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  ISMAIL AND TURNAVITU

  Ismail consists of eyes, whiskers and a dress, and nowadays you find him only with great difficulty.

  Formerly he used to grow also in the Botanical Gardens, but recently, thanks to the progress of modern science, it has been found possible to produce a synthetic Ismail by chemical means.

  Ismail never walks alone. He can be found wandering in a zigzag on Arionoaie Street at about 5.30 a.m. accompanied by a badger to which he is tied by a ship's cable. During the night he eats the badger alive and raw after having first cut off its ears and squeezed some lemon over it... Ismail raises a few more badgers in a nursery at the bottom of a pit in Dobroudgea where he keeps them until they reach the age of sixteen and their shape is worth looking at; then, without risk of any legal punishment, he violates them one after the other without the least pang of conscience.

  Most of the year nobody knows where Ismail actually lives. It is believed that he is preserved in a jar tucked away in the loft of his beloved father's house — a dear old man with a nose pressed in a machine and encircled by a tiny fence of twigs. It is also alleged that, because of his excessive paternal love, he keeps his son a prisoner to protect him from being stung by bees and from being corrupted by our electoral system. All the same, Ismail manages to escape at least three months each year, in winter, when his greatest pleasure is to dress up in an evening gown made of quilted material decorated with large brick-red flowers and then to hook himself on to any scaffolding beams he can find on days when builders celebrate the completion of the plastering, merely to let himself be distributed as a reward to the workers... Ismail also gives audiences but only on top of the hill near the badgers' nursery. Hundreds of job-hunters, contributions of money and firewood are first introduced under an enormous lampshade, where each is obliged to hatch four eggs. They are lifted afterwards on to a municipal garbage truck and carried at a terrific speed to Ismail by one of his friends called Turnavitu, who also serves him as a salami; a strange character who, during the climbing, has the nasty habit of making the job-hunters promise him to write love letters — by threatening to throw them off.

  For a long time Turnavitu has been nothing but an ordinary ventilator at various dirty Greek cafes situated in Covaci Street and Gabroveni. As he could no longer bear the odor, Turnavitu meddled for some time in politics until he managed to be appointed State ventilator, attached to the kitchen of the "Radu Voda" Fire Station.

  He met Ismail one evening at a dance. As he told him of the miserable condition he had been reduced to after spinning round too often, the good-hearted Ismail took him under his protection. He was offered an immediate payment of fifty coppers a day, plus food, his only duty being that of serving Ismail as chamberlain to the badgers. He also had to welcome him every morning on Arionoaie Street and, while pretending not to notice him, he had to tread on the badger's tail so that he should then have cause to apologize a thousand times for his clumsiness; then he would stroke Ismail's dress with a feather duster soaked in rape-oil, wishing him a prosperous and happy time...

  To please his good friend and protector, Turnavitu takes once a year the shape of a can and, whenever this is overfilled with kerosene, sets off on a long journey, usually to Mallorca and Minorca. Most of these journeys consist of going away, of hanging a lizard on the handle of the main door of the harbor-master's office, finally returning to his fatherland...

  During one of these voyages, Turnavitu caught such a nasty cold that all the badgers were infected. As he was sneezing all the time he could no longer attack them as he had done before. He instantly lost his job.

  Oversensitive and unable to support such a humiliation, Turnavitu, in despair, performed the appalling act of taking his own life, but not before extracting his four canine teeth...

  Before he died he took a terrible revenge on Ismail: he saw to it that all his dresses should be stolen, then he set them ablaze with the petrol inside him. Thus reduced to the deplorable state of being nothing but two eyes and one whisker, Ismail hardly had strength to crawl as far as the edge of the badgers' nursery. There he fell into a state of total decay, and to this very day his condition remains the same...

  ALGAZY AND GRUMMER

  Algazy is a pleasant old man, toothless, smiling, with a silky clean-shaven beard nicely placed on a little grill screwed under his chin and encircled by barbed wire...

  Algazy speaks no European language... If you wait for him at crack of dawn and say "Good morning, Algazy!" stressing the "z", he will smile and, to show his gratitude, put one hand in his pocket and pull out the end of a string thus making his beard quiver with joy for a full quarter of an hour... When unscrewed, the little grill helps him to solve all the more difficult problems concerning the cleaning and peace of the house...

  Algazy never accepts a bribe... Only once did he yield to temptation, when he was scribe to the Church; and even then he took no money, only a few bits of broken crockery, because he wanted to provide a dowry for some poor sisters who had to get married the next day.

  Algazy's greatest pleasure — apart from his usual jobs at the shop — is to harness himself voluntarily to a wheelbarrow and run (followed at a couple of yards' distance by his partner Grummer) at great speed through dust and scorching heat, through villages, only to collect old dusters, perforated oilcans and particularly knucklebones which they afterwards eat together till after midnight in a ghastly silence.

  Grummer also has a beak made of aromatic wood. Reserved by nature and bilious by temperament he sits all day under the counter, with his beak shoved into a hole in the floor...

  As you enter their shop a delicious odor tickles your nostrils. At the door you are greeted by an honest-looking young man with green cotton threads on his head instead of hair; only after this does Algazy come to welcome you and offer you a little stool.

  Grummer is still on the watch. False-hearted, with a sideways look, first pulling out only his beak which he wiggles to and fro ostentatiously on a trough specially fitted to the edge of the counter, he finally appears in his entirety. He then resorts to all kinds of maneuvers to force Algazy to leave the place, and insidiously draws the visitor into discussions of every description — especially on sport and literature — until, when it pleases him, he strikes your tummy twice with his beak, so hard in fact that you rush away into the street howling with pain.

  Algazy, who nearly always gets into trouble with customers because of Grummer's intolerable behavior, rushes out of the shop to catch them, begs them to come back, and to give them a well-deserved satisfaction allows them — but only if they have bought anything that costs more than 15 coppers — to sniff briefly at Grummer's beak; moreover, if they so wish, the customers may squeeze it as hard as they can on a grey rubber bladder screwed on his back, a little above the buttocks — which makes Grummer jump through the shop with his knees straight and making inarticulate noises.

  One day, without letting Algazy know, Grummer fetched the wheelbarrow and set out alone in search of rags and knucklebones; on his way back, running by chance into the remains of some fruit, he pretended to be ill and ate up everything secretly under the bedclothes. Algazy, guessing the trick, followed him closely, wishing only to scold him lightly, but to his horror he noticed that the best values in literature had been eaten up and digested in Grummer's stomach.

  Thus deprived for the future of any food of a better quality, and in order to avenge himself for this, Algazy ate the whole of Grummer's bladder while his partner was asleep.

  The following day, desperate from having been left without a bladder, and alone in the world, Grummer lifted the old man up with his beak and, after sunset, dropped him violently on to the peak of a high mountain. A gigantic fight which flamed up between them lasted the whole night until, towards dawn, a defeated Grummer agreed to return all the literature he had swallowed. He vomited it out into Algazy's hands, but the old man, in whose stomach the ferment of the swallowed bladder had begun to activate the initial rumbling
s of tomorrow's literature, found that what Grummer was offering him was much too little and much too obsolete.

  Starving, and unable to find in the dark the ideal nourishment which both so badly needed, they began to fight again with renewed vigour on the pretext that they were taking a bite out of each other only to achieve completion and a fuller knowledge, they went on chewing one another with steadily increasing fury until, by gradual and mutual mastication, both had arrived at the last bone... Algazy finished first...

  EPILOGUE

  The next day, at the foot of the mountain, passers-by could see a little grill of barbed wire and a roasted beak of aromatic wood that had been washed into a ditch by the rain. The authorities were duly informed but, before they could get there, one of Algazy's wives, shaped like a broom, appeared unexpectedly and... brushing two or three times right and left swept everything on to the rubbish heap.

  THE FUCHSIAD

  AN HEROIC-EROTIC

  (AND MUSICAL)

  PROSE POEM

  Fuchs was not actually procreated by his mother... At the very beginning, as he entered life, he was not even seen — he was only heard; for when he was being born Fuchs preferred to emerge from one of his grandmother's ears since his mother totally lacked a musical ear...

  Immediately afterwards Fuchs went to the Conservatoire... there he took the shape of a perfect major chord; then, out of sheer artistic modesty, he first spent three years hidden at the bottom of a piano without anyone's being aware of this, then came out into the open and in a few minutes went through the whole study of harmony and counterpoint, at the same time graduating as a pianist. He climbed down from these heights but, contrary to all expectation, he noticed that two of the sounds of whom he was composed had been altered by the passage of time and had degenerated — one into a moustache with spectacles behind the ears, and the other into an umbrella — which together with a left over C sharp gave Fuchs his precise, allegorical and final shape...

  Much later, during puberty, it is said that Fuchs also developed some sort of genital organ in the form of a young and exuberant fig-leaf; he was exceedingly bashful and for nothing in the world would he have accepted anything other than a leaf or a flower... It is believed that this leaf also served as his daily nourishment. The artist would absorb it every evening before going to bed, then he would walk quietly right to the bottom of his umbrella and, after locking himself up safely with two musical keys, would fall asleep, to be invaded by dreams that went on till the next morning when — bashful as he was — Fuchs would not emerge from the umbrella until a new leaf had grown.

  II

  One day, because he had to have the umbrella mended, Fuchs was forced to spend the night in the open. The night's mysterious charm, laden with harmonies and whispers that seemed to come from another world and give rise to dreams and melancholy, made so deep an impression upon him that, after pedaling the piano in ecstasy for three hours without playing it for fear of disturbing, by this odd mode of locomotion, the nocturnal peace, he reached a dark district, towards which he had been driven against his will by a mysterious power. Certain babbling tongues even say that it was the very street which the good emperor Trajan, advised by his father Nerva, showed to the innocent shepherd Bucur when the latter founded the city that bears his name...

  Suddenly several terrestrial priestesses of Venus, humble attendants at the altar of Love, dressed in transparent white, with ruby-red lips and dark-shadowed eyes, surrounded Fuchs on every side. It was a splendid summer night. All round were songs and gaiety, sweet whispers and harmony... the Vestals of Pleasure received the artist with flowers, with artistically embroidered napkins, interesting kettles and ancient bronze basins overflowing with scented water. They cried out, each one louder than the others: "0 Fuchs, you are the only one capable of loving us in purity!" and, as if moved by one and the same thought, they ended in chorus: "Fuchs darling, do play a sonata for us!"

  Fuchs, out of modesty, ingratiated himself into the piano. All efforts to induce him to come out were in vain. All that the artist would consent to do was to allow his hands to be extracted, whereupon with their aid he performed a couple of dozen concertos, fantasias, studies and sonatas; then for three hours on end he played scales and all kinds of exercises, both legato and staccato, plus the complete Schule der Geliiufigkeit.

  But just as the goddess Venus herself, having emerged from the white foam of the sea, was bewitched — perhaps by the legato studies in particular, whose ethereal sonorities had reached her on Olympus and disturbed her divine peace — she who had not given herself to anyone since Vulcan and Adonis now yielded to impure thoughts and, overcome by passion, unable to resist any longer Fuchs's ravishing playing, decided to have him all to herself for one night. She therefore sent Cupid to pierce Fuchs's heart: the arrow carried a little note inviting him to Mount Olympus.

  III

  At the allotted hour the Three Graces made their appearance.

  They carried Fuchs in their soft and voluptuous arms until they reached the end of a silken ladder, made of musical staves, which hung from the Olympian balcony where Venus was waiting.

  Unfortunately Vulcan-Hephaistos heard of this all too soon and, filled with jealousy, enlisted Jupiter's aid in unleashing a violent thunderstorm.

  Although his umbrella was still being repaired, Fuchs did not allow himself to be defeated. Knowing how to walk slowly along the staves, and supported by the powerful wings of inspiration, he rose higher and higher in defiance of the elements. At last he reached Olympus, completely drenched. Aphrodite gave him a hero's welcome. She embraced him, she kissed him passionately — and then she sent him to an automatic oven for drying prunes.

  At nightfall Fuchs was ushered into the alcove. Nothing but songs and flowers all around. The Graces and all the other Olympian servants of Venus danced before him, covering him with flowers and sprinkling him with aphrodisiacs, while in the distance innumerable tiny, invisible Loves were chanting songs of praise under Orpheus's inspired baton.

  Shortly afterwards the Nine Muses appeared. Using Euterpe's melodious voice they gave Fuchs this welcome:

  "Hail, thou chosen Mortal, thou who, by thy divine art, canst bring men closer to the Gods. Venus is waiting for thee. May Jupiter grant that thy art and love prove worthy of our goddess — our mistress — and may he grant that a new and superior race emerge from the love that unites you, a race that will henceforth populate not only the Earth, which can only aspire to Olympus, but also Olympus which — like Earth — is, alas, also subject to decay."

  The welcome thus ended, the choirs of invisible cherubs once again sang in praise of love, while the bards tuned their lyres and extolled the immortal moment.

  It was not long before silence prevailed... Nothing was to be seen. The alcove sank into a bluish semi-obscurity. Venus waited all naked. White, her hands clasped behind her head under golden hair unplaited, with a gesture of delicious abandon and supreme sensuousness Aphrodite stretched her superb milky body across the soft-pillowed, flower-strewn bed. The air was filled with an exciting warmth and aroma. Fuchs, all bashfulness and trepidation, would have liked to enter some deep crevice; but as there is no such thing on Olympus, he had to take heart.

  Again, Fuchs would have liked at first to run round the room a little, but Aphrodite, with her fine hand and her fingers of scented roses, drew him out of his discomfort... She picked him up lightly, caressed him, then lifted him two or three times up to the ceiling, looked at him languorously and kissed him with passion. Then she caressed him again, kissed him a thousand times more and set him between her breasts.

  Fuchs began to tremble with joy, and, still nervous, would have liked to jump somewhere like a flea. But, dazzled and drunk by her torrid and scented breasts, he began to run like a demented tadpole in all directions, zigzagging, fast and palpitating, across Aphrodite's body passing like a madman over the rosy nipples, over the silky hips, worming himself between the round and burning thighs.

  Fu
chs was beyond recognition. His spectacles were throwing perverse looks, his moustache became obscene and libidinous. Time passed by; the artist did not know what else remained for him to do, while Venus felt that she could not wait much longer.

  He had once heard somewhere that "in love, unlike in music, everything ends through an overture." But Fuchs could not find it... yes... no, he couldn't find it anywhere.

  Suddenly he had an idea. He told himself that, as an overture in music can only be related to the ear, and as he knew only too well that the ear is the most noble overture to the body — the organ of divine music through which he first saw the light of day when he was born — his supreme enjoyment could be sought only through an ear.

  Full of joy, Fuchs relaxed for a minute, then braced himself, and with an indescribable frenzy threw himself sforzando from the tip of Aphrodite's legs right into the tiny hole in the right lobe through which the Goddess usually fixed her ear-rings, then he disappeared inside.

  Once again the choirs of invisible Loves and Muses chanted songs of praise to Love and once again the inspired bards tuned their lyres to hail the immortal moment. But after a sojourn of nearly an hour, during which he adjusted his fig-leaf and sketched down a Romance for piano, Fuchs reappeared on the ear's lobe dressed in tails and white tie, radiant and pleased with himself, bowing right and left to the impatient crowd which had been waiting for him, exactly as he used to do on earth after a gala concert. Then he walked forward and offered Aphrodite an inscribed copy of the Romance.

  But, to his surprise and annoyance, the artist noticed that no applause was forthcoming. Indeed all the inhabitants of Mount Olympus were looking at each other greatly confused. Venus, who had never before received such an affront, at first astonished then baffled and greatly offended, seeing that Fuchs considered his mission as definitely accomplished, rose brusquely to her feet and, red as a poppy and furious, shook her head with a graceful yet forceful movement so that Fuchs fell to the ground.