An Ermine in Czernopol (56 page)

So it was the essence of the face that made the mask, and not merely its surface. Any discussion about its expression was simply a sham. Everything that Lyubanarov had spoken was nonsense; he was drunk, and didn't himself believe in what he was saying. Of course there was no way to reach the core of the creature we love that does not pass through the creature. And she places herself between this core and us, and takes us prisoner. Whoever does not wish to suffer as a prisoner must love his prison. Love the forms that hold us captive, the forms that lead us to surrender … Tildy recoiled from the word. He was a hussar, and a hussar does not take surrender lightly. But he realized that he, too, had become ensnared in a game of words.
Love the forms that hold us captive—
that was an unambiguous statement, let's forego everything else. So, love the creature that conceals her own substance and core. Love the
creatures
—all the unstable forms that merely signify the unrelieved torment of the core from which they spring. Did he not even love her ugly, spoiled hands, her barbaric movements, the fuzzy hair on her forearms that bespoke a low origin? It wasn't that he forgave her faults and flaws because he loved her; it was precisely these faults and flaws that he loved, because
they revealed her to him
, they
gave her away.
He didn't love her
despite everything
, but simply because she was. He loved what she was and the way she was. Did he therefore also have to love what she called her “profession”? No, rather the manner in which she practiced it. He loved the courage with which she acknowledged it.

The simple fact that she spoke of it as
her profession
was beautiful, it elevated her above the despicable activity. And exactly what was so despicable about this profession? Any more than, say, that of the professional murderer—the soldier—so clearly marked by the garb known as his “dress of honor”? It was a question of perspective, of point of view. To be sure, he, Tildy, was still ready to exact blood for the slightest sign of contempt for his profession, and he hoped, in fact he was certain, that he was prepared to stand up for hers as well. He now realized that his attempt to deprive her of the decision whether to follow the other man or not was foolish and less than chivalrous, and he believed he would have had less respect for her, seen her as less than equal, had she stayed when he wanted to force her to do so. It was her
profession
to follow men, and thus also her
duty
to do so. Her
honor
forbade her to stay. The ferocity with which she had retracted her arm from his grip when he wanted to hold her, matched what he would have done had she attempted to keep him from performing the
duty
that his
honor
commanded. He loved her for this toughness. She was his equal.

When she returned he stood up, as was his custom before a lady. She didn't understand, and gave him a frightened, hostile look, but once she realized he had risen out of respect, she sat down, placed her hands in her lap, assumed the same lost expression she had shown in front of the extravagant waste of the plate full of shredded orange peels, and said: “Forgive me. I won't do it again.”

Professor Lyubanarov raised his head and uttered a malicious, soundless laugh, as if he hadn't slept a moment and had followed every vicious and moving detail of the grotesque proceedings, while discerning all of Tildy's reflections. “
Docta, quid ad magicas, Erato, deverteris artes?
” he said, full of scorn. “What for? Don't they believe you otherwise?”

“Whatever you do,” Tildy said to the girl, “won't change anything between us. Don't be afraid.”

“I know,” she said. “We understand each other
po dusham—
through our souls.”

Professor Lyubanarov grabbed the bottle of cognac and hurled it at the mirror above the counter. The glass shattered. The proprietor came to the table, spewing curses at Lyubanarov. Tildy curtly told him to bring a new bottle. The proprietor sized him up with an impudent glare. “Will you pay me for the mirror?”

“Bring the bottle,” said Tildy.

“We will be rich!” said the girl. “We will be happy. I love you.”

“I love you,” said Tildy. “Don't be afraid.”

She shook her head. “If you love me I'm not afraid of anything.” She offered him her hand. Tildy took it, clasped it, and held it in his own.

“I saw a fur coat,” said the girl. “I wanted to buy it, but it's very expensive. Do you want to give it to me?”

“I will give you everything I have, and do everything in my power to give you what you desire.”

“We will be rich,” said the girl, happy.

“We will not be rich. But that doesn't matter. Don't be afraid.”

“You are noble,” she said, smiling, “and therefore you are rich.”

The proprietor came with a fresh bottle, followed by the waiter. “First pay the bill,” he said. “I'm not bringing you anything until you've paid for the mirror and everything you've eaten and drunk.”

“Where is the bill?” asked Tildy.

“In my head,” said the proprietor. “Do you know what that mirror cost? And two bottles of French cognac? And a basket of oranges, at this time of year? You owe me”— and he named a fantastical sum.

“I don't have that much money on me,” said Tildy. “I'll give it to you tomorrow.”

“He'll give it to me tomorrow,” the proprietor said to the waiter. “Do you hear that, Aurel? He doesn't have that much on him. You don't have a penny, sir, either on your person or anywhere else where you might fetch it to bring me tomorrow. You are that major who was booted from the cavalry regiment, and evicted from your own house. Your creditors are combing the town for you. You are well known here, sir. There are people in this Établissement who know everything about you. You act like some kind of boyar, and meanwhile you don't have a penny to your name, just a sack full of debts.”

Tildy took his signet ring off his finger. “Take this ring as a deposit.”

“He's a good one, isn't he, Aurel!” the proprietor turned to the waiter. “Making deals like his father-in-law, that old crook who bankrupted half the city. Look at what he wants to give us on account. You call this a ring? It's so worn down you can practically see through it. You can find a stone like that in any brook. Is this a joke, sir?”

“What do you demand of me?” asked Tildy.

“What do we demand of him—just listen to that, Aurel! We demand that you pay your bill. No more and no less. And now get on with it if you please.”

The sergeant stepped up and shoved his broad, smirking face between the waiter and the proprietor. “If I pay your tab,
Herr Major
, may I take your lady upstairs once again?”

Tildy leapt to his feet.

“Watch yourself!” the proprietor shouted, brandishing the bottle like a club. “If you make one move we'll turn you into a cripple. There are three of us right here and even more nearby, do you hear? And every single person in my Établissement would relish the opportunity to beat your skull in. So, on top of everything else he wants to start a fight!”

“Let him, Mihai,” said the sergeant. “Let him try. I'm enough of a match for him. By far!”

The girl, Mititika, stood up. “Come,” she said to the sergeant. Up to then the sergeant had been hunched forward, with his arms dangling like an orangutan; now he straightened up triumphantly. “Good!” he said. They went off.

“I will give you half an hour,” the proprietor said to Tildy, “to decide what to do.”

“Give me something to drink!” roared Professor Lyubanarov. “Something to drink, you dogs!”

“Shut your drunken mouth,” the proprietor yelled. “Aurel, show him the door.”

With remarkable agility and strength the waiter grabbed the enormous man by the collar, pulled him to his feet, and shoved him, staggering, out the door.

“You see, we don't let anyone play jokes on us,” the proprietor said to Tildy. “So …”

Tildy reached in his pocket and gripped the pistol. “Put down that bottle of cognac,” he said. “And open it.”

The proprietor lost his composure. “I'm warning you, sir,” he said. “We don't let people jest with us.”

“I said—put down the bottle and open it. And give me back my ring.”

“Fine,” said the other. “As you wish. The police will be here in half an hour. As you wish.”

The door of the Établissement flew open with a crash and Professor Lyubanarov tumbled in. “Give me a drink!” he bellowed, tossing a handful of coins and banknotes into the room. “Here you have it, the bread of my children—but give me something to drink!” He stumbled over to the proprietor. “What's got into you, you cesspool? All of a sudden you're afraid. Of me! You're afraid of me! But I don't intend to do anything to you, little one. I never lay a hand on the pupils.
Quem taurum metuis, vitulum mulcere solebas—
there's no need to be afraid.” He brushed him aside with a swipe of his hand, stepped toward Tildy, and collapsed massively on the chair next to the major. “I'm drinking away the bread of my children, you hear, the bread of your little hungry nieces. Despise me for that, spit in my face, I can see from your cold expression that I'm too low even for that, too inconsequential … But I, too, even I, once lived in a glorious city—a city beautiful and orderly as you wish to see erected around you—and it came to an end just like yours, her glorious inhabitants rotted and dead, sintered corpses with gaping mouths stuffed with ashes, nothing left but a few mucky bits of wall—and on it goes, the swarm of base peoples, the rich fall to ruin, temples crumble to dust, while the mongrel race endures, building their filthy huts from the wrecked marble columns of the sun gods, and whoring on the graves of the poets whose mouths were blessed by the sun … And we realize that we, too, belong to the mongrels, and yet we dare to emulate the children of the sun, appropriating their gestures as if they could become our own, presuming upon what they designed; if they were not mute shadows in the realm of Orcus, the world would shatter from the laughter we elicit from them. But I can hear it, you know, I hear it when I am drunk, because their laughter causes the bell of my intoxication to reverberate as though someone were furiously ringing the clapper, crushing me into that which I truly am—a nothing, a worm, one of any million swarming maggots that have been feeding off the cold golden body of mankind's one-time glory for two thousand years, and have consumed it entirely down to a few measly remains. The same celestial bodies that stand above it stand over us, the same riddles of the world, the same eternal questions, the same torments, multiplied by one thing only: namely, by the fact that our mouths have not been loaned the honey of speech so that we might call them by names of our own invention. Apes learned to speak and jabber away in countless tongues. And behold: they love each other, they caress each other, they pick fleas from each other's behinds and bite them in two, they sling their arms around each other and hold each other tight, their eyes filled with the anguish of loneliness, the primal mother fear that sets them in a frenzy so that they bite each other when they couple. Because love is guilt, it promises salvation and then swindles us out of it—Eros the charlatan, the quack, the barker, the thief, the con artist—Eros laughs! Laughs at the apes! People say that in India, the apes even build cities—are you listening, brother?—the city you wish to envision around you, the apes will build for you in India, yes … That is a deep thought, understand what I'm saying, better than the manure from which it sprouted. In India they will erect your city—hahahahaha …”

Time crawled slimily to the verge of endurance. Finally it passed, and the girl returned. She sat down, her hands in her lap. “Our debt is paid,” she said.

“Come!” said Tildy, standing up and taking her by the hand. She followed him. Near the door that led upstairs she stopped and looked at him. He realized that she had misunderstood; he didn't want to go up to the rooms with her, he wanted to take her with him, out of this place. “Come!” he said once again and tried to lead her away.

“Where to?” she asked, hard—and he grasped exactly how she meant it: this time she had clearly understood him.

“I will take care of you. Don't be afraid,” he repeated.

“Do you have a house for tonight?”

“We will find one.”

She stood very close to him. “My father is a millionaire in America,” she said quickly and quietly. Then she burst out laughing. “How gullible can a man be? What a joke!”

Tildy saw her coarse, mean laugh and slapped her face.

She stood for a second as if blinded. “Kiss me, to take that away,” she said, and held her face up to him, with closed eyes and a smile woven with pain.

He drew her in and kissed her like a holy object.

“Come!” she said.

Professor Lyubanarov came staggering after them, nearly running them over at the door; he stumbled with them onto the street and tottered away in front of them. “
Nempe haec assidue iam clarum mane fenestras
,” he sang, “
intrat et augustas extendit lumine rimas
…”

The morning was dawning. On the street by the station Lyubanarov tapped with his cane to find the tram tracks. He poked it into one of the rail grooves and let himself be led uphill as if tethered to a pole. Tildy and the girl, Mititika Povarchuk, were no more than ten yards away from him.

By one of those inexplicable coincidences that we call fate, the driver of the streetcar whose brakes failed was the Widow Morar's eldest son, the one who worked for “the line.” He later maintained that he had recognized the vehicle's defect days earlier and reported the same, and had been assured that the malfunction would be corrected overnight in the streetcar shed. So on that morning he had climbed aboard his streetcar in good faith and during the level stretch of the route had had no occasion to learn that the repair had not been made and that the vehicle was still unfit for service. After he had rounded the loop at the Ringplatz and arrived at the incline where the Bahnhofstrasse ran into the Volodiak Valley, he reduced his speed, according to regulations. At first his brakes held, but the second time he applied them they failed entirely.