by Mario Bolduc
“Don’t you dare make fun of him! Even worse coming from a thief!” He glared at Max, disgusted.
“So why are you helping me, then?” Max asked.
“If you’re arrested, I lose my three hundred dollars a day.”
“Clearly, Toma Boerescu, capitalism has corrupted you!”
The revolution of December 1989 had begun in Timişoara. Students and workers demonstrating, encouraged by what was happening across Eastern Europe in the dictatorships of the people. The Berlin Wall had fallen in November; a wind was feeding the fires of freedom in Poland, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia. Everywhere, rusty, corrupted regimes — empty shells, really — imploded, incapable of resisting the popular pressure of the discontent. In Romania, however, the powers that be held strong, even if the troubles in Timişoara began to spread to the rest of the country.
Ceauşescu’s answer to the agitators was the old tactic of totalitarian regimes: organize in Bucharest a counter-demonstration in support of the dictator, in front of the Central Committee headquarters. On the balcony, surrounded by a few apparatchiks, Nicolae and Elena, the “father” and “mother” of the Romanian people, or so the propaganda claimed. But the initiative went south. Some in the crowd began booing the Conducător. Others supported him. Furious, Ceauşescu ordered the security services to open fire on the crowd, which they did. But the Romanian army didn’t comply.
From that moment on the game was up. Ceauşescu ordered his minister of defence executed, but it was too late. Ceauşescu had to flee. The deposed couple rushed toward the helicopter parked on the roof of the building while street battles raged. The army against the security services. The erstwhile leaders were trying to reach Switzerland, most likely, where Ceauşescu had several secret bank accounts. Four hundred million dollars’ worth of possessions outside Romania, according to certain estimates. But the pilot chose to land his plane in Târgovişte, where the revolution’s leaders were already waiting for them. In Bucharest the army had triumphed. Hundreds had died. A mock trial, a summary execution, mowed down by a machine gun, all of it filmed by the insurrectionists who claimed to be part of the newly founded National Salvation Front.
“We recognized them,” Boerescu grumbled. “Ion Iliescu, the front’s founder, was the former head of the Union of Communist Youth.”
Iliescu became the first elected president in 1990. He’d always hated Elena, who’d preferred her son, Nicu, to him — a corrupted alcoholic who died of cirrhosis of the liver at forty-five.
The Romanian revolution, a perfect opportunity for this apparatchik and his accomplices.
In short, Boerescu concluded, Ceauşescu’s guard dogs rebelled against their master. They settled the score — that was what this whole affair had been. The triumph of the heir apparent and the profiteers who’d fed off the regime for years before turning their backs on it in response to popular pressure. It had been pure mathematics: joining the people, associating themselves with their rebellion to stay in power. The Ceauşescu couple, symbol of the people’s suffering, could be sacrificed. Without regrets, without remorse.
“Except for the Roma,” Boerescu added.
“Hard to believe.”
“They had supported the regime way back in 1949. It was natural for Ceauşescu to reward their loyalty.” The old man sighed. “Ask any Gypsy today. They all miss the Conducător.” Boerescu kept eating, nose deep in his plate.
“Tell me about Ioan Costinar,” Max said.
For years, an inspiration to Roma living in Romania. Closely followed by Victor Marineci, of course. In a sense, they were the Gandhi and Nehru of the Roma. Marineci was a political organizer and represented the Roma to the gadje. He was the face of Romani demands for equality and respect. Meanwhile, Costinar worked on a more philosophical level. He was sought out to describe and teach the world about the place of the Roma in world history, and European history in particular. He travelled around the globe, raising funds for his initiatives.
“What about his wife, Laura?”
“Discreet. She always stayed far from political turmoil.”
“Did she accompany him on his travels?”
“Sometimes.”
Juvan woke Max at dawn, informing him that Boerescu, who’d come down with a cold, would remain at the hotel. The rest of the trip would proceed without the old man. They had breakfast in the dining room before leaving. Max joined him as Boerescu was swallowing his medication with a glass of water. His heavy coat was draped over his back to warm him up. He seemed worn to the bones and admitted to having slept poorly.
“When you get old, the weight of your memories becomes harder to bear.”
Max realized he hadn’t taken the time to learn anything about this man he’d judged so quickly. “Are you married? Do you have a family?”
“My wife died in 1986. My daughter works in a cannery on the Black Sea. I haven’t spoken to her in twelve years. She hates policemen.” His face was a picture of sadness.
“The money I owe you will be transferred to your account as promised,” Max announced. “As soon as I get back to America, I’ll take care of it.”
Boerescu nodded. “Be careful.”
“You, too,” Max replied.
Curiously, Max realized, he would miss the old man. He had gotten used to his fixer’s habits and mood swings. They’d become companionable enough. Boerescu invited him to sit and have a cup of coffee before hitting the road. Juvan was packing the truck. After getting Max across the border, the driver would come back and pick up Boerescu, and the two would return to Bucharest together. Max and his fixer chatted amicably, knowing they’d already said everything that needed to be said. As soon as Boerescu located Kevin, he’d get him out of the country in the same way as Max. Until then he’d keep Max informed of his search, and Max would do the same from North America.
Soon enough it was time to say goodbye. Leaning against his walker, Boerescu followed him to the vehicle where Juvan was already waiting, door open, as if driving royalty to a ball. Max threw his bag onto the seat and turned to Boerescu to embrace him. The old man smelled like cheap aftershave.
“Mulţumesc, Boerescu. Thank you.”
“Please. Toma.”
“Thank you, Toma.”
Without Boerescu, the truck was silent. Juvan was becoming increasingly nervous, taking deep breaths from his inhaler. Thankfully, the road was deserted. Busy with tourists in the summer, in winter it was used only by the rare rusted tractor or old Dacia. On each side of the road, forest and mountains.
The Danube appeared suddenly. In antiquity the Romans had built a bridge here, right over the water. The road followed a one-hundred-and-fifty-kilometre-long gorge. A police car passed them without slowing down, giving Juvan another asthma attack.
Just before Orşova, right where the road to Deva and Timişoara began, Juvan parked his vehicle behind a motel frequented by truckers. Many of them were sleeping poorly in frost-covered cabins. Max thought Juvan wanted him to cross the border with a truck driver, though that seemed too risky. A patrol might come by and catch them. Or a curious border guard might ask a few questions and that would be it for Max.
The motel’s owner led Max and Juvan to the edge of the Danube behind the property. A hangar in ruins at a twist of the river where a cliff had collapsed millions of years earlier. On the rocky beach, a fishing boat.
“We can go now, but it’s safer to wait until night,” the small man gasped. “Because of the guards on the shore.”
They had to be careful not only of Romanian border guards, but Serbian ones, as well, in the village of Tekija, just across from Orşova. You could see the houses on the other side of the Danube. In the darkest days of the Cold War, Yugoslavia was often the destination of choice for citizens fleeing Ceauşescu’s reign of terror. Border patrols would pick up desperate refugees along the Danube. Today the situation was far less tense, but they wo
uld still need to be careful.
The owner gave Max a room to wait out the night. While Boerescu had told him Juvan was used to ferrying illegals, Max was devoured by anxiety. He twisted and turned, trying to find sleep, but again all he could think of was Kevin. After a time, he managed to fall fitfully to sleep. The sound of a car door slamming shut woke him. Max looked through the window and saw a police car parked in front of the motel. Before he could react, the door to his room was flung open and Juvan burst in, more agitated than ever. It was time to leave. Now. Not a minute to lose.
A patrol was ending its day at the bar. The policemen had dropped their hats on the counter. Max and Juvan slipped out the back door while the cops laughed loudly at a joke from the owner. The two took the path to the shore where the fishing boat was beached. A young man with sideburns was waiting for them, and as soon as he saw the pair appear, he began pushing the boat into the Danube. Just as Max was about to climb into the boat, Juvan grabbed his arm and handed him an envelope. A plane ticket from Belgrade to Brussels, bought with Max’s money. His fixer had left nothing to chance.
Juvan disappeared into the night, and Max found himself on the Danube, whipped by the wind blowing through the high cliffs along the river’s course. On the other shore, the winking lights of Tekija’s homes. Boerescu had assured him that the place was frequented by Serbian truck drivers, and that with their help, he would have no trouble finding his way to the capital.
The young man rowed swiftly and silently, scanning the other shore from time to time. He seemed to know the waters well, not hesitating as he skirted rocks and trapped logs.
Soon enough Max heard the boat drag against the bottom. The young man jumped into the water and pulled the boat ashore. With a gesture of the hand, he showed Max the way to the road, higher up. Then he pushed his boat back into the water and disappeared.
The night’s darkness was complete, and Max struggled his way up the small path climbing the cliff. A few minutes at a slow, plodding walk and he’d reached the top. He heard a truck coming, its headlights bursting through the night. For a brief moment, Max saw a few houses lined along the road, all plunged into darkness. The village was behind him. He chose to walk westward until he could find a gas station or a truck stop where he might pay a few dollars for a ride to Belgrade.
Max had been walking for a while already when he heard voices coming from his left, accompanied by the crackling of a fire. He made out the silhouette of a few caravans, old cars hitched in front of them, mostly massive, rusted American cars. A Romani camp, of course. The chattering around the fire fell silent when the dogs began barking at a stranger in the night. Children ran out, surrounding him. The women quiet behind them. Men got up from around the fire, watching him intently. They seemed worried at first, but when they realized he was alone, relief was clear on their faces. Here was a lone stranger, a man as rootless as they, at least in appearance. Max O’Brien, the killer of Roma, according to the Romanian police, the fox in the henhouse. Luckily, no one recognized him. He didn’t move.
The oldest of the Roma, the káko, spoke a few words in a language Max couldn’t understand — Serbo-Croatian, most likely. The man didn’t seem particularly offended that the stranger was unable to comprehend him. A child pulled Max by the sleeves to offer him a guided tour of the caravans. He was given food, then a tune on a violin broke the deep night. The child who’d pulled him by the sleeve was playing to impress his new audience. If he’d pulled Max to the fire, it was to make a show of it. The child played skillfully, effortlessly. Max was reminded of a joke by a music teacher he’d read somewhere once: there were two ways to play a violin: well, or like a Rom. After the meal, after the music, Max was offered a bed in one of the cars, a bit away from the camp. He let himself sink into the back seat and fell deeply asleep almost immediately, a wool blanket over him.
At dawn, when Max finally opened his eyes, he realized the Roma were preparing to break camp. He was offered a cup of very strong coffee. Farther off, in a river that fed into the Danube, women washed clothes according to old traditions. The men’s clothes higher up the stream, the women’s lower, and even lower still, women’s underwear and the clothes of pregnant women. Max knew the Roma had inherited from their Indian ancestors various taboos related to impurity.
The káko approached Max, and with difficulty, Max finally understood that the kumpaníya was going toward Belgrade. Max was welcome to join them on the road if he had nothing better to do. He accepted without hesitation. Romani hospitality definitely beat out that of a Serbian trucker.
19
Vorkuta, December 21, 1949
Chimneys spitting ash like pillars holding up a dreary Russian sky, leaving Emil Rosca’s clothes drying on a rope tied between his barracks and the next, with long dark streaks. Striped like his uniform in Auschwitz. In the dank streets, the only vehicles were owned by the mine and factory owners. They splashed infrequent passersby with thick mud sprays. A veiled sun hid, never piercing through heavy grey clouds, spending its day concealed as if ashamed this corner of the earth existed. At night, military dogs barked ceaselessly, tied by long cables along the path of foot patrols near the vychki. All of this didn’t mean Emil couldn’t sleep; quite the opposite.
Poorly fed, exhausted by his work in the mine, he collapsed every evening, surrounded by the two hundred other men in his barracks, as soon as his eleven hours of forced labour were over. All he got was the dry ration, as it was called: smoked herring and bread. And it was never enough. Four hundred and fifty grams a day, half of what the guard dogs got! And he was always thirsty. Rations were meted out according to the output of workers. Those who fell ill or became physically exhausted received less and less to eat, until they died of starvation or dysentery. The first summer, when Emil was put to work building railway tracks, he’d been able to pick small fruits and eat them out of sight of the guards. But once winter came he was sent to the mine with other zeks, all trying to survive, as well.
Emil had gone from one prison to another. One hell had been replaced by another. Every morning, in fifty-below-zero weather, the men marched toward the mine, heads down, dressed only in cotton short coats. On their swollen, frozen feet, they wore shoes made from old tractor tires. At least in Poland there had been hope that the war would end. Even atheists in the camps had prayed for the Germans to be defeated. Here there was no war, no hope, no prayer. There would be no defeat. There would be tuberculosis phlegm in the shared sink. There would be zeks with rotten teeth. Grey snow stuck to the boots of deportees — many of whom had survived Nazi concentration camps. Revolt? Five thousand men had been gassed in a nearby camp after going on strike. The whole world ignored their existence. The Soviet Union had won the war and none could resist its strength.
Emil had the impression that he was slowly going mad. Thankfully, he’d managed to keep his Paolo Soprani on the train ride that had brought him here. In the evenings, exhausted, he could barely find the strength to play the accordion. The music reminded him of Christina. It was for her that he made an effort. He thought of her constantly. Maybe she’d reached Switzerland. Or she might be in prison, just like him. Or dead, which was more likely still. Emil would have given anything to save her life, including giving his own.
One day, exhausted, Emil collapsed in the bottom of the mine on a pile of coal. He wanted to die — enough, enough — but two guards picked him up, brought him to the surface, and left him in the infirmary.
When he came to, three men stood at the foot of his bed: two short, large men with close-cut hair, and a thinner, younger man, who held a handkerchief over his nose. The whole place surely smelled like unwashed latrines and sweat and death. Emil couldn’t tell anymore; he was part of the smell. The three men wore clean clothes. Canvas coats lined with fur, likely not as warm as the mine guards’ heavy pea jackets. The youngest of the three, the smaller one, was dressed far too lightly, as if he’d misjudged the weather. He shook visibly
, ready to get on with it.
When the older man realized Emil had regained consciousness, he leaned over and put a hand on Emil’s shoulder. “Emil Rosca?”
It was the first time someone had called him by his gadjo name since he’d gotten out of Auschwitz. What did these men want from him? He’d been in this prison for three years and not a soul had come to see him, except for a handful of KGB officers in charge of his “re-education.” Trick questions and exhausting interrogations. If a single one of the KGB emissaries wasn’t satisfied with his answers, he knew he’d be sent to another camp where the conditions were even worse.
“You are Emil Rosca?”
The young Rom knew Russian well enough by now to notice the man didn’t speak with a Muscovite accent. The two other men observed Emil attentively, as if he were a strange creature. What was all this about?
“Do you understand what I’m asking?”
Emil nodded.
The man smiled. No one had smiled at Emil in months. The stranger took a coat from one of the beds behind him and handed it to Emil. “Put it on. We’re going to go for a stroll, the four of us.”
That invitation would mean only tragedy — that much Emil was sure of. He remained motionless, staring at the three men in turn. But the heavy coat seemed so warm, so comfortable, so much more so than the thin cotton sheets that covered him. So Emil dragged himself into a sitting position on the side of the bed. They draped the coat around his shoulders, slipped boots onto his feet.
Outside the infirmary was an enormous ZIS-110, its motor running. Frightened, Emil took a step back. “What do you want?”
“We need to talk,” the older man said. “You’ve got nothing to fear.”
“Will I be able to keep the coat afterward?”
The three men looked at one another.
“Yes,” the older man said.
