thinks everyone’s smart.”
“In your case, the beeping seems to be working already.” Liviu tapped his finger on his forehead to mock the crazy Gypsy. “You Blacks are nothing to write home about, anyway.
Why don’t you do something productive for a change? Under Stalin, you all would’ve been—”
“Right!
Exactamente!
What’d I tell you?” Dimitru interrupted him. “Joseph was a sly dog. But he had problems getting everyone proletarianized. Big problems.
Because his policy of state control just couldn’t achieve the equality of all the Soviets. Sure, the Supreme Comrade really tried hard: bigger jails, higher prison walls, bread and water,
half rations. He tried to rub out the last vestiges of inequality with more and more gallows and firing squads. But what did that achieve? Joseph had to keep expanding the labor camps for the
unequal. The boundaries of the prisons grew incalculably vast. Today no one knows who’s in and who’s out. What a dilemma. The Supreme Soviet can’t keep track of it all anymore.
That’s why they need Sputnik. The beeping eliminates the mind and the will. And where there’s no will, there’s no—”
“Who needs this bullshit?” yelled Nico Brancusi. Purple with rage, he jumped up and glared around at the assembled company. “Who wants to hear this crap, goddamnit!” From
way back in his throat he hocked up a loogie and spat it onto the floorboards with the words, “Gypsy lies! Black talk!”
Dimitru drummed his fingers nervously on the table.
“It’s the truth,” he said. “If my calculations are correct, Sputnik will be flying over the Transmontanian Carpathians between the forty-sixth degree of latitude and the
twenty-fourth degree of longitude in the morning hours of my friend Ilja’s special day. It’ll be beeping right over our heads. I’m telling you, Sputnik is the beginning of the
end. And you, Comrade Nico, you can offer your naked ass to whoever you want, that’s your business. But I’m a Gypsy, and you’ll never find a Gypsy in bed with the
Bolsheviks.”
Nico went for the Gypsy’s throat, but his brothers held him back. Dimitru emptied his glass, belched, and after whispering to grandfather, “Five on the dot. I’ll be waiting for
you,” left the tavern without a backward glance.
I didn’t know what to think about all the excitement. I went to bed but had a hard time falling asleep. The Gypsy had probably catapulted himself
out of the track of logical thought again (as so often in the past) with his hair-raising speculations about the beeping Sputnik.
But my bedtime prayer (which admittedly I usually forgot) suddenly gave me pause. “Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come . . .” Now, at fifteen, I was
already clear that the kingdom of heaven was not about to arrive in the foreseeable future, at least not in Baia Luna. But it was different with the Sputnik. The kingdom of heaven might not be
expanding on earth, but on the other hand, man was heading for the heavens. Or at least an earthly creature was: a dog. Surely the beast would soon be dead of starvation. But what was a dead mutt
doing in the infinity of space anyway? Up where the Lord God and his hosts reigned, as our aged parish priest Johannes Baptiste thundered from his pulpit every Sunday.
Night was already drawing to a close when the floorboards in the hall creaked. I heard cautious footsteps, as if someone didn’t want to be heard. Grandfather was taking great pains not to
wake up my mother Kathalina, Aunt Antonia, and me. The footsteps descended the stairs and died out in the interior of the shop. I waited awhile, got dressed, and stole downstairs, full of
curiosity. The outside door was open. It was pitch black.
“Fucking shit,” hissed a voice. “Goddamn crappy weather!” It was Dimitru.
“Be quiet or you’ll wake up the whole village.”
“I prayed, Ilja, I mean I really beseeched the Creator to make short work of
“In your case, the beeping seems to be working already.” Liviu tapped his finger on his forehead to mock the crazy Gypsy. “You Blacks are nothing to write home about, anyway.
Why don’t you do something productive for a change? Under Stalin, you all would’ve been—”
“Right!
Exactamente!
What’d I tell you?” Dimitru interrupted him. “Joseph was a sly dog. But he had problems getting everyone proletarianized. Big problems.
Because his policy of state control just couldn’t achieve the equality of all the Soviets. Sure, the Supreme Comrade really tried hard: bigger jails, higher prison walls, bread and water,
half rations. He tried to rub out the last vestiges of inequality with more and more gallows and firing squads. But what did that achieve? Joseph had to keep expanding the labor camps for the
unequal. The boundaries of the prisons grew incalculably vast. Today no one knows who’s in and who’s out. What a dilemma. The Supreme Soviet can’t keep track of it all anymore.
That’s why they need Sputnik. The beeping eliminates the mind and the will. And where there’s no will, there’s no—”
“Who needs this bullshit?” yelled Nico Brancusi. Purple with rage, he jumped up and glared around at the assembled company. “Who wants to hear this crap, goddamnit!” From
way back in his throat he hocked up a loogie and spat it onto the floorboards with the words, “Gypsy lies! Black talk!”
Dimitru drummed his fingers nervously on the table.
“It’s the truth,” he said. “If my calculations are correct, Sputnik will be flying over the Transmontanian Carpathians between the forty-sixth degree of latitude and the
twenty-fourth degree of longitude in the morning hours of my friend Ilja’s special day. It’ll be beeping right over our heads. I’m telling you, Sputnik is the beginning of the
end. And you, Comrade Nico, you can offer your naked ass to whoever you want, that’s your business. But I’m a Gypsy, and you’ll never find a Gypsy in bed with the
Bolsheviks.”
Nico went for the Gypsy’s throat, but his brothers held him back. Dimitru emptied his glass, belched, and after whispering to grandfather, “Five on the dot. I’ll be waiting for
you,” left the tavern without a backward glance.
I didn’t know what to think about all the excitement. I went to bed but had a hard time falling asleep. The Gypsy had probably catapulted himself
out of the track of logical thought again (as so often in the past) with his hair-raising speculations about the beeping Sputnik.
But my bedtime prayer (which admittedly I usually forgot) suddenly gave me pause. “Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come . . .” Now, at fifteen, I was
already clear that the kingdom of heaven was not about to arrive in the foreseeable future, at least not in Baia Luna. But it was different with the Sputnik. The kingdom of heaven might not be
expanding on earth, but on the other hand, man was heading for the heavens. Or at least an earthly creature was: a dog. Surely the beast would soon be dead of starvation. But what was a dead mutt
doing in the infinity of space anyway? Up where the Lord God and his hosts reigned, as our aged parish priest Johannes Baptiste thundered from his pulpit every Sunday.
Night was already drawing to a close when the floorboards in the hall creaked. I heard cautious footsteps, as if someone didn’t want to be heard. Grandfather was taking great pains not to
wake up my mother Kathalina, Aunt Antonia, and me. The footsteps descended the stairs and died out in the interior of the shop. I waited awhile, got dressed, and stole downstairs, full of
curiosity. The outside door was open. It was pitch black.
“Fucking shit,” hissed a voice. “Goddamn crappy weather!” It was Dimitru.
“Be quiet or you’ll wake up the whole village.”
“I prayed, Ilja, I mean I really beseeched the Creator to make short work of