A Class Diary
I have always liked to keep a proper, regular Diary. I started this notebook on the day I decided to begin The Novel of the Short-Sighted Adolescent. But I’ve got into the habit of writing in it rather too often. Impressions, brief notes jotted down hastily in class continue to fill this private Diary. And now this notebook is almost finished. In it I plan to transcribe some of my more detailed observations, especially those that will serve as material for the novel.
I like to re-read my notes whenever I have time, because they are alive and precious to me. Of course, I’ll change and exaggerate them in the novel – because if I don’t, no one will ever read them.
*
One day at the end of May. In history class, Noisil asked Caleia a question that we had been given for homework. As usual, Caleia didn’t know a thing. He stuttered and stammered while trying to hear what Tolihroniade was whispering from behind. (Tolihroniade always whispers the answers so Caleia will do the same for him). The question was about Marco Polo’s voyage of discovery.
‘What route did he take?’
Caleia thought for a moment. To buy time, he repeated the question: ‘What route did he take?’
‘Yes.’
‘They went around the Cape of Good Hope.’
‘At that time it was called something else.’
‘So you want me to tell you what it was called in those days?’
‘Yes.’
Silence. Tolihroniade’s whispers got louder and louder. Finally Caleia heard him.
‘It was known as the Cape of Storms.’
‘And then where did they go?’
‘To Brazil.’
Sniggers.
Caleia looked at his neighbours with hatred and contempt.
‘And where did they end up?’
‘In Brazil.’
‘And what did they discover there?’
‘Indian territory.’
‘Anything else?’
‘What else did you expect them to find?’
*
Pake is going to have to repeat a year. In the Second Form he came top and won a prize, while in the Fourth Form he got a commendation in maths. And now he’s going to have to repeat a year. But he’s still just as imperturbable, eats as much as always and mumbles to himself the same as before. When asked what happened, he replies: ‘I couldn’t give a fig!’ But if anyone dares to tease him, he swings round with a laugh and punches them.
‘It’s just my way of having a joke’, he says. ‘Chacun à sa manière.’*3 He might not have had to repeat a year if Vanciu hadn’t caught him in a bar during break, with some sandwiches and a litre of țuica4 on the table in front of him. He was summoned to the common room. He said the sandwiches were his, but that the țuica belonged to a man who had left without finishing it. He even tried to give a description of the man. Vanciu let him have his say, and when he had finished he reminded him that he had actually paid for the țuica. He was suspended for a week and his mark for behaviour was lowered from ‘Satisfactory’ to ‘Unsatisfactory’, a fact that only seemed to worry his parents and the rest of us. Pake still smokes during break and slips a small bottle of cognac out of his schoolbag, taking the odd swig while swearing and good-humouredly punching his friends.
Even though he has to repeat a year, Pake hasn’t given up his trips to the Fagaraş Mountains, or camping in the Sibiu forest. If we can’t find anyone to come with us to Fagaraş, then the two of us will go on our own, like we did when we first became friends.
*
Music class. Perhaps the last music class of the year. The Director of Music came in carrying a bundle of scores, his new romantic ballad, called ‘The Crane’, hoping to sell them to us. He spoke in a quiet, mournful voice.
‘I have little choice, gentlemen. I had to pay the printers 1500 lei and just want to recover my costs. There’s no question of me making a profit... only six lei each.’
He smiled. We each gave him six lei, and laughed at the composer. Then we asked him to play it. The Director sat at the organ and played mournfully, swaying back and forth on the stool. It was an unexceptional melody, one that I had heard before, although I’m not sure where. After he had played it several times, the organ stopped squeaking and he got up from his stool. There was wild applause and laughter. The Director of Music smiled. Then he asked the baritones to come up and practice the choral piece for the end-of-year festival. But he added, in the same quiet voice: ‘Gentlemen, if you don’t keep the noise down I’ll call the Headmaster!’ But nobody believed him. Only three baritones stood up.
‘Where are the baritones? Didn’t you hear me, gentlemen? Will the baritones please come to the front. We only have a few days left before the festival.’
‘Oh, give it a rest,’ came a voice from the back.
‘Who is being so impertinent?’
‘Doesn’t it stick out a mile!’
‘Will you be quiet!’
‘Once a thief...’
‘...always a thief...’
‘...so sayeth the Lord, amen!’
‘I shall throw you out of the class!’
‘Go on then, I dare you!’
‘Stop this instant, you impudent boys!’
‘Tu l’as voulu Dandin!’*
‘I’m calling the Headmaster.’
‘One moron begets another!’
‘I shall give all those in the back row bottom marks for bad behaviour.’
‘Why are you annoyed, Mr Boloveanu?’
‘Why are you so strict with us, Mr Boloveanu?’
‘A schoolmaster should be like a father to us.’
‘...But his voice is divine.’
‘Damn it all!’
Six baritones came forward, leaning on each other and pretending to pick up their scores from the floor. One of them asked if he could be ‘excused’. When he was refused permission, he claimed that he wasn’t able to sing, and said there was ‘real barbarity and abuse of power that went on in this school’. Boloveanu carried on playing the organ, checking the number of baritones out of the corner of his eye.
‘Fossil’ tried to slip out of the room. He wasn’t popular because he had a limp, sneaked on the other boys, was miserly, worked hard, copied his neighbours during tests, was good at chemistry, and – above all – was a Jew. The others called to him from their desks, loud enough for the Director of Music to hear.
‘Where do you think you’re going, Părtinişeanu?’
‘Where are you running off to, Fosilo? Don’t you know that the master doesn’t allow anyone to leave?’
‘Stay in your seat, Fosilo!’
‘Why don’t you do what the master says?’
Blushing bright red, Părtinişeanu crept back to his desk, where someone was waiting. Caleia, who sat behind him and was reading Le Petit Parisien, hit him on the back of the head. The sound of the blow echoed. The baritones, who were still singing, turned to look.
Naturally,