Unsinkable Mister Brown (Cruise Confidential 3)

by Brian David Bruns

  “My first foreign babe’s glove box,” I commented. “Oh, wait, that sounded naughty. Sorry.”

  I expected to find the usual suspects: papers, pens, maybe a Kleenex or a parking ticket. Instead it was home to a foot-long, Rambo-style survival knife. This weapon made the old peasant lady look like she was just making pies.

  “What the hell is this?” I gasped. “What is it with knives in this country?”

  “Oh, that’s Dad’s,” Bianca answered simply.

  “He keeps this in the car?” I demanded. “What for?”

  “He’s a retired sergeant from the army,” she explained. “He found it in the woods and decided to keep the extra knife in the car. He already has plenty at home.”

  “He found this in the woods,” I repeated weakly. “Just lying there? Abandoned? In the Transylvanian woods? I guess the movies are true! Wait a minute—you said he’s a retired sergeant from the army?”

  “Da,” she said.

  “The Romanian army?”

  “Where else?” she asked, unsure of my reaction.

  “Under the Iron Curtain,” I continued with growing alarm.

  “Da,” she said, growing impatient.

  “So you’re telling me that I have just arrived in a country—where even the donuts get violently angry—to visit the only daughter of a man who spent thirty years literally training to kill ‘American capitalist pig dogs?’”

  “He’s a sweetie,” she scoffed.

  I was hardly convinced.

  4

  The drive continued for well over an hour, and as the lay of the land changed, so, too, did the name. The scenery was beautiful in the extreme. Lush forested mountains thrust up from the fertile plains. Rich forests—uncut since the Crusades—nuzzled sheer bluffs. The clouds broke against the bulk, leaving tatters and shreds to loaf about. This was now Transylvania.

  Though thought by many to be entirely fictional, it is not so. Now a section of Romania, Transylvania had been a highly sought-after prize millennia before Bram Stoker ever dreamed up his famous tale, for the land provides a buffer between Europe and Asia. The Carpathian mountains shelter a plateau in a loving embrace, curving entirely around the south and east to form a natural defense that has proven most formidable. These bluffs broke wave after wave of invading Turks. Centuries before that, the rampaging Huns split their unstoppable charge around them. A millennium before that, the native Dacian people fought back the Romans until damn near the Dark Ages.

  Ironically, the most accessible means to learn of this land is what so often maligns it. The vast bulk of vampire lore misses the truth entirely, whereas Bram Stoker’s original novel Dracula was very accurate. While it is hotly debated whether or not the Irishman ever actually visited, none impugn his depiction of the local culture, their food, and their superstitions.

  We finally neared our destination city of Braşov (pronounced Brah-SHOV). We neared a series of small mountains on three sides, the bowl in the middle filled with ancient, tiled roofs and centuries-old everything. The fourth side opened into a vast plain, and spilling from it like an oozing pool of filth was the urban sprawl of communist-era bloc apartments. These awful contraptions let the city cram 300,000 people into a space less than half the size of a comparable U.S. city, such as Cincinnati.

  The rain renewed itself with vigor upon our entering the city, but Albişoara cut a neat line over the spluttering streets. I was surprised, though perhaps should not have been, at the amount of people outside. In the newer, bloc-heavy part of the city, the roads were wider and more heavily laden with Dacias. But as we neared the old city, narrowing streets made cars dwindle and pedestrians surge. I couldn’t see any faces under the umbrellas, but definitely noted the bottoms—and was that ever something! Every pair of legs was magnificently tight. And, being Europe, every pair of pants was magnificently tight.

  “What, is there a cheerleader convention in town?”

  Bianca frowned in confusion. Eventually understanding blossomed.

  “Ah, don’t be fooled, gringo!” she said with a laugh. “In Romania we have a saying. It translates something like ‘daughter in back, grandmother in front.’”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It means, rasclat, that you’re drooling over women older than even me—and I’m over thirty. Romanian women have sexy legs from school right up until they become old hags. After that it doesn’t matter anyway. We walk everywhere, check!—walking up ten bloody levels of stairs four bloody times a day makes great legs. Also, all our food is natural—no genetic mutation tomatoes here, papa! We eat all day long and don’t gain weight.”

  I looked at her, not yet convinced. Soon enough I would be.

  “Well, that’s changing,” she finally admitted. “McDonald’s is here now.”

  She drove Albişoara down a gravel alleyway between a series of towering blocs, bottom floors of shops dark for the night. Unlike further out onto the plain, these blocs were older and spaced with sanity in mind, with plenty of huge trees covering the wide yards between them.

  “How do you pronounce that?” I asked suddenly, having spied the tongue-twisting name of the alley.

  “Strada Lâcramioarelor,” Bianca answered smoothly, her tongue unperturbed in the slightest.

  “Luckra...?”

  “Lâcramioarelor,” she repeated calmly. “Is a flower.”

  “Lucky-YODELADYHOO!” I finished with a yodel.

  My look was smug. Her look was sour.

  “You’ll wish you tried harder before you know it,” she prophesied rather ominously.

  Bianca entered a gravel lot nestled in between the blocs. It was hardly formal, being little more than a section devoid of grass and lined with old Dacias at odd angles. They all were twins to Albişoara. I wondered how people could tell their cars apart. Bianca rushed us across the lot and nearly collided with a dumpster. At the very last second we scrunched to a halt. There was an awkward moment of silence after the near-impact, amplified by the thumping of rain.

  “I once drove Mihaela’s Volkswagen with modern brakes,” Bianca offered with a shrug. “That’s just a tickle to Albişoara. Sometimes you really have to stomp your foot to get her attention.”

  She gave me a very serious glance. “Don’t tell my father about almost hitting that,” she pleaded. “He is very, very protective of his ladies.”

  I smiled at her appreciatively, but my eyes lingered on the glove compartment.

  Chapter 2. Meet the Parents

  1

  We ran through the drizzle laden with luggage. Once under the sheltered doorway to the big bloc building, Bianca pressed a button next to the name Pop. A bent speaker crackled static, and she answered with words in Romanian. Curiously I browsed the names listed in scratchy text along the button box. Most were unfamiliar, of course. The first was Melci, (pronounced Melch), but there were actually two Pops. I discovered that ‘escu’ was a common suffix to Romanian names, for in this bloc alone was a Vasilescu, an Enescu, and even a Popescu. After a jarring clunk, the building’s door was remotely unlocked.

  A stairwell rose above us, yawning wide and darkening to blackness—like staring up a rearing dragon’s throat. The concrete looked cold and damp and depressing, and each landing was adorned with rusted iron gripping a bouquet of dusty, plastic flowers. The silence was pregnant. It was creepy.

  Up we went, lugging luggage. I couldn’t get over how fast someone in America would slap down a lawsuit over those unlit stairs, while Bianca chatted excitedly about the upcoming introductions.

  “I can’t wait to hear my father greeting you in English,” she bubbled. “He couldn’t twist his tongue around certain words. I’m sure his English will be as bad as your Romanian.”

  “My Romanian?” I asked, panting behind her. Though in good shape, I was not used to stairs. By the third flight I was already winded, yet chain-smoking Bianca was fine. She wasn’t kidding about Romanians climbing stairs all day long! I assuaged my embarrassment by bla
ming the long flight and heavy luggage.

  “Da, bambo,” she said. “You did learn some Romanian, didn’t you? I ordered Mihaela to teach you basics.”

  “Well, she didn’t,” I replied tiredly. “Actually, Mihaela doesn’t like to talk about Romania that much.”

  “That rasclat woman!” Bianca scoffed. “I should have known. Lots of Romanians don’t advertise where they from. But you do know how to say ‘is a pleasure to meet you?’”

  “Uh, no,” I admitted, trying to hide my panting.

  Bianca paused and turned to me in the dark. “OK, repeat after me.”

  She then proceeded to speak some words. I stared at her blankly for a good long minute, then tried to repeat them. Her wince needed no translation.

  “Forget it,” she said. “At least tell me you have the gifts I asked you to bring.”

  “Da,” I said. “See? I know Romanian. Da means yes, and nu means no, in case you didn’t know.”

  “You genius, papa,” she replied sarcastically.

  On the fourth floor we stopped before a recessed doorway in absolute blackness. How she knew where the door was in order to knock defied explanation. My breath was raspy behind her, and I was happy for a moment to try and catch it. But immediately the door burst open with an explosion of bright light and noisy welcome.

  “Aaaah!” exclaimed an enthusiastic voice. Bianca rushed into a big hug, as if she’d been on a contract with Carnival Cruise Lines, rather than gone for a day. I was still blinking from the brilliance when a hand reached forward to pull me inside. Foreign words enveloped me, along with unmistakable welcome.

  Bianca’s parents were tiny people. She herself was only 5’5”, but was a head taller than both of them. The parents Pop were both white-haired and enjoyed the roundness happily attained through age, yet still sprightly. The many lines on their faces were predominantly around the eyes—unmistakably from laughter.

  “Aaaah!” her father repeated as he thrust out his hand. Though a small man, his hand was not, and his grip was like steel. His nose was large and round, and his brow a mess of thick, white wires. An odd-shaped scar crinkled his lower lip, like an upside-down horseshoe.

  “Velcome to Transylvania,” he intoned with great sincerity, flashing huge, pearly white teeth. “It’s nice to eat you.”

  He sounded exactly like Bela Lugosi. Had he not been a mere 130 pounds, I would have fainted. Even so, I worriedly looked around for large knives.

  “Mulţumesc foarte mult,” I replied in what I foolishly thought was surely flawless Romanian. (Pronounced MOOLT-soo-mesc f-WAHR-tay moolt) That meant ‘thank you very much.’ I think. He smiled even broader, delighted.

  “Babaloo!” Bianca said, “You said you didn’t know any Romanian.”

  “That’s all I know,” I replied, still shaking her father’s hand. Finally he released me and gestured for his wife to step forward. Unlike her husband, her hair was not wispy-thin but wavy-thick. Her face boasted high cheekbones and a narrow, sharp nose. She gave me a big hug and a bigger smile. It was a warm welcome indeed.

  “Everyone calls my father Piti,” Bianca said. “His real name is pretty tough.”

  “Your dad sounds just like Dracula!” I commented enthusiastically.

  “Yes, well, he is from Hungary, so he would,” Bianca laughed. “My mother’s name is Lâcramioara.”

  I stared at Bianca, drooping. “You’ve got to be kidding me. Lucra...”

  “I warned you,” Bianca said, smirking. “I don’t want you getting a sore tongue already, so you can call her Lucky.”

  Piti removed his blue sweater vest and began tugging it over my arms—or attempting to. To say it was a tight fit was an understatement in any language, for my shoulders were nearly twice as wide as his. But he would not be deterred, and grunted under the strain of buttoning it closed around my chest.

  His offerings were far from over. Piti kicked off his slippers and gestured for me to put those on, too. I tried to indicate it was unnecessary, using a smile. I couldn’t use words anyway—not because of the language barrier, but because I was unable to draw breath in his tiny sweater vest.

  Piti pointed to the slippers in a manner that indicated he expected to be obeyed. Though small, he was the very model of a modern major general.

  “Papooch!” he ordered.

  “You better put on the papuci,” Bianca observed, elaborating the correct pronunciation.

  I tried to protest how preposterous I would look in his tiny slippers, but only managed a sick wheeze. Stars were dancing in the corners of my vision. While Piti was distracted with the slippers, I unobtrusively unbuttoned the vest. Fresh, glorious air surged into my lungs.

  Feeling renewed, I cheekily handed my hiking boot to Bianca. Lucky’s eyes bulged, whereas Bianca began laughing. She egged her father on, and the papuci drama began.

  Barely half my foot fit into his slipper, but Piti was unfazed. He rushed to a corner piled high with fuzzy footwear of all colors, and began digging. Slippers were flung aside with abandon as he dug to the bottom of the mound. Finally he found what he sought and returned with the chosen pair. Triumphantly he presented the pair of navy blue papuci.

  They, too, were hopelessly small. Piti looked back and forth between the slippers and my Size 12 Wide feet. His bristly brows knit together, and with renewed vigor he tackled the heap of slippers. While he mumbled in annoyance, the ladies stifled giggles.

  “Really,” I said. “It’s OK. I don’t need any.”

  “Oh, no,” Bianca said vehemently, dodging a slipper as it flew wide. She looked at me like I was a moron, and added, “You’ll catch a cold with bare feet on the tile.”

  “It feels good to be barefoot after the long trip,” I tried, but she would have none of it. Her eyes flew as wide as her mother’s when she actually looked at my feet.

  “Whoa, papa! Check your fingers!”

  “What?” I asked, searching for something unsightly under my fingernails.

  “No, bambo, on your feet.”

  “You mean my toes?” I said.

  “Whatever. Both have same name in Romanian.”

  “Really?” I said, surprised. “You don’t get confused?”

  “How you confuse your feet with your hands? Mihaela said you were stupid, now I see why. Check your feet: get papuci on them. No colds on my watch.”

  “Come on, Bianca,” I chided. “You can recite Mendeleev’s Periodic Chart of the Elements—in order, no less—yet don’t know that colds only come from a virus?”

  Protestations were in vain, however. Piti shoved another pair of slippers at me. Too small. So was the fourth pair. Fighting anger now, Piti stomped out of the entryway and deeper into the apartment. We heard slamming cupboards and closets. Quietly, Lucky went after him.

  “Wow,” I said, now alone with Bianca. “This really isn’t a big deal.”

  “He wants to be the perfect host,” she explained with a smile. “Indulge him. American guest is very rare.”

  Lucky returned first, bringing the most surprising slippers I could have imagined: monstrously huge, fuzzy American flags.

  “I forgot about those!” Bianca cried, laughing. “Don’t ask where they came from. Long story.”

  Suddenly Piti burst from the other room, panting and disheveled—and empty handed. He froze and stared with disappointment at the ludicrously large American flag slippers. Rather than be out-done by his wife, he reached over and grabbed a bottle of liquor. Piti triumphantly held out this new offering and said two familiar words in an unfamiliar manner.

  “Bree-ahn,” he cried. “Alcool!”

  “Now he’s talking my language!” I agreed happily.

  “Be careful with that,” Bianca warned, rolling her eyes. She grabbed my arm and led me into the kitchen. “You don’t have anything like it in America.”

  A moment later we four were crammed into a tiny kitchen around an even tinier table. Everything was communist-drab. It was bad enough that everything outside was nonst
op grey concrete, but inside all was nonstop off-white tile. The floor, ceiling, and even walls were sheathed in aged tiles. The tabletop was off-white laminate. What is it about communists that they deny any color other than red? Everything was scrubbed perfectly clean with pride, however.

  I feared that fitting four of us in the kitchen simultaneously would be problematic. This was a failure of my imagination. The table was pulled away from the wall and we squeezed around it. My shoulder rubbed against the refrigerator, which resembled a Sixties-era Frigidaire, while beside me sat Bianca with her back pressed against a decrepit stove. Piti was wedged against the wall, while Lucky’s chair sat inside the walk-in cupboard. Any time someone needed to leave the kitchen, I had to pivot halfway around for them to pass.

  With great ceremony, Piti readied tiny cups for each of us. They were perhaps half the size of a shot glass, shaped like a beer stein—for a doll. I felt like I was playing tea with my niece, until the unmistakable scent of raw liquor wafted up as we toasted. After one sip, I nearly choked.

  “What the hell is this?” I spluttered, bringing a round of laughter. I looked into my empty thimble, looking for taste. It was nowhere to be found.

  “This is țuica,” Bianca explained.

  “Zweeka?”

  “There’s a ‘T’ in front,” she corrected gently. “When a ‘T’ has a little tail on it, it sounds like the ‘TZ’ in ‘pizza’. Anyway, țuica is a traditional Romanian drink. You can buy it at the store, but the best is homemade. It’s plum brandy. We drink it at special moments. And before every meal, of course, to stimulate appetite. Like vodka to Russians.”

  “I shudder to imagine America if we stimulated our appetites before every meal,” I commented wryly. “Though I think it would be cool to have a drink we were internationally known for.”

  “Sure you do,” Bianca replied. “Whiskey. How else was the West won?”

  “Atta girl!” I laughed. “But try as I might, I cannot picture my mother doing shots of Jack before each meal. Anyway, what you have here is not exactly unknown in America. We call it moonshine, and it explains why your parents are so short. I have an inch or two to spare, so I’ll have another.”