The Last Hundred Days by Patrick McGuinness Page B

low-down?’ He poured himself a scotch. ‘Should get yourself a job on the Foreign Office Romania desk with that kind of insider knowledge. May Day, eh…?’
    ‘Bugger off, Leo. Put some clothes on and give me back my dressing gown.’ I looked at him, then at it, and thought of Leo’s flatulent puppy-fat broiling away in something I myself would wear. ‘Actually, you can keep it now. I’m going for a wash.’ I remembered I hadn’t eaten. The thought of what Leo was capable of in a kitchen was chilling. I suggested we go out to a restaurant.
    ‘Already taken care of, Comrade. Your job is to open the
apéritif
. We’ll be eating in an hour or so.’
    I thought of the dinner I was having with Cilea in some luckier parallel universe: a meal somewhere expensive, candles and wine, finishing with a smooth Dacia ride back to her flat and a bed suddenly made whole by my presence.
    I went for a shower. The bathroom floor was soaking, and my only towel had been used as a bathmat. The soap was inlaid with pubic hair and a soggy, discoloured toe-plaster was curled up on the floor tiles. Back in the living room, Leo had put on the World Service so loudly I heard the frame of the radio vibrating around it.

    In a move interpreted as further evidence of Perestroika, Russian premier Mikhail Gorbachev has called for limited liberalisation of trade and freedom of expression in the Soviet Union, and indicated a readiness to remove Russian troops from eastern bloc countries. Meanwhile wildcat strikes in Poland have led to a state of emergency in several cities. Solidarity leader Lech Walesa
…

    ‘It’s happening. It’s happening,’ Leo called out. ‘Can you hear me? Hang on tight. They say it’ll never happen here but it will. You watch… hey! … you listening?’
    ‘Yep, every word, Leo, every word…’ I closed the door on him.
    I lay on the bed, dozed and dried in the air. I woke with a start as the doorbell rang. Leo was showing the new arrival to the kitchen: the Maître d’Hôte from Capsia, tucking some hard currency into a back pocket and carrying two suitcases. Leo was dressed and had shaved in his usual pyrrhic manner, clumps of bloody toilet paper stuck to his cheeks and chin.
    ‘We’re having dinner cooked at home,’ he explained, ‘Capsia style. I’ve hired Dumitru – just one of his mid-price menus mind: consommé, beef stuffed with olives and crêpes Suzette. Now stop looking so grumpy and wanked-out and knuckle down to some proper pleasure.’ He threw me a corkscrew and pointed at a row of bottles.
    In the kitchen, the Maître d’ slid two slabs of beef from their wrapping, a double page of
Scînteia
on which it was possible to make out the Ceauşescus in traditional costume receiving some mountainside homage from a group of peasants. The Maître d’s fingers worked at the beef, slippery with blood, seasoning it then slitting it open like an envelope and stuffing it with olives and rice and chopped onions, then tying it with string. The black market in meat had led to a black market in animal slaughtering, and makeshift abattoirs had sprung up in the most unlikely places: the back rooms of restaurants, basements, even the city’s two morgues –
after all, the equipment’s there
, Leo explained. In the shops, it was impossible to tell, aside from by the smell, how long the meat had been in transit. This way, though the hygiene was questionable, you knew it was fresh.
    The food was delicious, for all that watching its preparation had made me nauseous, and served with a surreal degree of expertise. The man from Capsia had changed into black tie and now served clear soup from a silver tureen, then wine with the bottle wrapped in a napkin and a brisk twist of the neck at end of each pour. Leo and I sat at either end of the long dining table like a baronial couple reduced to candlelight and their last manservant.
    Later, after our chef, waiter and retainer had brought the flambéing pancakes, Leo