He’d risen to his feet. He made a broad gesture that seemed meaningless, as though he were embracing the night. Only the two of us could laugh about that line of mine, he added, but not just about that one, about many other things, so many really, and now it’s no longer possible, but I fear I’ve taken advantage of your patience and your fatigue, we’ll see each other tomorrow morning at the first screening, it’s a movie taken from a bestseller, good night.
Bucharest Hasn’t Changed a Bit
Not to mention, he was doing well there — too well. Was he exaggerating? No, he wasn’t exaggerating in the least. I feel better here than at home, he said, my meals served, the bed made, sheets changed once a week, and a room all to myself, there’s even a small balcony, true the view isn’t much, a stretch of cement buildings, but from the common terrace with its little tables and wicker chairs you can enjoy a splendid panorama, the whole city, and to the right, the sea, it’s not a nursing home, he said, it’s a hotel. He almost sounded irritated, the way old people sometimes do, and his son didn’t dare contradict him. Dad, he murmured, don’t get worked up, I know you’re doing well here, I realize that. You don’t know anything, mumbled the old man, what do you know, you’re just saying that to make me happy, you had the good luck to be born in this country, when your mother and I were finally able to leave she had a belly out to here, did you ever think that if we hadn’t made it out, you might’ve become some fervent kid with a red neckerchief, one of those boy scouts lining the street when the presidential car would go by, the magnificent couple inside, blessing the crowd? Do you know what you would’ve yelled, waving your little flag? Long live the Conducător who leads our people toward a radiant future. And you’d have grown up like that, forget all the languages you’ve learned here and all your culture and linguistics, forget linguistics, they’d have sewn up your lingua if you weren’t obedient to the ideals of the magnificent conducatrix couple who were conducting the people toward a radiant future.
Perhaps he’s finished, thought the son, now he’s done venting, he’s tired, the son would’ve liked to say something rather than just repeating the obvious stuff he’d said last time, fine, Dad, don’t get worked up, you just said you’re doing well here, better than at home, I think so too, leave the past alone, don’t think about it, it happened so long ago, please, Dad. But he couldn’t find any other words: fine, Dad, don’t get worked up, you just said you’re doing well here, better than at home, I think so too, leave the past alone, don’t think about it. The old man didn’t let him finish, he was entitled to speak, that’s how it should be, now he was staring blankly, he caressed his knees as though wanting to press the creases of his pants, he was sitting on that little padded chair with a white pillow behind his neck, gazing at a photograph in a silver frame that he kept on the side table. It was an image of a young man and woman hugging each other, he had his right arm around her waist, she had a hand on his shoulder almost without touching it, as if she were embarrassed by having her picture taken, she had a ribbon in her fluffy hair, wore a modest dress in a style that made him think of certain movies from before the war, how strange, he’d always seen that picture on the big bureau in his parents’ bedroom, once when he was young he’d asked his mom who they were and she’d answered: no one you knew.
You know that atrocious couple was received everywhere with every honor right up till yesterday? The old man went on with his thoughts, did you know that? He didn’t answer, just nodded slightly, it wasn’t yesterday, Dad, he dared to mumble, they killed them more than fifteen years ago, Dad. The old man didn’t hear. They kept giving her honorary degrees, the great scientist, he continued, she’d invented a magic potion, a rejuvenating gelatin that stopped time much better than the monkey’s glands of that other charlatan, the Russian, a semolina flat-bread, royal jelly, and sludge from the Black Sea, and for this wonderful discovery of hers, the heads of state in the countries where you now spend your time welcomed her like a benefactress to mankind, tons of honorary degrees, in France in Italy in Germany, I can’t remember, in your Europe, anyhow, you, where are you teaching now, Rome? Don’t forget that racial laws were invented right there, in this beautiful country where we made sure you were born, some sinister types, real fascists, are making official appearances, are being received with every honor, everything upside down, and meanwhile, in the country where your mother and I were born, the fervent believers in the radiant future showed up instead, the fake scientist’s eternal-youth gelatin is what attracted them, these old people like me who resisted aging, who planted themselves in a nice hotel on the Black Sea, feasted on lavish meals but every day, first thing, took two spoonfuls of the magic royal jelly, then shamelessly went down to the private beach, progressives and nudists, to check beneath their bellies to see if the treatment was having any effect. She was a nurse, she began her scientific career by sticking bedpans under old people’s asses in places like this one, then she married the conducător of the people and became a scientist, did you tell me you’re going back to Rome tomorrow? If you get a chance, wave at that guy for me when he leans out the window, the television showed him when he traveled to the same place where they used to take me on vacation as a boy, he wore lovely loafers and a white outfit, just the right color for that place, innocence, if only he’d worn a monk’s habit, which is serious clothing in certain circumstances, and as if that weren’t enough, guess what he suddenly thought to utter in his castrato voice? To ask the Lord, his Lord of course, why He was absent, why He wasn’t there, and where He was. What on earth kind of questions were those? Gott mit uns, my son, that’s where He was, He was with them, He was there, next to the sentries guarding the barbed wire, in case any of us got the idea to escape, even if we could barely stand.
He lit a cigarette he’d hidden under a napkin in the drawer where he kept his medicines. When you leave, open the window, he said, if the nurse realizes, she’ll make a fuss about it, she’s a softie but she sticks to the rules, here everyone’s obsessed with rules, in any case I do feel much better here than at home, besides, it wasn’t a palace, and of course you remember the social worker assigned to me by the municipality to look after me four hours a week, can you imagine, that pigheaded Ukrainian used to look at me as though I were an official document, and not a word of Romanian, and then giving people like us — I’m thinking of your mother’s family now, after all they had to go through in Ukraine — giving people like that a Ukrainian as a social worker, a pigheaded person who pretends not to understand if you talk to her in Romanian and answers in her own language. He wanted to tell him: Dad, please, don’t say absurd things, she didn’t talk to you in her language, she was talking to you in Hebrew, and she didn’t pretend not to understand Romanian, she really didn’t understand it, it’s you who never wanted to learn how to speak Hebrew correctly, you always insisted on speaking Romanian, even with me, I’m grateful for that because you gave me your language, though you can’t make a chauvinistic matter out of it, I understand your problem, when you and Mom arrived here you were more than forty years old, it wasn’t easy, but you can’t blame the social worker if she doesn’t talk to you in Romanian. Instead he preferred not to say anything since the old man had launched into his soliloquy again, going back to a seemingly finished subject, as he tended to do now. Please don’t make me repeat myself, he said, I feel like I’m in a hotel here, and if you want to remain in Rome to teach, don’t let your conscience disturb you, see this nice room? I’ve never in my life been in a hotel as nice as this, you can’t even imagine when your mother and I were able to crawl out of that sewer, you can’t imagine the place where I left my brother, after his illness, that was no nursing home, it was a lager, the lager of the great conducător of the Romanian people, I left him in a wheelchair in the hall, he tried to follow us to the exit but he didn’t move a millimeter, the wheelchairs of the conducător’s nursing homes were nailed down, and then he began praying out loud, he called after me, reciting the Talmud to make us stop, you understand? If your mother and I left, nobody else would go see him, take care of him, but in that moment, as I was crying and trying to hide my tears, with all those witches in white uniforms staring at me, all of them spies dressed up like nurses, I mean, in that moment, hey, a brother can’t be treated like that, you, would you do that to a brother even if you don’t have one? And then I turned and said clearly, so the spies in white uniforms could hear: we both managed to avoid the Codreanu camps, but this one, the great conducător’s, I did all by myself, for five years, my dear brother, and since I’ve been reeducated, now I can leave, because sometimes they allow visas for reeducated people, and I’ll preserve an entirely personal memory of my reeducation.