61
ŞAIZECE ŞI UNU
sat in my dark closet, avoiding family. Could there be an explanation, like Luca said?I Cici sewed for people. Maybe they paid her in foreign currency.
Maybe she took the Springsteen article to keep me safe. Maybe she made the loop rings from the cigarette packages herself.
Maybe?
I snapped on the flashlight to read the English pages I had bought from Starfish. They were crumpled, clearly retrieved from a trash bin. And they weren’t original. They were multigeneration, poor copies, stapled together.
The words at the top said:
Romania, Human Rights Violations in the Eighties
First published July 1987, Amnesty International Publications, London
Amnesty International’s Concerns This report documents the persistent pattern of human rights abuse in Romania in the 1980s, a period in which the authorities have imprisoned their critics and jailed hundreds of other men and women for wanting to exercise their rights to leave the country. Some prisoners of conscience
have been tortured, beaten, and jailed for years after unfair trials. Other critics of the government have been put under house arrest, have lost their jobs, or have been attacked in the street by security thugs.
“Prisoner of conscience.” I made a mental note to research that term.
Torture and Ill Treatment . . . It has been reported that political prisoners have been tortured by being beaten on the soles of the feet or being kicked and beaten with rubber truncheons. Two prisoners are reported to have died after torture.
Bunu. That’s exactly what happened to Bunu. The descriptions were detailed, listing several names of specific victims. The papers were so lethal, they nearly burned my hands.
“Pui?” Cici’s voice appeared at my door. I jumped, clutching the papers. “Pui . . . Ceauşescu’s going to be on TV.”
I couldn’t leave my closet. Cici would take one look at me and know I was hiding something. I needed more information first.
“I’m tired. And sick of it,” I told her. “He’ll just say the same old thing.”
I was right. Partially. I put my ear to the door and heard our leader’s ranting voice. According to Ceauşescu, hooligans and foreign agents were
creating turmoil and unrest.
Was I a hooligan?
Maybe.
Was there unrest?
Definitely.
The papers from Starfish were dangerous. So dangerous that I couldn’t leave them in my closet. I had to carry them with me at all times.
So I stuffed them into my jacket pocket and finished devising my plan.
I was going to confront Cici.
At the time it seemed straightforward. She was either working with Paddle Hands or she wasn’t. I hadn’t yet absorbed one of life’s universal
truths:
Things that seem straightforward?
Often aren’t.