As he stood in front of the bathroom mirror and · As he stood in front of the bathroom mirror and painstakingly tweezed at the hair tufts growing out of his ears, Mr Stoenescu remembered

As he stood in front of the bathroom mirror and

painstakingly tweezed at the hair tufts growing out of his

ears, Mr Stoenescu remembered a joke he'd heard the day

before and, tee-hee-hee, chuckled unwittingly. There was

still plenty of time till his nephew was due. However, he had

his routines and they came first. The blare of the TV was

wafting in from the dining room. He trimmed his ear- and

nose-hair every two weeks, yet when it came to shaving, he'd

do it every morning, day in, day out, somehow out of reflex,

a reflex going back to the times he used to hold a position.

Thanks to the circumstances, he'd come to be charged with

major responsibilities from a young age, yup, he chuckled

again, he'd been appointed to a great variety of senior

positions, quite delicate some of them, but that's another

story. In the beginning he'd found it quite hard, the shaving

bit, that is, as he was only used to taking a bath on Saturdays,

in the cask, behind the stable in summer and in the heated

kitchen in winter. In the shade of the adobe wall, under the

ink-blue sky, not far from the plot where the maize plants

were rustling, he'd scrub his own back, for his father had died

in the war and male siblings he had none only sisters. His

father had breathed his last on the eastern front, yet his

mother, his sisters and himself had claimed all their lives, as

counselled by some tovarisch, that he'd died a hero's death

on the western front fighting the fascists, but that's another

story. For fifty years he'd been fresh shaved every morning,

with the odd exception. He'd scrape his straight- or safety-

razor across his cheek, carefully stretching the skin with two

fingers, whilst listening to the radio or the TV. He'd enjoy the

familiar cracking of stub, rapt in contemplation of the lather,

thick as whipped cream, revealing swathe upon florid

swathe of freshened up skin, ready to show 'em all who's top

As he stood in front of the bathroom mirror and

painstakingly tweezed at the hair tufts growing out of his

ears, Mr Stoenescu remembered a joke he'd heard the day

before and, tee-hee-hee, chuckled unwittingly. There was

still plenty of time till his nephew was due. However, he had

his routines and they came first. The blare of the TV was

wafting in from the dining room. He trimmed his ear- and

nose-hair every two weeks, yet when it came to shaving, he'd

do it every morning, day in, day out, somehow out of reflex,

a reflex going back to the times he used to hold a position.

Thanks to the circumstances, he'd come to be charged with

major responsibilities from a young age, yup, he chuckled

again, he'd been appointed to a great variety of senior

positions, quite delicate some of them, but that's another

story. In the beginning he'd found it quite hard, the shaving

bit, that is, as he was only used to taking a bath on Saturdays,

in the cask, behind the stable in summer and in the heated

kitchen in winter. In the shade of the adobe wall, under the

ink-blue sky, not far from the plot where the maize plants

were rustling, he'd scrub his own back, for his father had died

in the war and male siblings he had none only sisters. His

father had breathed his last on the eastern front, yet his

mother, his sisters and himself had claimed all their lives, as

counselled by some tovarisch, that he'd died a hero's death

on the western front fighting the fascists, but that's another

story. For fifty years he'd been fresh shaved every morning,

with the odd exception. He'd scrape his straight- or safety-

razor across his cheek, carefully stretching the skin with two

fingers, whilst listening to the radio or the TV. He'd enjoy the

familiar cracking of stub, rapt in contemplation of the lather,

thick as whipped cream, revealing swathe upon florid

swathe of freshened up skin, ready to show 'em all who's top

dog. At his mother's death he was expected, according to

custom, not to interfere with the growth of his beard for forty

days. And he would have fain gone ahead and done it, hadn't

he, 36 hours into his mourning, received a phone call from a

friend warning him he was being rumoured to have fallen

pray to superstition. He'd always had friends in high places,

whom he'd do favours to in his turn. So he removed his black

armband and glided his razor over his cheeks thus fending

off trouble. It was much later that he started addressing the

issue of his nose and ear hair, when it no longer posed the risk

of being associated with bourgeois practices which would

have incurred serious problems for him. Not unlike the spot

of trouble Dinu had run into, right?

Oh well, funny how of late the smallest gestured

seemed to recall scenes long gone and whatever he touched

displayed its long, tangled roots, thrust deep and spread

throughout a past he'd thought long since consumed by dry

rot, feeding on its soil. He was, of course, in his bathroom

tiled in shades of walnut, complete with Italian basin and

shower, somewhere central, with the shade of trees

soothingly seeping in through the window. Yet he found

himself simultaneously in other rooms his life had taken him

to, like, for instance, a wooden shack, at the youth

construction site he's dipping his shaving brush into a tin

once holding sardines, now filled with cold river water, in

preparation of calling a rally with slogans dispatched from

high up. As if history itself consisted of a sequence of rooms,

not unlike an immense house with rooms opening into each

other; you go from room to room, and there's no way you

could have reached the one you're in at the moment, the one

you're having your tea or shaving in, if you hadn't crossed all

the rooms leading to it. A kind of causality he startled at the

word. That happened to him occasionally, out of reflex,

when delicate words popped into his thoughts. Time was

when such words could have landed him in trouble if, giving

free rein to his thoughts, he would have used them idly, but

that's another story. A brief, fleeting startle. Like a bird's

shadow on a child's hopscotch, he felt like saying, but there

was no one to say it to. His cheeks were now flaccid. His

bushy eyebrows, though, which could give people the

shivers in their day, had not entirely lost their volume. They

still kept something of the electricity of power. On the

whole, he was pleased with his looks. Other folks in his age,

or even younger, were already feeding the linden trees in the

cemetery. True, tee-hee-hee, in his age other folks were

presidents, but that's another story. Oh well, it had started

some time back, more precisely, after having that dream,

hmmm, what should he call it?, unusual… surreal. Since that

time he'd started remembering all sorts of things, the past

seemed closer than ever, his skin was crawling with history.

Mr Esco

(a national epopee,

coming-of-age novel and riddle)

Mr Esco was born out of a tinned fish box or out of

a jar of stewed fruit, no one knows for sure. Some claim he

has emerged from the foam of sheep-milk whey, only to be

taken for complete idiots by others. Perhaps we should side

with those holding less extreme views and talk about the

weather, or join the revolutionaries and debate the

Rumanian spelling reform. Anyway, it is important to know

that in his childhood Mr Esco was partial to a game of

noughts and crosses using a stick to trace the grid in fresh

dog. At his mother's death he was expected, according to

custom, not to interfere with the growth of his beard for forty

days. And he would have fain gone ahead and done it, hadn't

he, 36 hours into his mourning, received a phone call from a

friend warning him he was being rumoured to have fallen

pray to superstition. He'd always had friends in high places,

whom he'd do favours to in his turn. So he removed his black

armband and glided his razor over his cheeks thus fending

off trouble. It was much later that he started addressing the

issue of his nose and ear hair, when it no longer posed the risk

of being associated with bourgeois practices which would

have incurred serious problems for him. Not unlike the spot

of trouble Dinu had run into, right?

Oh well, funny how of late the smallest gestured

seemed to recall scenes long gone and whatever he touched

displayed its long, tangled roots, thrust deep and spread

throughout a past he'd thought long since consumed by dry

rot, feeding on its soil. He was, of course, in his bathroom

tiled in shades of walnut, complete with Italian basin and

shower, somewhere central, with the shade of trees

soothingly seeping in through the window. Yet he found

himself simultaneously in other rooms his life had taken him

to, like, for instance, a wooden shack, at the youth

construction site he's dipping his shaving brush into a tin

once holding sardines, now filled with cold river water, in

preparation of calling a rally with slogans dispatched from

high up. As if history itself consisted of a sequence of rooms,

not unlike an immense house with rooms opening into each

other; you go from room to room, and there's no way you

could have reached the one you're in at the moment, the one

you're having your tea or shaving in, if you hadn't crossed all

the rooms leading to it. A kind of causality he startled at the

word. That happened to him occasionally, out of reflex,

when delicate words popped into his thoughts. Time was

when such words could have landed him in trouble if, giving

free rein to his thoughts, he would have used them idly, but

that's another story. A brief, fleeting startle. Like a bird's

shadow on a child's hopscotch, he felt like saying, but there

was no one to say it to. His cheeks were now flaccid. His

bushy eyebrows, though, which could give people the

shivers in their day, had not entirely lost their volume. They

still kept something of the electricity of power. On the

whole, he was pleased with his looks. Other folks in his age,

or even younger, were already feeding the linden trees in the

cemetery. True, tee-hee-hee, in his age other folks were

presidents, but that's another story. Oh well, it had started

some time back, more precisely, after having that dream,

hmmm, what should he call it?, unusual… surreal. Since that

time he'd started remembering all sorts of things, the past

seemed closer than ever, his skin was crawling with history.

Mr Esco

(a national epopee,

coming-of-age novel and riddle)

Mr Esco was born out of a tinned fish box or out of

a jar of stewed fruit, no one knows for sure. Some claim he

has emerged from the foam of sheep-milk whey, only to be

taken for complete idiots by others. Perhaps we should side

with those holding less extreme views and talk about the

weather, or join the revolutionaries and debate the

Rumanian spelling reform. Anyway, it is important to know

that in his childhood Mr Esco was partial to a game of

noughts and crosses using a stick to trace the grid in fresh

cowpats. In his teens he quite enjoyed having lift rides in

town. Yet more important than all that is what happened to

Mr Esco and his wife yesterday around lunchtime. They

found out, completely by chance, on a zebra crossing, that

early in the nineteenth century, teller windows had been

invented. Now the moment they found out that fact, Mr and

Mrs Esco started being dragged from one teller window to

another. A clerk with decayed teeth whispered into their

ears: if the woman keeps being driven from pillar to post for

more than three times, she'll give birth to a child with two

heads and four legs. A second clerk, who'd been

eavesdropping, said: the species tends to adapt to

bureaucracy. A third one, who'd been eavesdropping with

both ears, joined in to say: tough luck!

When that luridly dressed woman approached him

he was on the Copou hill, not far from the tree once wrapped

in yellow polythene, a tree that had shaken from the

foundation his confidence in the present. It was a beautiful

day, with marine overtones, and he felt as carefree as a

seashell. Wrapped in penumbra, as if the sun had been

shading its light from somewhere round the corner or

through a filtering cloth, the street, the houses, the people

had acquired a sort of strange imponderability, verging on

oblivion. A snug, stale happiness was oozing forth from each

and every thing. Only in dreams can one experience a state

confusing and at the same time so real, akin to the happiness

distilled from repeated defeats through a subtle effort of self-

deceit. The luridly dressed woman seemed to comprehend

all those things and that's why she appeared to be walking

differently. Briskly, not languidly. Lovely weather for a

stroll, Vasya, she said, with the most natural air in the world,

bloody bitch, as she came to a halt. A routine statement, by

the sound of it, yet one that thrust him into the past, far into

the past, too, back in the days when he was incredibly young

and favoured being called Vasya rather than Vasile, the days

when, in order to secure a career, one was supposed to like

vodka rather than wine at the communist party functions.

Quite, he replied, as he made panic-stricken efforts to place

her. Still, it may well rain tomorrow, Vasilicã, she added,

watching without a trace of concern the sky furrowed by

long, whitish rib-like clouds. That second intervention threw

him even farther back in time, back in the days when his

mother, the only one calling him Vasilicã, used to divine next

week's weather in the gizzards and entrails of birds. He

became imperceptibly flustered and, unsteady on his feet

like a boxer in the wake of two unexpected blows, felt the

need to sit down on the bank. Yet that was not all. The

tranquil, petty bourgeois dream, was getting rough around

the edges, acquiring the makings of a nightmare the kind

favoured by explosive or at least metaphysical natures. He

was tempted to say revolutionary, but the word had long

since lost its glamour. Basil! The women called out to him on

the verge of hysteria. Whereupon he gave a visible start.

That's how he's been known among writers and artists, in the

days when he'd held one of the positions. In the seclusion of

their eccentric studios he'd allowed them to get chummy

with him, and they'd come up with that frenchified name for

him. You're a true Esco, Basil, you've made history, the

woman had added in a no-nonsense sort of voice. You've

done good deeds, you ought to start writing about them, she

added on a prophetic note, record the truth, that is…

Although the woman did appear mad to him, her madness

was not entirely without method, as the Bard would have put

cowpats. In his teens he quite enjoyed having lift rides in

town. Yet more important than all that is what happened to

Mr Esco and his wife yesterday around lunchtime. They

found out, completely by chance, on a zebra crossing, that

early in the nineteenth century, teller windows had been

invented. Now the moment they found out that fact, Mr and

Mrs Esco started being dragged from one teller window to

another. A clerk with decayed teeth whispered into their

ears: if the woman keeps being driven from pillar to post for

more than three times, she'll give birth to a child with two

heads and four legs. A second clerk, who'd been

eavesdropping, said: the species tends to adapt to

bureaucracy. A third one, who'd been eavesdropping with

both ears, joined in to say: tough luck!

When that luridly dressed woman approached him

he was on the Copou hill, not far from the tree once wrapped

in yellow polythene, a tree that had shaken from the

foundation his confidence in the present. It was a beautiful

day, with marine overtones, and he felt as carefree as a

seashell. Wrapped in penumbra, as if the sun had been

shading its light from somewhere round the corner or

through a filtering cloth, the street, the houses, the people

had acquired a sort of strange imponderability, verging on

oblivion. A snug, stale happiness was oozing forth from each

and every thing. Only in dreams can one experience a state

confusing and at the same time so real, akin to the happiness

distilled from repeated defeats through a subtle effort of self-

deceit. The luridly dressed woman seemed to comprehend

all those things and that's why she appeared to be walking

differently. Briskly, not languidly. Lovely weather for a

stroll, Vasya, she said, with the most natural air in the world,

bloody bitch, as she came to a halt. A routine statement, by

the sound of it, yet one that thrust him into the past, far into

the past, too, back in the days when he was incredibly young

and favoured being called Vasya rather than Vasile, the days

when, in order to secure a career, one was supposed to like

vodka rather than wine at the communist party functions.

Quite, he replied, as he made panic-stricken efforts to place

her. Still, it may well rain tomorrow, Vasilicã, she added,

watching without a trace of concern the sky furrowed by

long, whitish rib-like clouds. That second intervention threw

him even farther back in time, back in the days when his

mother, the only one calling him Vasilicã, used to divine next

week's weather in the gizzards and entrails of birds. He

became imperceptibly flustered and, unsteady on his feet

like a boxer in the wake of two unexpected blows, felt the

need to sit down on the bank. Yet that was not all. The

tranquil, petty bourgeois dream, was getting rough around

the edges, acquiring the makings of a nightmare the kind

favoured by explosive or at least metaphysical natures. He

was tempted to say revolutionary, but the word had long

since lost its glamour. Basil! The women called out to him on

the verge of hysteria. Whereupon he gave a visible start.

That's how he's been known among writers and artists, in the

days when he'd held one of the positions. In the seclusion of

their eccentric studios he'd allowed them to get chummy

with him, and they'd come up with that frenchified name for

him. You're a true Esco, Basil, you've made history, the

woman had added in a no-nonsense sort of voice. You've

done good deeds, you ought to start writing about them, she

added on a prophetic note, record the truth, that is…

Although the woman did appear mad to him, her madness

was not entirely without method, as the Bard would have put

it. The idea of writing his memoirs first irked him, than

gradually came to win him over. The woman laughed and lit

a cigarette with matches made in Brãila. Then she told him

indifferently: there's history you make 'cause you want to,

and there there's history you make in spite of yourself. Mr

Stoenesco was astounded by the weight of her words, yet not

for long, as the luridly dressed woman added: they are like

the left and right legs. History needs two legs in order to be

able to walk, and what they have in common is the place

where they converge… And where's that? Piece of cake: in

the ass. And the woman started shaking with laughter,

choked on her own cigarette smoke, coughed, waved

goodbye to him and left, bent double with laughter. He didn't

know what to think of the whole thing. Never before had he

come across such frivolity and impudence.

The woman had already covered a fair distance

when she turned on her heels and walking backwards she

called out to him in a jocular tone: try not to force any

interpretation upon my words, I'm not even remotely related

to the Austrian Jew. And she started laughing again. See it as

a random occurrence and nothing more, one in a series with

no logic to it, she added. We'll meet again, anyway, won't

we? she almost screamed, as her voice, muffled by urban

murmurs, had lost some of its vigour. Anyway, he was not

sure he wanted to see her again.

In spite of her advice, he couldn't help interpreting,

or rather his mind ran away with him without so much as by

your leave, and he reasoned that it was not by chance

everything had unfolded under the tree once wrapped in

yellow polythene. His ears started ringing with the syntagm

historical requisite and he shooed it away like some

annoying fly. His mind conjured up the image of one of those

metallic green flies buzzing around faeces, but he also drove

that image out of his head, despairing of his inability to come

up with his own words and images to say what he had to say

while his own mind took ample advantage of the things

others had said, things he failed to find anything beyond

anything but a vortex, a void. There was no root there to hold

on to, not a vine, not a straw, not anything but a hint of panic

and dismay. That's what it meant to be alone, he managed to

cogitate, and couldn't for the life of him figure out whether

those had been his own words or not. O the feeling of having

time swept from under one's feet.

On a Tuesday, Mr Esco, traipsing along in his flip-

flops and whistling merrily, left his house in order to buy

some bread and accidentally found himself in Bucharest. So

reluctant was he to go back, that he decided to stay, started a

family got a job and in dew time lost it. He'd always had the

feeling the city was full of ministries, buses, statues and

rushing people. One was hard put to find a quiet corner

where one could take a leak. Although he'd gone to great

lengths to buy a hat and a tie, no one wanted to employ him,

so he went on living happily with his family. Once, a fellow

with a missing tooth and a gold tooth to make up for the gap

offered to pay him for standing eight hours a day on one leg,

but he declined on account of not liking the fellow's face. So

as not to lose touch with reality, he started going out to the

corner beer place where he soon made lots of friends, people

and dogs alike. As a rule, he stayed in touch with reality

together with Mr Ov and Mr Ovici, living in Bucharest on a

temporary basis and keen to make a name for themselves.

Actually, Mr Ov was on his way to Paris, where he meant to

perfect his philosophical system, but he'd felt the need for a

it. The idea of writing his memoirs first irked him, than

gradually came to win him over. The woman laughed and lit

a cigarette with matches made in Brãila. Then she told him

indifferently: there's history you make 'cause you want to,

and there there's history you make in spite of yourself. Mr

Stoenesco was astounded by the weight of her words, yet not

for long, as the luridly dressed woman added: they are like

the left and right legs. History needs two legs in order to be

able to walk, and what they have in common is the place

where they converge… And where's that? Piece of cake: in

the ass. And the woman started shaking with laughter,

choked on her own cigarette smoke, coughed, waved

goodbye to him and left, bent double with laughter. He didn't

know what to think of the whole thing. Never before had he

come across such frivolity and impudence.

The woman had already covered a fair distance

when she turned on her heels and walking backwards she

called out to him in a jocular tone: try not to force any

interpretation upon my words, I'm not even remotely related

to the Austrian Jew. And she started laughing again. See it as

a random occurrence and nothing more, one in a series with

no logic to it, she added. We'll meet again, anyway, won't

we? she almost screamed, as her voice, muffled by urban

murmurs, had lost some of its vigour. Anyway, he was not

sure he wanted to see her again.

In spite of her advice, he couldn't help interpreting,

or rather his mind ran away with him without so much as by

your leave, and he reasoned that it was not by chance

everything had unfolded under the tree once wrapped in

yellow polythene. His ears started ringing with the syntagm

historical requisite and he shooed it away like some

annoying fly. His mind conjured up the image of one of those

metallic green flies buzzing around faeces, but he also drove

that image out of his head, despairing of his inability to come

up with his own words and images to say what he had to say

while his own mind took ample advantage of the things

others had said, things he failed to find anything beyond

anything but a vortex, a void. There was no root there to hold

on to, not a vine, not a straw, not anything but a hint of panic

and dismay. That's what it meant to be alone, he managed to

cogitate, and couldn't for the life of him figure out whether

those had been his own words or not. O the feeling of having

time swept from under one's feet.

On a Tuesday, Mr Esco, traipsing along in his flip-

flops and whistling merrily, left his house in order to buy

some bread and accidentally found himself in Bucharest. So

reluctant was he to go back, that he decided to stay, started a

family got a job and in dew time lost it. He'd always had the

feeling the city was full of ministries, buses, statues and

rushing people. One was hard put to find a quiet corner

where one could take a leak. Although he'd gone to great

lengths to buy a hat and a tie, no one wanted to employ him,

so he went on living happily with his family. Once, a fellow

with a missing tooth and a gold tooth to make up for the gap

offered to pay him for standing eight hours a day on one leg,

but he declined on account of not liking the fellow's face. So

as not to lose touch with reality, he started going out to the

corner beer place where he soon made lots of friends, people

and dogs alike. As a rule, he stayed in touch with reality

together with Mr Ov and Mr Ovici, living in Bucharest on a

temporary basis and keen to make a name for themselves.

Actually, Mr Ov was on his way to Paris, where he meant to

perfect his philosophical system, but he'd felt the need for a

phenomenological stopover. This gentleman was fond of the

traditional local pudding and equally fond of the Calea

Victoriei avenue, where women would stroll, boobs reaching

up to their chins, like a bad case of tonsillitis. Mr Ovici, on

the other hand, collects cities. As soon as he visits them, he

pins them to his lapel, medal-like. Of course, he's a most

distinguished gentleman he goes to sleep wearing a bowtie

with his pyjamas yet when he's had a couple of beers, he

changes into a complete ass, going so far as to claim

Bucharest is made up of a bunch of Turks and another bunch

of Greeks and Armenians, while the rest are frauds, farmers

and a long list of assorted f-words. Mr Ov is trying in vain to

argue with him to the contrary, because Mr Ovici forces his

nose into the beer mug by pulling at his ears and declares:

My name's longer, so I'm right.

The story with the tree swathed in yellow

polythene had a funny enough opening. He first caught a

glimpse of it from the tram, 'twould have been hard not to see

it, a full-sized hornbeam or whatever you call 'em,

dendrology was not one of his fortes, suddenly gone yellow

like a jaundice patient, as weird as a Zeppelin shot down

bang in the centre of the city. He chose to walk on the way

back for the express purpose of watching the marvel at

leisure. He was not the only one marvelling at the sight, but

he'd stopped to ruminate on the image. Most of the passers-

by were wondering what on earth was that thing was. Was

the city hall trying to pull their leg or was that a new method

for treating sick trees. The mystery was soon unravelled by a

lady exiting the institution that hosted the strange

contraption: that was an art project. “Contemporary art” she

volunteered, smiling noncommittally as she shrugged her

shoulders in an apparent attempt to apologise. At first, as one

versed in artistic matters, as he thought of himself, Mr

Stoenesco, was fully appreciative of the joke, yet later on,

when the lady, in the grips of panic, stressed “oh, yes, I'm

telling you contemporary art”, it dawned upon him that

there was no joke and he was left, as it happened quite rarely,

speechless.

He went on home in confusion, unable to put the

story out of his mind. As he pondered the things he'd seen

and heard, his moods were swinging from surprise to

disillusionment, from bafflement to bitterness, from

revulsion to curiosity… Thanks to the position he used to

hold, the artistic movement of the city was thoroughly

mapped in his head. He was quite familiar with those who

had talent and with those who didn't. He knew the style of

each one of them as well as the more obscure depths of their

psychologies (they'd frequently plotted, hadn't they, against

the communist party injustice and obtuseness), he'd

supported them from within the system, yet try as he may, he

couldn't even begin to imagine who'd come up with such…

he was at a loss for words… well, yes, with such nonsense. It

was not that the piece lacked talent. That was a blatant case

of imposture. With a capital I. Personally, he who had

protected art for years and years under the dictatorship and

helped it survive under terrible circumstances, could only

feel disgusted. He made several phone calls. Melancholy or

cheerful voices, slightly surprised, cautious or saccharine

voices answered him and, little by little, they succumbed to

conversation. As they nattered along, he could almost see

their faces, marked by age, of course, the years like great

black oxen tread the world, don't they, he could picture their

studios like just as many forlorn shells, strewn with stuffed

phenomenological stopover. This gentleman was fond of the

traditional local pudding and equally fond of the Calea

Victoriei avenue, where women would stroll, boobs reaching

up to their chins, like a bad case of tonsillitis. Mr Ovici, on

the other hand, collects cities. As soon as he visits them, he

pins them to his lapel, medal-like. Of course, he's a most

distinguished gentleman he goes to sleep wearing a bowtie

with his pyjamas yet when he's had a couple of beers, he

changes into a complete ass, going so far as to claim

Bucharest is made up of a bunch of Turks and another bunch

of Greeks and Armenians, while the rest are frauds, farmers

and a long list of assorted f-words. Mr Ov is trying in vain to

argue with him to the contrary, because Mr Ovici forces his

nose into the beer mug by pulling at his ears and declares:

My name's longer, so I'm right.

The story with the tree swathed in yellow

polythene had a funny enough opening. He first caught a

glimpse of it from the tram, 'twould have been hard not to see

it, a full-sized hornbeam or whatever you call 'em,

dendrology was not one of his fortes, suddenly gone yellow

like a jaundice patient, as weird as a Zeppelin shot down

bang in the centre of the city. He chose to walk on the way

back for the express purpose of watching the marvel at

leisure. He was not the only one marvelling at the sight, but

he'd stopped to ruminate on the image. Most of the passers-

by were wondering what on earth was that thing was. Was

the city hall trying to pull their leg or was that a new method

for treating sick trees. The mystery was soon unravelled by a

lady exiting the institution that hosted the strange

contraption: that was an art project. “Contemporary art” she

volunteered, smiling noncommittally as she shrugged her

shoulders in an apparent attempt to apologise. At first, as one

versed in artistic matters, as he thought of himself, Mr

Stoenesco, was fully appreciative of the joke, yet later on,

when the lady, in the grips of panic, stressed “oh, yes, I'm

telling you contemporary art”, it dawned upon him that

there was no joke and he was left, as it happened quite rarely,

speechless.

He went on home in confusion, unable to put the

story out of his mind. As he pondered the things he'd seen

and heard, his moods were swinging from surprise to

disillusionment, from bafflement to bitterness, from

revulsion to curiosity… Thanks to the position he used to

hold, the artistic movement of the city was thoroughly

mapped in his head. He was quite familiar with those who

had talent and with those who didn't. He knew the style of

each one of them as well as the more obscure depths of their

psychologies (they'd frequently plotted, hadn't they, against

the communist party injustice and obtuseness), he'd

supported them from within the system, yet try as he may, he

couldn't even begin to imagine who'd come up with such…

he was at a loss for words… well, yes, with such nonsense. It

was not that the piece lacked talent. That was a blatant case

of imposture. With a capital I. Personally, he who had

protected art for years and years under the dictatorship and

helped it survive under terrible circumstances, could only

feel disgusted. He made several phone calls. Melancholy or

cheerful voices, slightly surprised, cautious or saccharine

voices answered him and, little by little, they succumbed to

conversation. As they nattered along, he could almost see

their faces, marked by age, of course, the years like great

black oxen tread the world, don't they, he could picture their

studios like just as many forlorn shells, strewn with stuffed

birds, dry fish hands, spindles and spinning wheels, dusty

albums and old icons, strange-looking stones, brass objects,

clay pots and bulrush stems with flowering spikes, alongside

the omnipresent Moses with his little devil's horns. Not

infrequently he'd penetrated those temples of creation, both

shabby and resplendent at the same time, steeped in mystery,

where the artist, torn between unfathomable states, laid his

soul on the easel. He'd trodden that space with a hint of

shyness, but also aware of the importance of his position.

Sometimes the place reeked of stale wine and sour beer, but

that's another story. They'd been whispering things that

might have landed them in jail for years on end. They'd

grumbled against the socialist regime, talked about the good

side of bourgeois art, even about abstract and American art,

he'd been expressing support of the new generation, meant to

infuse the local scene with new blood and he'd turned a blind

eye to the religious paintings propped face down in the

corners of the studios. Some of them he'd help sell to the

Central Committee collectors, to doctors and lawyers and

even to people living abroad. During the last years of the

regime, the years of the grumbling stomachs, he's helped

them exchange paintings for salami, meat, butter, coffee and

many such things. He'd happened to mediate between

ancient, smouldering hatreds, between rancid envies, and

he'd caused anonymous notes with rabid words to go

missing. He'd been a good guy, a reasonable person and,

above all, an art lover. It was not him that said so rumours to

that effect had been reaching him under various

circumstances. It was not for nothing that, so many years

after Ceausescu's death, writers and artists had no qualms

about shaking his hand in public or allowing him into their

studios. He'd always known how to secure future favours. Of

course, back in 1990 he'd had to cope with a few delicate

months, but that's another story. After watching, his jaws

clenched rigid in shock, the broadcast execution of the

presidential couple, he'd expected the worst. His family

supported him, though. There's just the one incident casting

a shadow over those tense months in which the world had

turned upside down: being spat at, just as he went out of the

lift, the spit landing right between the eyes. The spit reeked

of cheap brandy. From time to time, in a token act of bookish

revenge, he retrieves a book of essays authored by the person

in question and, no, he does not read a certain fragment just

the dedication, which suffices. Might be that at the right time

he'll make it public if he has to. It goes without saying that he

ignored the filth the press was occasionally throwing at him.

It's not as if he'd had a choice, to be honest. The turbid chaos

of freedom, the confusing vortex of history, had twisted the

most balanced of minds, while he kept his mouth shut,

something he'd always been good at. Next thing he knew, his

generation and the one coming right after it once again saved

the day for Romania. At least that's what he thought, even if

there were opinions to the contrary. In May 1990 that

became obvious for him: positions were once again assigned

to experienced people, people he'd known for a long time.

Even if now they called themselves “Mister” rather than

“Comrade”, they were among the few able to impose a

structure on chaos. He agreed, the very young ones had been

the leaven of the revolution, their merits shouldn't go

unrecognized, yet it was only he and his peers, the ones

who'd built that country from scratch and knew it to the least

of its people, that were capable of running it. With or without

communism, they were the only ones who knew how to

organize and lead a people, how to keep a tight rein on them.

birds, dry fish hands, spindles and spinning wheels, dusty

albums and old icons, strange-looking stones, brass objects,

clay pots and bulrush stems with flowering spikes, alongside

the omnipresent Moses with his little devil's horns. Not

infrequently he'd penetrated those temples of creation, both

shabby and resplendent at the same time, steeped in mystery,

where the artist, torn between unfathomable states, laid his

soul on the easel. He'd trodden that space with a hint of

shyness, but also aware of the importance of his position.

Sometimes the place reeked of stale wine and sour beer, but

that's another story. They'd been whispering things that

might have landed them in jail for years on end. They'd

grumbled against the socialist regime, talked about the good

side of bourgeois art, even about abstract and American art,

he'd been expressing support of the new generation, meant to

infuse the local scene with new blood and he'd turned a blind

eye to the religious paintings propped face down in the

corners of the studios. Some of them he'd help sell to the

Central Committee collectors, to doctors and lawyers and

even to people living abroad. During the last years of the

regime, the years of the grumbling stomachs, he's helped

them exchange paintings for salami, meat, butter, coffee and

many such things. He'd happened to mediate between

ancient, smouldering hatreds, between rancid envies, and

he'd caused anonymous notes with rabid words to go

missing. He'd been a good guy, a reasonable person and,

above all, an art lover. It was not him that said so rumours to

that effect had been reaching him under various

circumstances. It was not for nothing that, so many years

after Ceausescu's death, writers and artists had no qualms

about shaking his hand in public or allowing him into their

studios. He'd always known how to secure future favours. Of

course, back in 1990 he'd had to cope with a few delicate

months, but that's another story. After watching, his jaws

clenched rigid in shock, the broadcast execution of the

presidential couple, he'd expected the worst. His family

supported him, though. There's just the one incident casting

a shadow over those tense months in which the world had

turned upside down: being spat at, just as he went out of the

lift, the spit landing right between the eyes. The spit reeked

of cheap brandy. From time to time, in a token act of bookish

revenge, he retrieves a book of essays authored by the person

in question and, no, he does not read a certain fragment just

the dedication, which suffices. Might be that at the right time

he'll make it public if he has to. It goes without saying that he

ignored the filth the press was occasionally throwing at him.

It's not as if he'd had a choice, to be honest. The turbid chaos

of freedom, the confusing vortex of history, had twisted the

most balanced of minds, while he kept his mouth shut,

something he'd always been good at. Next thing he knew, his

generation and the one coming right after it once again saved

the day for Romania. At least that's what he thought, even if

there were opinions to the contrary. In May 1990 that

became obvious for him: positions were once again assigned

to experienced people, people he'd known for a long time.

Even if now they called themselves “Mister” rather than

“Comrade”, they were among the few able to impose a

structure on chaos. He agreed, the very young ones had been

the leaven of the revolution, their merits shouldn't go

unrecognized, yet it was only he and his peers, the ones

who'd built that country from scratch and knew it to the least

of its people, that were capable of running it. With or without

communism, they were the only ones who knew how to

organize and lead a people, how to keep a tight rein on them.

The lot who'd fled the country and those who, rightly or not,

had languished in prisons for long years, no matter how

worthy of respect their courage and suffering were, came

from another planet. He was absolutely certain that, had they

come to power, they would have thought revenge and

nothing but, whereas stability is the world needs. That was

the last mission of his generation and they acquitted

themselves well. In the autumn of 1990 he'd been himself

invited by the majority party to contribute his expertise

suggesting the steps to be taken in support of the cultural life

of the new society, while in 1991 he was appointed

consultant for art and heritage matters. Obviously he went

back to his former office. The furniture was unchanged.

People had been so busy going out to street protests and

reading the free press that dust lay thick everywhere in sight,

the corners of the room were fuzzy with cobwebs and in a

remote drawer he came across his old majolica ashtray

complete with the half-smoked Kent cigarette he'd stubbed

out in haste. He'd only kept the position for a few years. Fed

up with financial problems and the constant turmoil, he

chose to retire. He kept going to art exhibitions, keep an eye

on new talents and buy the odd painting. Keep informed, that

is.

Now that was all the more reason for him to be

intrigued by the tree wrapped in yellow polythene. It had

somehow landed there out of the blue, without anyone

planting it, without him witnessing its growth. Like all

foreign bodies with no known history to their names, it

posed, he felt, a hidden threat to be unleashed any moment.

He made several phone calls, conversed at length, listened to

tirades and laments and in the end revised the information

and drew the conclusions. It was nothing but a bunch of

rebellious students, big-headed, too, out to make an impact,

of course. They were unable to make a drawing, yet set out to

revolutionize art. They were not even members of the

Artists' Union. Serious people wanted nothing to do with

them, serious galleries wouldn't touch them with a barge

pole. That Soros guy, a Hungarian Jew gone to the States,

was funding their crap, while foreign cultural centres

pampered them. They'll run out of steam in a few years.

Alternative my foot. Who'd ever decorate their dining room

with a tree wrapped in yellow polythene? They'd never sell

one item. Experimental art… Bullshit. In their dreams.

Liberal propaganda through culture. The West had lost

interest in such nonsense ages ago.

The reactions of some old masters were just the

thing to put his mind at ease. They were sort of a guarantee

that the world was not totally out of control. A revolution can

indeed change a society, but Art, with a capital A, is actually

eternal. Pure beauty art albums in their thousands are

bearing testimony is imperishable. As he pondered on those

things he felt his soul brimming over, thrilled by an invisible

wave, pervaded by a noble uplifting feeling as he had rarely

experienced before, by the sublime faith in the perfection

and ultimate sense of art. Emotion brought tears to his eyes.

Mr Ov, of course, had not been a philosopher from

the start, he'd seen better days. In the most widely circulated

version of his biography, things are laid down as follows:

one afternoon, around 17:13, he said to himself out of the

blue: watched from above, all things become philosophical.

On the first day after that discovery, Mr Ov found himself a

ten-storied building, reclined in a basket chair and

commenced to meditate in a historically-sanctioned stance:

The lot who'd fled the country and those who, rightly or not,

had languished in prisons for long years, no matter how

worthy of respect their courage and suffering were, came

from another planet. He was absolutely certain that, had they

come to power, they would have thought revenge and

nothing but, whereas stability is the world needs. That was

the last mission of his generation and they acquitted

themselves well. In the autumn of 1990 he'd been himself

invited by the majority party to contribute his expertise

suggesting the steps to be taken in support of the cultural life

of the new society, while in 1991 he was appointed

consultant for art and heritage matters. Obviously he went

back to his former office. The furniture was unchanged.

People had been so busy going out to street protests and

reading the free press that dust lay thick everywhere in sight,

the corners of the room were fuzzy with cobwebs and in a

remote drawer he came across his old majolica ashtray

complete with the half-smoked Kent cigarette he'd stubbed

out in haste. He'd only kept the position for a few years. Fed

up with financial problems and the constant turmoil, he

chose to retire. He kept going to art exhibitions, keep an eye

on new talents and buy the odd painting. Keep informed, that

is.

Now that was all the more reason for him to be

intrigued by the tree wrapped in yellow polythene. It had

somehow landed there out of the blue, without anyone

planting it, without him witnessing its growth. Like all

foreign bodies with no known history to their names, it

posed, he felt, a hidden threat to be unleashed any moment.

He made several phone calls, conversed at length, listened to

tirades and laments and in the end revised the information

and drew the conclusions. It was nothing but a bunch of

rebellious students, big-headed, too, out to make an impact,

of course. They were unable to make a drawing, yet set out to

revolutionize art. They were not even members of the

Artists' Union. Serious people wanted nothing to do with

them, serious galleries wouldn't touch them with a barge

pole. That Soros guy, a Hungarian Jew gone to the States,

was funding their crap, while foreign cultural centres

pampered them. They'll run out of steam in a few years.

Alternative my foot. Who'd ever decorate their dining room

with a tree wrapped in yellow polythene? They'd never sell

one item. Experimental art… Bullshit. In their dreams.

Liberal propaganda through culture. The West had lost

interest in such nonsense ages ago.

The reactions of some old masters were just the

thing to put his mind at ease. They were sort of a guarantee

that the world was not totally out of control. A revolution can

indeed change a society, but Art, with a capital A, is actually

eternal. Pure beauty art albums in their thousands are

bearing testimony is imperishable. As he pondered on those

things he felt his soul brimming over, thrilled by an invisible

wave, pervaded by a noble uplifting feeling as he had rarely

experienced before, by the sublime faith in the perfection

and ultimate sense of art. Emotion brought tears to his eyes.

Mr Ov, of course, had not been a philosopher from

the start, he'd seen better days. In the most widely circulated

version of his biography, things are laid down as follows:

one afternoon, around 17:13, he said to himself out of the

blue: watched from above, all things become philosophical.

On the first day after that discovery, Mr Ov found himself a

ten-storied building, reclined in a basket chair and

commenced to meditate in a historically-sanctioned stance:

finger-to-temple. Still all generalizations on the 1:10 scale

appeared provincial. Next he got a train, rode all the way to

Bucharest and climbed on top of the Intercontinental,

pretending he was from maintenance. Although a terrible

wind was blowing, he stuck it out for 21 minutes exactly.

Anyway, that was plenty of time for him to realize that the

1:22 scale was just as unsatisfactory, particularly since it

wasn't even a round number, so he repaired to a beer place,

where he met Mr Esco and Mr Ovici, people who failed to

change his life. Although it's not exactly a nice thing for us to

do, let's have a look at what's going to happen in the future.

Deeply dissatisfied, he'll learn to weave baskets, make

money and go Descartes' land, on top the Eiffel tower, in

order to fine-tune his relative theory of generalization. It will

be winter and Paris will be unencompassable. On top of it

all, his temple-appended finger will be afflicted with

frostbite leading to amputation half a year later.

Disappointed and agnostic, he'll be putting off his suicide on

a daily basis for the next ten years. He'll end up getting bored

and entering politics, only to be appointed director of the

Intensive piggery not far from his birthplace.

But for the moment he's in Bucharest, the city

where personalities grossly outnumber the streets. It's

raining outside and he, together with Mr Esco and Mr Ovici,

are passionately talking about all and sundry. There's no

thing in this world he cannot elaborate a theory on, with the

possible exception of matchsticks which he has a thing

against since birth. Hadn't someone else invented the

lighter, he would have done it himself and that's for sure. But

however, that's another story.

He blew up his cheeks and rubbed them vigorously

with sanitary alcohol, then slapped them gently the way

nurses prepare buttocks for a painful injection. He did

everything with abrupt, rush gestures, as if subjecting

himself to some Spartan treatment. To be sure, the alcohol

did sting a bit, caused his face to smart in places, which he

rather enjoyed, he felt younger, tougher, more like a man.

The military-like ritual filled him with energy. If his son,

Silviu, had only seen him, he would have told him off, in that

slightly jocular tone children reaching maturity employ to

scold their parents. Why on earth was he giving his father the

most expensive aftershaves for presents? To avoid crossing

him, he opened the bathroom cabinet, stuffed with tubes and

an assortment of bottles in all shapes and sizes, and picking

some lotion at random, he splashed it on his face wrinkling

his nose. There… Happy now? He mumbled and chortled,

tee-hee-hee, proud of the trick he'd devised. He was due

within moments, storming in as was his wont, to drop Adrian

before rushing back to work. Silviu was running a foreign

car franchise. After trying his hand at a pizza parlour and an

antique and old icons shop, now he seemed to have found his

true vocation. On Saturdays, Adrian was going out with his

granddad. Most of the time he'd entertain the boy

passionately telling him stories from his own life, so that

he'd know he didn't come from your run-of-the-mill family.

Apparently, the little one really had a thing for history, for he

was listening to him without interrupting questions.

Looking at the city with a clean-shaved face he

found it a better sight. His apartment, which he'd received

from the party more years ago than he cared to remember,

had a rare quality: each room offered a different view of the

city. Under the blazing sun the buildings seemed to be made

finger-to-temple. Still all generalizations on the 1:10 scale

appeared provincial. Next he got a train, rode all the way to

Bucharest and climbed on top of the Intercontinental,

pretending he was from maintenance. Although a terrible

wind was blowing, he stuck it out for 21 minutes exactly.

Anyway, that was plenty of time for him to realize that the

1:22 scale was just as unsatisfactory, particularly since it

wasn't even a round number, so he repaired to a beer place,

where he met Mr Esco and Mr Ovici, people who failed to

change his life. Although it's not exactly a nice thing for us to

do, let's have a look at what's going to happen in the future.

Deeply dissatisfied, he'll learn to weave baskets, make

money and go Descartes' land, on top the Eiffel tower, in

order to fine-tune his relative theory of generalization. It will

be winter and Paris will be unencompassable. On top of it

all, his temple-appended finger will be afflicted with

frostbite leading to amputation half a year later.

Disappointed and agnostic, he'll be putting off his suicide on

a daily basis for the next ten years. He'll end up getting bored

and entering politics, only to be appointed director of the

Intensive piggery not far from his birthplace.

But for the moment he's in Bucharest, the city

where personalities grossly outnumber the streets. It's

raining outside and he, together with Mr Esco and Mr Ovici,

are passionately talking about all and sundry. There's no

thing in this world he cannot elaborate a theory on, with the

possible exception of matchsticks which he has a thing

against since birth. Hadn't someone else invented the

lighter, he would have done it himself and that's for sure. But

however, that's another story.

He blew up his cheeks and rubbed them vigorously

with sanitary alcohol, then slapped them gently the way

nurses prepare buttocks for a painful injection. He did

everything with abrupt, rush gestures, as if subjecting

himself to some Spartan treatment. To be sure, the alcohol

did sting a bit, caused his face to smart in places, which he

rather enjoyed, he felt younger, tougher, more like a man.

The military-like ritual filled him with energy. If his son,

Silviu, had only seen him, he would have told him off, in that

slightly jocular tone children reaching maturity employ to

scold their parents. Why on earth was he giving his father the

most expensive aftershaves for presents? To avoid crossing

him, he opened the bathroom cabinet, stuffed with tubes and

an assortment of bottles in all shapes and sizes, and picking

some lotion at random, he splashed it on his face wrinkling

his nose. There… Happy now? He mumbled and chortled,

tee-hee-hee, proud of the trick he'd devised. He was due

within moments, storming in as was his wont, to drop Adrian

before rushing back to work. Silviu was running a foreign

car franchise. After trying his hand at a pizza parlour and an

antique and old icons shop, now he seemed to have found his

true vocation. On Saturdays, Adrian was going out with his

granddad. Most of the time he'd entertain the boy

passionately telling him stories from his own life, so that

he'd know he didn't come from your run-of-the-mill family.

Apparently, the little one really had a thing for history, for he

was listening to him without interrupting questions.

Looking at the city with a clean-shaved face he

found it a better sight. His apartment, which he'd received

from the party more years ago than he cared to remember,

had a rare quality: each room offered a different view of the

city. Under the blazing sun the buildings seemed to be made

of molten lava and, as it streamed through the hills, the city

brought to mind a molten steel charge scared by the tiny

threadlike flow of the cast-iron grey Bahlui River. Behind

the hill, crest serrated by apartment buildings and new

church steeples, hidden to the eye yet visible to his mind

spread the rolling tar sea frozen into symmetrical waves the

roof of the Heavy Machinery Plant. It was there that the

crimson lava of the city was headed, the colossus

swallowing welding flames, ledeburite and molten iron, to

spit onto the conveyor belt pieces of massive machinery,

equipments and spare parts. That was way back in the days

when he would take his guests to the Galata hill to show

them the colossus in all its splendour. Now, watched from

above, it was a sorry sight. The proud dragon of yore was

nothing but a stranded whale rotting away and peeling off in

the sun. It couldn't even swallow the ashes of the workers'

cigarettes, as for over ten years, the conveyor belt only

turned out unemployed workers and retirees. If you actually

happened to go by train from Iaºi to Bucharest, you could see

the twilight of the country's steel and cast iron heyday, as

decay set in under the indifferent eyes of the passengers and

the government. Bloated with rust, their concrete slabs

weathered beyond recognition and rank with overgrown

weeds, the great industrial facilities were displaying their

leanness everywhere. Geese and sheep are grazing among

lathe plinths. Cows tangle their horns in electrical cables

hanging limply and pointlessly. The wind is howling as it

rushes through pipes and conduits. Caved in ceilings, broken

walls, gutted wall sockets, basins run aground upon tree

tops, dead concassors and cogwheels, their teeth ravaged by

caries, fill the beholder's soul with heaviness. Children

dressed in hand-me-downs are stealing bricks by the bagful,

while starving people are digging through the grasses

littered with plastic bags and bottles in search of scrap iron.

With a little luck they find a crankshaft or a crane hook and

they can drink for a whole week. This is the carrion of

communism, shedding dust and rust. Here and there, out of

its rotting flesh, little villas spring up, complete with neat

gardens and bristling with satellite dishes. The closer you get

to Bucharest, their number increases. Many a time he

thought that if he'd been born in Bucharest or at least gone to

school there, his life would have been completely different.

But that's another story…

He cast a melancholy glance to his watched and

made for the next room to select his suit, tie and shirt. But

instead of opening the wardrobe, he looked out of the

window, taking in another face of the city. One of those tiny

yellowish apartment blocks, among the first to be built for

the Soviet bigwigs, was where Dinu used to live long, long

ago. They say he ended up in prison because he used to sit

with his legs crossed at party meetings and kept a Siamese

cat, which betrayed a bourgeois attitude. But that was

another story. He realized that of late he'd taken to overusing

that another-story phrase, and that was getting on his nerves.

His eyes came to rest on the little church they were steadily

building in a corner of the playground behind his block out

of plastic and double-glazing panels and, taken aback, he

crossed himself discreetly.

In his opinion Bucharest is redolent with the

fragrance of bread, while in the rest of the country all statues

are carved out of the “mamaliga” cornmeal porridge, and

the only true competence of the locals is the ability to guess

what bus goes to what ministry. Mr Ov, the collector, is of the

of molten lava and, as it streamed through the hills, the city

brought to mind a molten steel charge scared by the tiny

threadlike flow of the cast-iron grey Bahlui River. Behind

the hill, crest serrated by apartment buildings and new

church steeples, hidden to the eye yet visible to his mind

spread the rolling tar sea frozen into symmetrical waves the

roof of the Heavy Machinery Plant. It was there that the

crimson lava of the city was headed, the colossus

swallowing welding flames, ledeburite and molten iron, to

spit onto the conveyor belt pieces of massive machinery,

equipments and spare parts. That was way back in the days

when he would take his guests to the Galata hill to show

them the colossus in all its splendour. Now, watched from

above, it was a sorry sight. The proud dragon of yore was

nothing but a stranded whale rotting away and peeling off in

the sun. It couldn't even swallow the ashes of the workers'

cigarettes, as for over ten years, the conveyor belt only

turned out unemployed workers and retirees. If you actually

happened to go by train from Iaºi to Bucharest, you could see

the twilight of the country's steel and cast iron heyday, as

decay set in under the indifferent eyes of the passengers and

the government. Bloated with rust, their concrete slabs

weathered beyond recognition and rank with overgrown

weeds, the great industrial facilities were displaying their

leanness everywhere. Geese and sheep are grazing among

lathe plinths. Cows tangle their horns in electrical cables

hanging limply and pointlessly. The wind is howling as it

rushes through pipes and conduits. Caved in ceilings, broken

walls, gutted wall sockets, basins run aground upon tree

tops, dead concassors and cogwheels, their teeth ravaged by

caries, fill the beholder's soul with heaviness. Children

dressed in hand-me-downs are stealing bricks by the bagful,

while starving people are digging through the grasses

littered with plastic bags and bottles in search of scrap iron.

With a little luck they find a crankshaft or a crane hook and

they can drink for a whole week. This is the carrion of

communism, shedding dust and rust. Here and there, out of

its rotting flesh, little villas spring up, complete with neat

gardens and bristling with satellite dishes. The closer you get

to Bucharest, their number increases. Many a time he

thought that if he'd been born in Bucharest or at least gone to

school there, his life would have been completely different.

But that's another story…

He cast a melancholy glance to his watched and

made for the next room to select his suit, tie and shirt. But

instead of opening the wardrobe, he looked out of the

window, taking in another face of the city. One of those tiny

yellowish apartment blocks, among the first to be built for

the Soviet bigwigs, was where Dinu used to live long, long

ago. They say he ended up in prison because he used to sit

with his legs crossed at party meetings and kept a Siamese

cat, which betrayed a bourgeois attitude. But that was

another story. He realized that of late he'd taken to overusing

that another-story phrase, and that was getting on his nerves.

His eyes came to rest on the little church they were steadily

building in a corner of the playground behind his block out

of plastic and double-glazing panels and, taken aback, he

crossed himself discreetly.

In his opinion Bucharest is redolent with the

fragrance of bread, while in the rest of the country all statues

are carved out of the “mamaliga” cornmeal porridge, and

the only true competence of the locals is the ability to guess

what bus goes to what ministry. Mr Ov, the collector, is of the

contrary opinion that, seen from above, the city looks like a

petrol stain or, at best, with a rabbit herd, each of them a

different colour. Hence the whole argument. Mr Esco,

instead of arbitrating the dispute, takes offence and

consequently commences to trim his fingernails, whereupon

he falls asleep. Bad idea, because the argument escalates to

a fight and he misses that excellent performance thus having

to beg the waiter for an account of the story.

Next day, though, in the morning, without him even

noticing anything, Mr Esco's life took an unexpected turn. At

5.13 or thereabouts, he was hardly awake when his left hand

started yakking in Russian. Assuming the silly bugger was

talking in its sleep, he hastened to thrust it under the cold

water tap at the basin, but to no avail. Not long after that his

right hand followed suit talking in some twisted language,

Turkish by the sound of it. Then one of his legs mumbled

something in Bulgarian while the other one lamented in

Greek. As if on cue, one ear started chirping in Cuman while

the other one resorted to Latin. For a moment, Mr Esco was

at a loss, suspecting he'd swallowed the Babel Tower by

mistake. As, for the past three days, his wife had been

constantly on the phone with her sister who'd immigrated to

Italy, he had to manage on his own. Out of sheer despair, he

sneezed three times in a row and his nose replied with

“Shalom”. He panicked and started sucking on a mint,

reckoning that if the neighbours got wing of it, they'd capture

him and sell him to the circus. So he packed in a hurry and

rushed to the airport, with the intent to leave Ov and Ovici as

his local replacements in the city of Bucharest. However,

they only spoke English there and wouldn't believe that he

was a born native of Bucharest.

So he started whistling and went to buy some bread.

After the unfortunate story with the jaundiced tree,

disappointments came in quick succession. The world he

lived in, swollen and raging like a river bursting its banks,

had been thrown out of kilter. The state witnessed helplessly,

or indifferently, to be precise, the exhibitionism of a bunch

of twerps claiming they were making art while, in truth, they

were only making a big show out of kowtowing to the west,

which couldn't be entirely put down to naiveté. He was too

old to believe anyone dispensed money for free, but that's

another story... Out of an interest which he sometimes found

morbid, whenever he got wind of an event involving the

young rebels he slunk sheepishly into the audience. Thus he

had to go to the most unexpected and bizarre places because,

as far as he could tell, the art officially educating the masses

and secretly withdrawing into itself, was now taking to the

streets, descending to the pavements, or even lower, to the

basements. It migrated democratically out of the central airy,

well-lit chambers towards the foetid outskirts where, the

way he saw it, it should have stayed forever and a day, to the

aesthetic satisfaction of the Gypsies (well, Roma, to be

politically correct), the beggars, the unemployed and,

obviously, of all the rodents and associated vermin. He'd

been taken to sordid outskirts, to abandoned factories with

broken windows and rust plump as dough, in coppices

stripped bare by the frost, among skips over spilling with

blossom-like garbage, to deserted construction sites or in

underground passages where the stench of urine tore at your

nose, to fumes-choked intersections and even to zebra

crossings, where a trolleybus almost smashed into the

artists, as an attempted sacrifice on the altar of art or, more in

their spirit, as a mere occupational hazard. He missed no

contrary opinion that, seen from above, the city looks like a

petrol stain or, at best, with a rabbit herd, each of them a

different colour. Hence the whole argument. Mr Esco,

instead of arbitrating the dispute, takes offence and

consequently commences to trim his fingernails, whereupon

he falls asleep. Bad idea, because the argument escalates to

a fight and he misses that excellent performance thus having

to beg the waiter for an account of the story.

Next day, though, in the morning, without him even

noticing anything, Mr Esco's life took an unexpected turn. At

5.13 or thereabouts, he was hardly awake when his left hand

started yakking in Russian. Assuming the silly bugger was

talking in its sleep, he hastened to thrust it under the cold

water tap at the basin, but to no avail. Not long after that his

right hand followed suit talking in some twisted language,

Turkish by the sound of it. Then one of his legs mumbled

something in Bulgarian while the other one lamented in

Greek. As if on cue, one ear started chirping in Cuman while

the other one resorted to Latin. For a moment, Mr Esco was

at a loss, suspecting he'd swallowed the Babel Tower by

mistake. As, for the past three days, his wife had been

constantly on the phone with her sister who'd immigrated to

Italy, he had to manage on his own. Out of sheer despair, he

sneezed three times in a row and his nose replied with

“Shalom”. He panicked and started sucking on a mint,

reckoning that if the neighbours got wing of it, they'd capture

him and sell him to the circus. So he packed in a hurry and

rushed to the airport, with the intent to leave Ov and Ovici as

his local replacements in the city of Bucharest. However,

they only spoke English there and wouldn't believe that he

was a born native of Bucharest.

So he started whistling and went to buy some bread.

After the unfortunate story with the jaundiced tree,

disappointments came in quick succession. The world he

lived in, swollen and raging like a river bursting its banks,

had been thrown out of kilter. The state witnessed helplessly,

or indifferently, to be precise, the exhibitionism of a bunch

of twerps claiming they were making art while, in truth, they

were only making a big show out of kowtowing to the west,

which couldn't be entirely put down to naiveté. He was too

old to believe anyone dispensed money for free, but that's

another story... Out of an interest which he sometimes found

morbid, whenever he got wind of an event involving the

young rebels he slunk sheepishly into the audience. Thus he

had to go to the most unexpected and bizarre places because,

as far as he could tell, the art officially educating the masses

and secretly withdrawing into itself, was now taking to the

streets, descending to the pavements, or even lower, to the

basements. It migrated democratically out of the central airy,

well-lit chambers towards the foetid outskirts where, the

way he saw it, it should have stayed forever and a day, to the

aesthetic satisfaction of the Gypsies (well, Roma, to be

politically correct), the beggars, the unemployed and,

obviously, of all the rodents and associated vermin. He'd

been taken to sordid outskirts, to abandoned factories with

broken windows and rust plump as dough, in coppices

stripped bare by the frost, among skips over spilling with

blossom-like garbage, to deserted construction sites or in

underground passages where the stench of urine tore at your

nose, to fumes-choked intersections and even to zebra

crossings, where a trolleybus almost smashed into the

artists, as an attempted sacrifice on the altar of art or, more in

their spirit, as a mere occupational hazard. He missed no

stinking corner of the city, not even the city dump where, as

he'd read in the papers, it had taken the artists lots of trouble

to gain access to, since the officials at the City Hall, where

bureaucracy and narrow-mindedness were rampant, were

hard put to figure out the philosophy of contemporary art.

No he was not fastidious, nor had he been born with a silver

spoon in his mouth or raised by a governess, with bourgeois

values for lunch, but all the same art was, for him, an entirely

different matter. After all, these angry young people were

more Marxist than the Proletkult set. The difference was that

they enjoyed more freedom than was good for their age.

What they were doing went by nice-sounding names,

fashionable English buzzwords like happening,

performance or installations, but God was his witness, he

couldn't for the life of him see where the art was. Al he could

see were boys and girls in slashed jeans, with shaved skulls

or alternately rancid dreadlocks, doing all sorts of strange

things, sometimes even potentially dangerous to their health

or the health of whoever happened to watch them. They were

counting with closed eyes, they buried their heads in the

earth and breathed through a tube, they wrote notes and

pressed them into the hands of passers-by, they cured the

hams and sausages of the unemployed in the Canta district,

they painted white the waste found in random garbage

containers, they hung themselves from crane hooks or piled

up TV sets on top of one another or else sat them in half

circles. As far as he was concerned they were nothing but

people who'd miss their vocation. They belonged, by rights,

in a circus. They let loose in the city fibreglass cows to

browse the asphalt or made jam out of the strawberries

picked by Romanian immigrants to Spain. He had been, of

course, to the famous Turkish bath, a ruin to all intents and

purposes, which the organizers did not have the basic

decency of subjecting to even token restoration. The plaster

was fallen revealing the bare brickwork, while the

woodwork was downright rotten, one being in danger of

breaking one's neck at every step. Participation was

international, yet art was nowhere to be seen. In a pool half-

filled with water, German books advertising post-war

literature were floating sealed in plastic bags. A mannequin

swaddled in phosphorescent duct tape, with slits where its

eyes and mouth were supposed to be, was glowing in a small

dark room. He'd dubbed it, for his own personal benefit, The

Statue of Liberty. In another room, a TV set was showing the

same sequence ad infinitum, with neither beginning nor end.

In a former toilet cubicle a squatting guy was holding a

newspaper or just doodling. From five or six hotplates where

pots of water had been set to boil plumes of steam were

shooting into the air causing paper-cut maps hanging from

the wall to spin. Out of a chocolate toilette bowl you could

help yourself freely. There was even a takeaway option…

Seldom had he come across such a bunch of wackos united

in the genuine belief they were making art. If you chanced to

scratch behind an ear or took off one of your shoes because

you had a pebble in it, you found yourself making

contemporary art without knowing it, the way Monsieur

Jourdain was making prose, and stood a fair chance of being

proclaimed founder of some artistic movement. No, nothing

had given him a thrill, his spirit had found no aesthetic

delight, nor any deep, life-changing message to awaken his

inner being or at least intrigue him. It was with

disappointment, even anger that he left the place. Probably

that whole bunch saw themselves as emerging from

Duchamp's urinal like Venus from the sea surf; still they

stinking corner of the city, not even the city dump where, as

he'd read in the papers, it had taken the artists lots of trouble

to gain access to, since the officials at the City Hall, where

bureaucracy and narrow-mindedness were rampant, were

hard put to figure out the philosophy of contemporary art.

No he was not fastidious, nor had he been born with a silver

spoon in his mouth or raised by a governess, with bourgeois

values for lunch, but all the same art was, for him, an entirely

different matter. After all, these angry young people were

more Marxist than the Proletkult set. The difference was that

they enjoyed more freedom than was good for their age.

What they were doing went by nice-sounding names,

fashionable English buzzwords like happening,

performance or installations, but God was his witness, he

couldn't for the life of him see where the art was. Al he could

see were boys and girls in slashed jeans, with shaved skulls

or alternately rancid dreadlocks, doing all sorts of strange

things, sometimes even potentially dangerous to their health

or the health of whoever happened to watch them. They were

counting with closed eyes, they buried their heads in the

earth and breathed through a tube, they wrote notes and

pressed them into the hands of passers-by, they cured the

hams and sausages of the unemployed in the Canta district,

they painted white the waste found in random garbage

containers, they hung themselves from crane hooks or piled

up TV sets on top of one another or else sat them in half

circles. As far as he was concerned they were nothing but

people who'd miss their vocation. They belonged, by rights,

in a circus. They let loose in the city fibreglass cows to

browse the asphalt or made jam out of the strawberries

picked by Romanian immigrants to Spain. He had been, of

course, to the famous Turkish bath, a ruin to all intents and

purposes, which the organizers did not have the basic

decency of subjecting to even token restoration. The plaster

was fallen revealing the bare brickwork, while the

woodwork was downright rotten, one being in danger of

breaking one's neck at every step. Participation was

international, yet art was nowhere to be seen. In a pool half-

filled with water, German books advertising post-war

literature were floating sealed in plastic bags. A mannequin

swaddled in phosphorescent duct tape, with slits where its

eyes and mouth were supposed to be, was glowing in a small

dark room. He'd dubbed it, for his own personal benefit, The

Statue of Liberty. In another room, a TV set was showing the

same sequence ad infinitum, with neither beginning nor end.

In a former toilet cubicle a squatting guy was holding a

newspaper or just doodling. From five or six hotplates where

pots of water had been set to boil plumes of steam were

shooting into the air causing paper-cut maps hanging from

the wall to spin. Out of a chocolate toilette bowl you could

help yourself freely. There was even a takeaway option…

Seldom had he come across such a bunch of wackos united

in the genuine belief they were making art. If you chanced to

scratch behind an ear or took off one of your shoes because

you had a pebble in it, you found yourself making

contemporary art without knowing it, the way Monsieur

Jourdain was making prose, and stood a fair chance of being

proclaimed founder of some artistic movement. No, nothing

had given him a thrill, his spirit had found no aesthetic

delight, nor any deep, life-changing message to awaken his

inner being or at least intrigue him. It was with

disappointment, even anger that he left the place. Probably

that whole bunch saw themselves as emerging from

Duchamp's urinal like Venus from the sea surf; still they

were nothing but the product of a clogged toilet bowl. Well,

he could say it openly. He wouldn't have exchanged today's

imposture for the works formerly commissioned by the

party, now shameful family secrets, so-called compromising

skeletons piled up in the musty basements of apprehensive

museums. No, he wouldn't claim they were masterpieces,

yet those artists picturing miners, oil rigs, plentiful harvests,

the glorious princes of the Romanian principalities or

Ceausescu's visit to some construction site, knew how to

hold a brush in their hands: even in that junk their talent was

obvious, it haloed the canvas. For him personally, talent

born talent that is, not the acquired or aped versions, was the

supreme argument. The rest, to put it in non-academic terms,

was just crap. He could swear that all those rebellious punks

who'd hardly ever heard of Malevich's Black Square, were

completely out of their depth when it came to the golden

ratio, they'd smear themselves to their asses if asked to mix

two colours yet, good God, they dubbed themselves artists.

The dictatorship, for better or worse, wouldn't have allowed

such things to happen. These last thoughts took even him by

surprise, so he shook his head as if electrocuted to get rid of

them.

Mr Esco took a look at his generation and thought

to himself: “I take a look at my generation and…” He

observed them shaking in their shoes, as if his tiny secret

antennae detected the imminence of black clouds in the

shape of army-boot soles. His knees jerked up

uncontrollably and rhythmically two-three centimetres high,

to the throbbing accompaniment of his ashplant. He's

watching her from afar, and occasionally has a hard time

making out her profile in the jumble of hands and legs, in the

melee of bodies besieging the market stalls. Parsley, dill,

tomatoes, cucumbers everything vanished into the empty-

bellied bags, hanging limp like tattered banners on a

battlefield. He made it to the kitchens. Everything was

crunched, sliced, gnawed at, diced, chewed, sucked to the

last vitamin. His was a fierce generation, born to fight. The

old folks were indefatigable vitamin hunters. Between their

sallow gums, the last sprig of cress breathed its last, writhing

in agony. In spring they all seemed to go berserk.

Translucent and bony, eyes brutish with winter, they'd tread

on each other's feet and they'd shove, devitalized, listless

gladiators. Some of them went so far as to pinch each other

or mutter oaths under their breaths. They were wicked and

helpless. Their limp hands felt every item of merchandise,

turning it on all sides, tested the vigour of fruit, rummaged

around. Then wrinkled their noses. Pouted their wilted lips.

Smirked shrewdly. They'd bargain for days on end, till the

green went limp, the fruit went rotten and had to be sold at a

lower price. They'd snap at the vitamin with trembling

hands, secured and smiled triumphantly. They'd rub their

little paws with satisfaction.

As summer approached, they'd calm down, sort of.

Only went out in the cool of the day. First thing in the

morning, they'd storm the market. Sampling, sniffing

around. With a certain politeness. Discreetly, some of them.

Around eleven thirty, a bugle imperceptible to the untutored

yet clearly discernible for their lot, called the retreat. They'd

come back at around four thirty, refreshed after their

afternoon nap. The shrewdest of the species turned up at six,

on the off chance they'd bag some produce gone bad during

the day. Which the farmers wouldn't bother to take back

home. This year, though, they seemed worse than ever.

were nothing but the product of a clogged toilet bowl. Well,

he could say it openly. He wouldn't have exchanged today's

imposture for the works formerly commissioned by the

party, now shameful family secrets, so-called compromising

skeletons piled up in the musty basements of apprehensive

museums. No, he wouldn't claim they were masterpieces,

yet those artists picturing miners, oil rigs, plentiful harvests,

the glorious princes of the Romanian principalities or

Ceausescu's visit to some construction site, knew how to

hold a brush in their hands: even in that junk their talent was

obvious, it haloed the canvas. For him personally, talent

born talent that is, not the acquired or aped versions, was the

supreme argument. The rest, to put it in non-academic terms,

was just crap. He could swear that all those rebellious punks

who'd hardly ever heard of Malevich's Black Square, were

completely out of their depth when it came to the golden

ratio, they'd smear themselves to their asses if asked to mix

two colours yet, good God, they dubbed themselves artists.

The dictatorship, for better or worse, wouldn't have allowed

such things to happen. These last thoughts took even him by

surprise, so he shook his head as if electrocuted to get rid of

them.

Mr Esco took a look at his generation and thought

to himself: “I take a look at my generation and…” He

observed them shaking in their shoes, as if his tiny secret

antennae detected the imminence of black clouds in the

shape of army-boot soles. His knees jerked up

uncontrollably and rhythmically two-three centimetres high,

to the throbbing accompaniment of his ashplant. He's

watching her from afar, and occasionally has a hard time

making out her profile in the jumble of hands and legs, in the

melee of bodies besieging the market stalls. Parsley, dill,

tomatoes, cucumbers everything vanished into the empty-

bellied bags, hanging limp like tattered banners on a

battlefield. He made it to the kitchens. Everything was

crunched, sliced, gnawed at, diced, chewed, sucked to the

last vitamin. His was a fierce generation, born to fight. The

old folks were indefatigable vitamin hunters. Between their

sallow gums, the last sprig of cress breathed its last, writhing

in agony. In spring they all seemed to go berserk.

Translucent and bony, eyes brutish with winter, they'd tread

on each other's feet and they'd shove, devitalized, listless

gladiators. Some of them went so far as to pinch each other

or mutter oaths under their breaths. They were wicked and

helpless. Their limp hands felt every item of merchandise,

turning it on all sides, tested the vigour of fruit, rummaged

around. Then wrinkled their noses. Pouted their wilted lips.

Smirked shrewdly. They'd bargain for days on end, till the

green went limp, the fruit went rotten and had to be sold at a

lower price. They'd snap at the vitamin with trembling

hands, secured and smiled triumphantly. They'd rub their

little paws with satisfaction.

As summer approached, they'd calm down, sort of.

Only went out in the cool of the day. First thing in the

morning, they'd storm the market. Sampling, sniffing

around. With a certain politeness. Discreetly, some of them.

Around eleven thirty, a bugle imperceptible to the untutored

yet clearly discernible for their lot, called the retreat. They'd

come back at around four thirty, refreshed after their

afternoon nap. The shrewdest of the species turned up at six,

on the off chance they'd bag some produce gone bad during

the day. Which the farmers wouldn't bother to take back

home. This year, though, they seemed worse than ever.

Though spring was all but gone, their growls were still

audible. The scurry of rummaging hands went on unabated.

The herb-hunting frenzy still gleamed in their eyes. Their

vocabulary was a weedy garden.

Yes. It looked like they were in for a dry year. His

generation could sense such things. A vitamin shortage

loomed ahead. They were headed for a drought, and no

doubt about it. His instinct never failed him. That could be a

fine opportunity to make a fast buck. Holding a position was

no longer fashionable.

Silviu called from outside the block to let him

know he had no time to come up. He'd drop Adrian in the

alley, by the entrance. Oh well, he'd splashed that stinking

after shave on his face for nothing. Before going downstairs,

he resorted to one last scrutiny in the mirror. Hair was all

right, the tie knot tight and plumb, colours matching, back

straight. He could have done with an extra three to

four centimetres added to his stature, but that's another story.

In the lift he briefly treated the woman next door to his theory

on apartment heating systems, known to be detrimental to

the collective spirit, as opposed to good old central heating.

As he sensed he'd been persuasive enough, he also chose to

expound the theory to Adrian, in a more accessible form, of

course. He'd been long since acquainted with the principle of

adjusting information to the listener's level of culture, from

way back in the days when he was in charge of political

propaganda in villages, but that's another story. In the city

they had their own route, comprising, as a rule, historical

monuments, or buildings that had played an important part

in his life and activity. On occasion they'd sit down on a

bench and, while the frail boy played silently with his own

fingers, a bad habit he'd acquired after his parents' divorce,

he would tell him at length about the eminent people of the

city, without leaving out his own major contribution to the

city's welfare. Their Saturday adventure always ended at the

McDonald's next to the station, where lots of the city elite

used to converge, and the child's eyes lit up at the sight of the

Happy-Meal toys. Apart from the nouveau riche, wearing

crew-cuts and rope-thick gold chains, sporting tiered bellies

and bandying bawdy jokes about, one could see doctors,

lawyers and even priests, well, the kind of people who could

afford splurging on such an outing. He would have liked

Adrian to make friends and romp around, but apparently he

was too shy for that kind of thing.

While the child, a concentrated frown on his face,

was playing with a pair of exophthalmic eyes fitted with a

device that could attach them to the padded tongue of his

trainers, according to the girl at the counter, he remembered

his strange dream that ravaged his memories.

On entering the door, he realized he was not going

into his bedroom, but in his old office. Only thing is, there's a

dentist rather than a cigarette smell inside. At the desk, in

front of a typewriter, a pre-war model, his old acquaintance,

the luridly-dressed woman. Her fingers are poised above the

keys, like beaks ready to peck at the nicely-rounded buttons.

She's all eyes and seems ready to get down to work. What's

for lunch, Siles, baby? she asks in the most natural tone.

Although it seems a routine question, the viciousness lies in

that “Siles baby”, which only his ex-wife used. Caught off

guard again he's beginning to get nervous and a wave of heat

flushes his scalp. Sausages and beans, he answers in a bilious

voice. The woman bangs at the keys: “Sausages and beans”.

Each letter has a different taste, she explains, and now, after

Though spring was all but gone, their growls were still

audible. The scurry of rummaging hands went on unabated.

The herb-hunting frenzy still gleamed in their eyes. Their

vocabulary was a weedy garden.

Yes. It looked like they were in for a dry year. His

generation could sense such things. A vitamin shortage

loomed ahead. They were headed for a drought, and no

doubt about it. His instinct never failed him. That could be a

fine opportunity to make a fast buck. Holding a position was

no longer fashionable.

Silviu called from outside the block to let him

know he had no time to come up. He'd drop Adrian in the

alley, by the entrance. Oh well, he'd splashed that stinking

after shave on his face for nothing. Before going downstairs,

he resorted to one last scrutiny in the mirror. Hair was all

right, the tie knot tight and plumb, colours matching, back

straight. He could have done with an extra three to

four centimetres added to his stature, but that's another story.

In the lift he briefly treated the woman next door to his theory

on apartment heating systems, known to be detrimental to

the collective spirit, as opposed to good old central heating.

As he sensed he'd been persuasive enough, he also chose to

expound the theory to Adrian, in a more accessible form, of

course. He'd been long since acquainted with the principle of

adjusting information to the listener's level of culture, from

way back in the days when he was in charge of political

propaganda in villages, but that's another story. In the city

they had their own route, comprising, as a rule, historical

monuments, or buildings that had played an important part

in his life and activity. On occasion they'd sit down on a

bench and, while the frail boy played silently with his own

fingers, a bad habit he'd acquired after his parents' divorce,

he would tell him at length about the eminent people of the

city, without leaving out his own major contribution to the

city's welfare. Their Saturday adventure always ended at the

McDonald's next to the station, where lots of the city elite

used to converge, and the child's eyes lit up at the sight of the

Happy-Meal toys. Apart from the nouveau riche, wearing

crew-cuts and rope-thick gold chains, sporting tiered bellies

and bandying bawdy jokes about, one could see doctors,

lawyers and even priests, well, the kind of people who could

afford splurging on such an outing. He would have liked

Adrian to make friends and romp around, but apparently he

was too shy for that kind of thing.

While the child, a concentrated frown on his face,

was playing with a pair of exophthalmic eyes fitted with a

device that could attach them to the padded tongue of his

trainers, according to the girl at the counter, he remembered

his strange dream that ravaged his memories.

On entering the door, he realized he was not going

into his bedroom, but in his old office. Only thing is, there's a

dentist rather than a cigarette smell inside. At the desk, in

front of a typewriter, a pre-war model, his old acquaintance,

the luridly-dressed woman. Her fingers are poised above the

keys, like beaks ready to peck at the nicely-rounded buttons.

She's all eyes and seems ready to get down to work. What's

for lunch, Siles, baby? she asks in the most natural tone.

Although it seems a routine question, the viciousness lies in

that “Siles baby”, which only his ex-wife used. Caught off

guard again he's beginning to get nervous and a wave of heat

flushes his scalp. Sausages and beans, he answers in a bilious

voice. The woman bangs at the keys: “Sausages and beans”.

Each letter has a different taste, she explains, and now, after

I've typed this combination, you to taste the food in your

mouth. He concentrates on his tongue and palate and, sure

enough, his taste buds revel in the purest sausage-and-beans

flavour, the kind you could only get at the communist party

canteen. The woman winks at him naughtily and types:

“shit”. Then pulls out the sheet, screws it into a ball and

dumps it into the waste-paper basket. He touches his tongue

to his palate and looks at her questioningly. Gluttony's not

what we're here for, she snaps at him. We're here to record

history. You've promised us a synopsis, Basil. I'm listening,

she adds, crouched over the typewriter, fingers like hail

raining down. He regains his poise and retorts:

Now then, get down to writing, do. Let's start with

the title. The Life and Times of Comrade…? Ehmmm,

Mister… Mister? From the beginning: The Life and Times

of Vasile Stoenescu or a short history of the Romanian

people from the author's birth to the present day.

Bang!

I was born in a needy family, in an age of extreme

social tension… No, that's no good. There we go: Vasile is

the second son of Maria Stoenescu, née Bujara, and Dumitru

Stoenescu, heroically fallen in the course of duty… No, no,

no! Again: few know it's going to be a momentous year for

Europe. While in Great Britain the BBC had started

broadcasting the first television programme on a regular

basis, the first analogical computer was being invented in the

United States of America, the paper clip was being invented

in Norway and Charles Seeberger was perfecting the

escalator, Vasile Stoenescu was born in a little Romanian

village…

Bang!

The beginning had been hard. Now the synopsis

started flowing like a river of erudition. He paces to and fro,

hands clasped behind his back, and from time to time,

pouting and screwing up his eyes, he's searching for the right

word. At some point he realizes he's taken off his jacket and

rolled up his shirt sleeves to his elbows, as in preparation for

digging the garden. Thus, he feels at ease and the dictation

proceeds faster. The sun sets to the rhythm of his sentences,

and in a moment of grace he comes up with the appropriate

ending:

The typewriter's clicking is history's progress on

high heels.

Whereupon he collapses into the armchair, lights

up a cigarette and asks to see the typed text. Mr Esco (a

national epopee, coming-of-age novel and riddle) he reads at

the top of the page, in the middle. Then: Mr Esco was born

out of a tinned fish box or out of a jar of stewed fruit, no one

knows for sure…

But that's another story, he cries out indignantly,

shaking his right fist.

Indeed, quite another story, the luridly-dressed

woman confirms…And bursts into a nervous fit of laughter, guttural and sarcastic, growing to a paroxystic crescendo, cracking the ceiling and shattering the windows, causing the block to collapse, demolishing the city, screwing itself into the brain.

English translation by Florin Bican

I've typed this combination, you to taste the food in your

mouth. He concentrates on his tongue and palate and, sure

enough, his taste buds revel in the purest sausage-and-beans

flavour, the kind you could only get at the communist party

canteen. The woman winks at him naughtily and types:

“shit”. Then pulls out the sheet, screws it into a ball and

dumps it into the waste-paper basket. He touches his tongue

to his palate and looks at her questioningly. Gluttony's not

what we're here for, she snaps at him. We're here to record

history. You've promised us a synopsis, Basil. I'm listening,

she adds, crouched over the typewriter, fingers like hail

raining down. He regains his poise and retorts:

Now then, get down to writing, do. Let's start with

the title. The Life and Times of Comrade…? Ehmmm,

Mister… Mister? From the beginning: The Life and Times

of Vasile Stoenescu or a short history of the Romanian

people from the author's birth to the present day.

Bang!

I was born in a needy family, in an age of extreme

social tension… No, that's no good. There we go: Vasile is

the second son of Maria Stoenescu, née Bujara, and Dumitru

Stoenescu, heroically fallen in the course of duty… No, no,

no! Again: few know it's going to be a momentous year for

Europe. While in Great Britain the BBC had started

broadcasting the first television programme on a regular

basis, the first analogical computer was being invented in the

United States of America, the paper clip was being invented

in Norway and Charles Seeberger was perfecting the

escalator, Vasile Stoenescu was born in a little Romanian

village…

Bang!

The beginning had been hard. Now the synopsis

started flowing like a river of erudition. He paces to and fro,

hands clasped behind his back, and from time to time,

pouting and screwing up his eyes, he's searching for the right

word. At some point he realizes he's taken off his jacket and

rolled up his shirt sleeves to his elbows, as in preparation for

digging the garden. Thus, he feels at ease and the dictation

proceeds faster. The sun sets to the rhythm of his sentences,

and in a moment of grace he comes up with the appropriate

ending:

The typewriter's clicking is history's progress on

high heels.

Whereupon he collapses into the armchair, lights

up a cigarette and asks to see the typed text. Mr Esco (a

national epopee, coming-of-age novel and riddle) he reads at

the top of the page, in the middle. Then: Mr Esco was born

out of a tinned fish box or out of a jar of stewed fruit, no one

knows for sure…

But that's another story, he cries out indignantly,

shaking his right fist.

Indeed, quite another story, the luridly-dressed

woman confirms…And bursts into a nervous fit of laughter, guttural and sarcastic, growing to a paroxystic crescendo, cracking the ceiling and shattering the windows, causing the block to collapse, demolishing the city, screwing itself into the brain.

English translation by Florin Bican

This text was comissioned for Critical Point Project, with the occasion of Vector Association’s participation

in the frame of Frieze Projects.2010

© of Dan LunguGenerously supported by the

Romanian Cultural Institute in London

This text was comissioned for Critical Point Project, with the occasion of Vector Association’s participation

in the frame of Frieze Projects.2010

© of Dan LunguGenerously supported by the

Romanian Cultural Institute in London