The Madonna on the Moon (49 page)

“And who do you think that Fourth Power is?”

“Well, the Vatican, of course.”

L
ike everywhere else in the world, in Baia Luna the first lunar landing was the topic of much conversation. But only for two days. The three American
astronauts hadn’t even started on their return voyage when the village was consumed by excitement about something else entirely.

A gray, factory-fresh limousine rolled into Baia Luna. The Conducator’s grandiloquent prophecy that under his leadership the agrarian state of Transmontania would blossom into an
industrial nation was not just empty rhetoric. The First Man of the State had kept his word: the New Nation possessed its own automobile factory. The name “Dacia” was proudly spelled
out in silver letters across the trunk of the car from which two gentlemen in black were emerging. They greeted everyone in a measured way, raising their right hands and bowing their heads first in
one direction and then in the other. Primly conscious of his own dignity, the older of the two introduced himself as the vicar-general of the diocese of Kronauburg.

“The parish of Baia Luna,” he said, “will soon have a new shepherd to lead it.”

At first the bystanders didn’t know how to react to the news, but then the Saxons started shaking one another’s hands in congratulation, first shouts of joy were heard, hats began
flying into the air, and finally a torrent of joy burst forth to which the shrieks of the Gypsy children made a significant contribution. The representatives of the bishop in Kronauburg found this
reaction very gratifying and asked that the young priest, whose name was Antonius Wachenwerther, be received with due respect, since his calling had led him from his native Austria into the
diaspora. His installation would be celebrated little more than a week from that day, on the last day of July. The men and women promised to have the rectory and the church dusted out by then and
to decorate the village.

“If I might be allowed to make a comment to your honored excellencies.” The sacristan Julius Knaup unctuously sidled up to the visitors. “Our Virgin of Eternal Consolation was
stolen years ago, and the Eternal Flame over the tabernacle is out as well. And if you ask my opinion, satanic powers were at work in the person of a sinful female by the name of
Bar—”

“You still stink of rosewater,” called out Petre Petrov, and the other men who were standing around laughed so hard they had to hold their bellies. The representatives of the clergy
looked uncomfortable and then laughed a little themselves.

Then the vicar-general explained that at the installation of Father Wachenwerther, the extinguished light would burn again as in pious bygone days, reignited by an altar candle lit from the
consecrated light in Saint Paul’s Cathedral in Kronauburg. As for the theft of the Madonna, the diocese noted with burning concern the growing number of thefts of sacred objects and
saints’ statues. The vicar-general would venture no opinion as to the identity of the perpetrators but could not help mentioning that members of a certain national minority well known for
habitual thievery were smuggling precious cultural artifacts and icons into the capitalist art market via an international Mafia based in Moscow. He would therefore caution Pastor Wachenwerther to
leave the church door locked except for services.

A new priest! For me that meant the tabernacle in the church would be needed for clerical purposes again. I realized in dismay how long it had been since I had thought about the teacher Angela
Barbulescu and her diary. The fire in my heart was still glimmering, but it wasn’t blazing anymore. It was painful to look myself in the eye. The youthful fighter who had run risks and met
dangers without a second thought had become a tavern keeper and trade organization concessionaire, a congenial and respected but lukewarm man pushing thirty, doing his best to deal honestly with
everyone and not alienate anyone.

I had only myself to blame for my lack of passion, although maybe I blamed time a little, too, blamed it for creeping along in Baia Luna in uneventful monotony. I did my work, sold my wares,
waited on my guests, and drove to Kronauburg once a month to replenish my stock. Sure, I saw the signs of change but had long ago been infected by the virus of lassitude. My will to life would only
flare up from time to time, usually when I felt a sexual urge. When that happened, I would seek relief with the women who sold their favors in the district capital, although they supposedly
didn’t exist in Socialism. By the time they were whispering into the ear of their next john that he really knew how to put it to them, I was already thinking wistfully of the promise I had
given Buba Gabor on the wondrous night of my sixteenth birthday and of the promise she had given me. After my visits to those women, that night Buba and I had become man and wife stuck in my
conscious mind as a mere thorn in the flesh of memory, no longer able to make me cry out in pain. Whenever I recalled in my loneliness Buba’s promise to wait for me, I was overcome by a rush
of tearful sentimentality. I would get drunk, feel strong and full of fight, but I awoke the next morning with a throbbing head and unable to act on the brave resolutions I had made the night
before. What could I do? Buba was gone—somewhere. Angela had been wrong. Stephanescu had not been toppled, much less destroyed. Instead, the news was filled with stories of his successes in
the district capital. Heinrich Hofmann was long dead, and no court in Transmontania in those days was about to rule on whether he died by accident or at the hand of Stephanescu’s goons. There
was no justice in this world. Would there be at the end of days? What was one to think about the Last Judgment in which my grandfather still put all his trust? Could be that there was something to
it, but could be there wasn’t.

I entered the church in broad daylight, took the steps to the chancel two at a time, and unlocked the tabernacle. Everything was there as I had left it. The photo of Angela puckering for a kiss,
the one of her former friend Alexa with the sunflower dress hitched up and the negative that went with it, and the four black postcard-sized pictures with one large and eleven small white dots all
lay between the pages of the green notebook. I opened the diary, and for one heartbeat the smell of fire, smoke, and damp earth rose from its pages.
Hope for nothing and you won’t be
disappointed
. I was dismayed as Buba’s image came to my mind. “That’s not right, Pavel,” she had said to me as I held her in my arms. “Whoever hopes for nothing
is not a flesh-and-blood human being.”

I took the diary and the pictures, locked the tabernacle, and left the little silver key in the lock for Antonius Wachenwerther. Then I went straight to the Gypsies, to Susanna Gabor.

“Where’s Buba?”

Buba’s mother shivered in the icy coldness I was giving off. She’d become old. Her hair was disheveled and her back bent. The large eyes she had passed on to her daughter had
shrunken to narrow slits from which she peered suspiciously at me.

“I know nothing. Get lost,
gajo
! I don’t know where she is.”

I was in a cold fury. I grabbed Susanna and locked my hands around her throat. “I’ll wring your neck,” I said so fiercely that Susanna went white with fear.

“I-I-Italy.”

I let her go. “What did you say?”

The Gypsy woman dropped onto a chair and sobbed, “Buba’s in Italy. It’s not what I wanted, believe me. The men said she would send home a lot of money every month, so I let
those fellows take her. They were heading for Italy by way of Yugoslavia. But no money ever came. I haven’t heard from Buba since.” Susanna sobbed tearlessly. “It’s not what
I meant to happen. It was all because of how you shamed us. But I don’t care about the money anymore, if only Buba would come back. You can have her as far as I’m concerned. Go to Italy
and bring her back.”

As I walked back into the village, my old schoolmate Hermann called to me, “Come over and lend a hand!” I ignored the invitation and went home to bed. A trip to Italy was an utter
impossibility for me.

Meanwhile, the inhabitants of Baia Luna were busy getting ready for the festive installment of the new priest Antonius Wachenwerther. The schoolchildren were learning poems by heart. The men
were currying their horses and polishing their wagons to a high shine. And the women sat at their sewing machines late into the night, making white and yellow parade banners and costumes in the old
Kronauburg peasant style. It was high time for me to make another trip to the T.O. in Kronauburg, but I had so little motivation that I postponed the restocking until after the priest’s
arrival. Which would have consequences for my grandfather Ilja, since his epilepsy medicine was running low.

The installation ceremony for Antonius Wachenwerther went off to everyone’s satisfaction. That is, it did until the High Mass. The procession took place in such an orderly, disciplined way
it led the vicar-general of Kronauburg to smile approvingly upon the inhabitants of Baia Luna. The young pastor himself seemed not at all dissatisfied, although he still avoided direct eye contact
with members of his flock. The procession was led by a splendid white horse with braided mane and colored ribbons on his tail. Andreas Schuster sat astride him with a straight back, carrying the
flag of our patron saint. After Antonius Wachenwerther came the vicar-general and other priests from the diocese. The school children followed with their teacher, the women with the small children,
the young men, the older men, and the Gypsies. Bringing up the rear—although actually not part of the procession—was Karl Koch, who had somehow lost his place and was being barked at by
two stray dogs.

The scandal came during the closing service in the church. But first it has to be mentioned that during the procession, somebody suddenly realized that the Kronauburg clergy had forgotten to
bring consecrated fire for the Eternal Flame. The vicar-general, a thoroughly practical churchman, had thereupon hurried over to a group of men and asked for some matches. When I produced a pack of
matches from my pocket, the priest whispered that I should go light the Eternal Flame, but to hurry. I agreed and so the little red lamp was burning once more when I sat, as in the days of my
youth, with my grandfather and the Gypsy in one of the front pews to listen to the new pastor’s first sermon.

Without any words of greeting, Antonius Wachenwerther launched right into an explanation of why he was not allowed to preach from the pulpit. The Second Vatican Council (no one in the
congregation had any idea what that was) forbade God’s word being promulgated from on high, which he personally very much regretted for the sake of the honor of the divine word. Then he
intimated that there was at least one good thing about the reforms of those modernizing intellectuals in Rome, since they were finally declaring war on the superstitions rampant among the common
folk. In only two weeks, on August 15, the Feast of the Assumption, he intended to make it clear that the corporeal Assumption of Mary into heaven was not to be understood literally, since
according to the Bible this was reserved for the Son of God exclusively. Besides which, the veneration of Woman, as clearly evidenced by the naked breasts of Eve, only distracted Man from devoting
himself completely to the mystery of the virginity of the Mother of God. I cast a glance at Dimitru, but the Gypsy had fallen asleep.

After the credo, litany, and Lord’s Prayer, Father Wachenwerther prepared to celebrate Holy Communion. Just as the new priest was about to transform the profane bread and wine into the
sacred body and blood of Jesus Christ through the Eucharistic words, Grandfather Ilja started to get dizzy.

At first I assumed it was the cloud of incense.

But then Ilja stood up with staring eyes, pointed to the empty pedestal where the Virgin of Eternal Consolation used to stand so many years ago, and cried out to everyone’s horror,
“The priest is lying! He’s lying to us. Mary lives! In the flesh! Enthroned in the Sea of Serenity. Down with the church! Down with the pope! Down with the Fourth Power!”

Grandfather uttered a piercing scream, flailed his arms, and dashed forward into the chancel. Dimitru, torn from his slumbers and still half asleep, jumped up and ran after him, but one of his
friend’s uncontrolled fists struck him so hard on the temple that he fell against the communion rail and didn’t get up again. In an instant, the powerful arms of some of the men were
grabbing for my grandfather, but it wasn’t easy to subdue him until he suddenly went as limp as an empty sack and collapsed.

At that moment, the golden communion goblet fell from the hands of the priest. The consecrated hosts went spinning in all directions, and the blood-red wine spilled out onto the altar cloth. In
horrified embarrassment, the young priest disappeared into the sacristy while the vicar-general kept his composure and picked up the hosts.

Hermann Schuster, Hans Schneider, and I firmly ushered my dazed grandfather out of the church.

The priest was so demoralized at his disastrous installation in office that he remained embittered for years. But instead of giving vent to his anger at Grandfather’s irreverent behavior,
Antonius Wachenwerther took refuge in silent rancor which, in the course of his time in office, took root as a profound antipathy to anyone who even mentioned the name Botev in his presence.

As you would expect of an epileptic, Ilja had no memory of his seizure and, despite the tireless pleading of Hermann Schuster, was unwilling to utter an apology to Antonius Wachenwerther.
Instead, Grandfather kept babbling about a Fourth Power that was now active in Baia Luna in the person of the new priest. Which was why it was urgent that he get to the capital, since everyone knew
that in two days the American president Richard M. Nixon would be honoring the Conducator with a visit. Hermann thought Grandfather’s announcement was just crazy talk, but he humored Ilja by
asking him who this ominous Fourth Power was.

“It’s in the Vatican. The pope and his people are betting everything on the Mother of God not ever being found. That’s why Wachenwerther is turning the dogma of Mary’s
corporeal Assumption upside down. He’s making a redeemed woman and mother into a disembodied virgin. He wants to distract us from the fact that she’s alive. The crescent beneath her
feet proves she reigns on the moon, and that’s why Khrushchev asked Gagarin about God.”