogs you wake up with fleas. There is nothing for him to do except shoot bullet into his own head. Nothing.” He held up the palm of his hand as if presenting evidence, as if he wanted to say: Make up your own minds, you will come to the exact same conclusion, it is the only possibility. “Because what is he supposed to do if no one takes the challenge? Perhaps he should say it was nothing at all that happened—
c'était une blague
, should he say that? Then show up at the casino, or at the racetrack in the afternoon, or in the evening for
Aida
at the opera, and so on,
et ce n'était rien qu'une blague
! Ridiculous! An impossible situation. Read Lermontov. A completely impossible situation.”

What had happened was absolutely predictable: both of the seconds whom Tildy had sent to challenge Năstase to a duel—with army pistols at fifteen paces—came back and reported, with a serious expression, but not without a hint of malicious pleasure, that Năstase had politely but resolutely declined to accept Tildy's challenge.

His words had been more or less as follows: “Gentlemen, please convey my thanks to Major Tildy. I am honored by his request—if that is the correct expression for such a case, though I can't really say since I have no experience in this area. I am a writer, and hence I cannot—in fact, I am not allowed to—claim that I am a gentleman. Major Tildy will presumably have the kindness to realize that I have not the slightest practice with weaponry of any kind, whether lances, sabers, pistols, rifles, machine guns, clubs, or spiked maces, or whatever else military men and gentlemen prefer to use to settle their differences of opinion. You may further advise the major that in this matter it would be difficult—by any means at all—to dispose of our difference in opinion, unless he were to dispose of himself. He feels obliged to defend the honor of his beautiful sister-in-law, but his conviction is completely at odds with the otherwise unanimous opinion that she neither possesses such honor nor would ever aspire to possess it. To the great enjoyment of all of us, as you, dear sirs, will no doubt agree. Please have the kindness to further convey to the major that I must regrettably retract my previous regrets concerning his own wife's seclusion. I have since had occasion to see her. She was in the process of using an umbrella to attack the rolling shades at the apothecary in the Wassergasse, where I had gone with a few friends to a familiar place for a morning drink. Instead of a hat she was wearing what I took to be a hot-water bottle in a crocheted cover. Her nose is very ugly. The major need have no worries concerning our curiosity to uncover a certain familial resemblance to her sister. If the major should now have the idea of taking his riding whip to me, as is the custom among gentlemen, please inform him that I would not hesitate to hire a few powerful men who would return the favor with a bullwhip. And last but not least, gentlemen, please convey my compliments to Major Tildy for his understanding and steadfastness of character. It's well known that his compatriots, the Germans, have to call an assembly in order to understand a joke. He, however, abandoned the attempt from the start. That compels a certain respect from me. Apart from that, I have nothing to offer you except for a little plum brandy, which I presume you will have to politely decline, first because it would not fit the code and second because you probably realize that I want to drink it all myself.”