Part 23 (1/2)
”They're not my papers, they're-they're my wife's papers,” said Golescu, summoning an outraged expression. ”And she isn't Russian, my friend, she is a hot-blooded Egyptian, a former harem dancer if you must know, before an unfortunate accident that marred her exotic beauty. I found her starving in the gutters of Cairo, and succored her out of Christian charity. Shortly, however, I discovered her remarkable talent for predicting the future based on an ancient system of-”
”A fortune-teller? Two marks,” said the clerk. Golescu paid, and as the clerk wrote out the permit he went on: ”The truth of the matter is that she was the only daughter of a Coptic n.o.bleman, kidnapped at an early age by ferocious-”
”Three marks extra if this story goes on any longer,” said the clerk, stamping the permit forcefully.
”You have my humble grat.i.tude,” said Golescu, bowing deeply. Pleased with himself, he took the permit and strutted away.
”Behold,” he said, producing the permit for Amaunet with a flourish. She took it without comment and examined it. Seen in the strong morning light, the indefinable grimness of her features was much more p.r.o.nounced. Golescu suppressed a shudder and inquired, ”How else may a virile male be of use, my sweet?”
Amaunet turned her back on him, for which he was grateful. ”Stay out of trouble until tonight. Then you can mind Emil. He wakes up after sundown.”
She returned to the foremost black wagon. Golescu watched as she climbed up, and was struck once more by the drastically different effect her backside produced on the interested spectator.
”Don't you want me to beat a drum for you? Or rattle a tambourine or something? I can draw crowds for you like a sugarloaf draws flies!”
She looked at him, with her white grimace that might have been amus.e.m.e.nt. ”I'm sure you can draw flies,” she said. ”But I don't need an advertiser for what I do.”
Muttering, Golescu wandered away through the fair. He cheered up no end, however, when he discovered that he still had Amaunet's purse.
Tents were popping up now, bright banners were being unfurled, though they- hung down spiritless in the heat and glare of the day. Golescu bought himself a cheap hat and stood around a while, squinting as he sized up the food vendors. Finally he bought a gla.s.s of tea and a fried pastry, stuffed with plums, cased in glazed sugar that tasted vaguely poisonous. He ate it contentedly and, licking the sugar off his fingers, wandered off the fairground to a clump of trees near the river's edge. There he stretched out in the shade and, tilting his hat over his face, went to sleep. If one had to babysit a vampyr one needed to get plenty of rest by day.
By night the fair was a different place. The children were gone, home in their beds, and the carousel raced round nearly empty but for spectral riders; the young men had come out instead. They roared with laughter and shoved one another, or stood gaping before the little plank stages where the exhibitions were cried by mountebanks. Within this tent were remarkable freaks of nature; within this one, an exotic dancer plied her trade; within another was a man who could handle hot iron without gloves. The light s were bright and fought with shadows. The air was full of music and raucous cries.
Golescu was unimpressed.
”What do you mean, it's too tough?” he demanded. ”That cost fifteen groschen!”
”I can't eat it,” whispered Emil, cringing away from the glare of the lanterns.
”Look.” Golescu grabbed up the ear of roasted corn and bit into it. ”Mm! Tender! Eat it, you little whiner.”
”It has paprika on it. Too hot.” Emil wrung his hands.
”Ridiculous,” said Golescu through a full mouth, munching away. ”It's the food of the G.o.ds. What the h.e.l.l will you eat, eh? I know! You're a vampyr, so you want blood, right? Well, we're in a slightly pubic place at the moment, so you'll just have to make do with something else. Taffy apple, eh? Deep fried sarmale? Pierogi? Pommes Frites?”
Emil wept silently, tears coursing from his big rabbit-eyes, and Golescu sighed and tossed the corn cob away. ”Come on,” he said, and dragged the little man off by one hand.
They made a circuit of all the booths serving food before Emil finally consented to try a Vienna sausage impaled on a stick, dipped in corn batter and deep-fried. To Golescu's relief he seemed to like it, for he nibbled at it uncomplainingly as Golescu towed him along. Golescu glanced over at Amaunet's wagon, and noted a customer emerging, pale and shaken.
”Look over there,” Golescu said in disgust. ”One light . No banners, n.o.body calling attention to her, n.o.body enticing the crowds. And one miserable customer waiting, look! That's what she gets. Where's the sense of mystery? She's Mother Aegypt!. Her other line of work must pay pretty well, eh?”
Emil made no reply, deeply preoccupied by his sausage-on-a-spike.
”Or maybe it doesn't, if she can't do any better for a servant than you. Where's all the money go?”
Golescu wondered, puking at his mustache. ”Why's she so sour, your mistress? A broken heart or something?”
Emil gave a tiny shrug and kept eating.
”I could make her forget whoever it was in ten minutes, if I could just get her to take me seriously,”
said Golescu, gazing across at the wagon. ”And the best way to do that, of course, is to impress her with money. We need a scheme, turnip-head.”
”Four thousand and seventeen,” said Emil.
”Huh?” Golescu turned to stare down at him. Emil said nothing else, but in his silence the cry of the nearest hawker came through loud and clear: ”Come on and take a chance, clever ones! Games of chance, guess the cards, throw the dice, spin the wheel! Or guess the number of millet-grains in the jar and win a cash prize! Only ten groschen a guess! You might be the winner! You, sir, with the little boy!”
Golescu realized the hawker was addressing him. He looked around indignanty.
”He is not my little boy!”
”So he's your uncle, what does it matter? Take a guess, why don't you?” bawled the hawker. ”What have you got to lose?”
”Ten groschen,” retorted Golescu, and then reflected that it was Amaunet's money. ”What the h.e.l.l.”
He approached the gaming booth, pulling Emil after him. ”What's the cash prize?”
”Twenty- thousand lei,” said the hawker. Golescu rolled his eyes.
”Oh, ves, I'd be able to retire on that, all right,” he said, but dug in his pocket for ten groschen. He cast a grudging eye on the gla.s.s jar at the back of the counter, on its shelf festooned with the new national flag and swags of bunting. ”You've undoubtedly got rocks hidden in there, to throw the volume off. Hm, hm, all right... how many grains of millet in there? I'd say...”
”Four thousand and seventeen,” Emil repeated. The hawker's jaw dropped. Golescu looked from one to the other of them. His face lit up.
”That's the right answer, isn't it?” he said. ”Holy saints and patriarchs!”
”No, it isn't,” said the hawker, recovering himself with difficulty.
”It is so,” said Golescu. ”I can see it in your eyes!”
”No, it isn't,” the hawker insisted.
”It is so! Shall we tip out the jar and count what's in there?”
”No, and anyway you hadn't paid me yet-and anyway it was your little boy, not you, so it wouldn't count anyway-and-”
”Cheat! Shall I scream it aloud? I've got very good lungs. Shall I tell the world how you've refused to give this poor child his prize, even when he guessed correctly? Do you really want-”
”Shut up! Shut up, I'll pay the d.a.m.ned twenty thousand lei!” The hawker leaned forward and clapped his hand over Golescu's mouth. Golescu smiled at him, the points of his mustaches rising like a c.o.c.kroach's antennae.
Wandering back to Amaunet's wagon, Golescu jingled the purse at Emil.
”Not a bad night's work, eh? I defy her to look at this and fail to be impressed.”
Emil did not respond, sucking meditatively on the stick, which was all that was left of his sausage.
”Of course, we're going to downplay your role in the comedy, for strategic reasons,” Golescu continued, peering around a tent and scowling at the wagon. There was a line of customers waiting now, and while some were clearly lonely women who wanted their fortunes told, a few were rather nasty-looking men, in fact rather criminal-looking men, and Golescu had the uneasy feeling he might have met one or two of them in a professional context at some point in his past. As he was leaning back, he glanced down at Emil.
”I think we won't interrupt her while she's working just yet. Gives us more time to concoct a suitably heroic and clever origin for this fine fat purse, eh? Anyway, she'd never believe that you-” Golescu halted, staring at Emil. He slapped his forehead in a gesture of epiphany.