by Bel Mooney
‘Well, what can we eat then?’
‘I propose to you some pork with some fried potatoes. Very nice.’
He gave the last two words a peculiar emphasis and glanced at Ana. The innuendo was unmistakable. Michael wanted to hit the man. But Ana was pleading wordlessly with him, willing the waiter to go.
‘OK, OK,’ said Michael angrily, flapping his hand. The man inclined his head in a mockery of courtesy, and went away. They always win, Michael thought, in this godforsaken place, but the victory gives them no pleasure. It is the revenge of the dead.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said.
Ana shrugged, and for a second he was repelled. That movement of her shoulders seemed to mirror the waiter’s gesture of contempt: it was the typical, meaningless shifting of stale air. Immediately, he felt ashamed of the thought. Ana Popescu might accept insolence and inefficiency as routine, yet she was not moribund. On the contrary, the story she was telling him made the lives of everyone he had met up to that moment seem vapid and shallow.
Again she launched into her narrative – reliving Doina’s challenge, their journey and capture. Here she stopped, looking down at her hands. ‘And the soldiers they … they did violence to us. That’s all I will say.’
Michael was embarrassed and enraged. He did not know what to say; he floundered before her. The dark eyes once again fixed themselves on his face, giving no quarter. Forced to speak he said, ‘My God, Ana … I’m so sorry.’
Then she smiled, without mirth. ‘Well I think it was not the worst of the things in my story, Michael. Not the worst at all, although it may seem so to you. Maybe I thought I deserved it …’
‘Don’t say that – no!’
The shrug again.
She told him about her interrogation, and the news of her father, about prison, about Cale, Luminiţa and Rodika – and it was as if every sentence pinned him more securely to his chair, so that he was incapable of moving. When the waiter finally brought their food he did not even look up, and the plates of over-cooked meat and greasy potatoes remained untouched before them.
The band had finished playing. Across the restaurant someone was drunk, toasting ‘Free Romania’ again and again, the people around laughing loudly, some at him but most with him.
‘We should eat our meal,’ Ana said, picking up her knife and fork.
‘It looks terrible. What we really need is some more wine.’ When Michael at last attracted the waiter’s attention to ask for another bottle, the man looked dubious, disappeared, and came back with astonishing promptness – only to tell them that there was no more wine. His eyes were expressionless.
‘There must be some wine!’ Michael protested.
Ana reached for her bag, and pulled out a fresh pack of Marlboro. In staccato Romanian she said, ‘Take these and bring us another bottle, quickly. I work as a translator and tomorrow I might bring some Americans here. They will give you plenty of cigarettes – if you are helpful. Now bring us the wine, please.’
The cigarettes were pocketed at speed, and five minutes later the waiter returned with a bottle of sparkling red wine. With exaggerated courtesy he presented it to Ana. ‘I have found this – I hope you will like it.’
‘Yes – please pour it.’
Michael stared at her. It was hard to equate the woman who had been speaking to him a few minutes ago, suffering and strength on every plane of her face, with this confident person. Was this the Ana who used to sit silently in the office, dissecting newspapers and translating reports? Whom he saw once playing football in the park, and who scurried away in terror when the boat trip was over? He remembered another dark head, a small one, nestling close to hers, and the boy’s hands next to his on the oars, and was overawed by what she had done. Then, as he looked at her, another image invaded his mind: soldiers pulling at her clothes, pushing her to the ground … He closed his eyes, feeling sick.
‘Is something wrong?” she asked.
‘No. I just feel as if… I’ve experienced nothing, and understood nothing. All my life,’ he said.
‘Then perhaps you are lucky, Michael.’
‘Certainly. If it’s lucky to be so ignorant.’
‘Don’t you have a saying in England, “Ignorance is bliss?”’ There was the slightest note of mockery in her voice. That was not new; he remembered it from the past and wondered if she had always despised him. Or all of them. For living on their little island of capitalism in the Embassy while outside this country struggled towards the liberation which, Michael knew, would not be a real liberation at all.
‘We do – and like most proverbs, it’s highly debatable. But anyway, Ana, you hadn’t finished – please go on …’
‘There isn’t much more to tell. Doina and I were released at the same time. We went back to her home in Timişoara to find other people living there, and all her things – with Radu’s paintings – had disappeared. We didn’t know what to do. So I decided to do something I vowed I would never do: I went to visit my aunt and uncle. You see, they were glad to get rid of me when I was pregnant with Ion, and they were so hard to me I told myself then that the only family I had was Ion. And so ten years went by without me hearing from them again. Do you think that’s terrible? You see, we Romanians can find it very hard to forgive – we are like that.
‘Anyway, I suddenly wanted to tell my aunt about my father – her brother, you see. And so Doina and I went to the house – I didn’t even know if they would still be there. When I knocked on the door I felt like a little girl again, afraid. And it was as if I was a ghost – she was so shocked. But she brought us in, and then I discovered something like a miracle, Michael.’
‘What?’
‘My uncle had died – it was his heart – just about the time when Radu and I made the plan. And my aunt thought about me and Ion and wanted to find us again. But she did nothing at first. And then she went to see Doina and Radu, but it was too late, you see. We had all gone. But you know how, in this country, people know things – if you listen very carefully you will hear the whispers going up and down the streets! Well, somehow she found out what had happened – only she thought that Ion had been with us when we escaped, because the neighbours had seen him with me. It was all a mystery to her. But because she wanted to do something she made a big fuss to get them to give her some of Doina’s things. What usually happens is … well, there is nothing usual in this country, it depends who you know … anyway, they would have taken everything away, but my aunt got some of the paintings, and the books, and Doina’s clothes. She said to me it was a way of making a bridge, you know? With the past. She was sorry, I think …’ Ana broke off and stared into space for a few minutes.
‘What about your own flat?’ Michael prompted.
‘I will come to that … I told Liliana about my father, and she said that she could be at peace at last, knowing he had not just abandoned me, making her life more difficult. My uncle didn’t want me, you see … He was a hard man. And I felt so happy, to be friends with her again. The only thing was … she found it difficult to understand about Ion. I had to remind her she had wanted me to give up my baby to an orphanage, because of the disgrace, and the money … It was a difficult moment. Then Doina wanted to leave Timişoara forever, but it would be impossible for her to get the permit to live in Bucharest, you know? So we decided to come anyway, because she has a very old friend, called Luca, who is a man who can do anything – do you understand?’
‘A fixer,’ said Michael.
‘That’s right, a fixer! Anyway, he said to come and he would help us. My flat had gone too, and I lost everything – all my books, everything. I cried at first but then I was glad, because I didn’t want to see Ion’s little things about the place. And Luca found us a room, and work – which was difficult. Doina had to work at home because she wasn’t supposed to be there, and I was a cleaner at the Intercontinental… He was very good to us.’
‘Why didn’t you come to see me? I could have helped.’
She s
hook her head. ‘No. You couldn’t have given me a job, because the Agency wouldn’t have allowed it. And in any case … I was ashamed.’
‘Of what?’
‘What I was. What had happened. Everything.’
‘You should have trusted me.’
‘You are probably right. But we learn to trust nobody.’
‘You trusted this Luca fellow.’ Michael wondered at the note of jealousy that had crept into his voice.
Resting her chin on her hands she was staring at him now with that level, open gaze he found so disconcerting. He tried to interpret it, but failed. He did not know her – and for a second he was consumed with despair at the impossibility of knowing anybody. How could he reach out with his imagination and plumb the depths of what she had been through? Yet it seemed to be the most important thing of all: the only worthwhile qualification for humanity. To understand, even if only partially, another’s confusion and choices, to stand with the other at the irrevocable point of time when the spirit is poised between suffering and suffering (as hers had been), and be both humbled and enlarged by that insight – that was, he thought, the essence of existence. Even approaching God.
‘Shall we leave?’ he asked, awkwardly. ‘We could go and have a glass of whisky at home – my home, I mean.’
‘That would be very nice. And thank you for a nice meal too.’
Politeness, politeness, he screamed inside, as he signalled for the bill, already laying a bundle of filthy lei on the table in anticipation. She uses the most meaningless, polite forms of my language, when she has just used the same language to tell me how she leapt into the abyss and clawed her way out … How is it possible for me to draw a line between the two? To connect?
He suggested she sit down, and she chose the most uncomfortable chair, perching on the edge with her glass of Scotch, ill at ease. She was not the same woman who had walked into his office, nor even the one who had leant across the restaurant table and led him with her into hell. The silence pressed in on them.
Michael apologized for the temperature of the room. She said it was warm compared to where they lived, and talked about the difficulty of buying paraffin for the stove, but said that it did not matter too much because the room she shared with Doina was so small it soon warmed up, with the two of them in it. He nodded.
And I cannot stop my tongue saying these absurd, tedious things, knowing he’s bored by me. There is nothing else to say to you, Michael. I have told you everything, and you have no way of understanding me – even less now you know what I’ve done.
‘So Fossmeyer will see you first thing in the morning, and you’ll get the visa right away. What then?’
‘I will leave. Of course’.
He heard disdain in that ‘of course.’ He found himself wishing she would delay her departure, yet was aware of the impertinence of that thought.
‘And he’ll give you the address of the Children’s Bureau?’
She nodded. ‘It was very kind of you to explain everything to him. Without you I would be waiting for weeks, I think.’
Michael regretted his helpfulness. It was the curse of the English, he thought, to be so polite and well-meaning and suppress all contradictory passions. ‘Are you afraid?’ he asked.
‘Not any more. After the revolution I knew I was free to go and find Ion, and the thought terrified me. What if he likes the family he is with so much he doesn’t want to come home with me? What if he hates me for what I did? But now nothing frightens me. Nothing.’
He guessed it was not true, yet her bravado was admirable. Something else was bothering him, but he hardly dared articulate it, in case she should read a criticism where there was only curiosity. ‘Can I ask you something?’ he said. ‘What was the trigger? What made you decide Ion had to leave?’
She told him about the incident at school. ‘I thought then how we’ve no real influence on our children. What can I do to save him from becoming like that other boy? I felt powerless – and you know, maybe by acting I wasn’t just saving him, maybe I was saving myself too.’
‘How?’
‘Just by the action. I think maybe that is why people kill themselves; because at the last moment they can say, “I am doing this – I alone.”’
He said nothing. She was staring into the distance. ‘And there were other things … so many little things. One day, just before Radu came to Bucharest, I was in such a good mood, I was so happy! The world was a wonderful place to me, on that day. I went home, and I unpacked my bag on the table. And I felt so proud – full of joy and pride. And do you know why? I had been able that day to find some toilet paper. There it was on the table. And I looked at it – and suddenly all my happiness vanished. I thought – this is what my life has become – that joy does not come from reading a book, or listening to some music, but from toilet paper. This is how low I have become, I thought – this is what my spirit is. And then I thought of my son, and there was a voice inside me shouting “Help him! Don’t let him become like you!”’
Quickly Michael rose and refilled their glasses, longing suddenly to be drunk – anything.
‘What about you? Will you stay in Romania – the new Romania?’ she asked.
‘It’s not my decision. I’ve let it be known I’d like Bonn next. I just have to wait. That’s the way we do it.’
‘You will be glad to leave Romania, I think?’
‘There are some wonderful things in this country.’
‘The monasteries of the Bucovina? And I remember you like the wooden churches of the Maramureş. I have never been there.’
And I will take you, Ion. When you come back we will go on a journey all round this country, never mind about the money, we will find the money. And everything will be different, we won’t need to seek freedom outside our borders, we can live here as new Romanians, in our own country …
‘Maybe you will have the chance to visit them when you come back,’ said Michael, unable to stop himself adding, ‘we could go together.’
‘I would like that very much indeed, Michael,’ she said, the smile lighting up her face – so that now it was his turn to feel nervous.
‘You think you will come back? I just realized – you may want to stay in Germany. I’m sure they’d allow it.’
She frowned. ‘I don’t know. I haven’t got that far. All I think about is finding Ion – that’s all that matters. But you know, when we got rid of the old shoemaker at last I found myself thinking how wonderful it would be for Ion to be free here – in his own country. Maybe I’m romantic …’
‘Nothing wrong with that,’ he said.
‘Tell me, do you know what I mean by the lost footsteps? Do you know that phrase?’ Michael shook his head. ‘Oh – well, it was used when people escaped. At parts of the border they kept the earth raked very finely, so they could see the footprints of anyone who crossed. And maybe the people would be killed, and so those were the lost footprints – or footsteps. You see? Well, I sometimes imagined Ion’s small footprints in the soil, going away from me, lost to me. I hoped one day I’d follow them, and find him – a miracle. The only thing that frightens me is the thought of my own … being lost too.’
‘You don’t know people, do you, when you work with them?’ Michael said.
‘In Romania, especially. We could not talk to each other; I always knew someone would be watching. And it was true. That day in Cişmigiu, when you met Ion and I …’
‘It was lovely – we went for a row on the lake. What about it?’
‘Nothing … I only want to remember that it was happy.’
He said, ‘We’ll do it again.’
‘I hope so.’ There was a silence, then she said, ‘I think I must go home now. It’s late.’
Automatically courteous, yet breathless from his sudden need for her to stay, Michael rose. The space between them was like glass, splintering as he approached. ‘Shall I take that?’
She drained the whisky, then stood up. ‘Let me take them to the kitchen. P
lease, let me help.’
He followed her, and watched as she rinsed the glasses in the sink. There was something so unexpectedly delightful in the sight of a woman – this woman – in his kitchen, doing something domestic, that a lump came to his throat. He swallowed, noticing how a loose strand of hair sliced her cheek like a comma.
She reached for a cloth and dried the glasses. ‘Where do you keep them?’
‘Sometimes … it gets lonely here,’ he said.
‘In this country?’
‘Yes. And in this flat. I want …’
‘What?’
‘Oh, I don’t know.’
‘I can’t believe you don’t know what you want. You.’
‘Usually I want to be somewhere else. But not now. I want to be here. But you, Ana, you want to be somewhere else, don’t you?’
‘Maybe we both want to be in Germany!’ she said, in an attempt at lightness which failed, the words melancholy, carrying with them the sum total of missed opportunities.
‘I want to be here,’ he repeated, ‘with you.’
So easy to reach out and bridge the gulf three feet wide, and yet his arms stayed glued to the side, in shyness and terror and pride. She was moving now, edging from the kitchen, away.
‘I think I should leave,’ she murmured.
‘Please stay.’
Unable to stop himself any longer, Michael put out his arms and pulled her towards him. She was small; she fitted into the planes of his body perfectly. As she rested her head on his collarbone, stiffly at first then relaxing, he smelt her hair, smoky and warm. ‘Stay the night with me. Please,’ he whispered, pressing the side of his chin against her head and rubbing it, like a cat.
To be held like this. To be contained. To trust. To know that this is a transaction between equals now. To be given affection, even love … How can I tell you it’s what I have been needing, since that man left and I gave birth to his child? For the child is, in the end, not enough. He will go, always the child will go, and you will be left alone. And how can he contain you, with arms that are too small? To be held like this, to be contained … and to contain. No pity here, poor Luca, only an equal need to give and to receive …