Paşcanu’s house was larger and more solid than the ones surrounding it, and furnished with slate tiles rather than the usual tin. An ancient acacia stood in the courtyard, practically devoid of leaves. In no way did this building resemble how we imagined it ought to look — as the town house of the richest man in the province and the husband of a Princess Sturdza. The front wall had lost all its stucco except for bits around the first window, and the bare bricks gave a desolate impression indeed. In the Austrian times the gatehouse had contained a kiosk that sold tobacco, stamps, and salt from the state monopoly; the wooden shutters still bore the weathered remains of the once black-and-gold paint, in slanting stripes like on a sentry’s hut. In the early 1880s this house may very well have seemed the epitome of patrician dignity and well-established tradition, at least to an adventuresome shepherd boy who had only recently emerged from the forests; the black-and-gold-striped kiosk in particular must have made an impression on him, as an institution of the state, so to speak. Incidentally, Princess Sturdza never lived there, though it was rumored that a famous Titian, a painting worth millions, which Săndrel Paşcanu had bought for her, was still hanging in the house.
Because by the time Paşcanu married the Princess Sturdza, he already owned several other houses, in the city as well as in the country, including a hunting lodge in his huge forests, where princes of royal blood had been his guests. But even at the height of his grandeur he lived in the house by the old Turkish fountain. He clung with great tenacity to that first house, which he had acquired soon after his return from the siege of Plevna, paying for it with shiny Turkish gold coins — coins of shadowy provenance, from uncovered treasure perhaps, or else from a robbery — the rumors about it abounded. And, indeed, the former owner of the house was found a little later, murdered and robbed. And while things like that were not exactly rare in Czernopol, and there was certainly never a shortage of suspects, the crime was popularly attributed to the young new arrival, though nothing could ever be proven against him.
In any event: he stayed, and multiplied his wealth — whatever its origin — by a fantastic degree. No one knew for sure exactly what business dealings he pursued in his early days — and, to some extent, in later life as well — and on that subject the rumor mill was equally active. The fact is that he could never write more than his name. In later years he would have the paper read to him by his coachman, a scopit, or member of a Russian religious sect that required men to undergo castration after producing two children in marriage. Săndrel Paşcanu had his business partners read his contracts out loud and immediately memorized the wording down to the tiniest detail.
His main business was lumber. The egregious purchase of entire forests, scandalous con acts, bribes, and misappropriations filled entire annals, from which Herr Tarangolian was able to recite the most amusing entries. Because anything Săndrel Paşcanu undertook had the character of a coup — and often of a caper as well. And for the longest time he enjoyed a fabulous success. Even one of his middlemen came into a sizable — and, as it turned out, more stable — fortune, and in 1916 was raised to the landed Austrian gentry: Baronet Hirsh Leib von Merores — people later spoke of the family’s Spanish heritage.
The stories about his two wives, however, were far more exciting and eerily romantic: the legitimate spouse, the born Princess Sturdza, and his mistress, the beautiful peasant girl Ioana Ciornei. He had lived with both at once, and rumor had it that they died at the same time — that is to say, he killed them, or they killed each other. The motive was said to be a fabulous diamond, a single stone of unusual size and unique cut: Săndrel Paşcanu was said to have presented it to the princess the morning after their wedding night, and later to have taken it away to give to Ciornei on a similar, though less legitimate, occasion. Supposedly the two women, whom he forced to live in the same house, battled each other fiercely, and at the center of their conflict was the stone, which became a kind of a symbol, a fetish for conjuring the love of Săndrel Paşcanu.
People said that they conducted their feud with the strangest weapons. For instance, Ioana Ciornei couldn’t withstand the princess’s gaze and always wore a veil whenever the latter was present, so that Princess Sturdza would lie in wait, ready to reveal her eyes and force Ciornei to her knees and make her give up the stone. Meanwhile, the princess had a very delicate sense of hearing, and couldn’t bear her rival’s voice: so once the princess had recovered the diamond through the power of her princely gaze, Ciornei would sing peasant songs day in and day out, both happy and sad, until the princess was driven to the point of insanity and would hurl the stone at her rival’s feet. In the end Paşcanu is said to have killed them both, or else they killed themselves, their hands so firmly locked onto the diamond that they had to be buried in one coffin.
Of course that was sheer fantasy. After all, we had our friend Widow Morar to thank for most of the stories.
What was true, however, was that both of Săndrel Paşcanu’s wives lay buried next to each other in the little forest of Horecea. The oak grove was about a half hour’s wagonride out of town and belonged to a small monastery; Paşcanu’s generous donations had made the monks eager to do his bidding, and they watched over the grave of his wives like a holy shrine. Apart from that, he was accompanied on his nightly visits by his elephant-sized coachman, who despite his mutilation, which was generally understood to have a mollifying effect, was supposedly as mean and cunning as a buffalo gone wild.
We did manage to visit the mausoleum several times, though always during the day, and without being able to see whatever fantastic things were happening behind the thick tangle of barbed wire. The structure was indeed a detailed reproduction of the Taj Mahal, except for the fact it was made of the cheapest limestone and covered with plaster that had long since yellowed and partially peeled off. It was also very much scaled down in size, so the whole thing looked pretty hideous. The long reflecting pool, where we expected to see lotus flowers, was brimming with frogs and toads.