The Roma Plot

by Mario Bolduc

  Emil walked toward his friend to shake his hand, but before he got there Ceauşescu ordered him to stop. He shouldn’t come any closer.

  “Because of the germs,” Ceauşescu explained, pulling a bottle of rubbing alcohol out of his desk. He sprayed his hands generously while smiling to a rather confused Emil. “You Gypsies have built a strong immune system after having lived all those generations in the dirt.”

  Emil didn’t like the tone of his voice.

  “How are your wife and children?”

  “Eugenia thanks you for the gifts you sent for the birth of the new baby.”

  Ceauşescu smiled. “I always liked your people, you know? Your family in particular. If I’m where I am, it’s thanks to you people.”

  He was referring to collectivization.

  “Or because of you, really. And I rewarded you well, didn’t I? What would you have become in Vorkuta? Another corpse?” The Conducător walked to the window. “Mao Zedong and Kim Il-sung succeeded where Stalin failed. Moral hygiene will lead to physical hygiene, and that should be one of the goals of the revolution.”

  Ceauşescu admired China and North Korea. He was particularly impressed by how order reigned — in North Korea espcially. He admitted to Emil that the leaders of both countries had invited Elena and him for an official visit. The trip would take place in June.

  “She’ll meet scientists there. Chemists just like her.” Ceauşescu turned back to Emil. “Universities around the world are interested in her work — what an incredible woman!”

  He gestured at the pictures behind him. “Now that you know how to read, I’ll give you her thesis on polymers.”

  Emil made a step toward Ceauşescu. With an impatient gesture, the Romanian leader ordered him once again to move back. As if Emil was afflicted with some contagious disease.

  “In Pyongyang no one touches anyone else is what I heard. Everyone greets each other from afar. Even the highest cadres respect this directive.”

  “Nicolae —”

  “Here, however, we’re still promiscuous. Our pre-revolutionary habits die hard. Our socialism is tired.”

  Ceauşescu had changed, Emil noted. He seemed harder, which was to be expected, but sharper, as well. Ceauşescu’s stammering had used to make him timid, unassuming, and, at least in appearance, harmless. That was how he’d managed to become head of the party in 1965. You always wanted to console Ceauşescu. Even in Vorkuta, Emil recalled, the young man had seemed to him like a child lost in a world of adults.

  Today that impression had vanished. Ceauşescu seemed to him both ridiculous and dangerous. This obsession with cleanliness of his was pure paranoia. According to what Emil had heard, Ceauşescu had armed guards posted in front of his closet to protect him against potential poisoners. He brought his own bedding during foreign visits.

  “Why do you want to go to Great Britain?” Ceauşescu asked.

  “It’s the first World Romani Congress. There will be delegates from around the world. I was chosen to represent Romania.”

  Ceauşescu straightened, anger in his eyes. “Chosen! What are you talking about? I’m the one who chooses in this country! No one else!”

  Emil sighed.

  “And this congress is funded by the CIA, isn’t it?” Ceauşescu continued. “Or by the KGB maybe? It’s all the same in the end.”

  “By India, actually. Indira Gandhi in particular.”

  Ceauşescu relaxed. The Indians, like the Romanians, were part of the non-aligned countries, despite the fact that both countries’ governments had warm relations with the Soviet Union. Ceauşescu believed himself smarter than the Indians, however. By keeping an ongoing relationship with the Americans, he thought he’d gain an advantage over time. Richard Nixon, who preferred the Chinese to the Indians, whom he found contemptible, called him regularly, and even referred to Nicolae as Nick, as if they’d grown up together in Yorba Linda.

  Nick and Dick, friends for life.

  Still, the dictator wasn’t particularly enthusiastic about the Romani congress. “They’ll fill your head with wild ideas.”

  “Like Romanestan?”

  Ceauşescu gestured impatiently. “Whatever you might say, I’m still your best ally, Emil. Without me Romanians would burn your caravans and spit on their ashes.”

  “Most Roma are sedentary now — you know it well.”

  “It would be easier to find your people, then, to exterminate you.”

  Emil nodded.

  “Romanians hate you, will always hate you,” Ceauşescu went on. “All I’d need to do would be to loosen the grip, just a bit, and they would jump at your throats like wild beasts …”

  “Not all Roma are so lucky as to live in a country governed by such a benevolent leader as you. Each day I thank the heavens for having put me in your path, Nicolae.”

  Ceauşescu was certainly not immune to flattery.

  “You’re a ray of sunlight on the long stormy path of all Roma,” Emil continued, seeing the dictator’s satisfaction. “And to me, you are the closest of friends. The only gadjo that I see as I do a brother.”

  Muttering words Emil couldn’t’ understand, the dictator sprayed alcohol on his hands once again, rubbing them together quickly. Then he turned to Emil. “You’ll tell them it’s a paradise here.”

  “Thanks to you. Thanks to Elena.”

  Paradise …

  London wasn’t too bad in its own right. Through the window of the small bus, Emil was surprised at how well stocked storefronts seemed to be, at how so many people from so many countries in the world walked right by one another in streets without suspicion or aggression. He was filled with wonder at the clothes people wore — colourful and varied and beautiful. Back in Romania, it felt as if the war had ended yesterday. In London it seemed as if there had never been a war in the first place! And the music on every street corner: rock and roll, jazz, and Romani airs, too! Seen from London, Romania seemed dull, lifeless. Romania was in a coma, held in half-life by artificial means. In the West, light from every crack, life filling the streets.

  Emil had never met any of the British Roma, but he certainly was impressed by how organized they were. They’d created the National Gypsy Education Council and had participated actively in making sure this conference went from dream to reality.

  “Your talk is scheduled for Saturday at three o’clock,” a young man told him in the entrance hall. “Just after Miroslav Holomek.”

  The president of the Roma Union of Czechoslovakia, a colleague of Antonin Daniel.

  “I haven’t introduced myself — Victor Marineci. I’m of Romanian origin, too.”

  Emil watched him closely. A young Rom, educated, comfortable among the gadje. Dressed like them, his hair cut like them. He did seem kind, though.

  “One day I hope I’ll return to Romania. But for now I’m more useful here in London.”

  Emil nodded.

  “Do you want to visit the city?” Marineci asked.

  “I’m tired. I’d like to rest.”

  Standing in front of his bedroom mirror, Emil hated what he saw. For the first time, he thought of his clothes, of what he looked like in his ratty old uniform, his ancient, outdated clothes, almost rags. And he smelled terrible, he was sure. Should he put some of those lotions on, those he’d found in the bathroom? Emil decided against it. Instead, he’d bring the vials back to Bucharest and give them to Eugenia. She’d adulterate them with a bit of water or alcohol and give some to all her sisters-in-law. Emil smiled. His kumpaníya had never felt so far away as today.

  He tightened the knot on his tie to emulate the London style, went down to the entrance hall, and greeted the Roma who were arriving, notably the Hungarian Vanka Rouda, a Lovari member of the International Gypsy Committee and a colleague of Rossen Markov. Emil asked a doorman to hail him a cab. He’d written the address he wanted to go to on
the back of a book of matches, which he gave to the Pakistani driver. The man nodded. Luckily, he knew the place. Emil spoke three words of English on a good day and had no idea where he was actually going.

  For a long moment, curiosity replaced the anxiety that had inhabited him since he’d landed. The wonder he’d felt in the minibus had returned. At a red light, on his right, Emil noticed Roma, his brothers. His sisters, actually. Two women, an older one and a younger one, panhandling. The younger woman was no older than fifteen and held a baby in her arms. Or it might have actually been a doll carried like a child. Emil smiled. The oldest trick in the book to gain gadjo pity.

  It had begun to rain, which Emil hadn’t been ready for. After paying the cab driver, he ran to the hotel’s entrance. It was more modest than his. More discreet, as well. By the time he reached the hall, he was completely wet. The man at the reception handed him a key, as if he’d guessed what this stranger had come to do in his establishment.

  Emil climbed to the third floor via a wallpapered stairwell. An enormous bouquet of flowers at every floor, befitting a mortuary more than a celebration. In the corridor, he heard a television blaring behind one door, a radio from another. Emil’s heart beat even faster. Why was he acting like such a teenager!

  He pushed open the door, and there was Christina staring out the window. He recognized her by her silhouette, which hadn’t changed since the last time they’d seen each other three years earlier. Christina extinguished her cigarette in an ashtray on the radiator and walked toward Emil. He’d prepared so many things to say, and she, too, probably, but they were both conquered by the emotion of their reunion. Seeing tears beginning to well in her eyes, fearing she might cry and feel the need to apologize for it after, Emil took Christina in his arms and held her as tightly against him as he could, as if he might lose her all over again, just as he’d lost her too often in his life. It was raining hard outside, the drops a constant patter against the window, but the lovers ignored the world going by around them. When he opened his arms, he realized Christina had cried: his tactic hadn’t worked.

  “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” she said, smiling. “I swore to myself I’d be strong.”

  The bed was covered with a duvet, it, too, flowered. Emil threw it to the other side of the room. Christina let herself fall onto the sheet, and Emil took her in his arms again to smell the scent of her once more. They made love without taking time to undress, as they’d done so often in Auschwitz. Were they scared of being discovered? No, not this time. It was instead the fear that this perfect moment might be taken away from them at the last moment. That something, somehow, would prevent this reunion they’d been pining for since their last.

  When Emil flipped onto his back, his breath short, Christina followed him, leaning her head against his chest as if to make sure he was there physically, that this wasn’t all a dream.

  The rain had stopped, night had fallen. They hadn’t left the bed in two hours, maybe more. Neither one of them dared get up first, fearing the significance of that gesture, sounding the beginning of the end, or more that the wait was starting again.

  Christina brushed her fingers on Emil’s face as she’d done that day at the Zigeunerlager. “I’m returning tomorrow.”

  Emil closed his eyes. He didn’t want the dream to end.

  Not again.

  “The Belgians are still refusing to give citizenship to the Roma living in their territory,” Christina continued. “Czechoslovakia wants to put into place a program of forced sterilization.”

  Emil winced. It would never end, the violence, the horror, the discrimination.

  Christina turned to him. “But this time we’ve got resources to tap, especially money. A lot of money.”

  “Thanks to you.”

  “Ceauşescu hasn’t noticed? What about the Securitate?”

  “They only care for the Roma when they’re looking for someone to hurt.”

  For months now, Christina had been sending funds to Romania through intermediaries, money used to improve the living conditions of the Roma. Health care, education — Emil discreetly coordinating the initiatives.

  Christina sat on the edge of the bed. “Tell me what else I can do, Emil.”

  “Leave with me … forever.”

  “Impossible.”

  Emil shut his eyes.

  “Somewhere else, in another life, in another time, everything would have been different.”

  Emil wasn’t convinced. Without their shared ex­peri­ence in Auschwitz, nothing would have brought them together. The horror had been necessary for them to meet, to fall in love.

  “I think of you every day,” Christina added. “I try to imagine you working, living, over there —”

  “Don’t speak.”

  She turned around. He took her in his arms again. They kissed passionately, time passed, a moment of happiness that couldn’t end, a space in time stolen from their fates.

  Somewhere else, in another life, in another time, everything would have been different.

  Christina was wrong. Everything was different because of her.

  30

  Granada, December 18, 2006

  In Málaga, as the tourists trudged back to their buses, soon to leave for Marbella or somewhere else along the coast, Max O’Brien jumped into his rental Peugeot and drove northeast. It felt like a holiday: warm sun, blue sky, perfect weather. In the hills, the wind held winter’s intent, just a small chill, enough to remind tourists of the cold climes they’d left before reaching this place. It would get warmer in February or March.

  Gone were the architectural monstrosities of the Costa del Sol: the Andalusian landscape on the other side of Salobreña gave Max the impression of going back in time. While real-estate developers had corrupted all but the hardiest points of the coastline, they had left the backcountry virtually pristine, to the immense pleasure of visitors and tourists and, it could be imagined, of its inhabitants, as well. Behind a hill, on the other side of a turn, Max saw his first Osborne bull. A German couple had parked their car — was it the same Germans he’d seen in Bucharest? — and were taking pictures of the iconic animal.

  But Max wasn’t in the area to slum about on vacation. He got lost, as per his wont, in Granada’s suburbs before finding his way to the old city, in which the Alhambra reigned supreme. The red citadel was a marvel of Nasrid architects and indissoluble proof of the Arabic presence in Spain.

  Most of the rather discreetly sized hotels were located in streets inaccessible by car. Max circled the Albayzín circuit three times before finding a parking spot near Iglesia de San Juan de los Reyes. He walked along the road he’d just been driving on toward Santa Ana Plaza, jumping to avoid cars speeding through tiny alleys full of life.

  Granada, a sad, melancholy city, despite the bright blue of the sky.

  The Alhambra like a tombstone obscuring the sun, a magnificent mausoleum, as if death had finally given itself a monument to the measure of its cruel beauty.

  Throughout his trip from Montreal, Max hadn’t stopped thinking of what Kevin had confided in Marie-France Couturier. His son was alive, he’d told her that night, not revealing how he’d come upon this surprising piece of information. Kevin was going to find Sacha and bring him back to the country, he’d added, without giving any inkling as to how he’d go about that, either. Kevin asked Marie-France whether she’d be willing to teach the boy French upon their return so that he might eventually rekindle a relationship with his mother tongue and culture.

  A few weeks later Kevin told his family he was off to hike the Appalachian Trail while, in reality, he was landing in Bucharest to put his plan in motion. Marie-France hadn’t seen Kevin between that supper they had together and the day he went away. The message she’d left at the rivière Saqawigan home was to agree to his proposal: she’d help his son. He had made her promise not to tell a soul.

  “So he w
as in Bucharest to find his son,” Marilyn Burgess had concluded when Max told her about his trip to Gaspésie.

  According to the photographer Cosmin Micula, Kevin had been in Romania to take Laura Costinar out of the country so she might implicate her husband’s killers from a safe place.

  Perhaps.

  “But Laura was important to Kevin for a different purpose entirely,” Max explained.

  She was the key to finding his son. Laura was in some of the Granada pictures; she might be able to help Kevin get Sacha out of Granada.

  Burgess was quiet.

  The extraordinary violence that followed Laura’s murder, Kevin’s kidnapping, and the attempted implication of Max indicated something else. The child was important for another reason beyond his father’s love for him, but for now neither Max nor Burgess had any inkling of what it might be. Kevin hadn’t only found his son; he’d also opened a Pandora’s box — but hope hadn’t yet shown its nose.

  An anti-Roma plot, as Burgess suspected? Again, perhaps.

  What was more, what could the relationship be between Sacha’s faked death and the very real one of Ioan Costinar, except their proximity in time?

  Raymond, of course.

  Again, the hoof marks of Kevin’s father on the ground. Gérard Lefebvre’s death had sent Kevin after his son. In the envelope he’d received from the notary that day, he’d gotten proof that paid to the official version of events. A confession by a dead man, a forgotten document manifested out of thin air, now in Kevin’s possession.

  In it was information that had revealed enough of the truth for Kevin to demand an impromptu sabbatical and go down a path that had led so far to the deaths of Laura Costinar and Cosmin Micula.