“But not the Russians!” he always said with clenched fists. The story was that when the Russian soldiers came, they took all of his tomatoes, apples and chickens, and when he asked for money they fired their guns over his head and punched him to the ground. A few days later, when more Russians came, his coat and his watch were taken. And his wine too. Then, in the cold spring of 1945, when his house was commandeered by an officer, the soviet bastard wanted to rape his daughter. My Aunt Anişoara was 13 in ’45, and my grandfather used his Colt Revolver to protect her. He told me that he pushed the officer for 3 kilometers with the gun, and let him run away only after they were far away from our village. He couldn’t kill the man, and he hoped he wouldn’t be able to come back, wouldn’t be able to tell which village it was.
So it goes that my grandfather lived year after year with the fear that that particular officer would come back, from Berlin or from Moscow, to take revenge for the night spent in the unknown woods. That was the story.
All this came back to me like a flash in my mind. I was already rushing downstairs with the news. Who could have known then that I was destined to make a living from producing and selling news in the future? Not me. Back in December 1989 I was thinking of becoming a doctor in the future. Doctors always had money, they were respected and they were maybe the only profession that didn’t have to applaud Ceauşescu. We all had to clap for our dictator on important occasions, such as his visits, school year opening ceremonies, graduation parties and the like.
“Dad, it’s over! Ceauşescu is finished!” I shouted at my dad, as I entered the kitchen, and he stood up and came and hugged me.
“That’s the best news I’ve ever heard”, he said delighted, poured a drink and went to the phone. He sounded so happy and acted like we had just won the lottery, but the anxiety and fear never left his eyes.
Phone calls to my mom — she said that people in the glass factory were getting ready to march to take over the Town Hall — to friends and relatives. It was like New Year’s night when he called everyone for New Year’s greetings.
“We should get the ribs ready for the lard”. It was my grandmother, insensible as always to political situations but very much sensitive to food issues.
The ribs had to be cut in pieces 5cm long and salted and then deep fried in lard. Then they had to be placed in 5 liter jars and covered in lard. The lard would solidify into a bright white color. Here and there a cinnamon brown shadow reveals it’s a meat jar and not merely a lard jar. Then, everyday, my mom would take a greasy fried piece of rib and put it in a pan, fry it with chopped onion and garlic. This is how all cooking begins in Romania, it doesn’t matter what the desired dish is. The vegetables chosen and subsequent preparations make the difference.
Chop. Chop.
The butcher knife went up and down, up and down, cutting the ribs with precision. My grandmother was readying the 5 liter glass jars and heating the fry pan. After my dad is done it would be her job to finish and preserve the ribs.
With nothing left to do in the kitchen I went to see my fire and add sawdust to the smokehouse’s bucket. Then I was back upstairs, where my sister was already sitting comfortably in the front of the TV.
I didn’t know at the time, but most of my countrymen spent their Revolution watching TV. Somehow the TV crews that were supposed to transmit another attempt by Ceauşescu to calm the people by speaking to the crowds started to broadcast live images of the revolt. The very large square in front of the Central Committee of the Romanian Communist Party was packed with people attacking the infamous building. It was our Bastille, but Jean Louis Calderon was already dead and didn’t see it fall. Those tortured and killed by the Secret Police in its basements in the aftermath of communist power being installed in Romania at the end of WWII, didn’t see it either. Maybe some of them could have foreseen today’s events, but I’m sure that they never imagined that almost all their countrymen would stay at home, watch TV, sip drinks and pat each other on the back.
“Let’s go into town and see what’s happening”. It was my sister Felicia, as usual, coming up with a crazy idea.
“Are you nuts?” I asked and didn’t wait for her reply. My dad was about to enter the room, the only one with a TV set back then, and he had overheard her proposal.
“I forbid you to go outside the gate. The gate will stay closed until I say so”, went my dad, with unexpected calmness. Then he put down the tray he was carrying, two mugs of hot cocoa for us and a hot coffee for him.
Sipping our drinks we watched with enthusiasm how people entered the Central Committee building, how they threw things from the balcony where Ceauşescu last stood, how they were trying to address us, the people watching and encouraging them.
“God forbid the Russians come”, my father was worrying when my mom entered the room. She was all purple and radiating with joy. I guess she never completely understood what was going on, but the general idea was: we had to be happy it was over.
What was over and what was about to begin were things we couldn’t even grasp.
“What is freedom?” My question was raised again but this time my father answered without thinking.
“Freedom is when you can do whatever you like to do without the pig Ceauşescu there to stop you”.
A few years later I was in a train headed for the Black Sea coast. It was crowded and people had to stand in the aisles. There were bags everywhere, sweat and a metallic taste in people’s mouths. It was hot. Very hot. So first I didn’t quite understand what was happening when all of a sudden, a group of youngsters started to break doors and seats. The toilet door came off first and they opened the carriage doors and dropped it out, all laughing. Knives in hand, they attacked any appliances that could be removed or destroyed while everybody watched in fear.
“Why are you doing this?” an old man asked them visibly hurt by what he was seeing and he got an answer that echoed my father’s:
“Shut the fuck up, old fart. Maybe you didn’t notice but Ceauşescu’s gone. There’s democracy in Romania and we are free!” Bang! Bang! The train’s toilet, a dirty one, flew out of the water closet and then out of the speeding train. The youngsters were right, after all. They were free…
From the blaring TV set we could hear people chanting: “We are the people, down with the dictator”, “Ole, ole, Ceauşescu is no more”, “Freedom, freedom” and the like. And we saw the flag. The communist coat of arms cut out and the flag had a hole in its middle yellow stripe.
I jumped up and took my grandfather’s flag, one with no hole in it, but with no communist coat of arms either, and I hung it outside the front door where it could be seen from the street. I was so proud. My grandfather had had that flag since 1918. He was 14 when Transylvania became, at the end of WWI, a part of Romania, and people from his village marched with handmade Romanian flags to Alba Iulia where they proclaimed their will for unity.
“Dad, let me see what’s happening at the Town Hall”, my sister pleaded again.
“No, please think”, my dad replied. “It might get dangerous. Some people might shoot their guns and usually it’s innocent bystanders that get killed”, he said, with the experience of listening to the real world’s news offered by Radio Free Europe and Voice of America.
“I am the one that should go”, he continued, “and I would be more relaxed if I knew you were all safe here”.
“Yes, sir!” All we could do was obey and respect his decision. It was his call, not ours.
My mom asked if we wanted something, anything, and said she would go help my grandmother with the ribs. I said nothing. I wasn’t exactly delighted with my dad’s decision, and I went downstairs to put some more sawdust on the willow smoking fire. Maybe my sister was right and we were just wasting a good chance to see something happening in that town where usually nothing happened.