44
PATRUZECI ȘI PATRU
he next time I met Dan at his apartment to go to the library, I was ready. I would use the assignment from Paddle Hands to myT advantage. I not only spied Van Dorn’s desk, I decided exactly where I’d leave my notebook when I was finished.
“How are your college essays coming?” I asked Dan as we walked to the library.
“Good,” he said. “My dad thinks they’ll be appreciated with the recent events in Eastern Europe.”
Hmm. Would my notebook be appreciated too?
“Will you go home for Christmas?” I asked.
“Mom and I will, but Dad has to stay. Punch Green is arriving. He’s the new U.S. ambassador. The embassy’s been without an ambassador for six months, so Dad has to be here for the transition.”
A new ambassador. Interesting.
The American Library bustled with activity. Were readers gathering information from foreign media? Or gathering courage? Perhaps both.
As Dan collected his music magazines, I returned to the section of world news periodicals. The new issue of TIME featured young people from East and West Germany standing together atop the Berlin Wall. The title in bold type was just one word:
FREEDOM
I stood, staring at the seven letters, while a lump the size of a fist formed in my throat. Half a dozen communist regimes had fallen in succession, yet Romania remained unaffected. Why?
Had the world forgotten us? Or had Ceauşescu ingeniously built a fence of national communism that was impenetrable from the outside as well as the inside?
He had stolen us from ourselves, for himself. He had broken the soul of Romania and parched a beautiful country into an apocalyptic landscape of the lost. My notebook told the real story. But would Mr. Van Dorn do anything with it?
“You okay?” Dan asked as we left the library.
I shrugged.
“Yeah, I imagine it’s hard, seeing the progress of other countries while things remain the same here. Sorry about that.”
I nodded and removed the folded Springsteen article from my pocket. I handed it to him. “I should give this back. If I’m caught with it, it could cause more trouble than the dollar you gave me.”
“What dollar?” asked Dan.
“The U.S. dollar you put in my stamp album,” I whispered.
“What?” He looked at me, confused. “I never put a dollar in your stamp album. Just toss the article if you don’t want it.”
I did want it. I still held hope of giving it to Liliana. I returned it to my pocket, trying to appear calm. We said goodbye and agreed to meet the following Saturday. And then I stood, hands clenched, as Dan disappeared into the dark. The anger burned, flaring within me.
That U.S. dollar had led the Securitate to me.
It gave them leverage to recruit me as an informer and plunged me into
moral misery.
It crushed my conscience.
It crushed my relationship with Liliana.
But if Dan didn’t put the dollar in my stamp album— Who did?