69
ŞAIZECE ŞI NOUĂ
hey pushed us into a room with long tables and benches. The guard ordered us to sit, locked the door, and left. Facing me, next to theT door, were two framed portraits. One featured Mother Elena and the other, a one-eared Ceauşescu. I stared at their faces.
We had no food or freedom.
Because of them.
We were surrounded by spies and torturers.
Because of them.
We had no trust.
Because of them.
I couldn’t look at the portraits. I grabbed them from the wall and tossed them in the corner.
“What are you doing?” gasped Liliana. “You’re putting us all in danger.”
“If I have to look at them for one more minute, we’ll all be in danger anyway.”
Liliana turned to the kids. “Keep your heads down. If the guard asks, tell him the pictures were like that when we came in.”
The guard returned carrying buckets and a clipboard. He yawned.
“Because of you criminals, we haven’t had rest since Timișoara. Do you know what that does? It makes us angry.”
We said nothing. He set down the buckets and noticed the heap of portraits in the corner.
“Who did that?”
Silence.
“I said, who did that?!”
I shrugged. “They were like that when we came in.”
“No, they weren’t.”
“Yes, they were!” we all insisted.
The guard blinked, fatigued, not used to dealing with a chorus of kids.
He eyed us and waited, uncertain.
“Well, you will pledge your obedience to our hero and Heroine Mother.
Each one of you will get down on your hands and knees and kiss their portraits or you’ll be taken back to the cell. And my superior must witness you doing it.” He turned on his heel and locked the door once again.
“Do we have to?” asked the little boy.
“Yes, we probably do. I’m sorry.” I sighed. Why did I have to mess with the portraits? Why couldn’t I have just ignored them?
“Kiss me.”
She said it so softly, I thought maybe I had imagined it.
But then she said it again.
“Kiss me. Please, Cristian. Before our lips are forced to touch . . . them,” she whispered.
I turned and looked at Liliana, despair filling her face. I pulled her into my arms and paused, holding her close, my forehead against hers. Her breathing fluttered against my mouth.
I kissed her. And kissed her again. And again. More gently each time. I kissed her nose, her jaw, her neck. I swept the hair from her brow and
kissed each one of her eyes.
A single tear dropped onto her cheek.
I held her against me, not wanting to let go.
The children sat, mouths open, staring.
Footsteps echoed beyond the door. We quickly separated. The guard returned with another uniformed officer in tow. He surveyed the room.
“No,” snapped the officer. “The portraits were not on the floor. And that one,” he pointed to me. “He’s the only one tall enough to reach them.”
He retrieved the portraits and set them on the tile floor. “Come along, comrade. Time to give thanks.”
He was going to hit me. I knew it. I couldn’t reveal that my ribs were in pain. If I did, he’d go there first. I stood quickly, trying not to wince. He walked toward me.
“Oh, too bad about your nose, comrade. Does it hurt?” A quick punch sent me to the floor.
He smacked my back and legs with his club. “Ungrateful young people. The Party gave you a beautiful home and this is how you thank them? Crawl to Beloved Leader and Heroine Mother. They’re waiting for your apology.”
I inched forward on my hands and knees toward the portraits. Liliana’s kiss lingered more strongly than the punch. It might be the first and last time I ever kissed Liliana and I didn’t want to surrender the feeling.
“Stop stalling! Hurry up.”
I hovered over the portrait of Ceauşescu. I wanted to chew it up, swallow, and then vomit it on Mother Elena. But the quiet in the room, the kids, Liliana, they were scared. I couldn’t do that. I quickly touched the side of my mouth to Ceauşescu and then to Elena. The dust on the pictures coated my lips. Diseased them. Thank god Liliana was so smart.
They made the others perform the same ritual. Liliana kneeled down, her face a mixture of disgust and defiance. Her nose touched the portrait, but I swear her lips didn’t.
The officer kicked the metal pails. “Buckets? No, no, no. These comrades don’t get buckets. After they kiss the portraits, they’ll do the job with their hands.”
They took us to a tiled, windowless room. The air spit with flies.
“System’s been plugged for a while. Bag is in the corner. Clean this up, Comrades. Better hurry or you might miss the van.”
A bag was in the corner. But it sat beneath a huge mountain of feces.
One of the children began to cry. The guard loomed, poking and taunting the child’s belly with his baton.
“No, no, little brat. There’s no crying. If you’re big enough to protest and take part in illegal acts, you’re certainly old enough to clean a bathroom. Look at this steaming pile. This is where you belong.” He left the room.
We stood, arms hanging by our sides. What is the cost of self-worth?
Bunu’s question. It lingered in my mind.
We were the pile on the floor.
That’s what they were telling us.
That’s what they thought.
What did the outside world think? Did they know of our decades of struggle? Did they blame the Romanian citizens? Did they know the regime kept us insulated, or did they believe the unfair stereotypes?
I turned to the kids.
“Dracula is a fictional character created by some Irish author. Dracula has no connection to our history,” I said.
“We know that,” replied the sister.
“And Romanians are brilliant people. Some are Nobel Prize winners!”
I yelled.
“Why are you saying this?”
“Because we’re not shit. Do you hear me? We’re more Romanian than those guards are!”
The room fell still. A pulse of emotion pushed at my hoarse throat.
“No matter what they do or say, we’re better than this.”
Why was Romania such a dark corner of the map? Was it the distance?
Was there a point when a country became too remote to care about?
Amnesty International was trying to share the truth. But if the guards discovered the documents on me, I’d be killed. I couldn’t risk harming the others. I pulled the pages from my pants and used them as a shovel.
“What are those papers?” whispered Liliana.
“A nail in the coffin,” I told her.