Free The Madonna on the Moon by Rolf Bauerdick

confusticate (one of his favorite words) often.
    When Grandfather wanted to chat with Dimitru undisturbed, he visited his friend in the library. When I was little, he would sometimes take me along, but then he stopped because the smell of
musty paper made me sick. In the fall of 1957, when I was fifteen, I often sought refuge in the library, not to read as my mother Kathalina thought but to escape chores at home. I took into account
that Dimitru would talk my ear off.
    Since Johannes Baptiste gave the Gypsy a free hand in the library, Dimitru had arranged the books according to his own system. “There’s got to be order, Pavel, or it’ll start
to look like a Gypsy camp in Moldavia.” He was happy to tell me that his rise to head librarian had begun with unpacking the books from their crates and putting them on the shelves. “It
was a challenge, Pavel.” Even twenty years later he groaned at the thought. “A real challenge for any intelligent person. First I arranged the books by size, from thick folios to slim
pamphlets on self-improvement, then according to the color of their spines, from dark to light. Then by their year of publication. That number is up front on the first pages, you see. Now the books
are all standing as they should be: alphabetically from Augustine to Zola. Emilio Zola—you must have heard of him in school?”
    “No.”
    “What do you actually learn from Miss Barbulescu? Zola! That’s literature. Not that junk by party hacks that’s in your readers. That’s trash. How can I send my Buba to
school with a clear conscience? By the way, Zola wrote a book about Lourdes. Lourdes—at least you know what that is?”
    “Never heard of it.”
    “Never heard of it! Even though you
gaje
go on penitential pilgrimages to the Virgin of Eternal Consolation. You
gaje
are funny people, dumbskies. Why don’t you
have the Mother of God in your hearts? Then you could spare yourselves the hike. Like in Lourdes. They don’t pray to a wooden statue. Mary the Mother of God appeared there in the flesh. In
the flesh, Pavel! You know what that means? Think that over for a while instead of filling glasses with schnapps every night. Don’t misunderstand me: I’ve got nothing against
zuika
and nothing against the honest calling of tavern keeper, but you? You were meant for something higher. What am I saying—you have a calling!”
    Dimitru got on my nerves. His flattery was embarrassing. I should have left. But I didn’t and asked instead, “Mary appeared in the flesh? How’s that possible?”
    “See, I knew you were a smart boy. How can Mary, who has shuffled off this mortal coil, still appear in the flesh? That’s the question! You just have to turn it around with
dialectical logic, understand? Then the question becomes: Where does someone have to rise up to in order to return to earth after death and show themselves to people?”
    I felt sorry for the Gypsy. How could anyone think such screwy thoughts? “I don’t understand what you’re getting at, Dimitru. Where’s the problem?”
    “You’re still young, Pavel. But I’m tortured by this question. And I’ll tell you why and since when. I miss my father Laszlo of blessed memory. Since the moment I closed
the lid of his coffin, there’s only one thing I want to know: how can a person get to heaven? I mean, not just your soul but your body, too. The resurrection of the flesh. I mean the whole
person.”
    “It’s not possible, Dimitru. If I understand Christian teaching, up to now only Jesus has succeeded in the resurrection of the flesh.”
    “But it also worked with Jesus’s Mother. Mary was also taken up into heaven body and soul. Pope Pius himself made the announcement. How did the Assumption work, exactly? Body and
soul? What happened to them? When I know that, Pavel, I’ll know everything.”
    “Why don’t you ask Johannes Baptiste? He’ll be able to solve your problem for sure.”
    “I asked Papa Baptiste already.