‘So you are,’ she said, managing a smile. ‘I was forgetting that.’ So Petra went back to England, and three days later, the dam that had held in so much anger and defiance for so many years, finally burst. A great tidal wave of rebellion cascaded across the country, sweeping aside everything in the pent-up longing for freedom from a dictator’s iron rule.
Matthew and his father were in the centre of Bucharest as people from all walks of life poured into the city from outlying districts. Martial law had been announced with a ban on groups larger than five people. But, incredibly, hundreds of thousands of people were gathering spontaneously, apparently prepared to brave the soldiers and tanks drafted in by Ceauşescu’s henchmen.
‘And helicopters,’ said Matthew, looking up at the sudden whirr of machinery in the skies. ‘They’re dropping leaflets.’
‘And d’you know what the leaflets tell us to do?’ said a man next to him. ‘To go home and enjoy the Christmas feast! Dear God, don’t the devils know we have to queue up for hours to even get a drop of cooking oil!’
‘He’s coming out onto the balcony,’ said someone else. ‘Ceauşescu himself. There he is, the cruel greedy bastard!’
As Nicolae Ceauşescu began an impassioned speech, Matthew’s father said, softly, ‘He’s not reaching them. Look at their faces, Matthew, look at the hatred and the anger. He’s lost them, and the terrible thing is that he doesn’t realize it.’
‘A few people near the front are cheering him,’ said Matthew, a bit doubtfully.
‘It’s frightened cheering. They’re probably Securitate plants,’ said Andrei, still keeping his voice low, mindful of eavesdroppers.
As Matthew listened to Ceauşescu reminding his audience of the achievements of the socialist revolution, about the multi-laterally developed society he had created, he knew his father was right. Ceauşescu was grasping at the vanishing remnants of power. His voice was taking on a strained, desperate note and the crowd was becoming restless. This is it, he thought. This is what Petra meant when she talked about the old order changing. It’s changing now, here, in this square. Something new is struggling to be born. It won’t be an easy birth and people will be hurt in the process, but if it can really happen it will be the turning point. It will sweep away the decades of dreary poverty and despair.
‘I think,’ said Andrei, suddenly, ‘this is where we step back, Matthew. Some of the crowd are moving towards the building. Over there, look. It’ll turn ugly at any minute. Let’s get into one of the side streets and out of the way. I’ll do a lot for Romania’s freedom – I have done a lot for it – but I’m not getting caught up in mob violence and neither are you.’
They moved away as unobtrusively as possible, but as they reached the edge of the square, Matthew turned back and scanned the faces. Who were they, these people, who once had bowed their heads to the yoke of a tyrant but today were shouting their defiance of him? He stood very still, letting the extraordinary atmosphere soak into his whole being, trying to print the moment on his memory, so that one day in the future, he could look back and relive it and say, That was the moment when the old order changed, that was the moment when I knew the bad years were over for Romania.
Zoia had not intended to go to the central committee building that morning, but her rooms overlooked a main thoroughfare, and the shouting and running outside was impossible to ignore. She had lived in Bucharest for two years, and at first she’d liked it. She liked the feeling of being nearer to the centre of things. She tried to continue her work for the Party even though she was no longer sure if she believed in its policies and principles. She tried to ignore the feeling that her former zeal had been because of Annaleise, but it was a feeling that came frequently to the surface of her mind these days. Her work in one of the city libraries was moderately interesting although not especially well paid. She hoped, as most of the staff did, that the promised national library and national museum of history would one day be completed and she could move there.
But today, just four days before Christmas, it was as if a huge fire had been ignited at Romania’s heart and was spreading through the whole country, raging its way into small towns and villages, licking its greedy flames inside the houses so that people were forced outside. It forced Zoia outside. She had watched for a while, then grabbed her thick coat, and ran down the stairs to join them. As she entered the square, pushed and jostled on all sides, Ceauşescu’s voice rang out over the heads of the crowds, but she could see almost at once that his words were going for nothing. He’s making futile attempts to regain his authority, she thought. He’s standing up there on the balcony as if he thinks he’s a god, but his subjects aren’t listening. They’re out of his reach.
With the thought there was the sound of explosions from the outskirts of the square, and people began to run and scream. ‘Bombs!’ cried a woman. ‘No, it’s guns – the bastard’s ordered the army to fire on us!’ shouted a man. ‘Get under cover!’ Someone with a megaphone began shouting that the Securitate was firing on the people. ‘It’s the revolution!’ bellowed the voice. The word span and bounced all round the square: revolution, revolution…
The crowd jeered and whistled, and more and more people ran into the square, turning it into a rioting, seething mass. Anti-communist chants began. ‘Down with the dictator.’ ‘Death to the murderer.’ ‘Death to Nicolae Ceauşescu and the bitch Elena!’
There was a flurry of movement on the balcony, and Zoia saw Nicolae Ceauşescu, Elena at his side, scuttle back inside the building. They’re afraid, she thought. They know the speech was futile, and they’re slinking into cover like cowards. And these, thought Zoia, are the people for whom I spied, for whom I dealt out cruelty.
She fought her way to the side streets, and walked back to her rooms, keeping near the buildings, unnoticed, unchallenged.
The fighting continued for two more days, but Zoia remained in her rooms, not wanting – not daring – to go out.
On Christmas night she watched, on the small television she had finally managed to buy, the news that the two Ceauşescus had fled Bucharest in a helicopter. Then there was video footage of the show trial in the army schoolroom, which had been hastily converted to a makeshift courtroom. She listened to the charge of genocide against the Ceauşescu couple: genocide by starvation, lack of heating and lighting, they called it. An extraordinary charge, said the news reader. Elena appeared aloof and arrogant throughout, refusing to answer the questions put to her, refusing, as well, to acknowledge the legitimacy of her interrogators. She’s not going to break, thought Zoia, leaning forward, her fists clenched, the nails digging into her palms. She’ll be imperious to the end.
But Elena Ceauşescu was not imperious quite to the end. As the police made to separate her from Nicolae, intending to perform two separate executions, she rapped out an angry order. ‘Together,’ she said. ‘We die together – together – together…’ When they bound her hands behind her back she cursed and fought, saying they were breaking her arms. The police had to use force to subdue her, and Zoia’s skin prickled with horror at the fury and defiance in Elena’s face, this woman who had caused so much suffering and who was about to be led to her death. The cameras did not follow the two, but in her mind Zoia saw them stand against a wall in a stone yard, she saw the rifles take aim and the bullets rip into their bodies. Exactly as Zoia’s mother must have looked when she stood against a wall all those years ago to be shot for a murder she had not committed – the murder Zoia herself had committed. She shivered and pushed the image away.