The DJ stood aside as two of the Serb boys took over his decks and unleashed a round of techno-ethnic funk. The Serbs made for the dance floor and danced something violent and atavistic, a cross between heavy metal headbanging and frenetic folk dancing. They finished with a salute; two of them drew a finger across their throats.
‘Music to kill Jews to,’ whispered Leo in disgust, ‘or is it Muslims these days?’
Across the room, standing in the doorway, stood Petre, open-mouthed. How long had he been here? I felt embarrassed and guilty. Then I felt angry: this was his country not mine, why should I feel responsible? But I could tell the scene horrified him; he seemed to be looking through it, into some future that chilled him. I should have left then, or taken him somewhere else. But I was staying to watch Cilea. I motioned Petre to sit down, and he walked cagily towards us along the periphery of the room to avoid crossing the centre.
‘Jesus, why d’you bring him here?’ Leo asked.
‘Why d’you bring me here, Leo?’ I was drunk, my anger balling up inside me without my knowing who it was aimed at.
The music and lights pulsed like the inside of a migraine; the drink had an evil underpull. Cilea had been cornered by one of the Serbs. I saw her push his hand away from under the table then look at me, signalling me to keep my distance.
At the edge of the group, alone at his own table, Titanu watched over her. He drank orange juice through a straw, and the segment of orange perched on the rim of him glass gave him an absurdly camp look.
I went to the toilet, hoping Cilea would get the cue and come out to speak to me. I was swaying slightly by now, and pushed aggressively past one of the Serbs, who looked at me with delinquent eyes, then forgot the slight and stumbled on. In the toilets there was the sound of fucking from one of the cubicles. The door opened and one of the Serbs leered at me mockingly, ‘Good yes?’, and washed his hands. One of the prostitutes flushed the toilet and followed him, smoothing her dress, blood at the corner of her mouth.
In the lobby Cilea was waiting. She kissed me and looked nervously around.
‘I was going to come by tomorrow,’ she said into my ear.
‘I wasn’t meant to be here…’ Something crossed my thoughts, something like a bird’s shadow on the ground as it flies, but I couldn’t catch hold of it.
‘No, of course. I’d forgotten. Anyway, you stayed. I’m glad…’ she said. ‘I have to go. I don’t want them coming to find you here. I’d prefer you to leave actually.’
‘What, so I don’t cramp your style with that bunch of yobs?’
‘No – so I can get through the night without being spied on. Anyway, I’m OK, Titanu’s watching.’
‘This is horrible – a fucking horrible night,’ I told her.
‘You haven’t seen anything yet,’ she said, sighing, ‘at least it’ll be over soon. Please go.’
Petre was behind me tiptoeing out, trying to get away from us. I called him back. ‘Petre,’ I said, ‘this is Cilea Constantin. Cilea, Petre Romanu, a friend of mine. You must know each other? Surely you’ve met?’ I was drunk and truculent. They looked at each other and shook hands, but I knew immediately that I should not have done it. Petre went pale and looked down, avoiding her eye. Cilea was angry and flustered. She tried to hold his hand a moment too long but he pulled it back and disappeared. Now she made to leave, avoiding my eye.
‘What’s up with him?’ I asked viciously, ‘one of your exes? He certainly seems to know you…’
Cilea shook her head sadly: ‘I’m not getting into this. You seem to think everything is there to be known, asked about, brought out into the open. It’s not. When you apologise to me, make sure you apologise to him too.’
The pogrom rock was getting louder. Cilea, back at her table, held her nerve even when the Serb who had stuck to her all evening pulled her onto the dance floor. I watched his hand slip down to the small of her back, only for her to lift it out again. He nuzzled into her bare shoulder, inhaling her underskin scent. She held him at arm’s length but was no match for him; he pulled her closer until their faces touched. When the song ended, he kept hold of her. Titanu sat in complete stillness, his elaborate cocktail untouched, watching.
I had had enough. I pulled myself up and tried to get to her. Leo stopped me. ‘Stay here. You don’t dick around with these people. You stay put or I get you out of here. She can look after herself,’ he added, ‘she knows how to handle this – she’s been doing it all her life.’
Leo was right. The boy held on to her a moment too long and then, with a practised, emphatic little push, she unhooked him and moved back to her table. He spat on the floor then danced solo for a few minutes to keep face, cupping his balls.
Stoicu and Manea Constantin came down with Milosevic and the rest of the Serbs. The dislike between Stoicu and Cilea’s father was obvious. Manea behaved as if he was slumming it with yobs and gangsters. Even the most ruthlessly equalising system failed to get rid of his upper-middle-class demeanour, but alongside his squat, pug-faced boss Stoicu he looked like an aristocrat. He winced as he entered: the dreadful music, the hot, damp air, the flashing lights and glitter. He scanned room and stopped when he saw our table: Leo and me, with Petre between us. Petre flinched and looked away, moving his whole body sideways. I was sobering up enough now to realise I had made a big mistake bringing him into this cavern of slime.
Stoicu was in his element – dollar-flashing, flurries of waiters and racks of Johnnie Walker. He eyed up the girls at the bar, banking their images, making mental notes for later. He was probably staying at the hotel, as most of the Party bosses did when they were on a night out, or kept a city-centre flat for adultery and hangovers. ‘Politburo Shagover Pads,’ Leo called them. Stoicu held his champagne flute in his fist and bolted his drinks. Constantin sipped from his, holding it between thumb and middle finger. He spoke a few words to Cilea. She ignored him. He put his hand on hers; she violently brushed it aside. He rose, kissed her on the top of the head and left. At the centre of it all, Milosevic the Serb chief sat and watched, his champagne untouched.
‘Why did you make me come here?’ Petre was asking me. ‘This place is hell. It makes me ill.’ It was true that Petre looked profoundly sick, but he looked afraid too. Even Leo, a veteran of Bucharest sleaze, was finding it hard to extract much humour from the evening. ‘Bet you wish you’d taken that plane now?’ he whispered. Over at the VIP table, it was that time of the night when, by some animal law of entropy, the group starts to turn on itself. ‘Two Planks’ was being ribbed with increasing nastiness. Someone poured champagne over his head, another flicked fag ash over his hair and shoulders; he laughed a feeble, stoical laugh – years of knowing that the nearest he would come to joining in group humour was becoming the butt of its jokes.
His humiliations were put on hold by a new arrival, an unsteady, leering figure. The DJ pulled the plugs on his decks and the sound died.
Nicu Ceauşescu swayed in the doorway like a man on the prow of a storm-tossed boat. His legs were parted to steady him, his face flabby with sated appetites, but eyes alive with appetites renewed. Two minders stood a little behind him, a parody of the western playboy: open-necked shirt, gold chain, Pierre Cardin shirt, Adidas trainers. Three nervous adolescent girls waited behind him.
‘Shit – I’ve been here eight years and I’ve never had to be in the same room as that bastard. Now, thanks to you, here we are…’ Leo knocked back a drink and refilled his glass.
‘Thanks to me…?’ I trailed off and looked at Petre. He was aghast.
Nicu’s companion, a famous gymnast and all-too-recent child prodigy, had won a silver at the Los Angeles Olympics five years back, and was tipped for a gold next time. She was thirteen back then. Nicu had his arm around her, but continued to scan the room for flesh. His relationship with an opera singer his own age, his official consort, was common knowledge, but everyone knew he preferred them young. The gymnast, Paulina Iliescu, had big wide eyes; her slim, toned body was wr
ong for here, a place of protrusion and ornament. Stilettos and a miniskirt made her long legs unsteady, and she had the air of a foal taking its first steps. Her lack of cleavage was accentuated by a low-cut top, around which she kept putting a defensive, muscular arm.
‘Christ knows what lives those poor girls live – steroids, drugs, kept prisoners in these athletes’ camps, then taken up by him. They lie back and think of Romania and hope he finishes quick, which fair play he apparently does. At least athletes are allowed to go on the pill…’ Leo stared at them, talking to me out of the corner of his mouth.
Nicu sniffed and wiped his nose with his thumb and forefinger, then wiped them on his trousers. Stoicu showed him to the bar and ordered drinks: champagne and Johnnie Walker. Nicu looked around at the prostitutes. Stoicu introduced him to the Serbs, who greeted him without enthusiasm. Milosevic especially looked unimpressed – where others saw power and status, he saw a slob, a police-state playboy with the shakes, a parasite on a rotting system. He shook Nicu’s hand and sat back down, ignoring him.
It did not take Nicu long to turn his attention to Cilea. They knew each other, that was clear enough, despite the twenty-year age difference. He ordered a big round of drinks, put his arms out in welcome to the guests, and proposed a toast. He whispered something to a minder, who went to the DJ, quivering like a tracked beast behind his podium and changed the music to some 80s slow dances. ‘Ah,’ said Leo authoritatively, ‘groper’s classics. I’ve had occasion to request them myself.’
Nicu tried out dancing partners, a feudal droit de seigneur played out to eighties disco music. This was what he did in his own fiefdom, Iaşi, where he was Party chief and where no one went to nightclubs or restaurants for fear of bumping into him. Nicu’s first dance request was with Elena Ralian. She rose hesitantly, slotted her good body against him, biting her lip and closing her eyes. His hands went all over her, down her back, across her buttocks, where he squeezed a little; she flinched but he just gripped her harder, liking the tension, needing something to exert himself against. All the time he was looking at Cilea, for whom Elena was the warm-up act. His gymnast companion, fiddling with the straw of a coca-cola, looked relieved – she might yet get the night off. After three songs, Elena Ralian was released and returned to her seat, where the effects of whatever ‘Two Planks’ had had his drink spiked with were beginning to take hold. He lay with his head on the table, sleeping, a mound of cigarette ash on his wet hair.
Nicu made his move on Cilea. As he jimmied himself in beside her she got up and changed tables. Undeterred, he followed her, calling her back. She ignored him. Everyone was watching. Even the music seemed to drop in volume, slow down in tempo. Nicu put a hand on Cilea’s leg but she pulled it off and threw it back at him so violently it looked as if it had separated from his body. He lunged at her, took her by the throat, and pushed his mouth onto hers.
Titanu moved so fast that we saw nothing happen. Only after it was over did we piece it together: he had Nicu in a bear hug, arms pinned to his sides and hands flapping helplessly at his waist. Nicu was screaming obscenities while Stoicu tried to unlock Titanu’s arms. Nicu’s face was red and bloated; he coughed between screams, launching his head back against Titanu’s chest. Titanu stood and waited until Nicu had exhausted himself, then walked to the lobby and dropped him hard onto the marble floor. Nicu’s gang of girls looked terrified. They would be the ones to reap the consequences of tonight’s humiliation. His minders hovered on the edge of the drama, more concerned with calming him down than taking on Titanu, who now stood beside Cilea like a block of granite. Cilea was rubbing her neck, breathing hard, holding back tears. Her friends had moved away, all except ‘Two Planks’ who was still out cold. I started to get up to join Cilea, but Leo held me back. The way she looked at me told me all I needed to know about staying out of it.
Stoicu was yelling at an impassive Titanu – ‘You’re fucked! You and your boss! Finished!’ At Cilea: ‘You little snob slut, you bourgeois cunts never change their ways, you still think you’re better than the rest of us.’ There were flecks of foam around his lips, the saliva spraying in the disco lights, behind him the muffled sound, half blood-curse and half infantile weeping, of Nicu Ceauşescu.
Cilea gathered her things and left a few minutes later, Titanu escorting her through the hotel’s back door. Neither gave a signal of recognition as they walked past me.
‘Jesus, that won’t be in the papers tomorrow…’ Leo was shaking his head. The prostitutes were clipping shut their cigarette and condom-filled purses and paying their bar tabs. No one would be needing them now. Doina the Diva gave a quick thumbs up to Leo and treated herself to a large Courvoisier from the untended bar. In the lobby the barman stood with a silver salver and a bottle of Johnnie Walker from which a hyperventilating Nicu slugged.
Though Nicu was a slob, a rapist and a bully, this would not have happened ten years ago, or even five. His treatment tonight was a barometer of the closed internal politics of Romania, more significant than a food riot or demonstration. These things were just flashes of desperation from a powerless people; what we had now seen was a testing of the structures of power. I could tell that was how the steel-eyed Serb chief had seen it, and how Stoicu himself now saw it as he sipped Tsuica, all pretence at sophistication gone: the peasant at his plum brandy, projecting his village machinations country-wide.
Milosevic slipped away, tapping his room key against his leg as he walked. He ordered a pot of coffee from reception and left, cold sober despite all the drink, looking like a man just getting down to work. ‘Two Planks’ was standing up, groggy and with a line across his forehead where he had slept against the table’s edge. He had missed it all, but he would be the only one left when the Securitate got here, stuttering dim-wittedly that he had seen nothing, heard nothing.
‘Time we went.’ Leo took me by the arm and we left through the staff exit. In one of the offices, someone was excitedly telling her colleagues what had happened. The rumour mill was turning. By morning it would be all around Bucharest, filling the offices and factories, reaching the foreign embassies and newspapers.
I remembered Petre. I looked around for him but he had gone. I was glad – it saved me apologising to him, but I would need to do it soon enough, and to Cilea as well. This was his country, but tonight had been my doing.
Twelve
My involvement with Petre and Vintul’s border-crossing operation came sooner than I expected. It had been brought forward and now, a week after the incident with Nicu Ceauşescu, Leo and I were heading to the Yugoslav border. Petre, Vintul, and five others would reach the same place by a different route. We had stopped at a roadside for a dashboard meal of bread, white cheese and Rocola. Leo was doing penance for the evening at the Madonna Disco, and had foresworn fine food and drink. I had not seen Petre or Cilea since. He had gone to ground, no one knew where, and now he was behind us in a stolen car. I would see him soon, at least. I would explain. I would apologise. As for Cilea, she had not returned my calls, and I had failed to get past the guard at the gates of her building. The messages I left on her answerphone alternated between abject contrition and unrepentant accusation. Only once did she pick up. She heard my voice and put the phone down.
It was early evening, and after the city limits of Bucharest the farmland stretched for hours of flat road. On the horizon’s cloudless rim a red sun boiled. There were no animals; nothing moved or grazed. To the north-east of us, the petrochemical towers of Craiova disgorged their smoke. It looked like it disappeared, but really it impregnated the air, attached itself to it molecule by molecule, and the sky’s metallic blue was in fact a screen of pollution. That summer’s intricate sunsets were all pollution too: petrol-fume, carbon-dazzle… there was no rain and the only rainbows we saw were in the oil-slick puddles beneath the construction lorries.
There was a weak point on the border with Yugoslavia, a narrow stretch of the Danube that was barbed-wired and patrolled but not guarded. Romania shar
ed frontiers with five countries, but an increasingly disunited Yugoslavia was a favourite crossing-point. It was a step westwards. Leo had been on three of these trips so far, but only a few of the escapees gave a sign from their new lives: coded postcards or messages that passed like Chinese whispers along the channels of the underground.
We arrived at our destination, a small town called Hinova a few miles from the border, at around nine o’clock. Leo had booked us into a hotel where we were the only customers. Leo ordered some wine and asked for the menu, which was orally transmitted and five syllables long. After watery stew and ersatz, we walked outside. The shadows were closing in on the small central square. The town was untouched by Romania’s modernisation project. It exuded irrelevance: parched lawn, dry fountain, some busts of forgotten men crumbling in limestone. In the shadows of their plinths a pack of dogs lazed and snarled at the nothing that was happening. Old men sat on benches, and folk music came from a shuttered café. The town’s only modern building was the Party headquarters, a small breeze-blocked square iced in grey concrete, with faded flags and rusty slogan boards.
We met the others in a car park on the edge of town. Vintul, Petre, three other boys and two girls, only one of whom I recognised: Mel from that night on the Boulevard of Socialist Victory. Tonight her name was Ana. Each had a rucksack wrapped in bin liners strapped to their back and was full of nervous courage and big talk. Only Petre and Vintul were calm, Vintul because he was in charge and focussed, Petre because he seemed to float above it all. He shook my hand and smiled. ‘I’m sorry about the other night…’ I began. ‘Not now,’ he said, ‘and anyway, it’s all finished, I have already forgotten.’ Our friendship remained, I was sure of that, but he had withdrawn a little, whether to protect me or to protect himself I could not tell. My acquaintance with Cilea troubled him enough to ask if I knew her father, but he relaxed when I told him I did not. In any case, I was unlikely to meet him now.
The Last Hundred Days Page 15