“To attract werewolves?”
“Maybe to control, or to cause. My own mother warned me never to wear the, um, the little white bells.”
I felt quite pleased with myself.
I felt even more pleased when Adriana amiably consented to test my double bed. The bench press was useful to dump our clothes on. Afterwards, she fell asleep, and looked very innocent, as though orgasm had drained away all cares.
The next day Max and I visited his Romanian publisher at home for lunch, by taxi. Only one of my books was published locally as yet-which was enough for me to be famous on the island-and I nursed hopes for more translations. Cezar, yet another displaced ancient Roman, was jolly and hospitable with beer, coffee, nuts, and nibbles. We sat, Romanian style, in a dingy courtyard, or patio-alley, running from front to back of his house. Inside, the house’s bare floorboards were dirty and the place was full of tat, as I found when I visited the toilet.
A coil of incense set on bricks burned under the plastic patio table. Sometimes the air smelled of patchouli, sometimes of sewage. A guard dog was on a long chain secured to the inside of its kennel. A white cat with a fluffy tail ambled around. A sizeable though twisted tree arose through the concrete of the patio without any evidence of how rain could possibly reach its roots; maybe those had broken through to the sewer for sustenance.
Apparently the crime market was flooded; thus, a publisher had to be careful, but if I posted my best books to Cezar he would see. More time dissolved, until the ubiquitous Silviu turned up with his car. And the same camera as, presumably, I’d heard about from Max. Cezar duly admired the camera. Then Max handed Silviu a memory card in its little plastic box. Silviu proceeded to install the memory card and take photos of me and Max and Cezar. This made no sense to me at all. If Max resented lending, or rather, giving, the three hundred dollars to Silviu, why then present him with a memory card? Was that in exchange for today’s use of petrol? As lanky Silviu focused, he looked like a tall, thin photographic tripod. Or bi-pod, I suppose.
Shortly after we left, to drive seemingly aimlessly around the city, rain began to fall heavily. Mighty fountains pluming skyward in vast piazzas fought back against the downpour. We stopped at a café, then when the storm stopped and the sky cleared towards the end of the afternoon, Max said, “Show you something.” On foot we turned a few corners into a big boulevard, farther along which towered, as Max pointed out, the Intercontinental Hotel.
Spaced along the steaming pavement were prostitutes in miniskirts, who proved assertive. One delicious girl, who looked no more than fifteen, already wore the scar of a Cesarean above her bared navel pierced with a gold ring. She smooched right up to me and placed her hand on my groin, brazenly massaging, and jerking her head towards a dark, deserted arcade. Max stood eyeing me, to see how I would extricate myself, which I did by backing away while wagging a reproving finger, even though I confess I’d become excited.
As we returned to the car, I said, “There’s something predatory about them.”
“Predatory, yes,” agreed Max. “Le mot juste. They’re Gypsies, hoping to prey on foreign businessmen from the Intercontinental. To the Gypsies we’re just sheep to be fleeced. In fact, security on the hotel door could send out for better from his catalog.”
Soaked dogs were lapping water.
The murders featured on TV by now, although the set in the flat was crap, even if we could have understood. Max brought out a litre bottle of sweet, strong, seductive, almondy Disaronno, and put on a CD of a Bulgarian pop starlet, then we proceeded to get quite drunk. I realized there was a need to match Max glass for glass. At the same time I didn’t want a hangover, nor did I want to stay up half the night.
So when had Max been in Bulgaria? This led to anecdotes about bribing police and much else, a mixture of funny and disconcerting. Then we talked about personalities on the island, or rather Max did most of the talking since he’d previously known many of those present. Idly I wondered whether he had slept with Adriana the year before. Max’s recounting became almost a non-stop monologue, which can be intimidating. He was talking at me, rather than with me. At some point sandwiches manifested themselves out of bread, ham, and mustard in the fridge. Finally I managed to finish the last of the bottle. Fingers and toes crossed for the following evening!
Fortunately, on Thursday Max didn’t take me to experience more sleaze. Instead we went to tour Ceaus?escu’s palace, about which much could be said, but I shan’t. Wonderfully, Max would be absent in the evening. Of course I could accompany him, but I pleaded a queasy stomach and headache. All that Disaronno.
At seven thirty I looked and saw a red Dacia parked outside the cottage. So I sallied forth.
Mihail Florescu, the dutiful son, looked to be in his late fifties, in cheap checked shirt and trousers, grey-haired and with a beer gut. Muscular, though. He welcomed me with delight, as did his mother, who bustled to provide some cubes of cheese and peanuts, while Mihail urged on me a big glass of orange juice. A plastic bucket chair for me. This time I’d brought a notebook. An oil lamp had been lighting the room, but now Mrs. Florescu proceeded to light the green candles as well, which produced blue flames.
“How can we help you to write?” asked Mihail, beaming. He meant “as a writer.”
“Thank you for giving me your time,” I replied. “Please accept a little compensation.” Thirty dollars. I drank juice while he disappeared the money, then began, “I’m curious about those flowers, particularly the little white bells. I hear that in this country they are associated with werewolves.”
Mihail looked blank, so I said, “Excuse me,” then mimed a transformation, which must have been successful because he rattled away to his mother, and she to him.
“Yes,” he said, “to keep away such things. My mother, all the dogs frighten her. Last winter, dog killed chicken.”
My throat and tongue felt dry, so I emptied my glass, and realised that the orange juice must have been mixed with some strong spirit, maybe home-made, for all of a sudden I came over queer.
I must have passed out briefly, for mother and son were standing over me, regarding me attentively, and Mrs. Florescu was rubbing a smelly ointment onto my brow and cheeks. God, how parched I was. I croaked for a drink, although I was also feeling a mounting urge to pee. Probably Mrs. Florescu’s toilet was a dark hole, and I could hardly excuse myself to use her garden, not with her vegetables there. I tried to clench myself tight, but my body felt incoherent. Suddenly I thought of the young Gypsy prostitute with such hunger for her flesh-oh, to be able to taste her, drink her juices. Which juices exactly? To my shame, spurts of pee began to pulse into my pants uncontrollably. A restless anxiety mounted. I was quivering-and then I found myself sliding out of the plastic seat, and glad to be nearer the floor on my hands and knees. Four limbs could support me better.
Dog rejoiced ragingly to be let out. Dog loped over empty wasteland. Moonlit. Twitching nose, taunted and teased. So thirsty. Dogturds pungent. Potholed roadway. Lapped stale rain. Wrong liquid! Howled.
In every man: a dog. Turn man inside out, hairs bristle out all over. Dog fell over, scrambled up. Fellow dogs lay curled, muzzles resting on bums. Reek of bitch in heat far away?
The thirst! Not for dog blood. Human!