FICTION
NORMAN MANEA
The Black Envelope
In the kiosk window, the lovely curled head of a spring morning. Small
black eyes. Crimson lips, pink-enamel cheeks.
"The newspapers? They're just coming. The papers will be ready in a
second."
The men huddling around the window came to life.
The girl moved back inside the kiosk to arrange the stacks of papers.
The pavement was no longer large enough. There were pedestrians
darting everywhere, casting impatient glances to left and right - wave
upon wave of bustling ants. The line for the papers grew longer.
"I haven't got any more
Flacaras,"
announced the soprano. "And
this one is the last
Romania Libera.
You can whistle for
Filafelia
and
Pescarul-
they're real vintage wine. No, I haven't got
Rebus.
Maybe to–
nl0rrOW."
The tall, pale man moved beside the lamppost with a bundle of fresh
papers under his arm. He opened them up and began skimming through.
"What could have got into them?" grumbled a little old woman
leaning on the rubbish bin. "Newspapers - lining up for the paper,
would you believe it. Stupid brats. As if they'd find anything out by
reading them. I tell you, sir, they're the same. All the same! Money
down the drain, I say!"
But the tall man with white hair, beard, and mustache, all perfectly
trimmed, did not hear her. Nor did he hear the tapping of heels on the
asphalt or see the rainbow skirts fluttering in the breeze, or the brief
glitter of golden stockings. The gentleman neither heard nor saw any–
thing, absorbed as he was in leafing through the papers .
"That's what people are like. They forget quickly," the elderly voice
Editor's Note: Excerpted from
The Black ElIlJelope
by Norman Manea, to be
published by Farrar, Straus
&
Giroux in June . Copyright
©
1995 by Norman
Manea. Translation copyright
©
1995 by Farrar, Straus
&
Giroux. All rights
reserved.
