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

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