by Bel Mooney
Ana jumped up, unlocked the little drawer, and came back to him, waving a bundle of grubby dollar bills in his face. ‘Look, I’ve got money. I’ve been saving and saving, because I felt that one day something would happen, a chance for Ion. There’s not enough money for us both – but there’s enough for him, I think. Look, count it! And you coming today, with your news – it proves this is meant to happen. We have no choice, Radu, we’re part of something … huge. I don’t really understand now, I just know it.’
Radu smiled with some effort. Silently, he stood, accepted the money and tucked it in his shirt pocket. Then he took two cigarettes and lit them, holding out one towards her. Ana’s eyes were wet; as she drew the smoke down into her lungs she closed them for a long time, like someone in a trance, even swaying slightly as she stood, as if to the rhythm of unheard incantations.
‘You want to stay here tonight?’ she said at last, trying to return to normality.
He shook his head. ‘No, I have to see Luca. Some details …’
‘You didn’t tell him? You didn’t trust him?’
He shook his head. ‘No – mind you, I think I could trust Luca. He’s so fond of Doina, after all these years. You ever see him?’
She shook her head. ‘It was embarrassing …’ Radu grinned. ‘Oh yes, he fancied you, didn’t he? Poor slob … No, I managed to pick up an icon, a good one, and he’ll buy it. You know what he’s like …’
The loud knock on the door made them both start. Immediately Ana began to panic. ‘Have you put that money away? Make sure it’s hidden. What reason are you giving for being in Bucharest? Oh God, Radu, there’s a man I keep seeing – watching me. I think he’s Securitate …’
Radu put a hand on her shoulder, and laid the other finger gently on her lips. ‘Be calm, Ana … And just go and answer it.’ She obeyed and paused for a moment by the door, breathing deeply, before opening it.
Ion stood there, grinning at her, an old football in his hand, dark red and battered. ‘Look, Mama, look what I found! I asked, but no one knows who it belongs to. So it’s mine! Aren’t I lucky?’
Eight
Much later, Ana sat reading, by the light of one candle. The lights had gone out at nine, but she did not want to go to bed. She felt light-headed, dizzy with the icy draughts of oxygen gulped as she leapt into her private abyss. It was as if every sound in the apartment was magnified: Ion’s breathing next door a susurration, like slow waves on the shore.
She tried to concentrate. The pages crashed over, and Blandiana’s words were intermittent hammers in her brain.
From the beginning you were born on the wind
Like a seed.
I even joked:’ Who’s ever seen
A star born on the wind?’
In her imagination she saw Ion and Radu disappearing into mist, a formless whiteness which swirled about them, while she watched in silence, stifling her screams. She frowned, willing herself to be precise, as if that was the only link to sanity; conjuring up images of shops filled with food, well-equipped modern schools where proper lessons were taught, Ion as a young man (with the easy good looks, the relaxed confidence of his father) thanking her for giving him freedom. She knew he would thank her. She had no doubt, for was there not, in her estimation, no greater gift? Yet this vision, too, dissolved, and the whiteness, the nothingness filled her sight once more, reflecting from the open page on her knee, flickering in the pale candlelight.
You are a seed.
What a pity
That the plant which,
Light from light, you bear
Cannot be seen
Until after
I have gone into the dark.
And was that what my father thought as he drove away from me that day, leaving me to his sister, and whatever might happen? Did he see me as the seed of a star, Susanna’s daughter, who might flourish better without him? Or as a burden, hampering him in his search for … what? Did he drive away into his own darkness feeling grief, or liberation? And was he as afraid as I am now?
… the flight of the lonely one
From and towards
The centre of loneliness,
After the pattern of which
Seas make waves.
In the quietness, all perceptions heightened, she heard the footsteps on the stone stair even before the single rap on the door. She closed the book and sat perfectly still.
There was another rap, quiet and insistent, yet not peremptory, not threatening. She made herself relax. Radu, it must be Radu; he’s forgotten something, or else Luca couldn’t let him stay the night. She looked round for Radu’s hat, or bag, but he had left nothing.
Another knock, much louder this time. Afraid Ion would wake, Ana rose, took her matches, and lit the little mirrored oil lamp on the wall. The glow was comforting. Then she opened the door a few inches, expecting to see Radu’s large, bearded face.
The black shoe was thrust across the step before she had time to think, and as she struggled in vain to close the door a burly shoulder pushed it wide open with ease. In those seconds, before the face emerged from the pitchy darkness of the stairwell into the lamplight Ana knew who it would be. She had seen that face in daylight, and in darkness and even in the puzzling mists of her dreams. She had inhaled that aroma of sweat, cigarettes and onions that now filled her nostrils, close and overpowering. The man filled the doorway now, as she stared at him in helpless terror.
‘Ana Popescu?’ She nodded. ‘I want to talk to you. You had better let me in. You know who I am, where I come from?’
‘Why should I know?’
‘I think you do. Don’t be stupid.’
She shrugged, and stepped backwards.
‘Good. That’s much better. I won’t keep you very long. I know how busy you are.’
The heavy irony, and the insolent way he drew on his Kent, exhaling the smoke into her face, suddenly made Ana sick with rage. But she said nothing, breathing deeply to calm herself, thus admitting his smell into her body, so that even before he spoke the humiliation, the capitulation had begun.
‘Aren’t you going to ask me to sit down?’ he grinned at her, exposing yellow teeth.
‘I can hear anything you have to say out here.’ Ana felt herself start to tremble, and struggled to control it.
He shrugged. ‘A pity you can’t be friendly, Ana Popescu. I can always help a pretty woman who’s friendly to me, even if she is in trouble with my bosses …’
‘Who’s in trouble? I’ve done nothing!’
‘Not yet, anyway.’ He laughed. ‘We’ll talk about it … but first you can tell me a few things. You had a visitor today. Who was it?’
Be relaxed, or he’ll suspect something. Play up to him, play up to him … Ana forced a smile, and shrugged. ‘Oh him, he was just a man I used to know in Timişoara. He was at school with me. I didn’t know he was coming. In Bucharest for some business … just came to say hello …’ Don’t chatter on. You’re telling him things he didn’t ask …
‘Radu Kessler. A well-known parasite who was expelled from the Artists’ Union last year. Rubbish who paints rubbish – so why d’you want rubbish for your friend? What’s it say about you, Popescu?’
‘He isn’t my friend. And’ – Ana smiled at the man, detesting herself and praying for forgiveness – ‘when I knew him I always hated his paintings. They meant nothing. Anyway, I wasn’t expecting him, but I had to be polite. We were at school together, as I said. A long time ago. He isn’t my friend now.’
He looked at her stonily. Then, obscene in its slowness, a thin smile cracked his face. ‘Good, I’m glad we agree. And did Mr Kessler tell you anything of his … er … activities?’
Ana shook her head.
‘Well, what about yours? You’ve been very friendly with the British diplomat, Mr Edwards. What sort of things does he talk to you about?’
‘I work with him. That’s all. We talk about… my job.’
‘In the park? In a boat with your son? Very likely.’<
br />
Ana felt her spine disintegrating. Where were they hiding? Were they among the trees, or even in the little hut by the lake? Did they watch me playing football before Michael arrived; was that man who kicked the ball back to Ion one of them? Or was it Michael they were watching?
The man let his eyes travel, very slowly, from her face and down her body. He let his cigarette fall to the hall floor, and ground it into the linoleum with his heel. Then his eyes rose again, and he bared those discoloured teeth in a suggestive grin. ‘Maybe you’re sleeping with him, Popescu. Maybe he gives you hard currency. I don’t blame him. You’d be a good-looking woman if you bought yourself some decent clothes.’
Bitter juices flowed into Ana’s mouth. ‘Well,’ she retorted, attempting pertness, ‘that proves you’re wrong. If I was sleeping with a Westerner for money, don’t you think by now I’d have some good clothes?’
He grunted. ‘Well, keep it that way. A patriotic Romanian woman has no business with a foreign spy – unless it’s for the good of her country. You know, Popescu, it’d be in your interest to keep friendly with Edwards and report to us on what he tells you, do you understand? I’ll come and visit you every so often, and you can tell me what you know.’
‘What if I don’t know anything?’ she whispered, her voice hoarse, on the edge of panic.
‘Well, you’d better make sure you do know something. Pretty woman like you, young man alone in Bucharest – it’s obvious. I could tell you ways to get him to do anything for you. And if you’re determined to play innocent, maybe I’ll have to show you some ways …’
He stepped towards her, grinning broadly now. Ana took a small step backwards, but she was against the wall. With slow deliberation, he reached out and cupped both her breasts, rotating and squeezing them, never removing his eyes from her face. Every instinct told Ana to lash out, but she stood still – disgusted, acquiescent. Then one hand was put roughly round her neck and he pulled her towards him, thrusting his tongue into her mouth and working it around her teeth, while he pulled and pinched one nipple through the fabric of her sweater, rolling it painfully between finger and thumb.
Ana tasted his smell. Unable to bear it any longer, she jerked her head back, tasting vomit. His laughter ricocheted around her head as he gave her breast a final, contemptuous twist, then stepped back.
‘Very nice, but you’ve got a lot to learn, Popescu. And if Edwards doesn’t teach you, we’ll have to do it ourselves. Is that clear to you? Good. I’ll go now – but I’ll be back.’
She heard, but did not see, the door close behind him. Eyes closed, she leaned back against the wall, exhausted by terror and by loathing. Every second she expected to hear footsteps and another rap at the door, as the harassment began in earnest. There would be no respite, not now the animal had tasted blood. The worst thing of all, paralysing her, keeping her pinioned against that wall, was the disgrace. It was not what she had said about Radu, for he would understand the wisdom of that. It was not that she had submitted to the man. It was that she wished, suddenly and shamefully, that none of it had been made possible – that her mouth had never shaped the words of a foreign language, the knowledge and love of which had led, inexorably, to this night. A small sound disturbed the silence, and she opened her eyes, listening. No footsteps sounded at her door, and there was no noise from the neighbouring apartment.
‘Mama.’ Ion’s door was ajar. He stood peering through the gap with huge, terrified eyes. His face seemed to bob in front of Ana, near, then very far away, wavering like a pale balloon. ‘Mama, who was that man? What did he want?’
He had seen. With a small cry Ana ran to him and clutched him to her, murmuring any words that came into her mind, anything to drive out his fear. And yet, as she felt him pressing against her she wanted to push him away as well, to protect him from contamination.
‘He was a bad man, Ion. He wanted Mama to do bad things. But he’s gone now.’
‘Will he come back?’
‘No, Ion.’
She led him back to bed, and when the blanket was tucked around him, he stuck his thumb in his mouth and whispered, ‘Sing to me, Mama. Like you used to.’
‘Such a huge boy, and he still wants a lullaby,’ Ana said, forcing a light, teasing note into her voice. How could she sing, when she wanted only to lie on the floor before her son and whimper?
‘I won’t be able to sleep unless you sing to me, Mama.’
‘Oh, Ionica
So Ana made herself sing the old, nonsensical lullaby which echoed from her childhood: Susanna’s soft voice in Suceava, in another time, which now seemed so safe. ‘Nani, nani,’ she crooned, summoning the magic fish to put the child to bed for its mother, ‘Nani, nani,’ asking them to make it sleep.
Nine
All of this impossible to hold – to fix even for a second in the Now. The hoarse rhythm of the train; the press of the woman next to me, clutching a bag of old shoes to her bosom; cigarette smoke and whirling dust in the shaft of sunlight from the open window; the concentration on Ion’s face as he rolls his motorbike backwards and forwards, backwards and forwards on his knee, imitating engine sounds in a vague, tuneless hum; and outside the landscape, unscrolling unbelievably, seen never before nor ever again. The wheels clack out the rhythm of destination: Ti-mi-şoar-a, Ti-mi-şoar-a …
When we got to the station we found they had double-booked, and for a second I knew what it was to want to kill – to see the body of the ticket-collector chopped red and bloody on the tracks beneath the metal wheels. The other people, a fat couple, were quick to take the man aside to offer a bribe, while I stood by, helpless. Yet the miracle happened. The ticket-collector led the couple away, to much better seats he said he had kept for ‘friends’, and so we had our places, Ion and I, for this last journey.
The last journey … and so it must be fixed, or what possibility is there for retrieval? Sometimes it seems that my life shapes itself into the form of an eternal journey; that somewhere at the end, when the doors are flung open on the platform, and families embrace, and someone drops old luggage, spilling intimacies in the dirt – then my mother will be waiting, to put her arm around my shoulder, and guide me gently, explaining why she went, why he went, why Ion has to go.
Ana is driving to Suceava at last with Aunt Liliana and Uncle Florin, to try to find out what happened. His lips are tight; long lines run from his nose to his chin, and he grips the wheel with blue-grey hands. Liliana’s face is red; she has been weeping, off and on, for four weeks, since her brother drove off into the night, leaving their odd, silent niece for a short holiday with them. Ha! She suspects that he has crossed the border, and the thought of him living a good life in a refugee camp in Yugoslavia makes her tremble with rage. Immediately, though, she remembers the tales they have heard: footprints in the finely raked soil, the dogs set on escapees, the beatings, blood and teeth spat out on the ground, the shots fired in the night. Then tears for her brother burn. Ah, poor Stelian!
Liliana offers Ana some bread and pickle, wrapped in paper, glad that she has at least something to give.
After the long, long journey, when Ana felt suspended, she is somehow surprised when her key fits the lock, as if all claims to this past should already have been relinquished. The small flat smells of stale air, rotting food, and dust; newspapers are piled in a corner; a rat scuttles down a hole behind the cold stove as they enter the room. On a plate on the table, the remains of his meal: bread and tomatoes green with mould.
A wooden chair lies, thrown over, on the floor. Liliana pulls open the single cupboard, to reveal Stelian’s few clothes: a patched jacket, a beige windbreaker, two pairs of trousers, the black suit last worn at his wife’s burial. Beside these remnants sway two woollen dresses belonging to Susanna.
‘Mama didn’t like those dresses,’ says Ana, to no one in particular.
‘Where are the rest of her clothes? Why did he leave these behind? Why these?’
‘Mama doesn’t like those two,’ Ana rep
eats.
‘He must have sold the rest. But why are his clothes still here? What has happened, Florin?’ Liliana huffs and weeps, trying to seek answers, as her husband looks grim and shrugs.
‘Look, Lili, it’s obvious he’s gone. Dumped her on us and headed for the border. Well, I hope they get him, that’s all I can say.’
‘Shhh, Florin, no …’
Uncle Florin removes the clothes from the cupboard. They flop across his arm like marionettes when the puppeteer has departed.
‘Why are you taking Tată’s clothes?’
‘No point leaving them here. He’s not coming back.’
‘Shhh, Florin, no …’ Liliana’s plump hands are outstretched, as if to ward off a blow.
Ana is in her tiny room. She puts the rest of her possessions into an old shopping bag: the books, the woven table runner, the ceramic candlesticks, her old wooden alphabet in its cardboard box, the school notebooks, two cards with details from the walls of Humor Monastery printed in too-bright colours, and – most precious of all – the small red cut-glass vase her mother had given her the Christmas before she died. Ana had never seen anything so beautiful. Now she holds it up, twisting it this way and that, so light glances off the white, stylized cuts in the surface; bringing it close to her eye, to flood the room, the flat, the world, with the colour of blood. Tenderly she wraps a pair of socks around the vase, encasing the whole in a cardigan, before putting it in her bag. Packed, she sits mutely on her bed, waiting.
Liliana goes to ask the neighbours what they know, but eyes slide away: nobody has seen or heard a thing, not for weeks. Stelian Popescu? He hardly spoke. People came and went sometimes, usually at night … Better not to ask, not to know anything.
They camp uncomfortably. Liliana sweeps, as if by setting the house in order she can expiate her brother’s guilt. Florin carries down the few pieces of decent furniture and makes a rickety pile on top of his car. Ana sits in her room, wondering why she does not feel more grief at her father’s desertion. All she can think of is earth flattened by spades, the smell of damp, rotting vegetation, vermilion smears in mud. But when she rises to walk around the small flat, she wonders how much of her parents Aunt Liliana has swept up. Her father was not concerned with cleanliness, and so what portions of her mother had lived with them there during the last year? Stray hairs, flakes of skin, a clipping from a fingernail? And these now joined to invisible fragments of her father in the little pile of dust Liliana has left in a corner.