Unobtrusive voice, fixed gaze, astonished.
— What exactly can be so horrible? If it was Oswald who shot him or the other guy, who cares? What’s so horrible?
He asks and answers, poses and resolves dilemmas meant to provoke his interlocutor.
— It’s clear that Johnson shot him. Otherwise, there’d be nothing horrible at all.
Broad-shouldered, ham-handed, squeezed into a shabby navy-blue suit, the tall man is a caricature and he makes no pretense of hiding it: he emits limpid, self-confident opinions, he notices without noticing, he naps in public. Modest, even humble, proud only of his studies abroad at Tashkent.
— Tell me, how is the overflow threshold calculated?
This formula can be found in any manual, but the request doesn’t surprise him, and he notes it conscientiously.
— If I would make it ten centimeters?
— Depends on the debit. You have the formula. Calculate it.
— Well, I have a debit of ten liters per second.
— Good, see how much results.
— I think twenty centimeters will do it.
— If you don’t want to calculate, put down however much you like. If you want to guess, there’s no more point in asking.
He’s silent for a few seconds. His colleague’s irritation only reaches him in the faintest way.
— The fact is, theory’s one thing, practice is another. I’ll make it thirty centimeters.
Mihai Burlacu had learned the textbooks by heart in the Soviet East. He put up with the vicissitudes of fate and accepted burdens as punishments that would somehow pan out in the end. His only virtue was laziness; it kept him from becoming director general, or more. Riding around in the Volga limousine he’d picked up cheap while working as technical attaché in a foreign embassy, he’d gradually sunk to a position where he was simply tolerated in the obscurity of this run-of-the mill department. Serene, reconciled, and modest, he had a way of accepting whatever task and leaving it on the table, untouched among papers, manuals, and drawings. Ten days before the project fell due, he’d announce he didn’t have enough time. The project would have to be saved, so the boss would offer whoever took the job a special compensation originally due to the engineer Burlacu. Earning in ten days what he would usually make in a month or two wasn’t half-bad for the substitute, and Burlacu was always happy enough with his regular pay. He refused suggestions to transfer elsewhere and seemed wiser than everyone who tried to take care of him.
— You know tomorrow’s the Brazil — Ghana match?
Why bother to reply?
— I think Brazil will win.
Offering banal opinions and information, Misha (as he’s known), announces things everyone already knows and states them in vaguely astonished, well-informed tones: “I think we’ll come to the office tomorrow at seven.” Conflating commonplaces with the sensational news, he delivers everything in the same filmy voice.
A rectangular sheet of paper with headings and signs appears on the table. Misha’s neighbor has a copy as well. The Master Statistics Chart. All work should be accompanied by this sheet: starting yesterday.
Sample Signature Sheet. Time Sheet. Re-used Materials Sheet. Standard Projects Sheet. Worker’s Protection Sheet. Deficit Materials Sheet. Awards Sheet. Finance Sheet. Approvals Sheet. Applications Sheet. Completions Sheet. Calculation Sheet. Fire Protection Sheet. New Technologies Sheet. Statistics Sheet.
Now — the Statistics Sheet. (Model) Statistics Sheet. Project Code: 39. Beneficiary: C.S.G.D. Thermo-technical Center (10). Item: 0700 (Metallurgic Lime Factory. Furnaces 3 and 4). Work Category: 470 (Water). Executing Workshop: 21 (T4). Delivery Date. Contracted. Realized. Hours Clocked. Re-use Savings Hours. Value of Investment. Average Hours. Clocked Hours: Workshop P. Average Hours. Clocked Hours: Workshop E. Average Hours. Hours Clocked: Workshop D. Average Hours. Total Equipment. Special Pieces. Tons. Asbestos Cement Plates. Tons. Surface of Pump Rooms. Square Meters. Number of Circuits. Aggregate Units. Flow Rate. Cubic Meters per Hour. Pumping Height. Columnar Meters: Water. Installed Power.
The telephone rings: once, a second time, again and again. Someone stands up, speaks hurriedly, sounds irritated, then continues in hushed tones, whispering facetiously. Two fingers tap a shoulder. Lying on the table, the receiver waits.
— Someone’s on the phone — looking for you.
The chair rotates and bumps into the corner of the table.
— Hello! My dear, don’t get upset that I’m calling. I have a big favor to ask.
— With whom would you like to speak?
— What? I wanted to ask you if this evening you could. .
— Madame, with whom would you like to speak?
Momentarily suffocated, the playful murmur subsides, forbidden, then reappears: serpentine, softly idle, spoiled.
— What, isn’t this I. S. P. S. H. C.? Isn’t this Department T4AII? And. . isn’t this comrade. . What, no? I’m sorry, you know (and the voice shifts to the formal mode of address), you sound exactly like him on the phone and he usually picks up. Could you, though? You are very nice. Yes, I do have a very youthful voice. No, not exactly, after all. Between. No, it’s not possible, please. Yes, since you have the telephone there on the table. Sometimes. Yes. Good. I’ll call. Yes. Particularly.
The voice dies away, dumbstruck:
— What, Covalschi? What did you say?
— What? Ger. .? Ger-ştan-schi‚ Gerştanşchi. Yes. Yes. Gerştanschi. Yes. Yes. Gerştanschi. No, No, something frightened me. OK, I didn’t understand. Yes.
— Yes, of course. I promise. Please. I’ll hold on. Yes, thank you.
Maybe they exchanged first names, addresses, home-phone numbers. Perhaps they joked, swore, kidded each other. Whoever he was, he wouldn’t have been able to resist such a voice coming down from the clouds of a fairy tale. Nor would the lady have resisted such a chance opportunity to use her voice without giving it a try, encircling it, swallowing it.
Then the receiver was passed to the intended recipient.
— Yes, it’s me. Yes, it was a colleague. Yes. They moved offices. I should record? — The Good Night, Kids broadcast? The text, why should I check it again? Maybe. I can’t promise. I understand. But I can’t. I’m not promising. Possibly. Under the doormat? In front of the door, under the mat? In a wad of paper?
The chair rotated back, banging into the drawer. Ahead: navy-blue sleeves, the table scattered with drawings, forms, pencils. The idiotic smile, the sweaty cheeks, the watery, listless eyes. Misha. Misha the spy.
Flow rate. Cubic meters per hour. Installed power. Kilowatt. Circuit Five. Aggregate. Functional Flow. Cubic Meters Per Hour. Pumping Height. Water Column Meters. Installed Power. Kilowatt. Circuit Six. Aggregate. Reference Flow.
Laxity. That’s what put an end to the Captain, too. All of a sudden: abandonment. Captain Bogdan Zubcu wanted to end his days hanging from a rope but they didn’t let him so he threw himself into a metallurgic furnace, where he finally burned — escaped — that trauma repeated in his daughter’s eyes, burning them out. Laxity. Abandonment.
Height. Pumping Height. Water Column Meters. Cubic Meters Per Hour. Air Pressure. Wandering in his daughter’s memory, Captain Zubcu had no more air. Meters. Volume. Cubic Meters. Decanting Total. Decanting Time. Hours. Radial Decanting Surface. Square Meters. Flow. Liters Per Second. Cubic Meters. Length of Network. The length of the road to the Captain, to the pyre. There needs to be a permission slip from the chief — Chief Saint Sebastian. Depth of Burial. Meters. Pre-Stressed Concrete Tube. Kilometers. Equivalent Diameter. Chief of Planning Service. Chief, Accounting Division. Chief of the Collective. Chief Adjunct. Chief President. Chief at, Chief of, Chief for.