Veronica-cu-carne

Can you believe it, my dear Monalisa: the world made perfect sense! And its sense was embodied in a 120 kilo female giant known as Veronica-cu-carne.

She was our one and only supplier of meat. She supplied the people in my street, Strada Cazărmii[*]... And the people in Strada Bateriilor, and Strada Sirenelor, and Intrarea Vitănești.

She made Christmas possible. For how can a Romanian celebrate Christmas without a trace of pork on their plate? And one thing was always as certain as death: that there was never any pork around Christmas!

She made Easter possible. For how can a Romanian celebrate Easter without a trace of lamb on their plate? And one thing was always as certain as death: that there was never any lamb around Easter!

Someone always made dead sure there was never going to be any pork for Christmas, nor any lamb for Easter.

To wipe out a church, a monastery, an icon, is just a matter of external symbolic significance. And we, as a people of survivors, have always been able to worm our way around - or underneath - the external symbols of History. But to wipe out any trace of lamb and pork, meant that we could no longer maintain a link with the spiritual world, exactly where it mattered most: in the privacy of our own flesh.

Veronica-cu-carne worked at the Bucharest Meatworks. That's where she was getting her meat. To an eye which had no awareness of the delicate balance between religious symbols and our mortal flesh, she was no more no less than a thief. But to the trained eye, she would appear as the restorer of a badly needed balance. She stole from those who robbed us, restoring our links with our tradition, with our hidden symbols, with our forbidden beliefs.

Her enormous weight and stature was what made it reasonably easy for her to perform her stealing endeavours. Meatworks workers were always checked on their way out. Their handbags were always carefully inspected, sometimes even a pocket or two, if they looked like hiding half a kilo of chicken livers or a couple of ox tongues.

But who on earth would have dared to look into a woman's bra? Or inside her woollen underpants? Especially a woman as big, as serious, as respectable and hardworking as Veronica? No one would dare to suspect that her woollen underpants were lined with quality A pork chops! Or that in between her size 24 DD breasts, were nested tender undercuts of veal, which provided badly needed proteins to the elderly, the sick, and the frail in our neighbourhood!

My first vision of Veronica-cu-carne was preceded by a tremorous upheaval. Under the weight of her 120 kilos, combined with the weight of her innumerable, hidden chops, the entire wooden building would crack, and squeak and rumble like the entrails of a hungry whale. And with every step she took up the wooden staircase, a thumping yet echoing bang would make its way closer and closer to our door, implacable as destiny itself.

Can you imagine that my stupid uncle who, for God knows what reason had chosen to bring me up, was not interested in what Veronica had come to show him? In the way of proteins, he was perfectly happy with his pariserwurst[**], made of greenish offal and soy extracts! He was perfectly happy with the mushrooms he was growing illegally in the cave of our building.

* Strada Cazărmii and other streets mentioned in the second paragraph evoke those of old Bucharest that virtually disappeared after the Ceauşescu regime took advantage of the massive March 1977 earthquake to accelerate the decentralisation of the city with the brute Stalinist architecture and streetscapes of that era. For further details, see, e.g., “Missing Streets from Bucharest” at: http://gurmicica.blogspot.com/2016/10/strazi-disparute-din-bucuresti-o.html in the “Anita Anita” blogsite of the 21st October 2016.
** Pariserwurst usually implies a finer variety of central and eastern European sausage comprising a greater percentage of muscle meat, predominantly if not exclusively beef and far less bacon, which, in turn, is filled with thicker intestines and spices ranging from garlic and ginger to mustard seed and nutmeg.

Veronica-cu-carne

Îţi vine să crezi, Monalisa: lumea avea sens! Şi sensul lumii era întruchipat într-o namilă de 120 de kile, ce se numea Veronica-cu-carne.

Ea era singura - suprema - noastră sursă de carne. Furniza carne locuitorilor de pe strada noastră, Strada Cazărmii, şi celor de pe Strada Bateriilor, şi Strada Sirenelor, şi Intrarea Vităneşti.

Ea făcea Crăciunul posibil. Căci cum avea românul să-şi sărbătorească Crăciunul fără o bucăţică de purcel în farfurie? Şi dacă exista vreo certitudine, în afară de moarte, era faptul că înainte de Crăciun nu se găsea pic de carne de porc nicăieri.

Ea făcea Paştele posibil. Căci cum avea românul să-şi sărbătorească Paştele, fără bucăţică de miel în farfurie? Şi dacă exista vreo certitudine, în afară de moarte, era faptul că înainte de Paşti nu se găsea nici o ciozvîrtă de miel nicăieri.

Cineva avea întotdeauna grijă să nu fie carne de porc de Crăciun şi carne de miel de Paşti. Dispariţia unei biserici, a unei mînăstiri sau a unei icoane înseamnă doar dispariţia unui simbol exterior. Iar noi, fiind un popor de supravieţuitori, ne-am priceput întotdeauna să ne scurmăm o cale primprejurul sau pe dedesubtul simbolurilor exterioare ale Istoriei. Dar disparţia cărnii de porc şi de miel însemna un atentat la singura noastră legătură adevărată cu lumea de dincolo, cea realizată în tăcerea trupurilor noastre!

Veronica-cu-carne lucra la abator. De acolo îşi procura ea marfa. Pentru un ochi neavizat, care habar n-avea de delicatul echilibru dintre simbolurile religioase şi trupurile noastre efemere, ea nu reprezenta altceva decît o hoaţă din avutul obştesc. Dar ochiul avizat ştia să-i aprecieze la justa valoare funcţia în restabilirea unui atît de necesar echilibru. Ea fura de la cei ce ne furau pe noi, restabilind legăturile noastre cu tradiţia, cu simbolurile noastre ascunse, cu credinţa noastră ilicită.

Îşi exercita această secundară profesie de sustragere a cărnii cu destulă uşurinţă, datorită colosalelor ei proporţii. Lucrătorii din abator sînt supuşi unui control destul de riguros la ieşire. Li se inspectează sacoşele, uneori şi buzunarele, dacă i se pare cuiva că au pitit în ele jumătate de kilogram de ficăţei de pui sau o limbă de vacă.

Dar cui i-ar fi trecut prin cap să se uite în sutienul unei femei? Sau în burtiera ei de lînă? Mai cu seamă cînd femeia respectivă era atît de serioasă, de respectabil-planturoasă, de muncitoare silitoare, cum era Veronica. Nimeni n-ar fi suspectat că lenjeria ei de corp era căptuşită cu cotlete Calitatea A. Sau că între sînii ei fără măsură erau pitiţi fragezi muşchiuleţi de viţel, sursa principală de proteine a copiilor, bătrînilor şi bolnavilor din cartierul nostru.

Prima mea întîlnire cu Veronica a fost precedată de un cutremur, însoţit de trosnete şi bubuituri. Sub cele 120 de kilograme ale ei, combinate cu greutatea nenumăratelor cotlete ascunse, clădirea noastră, cu scara ei veche, de lemn, plesnea, gemea şi chiorăia ca stomacul unei balene flămînde. Şi cu fiecare treaptă ce-o urca, de uşa noastră se apropiau tot mai tare bubuielile alea vesel-înspăimîntatoare şi implacabile precum destinul.

Poţi să-ţi închipui că pe prostul ăla de unchi-meu, pe care numai Dumnezeu ştie ce raţiune îl făcuse să se lege la cap cu creşterea mea, nu l-a interesat cîtuşi de puţin ceea ce venise Veronica să-i arate? În privinţa proteinelor, era perfect împăcat cu parizerul ăla al lui făcut din zgîrciuri verzui şi extract de soia. Era perfect împăcat cu ciupercile lui ilegal cultivate în pivniţă.

Angelica

Dear Monalisa,

When I was six weeks old, my mother packed me up one night. She and my father had a plan to escape to the West. They had a very good stalker, a real professional who had safely guided hundreds of fugitives to their freedom. One of those fugitives, however, turned out to be a Securitate[*] agent, so, on this particular night when my parents and their group were supposed to cross the border, instead of freedom, they got bullets in their heads. Somehow I survived, protected by my mother's dead body. And somehow I ended up in the care of this uncle, a distant cousin of my father’s.

Uncle Grigore was a labour camp survivor. He was probably in his mid-forties, but to me he looked more like a sixty year-old. He lived modestly in two little rooms, in a shared house on Strada Cazărmii[**]. Every Friday, he was visited by a young woman who would stay the night in his bedroom. Her name was Angelica.

My uncle had a few very good friends; he had bonded with during those labour camp days. Colonel Alessandrescu, Mr Ianculescu, a former magistrate, Mr Cerneț, an actor-poet, and Mr Odobescu, a former teacher of English. I was later to find out that Angelica spent her Monday nights with Cerneț, her Tuesdays with Ianculescu, her Wednesdays with the Colonel, her Thursdays with Mr Odobescu. She fasted on Saturdays and she went to church on Sundays.

Apparently, she had had a fiancé by the name of Paul who had also been in jail and who had ended up inside the same labour camp as my uncle and his friends. This Paul had died in captivity, so Angelica decided to dedicate the rest of her life to the five men who had been her lover's moral support before his untimely death.

Later on, as I was falling deeper and deeper in love with Angelica, I developed a lot of resentment towards my uncle and his friends. They had this aura of dignity, of heroism, that I could never aspire to. I envied their emaciated faces, their scars, their brittle bones. I was far too young, too stupid, too healthy for someone like Angelica.

It wasn't until I bought my first infectious disease that she took real notice of me.

* Securitate, the popular abbreviation for Departamentul Securitâţii Statului (the Department of State Security) was founded in August 1948 with “assistance” from the NKVD of the Russian “soviet” empire, the militarised Stalinist secret police in charge of extra-judicial executions, mass deportation and forced labour camps, espionage and control of puppet governments within the empire. The Securitate had the distinction of being the proportionally the largest secret police force in the empire’s so-called “eastern bloc.” Before its dissolution after the overthrow of Nicolae Ceauşescu, it was estimated that approximately one in forty Romanians acted as agents or informers for the Securitate.
** Strada Cazărmii is, as noted in “Veronica-cu-carne,” named after one of the streets of old Bucharest.

Angelica

Dragă Monalisa,

Cînd eram în vîrstă de şase săptămîni, într-o noapte, mama m-a făcut pachet. Am plecat toţi trei, ea, cu tata şi cu pachetul de mine, spre libertate. Aveam o călăuză sigură, un profesionist în adevăratul sens al cuvîntului, care trecuse sute de fugari. S-a întîmplat însă ca unul dintre fugarii ăştia să fie securist, aşa că în noaptea cînd grupul nostru urma să treacă frontiera, în loc de libertate, s-au trezit toţi cu gloanţe în cap. Eu am supravieţuit, apărat de trupul mamii. M-a luat în grijă un fel de unchi, un văr îndepărtat de-al tatii.

Nenea Grigore petrecuse mulţi ani în lagăr. Avea probabil vreo patruzeci şi ceva de ani cînd s-a procopsit cu mine - mie însă mi s-a părut, din cele mai vechi timpuri, peste şaizeci. Trăia modest, în două odăiţe la comun, într-o casă de pe Strada Cazărmii. În fiecare vineri, venea la el o femeie tînără, care rămînea peste noapte şi dormea în camera lui. Se numea Angelica.

Nenea Grigore avea cîţiva prieteni foarte buni de care se legase în anii de lagăr. Colonelul Alessandrescu, domnul Ianculescu, fost magistrat, domnul Cerneţ, actor şi poet, şi domnul Odobescu, fost profesor de engleză. Mai tîrziu aveam să descopăr că Angelica îşi petrecea nopţile de luni cu domnul Odobescu, cele de marţi cu domnul Ianculescu, cele de miercuri cu Colonelul şi cele de joi cu actorul-poet. Sîmbăta postea, iar duminica mergea la biserică.

Avusese un logodnic pe nume Paul, care fusese închis, apoi trimis în diverse lagăre unde s-a cunoscut cu unchiul meu şi prietenii lui. Acest Paul a murit în detenţie, iar Angelica a hotărît să-şi dedice restul vieţii celor cinci oameni care fuseseră suportul moral şi spiritual al iubitului ei, înainte de moartea lui timpurie.

Cu vremea, pe măsură ce mă îndrăgosteam mai mult de Angelica, unchiul meu şi prietenii lui îmi deveneau din ce în ce mai nesuferiţi. Aveau acea aură de demnitate inaccesibilă, de eroism la care eu nici nu puteam aspira. Le invidiam feţele emaciate, cicatricele, oasele fragile. Eu eram prea tînăr, prea prost, prea sănătos, pentru cineva ca Angelica.

De-abia după ce mi-am cumpărat prima boală infecţioasă, m-a luat în seamă.

Morning Had Broken

Morning had broken, as if the sentence that was the town had turned into the first verse of a Cat Stevens song[*]. The narrow streets surrounding St Jacob's Cathedral smelled of pickled herrings, hot bread and warm pigeon shit. The angels of the night were replaced by mothers, toddlers, nurses, solicitors, dentists, kindergarten teachers, funeral directors, real estate agents and pensioners with very neat trench coats.

So Matei went looking for angels—without, of course, being aware that he was looking for anything—beyond the thick, thousand-year wall, beyond the grey industrial belt, beyond the snow-capped greenery of the surrounding hills.

He found the angels he didn't know he'd been looking for, watching him in silence from beneath the wild ivy which had insinuated itself in between and around, and probably underneath, the cold marble of the graves. He read: Gerhart Denke, Facharzt für Urologie, 1909-1978...; Herbert Neumann, Theologe, 1903-1977...; Gabriele Henning-Schade, Rechtsanwältin, 1925-1980...[**].

The sentence that was the town was mirrored into the sentence that was the graveyard, with the same rhythmic succession of orthopaedic surgeons, accountants, solicitors, dentists, kindergarten teachers, theologians, real estate agents and funeral directors. No signs of such a thing as History—no signs of upheavals, of conflagrations, of Berlin Walls[***] or Marshall Plans[****]—just wild ivy, marble angels and rhythmic waves of respectability.

* “Cat Stevens” (later known after his religious conversion as Yusuf Islam) was a popular London-born singer who, in 1971, recorded the 1931 Christian hymn “Morning Had Broken” originally penned by Eleanor Farjeon, Stevens’ arrangement being composed by the English keyboard performer Rick Wakeman.
** The German inscriptions respectively read: specialist in urology, theologian, and lawyer. The birthdates of the first two imply that they pursued their professions during the Nazi period.
*** The concrete Berlin Wall between August 1961 and November 1989 symbolically as much as actually marked the division between the Russian and American empires. It was often identified as a manifestation of the “iron curtain,” a metaphor coined by Winston Churchill in his “Sinews of Peace” address in March 1946:

From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic an iron curtain has descended across the Continent. Behind that line lie all the capitals of the ancient states of Central and Eastern Europe. Warsaw, Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Budapest, Belgrade, Bucharest and Sofia, all these famous cities and the populations around them lie in what I must call the Soviet sphere, and all are subject in one form or another, not only to Soviet influence but to a very high and, in some cases, increasing measure of control from Moscow…. Communist parties, which were very small in all these Eastern States of Europe, have been raised to pre-eminence and power far beyond their numbers and are seeking everywhere to obtain totalitarian control.
(See M.A. Kishlansky (ed.), Sources of World History (New York: HarperCollins, 1995), pp. 298-302)

**** The European Recovery Programme, popularly known as the “Marshall Plan” after the then Secretary of State, General George Marshall, aimed to restore war-torn western Europe from March/April 1948 onwards as an economic bulwark against the Russian “soviet” empire in eastern Europe. Marshall’s official yet relatively unpublicised version was cast as follows in his June 1947 address at Harvard University:

It is logical that the United States should do whatever it is able to do to assist in the return of normal economic health to the world, without which there can be no political stability and no assured peace. Our policy is not directed against any country, but against hunger, poverty, desperation and chaos…. Its purpose should be the revival of a working economy in the world so as to permit the emergence of political and social conditions in which free institutions can exist.
(See, e.g., https://www.marshallfoundation.org/marshall/the-marshall-plan/marshall-plan-speech/ )

Morning Had Broken

Zorile se iviră, morning had broken, de parcă fraza care era oraşul se metamorfozase în primul vers al cîntecului lui Cat Stevens. Străduţele înguste din preajma Catedralei Sfîntul Iacob miroseau a saramură de heringi, pîine imaculată şi găinaţ călduţ de porumbei. Îngerilor nocturni şi alunecători le luară locul mame, copii, guvernante, magistraţi, dentişti, funcţionari de bancă, funcţionari de poştă, profesori, directori de pompe funebre şi pensionari în trenciuri impecabile.

Porni în căutare de îngeri, fără însă să-şi dea seama că era în căutare de ceva. Ajunse dincolo de zidurile groase, vechi de peste o mie de ani, ale burgului, dincolo de cartierele industriale, dincolo de dealurile ninse care îmbrăţişau oraşul. Găsi îngerii în căutarea cărora nu-şi dăduse seama că pornise, privindu-l tăcuţi de după viţa sălbatică ce se insinuase printre, în jurul şi probabil dedesubtul lespezilor de marmură ale mormintelor. Citi: Gerhart Denke, Facharzt für Urologie, 1909-1978...; Herbert Neumann, Theologe, 1903-1977...; Gabriele Henning-Schade, Rechtsanwältin, 1925-1980....

Fraza care era oraşul se reflecta în fraza care era cimitirul, cu aceeaşi succesiune ritmată de chirurgi, ortopezi, contabili, avocaţi, dentişti, teologi, agenţi imobiliari şi directori de pompe funebre. Nici urmăde Istorie, nici urmă de revoluţii sau de conflagraţii, de ziduri berlineze sau de planuri Marshall - doar viţă sălbatică, îngeri săpaţi în marmură, şi valuri ritmice de respectabilitate.

Alles Super

He started walking along the Autobahn[**], counting the petrol stations for the hundredth time, as if he secretly feared that some meaningless turn of events had changed their number overnight. For in terms of reality - palpable, metallic reality - nothing was more undeniable than the twelve petrol stations and the three aluminium factories that unfolded on the stretch of Autobahn between Hotel Arkadia and the thick walls of the old town.

Yes, the petrol stations were there, or at least they promised to be there, he said to himself as he started reading their reassuring message: Autowasche-Ol, Luft, Wasser - Staubsauger - Autoservice. And then, the obvious conclusion: Aral. Alles Super. (Yes, despite the confusing cacophony of nightmares, desires, fantasies and aborted dreams emanating from Hotel Arkadia[***], despite the clouds of smoke coming from those forever burning piles of tyres, like a warning to stay away, the sentence that was the Autobahn was still clear, and crisp, like the crystalline air of the winter morning, asserting, once again, that everything was still in place, still performing efficiently, still ensuring the smooth running of motor vehicles at a speed of no less than 120 km per hour. And that Alles was Super.) 

* The repeated refrain of the title, “Alles Super,” is translatable not only as everything great or superb (or, more colloquially, awesome or fantastic), but also as all petrol bowsers with premium grade fuel.
** “Autobahn” refers to high-speed motor thoroughfares for both military and civilian traffic throughout Germany under the control of its federal government, the first of its type between Cologne and Bonn opening in 1932 and the extent of the system markedly increased during the Nazi regime from 1933.
*** Ironically, “Arkadia” refers to the mountainous pastoral world of the north-eastern Peloponnesos of southern mainland Greece and, poetically, symbolized a secluded, unspoilt, harmonious realm, influentially captured in ancient Rome by the ten Eclogae (circa B.C. 38/37) of the Latin poet Publius Vergilius Maro and in renaissance Europe in the prose poem, Arcadia (1504), by Jacopo Sannazaro.

Alles Super

Porni să se preumble de-a lungul Autobahn-ului, numărînd staţiile de benzină pentru a suta oară, de parcă s-ar fi temut în sinea lui că nu ştiu ce întorsătură - gratuită, imprevizibilă - le schimbase numărul peste noapte. Dar nu, staţiile de benzină rămăseseră la locurile lor, iar Matei începu să citească mesajele lor luminoase: Autowasche - Öl, Luft, Wasser - Staubsauger - Autoservice... urmate de evidenta concluzie: Aral. Alles Super.

(Da: în pofida cacofoniei de coşmare, dorinţe, nărozii, fantezii, vise ratate, vise neterminate emanate de Hotelul Arkadia, în pofida norilor de fum ce se prelingeau veşnic dinspre maidanele lui, ca o avertizare de a păstra distanţa, fraza care era Autobahn-ul rămînea limpede şi senină, ca o dimineaţă cristalină de iarnă, afirmînd încă odată că tot şi toate erau la locurile lor, continuînd să-şi îndeplinească pămînteasca lor menire, asigurînd scurgerea eficientă a clipelor şi goana de peste 120 km pe oră a auvehiculelor. Că Alles era Super.)

The Club of Five

Through the windows that had accumulated layer upon layer of dirt, Matei caught glimpses of melancholy villas with unpredictable turrets, decayed porticoes, verandahs turned into storage rooms, opaque conservatories, balconies supported by exhausted Atlases and pathetic cariatids[*]. He was somewhat intimidated by the silent dignity of this decrepit architecture which spoke of another, indefinite time, when people had mothers and fathers, attics and gardens, private spaces and private thoughts, and when they were in no hurry to be gunned down by the vigilant rifle of some illiterate border guard. There was a defiant stubbornness in the way these houses kept on living and exposing their fading glory, while their entrails had long been subdivided between an ever-more crowded, ever-more worried population; and while the remnants of their glory were steadily devoured by rising dampness and by mould—that dampness which smelled like death and which, in Matei's opinion, emanated directly from the souls of the city's inhabitants. It occurred to Matei, as he was riding on the tram, that those houses shared the same kind of defiant dignity he could read on the faces of Uncle Grigore, and of Colonel Alessandrescu, and of Magistrate Ianculescu, and of Mr Cerneț, the actor-poet, and of Mr Odobescu, the former teacher of English...

Ever since he became old enough to remember things, he could feel the ferocious dignity emanating from these men; that invisible and invincible thread of common memories, written in the secret codes of Jilava, Pitești, Gherla, Craiova, Midia, Popești-Leordeni, Rîmnicu-Sarat, Ocnele-Mari[**]; that silent triumph of the human spirit which, despite their complete lack of vitamins and proteins, had withstood and survived its strong, vitamised jailers, against all odds and for no apparent reason. (He had always hated his uncle and his uncle's friends for their aura of impenetrable and indestructible defiance. As if they belonged in a secret conspiracy of heroes whose ordeal—which he could not even imagine, for they would never speak of it in front of him—placed them high, on an unattainable pedestal, so high as to warrant Angelica's humble services[***]—and possibly her love, for the rest of their lives, and even after. 

He had grown up in their mighty shadow, like a mushroom in Uncle Grigore’s underground farm, feeding his own insignificance. For no reason at all, he had survived a logical end, on a logical border, only to be reminded that his very existence was a ludicrous exception from a tragic, dignified death. And yet, who was to imagine that, one day, the simple miracle of some chickenpox germs could restore the magic balance? Who was to imagine that his coward, silly act was to be rewarded in such an unforeseeable way? For there was something in Angelica's love for him that was far more conspiratorial—and far more desperate—than any feelings she might have nurtured for the Club of Five.

With all these thoughts on his mind, he didn't realise when the snippets of old Bucharest had disappeared from sight, making way for snippets of interchangeable, concrete blocks of flats. Blocks of boxes with no gardens, no attics, no memories—a solid premise for the luminous and unavoidable communist future.

* “Atlases” (or “atlantes”) are a form of architectural sculpture fulfilling the function of a column or pier. Atlas himself is one of the second-generation of ancient Hellenic divinities condemned to hold the sky upon his shoulders for eternity. “Cariatids” (or “karyatides”) serve the same function, but in female form. They are associated with the women of Karyai, a settlement near Sparta, and rightly or wrongly are associated being enslaved because of support given to Persia during its wars against the Hellenes between B.C. 499 and 449.
** “The secret codes of Jilava… Pitești… Rîmnicu-Sărat…” allude to Jilava Prison in Rîmnicu-Sărat where, after occupation by Russia, from 1944 to 1963, proclaimed “class enemies,” “enemies of the people,” or “enemies of the state” including Greek Orthodox and Roman Catholic clerics, urban teachers and intellectuals, affiliates of Social- Democratic movements, and disgraced Communist Party functionaries amongst others, were tortured and interred with minimal rations and without medical treatment in Rîmnicu-Sărat, often in transit before execution in detention centres elsewhere. Under the imposition of silence in such prisons, detainees resorted to communication by, for example, coughing and signing.
Amongst the other prisons listed here, Pitești and Gherla prisons were best known for their re-education or indoctrination “experiment,” reputed to be the largest systematic indoctrination programme in Russia’s “eastern bloc.” Midia refers to the forced labour camp Capul-Midia that was part of the Danube River-Black Sea canal whereas the Ocnele-Mari Prison supplied labour for mining in the same region with a notoriously short life expectancy for those committed there. Lastly, Popești-Leordeni, some nine kilometres south of Bucharest, was the scene of the violent public arrest by the Securitate of Anton Durcovici, Bishop of Iaşi, Romania’s second largest city, in June 1949, eventually dying in Sighet Prison in December 1951 (and ultimately beatified by the Roman Church in 2014).
*** “Angelica’s humble services” for the “Club of Five” have already been depicted in “Angelica” above. Whether “Club of Five” plays upon the “Five of Clubs” card symbolically associated with the restless, often erotic, quest for personal freedom and the like is for each reader to decide.

Gașca celor cinci

Prin ferestrele pe care se acumulaseră straturi peste straturi de jeg, Matei zări fragmente de vile melancolice, cu foişoare imprevizibile, portice cariate, verande transformate în debarale, sere opace, balcoane sprijinite pe atlaşi osteniţi şi cariatide descărnate. Era oarecum intimidat de demnitatea tăcută a acelei arhitecturi părăginite, care vorbea despre o altă viaţă, nedefinită, cînd oamenii aveau mame şi taţi, poduri şi grădini, gînduri intime şi odăi secrete, cînd nici prin cap nu le trecea să traverseze graniţe nocturne şi să-şi expună trupurile precare gloanţelor vigilente ale unor grănicieri agramaţi. Era o anumită încăpăţînare în felul în care aceste clădiri îşi continuau existenţa, expunîndu-şi gloria veştejită, în timp ce interioarele lor erau subîmpărţite şi reîmpărţite între locatari din ce în ce mai mizeri şi mai înghesuiţi. Casele alea sufereau de aceeaşi rezistenţă mizer-sfidătoare, de acelaşi orgoliu subînţeles, pe care le puteai citi pe chipul lui Nenea Grigore, şi al Colonelului Alessandrescu, şi al Magistratului Ianculescu, şi al domnilor Cerneţ şi Odobescu...

Încă de pe vremea cînd mintea sa era incapabilă să formuleze gînduri coerente, intuise acea feroce demnitate care-i lega pe unchiu-său şi pe cei din gaşca lui, acea invincibilă şi invizibilă ţesătură de amintiri comune, de umilinţe transfigurate în iluminări, ascunzînd în urzeală codurile secrete ale une geografii iniţiatice ce trecea prin Jilava, Piteşti, Craiova, Midia, Popeşti-Leordeni, Rîmnicu Sărat, Ocnele Mari, Aiud... Acel sentiment de victorie tacită, acel eroism mut, conspirativ, inviolabil, care le asigurase atenţia, serviciile - poate chiar şi iubirea - Angelicăi, pînă la sfîrşitul zilelor, ba chiar şi după.

Crescuse în umbra lor, ca o ciupercă în subsolul lui Nenea Grigore, şi din această umbră se hrănea nimicnicia lui. Fără nici o raţiune, supravieţuise unui sfîrşit logic, pe o graniţă logică, numai pentru a i se aminti, în fiecare zi, că existenţa lui era o grotescă excepţie de la o moarte tragică şi demnă. Dar iată că... într-o bună zi, prin intervenţia miraculoasă a unor microbi de vărsat de vînt, această ordine fizică şi metafizică fusese brusc şi iremedabil răsturnată! Fiindcă exista ceva în plus, în iubirea Angelicăi pentru el... ceva mai apropiat... ceva mai disperat... ceva care făcea să pălească, prin comparaţie, tradiţionala ei dăruire faţă de Gaşca celor Cinci.

Cu toate aceste gînduri înghesuindu-i-se-n cap, nu-şi dădu seama cînd fragmentele recognoscible ale bătrînului cartier se metamorfozară în fragmente de blocuri betonate şi interşanjabile. Locuinţe-vizuină, fără grădini, poduri sau amintiri, defilînd la infinit, ca anii socialismului în goana lor după apoteoza comunistă.

Guilielmus Quartus Rex Pater Patriae [*]

Suddenly, Matei's soul became heavy with the slimy, vulnerable flesh of innumerable and indefinite molluscs, feeding on the muddy bed of a gangrenous river. The winter air became sticky with sulphurous odours of decomposed flesh, and his lungs were flooded by a murky, viscous desperation. He walked the streets with mechanic, stubborn steps, running away from the malignant fluidity that was engulfing him from every direction. Gasping for a breath of fresh air. For a breath of dry air. But the air refused to dry, so he hastened his steps, and ran, ran, ran, until he crossed the path of an ethereal, high-speed, bicycled angel, and collapsed with a sigh of relief.

“Ich bin OK, Ich bin OK,” he protested as a crowd of angels busied themselves, stooping over his stretched body. “Sind Sie sicher?[**]” “Ich bin OK, really. I'll just stay like this a little bit longer...”

When he opened his eyes again, he saw a stretched hand that looked familiar. Unmoved and unmovable, the eternal, paternal righthand imparting directions. It was so familiar to him, in its adorable, generic abstraction! It could have belonged to any of the great fathers of the century (in whose shadow Matei had grown like a patch of mould), giving life to any of their visionary propensities: the setting up of new borders, the building of new walls, the blasting of irrelevant relics, the introduction of progress, the prescription of new formulae for happiness, peace and prosperity.

Underneath the stretched hand, he read: GUILIELMUS QUARTUS REX PATER PATRIAE. Oh, the reassuring omnipresence of the Old Man watching out for you! Like a missing verse in a wintery poem that started on an Autobahn, between petrol stations and aluminium factories. PATER PATRIAE. ARAL. ALLES SUPER[***].

He felt immensely light, as he lay stretched on a bench, in the middle of Wilhelmplatz[****], with nothing to break the silence but for the rustle of sleepy pigeons and the distant echoes of jazz emanating from the Blue Note Café. He was an inconspicuous extra on an empty stage where the only props were the bicycles, hundreds of them, left behind by angels in search for jazzed inebriation.

Like mould, jazz has no boundaries in its irreverent discrediting of reality. It can make a mockery of things sacred, of mighty statues with stretched right hands. Little did the angels know about the insidious thread binding their Blue Note evening rituals to the Swing Jugend[*****] of yesteryear, or to the underground jazz clubs of Cracow, Prague, Prenzlauer Berg[******]... Or perhaps they knew too well. Perhaps these angels—the future dentists, solicitors, economists, urologists, nuclear physicists, theologians—were in fact conspiring for a new, fatherless, Bicycle Age, whose prescription for happiness was as fuzzy and supremely directionless, as a sax improvisation by Satchmo[*******]. Perhaps a secret revolution was taking place right then and there, under Guilielmus' unsuspecting nose.

* The Latin title translates as: William the Fourth, King and Father of his Country.
** To his repeated “I’m okay [or fine],” Matei’s “angels” ask, “Are you certain?”
*** Partly referring to the previous piece, “Alles Super,” the Latin “poem” of the Autobahn here can be read as: “Father of the Nation. Aral [Petroleum]. Everything Premium”
**** Wilhelmplatz, a famous square in Berlin named after Friedrich Wilhelm I of Prussia in 1749, once noted for its military statues of Prussian generals of the 1756-1763 World War, its palaces established both during and after the 1792-1814 World War (usually associated with Napoleon Buonaparte of France), was gradually converted by the State of Prussia for governmental and related purposes especially after the formation of the modern German nation-state, and the site of the Reich Chancellery during the tyranny of Adolf Hitler.
***** Swing Jugend or Swing Youth was a counter-cultural movement of wealthier adolescents, sporting overtly English fashion, hair styles, and the like devoted to jazz and swing emerging in Hamburg and Berlin in 1939 and opposed to the regimented Hitlerjugend promoted by the Nazi regime.
****** Prenzlauer Berg, an urban development south of Berlin proper was designed in 1862, its tenements housing working class citizens. Under the Nazi regime, its offices in Froebelstrasse and its 1877 water tower in Rykestrasse formed the first concentration camp in Germany between 1933 and 1935. With the division of Berlin at the end of the 1939-1945 World War, Prenzlauer Berg came under Russian control and twenty years later became a favourite haunt of the then East German artistic, intellectual, and “pink” community.
******* Satchmo was the nickname of Louis Armstrong who came to prominence in the ’twenties of the last century for his solo trumpet and cornet improvisations especially in relation to jazz and swing as well as his “scat” singing where the voicing of syllables acts as an instrument.

Guilielmus Quartus Rex Pater Patriae

Deodată Matei îşi simţi sufletul îngreunat de masa vîscoasă a nenumărate şi indefinite moluşte, crescute în albia mîloasă a unui fluviu-cangrenă. În aerul iernii, devenit irespirabil, plutea un miros sulfuros de carne în putrefacţie, iar plămînii lui fură inundaţi de o disperare cleioasă. Continuă să colinde străzile cu pas mecanic, precipitat, încercînd să evite fluviul malign care se revărsa spre el din toate direcţiile. Tînjind după o gură de aer proaspăt, uscat, îngheţat. Dar aerul refuza să se usuce, aşa că el iuţi pasul, o luă la fugă şi fugi, şi fugi, pînă ce zdrang! se ciocni de un înger eteric călare pe-o bicicletă în viteză. Căzu la pămînt, cu un oftat de uşurare.

'Ich bin OK, Ich bin OK', repetă unei cete de îngeri aflaţi deasupra lui. 'Sind Sie sicher?' Îl întinseră pe o bancă, cu un fular sub cap.'Ich bin OK, zău că da. Rămîn încă puţin, să-mi trag sufletul.'

Cînd deschise din nou ochii, zări o mînă întinsă ce-i păru cunoscută. Nemişcată şi de nemişcat, eterna mînă dreaptă, paternă şi dătătoare de direcţie. Îi era atît de familiară, în adorabila, generica ei abstracţie! Ar fi putut aparţine oricăruia dintre marii tătici ai secolului (în umbra căruia Matei crescuse ca un fir de mucegai); oricăruia dintre dătătorii de direcţii şi generatorii de viziuni (precum: inventarea de noi imperii, înălţarea de noi ziduri, ascensiunea spre noi idealuri, făurirea de noi oameni, etc., etc., etc.).

Sub mîna neobosit-întinsă citi: GUILIELMUS QUARTUS REX PATER PATRIAE. Ah, tranchilizanta omniprezenţă a tăticului care veghează! Liniştitoare precum versul unui poem ad-hoc, început pe un Autobahn anonim, între staţii de benzină şi fabrici de aluminiu: PATER PATRIAE. ARAL. ALLES SUPER.

Se simţi uşor ca un fulg pe cînd zăcea întins pe bancă, în mijlocul lui Wilhelmplatz, înconjurat de o tăcere tulburată doar de foşnetul porumbeilor adormiţi şi de ecoul îndepărtat al jazz-ului ce se scurgea dinspre Blue Note Café. Era ca un figurant pe o scenă pustie, unde singura recuzită erau bicicletele - sute de biciclete - părăsite de îngerii plecaţi să se îmbete cu muzica de jazz.

Precum mucegaiul, muzica de jazz nu cunoaşte limite în necuviincioasa ei discreditare a realităţii. Îşi bate joc de cele sfinte, de statuile cu mîna dreaptă în stare de erecţie. Prea puţin ştiau îngerii ăştia despre firul insidios care unea ritualurile lor nocturne de la Blue Note Café, de Jugend Swing-ul de odinioară, sau de cluburile subterane ale Cracoviei, Pragăi şi Prenzlauer Berg-ului... Sau poate că ştiau. Poate că aceşti îngeri - dentiştii, avocaţii, economiştii, urologii, fizicienii nucleari de mîine - conspirau de fapt pentru instaurarea unei noi ordini universale, fără tătici, fără programe, fără reţete pentru obţinerea fericirii. Era Bicicletei, senină şi lipsită de ţintă, precum o improvizaţie la trompetă sub degetele sublime ale lui Satchmo. Poate că o revoluţie ocultă se petrecea chiar atunci şi acolo, sub nasul nebănuitor al lui Guilielmus.

The Pigeon of Traum Station

They reached the Traum Station[*]: a king-size bed incorporating a stereo system stood at the heart of the window display, confirming the truth of what Matei had stated earlier, inside the Blue Note Café. Golden cupids posing as Christmas angels hung merrily above the bed, trepidating calmly and predictably to the sugary medley of Christmas carols, played by some Richard Claydermann[**] wannabe, which poured out of the bedhead's speakers. Vasyl's eyes became watery with impossible visions of shop-window beatitude, and Matei handed him the sliwowitz[***] without any comment. They kept watching the window for an indefinite amount of time, Vasyl locked in his grief and Matei locked in his discreetness.

“Jesus Christ!” screamed Vasyl, grabbing Matei by the coat. Stirred by the two staring strangers, a pigeon flew into the window display from some dark recess of the shop, wreaking havoc amidst the elaborate strings supporting the orchestration of cupids-in-disguise. Some of the cupids fell on the bed, like corpses on a battlefield. The bird paused from its flight to rest on the left pillow and dropped a large turd. It was a greyish-silverish pigeon and its eyes were unbearably knowledgeable and cold, as if they had witnessed the whole parade, the entire passage from amoeba, to fish, to batrachian[****], to reptile, to bird. The eyes of the species beyond the species, thought Matei, the gaze of millions and millions of creatures, rotting into one another, experimenting with new organs, growing or losing old limbs and new wings, in a millenary fermentation so that one day their flesh should be metamorphosed into a greyish-silverish pigeon wreaking havoc in the windows of Traum Station.

The pigeon gazed at the two strangers behind the glass, surrounded as they were by huge, gold, green and red street decorations, hanging baroquely from every pole. As if the strangers were two dummies in a shopwindow and the pigeon, the only arbiter who still possessed a sense of the objective.

“Someone's got their wires crossed tonight, huh?” pondered Matei. “You want in, and the pigeon wants out,” he continued, after a sip of sliwowitz.

“No, I want out, and the pigeon wants in,” cried Vasyl.

“That's what I was trying to say, only it came out the wrong way.”

The pigeon continued staring at them; suddenly, Matei had a very precise premonition that the bird was up to a nasty, dangerous trick. It's going to throw itself against the glass wall, maybe even break it with its beak, and this will set off the alarm, and what will the police find? Two Asylbewerber[*****] from Hotel Arkadia...

* “Traum Station” might be best translated as Station of Dreams.
** Richard Claydermann, the Parisian-born pianist, best known for his popular renditions of standard tunes and film music, beginning with “Ballade pour Adeline” (1976), is said within the next three decades to have sold 150 million records worldwide.
*** Sliwowitz is a fruit brandy made from the astringent damson or damascene plum produced throughout central and eastern Europe, possibly as early as the XIVth or XVth century.
**** Batrachian, though derived from the Greek batrakhos for frog, more generally means any amphibian.
***** “Asylbewerber” is the German expression for asylum seeker.

Porumbelul din Traum Station

Ajunseseră în dreptul magazinului Traum Station, în a cărui vitrină centrală trona un pat voluptuos, semicircular, cu patru difuzoare integrate printre catifele vişinii. Cupidoni aurii, de diverse dimensiuni, metamorfozaţi în îngeraşi de Crăciun, atîrnau veseli deasupra patului, trepidînd uşor în sunetul edulcorat al colindelor-de-supermarket, executate deun Richard Clayderman fleşcăit şi teuton. Ochii lui Vasîl deveniră apoşi, plini de o dureroasă beatitudine. Matei îi întinse sticla de şliboviţă, fără nici un comentariu. Stătură multă vreme aşa, Vasîl ferecat în visele sale, Matei într-o tăcere plină de discreţie.

'Găspădin Iisus!' exclamă Vasîl, apucîndu-l pe Matei de mînecă. Un porumbel apăruse de undeva, din penumbra magazinului, dînd iama printre sforile savant aranjate, de care atîrna întreaga orchestraţie de cupidoni deghizaţi în îngeraşi. Cîţiva căzură pe pat, ca nişte răniţi pe cîmpul de luptă. Porumbelul lovi din aripi cu violenţă nebănuită, împroşcînd în jur cu fulgi şi cu rahat. În cele din urmă se linişti fără nici o cauză aparentă şi poposi pe una din pernele de catifea, lăsînd să-i pice un al doilea rahat, mare şi lăbărţat.

Era un porumbel bătrîn, alb-argintiu, cu ochi insuportabil de pătrunzători şi de sceptici, ce parcă fuseseră martori ai întregului proces de evoluţie, de la amoebă, la peşti, la batracieni, la porumbei. Ochii tuturor speciilor revolute, medită Matei, privirea opacă a milioane şi milioane de generaţii, trecînd din una-n alta, neobosit şi grotesc, ba crescînd, ba lepădînd solzi, picioare sau aripi, într-o fermentaţie milenară, astfel ca, într-o bună zi, din toată chestia asta fără cap şi coadă, să se întrupeze un porumbel argintiu care să dea iama în vitrina magazinului Traum Station.

Porumbelul privi îndelung la cei doi străini care se zgîiau lael dincolo de geam, ca două marionete printre decoraţiile baroce de Crăciun ce atîrnau de stîlpii urbei. Două marionete într-o vitrină-oraş, iar el, porumbelul, singurul observator obiectiv al realităţii.

'Cineva a-ncurcat iţele în noaptea asta', grăi Matei. 'Tu vrei în vitrină, iar porumbelul vrea afară!' continuă, după un gît de şliboviţă.

Nu, moi dărăgoi drug, nu. Îi vice-versa. Ieu vreu afară, şi dumnealui, înăuntru', plînse Vasîl.

'Cam asta vroiam să zic şi eu, numa că mi-au venit cuvintele pe dos', răspunse Matei.

Porumbelul continuă să-i măsoare şi brusc Matei simţi pînă în oase premoniţia - ba nu: certitudinea - că pasărea le pregătea o figură perfidă. O să se izbească în geam ca o ghiulea, o să-l spargă, o să pornească alarma, şi ce-or să găsească poliţaii? Doi Asylbewerberi puţind a şliboviţă, scăpaţi din Hotelul Arkadia.

Snowflakes

Matei walked unhurriedly, as if the granny on his back fended off the murky demons crawling on the edge of the midnight hour. Her snoring had acquired a melodic quality, reminding him of a hymn to the three Magi. As they approached the Aral petrol station, a mystical curtain of immaculate snowflakes started to maculate the bitumen, and he felt surprisingly remote from the dampness of his day-to-day existence.

He slowed down in order to follow the patterns of the snowflakes on the road and decided there was something clearly predictable about their unpredictable surrender. The geometry of death, he thought, what an appropriate subject for a multidisciplinary thesis! If I were a student in this town, I would certainly embark on such a project. I would go on and on, researching it relentlessly, burying myself into an ever-increasing bibliography, wandering between astrophysics and biochemistry, between the occult arts of the dead millennia and the apocalyptic riddles of the Struwwelpeter comics[*]. And I would roll in and out of the Blue Note Café, indifferent to the passing of the seasons, and I would grow old on my bike, gradually shrinking into an inconspicuous gargoyle, under the knowledgeable gaze of a greyish-silverish pigeon...

But then he shivered with horror, as he realised that the snowflakes on the bitumen were not dying of a natural death, but kept lying there, in incomprehensible agony, refusing to melt. Opposition to death is far more disturbing than death itself, he mused, thinking of the ever-more-grotesque forms in which his century had opposed the natural patterns of death and decomposition. He thought of Lenin in his mausoleum, of Yuri Gagarin[**] in his pointless circumambulations, of hundreds of thousands of donor organs, suspended on the threshold of death, in thousands of registered and unregistered freezers around the planet.

* Der Struwwelpeter (dishevelled or shaggy-haired Peter) was a set of ten cautionary rhymed tales for children written and illustrated in colour by Frankfurt-based physician and psychiatrist Heinrich Hoffmann in 1845. Being an early example of a children’s book combining visual and verbal narratives, Der Struwwelpeter is often regarded as a precursor of comic books.
** Yuri Gagarin, a Russian pilot and cosmonaut, was the first human to complete an orbit in outer space around the Earth in April 1961.

Ninsoare

Matei își continuă mersul, fără grabă, de parcă prezenţa bunicii din cîrcă l-ar fi ocrotit de demonii mîloşi care ieşeau ca ciorchinii, tîrîş, la marginea miezului de noapte. Sforăitul ei căpătase o calitate vag melodică, amintind de imnul celor trei crai de la Răsărit. Cînd ajunseră în dreptul staţiei de benzină Aral, o mistică perdea de fulgi imaculaţi începu să maculeze asfaltul carosabil, pe care maşinile încetaseră să mai curgă.

Încetini pasul, ca să poată urmări aşezarea fulgilor pe drum, şi ajunse la concluzia oarecum tulburătoare că era ceva previzibil în imprevizibila lor capitulare. Geometria morţii, gîndi el, ce subiect interesant pentru o teză multidisciplinară. Dac-aş fi student în acest oraş, cu siguranţă că o asemenea teză mi-aş alege...

M-aş pune pe cercetare, m-aş afunda tot mai adînc într-o incomensurabilă şi inepuizabilă bibliografie, m-aş plimba de la astrofizică, la microbiologie, de la ştiinţele oculte ale mileniilor defuncte, pînă la apocalipticele mesaje ale lui Struwwelpeter şi Der Friederich. Şi m-aş pendula seară de seară prin Blue Note Café, indiferent la trecerea anotimpurilor, şi-aş îmbătrîni senin, pe bicicleta mea, cochîrjindu-mă treptat, pînă m-aş transforma într-un micuţ gargui, confortabil instalat sub un colţ de catedrală, sub privirea atotştiutoare a unui porumbel alb-argintiu...

Se cutremură de oroare cînd băgă de seamă că fulgii ajunşi pe asfalt nu mureau de moarte firească, ci continuau să zacă, într-o agonie de neînţeles, refuzînd să se topească. Opoziţia în faţa morţii e mult mai neliniştitoare decît moartea însăşi, cugetă el, evocînd formele din ce în ce mai groteşti pe care secolul lui le opusese proceselor naturale ale morţii şi descompunerii. Se gîndi la Lenin în mauzoleu, la Iuri Gagarin învîrtindu-se fără noimă prin cosmos, la sutele de mii de organe donate, agăţate în pragul morţii, aşteptîndu-şi noile trupuri în tăcerea frigoriferelor răspîndite prin toate colţurile planetei.

Where the River Stops

Dear Monalisa,

You keep asking me about it. No, you don’t keep asking me--but you keep expecting an answer.

I thought I could sink away and hide, deep down, where the river stops. Deep down in the blackest of the sea, where the sun never disturbs the salty waters. Where the sun remains powerless and therefore cannot inflict its fermentation, its exasperation, its recycled defecation, the slush and the slime called life.

I slipped, and slipped, between the silent, benevolent tongues of the jelly fish. Into the twilight zone of the octopuses, and the orchestrated whispers of the sea sponges. I slipped further down, into the black dream webs of the sea spiders. Further down, searching hungrily for the dark abyss, for my last chance to exhale on a bed of deep-sea anemones. I yearned for sleep—the sleep of calcium, and magnesium, and sodium, and carbon, and potassium, and cadmium, and zinc—sinking deeply into the wet darkness, safe at last from the kiss of light.

But it didn’t work, Monalisa.

It didn’t, it wouldn’t, it never will.

It is the most treacherous of seas, this black sea of ours[*]. It defies the logic of death. It forbids you to rest.

I feel your questions, which are not questions, just expectations, Monalisa. And beyond them, I feel her questions, which are not real questions, just would-be words on would-be letters dropped in a would-be mail-box, on a Sunday evening. A plankton of almost-questions, out of control, proliferating on the vast surface of the sea. And no abyss underneath, just that horror, that unspeakable horror I saw, that defiance of logic and death, that anomaly of creation, that curse.

I’m floating, Monalisa. Hopelessly, just beneath the plankton. I’m slime and I’m slush and I cannot begin to forget.

* Politically, the Black Sea is deeply entrenched in the longstanding Romanian belief that it acts as a European bulwark against Asiatic or eastern invasions. Having declared its independence from the Ottoman Turks when siding with Russia in 1877/1878 against the Turks and then having gained Bessarabia, Bukovina, and Transylvania at the end of the chaotic 1914-1918 World War, Romania was forced to cede the bulk of these territories under pressure from Russia and Germany by mid-1940. By August 1944, Russia, now in occupation of Romania, began to fulfil the role of the eastern “other,” partly manifested by the seemingly “independent” foreign policy associated with Nicolae Ceauşescu during the first decade of his rule from the mid-’sixties.

Notwithstanding its reputation for picturesque islands, the Black Sea, where the Danube amongst other major rivers stops, contains a significant lack of oxygen in its water and hence the decomposition of dead creatures and wreckage is noticeably slow. As the largest body of water with movement between lower and upper layers of water being rare, marine life cannot easily survive in its sludgy depths and its surface has high levels of minerals and salts and is not subject to high and low tides.

Unde moare fluviul

Dragă Monalisa,

Nu conteneşti să mă întrebi... Nu, de fapt nu mă întrebi, dar nu conteneşti să aştepţi un răspuns.

Speram să mă duc la fund, odată şi pentru totdeauna, să mă ascund adînc, acolo unde moare fluviul. În adîncul celei mai negre dintre mări, unde soarele nu perturbă niciodată apele sărate. Acolo unde soarele rămîne neputincios şi nu-şi mai poate impune exasperanta-i fermentaţie, în veci născătoare de mucus şi de mîl şi de zoaie, adică de viaţă.

Am alunecat, mereu mai jos, printre benevolentele tentacule ale meduzelor. În zona crepusculară a caracatiţelor, în palpitaţia discretă a bureţilor de mare. Şi încă mai jos, printre pînzele de vise, urzite de păianjănii acvatici, în tăcerea lor lucidă. Mai jos, căutînd nesăţios abisul negru, ultima mea şansă de-a muri, încet şi sigur, pe un pat de anemone marine. Cădeam şi cădeam, în întunericul ud, tînjind după somnul calciului şi al magneziului, şi al carbonului, şi al potasiului, şi al cadmiului, şi al zincului, sperînd ca în sfîrşit să nu mă mai ajungă sărutul soarelui.

Dar n-a fost să fie, Monalisa.

N-a fost să fie, nu mi-a fost dat să reuşesc şi nu-mi va fi dat niciodată.

E cea mai perfidă dintre mări, această mare a noastră. Desfide logica morţii. Îţi interzice să te odihneşti.

Simt întrebările tale, Monalisa, care nu sînt întrebări, ci aşteptări. Şi, dincolo de ele, simt întrebările ei, care nici ele nu sînt întrebări propriu-zise, ci posibile vorbe ale unor posibile scrisori aruncate într-o duminică seară într-o posibilă cutie poştală. Un plancton de eventuale întrebări, proliferîndu-se incontrolabil pe vasta faţă a mării. Şi dedesubt, nici vorbă de abis! Doar grozăvia aia, Monalisa, grozăvia inimaginabilă de care am dat, acea sfidare a logicii şi a morţii, acea anomalie a creaţiei, acel blestem.

Plutesc, Monalisa. Fără nici o speranţă. Sub planctonul călduţ. Sînt mîl, şi hoit, şi zoaie, şi nu pot începe să uit.