“You should know,” I said softly, surprised at my own voice, “that I once found a thorn in your foot. I pulled it out with my own teeth.”
“I haven’t forgotten you, sir.”
“Ever since thinking of you, every time you’ve come to mind, I’ve called you something different — a mountain ash berry — a bird — a waxwing.”
“I don’t exactly understand, sir, but I think you’re saying lovely words to me.”
“Yes, and to follow up on what I was saying: I’m going to kiss every last inch of you. Just so you know — so there won’t be any surprises.”
“Just kiss me all over, sir, wherever you want.”
Much later, well past midnight, as I was squatting naked in front of the stove trying to get the fire going again, I started musing on my own affairs. Mustafa Mukkerman came to mind as did, of course, Béla Bundasian, my adopted son, whom I hadn’t seen in four or five years, although he lived nearby, in the off-limits conservation area. Sooner or later, I hoped, I would find him, and perhaps we could leave together for the sunny Balkans. This woman hadn’t moved in with me at the most opportune time, but here she was, panting away beside me. Kneeling, I turned toward the bed and reached under the blanket.
“Was that good, I hope?”
“It wasn’t bad, sir.”
“Maybe all this was meant to happen, but one fine day I may get up and leave this place behind. I’ll tell you a secret: I’ve got another life.”
“I thought so. Did you know Zoltán Marmorstein, sir? He left, too.”
“No, I never had the pleasure.”
“Maybe he’ll return: these are his socks.”
“If he comes, he comes. We’ll welcome him with open arms.”
The blizzard had stopped, and the moonlit peaks shone into the house. In the dead silence the snow began crackling around the house as if Zoltán Marmorstein were approaching with those guts of his weighing down his trousers. Elvira Spiridon slipped out from under the blanket and stepped to the window. For a long time, maybe hours, she just stood there: not unlike those nearby peaks, her shoulders were soft, pink, round. Slipping back in beside me at daybreak, her thighs and her behind were like ice, like glass.
I blew my warm breath everywhere over those frigid limbs, running my nose all along her.
“I haven’t even mentioned your smell yet. This spot here, for example, right here on your neck, I like it a lot. I don’t think I’ve smelled that on anyone.”
“My husband washed me before I left — he spread hazelnut oil all over me.”
“Hazelnuts? I’ve never heard of such a thing. I definitely want to get to know your husband.”
“But you do know him. You once saved his life.”
It had been years since I’d rested naked on a rag rug by a hot stove, and now I was breathing in the titillating scent of hazelnuts. What more could I have wanted? It seemed I’d achieved all I could hope for. Yes, here I was indeed, lolling about with Elvira Spiridon’s velvety behind in my lap. I’d reached the top. .”
All at once said Elvira Spiridon said, “I don’t know your name yet, sir,” rousing me from my reverie.
“That’s true, but I promise that I’ll tell you soon enough, maybe no later than this evening.”
“Because, then, perhaps I’d sometimes call you by your name.”
“Yes — all I ask is for a bit of patience — that time will soon come. Maybe you won’t believe me, but not long ago I lost my papers, and I urgently need to speak with Colonel Coca Mavrodin about my name. Just now, unfortunately, I cannot say.”
“I only thought that if I could call you by name, I’d get used to you sooner, sir.”
As she sat up beside me on the cot so early that morning, I’d sometimes for fun look out the window from under her armpit or just above her shoulder. A purple mist veiled the valleys, above which only the tops of the spruces were visible: occasionally crows rose up en masse from out of the mist and flew off toward the cliffs of Pop Ivan Mountain. After a while the rising sun poured light over the snowy peaks.
While the cabin aired itself out, we stood before the open window side by side. Our hands touched, slowly pressing against each other until finally they clasped in reconciliation. Cupped between them there no doubt secretly lurked the name of the person whose footprints wound about the cabin walls like bonds of devotion in the snow.
In the clearing opposite the house warm piles of manure sparkled black in the freshly fallen snow A dappled dog sauntered about between them and waxwings fluttered above, warming themselves in the swirling steam. Smoke hovered in a tangled web above the shingles of the nearby farmhouse: at home, after his nocturnal excursion, Severin Spiridon was already puttering about.
The sun was blazing strong. Soon I had to be off to my new workplace. Plainly there was a woman in the house — I found my fatigue jacket hanging on the fence, awash with fresh air; my first thought was that although I was looking upon official, assistant coroner’s garb that there’s not a stubborn odor the wind of the pass can’t blow right out of such old clothes in a single night.
7. BEBE TESCOVINA'S BLOOD
Early one morning a mountain infantryman dropped in on the assistant coroner — the onetime blackberry and blueberry authority, Andrei — in the road worker’s cabin in the Baba Rotunda Pass.The soldier waited until Elvira Spiridon had left, disappearing into the spruces in the direction of her husband’s farm, and then he’d stepped from the woods and headed for the cabin, alone there atop the pass. For his part, Andrei Bodor, as soon as he heard the approaching steps — crackling hard on the film of ice coating the road: the sound of someone bringing terrible news — cowered behind the door and, like a dog, pissed a few drops into the corner.
But the soldier brought only a package, one that carried an intimate message. From the satchel that hung at his side he pulled a second-hand uniform — a noncommissioned officer’s — along with a pair of rubber boots and tight knee-breeches. He told Andrei Bodor that they were heading off to Dobrin City and to put them on at once.
Andrei knew this couldn’t mean anything all that bad. In the Sinistra Zone, such cast-off, chevronless uniforms were worn by the mountain infantry’s inside men.
“I came on foot so we’d have time for a chat along the way.”
“What’s the use of chatting with me? About strawberries, blackberries, and long-eared owls?”
“Then let’s just get to the point. If you’ll allow me — ”
“Why? We don’t have much common ground.”
“Oh but we do — let’s not neglect Miss Coca. She’s the one who sent me. At first she misjudged you, but her opinion’s changed since then — just between us, she now holds you in high regard. And what’s more, she’s offering you a very sensitive job — of course, only if you accept, naturally. She’d like to send you to the conservation area.”
“I don’t have access. Colonel Borcan never gave me permission.”
“Well, you’ve got it now. Miss Coca wants you to spend a night at the commissary. A little girl lives there, Bebe Tescovina. They say her eyes glow at night like a lynx. Miss Coca wants to find out if it’s true, and it wouldn’t hurt to get to the bottom of this.”
Back in the days of mining on the slopes above Dobrin, a narrow-gauge railway had led down to the loading ramps and slag heaps. Later, when ore production ceased and the bears were moved into the abandoned mine shafts, that railway came in handy to deliver fodder, fruit, trash, and horse carcasses — not to mention live donkeys — to those beasts. The former miners’ commissary still stood at the last stop on the route: now bear-keepers and forest rangers went there every night to drink, to play nine-men’s morris, dice, and dominoes, and to fry mushrooms and bird eggs on the stove.