I’m a Communist Biddy!

novel

by Dan Lungu

Novel, "Ego Prose" series, Polirom, 2007, 243 pages

Copyright: Polirom, ines.simionescu@polirom.ro

Dan Lungu website: http://www.danlungu.eu/

Translation rights sold to: Actes Sud (France), Residenz (Austria), Pre-textos (Spain), Jelenkor (Hungary), Faber Print Ltd. (Bulgaria), Czarne (Poland), Gruppo Editoriale Zonza (Italy), Apollon Yayincilik (Turkey), Kastaniotis (Greece)

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Synopsis

The profound stake of Dan Lungu’s novel resides in an examination of the

following paradox: how is it possible that many, even very many, people who formerly

lived in a totalitarian, inhuman regime, without having enjoyed privileges or favours, can

now be capable of nostalgia? The author, through the intermediary of an old woman,

who relates her life in the first person, attempts to deconstruct the mechanisms of

nostalgia and to unravel this psychological enigma.

The novel is set ten years after the fall of the Ceauşescu dictatorship and shortly

before the general elections. Emilia Apostoae, a pensioner, the greater part of whose life

has been lived under the “people’s regime”, receives a telephone call from Alice, her

daughter, an immigrant in Canada, who urges her mother “not to vote for the former

communists”. This telephone call, followed by other arguments, casts Emilia into a

veritable crisis of identity, from which she tries to save herself by recollecting the past

and seeking to justify her nostalgia in her own eyes and those of her daughter. We thus

go back to her childhood and adolescence during the time of the dictatorship; we enter

the rhythms and problems of daily life during that epoch.

The story moves at a brisk pace, the dialogue is engaging, humour shows its

fangs, and mindsets develop by degrees. Apparently simple occurrences progressively

develop their power of suggestion and range. Little by little, we are presented a

“normality” constructed by the regime and decanted in time, a normality that stirs regrets

in Emilia but chills the reader. Dan Lungu does not accuse, but rather is empathetic: he

describes the atrocity of an evil that has become banal, while at the same time being

careful of the dignity of his characters. He writing is rich in significant and redolent

detail, but it does not even for a moment lose sight of the broader picture.

“I’m a Communist Biddy!” is more than the tale of an old woman: it is a museum

on paper of daily life in a totalitarian society, a compendium of political humour, a lesson

about the incommensurability of human experiences and, why not, the unpredictable

story of an abstention from the vote.

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7

After Catrina was gone, I had been left thinking about the past. I wandered around the

house muttering to myself. Once you get old, it’s nice to pass the time like that. You

settle accounts with all and sundry, you make the answers that didn’t come to you at the

time, you smile at pleasant memories, you go over the sequence of events whenever you

feel like it, so as to understand why things turned out in one particular way and not

another. Your whole life’s there with you in the same room. Your plans are past rather

than future plans. You keep rearranging the same pieces, without growing bored even for

a second. Just as children – and Alice was no exception – like to listen to the same story

countless times. Only conversations with people of the same age as you seem interesting,

because that’s the only way you can find new pieces, which are rarer and rarer. And if

the past has been beautiful, whereas the present is a disaster, then grumbling is

obligatory.

When the phone rang, I was just giving Tzucu an earful, because he had left a pair of

socks lying around, even though he wasn’t present in fact. At that hour the only person

who could be phoning was Alice. Since she got pregnant, she’s been phoning more often

than before. And her it was. She had a perky voice, a sign that she was doing fine:

“How are you, mum? Haven’t you gone to bed yet?”

“I was just scolding your dad…”

“Really? Put him on the phone.”

“Why, do you want to sold him a bit too?”

“No, not really, I trust you. I just want to see how he is.”

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“Your dad’s with his chickens. I was grumbling at him because he left his socks lying

around the house…”

“Ah, I see… Just you stay annoyed until he gets back…”

“Better you tell me how that little Canadian of yours is doing.”

“He keeps moving around in my tummy… Yesterday I felt a heel.”

“Make sure you eat well.”

“I’m eating, I’m eating… but he drains me. He likes his calcium, especially the calcium

from my teeth. It probably tastes better.”

“Have you got tooth problems?”

“I broke a molar…”

“Be careful!”

“Tell me, mum, who are you voting for on Sunday? That’s why I’m phoning.”

“And that’s why you can’t sleep over there in Canada? Because you don’t know who I’m

going to be voting for?”

“It’s not an issue of international interest yet. Ha, ha! But I’d like to know… Go on, tell

me!”

“Are you going to be voting?”

“Of course, at the embassy… Go on, tell me!”

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“Hmm, Sunday’s still a long way off… I’ve got time to make up my mind and change it

a hundred times…”

“Oh, you’re stringing me along. Let me explain it to you. I’m a member of a Romanian

association here… and we’ve decided to do something for the elections in Romania…

and so each of us has to talk to two or three people, as many as we know, and convince

them to vote for democracy…”

“So, you’re doing some electoral campaigning, are you?”

“Well, not really… The idea is not to vote for such and such a party, but rather not to

vote for the former communists.”

“Really? Well, who are you going to vote for then? Pope Pius?”

“Come on, mum, I’m serious…”

“What, do you think I’m joking? For me, things are simple: before the Revolution I had

it much, much better than I do now. Who would you vote for in my place?”

“I think you’re exaggerating with ‘much, much better’, mum. Don’t you remember the

meat queues? They used to stretch all the way round the block…”

“True, there were queues back then, but now you go to the shops, you admire the cutlets,

you gulp, and you quickly go back out, because you can’t afford to buy them. Or else

you can look at one of the nouveaux riches buying two kilos of steak. I don’t know,

really I don’t, which time was better… I’ve seen people on television dying of hunger,

families with children sleeping rough on the street… Nothing like that used to happen

during communism.”

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“Things will sort themselves out… For the moment, we’re going through a period of

transition… but I’m optimistic.”

“It’s easy to be optimistic if you’re living in Canada, France or America… It’s harder to

be optimistic if you live here… Then you’d see what optimism is! Optimism with hair-

curlers!”

“Come on, mum, you know very well what the situation is…”

“Come on indeed! I know what the situation is with the businessman who stole such and

such a factory when it was privatised, but we don’t have the same menu for dinner.”

“What about freedom, mum? That doesn’t compare with anything. Back then we were

afraid of our own shadows… The fact that now you can say what you want and write

what you want, you can travel, you can shout ‘Down with the government!”

“You know what, all those rich people travel, all the ones who stole what we worked for.

As for shouting, you can shout till you’re blue in the face now, because no one is

listening in any case… If it were up to me, I’d be happy if everything went back to

communism tomorrow.”

“Oh no, mum, I thought you were having me on, but you’re more communist than I

thought!”

“I’ve shown my true face. I’m a communist biddy, if you didn’t know. That’s what I

am.”

“And if Ceausescu was standing on Sunday would you vote for him?”

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“I hadn’t thought of that. But if my former boss were standing, I’d elect him president.

He knew how to bring in orders… He knew how to treat people… He looked after us

all… The way he ran a team, he could run a country too.”

“Alright, I understand… But what did communism do for you that was so great that you

don’t want to let it go? Apart from lies, terror, queues, fear… what else did it do?

“I’m talking about my life, Alice, not about others’. In the first place, communism made

me a town-dweller.”

“If…”

“Let me finish. If they hadn’t built factories, roads, flats… but factories in particular…

the two of us, Emilia and Alice, we’d be clomping around in cowpats till our eyes popped

out, in some village knee-deep in mud.”

“I don’t agree. If there had been capitalism, even more would have been achieved…”

“But in the end, it was communism that achieved it. If capitalism had done it, I’d have

been on the side of capitalism… After giving me a job, communism gave me a flat and a

gas canister… Free, mind you.”

“A matchbox, mum, not a flat.”

“Whatever you say, lass. But big enough to raise a clever, bonny bairn in, one who got

married in Canada.”

“You’re tugging at the heartstrings, eh?!”

“Communist biddy that I am, I’m good at propaganda. I almost went to the Party

School.”

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“Look, mum, the same as you talk about your experiences in life, I can say the same thing

about my own experience: I haven’t got a single reason to miss communism. If there

hadn’t been a revolution, I would have been a wretched engineer in some filthy factory,

in some godforsaken town. I would have been living in a matchbox with a view over a

field or a cemetery… Oh, and I would have had a gas canister. Look what I missed out

on!”

“Yes, well, I think you would have done pretty well at a Party School. Except that, mind

you, lots of young folk today, even the ones here in our block, yearn for…”

“I told you I was speaking for myself. And maybe for other young people who have

emigrated…”

“Maybe some of them would have reasons to thank Ceausescu… If he hadn’t made the

law against abortion, they’d never have been born to have the opportunity to curse

him…”

“What you’re saying is horrible, mum!”

“But that’s the way things are, what do you want! It wasn’t the case with you, you were

wanted…”

“And if Ceausescu had lasted another ten years, all those children you’re talking about

would have had bellies swollen with hunger…”

“Remember we’re talking on your phone, you’ll get such a big bill…”

“Don’t you worry about that, here in the putrid West it’s cheap to make calls… Better

tell me how things stand with your vote.”

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“Well, what can I say…”

“What shall I tell the people from the association?”

“Tell them simply… I didn’t have anyone to vote for, that your mother’s a communist

biddy… And that’s that!”

“I’ll tell them just that, you know!”

“God forbid!”

“Alright, mum, I say you should think some more… Not about the present, because it’s

none too jolly… but about the future.”

“My future’s up on the hill, in the cemetery. I think about it fondly.”

“I see you’ve got a mind for black jokes today.”

“Oh, what can I do, Alice, if the only good things for me are those bound to the past.”

“I’ll leave you now. I’m off. I think I should wish you good night, shouldn’t I?”

“Alright, goodbye. Take care of the little’un… and your teeth.”

So, I was more communist that my daughter had thought.

And even than I myself had thought.

I sat down in front of the television, but I was restless. I couldn’t follow what was

happening on the screen. Until the conversation with Alice, I’d never thought of myself

as a communist. I’d often found myself dreaming of that wonderful time in my life,

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when I was young and I used to work heroically, when I used to prepare hearty meals for

the family and go on holiday, but it had never crossed my mind that all this meant you

were a communist. I missed those times, the people around me, the gayety, the solidarity.

But, I don’t know why, that nostalgia didn’t fit the name of communist one little bit. In

fact I might know why. Maybe because back then, between ourselves, we used to label

as communists all those people who gave passionate speeches at long and boring

meetings. All those who toed the Party line without looking left or right, without any

concern for people, and without any understanding of particular situations. For us, it

wasn’t the Party members who were communists, but the political activists and the

fanatics. Them I didn’t miss. Now the communists were those who had lied, who had

confiscated, who had imprisoned, who had tortured and so many other things. I didn’t

count myself as either one or the other. What kind of communist was I? If they were the

communists, then did it mean that I wanted communism without communists? But was

communism possible without “that kind” of communist? If not, then did I still want

communism? If it was only they who were communists, then I didn’t want to be a

communist any more. Is it possible to be one without wanting to?

I fell asleep in front of the television.

At some point in the night, I woke up confused. I turned off the television, drank some

water and moved to the bedroom. I didn’t undress.

The next morning, a Monday, I woke up abnormally late. When I opened my eyes, a

child outside was shouting:

“Come on, don’t be a communist, give me a turn on your bike!”

I smiled crookedly.

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10

Lord, how good we had it during communism!

If I had just half of what I had back then I’d be content. Not even half, a quarter and I’d

still say thank you kindly. I used to have everything I wished for. It’s true, back then

you didn’t wish for much. I reckon you didn’t use to know that money could do so much,

not like now. But in that world I had everything my heart desired. I used to drink only

ground and instant coffee … They were a rarity back then, but that wasn’t a problem for

me. I had jeans that cost eight hundred lei a pair. Eight hundred was a real sum, no joke!

And you couldn’t find jeans on just any street corner… Well, I had jeans! When I went

out wearing them, all the people in the neighbourhood would turn their heads to stare at

me. Kent and Bulgar Tabak for the doctors, it goes without saying. There was never any

time when I didn’t have a few packets in the house, in case – God forbid! – I came down

ill or needed sick leave. I even smoked those quality cigarettes myself, back in the time

when I used to be daft, because I never inhaled the smoke into my lungs.

What didn’t I have!?

The boss used to bring us crates of Pepsi from the Party Restaurant. Sweets to hang on

the Christmas tree too. At Christmas, you wouldn’t catch me without any sweets to hang

on the tree or without any oranges. Meat, eggs, cheese, oho, if I’d been able to eat as

much as I used to be able to get hold of. When the boss didn’t bring any, I used to go off

to the shops where I knew the women vendors and I’d not go away empty handed. Of

course, you had to be careful with them, because they had to eat too. Sometimes they

would phone me to come by the shop, because they’d have put something good aside for

me, because they knew I wouldn’t leave them with empty pockets. Not only did I give

them a tip every time, but also if they happened to need any backstairs influence

somewhere they knew that I could sort it out for sure. To be honest, sometimes I didn’t

even have that much need for what they’d put aside for me, but I still used to drop by to

take it. I would take it to my relatives in the village, bring it to work, or treat Mrs Rozalia

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to it, the seamstress from our block. Back then I had enough to give others, but now I

don’t even have enough for myself. And Alice keeps wondering why I want to vote for

the former communists…

I had everything my heart desired.

If I felt like a drop of the strong stuff, I didn’t poison myself with any old rotgut, I used to

get hold of a fine brandy, a Vasconi or Union, or Russian vodka, the stuff that was

twenty-five lei a bottle. I used to buy only Guban shoes, with soft leather, so that they

wouldn’t give you blisters even if you walked a hundred kilometres. I used to wash with

Fa or Rexona soap, which I’d get from the Poles who used to come in those little toy-

town cars of theirs. And on top of all that Tzuca had his connexions too. He knew a

bloke called Fane and he would bring him the moon in the sky if he gave the word. I

didn’t like him, because he was a bit of a racketeer, that’s to say I would get you

whatever you wanted, but it would sting you in the wallet. Then there was Muraru, who

used to bring us strawberries or tomatoes by the crate, at half the price or even a quarter,

depending on how much of a hurry he was in to get to the pub. He worked at a collective

farm somewhere, near town, and he was unrelenting, he sold anything he could get his

hands on, I don’t even know how he found the time to work, because he would always be

doing the rounds in his car. We used to get cucumbers, onions, garlic, peppers from him.

My pickles would turn out as cheap as mineral water. Another one, Mr Sorry, was a lorry

driver at the milk factory – to be exact he went round collecting the milk from the

villages every day. It was a funny story with him. Me and my husband used to call him

that because he said “sorry” every other word. He couldn’t say, “Yesterday I ate some

cherries”, but “Yesterday, sorry, I ate some cherries”, as if he’d done something

shameful. It was him I used to buy butter from. But Mr Sorry would bring a butter that

was thick and yellow, not like anything you could find in socialist commerce, you could

fire it from a gun. Except that it wasn’t in a packet, he’d bring us it loose, in a bag.

“Where the hell does he get butter like this?” I always used to ask myself, my husband

too. It must have been for export, that’s what we suspected. I gave it to others to taste

and it wasn’t us who were mad, they’d never tasted anything like it either. We tried to

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worm it out of him a few times, but mister Sorry was hardened, you couldn’t get a peep

out of him, he wasn’t one of those folk that are ten a penny. We’d try to wheedle it out of

him, we’d wear him out, like we were reeling in a big perch, but just as we were about to

net him, he’d always give us a “Professional secret, sorry!” Until one fine day our Mr

Sorry turned up quite tipsy. We called him into the kitchen, so as not to keep him

standing, and we served him with one thing and another. I remember we even gave him

some whiskey, I don’t know where we’d got it from, and his eyes boggled as big as

dinner plates: “Hey, you certainly don’t stint yourselves, sorry!” Talking about all kinds

of things and about nothing in particular, just when we were least expecting it, Mr Sorry

starts telling us about what we’d been dying to get out of him for the last two years.

“Not even our director eats butter like this,” says he, and then he spills the beans.

And what was it our driver used to do? After he’d loaded the cistern with milk in some

godforsaken village, he would take out two or three tennis balls and drop them inside. As

the milk got jiggled around in the van, for fifty or sixty kilometres, a bit like in a

centrifuge, the butter would bind to the balls, only the crème de la crème. If the village

was nearer, he would drop more balls in. Once he arrived, all he had to do was fish out

the boulders of butter, and then he’d extract the tennis balls and wash them in hot water.

After the story came into the open, I didn’t buy any more butter from him. To tell the

truth, I was disgusted. I preferred to buy my butter from the shops.

How good we had it during communism!

I mean, did Alice have to chew that gum that turned to flour in your mouth? Not on your

life. I used to get her that Hungarian gum, the stuff with different flavours which you

could even blow bubbles with. She had as much chocolate as she pleased, especially the

Chinese stuff, from the Party Canteen. Biscuits, sweets, wafers – on tap! We used to eat

oranges until we burst… And figs… And lemons… And dates… And ban… No, I tell

a lie, we never ate bananas. They were hard to come by. I think they were more for the

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bigwigs. On the other hand, we had banana-flavoured toothpaste, so we knew what they

tasted like.

We had it all…

There wasn’t a single Sunday when we didn’t go out to a restaurant. A steak was five lei,

I remember it perfectly. They were good, one was big enough for two people. A beer

was three lei. Or five lei, if it was the really good stuff. A Pepsi was three lei too.

Sparkling wine was eighteen lei. From the food shop, plus the deposit on the bottle, it

was twenty-one. A packet of Kent was also eighteen lei. I know all the prices. Back

then I lived decently, that’s a fact. With a hundred lei, Lord, what a meal you could eat

in a restaurant! With dessert as well. Back then, I earned four or five thousand lei, it

varied from month to month, depending on how we fulfilled the quotas. Lord, what a lot

of money! Now, with all this inflation, a tram ticket’s five thousand lei. As for a steak, I

don’t even want to imagine! I know, wages are higher too, but it still doesn’t compare.

When I see what the prices are, I can’t believe it, it’s as if I’d just come from another

planet. Prices with a whole load of zeros at the end, as long as caterpillars. During

communism, a zero was worth something, now it’s nothing. Four zeros today aren’t even

worth one of Ceausescu’s zeros.

I bought myself a cooker straight after we were allocated a flat. I paid two thousand for

it. I got a washing machine sometime later, because I’d always liked to wash by hand.

You can be sure that clothes scrubbed by hand are clean. I got a washing machine more

because Tzucu used to nag me about it, but once I had one I saw that it was useful. We

lacked nothing. We had a television too. We put our names down on the list at the shop

and six months later they phoned us to tell us it was our turn. As easy as pie. We paid

for it in a few instalments. A black-and-white TV, which lasted us twenty years. The

communists built things to last, not like nowadays. Not long ago I bought a pair of shoes

from the market and the sole came unstuck three days later. After ten years, we turned

the black-and-white telly into a colour one, because that was the fashion. We’d seen

other people do it. You got yourself a pane of coloured glass, in a wooden frame, and

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fixed it in front of the screen. We had a green pane and you could see everything in

different shades of green. Then Alice saw a blue screen at the house of one of her

friends, when she was in the second or third form, and she kept pestering us until we

found ourselves a blue pane of glass. She used to change them around depending on how

she felt. Those colour-colour tellies appeared later. They were Russian. We got one too,

just before the Revolution. We waited a year for it, and even that was because we knew

someone who was able to put our names higher up the list. What can I say: we had it all!

It was good…

And how we travelled!

I saw the whole country… When I had a holiday, I used to go to the seaside, to the

mountains, and I even made it to the Delta. Then I would go to visit my godparents and a

few cousins. Because you couldn’t go abroad… Anyway, you didn’t even have the time

to go, because once you’d done the seaside and the mountains and visited all your

relatives, your holiday was over. When would you have had the time to go anywhere

else? But even so, I still got as far as Bulgaria. Varna. It looked the same as in

Romania. What’s the point of going abroad when all you can see are the same things as

here? Because over there the mountains are still mountains, the sand is still sand, and the

sea is still water. Maybe it’s not even as nice as it is here, and you spend all that extra

money for nothing. Except that you can say you’ve been abroad. There are not many

people who have a country as beautiful as this one. I’ve got a bagful of photographs I

took on holiday. The whole country is there, in that bag. Nowadays, I haven’t even got

the money for an identity card photograph.

There wasn’t a weekend when we didn’t have a picnic, play volleyball, visit the

monasteries of Bucovina. It wasn’t always easy with the petrol rationing, but we

managed. Only those who didn’t want to didn’t manage. Then there was that nasty

period, when, to economise, one week only cars with even numbers could circulate and

the next week only those with odd numbers. One week we’d use our car, the next week

our neighbours’ or workmates’ cars. And we still had fun. We were young and

15

beautiful. Two years after the Revolution, we had to sell our car, because it had become

nothing more than an ornament. The price of petrol had gone up, and we could no longer

afford it. Nowadays, I wouldn’t even be able to afford a child’s scooter.

If I had it even half as good now as I had it under communism, I’d be happy. What am I

saying, even if I had it a quarter as good, I’d still be grateful.

Maybe I ought to have told Alice all this… But back then she always had to study. And

now… how can I tell her all this, and so much more, over the phone?

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21

It’s nine in the morning and we’re working like daft. We’re giving it our all, so that

we can take it easy after the break. The doorbell, loud and hoarse, like a hooter, informs

us that there’s someone at the door, a stranger. The bolt is drawn and the foreman

appears, with a face like a funeral. Next to him, an elegant bloke holding a cigarette,

none too jolly either. Aurelia whispers to me that it’s the new director. I heard a few

months ago that they’d changed the director, but I hadn’t had a chance to see his mug

until now. Shaven to the bone, with an impeccable haircut, but forbidding at first sight.

I’m thinking that the foreman is in hot water or that one of us has put our foot in it, really

deep, if the director has condescended to take his fancy suit for a walk among our greasy

overalls. Comrade Suit puts his hands over his ears and scrunches up his eyes, and the

foreman makes a sign for us to shut down the machinery. As soon as you can hear

yourself think, the foreman tells us to gather around, because the comrade director

general has an announcement for us. We form a circle around him. Comrade Suit stubs

out his cigarette end with the toe of his 420-lei-a-pair shoe, clasps his hands together, and

lets rip, solemnly:

“Dear comrades, I have some good news for us all. Because your workshop has

for many years been foremost in ‘Socialist Competition’, the comrades from the County

branch of the Party have entrusted us with a lofty and privileged mission.”

We’re obviously in for it now, I tell myself. They’re probably going to increase our

hours.

“A mission of which we should be proud. That of presenting and making known

the fruits of our labour at the highest level possible, to comrade Nicolae Ceauşescu...”

Blah, blah, blah. We all freeze to the spot. In three days, Ceauşescu is going to

visit our workshop, to stimulate production for export.

“Please start preparing for this edifying moment immediately!” the director

concludes his speech.

This means military discipline, we all know it.

Gaffer Mitu has a pasteurised look about him, as he himself says. Either he’s got a

hangover, or his morning dose of holy water was a bit too large.

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The foreman tries to obtain a day’s delay from the director, before commencing the

cleanup, because we have to finish an order for Thailand. Any delay will result in docked

wages.

“Comrade, Ceauşescu is coming, don’t you understand? Is export what matters to

us now?” the director snaps at him, lighting another cigarette.

They both go out, and we remain, pensive.

“On my life, I won’t budge until I take a photo of Ceauşescu right here next to my

lathe, says gaffer Mitu, chewing his words.

“Gaffer Mitu, if Ceauşescu shakes hands with you, you won’t wash until your

dying day,” gaffer Pancu goads him.

“Noooo, I want a kiss from Lena. I’m going to dress up as a pioneer and give her

flowers, just so she’ll give me a peck on the cheek.”

We all laugh, but without pleasure.

The foreman comes back sharpish. He reads gaffer Mitu at a glance and sends him

off to sleep for an hour. He hasn’t managed to budge the director on a delay, so we all

get ready to make everywhere squeaky clean. He warns us that if we don’t make a good

job of it, we’ll all be in the lurch. The director, especially given that he’s new, is also

quaking in his underpants, so he’ll be keeping a close eye on us in the days to come. In

three days and three nights we’ll have to sort out everything that hasn’t been repaired or

cleaned for the last twenty years. If need be, we’ll work in shifts. We won’t be alone,

because the entire factory will be in on the act. Our workshop has been picked out, but

you never know where Ceauşescu will have a mind to poke his nose in. I’ve never seen

the foreman so agitated. He’s talking and walking among us. He’s thinking out loud.

He’s giving orders for today and the following days.

He changes his mind. He contradicts himself. He stutters.

He’s in a panic!

18

In the end, we manage to get ourselves organised somewhat. We decide to start

with the whitewashing, because that makes the most mess. Then we’ll go on to painting

everything that hasn’t seen a paintbrush for years, cleaning the windows, polishing the

machinery, and after that we’ll see.

The scurrying begins. At first we all get under each other’s feet, but little by little

we each settle down to business. Where they’ve passed by with the whitewash, Aurelia

and me clean up the splashes and do the windows. Sanda couldn’t be luckier – she’s on

maternity leave.

It’s afternoon already and things are progressing nicely, but we’re far from having

finished. We’ve only had a quarter of an hour break. My back is aching and my hands

are stinging. At first, me and Aurelia chatted about this and that, but now we’re working

in silence. The only thing you can hear is the swishing of the brush and the creaking of

the windows.

From the storeroom appear two women with piles of overalls and all kinds of

protective gear. We receive new kit. On the day of the visit we’ll have to look like in the

textbook, as the foreman says. With helmets and goggles, with gloves and leather aprons

where the case.

On this occasion, the boss decrees a break. He sends someone to buy food for all

the others. Plus mineral water, in spite of some murmured protests. He brings the coffee

from his own office.

Each person has to sign for the new kit. For the first time ever, the people from

stores have the patience to let us try the gear on. Up to now, they always used to give us

it and that would be that. If it was too small or too large, you would have to pester them

for a week before they would change it for you. We lay out the table for everyone, and

we go off one at a time and come back with our effects under our arm. We munch

without speaking, lost in our own thoughts.

Gaffer Mitu appears, with a helmet on his head, goggles, apron and bulky pigskin

gloves. He walks swaying, with his arms spread out in front of him, as though he wanted

to throttle somebody.

“My name is Dumitru Prunariu,” he says, “the first Romanian in space. At this

solemn moment, I want to convey to you greetings from our Martian friends.”

19

I take advantage of the moment of relaxation to make a phone call to Tzucu and tell

him I don’t know when I’ll be getting back. He’s just got in, immediately after Alice,

and is warming up the dinner. I explain to him what it’s all about and he says he knows

about Ceauşescu’s visit, that they have been mobilised too, and that he’ll tell me all about

it at home. Today they got away quickly, but tomorrow looks set to be grim. I ask him

to take Alice round to Sanda’s, for a day or two, until the storm passes. It’s not the first

time the lass has stayed at her auntie’s, because they get on really well.

The street is all a bustle too. Barrels of tar are boiling, and the tipper trucks are

unloading asphalt. Down the hill, the steamrollers are already at work. At last, they are

laying some asphalt round here. Up to now, you had to do the slalom in the car just to

avoid the potholes. By the entrance on the hill, the tall dusty pines are being washed with

a hose. Next to our fence, facing the street, mounds of black earth are being carried off in

buckets. The gravel and dry grass disappear, and here and there flowerbeds are being

made. The watchmen are painting the large gate at the vehicles entrance.

The other sections aren’t sitting idle either. Everyone is on the move. Inside, they

have already gone on to painting. In the first place, the flange that runs around the

workshop, then we go on to the metal parts, the posts and all the rest. Everything in

green. Although the windows are wide open, the smell is making us dizzy.

It’s ten o’clock at night and, the same as everywhere else in town, the power has

been cut off.

We light a few lanterns, but you can’t see much. The foreman is in despair. He’s

talking on the phone in his office. He’s roaring:

“Ceauşescu is coming, don’t you understand? Turn the power on, otherwise it will

be you who has to answer for it.”

We wait. We’re exhausted. The boss keeps making phone calls. Not even gaffer

Mitu has any more appetite for jokes.

At last, the electricity comes back on and, with difficulty, we start work again. We

don’t make much headway. He leaves us to it for another hour and then lets us go home.

When I get back, Tzucu is asleep. I don’t wake him. I fall asleep like a log.

20

Here we are the next day, at the crack of dawn. Among us, two unknown persons

in new overalls. The foreman makes the introductions, glumly:

“These are your new colleagues. They are called Andrei and Maria. They will be

the workers’ representatives in the official delegation that will accompany the comrade

President. Now they will give us a helping hand and familiarise themselves with the

workplace.”

Andrei is athletic, with short hair. Judging from his jaw, I would sooner see him in

shorts and boxing gloves than in overalls. Maria is very pretty, just right for handing

over flowers.

The plan for today is as follows: in the morning we’ll finish painting inside and

polish all the machinery until you can see you face in it, and in the afternoon we’ll move

on to fixing up the exterior. I’m in the same team as Aurelia again. We start on the

machinery. We remove the oil-soaked dust from all the crannies, scrub with emery

paper, and buff with felt. The boss passes it on, from one to another, for us to mind what

we say in front of the new pair. There wasn’t any need to tell us. The hardest will be for

gaffer Mitu, who has a bit of a loose tongue.

I peek from the corner of my eye at our new workmates. Andrei is looking at a

lathe like it’s a giraffe, and it’s as though Maria is holding a hedgehog not a rag.

“It’s hard to change your trade from one day to the next,” I whisper to Aurelia.

Aurelia laughs to herself.

Comrade Suit passes by to see how the work is going and to encourage us.

At one point, Maria comes over to us. She asks us for a plaster, because she has got

a blister from the emery paper. She has delicate hands, but the nails are not polished. I

bring her a roll of leucoplast from the first aid kit, to cut off as much as she wants. She

asks us if we usually work like this.

“Not quite at this pace, but it’s hard work,” says Aurelia prudently.

Maria stays next to us. She has begun to get used to it and is scrubbing vigorously.

She tells us she has a bairn in the fourth form and that the lessons are hard, they have a

whole heap of subjects. I say that it’s better that way, so that they’ll get used to hard

work from an early age. After that I regret saying it. Who knows how she’ll interpret it.

We scrub in silence.

21

The boss calls me to one side and tells me it’s my turn to go and talk to the secret

policeman responsible for the factory. He explains which office I have to go to. He tells

me not to be frightened. It’s nothing serious. Everyone has to go. (…)

“Apostoae Emilia ?” the secret policeman asks me, leafing through some

documents.

I nod yes. He is a man of about forty, going slightly grey, with a placid face and a

bored voice. I’d expected to see a harsher figure, with a thundering voice.

“Maiden name Burac ?”

“Yes.”

“Mother and father agricultural labourers?”

“Exactly”

“What does your husband do?”

“Locksmith mechanic.”

“Yes… yes… But why aren’t you a member of the Party?”

“Hmmm… I don’t know… I don’t think I have the necessary ideological level,

comrade…”

“I see that you are a good element, you don’t have any deviations…”

“That’s right.”

“You have received a flat through the factory, how do you feel in it?”

“Good.”

“Were you put forward to join the Party but refused?”

“No.”

“But if you were put forward, would you accept?”

“I don’t know… I think so.”

“And you say you don’t have the necessary ideological level? How is that?”

“I don’t know… That’s what I think…”

“What are you lacking in order to have the necessary ideological level?”

“Perhaps I should study Party documents more… How do I know?”

“Are you satisfied with the collective you work in?”

“Yes.”

22

“And with the foreman?”

“With him too.”

“Do you have any complaints about the workplace?”

“Nnno.”

“Do you consider that you lack anything in particular, which the factory might help

you with?”

“I don’t know… Maybe a gas cylinder…”

“Is that all?”

“Yes, I think so.”

“Well then, fill in a request form, which you will leave with me, and tomorrow go

to the union to pick up a voucher for the gas cylinder.”

When I get back, they’re on a break. I get out my packed lunch and sit on the

bench outside, next to Aurelia.

“How was it?” she asks me.

I look at her amazed at how she knew.

“The boss told me that I have to go after the break as well.”

“Aha,” it all becomes clear to me. “He’s alright even so. He asks you what

complaints you have. I told him that I’d like a gas cylinder and he told me to fill in a

request form.”

“But why hasn’t he asked us up to now?”

I nod my head in sign that it’s clear why now and not before. We eat. Finally,

Aurelia gets out an orange. She tells me about how at her husband’s shop they don’t stint

on unloading the goods. They get all kinds of stuff. Salami, milk, chocolate, everything.

And not just them, but in almost all the neighbourhoods. Well, there’s still a queue, but

only twenty or thirty people, not hordes.

Maria comes over, so we stop talking. Aurelia offers her some of the opened

orange. Maria takes a segment, picks off the pith, and then eats it. I look at her with

round eyes.

“I can’t stand the pith. I eat oranges like grapefruit,” she smiles.

23

So as not to show myself up, I don’t tell her that I’ve not yet had occasion to eat a

grapefruit.

In the afternoon, we all move on to outside. We sweep, clean, dig. We’ve received

black earth, roses and pieces of lawn from the town hall. We paint all the outside pipes

and the mobile crane. On the main wing of the factory, another team, from another

section, paints in letters as tall as a man “Long Live the Romanian Communist Party”.

The porters have also received two new colleagues. The asphalting of the road has

reached the factory yard.

In the evening, when the power is cut off, they let us go home.

I get back knackered. It’s too late to phone Sanda to see how Alice is. I chat with

Tzucu for a little. We haven’t spoken for two days. He tells me that they were taken off

to transplant maize. They go to the Party Farm, uproot the maize from an experimental

plot –

large and comely maize, with great big cobs – and then they plant it at the edge of the

fields, two or three rows deep, along the roads which Ceauşescu will travel down to I

don’t know what agricultural collective. They uproot the puny maize and load it into

trailers. Even he doesn’t know what happens after that. They carry out all these

operations in the blazing sun. At least they give them mineral water.

The third day is a bit lighter. We’re busy “decking out portraits”. We divide into

two teams, one for inside and one for outside. I’m inside. We make a panel of honour,

with photographs of the foremost workers. We’re having fun. We put Mitu’s photograph

as the best of the best, the model to be followed. Then we draw up a graph of political

information meetings, with dates and topics that we just make up. That is, not exactly –

we copy them from a template brought by the foreman. We cut out articles from

newspapers, which we tack to a piece of polystyrene wrapped in red canvas. We hang up

two or three portraits of Ceauşescu. The boss brings us some twenty thick volumes of the

works of Uncle Nicu, to put in his office. Because he doesn’t have a bookcase, we cart

one from the Furniture Factory, on loan. He also brings forty flowerpots, for us to spread

24

around the place, as aesthetically as possible. We have to sign for them. Whatever gets

lost or broken, we’ll have to pay for.

There’s a hullabaloo outside. Someone’s shouting.

Me and Aurelia go to the door to see what it’s all about.

A scowling bloke with brown hair, wearing a suit and tie, is rolling his eyes and

foaming at the mouth.

“You’re a bunch of idiots and dolts! You’re in for it now, I promise you! As soon

as this visit is over you’ll have me to answer to! Is this a factory for drunkards? Is it

wine we make or do we produce for export? You’re irresponsible.”

And off he goes like a whirlwind, one of those ones that flatten everything in their

path. We find out that it was the grapevines that had upset him. Gaffer Culidiuc is the

most affected of all of us. He had planted them, cleaned them and trimmed them for

years, and now the lads have already set about pulling them up. He can’t watch; he goes

into the workshop. The boss doesn’t say anything, because the new workmates are there,

but his eyes are blazing. I’ll miss shade too, the plump black bunches of grapes…

Gaffer Culidiuc makes a sign to us that the scowling bloke is barmy. We ask him who he

is and he says that he is a bigwig in the County branch of the Party.

Not even an hour passes and the blonde-haired young porter comes in guffawing.

He wants to tell us something, but the foreman makes a discreet sign for him to be silent.

The porter doesn’t catch on and lets rip, thirteen to the dozen. He says that that bloke just

now – Comrade Whirlwind, as I’ve christened him in my mind – found fault with the

pine trees by the main gate, and why are they so dusty. They explained to him that they

had been washed with the hose, but that they couldn’t get them any greener than that.

Then the bloke apparently began to bellow that he wasn’t interested, that, if need be, they

should paint them, only that they should look like real pine trees, from the mountains.

And now, perched on the Electrical Plant trucks with mobile ladders, a number of blokes

are painting the pine trees with spray guns.

Only Adrian, Maria and gaffer Mitu laugh. Oh, and gaffer Culidiuc, who is in the

workshop, standing behind us.

25

Only now does the hapless porter understand. You can see by his frightened

glance.

“In the end, it’s one way of solving it,” he tries to wriggle out of it.

This time, we all laugh.

The porter can’t understand a thing.

The boss takes him by the shoulders and asks him to show him where he saw such a

thing, because he doesn’t believe it. You can see from a mile away that he wants to get

him out of the shit.

Today, we leave earlier, so that we’ll have time to prepare for the next day and to

rest. The boss gives us our final instructions: overalls have to be ironed and starched; the

men have to be shaven and to smell of toothpaste, not of rotgut; the woman without

lipstick, makeup or nail varnish.

I get back home. Tzucu isn’t back yet. The pots are empty, and the sink is full. I

get down to business. Tzuku turns up. He tells me about how some chap with a loud

mouth came and hauled them over the coals: them, for not watering the planted maize,

and the blokes from the Party Farm, who were getting ready a herd of thoroughbred cows

to send to the agricultural collective that Ceauşescu was going to visit, for sabotaging the

event. I described Whirlwind to him and he confirmed it was him. There had been a

right carry-on with the cows. In the first place, he made them remove all the black cows

from the stock, because they didn’t set an optimistic tone. Then he was dissatisfied with

the way they had been washed and curried. But the worst was when he battened onto

their hooves, for not being glossy enough, because he knew that thoroughbred cows have

to have shiny hooves. In the end, he made them lacquer the hooves, for them to look like

in the textbook.

We go on chatting about this and that and then fall asleep.

The big day.

The director general and the boss make the inspection. They closely examine each

of us individually, straightening a collar or two. With all this protective gear on us we

look like something out of an exhibition. The atmosphere is tense. Our new colleagues

26

haven’t turned up, probably because the official delegation has gone somewhere else.

Comrade Suit goes out and we are left to ourselves. The time passes slowly. We walk to

and fro, listlessly. We don’t even feel like sitting down, so as not to crease anything.

On the street, on either side, workers, pioneers and communist youth have already

been deployed, with placards and flags. Their chatter can be heard as far as in the factory

yard.

From time to time, gaffer Mitu walks around swaying, with arms outstretched, as

he imagines a cosmonaut walks. We smile, but we don’t feel like laughing. Whatever

you might say, we are excited. It’s not every day that Ceauşescu comes to our workshop.

And I think that we are a little afraid too, even if no one says so. We have to make a

good impression! A very good impression!

From time to time, the foreman brings us news from Comrade Suit: Ceauşescu is in

town; Ceauşescu is in the viewing stand, the parade is about to begin; Ceauşescu is

having lunch; Ceauşescu is heading for the agricultural collective. The tension grows.

The worst thing is that we don’t have anything to do; we just have to wait. We have to be

ready at any moment.

At around five in the afternoon, a stupendous piece of news arrives: Ceauşescu has

left town.

But we remain in position, in case it’s a false alarm.

At around seven, Comrade Suit appears and confirms that Ceauşescu has left town.

He thanks us and tells us that maybe we will be luckier next time. He leaves in a hurry.

We’re left to ourselves and the atmosphere suddenly relaxes.

“Boss, what about those new colleagues of ours who didn’t turn up today? What

shall we do? Clock them out?” asks gaffer Mitu drolly.

“Bugger them!”

We all decide to go to a restaurant and celebrate our achievement.

27