The Last Hundred Days

by Patrick McGuinness

  The other names on the list of those who missed the vote meant nothing to me, but I knew the last one: Manea Constantin.

  Eight

  They released Oleanu after a week. Just like the people he had informed on, he arrived at the university to find that his place had been withdrawn. He knew the routine, having so often set it in motion: he handed over his university card and cleared out his locker. But there was a calmness about him, a singleness of purpose. Whatever had been done to him in prison, it had made rather than broken him. Popea, charged with expelling Oleanu from the university, tried not to look at the bandage on Oleanu’s eye, the split lip, the way the boy held his ribs as every breath brought pain. But no one could ignore the new dignity he had; the way, even stooped over a bruised lung, he looked taller, stronger, surer of himself.

  When Oleanu came out, Leo was waiting, his Skoda rattling in the morning snow. In the back seat sat an old man in a hat, with a French newspaper spread out in front of him, obscuring his face.

  Leo was as good as his word. Better. He introduced Oleanu to Trofim, who made him his de facto assistant. Over the next two weeks we saw a complete transformation in Oleanu. Before, he had been a scheming, anal-retentive coward with a politician’s time-buying stutter, square spectacles and flat, greased hair. His trousers were too short and his bony wrists stuck out from the sleeves of a barrel-jacket. Now his hair was tousled, he wore jeans and an open-necked shirt. Round spectacles and the beginnings of a sharp little beard made him look more like the young Trotsky than the young Lenin. He had filled out, muscled up.

  Soon he was drafting Trofim’s speeches, typing up his letters, accompanying him to events. He read dissident socialists –Trotsky, Victor Serge, Rosa Luxemburg, Gramsci – and reinvented himself as the intellectual guardian of a communism that might have been. Oleanu had not lost his faith, just transferred it.

  The intimidation of Trofim increased. He received calls describing how his wife’s corpse had been disinterred and given to the dogs to fuck, how the Yids were still good for gassing, how they’d come for him and skin him alive. It was a different voice each time, but always the same sneer, reading its obscene script at all hours of the night. Trofim coped. He even joked that there was more imagination in these phone calls than there had been in the last twenty years of official literature. But they wore him down physically, they broke his sleep; when he disconnected the phone they banged on his door or pushed pornographic images through his letterbox.

  All this intrigue seemed abstract and faraway on the streets of Bucharest. Rumours came and went of workers striking, food riots, flashes of isolated dissent, but so too did news of their quelling: the midnight raids on people’s homes, the bogus hospitalisations, the random relocations and imprisonments.

  Communism was collapsing, but we didn’t know it then, or not here. After the Wall came the opened borders, the promise of free elections, new parties, western aid and western goods. But not for us. Looking back it’s easy to think that each brick knocked from the prison of communism brought another crack for the light to shine through. Perhaps that was how it felt in Prague or Warsaw or Berlin. In Bucharest it was a reminder of how much we remained bricked in, that sense that there would never be enough light to go round. Each relaxation outside brought a new squeeze. The Hungarians had opened their borders, but the Romanians tightened theirs. West Germany gave food and money to East Germany, but here new export targets were announced that left the people producing more and receiving less. Even the black market suffered, as the alternative avenues of supply closed down. There was nothing left to skim from the top of the quotas, the bottom of the inventories; nothing left to trim, no odds and ends to sell or barter. The luxuries were still there, rising like a glittering scum to the top of the day’s deprivations, but the basics ran out everywhere.

  As I trudged through grey snow to work on the morning of 17 December, I saw the Comrade’s convoy, or one of its decoys, hurtling towards Otopeni airport to the crunch of snowchains on black ice. Here and there the thawing snow slid slowly down the roof tiles and fell in blocks, exploding on the ground.

  Early mornings unnerved me: there was never anyone on the streets, but the criss-crossed footsteps testified to there having been some small-hours rush hour in the blue light, when hundreds of people had walked or run to work or stood and waited for their transport. You felt crowded out but alone – perfect police state weather. Leo told me after the first frosts: ‘The Cold War, ever wondered why they called it that? It’s not just all that bollocks about icy relations between East and West. The cold is a weapon here, they use it just like they’d use a gun or water cannon… you remember what Napoleon said about being defeated by General Midwinter? Well, around here Winter’s a colonel in the Securitate…’

  At the university gates, Micu gave a stiff-jointed salute. He looked terrified, and I soon saw why. Two Securitate officers sat at his desk searching the students.

  I knocked on Leo’s door and went in. ‘They’re jacking up security – shut down the politics department for the whole week. Something to do with Comrade Nic’s official visit to Iran. They’re tightening up.’

  ‘He’s going to Iran?’

  ‘He must be bloody nuts, but that’s not all. Guess who’s in charge of the asylum while he’s eating pistachios with the ayatollahs?’

  I thought about it. The most obvious answer was also the most absurd. Still… surely not…

  ‘You got it in one,’ said Leo. I hadn’t said anything, but my expression was enough.

  ‘Comrade Academician Professor Elena Ceauşescu?’

  ‘You forgot “Scientist of Broad International Renown”, but I’ll give you the point. The shit’s hitting the fan in Timişoara, Brasov, Iaşi, and God knows where else, but what’s the Big Man going to do? He’s off to Iran. Iran for fuck’s sake! Who told him to do that?’

  Popea hovered at the door.

  ‘Ah, good of you to come by…’ Leo motioned him to stand by the window. There was no pretence any longer that Popea was the boss, but there was something about him today, something satisfied and authoritative. ‘You’re looking pleased with yourself, Boss. Well, fire away.’

  ‘Very well,’ Popea closed the door, looking ominously confident, and produced some papers. ‘It’s a letter from the Dean terminating your employment. One from the ministry rescinding your visa and work permit will reach you tomorrow. You then have fourteen days to leave the country. Sadly, owing to the traditional clerical error, the fourteen days began twelve days ago. It can’t be helped. You have forty-eight hours.’

  Leo had been beaten up, imprisoned, robbed and almost killed. But this was the first time I had seen him genuinely distressed. He leapt from the chair and took Popea by the lapels, but Popea pressed his advantage: ‘Unless you are here, in this place and in this job, you are nothing… a nobody, an unemployable hack lecturer past his sell-by date. I’ve spent too long taking orders from you, I’ve watched you rub our noses in the shit, threatening and blackmailing people, corrupting the system… well, now that you’re going I can tell you I have always held you in contempt. I had nothing to do with your expulsion, but go ahead if you want: expose me, humiliate me, lose me my job. Then it will be over. I’m calling your bluff.’

  Leo sank back into his chair. ‘What can you do to help?’ he was the supplicant now, ‘what’ll it take this time?’

  ‘Fuck you, Leo, I’m happy to say there’s nothing I can do. Oh, I’m sure if there was I’d do it like I always have, just to save my skin. Actually, I already tried – no luck I’m afraid… I’m happy to say this one’s out of my hands. There’s something liberating about that, Leo, it’s a relief. You should try it, just giving up and letting things take their course…’

  Then, remembering a small detail, Popea turned to me. ‘You too,’ he said. ‘You’re out as well. Your Christmas break starts on the twentieth, but your visa won’t be renewed. Best find another job, maybe one where they interview you…!’ Popea smil
ed: I was just an additional bonus to his primary victory. ‘Anyway, with Professor O’Heix gone you won’t last long around here…’

  ‘If those bastards think they’re getting rid of me they’ve got another think coming. I’ve got contacts, I’m going to need to call in some favours. They’ll have to tie me up and drug me and put me on the plane themselves while everyone watches and wishes they were in my place!’

  Leo’s letter was delivered by two ministry officials, revoking his working permit, his visa and his contract. I was not worth a visit: my termination papers were in my department pigeonhole and I was to leave by the twenty-third, two days after Leo.

  Leo thought he could call in favours, reel in those dozens of powerful people who were in one way or another beholden to him. He was wrong. No one returned his calls and the few who agreed to meet him failed to show up. Only Manea replied, with a short note offering Leo a meeting for 28 December, his ‘first window in the diary’. As Manea surely knew, Leo was due to be sent back on the twenty-first.

  On 19 December, protesters in Timişoara stormed their Party HQ and set fire to its contents: Ceauşescu portraits, Party records, books and pictures, even the furniture went onto the pyre. The police stood by. In that protracted moment of hesitation perhaps, the end of the regime came and installed itself.

  The first symbol of the revolution was hoisted from the balcony of the Timişoara Party HQ: the Romanian flag with a hole of blue sky where the communist insignia and PCR logo had been. People crowded to touch it, they carried it with them. The new national flag.

  The Securitate presence from Calea Victoriei to the Central Committee building was stepped up. Young suited men with ostentatiously hidden guns stood every ten yards, smoking and watching, checking papers, pulling up cars, questioning anyone who stood and talked in the streets for more than a few seconds. ‘Two’s a crowd’ became the motto. But sometimes it only took one: a construction worker with a megaphone at the top of the scaffolding on Piaţa Unirii bellowing out, ‘Timişoara! Timişoara! Timişoara!’ for half an hour before they managed to bring him down. On the Atheneum lawn ‘Down with Ceauşescu’ appeared in weed-killered grass. ‘Death to the Vampire and his Bitch,’ was daubed in red on the wall of the Party museum.

  When the clampdown came it was easy to put an end to social life: all they had to do was stop the supply of food and drink to restaurants and cafés. Even the ersatz dried up. Only the dollar bars and international hotels stayed open, and even there the plain-clothes agents outnumbered you. And Capsia: Capsia had the diplomats and the Party nomenklatura to feed. It also had Leo’s last week of decadence to host, a sort of Viking feast punctuated with flashes of mortal danger and the political surreal.

  In the early hours of 20 December, Ottilia and I were awoken by a low rumbling noise close enough to the flat for us to feel the vibrations in the glass shelves in the bathroom. I looked at the clock: 4 am. Downstairs the police guard dozed upright. Two others stood and smoked a few yards away. If they saw me leave they gave no sign. The noise was louder now, an even, mechanised buzz that shook the ground. At first I thought it was the earthquake revisiting. I walked to the corner of Aleea Alexandru and Aviatorilor and then I saw them: dozens of armoured cars heading into town, their headlamps off. There were lorries carrying troops and tanks cruising at frightening speed. I’d always imagined tanks were slow and heavy. But it was their speed and their surprising, indestructible nimbleness that terrified me.

  It was nearly daybreak when Leo returned. ‘They’re sending troops to Timişoara.’ Leo was cold sober though he smelled of drink and smoke. ‘Army leave’s been cancelled. There’s something big happening. Elena Ceauşescu’s now taken charge personally of security.’

  ‘They’re bringing troops in here too, I saw them: tanks and personnel carriers.’

  ‘No surprise there – always bring in troops from outside the area if you’re going to start shooting your own people. I’ll bet Timişoara’s army units are heading over here and Bucharest’s are on their way to Timişoara.’

  ‘What d’you know for sure, Leo?’ asked Ottilia. Speculation exasperated her. There were some who thrived on gossip, for whom rumours were more absorbing than the realities they brought wind of. Ottilia found rumours wearing: ‘They distort your responses – by the time you’ve spent yourself reacting to the rumour, you’re no longer able to react to the realities themselves…’

  ‘Nothing. Not for sure. But I reckon there’ll be competition for customers between you in the hospital and Campanu down at the morgue.’ Leo’s tone changed: ‘I know I’m meant to be on that plane. But I’m not going. But if the two of you want to get out, now’s a good time. I can help you.’

  ‘I’m not leaving. This is my home.’ Ottilia said it calmly and emphatically, the way Petre would have done.

  Leo nodded. ‘Tell you what, while you’re mulling that one over, I’ve booked Capsia. I see my going-away party as a sort of rolling programme of events, culminating in my non-departure from Otopeni airport on Friday afternoon. We foregather at seven.’

  Leo disappeared into the bathroom. We heard him shout as the freezing water from the hot tap crashed over his shoulders. Ottilia and I had not discussed what would happen when I left. Instead of making plans we continued to speak as if all would be well, as if we would all be here, together, the other side of Christmas. Unlike Leo, I could not pretend I would outface the police and find ways of staying behind. But if I wanted to be with Ottilia I needed to find a way of coming back. I could not imagine our life together anywhere but here; and in spite of its unreality, I had stopped being able to imagine my own life anywhere else either.

  A tense, heavily policed peace reigned in Bucharest that day. Still in Iran, the Conducător released films of himself meeting the mullahs and outlining Romania’s commitment to the socialist path. At moments of national or international unease, new homages were found for the Ceauşescus. Thus Scînteia announced that the guild of artisan-basketweavers had bestowed on them their highest honour, the Order of the Golden Straw.

  At three o’clock, as helicopters circled above us, they shut down the university and cleared it out. In the streets that afternoon random ID checks were everywhere, and police hurried people along whenever they stopped to chat. Food queues, obvious flashpoints of anger or spontaneous protest, presented more of a problem: move people on and you spark a riot, let them stay too long and you incubate one. Outside a butcher’s shop on Boulevard Magheru, the queue was turning dangerous. Passing by, I noticed my sardonic Scînteia vendor waiting with his string bag. He called me over. People turned. He was taking a big risk speaking to a foreigner in front of a hundred witnesses and the police. There was a manic, past-caring mischief in his smile and wide-open eyes.

  ‘Epoca Luminoasa! Era of Light, eh? Come over here, Domnul, come and queue with the happy people as they enjoy the fruits of their socialist lifestyle… come and watch as those goons, village idiots in uniforms, herd us like cattle from one queue to the next. You don’t read about that in Scînteia, do you?’

  People laughed bitterly, jeered and shouted at the police. Someone called out, ‘Timişoara! Ceauşescu assassin!’ Behind the Scînteia vendor two men who had been waiting in line moved towards him. In a few seconds they were at his back, yanking him by his shoulders away from the crowd: Securitate plants dressed as normal Romanians – tired ill-cut jackets and coats, cheap rabbit-fur hats and Monocom boots. He laughed madly, a lunatic grin on his face: ‘Comrades why were you queuing? Don’t they have special shops for Securitate? Don’t tell me they’re empty too…’ I saw the furrows in the snow where his kicking heels dragged as they pulled him towards a black Dacia van. The police, out of their depth, moved to calm the crowd, telling people to get on with their wait, that there was nothing to see, but also eyeing the Securitate resentfully.

  As I moved to intervene, one of the Securitate motioned me to stay away. I pressed on as their prisoner shouted: ‘Fascists, murderers, scum!’ Peopl
e were emboldened, abusing the Securitate, who were now, even with the extra four who had appeared from the van, seriously outnumbered. A rock thrown from the crowd hit the windscreen and smashed it spectacularly across the pavement. In the confusion the Scînteia vendor disentangled himself, ran back into the crowd and out to a sidestreet where, as I watched him, three policemen let him pass. I saw his heel turn the corner and turned back, but now the police too had disappeared, leaving this to the Securitate and their plain-clothes agents.

  This was a riot in the making. The pragmatists smashed the windows and looted the shop, running out with slabs of meat in bloody newspaper. The idealists faced down the Securitate who twitched for their guns and considered their options. The crowd pushed on; stones skimmed the van, smashing its remaining windows. There was only a matter of ten yards between the people and the Securitate when a second black Dacia van came spinning into the gap, all doors open, ready to gather in its agents. As they leapt into the back, one figure climbed slowly from the front passenger seat. He wore a fur hat and sunglasses, and as his colleagues called out to him to get in, he stood and looked slowly around, taking in every detail, pausing over every face. The crowd sensed the coldness, the authority. Faltering, the front row fell back and the advance stalled. They looked and found no fear in his face.

  I knew it was Vintul even before he took off his sunglasses and hat. And something about him now made me know this was what he really looked like: fair, close-cropped hair, pale green eyes and light skin. No more disguises. He ran a gloved hand through his hair, a reflex from his days undercover. He folded his sunglasses, eyes sweeping over us without emotion, and slipped them into his pocket. He passed over my face three times. Maybe he hadn’t recognised me. I breathed out. Maybe he had forgotten me. He said something into a walkie-talkie, and without waiting for a reply opened the van door. He was about to get in when he stopped short, turned again and looked straight at me, pulling the door across his body with his right hand and raising his left to make a pistol of his fingers. He closed an eye, took aim at me, jerked the barrel of his gun once into the air and smiled. One bullet. He wasn’t the type to waste them, even imaginary ones.