Theo said, ‘All those times you were travelling – when I was at school – were you with Andrei?’
‘Most of the time.’
‘Helping him look for Elisabeth?’
Petra turned to look at him. ‘So you know about Elisabeth, do you?’ she said.
‘Some. Not all. Not everything.’
‘I expect you’ll explain it to me shortly,’ she said. ‘But Elisabeth was the main reason for Andrei’s return to Romania. The need to know what had happened to her – even if he found she had died – absolutely consumed him.’
‘Did he find her?’
‘In the end he did,’ she said, ‘but it was a long search. Years. By the end of 1989 Romania was a boiling cauldron. Ceauşescu was losing all touch with reality by then. He seemed to have no understanding of the violent hatred and suffering that was all around him.’
‘You were there?’ said Theo, incredulously. ‘You were in the revolution?’
‘I was there when it started,’ she said. ‘Andrei, Matthew and I had gone to Bucharest to try to locate some prison records. Andrei knew someone who was prepared to let him see the lists of political prisoners – I think there was a bribe involved. It was the eighteenth of December. My last day in Romania, because I was coming home to be with you for Christmas. But when it all began – when the rebels defied the curfew and ran through the streets singing the outlawed national songs, it was impossible not to be swept along by it. The whole city – probably the whole country – was sizzling with violence and anger and defiance. Oh God, they hated Ceauşescu by then, those poor people.’ She stopped, her eyes huge and dark and no one spoke. ‘We went out into the streets,’ said Petra. ‘We knew it was courting danger of the most extreme kind to go out, but it was impossible to stay indoors. We saw the crowds, and we went through the streets, the three of us holding hands so we wouldn’t become separated. Everyone knew, then, that Ceauşescu and his wife would soon be deposed. No one knew how, or who would do it, but it was impossible to be in that seething mass of people and believe anything else. I remember them chanting “Noi suntem poporul” – “We are the people”. Later they were shouting that Ceauşescu would fall. I guessed that if he did, huge numbers of political prisoners would be released. And that meant Andrei might finally find Elisabeth.’
‘Did you think it would mean losing him?’ said Theo.
‘Yes, but it no longer mattered. I had known, almost from the first meeting, that for Andrei, Elisabeth was more important than anything I could ever give him. Finding her was his driving passion.’
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Romania, mid-1980s
Matthew had always known his father would never be content until he found Elisabeth. He had tried to think of the cloudy-haired woman in the photo as his mother, but he could not, because he had no memory of her.
‘Your father had nightmares in those first years after your mother was taken away,’ Wilma said when they returned to Romania, and made a brief stay at their old house. ‘He used to call out for her in his sleep. He believed she was being held in one of the old gaols. I used to hear him. It was as if he could see the stone cells and the bars at the windows. I’d go along to his bedroom to wake him up, and make him hot milk with brandy in it. But if I’d guessed you were hearing all those nightmares…’
‘Only occasionally,’ said Matthew, and because it was dear, loyal Wilma, he added a careful lie, ‘I don’t remember much of it.’
They left the house after one day.
‘We daren’t stay any longer,’ Andrei’s said. ‘The Securitate could be watching; they’ll know it’s a place I’d come to.’
Matthew had no idea if the Securitate would also be watching the convent. He wondered how long they would look for an escaped prisoner. He and Andrei had been in England for almost three months, but perhaps three months was not very long to the cold-eyed men of the Securitate.
They stayed at the convent for several weeks, at first not daring to go out or draw attention to themselves, grateful to Sister Teresa who brought news of what was going on in the outside world.
‘It’s very little different from when you left,’ she said. ‘Although when I go into town, I have the feeling that people are becoming restless, that something might gradually be building up under the surface. We’ll pray for a peaceful outcome, for better times.’
Petra came to visit them the following year. Matthew saw that the attraction between her and his father was still very strong, but he thought it was not quite as strong as it had been in England. She’s letting go, he thought. She understands he’ll spend his whole life trying to find my mother if he has to, and she knows she can’t be part of that.
Even so, when Petra left, she clung to Andrei for a long time.
‘You’ll come back, won’t you?’ said Andrei.
‘If you want me to.’
‘Yes. Oh God, yes, of course I do.’
‘Then I will.’
She had returned each year, spending several weeks with Andrei in spring when Theo was at school, and often in October and November as well. Matthew had left art school by then, and taught at various schools, obtaining posts as near to Andrei as he could. But travelling was difficult – petrol was so strictly rationed it was almost impossible to obtain, and a Sunday curfew was in place. Even electricity was rationed in order to divert the supply to heavy industry, and television – for those who had a set – was reduced to two hours each day. It was whispered that phones were bugged and that one in three Romanians was an informant for the Securitate. A police state, said people, glancing nervously around to make sure they were not overheard.
Matthew managed to stay in work – education seemed to be the one thing Ceauşescu did not restrict – and he hoarded all his earnings so he could one day open his own gallery. It was his dream and his goal, but as the years went by, he wondered if it would ever become a reality.
‘It could become a reality,’ said Petra, when Matthew talked to her about it. ‘You mustn’t lose sight of it, not ever. There’s a line from one of our poets – Tennyson: ‘Follow the gleam.’ Always do that. And something’s starting to happen in this country – can’t you feel it? As if the contents of a huge angry cauldron are simmering just under the surface.’
Matthew had known this for a long time. He sometimes thought it was as if something just out of sight was beating a tattoo on an invisible drum, and the sound was gradually becoming louder and more insistent. He said, ‘What d’you think will happen?’
‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘But if I’m right, everything will change. There’s another line from Tennyson, as well. “The old order changeth, giving way to the new”. I don’t know when it will happen, that change, but I hope it’s soon.’
But it was to be another two years before the bubbling cauldron of hatred and discontent finally erupted, and when it did, Petra was back in England.
Romania, December 1989
‘Please stay safe both of you,’ Petra said, just before Christmas. ‘I think Romania’s about to reach explosion point. Those people in the streets last night, the fights and the violence…’
‘Some of the streets look like the aftermath of a war,’ said Andrei, his eyes dark with anger and bitterness. ‘Destruction, ash from burned cars, even blood on the pavements… Only this isn’t a war.’
‘Isn’t it?’ said Petra. ‘Whatever it is, I think you’re about to see the last act of Ceauşescu’s reign, and if I could stay on to see it with you I would, but—’
‘But you must be back to spend Christmas with Theo,’ Andrei said. ‘Of course you must. And we’ll be safe. I’m a survivor. Matthew too.’