“Something wrong with the car?”
“Yes,” she whispered.
Ionut had lifted his Renault’s hood and was now gazing at the engine. Quietly, Victor pulled at some wires, checked the engine here and there and, a couple of minutes later, the engine roared into life. Then he suddenly said, looking at Ionut with half-open eyes:
“How much do you want?”
“Want what?”
“You don’t love her, I want to buy her back. How much? I’ve got a vineyard in the country and a plot in the town. I’ll sell both of them. How much?”
“Very much, my friend,” Ionut answered ironically. “Look at her, isn’t she gorgeous? Take my word for it, I know what I’m talking about, I know her inside out.”
“How much?”
“What are you doing, Victor, buying me like I was some kind of merchandise?” asked the bride full of anger. “Beat him up instead, bung up his eyes, kill him for me!”
“How much do you want?” Victor pressed Ionut, unperturbed.
“How much do you care to pay?” Ionut said, suddenly showing a genuine interest in the matter.
“Half a billion lei. I can collect it in two days, honest!”
Ionut shivered a little, it could be the best piece of business he had ever done. Looking away from Mirela he nodded.
“Deal.”
Mirela burst out laughing hysterically.
“You find it so easy to sell me, Ionut!” she said and then added slowly, “Why don’t you ask me what I want?”
“Victor’s the man you need, Mirela. I’m just a jerk,” Ionut retorted melodramatically.
“I don’t want to see or hear either of you any more! May you be accursed!”
In sorrow-burnt tears, with her veil sweeping the ground, Mirela started walking slowly to the town. It was half past three in the morning and she had quite a few miles to cover. A strange sight: a lonely bride trying to get on foot to the town gates.
The two men got in their cars: Victor was off like a shot to the restaurant in the forest where he broke the party; Ionut passed by Mirela without even slowing down.
* * * *
Victor cried over Mirela for two years but, in a moment of almost festive solitude, he came to the conclusion that he wanted to live again. He chose a woman to be his life partner. Raluca, his second bride, a schoolteacher, was a college sophomore. She shone with beauty too, but her beauty was different from Mirela’s, which was the alluring type. Raluca’s was domestic. The engineer was certain he would avoid his first love and wedding’s disaster.
This time, instead of the ordinary party, he decided to give a reception. A chic, sophisticated one. He chose the same restaurant in the forest, urged by God knows what instinct. He invited many of the people who had attended his first wedding, plus Raluca’s relatives and friends. And the result was worth remembering in the years to come.…
* * * *
By five o’clock in the morning no one had left, vying with each other in eating, drinking, and dancing. Then came the wedding cake. Brought by four waiters, the huge flamboyant nine-tier cake caused sensation. The groom took the knife and started to cut out the godfather’s slice. All of a sudden the flame of the nearest candle caught the bride’s veil and Raluca’s hair turned into a torch.
It took them quite a while to put out the fire. Someone was amazed at how crazy and furious the flames had been. Someone else wondered if there was a curse at stake. Anyway, Victor’s second wedding ended abruptly in sadness and regrets.
“Why didn’t you tell me you had your first wedding in the same place?” Raluca asked from her hospital bed.
“I didn’t want to upset you. It was so foolish of me.”
“I think you wanted to cure yourself of Mirela, of her memory.… But why did you have to do it by sacrificing me?”
“It just didn’t occur to me such a tragedy might happen.”
“When I’m out of hospital, I’ll be like new, cured of burns and of you.…”
From hospital, Raluca went straight to her parents’. The divorce was consumed in no time.
* * * *
In Bucharest, Mirela became bank manager, married a colleague, and gave birth to two boys. She made a great career and had a great family. She never met Ionut or Victor again.
Bent on climbing up the ladder of success, Ionut made a very good match marrying the mayor’s daughter. A few years later he caught her in the act in their own bed with a friend of his. He divorced her and, as a result, his former father-in-law did his best to make him lose his job. He started to drink heavily and borrow money which he never returned. He owed money even to the woman who sold newspapers.
For a long time Victor tried to find an explanation of what had happened to him. He lived like a lonely wolf. Sometimes he said loudly: “Surely he who benefited from the fear in my thoughts must be rich now!” And he hummed the tune to which he had once cut out a slice of the cake during a wedding in the forest.…
THE PHOTO ON THE DESK
They carried a stiff upper lip for three days, turning down every invitation, pretending they didn’t get any hint, and making fun of the judges’ and local authorities’ almost desperate attempts to corrupt them in one way or another, or to tempt them with a special meal in the hope that they would soften their hearts. The two inspectors, representing the Court of Appeal, with three counties under their jurisdiction, were checking up the Municipal Court following a more or less serious complaint.
At the age of fifty-five they had a long career behind them, being real celebrities in their trade. They were an odd couple: one was the scourge of court rooms, cold, impenetrable, and ruthless; the other sluggish, ironic, sometimes lenient, and with a bent for rather listening than talking.
Jean Gulerez was the sort of magistrate who considered Justice blind, deaf and dumb, the only holder of truth. Unlike him, Vasile Lazar believed that there was always room for interpretation, that every law had its unseen side which could be put to good use. Both of them settled their cases in the same office for no other judge would have enjoyed working in Jean Gulerez’s presence. Not that Vasile Lazar hadn’t needed quite a few years to discover his colleague’s true nature, other than being a low-spirited man, grumpy, always frowning, and never willing to give in.
Gulerez was a penologist, Lazar a common law judge. The penologist was hardly an attractive man, with one leg shorter than the other, and a squint. Though quite short, the common law judge was very likeable, wore a big beard, and women fell for him in a big way. To Gulerez, women were of no substance, he considered them all treacherous and interested. Vasile Lazar picked them carefully, often saying that for a mug of milk one didn’t have to buy a cow.
Under the circumstances, the fact that the couple was inspecting a court was frightening, the agitation in the town verging on paranoia. The couple’s reputation was strengthened now, after three days of inspection—except for the odd cup of coffee, they had turned down everything else. On the fourth day, however, the tension faded away and a general relief, like a cool summer breeze, flooded the court. The inspectors had accepted the invitation of Viorel Opris, chairman of the County Council, to have dinner at a motel about two miles from the town, on the road to the capital.
“They’ve got an excellent chef there, his venison is a wonder! It’d be a shame to miss such an opportunity, the more so as the chef’s going to leave the place soon. He’s going to work in a big restaurant in Italy, you know,” the chairman overdid it.
“Ah, venison,” Vasile Lazar exclaimed, laughing up his sleeve.
“Deer,