The wild fruit depot, where I lived at the time, stood outside the village alone on a meadow and could be reached from the Dobrin railway station only by way of a narrow wagon track. Coca Mavrodin braked at the turn and, after I jumped from the still-moving vehicle, cut the engine.
“Of course I won’t have the tubes cut out of his tires,” she called after me. “Don’t believe such things about me. I knew he had nothing on him. ”
“I figured you were just kidding about the tires.”
“And if you think about it, you’ll realize the whole thing was planned this way in advance with our Polish colleagues — it was a drill.”
“I guessed as much.”
“No, you didn’t. You learned this key bit of information only now, from me: I let you in on it.”
Winter was descending in those very hours down the slopes of Pop Ivan Mountain into the Sinistra valley. Icicles were forming from the water trickling over the eaves of the former mill that now functioned as the fruit depot. I had the impulse to crack open my chocolate egg — what sort of clever little trifle lay hidden inside? But now with autumn nearly over, darkness came early, so I saved that pleasant moment for the next day. In the pitch-black hallway I dipped my mug haphazardly into the fermented fruit juices with which I flavored my regular drink, watered-down denatured alcohol. Then I crouched in my little nook in the corner of a storage room, where each night, the spirits lit me up inside out by lighting up my veins.
Before long I was hungry, so I soaked mushrooms and cold boiled potatoes in the watered-down denatured alcohol, then sucked away at this concoction while blissfully perking my ears to the organ-like tunes outside: the wind playing against icicles. In keeping with my habit — rain or shine, every night — I knelt down by the window before dozing off and pissed into the yard.
But, now, my timing wasn’t so good. No sooner had I laid down than a beam of light started bouncing its way amid the barrels on those moldy floors and about the dank walls until finally zeroing in on my straw mattress in the corner. And who stood there but one of the gray ganders, sopping wet.
“Please don’t do that again,” he said softly, sternly. “If you’ve got to take a piss, we’ll be happy to walk you across the dark yard any time. From now on you’ll always find one of us nearby.”
Of course, I should have guessed as much: from this day on I ranked among Coca Mavrodin’s confidants. I’d glimpsed one of her secrets, so from now on the gray ganders would keep an eye on me, too. In proof of which one of them already stood there before me, slushy with piss.
Around dawn, when, in keeping with propriety, I got up to trudge to the outhouse at the far end of the yard, I said to him:
“You’ve got to be tired. If you come inside, I’ll dig up some sacks you can lay down on. A new day’s about to begin, get some rest.”
“No way,” he said, brushing me off. “You’re a stranger. How do I know what sort of bed you’re offering me?”
“Then forget I said anything.”
Morning was at hand. No sooner did the sunlight pour over the slopes than the barking of dogs billowed up; then, along the road, beyond the stream, the mist around the bust of Géza Kökény began glowing yellow.
The barking came again and again. Whenever it ceased for brief intervals, the dead silence would be broken by a howl from Valentin Tomoioaga — the photographer-cum-colonel whose shoes I’d filled for all of a day, and whom I had to thank for Mustafa Mukkerman becoming my friend.
6. ELVIRA SPIRIDON'S HUSBAND
It’s said that meeting up with a dwarf in the morning is a good omen. And indeed, early in the day on one of the luckiest days of my life — when Elvira Spiridon and her velvety behind moved in with me — I’d crossed paths with Gábriel Dunka, the dwarf. In Dobrin City, back when both of us were just scraping by, he was among the few people authorized to keep a pair of scissors at home, and I would go over for a trim occassionaly. The one actual barber, Aranka Westin’s live-in lover, had been kicked out of town, so when the hair grew out over the nape of my neck, I went to the dwarf for a cut.
On that memorable day — I must have thought it was a Thursday — I had been keeping a lookout for Mustafa Mukkerman, the Turkish trucker, who on that day of the week invariably passed along the north-south highway outside the village. I met up with Gábriel Dunka only by chance. Though autumn was nearly over, and the edges of the stream were already rimmed with ice, I found him sitting on the bank, soaking his wounded, purple-blue ankles in the frigid water. He worked with sand; which is to say, he stomped his feet all day long in a crate full of wet sand in the little workshop where he also lived; the repetitive work chafed his ankles. The Sinistra prison, then under construction, had commissioned him to frost sheets of glass destined for the prison windows. Being the Zone’s only dwarf, he alone was suited for the delicate task: the glass didn’t break under his light, bantam frame. Even in the dead of winter Gábriel Dunka loped down to the stream, to holes in the ice, to relieve his swollen ankles.
And there he was, swashing his feet about in the stream when I happened upon him. I hadn’t planned to chat with him for long, but I stayed there for quite a while. I asked whether he’d seen Mustafa Mukkerman parked at the gas station with his meat truck, or if maybe he had already passed by. But neither of us was quite sure it was in fact Thursday. Indeed, some presentiment to the contrary must have come over me, for I decided then and there to have my hair trimmed a bit — and not just the usual haircut such as I’d gotten not long before, for Colonel Puiu Borcan’s funeral.
Snipping away with the scissors behind my ears like a real barber, Gábriel Dunka regaled me with stories. Soon he’d be rich, he announced: some people from the Zone’s natural history collection had been around his place lately expressing interest in his skeleton. They said they’d buy it for good money to put on exhibit someday. In his initial anger he’d sent them packing, but if they were to return — and of course such hucksters could hardly be expected to give up so easily — he wouldn’t turn them down. Not being particularly interested in his affairs, I asked Gábriel Dunka to keep his mind on the glinting scissors instead, as if even then I knew that I was making myself pretty for none other than Elvira Spiridon.
But just at that moment, as I was getting my haircut in Gábriel Dunka’s glass workshop, the mountain infantrymen tracked me down. Without delay they took me to the barracks. Waiting for me in the forest commissioner’s office was Coca Mavrodin: she asked me to leave the village that very day and move to the Baba Rotunda Pass. Under a topographic map of the conservation area, huddled inertly in her greatcoat like a spider in a far corner of its web, she seemed not to have stirred for hours: her eyes, lips, and tongue gave off not even the smallest sparkle of light.
“A road worker lived in the pass,” she began, “named Zoltán Marmorstein or something like that. Who in the hell knows what came over him — he up and left — left, just like that. His cabin is empty and I’d like you to move in.”
“I wouldn’t want to shove him out of his place.”
“Look, this individual won’t return. If you believe what people say, he made a big scene last night — he cut out his own guts.”
“Well, in that case, how could I say no?”
“The road worker’s cabin is an official residence, so you will be required to perform certain duties. Zoltán Marmorstein worked for us as a coroner’s assistant on the side.”