Ion Cristian’s fate was to be decided by Vasile Lazar and the latter had only to confirm what the other instances had decided. He would be covered by two judicial decisions, which would place him above any suspicion. Besides, he owed it to his dead friend. He took the file with great satisfaction and put it on top of the others, without examining it, just to finish it the next day. That night, Vasile Lazar saw Jean laughing in his dream, a thing that happened very rarely when he was alive.
He had barely got up in the morning when the phone rang:
“Hello, this is Viorel Opris speaking.”
“Ah, Mr. Opris, the Chairman, I’m so delighted to hear you. How are you? Any special meal coming your way? Any venison?”
“It is, Judge, any time, but right now I’m calling you about something very urgent. Do you remember the former Prefect, Ion Cristian? A crook who’s left wide tracks of pain behind him, a boor who thought himself immortal…well, he’s in the same party with me. He’s got a file on your desk. You’re his last chance.”
“And what would you like me to do, repeal the sentence? Isn’t this phone call of yours a kind of intrusion in Justice’s affairs, I wonder.”
“No, far from it, Judge,” the chairman changed his tune. “I know you too well. I’m just asking you to examine the file carefully and do justice. That is, please, don’t let yourself be influenced by the other decisions. Indeed, this man’s trampled a whole county under foot but now some of his enemies have settled accounts with him. And I don’t think we should be as evil as they are.”
“The file is foolproof, mister! All I can do is go through it and try to forget what happened then.”
A few hours later, Ion Cristian, his face like wrung-out linen, knocked on the judge’s door. The judge let him in, boiling inside.
“Come in and please be short, my time is precious.”
“I’m innocent, Judge! They’ve made mincemeat of me just to take revenge on me.… They’re ruining me, you must realize that.… Help me, please!”
“So I’m no longer a criminal? I no longer look like a scoundrel?”
The former prefect answered hysterically:
“Listen, Judge, I’ll give a fabulous party, I promise, with girls, lots of crazy girls, with breasts this big…easy to please, I swear.… At a chalet hidden in the mountains, or maybe you want something else.…”
“Get out of my office! Out! I’m finished with you!”
Cristian kept begging:
“You are my last chance, Judge, I know I was a jerk, but help me, please!”
“I said I’m finished with you!”
“You’re killing me, Judge.”
“You’ve been killing yourself God knows for how long.”
Ion Cristian left like a dog beaten up by its master. There was no chance for him in that office. There had never been, in fact. To Vasile Lazar he was a bastard. No way for him to be judged as an ordinary bastard but as a special one.
The judge read the file of the former prefect several afternoons, page by page. Then he passed the final sentence.…
* * * *
It was Friday, about ten o’clock in the morning, when Ion Cristian tried to talk to Vasile Lazar for the last time.
“Go away from my door! I don’t want to see you again! I’ve already passed the sentence. Go and ask the clerk to read it to you. And don’t you dare knock on my door again!”
The former prefect felt his last hope had died. He thought of his future and saw it like a ship sinking off the coast, under the eyes of those standing on the shore. He rushed to the clerk’s office to hear the sentence he already knew. And he stood still: he had been cleared of all charges.
Vasile Lazar locked himself in asking not to be disturbed. Sitting down in his armchair he stared at the photo of his former colleague. “Dear friend, I couldn’t help it, that jerk is innocent! If you can imagine that.… He was right. You would have done the same, I’m sure.…”
In the photo there was a seasonless rain falling from Jean Gulerez’s eyes.
HOMICIDE
In colloquial terms, one could say he was beaten to a pulp. In medical terms, he was a patient placed in the surgery with the following diagnosis: “Multi-traumatisms inflicted by aggression, cranial and facial traumatisms.” In other words, he had been wiped out with an oaken towel. He had been brought to the hospital by an ambulance from a village in the plain about fifty-five miles in a crow line from the town. A village famous in the area as a pole of violence, poverty, and ignorance. Its people usually fought over land and because they could barely make ends meet. Heavy drinking and jealousy led to many family misunderstandings, one of the reasons why ambulances were called there quite frequently. Four, five, or six times a year ambulances went there for nothing—too late for the victim.
Valentin had been taken to hospital several times before, after fighting villagers at the pub or in the village lanes. Although rather slovenly in appearance, he was a good-looking man. Hadn’t he behaved like a genuine peasant or had he spent more time in school, he would have been a real seducer in the town. But, with only middle school to his credit and having read not even one book in his life, he couldn’t master the art of the professional seducer. Those who first met him didn’t know that, though. Dark-skinned and blue-eyed, he always turned on the nurses in the surgery, although every time he turned up there it was with a cracked skull. The last time had been eight months before, after a fight with his elder brother. It had been a strange situation: his bed stood next to his brother’s, in the same ward, neither of them remembering exactly how the fight had started.…
“Are you a carter or a farmer?” the surgeon asked him while filling out his chart.
“It’s been a long time since I last had a cart or a piece of land,” answered Valentin looking away in shame.
“Then how do you make a living?”
“The odd job, you know.… Working by the day whatever comes my way.”
“You don’t know what’s what, eh? You may be handsome, but you don’t seem too smart,” the surgeon remarked.
“Well, I don’t know. You’re much better at judging it.”
“Hmm, you’ve got the quick answer. Now tell me, who beat you?”
Valentin took his time gazing at the nurses and pretended not to hear the question. He seemed taken up with something. It was a stifling summer day and in the ward which had no air-conditioning everyone was sweating profusely. Valentin was sweating more than the others. He closed his eyes—in the way of a stratagem.
“What’s the matter? Did you swallow your tongue? What am I to write here? If you won’t speak, I’ll send you back home, and not by the ambulance,” said the surgeon.
“I don’t want to go home, at least not for a while. I want to stay here.”
“OK then, you need a week to recover. You were very lucky. A few inches and you’d have been hit in the temple. Which might have been fatal. So who got your hide tanned?”
“I can’t remember how it happened.”
“What are you trying to do, kid me? Girls, call the police, and then we’ll see how he’ll get out of trouble!”
Valentin closed his eyes again. He wanted to sleep not to remember, he wanted to sleep a recovery sleep. What was to be said? What was the use of saying it? Their job was to cure not to investigate, he wasn’t dead, after all. His state was stable now.
When