And so the day after his mother’s death, Kevin respected his own tradition, and in his Sunday best, spied on his father’s second family through a window. A family together preparing for what was coming next — without Roxanne, of course. Kevin had tried to get his mother to act for months, tried to convince her to hold her own against her husband. When he’d told her about this second family, Roxanne had been happy enough to close her eyes and ignore the truth.
“Don’t be mad at him,” she’d told him softly. “Don’t resent him for anything. Ever.”
Such submission had disgusted Kevin. As he watched his father’s second family, Kevin was filled with an aching desire. No, he didn’t want to join his mother in death anymore — that was just childish. All he wanted to do now was kill his father, kill the perfect businessman. To get rid of him once and for all. To obtain revenge for his cruelty and indifference.
8
Bucharest, November 27, 2006
Glancing quickly about, Max O’Brien got the lay of the place. Beer mugs on every table, which the harried personnel hadn’t had time to pick up. At the counter, prostitutes, attracted here by the presence of hundreds of foreign conference-goers, just like the young Russian woman at the Intercontinental’s bar the previous evening. Two prostitutes were chatting over a glass of cognac: a blond one, tall and skinny with a nose that had had been worked on. The other smaller, rounder, with black hair and waxy skin.
At the far end of the room Max discovered Toma Boerescu hiding behind a slice of chocolate cake the size of his head. Max ordered an espresso and sat in front of the former cop after almost tripping on the man’s walker carelessly left lying around.
“It’s stuck,” Boerescu spat out between two bites of cake. “I can’t get it to fold.”
Max pushed the walker away.
“And this glorious piece of cake is a gift from some of my old party friends to celebrate fifty years of membership.”
With his fork, Boerescu looked like a mountain climber about to reach the top of Everest. Instead of eternal snow, however, he was facing down a mountain made of whipped cream and diabetes. Next to him, the rest of his meal: a Moldavian tochitura, pieces of pork, liver, and smoked sausages cooked in pork fat.
“Either your doctor’s your uncle,” Max said, “or you’re not being entirely honest with him.”
Boerescu pushed the dessert away. Took out a pill bottle. Max helped him open it. The old man swallowed blue, red, and yellow pills with a sip of mineral water. Finally, he asked, “Do you have the money?”
Max nodded. He’d taken out $200 from a cash machine near the hotel, using a credit card with one of his pseudonyms.
Boerescu raised his head and spoke in a conspiratorial tone. “The one on the right, with the brown hair. You can have her half off.” He smiled as if he’d just told a funny joke.
“What are you talking about?”
“The two whores there at the bar. The one with the brown hair is cheaper.”
“Why?”
“Didn’t you notice? She’s a Gypsy.”
The “Little Paris” of the Balkans had had its own Baron Haussmann, though one completely mad and afflicted by early senility: Nicolae Ceauşescu. A cobbler, son of a drunkard from Scorniceşti, he’d fought his way to the top of the Romanian Communist Party by using Joseph Stalin’s method: backroom deals and treachery. Vestiges of his presence as head of state were visible throughout the country. As if, even years after his death, it was still impossible to get rid of his stink. Romania was changing, though; soon enough the country would be the newest member of the European Union, joining the other former people’s dictatorships of Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic.
“Good old Vlad Ţepeş,” Boerescu said as the taxi turned onto Brătianu Boulevard. “You see tourists looking for him all over the city, as if he should be remembered, as if he was the George Washington of Romania.”
Max looked at him without understanding.
“In America every fountain, every tavern, every river or stream or puddle quenched the thirst of your national hero. But Vlad Ţepeş … a statue here and there. A few words in a brochure. So the tourists are disappointed, of course! On the other hand, this whole fascination for him … for the character. It’s a bit exaggerated, don’t you think?”
“Vlad Ţepeş?”
“Fifteenth century. He resisted the Turks, the fight of his life. He used to impale prisoners, traitors, all sorts of people. Impale them while they were still alive, of course. It was a common practice back then.”
“A charming fellow, clearly,” Max added.
“You might know him by his stage name — Count Dracula. Dracula meaning ‘dragon.’ Back in the good old days of Ceauşescu, the Bram Stoker novel was forbidden, banned! After all, it was an attack on the good standing of all Romanian people. Another fantastic policy destroyed by the revolution of ’89.”
A few minutes later Boerescu asked the driver to drop them off near a church. The two men walked up to the forecourt. Actually, it was more like Toma Boerescu struggled over the paving stones, leaning heavily on his walker. He’d managed to digest his meal, which was reassuring. A few passersby smiled at them. How wonderful to see a son being so attentive to his old man! Max sighed. His fixer was costing him $300 a day. He wasn’t sure he was getting his money’s worth.
A handful of young touts were milling in front of the church selling concert tickets. The eternal George Enescu’s suites, sonatas, and rhapsodies for bored tourists.
“So not the best performance, these ones, but better than some of the others,” Boerescu said, grabbing a flyer. He gestured at a second group of touts trying to lead music lovers toward another church.
The old man paid the woman at the booth for two tickets and led Max inside. The crowd in the nave was sparse, a few courageous souls, like them, braving the humidity of the place to listen to the concert. In the choir, musicians were blowing on their hands, warming them up. Max was beginning to wonder what this whole escapade was about.
Boerescu pulled out a handkerchief and blew his nose loudly under the scandalized stares of a few tourists. To them, Boerescu certainly looked like a homeless man come to warm up his feet for a few pennies while listening to Enescu’s music.
The orchestra started, according to the program, with Sonata No. 3 for Violin and Piano. Despite a few blunders, they attacked the piece with an energy that surprised Max. For a long moment, he was rooted in place, completely transfixed by the music. In the middle of the piece, a half-frozen pigeon flew across the nave — which was covered in droppings — without breaking the attention of the spectators. At least, Max told himself, the day wouldn’t be a complete loss. The violin, darting, throbbing, wailing sometimes, with almost a Romani air, made him deeply melancholic.
Max’s thoughts returned to Kevin and his family. In 1998, for Gabrielle’s birthday, Max had gone over to the Dandurand household, ready to celebrate the day with them. He’d had the impression his friend was avoiding his eyes, was hiding something. Caroline, meanwhile, was simply beaming. She was holding back, trying to keep whatever it was she wanted to say a secret for now, a surprise. Over a few drinks, while Gabrielle was tearing through the gifts, Caroline, incapable of holding back any longer, announced she was pregnant. Max was over the moon. More than Kevin, it seemed. Why did he have that air about him?
“We’re