Mother Aegypt and Other Stories Part 24

"Just-just a little idiot savant, isn't it so?" said Golescu. "Clever at doing sums. Why you're not using his big white brain to get rich, I can't imagine; but there it is. Is there anything else Nursie ought to know about his care and feeding?"

"Only that I'll hunt you down and kill you if you kidnap him while I'm gone," said Amaunet, without raising her voice in the slightest yet managing to convince Golescu that she was perfectly sincere. It gave him another vaguely disturbing thrill.

"I seek only to be worthy of your trust, my precious one," he said. "Where are you going, anyway?"

"That's none of your business."

"To be sure," he agreed, bowing and sc.r.a.ping. "And you're taking the rear wagon, are you? One can't help wondering, my black dove of the mysteries, whether this has anything to do with all the loot hidden back there. Perhaps you have a rendezvous with someone who'll take it off your hands, eh?"

Her look of contempt went through him like a knife, but he knew he'd guessed correctly * * * search.

No money at all, nor any personal things that might give him any clue to her history. There were a few decorative items, obviously meant to give an Egyptian impression to her customers: a half-size mummy case of papier- mache. A hanging scroll, hieroglyphs printed on cloth, of French manufacture.

No perfumes or cosmetics by the washbasin; merely a bar of yellow soap. Golescu sniffed it and recoiled; no fragrance but lye. Whence, then, that intoxicating whiff of not-quite-cinnamon on her skin?

No writing desk, no papers. There was something that might have been intended for writing, a polished box whose front opened out flat to reveal a dull mirror of green gla.s.s at its rear. It was empty.

Golescu gave it no more than a cursory glance. After he'd closed it, he rubbed the fingertips of his hand together, for they tingled slightly.

Not much in the larder: dry bread, an onion, a few potatoes. Several cooking pots and a washing copper. Golescu looked at it thoughtfully, rubbing his chin.

"But no money," he said aloud.

He sat heavily on her bed, snorting in frustration. Hearing a faint squeak of protest, he rose to his feet again and looked down. "Yes, of course!" he said, and opened the drawer under the bed. Emil whimpered and rolled away from the light, covering his face with his hands.

"h.e.l.lo, don't mind me," said Golescu, scooping him out. He got down on his hands and knees, ignoring Emil's cries, and peered into the s.p.a.ce. "Where does your mistress keep her gold, my darling?

Not in here, eh? h.e.l.l and d.a.m.nation."

He sat back. Emil attempted to scramble past him, back into the shadows, but he caught the little man by one leg.

"Emil, my jewel, you'll never amount to much in this world if you can't walk around in the daytime,"

he said. "And you won't be much use to me, either. What's your quarrel with the sun, anyway?"

"It burns my eyes," Emil wept.

"Does it?" Golescu dragged him close, prized down his hands and looked into his wet eyes. "Perhaps there's something we can do about that, eh? And once we've solved that problem...." His voice trailed off, as he began to smile. Emil wriggled free and vanished back into the drawer. Golescu slid it shut with his foot.

"Sleep, potato-boy," he said, hauling himself to his feet. "Don't go anyplace, and dear Uncle Barbu will be back with presents this afternoon."

Humming to himself, he mopped his face with Amaunet's drawers, replaced them in his pocket, and left the wagon. Pausing only to lock its door, he set off for the nearest road.

(t took him a while to find a town, however, and what with one thing and another it was nearly sundown before Golescu came back to the wagon.

He set down his burdens-one large box and a full sack-and unlocked the door.

"Come out, little Emil," he said, and on receiving no reply he clambered in and pulled the drawer open. "Come out of there!"

"I'm hungry" said Emil, sounding accusatory, but he did not move.

"Come out and I'll boil you a nice potato, eh? It's safe; the sun's gone down. Don't you want to see what I got you, ungrateful thing?"

Emil came unwillingly, as Golescu backed out before him. He stepped down from the door, looking around, his tiny weak mouth pursed in suspicion. Catching sight of the low red sun, he let out a shrill cry and clapped his hands over his eyes.

"Yes, I lied," Golescu told him. "but just try these-" He drew from his pocket a pair of blue spectacles and, wrenching Emil's hands away, settled them on the bridge of his nose. they promptly fell off, as Emil's nose was far too small and thin to keep them up, and they only had one earpiece anyway.

Golescu dug hastily in the sack he had brought and drew out a long woolen scarf. He cut a pair of slits in it, as Emil wailed and jigged in front of him. Clapping the spectacles back on Emil's face and holding them in place a moment with his thumb, he tied the scarf about his head like a blindfold and widened the slits so the gla.s.s optics poked through.

"Look! Goggles!" he said. "So you're protected, see? Open your d.a.m.ned eves, you baby!"

Emil must have obeyed, for he stood still suddenly, dropping his hands to his sides. His mouth hung open in an expression of feeble astonishment.

"But, wait!" said Golescu. "There's more!" He reached into the sack again and brought out a canvas coachman's duster, draping it around Emil's shoulders. It had been made for someone twice Emil's size, so it reached past his knees, indeed it trailed on the ground; and Golescu had a difficult three minutes'

labor working Emil's limp arms through the sleeves and rolling the cuffs up. But, once it had been painstakingly b.u.t.toned, Emil stood as though in a tent.

"And the crowning touch-" Golescu brought from the sack a wide- brimmed felt hat and set it on Emil's head. Golescu sat back to admire the result.

"Now, don't you look nice?" he said. Emil in fact looked rather like a mushroom, but his mouth had closed. "You see? You're protected from the sun. The vampyr may walk abroad by day. Thanks are in order to good old Uncle Barbu, eh?

"I want my potato," said Emil.

"Pah! All right, let's feast. We've got a lot of work to do tonight," said Golescu, taking up the sack and shaking it meaningfully.

Fairly quickly he built a fire and set water to boil for Emil's potato. He fried himself a feast indeed from what he had brought: rabbit, bacon and onions, and a jug of wine red as bull's blood to wash it down. The wine outlasted the food by a comfortable margin. He set it aside and lit a fine big cigar as Emil dutifully carried the pans down to the stream to wash them.

"Good slave," said Golescu happily, and blew a smoke ring. "A man could get used to this kind of life. When you're done with those, bring out the laundry-copper. I'll help you fill it. And get some more wood for the fire!"

When Emil brought the copper forth they took it to the stream and filled it; then carried it back to the fire, staggering and slopping, and set it to heat. Golescu drew- from the sack another of his purchases, a three-kilo paper bag with a chemist's seal on it. Emil had been gazing at the bright fire, his vacant face rendered more vacant by the goggles; but he turned his head to stare at the paper bag.

"Are we making the Black Cup?" he asked.

"No, my darling, we're making a golden cup," said Golescu. He opened the bag and dumped its contents into the copper, which had just begun to steam. "Good strong yellow dye, see? We'll let it boil good, and when it's mixed-" he reached behind him, dragging close the box he had brought. He opened it, and the firelight winked in the gla.s.s necks of one hundred and forty-four little bottles. "And when it's cooled, we'll funnel it into these. Then we'll sell them to the poultry farmers in the valley down there."

"Why?" said Emil.

"As medicine," Golescu explained. "We'll tell them it'll grow giant chickens, eh? That'll fill the purse of twenty thousand lei back up again in no time. This never fails, believe me. The dye makes the yolks more yellow, and the farmers think that means the eggs are richer. Ha! As long as you move on once you've sold all your bottles, you can pull this one anywhere."

"Medicine," said Emil.

"That's right," said Golescu. He took a final drag on his cigar, tossed it into the fire, and reached for the wine jug.

"What a lovely evening," he said, taking a drink. "What stars, eh? They make a man reflect, indeed they do. At times like this, I look back on my career and ponder the ironies of fate. I was not always a vagabond, you see.

"No, in fact, I had a splendid start in life. Born to a fine aristocratic family, you know. We had a castle. Armorial devices on our stained gla.s.s windows. Servants just to walk the dog. None of that came to me, of course; I was a younger son. But I went to University, graduated with full honors, was brilliant in finance.

"I quickly became Manager of a big important bank in Bucharest. I had a fine gold watch on a chain, and a desk three meters long, and it was kept well polished, too. Every morning when I arrived at the bank, all the clerks would line up and prostrate themselves as I walked by, swinging my cane. My cane had a diamond set in its end, a diamond that shone in glory like the rising sun.

"But they say that abundance, like poverty, wrecks you; and so it was with me. My nature was too trusting, too innocent. Alas, how swiftly my downfall came! Would you like to hear the circ.u.mstances that reduced me to the present pitiable state in which you see me?"

"...What?" said Emil. Golescu had another long drink of wine.

"Well," he said, "My bank had a depositor named all Pasha. He had ama.s.sed a tremendous fortune.

Millions. Millions in whatever kind of currency you could imagine. Pearls, rubies, emeralds too. You should have seen it just sitting there in the vault, winking like a dancing girl's... winkv parts. Just the biggest fortune a corrupt bureaucrat could put together.

"And then, quite suddenly he had to go abroad to avoid a scandal. And, bam! He was killed in a tragic accident when his coal-black stallion, startled by a pie wagon, threw him from its back and trampled him under its hooves..

"Being an honest man, I of course began searching for his next of kin, as soon as I heard the news of his demise. And you would think, wouldn't you, that he'd have a next of kin? The way those l.u.s.tful fellows carry on with all their wives and concubines? But it was revealed that the late all Pasha had had an equally tragic accident in his youth, when he'd attracted the attention of the Grand Turk because of his sweet singing voice, and, well... he was enabled to keep that lovely soprano until the time of his completely unexpected death.

"So no wives, no children, a yawning void of interested posterity.

"And this meant, you see, that the Millions that lay in our vault would, after the expiration of a certain date, become the property of the Ottoman Empire.

"What could I do? The more I reflected on the tyranny under which our great nation suffered for so long, the more my patriotic blood began to boil. I determined on a daring course of action.

"I consulted with my colleagues in the international banking community, and obtained the name of an investor who was known far and wide for his integrity. He was a Prussian, as it happened, with a handsome personal fortune. I contacted him, apologized for my presumption, explained the facts of the case, and laid before him a proposition. If he were willing to pose as the brother of the late Ali Pasha, I could facilitate his claim to the millions sitting there on deposit. He would receive forty per cent for his part in the ruse; the remaining sixty per cent I would, of course, donate to the Church.

"To make a long story short, he agreed to the plan. Indeed, he went so far as to express his enthusiastic and principled support for Romanian self- rule.

"Of course, it was a complicated matter. We had to bribe the law clerks and several petty officials, in order that they might vouch for Smedlitz (the Prussian) being a long-lost brother of Ali Pasha, his mother having been kidnapped by Barban* Coast pirates with her infant child and sold into a harem, though fortunately there had been a birthmark by which the unfortunate Ali Pasha could be posthumously identified by his sorrowing relation.

"And Smedlitz was obliged to provide a substantial deposit in order to open an account in a bank in Switzerland, into which the funds could be transferred once we had obtained their release. But he agreed to the expenditure readily-too readily, as I ought to have seen!" Golescu shook his head, drank again, wiped his mustache with the back of his hand and continued: "How I trusted that Prussian! Alas, you stars, look down and see how an honest and credulous soul is victimized."

He drank again and went on: "The fortune was transferred, and when I went to claim the agreed- upon sixty per cent for charity--imagine my horror on discovering that Smedlitz had withdrawn the entire amount, closed the account, and absconded! As I sought him, it soon became apparent that Smedlitz was more than a thief-he was an impostor, a lackey of the international banking community, who now closed ranks against me.

"To make matters worse, who should step forward but a new claimant! It developed that Ali Pasha had, in fact, a real brother who had only just learned of his death, having been rescued from a remote island where he had been stranded for seven years, a victim of shipwreck.

"My ruin was complete. I was obliged to flee by night, shaming my ill.u.s.trious family, doomed to the life of an unjustly persecuted fugitive." Golescu wiped tears from his face and had another long drink.

"Never again to sit behind a polished desk, like a gentleman! Never again to flourish my walking-stick over the heads of my clerks! And what has become of its diamond, that shone like the moon?" He sobbed for breath. "Adversity makes a man wise, not rich, as the saying goes; and wisdom is all I own now. Sometimes I think of self-destruction; but I have not vet sunk so low."

He drank again, belched, and said, in a completely- altered voice: "Ah, now it's beginning to boil! Fetch a long stick and give it a stir, Emil darling."

Golescu woke in broad daylight, grimacing as he lifted his face from the depths of his hat. Emil was still sitting where he had been when Golescu had drifted off to sleep, after some hours of hazily remembered conversation. The empty jug sat where Golescu had left it; but the hundred and forty-four little gla.s.s bottles were now full.

"What'd you " Golescu sat up, staring at them. He couldn't recall filling the bottles with concentrated yellow dye, but there they were, all tidily sealed.

"The medicine is ready" said Emil.

Golescu rose unsteadily. The empty copper gleamed, clean as though it were new.

"No wonder she keeps you around," he remarked. "You must be part kitchen fairy, eh? Poke up the fire, then, and we'll boil you another potato. Maybe a parsnip too, since you've been such a good boy.

And then, we'll have an adventure."

He picked up the sack and trudged off to attend to his toilet.

Two hours later they were making their way slowly along a country lane, heading for a barred gate Golescu had spotted. He was sweating in the heat, dressed in the finest ensemble the rag shop had had to offer: a rusty black swallowtail coat, striped trousers, a black silk hat with a strong odor of corpse. On his left breast he had a.s.sembled an impressive-looking array of medals, mostly religious ones dressed up with bits of colored ribbon, and a couple of foil stickers off a packet of Genoa biscuits. In one hand he carried a heavy-looking satchel.

Emil wore his duster, goggles and hat, and was having to be led by the hand because he couldn't see very well.

When they came within a hundred yards of the gate, two immense dogs charged and collided with it, barking at them through the bars.

"Take the bag," said Golescu, handing it off to Emil.

"It's heavy," Emil complained.

"Shut up. Good morning to you, my dear sir!" He raised his voice to address the farmer who came out to investigate the commotion.

"I'm too hot."

"Shut up, I said. May I have a moment of your time, sir?"

"Who the h.e.l.l are you ?" asked the farmer, seizing the dogs by their collars.

Golescu tipped his hat and bowed. "Dr. Milon Cretulescu, a.s.sistant Minister of Agriculture to Prince Alexandru, may all the holy saints and angels grant him long life. And you are?"

"Buzdugan, Iuliu," muttered the farmer.

"Charmed. You no doubt have heard of the new edict?"

"Of course I have," said Farmer Buzdugan, looking slightly uneasy. "Which one?"

Golescu smiled at him. "Why, the one about increasing poultry production on the farms in this region.

His highness is very concerned that our nation become one of the foremost chicken-raising centers of the world! Perhaps you ought to chain up your dogs, dear sir."

When the dogs had been confined and the gate unbarred, Golescu strode through, summoning Emil after him with a surrept.i.tious shove as he pa.s.sed. Emil paced forward blindly, with tiny careful steps, dragging the satchel. Golescu ignored him, putting a friendly hand on Buzdugan's shoulder.

"First, I'll need to inspect your poultry yard. I'm certain you pa.s.sed the last inspection without any difficulties, but, you know, standards are being raised nowadays."

"To be sure," agreed Buzdugan, sweating slightly. In fact, there had never been any inspection of which he was aware. But he led Golescu back to the bare open poultry yard, an acre fenced around by high palings, visible through a wire-screen grate.

It was not a place that invited lingering. Poultry yards seldom are. The sun beat down on it mercilessly, so that Golescu felt the hard-packed earth burning through the thin soles of his shoes. A hundred chickens stood about listlessly, quite unbothered by the reek of their defecation or the smell of the predators impaled on the higher spikes of the fence: two foxes and something so shrunken and sun-dried its species was impossible to identify.

"Hmmm," said Golescu, and drew from his pocket a small book and a pencil stub. He pretended to make notes, shaking his head.

"What's the matter?" asked Buzdugan.

"Well, I don't want to discourage you too much," said Golescu, looking up with a comradely smile.