THEY START from the rear door into a strangely quiet, strangely deserted street, at the hour specified in the funeral permit — 7:00 A.M. Two militiamen take up the point position, as if this is to be a military patrol through enemy-occupied terrain, and as one of them passes the Racer he whispers:
“Please understand, we are only following orders.”
“Everyone is always following orders,” Tacho retorts, and smiling in a way that is new to him he steps off holding aloft the placard the Flag Holder carried at the demonstration nobody saw. On one side is the famous photograph that every schoolchild in the country recognizes from his history book. On the other is a hand-lettered slogan which reads:
Cover the whole world with asphalt. Sooner or later a blade of grass will break through.
Behind Tacho comes the circus band (on loan to the Dwarf as a “personal favor”) in embroidered jackets with black armbands and high plumed hats. The kettle drummer sets a funereal rhythm — boom, boom, boom, boom — with elegant flourishes of his drumsticks. The hearse (which the Dwarf “organized” from a nearby village) comes next: an ancient black-and-gilt vehicle dating back to the Turkish Yoke, with a glass compartment for the coffin, drawn by two high-stepping spotted circus geldings with braided manes and white plumes dancing from their nodding heads. High on the buckboard seat, holding the reins nonchalantly in his outstretched hands and eyeing with supreme indifference the shuttered windows and the closed doors that line the route, sits the peasant who came with the hearse.
Elisabeta walks directly behind the hearse, mesmerized by the coffin which jounces as the wagon wheels bump over the cobblestones. On one side of her is Valyo Barbovich, wearing a silk scarf to protect his throat from the chill; on the other, in morning clothes, is Atanas Popov, his left shoe squeaking with each step. Close behind them comes Octobrina, lost in the folds of a great black shawl. The Dwarf in full clown regalia, struts at her side — he is once again Bazdéev the King of Clowns, confronting the empty streets with his painted angel’s face and his mocking smile and his wild eyes — “the eyes,” Octobrina once said, “of an animal trapped inside a body it finds odious.” The blind dog, Dog, sulks at his feet, jerked forward, when he lags, with a leash made of a string of sausages.
Skipping along behind, two abreast, arms linked, come the Hungarians, wearing single layers of flowered chiffon through which their pink limbs can be clearly seen. Kovel, looking as if he wanted to be anywhere but where he was, the Fat Lady, the Tattooed Man and the Juggler bring up the rear.
For the first two blocks, everyone makes an effort to ignore the obvious. Finally Valyo explodes. “Somebody’s gone to a great deal of trouble for this funeral,” he cries bitterly, and Octobrina, behind him, remarks:
“In a perverse way, it’s really a sign of respect.”
But the emptiness of the street seems to taunt them, and the Dwarf, more sensitive to such things than the others, thrusts out his deformed chest, curses in Hungarian and barks at the circus band:
“Louder, louder, so they will know who is it we bury.”
Kettle drum thumping, horses prancing, the cortege follows the militiamen through the back streets in the general direction of the cemetery. As they turn into Pavlovic, a shutter somewhere above them squeals on its hinges and then slams shut, and the petals from a dozen roses rain down on the hearse. Octobrina gathers up a few handfuls and tucks them into a fold of her shawl. Half a block further along a bouquet of wild thyme falls at Elisabeta’s feet, and then a Soviet army medal from the Great Patriotic War, with a note pinned to the ribbon that says:
“We will never forget him, never!”
Popov scoops up the thyme and the medal and opens the glass door of the hearse and places them on the pine coffin.
On Pavlovic, across from a vegetable market normally crowded with shoppers at this hour of the morning, the old waiter Stuka steps from a doorway that smells of urine and lifts his cap at the cortege. He is wearing a single campaign ribbon on his chest from a war few people remember. The militiamen eye him angrily, and a woman shouts to him from the darkness of the hallway:
“Grandpa, come in — they will mark your name.”
But the old man stands his ground, his cap raised above his head in salute. “Excuse me,” he fumbles in a husky voice as the Racer draws abreast. “Excuse me for Mister Dancho.”
“Go in, old man,” Tacho urges and the woman, hearing that, darts out and pulls Stuka back into the hallway.
The cortege reaches the corner where Pavlovic turns into Petrohan. Here the pavement ends and the road becomes butted dirt, and the houses, single-story rundown frame boxes, are set back from the road to allow for a garden in front. The cemetery is just beyond, and as they draw near, the huge iron gates swing open, though nobody can be seen pulling them. As the Racer passes through the gate, a figure springs from behind a tombstone. Instinctively, the Racer thrusts the placard out as if to ward off an attacker, and one of the horses neighs and paws the ground with his front feet.
It is the Mime, barely breathing, his head lowered as if he is about to charge. The white pancake make-up on his face is streaked with tears and he bows to the ancient hearse and falls into step behind the Fat Lady.
The militiamen lead the cortege past rows and rows of headstones to the far corner of the cemetery, where the first field joins it. The Minister’s male secretary is standing near a rectangular hole which seems to yaw open, a pile of dirt on one side, two worn leather straps across it.
“But there is no stone,” Elisabeta whispers urgently.
“And no one to help us,” adds Valyo.
The Racer calls to the Minister’s male secretary:
“Are there to be no gravediggers to help us?”
The secretary, whose steel-rimmed eyeglasses have turned to silver in the sun, only shrugs and motions with his jaw as if to say:
“Get on with it.”
Tacho, Valyo, the Juggler and the Tattooed Man pull the pine coffin from the hearse and lower it to the ground. Octobrina puts her arms around the Rabbit’s waist and hugs her tightly. Four members of the band lay down their instruments and take hold of the ends of the leather straps. The coffin is laid over the gaping hole on the straps and lowered into the grave. The straps are pulled free. The Racer, pale, trembling, walks to the edge of the hole and tosses in a handful of dirt. The sound of it falling on the wood strikes him as an obscenity.
“My friends— “
Tacho lowers his head and brings his hand to his eyes. Valyo reaches forward and touches his shoulder.
“My friends—” Tacho begins again, his voice reduced to a whisper. “I … I have no words.” He shakes his head and steps back from the edge of the grave.
Octobrina takes his place and looks for a long moment at the coffin. She blinks back tears. “Another still life,” she cries and flings open her shawl, scattering rose petals onto the coffin. She almost manages a smile and returns to her place alongside the Rabbit, who sinks to her knees and fills each hand with dirt and moans dully:
“Lev, oh Lev, oh my Lev, my Lev.”
The Mime appears suddenly at the head of the grave. He crouches and from the dirt creates, as a sculptor would, an imaginary candle. It is dark and he feels around the earth for an imaginary match. Finding it, he lights the candle and holds it high and slowly looks around. Then he lowers the candle and moistens his fingertips and presses the wick between them, and the people gathered around the grave can almost hear the hiss as the flame is extinguished.
The Dwarf strides forward and tosses onto the coffin the flowers and bouquets and medals that Popov gathered along the way. Then, tilting his great head, he hurls curse after curse at the sky in Hungarian.
The Hungarian girls, hanging back, start to blush and giggle.
Popov runs a finger under his collar to soothe the red welt on his neck as he steps to the edge of the grave. He reaches into his pocket to turn up his hearing aid.
“It was my intention — “ He falters. “I had hoped — “
He adjusts his pince-nez and removes his ledger from his pocket. “Sssssssss. One mother-of-pearl lorgnette handle. One ostrich plume. One stuffed humming bird without its tail feathers. One child’s coloring book with an inscription that reads, ‘Little Bibo, nineteen thirty-seven.’ “ Popov’s eyes peer over the top of his pince-nez. “The Flag Holder was in Spain then, I think. Sssssssss. Where was I? Ah. One sheet of Czarist stock certificates. One rear cover from a silver Audemars Frères pocket watch, with an inscription that reads, For F.M.R., from his loving parents, on his graduation from Bucharest University, June twenty-fifth, nineteen twenty-four. Magna est Veritas et prevalebit.’ “ Popov looks up, seeing nothing through the tears welling in his eyes. “That means, truth is mighty and will prevail.” He smiles weakly. “Perhaps that was so in nineteen twenty four. It was a very long time ago and I don’t remember. I used to have a motto. My motto was, ‘Nulla dies sine line a.’ That means, not a day without a line. That was before they … before they … that was before they destroyed all my … all my …”
Octobrina reaches out and gently rests her hand on Popov’s arm.
“Where was I? Sssssssss. Ah, the watch cover” — he looks around like a child who is afraid he has disappointed his listeners — “was my last but not least.”