Mr Procopiu set off home on foot. He was rather depressed, perhaps because they had been talking about so many unusual things. And so he hastened his steps and, when he heard a muffled sound behind him, he almost broke into a run. Feeling a hand on his shoulder, he let out a cry.
4.
Perhaps all that was and will be is now, in the present. Perhaps what was is what once more will be. Before you ask me any questions, try to get used to my voice, the voice of a man sundered from a world he had come to know quite well, and plunged into an unknown and unintelligible world. Perhaps without knowing it, we live in this endless moment, in many worlds at once. Perhaps the voice that speaks to you now and which thrashes among the voices here like a fish in a fisherman’s net – this voice that finds itself in the city and the country of its birth, more alone than the voice of any man imprisoned in a foreign land – speaks even now with beings which you have no way of seeing. Or perhaps I, the source of the voice, have already been extinguished, like the sun that has just now set, but you still hear me, there, in your world, where the sun is at its zenith, there in your warm room, or outside, in a green park, on a bench. Or perhaps precisely when you cannot hear me, when you are sleeping a dreamless sleep or when you are yelling at each other like madmen, or when you are bored to death, desperate for the time to pass, perhaps this will be when the essential things will take place here. Or perhaps I will never reach you, although that would not sadden me.
But look how I finally raise my voice to the heavens, and I pray for both you, those afar, and for myself, I pray here, to this silver icon, within whose casing can be seen with the naked eye the head of a woman and the smaller head of a child: I pray for your health, your welfare, and that you not be punished, as I am. I pray that you have an old age as beautiful and soothing as roses. I pray that, if you hear a man’s voice, you will understand. I pray out loud: ‘Thou, the Relentless, spare us, spare me, release me from this net in which I am tangled, that I might find a tear in the net and swim into the open sea.’ I pray: ‘Merciful one, have mercy.’ One day, I am sure, I will come to you somehow and you will hear me again. I don’t know why I am here, in a church, in front of an icon. I don’t know why I am shut up here, in the frozen silver of a world that I did not wish for, just as you, whatever you might say, are from birth shut up as if in a prison, as if in a butterfly net or as if in a birdcage, in a world that you did not wish for, did not know, and have no way of controlling. You thrash around in vain. We are prisoners, condemned, each in his own world, each in his own solitude. Why can you not see me? I am fettered in the frozen silver of the icon of a world that perhaps no longer is. I try to see you there, from the picture frame of my present day, and if you fall silent for an instant, like the waters deep in a well, perhaps you will hear what I say to myself, because I speak for myself and only for myself. I am alone: I who do and I who judge. I am the one who speaks, I the one who is silent and listens: It is always different than we think, dear Dan. You have been cast from life to life.
When I opened my eyes, I saw wide blue sky and many trees clad in hoarfrost. Hundreds of pinpoints took flight at each gust of wind. The air clasped me. I was lying on my back. With a city-dweller’s wonderment, I immersed my gaze in the sky. All of a sudden I heard a sound like water flowing from a tap. It came from nearby, to my right. I turned my head without raising it and I could not believe what I saw. There was no doubt about it: next to me a horse had released a gushing torrent of urine. Steam wafted around the jet. It seemed unending, and a round hollow had formed in the snow. The horse was harnessed to a sleigh laden with blocks of ice and a few logs.
There was complete silence, a petrified silence. All around was whiteness, sun, a silence such as I had never heard before, because even silence is audible. The beast thrust its muzzle into the bag hanging from its neck and began to chomp. Its tail was tied in a huge glossy knot.
‘On your feet, lad, or else nightfall will catch ub with you here in the snow. Who can have left you here to berish, where there’s not another berson as far as the eye can see?’
He was a swarthy man, with huge hands, in which he was holding an axe. I took fright. The valise was a few feet away and I struggled to get up, to go to it. I tottered. My legs were frozen.
‘Can’t you bick yourself ub? Some friends you’ve got, leaving you here bissed, to freeze in the snow, dressed like a scarecrow and without so much as a cab on your head.’
When you understand nothing, all you can do is keep silent. He was talking, but it was as if his mouth were full. The man tossed the axe into the sleigh, next to a pick and shovel. He untied the horse’s nosebag and stretched out a horny red hand to me. Half his index finger was missing and it ended in a knot, like the neck of a pouch pinched with a drawstring.
‘Jumb ub, I’ll take you back to town and you’ll bay me two lei and a cub of wine. Let’s fetch that box of yours... Bull this sheebskin over your shoulders. Can you stand ub? I’ve been out cutting logs. I cut some ice, too, on the way, from the lake, but I had to sharben the bickaxe. I’m all of a sweat now.’
As he spoke, steam poured from his mouth. He grasped the reins, and the horse gave its rump a lively shake. The sleigh glided back along its own tracks, as though along rails. It left the forest in its wake, and before it spread the endless white sun-lit plain. Everything glistened with droplets, like the sea. And so there it was: I still had not managed to leave the country. What was happening? Where had everything vanished to? From whence had everything appeared?
Unlike myself, who found not a trace of an answer, the man at the reins found an answer to all questions; he knew everything. A burly man, with long moustaches that joined to curly, greying sideburns, he inspired both trust and fear in me. But the fear was less aggressive than the curiosity. We advanced, gliding slowly.
‘What time is it?’
Here was my voice, for the first time, hoarse and muffled.
‘How should I know? It’s early! I was ub at the crack of dawn. Ain’t you got a timebiece? Lose it at boker, did you, the same as your coat and cab? Take that there overcoat. I was going to give it as alms, in memory of my old ba, who bassed away last month.’
The coat had bone buttons. He handed me a bottle, which was almost full, and again I saw the crudely stitched stump of his forefinger: ‘Have a swig, to warm yourself ub! If you’re feeling beckish, there’s bread in the knabsack.’
‘I drank; it was plum brandy. But I could not eat; a dreadful disquiet held me by the throat. We passed some crows, stark against the white of the road. They did not take flight, but minded their own business, croaking, tracing patterns in the snow with their claws.
‘Betre is my name,’ said the man. ‘My mother was from Russia.’
‘Petre?’
‘Yes, Betre. Betre!’ he shouted, as if I were deaf.
He was expecting me to reciprocate. Bored of my silence, he broached me directly: ‘What’s the name of your family? Where’re you from?’
‘Bucharest, Crețu,’ I answered unenthusiastically.
‘A relative of Kretzu the abothecary – with the ginger moustaches? And who was it shaved your moustaches off?’
I made no reply. Nothing matched up with anything else. From time to time, Petre cast me increasingly wary glances. I could see he was making a great effort to think. Suddenly he pulled on the reins. I jolted forward as if pushed. He jumped down with a nimbleness that was evidence of long practice. We were in a copse; snow clung to the tree trunks like white moss. A body lay on the ground, on its back. I had not noticed it.
‘Here’s another now!’ exclaimed Petre and went up to the form in the snow. ‘What is with you, good beople?’
I climbed down, gingerly. My whole body was aching. On the ground was a blond young man, with a carefully trimmed beard and a wound below his shoulder. My eyes remained glued on his clothing: an elegant, seemingly brand-new suit, whose pieces I could not quite name, and tall, highly polished black boots. Beside him a hat had been cast aside, but there was nothing other than that. I saw he was breathing. There was no doubt that he was alive.
‘It