by Bel Mooney
‘I wonder if you could go through these reports for me, and make written translations of the passages I’ve marked?’
‘Of course.’
When the door closed behind him Ana stared down at her desk with disgust. There were the local ‘newspapers’, full of reports about Him – and little else. There were pictures of Ceauşescu and Elena here and there, and full transcripts of speeches he had made … and that, only that, was the news. And now Michael Edwards had left a small pile of state reports on her desk: more paper, more propaganda to switch from her language into his – the nuances of which shone a humiliating spotlight on the overblown cadences of deceit.
And yet Ana did this time after time, pulling the old typewriter towards her, and performing her function, aware that she and the Englishman knew its limitations, and therefore no shame could be attached. So why should it feel different today?
Look at me as I sit here. My shoulders are hunched, my head is bowed. Is this the way I walk along the street? Is this the way I lie in my sleep, curled as if to ward off a blow? I can remember my father quoting me the proverb – one of our Romanian proverbs, God help the soul of this country – ‘The sword will not cut a lowered head,’ and laughing in derision. And now my head is bent. My head is bent. Was it always so? Was I born so?
The child Ana Popescu walks with her mother and father up the long road to Humor Monastery, tossing back her hair and laughing in the full sunshine. They swing her, one each side, walking fast, passing groups of families in Moldavian costume, men in their cream tunics and leggings, women in embroidered blouses and skirts, all wearing their richly worked sheepskin waistcoats, despite the heat of the day.
‘Swing me again, Tată! Swing me, Mamă!’
‘Ana, Anina, my arms are tired,’ laughs her mother.
‘She takes after you, Susanna,’ says Stelian Popescu, ‘completely tireless!’
But Ana’s mother stops smiling for a second, and sighs. ‘I wish it were true, as it used to be, Stelian. But at the moment it seems I’m tired all the time.’
They glimpse the wooden stockade, with its tall gatehouse, and Ana is hushed into silence, mesmerized by the insistent pounding of the toaca, calling the faithful with a thrumming pulsation that rises up the scale to an almost hysterical rattle.
‘The early Christians used it instead of a bell,’ her father explains, always the historian, always the teacher, ‘because when their religion was forbidden they could beat a piece of wood to get people to come to worship, and yet the sound wouldn’t travel far, you see.’
‘Why weren’t they allowed?’ asks Ana, with little curiosity in her voice. At ten it seems to her that so many things are not allowed, the true mystery lies in consent. Don’t do that, child … Come away from there, Ana … No, you mustn’t…
Her father says something about the Romans but Ana is not listening. They are drawing near to the gateway, beyond which she glimpses the swoop of a roof; the rattle of the bellboard drowns her father’s words, and beneath it rises a low chanting, a deep murmuring plaint of men’s voices. Ana tucks her arm in her mother’s, and walks in silence.
As they pass through the gateway, she draws in her breath. The monastery glitters in the sunlight, the wall before her crowded with square after square of painted images, like a a child’s picture strip. Old women stand, their hands touching the wall in reverence, heads bowed in prayer. A line of people waits to file into the open porch where men’s narrow-brimmed hats lie in small piles on the low wall. A beggar leans crazily on his crutches near the door, mute, one hand permanently outstretched, not noticing the small children in homemade leather footwear who run almost between his feet. Ana wonders if he is blind … but to be blind! to be unable to view the miracle that towers above them … Tears of pity spring to her eyes at the thought, and because of the wonder all around her: an abundance of sunlight and wall paintings and music and of God, which makes the child draw in her breath.
Her mother sees, and lays a hand on her shoulder, guiding her round, following Stelian. He is interested in bricks and mortar and dates, in facts about Theodor Bubuiog, Petru Rares and Vasile Lupu, whose names he mutters at them as he examines the vibrant reds, blues and greens of the monastery walls.
Susanna, like her daughter, is awed to silence and bows her head. Mother and daughter stand for a second, smelling candle wax and listening to the resounding, rhythmic chanting from the narrow windows. They entwine hands behind their backs, making of themselves a tiny wall, imprinting that moment on their history like the story of the Virgin.
‘But look!’ says Stelian. ‘Look at The Last Judgement – not so fine as the one at Voronej this one, but it’s good, Susanna, just look!’
On the West Wall Christ sits in judgement, and a long, tumbling chute of rich red pigment leads surely from his feet down to hell. Ana laughs suddenly as she notices the animals: funny little primitive creatures who totter along with torn-off human limbs in their mouths, ready to return them to the corpses who rise from their shrouds, but must be whole again before they can ascend to Paradise.
‘Tată! Look at the funny lion!’
But Stelian Popescu is not smiling. He is staring with intensity at the fresco. Td forgotten, Susanna, that the devil is pictured as a woman in this one. Do you see? It’s almost worn away …’
Ana squints at the wall, shivering to see that the hideous form of Dracul does indeed appear as a groteque female, ready to devour the pale, thin, sinning souls who are being weighed and cast down. They look so small and frail, Ana pities them with all her heart; after all, how did they know that what they did was wrong? There were so many things you could not do; how did you know which of them would send you to hell, if you weakened and gave in?
‘Is there such a place as hell, Tata?’ she asks in a small voice.
Most of the people are inside the monastery now. The toaca is silent; the singing seems to swell. Stelian Popescu turns to his daughter, his face wearing that sardonic look she fears. ‘Of course there is such a place as hell! When we walk the streets of Suceava we are in hell, my dear, and even here. Look at those pathetic little people up there, white like worms – don’t you recognize them?’
‘Stelian!’ says Susanna, in a gentle, warning voice.
‘Hardly suprising that Romanian artists were so good at representing the doomed,’ he laughs, ‘for there we are, all of us! And if we fall, we fall into Her clutches, and if we rise we have nowhere else to go but to Him. The Last Judgement happens every day of our lives! A joke, Susanna, a joke … listen … a Romanian official dies and goes to hell. At the entrance he sees two great big rooms, one marked “East”, and the other marked “West”. There’s a devil on the door and the party man asks him what the difference is, which one he should choose. The devil says, “Oh, the services we give you are the same: Monday it’s boiling in oil, Tuesday it’s roasting on a spit, Wednesday it’s the day for fire and brimstone …”
“But,” says the man, “why are all those people hanging around in East? Why is it so crowded and West so empty?”
“Well, in East hell they’ve run out of oil, and the spits don’t work, and there’s always a shortage of fire and brimstone,” the devil explains … Good, isn’t it?’
‘Shhhh,’ hisses Ana’s mother, looking anxiously around.
But there is no one within earshot except the beggar, who still leans by the doffed hats, his head bowed, not moving even when a skinny dog raises a leg and urinates on his gnarled crutch.
During her lunch break Ana left the Embassy and walked quickly down the Boulevard Magheru, looking to right and left. The rain had stopped now, which was a pity, she thought, because that meant that more people were on the streets. There was a long queue outside the dairy and she was just about to join it when she noticed an old peasant woman walk slowly to a particular spot on the pavement nearby, carrying a bag.
Trusting her instinct, Ana rushed across. The woman was spreading a small piece of hessian on the ground.
Then she turned her bag upside down and tipped out two large turnips and a few potatoes. Immediately people stopped – but Ana was there first. The old woman had barely time to squat down by her produce before Ana asked the price. Eyes narrowed, the seller appraised her clothes, but Ana was in no mood to haggle. ‘Quickly, quickly,’ she said, as if the slightest delay might mean someone would come, push her out of the way and steal her booty.
Triumphant, she moved off, ignoring the envious, angry looks of those who had already formed a small queue behind her. The peasant folded up her cloth, the day’s business done, and that particular little cluster broke up and scattered randomly, like iron filings shaken when the magnet has been removed.
Ana was elated. The bag of vegetables bumped against her leg and she hurried on, eyes swivelling like a hunter. She forgot about the dairy now, weighing her chances and deciding there was no time. Ion’s request for fruit was banging in her head, although she knew he would not complain, now she had something fresh to cook for supper. Yet she had promised him a present – and so she hesitated, wondering whether to cross into the Calea Victoriei and look for a little drawing book, or a pencil, or continue her search for essentials. Then, suddenly, she spotted another cluster of people milling on the corner of Strada Maria Rosetti, and could not resist going to investigate.
When she reached the group (which was, in fact, a queue, flanked by people undecided whether to join it) Ana started to shiver, not with cold but with the intensity of her need. A man in a conical hat and rough sheepskin jacket was standing on the corner behind a muddy wheelbarrow. And inside the wheelbarrow, stared at greedily by the line of men and women, was a small pile of apples. Apples. But, joining the line, she calculated the number of people, and weighed that against the pile of fruit. What if the people in front of her bought a lot? After all, she had taken all the peasant woman’s vegetables, leaving none for those behind her. Why should not these people do the same?
Yet, as she saw successful shoppers pay for the fruit and move away, putting the apples carefully in pockets and bags, it was clear that they were only buying in twos and threes. Perhaps the peasant was restricting sales deliberately, although that would be unusual. Maybe people simply had no money …
Ana’s head buzzed. She stood on tiptoe to see, then rocked back on her heels, her heart thudding. Please God, please God, let there be some left for me. Please God, let me be able to buy Ion some fruit, oh please, please, please …
Each second she expected the people in front of her to turn away, in disappointed acquiescence, because the supply had run out. Oh please, God, don’t let it happen, I’ll do anything, anything, God…
At last, after only ten minutes, she reached the front of the queue, and looked into the wheelbarrow. There were about ten apples left, small, yellow, and slightly shrivelled, stored in a barn since last autumn, no doubt. Ana wanted to shout her joy. It was astonishing that her voice did not break as she asked the price of four. He told her. And then she glanced behind her, and saw that anxious, intense look on the faces of women like her, women with children at home, who wanted that fruit as desperately as she did. So, surprising herself, she gave the man the money for two apples, and tucked them lovingly into separate pockets.
The day’s work over, she went to Block 9, and collected Ion from the young woman, with four children of her own, who minded Ion in the afternoon until Ana finished. Knowing how poor she was (Ana’s four hundred lei a month was essential to her) Ana felt momentarily guilty for not giving her a turnip, at least, but buried the thought. It was her and Ion: they were all that mattered.
‘Guess what I’ve got for you, Ionica?’
He beamed, and shook his head.
‘Put your hands in both my pockets – go on!’
He did so, found the fruit and laughed aloud. ‘Mama! You promised you’d get me a present and you did. Oh, but …’ he paused.
‘What is it?’
‘You must have one of them. We’ll have them after our meal.’
Ana felt gaiety bubble up inside her. He was so good, so unselfish, despite everything. That cannot be touched, that part inside you, no matter what they do. We can remain good within ourselves, and keep our heads unbowed.
‘No, my pet, I got the apples just for you. I don’t want one, really I don’t. Listen, Ion, I managed to find some vegetables, good ones! Tonight we’ll have a feast!’
*
Ion placed the yellow apples in the little pottery dish at the centre of the table, while Ana scrubbed four potatoes, and carefully peeled one of the turnips, cutting it into large dice. She set a pan of water to boil, adding the turnip dice to the potatoes only when the knife went in easily. The vegetables cooked, she put the potatoes to keep warm in an earthenware dish on top of the paraffin stove, set the vegetable water aside to make soup, then fried the turnips in a little oil.
‘Set the table, Ion – we’re nearly ready!’ she called.
There was silence. She pulled her sleeves down over her hands to lift the dish of potatoes, and walked quietly into the living room. Then she stopped, and smiled. Ion had already set their places, and was now sitting at the table, an unopened book before him, staring fixedly at his apples.
Later, he lay in his bed, propping himself on one elbow and wheeling his plastic motorbike to and fro over the bedclothes. ‘Read to me, Mama.’
Ana felt full. The dishes were in the sink, waiting to be washed with cold water which would crack her fingers, but Ion had eaten his apple with such relish (pondering before leaving the second one in the dish for tomorrow), after stuffing himself with vegetables, that she felt, for once, that the day could be notched up as an achievement. She had eaten well too, and allowed herself two cigarettes after the meal, with a tiny cup of bitter coffee-substitute. Contentment oozed within her although, strangely, she resisted it, as if to allow oneself to identify such tiny things with perfect happiness was finally to capitulate.
‘Please Mama – I’m not tired yet.’
She took Inspirescu’s Legends from the small pile of books on the floor by Ion’s bed, but as he settled in anticipation, clutching the toy to his chest she paused and shook her head. ‘No, I’m not going to make it so easy for you, Ionica. I’m going to read from this one. I know you can understand it!’
The book was printed on thick, cheap paper, with a crudely drawn picture on the front, of a bear dressed as a Wild West sheriff, smoking a cigar. It was called My Pleasure Time Story Book. One of the other librarians, a kind woman in her late fifties, had given it to Ana for Ion. She explained that her neighbour, an English teacher, no longer needed it as, inexplicably, his application for a passport had been granted after seven years. Ana heard that story with envy, gratefully seizing the volume and turning its pages – so that the ugly, large-format story book was associated in her mind with one thing: freedom. Somebody else’s, of course, but no matter. It existed, even in imagination, as a possibility. It lay somewhere between the magical, tantalizing address printed on the title page:
Treasure Hour Children’s Books
Cresta House
146–152 Holloway Road
London N7
and the words PRINTED IN ROMANIA inside the back cover, explaining, Ana thought, the mish-mash of type sizes, and the garish colouring on the line illustrations. And if freedom lay within that make-believe world, then yes, she could give it to Ion whenever she wanted.
He frowned slightly, because he would have to concentrate more to understand the English. Ana flicked through the pages.
‘Read the one about the girls on the big boat,’ he said.
‘Katie’s Mediterranean Cruise’ always made Ion’s eyes widen in amazement, but Ana shook her head and continued turning the pages. ‘Here we are,’ she said, ‘I’ll read this one. Listen very hard – I’ll go slowly. You’ll remember it, anyway. It’s called …
‘The Mysterious Black Knight’
Many years ago the kingdom of Braganza in Central Europe was in a state
of ferment. The king Frederick had reigned for some thirteen years and his reign followed that of his father Gustave, who had been popularly known as strong Gustave. His son Frederick was a weak person and for some years the barons of Braganza had been squabbling among themselves for the favour of the king. The strongest of these barons was a certain Gottwald von Siebenturm whose private army and estates in the eastern provinces of Braganza had reached mighty proportions. The private army of Gottwald was second only in strength to that of the king himself.
The army of Gottwald naturally owed allegiance to the king, but the kingdom of Braganza had been at peace for some years due to the clever administration of Frederick’s father Gustave. He had been able to build up large armies by employing the private armies of his barons and this show of immense strength had been sufficient warning to any neighbouring countries whose greed tempted them to look to Braganza as a likely vassal state. Now, in the peace that was inherited from his father, King Frederick allowed his barons to keep their private armies to administer their territories and collect the local taxes.
The peasantry of the land found these local taxes burdensome and unjust and in certain provinces, the eastern provinces in particular, the soldiers showed no mercy for those who could not pay.
Braganza had suffered for some time under the harsh rule of the barons and the farm and country folk remembered with affection the rule of Gustave the Strong, for he had been a man of simple tastes and not given to wild spending …
‘What I don’t understand is …’ Ion began.
‘Some of the words are hard, I know,’ said Ana.
‘No, I don’t mean that. I don’t understand why they didn’t say no. Why did they have to pay him?’
‘Well, they were afraid of the armies, you see.’