Letters to a Young Gymnast

by Nadia Comaneci

  Before I tell you about our deposed leader, let me reiterate that I never personally knew Ceausescu or his wife. I met them one time when I was a child, and we spoke only a few words at an official ceremony. It makes me uncomfortable to judge them in any way because who am I to know? So I must look to the history books and well-known journalists for answers, not rumors, so that I can do justice to your questions and be fair to Ceausescu and his descendants.

  According to the history books, Ceausescu and his wife, Elena Petrescu, came from a background in the Communist Party. Ceausescu ran Romania’s Ministry of Agriculture and was deputy minister of the armed forces when the Communists took power in our country. He worked his way through the ranks and became the president of Romania in 1974. From the start, he ran the country with an iron fist, controlling the media by using the Securitate, his secret police.

  Political insiders have reported that Ceausescu and his wife ran the country together. It is written that Elena collected titles (all bestowed by her husband, not earned) like diamonds and loved to wear both. She received a Ph.D. in industrial chemistry and was appointed to the National Council of Scientific Research despite knowing nothing about the field. She was a member of the Permanent Bureau of the Political Executive Committee; as first deputy premier, she supervised the secret police and launched programs such as the antireligion and antiabortion campaigns. Elena also helped decide who would be promoted within the government. Some say she was more powerful than the president and far crueler. In any case, the Ceausescus’ rule in its entirety was bizarre and brutal.

  During the mid-1970s, Ceausescu decided that Romania’s population should increase from 23 million to 30 million by the year 2000. He wanted more followers, more tax dollars, a more powerful country. To this end, he created a policy that said, “The fetus is the property of the entire society. Anyone who avoids having children is a deserter who abandons the laws of national continuity.” Abortion was forbidden, and people like me who didn’t have children by the age of twenty-five were monetarily penalized for not doing our patriotic duty.

  It’s been documented that under Ceausescu’s so-called fetus policy, Romania’s birthrate doubled, but we didn’t have the food or nutrients necessary to either feed the new children or maintain the health of pregnant women. Ceausescu forbade sex education and any books on reproduction and had them classified as “state secrets.” Women under forty-five were forced to go to clinics every three months to see if they were pregnant. The government officials who took them to these appointments were called the “menstrual police.” I never had to go. Perhaps my status was good for something after all.

  Friend, I’ve tried to explain to you that there simply wasn’t enough food in Romania for its inhabitants. By 1981, things went from bad to horrific. Our country could have survived on our farmlands and livestock, but Ceausescu exported most of our food. He had incurred $10 billion in loans from the West and decided in 1981 that he was going to pay the debt in full by exporting everything that could be sold abroad. As a result, the people were given food rations of 1 to 2 pounds of meat a month. That’s not enough for an individual for a week, let alone a family of five. People could have stopped having children . . . but they couldn’t afford to. Plus, failing to reproduce was a crime.

  Ceausescu kept spending—building shipping canals that were never used; buying lavish homes (he owned forty); and allowing his wife to spend millions on jewelry, yachts, and travel. Meanwhile, in many cities there wasn’t enough electricity to boil hot water more than once a day. Articles state that Ceausescu forced people in factories to work seven-day weeks and cut their pay at the same time. He decided to “redevelop” land and displaced thousands from their homes. He didn’t care about preserving the culture, and he forbade religion, which was all most people had for comfort.

  I didn’t know any of these details while I was living in Romania because our media were subject to Ceausescu’s whims and desires. To this day, I can’t say for certain exactly what is true, so I must depend upon the same books and articles that you do. I didn’t grow up hating Ceausescu, but I knew the hardships of living in Romania and admit that I was not surprised to learn of the cruelties he and his wife perpetrated or the thousands they crippled through overwork, starvation, and countless inhuman acts. I witnessed the results of the president and first lady’s laws. Beggars panhandled on the streets of every city, people starved while our eggs and beef were exported, beautiful churches were demolished, and children died. Still, I did not think of defecting.

  In 1984, I heard rumors that there was going to be a boycott of the summer Olympics to be held in Los Angeles, California. Many Communist nations, including the Soviet Union, Cuba, and East Germany, decided to retaliate for the U.S.-led boycott of the 1980 Games by refusing to compete in the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics. I don’t know why Ceausescu didn’t join them in this boycott, but probably one of the best decisions he made in his life was to let the athletes who had trained so hard compete.

  In our country, we were told that as a reward for Ceausescu permitting Romanians to compete, some kind of agreement had been struck between the United States and our government so that if any Romanians tried to defect during the Games, they would be sent home. I don’t know if that is true, but not one individual defected during those Olympics. Most of the time, somebody out of a huge delegation failed to return home. The rumor could have been propaganda put out by our government. Either way, it worked, as no one wanted to end up facing the Securitate. Everyone was too afraid.

  I did not think that the 1984 Olympics would involve me. There was no way I would be allowed to travel to the United States when I wasn’t even allowed to go to Europe. But I received a phone call from a government official saying that I would be part of the Romanian delegation. I remember staring at the phone I held in shock because I couldn’t believe the government was actually going to let me get on a plane! I was assigned a “chaperone” for the trip, but I really didn’t care that I was going to be watched. I was traveling to America, and I planned to eat, shop, and meet as many fun people as possible. For a brief moment, I felt almost free.

  Officially, I went with the Romanian delegation to the Olympics as a spectator. I watched Bela’s newest creation, Mary Lou Retton, and she was great. From a distance, I saw Bela, and I was later permitted to say hello but not to talk to him. Even if I’d found myself alone with Bela for a few minutes, I would have been too afraid to speak anyway. Do you know what that kind of crippling fear is like? If my mother had been in that arena and I’d been dying to talk to her, I still wouldn’t have tried because someone would have taken off my head if they found out I’d had a forbidden conversation. I had no control over what the Romanian delegation officials might write about me. I felt that I needed to keep everyone pleased and happy; I couldn’t rock the boat.

  Can you understand that this kind of behavior—always watching what I said and did—had become automatic for me? If I didn’t open my mouth, people couldn’t make up anything about me. So, I didn’t say a word. I became disinterested in even speaking, let alone speaking my mind or having an unscripted, authentic moment. I knew my phone and the rental car and my hotel room were all bugged. My chaperone, a middle-aged woman who’d had a government job all her life and never thought outside the box, and the delegation officials took notes on every move I made. It was an unnerving, pressure-filled situation.

  I was pleased, though, to see that Bela and Marta had landed on their feet in the United States. The idea that they’d applied what they’d learned and taught in Romania to gymnasts in America made me proud. In a way, I was a small piece of that success. After a few weeks, I returned to Romania a little happier for the break I’d had and went back to the same job. Once more, life was about surviving, taking care of my brother, and keeping my home at least partially heated for the winter. I got back into the swing of not really going anywhere and being just another worker bee. Sometimes I still wanted to scream, but other times I just mov
ed through life in a self-protective haze.

  My friend, there are moments in life when you lose your edge, so to speak. Even though there’s a small voice inside you that is desperately trying to shake you out of the haze, it’s hard to hear it. Try to always listen to that voice because it speaks the truth, even when you don’t want to hear what it’s saying. Sometimes it’s easier to go through the motions of life than to actually live it. I always remind myself that a life worth living is one full of awareness, actions, and choices.

  Even in the bleakest of my days, stories reached my ears. I heard about a man who’d traveled to America through France, Spain, and Cádiz in a freight container, only to be deported back to Romania on the same ship on which he’d hidden. Ten days later, he tried again, over the same route, winding up in the Canary Islands. In the end, it took him a year and four months to go back to Italy and then to France before he finally arrived in the United States.

  For every person who made it, I heard about countless others who did not—who were deported, jailed indefinitely, or shot in the back while running across the border. I heard about a group of people who lived in a freight container in the bottom of a ship in an attempt to defect. These were desperate people willing to die in an attempt to find a better life. Life as you know it has to be pretty bad in order for you to nail yourself into a freight container and suffer through an ocean crossing without knowing if you’ll be successful.

  You have asked what the exact moment was when I finally decided to defect. I cannot tell you. There were so many factors, based on so many years of struggle, humiliation, and hardship. Would I have even considered it if I’d been allowed to travel freely or if I’d been given a job with decent pay? Probably not. But one day, I realized that where I was in life was where I was going to die. There were no opportunities in my country for advancement unless I wanted to be a savvy political player, and that was not in my nature. I could not hope for a better job or more money or the opportunity to see the world as a gymnastics delegation member. I couldn’t even decide what to cook for dinner because there were no groceries to buy. One day, I just realized that I’d reached a dead end. I realized that I could either be like all of those people silently screaming around me or give myself permission to have a voice, to decide how my life should go.

  I understand that to Americans, the idea that there is no choice is hard to believe. Have you ever had a disturbing dream from which you could not wake yourself? Or been caught in a strong current and watched the land pass by without being able to get to the shore? That is what living in Romania as an adult under Ceausescu was like for me. One day, I realized that I wanted my own dreams, that I desperately wanted to swim for the distant shore and sink my feet into its sand. I finally heard myself scream, and I listened.

  The process of defection began when I attended a birthday party at a friend’s home. At the party were several Romanians who had defected and were now U.S. citizens. One of them said he lived in Florida, where the sun never stopped shining, there were palm trees everywhere, and the ocean water was crystal clear and warm year-round. He also said he’d helped his cousin get out of Romania by swimming across the Danube and insinuated that he’d assisted others and would continue to do so. The man was of medium height and had brown hair and a mustache. He seemed nice, and he was believable because he was now an American. His name was Constantin.

  My conversation with Constantin was casual, but I remember telling my brother about it later. I pulled him into a room and played some loud music so that I could be sure we wouldn’t be overheard. I was convinced that my house was bugged. “I think this is going to have to stop,” I told Adrian. “My life is bad.” Adrian just listened. “I heard a man talking,” I explained. “He said he could help people defect . . . he didn’t ask if I wanted to leave Romania, but I think I do.” My brother was quiet for a long time, and then he looked me in the eyes and agreed that it was time for a change. He understood that I needed to leave Romania to find a better life.

  ■ Fairy Tales

  My typical floor tumbling runs included a round-off back handspring, and a double back somersault in tucked position. A round-off to a one-half turn to a piked front somersault (called a “piked Arabian”), a step-out to a round-off back handspring lay-out back somersault, landing with legs straddled. And a round-off back handspring and back flip with a double twist. The most difficult skill was the double back somersault. Only a handful of gymnasts in the world did the double back consistently.

  My friend, when you were a young child, did you ever read Walt Disney’s Sleeping Beauty? It’s about a princess, Aurora, who is cursed by an evil fairy named Maleficent. According to the curse, Aurora would prick her finger on a spindle on her sixteenth birthday and die. But good fairies, determined to save her, changed the curse so that when the princess pricked her finger, she would fall into a deep sleep, only to awaken after the first kiss of her true love.

  We had a folktale in Romania that was very similar. I used to imagine I was Sleeping Beauty, just waiting to meet my prince, have him kiss me, and then wake to find myself in a castle. The only thing was, there were no princes in Romania. And even if they’d existed, they wouldn’t have looked for me in a house with little heat or at a job in a dusty old government building. I was warehoused and invisible, and life appeared utterly hopeless. Meeting Constantin made me feel as if a window had been cracked open, and suddenly, a fresh breeze carried the promise of a different future than the one to which I’d resigned myself.

  When I began to fantasize about defection, my mind came alive, and it seemed that almost anything was possible. I was like a thirsty person in the desert—all of a sudden, I realized that, somewhere, there was a glass of water. I had to survive traveling through the desert to hold it in my hand . . . but it was there. And freedom was there, too, if I was willing to risk everything to attain it. But was I?

  My brother asked if he could meet Constantin. We went together at the next opportunity for a “friendly” gathering that wouldn’t make anyone in the Securitate suspicious. Constantin told Adrian that he knew of a way for me to get out of Romania. He had a friend with some family close to the border with Hungary. He suggested we visit that family for a party and get the government used to my socializing with people who lived by the border. If I just went one time, it would cause suspicion. But if I went and returned several times, it might result in a more lax attitude on the part of the police and give both me and the handful of other Romanians who planned to defect with Constantin enough time to cross the border before an alarm was sounded.

  When my brother finished the conversation, he told me that Constantin was the real deal. He wasn’t bluffing. There were six other Romanians who planned to trust him with their lives. “There is nothing left for you in this country,” Adrian said. “The way you are treated by the government is humiliating. If you want to defect, you should try.” That meant so much, knowing that he wanted me to be happy despite how much he’d miss me.

  I agreed to go visit Constantin’s friends near the border. That’s when I met the other six people who wanted to defect—two women and four men, one of whom had tried to defect three times and failed. The man who had repeatedly failed had made it to Hungary, but authorities there had sent him back. There was no guarantee just because you’d crossed into Hungary that you’d be allowed to stay there. At the time, the Hungarian officials would look at your intellect, your skills, and your ability to contribute to their society, and if you were considered valuable and productive, you could stay. If not, back to Romania with you. The man I met had been jailed when he’d been returned. Yet still he wanted to attempt defection for a fourth time.

  The idea of freedom solidified into something real and terrifying and thrilling. Meanwhile, I couldn’t tell my mother and father anything about my plans. If I had told them, it would have put them in danger, and I was not willing to take that risk in exchange for some comforting words. Secretly, I began to put my papers in order. I pla
ced my home in my brother’s name so that he and his wife wouldn’t lose it if I successfully defected. The government would have turned them out on the street had I left the house in my name. We just crossed our fingers that the paperwork we did would protect Adrian.

  I still wasn’t certain I could actually do it. I continued to go to “parties” at the home of Constantin’s friends. Since the house was so close to a border, police monitored the neighborhood. In order to enter, we had to sign in at a security gate and then sign out when we left. While there, we played music, chatted about nothing in particular, and tried to figure out if we trusted everyone in the group. The Securitate could have put one of their own into the mix and told him or her to pretend to defect so that they could catch us “criminals.”

  My brother and sister-in-law accompanied me every time I went to the house. Eventually, they started to wonder whether they, too, should defect. I told them to think hard because if we were caught, we’d all be on the streets. At least they had each other and a home. In the end, they decided that it was too much of a risk and that they weren’t quite unhappy enough to take it. Do you understand, dear friend, how desperate a person must be to attempt defection? I had to weigh the value of seeking a better life against the probability of my imprisonment or death if I failed in the effort.

  Each time I went to a “party,” I made certain to let the secret police know my exact plans by talking about them in public. That way, they believed they were still in complete control of my comings and goings. The others did the same. None of us wanted to attract attention, but it was necessary to defect close to the border if we had any hope of getting across it, and that house was at the beginning of our journey. Maybe we would get a bullet in the back before we’d gone 100 yards; maybe death would come only seconds before crossing the border. But like those that had tried before us, we were all desperate enough to risk dying. In the end, it didn’t come down to trusting the other would-be defectors or Constantin. I understood fairy tales were just children’s stories. I simply wanted more out of my life.