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he?”
    Petrescu, who certainly knew all about Ionesco, stared at Bech with blank expectance. Even in this innermost sanctum he had kept his sunglasses on. Bech said, irritated, “A playwright. Lives in Paris. Theatre of the Absurd. Wrote
Rhinoceros
,” and he crooked a forefinger beside his heavy Jewish nose, to represent a horn.
    Taru emitted a dainty sneeze of laughter. Petrescu translated, listened, and told Bech, “He is very sorry he has not heard of this man. Western books are a luxury here, so we are not able to follow each new nihilist movement. Comrade Taru asks what you plan to do while in the People’s Republic of Rumania.”
    “I am told,” Bech said, “that there are some writers interested in exchanging ideas with an American colleague. I believe my embassy has suggested a list to you.”
    The musical voice went on and on. Petrescu listened with a cocked ear and relayed, “Comrade Taru sincerely wishes that this may be the case and regrets that, because of the lateness of the hour and the haste of this meeting urged by your embassy, no secretaries are present to locate this list. He furthermore regrets that at this time of the year so many of our fine writers are bathing at the Black Sea. However, he points out that there is an excellent production of
Desire Under the Elms
in Bucharest, and that our Carpathian city of Brasov is indeed worthy of a visit. Comrade Taru himself retains many pleasant youthful memories concerning Brasov.”
    Taru rose to his feet—an intensely dramatic event withinthe reduced scale he had established around himself. He spoke, thumped his small square chest resoundingly, spoke again, and smiled. Petrescu said, “He wishes you to know that in his youth he published many books of poetry, both epic and lyric in manner. He adds, ‘A fire ignited here’ ”—and here Petrescu struck his own chest in flaccid mimicry—“ ‘can never be quenched.’ ”
    Bech stood and responded, “In my country we also ignite fires
here
.” He touched his head. His remark was not translated and, after an efflorescent display of courtesy from the brilliant-haired little man, Bech and Petrescu made their way through the empty mansion down to the waiting car, which drove them, rather jerkily, back to the hotel.
    “And how did you like Mr. Taru?” Petrescu asked on the way.
    “He’s a doll,” Bech said.
    “You mean—a puppet?”
    Bech turned curiously but saw nothing in Petrescu’s face that betrayed more than a puzzlement over meaning. Bech said, “I’m sure you have a better eye for the strings than I do.”
    Since neither had eaten, they dined together at the hotel; they discussed Faulkner and Hawthorne while waiters brought them soup and veal a continent removed from the cabbagy cuisine of Russia. A lithe young woman on awkwardly high heels stalked among the tables singing popular songs from Italy and France. The trailing microphone wire now and then became entangled in her feet, and Bech admired the sly savagery with which she would, while not altering an iota her enameled smile, kick herself free. Bech had been a long time without a woman. He looked forward to three more nights sitting at this table, surrounded by traveling salesmen from East Germany and Hungary, feasting onthe sight of this lithe chanteuse. Though her motions were angular and her smile was inflexible, her high round bosom looked soft as a soufflé.
    But tomorrow, Petrescu explained, smiling sweetly beneath his sad-eyed sunglasses, they would go to Brasov.
    Bech knew little about Rumania. From his official briefing he knew it was “a Latin island in a Slavic sea,” that during World War II its anti-Semitism had been the most ferocious in Europe, that now it was seeking economic independence of the Soviet bloc. The ferocity especially interested him, since of the many human conditions it was his business to imagine, murderousness was among the more difficult. He was a Jew. Though he could be irritable and