The Madonna on the Moon (29 page)

“What does he know?”

“About us. I told him I never wanted anyone but you.”

“And what did he say to that?”

“He wanted to hear what made me so sure. I told him I loved you and you had sensitive hands.”

I blushed. Looking at Buba and her shaved head, I knew no scissors in the world could spoil one iota of her beauty.

“And it’s all right with Dimitru that we’re together?”

“Yes. He says I could never find a better man than you. He also knows I’m with you tonight. He even made some tea for my mother that made her sleep like a log all night
long.”

“And Dimitru also saw to it that you wouldn’t be cast out from your family just because you want a
gajo
?”

“He threatened them, ‘If you expel my Buba, then I’ll leave, too. I won’t be a Gypsy anymore.’ But that’s really all he could do for me. Even Uncle Dimi
couldn’t keep them from punishing me, although everyone in the family listens to what he says.”

“And that’s why they cut off your hair?”

“Yes, but that isn’t so bad. Uncle Dimi says it’ll grow back three times as beautiful. But there’s something much worse than that,” and Buba began to cry again.
“This summer we’re going to the market in Bistrita, and my mother intends to marry me off to some man I’ve never seen before.”

That took my breath away. “But, but, I don’t want some other man to have you! If I even think about you being together with someone else like you are with me, I—”

“Never! It’ll never, ever happen. I’m like this only for you, and I never will be for anyone else.”

The words were hardly out of her mouth when I saw how her eyes were shining in the light of the candle. She even smiled and gently shook her head.

“What are you thinking?”

“Uncle Dimi’s not just a good person, he’s sly, too. Very sly. Much much more clever than any of us can imagine.”

“What do you mean?”

“I was surprised at first when he allowed me to come to you tonight. But now I know why he did it.”

“Why did he?”

“Because for me as a Gypsy, it doesn’t matter that there’s no other man I want. What’s important is that no other man wants me. Uncle Dimi knew I wouldn’t be a
virgin anymore after this night with you. And no other husband could live with that shame.”

“Does that mean we can be together forever?”

Buba smothered me with kisses. “Yes and no. I have to get married. And when the man they choose for me discovers I’m not a virgin, I don’t know what will happen. But I have to
get married, you understand? It’s not about me, it’s about my family’s honor.”

“So what can we do?”

“Uncle Dimi says that day will come when the laws of the heart are stronger than the laws of blood. And he also says it requires patience—a lot of patience. But he promised me on his
honor as a Gypsy that the day will come.”

“And when will it come?”

“I don’t know, Pavel. I really don’t know. It can take a very long time. But I will wait. Do you promise to be there when the day comes?”

“I will be there.”

“Good.” Buba put her blouse back on and wrapped her head in the babushka. “Uncle Dimi said something else: lovers often make a big mistake. In their bliss they forget about
everyone else. And when they suddenly discover they have only themselves, their love has died.”

I didn’t reply. Suddenly the image was there again: Angela Barbulescu swinging in the wind up on the Mondberg.

Buba put her arm around me. “You’re thinking of our teacher.”

“Yes. I saw her hanging from a branch in her thin sunflower dress. Everyone thinks she took her own life, but I’m not so sure because she had a visitor the day before she
disappeared. It was that guy with the wart your uncle Salman gave a ride to when he brought the television set to the village. He sat in Angela’s parlor and had a drink with her. Maybe it was
murder, and he strung her up. But maybe not. I don’t understand what that man wanted from her. After all, she had said she was going to break her silence about what happened in the capital.
And she told Fritz he should let his father know she wasn’t afraid anymore. I read Angela’s diary all the way through, and I know what happened to her child.”

“I must know what you know,” said Buba. “I can’t leave until I do.”

I reached under my mattress, pulled out the green notebook, and handed it to Buba. Then I fetched
Das Kapital
by Karl Marx and got out the photo showing Angela Barbulescu at a happy
moment, pursing her lips for a kiss. Buba took the picture and looked at it.

“I know this picture! That’s exactly how I once saw the teacher. Do you remember? The day we were waiting in the school yard and she didn’t come to school, you asked me as a
joke what my third eye could see. And that’s what I was seeing—I saw her with blond hair tied in a ponytail. But there’s a piece missing from this photo. There was a man, too. Was
it that Stefan?”

“Yes. She burned him off with a candle. It’s a snapshot Heinrich Hofmann took on one of their holidays in the capital.”

“Where did you get it?”

“Last summer I was alone with her in her house one evening. She had invited me and I had to go.”

“Did you sleep with her, then?”

I shook my head. “I think she was looking for me to be her ally. But she’d been drinking a lot. She tried to seduce me, but I didn’t want to. No, I didn’t want
to.”

Buba took the green diary. She opened it to the page with the brown cross and the verse:

Without a word, Buba leafed forward until she came to the teacher’s farewell letter.

When I touched Buba’s arm, her skin was again ice cold.

“Stephanescu and his people cut her baby out of her body,” she said. “They’ll pay for it. Someday Stephanescu will pay this bill. And you and I, Pavel, we’ll
deliver it to him.”

“But Angela predicted that Stephanescu would fall when he’d reached the top. She even said she’d come back to fetch him to hell. Why did she go and whisper to me in her last
hour in Baia Luna that I should send him to hell? What did she mean by that? What am I supposed to do?”

“I don’t know. All I know is she wants justice. Simple justice, nothing else. I have to go, Pavel.” Buba embraced me. “I’ll wait for you,” she whispered in my
ear. Then she disappeared without a sound.

A
ll during the month of January, it seemed that Grandfather’s sentence “Dimitru saw Barbu go in there, too” had died away without
anyone noticing. Then on February 1, the day before Candlemas, the echo returned. On that day the Gypsy Dimitru Carolea Gabor entered our shop early in the morning, stony faced, and broke off his
friendship with Ilja.

“Don’t you know that the truth is fragile? No, you serve it on a tray to people who twist everything into a lie. How can you be my ally when you aren’t even a match for that
crazy woman?”

Then Dimitru turned on his heel and left. Grandfather was not taken by surprise. Dimitru had only put into words what he felt himself. He was a dreamer, incapable of clear calculation and
utterly unsuited for the sly stratagems the Gypsy had so urgently recommended. For as long as he’d known Dimitru, Grandfather had thought of his Gypsy friend as a cunning child while he
himself was a tavern owner and businessman with adult responsibilities. But it was he who was still a naïve boy despite his fifty-five years. Like a child he had trusted in the innocence of
words. “Dimitru saw Barbu go in there, too.” When my grandfather realized the consequences of those words, his dreams of America and Noueeyorka died and would stay dead for a long, long
time.

It started with Julia Simenov storming into our shop on the afternoon before Candlemas, wailing and distraught.

“What happened, girl?” asked Grandfather just as I came running in from the kitchen.

“Who would do such a horrid thing, Pavel? Who could be so cruel?”

“What are you talking about?”

“They desecrated Barbu’s grave. Someone tore the wreath apart and broke our wooden cross, too. And then they relieved themselves on the grave—went to the bathroom right on
it.”

My blood was boiling. “You mean, they sha . . . Who did it?”

“Maybe it was dogs,” Ilja tried to calm himself down.

“No,” replied Julia, “it was human animals. Dogs don’t break crosses.”

Grandfather’s suspicion fell immediately on Kora Konstantin. Since she had ripped the dress off of Angela Barbulescu’s corpse, she seemed capable of anything. He was unable to
imagine anyone else in Baia Luna doing such a despicable thing.

That is, until Vera Raducanu entered the shop, her head held high and her nose in the air as always. But she didn’t ask for the soap wrapped in gold foil. Instead she began a conversation
in an unusually friendly tone. She let fall a few words about the cold weather, complained briefly about the remoteness of Baia Luna, and finally got to the point: her son Lupu. She was very well
aware that in the past few weeks some villagers—without ever mentioning her son by name, of course—had been holding the Securitate major responsible for the murder of the priest. Vera
formulated it as “pin it on him.” She wasn’t going to mention any names, but it was no accident that the ethnic Germans (led by that Karl Koch) were at the forefront of the
attempt to smear her Lupu’s character. Her son would call those slanderers to account once this awful snow had melted and the roads to Baia Luna were passable again. Especially since the case
of Johannes Baptiste was now closed.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It was Barbu. Kora’s right. Everybody knows it now. Even the Gypsies saw her sneaking into the rectory.”

“Get out of my store!” was all my granddad replied to Vera Raducanu. But when Erika Schuster, then Elena Kiselev, and finally Istvan Kallay, Karl Koch, and Hermann Schuster came to
see Grandfather in the course of that afternoon, and all said that the crazy Konstantin was now going to break her silence and produce irrefutable evidence that Angela Barbulescu and she alone was
behind the murder of Pater Johannes, Grandfather realized he had set off an avalanche with his innocent remark. Only Hermann Schuster kept a cool head and suggested they call a village assembly on
Candlemas to put a lid on the overflowing pot of rumors once and for all. To stop the gossip, Kora Konstantin should be given the opportunity to air her view of things, produce her evidence, and
also answer the questions of the other village residents. Schuster’s idea was immediately accepted, and word quickly spread that on the dot of eleven o’clock on the following day, an
extraordinary assembly of citizens would take place in Botev’s tavern that all men and women were urgently required to attend. When Kora Konstantin learned of the idea, she declared that she
would say what she had to say but never, ever would she say it under the Botevs’ roof. Since nothing in the world could change Kora’s mind, it was decided to hold the public hearing in
the church, which was not a bad decision from a practical point of view, since our taproom would have been bursting at the seams with even a third of the curious who were likely to attend. By ten
thirty, a half hour before the announced beginning, new arrivals at the church had to be satisfied with standing room only.

Kora was the last to arrive. Supported by her brother-in-law Marku and the sacristan Knaup, she sashayed down the main aisle at a leisurely pace to the three chairs set up at the front of the
sanctuary. Despite the cold, Kora wore only a black suit. Her hair was gathered beneath a fur cap, and a black tulle veil covered her face. She took her place between her two companions as Istvan
Kallay, who had been asked to chair the hearing, welcomed those present.

“I give the floor to Kora Konstantin!”

Kora took her own sweet time fingering aside her veil, stuck out her chest, and spoke up. “This is no court, it’s the house of the Lord. Praise be to Jesus Christ. Hail Mary, full of
grace.”

Some of those present crossed themselves and murmured, “Forever and ever, amen.”

“Now say what you have to say,” Istvan prompted her. All eyes were on Kora when Marku rose, reached into the breast pocket of his coat, and fished out a sheet of paper. “For
the sake of accuracy, Mrs. Kora Konstantin has committed her declaration to paper. She would like to read it now. But only if she is not disturbed by uncalled-for heckling. Questions may be asked
after she has finished her statement. If anyone objects to this procedure, please say so now.”

Istvan Kallay took the murmurs that arose for agreement and sternly warned the audience not to interrupt Kora’s speech with expressions of either disapproval or approval. Then he yielded
the floor back to Kora. She rose and put on her glasses. I stood at the back, leaning against a pillar and looking in vain for Dimitru. Not a single Gypsy had entered the church.

“With God as my witness, I swear that I, Kora Konstantin, residing at Eleven Liberty Street, Baia Luna, am telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. On Wednesday,
November sixth, at about one fifteen in the afternoon, I looked out my kitchen window and saw a woman sneaking through our village. This person was wearing a black babushka, rubber boots, and a
dark coat and kept looking right and left like someone who didn’t want to be seen. It was a gloomy day, raining, and so at first I couldn’t make her out very clearly, but then I saw
that it was that teacher Barbulescu. At first I thought she must have forgotten something in the school, but she wasn’t going toward the school. She was going toward the rectory. I saw her
ring the doorbell for a long time before someone finally opened the door. It’s well known in the village that the Barbulescu woman had never set foot in the rectory. Nevertheless, my
observation has in the meantime been substantiated by the librarian Dimitru Gabor.”

“So what!” cried Grandfather. “What does that prove? Johannes Baptiste was still alive after Miss Barbulescu’s visit. Very much alive, in fact. He was a guest at my
birthday and in my tavern all afternoon and evening.”