The Madonna on the Moon Read Free Page A

it and with one puff of his almighty breath sweep away these goddamn clouds. And what does he do when just once
a Gypsy asks for something? He sends us this fog from hell. We can forget about hearing the Sputnik in this pea soup.”
    I hid behind the doorjamb and peered outside. Dimitru was right. It had been raining buckets for days, and now the fog had crept down from the mountains. You couldn’t even see the outline
of the church steeple. Five muffled strokes of the clock penetrated the night. Ilja and Dimitru looked up at the sky. They cocked their heads, put their hands behind their ears, and listened again.
Obviously in vain. Disappointed, the two shuffled back into the shop. They didn’t see me.
    “Ilja, I’m wondering if it wouldn’t make sense to go back to bed for a while,” said Dimitru.
    “It does make sense.”
    Then the Gypsy’s gaze fell on the tin funnel my grandfather always used to pour the sunflower oil delivered in canisters from Walachia into the bottles the village housewives brought.
    “Man, Ilja, that’s it! Your funnel. We’ll use it as a megaphone, only in reverse. You’ve heard of the principle of the concentration of sound waves—
sonatus
concentrates
or something like that? We can use it to capture even the faintest hint of a noise.”
    The two went back outside and took turns sticking the tin funnel first into their left ear and then their right, hoping to amplify the sound. For a good quarter of an hour they swiveled their
heads in all directions.
    When at last I cleared my throat and wished them good morning, they gave it up.
    “So, Dimitru, you’re going to let Sputnik steal your sanity?” I ribbed him.
    “Go ahead and laugh, Pavel. Blessed are those who neither see nor hear but still believe. Let me assure you, it’s beeping.
Evidentamente
. We just can’t hear
it.”
    “No wonder,” I pretended to be sympathetic. “The November fog. It swallows everything up and you can’t hear a thing. Not the calves bleating, not even the cocks crowing.
To say nothing of Sputnik, it’s so far away. Beyond the pull of gravity, if I’ve got it right.”
    “Good thinking, Pavel! You’re right, when it’s foggy the Sputnik’s not worth much. The Supreme Comrade didn’t think of that. Between you and me and in the cold
light of day, Stalin was pretty much of an idiot. But don’t spread it around. That can get you into trouble nowadays. And now, forgive me, but my bed is calling.”
    Grandfather looked a little sheepish. It made him self-conscious to be caught holding a funnel to his ear out in front of the shop on his fifty-fifth birthday.
    “Pavel, go with Dimitru so he doesn’t break his neck on the way home. You can’t see your hand in front of your face.”
    Out of sorts, I groped my way with Dimitru to the lower end of the village where his people lived. At the doorstep of his cottage he put his hand to his ear again and listened.
    “Give it up, Dimitru. What’s the point?”
    “
Sic est
. You’re right,” he said, thanked me for my company, and disappeared inside.
    Was it mere coincidence? No idea. But just as I set off back through the village, the roosters began to crow, and across from the Gypsy settlement a weak light shimmered through the fog. For the
second time on that early morning I let myself be driven by curiosity. The light was shining from the cottage of Angela Barbulescu, the village schoolteacher. This early in the morning!
“Barbu,” as we called her, usually slept till all hours. She seldom showed up for class on time, and once in front of the class, she often stared at us from swollen eyes because the
brandy from the previous evening was still having its effect. I left the street and peeked through her window. She was sitting at the kitchen table with a warm wool blanket thrown over her
shoulders. Incredible! She was sitting there writing something. She lifted her head from time to time and looked at the ceiling as if seeking the right