Uncle Rudolf. Paul Bailey

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СКАЧАТЬ Romanian relative?

      —Naturally.

      —The English are not good to us. The English are playing games with us. They were our allies a few years ago. But now they are suspicious of our plans to build a greater, stronger country, said Constantin Florescu, undoing the buttons on his overcoat, revealing a green shirt.

      —You are a Guardist, my father remarked, calmly.

      —Indeed I am.

      —So you put your faith in the prophet Codreanu, with his vision of a pure Romania.

      —I do. As do all true patriots.

      The train was nearing Bucharest. There were no more igloos. I saw tall buildings and tramcars and men and women walking along the pavements. The town of my birth dwindled as I stared out at the bustling city.

      We said goodbye to our companion when we reached the ticket barrier.

      —I am fighting on your behalf, Andrei Petrescu. Remind your father of that. What a very small suitcase you are taking with you to England.

      I am writing in one of the leather-bound ledgers in which – like Teddy Grubb before me – I used to enter my uncle’s earnings. I think I am writing to reclaim my own life – my sheltered protected life – as much as his, Uncle Rudolf’s, because the compulsion to bring the past into the present will not be stilled. I can barely sleep, so urgent is the task I have set myself. Healthy as I am, ridiculously young as I might appear, I am nevertheless conscious that death could forestall me.

      The benevolent Saint Nicholas is above the desk, smiling a just-detectable half-smile. The wonder-worker is blessing me with his right hand.

      —If anything bad ever happens to God, we have always got Saint Nicholas. My uncle was fond of the old Russian saying, and often quoted it whenever he stopped to look at his beloved icon.

      —Nobody knows who painted him, Andrew. The artist was without worldly ambition. He had his gift and his faith, and the two came together when he picked up his brush. You will care for my precious icon when I am dead, won’t you?

      —Yes, Uncle, I answered, not wanting to imagine a life beyond his.

      —You promise me?

      —Yes, Uncle. I promise.

      He embraced me then, and ruffled my hair, and said that the impossible country of Moldania beckoned. He would be exiled for three silly hours, during which distracted time he would inspire the peasants to revolt in a friendly manner – No bloodshed, I implore you! – before discovering he was their long-lost king.

      —Oh, Andrew, will I never be freed from this nonsense?

      Muraturi was the old word on my lips this morning. Why was I thinking of pickled vegetables – of cauliflower and carrots; of green and red peppers; of radishes and red cabbage? I hadn’t eaten the dish in a lifetime, not since…and then, with an involuntary cry of anguish, I pictured a lake, and clear blue sky, and saw my mother and me tickling my father, who is pretending to be asleep on the grass. The vegetables are glistening on little plates on that summer afternoon in 1936.

      Why has this scene – of the kind so many English poets call sylvan – never come to me in dreams?

      —I will have my revenge, you scamp, says my father, waking with a start, as if from a nightmare.

      His revenge, his sweet revenge, is to tickle his son’s tummy, until the happy boy is weak with giggling.

      I did not know you could kill hours until that afternoon in Bucharest.

      —We have hours to kill, Andrei. We must think of something to do. Are you hungry?

      —A little bit. How do you kill hours, Tata?

      —By keeping busy. You kill time by forgetting about it. You pretend it doesn’t exist. Let’s see if Cina is open.

      I have a memory of crossing a huge square in order to reach my uncle’s favourite restaurant. I see again a fat, bald waiter greeting my father as we enter Cina, stamping the snow from our boots. The waiter knows my father’s brother from the time he broke the hearts of every woman in the city. There was never a Danilo more wickedly handsome.

      —How is the great Rudolf?

      —He is well, Sandu. This young man is his nephew. Andrei is going to London to live with him for a while.

      Sandu brings us the dishes the great Rudolf Peterson most enjoys and we eat as much as we can. My father drinks the red wine his brother loves and soon the hours we needed to kill have gone by, only to recur in vivid snatches, a whole lifetime later, in the dreams that beset an Englishman named Andrew Peters. The beaming Sandu is shaking my hand and saying:

      —Tell your uncle, the moment you meet him, that he must come back to his country. Tell him that is Sandu’s command. We do not have many heroes, Andrei, but Rudolf Peterson is one of them. Remind him that he is a national hero.

      I promised to pass on the message and did so, on the twenty-third of February, 1937, on the platform at Victoria Station. It was something to say to the man who had lifted me up in his arms till my face was level with his. Uncle Rudolf laughed, and kissed me on both cheeks.

      —I am no hero, Andrew. I am a hero on the stage, but nowhere else.

      The final part of my last, week-long journey with my father took three days. We crossed the Hungarian plains in darkness, with only the black shapes of trees visible from the window. Then there were the mountains of Austria and Switzerland to marvel at. The French countryside, which I would visit with Uncle Rudolf in the autumn of 1950, when he was intent on educating me in matters of the spirit, seemed dull by contrast.

      The train stopped at each border. Soldiers carrying guns came aboard and examined everybody’s papers. I remember that one of them, an Austrian or perhaps a German, pulled a frightened face in mockery of my own. His feigned look of terror made me smile, but it angered my father, who muttered words the man understood, for he instantly reassumed his stern expression.

      I wasn’t scared of the guns, in truth. It was the future, of which I had been unaware before, that caused me to be fearful. I knew this solely from the gnawing pain in my stomach, which spoke of things unknown. A similar gnawing pain would afflict me years later, with the recognition of a love that could neither be mentioned nor properly gratified – a love, paradoxically, that has sustained me for twenty-five years of solitude.

      Here I was, in London, safely delivered by the French guard – who gained a small fortune in English money from my smiling uncle – looking about me, bewildered.

      —You will be Andrew, Andrei. Andrew. For all the time you are in my care.

      I was still in his arms. He was bearing me out of the station and into the chauffeur-driven car that was waiting for us.

      —This is my nephew, he said to the driver in the new language I would soon be learning.

      —Welcome to England, Andrew. My uncle translated Charlie’s greeting, and instructed me to say thank you, which I somehow did.

      —Thank you. My first СКАЧАТЬ