by John Degen
The moment Nicolae asked for a visa application at the government office, a special file was opened on him at the police station downtown. And if there was a file for him, there was a file for every member of his family, including his proud Communist parents. To be watched and followed and paid special attention to meant very little to Nicolae, but it was a great and painful shame to his father. It meant large, ugly men in overcoats came to his office and asked his staff questions about him, about what time he came in every morning and when he left in the evenings; if he met with any suspicious-looking people on a regular basis; if perhaps he was having an affair with some young girl who might be an agent of counter-revolution. These men spread rumours about him that had no basis in fact, but which were the standard rumours you always heard about people with family who had left—that their connection to the decadent, Western world had weakened their communist values, and that they had been turned into moles for an eventual capitalistic overthrow. There was a sudden shift of power between old Razvan and the people who worked for him—his authority was destroyed by a thousand whispers and unending lunchtime gossip.
Nicolae had his own troubles to deal with in those three years. Everything became more difficult. Lines stretched longer; it was no longer possible to sweet-talk the woman behind the deli counter in order to get the secret Hungarian salami stashed out of sight beneath the terrible Romanian stuff. Why should she do favours for Nicolae, who was leaving her and the rest of his Romanian family—all the country, one large family—to go and live in Hollywood?
“This always is what we heard,” Nicolae laughs, “that all emigrants were going to go and live in Hollywood. As though this was the only choice. Who the hell would go and live in Hollywood? Yet this was always the accusation.”
Really, Nicolae was taking his young family to Israel to nearly starve to death over two long years before they found their way to Canada and some comfort and freedom, finally. Nicolae had his troubles. He had a police escort to deal with. Being the son of an original Party member made his leaving that much worse for the state, that much more embarrassing, so some effort was made to make it extra hard on him.
“Perhaps they thought they could change my mind through these intimidations. Perhaps it was like a parent trying to scare his child into behaving, all for his own good.” Nicolae looks at Tony and tips the small empty bottle above his lap, twisting his face in a look of exaggerated pain at its emptiness. He presses the button on his armrest to call an attendant. “But, of course, the more you challenge me, the more I look for my own advantage.”
If you walk just beyond the small suburban settlements around Bet She’an in Israel, where Nicolae Petrescu-Nicolae settled with his young family in 1984, you will reach the neatly laid-out groves of blood oranges. There the fruit hangs white from the branches, powdered over completely with a chemical to resist disease and kill insects. The farmers there send dogs to run the fence line and stop those who would pick the fruit without permission. Without the dogs it would be possible to do this, as the plantations are large and widespread. There are high fences of twisted wire, but with holes wide enough to reach an arm through. Therefore, the dogs. To get the fruit, then, it would be necessary to understand the dogs, either to know when they are away from the fences, or to discover what it is that wins their trust. With all animals there is a key to trust; some posture you can take or something you can give them that will get behind their instinct. Nicolae was determined to find this key.
The mistake the farmers made was to release only one dog in each grove. Several dogs and Nicolae would not have been so effective in his thievery, because as he worked on one dog the others would have been at his throat. His technique, and he was quite proud of it, was to confuse the dog. When the dog arrived at the fence and Nicolae was there, it thought it knew the situation. Nicolae was there to take the oranges, and the dog was to stop him. To confuse his foe Nicolae did not take the oranges. Instead, for one week, he just stood and looked at the dog while it barked at him, while it threw the full weight of its huge silver-grey body onto the fence. Nicolae stood at a safe distance, looked at it and smiled. He did not try to speak to it, or approach it. He simply made the dog think twice about why he might be there. He looked at it, and then he picked up his briefcase and walked away.
For three days, it followed him along the fence, snarling and spitting, as he walked away, but on the third day as soon as Nicolae walked away, the dog just stood and watched him go, satisfied with the pattern of things. On the second week, Nicolae made a move on the dog. He had thought to wait until it would not bark at the sight of him, but then decided it would be better the other way. To make a move on the dog while it was barking would confuse the animal more than to do so while it was still. So, one day on the second week, while the dog barked at him, Nicolae walked over to the fence and thrust his arms through. He did not move suddenly, or make any noises. He just strode with purpose to the fence and put his arms through the wide holes. The dog was indeed surprised and, according to the plan, very confused. Nicolae grabbed the dog by the collar and closed his fists tight into the struggling animal’s neck. In this way he kept the dog from twisting his head far enough to either side to bite into an arm or hand. He let the snarling beast twist a little, in order to allow him to smell his attacker’s flesh on him, and even taste it a little with his lolling tongue, but no biting. In this way, Nicolae held onto the dog for one half-hour exactly.
At first it was very difficult to hold the dog as it pulled away from the fence and was very strong in the back legs. The dog jumped and twisted in its desperate need to bite into Nicolae’s arms.
“At one point the dog began to piss through the fence at me,” Nicolae says, shaking his head. “I am not sure if the dog actually wanted to do this or if it merely released because of fear. But I stood there and held the dog by the neck as it pissed hard onto my pant legs. All the while I looked at the dog in the same manner as before. Made eye contact and just looked with concentration, and as little fear as possible. Then, after half an hour, I let go of the dog and stepped back from the fence. At this point, I had won. The dog did not bark. Instead it dropped its nose to the ground and looked up at me. Confused, you see. And that is when I picked up my briefcase and walked away.”
For the next three days the dog received the same treatment. A quick determined lunge from Nicolae and half an hour of confused twisting. It pissed again only once, and by the third day the dog was waiting for Nicolae to lunge through the fence. It wanted Nicolae to lunge through the fence. The lunging had become a game to the dog. The dog still would have liked to bite into his arm—he had not removed this instinct from it, but the struggle with Nicolae was no longer a life-and-death struggle for the dog. It knew that after some time, Nicolae would eventually let go, pick up his briefcase and walk away. Now when it was time for him to leave, the animal was disappointed. Nicolae had completely confused its purpose. The dog was supposed to drive him from the fence and the oranges; now, instead, it wished he would stay.
By the end of the second week, Nicolae was able to do what he pleased on his own side of the fence and the dog merely sat and watched, waiting for arms to come through, for the game to begin. With the dog thus pacified, Nicolae was able to put his feet into the holes in the twisted wire and climb to the upper branches of the orange trees for the best fruit. He was able to gather as many oranges as would fit in his briefcase each day, and walk them out of the grove past the fence, and past the now docile, whimpering and thoroughly confused dog. Had he fallen into the dog’s territory, no doubt the animal would have been at Nicolae’s throat, and therefore he was very careful not to fall. In this way, Nicolae provided his family with fresh fruit, which was so important to them in that early time of their immigration when money was very scarce.
In Ostia, near Rome, there is a five-hour wait in the airport. A crowded bus on the tarmac and customs men with cigarettes hanging from their lips. There was a weird light effect during landing.
It was how Tony first realized they were very near the ground. The right-hand windows began to flicker and a soft bank on the way in revealed the Mediterranean, unsettled, bouncing sunlight off a million waves, inviting. Diana’s mother began again picking at the rosary she had put away an hour out of Toronto. Someone in coach was singing. Tony watched a man reach across the aisle to hand a large ring-shaped loaf of bread to a woman. Across from him, Dragos and his beautiful cousin checked their tickets and spoke with low tones in Romanian.
On the way over, it had felt like a vacation. Everyone on their way somewhere new. Tony had listened to Nicolae’s endless stories of himself as he might watch an inflight movie, with as much or as little concentration as the moment required. A couple near them was beginning their honeymoon and couldn’t stop kissing each other. When they thought no one was looking the man would slip his hand into his new wife’s blouse, and she would lean in, her hand disappearing between his legs. From overheard pieces of their conversation Tony learned the newlyweds would make a brief stop in Rome to change planes and then continue on to Greece for two weeks on an island. They read and slept and kissed and laughed for eight hours across the ocean. Tony watched them when the movie was boring, and they ignored him.
Now, for Tony and the four Petrescus, it is five hours of waiting in the sunny airport, beside the gate for the last leg of their flight, and already they are surrounded by Romanians. Now everyone is going home. Now the vacations are over. It is time to return for business or to bury someone. Time to bring money and chocolate and toys.
Tony keeps the trophy with him at all times. In airports he pushes it around on a cart, his own personal luggage bungeed on top of it to increase its disguise. Not that he imagines anyone here would recognize it, or care. For five hours he pushes the trophy around the terminal. He looks out of as many windows as he can find. Wall-sized panes of glass that curve overtop of him and let him see more of Italy than he’d expected to.
From one he watches other planes banking in low over the Mediterranean, though he can no longer see any water. He recognizes the play of light on their undersides. He thinks of Italian pilots smiling to each other as they slide back home over their own personal warm blue sea. Hands warmly slapping shoulders and cuffing the backs of heads. He thinks of clams in tomato sauce, and smells the cigarettes of customs officers and security guards. Twice he is stopped by young men with machine guns and dogs. German shepherds on thick leather leads, low-hipped and snarling, and the young men smoking, tapping their fingertips on the long pocked gun barrels. He is made to stand aside while the dogs circle his cart, sniffing the seams of the trophy case. He hopes the young men won’t make him open the case. He believes he understands some words. The guards debating which musical instrument it might be. He stands to the side and smiles, staring out one of the tall windows, hoping the men and dogs will all go away from him.
Near the gate, it is all Romanians. Later, closer to boarding, they will be joined by Italian businessmen, dark-suited and hurried, but for this time, for five hours, this particular gate is part of Romania. They have all been there before. Have all bought cognac and American cigarettes in the duty-free, slept on benches, waited an endless five hours for the two-hour flight home.
“This is what one gets for living in an unimportant country.” These are Dragos’s first words to him since leaving the plane. “I’ve known it my entire life. Germans, Russians, French, Italians—they all fly. Romanians wait to fly.”
Tony wonders if it is possible for a man to physically shrink on his way home. In an Italian airport, the hockey player’s famous largeness looks like a bad magician’s trick.
“Tony, I would like to drink.”
“So drink,” Tony says.
In a far terminal, at the end of long glass hallways, carpeted to hide the noise of a thousand luggage carts, Tony watches a lightning storm far out at sea. It is the best window he’ll find. He watches shuttle buses pull away and circle down a long on-ramp to the highway leading to Rome. He watches tall grass lean back from the asphalt as the buses speed by. There are ruins in the centre of the turnpike. One low stone wall and stone lines of foundation, many rooms, all fenced in by metal spikes and yellow nylon rope. On all sides of it, fresh smooth roadway slides bus after bus of tourists on and off the highway.
Past the ruins the land drops off to a rocky beach. The sea finishes it, pale then, reflecting a sky that has clouded since they arrived. And in one small part of his view, far out to sea, lightning reaches down. Tony leans on the trophy’s case and watches the storm blow itself out. This is where Diana finds him. She has been dividing the hours between the café and the duty-free shop. She carries a small paper bag with her.
“So, you are showing your girlfriend the sights of Italy, yes?” she says, without using his name. Tony pulls his gaze back from the Roman sky and takes her in. She looks tired from the travelling, her clothes rumpled and possibly too hot, her hair disarranged by static and lack of care. Nevertheless, he likes to look at her.
“Careful, Tony, she’ll get jealous if you stare at another woman.” She stifles a quiet laugh.
“Who are you talking about?”
“This…” she taps the trophy case, “this love of your life. I’ve never seen such devotion. I think you must even talk to her when no one is looking. Do you talk to her as well, Tony? Does she understand you, like a good woman should?”
“It’s just a job. I’m just doing what’s expected of me. If I lost the trophy, I’d lose the job.”
“So,” she presses, pushing at a corner of the black case with her index finger, “if you left the case with the airline to take care of, this would not be good enough?”
“Airlines lose luggage. It happens every day. What would be the point of me arriving in Romania for the wedding, and the trophy arriving in Hong Kong? There is no point at all me going anywhere without this trophy. I’m not taking it to your cousin’s wedding; it’s taking me.”
“That’s what I say as well. You are her date—and what a sad thing to say, no point you going anywhere without it. You mean you never travel without it?”
“I just mean it’s my job. When you travel for your job, travel is work.”
“So what do you do for fun—for vacation?”
“I stay in one place. I sit still. I don’t move.”
“Hmmm. You and your girlfriend.” She jabs at him now with her index finger. He feels the sharp crescent of her fingernail through the cloth of his sleeve. “You are made for each other.”
“What’s in the bag?’
“Sugar,” she says. “Not sugar… the other kind, the fake one. Fake sugar packets.” She opens the bag and shows Tony hundreds of pink and blue envelopes of synthetic sweetener. “I picked them up from the café. My grandfather is diabetic, and these are very hard to get in Romania. When I see them, I take them.”
“You steal sugar packets wherever you go. You steal fake sugar.”
“Yes,” she says, nodding her head in mock disgust. “I am a thief, a pathetic immigrant. I also take those very soft paper napkins. Half of my suitcase is sugar packets and napkins. Do you know what paper napkins feel like in Romania? There are no paper napkins in Romania, that’s what they feel like. They feel like nothing because they don’t exist.”
“No paper napkins,” Tony repeats. “I had no idea your childhood was so horrible. You must be so happy every day you wake up in Canada, knowing you can wipe the corners of your mouth with paper.”
“Delirious,” she says flatly. She stares at Tony’s face for a long time. Long enough to make him uncomfortable. He turns his eyes from her and watches a tourist bus drive off from the terminal.
“You are ugly,” she says. “Not very handsome at all. But you are ugly in a different way from most Romanian men. It’s an attractive sort of ugliness. Still, I can see why this is your only girlfriend.”
“Okay.” Tony nods slowly, his eyes dropping to the carpet. “I’m sorry I said the thing about the napkins
. I’m sorry. I don’t know shit about your country or about you.”
“You don’t know shit about anything, Tony.” Diana smiles at him and lifts his chin with her finger. “But I’ll say again, it is an attractive ugliness.”
By the time they return to the gate, the businessmen are gathering. Petrescu stands seventh in line for boarding, beside his father and aunt. In his oversized suit, he might be fifteen.
After everyone has boarded, there is another delay. The pilot himself comes back into the cabin to ask about the Cup. He has heard of it; wants to touch it. Tony unstraps the seat belt and cracks the case. The pilot leans over Tony’s seat. His hand disappears to the wrist.
“Like a woman,” he says, and Diana giggles. “Like the hip of a beautiful woman.” And then he laughs himself.
Tony wonders what it must mean to this man to fly planes. He looks at his forearms and wonders about electrical impulses, the instincts those arms have that his do not. The pilot shakes his hand then, and Tony squeezes, thinking about lift and drag.
“Have you kissed it?” the pilot asks, smiling. “It is like a woman. Surely you have kissed it.”
“You have to win it to kiss it,” Tony says. “Otherwise, what would be the point?”
They all laugh then. One of the businessmen from across the aisle speaks to an attendant in an annoyed voice. The pilot shakes his head and says something too softly to be heard. His eyes widen when he looks back at Tony.
“Still, I would like to kiss it.”
Tony climbs out of his seat and moves back down the aisle to give the young pilot access. He knows the plane will go nowhere until he does. Tony is unable to see the kiss because there are too many bodies in the way, but he knows when it happens because there is cheering all around. On his way back to the cockpit, the pilot shakes Petrescu’s hand and then kisses him on the forehead.
