A Short Story About Isaac Emmer

by Stefan Agopian

It was sometime around the end of June, in 2014, when I got a call from a woman introducing herself as Roxana Gamart.  She had the voice of a fourteen-year-old and seemed to be quite emotional.  She told me that she had gotten my number from the publishing house Trei.  This was the only reason I didn't hang up, as I usually would in such a situation.  She explained that she wanted me to participate in a project that she was organising: Ten authors were to write a story using as inspiration a painting from a selection of works by ten young Romanian artists. If I wanted, I could be one of those ten writers. In that moment, I didn't want to do it. But once she told me of the tidy sum I'd be paid for a story, I thought it wouldn't hurt to agree, just in principle and without obligation. That's how I came to say, “Yes”, or more like, “Yeaah, maybe”.  About a week later I met with the people at Trei to sort out the contract details. I refused to take an advance and found it easy to choose my painting, without really knowing why, by Roman Tolici.  A man dressed in white, seen from behind, who was heading towards the darkness in front of him.  I thought of the shroud in which the Jews bury their dead. 

Roman Tolici Nobody 10, tempera and oil on canvas, 60 x 30 cm, 2011 

Chaim Efrima Collection

I then thought of Isaac Emmer and his story:

Beginning in the summer of 2011, I was leaving the house less and less often. In fact, I left the house twice a week: on Monday and on Thursday. Monday because that was when I had to submit my three weekly articles to my employers at the magazine, Academia Catavencu. And Thursday for the editorial meeting, in the same place.  The remaining five days were spent doing different things: over Tuesday and Wednesday I read three books, usually really stupid ones, for each of which I would write a fifteen -line review. On Friday I would recover from Thursday's drinking, which itself occurred in a bar on Academy Street with my editorial colleagues, while on Saturday and Sunday I wrote, without any enthusiasm, those three aforementioned articles. The newspaper office was in an apartment block facing the university, “on the horse's tail,” as Bucharest people say, meaning behind the equestrian statue of Mihai the Brave.

I'll quickly ignore Monday, nothing special happened: I handed in the articles and had a chat with the guys in the office.  Before heading home, I went by the bookstalls along the walls of the university. I knew most of the sellers and if I was in luck, I might pick up something worthwhile.

Thursdays were much more interesting, and not just because of the drinks with my colleagues, but for another reason: In the spring of 2005 I bought, without knowing exactly why, the debut book of Macedonski called Prima Verba, published first in 1872.  I gave a lot for it: five million lei. It was a rare item but its literary value was closer to zero. When writing an introduction to Macedonski's Collected Works in 1939, Tudor Vianu dismissed his first volume as insignificant.  Which made it even rarer an item. Rare, rare, but it was of no use to me. It was a curiosity and nothing more. This is how it came to me that I could collect the debut books of Romanian authors, and the Macedonski book could thereby take up an important place in my library. Done and dusted! That's what I'd do. I began to knock at the doors of antique book shops (I used to do this before, but without such a clear purpose) in search of debut works.  I reserved Thursdays, before the editorial meeting at Academia Catavencu, for this work.

The second Thursday of the month of October, 2011, fell on the 13^th.  Everything that brings others bad luck seems to bring me only good fortune. For whatever reason, that day was always a good one.  The same applied to black cats or empty buckets. Unfortunately, people tend not to walk down the street with empty buckets in their hands. Luckily, I find that black cats still cross your path, although you can't rely on meeting them on every single street.  It's the same with priests.  They are pretty rare.

For me, the very best day of all is a Thursday that falls on the 13^th.

Anyway, this Thursday in 2011 fell, as I mentioned, on the 13^th.  Outside, the grey sky drizzled rain and cast an equally grey light. In general, rain has a calming effect on me, but a cold drizzle that seems never-ending fills me with a happiness that is hard to put into words.  For years I haven't drank coffee in the morning, opting instead for a black tea. In the course of preparing my tea and drinking it, I smoked my eight morning cigarettes without thinking about anything in particular.  I was simply happy to be alive, happy that it was seventeen degrees outside and raining.  My wife Cristina was away in Sweden visiting a friend and the kids didn't stay with us too often these days. So I was on my own, if I don't count our three tomcats, whose tails were brushing my legs.  I gave them something to eat after which they retired quietly for their scheduled siesta.  I continued to drink my tea and reached my fifth cigarette of the morning.  I had yet to know that as a result of this passion for the debut books of Romanian authors, it would follow that by lunchtime I would come to know one Isaac Emmer, a person who would somehow come to change my life.  Not knowing any of this, things followed their natural course belonging to a Thursday. I finished up my tea and smoked my eighth cigarette of the morning. I then took a shower, I shaved and I think I trimmed my moustache. I dressed myself and then ate my yogurt (with an authentic taste and rich in the milks of cow, buffalo and sheep. Six percent fat.) with two slices of sesame seed bread, toasted. I didn't forget to either leave the cats fresh water, or put clean sand in their litter tray. I was feeling good, and for no particular reason.  Although I really had at least two reasons: the rain falling from the sky, and the day being the 13^th of the month.  I left the house at eleven on the dot.  Outside there was a pleasant drizzle and the light shone like tin. From where I live, in a ten-storey-block at the Cotroceni bridge, you can get to the university with either the 336 or the 601 bus.  The 601 is for the students living out in Grozavesti, and I usually take it as it comes along more often. I also never get asked to show my ticket by an inspector on that one. Between the teenage girls in their tiny t-shirts and the decent old pensioners, I have pretty good odds on that bus.

It being the 13^th, and therefore my lucky day, the bus arrived just as I got to the stop. And it was practically empty. I sat down beside a pretty girl in glasses who was taking a course in economics. Outside the light took on the colour of tarnished silver. At the hospital, a guy and girl got off the bus. He was tall and acned, and the little one had the air of a young girl, with her button nose.  Before getting off, they had been talking about Korsakov Syndrome, the psychiatric disorder suffered in alcoholic paralysis. Being an experienced drinker I knew all about that. At Eroilor Station, no one got off, but two old dears, around my age, got on. So as to not appear older than they were, they decided to stand in the middle of the bus. The girl in the glasses sitting by me got off at the Law Faculty Station.  At the Town Hall no one got on or off the bus. At the University it emptied completely but for the two old dears. Exactly seven minutes had passed since I entered the bus.  Still drizzling, still the same grey light.  I began my tour of the old bookshops with the one just to the left of the National Theatre, I went to the one in Sala Dalles, and crossed Magheru to get to the one called La Liberali. And, as usual, I found nothing of interest.  On Academy Street there were two shops next door to each other, both belonging to the Bucharest Bookshop Company, as yet not privatised.  In the second shop, I happened upon a debut book by A. Toma, Poems, printed and paid for by a group of friends at Cultura Nationala, Bucharest, 1926.  We are talking here about the same A. Toma who, in 1950, at the age of 75, was declared the equal of Eminescu and superior to Arghezi, Barbu and Blaga. The book cost 30 lei, and I bought it.  To balance things out, as social realism didn't sit so easily in my shoulder-bag, I also bought The Rose of the Winds, published in 1937 by the same house, Cultura Nationala.  Edited by Mircea Eliade; it is the only book that Ionescu had published while he was still alive.  To my surprise it only cost 12 lei – and at a time when no serious bookseller would accept less than a 100 lei for it – it was a bargain. I didn't think twice. In their own ways, A. Toma and Nae Ionescu had both been crooks. I was happy to have got my hands on them.

While I was waiting at the lights to cross 6th of March Street, now called Queen Elisabeta Boulevard, I thought of the words that Nae Ionescu used to conclude his preface to Mihail Sebastian's, For Two Thousand Years..: “Iosef Hechter, don't you feel how the cold and the darkness are closing around you?” I said, “to hell with Ionescu,” so beloved of the Criterionists at the office. I crossed the road and entered Anticariat 1, a shop in the colonnaded part of Academy Street.  Inside there was a light of cold blue neon and the pleasant smell of old books.  The undisturbed dust of many years.  I said hello to the shopkeeper and shared a few words with him. There was one other customer in the place, investigating the shelves of history books. I made my way over to the Romanian Interwar Literature and began my search.  As usual, I found nothing that took my interest. I was just about ready to give up when a small volume by the name of The Cloak of Nights took my eye, it was dated 1940 and signed by a certain Emanoil Ungher.  The name didn't ring a bell but on the title page the following was written: “17 Poems with cover and 17 drawings by S. Perahim.”  There was no publisher mentioned, just the printer, Tipographia Libro, Bucharest, which probably meant that the author had published a small print run of the book himself.  Books illustrated by Perahim between the two wars were rare and expensive, however. So I decided to buy it, even though I knew nothing about the author. When I went to pay (it cost 40 lei – about €9), I asked the guy at the counter if he knew anything about the author.  He shrugged and said that he had never heard of him. Just then, a voice from behind spoke to me:

- Do you mind if I take a look at that book?

I turned around to look at the person who spoke. It was the fellow who had been looking through the history section. In his hands were two books he was about to purchase.

- Not at all, I said, offering it to him.

He put his own books under his arm and took the book from me. He was a man of about 5'7, 5'8 with a tanned, thinly-lined face.  His hands too were tanned, those of a man who spent his time outdoors.     

He had blue eyes and short curly hair.  He wasn't wearing his glasses; it was obvious that he was using contact lenses. Jeans, a windcheater that was expensive-looking, and shoes with thick soles. Nothing on his head. He seemed to be around the same age as me, a little over sixty.  Looking at the book, he said:

- He was a Latin teacher at the Jewish high-school, 'Cultura.' This is the only book he published.

He spoke well but with the accent of someone who spent a long time abroad, that's how I guessed he was Jewish.  He continued:

- My father had him as a teacher in the 1930's and he took this book with him when he left the country. Maybe because the teacher had left a flattering dedication to him inside.  Some time in the 1950's, he inquired after Mr. Ungher with his old school pals who were still living in Romania. No one had heard a thing about the old teacher, and the local community had no record of his passing.

He handed me back the book.

I thanked him and put the book in my bag. I wished the men a good day and left the shop.  My watch said it was ten minutes to one, I had just enough time to get to the office. It was still spitting rain outside and people were dashing here and there. Just then the guy from inside the shop appeared on the footpath and looked towards me.  In the daylight his eyes were the light grey of cigarette ash. He approached and offered me his hand.

- Sorry, I didn't introduce myself. Isaac Emmer…

(Excerpt from Double Exposure - A Short Story About Isaac Emmer, by Stefan Agopian)

Translation from Romanian - Emmet Cooke