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

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.