Chapter 1 In which Mrs Milica gains ingress to the Colonel's house ...

Chapter 1
In which Mrs Milica gains ingress to the Colonel’s house, Miss Veronica
Geambasu becomes “the possessor of an illegitimate embryo”, and strange things
occur in Mr Relu Covalciuc’s garden
Long though Willows Street may be, within half a day the event had done the rounds of
all the houses, with two exceptions: that of the Colonel, as everybody used to call him,
guarded by a pebbledash wall and cast iron railings painted a gleaming black, where –
among strangers to the house – only the postman entered without ceremony, and that of
the Socoliuc family, where they trod on tiptoes and spoke in whispers because of the
woman who had long been languishing sick in the best room, so that everything there
seemed petrified.
No one ventured to ring the Colonel’s doorbell without a well-founded motive,
something grave and urgent, and not just to tell him about some happening, however
sensational or comical the latter may have been. This was quite odd, if we take into
consideration that he, the Colonel, a rather squat man, with “creamed temples”, as he
was wont to say, was not adverse to chatting with his neighbours – quarter of an hour,
twenty minutes – over a glass of mineral water or a fruit juice at the “Crumpled
Tractor”. Into his house, the tallest on the entire street, with its basement garage, upper
floor and garret, with a tin roof so new that it would dazzle you when looked at it from
the hill, of all the neighbours only Milica had gained ingress. Green with anxiety and
wringing her hands, apologising once a minute, she had gone there when one of her
bairns had come down with such a fever that he was not long for this world, and
tremulously sought to make a phone call for an ambulance. Within hours of this
unforeseen incursion, the whole street discovered details about the interior of the
Colonel’s house. As you enter the hall, your slippers glide over grey tiles with little
white veins, like rivulets of milk. And if you stop to take a closer look, you can glimpse
your face, just like you’d see it at twilight reflected in the water of the pond, more than
a shadow, but you can tell that its your face and no-one else’s. All around, along the
hall, the walls are clad in wainscots half way up, etched wainscots, fixed with black
laths on top. From somewhere up above, in front of you as you go in, a stag’s head
peers at you with gaping eyes, enough to give you the shivers, probably bagged by the

Colonel himself – he, the Colonel, had not divulged anything to her, Milica, “but that’s
what I suppose”. It has a pair of antlers about this long (and here she would stretch her
arms out as far as she could, so that they would be bending behind her, just as children
do when they are talking about something really big). There are loads of picture frames
large and small, enough to hang a washing-line on. When you go into the living room,
as big as two or three ordinary rooms, all around you can see a luxury that’s out of this
world, and the carpet engulfs your feet up to the ankles, just like your foot sinks into
fresh overnight snow in winter. But you should have seen the quality! After you lift up
the sole of your foot, the pile springs back into place; it swallows up the footprint, just
as though no human foot had ever trod there before. And however much she had cast
her eyes left and right, there was no sign of jute rugs or clippy mats!
For about three or four days, a week at most, following this incredible opportunity,
Milica was the centre of attention on Willows Street. The tidings of her good luck had
spread quickly along the invisible wires that linked up all the houses in a complicated
network. Although her description circulated from mouth to mouth, with a profusion of
details, each resident of the street secretly wished to hear it from the mouth of Milica
herself. They wanted to see the Colonel’s house with their own ears, directly from
Milica, to be able to study her gestures and face as she told the story, to be able to weigh
up the inflexions of her voice. Consequently, the lucky woman began to be invited
round to sample a cake or to offer her opinion regarding a recipe for stuffed cabbage
leaves. She began to be asked for recipes for jam or for pickling. She was called on to
lend eggs, tablespoons of vinegar, or teacups of cooking oil, all in a neighbourly way. It
was a good occasion to learn from Milica’s very own mouth about the Colonel’s
enchanted carpet, into which your foot would sink to above the ankle, so that it would
go pop when you pulled it out, like a rubber stopper bunged tightly in a bottle: the
carpet that Ceau§escu had personally handed to the Colonel on Army Day, for
distinguished merit. Milica would rather joyously leave her chores unfinished, and go
where she was in demand. She would give a helping hand and advice. She gaily lent a
sachet of icing sugar or the meat grinder, because she enjoyed telling the tale again and
again, followed by pairs of eyes hungry for details about the wonders in the Colonel’s
house. And each time she would try to remember even more things, probing the blurred
areas of the images left in her head, of the things that came to mind as though in a
dream. To be honest, she would not have staked her life on whether she had really seen

all those things in the house she had traversed in haste or whether they were, in fact, the
fruit of her imagination. They may even have been images from some film or other,
which had made an impression on her so long ago that it was now lodged in the fustiest
nooks of her mind. However, those eyes gathered around her insistently, hopeful of
discovering anything new, a detail no matter how small or insignificant, as long as they
were the first to be told it. They surrounded her so pleadingly and at the same time so
penetratingly that she would feverishly rummage through her exhausted mind, just to
find something that she had not said up to then, so as not to disappoint them. Thus, the
ground-floor living room was large, much larger than any living room in the other
houses on their street. The walls were covered with paintings, some large, others
smaller, all very pretty, like those ones sold at the market, with flowers in vases and
winter landscapes, with bears leaning against a tree and horses rearing on their hind
legs. She had not counted them, but there were certainly more than seven or eight, of
which she best recalled one with a huge throng of folk, the same as at a fair, all
higgledy-piggledy, just like in those patriotic epics directed by Sergiu Nicolaescu.
Some were lying on the ground, probably having been shot by the enemy, except for
one, a kind of leader, who was on horseback, his arm raised, shouting: “Forward, bold
lads!” At this point in the account, Matilda, the seamstress, who lived on the other side
of the road from Milica, a few houses down the hill, and who had just invited the latter
round to taste one of her puddings, would have liked to ask her how it was she knew
what that leader on the horse was shouting. But she didn’t dare interrupt her, especially
given that – God forbid – Milica might have taken offence and left her out on a limb
with the story unfinished. Another painting, a wee one, showed trees in winter, and
each twig was covered with hoarfrost; in the background, there was a hill and a snowy
cottage with a light shining from inside. There were children with sledges on the slope
of the hill. Maybe their children were there too, but she couldn’t tell because their faces
weren’t visible. It was all extremely well painted. It was exactly like winter – it had
probably cost a fortune. When she looked at the painting more closely, she even started
to shiver and could see her breath steaming. Milica would tell the story and look at the
eyes of those around, one after the other. When she told them things they had already
heard the gleam in their eyes went out, like tip of a neglected cigarette. Sometimes the
eyes would become so imploring that she didn’t have the heart not to tell them about
things she had not seen very well, about things which were perhaps not at all as she
remembered them. To cut a long story short, she didn’t have the heart not to tell them

about things she hadn’t seen at all, but which might have existed in the house of such an
important colonel. Sometimes the eyes were threatening, pointed at her like two glassy
pistols. And she would sit on the sofa or calmly on a chair, with her hands in her lap, in
such a way that she had to protect herself somehow, rummaging for new things, perhaps
even exaggerating, but not overly much. After all, as she would sometimes tell herself,
things that might have happened are not exactly a lie.
Once a new detail had been wrested from the mouth of Milica, the most authoritative
source in depicting the interior of the Colonel’s house, it was quickly peddled around,
not without a certain pride in the possession of an item of information up to then hidden.
Only patient listening, while yawning stiffly from boredom, to things already
universally known, lying in wait with half-awake attentiveness for any fresh waft in the
story, would ultimately cause such new details to come to you. And then you, as an
apostle of Milica, had nothing to do except set out from house to house and share it with
all the others, thereby acquiring something of the fame of the-first-person-on-Willows-
Street-to-enter-the-Colonel’s-house, something which, for the majority of the street’s
residents, was a fact of no little importance. Some became the sudden apostles of the
lucky woman only by catching, with ears pricked, a hint, a nuance in what she related.
However, this would be something which they would then pad out using their own
perspicacious spirit and pass on, with the confident and noble air of one chosen,
imparting it as words uttered by Milica herself.
So it came about that, within a week, the Colonel’s house had become unrecognisable.
As you entered the hall, the floor was so highly polished that, if you didn’t hold on to
the walls, you risked breaking your neck, as it was made of some kind of highly
resistant glass. It was transparent so that you could see the car in the garage below as
clear as day. That damned Colonel: he had done that just so that he wouldn’t have to
hire a watchman. A watchman who could have been from Willows Street, for there are
plenty of folk here out of work. But who could have imagined how mean the Colonel
was? The wainscots, which clad the walls as high as the ceiling, were carved by
craftsmen brought specially all the way from Maramure§, and the designs were copied
from the Three Bishops Cathedral in Jassy, at the insistence of his wife, who is a God-
fearing woman. Above the door leading into the living room, a stag glares at you so
fiercely that if you look him in the eye while pregnant you can miscarry on the spot, and

if you’re not, all kinds of other horrors can befall you, not excluding even paralysis.
The stag’s antlers are so huge that, before they could mount them in the hall, the
workmen were forced to boil them and then bend them to the shape of the walls,
otherwise they wouldn’t have fit. They boiled the antlers in one of those huge
cauldrons, in the kitchen of the military unit where the Colonel works, and for three
days after that the food took on a funny taste, but how were the poor soldiers to know
the cause… In the living room, the carpet was as deep as bristle grass, but for all that
you could wade through it as easily as water. On the walls, nothing but paintings!
Paintings stolen by the Germans from museums during the Second World War, which
the army had recovered but never sent back to their rightful place because the bigwigs
had shared them out among themselves, brotherly-like. They didn’t even let poor
Milica go upstairs, so as not to give her a fright, because it’s there that the real luxury
begins, stuff they could never even imagine.
Some ten days after the event that propelled Milica to the centre of the street’s attention,
the flame suddenly went out, with no apparent explanation. In vain did she try to entice
her neighbours with new revelations, some of them cooked up in moments of fury and
impotence: the interior of the Colonel’s mansion no longer incited anyone. More
recently, it was said that Geamba§us’ eldest daughter was pregnant and, to top it all,
nothing was known about the father. As if by magic, the number of neighbours who
had run out of icing sugar or cooking oil palpably diminished, while those who prized
her culinary knowledge and the services of her taste buds declined dramatically. She
became, almost over night, an ordinary neighbour. Moreover, at the “Crumpled
Tractor”, gaffer Petric[, slow but acidic in speech, had turned over all the facets of
Milica’s adventure, as only he knows how, in such a way that, at the time, you cannot
but agree with him, even if you change your mind back home and find flaws in him. He
had turned it over in such a way that poor Milica had ended up the laughing stock of all
those around the table. Gaffer Petric[ was a queer sort of bloke: although he had a huge
gut on him, so that he could down three tankards of beer as quick as you could count, he
was as agile as a lizard. Although he spoke cloyingly, he bit to the bone. Although he
uttered his words softly, he was quick to anger – and then he would become comical,
because from beneath eyes harsh with fury would issue a calm remark, wholly unsuited
to his state of annoyance, the same as in a badly dubbed film. Some upheld that the
defect was down to stray Transylvanians, who are notoriously slow-talkers, in his

ancestry, while others were of the opinion that he had a “gland complaint”. One
evening, shortly after the Colonel’s house had been endowed with contents that would
not even have found room in the House of the People in Bucharest, gaffer Petric[, after
three or four beers, began meticulously to turn over the problem on all sides, “just like
at those Party meetings to denounce people” (old man Hrib). He was of the opinion that
Milica could have called (in fact, should have called!) from the Geamba§us’ or the
Stegarus’ telephone. They were long-standing families on the street, who had on no
few occasions made their telephones available in cases of emergency. And here he
brought up the time when Mrs Matilda the seamstress had fainted, or the bout of
epilepsy suffered by the ±tefanovicis’ youngest lad. There was no need to go precisely
to the Colonel for a matter that could have been solved much more simply. Why did
she choose the more complicated instead of the simpler route? She had her reasons…
After all, the Geamba§us and the Stegarus might take offence: their telephones were
there on the spot long before the Colonel’s and they had been used to call – God
preserve us – the ambulance before, so there was no well-founded reason to bypass
them. They might take offence, quite rightly, and the next time they might deny access
in case of an emergency, saying quite simply “Go and use the Colonel’s telephone!
What do you want from me!” Undoubtedly, gaffer Petric[ knew very well that the
Geamba§us were away on holiday at the time, whence Veronica had returned, probably,
with the shameful embryo, and that the Stegarus, at that hour, were visiting their
wedding godparents, at the other end of town, whence Nelu had returned well-oiled,
reeling left and right, and that Milica would have knocked on their gate in vain, but that
didn’t change, at least not for him, the fundamentals of the problem, as long as Milica
had not even tried their door. It was as if they had been at home, and Milica had
bypassed their doors, without taking any notice of them, hurrying off to the Colonel’s
telephone. In his opinion, Milica had gone like a shot to the Colonel’s house, not so
much worried about the child’s fever, or, more precisely, not just about the fever, but
rather egged on by her curiosity to see the “castle” from inside, as well as by the desire
to be the first to cross the threshold, an opportunity to tell them, the fools, all about it.
In the second place, enumerated gaffer Petric[, if Milica was so frightened about
Marius’ temperature, why did she choose to go to the “castle”, which was further away,
and why didn’t she stop first of all at the Geamba§us or the Stegarus, who were on the
way? Those around the table assented somewhat bewildered, especially since quite a
few of them had lost the thread, but were impatiently waiting for the conclusion. Well,

in the third place, when you are in a panic, it’s hard to believe that you can look at all
the Colonel’s paintings in detail. That means Milica was either gawping at the walls
instead of seeing to her poor bairn, or she has been telling porkies, which they have all
swallowed like suckers. At this point, gaffer Petric[ stirred rumours at the “Tractor”,
and at the corners of his mouth there appeared the shadow of a smile of satisfaction. In
conclusion, Milica ought to put a sock in her mouth and see to her bairns.
That evening, Sebastian had not been at the “Tractor, but he was told all about it in
detail the next day. When he came home, he sharply told his wife, without any
explanations: “Milica, don’t you put me to shame any more! Put a sock in you mouth
and see to the bairns!” When she heard from Sebastian’s mouth exactly the words of
gaffer Petric[, which her neighbour had repeated to her over the fence, having in her
turn heard them from her husband, the latter having taken in part in the whole to-do at
the “Tractor”, the woman immediately flew off the handle. Which didn’t stop her from
thinking that whenever that damned gaffer Petric[ has his say, they learn it off by heart,
as though it were a proverb. In vain did she try to explain – first of all to Sebastian, her
husband, then to all and sundry, to the neighbours, sharply or gently, to their face or in a
more roundabout way – that there would have been no point going to the Geamba§us
first and then the Stegarus. Since she already knew, the same as everybody else knew,
that the former were away on holiday and the latter were visiting their wedding
godparents, at the other end of town. And secondly, of course she had had time to get a
good look at the Colonel’s house, because the line to the ambulance was engaged, as so
often happens, and the Colonel had to keep dialling the number, during which time she
kept staring here and there, and, as happens with unusual things, you remember them
better than ordinary things, such as the things in gaffer Petric[’s house, which you forget
no sooner than you see them, that is you don’t forget them as such, rather you get them
mixed up, you don’t know whether you’ve seen them at gaffer Petric[’s or at old man
Hrib’s. In vain did she try to explain her side of the story. They all nodded in
agreement, knitting or stirring the coffee in the pot, but as soon as she finished they
would say: “Ye-es, I think you’re right, but it doesn’t do anyone any harm to put a sock
in it now and again take better care of the bairns”. Milica then realised that the only
thing for it was a direct confrontation with gaffer Petric[, a public duel, in which she
would answer his every word step by step, even mocking him a little, and concluding
with something along the lines of “Well, gaffer Petric[, you are giving advice when you

don’t even know how to have bairns!”, in allusion to his suspect bachelorhood, or “Yes,
gaffer Petric[, but if I need a sock in my mouth then you need ten”. Only thus would
she be able to prove to the others that she was in the right. Of course, the audience she
was in need of was most easily to be found at the “Crumpled Tractor”, but she, a
woman, couldn’t just enter the pub out of the blue, but only, for example, to take
Sebastian home. She could, at a pinch, have boldly gone into the pub, sat down at a
table, and provoked a discussion with gaffer Petric[. But she felt that something would
not have been right, that what she would have gained from the duel with gaffer Petric[
would have been lost for daring to sit elbow to elbow with the menfolk in the pub. Well
then, better wait for a more opportune moment. This was not long in coming.
One afternoon, a gaggle of neighbours had gathered in front of old man Hrib’s gate,
more by chance than for any reason in particular. On Willows Street it often happens,
especially on feast days, that when one person stops to have a word with another, by the
fence or even in the middle of the road, other neighbours gather around them too,
always eager to hear something new. This is how it occurred when Milica stopped to
exchange a few words with old man Hrib. There were already some six persons when
gaffer Petric[ turned up. Milica mustered her courage and, thinking it a good moment
for a public confrontation, on neutral ground, she mentioned the Colonel’s house.
However, gaffer Petric[ answered her in a way completely different than during her
imaginary dialogues, in which she demolished everything he said point by point. Gaffer
Petric[ refused from the very outset to discuss the subject with her, even mocking her:
“So, Milica, you’re still trying to sell us porkies from the “castle”? Spare us – we’ve far
more important things to talk about. Look what F[nic[ Geamba§u’s daughter has gone
and done!”
And all the neighbours agreed: some nodded sagely, some murmured “that’s right!”
Looking at them, her heart gave a twinge. Despair overwhelmed her. She had wanted
to tell them something else, not to tell them about what it was like inside. But they
didn’t even want to hear about the Colonel’s house. She felt humiliated. How could
she still prove that she was in the right? Horrified, she realised that she had missed her
moment! And, worse still, that proof of being in the right is a question of the moment.
She fell silent, ashamed, and was on the verge of bursting into tears. In any case, no

one was taking any notice of her. They were animatedly discussing what steps F[nic[
Geamba§u was going to take with his unexpected grandchild.
The enigma surrounding Veronica did not hold the attention of the street for more than
two weeks, during which time the “co-proprietor of the embryo” (gaffer Petric[) was
identified by the Geamba§u family in the person of a swain neither very strapping or
rich, a former classmate of their daughter and “not at all a passing acquaintance from
the Herculane spa resort” (F[nic[ Geamba§u). He was talented at music, especially the
guitar and the panpipes, and momentarily unemployed. A wedding was decided upon.
Undoubtedly, interest in the story would have lasted much longer had the father of the
child not been detected; or, at least, had he been a passing acquaintance at Herculane, as
was initially supposed. But, under the given circumstances, the event petered out,
giving way – after a certain lapse of time, it is true – to a new occurrence which, long
though Willows Street may be, did the rounds of all the houses in half a day.
Nevertheless, on the subject of Veronic Geamba§u, the street was to be abuzz twice
more, albeit not with the same intensity as the first time.
A few months later, constrained by the flatness of Veronica’s belly, the two newly-weds
were obliged to admit that the imminent arrival of a baby had been nothing more than a
ruse to persuade both Mr Geamba§u, payer of taxes to the state – to the last penny – at
the beginning of each year and ultra-strict father, and Mrs Geamba§u, a pretentious and
ever-grumbling creature, whom Veronica, although madly in love, knew she could
never convince about her Gabriel under normal circumstances. Thus she made recourse
to this wile, for the idea had been Veronica’s, knowing that the shame of illegitimate
progeny on a street like Willows would conquer both the fastidious spirit of the father
and the whims of the mother. The operation was ultimately a success, even if the
wedding had passed off with a certain embarrassment, interspersed with sideways
glances at the belly of the bride, about which many neighbours swore on their life that
“it shows”. Gaffer Petric[ laughed at them for a whole year – “Is that right, did it really
show?” – as though he too hadn’t fully taken part in all the discussions on that topic.
Mr Geamba§u rid himself in a short time of all ill feelings, especially after he found out
that the grandchild, for whom he had secretly begun to rejoice, was nothing but a
fiction. Only years later did Mrs Geamba§u admit that her husband had been in the

ight when he used to scold Veronica for reading too much. Until then she had always
taken her daughter’s side, convinced that reading the novels in the “Love Stories” series
was part of the compulsory education of the fair sex, because there were no soap operas
at five o’clock in those days. The somewhat unexpected death of Mr Geamba§u –
whereby he paid, if we are to believe old man Hrib, for the sins of his youth, in the
1950s, when he was the communist mayor of a village – prevented him from seeing his
son-in-law on television receiving a diploma for taking part in a music contest in Italy,
on which occasion Willows Street had another twitch of interest, the second, as regards
the fate of Veronica.
Now, the street was in ferment once more. Figures slipped from one garden to the next,
by hidden ways, whispers gurgled behind gates and doors, daring suppositions inflamed
the imagination, caused goose bumps, frightened children and worried householders. I
don’t know how it was that all the cooking oil had almost run out, the hens (they’re to
blame!) no longer wanted to lay, and icing sugar was in short supply. The old women
recalled events more or less similar to those on their street, but just as strange, during
the time of Dej or even the King. During this time, the men were restless. They
couldn’t stand still. They had no energy for chores in the yard. Something inward
always drove them towards the “Crumpled Tractor”, where, perhaps, Relu Covalciuc
would already be relating, over a small vodka and a tomato juice, as was his habit, the
terrible things in his garden. As none of them would have wanted to miss such a
moment, they decided inside themselves that all those little chores could be put off.
They rummaged about for some small change and then, even at the risk of interminable
discussions with their wives, they set off down Willows Street. Their gait was
nonetheless leisurely, as though all the chores around the house had been dealt with and
they were just going out for a well-earned stroll, for a breath of air, as if on a feast day,
to Ticu Zidaru’s tavern. What Mrs Evelina Stegaru used to say about her husband,
whenever the occasion arose, was wonderfully appropriate for the majority of the men
on the street: “Not even a bee knows its way back to the hive better than my husband
knows the way to the Tractor.” After which there would follow threats against the
tavern: gas, fire, and the economic police; then there would follow the curses, indulgent
or cruel, depending on the latest exploits of Mr Stegaru.

Chapter 2
In which Mitu tells the story of how he was received at the Central Committee by
comrade Nicolae Ceau§escu, General Secretary of the Romanian Communist Party,
President of the Socialist Republic of Romania, Supreme Commander of the Armed
Forces and most beloved son of the people
“… and when I woke up, marrer, one morning, a few days later, and I started
shaving, what do I see in the mirror: there was a greenish-white strand sticking out of
my ear, as long as a spool of thread. The germ of wheat had sprouted and was thrusting
its head out into the light. I’m telling you, on my life! And it hadn’t even tickled me in
the night it or given me bad dreams… Cheers, lads!” “Come off it, Mitu, is that right?”
“And on my horse I rode to tell you the tale I’ve told. If you don’t believe it then don’t
listen!” “What about that one with the cow, Mitu? How did that one go?” “Which one
was that, marrer?” “That cow you got on with better than with your own sister and
which went round and round its tethering stake until it dug such a ditch that you
couldn’t see it at the bottom.” “I told you that one yesterday. I can’t remember it now.”
“That damned Mitu can be forgetful when he has a mind to!” “Tell that one about how
you met Ceau§escu…” “What’s this, so you like to hear them to order? Order another
vodka for the lad: or am I freezing my mouth off for nothing over here?” “Hey, Ticu, a
diesel for gaffer Mitu! Put it on the slate.” “Well now, that’s more like it. Otherwise,
you don’t have the urge. Cheers, lads! The one about The-One-They-Shot, you were
saying?” “When you asked him for a Dacia car…” “That’s right, marrer! I was
working at the Screws at the time, I mean back when they still used to make screws in
Romania, instead of moving wafer biscuits back and forth, like nowadays, what they
dub commerce… I was still with my fourth wife and living in her flat, at the back of
beyond…” “Hang about, Mitu, last time it was your third wife.” “Go on then, if you’re
so clever and you know it better than me. Well, I’m listening!” “I was just saying.”
“Ignore him, Mitu, he’s just a snot-nosed brat!” “What’s all this, so now we’re arguing
about how many wives!” “I was living with her way out past “The Ripped
Puffajacket”, so that it used to take me quarter of an hour to get to the tram stop. And it
would take me another forty minutes on the tram in good weather. You’d have said that
you were going on an excursion, not to work; you needed to take a packed lunch with
you. I was lucky I had Litza, me neighbour, because we’d get up to all sorts. We’d be

telling the stories of films at five o’clock in the morning and passing the penicillin
around, especially when it was so cold that there used to be a hoarfrost inside the tram.
We’d draw wallpaper on the windows and have a lark, because we were always up for
something. It’s a well-known fact: whoever sparred with me would end up trumped. If
I stuck a nickname on someone, then all his kin, as far as the seventh-removed, would
carry it about like the mange. But that Litza was a good bloke… it was because of him
that the Dear Departed gave me the car. Well, marrer, until Litza took that university
course, we got on like brothers: we drank from the same bottle, we ate from the same
bait box, we frequented the same scrubbers and, more importantly, we both turned up
late to work together. Normally, they ought to have fined us, docked our wages, cut our
bonuses, but as our Litza was a party member and head of the shift, I got away with it
along with him. He would extricate himself by stringing them along with trams which
made a mockery of the working class, which were a disgrace to the people, and
suchlike. Just like in the Party, for Litza had the gift of the gab. If the Revolution
hadn’t come, I could just see him in the Great National Assembly. He was an ambitious
lad, he was, because of his father, who was president of the CAP up at Hunchback
Valley, up his mother’s arse – I can’t remember what they called the village. His father
wanted him to be a mayor at least, if not an engineer, which was the fashion at the time,
because nowadays engineers are reduced to selling watermelons in the market. He
couldn’t bear seeing him as merely head of shift. That’s why he sent him to some kind
of evening university, for sub-engineers, more a kind of vocational school. He carted so
much meat, cheese and plum brandy there to buy his exams for him that he knackered
the co-operative tractors. And he promised him that if he behaved himself, spoke nicely
to the teachers, didn’t lose his temper, didn’t swear at them, and graduated university,
then he’d buy him a brand new car. The old pig had enough money for a helicopter, not
just a Dacia, except that he wasn’t allowed to buy a helicopter in those days, because
then, you can imagine, he would have been able to follow Ceau§escu when he fled…
His father used to slaughter the calf or the lamb of the people whenever he felt like it,
but especially when inspectors were sent by the Party, because they were only human
too. They had guts that were rumbling with hunger too; they had children at university
too. I’m telling you marrer, they used to thieve until they dropped. And there was
plenty for them to steal: didn’t the reports used to groan with such huge harvests that
those in the West used to make the sign of the cross with even their legs, like yogis?
Didn’t there used to be corncobs as big as horse’s pricks – God forgive me – and

potatoes as big as coconuts and soyabeans as big as tennis balls? If lies could hurt, what
a lamentation there would have been at the Party meetings, what groans and howls, like
in the cauldrons of hell. And, as I was saying, everything was fine until he took that
cursed course. As soon as he got his diploma, it was as if they’d clouted him over the
head with a cudgel, for him to lose his memory. Half a year later, after he’d bought the
drinks to wet the diploma, so that it wouldn’t tear, they promoted him to head of
workshop. So, one fine morning, I find myself late for work not with the head of shift
but with the head of workshop. We arrive, I go to the locker room to get my overalls,
and he goes to the office. The new head of shift, a certain gaffer Apricot, comes and he
says to me: you’re late, I’m docking you two hours’ pay, that’s the regulation. “Since
when?” says I. Where do you think the order came from? From our Litza, who had
only just been running to catch the tram with his tongue flapping over his shoulder. A
week later, Litza was coming to work in a new Dacia, and we no longer saw each other
at the tram stop. At the factory, he had started to pretend he didn’t know me. He would
answer me as if he had glue in his gob. Hey, Litza, I would say. “Comrade,” says he,
“we are in the process of production, let us address each other in a seemly fashion.”
Bugger you then, our Litza, they did well to clout you over the head with a cudgel at
university, but it’s a pity they didn’t clobber you hard enough. He had completely
forgotten how we used to sit and drink wine, chattering like two old biddies, how we
used to make pork scratchings from the CP pig, how we used to tell stories about the
blokes on our shift, which of them was one of the lads and which was a snitcher, what
plots they were hatching, which was a hard worker and which was a slacker, because
otherwise he would never have been able to deal with with so many ne’er-do-wells.
He’d forgotten, I’m telling you, marrer. It was as if someone had wiped his brain with a
sponge soaked in vinegar. Well then, Litza, I told myself, the gaffer’s going to sort you
out. Do you think you can put on airs with me? And as I was going to the factory on
the tram one morning, I decided that I should go and have a word with Ceau§escu. So I
didn’t get to the industrial zone, I got off at the station and boarded a train. I didn’t
even buy a ticket, because I didn’t have enough money on me. When the conductor
shows up, before the next station, and asks after my health, I tell him that I don’t have a
travel permit, and to leave me be. “But where are you going?” “To see Ceau§escu,”
says I. I was puffing on a cigarette. The conductor gives me a long stare, looks me up
and down, and then goes his way without saying anything. I felt like I was in America:
anything he might have said could have been used against him. He scuttled through the

carriages a few more times, but as for me, he didn’t so much as tell me “Get out of it!”
As I was polishing off my packet of cigarettes, exactly as I was taking the last drag, the
train came into Bucharest Station, as though it was waiting for me to finish my smokes
before it could arrive. It’s definitely a sign, I thought to myself. If I had dozed on a
bench, instead standing at the window and smoking, I would have waited an eternity. I
got off the train giddy from all the jolting and went straight to the Central Committee.
So I knock on the door… and I’ve barely had time to knock when this huge monster of
an officer comes out, with his cap pushed back, he must have been hot, poor blighter,
and he lays into me: “Oi, what do you want, Moldavian?” I can’t say how he knew I
was Moldavian, since I hadn’t so much as uttered a single word, but I’d got off on the
wrong foot. That made my blood freeze even more than the scar on his cheek, which
was enough to give you a fright in itself – the lumbering hulk didn’t even need a pistol.
At first, I thought he must be one of those folk that read your mind, because he’d
kenned me from the very start. But then I realised that, even if he could read minds, he
still couldn’t have known I was Moldavian, because I wasn’t thinking about me being
Moldavian at the time and thoughts, in general, don’t have a Moldavian accent. “I
should like to speak to comrade Nicolae Ceausescu, Secretary General of the Romanian
Communist Party, President of the Socialist Republic of Romania,” says I briskly and
stiffly, like on the first page of those school textbooks, because I was defecating myself
with fear, if I can put it like that. “Really, now, Moldavian? I think you got the first
prize at school, didn’t you? Out with it!” “Really, sir! I didn’t get the first prize at
school, sir!” I reply, like in the army, short and sharp, intimidated by the uniform. “But
haven’t you heard of the Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces? Get down!” “Yes
I’ve heard, sir!” I shout up in the air, because I’d thrown myself to the ground on the
order to get down. I’m telling you, marrer, he laid into me with the army drill just like
in the Party rulebook, so hard that he knocked all the baccy I’d smoked in the train out
of me. That must have been the signal. After he’d worked me up into a sweat, he
pulled up a chair and invited me to sit down, he gave me a glass of tap water, a decent
bloke in his way, and opened himself a can of beer. I thought it was a grenade at first –
I’d never seen anything like it in my life. “And just what business have you got with
uncle Nicu?” he says trying to lure me. I says nowt. I’m not daft, am I? Well, if I’d
answered it would have been as if I was in agreement with calling him “uncle Nicu”,
and if I was in agreement, it would have been like I’d said it myself; and that’s just what
he was waiting for. “Alright, I see you don’t want to say, it must be secret,” says he

slyly. “Wait here, I’ll go and see if he’s home.” He takes two steps, turns round and
asks me: “Who should I say is asking after him?” I froze to the spot! Who was I after
all? What the hell should I tell him? “A man of labour!” says I proudly, but dead with
fright. “A lathe operator,” I added; I thought it sounded more impressive, like a kind of
function. “Damned Moldavian lathe operator you”, grumbled the huge monster
impressively. I think he regretted having laid into me with the drill. He went into his
booth and whispered with some one on the telephone. When he comes out, he says to
me: “You’re in luck, they’re just getting ready to go off to Zimbabwe, but he’ll receive
you, he can’t refuse a lathe operator. Follow me.” He pulls a rag out of his pocket and
blindfolds me. And I’m telling you, marrer, he takes me right and left I don’t know
how many times, so that if he’d left me there on my own after that I’d have starved to
death before I found the exit. When he takes off the blindfold, we’re in an office full of
doctors in white coats, with stethoscopes around their necks, drinking coffee. They put
their coffee down, and one of them makes me stick me tongue out, another takes a
blood sample, another pokes one of those pocket torches in me eyes, another one listens
to me through his stethoscope, and another, begging your pardon, searches up me
bottom. Under the white coats, you could glimpse their epaulettes and medals, I think
they must have been really big generals. I’ve never gone through a medical
examination like that since then and I don’t think I ever will until the day of my
autopsy. He blindfolds me with the rag again and makes me dizzy leading me down all
them corridors; everywhere there was a smell of coffee and schnitzels. After we’d gone
up in two different lifts, he takes off the blindfold and says to me: “That’s the door, you
go in by yourself, he doesn’t like to know he’s being guarded. Say that you’ve come in
off the street and mind what you do after that. Ask after Lena, otherwise he’ll get cross.
Ah, I was about to forget, tell him that he’s the most beloved son of the people, he likes
that best of all.” And then that huge monster gave a smile enough to give me the
shivers, with that scar on his face that made him look like he was laughing with two
gobs. One of the lads though, in his own way. I knock on the door, but I’ve barely had
time to knock when I hear: “Enter!” I take my cap in my hands, as the saying goes,
because I didn’t have a cap, I grip the door handle and turn it. My heart was beating
like a titmouse’s. He was sitting at his desk casting a die: “If it comes up three, I’ll go
to Zimbabwe, if not, I’ll say I’m ill. Six! That’s it, I’m ill! If it comes up three, then
I’m ill with high blood pressure, if not, then I’ve got a catarrh. Three! I guessed it, I’m
ill with high blood pressure!” There wasn’t so much as peep out of me – well, so as not

to bother him at his work. “What do you say, Moldavian, what’ll come up?” he takes
me by surprise. Me, I’m dumbstruck! “Hurry up, I haven’t got shitloads of time!”
“Four! Comrade Secretary General of the Romanian Communist Party, President of the
Socialist Republic of Romania, Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces and most
beloved son of the people,” I blurt out. His face flushed like a rose. “Let’s see now!
Four! You Moldavian bugger – you’ve got some luck! You get a Dacia on me.” My
tongue was itching to ask him what would have happened if I hadn’t guessed, but I
didn’t dare. “But not a new Dacia, one that’s a year old. Bobu lost it at cards.” “Thank
you, Comrade Secretary General of the Romanian Communist Party, President of the
Socialist Republic of Romania, Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces and most
beloved son of the people!” “Leave out the fancy stuff, as long as it’s between
ourselves you can call me Nicu, like everybody else.” Me, I couldn’t believe it. One of
the lads, I’m telling you, pity they shot him like a dog. Lena was horrid though. I was
standing there and thinking to myself whether I should tell him about our Litza or not,
because if I had a Dacia now that problem with being late would be cleared up, when in
comes this lady all dressed up in traditional costume, carrying a tray of bread and salt –
and she was such a looker that your eyes would have popped out on their stalks. But
that philanderer doesn’t let me feast my eyes not even a wee bit, he chases her out
quickly: “Come on, get lost, can’t you see we’ve got work to do?” As jealous as could
be, you could see it on his face. “Excuse me, I thought that it was the delegation from
China!” chirps the bonny lass melodiously, like that folk singer Irina Loghin. “The-the-
they’re next door.” He’d got annoyed and was stuttering. “Hmm, let us return to the
order of the day, comrade, what urgency brings you to me?” “Well… I’m a man of
labour…” “And you’ve come in off the street to see how I am.” “Yes, eggzactly, and
to see how Comrade Elena is, your life’s partner, the internationally renowned scientist
and loving mother.” “She’s not so well, she’s just sent word that she has a catarrh…
and as for me I’m suffering from high blood pressure, but what can you do, duty is duty,
the cause of the people never takes sick leave.” “That’s about right. You can say that
again.” “What, are you deaf?” “No, but that’s what they say where I come from.”
“Aha!” I looked at him, sitting in his armchair like a schoolmaster and picking at the
dots on the die with his fingernail. “What the hell, this black peels off! I’d no idea.” I
kept a respectful silence and let him get on with his business. “That’s why that dodger
Postelnicu always wins!” The room was large, with a colour telly from the period and
Pa§cani curtains. “But tell me, Moldavian, I’ve heard that people are grumbling. Have

you got milk for the children?” I was up to my neck now! How the hell could I tell him
that you had to get up at three o’clock in the morning for a bottle of milk? That you had
to queue up for so long that you used to start growing mould? “I regretfully have to
announce that I don’t have any children, comrade General Secretary of the Commun…”
“Whoa there! That’s no good, Moldavian, not to have any children. What kind of lathe
operator are you if you don’t have any children? Aren’t you even a little bit ashamed?
Didn’t I say at I don’t what plenary meeting that you all have to make children, so that
at least then you’d be doing something?” “Forgive me, comrade Secretary General…”
“Go home and make children, otherwise I’ll take the Dacia back. As easily as I gave it
to you, just as easily I’ll take it back. You don’t mess with me,” says he. I bowed my
head like a naughty schoolboy. What the hell could I say? “Or maybe you’ve got a
problem with your little piston?” At first, I didn’t even know what he was talking
about, but I got the gist quickly enough. “No, comrade Secretary General…” “Look, if
you have any problems with your little piston, just you tell me! I’ll take you to a doctor,
he’s a Thai, he boils all kinds of herbs from over there and makes you drink this potion,
it has a horrible taste, a bit like whiskey, but after that you’ll swear that you’re a
jackhammer, nothing short! You’ll break concrete!” “No, not me… Comrade Secretary
General…” “Look, don’t be ashamed! You come, you tell me, and it’ll get sorted.
What the hell! You’ve got to put your back into the demographic problem.” That’s
what he said, I swear. I liked The-Bullet-Riddled-One for that bit, a real committee lad.
Lena was horrid though, I’m telling you. She didn’t even enter the room the whole time
I was there, and he had guests as well, didn’t he? But as for the demographic question,
that really was no joke. You should have seen how it got his hackles up… He said
something else about the national interest and the patriotic duty of both sexes, but I
can’t remember what, because I’ve never been good at history. But let me tell you what
happened to a friend of mine because of the demographic problem, so that you’ll see it’s
no joking matter. His wife goes into town one day in a great hurry, because she’s heard
that they’ve got toilet paper somewhere or other. They lived in a village nearby. Right
enough, they had toilet paper, but only twelve rolls per person, and there was a queue
long enough to make you want to go hang yourself. His poor wife queues for some four
hours and gets her ration of arse-paper. But when she gets home, surprise-surprise, in
the thick ply, which was rough enough to make you bleed when you wiped, she finds all
these little fragments of Holy Scripture: “Romans 13”, “ly Ghost”, “tthew” and so on.
The eyes of the whole family were bulging out as big as onions. After that, they found

out, with their ears glued to Free Europe, that a consignment of Bibles from the West
had been pulped and thence the trouble. Anyway, his wife said it was out of the
question, God forgive me, to wipe her botty using holy writ, even if they were only
fragments. She didn’t even bother to ask the priest whether it was a sin or not. She put
some old issues of The Spark, the Party newspaper, in the privy, including the one with
the decree against abortions, with the Comrade’s speech about increasing the number of
children per capita. I’m telling you, marrer, only the Devil himself could have made her
do such a thing. Precisely nine months after she used the newspaper, she gave birth to a
strapping lad, who looked identical to uncle Nicu. This friend of mine hadn’t even been
at home during that period so that you could say one thing led to another. They were
both left stunned but they raised the little darling, and they couldn’t even claim a food
allowance. That’s how the decrees were born…
But let me get back to my visit. He picks at the die a bit more and then he looks
to the left, he looks to the right, and he fetches from the cupboard some wine and soda
and a box of cigars, I thought it was a box of chocolates at first. But you could see from
his face that he was scared in case Lena caught him with the booze and gave him a
tongue-lashing. I can’t complain though, it was a good wine; the old codger had taste.
“Take a cigar,” he urges me, “Fidel Castro sent them to me for the 23 August workers’
holiday.” If only my wife could have seen me, you’d have thought I was Kojak, she
really used to like that serial. “Here, Moldavian, have you heard of a certain Goma?”
asks The-One-They-Shot. Me, so as not to look really stupid, I says: “I’ve heard the
name, comrade Secretary…” I was thinking that he must some Party bigwig or
something. “Well then, tell me, tell me everything. Where did you hear about him?”
What could I say? I couldn’t get the words out. I didn’t have a clue who he was and I
still don’t know, but I remembered the name, because it wasn’t a common one. “There
was this bloke at our lathe shop…” I ventured. “No, man, this one I’m asking you
about is a rotter.” “Well, the one at our place isn’t much better,” says I, playing along
with him. “But have you heard of Iliescu?” “Haven’t heard of him, comrade secretary
General…” “Better for you! That one, he’s another rotter, but more dangerous than the
other one.” Look, I swear, that’s what he really said. Because during the revolution,
when I saw him on the telly, I remembered this discussion eggzactly. “Look here, listen
to me, if I die and you fall into the hands of that gypsy Iliescu, your happiness is at an
end!” “How could you die, comrade Secretary General… How could it be possible?”
“It’s possible, Moldavian, because for me everything is possible!” “A-ha,” says I, like

an idiot. “That one, he’ll flay your hides, like the KGB. You’ll live to mourn my
name!” I’m telling you, marrer, I can almost hear him now. He could smell something
was up. “If he takes after that Gorbachev and bungs you in period of transition, like he
keeps pestering me, not even the Americans will get you out of it. He keeps going on at
him about the tunnel of transition, with the light at the end of it, that he’s waiting for us
Romanians. Ballocks! If we enter the tunnel, they’ll pull us out in pieces, like spare
parts. Mark my words!” Look, everything The-Unjustly-Bullet-Riddled-One told me,
it all came true; it was as if he was reading it from somewhere. After the Revolution, I
heard eggzactly his words from Iliescu and from the others, it was as if they’d been
eavesdropping as we were talking. After a while The-Bullet-Riddled-One looks at his
watch and says: “I ought to get a move on. I’m late for the card game.” “Sorry to have
bothered you, comrade Secretary…” “Hang on, where are you off to, all empty-
handed?” He rummages under the desk and pulls out two parcels, all nicely wrapped up
with ribbon. “Look here, this one’s for the girl, for Alina, she’s got a pair of Guban
sandals and two bananas, and this one’s for Marius, he’s got two tennis rackets and a
Chinese chocolate bar.” I froze to the spot. He knew everything, mate! It was just
what me bairns wanted. And here’s me, telling him that I didn’t have any bairns…
Now there was a real Committee lad for you! After all the lies I’d told him, he could
have set the hulk on me, to make sawdust out of me, so that my wife would have had to
come with a brush and shovel to take me home. But he, fine lad that he was, gives me
presents to go away with. What more do you want? He gave me the parcels, he cleared
away the spritzers, wiped away the marks and scampered off through a side door. And I
haven’t seen him since that day. Well, apart from on the telly… And as I was having a
look at those Pa§cani curtains, not that I wanted to stuff them in me bag or anything, but
just to see real quality with my own eyes, in comes the hulk with the scar, fluttering the
rag. “Well, how was it, Moldavian?” And he gave that double smile of his, like cold
soda being sprayed down me back. In fact, it was like he was laughing with one mouth
and weeping with the other. You didn’t even know how to react. Then we went up and
down in the lifts again; we traipsed the corridors; we passed through the small of coffee
and schnitzels. For all that, he hadn’t offered me anything to eat and my stomach was
gnawing me from the cigar. I was even thinking to myself about how the hell those
underfed Cubans smoke such poisonous baccy. They must all have stomachs like
sieves, the Devil comb their beards, otherwise I can’t imagine. The journey seemed
longer now, on the way back, but then I arrived at the gate, with the parcels under me

arms like two watermelons. Well now, I almost felt sorry to be leaving the CC, where it
smelled so nice and it was so cool, where people played poker and smoked cigars until
they dropped, but I realised that it wasn’t for the likes of me, although I would have got
on marvellously there. As there was still something puzzling me, so as not to die stupid
I asked mister Hulk as I was leaving: “Comrade, allow me to ask, how did you guess
from the start that I’m Moldavian?” “Well, that’s simple, mister! Only a Moldavian
would tap out Morse code on the door when the bell’s over there on the right. See it?”
The hulk was right, there was a doorbell, but I hadn’t so much as glimpsed it. I thanked
him and legged it straight to the station. You never know, he might have got annoyed
out of the blue, and then you’d be back pushing coal trucks. When I arrived home, the
Dacia was in front of the block.” “But, gaffer Mitu, how did you know it was your
Dacia? Did he tell you the registration number?” “Hark at him, the curious brat! Can’t
you find anything more clever to ask? How do you think I knew? I know how to read
and on the windscreen there was a card which read ‘For Mitu’.” “Alright, gaffer Mitu,
what of it, you don’t have to lose your rag over it.” “But where’s the car now?” “Well,
I sold it the very next day, because I didn’t have a driving licence. Cheers, lads! My
mouth had gone dry!” “And what did you do about being late?” “Hark at them! You’d
think it was the Gestapo! That’s enough, I’ve closed the story. Ze end. And on a green
broomstick I rode and I piss in the gob of whoever doesn’t believe me.” “Aye, that’s
life for you, only the other day he was talking to Mitu over a spritzer, as you do, but
now he’s six feet under and full of lead. Cheers, lads!”

Chapter 3
In which most of the inhabitants of Willows Street, recalling the period of
systematisation and the curses of Hleanda, hopefully wait for the Colonel’s house to
fissure
The street was broiling like a cauldron; it was buzzing like a hive. Only in the
Colonel’s house and in that of the Socoliuc family did there reign an oleaginous silence,
which isolated them from the electrifying tumult. It was as though the two buildings
had temporarily moved to another street, an adjoining one such as Drummers Street,
whence the houses on Willows can be seen very clearly, as though in a play of optical
illusions…
The reasons for the silence that had laid its dominion upon the two households were,
however, very different.
Neither before nor after Milica made that telephone call, thanks to which everyone
gained an idea about the interior of the castle, had anyone from the street ever crossed
their thresholds. In fact, if we were to look back, the Colonel had been greeted by a
smouldering hostility from the very day the building work on his house commenced.
Although the neighbours, in order to justify their reticence or even aggressiveness
towards him, used to put it about that any newcomer should be treated prudently until
he had showed his true colours and proved his respect for the longer-standing residents
of the street (some of them born and raised in the shade of the willows), each one of
them in fact had his own reasons for displaying coolness.
Upon hearing that the proprietor of the villa about to be erected had been a colonel, Mr
Geamba§u’s face darkened, and he could barely conceal his bellicose air. Up until then,
he had had the most esteemed occupation and the highest position: chief accountant at
the Town Hall. Although as pensioners, as most of the street’s inhabitants were, there
existed a certain equality between them, “his lifetime’s work” (Mr Geamba§u) imposed
respect, be it only due to the different memories he could spin out or the different
people he had once known. Many years ago, he, Traian Geamba§u, had stood in the
same room as Ceau§escu. And genuinely so, not like Mitu, who used to brag in the

“Tractor” about how he had stood face to face with Ceau§escu in his office at the House
of the Spark, and had been offered a Havana cigar from a box received from Castro
himself.
A few of them, such as Relu Covalciuc, Sebastian C[r[midaru and even old man Hrib,
had even taken part in the building of the house, as day labourers, since the Colonel
paid way above any other offers of work in the area. Nor did they nurture any greater
sympathies for their new neighbour, precisely because they had worked as his
employees. Moreover, Relu Covalciuc upheld that the new proprietor was a crony of
Ion Ra\iu, that politician with the bow tie who had made a fortune in exile abroad. He
knew this for a fact. He also claimed that they had laboured to build his house just like
the peasants of former times used to slave on the landowners’ estates. Subsequently, he
would expand on this theory. It shouldn’t be forgotten that, as to his origins, the
Colonel was the son of a landowner, who had at some point found a cushy job in the
Army, and was now returning whence he had set out. He has started work on his
manor, and after that, he will lay claim to his lands confiscated under communism. But
the Colonel’s land, he upheld, is none other than that on which Willows Street lies. So,
in time, they will either have to clear out or pay rent in their own houses. If they don’t
have the money – “and where in buggery are us pensioners going to get the money
from!” – they will be forced to pay off the equivalent of the rent by physical labour in
the service of the Colonel. That’s the way all Ra\iu’s cronies go about things.
However, old man Hrib would vehemently contradict him. On the contrary, says he, the
Colonel comes from a family of good-for-nothings, the village paupers, this he knows
for certain. But he got in with the regime, he ate shit in the Party and grassed to the
Securitate until they made him a big colonel, and once he was in the Army, he thieved
until his arms dropped off. He had been such a bastard and so devilish back in the time
of The-One-They-shot that during the Revolution even his own mates had given him a
well-polished boot in the arse, pensioning him off as an invalid. They kicked him out
so quickly that he didn’t even have time to get his uniform from his office. And now,
out of boredom or impelled by the one with horns and a cloven hoof, he was planting
his great big tasteless house right in the middle of their street. What a grave sin! And
what’s more, just to humiliate them, just to show them who he was, he was paying them
double the going rate for a day’s work. Just like that, to show them, the neighbours, that
he had so much money that he had to shovel it up with a spade.

Just after the elections in ’92, the house was finished, and the arguments between the
two dwindled. On the other hand, everybody remarked with visible discontent that the
Colonel’s villa was the tallest building on the street and that his wife didn’t even deign
to answer when you said hello. Mister Petric[, with his tainted gob, used to say of her
that she had a little corporal’s moustache and did drill with the Colonel every day, so
that she wouldn’t, God forbid, get out of hand. And he also used to say that Mrs
Colonel didn’t answer when you said hello because she had cotton wool in her ears,
because you catch the draught on the battlefield like nobody’s business. Moreover, she
wasn’t used to answering except when ordered, because she was in fact guarding, if the
hugeness and vulgarity of the house were anything to go by, the air raid shelter for
Willows Street. And when the joke really got going, he would claim that Mrs Colonel
was in fact called Ivan Lebed, which was plain to see from her profile or in the showers.
She was none other than the brother of General Lebed from Transnistria, here in
Romania on a secret, undercover mission. Mister Petric[ would speak calmly, seriously,
chuckling to himself every now and then. It would have been hard for any stranger to
tell whether he was joking or not.
Beyond the “compulsory service talk” (old man Hrib) of Mister Petric[, what is certain
is that, whenever they passed the “castle”, the men would rap out a military “good day”,
raising their hands, but only half way, towards an imaginary beret.
On no few occasions, the arrogant outline of the villa was looked up and down with a
degree of maliciousness by the street’s longer-standing residents. There was one secret
that united them, a secret which at the same time constituted their little revenge: the
land on which the building stood was as unstable as could be. But only those who had
been living there for a long time knew why, because nothing could be suspected at first
sight. Thus, they expected cracks to appear in the walls at any moment. Had the
Colonel consulted them in time, then he would have only stood to gain. But he had not,
and so he deserves it, they smiled, complicitly. The mouth that didn’t answer when you
said hello would one day be forced to exclaim: “Oh no, the wall has cracked!” They
looked at each other knowingly.

Approximately fifteen years ago, on the site where the castle was now enthroned, a
chasm had yawned, and at the bottom of the chasm welled up filthy water. It was into
that pit tucked away at the intersection of their street with Negru Vod[ Street that all the
household drains flowed. Moreover, using buckets, iron basins or prams, the street’s
inhabitants at that time used to tip all their household rubbish into the pit. On occasion,
dead hens, rats poisoned with pilewort, and lees from the rotgut brandy illegally
manufactured in secluded outhouses were also thrown in. A pitiless hand once exiled to
that pit some newly born kittens, which mewled heart-breakingly – more and more
hoarsely – for a whole night, until their voices were quenched.
While from Willows Street the lip of the chasm was masked by a line of trees cut here
and there by paths for taking the garbage, from Negru Vod[ Street, where the slope was
less steep, the slops and refuse offered themselves to view without hindrance. The more
the children felt drawn to this side of the pit, whither they came to cast stones into the
viscid and frothy water, the more worried became their mothers, who, caught up in
chores, would call for them whenever they could manage. The children would crouch
behind the tall patches of burdock – from whose leaves, as broad as a shovel and
slobbered by snails, they would make play umbrellas when it rained – holding their
breath, nudging each other and winking, until the keen gaze of the woman intent on
restoring order receded, drawn away by other chores. After a while, “the imps” (Mrs
Stegaru) would re-emerge and continue, with a gaiety enhanced by the successful ruse,
their barrage of rocks into the stinking water, or some other game invented on the spot.
The bolder children would descend the slope strewn with rubbish – from eggshells,
rotten carrots and bean pods to all kinds of entrails; from aerosol cans and boxes of pills
to singed feathers; from sawdust and wood shavings to fish scales and tangled wire.
They would climb down cautiously, clinging onto stalks, roots or bits of old iron
protruding from the earth. Some of the objects seemed so interesting, and especially the
boxes of medicaments and empty spray-cans, that – beneath the curious gaze of the ones
above (“what’s that he’s found down there?”) – they would immediately be thrust into a
pocket or inside a T-shirt. Only the strangest objects, unfamiliar to the children, were
carefully turned over on every side, with a view to a verdict: was it worth keeping or
not? These moments of minute examination, feeling and smelling of the unidentified
object marked a pause in the difficult descent. They excited lively interest in the ones
left above, who would attempt from a distance to deduce what the matter was, at least

making a show of their perspicacity if they had not had the courage to clamber down.
The lucky discoverer of the object, although he could hear perfectly well the
commentary from above, would say nothing; he would meticulously handle the thing,
heightening the tension.
“It’s made of iron but it looks like a tortoise,” he would eventually say.
“!???”
“When I poke my finger into this hole I can feel some screws…” the foolhardy one
would go on, shaking the thing next to his ear.
“!???”
“Screws that rattle around… I think they’re not tightened very well…”
They he would raise the object to his nostrils.
“!???”
“And it smells of dog’s pee… that’s what I think.”
After the succinct description of each characteristic, the speculations of those at the top
would take a fresh turn, according to the imagination and boldness of each. When the
object finally reached the top, each of those present would take turns to feel it, smell it,
and turn it over on all sides. After taking turns, they would conclude that they didn’t
know what it was, but that it was excellent for playing with. It would remain in the
possession of its discoverer, who could swap it for a stamp, a slice of black bread
smeared with marmalade, or the divulgence of a secret. At other times, ceasing his
descent, the discoverer would frown at length and in a grave tone enumerate: “It has lots
of little pits, one next to the other”; “It looks like a spindle”; “It’s cherry-red”; “It smells
of mice…” What could it be? After letting those on the brink rack their brains with all
kinds of presuppositions, he would triumphantly cast up the unidentified object: a banal
corncob. What a bluff!

Among the most prized items of garbage were the spray-cans and the little red jars of
Chinese ointment, inscribed with gold letters. With the former, when you proceeded in
exactly the opposite fashion to that recommended on the can, which is to say when you
threw them on a fire, you could obtain a very decent bang. And a leaping flame or at
least glowing embers, upon which the least breath of wind traced red, contorted and
fearsome dragons, were not at all hard to find. Bonfires were clandestinely knocked
together at the end of the street by the field, around which numerous tales of horror
were improvised, making the little ones shiver and their teeth chatter. Then there were
the bonfires made by old man Hrib in his garden, where a band of children would crowd
together to eat baked potatoes or corncobs, mushrooms roasted over the embers and
other exotic treats, while listening to the old man’s war stories. These stories were
wonderfully suited to the explosions of spray-cans, which provided in miniature the
sound effects of artillery. On no few occasions, old man Hrib was scolded for his
recklessness, especially after one incident in which he sacrificed his own, nearly full can
of mosquito repellent in order to show the children the difference between heavy and
light artillery. When it exploded, the windows of the summer kitchen rattled more than
convincingly, the potatoes splattered apart in steaming chunks that stuck to anything in
their path, and the burning embers outstripped the stars. The hens were clucking as
though there was an earthquake. The dog, with machine-gun-like barks, was jerking its
neck fit to break its chain. The old man, full of enthusiasm, was shouting senselessly.
The children, in their turn, were more than enthused: they were well and truly terrified.
It was lucky that, nonetheless showing some foresight, the old man had placed the
device at a certain distance from the heart of the battle. But that did not prevent some of
them from having to go home with a singed shirt. When, the next day, old man Hrib
found a half-raw potato in the doorway of the shed, right next to the bicycle, he was
sure that none of the children present would ever forget the difference between heavy
and light artillery.
The jars of Chinese ointment – an ointment with the consistency and colour of Vaseline,
but with a sharp, mentholated odour – were also much sought after, and had a high rate
of exchange in swaps between the children. Whereas their parents used the contents to
rub into their temples or foreheads in case of migraine or a cold, the children used them
as an offensive weapon or just for amusement. With a thumb well daubed with

ointment, the target was the adversary’s nose if it just was a case of having fun or his
eyes if it was something more serious, such as revenge, for example. The itching, tears,
and inflamed eyes of the one smeared with the ointment made it highly prized, because
here were great big lanky lads, with enviable muscles, crying their eyes out, risibly
hiding their faces in their hands and snivelling. In a word, they put themselves to
shame. How could you not swap even a bar of chocolate for such a jar of ointment?
The jars could also be swiped from the bathroom shelf, in which case they would be
almost full, but the guilty party could be harshly punished, or they could be found
amongst the garbage, a quarter full or almost empty, but with almost no risk at all.
But spray-cans and jars of ointment were not to be found every day on the garbage and
weed strewn slope, nor unknown objects. On unlucky days, the bold were not stopped
in their way but arrived all too quickly at the water that made you retch. There, with
long twigs, gathered on the way or snapped from the withies on the bank, they would
poke the viscid liquid, plash it, and puncture the bubbles, provoking an infernal stench.
The ones at the top would throw stones, with the aim of splashing the ones at the
bottom. When they succeeded, which was quite rarely, in spattering a T-shirt, leg or at
least the toes of a pair of plimsoles as a result of a skilful shot, they would whoop for
joy and hug each other. The ones at the bottom would try to remove the foul smelling
liquid using burdock leaves or a rag found lying about. Then, using the tip of a stick,
they would fish a plastic bag full of mud from the mire and try to catapult it at those at
the top, to splatter them with filth. If the flexibility of the stick was not sufficient for
the weight at its end, then the bold ones would be obliged to shield themselves from
their own projectile, making frantic gestures, like in the cartoons. The ones at the top
would chortle, demonstratively holding their bellies, and stamping in delight. After
that, the ones at the bottom would whisper something among themselves, laugh, and
start poking their sticks into the mire redolent of soap and crude oil, paying no further
attention to the others. At a given moment, one of them would jab a floating islet and
shout, for example: “A dead dog!” While the ones at the top where concentrating on
seeing what it was, avid for details, one of the bold ones would sneak along the edge of
the pool, through the thistles, towards the other side of the mire. Thence he would
climb up the sheer bank. He would traverse the line of willows, wheel back along the
street, and come up behind the ones left at the top, whose attention the ones at the
bottom would be keeping busy with an interesting subject: was the floating islet a dead

dog or not? Cautiously, edging along the fence, the bold one comes up behind those at
the top and pushes as many of them as possible into the chasm. The ones at the bottom
roar with laughter, holding their sides, stamping their feet. Anyone they catch with their
shitty sticks they daub as is fit.
Sometimes, it happened that one of them would badly hurt himself, cut himself on a
bottle or tin can, and then the fun would be over. The gang would break up, fleeing in
all directions. The wounded one would be left on his own to get the good hiding that
should have been coming to the others too. Such is life: “the suckers pay.”
And so, one spring day, at the beginning of the ’80s, when the willows had just burst
into bloom, a lorry bearing the insignia of the municipality pulled up by the line of trees
at the edge of the chasm and unloaded two immense concrete cylinders. It all happened
so quickly that no one had a chance to ask the driver what it was all about. No matter,
the people on the street said to themselves, another lorry will come and then we will
find out. For three days, they kept asking each other if they had happened to glimpse
the lorry, but no, it had not appeared. After a month, during which the enigmatic
vehicle made no further appearance in the area, people were already wondering how
they might use the cylinders in their own households. Each of them had found a use for
them, according to their needs and imaginations, but the main problem was their weight.
Not even five men well warmed up on rotgut brandy had managed to budge them. After
numerous rounds of discussion, most of them held at the “Tractor”, where each
expressed his point of view as regards the future of the two cylinders, in the end it was
agreed that the best idea was to use them in the common interest – to make a well, for
example, somewhere in the middle of the street, perhaps next to the house of Mrs
Matilda, the seamstress. No sooner said than done, except that the problem of shifting
them remained insurmountable.
The children had been more precocious in action. The very next day, they had
discovered the tubes were just right for playing in – from kneeing up inside them to
hide-and-seek. This was despite the fact that one of them, Ionutz, had received a
clipped lug from his mother, Milica, on the grounds that she didn’t have enough money
to pay fines to the council. But when she saw that no one took any notice of them,

Milica herself regretted giving the poor lad a spanking for nothing, not to mention
having banned him for a whole week from touching the “dinosaur bones” (Mister
Petric[).
About a year after the first delivery, another similar lorry appeared, and unloaded
another two identical cylinders, right next to the others. Catching sight of the unloading
manoeuvres, Relu Covalciuc hurried over to the driver, in order to question him in
detail. Then they wouldn’t have to suffer the same shame as last time, when they all
woke up to find the great big “elements” (Relu Covalciuc) on the street without
anybody knowing anything. As Mr Geamba§u said: “If someone comes to visit me and
asks me what’s with those things over there, what am I supposed to tell him?” Before
he could address the driver, a bony gypsy with a mermaid tattooed on his arm,
according to Relu Covalciuc’s account, the former asked him for a cup of water, in a
wheezy voice, because he had been drinking the night before and his throat was
parched. Understanding such situations very well, Mr Covalciuc quickly ran off to
fetch a cup of water. However, when he returned, the gypsy was nowhere to be seen.
He had made off, jalopy and all, leaving him puzzled and with no information.
Although he wasn’t thirsty, he drank all the water. More out of rancour.
Now the children had four cylinders at their disposal for games.
The residents of the street could have made two wells, but the problem of the weight
remained unsolved.
When, six months later, another two tubes were brought, the event happened to fall on a
religious holiday. The lorry was surrounded by tipsy folk, keen to exact justice: why
had no one given them any explanation? The driver, a young blonde-haired man, just
out of the army, was petrified. He could not understand why all those threatening faces
were coming closer and closer, ready to lynch him, ready to squash the cab into which
he had clambered, as though up a tree. He shouted that he didn’t know anything, that he
had quite simply been sent by his boss to leave the two cylinders next to the other four.
That he had only just got the job and that his mother was expecting him home, with his
father and brothers, so that they could clink a glass together as a family. The latter
argument somewhat mollified them, but they still wanted explanations. Albeit in a

more equable tone. Then, the driver uttered the words that were his salvation but gave
the others nightmares: “I think it’s something to do with systematisation…”
The folk from the street regarded the word “systematisation” as serious and convincing
enough for them to allow the young driver to depart. Then, they dispersed to their
houses in groups of two or three, according to sympathies or kinship, and over a glass of
cherry or rye brandy, they twisted and turned the word “systematisation” until the
morning came. The presuppositions were so numerous that it is hard to recall all of
them. One hypothesis was that the authorities wanted to build a pencil factory, but in
order to camouflage an arms factory, in fact, which would explain the choice of a site at
the edge of town. Another hypothesis was that they wanted to run a tramline along their
street, because there were too many folk who were late for work because of the public
transport. Then there was the theory that they wanted to make a pond to breed fish for
export. Yet another theory held this was the place on the map which the First Secretary
of the Communist Party had hit with his toy bow and arrow, to mark the spot where oil
would be drilled, something that would be an absolute first for the whole county. Only
Traian Geamba§u, who had not yet become chief accountant, sat sadly. He had dark
forebodings. During his time as a Party activist in his youth, he had encountered similar
such words: “alphabetisation”, “electrification”, “collectivisation”, “industrialisation”,
and since then any fashionable new word that ended in “-ation” sent a chill down his
spine. Fewer than three days later, his sombre forebodings were proven correct. A
team of engineers, armed with maps and measuring instruments, fully enlightened them:
their street was going to be systematised, entering into the systematisation plan for the
entire railway station area. “Meaning what?” Meaning that every house on Willows,
Ima§ and even Drummers Street would be bulldozed, the site would be levelled and
serve both for the extension to the railway station, because new tracks were to be laid,
and for some immense warehouses for goods and cereals. It was planned that over the
next ten years, their town’s railway station would become the second largest in
Moldavia, and the fifth or sixth largest in the entire country. To Traian Geamba§u the
words sounded all too familiar, he himself had used similar words, except that instead
of railway station it had been “agricultural association”, then “co-operative”. So,
although they had to be proud of what was going to happen, they felt that it was not
going to be anything good.

The news fell like a shower of fish, leaving them dumb with amazement and fear. No
one had thought of this. Not even for a moment could they imagine their street razed
from the face of the earth, or themselves moved “into matchboxes suspended in the air,
without any ground underfoot” (Traian Geamba§u); “into block-hutches with walls as
thin as cigarette paper, where you can’t even fart without your neighbour knowing, let
alone argue with your wife or beat your children” (Mister Petric[); “where in winter you
have to lag the radiators so that they don’t shatter from the cold, and in summer you
have to lie submerged in the bathtub breathing through a straw” (old man Hrib); “where
you put the parsley in plant pots and the pickles on the balcony” (Milica); “where you
drink water from a screw and it rains shit through plastic pipes, buildings on top of
buildings, the end of the world is nigh, brethren, pray to Our Lord Jesus Christ, we will
be crawling like worms under the ruins when the earthquake comes, the end of the
world is nigh, good people, the lambs of God one on top of another, like in Sodom and
Gomorah!” (Hleanda)
After the land surveyors, within a week, men in overalls carrying picks made their
appearance, together with a number of motorised pumps, covering the street with a
yellow, clayey earth. They drained the mire and mounted the huge cement tubes. They
set up a blue signboard, with white lettering: “Dumping prohibited, fine of between 100
and 500 lei”. They picked up their tools and left. The yellow earth spread along the
whole street. Seeing it, the people thought only of their own houses. From one day to
the next, they were expecting the bulldozers. Now, no one used the word
“systematisation”; they had tacitly replaced it with “demolition”.
The whole length of Willows Street, from the railway line almost as far as the field, was
in a short while overwhelmed by a kind of paralysis. Folk pottered around their own
yards in disgust. They would pick up a hammer and a few nails to fix the fence, but
abandon it after a few moments, lacking the will to do anything, as though drained of
energy. What was the good? The next day the bulldozer could be knocking at the gate.
They would pick up a pot of whitewash, but an unseen, subtle and cold force would
slowly lead them back, the same as you would guide an invalid by the shoulders. The
housewives still planted tomatoes in the garden or put in another bed of onions, but
more out of habit, because the same bitter thought kept returning: they would not have
the chance to enjoy them. The roofs of the houses had begun to rust and deteriorate, the

fences looked worse and worse, more and more neglected, the walls were peeling, the
gardens were overgrown with weeds. What was the use? The next day, the bulldozer
could be knocking at the gate. What used to be solidly built or repaired was now
merely cobbled together or patched up here and there.
Water dripping into the attic? No problem, we’ll put a basin under the leak and empty it
now and again.
One of the hinges broken on the gate? Leave it, it can hang on just one!
Something broken! We’ll tie it together with string.
Hole in the fence? We’ll patch it with a sheet of tin.
Gradually, everything took on a sad and ramshackle air, an air of impotent old age. A
visitor from other parts might justifiably have said: “why preserve this street, with its
decaying houses, patched-up fences and weedy gardens? You would do better to raze it
from the face of the earth and move the poor folk into new blocks, with civilised
amenities…”
In a short while, the young folk, who were in any case few in number, did everything
possible to leave that cursed street, where things seemed to sink into ever greater
squalor and decrepitude with every passing day.
Let the old folk stay behind in their ramshackle homes to wait for the bulldozers!
And the old men, out of disgust and boredom, had got into the habit of waiting for the
demolition over a bottle of cloudy brandy or a mug of cheap wine, prattling amongst
themselves, beneath a canopy of unkempt vines or in a secluded outhouse, far from the
eyes of their wives.
The bulldozers were late in coming.
Instead, one fine day, lorries laden with rubble appeared.

At dawn, a wholly alien rumbling shattered the silence of the street. Old man Hrib leapt
up as through scalded, ready to hurl himself, old as he was, through the window into the
garden and take cover in the bushes, for fear of Russian tanks. A column of ten lorries
was trundling up and down, in search of the rubbish pit which, although it no longer
collected stagnant water, continued to play host to refuse transported there in buckets or
iron basins, in spite of the now rusting interdiction. Moreover, the children used the
blue signboard as a target for the chipped bottles and jars that were not accepted at
school as part of their quotas to meet the central economic plan.
The lorries were loaded with rubble.
The demolitions, in another area of town, had begun.
The rumbling and the terrifying rumours brought the street’s inhabitants, young and old,
out of their houses. Hurriedly dressing with the first thing that came to hand, the folk
gathered at the lip of the chasm to see what was happening. With towelling dressing
gowns over their night-shirts, with hair dishevelled or quickly slicked down with a
wetted hand, with rumpled faces, with untied shoelaces trailing behind them or wearing
unmatched slippers, they made a comical sight. They were holding their sleep-flushed
children by the hand. In the brisk morning air, the folk of Willows Street groggily
looked on as the first tonnes of rubble tumbled down onto the garbage in the chasm.
The thick black exhaust fumes from the lorries shrouded the gathering in mourning
weeds. And Hleanda, the madwoman of the street, arriving from the end near the
railway station, was keening fit to break their hearts. She was keening so terribly that
Traian Geamba§u, who had never spoken to her before in his life, felt indebted to dash
up to her: “Shut the hell up, you madwoman, you’re frightening the children!” The
bricks rolled down like rotten apples, and the chalk dust rose like a cloud of mosquitoes.
After the spectacle of the first three lorries, part of the folk returned to their homes
which, amazingly, were still standing.
For how much longer they did not know.

Hleanda continued to howl hoarsely, wordlessly, beating the lorries with her fists and
desperately kicking the tyres with her flip-flops.
The drivers told those who remained that they were used to such scenes, and even to
ones much direr. Where the demolitions had begun, there were folk who had barricaded
themselves in their houses, dragging beds and wardrobes in front of the doors and
windows. “I’ll die along with this house!” they would shout. They were forcibly
removed by the militia, army or fire brigade. Where necessary, teargas was used. They
were flushed out like rats. They swore, threatened and cursed. Eighty-year-olds were
dragged out kicking. They would be weeping like children and pleading to be left in the
houses in which they had lived all their life. One old man whose house had been
demolished the day before returned at the break of day in his pyjamas and started
scrabbling among the bricks. With vacant eyes, he claimed that he had left behind a
pair of underpants, the underpants from when he was a bridegroom, and he was digging
with the fervour of a wild animal. The poor man had lost his mind. A man in the prime
of life brought his family and all his belongings onto the street, sprinkled the house with
petrol and set it ablaze with his own hands. The children sat huddled in the armchairs in
the middle of the street and gazed in horror at the huge flames. Because of such scenes,
the demolitions took place at daybreak – so that crowds would not gather to gawp.
Behind the bulldozers there were always to be found a police van and an ambulance.
Nevertheless, most people, although discontent, left their houses without making a
scene. They collected the pittance in compensation and moved to the blocks. They, the
drivers, transported the rubble to where they were told. They filled in the town’s holes.
It was said that, of those who had lived a lifetime with their feet on the ground, the
majority didn’t last for much more than a year. They suffocated between the concrete
girders. They died of a broken heart. All they could think about were their little
gardens, with flowers and onion beds, about the apple and pear trees by their house,
about their hens, which they had even given names. Most of the time they sat on the
balcony, in the air, and withered away with yearning.
For days on end, the lorries brought the rubble. No one had imagined how deep their pit
was.

Then the dogs appeared.
Dogs of all shapes and sizes, dozens of them, which had traversed the town, clinging
like burrs behind the lorries. Left without masters, they faithfully followed the remains
of their houses. They whimpered and scratched at the rubble, they sniffed the bricks
still fastened in what was left of the mortar, they whined. Some died crushed beneath
the avalanches of rubble tipped from the lorries, as they tried to save some brick known
only to them. As the smells were lost in the depths, buried under successive strata of
stone, wood, dust and twisted iron, the dogs whined for a while, running disoriented
back and forth, scratching and then running once more, lamenting until they were
overcome by hunger. Then they would begin to roam, looking for scraps of food or
desperately attacking the poultry in nearby yards. That is why they began to be hunted
down: they either died in agony after eating sops of maize porridge laced with shards of
glass, or they were poisoned.
That was until the day they found a protector: Hleanda.
The street’s madwoman could be glimpsed scrabbling alongside them, in the pit which
had lately become nothing but a shallow depression. She searched for slivers of wood,
fragments of doors, windows or fences, which she tied together with string or wire and
dragged off to her dilapidated house with its rusty tin roof at the end of the street. It
was also there that the dogs, around thirty in number, took refuge, each receiving a new
name. They swarmed unchecked around the yard, the shed and the house. They
brought rags and made beds for themselves. Hleanda talked to them continuously. She
scolded them and gave them advice. Where required, she gave them a helping hand,
setting straight a piece of cardboard or a patch of rusty tin. She separated them when
they had scuffles. Sometimes, she would speak to them about the Lord Jesus, about the
end of the world, about the day when the bulldozers would come to chase them out. On
that point, the wailing and curses would commence. While, as a rule, the dogs did not
pay much attention to her talk, frolicking among themselves, yawning out of boredom,
or sniffing around in vain for something to eat, whenever she began to keen, they would
bristle, as if upon a secret signal, and begin to howl evilly in accompaniment. And
Hleanda, emboldened by the canine chorus, would raise her voice tenfold and increase

the venom of her curses a hundred-fold, causing the flesh of any chance onlooker,
neighbour or passer-by to creep.
Sometimes, Hleanda and the dogs could be seen rummaging together in the bins
between the blocks, and the matted, unwashed hair of the woman was barely
distinguishable from the pelts of the quadrupeds. But even the garbage bunkers
provided meagre pickings, because, in those days, hunger and cold were laying the land
to waste. So, the raving woman and her troop of barkers went cruelly hungry. Not even
begging from door to door or at the kitchens of impoverished restaurants and not even
the rubbish bins managed to ease their hunger. In an iron pot recovered from the rubble,
Hleanda would boil corncobs gathered along the railway tracks, in front of the silo
where the cereal wagons were loaded and unloaded. She boiled them and fed them to
the dogs, scattering them over the floor. She fed them like chickens. In summer, with
kernels spattered with fuel oil from the railway sleepers; in winter with kernels gathered
from the snow. For not even the onset of winter had separated the barmy woman from
her pack of dogs. They assembled in a room, where she would light a fire in a stove so
ramshackle that the smoke escaped through the window more than up the chimney, and
there they would all eat boiled maize kernels.
One winter afternoon, when it was already dark by five o’clock, the peace of the street
was disturbed, from one end to the other, by the inhuman voice of Hleanda, which had
increasingly begun to resemble barking.
The houses were plunged in pitch darkness, but here and there, a gas lamp glimmered
timidly. Inherited from grandparents and recovered from sheds or attics, dusted off and
scrubbed free of rust, gas lamps came in very handy once the government had applied
its programme to economise on electricity, in order to pay off the foreign debts. Folk
would huddle together in the single heated room, gravitating around wood-burning
stoves. In the meagre, flickering light, which cast its ragged shadows on the walls,
parents would speak in whispers, as though the light diminished their voices without
them realising. The children would do their homework at a table upon which, for
additional light, a candle flickered.

In the Geamba§u family home, Mr (Comrade, at the time) Traian was carefully splitting
open pumpkin seeds, moistening them a little with his tongue, so that they would not
make too much of a cracking sound and disturb the girl. He carefully collected the
husks in his palm, and when his palm was full, he emptied it onto a page of The Spark,
the Communist Party newspaper. From time to time, he rinsed his mouth with some
wine, tenaciously sloshing it throughout his entire buccal cavity, forcing it under
pressure between his teeth and gums in order to extract the small fragments of seed or
slivers of husk. He would identify the latter using his tongue, cautiously identifying
them and pushing them towards his lips, from where he would gather them with the
back of his hand, or rather with the coarse hairs thereon, so that it looked as though he
was kissing his own hand. Mrs (Comrade, at the time) Geamba§u was knitting a
pullover with a new pattern and, now and then, she would reach for one of the more
roasted of the pumpkinseeds. Veronica was doing her homework for art class. The title
of the work, as indicated by the teacher, was “26 January”, the birthday of the Most
Beloved Son of the People. Veronica could not say that she was talented at drawing.
On the contrary, she held her pencil like a screwdriver, but she was very ambitious. She
liked music. And the song that roused her spirits the most was “Union is Inscribed on
the Tricolour”, a song with which Mr (Comrade, at the time) Geamba§u was wholly in
agreement. Veronica did not like drawing at all, but she needed a high mark in it so that
she could obtain a prize-winning average. For First Prize, her parents had promised her
a cassette player. No one of her age on the street had a cassette player, so she wanted
one very much. On the table lay watercolours, coloured pencils and felt-tip pens. When
it didn’t turn out well with one she would try the other. She used the felt-tips for eyes,
noses and mouths in particular. For inspiration, she was using photographs from a
Spark almanac, which, as luck would have it, Mister (Comrade, at the time) Geamba§u
had been obliged to buy at work. She had just managed to write, in a slight curve along
the upper part of the picture – “like a firmament” (mother), “like a rainbow over time”
(father) – “26 JANUARY” in capital letters, and was looking at it in satisfaction.
Underneath there were going to appear a pioneer, a lady comrade in folk costume, a
man in a welding suit (the leather apron and the mask would spare her from faffing with
details), a black child with curly hair from Mozambique, and a chubby blonde child
from Romania. Each of them would be holding a bouquet of roses, as though they were
going to a birthday party. None of these figures had any especial significance for her,
but she had observed that they often cropped up in books and almanacs, in twos or all

together, and so she deduced that she could get a high mark by using them. It went
without saying that the little black boy had to be from a friendly country, and so she
opted for Mozambique, because she liked the way it sounded, especially the ‘z’. The
little blonde boy had to be from Romania, so that if the teacher asked her what, in her
view, was the “homage” (Constantine Artimon, art teacher) offered by the nation on the
day of the Great Man, she would be ready with a reply. Any bits of free space
remaining on the paper she could fill in with an ear of wheat, an oil derrick, a dove of
peace, a sickle, a hammer, or one of the slogans that could be seen at every step around
town.
When they heard the uproar outside, all three, Mr and Mrs Geamba§u and their
daughter, ceased everything they were doing and concentrated their full attention. Mrs
(Comrade, at the time) Geamba§u rushed to the window, lifted a corner of the curtain
and peered into the darkness, but all she could descry were shadows. She said:
“Hleanda!” Veronica immediately joined her, overjoyed at this interruption to her
homework. Mr (Comrade, at the time) Geamba§u rose to his feet with a liveliness
tempered only by the danger of spilling the pumpkinseed husks. He crammed his
sheepskin cap on top of his head, slipped a pair of shoes on, treading down the heels,
and went outside, as far as the corner of the house, not daring to go right up to the gate.
He remained in the penumbra for a time. Only curiosity compelled him cautiously to
take another two or three steps. He knew that the next day he would easily discover
whatever was not visible from a distance.
Hleanda had come out with her cortege of dogs to preach the word of the Lord, as she
claimed in a voice oozing revolt. In a towelling dressing gown, whose colour remained
an enigma, tightly fastened around the waist with a length of wire, wearing padded ski-
pants and a Russian fur hat with the earflaps down, she was shouting at the top of her
voice. In one hand she was holding a plastic tube, one of those onto which thread is
wound in the textile factories. In the other hand she held a torch, whose batteries had
almost run out, to judge by the beam, which shone no further than the end of her feet. It
was hard to say whence she had procured them, but on her chest glittered dozens of
badges and medals, of the most divers shapes and colours, like baubles on a Christmas
tree. They were a most bizarre mixture: pioneer, foremost pioneer, heroine mother,
October Revolution, Union of Communist Youth, Order of Labour Class I, young

participant on the Danube-Black Sea Canal, Red Cross, trade union member, participant
at the “Daciad” festivities, and many other badges and medals wholly unknown to the
folk of Willows Street, even though some of them had engaged in serious politico-
ideological and agitation activities in the past. With her chest laden with badges and
medals, such as the folk on the street had only ever seen on television, Hleanda, like a
general, sure of herself, voice thundering, was leading an army of quadrupeds. From
time to time she trumpeted unevenly: long and low like a foghorn, shrilly like squeaking
metal, or wearily and flaccidly. When she came to the threats and curses, the chorus of
dogs would join in, with prolonged howls, as though they were being skinned alive.
“Stay in your houses and moulder, sinners, while Our Lord Jesus Christ bleeds on the
Cross…
“The time of harvest is nigh, and your branches are empty, worm-riddled. Repent, I tell
you! Cover your heads in ashes!”
(Haoo –haoooooo! Haooooooo! Haoo-haoooooooooooooooooooooooo!)
“I tell you the truth, the end of the world is closer than you think, it’s close to the
station. When it reaches our houses, there will be a gnashing of teeth!
“Beware, good people, beware today, because tomorrow it will be too late. Endure his
punishments mindfully and rejoice in them.”
(Haoo –haoooooo! Haooooooo! Haoo-haoooooooooooooooooooooooo!)
“Repent and pray, renounce wine and rotgut brandy, my neighbours, and love the son of
the people. Because writhing hunger and a crushing of bones are nigh… Our walls are
like dandelion fluff to His lips. Like a hen’s feather…
“Your money is like paper in the storm, only a good heart is as heavy as a lathe!
Consume ocean fish, brethren! And fruit jam!”
(Haoo –haoooooo! Haooooooo! Haoo-haoooooooooooooooooooooooo!)

“You are growing fat like rats in your holes, and His hands and His legs weep tears of
blood… You are twisting the nails, sinners, day after day, hour after hour, with lechery
and lies… With meat eating!
“You harness yourselves to his nails as to a winepress, to draw off the new wine!
“And your mouths reek of yeast, and your hearts stink of corpse…
“Consume ocean fish, brethren, to cleanse your sins!”
(Haoo –haoooooo! Haooooooo! Haoo-haoooooooooooooooooooooooo!)
“Oooh, Lord, I pity them, be lenient… Suffer, O Lord, their foolishness!
“Pray, good people! Our esteem and pride, Ceau§escu, Romania!
“ I see the terrible time of punishment, but how much can I weep for you? You will eat
snow! I tell you the truth: you will graze snow like lambs…
“And there will be no more snow and you will grind up bricks. With lukewarm water
strained through gauze you will wet your lips. That will be your communion, sinners!
The worms will batten on your houses. And you will fight each other for them… The
wind will blow over the foundations as through blades of grass.”
(Haoo –haoooooo! Haooooooo! Haoo-haoooooooooooooooooooooooo!)
“In flocks you will go and in house after house you will stay.
“You will drink water from pipes and you will wither away from heat and cold.
“A rain of oil will come and blacken the windows. Then a rain of water will come, a
rain of corruption!

“And hunger will be among you like a brother.”
(Haoo –haoooooo! Haooooooo! Haoo-haoooooooooooooooooooooooo!)
“I utter the truth unto you!
“In the wagons where you have left wheat, you will find sludge!
“In the wagons where you have left barley, you will find a mush reeking of brimstone!
“In the rye wagon, rabbit droppings, and in the maize wagon, rotten meat.
“Consume ocean fish, I say unto you!”
(Haoo –haoooooo! Haooooooo! Haoo-haoooooooooooooooooooooooo!)
“And disease will descend among us like a sister.
“You will laugh, you will plait her hair and you will send her to school to get A’s and
B’s. To be well behaved and obedient. And behind her, the flesh will drop from the
bone like grapes shaken from the vine, in pieces as big as fingernails.
“And fear will be amongst you like a loving father, I tell you.
“Repent, good people! Renounce rotgut brandy and wine, renounce lechery and lies,
renounce evil thoughts and go to school, learn, learn, and learn again, consume ocean
fish, long live 23 August!”
Hleanda’s hoarse voice resounded late into the night.
The next day, this was the sole topic of discussion. Once more, with compassion, the
story of her life was circulated. Old man Hrib could still recall her father, a devout and
energetic priest, who was said to have flirted with the Iron Guard. But he, old man
Hrib, could not be sure of that, because in those years they used to say that anyone who

wasn’t for the new regime had been in the Iron Guard. The only thing that was certain
was that, as he had supported the Lord’s Host movement, he had been excommunicated
by the Church and, after that, he had been imprisoned for anticommunist agitation. He
had probably died in prison. Hleanda had gone away and become a schoolteacher in a
village. Thence she returned having lost her mind, and her mother died a short time
after her return, in the house at the end of the street. She had been subdued for a time,
except that she used to talk to herself and collect plastic bags and bits of wire off the
street. It was not until recent years that she had begun to accost passers-by and talk to
them. Whether they liked it or not.
Her end was tragic. Less than two months after the nocturnal procession, Hleanda was
found mangled in the yard of her house, disfigured, in a pool of frozen blood. They had
especially attacked her face. The red paw prints of the dogs stained the snow as far as
the street. The body was taken away by the militia, and the dogs were rounded up by
the dogcatchers. Investigations were summary. No one could establish what had
occurred between her and the dogs she had protected. Spring found the house deserted,
ready to crash down upon the iron pot of boiled maize kernels.
The bulldozers never reached Willows Street, and upon the rubble pit nettles, burdock
and pigweed sprouted. From time to time, someone from the street would rummage
after a brick or bit of iron to patch up something around the house. The children played
hide-and-seek there. That was until after the Revolution, when the land was bought
from the council under rather murky circumstances. It was thus that the Colonel’s
house appeared.
Except that he knew nothing about the history of that plot of land, and from one day to
the next the longer-standing residents of the street, smiling complicitly among
themselves, waited for the first cracks to appear in the walls of the “castle”.
That was their little revenge.
World rights represented by Residenz Verlag, St. Pölten, www.residenzverlag.at
© 2004 by Ed. Polirom, Iaşi