Just a Monumental Summer: Girl on the train

by Schneiders, M.

  It was what I wanted to hear, but it didn’t make me happy.

  “Of course, we’re rushing it. Let’s not talk now about it, ok?” I said, trying to kiss him.

  We kissed. I knew Jony was watching us.

  CHAPTER 15

  WELCOME TO THE CLUB

  My hangover after the party was my remorse. I called Ema to confess, “I am afraid to go downstairs to face Maria and Relu. I feel so bad.”

  “Mona, it’s their job, I bet it’s not the first time they had a party there,” Ema assured me.

  I realized she was probably right, and I was probably punishing myself needlessly. When I went downstairs though, Maria avoided my look as she dutifully swept trash into small heaps.

  “Miss Mona, do you want to know something funny?” Maria broke the awkward silence. “Somebody from the party went into the basement and removed all the labels from all the food cans.”

  “Whaaat?” I tried not to laugh, but I couldn’t help it. Maria was laughing as well. I felt better.

  “Miss Mona, I had jars with preserves and jams, labeled also, what it is and the year. The idiot took his time and replaced them, mixed them, now the peach jam has the apple jam label. It’s a mess, ohhh, and the whole detergent is missing. My sweet Lord.” Maria said, looking up at an imaginary God, and making a cross on her chest. I was curious about the brownies. Maria told me she ate them and gave Relu some as well. I felt my remorse returning.

  Ema arrived, and I told her Maria ate the brownies. I went upstairs and picked up my luggage to move to the employees’ apartments. I kissed Maria and Relu good-bye and left Crystal Villa for the last time. We stopped at my new place and left my stuff there. Nobody was home.

  I took a beach bag with me and made a bag for Alin’s place as well. We left for the beach.

  We found a spot in the shade, and laid down. We helped each other with the sunscreen. The guys were looking at us. Ema told me to ignore them. “Losers, poor students. All they do is party the whole summer.”

  “Like we did last night?” I thought I was funny, but she didn’t laugh.

  I turned on my belly and closed my eyes. I needed my mind to rest, hoping to figure out what to do next. I played all the facts as I perceived them in my head. I had to get rid of Alexandru. Alin was pushing me to move in with him. I wanted to quit the radio job. I had to find out who’d broken Alin’s heart. I didn’t want to lose him, but he wasn’t ready. I wasn’t ready. I knew if I spent the whole summer with him, I would become vulnerable. Going back to my parents wasn’t an option. I wasn’t ready to get a normal job, find some guy, marry him, and have children. I suddenly felt lonely – lonely, weak, and ashamed. “Ema? You know something? Sometimes I hate myself,” I said simply.

  “Welcome to the club, honey!” She answered in a sad voice from where she lay with eyes closed. “I hate myself all the time.”

  “Ema, I think I like you.” I turned around and gave her a hug.

  She was surprised. She didn’t know what to say. She hesitated a moment. “You know Mona, I never apologized for the first night we met. I was a bitch.”

  “It’s ok,” I felt generous and just shrugged it off.

  “No, Mona, it’s not ok. You have to understand me. I thought you are just another girl… another new girl. I’ve seen tons of girls coming and going. I knew Alin liked you a lot. You are not just another girl. He called me the morning after he met you. He was excited. He told me he’d met the girl of his dreams on the train and he wants to be with you. And I didn’t believe him. I thought he was just silly. I am sorry.”

  She hugged me back, and we both stopped talking. I was happy she apologized. I was glad she opened to me. But I couldn’t help noticing she hadn’t said she liked me back.

  *** 31 July 1989

  My father always wanted to be a sailor. He used to work for the Water Utility Company. His job was extremely easy and boring, but made the best of it. He read to kill time. He would stop at the library before work, borrow a new book, go to work and read the book. Day by day. He only finished elementary school. But his brain was a fabulous encyclopedia mixed with bizarre conspiracy theories and exaggerated exotic stories.

  From early in my childhood, I saw my father bringing strange people at home. Interesting and fascinating persons. People who normally would not be around a person like my father. He was just a simple worker, with a stupid job and without a college degree. Not for those people. They would come to our place and my mother would treat them with much respect, letting them smoke inside and serving them food and drinks.

  There were interesting people to watch and to be around. How cool is it when you are seven years old and you get to touch a General’s Medal, or to get to talk with a real pilot dressed in a real uniform? How exciting is to open a house doctor’s bag and get to play with strange and funny looking instruments?

  I always wondered how my father managed to catch their attention. It was obvious he could only have met them in a restaurant or a bar. For some of them, it took a great deal to visit us, they had to take a cab and pay lot of money to go home back to their place. Some of them made sure to buy presents for all of us and brought food and alcohol as well. No doubt they were coming only to meet my father’s pride — his family. And by family I mean, his first son, my older brother.

  Most of the time, the discussions ended up in competition. Who is the best. Who knows better. I suppose the story behind that could start like this: I can visualize my father sitting and drinking close to a pilot. He sees his uniform and he starts to talk. About the things he read, about his twisted but fascinating conspiracies theories. And he gets the pilot’s attention. They drink and talk, and then my father mentions my brother. This is the moment when their attention switched into interest. Not every day you meet someone who claims his older son knows every answer in any domain you can imagine. Science, literature, anthropology, geography, history — you name it. I am smiling while I dare to imagine my father provoking the pilot with one simple phrase, “You think you are smart, wait to see my son who is only 13. He is smarter than you.” I can imagine he would mention my younger brother as well. He was extremely beautiful, and everyone admired him. He was four at the time.

  I like to picture the pilot smiling with confidence while finishing his drink. Then, it should be easy to see them deciding it was nicer to go to my father’s place, where his beautiful wife and smart children are waiting for them. Neighbors and friends gathered for free food and drinks, and for the fun of the show. And then the questions will start to flow. “Name me the seven wonders of the world. What was the real name of the Russian holy man Rasputin? What is Australia’s capital? What is the largest fish in the ocean?” I look back and I am sure my father invented the famous Trivia Pursuit Game. The questions easily popped out.

  Not everyone was a fervent reader in my family’s circle. They were simple people, with simple lives, talking about simple things. But in those moments, every single person in the room had the inspiration to come up with a question. The funny thing is no one ever contested an answer. They simply knew it was the right answer. Maybe it was my brother’s confidence. My brother always won. No one ever had a chance against him.

  My older brother used to read least one book daily. The books were not enough. He always used to keep track of things he read and wrote them down. He was creative and inventive. He always questioned what he read, going to the library and borrow another book to confirm for him the facts and theories he just found out from the previous books.

  These were the moments when my father was special, and funny, and proud of his family. There were the times when my father had cool and exotic friends. No one I knew had a father like him. But, no one I knew had a father like mine, when he was a drunk.

  My father was the most generous person I ever met. An extremely compassionate and helpful person, but alcohol would not bring out the best in him. He would become aggressive and act jealous. He would start a fight and could make our lives misera
ble. Most of the time, he would not remember his behavior by the time he woke up in the morning after being sick and throwing up with a terrible hangover. I told him once a hangover is simply your body telling you’re an idiot. He, surprisingly, laughed.

  I loved it when my father laughed. He was vision impaired and wore glasses. When he was laughing, his eyes would close, and his whole body would shake. He had an uncontrollable laugh, which mostly would end up in convulsive coughing. He had smoked since he was twelve. Two packs a day. My mother would yell at him and curse his bad habit, mostly because her curtains “smell like shit” and his cigarettes cost a “fortune.” When he was sober, my father was a peaceful person. On his days off he would stay for the whole day in the kitchen, cooking and chatting with his neighbors and friends. But sometimes he would disappear for days. He would go to buy bread or cigarettes, and he didn’t come back right away. Later, he would show up and I never heard an excuse from him. I was never curious to ask where he was and no one gave me an explanation. I wasn’t worried because my mother wasn’t.

  Maybe I thought was normal for a father to disappear.

  He tried for years to become a sailor. When he finally made it, it was indeed a dream come true. I remember his first trip. We were all so excited. We made a list of the things we wanted him to bring us. Rare things, like a pair of jeans, a can of Pepsi, or chewing gum. When he was away, we had peace and harmony. My mother was happy, sitting on her bench the whole day and chatting with her neighbors. No fights, no scandals. We were happy.

  When he was back, it was a celebration. We would take the train to go to Constanta, where the harbor was. We would wait for him outside the customs gate. Sometimes, we would have to wait hours, because the custom process was long and annoying.

  My father was paid two dollars a day. Barely enough to buy us some clothes and some sweets.

  The customs employees would always try to get their cut and confiscate things. My mother hated those people. “Those stinky people,” she would complain. For her, the word “dirty” was the final insult. “I hope they buy candles with the money they make off poor people’s backs. Candles to be lit up in church. Candles for their own death.” It hurt her so much.

  After the customs process, my father was free to leave the harbor and enter the country. The waiting hours were long, but rewarding. We were excited to see him back. Watching the boats anchored offshore and listening to the noise of the waves made time stand still. The sun shone, warming my whole body. Seagulls were screaming and freely flying around. There were no shortcomings and no worries. Those moments were my drug.

  Even the heat was pleasant, the sea breeze was making it bearable. They were the single moments that meant family to me. We were happy and carefree. We felt like children, my mother felt like a wife, and my father was proud to be a parent who could provide for us.

  There were hours of waiting, but I didn’t want them to stop. I could have stayed and waited forever. I knew these moments were priceless. I knew the anticipation of his coming was more important to me than his actual arrival.

  And behold: the joy of seeing your father, who you secretly wished had changed for the better.

  After his return, he would have an aura, something he brought from overseas with him—a” je ne sais quoi” that made him look special.

  Back home, the neighbors gathered to welcome my father. Friends and neighbors were invited to our place, and it was our treat, with goodies one can only dream of. Even an empty Pepsi can was special; used to put pencils and pens in. Chewing gum and fireworks. The party would last all night. We would hear music our radio stations never broadcast and got to see Hollywood movies.

  “What does it say, what does it say?” the adults would ask while watching the movie, not understanding the foreign language.

  The young generation knew English. The old generation knew Russian. We had to translate the movies until we will have learned them by heart, word for word. The viewing was around the clock until each single person in town got to see the new movie. The word of mouth was powerful. Everyone would eventually find out about our place and the new movie. They would all bring money or products for the “trouble.”

  Most of the time, our living room was filled with up to ten strange people watching the new movie. I needed my privacy, and I hated the smell of too many people in a too small apartment, but we needed the money. One night, the police were at the door. Someone complained we were having an underground cinema. Of course it was one of the neighbors.

  The Romanians have a saying, found only in our culture: “Neighbor’s goat, has to die as well.” It is one of the expressions that perfectly characterizes our spirit: If by mistake you got to see a similar or a better goat than yours in your neighbor’s backyard, then envy will poison your soul. But, it’s more than envy, is wishing for something bad to happen to someone else’s property. You don’t get to become competitive, you wish death to his goat. If something bad happens to me, it should happen to my neighbor, as well. My goat died, and despite that, your goat is well alive? Really? This is outrageous. That saying may be interpreted as a modern man’s aberrant manifestation of an exacerbated need to possess. Or it may be just a cause generated by profound ignorance.

  When I opened the door, I frowned. Police showing up at your door was something bad and rare. My mother couldn’t even deny it. Pairs of shoes were lying in front of the door. In Romania, it’s a custom to take off your shoes. My father came to the door and told them they were not allowed to come inside because he “knows his rights.” He “was abroad,” and he knows a “thing or two about law.”

  My father surprised me: talking with the police in that manner, was like signing your own death sentence. Courageous. I remembered the police guys smiled and told my mother, whispering, that they would like to see the movie as well. We let them in, we brought them some cold aperitifs, and we treated them with respect. They become our forced friends. Sometimes they would knock at the door and let us know not to do any viewing:

  “It’s for your own safety. Only today, until the big boss leaves town.” They would say with a conspiratorial tone. We knew the real reason behind their visit: more bribes. Not much. Maybe a package of Kent or Marlboros, some real coffee, or only to see a new movie. It was obvious the “big boss,” in case he existed, never cared about us.

  There were good days, which were quickly gone. The bad days were always present.

  After a short time, my mother sold all the merchandise my father had brought, and the money raised was spent on paying the bills and debts. The routine took over. My father had to face the everyday stress of going to the harbor offices and trying to find another ship he could be assigned to. The usual routine for any sailor, but hard for my dad.

  My father was obese. No captain wanted to have him in his crew. The risk of getting sick in the middle of the ocean without a doctor on board was high. The commercial ships were dated, and the crew had no international medical insurance.

  Because of his size back then, his sailor’s career lasted only two years. Afterwards, my father continued to gain weight. Diabetes and adjacent diseases overwhelmed him, and he retired because of illness. Scandals might have stopped, but there were always quarrels. What always surprised me was my mother’s behavior. She never lost her temper, and she continued to deal with his scenes. Meanwhile, we grew up, and we fought with him all the time, asking him to leave and never come back.

  But my mother would take us aside and tell us, “Leave him alone. You know he has ‘nerve problems.’ The fat presses the nerves in his spine, and it’s not his fault he cannot control himself.”

  But his behavior was the least of his problems. My father was turning into a wreck in front of us, day by day. He could not bend over to tie his shoes. He could not wash himself. He wasn’t able to sleep in a horizontal position because he would suffocate in his sleep. This is how he started sleeping in an armchair. He became ill, with no hope of a cure. Gout, diabetes, heart problems, and maybe
cancer were the words the doctors would tell us. He was in pain five days a week with one or two days, pain free. We would call the ambulance, and the doctors would send him home after a week or so, telling my mother there was nothing they could do to help him.

  My mother was desperate. “Those stinky doctors. Why did they choose this job if they refuse to help him? Of course, there is something you can do. Even give him an overdose and put him out of his misery, but don’t let him suffer like an animal. Period. Stinky doctors.”

  We were always short on money and were unable to bribe the doctors. The struggle to buy a single painkiller prescription was abominable.

  I remember the days when my father was in deep pain. He was crying and banging his head against the walls, begging us to kill him, to make the pain stop. His left leg had a smelly, rotting hole that became bigger and darker, month by month. We suffered. We couldn’t do anything to help. All the hate we had against him was fading, soon to be replaced by pity. My father was not a drunk anymore; he was simply a sick person.

  This was when I started leaving home, staying overnight at friends’ houses, and later looking for lovers — jus to be able to leave home. His screams and crying were robbing my life inside me. I began to hate life. And when I didn’t hate life, I was indifferent to it.

  I became a teenager full of venom. I didn’t know what to feel. Hate against my mother because she didn’t divorce my father and instead put us through all the drama? Hate against my father for being a drunk? Or love for my mother who loved us? My mother who protected us. My mother who took care of us and took care of him while he was sick. Sometimes I would decide to hate the town, which smothered me with its ugliness, lowness, and littleness.

  I was in torn apart, watching my father slowly die and seeing my gorgeous mother growing old.