Water

excerpt Paul Dunca found himself asking not "what has become of the baron," which would have been an equally ludicrous question, but at least still possible at the time, but:"How is the baron?"The girl burst into a loud laughter and that was her only answer, and Paul Dunca understood the unparalleled stupidity of his question, even though he still did not know, or had only vaguely heard about the gas chambers. If this young girl looked the way she did it was pointless to inquire about an eighty years old man.He tried to negotiate the deal, offering high prices, then they postponed the discussion until a later date. From that day they became inseparable. He was fascinated with her, they went out together and, at first, she refused to dress differently, to change her uniform. She walked next to him in the cobbled streets of that cold and rainy early spring, shuffling her torn wooden-soled clogs that revealed her thin and reddened toes. When he asked her questions, she answered her inner ones. On that very first day, when they went out of the villa (where he was to return alone less than two hours later), Shorty's man, who had accompanied him, a vile killer who liquidated people with his bare hands, both before and after that day, told him when he came out of the run-down mansion: "May God forgive us, sir." He had, naturally, no blame in the matter, but for a few brief seconds, in his primitive savageness, he thought of himself not as himself, Ion or Petre or Gheorghe, but as a member of the species that had been capable of such deeds.Paul Dunca did not exactly feel any guilt or pity (although they were not foreign to him), but rather fascination and an unhealthy desire to know, to find out any details, all the details, breaking through her initial stubborn resistance, and later overwhelmed by stories he could hardly believe.After that day they were always together, although there could be no talk of love, nor did their relationship begin immediately. He took her home in all good conscience, and Livia awkwardly welcomed this strange baroness in rags, with hair cut very short and unsettling eyes, and perceived her as a rival before she knew, before it entered her mind, before it even became a credible thought that a woman suffering from chronic squalidness could possibly attract a man. Hermina's refusal to accept the things she was offered (although she no longer needed any since the selling of the house had become effective and she was, in a way, really wealthy) amazed her, she could not understand why she was so adamant about wearing the same old rags. After he paid the money (in gold and foreign currency), and even "recovered" some older jewels belonging to the Grödels, Shorty asked Donca to ship her out of town. The war drawing to an end, Hermina could at least go to Bucharest or to Cluj, where her money could be put to good use, and from there leave for Western Europe. The leader of the bandits was oddly insistent about this, as if attempting to get rid of a witness, and equally odd was his complete honesty in this deal which any businessman would have capitalized on remorselessly. The transaction was perfected through Paul Dunca; Shorty did not even want to meet her. He just kept telling Dunca again and again, especially after he paid the money and Hermina moved into another house: "Have the lady go away, you hear me? I don't want her here." And after a while (short but significant nonetheless and thus endless to Dunca), he began to remind him day after day and, if they met several times a day, at their every meeting: "Send this lady of yours away from here, tell her to go."They met all the time, were seen together, finally became the talk of the town – the odd pair: the young baroness shuffling her clogs, wearing a padded coat with dirty frayed sleeves that stained the white table cloths, and Paul Dunca – tall, grave, slightly stooping, listening to stories about convoys and dead people and starvation, genuine starvation of the bones and the sinews and the muscles which nothing could cover. The two could be seen in that rainy spring in the favorite promenade places of teenage lovers, under the chestnut trees, full of thick and sticky buds, that lined the streets going down to the little river which formed the southern limit of the town. Hermina came suddenly back to life on the very eve of the day they had chosen for her leaving for the countryside, and thence to London, where a distant relative was willing to put her up once traveling became safe again. Paul Dunca had come late in the evening (they had parted at noon) as if to say goodbye before their definitive farewell which was but to end a meaningless chapter, and an accidental relationship. The following day, two of Shorty's men were to pick her up.Paul Dunca showed up at this meeting, which was supposed to be their last, feeling more relieved than remorseful as if, just like Shorty but for different reasons, he was ridding himself of a witness. To him, from the following day onwards, the world was going to be a different place, safe once more, where one could plan ahead, and not just for a couple of weeks. He was walking lightly in the gentle rain, enjoying the shrill song of the drain pipes. He went into the house where Hermina had temporarily rented a room after moving out of the villa, his mind wandering, thinking ordinary, imprecise thoughts. He smiled to himself when he saw the curtain move at the curious landlady's window.It is for this reason that Hermina startled him like an apparition. For the first time he froze in the doorway, words failing him, just like tonight and almost every night since. He barely recognized her at first, unable to relate the woman in front of him to the woman he had parted from just hours before, stranger in her present attire than in her old rags. Hermina was standing in the middle of the room, straight, her arms at a slight distance from her body, as if trying to maintain a precarious balance. Dressed as she was in an elegant, red tailored suit, with the collar lined with precious fur, her long legs in silk stockings, hands gloved in black, her weakness had turned into slenderness, her wretchedness – into delicate china fragility which her entire being breathed. Her body was now fully that of a young woman, but the strange and striking beauty came from her delicate pale face which, illuminated by her light-colored, now warmly ironical eyes lined with black, still preserved, due perhaps to the short hair which had barely started to grow, still bristly and slightly falling on her forehead, somewhat of a teenage air. The boyish look, blended with the feminine finesse of her complexion, made up a beauty that had to do with the species, going beyond gender or rather prior to it, of the moment before genders became definitively separated, like an oscillation between male and female, close to their common archetypal root. The balanced position of the gloved hands, her unnatural posture in the middle of the room where she seemed to have been standing for an indefinite period of time, strengthened the feeling of uncertainty surrounding her and revealed her pure, at the crossroads of all possibilities. Boy and girl on the threshold between the memory of extreme squalor and a new regeneration, life that had not yet opted for any definite and limitative form. His entering the house did not cause her to change her posture in the least, for which reason it looked like she had been waiting precisely for him or, who knows, like his presence was of no importance whatever, just another uncertainty. Paul Dunca was stirred deep inside, where we are all undecided and undifferentiated. Overwhelmed, he remained in the doorway without even addressing her, then walked, unconscious of his own movements, towards the centre of the room and when he got near her he was suddenly enveloped in a soft smell, uniquely hers, yet unknown to him, an extension of her body drawing him to her. He got down on his knees and wrapped his arms around her legs, then stooped and kissed her small knees. Throughout the night that followed Paul Dunca discovered a new world which he had been carrying around with him, yet strange and unknown. He was completely ignorant of such pleasures, so great and yet so cruel; he learnt that the other's body is not enough, how a whole world comes to life in one's imagination, and extends what nothing physical can possibly offer in but a few moments. He became aware of the desire to control, completely and without limitations, the other's entire being, not only the body but the spirit as well, the whole and savage desire to possess and then, violently and brutally, to associate the other's suffering with the caresses. But he also became aware of the other desire, the desire for self-annihilation, the desire to be dominated and possessed also without limitation – and then he bowed before Hermina's feet in complete submission, seeking servitude through symbol, which in reality could not be. Not even in the oldest and most natural of all unions could he rid himself of symbols, signs and representations, even when feelings seemed to play no part. He was human, fully and inescapably human.He discovered Hermina's body like he had never before discovered anything. Her figure, still rather bony and not wholly womanly, her shoulder blades, her shoulders and her small breasts, the contours of her hips, all had revealed themselves to him living and present in all their splendor. That night, and many of the nights that followed, were nothing like his former nights of passion – healthy, simple and robust, short and at peace with themselves. For deep inside he still associated his intense pleasure, his hotness, to some sort of shame, easily defeated but resurfacing with every long pause only to be again overpowered by lust and pleasure. These waves of shame and sadness sweeping over him were witnesses to his education, to his individuality prior to his social identity which he was trying to shake off but which no one can ever escape, not even through the simplest and most natural of acts. This shame he was never completely free of. Hermina also took part in the game, with an energy he would never have suspected, and a sure instinct which enabled her to respond to all his requests. It might well be that it was in fact her who took charge and triggered the great change inside him. They spent a sleepless night and towards dawn were lying in bed exhausted, only Paul Dunca, fearful, still kept his arm softly but firmly around her body, as if afraid she might disappear. They spoke little, for there was no room for words. They were thus lying when they heard knocks on the door – Shorty's people had come to pick her up. Paul Dunca looked at her and understood that her coming back to life was by no means linked to a decision to go on with her plans; quite to the contrary, it was an abandonment of all plans, an intense and casual experience. Hermina did not necessarily want to stay because the closeness they shared or their night of passion had made her fall in love with him. She was lying in bed, placid and passionless, so he got angry and still tried to make sure:"They've come for you. Do you still want to go?"She shrugged her bony shoulders and looked him straight in the face blankly, without a ghost of genuine desire in her eyes. Then she said:"Go? Why not? It's all the same to me. It wasn't me who insisted I should.""Don't you want us to be together?""I do, it feels good being with you. If I come to think of it, I never even thought it could feel so good."Paul Dunca felt a wave of jealousy engulf him. He shouted:"With me or anyone else.""With you it was all right," she said, but her voice was soft, expressionless.The knocks on the door got louder and louder and they could see the handle move, furiously shaken up and down. "Ma'am, miss," a throaty voice was saying. "Wake up and open the door. We've got to be up and going before daylight."Urged by a sudden determination, Paul Dunca jumped to his feet, rushed to the door and opened it, naked as he was. Two men, one wearing a leather jacket, and the other one a fleecy coat of the kind shepherds wear, were standing in the doorway. They burst out laughing when they saw him, but their laughter died on their lips when they recognized him. "Good morning, sir. You'll excuse us, but we have our orders, you know, to pick up the lady. We're sorry, sir…"One of them winked wantonly and knowingly and without realizing it tried to push him out of the way, perhaps prompted by the sight that the naked man in the doorway promised. Paul Dunca shoved him off brutally and the man's fury flashed for a second before he contained himself. "Well then, what do we do? Do we leave or do we stay?""The baroness is not going anywhere. She is staying here.""I don't know," said the man in the leather jacket, slightly baffled. "We've got our orders and you know how Mr. Shorty is like… If he said we should take her…""Don't worry, I'll talk to him. Now go."He pushed the door shut, aware of the fact that they had been staring over his shoulder all the while. He heard them mumbling something, not yet sure what they should do, then they stamped away and a car engine roared."Why didn't you cover yourself?" Paul Dunca yelled. "They stared at you all the time. You don't know what kind of people these are, they were capable of shoving me away and jumping on you. If they hadn't recognized me…"Hermina smiled softly and indifferently, then rolled over with her face to the wall and pulled the blanket over her. Paul Dunca sat down on the bed, trembling with cold, but said nothing and lit a cigarette. He smoked it in silence then crept into bed next to her and fell asleep. After a few hours' sleep he got dressed and went to see Shorty, who was expecting him. He had been informed, of course, of everything that had happened, and his men had reported in full detail the circumstances in which they had met the lawyer. Yet he was not amused, as men usually are when chancing upon a secret of this sort, but thoughtful and morose. He did not bring up the subject, but waited for Paul Dunca to."The baroness is not going anywhere. She is staying here with me.""This wasn't the deal," Shorty said and his tone was grim, almost harsh."Please understand. It cannot be any different. This is what we want, her and me, especially me."Shorty looked at him musingly then stood up and took a few steps around the room. After a while he stopped and faced Dunca, who suddenly felt overpowered and afraid. Shorty's small and dark eyes were staring at him darkly, boring through him, intimidating him as never before, reading – it seemed to him – his unconfessed thoughts which he himself was only just becoming aware of. He said to himself "It can't be helped now" and the thought overwhelmed him, because he understood there was no escape, he had chosen a destiny whose consequences he would never be free of, ever."Fine," Shorty said. "I'll leave her to you if you like her so much," and he reached out his hand to him, sealing a pact.Paul Dunca abandoned his hand softly into the outstretched hand and bowed his head.From that day on the relationship between them changed, or rather became clarified. "We witness in Alexandru Ivasiuc's (1933-1977) novels the establishment of a "mythology" of power. The paradox lies in this mythology resulting from a very methodical attempt to demystify the political mechanism. Few Romanian writers have been more preoccupied with this mechanism than Ivasiuc, and very few analyzed it with greater lucidity. Yet the most unexpected thing is that, obsessed with the demystification of the political mechanism, he often shrouded it, conferring it a mysterious aura." (Nicolae Manolescu) Water (Eminescu, 1973) was intended as part of a trilogy, a project that was tragically ended by the devastating earthquake of March 4, 1977.


by Al. Ivasiuc (1933-1977)