by Daniel Bănulescu (b. 1960)
excerpt Arvinte and Sodapop Marcel were marvellous indeed. When they broke and entered, the crowd would draw back in sheer rapture. The two would arrive at the scene, position their ladder or ropes, as the case may be, apply the skeleton-key or the bulldozer, and before you knew it, the house was empty. On returning home, the owner experienced the sensation of having moved house. He'd bang his head against walls for a spell, to be sure, but was bound to snap out of it in the long run. Else, it would have been bad form, and since the whole thing had to do with Arvinte or Sodapop, the two were not past revisiting the premises in order to take punitive action, in case you took it into your head to overdo the suffering. So you'd keep a stiff upper lip. The Forensics brigade would come by with the Militia in tow, search the place over, take measurements. Then the Militia would loudly pronounce: "Arvinte" or "Sodapop". Not that you had to be a Militia in order to figure that out. The plaintiff would put some of the clues up for sale, make the best out of a bad bargain, sort of. A lock Sodapop picked or a window he'd cut his way through were worth their weight in gold. If the burglars happened to party and left the odd tool of their trade behind, it would go a long way towards making up for the losses. When the time was ripe, you'd approach the bigwigs or the bigwigs would approach you. They'd say something like: "Sir, an undisclosed source thought it meet to inform us you happen to be in possession of a genuine Sodapop or Arvinte." "Sure thing!", you'd reply, and flashed the odd glass bearing their fingerprints. The potential customers would seal it up in a plastic bag and sent it over to the lab. If it turned out to be genuine indeed, the collectors would dump half a cartload of money on your doorstep by return bag. The situation was thus reached when a property increased several times in value as a consequence of having been burgled by one of the two. Arvinte was hunchbacked. It had just crossed his mind to collect all his distinctive features in the form of a hunch. Not only did he have a hunch, but an obsession as well. In the wake of breaking and entering he'd nip back to relish the aftertaste. He'd rise at break of day, spruce himself up – there was not much to spruce up save his moustache, the bushy, foul-smelling handlebars distinctive of the gold-peddling cocalar Gypsies – and thread his way back to the location of the crime. By ten o'clock, the forces of law and order had already spread their yellow dust in search of fingerprints, onlookers had spread newspapers to sit on, and the geriatrics had worked their way down the list of standard topics to: "Where did them jokers drop in from, mate, heaven?" "Stairway to 'Eaven! Led Zeppelin!", Arvinte would wisecrack with his characteristic penchant for showing off his scholarship. He'd be quipping his way through the crowd till he came level with the officer in command, leaving a broad swath of opinion in his wake. "Arvinte," the officer would groan "If I hadn't just begged you…" "Mr Commander," the cracksman was wont to retort in mellifluous tones, "If I hadn't just told you dozens of times it ain't me..." Then he'd produce the video tape from his scrip with a purr. "Aw, gimme a break," the enforcer of the law would wave him aside. "I flush them videos down the loo, I do…" Not that he'd actually go and do it, of course. But he was jaundiced all right. Whenever a case of exquisite burglary was reported, Gypsy-King was not long in materialising, video an' all. One of his grandsons would video the rascal sitting in his room and perusing Scînteia, the Communist Party paper, all through the night of the crime. The paper was genuine, and so was the video, there was nothing you could do about it, every two-three minutes the camera would zoom in on the rag, and swept casually, sort of, over the corner bearing the date. An assorted lot of like-feathered birds of passage were featuring next to him in the frame, shoving their identity cards into the camera and swearing that, so help them, domn' Arvinte had not left the location all throughout the night in question. Around two a.m., a taxi would rush in a copy of next day's issue of Scînteia. It goes without saying, the camera would be zooming in ad nauseam on the President's address to the nation and the date. "You're kissin' up to the Communist Party, you, rogue," the enforcer of the law would berate the gold-peddling Gypsy. Things were a great deal less complicated with Sodapop. You never saw the chap's face, never heard his voice. Save once every six months, when he'd descend upon some joint, shoot himself, climb up a post, and roar: "Sodapop Marcel 'ere! At yer service! Sodapop, eh? Anyone care to climb up 'ere an' have a shot at drinkin' me, mate?" No one ever did. You just weren't that thirsty. Nemira, 1994
by Daniel Bănulescu (b. 1960)
by Daniel Bănulescu (b. 1960)