The Madonna on the Moon (24 page)

I was still cold. Since reading Angela’s diary with Buba, I couldn’t get warm. I took pillows and wool blankets and sought out the warmest place in the house, the
bench next to the tiled stove in the tavern. Here I could hold out against the cold. My mother took good care of me. She fried blood sausage with polenta, brewed peppermint tea double sweetened
with honey, and stroked my hair, which she hadn’t done for years, since I always reacted so crossly. I lay awake with my eyes open and listlessly watched Grandfather Ilja half dozing behind
the counter of the store. A daily calendar hung above his head and proclaimed Wednesday, November 20, 1957. Only fourteen days had gone by since Granddad’s fifty-fifth birthday, but he had
aged in those two weeks.

Dimitru stomped in at twilight. He’d come back down to earth. When he called out, “A customer, barkeep, with a full heart and empty pockets,” Grandfather’s eyes opened
and his gray face took on some color.

“Sit down,” he told Dimitru. “Nothing’s happened around here for days. I could just as well close the joint.”

“And let your Gypsy friend shiver his behind off out there in the frost? What kind of friend is that?”

Ilja gave a pained laugh. “
Zuika
or Sylvaner?”

“The honor of my people forces me to say—both.” Granddad took out two glasses and placed the wine and the schnapps on the table. Dimitru didn’t touch the glasses.

“First you order and then you don’t drink. What’s the matter?”

“I mustn’t drink alone anymore. Ilja, you’ve got to keep me company and have a little glass, too,” urged Dimitru, although he knew very well that Grandfather
couldn’t drink any alcohol since his childhood fall into the vat of mash.

“Why mustn’t you drink alone? It’s not against the law. You usually booze alone.”

“That’s just it. But no more. I can’t drink alone if I want to toast our dear departed Papa Baptiste. To have him in our midst, there has to be two of us. At least. Otherwise
it won’t work.”

“Well, if that’s the way it is, I can’t leave you in the lurch.”

I saw how Grandfather could hardly keep himself from bursting out laughing. Even though Dr. Bogdan from Apoldasch had warned him of the effects of even the smallest amount of spirits, to which
his delicate constitution was likely to react with the shakes and memory loss, Grandfather took a glass of Sylvaner and drank. “To our Father Johannes.”

“What’s wrong with your Pavel, anyway? Is he sick?” When Dimitru spied me on the stove bench beneath my down pillows, I closed my eyes and made a couple of snoring noises.
That’s how I overheard the conversation of two men as earnest as they were peculiar.

Grandfather must have experienced the speedy effects of the unaccustomed glass of wine as beneficial. His weariness fell from him. His tongue was loosened, and he felt light enough to share the
weight of his worries with Dimitru.

“Dimitru, you know I’ve always dealt fairly with everyone as a shopkeeper and tavern owner. But I just don’t know anymore who I can trust in the village and who I
can’t.”

The Gypsy didn’t reply, which I took as a sign he was ready to listen.

“Nasty rumors are making the rounds, rumors that worry me. I find myself unable to tell the difference between truth and falsehood. When Pater Johannes was murdered, people in the village
thought at first that the Communists and possibly even the Brancusis had blood on their hands. Those brothers are hot-blooded comrades for sure, but such a horrible crime against Pater
Johannes—no, no Brancusi could do such a thing. The police have witnesses who confirm that: the brothers weren’t even in the village the night of the murder. They were in Apoldasch
taking a class for party cadres. Then there’s this strange business about the body disappearing. No one still has any idea what became of our dead pastor. The Saxons are whispering that the
Security Service is guilty of the murder. The Securitate is supposed to have silenced Baptiste forever because he was going to preach against the kolkhoz. Now there’s a completely different
story. The rumor is going around that Baptiste’s murder is connected to the teacher Barbulescu. Kora Konstantin claims to have seen Barbulescu sneak into the rectory before she disappeared, a
few days before Pater Johannes’s murder. I don’t know whether to believe that blabbermouth Kora. But she swears that Barbulescu went to see the pastor in order to confess mortal sins
that she’s been piling up since the very beginning of her dissolute life. That Konstantin woman is spreading it around that Barbu’s vices are so enormous that Johannes Baptiste was not
able to grant her the sacrament of absolution, since the measure of her sins exceeded his authority to forgive.”

I flushed under my pillows; I was all ears. Dimitru said, “Tell me more.”

“If what Kora is telling everyone is true, then this is how it went: Pater Johannes listened to Barbulescu’s confession but then refused her absolution. And now Kora’s claiming
that a confession without absolution is invalid, and Baptiste was no longer bound to keep it confidential. You know as well as me, Dimitru, that Pater Johannes never betrayed anyone’s
confidence. No one had to fear that he would ever say even one word about it.”

“He’d have cut out his own tongue first!”

“But did Barbulescu know that, too? Anyway, Kora claims she knows that Johannes asked Barbu to leave Baia Luna. She says it’s not proper for a slutty person like her to be teaching
children. And now both the Konstantin woman and Knaup the sacristan claim that Barbulescu had something to do with the murder of Johannes Baptiste. What exactly it is, they won’t say. But
Kora’s trumpeting that it won’t be long before they do.”

Since Dimitru said nothing, I opened my eyes a crack and saw him running his hand through his tangled hair. He took a swallow of
zuika,
shook himself, spit, and pushed the glass away.
“When not even your schnapps tastes good anymore, Ilja, then believe me, things are at a serious pass. Especially when people start listening to madmen.”

Grandfather nodded in agreement. “Then you don’t believe what Kora Konstantin says either?”

“My dear friend Ilja, I’m just verificizing. First of all: Papa Baptiste never sent a repentant soul packing without absolution. Never. Secondly: women always act on pure emotion
in principio
. They can hate, oh boy can they ever! Just as they can love, and I speak from experience. But a hating woman would never tie a naked old man to a chair, turn a whole room
upside down so it looks like a Gypsy’s house, and then cut his throat. And thirdly: what does this Konstantin woman say? What sins did Barbu supposedly commit, for heaven’s
sake?”

“Matricide and killing the fruit of her womb.”

Dimitru was silent. My blood was boiling.

“There is one strange thing,” Dimitru said slowly. “It’s true that Barbulescu was in the rectory. It was on your birthday, when we were sitting in this very room
listening to Khrushchev’s Sputnik speech. According to my modest fund of information, she didn’t want to confess to Papa Baptiste but only to borrow the key to the library.”

“The key to the library? From the pastor? But everybody in the village knows that you have the key to the books. Why would she bother old Johannes for it? Why didn’t she come to you?
She lives right near you.”

Dimitru didn’t respond immediately. “Maybe I should ask myself the same question sometime. But I know one thing
sine dubio
. Whatever Miss Barbulescu has on her conscience,
it’s absolutely not our good Papa Baptiste.”

The stairs creaked. I recognized the heavy tread of Aunt Antonia. She greeted the two men, and I heard her go to the shelf where the chocolate was kept. She bid them good night, and the stairs
groaned again.

“There’s one more thing that’s been knocking around in my head,” Grandfather resumed after this interruption. “Dimitru, do you think Baptiste was telling the truth
about the Project of this Korolev guy? Do you really think it’s possible the cosmonauts would go flying into space and then tell Khrushchev if they’ve seen God and Mary?”

“Ilja, my friend! To prevent that very thing is why I’m sitting here! We have to do something. By the breasts of the Blessed Virgin, the Project must be sabotaged as truly as
I’m a Gypsy. We’re going to throw a regular monkey wrench into Korolev’s works. I . . . just don’t know how yet.”

“I tell you, if anybody can stop Korolev it’s the Americans.”

“But the Yanks are blind. They don’t realize what the Soviets are cooking up. And not a voice to warn them. And Korolev is rubbing his hands with glee. America fell for his Sputnik
trick and is boiling mad about that stupid beeping. Meanwhile time is running out. I would guess Korolev and Khrushchev are just counting the days until the real countdown begins.”

“The real what?”

“It’s the period between a point in time
x
and the rocket launch,” Dimitru explained. “When the cosmonauts have overcome gravity and are on the moon, the order
will reach them, ‘Fan out and find Mary!’”

“And if they don’t find the Madonna, they’ll announce to the world that there’s no God . . .”

“And you know what that means?”

I heard Grandfather refilling two glasses before he answered, “Not exactly.”

“I’ll tell you: if there’s no God, it means the United States of America is done for.
Exitus
. Up to now the Yanks were always superior to the Soviets in everything.
Higher buildings, bigger cars . . .”

“Bigger statues of the Madonna and better cigars,” Grandfather added.

“Exactly. Everything in America is better. But without God, it’ll be all over. Then the Americans will have to pulp all their money. Without God, all those lovely dollars are
worthless.
In God we trust!
That’s English, and it’s written on every American bill, on account of the parable of Jesus about the master and his servants and the talents. If
you have a talent, make it two. If you have a lot of money, make even more. That’s what an American does. Like in the Bible. I know about it from my cousin Salman. He once tried his hand at
currency trading. But if there’s no God, then you can’t trust in him, much less in a currency that puts its trust in something that doesn’t exist. Without God, America might as
well burn its dollars. Then comes the ruble.”

“I understand,” said Ilja. “That’s why the Americans have to act fast. Faster than the Russians. Another shot?”

“I’ll never say no!”

“Someone should warn the president of the United States. But how?”

“
Sic est
. But it’s still too early for an intervention. First we need to know if Mary really went up to heaven. Otherwise we’ll make a laughingstock of ourselves. Why
do you think I study so much? I’m testing if it’s possible that the infallible papal magisterium is fallible. If it turns out that Pius in Rome made an
error fatal
in his dogma
or, worse, knowingly misled the faithful, then we can close up shop. There’ll be nothing left of Jesus’s Mother but dust and bones, scattered about somewhere in the Holy Land.
There’ll be nothing left but to verificize: forget the Assumption! That’s how I see it.”

“That must be how it is,” Grandfather confirmed. “Exactly how I see it, too.”

He refilled their glasses and stood up. The cash-register drawer squealed. Besides drinking, Grandfather was obviously breaking another habitual rule. He took out the new box of cigars I’d
given him for his fifty-fifth birthday.

“Here, Dimitru. Have one. Nothing beats a good Cuban.”

Matches scratched and flared. The powerful aroma of tobacco permeated the still air. Then Dimitru said something long overdue, ever since the day when he lent my grandfather his hand to write
“Borislav Ilja Botev” on the list of names demanded by Raducanu.

“Your Cubans are classy, Ilja. The Bulgarians understand a thing or two about rolling cigars. But why they write the letters backward in their Cyrillic scribble isn’t clear to me. No
one who knows Latin can make heads or tails of it. By the way, it’s time you finally learned your letters.”

“I know, Dimitru, I know. High time.”

“Starting tomorrow you’re going to have lessons, taught by yours truly. An hour per day. As a restaurateur you can afford the innocence of ignorance but not as my ally on this most
tricky mission. How are you going to stand up to that sly fox Korolev if you can’t even write your name on a piece of white paper?”

“And you won’t tell anyone?”

“What a question! I’m your best friend! I’m pledged to silence. Feel better now?”

Grandfather laughed. “Much better. But there’s something else . . .”

“Out with it!”

“Well, even if that box only works as a radio, believe me, Dimitru: your television was a wonderful present and makes me very happy. But sometimes I think the pleasure of owning such an
apparatus is too great. The present must have cost a fortune, and you Gypsies have nothing saved up for a rainy day. I think now that we’re not just friends but allies, you can tell me where
you got the money for the TV. Not that I think you organized the acquisition—how shall I put it?—outside the bounds of the law, but . . .”

“Good Gypsies don’t steal!”

I was sure Dimitru was about to jump up and curse and cancel the friendship. But things stayed calm. I opened my eyes and saw the Gypsy struggle to hide his emotion.

“Dimitru,” asked Granddad in a worried voice, “what’s the matter?”

“What a time you picked to remind me of my dead father Laszlo!”

“But Dimitru, the accident by the Tirnava was twenty years ago. Your father’s been dead a long time and I’ll never forget the way he tried to pull my Agneta and Antonia out of
the wagon. I’ll never forget how you jumped into the icy water with me either. But what in heaven’s name does the television have to do with Lazlo’s death?”

Dimitru was sobbing. “It was Father’s idea—I don’t mean the television, but the way we would earn some money. Like Americans: if you don’t have any money, go where
the money is. That’s how we came by all those little bottles.”