Cobra in the Bath

by Miles Morland

  Sure enough, the lead story was of a riot. People were waving banners and placards. Was this East Berlin? I looked more closely. The placards were in English: ABORTION IS MURDER. Later, when I reached Budapest and could buy a copy of the Herald Tribune, I learned that a few hours earlier that day the Berlin Wall had come down. There were no pictures of that on Czech television. The day the wall fell, the moment of icon at the end of over forty years of Eastern European communism, the lead story on Czech television was of an anti-abortion demo in Los Angeles.

  I spent another two days padding around Prague but sightseeing was boring after the excitement of the Wenceslas Square riot. I stood on the Charles Bridge and watched the people flow past in their thick winter coats and mufflers. It was clear and sunny; the yellow fog had evaporated along with the demonstrators. I climbed the hill to look at Prague Castle. I tried to get into St Vitus’s Cathedral but it was closed for maintenance. I bought a sausage in Old Town Square and sat in the sun eating it with a glass of Czech lager.

  Next day I took the train to Budapest. Hungary had effectively abandoned communism with the fall of János Kádár in 1988. Elections had been held and new parties created to take part in a genuinely democratic process. I had been to Budapest once before, for a weekend in 1986. I had gone with a woman who became a friend for life; we had seen the sights, listened to Gypsy music, eaten too much Hungarian foie gras, and drunk Bull’s Blood and Tokay. Even then Hungary did not seem repressively communist.

  I was happy to be back in Budapest because it is a charming and fascinating city with charming and fascinating people, but I didn’t see how I was going to have any adventures there. No one was going to demonstrate in Budapest because there was nothing to demonstrate about. The country was on track to become as democratic as Western Europe.

  I was booked into the Gellert, maybe not the most modern hotel in Budapest but certainly the grandest, an art nouveau palace facing the Danube at the foot of the Buda Hill. The Hungarians love their spas. Attached to the Gellert and immediately behind it are the grandest baths in Budapest, where anyone, not just hotel guests, can steam and splosh in marbled and pillared galleries filled with evil-smelling sulphurous water. The Gellert staff behaved as if they had learned their trade in the last days of the Austro-Hungarian empire. Forty years of communism had not erased their courtesy. When a party of loden-clad Germans with shotguns in shiny leather cases had finished checking in, a grave-looking concierge with a moustache in which birds could nest, bowed to me, took my passport and said, ‘Herr Morland, my name is Imry and it is my privilege to welcome you to the Gellert. Your pleasure is my concern.’

  As in post-demo Prague, I did some sightseeing. Budapest has a lot to see, but I was here to watch people riot, not sit in fur coats in cafés eating cream-filled buns. After two days I set off to catch the morning train to Bucharest, capital of Romania. No one knew what was happening in Romania. It appeared that Ceausescu, the last of the hard-line communist dictators, was trying to insulate the country from the wind blowing through the rest of Eastern Europe. I was hoping to find out if the people were still cowed or if the brave and the young were taking to the streets to demonstrate.

  Imry supervised the carrying of my modest suitcase to the taxi.

  ‘Sir, it has been a great pleasure having you as our guest at the Gellert and I hope we will see you again soon. May I enquire where you are going?’

  ‘Bucharest.’

  ‘Bucharest?’ Imry’s mighty moustache trembled. ‘Bucharest? I wish you the best of voyages. It may not be the best time for a visit, but I assume that you will be staying in the Intercontinental?’

  ‘Yes, I will.’

  ‘Of course, Herr Morland. You have chosen well. Please tell Bogdan, the head concierge there, that Imry of the Gellert sends his compliments. He will make sure you are well looked after.’

  I thrust a fistful of forint into Imry’s hand and set off for Bucharest.

  When I got to the station it became apparent that the train I was going to catch did not begin in Budapest. I was booked on the Berlin–Sofia Express, which started its journey in newly liberated East Berlin and would finish up in Bulgaria, the far side of Romania. My trip, Budapest to Bucharest, would be but two stops on that journey. As I stood on the platform waiting for the train to come in I could see that there were no more than four or five other people intending to board.

  I had a reserved seat in the first-class car. The rest of the train was crammed with Bulgarian workers going home for Christmas, but I was the only person in my compartment. I had sausage, I had ham and tomatoes, I had biscuits, apples, two bars of excellent Hungarian chocolate, a bottle of Bull’s Blood wine and a Swiss Army Knife with which to cut the sausage and open the wine. What more could a man want?

  The train crept and jiggled through the great Hungarian plain that runs south-east from Budapest. The land was as flat as the American Midwest. Small towns and villages flicked by, some with art deco buildings in startling colours; peasants walked behind plough horses, chickens ran from the train, old women looked up from their washing and waved. I had a long journey ahead of me. The train had left Budapest at 7 a.m. and was scheduled to arrive in Bucharest just before midnight.

  I pulled out the only book I had brought with me, Middlemarch. I had never read it and had thought that its 800 pages should last me through the trip. For some unaccountable reason some people refer to it as the greatest of English novels. For me it was one of the most irritating. Why did Dorothea put up with the appalling Casaubon? If ever a man was in need of my mother’s universal remedy of a kick up the backside it was Casaubon.

  In the middle of the day the train pulled in to Lokoshaza and stopped. Doors banged, there was shouting, and a few minutes later a Hungarian official came into my compartment. He looked bored. ‘Passport.’ I gave it to him. He flicked through the pages, nodded and handed it back before going on to the next compartment. Half an hour later the train pulled out of Lokoshaza and proceeded slowly towards Romania. I assumed there would be a Romanian checkpoint in a kilometre or two and then we would be on our way to Bucharest. The train passed between a wire fence which ran continuously on either side. That must be the actual border. We gathered speed. I looked for differences in the countryside. The fields seemed bigger, the houses and roads more run-down. Five minutes elapsed, then ten and no border post. Perhaps the Hungarian one sufficed for both.

  I was reluctantly readdressing myself to Dorothea and Casaubon when we entered a town and began to slow. We came to a halt. The signs announced this was Curtici. It was a big junction with five or six tracks running through it. There was a platform to the right of the train. I hoped the wait would not be too long. Fifteen minutes elapsed and then I heard footsteps down the corridor and could hear the people in the next-door compartment being checked. My door was thrown open. Two uniformed officers came in. They had smart grey-blue uniforms, big peaked caps and large pistols in holsters at their waists. They did not smile. The senior one barked at me in Romanian. I shrugged. ‘English,’ said I, pointing at myself. The official barked more Romanian. ‘Parlez Français?’ I tried. The two spoke quickly to each other, then the junior one leaned out of the window and shouted down the platform. A minute later two rouged and lipsticked women in leather miniskirts marched into the compartment. They must have been in their early twenties.

  ‘Good morning, mister. This Romanian border. We are interpreters,’ said one of the women, gesturing at herself and her companion. They seemed friendly enough.

  ‘Passport please.’

  I handed over my passport. The senior man took it, matched me against the photograph and then began very slowly leafing through each page.

  The junior one opened my briefcase and started to take its contents out item by item, laying them out on the seat opposite. I had a copy of Private Eye with a picture of a near-naked Mrs Thatcher playing volleyball with Ronald Reagan on the cover. Thank God it did not have any Ceausescu jokes in it. This was sca
nned and put in a leather satchel. I had a copy of the Herald Tribune with photographs of the wall coming down in Berlin. The officer was more interested in the Trib than Private Eye. He handed the paper to one of the women and rapped something at her. She scrutinised the paper and began slowly to translate the story about the fall of the wall. The officer was not pleased. It too went in his satchel.

  I dug into the bottom of my suitcase and pulled out a carton of Kent.

  ‘Please, miss,’ I said, handing the carton to the older of the two interpreters, ‘this is a gift from me to you and the officers.’

  The woman looked startled at first, then took the carton and handed it to Senior. He put down my passport and looked at me with a completely expressionless face. Oh God, I thought. Now I’ve really blown it.

  He shook the carton lightly as if weighing it, put it in the satchel, gave me a slight nod and went back to examining my passport.

  Everything was then pulled out of my suitcase. I had not had an opportunity to go to a laundry since leaving London. I winced as the officers pulled out dirty underpants, filthy handkerchiefs and scrumpled shirts, and dropped them with distaste on the seat.

  Senior had finished going through my passport and was asking me questions through the interpreters.

  ‘Where you go?’

  ‘Bucharest.’

  ‘What purpose?’

  ‘Tourism.’

  ‘Tourism? Why tourism?’

  ‘Um, I’ve heard that Bucharest is a beautiful city that has been rebuilt under President Ceausescu, and I want to see for myself.’

  ‘What profession you have?’

  I had a good answer to this one. There is one profession that is despised in the West but held in universal respect in backward countries.

  ‘Economist.’

  Senior nodded and looked at me with a smidgen more respect.

  Junior had emptied out all my filthy clothes. He now picked up the suitcase and began probing it to see if there were hidden compartments. One of the girls smiled at me. Maybe the Kent was working.

  Senior gestured at Middlemarch. ‘What that book?’

  ‘English literature.’

  ‘What is subject?’

  Good question. I felt that this was not the time to be flippant or to discuss Casaubon’s many failings as a human being.

  ‘Economics.’

  Senior nodded and spoke to one of the girls. Reluctantly she picked it up and began haltingly to translate the first words: ‘Who that cares much to know the history of man and how the mysterious mixture behaves under the varying experiments of Time has not dwelt at least briefly on the life of St Theresa . . .’ Senior was not impressed. He snatched the book from her hand, gave it a riffling and dropped it on the seat then gave some orders to Junior and the girls.

  ‘You stay here please now,’ one of the girls said, and the four of them marched out of the compartment with my passport.

  I repacked my suitcase and restored order in my briefcase. We had been stopped now for nearly an hour. I could hear from shouts and jeers down the train that the Bulgarians were getting restless. I tried reading Middlemarch. That didn’t work.

  Another twenty minutes elapsed and then I heard footsteps down the corridor. Finally I was going to get my passport back and we would be on our way. It sounded as if there more than four people this time.

  Senior came in first followed by one of the interpreters. The others waited outside. ‘You go back,’ he said.

  ‘What? Go back to Hungary? Why? Look, I’ve got a valid visa from your consulate in London. Look there in the passport. I’m allowed in. It’s valid for three months. Have a look. What’s the problem? I don’t understand.’ I addressed this to the older and more sympathetic of the girls. She shook her head.

  ‘Mister, you go back to Hungary.’

  Senior handed me my passport and pointed at the visa. There, stamped in red across it, was ANULO. I did not need a translator for that.

  He slid the door back and beckoned. Two brown-uniformed soldiers with what looked to me like AK-47s came into the compartment. One gestured with his gun for me to pick up my things. I was marched out to the end of the corridor, but instead of turning right on to the platform the door to the left was opened.

  ‘Goodbye, mister,’ said one of the girls. ‘You must get down on track now. The soldiers they take you. Goodbye.’

  One of the armed soldiers got down on the track ahead of me. The other remained behind with the gun pointed at the small of my back. I put my luggage on the floor of the train and clambered down the steps the four or five feet on to the track. The girls handed me my two bags and waved goodbye. The other soldier climbed down and gestured with his gun that I should walk across the tracks. Another long train was waiting at the far platform; it was pointed in the opposite direction. We would have a hundred-yard walk around the end of the train to get on the platform. As I began the walk the Berlin–Sofia Express from which I had just been off-loaded inched forward. Hundreds of Bulgarians leaned out of the windows and shouted, jeered and whistled as the soldiers led away the Western spy for whom their train had been so long held up.

  We reached the end of the other train and then the end of the platform. Where were they taking me? One walked ahead, the other behind with his gun inches away from my back. I followed the leader up on to the platform. I could see from the signboards on the side of the train that this was the Bucharest–Warsaw Express. Judging from its insignia it was Polish. I was marched down the platform. Curious passengers looked out of the windows. I had not noticed this train arrive but had the impression it had been there for a long time. The passengers were looking impatient.

  Halfway down the train was a first-class carriage. Armed soldiers with German shepherd dogs stood at the doors either end. I was poked on to the train and marched along to an empty compartment. It appeared the whole carriage had been cleared for me. I sat down with my luggage. The soldiers withdrew to the other side of the door but remained there on guard. Ten minutes later a border official came in.

  ‘Passport.’

  I gave it to him. ‘What’s going on? I haven’t done anything. What is this?’

  The officer looked at me and shrugged. He spoke no English and I had lost the girls in the miniskirts. He took my passport and left. I saw him go into an office on the platform. There were three or four other people in there. One began a long telephone call while waving my passport up and down. Then he hung up and put the passport down on the desk. The men began a conversation. What would happen if the train decided to pull out? I had no papers. I could spend the rest of my life stateless, shuttling backwards and forwards on the Bucharest–Warsaw Express.

  Half an hour elapsed. The men in the office drank tea. Then I saw one answer the phone. Another long conversation. The call ended, and the man who had originally taken my passport got up and boarded the train. Without a word he handed it back to me. The two soldiers guarding me marched smartly off the train, and fifteen seconds later a whistle blew and the train pulled out in the direction of Budapest and Warsaw. It was more than three hours since the Sofia train had first arrived in Curtici.

  At 8 p.m. that night I was back at the Gellert.

  ‘Herr Morland, welcome back,’ said Imry. ‘You did not like Bucharest?’

  ‘I don’t think it liked me. Could I have a room, please?’

  Imry glanced briefly at the ledger. ‘Herr Morland, your old room awaits you. Allow me to escort you.’

  When I got to my room I called Guislaine. She sounded distraught.

  ‘Thank God you called. We’ve been so worried. Where are you? Are you OK?’

  ‘Yup, I’m fine, but I’ve had an interesting day. I’m back in Budapest.’

  ‘I’m so glad.’

  ‘Why? What’s going on?’

  ‘It’s been all over the news and the evening papers. Romania has closed its borders to everyone. The airports have been closed, and no one is allowed in or out of the country. We were worried
you were inside and had been trapped.’

  With the help of the next day’s Herald Tribune I pieced together what had happened. Ceausescu had been at the Romanian Communist Party conference, the last he would ever hold as it turned out, electing himself president for another five years. His survival depended on insulating Romania from the wind of democracy so he gave orders to close the borders. Nearly everyone who wanted to travel to Romania that day would have done so by plane, but they could not as the airports were summarily closed. I must have been the only foreigner on the Sofia train who intended to get off in Romania, but I did have a legal visa. That is what the phone calls and the mystery had been about. Legal visa or not, neither I nor any other foreigner was going to be allowed into the country. The attempts to insulate the country did not work. Five weeks after my visit to Curtici, Nicolae and Elena Ceausescu were summarily tried and shot by their own secret police.

  Four months later I got another visa for Romania and spent two weeks visiting Transylvania and Moldova, doing a story for a London newspaper. What a beautiful country. The people were desperately poor. Bread and water were available but little else. I was based in Sibiu, a handsome city that commands one of the Carpathian passes. Every afternoon little vans skidded into the main square parmp-parmping their horns. People would jostle and push to get whatever it was that the vans were carrying. At first I assumed it was food. I was wrong. These were editions of hastily run-off newspapers. For forty years the Romanians had been starved of news and truth. Now everyone was turning out a newspaper and expressing an opinion. People seized the papers and fell to discussing and arguing about the opinions in them. Forget food, they were intoxicated by freedom.