NORMAN MANEA
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so you forget about Titi and Gica and Gina.
Tolea had left the bathroom and was lying on the sofa with a book
in his hand. He prepared his role, working out the bits of impertinence
and the quotations that would irritate his colleagues at the Hotel
Tranzit. Maybe someone had brought a bottle of whiskey for Comrade
Teodorescu. Perfect: well, Gica old man, a comrade left that smoky
bottle for you. Or maybe the optician Corkscrew has arranged a room
for some boss man or other. Perfect: at twelve he'll be coming with a
slim little lady in a red silk dress; fine, no one will disturb them; fine, we
won't interfere - see nothing hear nothing say nothing. But we'll drive
you nuts with Terence and Baronius and Otto III. The Saint: the ideal–
istic politician. "In turn he offered to Romans the spectacle of his holy
majesty and the aspiration to complete solitude in a hut of clay and
reed." The Holy See, electric chair, apocalypse ... twilight of the world
...
mundus senescit.
And love, of course: the reign of love on earth, for
a thousand years,
frater, dulcissime frater,
a thousand and one years,
aman–
tissime.
His neighbor Gafton had gone into the bathroom: he could hear
Matei Gafton coughing and grunting. "Under the formidable pressure of
the vast nomadic hordes . . . people had to go among the Romans to
find safety and even food ... We must admit the benevolence and even
wisdom of the emperors who accepted those nomads ... what historians
call the infiltration of the barbarians." Recite that to the barbarians?
"Fruges, non viri,}}
as brother Gerbert, the
dulcissimus,
said. "The fruits of
the earth, yes, but not people." That's the kind of aphorism that should
interest Corkscrew and Gina, yes, or rather there's room for speculation
about such nonsense, really there is; brother Gerbert,
amantissimus,
had a
head full of dross and long rigmaroles. He threw down the book and
put on his black corduroys and black shirt: his uniform. That was how
he appeared at the Hotel Tranzit: in work uniform. That is , in
mourning clothes. He had several pairs of black trousers and ten or so
black shirts: they could be made of cotton, linen, jersey, silk, so long as
they were black. That was how Professor Anatol Dominic Vancea
Voinov reported for work at the Hotel Tranzit reception.
He put on the black overalls as if they were a suit of armor. Yes,
that was it. At least that was left, the defiance, and he did not complain
that that was all it was - of course not. Night had scattered - that was
the real victory. The calendar was made up only of days, coming one af–
ter the other. Night was a shapeless swamp, mere nothingness, a black
hole. Thank God he had escaped again. You can never be sure you
'II
reach the frontiers of a new day. What a wonderful event was the day -
