Jimfish by Christopher Hope Read Free Book Online Page B

larger.’
    Jimfish said he had never in his life seen anything so big.
    The Genius of the Carpathians nodded so happily his conical astrakhan hat wobbled. ‘I wanted it to be seen from outer space. To build it, we first knocked down most of the old historical centre of Bucharest, along with a couple of dozen churches, six synagogues and got rid of no fewer than thirty thousand houses.’
    â€˜Why did you do that?’ Jimfish asked.
    His friend smiled. ‘My capital city was once known asLittle Paris. But I came, I demolished, I redeveloped. And Little Paris became Big Bucharest.’
    The helicopter put down on the roof of a tall building that his friend identified as his home from home, the Central Committee of the Communist Party. Waiting to greet them were army officers, policemen, bodyguards and important Party officials in big caps with huge peaks and Jimfish began to appreciate how special his new friend was. Whenever he spoke, everyone in hats clapped in unison and took up the chant: ‘Ni-co-lae Cea-oooo-şes-cooo . . . Romaneeeeaaah!’
    Among the welcoming party was a stern woman and she now called out to the Danube of Thought: ‘For heaven’s sake, Nicolae! You look like a tramp. I can see you haven’t changed your clothes in days.’
    Whereupon the little man turned pale and went into a huddle of security men, in a manner Jimfish had seen on a rugby field, when a player wished to replace his torn shorts in a modest manner. When he emerged he wore a new suit, although whether his astrakhan hat had been replaced Jimfish could not tell.
    â€˜Now burn the old suit,’ ordered the stern woman. ‘It’s sure to be infected with Falling Wall syndrome.’
    Just how important she was Jimfish understood when his friend introduced her: ‘This is LenuÅ£a, Deputy Prime Minister, Mother of the Nation, Head of the Cadres Commission, Revolutionary Fighter for the Motherland, as well as being my wife.’
    LenuÅ£a straightened Nicolae’s conical hat, fussed with his scarf, buttoned his winter coat, and Jimfish was invitedto accompany the presidential couple, police officers, bodyguards and bulky Securitate agents to the balcony overlooking the gigantic square, where thousands waited in the December chill. Even though Nicolae had been rehearsing his speech on the helicopter, he was slow in getting started and mumbled a lot.
    The Deputy Prime Minister kept hissing at her husband, ‘Speak up, Nicolae!’
    The helicopter pilot interpreted Nicolae’s remarks for Jimfish, who got the impression that depite rehearsing his speech, Nicolae was floundering. He spent long minutes greeting the municipal workers, soldiers and city councillors. The crowd muttered and hissed and, although some factory workers clapped, rattling their banners in support, the muttering and hissing in the square grew noisier as Nicolae sputtered on. Suddenly, a series of explosions that might have been fireworks or even gunshots were clearly audible. Nicolae became very irritated and banged the microphone, shouting ‘Halloo! Halloo!’ in the manner of a schoolmaster chivvying his pupils. Then there began a sound no one had heard in decades, when the Genius of the Carpathians addressed the nation: a hullabaloo so brazen and impudent that everyone on the presidential balcony refused to believe what their ears told them.
    â€˜Surely it’s the wind wafting your achievements to the world,’ said a Securitate officer.
    â€˜Or a choir of owls saluting the greatness of your genius,’ said a second man.
    These artful attempts to explain the angry booing that interrupted Nicolae’s speech from the balcony werereceived in silence by the Genius of the Carpathians.
    LenuÅ£a knew instantly that something alarming was happening, and shouted, ‘Speak to them, Nicolae!’
    In the pandemonium, her orders seemed to Jimfish as fruitless as the helicopters