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

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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
Page 1 and 2: Chapter 1 In which Mrs Milica gains
Page 3 and 4: all those things in the house she h
Page 5 and 6: if you’re not, all kinds of other
Page 7 and 8: in the third place, when you are in
Page 9 and 10: one was taking any notice of her. T
Page 11 and 12: Chapter 2 In which Mitu tells the s
Page 13 and 14: potatoes as big as coconuts and soy
Page 15 and 16: slyly. “Wait here, I’ll go and
Page 17: you got milk for the children?” I
Page 21 and 22: Chapter 3 In which most of the inha
Page 23 and 24: Just after the elections in ’92,
Page 25 and 26: making a show of their perspicacity
Page 27 and 28: ointment, the target was the advers
Page 29 and 30: Milica herself regretted giving the
Page 31 and 32: The news fell like a shower of fish
Page 33 and 34: At dawn, a wholly alien rumbling sh
Page 35 and 36: Then the dogs appeared. Dogs of all
Page 37 and 38: In the Geamba§u family home, Mr (C
Page 39 and 40: participant on the Danube-Black Sea
Page 41 and 42: “And hunger will be among you lik

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

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