17
ŞAPTESPRE ZECE
ompulsory volunteering.
That’s what they called it. An oxymoron. How could it beC considered volunteering if it was mandatory? Students were required to devote themselves to helping the great golden era of Romania.
Sometimes, that meant raking a thick field or sorting through boxes of vegetables outside the city. That’s what we were supposed to be doing that morning during “Harvest Day” season.
The largest and best produce was sorted for export. The deformed and mealy produce held for Romanians. We called them “bean potatoes” because they were so small.
Luca and I were sent to a field to collect cartons of produce. I took a breath, trying to steady myself. I had been ignoring Luca, pretending he didn’t exist. But walking alone with him, I could no longer pretend. And suddenly, I was more upset than I realized.
Luca had informed on me. I was sure of it. He was the only one who
had known about the American dollar.
“What’s wrong with you?” he asked.
I stopped walking and faced him. “No. What’s wrong with you, Luca?
I thought we were friends.”
He gave me an odd look, like he was hurt but trying to pretend he wasn’t. Nice guys like Luca were terrible at lying. I shook my head and continued walking.
Luca and I had been friends since we were ten. He planned to sit for the exam in medicine. He was smart and would probably pass. I wanted him to pass. Luca was kind. He’d make a great doctor who wouldn’t turn away the Kentless. He never—ever—struck me as a rat.
But maybe they got to Luca through some weakness, just as they had gotten to me. Or maybe they convinced him that informing was his patriotic duty to the homeland. I was OSCAR. What was Luca’s code name? I should have listened to my sister.
“I don’t know,” Cici had said. “There’s just something about Luca.
He’s so eager. Asks a lot of questions. Am I too suspicious?”
We were all too suspicious.
And that’s how the regime undermined everything. In my notebook, I drew a diagram of the Securitate—a monstrous apparatus with huge spinning tentacles planting doubt, spreading rumors, and casting fear. I remember my father and Bunu fighting about it.
“You do realize what they’re doing, don’t you, Gabriel?” Bunu asked.
“Mistrust is a form of terror. The regime pits us against one another. We can’t join together in solidarity because we never know whom we can trust
or who might be an informer.”
“Stop this talk,” said my father.
“You see, even out here in the street, you’re paranoid to be speaking with your own father! You’ve become a man without a voice. Mistrust. It’s insidious. It causes multiple personality syndrome and rots relationships. At home, you’re one person, speaking in whispers. Outside, on the street, and standing in lines at the shops, you’re someone else. Tell me, who are you?”
Bunu’s question lingered. Who are you?
I thought I knew. I had always been myself with Luca. Until now.
Now I hated him for informing on me, not only because it resulted in my being forced to spy for the Secu, but also because it ended the first true
friendship I had.
We arrived at the field.
“Wait, I think we went the wrong way,” I said.
“No, this is it,” said Luca.
This couldn’t be it. Could it?
Moments of profound realization are memorable, especially when they involve your own stupidity. Romania was full of beauty and natural resources. The majestic Carpathian Mountains, the Black Sea, the lush Transylvanian countryside. I had seen them myself as a child. And for the past several years, our national TV bulletins showed chest-high crops, thick and wondrous. If you waded into the fields, you might never return.
The field in front of us was not a field. It was a scrubby lot of weedy plants. An emaciated cow moaned in the dirt. A carpet of flies feasted on
the animal’s corrugated rib cage.
No.
I wanted the fields they showed during our pathetic two hours of television. I wanted the lush crops and enormous produce. Of course I didn’t believe everything they told us, but I had believed the fields were overflowing. I not only believed it, I needed it to be true.
We were told Romanians made sacrifices, but we had so much to be proud of. The country needed more children because we needed more workers for our bountiful crops. Life was difficult, but I found comfort that nature hadn’t turned its back on us.
I looked at the scrawny field in front of me. Even nature had betrayed us. But maybe that’s what happens when you roll cement over grass, remove the trees, displace the birds, and starve the dogs. You’re punished.
But the person responsible—he wasn’t suffering.
We were.
Our hero, Draculescu, sat in his cardboard castle wearing a hollow crown, surrounding himself with clapping men who bowed to him as the Golden Man of the Carpathians while his people suffered, starved, and lived in terror.
I blinked, trying to stop myself. The thoughts alone warranted a death sentence.
I turned my back to Luca and the field. Dormant anger stirred, a scream inside me that I didn’t know existed. Tightness gripped the bottom of my ribs. The tightness rose, hot, and spread into full-blown fury.
Nature was betraying me.
My friend was betraying me.
Life was betraying me.
“Cristian, you’re mad at me. I can explain—”
I whirled around and threw my fist.
I punched my very best friend.