by Norman Manea
Yet if I am not able to risk an honest dialogue with an old friend, is it surprising that I hate public rhetoric so much? Am I embarrassed by the burden of “celebrityhood,” one for which I am so ill suited? “A literary celebrity in exile” is the descriptive tag employed here for those of my kind. But I am also a domestic celebrity, known in the motherland as a “traitor,” and so forth. In 1986, it seemed to me that I was reliving the 1940s. Was this awareness the source of my last-minute escape? “The stigmata of trauma” was how a younger literary critic described my writing. “The neurotic nucleus of the deportation,” he said, “the reticence, the refusal, the aloneness” could well be some kind of “autistic reaction,” some mechanism of “introversion.”
I cannot see myself taking part in some partisan debate, followed by applause. The artificiality and aggression of public performance depress me. Nor do I wish to confront those who have pushed me against the wall and now stand ready to celebrate me. But it would appear that even those I like can inhibit me. I can predict the framework of the whole journey from the start, but if, fearing the hurt, I do not go out of my shell, I cannot hope to discover what’s around me.
Golden Brain has left me to my silence. He is smiling, pleased with his new padlock and with our reunion. He tells me about the difficulties of post-Communist life, about the new class of nouveaux riches and the prevailing poverty, about his wife’s retirement and return to work at menial, tiresome jobs, about the regrouping of old and new literary stars. His joviality blocks lament or resentments; this is a serene, lucid summary. He marvels at the hotel room’s tackiness and is stupefied at the cost.
I see him downstairs to the lobby, then go out of the hotel and walk over to the Dalles bookstore nearby. I go in with some hesitation. Thank God, I see none of the old pilgrims, that sect of readers who used to recognize each other even without knowing one another. My old friend Liviu Obreja, familiar to all the booksellers in Bucharest, is not there either, thank God, prowling in his customary hunting grounds. The shelves are well stocked with volumes, in Romanian, French, and English. There are many browsers. Suddenly I am dizzy, unsure of my movements. I remember a similar sensation back in 1979, during my first trip to Western Europe, when I ran like a madman from one shelf to another of the FNAC bookstore in Paris, noting down titles, counting, again and again, the available cash I had to spend.
This time it will not happen; there is no reason it should. My confusion and unease, I realize, derive from the fact of seeing so many Romanian books, of being surrounded by such a plethora of Romanian print. I can still see the wall-length bookshelves in my last Bucharest apartment, the one that vanished with my departure in 1986. After that, I stopped buying books. Now my library grows only from offerings of friends or publishers. I have learned the lesson of dispossession, and not only about books. No, this is not the same kind of faintness that overcame me in Paris in 1979, it is just the emotion of being once again in a Romanian bookstore.
At seven-thirty I head to the Atheneum, for the rehearsal. Magheru Boulevard, unchanged, seems, however, somewhat altered. The façades look dirty, the pedestrians rigid, diminished, ghostlike. The atmosphere is alien, I am alien, the pedestrians alien. The street is almost deserted. Suddenly I see a familiar face. Could that really be Dr. Buceloiu? There is no room for doubt, the slow movements, the big, gloomy head — yes, Dr. Buceloiu indeed. I remember his thick, smoky voice, his tangled mane of dark, thick hair. He moves slowly, like an old man, in his short leather jacket, a thick woolen scarf round his neck, although it is late April. He has his arm lightly placed over the shoulder of an even older man, bent, short, completely white-haired. I seem unable to wrench myself from this dream sequence, and yet I move on, turning to look at the two men now walking away with small, slow steps.
I cross the boulevard over to the Scala cinema. Next to it is the Unic block of apartments where Cella’s mother lived until her death. Everything is the same and yet not the same. Something indefinable but essential has skewed the stage set, something akin to an invisible cataclysm, a magnetic anomaly, the aftermath of an internal hemorrhage. Maybe it is the squalor, but if you look closer, it is not just that. There are signs of unfinished roadwork everywhere, but even this does not seem to point to real change. I stand and stare for much longer than I should. I gaze at the Unie store, then turn around to face the Scala cinema and the pastry shop of the same name, then the Lido Hotel, and the Ambassador Hotel.
The estrangement is still incomplete, the wound still not healed, the rupture still active, although now somewhat muted. There is something else at work here, of an objective nature — the traumatizing, alienated reality itself. Gloomy immutability appears as permanence when, in fact, it is just a disease, a perverted wreck.
Death has passed this way, in the footsteps of the dead man now revisiting the landscape of his life in which he can no longer find a place or a sign of himself. After my death, Death visited this place, but was it not already here, was it not that from which I had fled? In 1986, the dictatorship had become Death, owning the landscape and the streets and the pedestrians, and all else besides.
I cross over quickly to the other side of the boulevard, where the former Cina restaurant used to be. I enter a narrow, deserted street. A thin rain begins to fall. I feel something unnatural surrounding me, some unnatural sense within myself. Could this moment and this no-man’s-land be the time and place of an accident, a murder, a mysterious aggression?
I step up my pace and reach the Atheneum. The façade is under repair, covered in scaffolding, the sidewalk all dug up, muddy. I enter the lobby, where I have been so many times before. Two men stand there, chatting. They could be construction workers, they could be from the management. Attracted by the sound of music coming from the auditorium, I ascend the splendid marble staircase and enter the first door on the left.
Leon is on the podium, facing the orchestra, sleeves rolled up, a bottle of Evian at his side. The disorder of both orchestra and chorus is unbelievable. Yes, Death has left its mark here, too. Gone are the orchestra members of yesteryear. Scruffy-looking types in jeans and shabby vests, chatting away, have replaced them. “Once again,” comes the command. The players continue to chatter and giggle. They are hypnotized by their own hysteria, and seem to have been picked off the streets. First one, then another, score in hand, disputes the interpretation of notes, pauses, flats and sharps. Leon is overwhelmed, his interpreter can hardly keep pace with the hubbub. “Once again,” the exasperated conductor orders. He signals to the first violinist, now standing, to translate the command: “Once again, from the third bar.” The cacophony begins anew.
Leon gulps down another mouthful of Evian, rolls his sleeves up higher, and again raises his imperious baton. The scene has come to resemble a boxing match between orchestra and distinguished visiting conductor. Now the conductor is on the floor and the referee is counting. Dazed, the conductor rises again, with some difficulty. It is ten past eight, and the match is supposed to be over by eight-thirty. Tonight there will be no winner, not even a draw. The only possible outcome of this fight is disengagement between the two combatants.
Leon descends from the podium, exhausted. Raising his hands toward the ceiling decorated with portraits of Romanian princes, he whispers, “Ave Maria” I get up to greet him. Joanna assures us that the second rehearsal will be better and that the night of the concert will produce a fine performance. The pick-up orchestra, she explains, has to work under difficult conditions, with miserable pay and humiliations of all kinds.
We go out to look for a taxi. Joanna offers to accompany us and help us find our way. I take from my pocket an envelope marked SEDER. “Dear Mr. Botstein,” it reads, “We have saved two places for you and Professor Manea at the Passover Seder on April 21, 1997. The Seder will begin at around 20.00 hour and the fee is $15 per person, to be paid at the entrance to Mr. Godeanu. The Seder will take place in the Jewish community’s restaurant in Bucharest, at no. 18 Popa Soare Street.” The
letter is signed by Alex Sivan, executive director of the Federation of Jewish Communities in Romania. The Romanian Embassy in Bucharest had arranged the invitations, as Leon wanted to be with his co-religionists for the Seder.
The streets are deserted, there is no taxi in sight. We walk toward the university and a taxi appears. The seats have no suspension and we sink into a hole in the middle. I give the driver the address; he hasn’t heard of it. I try to explain, a cross street off Calea Călăraşi; the former Calea Călăraşi, as it turns out, has disappeared so that a wide road can be built to the Grand Presidential Palace. “I don’t know this address,” the driver repeats sullenly. We are back on the street, and the rain is getting heavier. Two empty taxis pass by without stopping; we get into the third. The driver recognizes the address, although he doesn’t quite know how to get there. We reach the Rond, he turns toward the former Dimitrov Boulevard, from there to the right, then right again, then left. “When you see the lines of policemen, it means that we’re there,” I say helpfully, remembering the socialist Seder nights, when the street was cordoned off by militiamen around the Jewish restaurant and identifications were checked at some distance from the restaurant, to deter Arab terrorists, troublesome dissidents, anti-Semitic agents provocateurs, and Zionists demanding passports.
We drive around in circles, until the driver announces triumphantly, “I knew it, there it is, Popa Soare.” Indeed, the sign on the street corner confirms the fact. We turn back to number 18 and I recognize the building. This time there are no police cordons, just one armed guard and a plainclothes man wearing the habitual leather jacket.
An old man wearing a skullcap greets us. Yes, he assures us, we are expected. He does not ask for the fifteen dollars. We are offered two white skullcaps. Leon’s briefcase and raincoat, as well as my parka, are left behind in the cloakroom. We climb the staircase to the brightly lit hall, where the Jews of Bucharest will be celebrating Passover for this Hebrew year 5757.
The tables are arranged as they were ten, fifteen years ago. There is a head table, for the presiding panel of community officials, and eight other tables for the guests. We are directed to our seats at a table on the left. We can see the president, a well-known biologist, his wife, and other community dignitaries. I clutch my copy of the publication we were given, The Jewish Reality, the successor to the former Review of the Mosaic Cult. “Cult” was a term the Communists tolerated, post-Communist Jews prefer more neutral language.
There is no fuss made over the American guest, the college president and conductor, or over the former member of Romania’s Jewish community. I instantly remember that time in 1982 when I made public declarations against official nationalism and anti-Semitism, and found myself cut off even by the community’s officials. Such imprudent gestures, it seemed, hindered, rather than helped, relations with the authorities and were the preserve of the Chief Rabbi, Dr. Moses Rosen, a deputy in the Grand National Assembly of the Socialist Republic for two decades, who played an intricate game in which American and Israeli Jewish organizations functioned as lobbies and pressure groups. Now times have changed, the current president of the Jewish community is no longer the Chief Rabbi, and the old strategies are no longer necessary.
“Wherefore is this night different from all other nights,” my former self asks. Age has plastered new masks on the faces of yesteryear. At the present gathering I cannot detect the former air of festive duplicity, the quarter-truths, wrapped in puzzling hints and gestures, as required by the secret code of the time and, equally, by attempts to undermine it. I can no longer see the servile smiles of the bosses disguised as servants and of their doubles, all decked out in their dress uniforms. Also gone are the quotations from the Book of Regulations on Conditioned Reflexes. It seems useless to try recapturing the perverted animation, the complicity, the picturesque bit players. The atmosphere of the year 5757 lacks the former air of excitement and risk it had in the time of slavery, complicity, and evasion. All that is left is a sleepy assembly of apathetic survivors, gathered to join in the ancient recital.
“Welcome back!” A hearty voice breaks my reverie. The massive gentleman sitting across the table from me extends his big, open palm. He is a stocky, bald, smartly dressed, bespectacled man. He smiles, waits for a sign of recognition from me, and then, in disappointment, says his name in a firm, imposing voice. I should have recognized him. In the time of Romania’s Socialist Pharaoh, he was one of the few palatable figures on television. I turn to Leon and introduce him to Mr. Joseph Sava, who will be interviewing him on his television show, The Musical Soiree. Leon bows ceremoniously to the music critic and his wife, whom he promptly engages in an animated conversation, in German, on the forthcoming performance.
“You’re going to be invited on the show, too, of course,” Mr. Sava tells me.
“Oh, no, I regret, but I can’t. It’s Mr. Botstein’s interview. I made that quite clear last week, from New York.”
“You must be there, too. It will make the interview even more interesting, and you can do the interpreting. It’s settled. I’ll be expecting both of you on Friday morning at the television center, on Pangrati Street,” he says confidently. Somewhat startled, unaccustomed to such a commanding tone, I turn nervously left and right.
“This discussion is pointless,” the critic’s wife intervenes. “Mr. Botstein speaks perfect German, and I can do the interpreting myself.”
I look around. I can recognize poets, actors, functionaries of the community, all visibly aged. I identify a friend of my friend Mugur, two actors from the Jewish Theater, a famous composer of pop hits. But this night is indeed different from the similar nights of the past. What is missing is its maestro, the indefatigable Chief Rabbi Rosen, then also president of the community, the director and leading actor of so many performances on the totalitarian stage, a deputy in the Communist parliament, a consultant to the State Department, an intermediary for Israel and diplomat-at-large of the Socialist Republic of Romania, always entrusted with important missions and roles.
It was not easy to forget the various Jewish festivals that were celebrated here, in the festive hall of Rabbi Rosen’s restaurant, in the latter stages of the atheist Communist state — the tables decorated with traditional foods, the imported wine, the honored guests sitting next to the Party officials, and the visitors from abroad. Such evenings stood out as the culmination of all the efforts of the great Chief Rabbi, who could have served equally well as Minister for Public Works, or Information, or Industry. The system tolerated and even encouraged such shows, not only in order to confuse the outside world, unaccustomed to these extravagant examples of Communist “freedom,” but also in order to be able to record the names, faces, and words of the participants.
Those occasions were feasts of contradictions, under the surveillance of informers disguised as parishioners, or their atheist enemies. They had plenty to see, the ambiguous, mutually advantageous cooperation between the duplicitous masters and the even more duplicitous slaves, serving two or more masters at the same time. There were even informers cast as hardworking citizens, wearing their own faces and uniforms as masks.
Now Communism has expired, the Great Rabbi is dead, and with them have gone the risks and the masks. Now there are only worn-out celebrants, a shabby hall, a ritual reduced to routine performance. One cannot compare this skinny, mumbling rabbi conducting the Seder to Chief Rabbi Dr. Moses Rosen. This substitute does no honor to his role, he looks like a mere teacher in a cheder, from another century, desperately calling his flock to order, with his squeaky voice and anguished gestures. On his left, his wife, in a leek-green dress, with an enormous red wig on her head, gives him the occasional nudge to alert him to the fact that the company is nodding off.
“Who is this rabbi?” I ask the fat, silent man sitting on my left.
My neighbor turns placidly toward me. He has a wide face and drooping eyelids.
“He’s been brought over from Israel,” he informs me, extending his hand and in
troducing himself as Dr. Vinea. Next to him is his pale mate, wearing a black lace dress, whom I recognize as a fellow student from the university.
“From Israel? But he speaks Romanian.”
“He comes from the Romanian Jews in Israel,” his wife, who has not recognized me, interjects. “It’s the American Joint Distribution Committee that pays, and they choose. What else would they choose for Romania but the cheapest rabbi available. We mustn’t complain.”
I turn to Leon, to translate the explanation, but I discover him engaged in animated conversation with the couple on my right, an American Jew, a representative of a New York bank in Bucharest, and his companion, a Romanian woman who speaks fluent English and doesn’t seem at all embarrassed as her escort recounts in detail the history of his family in New Jersey, including a wife, daughters, sons-in-law, brothers, sisters-in-law, their children.
“I think I know you from somewhere,” the doctor’s wife announces, staring at me.
“From our student days. You were one year behind me.” She seems pleasantly surprised. “Really? I graduated in 1960.”
“I used to associate your name with something different,” Dr. Vinea says.
“Yes, some people make a different connection to my name,” I manage to murmur, before my words are drowned out by the choir, now onstage.
Leon shows no interest in the choir or the rabbi, only in the American Jewish banker and the young companion who brightens his Scythian exile. I take a sip of the wine, taste the Israeli matzos, the traditional soup, and the delicious roast. Equally tasty are the bitter herbs of legend and the memories of the flight from the Egypt of socialist Jormania, on this night of memory, in which the past usurps the present and returns my self to the one I no longer am.
My former fellow student wants to know when I left the country, where I live in America, how I am doing generally. She offers to take me on a tour of the Ceauşescu White Palace — the interior is worth seeing, oh yes, especially the interior, but not with a guided tour that rushes you through. I thank her, but decline the offer; we have no time, we are here on a short and event-packed visit. No, I do not have an e-mail address, although I’m sure I’ll be getting one.