I’m aware that such attacks — such stray dogs — would raise alarm in any other city. A mayor would have to come up with some solution. Not here, not in Bucharest. Not even if children are attacked, which happens more than you might believe. Let me just tell you that besides organized crime and corruption, organized dog attacks are next! Alright, alright, dogs perhaps represent a different kind of danger, but again, it all depends on how you look at it.
You now ask me, How come the same people who got rid of a dictator like Nicolai Ceausescu seem not to be able to deal with dogs? A legitimate question, indeed, and one that I expected. What didn’t occur to you is that perhaps people here don’t want to deal with dogs. In a way, you see, this whole thing is Ceausescu’s legacy, one of many, I might add. How did it all happen? How did he, of all people, let dogs free? Because, as you say, to imagine that he would let anyone free, even dogs, is quite difficult.
See, the street dogs of today are the great-great-grandchildren of the dogs set free in the mideighties, when the old part of central Bucharest was erased from the face of the earth. This is how it all began. And you must be wondering, on the other hand, why a totalitarian regime capable of such destruction, of uprooting tens of thousands of humans, couldn’t have taken radical care of dogs? I suggest that you think about something else, about people who obediently abandoned these noble creatures, their best friends (because we’re talking here about house pets) to life on the street, to the cruel struggle of survival. Doesn’t that tell you something about those who didn’t have the courage to defend their own homes?
Ah, blessed times, when you could blame Ceausescu for everything, I say in retrospect. At least we dogs weren’t responsible for our situation.
You can tell that I’m still bitter about the whole thing. Why? Because of my mother. Mimi was a great lady. We are black poodles, with a fine pedigree. However, after that event it was unimportant who was who; class differences were forsaken because street life imposed another kind of hierarchy. The strongest, not the cleverest, ruled the rest. Homo homini lupus, you say to describe such a situation. But I would rather say: canus cani homo!
I hadn’t been born when the big eviction happened — it’s called resettlement nowadays. But my mother was, and she told me about it. I had the great fortune of living with her in the same household at a tender age (until Martin came along and picked me up) and so I learned my history, which today, regrettably, has been forgotten among my lot — as well yours, I’d say. These young idiots think that it’s always been this way, that dogs are born and die in the streets and not, say, in a sixth-floor apartment. They’d have a heart attack if they went in an elevator. Funny, when you think about it; I’ve lived almost all my life in such a place. And imagine them, if you can, in the back of the car going for an excursion at the seaside! Not that many Romanians have a car, but some do. No, these poor souls think that cars are there so that they can hide from people and rain. Simple technology such as radios or TVs are unknown to them. I’d like to know what they’d think of an airplane. I flew in one once; those were the days! I still can recall the taste of a biscuit my companion got with a cup of tea and gave to me, naturally. There’s something about flying ten thousand meters above the earth looking through a window at white clouds and chewing a biscuit.
Sorry, I got carried away again.
At that time, before everything went to the dogs, as they say, we dogs were still mostly living with humans, as is the case in every normal country. In their homes and gardens, even in apartment buildings in tiny apartments. Not all of us were in equal situations, because, to paraphrase George Orwell, a writer whom I admire, “we are all equal, but some are more equal.” But all of us had a minimum, a roof over our heads and a piece of bread, a bite of. well, at least mamaliga, a kind of polenta, you know. In my long life I’ve learned that security is what matters most, both to dogs and to humans. One can witness that now, in this period of total insecurity.
And let me tell you something else — and I’m aware that I run the risk of being judged as pro-Communist, which is foolish — we all worked! It might sound strange with all these unemployed youths on the streets to whom “work” has no meaning. What do they do? Do they hunt? Do they guard homes and defend them from burglars? Do they announce visitors? Are they employed by the police to chase criminals and sniff out smuggled drugs? Do they perhaps lead blind people through the streets of Bucharest? Or do they provide love and comfort to their cohabitants? Comparatively very few do that today. No, they live in gangs, catch rats, eat rubbish, bite children, and beg. Some end up in laboratories as well. The good news for us is that there aren’t many scientific experiments going on today in Romania!
Let me go back to Mimi. My mother didn’t only witness the eviction from the old quarters, but she herself, together with thousands upon thousands, was a victim of that madness. The orders to destroy the old quarters of downtown Bucharest, like the Uranus neighborhood where she had lived, came from the court, from Ceausescu himself, as did all orders. Although one could never be sure how much Elena had to do with that grandiose, maniacal plan to build a palace pyramid called (and I can’t help being ironic here) the House of the People. They were both incredibly vain persons and not very intelligent. Perhaps because of that they believed they were omnipotent. Tens of thousands of people were evacuated from some eight thousand old buildings and villas into newly built apartments, gray blocks that you can still see standing today. And they were forbidden to take us along. Just when they needed us most to comfort them for their loss, as Mimi used to lament. You see, she was sad for people, not for her own destiny. That was the kind of person she was. Mimi saw with her own eyes a bulldozer destroying her beloved family home, with its yellow facade and a small garden behind. It was a horrifying scene, a huge metal hand reaching into the house and pulling out debris, like gutting a fish. Even today it’s hard for me to recall how she described her feeling of helplessness as she watched the destruction. It caused her physical pain to see that, she said. Imagine it: The whole neighborhood, humans and dogs, standing there and watching, desperate, frightened, and powerless. without a single voice of protest.
Soon the old houses were gone, even the old scents. Now it smelled of newly dug soil, of cement and bitumen and dogs’ piss. It was dangerous to go to the building site, but they all went there at first. In disbelief, perhaps, as if expecting to wake up from a nightmare. Many dogs died of hunger right away. Without food, vaccinations, and care, they were decimated quickly. They also died from depression, especially the older dogs. Mimi was young and beautiful, and a woman from the outskirts of Bucharest took pity on her. So, I was not born in the street. She always reminded me how privileged we were.