The Madonna on the Moon (25 page)

“I remember. You’d bought bottles in Kronauburg, a whole lot of bottles.”

“Not just bottles,
little
bottles,” the Gypsy specified, “tiny brown glass bottles with even tinier corks, brown for light protection, if you see what I
mean.”

“I don’t see anything!”

“All right, all right. If you insist, I’ll explain the whole thing to you.” Dimitru downed his
zuika
and started his story. “The Gypsies’ fate—lack
of money—had inspired my father to more and more elaborate methods of obtaining cash. One fine summer day in 1935, shortly after the tribe’s arrival in Baia Luna, Laszlo was lying on
his back in a pasture on the edge of the village. Not idly, as one might assume: he was studying the farmers’ cows and thinking about how you could make money out of other people’s
cattle without anyone suffering a loss. Not like the idiot
gaje
rustlers who steal horses and cattle all over the place and get caught red-handed at the next cattle market. Laszlo Carolea
Gabor had a much better idea: milk! Before the farmers’ children drove the cows into the barns every evening to be milked, you’d only need to secretly draw off a little milk. Not
much—just a shot glass’s worth at the most.”

Dimitru pointed to his empty glass. Ilja uncorked another bottle and remarked that a few drops of milk would never make a man rich.

“Exactamente!”
That was precisely why Dimitru’s father had the idea of a clandestine premilking into tiny bottles. That’s why they’d borrowed some
investment capital from relatives in Walachia and purchased five hundred bottles from the Kronauburg pharmacy.

“But the business with the milk never bore fruit, since my good father lost his life in that blizzard. I waited for three times seven years of mourning and then came the hour when the son
was able to put his father’s brilliant idea into action. That hour arrived last summer. And now? Has anyone in the village complained about not getting enough milk from their cows?”

“Not that I know of.”

“You see!”

For weeks, Dimitru confessed, he had been secretly crawling on his belly through the pastures, relieving the village cows of a little milk before they went into the barns, then, following the
law of
principio duplex,
he’d doubled his take with water from the Tirnava. Then he’d bottled it in the little brown medicine bottles, corked them, and sealed them with the wax
of a red votive candle from the parish church. “And then the reliquaries were ready! The best I ever had.”

“What reliquaries?” It wasn’t only Grandfather who didn’t understand where the Gypsy was heading with this story. Neither did I.

“Milk from the breasts that once nursed Baby Jesus.”

“You’re crazy!”

“Not at all,” objected Dimitru, and explained that a few drops of milk from the Holy Virgin Mary were a highly prized devotional object that the Crusaders had once brought back from
the Holy Land as a souvenir and excellent protection against the devil’s animosity. Which of course had its price, especially since the milk that nourished the Son of God was much more
effective than a splinter of the true cross or a thorn from the crown Jesus wore for his Crucifixion. This piece of wisdom had unfortunately been forgotten by Catholics during the long years of
Enlightenment, but not by the Orthodox.

“But you’re a swindler! You’re not selling people the Madonna’s milk, you’re selling cow’s milk and water!”

“Hang on, hang on! When you receive the host in church, what are you eating?”

“The Body of Christ,” answered Grandfather without hesitation.

“Correct. Only heathens, Bolsheviks, and people who don’t know what they’re talking about would claim all you are eating is a stale piece of bread. Faith transforms things.
Water and flour just the same as water and milk.”

“But bread was sacred to the Lord,” Granddad objected. “Jesus passed around bread at the Last Supper. And wine, of course. He changed them into his flesh and blood. But
there’s nothing in there about milk. You’re swindling the Orthodox.”

“I protest! I’m no crook! According to the laws of negative dialectics, a swindler who swindles other swindlers is no grifter; he’s a champion of justice. Look here:
who’s going to believe a Gypsy? Nobody! But the Orthodox will believe anything a priest in gilded robes says. Every word. If a Black sets up on the market square and starts hawking bottles of
Madonna’s milk, people will just laugh at him—if he’s lucky. If he’s unlucky, stones will start flying. That’s why my father already knew that you only make money with
the people who want to make money themselves, with the greedy. So last summer I loaded up my cart with bottles and set off for Moldavia. Let me tell you, it was just one monastery after another. On
the way, thousands of Orthodox were streaming into the monastery of Humor. I came right on the heels of the pilgrims with my wares. At first the head pope didn’t want to receive me. So I sent
him a message that the Gypsies wanted to donate a new watertight roof for the basilica and money for the restoration of the frescoes of the Last Judgment, and I got an audience. I offered him
fifty-fifty if he hawked my bottles.”

“And was he in?” asked Grandfather.

“Was he ever! The milk was sold out in two hours. People almost came to blows over it. The ones who got a bottle were happy as angels. The pope even served me a meal, the best of
everything, and he opened a fine bottle of red wine and said if I come next summer and bring more reliquaries, he’d be honored to have me as his guest. Believe me, with that money the priest
could have put three roofs on his church. And I was able to pay back my relatives with double interest, and I gave my cousin Salman my share to buy you a good television. There was enough money for
ten antennas, but what did that chuckleheaded idiot do? He does an American: wants to increase his yield and plays cards with those crafty Gypsies at the Kronauburg train station.”

I’m sweating so much next to the tile stove that I throw off the feather bed and sit up. Incredibly enough, the two of them still don’t notice me.

“Here, you Doubting Thomas.” Dimitru fished a crumpled piece of paper out of his pants pocket. “Everything on the up and up,” he said to Grandfather, handing him the
receipt for the television. “It’s for you. Take good care of it.”

As Ilja was stowing away the receipt underneath the coin tray of his cash register, the amount the set had cost jumped out at him. His head reeled.

“My God, Dimitru, you’re a sly dog, damned sly. Like David . . . David in battle with . . . what’s that giant’s name again?”

“Our giant is Korolev. He’s our Goliath. We have no armor and no army, so we have to be smart. The stone in our sling is our cunning. That’s our weapon.”

“And we’re not alone!” Grandfather twisted the cork from another bottle of Sylvaner. “We can depend on America. The Americans will build better rockets than the Soviets.
The Yanks don’t want rubles . . . Oh, you’re awake, Pavel! Feeling better? Then bring us another stick of chewing gum, okay? I’m telling you, Dimitru, the real American kind is
the best.”

I
’m going out to get a breath of fresh air. I’m still feeling a little low,” I said. My experience was that this always gained me
permission to disappear for a while. There was no one looking after the library in the rectory. Dimitru had already started to squint a bit and certainly wouldn’t be returning there for the
next couple hours. I threw on my coat and left the house.

I waded briskly through the snow to the Gypsies’ settlement. When I reached the clay hut where Buba lived, I regretted not having agreed on a secret signal to let her know it was me. I
guessed it was about nine, too late to call to her. Cautiously I lobbed a snowball against the windowpane I figured was my girlfriend’s bedroom. It seemed like an eternity until the window
opened and a voice whispered, “Pavel?” Buba clambered out the window barefoot, dressed only in a thin nightgown. I put my coat around her shoulders, and we hurried through the darkness
to the rectory. I groped my way up to the priest’s apartment and found to my relief that the spare key to the library was hanging on the board next to the wardrobe again.

As I took hold of it, I saw a glint of silver: another small, elaborately decorated key. With a vague idea of what lock it might fit, I put it into my pocket.

Two minutes later I was crawling under the blankets with the shivering Buba on Dimitru’s chaise longue. Angela Maria Barbulescu’s diary lay closed on our laps.

“I have a bad feeling about this,” Buba said, and pressed against me. “For the last few days I’ve thought of nothing but Miss Barbulescu and what must have happened to
her back then in the capital. Then I wished you were with me. But Mother wouldn’t let me out of the house. Our teacher must have been a mother, too. She let that creep Stefan get her
pregnant. But she came to Baia Luna without a child. I want to know what happened to Barbu’s child.”

“That’s just what I’ve been wondering the whole time.” I put my arm around Buba and with the other hand went to open the green notebook. Then the door flew open.

Susanna Gabor had only to follow our tracks in the snow.

“You slut! You bitch! Crawling in bed with a
gajo
. You whore, you filthy tramp.” Susanna stormed toward Buba.

I jumped up to protect her, but I wasn’t equal to the raging fury of a Gypsy mother. Susanna pounded me and then her daughter with her fists as if possessed. She grabbed Buba by the hair
and pulled out handfuls of curls. While Buba cried out in despair, “He’s my friend, my boyfriend. I don’t want anybody else, never, never, never,” her mother was screeching,
“For shame. Be off with you! Get out, you slutty
gaje
-tart!”

She dragged the whimpering Buba out of the rectory and pulled her through the village by the hair. Susanna’s hollering cut through the winter night like the howl of a mother wolf. Lights
went on in the houses, and the inhabitants of Baia Luna shoved their curtains aside with silent alarm.

I returned to the tavern. Almost blind with worry, I saw two brothers in spirit snoring on the wooden bench next to the stove, drunk on wine and self-satisfaction. Under my coat I had
Angela’s green diary.

How feverishly I had awaited the moment I could resume reading the missing teacher’s journal with Buba. But as I lay alone in bed clutching the green diary with both hands, the precious
book had lost something of its value. My worry was not what had happened to Angela Barbulescu but what would happen to my sweetheart. Since I could find no path into the consolation of sleep, I lit
the bedside lamp in the certainty that, under the circumstances, Buba would never blame me for leafing through the diary by myself.

I opened to the first pages and read for the second time the sentence Trinka Barbulescu had written into her daughter’s autograph book a quarter century ago, Christmas Eve 1931:
Hope
for nothing and you won’t be disappointed
. Angela had hoped, against the advice of her life-denying mother. And she had been disappointed, disappointed by a man who had awakened her
yearning for life. For hidden behind his jovial façade and his smile was nothing but icy coldness. “He’ll suck her dry,” Buba had said.

November 3, 1949. Examined by Dr. Bladogan. She says, “Miss Barbulescu, it’s time to act if you don’t want to show up at the wedding altar with a big belly.” I
couldn’t even cry. I’m in my fifth month. Maybe Alexa told him about it already. Haven’t seen S. since the summer. I’ll get my child through life by myself. Without him. At
least I’ll tell it to his face. Going to his office tomorrow!

A few pages and again I was absorbed in the past of my missing teacher without feeling like an intruder. Angela hadn’t hidden her diary in the library with the intention of hiding her
thoughts but in the hope that it would be discovered. At least that wish had been fulfilled. As I continued to read, I was disappointed to discover that several pages had been torn out. My
dissatisfaction grew when the following pages yielded no information. The handwriting became erratic, almost illegible, and often crossed out with wild, chaotic strokes. I was paging past this part
when I saw something that gave me goose bumps and a chill. The right-hand page boasted a brownish cross. The way the color shaded off, you could tell that Angela Barbulescu had smeared it onto the
page with her thumb, once up and once across. On the left-hand page were words printed in heavy block letters that looked like a gravestone inscription.

I missed Buba. Having her at my side would have cushioned the blow of seeing the cross and the words whose cryptic significance dismayed me. “He” could be no one else but
the party secretary of Kronauburg, Stefan Stephanescu, the man whom I was supposed to destroy and send to hell. I forced myself to think. The date and place revealed that Angela Barbulescu was no
longer in the capital but already in Baia Luna when she had written her grim prediction. Three-quarters of a year had passed since she noted down the progress of her pregnancy and her intention to
pay a visit to Stephanescu, the father of the baby. I found no answer to the question of what had happened to her in the capital during the intervening months. The most important stones in the
mosaic of her life’s story were missing.

In August 1950, I was eight years old and had only a vague memory of the teacher’s arrival in the village. I was starting the first grade—somewhat late for my age, but back then
there was no school in Baia Luna anyway because there was no teacher. The Ministry of Education dispatched Angela Barbulescu as the new teacher for our village. From the beginning, her relations
with the villagers were ill fated. The diary entries from the months following her arrival confirmed that. She wrote of the mistrust she encountered as a woman from the big city, mentioned the
village gossip about her: rumors, insults, and slurs. The letters
KK
crop up again and again, an abbreviation that could only mean Kora Konstantin. However, the early entries from Baia
Luna told me nothing more than what I already knew from my own experience.