Читать книгу The Praetor and Other Stories - Aurel Stancu - Страница 5

THREE ORANGES

The life philosophy of Titi and Nina, husband and wife, was as old as the hills: seize the day. Being used to earning their money easily, only from trade, the two of them had been victoriously filing off through the events. Theirs had been a smooth life, in gentle weather, no matter the season. So they had come to believe the gods would endear them forever.

“That’s the way I am. If there’re three oranges on the table, and I feel like eating them all, I do it. What’s the use of refraining, only to have something left to eat the following day? If I die in my sleep and one of my neighbors comes over to watch me, and he sees the oranges on the table, what do you think he’ll say? ‘Look at him, the fool, he died and didn’t have time to eat his oranges,’ he’ll say and gobble an orange. Then another neighbor’ll come and say, ‘Poor him, he died and the oranges were left uneaten,’ and he’ll pinch one too. So I eat the three of them before going to bed and the next morning I manage to find my way about, that is if I manage to wake up,” Titi explained to his friends the way he saw it.

“What’s the use of living humbly? Sooner or later I’ll die anyway,” Nina sang the same tune.

“You two are acting as if you were ready to pop off before your time,” said a friend one night while they were playing cards.

“You know something? The worst is yet to come,” Nina breezed up in her quick-tempered, foul-mouthed way. “Fuck everything that’s serious in this world. The rule is there’s no rule. I spend everything I’ve got, I eat whatever I please and I do whatever I want. That’s the way I am and I love it!”

“To think like that one needs money too, otherwise the rule gets tough and the ending sad,” came the retort.

“It’s not money that makes me, I make it!” Titi put in solemnly and self-confidently.

The two spouses matched each other both physically and temperamentally. Their faces were round, their hair was brown and curly, and, due to their prosperity, they had put on a lot of weight. Nina displayed large buttocks, well supported by sturdy legs which started from thickened ankles. Her breasts burst with the desire to assert themselves, and so did her fine skin, black eyes, big but not goggled, and her mouth which whenever she wanted knew how to smile a movie smile. Far from being a vamp, she rather looked like a ripe fruit that stirred one to bite it.

In his turn, the years had enveloped Titi with a layer of fluffy fat which hinted at his prosperous lifestyle. He belonged to that league of submissive smiling men. His gentleness had kept him close to his wife without any serious earthquake in those seven years of marriage. More than that, he seemed to be a one woman’s man.

“I fell in love with my wife so many times I can no longer remember when the last time was,” he explained his constancy.

“That’s because you’ve had quite a lot of sweethearts and can’t remember which was which,” she goaded him on with a sweet smile.

“A woman will find it easier to remember her first love. With them it’s always the first time.”

“Keep talking like that and you’ll turn into a philosopher! Tell me, which of us is always in a hurry? Besides, we live in another intensity—”

“In-ten-si-ty…you say?”

It was a game and she threw at him everything she laid her hands on, pretending she was angry. Nina didn’t let herself get overwhelmed by anything, she always found the right solution in the nick of time. On the other hand, her big mouth compromised her and made everyone dread her. Whenever she lost her temper she just kept talking, on and on. Smart, endowed with a fine sense of humour, she said her line on the spot. Paradoxically, despite the acidity of her way of speaking, she had a big heart: her generosity was proverbial among her numberless friends, neighbors, and strangers who asked her for help. On holy days she made lots of packages and took them to churches, hospitals, shelters, and orphanages.

Titi had been manager of the central market for ten years which, to a great extent, accounted for his wealth. He had got and kept the job due to his ability to change his political loyalties at the right moment, being always ready, even at midnight, to jump on another wagon. Of course, just for appearance’s sake, he had taken an exam but that had been arranged, leaving no chance whatsoever to the rest of the applicants. When he got the job he didn’t just choose between making money and lazing away his time. He skillfully pulled all his weight and, as a result, half a year later the market looked completely different. He was a good organizer, a capable businessman, and a kind-hearted man. He took his piece of the action discreetly, cleverly, and with moderation. The ground on which he trod was very unstable for a lot of people, both in the local government and in the opposition, were after his job.

“Someone else would have disgraced the party, but not him,” the chairman of the municipal chapter would say.

After so many years Titi gave the impression he would stay central market manager for ever, plus coordinator of the other markets that were under his beck and call. He was a piscicultural engineer by trade and had even worked for several years on various farms from which he came to town only for the weekend. On his days-off he didn’t want to see any flowing water or pond.

“Let’s have a barbecue on the bank of the Danube,” said his friends.

“All I do at the weekend is get rid of the fish smell. I don’t want to hear any babble or ore splash, I just want to breathe in exhaust fumes and feel I live in the city,” he turned down the invitation.

They had first met in his central market office. Nina hadn’t been a brilliant pupil, on the contrary, she had always taken her time. She had found it hard to finish high school and finally done it thanks to her father, a stern man who kept a tight hand on her. She was looking for some space in the market, wanting to open a doughnut or a fast food joint, and had been advised to see the market manager who was reputed for his decency.

“I’ve heard there’s still some soul left in this world and I’ve come to see one,” she began aggressively, taking Titi’s secretary aback. “Shut the door, will you?” she snapped at the poor creature.

“Do you really know the meaning of ‘soul’?” asked the man, stretching his eyes, for he had expected a bribe scene, which he was so accustomed to.

“It’s an abstract thing which we remember only in our last moment of life. Believe it or not, I’m experiencing it now. They say when one dies, his last breath weighs between fifteen and twenty-three grams. That would be his soul. Mine is weighing a ton right now and I’m willing to place it on your desk.”

“At such a weight, you’ll smash my desk to pieces,” Titi smiled, being won over by her attitude.

The problem was solved quickly, Nina getting the space without having to bribe him. And she accepted an invitation to dinner, to a famous restaurant. In other words, Nina got the doughnut joint and the promise of a romantic dinner.

“How about having dinner in the market?” he rang her up the next day.

“In the market?” she was confused, thinking she was talking to a lunatic.

“There’s a market close to Piazza San Marco in Venice.”

“Dear me,” she said swallowing hard.

Titi wanted a romantic love affair, that’s all. Nina wanted to see Venice. Both of them were full of passion, and yet Nina defied imagination. In their ardent moments, the woman kept screaming so, if they hadn’t been in a foreign hotel, the man would have been ashamed to make love to her for the second time. He was thirty-two and hadn’t yet met a woman who lost control of herself in bed—he thought maybe he had finally met his match. The ten-year gap between them didn’t matter. Back home, they got married within two weeks.

“I didn’t realize what was happening or if I was doing the right thing. There was something strange going on that I needed badly,” he told her later on.

“I just pulled you together, you were such a scatterbrain and scatterpenis. I made you settle down in your own house,” she replied, feeling the need to patronize him.

“Don’t say you didn’t let me take a wrong turn.”

“No, I showed you the right path.”

Within a year, they built themselves a five-bedroom house. People were already grumbling: with so much oil he was measuring, he couldn’t help anointing his fingers, otherwise where did all that money come from? Soon Titi decided to surprise everyone by quitting his job and starting his own business.

“Ten years working for the state with all that oil on the desk is more than enough! I’ve proved my competence and self-control, from now on I’m going to be my own boss!” he said to his wife.

“I trust you know what you’re doing,” she replied.

In the fourth year of their marriage Nina gave birth to Doina. After that there was a new rule in the house: they were to celebrate in style all their birthdays and name days, and the party of all parties was to be on Constantin and Elena’s day, for Titi was just a diminutive—his real name was Constantin.

Three years later they had their second child, a girl called Petrica. They had two daughters, a three-year-old and a three-month-old, when they were making preparations for the forthcoming Constantin and Elena’s day.

While throughout the year they kept an eye on every penny they earned, for that special day things went out of their hand. Nina, an ingenious cook, came up with dishes that astonished everyone. It was an oversized feast, to deafening music, in a crazy atmosphere, with a sea of people putting all their heart into it.

For years Titi had enjoyed making love almost every night, Nina’s reactions keeping him excited throughout the next day, but ever since he had started running his own business they met in their bedroom only at the weekend.

They had too many and too great plans for the future. They wanted to provide their daughters with a large dowry, to buy each of them a big house; they also wanted to move into a luxurious mansion. To them profit came first. Money attracted money. Now Titi was considering giving up even the traditional party on his name day.

“You’re working so hard as if you had a whole regiment to feed. Why don’t you forget at least once a year all about work and plans? Let’s party until we drop!” said Nina.

“To have the feeling we haven’t changed a bit, right?”

“No, to feel the taste of life. Didn’t you say you ate all three oranges at one shot?”

That year the party was as formidable as ever even if the name day person was not at home. Titi had left for Constanta at dawn, he had an important business meeting there and hadn’t come back yet. Under no circumstances would he give up solving a problem which promised a very large profit.

The feat had caught so much fire that no one remembered Titi was not there. As usual, the guests were ecstatic. The only person that smiled and had fun with discretion was Nina.

“This time I won’t forgive him,” she said to one of her friends. “I’ll kill him. Does he have to work on his name day too?”

It was past ten. Her husband’s cell kept quiet. He was probably in a no-signal area. Nothing like that had ever happened in their seven years of marriage. Someone broke a glass and immediately came up to her to apologize.

“Don’t worry about such a thing,” said Nina. “Look here,” she added and broke a glass herself.

The guests clapped their hands. Overexcited, Nina shouted:

“Let’s break the glasses! I’ll buy new ones, who cares, Titi’s making a lot of money. Damn it!”

Madness erupted, the guests set their instincts free, while Nina had to go upstairs and take care of her younger daughter who had been awakened by the noise and now gave her to understand she was hungry.

“Come on, sweet little thing, stop crying, Daddy’s gone to make you a mountain of a dowry. Don’t you see how late he is? Come, darling, come home!” the woman murmured while feeding the baby.

After the clock struck eleven, Nina stopped giving any explanation about her husband’s absence. And started to drink. At one time those present thought she was the celebrated one. Not that she wasn’t acting as if she were.

A few minutes before midnight, while the most expensive bottles of champagne were being opened, they heard the gate ring and the wolf dog barking furiously.

“Thank God, Titi’s back! I’m going to pour all the champagne on his head to break him of doing business on his very name day. I’ll bring him to reason,” Nina promised the guests and went out to open the gate.

Outside there was a police officer. He saluted her politely and asked her if she was Titi’s wife.

“Your husband had an accident on Harsova Bridge.”

“Is he dead?” she asked calmly and in cold-blood, puzzling the policeman.

“Yes. A boy who had stolen the car keys from his father went out for a ride and crashed into your husband’s car. I’m sorry.…”

Nina left the policeman outside their house, slammed the gate shut and joined the guests with a charming smile on her face.

“Titi is no longer coming tonight,” she said. “He urged us to have as much fun as we can in honour of him.”

All the guests applauded frantically. Nina went up to the children’s room and looked at her daughters who were fast asleep.

“My God, you’re so young,” she whispered and shivered.

She went back to the party and dizzily joined the chain of people who were getting out of the house singing “Happy name day to you!”

* * * *

Fifteen years later, Nina was a wicked, sullen woman, with a bloated face and living in relative poverty, again keeping an eye on every penny she earned. She had moved into a two-bedroom flat. Doina, her older daughter, had fallen in love with a thief and left for Spain. Petrica, her younger daughter, was a cunning, deceitful creature. Nina’s confused life was now quietly ruled by the almighty glass.

“That’s good too, after the three oranges,” Nina mumbled, pouring herself another glass.

Then she gulped it hatefully and threw it down. She had bought a plastic one, unbreakable, for the habit was too expensive and she didn’t want to give it up.