Professional Documents
Culture Documents
POVOD
Road to Siberia
novel
Bucharest
2004
www.darisbasarab.com
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tents for shelter, for rest, if there was any time left for something like
that. Skilled Lipovens organized fishing trips and assured the quality of
the fish dishes: ‘uha’, ‘rasol’, fried or grilled fish. What knowledge in
choosing the kind of fish necessary for a proper uha! The unmistakable
flavor of garlic called for the opening of the bottles of wine. But not
any wine!
Although the Stavrovs had a magnificent vineyard, situated on a
ravine of the Danube, some 10 kilometers east of Ismail, they, as well
as the Alexandrovs, our inseparable friends, preferred the wines of
Tulcheanov, a renowned vineyard owner and also the owner of cellars
with endless galleries, placed somewhere at the northern end of the
town. Before holidays, the three family heads, wine tasting masters,
took a carriage and wandered through the most well known wine
cellars, even though, from the very beginning, they knew they will
eventually end up at the same person, the unmatched Tulcheanov.
Because the wines were natural, and the three musketeers didn’t drink
strong alcohol, they could afford to turn these small escapades of
reconnaissance in veritable parties, prelude to what was going to
happen on the Danube bank, or in turn, at each other’s house.
The home – made parties were usually organized at holidays like
Easter, Christmas or New Year’s Eve and lasted for three days and
three nights. They usually started at the Stavrovs, continued at us, and
in the third day, everybody moved at the Alexandrovs. This order was
not random. A tall, protective fence was hiding a garden full of vine,
flowers and fruit trees, which were in turn hiding a large low house, as
well as the specific annexes of a winegrower household. Natural arbors
invited the guests not to lose time and honor the appetizers sprinkled
with wine, a white wine, rather sour, just good, as the host said, to
provoke hunger. Even if Alexandrov didn’t take to this sort of wines,
he respectfully honored the host, leaving his unfailing jokes for desert.
Once this phase was cleared, the spectacle of waste began in a haste
flattering for the hostess. What could this sort of gatherings lack?!
Today, something like that would be qualified as defiance. But in the
Basarabia of those days it was something natural! People were
speaking in a brotherly Russian – Romanian mixture, without reserves,
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There were also the trips in the Delta, by ferry to Vilcov, the
passing of the Danube at Periprava, renting rooms from Lipovens and
going by boat to the hearth of the Delta, towards “Merheiu Mare” and
“Merheiu Mic”, wonderful natural lakes, paradise to birds and
fishermen alike. Pelican colonies, numbering hundreds of specimens,
offered nature lovers a daily spectacle of feast, at seven in the morning.
Emerging from their reed hideouts, pelicans gathered in the middle of
the lakes, in a compact mass, resembling from the distance a floral
arrangement of white water lilies. Approaching this feast imperceptibly
was a problem that even experimented Lipoven fishermen solved with
difficulty. The boats were silently snuck in the area, through the reed,
toward the bank of the lake. Every noise could alert the colony and
compromise the attempt to closely observe the pelicans. Very skillfully,
in a trip of this kind, the three boats managed to come 25-30 meters
close. The emotion was building up, especially for the children. The
huge white flower, with red reflections, was waving in the morning
breeze. In fact, the movement was the result of the plunging of beaks in
the water, in a rhythm worthy of a ritual. Suddenly we all screamed in
terror! The boatmen, at a sign known only by them, shouted long cries
and began to virtuously row, in the direction of the pelicans. It was an
extraordinary spectacle! The amazed pelicans began to fly all at once,
spreading their wings of an unthinkable span. The noise of the wings,
the inimitable sounds, and the show in mid air offered by these
wonders of nature in their way toward a hiding place, filled my
childhood days with unforgettable memories.
And this was not all. There were also the summer holidays spent
at my father’s parents, at Nea Stefan ‘Nemtzeanu’, nicknamed because
of his origin from Piatra Neamtz, the son of a colonist from the part of
Moldavia on the other side of the Prut, at the Tsar’s calls and promises.
They were tempted by a better life, by a few privileges, and brought
with them, a thing that the almighty rulers of Basarabia failed to
consider, their Romanian soul, and thus the affiliation to a proud and
brave nation, but harshly affected by the injustices of history. These
Moldavian colonists came without fear, because they knew they would
still be living in Moldavia, in the old and proud Moldavia, in the
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wonderful perimeter between the Prut and the Nistru, populated and
organized from its early beginnings by the builders of the Romanian
nation. They were coming home, maybe with the hope that someday
the justice of history will put things on the right path.
He was a good man, this grandfather of mine. Hardworking,
helpful, loved in this village which struggled not to be surpassed by
Shaba, Leipzig, Tarutino or Paris, villages founded by Swiss, German
and French colonists. He quickly became the mayor of the community,
which proved to cost him, later, when Basarabia was occupied by the
soviets. He gathered through his family’s work – he had nine children –
enough land to give each one six hectares, and still keep about fifty for
himself and grandmother. Holidays at the countryside, at the
grandparents, were for me indescribable. Even now, when I peacefully
skim through my memory, I find it hard to describe those wonderful
days.
A neat stable, where only horses bought from the colonists of
Shaba were allowed. Three of my father’s brothers built beautiful
households and although they were each settled at their house, they
worked together with my grandfather. It was more useful. The arrival
of ‘the townsmen’ in the summer holidays was an event treated with
the utmost attention. We were spoilt. I felt like home. I was always near
the horses; I woke up early in the morning in order to go by cart to the
field. I struggled there, I ate there and it was there that I fell asleep with
tiredness. In the evening, on top of the cart, which was full with freshly
mowed hay, I was holding the bridles and the riding rod, which I had
learnt to lash in the air. Beside me rested Azor, a faithful five or six-
year-old shepherd dog, who probably felt that, at Ismail, his brother
Corb was my best friend. Grandmother was always waiting for us with
the table set, and to make my will, she made cheese-dumplings
drowned in cream every evening.
I spent part of these holidays at my father’s sister, who was living
with her family in the small resort of Tuzla, where we usually walked
to Burgaz, or even to Budaki, where the large beaches offered excellent
conditions for sunbaths, swimming in the sea and especially for
children’s games. We often met there with other relatives, who were
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1 uncle
2 sound of vesper
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like us!? The only thing that struck you when you
approached them was the strong soldierly smell,
probably due to the horrible mahorca2 they were
smoking from cigarettes made on the spot, from
newspapers, and not to a negligible degree, to alcohol.
Everyone was consternated, scared at the thought of
tomorrow, at the hardly whispered phrase – pohod na
Sibiri3!
Practically, the Romanian administration took no
measures whatsoever for the eventual evacuation of the
population. Only the elite could leave. Panic reigned in
villages among the more well-off peasants; it also
reigned in cities, among intellectuals in general and also
among ex white officers, escaped form the wrath of the
Bolshevik revolution. The unconcealed fear of the
parents passed on to the children. They were looking at
their uncertain parents, failing however to understand
the seriousness of the situation. People were gathering
in a conspiratorial manner, trying to foresee the possible
consequences of the abandonment act of the Romanian
government.
- Daniil Stepanich, this won’t last, it can’t last. The
treason of those from Bucharest will be repaired by
Germany! The agreement between the Germans and the
Soviets has no value. It is part of Hitler’s strategy.
Germany has an army capable of subduing the whole
world. Anyhow, they can’t rely on ex Russian officers
from the Tsar’s army, capable of organizing the
population. No, it won’t last!
- Alexandr Alexandrovich, I’m afraid that until the
Germans wake up and attack the Soviets, there won’t be
any ex officers, intellectuals, bourgeois. And the Tsar
hoped for help from the West, and look where his trust in
the so-called allies brought him, not to mention the
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content with saying prayers and thanking God that, this time, the
tragedy avoided them.
The procedure was simple. The visited ones were let to take
things of strict necessity and, invited in vans with no windows, were
sent to exile, or death. It was never known for sure what happened to
these unfortunate people, whose sole guilt was that they owned
pleasant houses. It was the first population transplant process,
russianisation of the newly occupied territories, without any
opposition. In those moments, basarabians, regardless the nationality,
asked themselves: how was that possible?! A simple ultimatum and
Great Romania pointed its eyes down, forgetting the wonderful
writings about Basarabia of people like Ion Nistor or Nicolae Iorga,
forgetting the oaths made in 1918, at the Grand Unification. And there
was something else far from understandable. The passive attitude of
Germany in contradiction with the promises made to Romania by
Hitler! The puzzled people wondered: would it have been possible that
a secret agreement between Stalin and Hitler existed in the non-
aggression pact signed in 1939? Non-aggression with aggressive
consequences? What would come next? Nothing! Said the most,
resigned and disappointed.
- What do you think, Daniil Stepanich? I am Russian and there
are many others like me. But you, Moldavian Romanians, why have
you been betrayed? Romania is a kingdom, Romania wanted to be big,
how come their Majesties failed to realize what it means to surrender
without a fire, without a sacrifice, territories from the body of the
country? And to whom? To the bolsheviks! But this is only the first
step! In a few days, they will be walking through Bucharest, Sofia,
Prague or Warsaw. Who hasn’t dealt with them can’t understand the
danger represented by communism. I am a professional soldier, I have
been in the Tsarist Military Academy, I stopped the fight only when
everything was ruined and I came here with confidence. I have learnt
Romanian, I have learnt to love Romania. What awaits me? A bullet in
the back of my head or a ticket to Siberia. These are your words. If I
hadn’t had a family, I would have known what to do. I would have died
taking a few bezbojnics2 with me. But like this? I have to stand with
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my arms crossed and pray. Their first weapon against us are families!
Poor Dusia, she is worried for me, not for what awaits her!
- My dear, everything you say is true. I have probably never felt
more Romanian in my life and maybe that is why I feel so disappointed
now. My folks came to Basarabia at the call of Alexander the First, I
was born here, I have learnt here, I have founded a family. In 1918 I
was happy that Basarabia was once again, after such a long time, a part
of Romania. My children have grown up and have been taught under
Romanians. Leolea speaks Romanian as if she had been schooled in
Romania. I have relatives on the other side of the Prut. And now? It all
went to waste. One thing I am sure of, these wretched bolsheviks won’t
be taking root around here. The pact with Germany is a hoax. The
Soviets have no army, all they have is a band of infamous anarchists.
Without discipline there is no army! How to fight the Germans? First
of all, they have no officers! Not to mention the armament! You can’t
fight with cavalry and infantry any more. The Russian army fought
with the cross in front of them. Now, what to put beside the flag? The
hammer and sickle?! No, without faith, you cannot attack, nor can you
defend! Our misfortune is that if the Germans are a little late, they
won’t find anyone to set free. Let’s see what Carol is going to do. He is
said to have agreed with Hitler for Basarabia. Unfortunately, things
aren’t too clear in Romania either. Yes, we will certainly be sacrificed,
but our children, those who will escape, will witness the Bolshevik
collapse. I don’t know whether they will find out that I have been a
second lieutenant in the Tsarist army, but I hope this is not going to
happen. I have had enough ‘serving’ the popes, how they like to call
themselves. In your case, things are more complicated. You have
fought against the revolution, you have been wounded, you have
received the Saint George’s order from the Tsar himself. Maybe it
would be better if you left somewhere in the countryside, maybe you
could hide there. How about going to my folks, at Sararia?
- You can’t run away from fate, and besides, you are forgetting
that Nea Stefan owns some land, that he will be declared a kulak
because he has been mayor for so many years? Don’t you know what
they have done in Russia? Maybe it would be better if he came here!?
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young; you have a child to raise, yes, yes! … a child! You will have to
give some declarations. Why haven’t you announced us that the bishop
visited you before he left? You knew that this meant treason, that you
couldn’t hide something like this! You will have to write what you
talked about, what decisions you made. Who else is involved in these
subversive actions. Did you know that the bishop managed to reach
Romania? Yes, he fooled us all! What other connections do you have
with him? Everything, absolutely everything! You are liable of high
treason! And this is serious, very serious! Sergey, take them to the
comrade Shevchenko, he knows what he has to do.
The dread in the eyes of the two accused of ‘high treason’
explained their incapacity to react in any way to the aberrant
accusations they were brought. Their beautiful faces metamorphosed. A
profound exhaustion wrinkled their faces. With their shoulders down,
without looking at each other, holding hands tightly, following on the
footsteps of Sergey, they descended the stairs stumbling, on the way to
the inquiry hall.
- Did comrade commander tell you what you have to do? I say we
don’t drawl this. You will write everything you know about the
demonstration at the cemetery, about the bishop’s run, about the other
two priests who served at the cemetery, about all you plotted. Don’t
omit anything! It is useless! We know everything, absolutely
everything! It would be better if we cooperated. This is about state
security. Aliosha, bring two chairs here, in front of me.
- Wait a minute, I don’t understand why you have arrested my
wife?! She wasn’t at the cemetery, in fact, nothing dangerous to the
soviet order happened there. Just that the bell-ringer, a simple, kind
man, was much loved and the people gathered there without being
called. They came to say goodbye, because that is the way we do
around here! About the bishop’s ‘run’ I know absolutely nothing. I
haven’t seen him since the event at Sobor. He hasn’t been at our house,
neither him nor anybody else. Please let her go home. My little girl and
my mother must be very worried. It is the middle of the night!
- I see you do not intend to collaborate. Do you think we are that
stupid? Do you think that if you deny everything, you will be better
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off? Know that you will not leave unless you write all the truth! And
your wife must do the same. When the state security is at stake, we are
not impressed by family tears. Who makes a mistake, must pay!
- But for the love of God, we haven’t done anything; I don’t feel
guilty with anything. This is probably someone’s revenge! Or maybe it
is a set-up?! What good is that to you?
- Enough! You have crossed the line! This is ridiculous! To
accuse me of setting you up. I am forced to change my approach. In
fact, I do not have a lot of time to lose. If we can’t do it this way, we’ll
do it the right way! Boys, move on to bodily search! Here, in front of
me. Enough with the jokes. Please undress, put you clothes down, take
everything off.
- How can you make a woman undress here?! Do you want to
terrorize us? Please call the commander!
- This is a good one! Do you think we have never seen a naked
woman? Or are you ashamed of each other? What commander
comrade?! Here, in this investigation, I am the commander and I am
responsible for what I am doing. Come on boys, don’t be shy!
The two hulks approached the victims, forcing them to stand
straight – him toward the armed armchair, her toward the sofa
decorated with cuffs and belts.
- Come on, take your clothes off!
The priest stood shocked, looking at Silvia, who under the
supervision of the other, dropped the bathrobe in which she was
brought. He shouted like a beast and tried to escape his guard, but
under the blow of a well placed punch in the plexus, collapsed
whimpering. Aliosha, proud of the hit applied, leaned down at the
victim grinning and with a few skilled moves, left father Voda stark
naked. He pushed him in the armchair of torture, fixing his arms and
legs in the cuffs designed for immobilization. After that he fixed his
neck in the belt mounted on the back of the armchair.
- God what have we done wrong?! Please save Silvia from these
barbarians!
- Silvia’s guard, Volodea, couldn’t look away from the beautiful
chest, left naked and powerless. Silvia didn’t dare to open here eyes.
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She knew she wouldn’t survive the humiliation. She was immaculate,
but she couldn’t get over such moments, devoid of humaneness.
- Hey, what are you waiting for? Take off your underpants and get
on the sofa, with your face up. You don’t want to? Fine, let me help
you!
- No, don’t touch me! Son of a bitch.
- With a sudden gesture, she tore up her underpants and tried to
get on the sofa. A tall sofa, like an surgery table. She didn’t manage
and she fell off. When she woke up, she felt pain in her wrists and
ankles. She had been lifted by Volodea and cuffed. She looked toward
the investigator’s office and saw her husband, naked, fixed in the
armchair. She was having the impression it was a nightmare she
couldn’t wake up from. She tried to move and she bit her lips until
blood dripped out. Uselessly, the reality appeared even more terrifying.
- What do you want from us? Say it and we will comply, just
don’t mock us anymore. You are humans, not animals, aren’t you?! You
have a family too. Oh God, I curse you!
- Hey, father, have you changed your mind? Do you want to
confess everything, on paper? What’s the use of forcing us into doing
something we don’t like. What, at least, I don’t like! With the boys it’s
a different thing! They are young, fanatics in their love for the country
and they are capable of doing anything when they are faced with
enemies of the people. What do you say, will you come at the desk and
write? Your wife should be here.
- I have nothing to write, I want to see the commander! You are a
criminal. And if I will write what you want, we will never get out of
here alive. May God punish you, you and your families!
- Fineee! Boys, take care of comrade priest’s wife. Come on,
who’s first? You start, Aliosha!
Aliosha, a bastard specially educated for something like this,
child of a deported family raised in the nurseries of the ministry,
leisurely opened his fly and getting on the sofa, threw himself over the
beautiful body, tense from fear, forcing penetration. A whimper came
from the direction of the armchair.
- God, I curse you!
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The brute acted at his actual brute level. Clamping the breasts
until they turned purple, biting them alternatively, in a maniac rhythm,
forcing penetrations with a diabolical satisfaction, threw desperate
looks at the raped, waiting for the signs so specific to the final point.
He was a virile animal, tough, self-confident, and when, after 20
minutes, he collapsed flat out over the body of the ravished woman, he
shouted: Whore, you are good for nothing!
- Come on, let Volodea, he is more affectionate. Come Volodea,
make her remember you!
The captain stood up, opened a drawer, took out a glove, put it on
his right hand and came near the armchair. What do you say, father?
Does she act like this with you too? Doesn’t she struggle in pleasure? If
not even Aliosha, our stud, hasn’t done it the right way, then I think no
one else can. Or maybe you, father? Maybe you know her secrets!?
What do you say, are you going to perform her number? Tell me and
we’ll move you there.
- You bastard, if you untie me, you will die of my hand.
- Alas! What a man! Let’s see how you react with you manhood!
Shevchenko pushed his gloved hand toward the cuffed body of the
priest and began a diabolical game, clamping and rubbing the testicles
of the victim. He clenched his teeth in pain and, to stifle the cry the
torturer was expecting, bit his tongue to the blood. The blood sprang
sprinkling the colonel’s well ironed rubashka, dripped along the chin,
then, in a thin stream, went down the chest. Furious, the captain
clamped ceaselessly until the body relaxed in a faint.
Meanwhile, the other animal started to instigate the human being
which was hiding in the body of the ravished woman. ‘Tender’ caresses
of the breasts, hardly perceptible kisses of the nipples, caresses of the
thighs, all with the patience of an expert. The brute had another way of
expressing his animality. He was a sentimentalist, as the captain said.
Well-built, he was successful with women and thought he was without
match. Also raised in an orphanage, Volodea was pleased when, in an
investigation, he was put to ‘play’ with a woman, especially if she was
attractive. When he sometimes managed to ‘invent’ a new piece and
received the applause of the boss, his eyes glittered with pride. Being
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able to have fun for free even during work hours! However, his
confidence was put to the test. This young and beautiful woman
remained insensitive at his ‘gentleness’ and that after she had also
remained cold at the stud Aliosha, whose endurance had become
proverbial. He had a little change of tactics, and taking his pants off,
lying himself over the rock still woman, trying more emphasized
kisses, more insistent strokes, simulations of penetration. Feeling he
was turned on too fast, and fearing a failure, he penetrated carefully
and applied the tactics of smooth movements, rare and profound.
Savoring the tenderness of the breasts with his lips, Volodea felt that
something was changing in the woman’s behavior. Her chest began to
quiver, the whole body began to strain, smooth movements of the
abdomen started to rouse him, to provoke him. He quickened the
rhythm of the penetrations, he sucked the nipple of the breast with
delight, without causing it any harm, he raised the pressure in
penetration and, to his great satisfaction, he heard the first suppressed
whines, which rhythmically accompanied his penetration movements.
When the woman’s body started to involuntarily struggle, as a reaction
to the laws of nature, Volodea accelerated his motions, bit the breast
with more liveliness, moved to the mouth of the victim and with a
possessive kiss, entered the phase of the man’s satisfaction. The
woman had been tamed.
Roused by the scene he was excitedly watching, the captain
approached the sofa and smacked Volodea’s naked butt, to the delight,
but also envy of Aliosha. The shock produced by the slap quenched
Volodea’s male upsurge right away and he collapsed softly, but
proudly, on Silvia’s still throbbing body.
Well done, Volodea! You really are a champion! I think you have
put His Holiness’ nose out of joint! Does he really know what a
treasure of a wife he has? I would be surprised. Just look at him! Lying
in the armchair, giving no sign of life. Good, I think now we are going
to get our declarations. If not, we will prepare them a special number.
What do you say, father, have we convinced you? You don’t want to
talk? You don’t have to, all you have to do is write and sign; and after
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that you will definitely have to shut up. You know what would happen
if you spoke? A second round will follow and your daughter will assist.
- You bastard! I would kill my child with my own hands just not
to take part to what we had.
- Fine, if it’s a ball, let the ball begin! Bring comrade Silvia. She
has come to cooperate, hasn’t she Volodea?
- And how! I’ve never seen such a woman!
- Here’s what you have to do to convince your stubborn husband.
At least you had a pleasant experience. He is like a mule! Bend down
and kiss his dick until it comes to life. He is entitled to a little
entertainment, especially after he has seen you moaning with pleasure.
What, you don’t want to?! Haven’t you heard what’s waiting for you if
you annoy me? Do you want your little girl to assist at the parents’
debauchery? Come on, leave the trifles. As so you don’t get bored,
because it might last, Volodea will do you, as they say, from behind.
Come on, bend over and begin! If you are lucky to finish him, you will
be free, and maybe we can pass on to the declarations and go to bed.
Thinking about what had happened, humiliated that she gave in,
making the rape a blind submission to pleasure, with tears in her eyes,
she bent toward the abdomen of her beloved man and with blundering
movements, tried to comply to that psychopath, who had the life of her
daughter in his hands. Meanwhile, Volodea grabbed the woman’s
thighs between his sinewy arms, penetrated her with violence and
continued his job, this time at a livelier pace. Silvia’s healthy body
reacted softly, the straining of the muscles became more intense and to
the despair of her helpless husband, rhythmic moans seemed to
accompany the swings of that infamous athlete. Heavy tears trickled on
the poor priest’s cheek. He knew he couldn’t face his daughter, nor his
wife, or the parishioners. The thought of the only solution, suicide,
crossed his mind for a moment.
Delighted by the scene unfolding before him, the captain
approached to see the results of his improvisation. The reaction of the
priest was void. Disappointed, he turned his armchair, called Aliosha
and unzipping his fly, he brought the Silvia-Volodea couple for a
complete demonstration. Barely standing on her feet, Silvia bent over
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Aliosha, lied down of the boss’ armchair, leaving her body without any
opposition in the hands of Volodea. Because Aliosha’s reaction was
prompt, with her mouth full of sperm, still shaken by the unrestrained
pleasures of her young and healthy body, she straightened, spit the
captain right in his face and collapsed. She woke up on the sofa, fixed
in cuffs. She looked toward the captain’s desk and saw her husband
writing.
- What are you doing there? What are you writing? It’s no use; we
have no right to live!
- No Silvia, our child has done nothing wrong! If I don’t write,
others will. How many would resist to what has happened? I want us to
live, to go somewhere with our daughter and try to forget everything
for her sake. Let me write! Don’t discourage me!
- Very well father, very well. In half an hour we’ll take you home.
Everything is forgotten. We should have avoided everything that has
happened, but you didn’t listen to me. And besides, nothing too serious
has happened. The world is made up of men and women and in the
relations between them; no one knows what is good or bad! It was just
an additional experience. The ugly side of things should be forgotten;
otherwise the consequences can be grave. What happens between the
walls of a state security institution is a state secret! We don’t tell
anyone. Hurry up! Soon, it will be dawn, and we will have to keep you
until it gets dark again. That was exactly what happened.
The declaration advanced slowly, the statements dictated
regarding the involvement of other individuals hindered even the wish
to escape from hell. It was concluded that before the ‘run’, the bishop
and the other two priests who officiated the funeral service of the bell-
ringer were in their house, where they discussed the bishop’s planned
run, the founding of an anticommunist propaganda network,
subordinate to a religious organization from Romania. The declaration
ended with a firm commitment from the part of the signer – I will
communicate in writing any information I obtain regarding the
population’s attitude toward the soviet power and I will divulge the
name of those involved in actions of undermining state security. The
pact with the devil had been made. The price of silence was the child.
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a lesson. No, I didn’t do it, I struggled in pleasure. No, with you it has
never been this way!? Why? What if I get pregnant? What will we do?
I think we will never be able to make love again, maybe not even sleep
together. What are we going to say home?
- My dear, don’t think about what happened, we have to carry a
heavy cross, too heavy for us! You know that I cursed God? I did it and
I feel no regret. What kind of God destroys a family, destroys a servant
of the church? How will I get back to church and become an informer?!
Confess people in order to inform the commander!? No my dear, we
have to run somewhere, somehow! Where? I don’t know. I’ve written
so many lies today, that I’m not going to be able repent all my sins in a
lifetime. Come and lie on the bench. Put your head here and close your
eyes.
- Lie down and rest my head? … No, no! I can’t stand a man next
to me. I’ve had enough! Pain and pleasure!
- Silvia, don’t talk. Let me wet your forehead, the water is cold.
Lie on the bench. I will sit down, lean against the wall.
- How to lie down? Do you want them to tie me up again? No, I
don’t want anymore men! Why didn’t the captain himself love me?
What, am I not beautiful enough for an officer?! Yes, I don’t
understand! What an arrogant man!
- God, stop with the trials! Look what you have done to her! I’ve
served you with love and look where I am now! If you do exist, make
her forget! If not, take her with you!
A sobbing cry gushed out from the chest of the one who didn’t
have the power to see Silvia transformed into a ruin. The day went by
slowly, without anyone opening the door. Nestled in a corner of the
room, with her bathrobe undone, Silvia was caressing her breasts in a
monotonous metronome rhythm. Overwhelmed at the sight of the
scene, without having any notion over the amount of time passed, the
one who had been the kind, beautiful father Paul Voda, went toward the
door and started to knock with his fists. Not receiving any sign from
the other side, he grabbed the bench and with desperate efforts, he hit
the door with this assault ram. After a few successive blows, the door
opened and Sergey entered threateningly with a pistol in his hand.
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1 functionaries
2 atheists
3 local council
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worried him the most. None of the investigated shared the experience
‘gained’ during the visits made at the Consistory. The hospitalization of
father Voda’s wife in the nervous diseases department of the Ismail
hospital raised questions, raised the curiosity of close acquaintances.
The priest’s appearance, once so neat and cheerful, gave birth to all
sorts of speculations. The most extraordinary of rumors spoke of the
misunderstandings arisen in the parochial couple, the family scandals,
jealousy scenes, provoked by the priestess’ behavior.
- Leolea, I don’t know what to think about Paul and Silvia. The
things said about them, especially about her, are absurd. I have never
known a more suitable couple, more balanced, happier. Silvia accused
of infidelity and in such a vulgar manner! Who in God’s name could
have released such rumors? We have come to talk about this at the
office, where the boss encourages all these gossips. Yesterday, I went to
the church to see Paul with my own eyes. He looked terrible! With
tears in his eyes, he told me that Silvia suddenly became ill with
nerves, without any more comments!? When we parted he added in a
low voice: what they have done to our Consistory! I understood he was
there, and maybe Silvia too! God, what is awaits us?!
- Dania, with these devils you can expect anything. Alexandrov
passed by. He was rather gloomy. At the selection of calligraphers he
was assigned watchman of a warehouse which is opening tomorrow at
the Saint Nicholas’ Church! The antichrists! To make the church a
warehouse! What will become of us, of our children? And Mircea, I
have barely convinced him to throw the portrait of Hitler. He told me
that he could cross the Danube swimming, that there are places where
the watch is easy to fool!? You have to talk to him! He wants to hide
with Iuri at their vineyard and wait for a dark night. We must talk to the
Stavrovs. This is madness. We will all pay for this foolishness.
- This boy is crazy! He has always caused me restlessness. Who
does he resemble?! If these bastards catch him, he is lost, and with him
so are we. Today I’ve transformed another ten Romanian names in
Russian names. What is incomprehensible is that the people don’t react
in any way. Scared, they take the new papers and murmur thank you.
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The news that his masters had lost everything, that they would be
staying at the vineyard until the kolkhoz was organized, confused the
poor man, who refused to understand anything.
- Vasiliy we’ve become poor! You are going to have to look for
work elsewhere, you know, we can’t pay you anymore and we don’t
need to keep anyone here anymore. This is the order!? One day they
will send us away from here too. In the tower there will be a soldier, a
frontier guard. I don’t know what else to say!? I think it is better you
go to the village, to the fishermen. They are going to make a
cooperative with the fishermen, there is going to be work fishing, at the
cherhana1. My dear, everything has changed, there is nothing more we
can do.
- Master, what the heck are these Bolsheviks? I’ve heard they
don’t believe in God and they close down the churches!? Well, isn’t
God going to punish them? He is going to curse them; he is going to
curse them! I’m not leaving. I don’t need payment. I’ll work the
vineyard, I’ll fish, we’ll sell some fish for bread, all will be fine!
Where will I go?
- No, Vasiliy, you can’t stay! They will arrest you and us. In town,
bad things are happening. The bishop has disappeared; the Sobor bell-
ringer has been killed. Yes, yes, bad things are happening! Who can,
should run across the Danube. There isn’t going to be a revolution
there! No, my dear, you must leave tomorrow. And don’t tell anyone
about this! Tell them you got angry and you left!
It was hard to explain to a simple man, happy with the life he was
living, things hard to understand. Slowly, rumors about what the
Bolsheviks did after the revolution with officers, with church people,
with intellectuals, with peasants, started to come to shape, to come to
life. Fear was the element which had to be planted in the people and the
new rulers knew how to do it. Fear made people obedient, fear made
people learn to hide their true feelings, to hide the hate. Yes, the hate!
Because the vast majority of the population, regardless the occupation,
the qualification, the nationality, united in silence through hate. The
ethnical solidarity had been once again present in this wonderful
‘Lower Basarabia’. The hope that, in need, the Danube will facilitate
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lipoven, the fisherman can only live on the bank of a true river, facing
the silence and the storm, staring lustily at the sunrise and sunset, from
somewhere far, in the middle of the water. Those who died didn’t die of
hard work, cold, or hunger, they died of longing and the fear that they
would never return to their houses, to the lotca.
Things like these were also in Vasiliy’s heart, saying goodbye
from his masters, he didn’t depart on the country road which connected
the vineyards to the villages and town, but descended the ravine and
went down the narrow beach, which stretched 5-6 meters from the edge
of the ravine, as not to see the vineyard anymore, but to be guided by
the calm water, in the direction of the rising sun. And he was gone!
When his body was fished near the cherhana, still intact, no one could
understand how a vigorous man, healthy, capable of swimming across
the Danube could have drowned. He took this secret with him to the
grave. Did he want to die? Maybe! If so, then he had chosen the only
tomb he could have wished for, the water of the Danube, on the one
way road to the sea. The people understood this and respected him.
They threw his body with a boulder tied to his legs, with a small
wooden cross in his hand. He had to remain buried under the waters.
1 fishery
2 mother
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Sobor in Ismail, that he settled in his own house, together with Ileana, a
girl also from Tighina, daughter of a priest. He was troubled by the
thought of what would become of this youth, what would become of
the priest class, what would become of the church, worries and
questions without answer. The last news, that the Saint Nicholas’
church had been closed and transformed into a warehouse for
construction materials, made him angry. Suddenly, he contracted,
grabbed the bench with his hands and whispered imperceptibly – my
heart.
- What’s wrong, father Nicolov? Stay calm, I’ll lay something
down.
The young Ilashcu quickly took off his frock and laid it down, he
then grabbed him with his powerful arms and put him down, tipping
the bench over noisily.
- Lie down, be calm and don’t speak.
- In my right pocket I have some pills. Put one in my mouth,
please. Don’t worry, it’s my heart, it’s the lack of air.
Ilashcu rummaged in the pocket of the frock, untied the little box
of pills with shaking hands and put a pill on Nicolov’s purple lips. He
grasped the pill with his lips and moved it under his tongue, remaining
calm after that. After about 2 – 3 minutes, he smiled to his young
colleague and rose on his elbows.
- There, it passed. Help me on the bench. Look what I’ve done to
the frock. It got all dirty. Thank you a lot! I usually manage myself.
There doesn’t seem to be enough air here!
- I’m going to knock at the door, tell them to get us out of here.
- No, no, you mustn’t! Let’s not irritate them too much. They will
have to come to bring us to questioning. Let’s wait a little more.
The waiting lasted for about two hours, when the door opened
and Sergey appeared.
- Comrade Nicolov, let’s go to comrade captain. You will be
staying here a little longer. Let’s go!
The climbing of the stairs brought about a wave of sweat. A cold
thread streamed down his spine and a feeling of exhaustion engulfed
him. He leaned against the wall for a moment, then quickened up his
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of the bell-ringer’s funeral, who else was present beside priest Ilashcu,
what else was plotted and who is your connection with Romania. This
is going to be an acknowledgement of your guilt and it is going to
weigh a lot at your trial. There’s no sense in being a hero. You would
be a simple political convict and nothing more. Come on, be
understanding and let’s get to work. Be sure that Ilashcu will admit, he
will understand we have problems.
- Your evidence has no value. If you did obtain some declarations
from father Voda, I’m sure you got them using force or intimidation.
Since I haven’t been at the Voda family, it is clear that all this is an
ordinary set-up. If you want to destroy the priest class, do it directly, in
the name of the communist ideology, of the false freedom of faith.
There is no need for a trial, for a show! This way, you will only
manage to dirty your hands, to bring about the hatred of the population.
Both father Voda and father Ilashcu are innocent, and if you will try
them and convict them, you will be committing an ordinary crime.
Both Voda and Ilashcu are remarkably gifted young men. Don’t destroy
them, win their trust. Here, in Basarabia, without the faith in God, you
will never win the people!
- You really charmed me! I can’t believe I’ve wasted so much
time listening to this cheap sermon! Sergey! … Take the comrade away
and come with Ilashcu. We have to hurry.
Back in the waiting room, father Nicolov threw his companion in
suffering a meaningful look, then, without saying a word, he sat down
on the bench, he leaned his elbows on his knees and covered his face
with his hands.
- Come, comrade Ilashcu, comrade captain is waiting for you!
When he entered the investigation room, the young Ilashcu’s eyes
passed over the armchair, the sofa and the table with instruments. He
smiled ironically and addressed the captain.
- This is like the Dark Ages! Are all these things really necessary?
- Don’t worry; this is not about intimidation, or anything else.
Sometimes we are forced to act in ways we don’t like, but in our job
we come across all sorts of individuals, traitors and even criminals,
who don’t understand they should cooperate and try to take it to the
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bitter end. We can’t joke with state security. I like the fact that you are
self-confident. But I would also like to believe that you are a rational
man and that you know how to lose as well. Too bad that at such an
early age you were involved in such a dirty matter, dragged, probably
through lies, by some irresponsible people, like the bishop, or priest
Nicolov. Moreover, the bishop has abandoned you, and what else can I
say about Nicolov. He is the most obvious representative of the old
tsarist order, he is a white in the full meaning of the word. They
dragged you in a serious matter – assault upon state security!
- Let’s make ourselves clear, please! First of all, I want to know
what I am accused of. I can assure you from the very beginning that I
am not guilty with absolutely anything. What assault are you talking
about?
- I would also like to tell you, from the very beginning, that we
are acquainted to everything that has happened, and regarding your
involvement, we even have the declaration of those who plotted with
you.
- Stop it please, with the empty talk! What assault, what plot?!
- You are trying to play it hard. If you will persist in denying
everything, we will confront you with Voda, Nicolov and others.
Unfortunately, we can’t put you face to face with the bishop. He fooled
us all! Maybe you can also tell us something about this mysterious run.
Be more cooperative, it is in the interest of both yourself and your
family.
- I too await the confrontation, Sir captain!
- Don’t call me sir, we are not in Romania!
- You should know that if I call you Sir, it means that I respect
you! Here, this appellative doesn’t mean something pejorative, it
doesn’t mean bourgeois, nor kulak, it is a way of addressing which
implies respect!
- You should get accustomed to our way of respect. As far as the
confrontation is concerned, the time will come! Until then, I need a
declaration in which you will refer concretely, I said concretely, to the
meeting at Voda’s, to the preparation of the demonstration from the
cemetery, to the bishop’s run, to your man in Romania. I want precise
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Aliosha lit the primus and passed the letcon through the flame.
He brought it near his cheek, and feeling its warmth, did the spitting
test. A light sizzle convinced him everything was in order. Pleased, he
passed the letcon to the captain, who took it smiling with satisfaction.
- You still have time to change your mind, father.
- You are not a man, you villain. Only eunuchs resort to this kind
of pleasures.
Shevchenko approached the victim and passed the letcon along
the spine. The muscles strained, the fists clenched, and a hardly
perceptible whimper came out through the clenched teeth.
- You intellectual impotent, do you think this is the way you will
introduce communism in this Country?
- I don’t know how I will introduce communism here, but until
then I will introduce this letcon in your ass.
A scream tore the room, followed by an overwhelming silence.
- That’s more like it, father! What the heck, you’re human too!
What do you say, do we go on, or do we pass to the desk?
- You will have to kill me to make me write!
Shevchenko moved away from the sofa of torture and approached
the primus. He passed the letcon through the flame a few times and
returned to Ilashcu, pushing it close to his cheek. Instinctively, Ilashcu
turned his head away.
- Don’t be afraid, I won’t disfigure you! You will have to look
good at the trial.
Nicolai Nicolaievich Shevchenko, irritated by his own
powerlessness, slipped the letcon under the right armpit. A scream
came out the mouth of the surprised priest, accompanied by an
unpleasant odor of burn.
- This is more like it, father! So, what do you say, do we write or
do we continue?
Not receiving an answer, the captain made two steps sidewise and
stuck the letcon to the testicles. Another unrestrained scream, followed
by silence. The tension disappeared and the body relaxed in a faint.
- Volodea, pour some water on this bastard!
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are being followed. For them, a fugitive means a dead man! You will
have to reconcile yourself to this thought and try to save yourself.
- How can I save myself, Paul? Why save myself? If you are
right, then there is escape neither for me, nor for you. I wouldn’t resist
torture. I’d rather kill myself!
- No, Ileana, you are alone, they can’t blackmail you, you will
only have to make them believe you know nothing. More and more
rumors speak about the imminence of war. The soviets will not resist
against the German war machine. Let’s just hope Carol too will go with
the Germans! This barbarian system must fall! Be brave, Ileana. Maybe
Nani is still alive, who knows?!
- I’m going to start taking some sedatives, to hide how scared I
am. Paul, does anyone else know about this?
- No, Ileana, I haven’t told anyone. The only one who came to see
me was Danila. To put him on guard, I just told him that I made a visit
at the Consistory, that Silvia was with me and since then she got sick. I
was looking terrible when he came and I think he understood this is not
a joke. Do you know they changed his name to Davidov? That in order
to hire him as a calligrapher at population evidence. This is how history
is being rewritten!
- Paul, I’m going, although I’m scared to death. If you visit
Silvia, kiss her for me. What do you say, shouldn’t I visit her?
- No, Ileana, keep her in your memory as you knew her. It would
do you bad. Go in peace and if you want something, pass by the
church. It is simpler to communicate there, at the ‘confession’. Kiss
you and take care! Don’t talk to anyone about what you’ve found out.
Maybe a miracle will happen!
Ileana went unsteadily toward her house, overwhelmed by a
feeling of restlessness, of fear. Stumbling in her own steps, she turned
her head backwards ceaselessly, to make sure she wasn’t followed. The
thought that Nani could have been killed during the inquiry, that she
could share Silvia’s fate, made her feverishly search for solutions in
order to escape from this inferno. The thought of suicide scared her.
She knew that first of all, she had to find out whether Nani was still
alive or not. Paul’s opinion didn’t convince her. How come he was still
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Romanian language. From the old professors and teachers, only the
ones who had thorough knowledge of the Russian language were
selected. Professors like Popovich, who taught Latin, or Creisin, who
taught Latin and Old Greek, were dismissed, on the grounds that these
subjects had nothing to do with the education of soviet pupils! These
were the first alarm signals which seeded uneasiness in the souls of
both children and parents. The situation of the children whose parents
didn’t have any knowledge of the Russian language was even more
tragic. Terrorized, the children threatened their parents that they would
not go to school. Or, ten years of education were compulsory!
The majority of the adolescents were convinced that the soviet
occupation wouldn’t last, that all will burst like a soap bubble, that
salvation would come from Hitler. The name Antonescu caught the
shape of a savior archangel, the idea that a Hohenzollern couldn’t go
but with the Germans, constituted the support of all speculations. These
dreamy adolescents picked up the hypothesis emitted conspiratorially
in the circles of intellectuals. They imagined themselves heroes,
voluntaries in the army of Great Romania, fighting for the liberation of
the invaded territory. Being in the middle of the problem, they pictured
themselves fighting in the first lines of the events which would follow.
They were, however, only children and they couldn’t perceive the true
weight of things. Taking advantage of the so-called holiday, they
gathered in large groups in the ‘Roses’ park, their favorite place and
officially accepted even by the professors.
Around the kiosk where the great Ivanovich once conducted the
fanfare, boys and girls competed in speaking loudly, in laughing. It was
the first holiday when they were not supervised by teachers, or even by
professors. It was the first holiday when the fanfare wasn’t playing,
when waltz pairs weren’t dancing. Their noisiness was artificial, as
though hiding a drop of mystery.
- What are we going to do, brothers? We can’t accept something
like this! How can we study Russian for a whole year? Are the years in
our lives that worthless? No, we must boycott them, we shouldn’t come
to school! We must deliberate with our professors! What will happen to
them?
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fact that we are under soviet occupation, take in consideration the fact
that they have already lost us once, after the revolution from 1917 and
that they have never forgotten this. Don’t put too much hope in others,
rely only on yourselves! God bless you!
- We wish you good health, professor!
- Let’s go, Lulu, things are getting serious!
- Won’t you let me speak a little to Nelu?
- Haven’t you had enough of this cunning Draghich?
- Come on, don’t be mean!
At her 15 years, Lulu was a cute petite girl, without too contoured
shapes, with pony tails, with two grey melancholic eyes, always victim
to contradictory feelings. With a rather fragile health, she had grown up
in ‘daddy’s’ arms, who adored her. She read a lot, everything that fell
in her hands. The top however, was made up by Balzac and Tolstoy.
She met Nelu at a colleague’s birthday party. One year older,
handsome, dark haired with blue eyes, he had a special charm. He
talked a lot, he talked beautifully. He saw her home, he kissed her in a
hurry, and he shouted at her, also in a hurry – I love you! Two children
who didn’t know what they were doing, who didn’t know what they
were saying. Their only confidant was George. George took her out
for walks, George set her up dates.
This time the date didn’t take place. Nelu had gone to accompany
professor Creisin and gone he was. Creisin was arrested, and the
Draghich family was visited at home the same night and declared
missing. The professor had been investigated for three days at the
Consistory and when finally released, he was a human wreck. His hair
was all white and he refused any dialog, even with those at home.
Years had to pass, for this man, the most important representative of
the intellectuals in Ismail, to regain his balance, but not to forget. The
fate of the Draghich family was even more tragic. They were deported.
The parents in Siberia, Nelu in a reeducation camp in Kazakhstan. Five
years later, an uncle of his, benefiting from a certain ‘earned’ position
managed to bring him along to Bucharest. Nelu wasn’t Nelu anymore,
and his uncle, a notorious opportunist, would spread terror among
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the lack of any experience. Only they knew how they could fool the
chain of frontier guards along the bank of the Danube. Mirchea had
graduated from high school and was to join the officer cavalry school
from Sibiu in the autumn. It wasn’t meant to be! The arrival of the
soviets ruined all his plans. He was an intelligent individual, but
stubborn, as his father characterized him. In high school he only learnt
what he liked. He read a lot. Mathematics didn’t interest him at all and
therefore second examinations kept on coming. God, how many
beatings he received from my father! I was his salvation, with my
screams and tears. I was a shy child and very sensitive to everything
which implied violence.
In the first high school years, Mirchea started reading Doxes and
Excentric Clubs3, but as years passed by he turned to good quality
fictional literature and natural science. Accepted in the house of
Creisin, a good friend of his daughter, he benefited from an exceptional
library. He never missed the small parties organized in the professor’s
house, which were often transformed into virtual musical evenings.
The father sang, the daughter sang, Sarkizov sang. In Creisin’s house,
Mirchea had learnt to love classical music. There were also discs with
famous voices. It was there that he had met Lucia, also a high school
graduate, an affectionate and pretty dark-haired girl. They swore
everlasting love to each other, but life would separate them, better said
the war, leaving an ineffaceable mark on him.
Mirchea was a sociable guy, received without reserves in many
families and circles of intellectuals in town. He had an iron health; he
practiced a lot of sport. He had won the swimming competition
‘Crossing of the Danube’, organized by the Saint Demeter high school,
two years in a row. At athletics, he was considered number one in the
high school at long distance races and his love for football earned him
the nickname of Bodola. His main flaw was his almost fanatic
dedication to a newly embraced idea. This is how he came to venerate
Hitler, after he had read by chance, in the year ’39, a few chapters from
Mein Kampf, spread on some fly sheets. That is also how the portrait
of the ‘savior of mankind’ appeared in our house. And that is how the
wish to study the German language appeared.
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His unstable character however, would throw him over the years
in the opposite camp, making him an ardent defender of the communist
ideas. The openly hostile attitude displayed by his former partners in
action left a powerful mark on him. He isolated himself, he decided not
to act but on his own. After the fishing of the ten bodies and the
officiating of the attempt of fraudulent frontier crossing, no one was
willing to believe the story of the 48 hour restraint at the frontier guard
post. How come they were arrested precisely that night? How come
they were released after 48 hours, while in the meantime the ‘hunt’ had
taken place? At the post they were interrogated only after 24 hours,
when the explanation regarding where they were going, the vineyard
where Stavrov’s parents lived, was considered plausible. The
commander of the post knew the Stavrovs and spent many hours at
their vineyard. At home, the relationship between Mirchea and my
father continued to be tense. The only being he got along with, going
up to confidence, was Valeria, the older sister, as she was called, two
years older than him.
She was a beautiful girl, the best of us all. But, this but, which
often withers the beauty of a phrase, left its mark on the course of her
child life, stigmatizing her for the rest of her life. At the age of 4, this
little doll was stricken by fate. Meningitis brought the specter of death
in the house where her voice chirped ceaselessly. At that time,
meningitis was considered an incurable disease. If it didn’t bring death,
then it could stigmatize the existence of the diseased through an
irrecoverable handicap. A chirurgical intervention meant money, a lot
of them. In a town like Ismail, no surgeon ventured to take on this
responsibility. An intervention from a high above person was necessary
in order for an authority of doctor Voinescu’s stature to accept and
come with the first cruise from Galatzi. A family council resolved the
problem of the fee, under very harsh conditions. The mortgaging of the
house was decided in exchange of a loan, burdened with excessive
interests and all sorts of pressing clauses. The hero of the transaction
was the Armenian Ovanes, the town usurer, always posing as the savior
of the common man. Many years had my parents struggled with this
usurer, a time when the house was hanging from a thread.
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- What’s the matter with you, Val? Have you been quarreling with
dad again? He’s not worth it! I have started to ignore him. This man
will never understand we have grown up. Do you remember how much
he used to beat me? All there is for him is Bob and Lulu. Let me tell
you something instead, which is really serious, at least for me! I told
you I had planned a run. Along the way, I was arrested, together with
Stavrov, by a patrol of frontier guards. They kept us for two days.
Meanwhile, the other ten tried to sneak into the water and swim across
the Danube. They ripped them like rabbits. All ten were fished at the
Vostoc cherhana; they aligned them on the bank of the Danube and
wrote on a board – traitors! The worse thing is that the others, from the
second lot, are accusing me and Iuriy of treason! I came up with the
plan, I organized them, I risked, and the acme of irony, I have come to
be judged by them. Now I know what I have to do. Everything on my
own. We have been very naïve.
- Mirchea, be more cautious! Does George know anything about
this? I don’t think you should involve him as well.
- No, God forbid! He is still a child, although he looks like an
athlete. If I reach Romania, I can go directly to the officer cavalry
school in Sibiu. After that, I’ll see what I’ll do. Maybe I will join the
German army, if they accept me. Our only hope is Hitler, Germany.
The conflict state established between Valeria and father, on one
side, and Mirchea and father, on the other side, brought a note of
tension between the parents as well. Mother bemoaned the quarrels in
the house. Especially because they sometimes took place in front of the
little ones. The hostility installed between father and Valeria affected
her in a particular way. She had suffered terribly alongside Valeria
trying to be as close to her as possible, but she couldn’t agree with the
reproaches thrown without too much discernment. She knew she had a
duty toward Valeria, but she always postponed the moment of a
confession, which would have shed a totally different light upon the
one who in the close circles was considered a model father. She was on
Valeria’s side in the matter of the marriage, but she couldn’t defeat,
what she called, the narrow horizon of her husband. With the coming
of the soviets, all became a matter of the past. Even Valeria’s trip to
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gathered around her, young and old, and we asked her to wind
memories. She didn’t have a lot of education, but she had an inborn gift
of storyteller. And she had another gift, she knew how to comfort with
gentle words, well chosen, any grief. Grandfather had died before I was
born, so I made his portrait from her stories, grandmother Xenia’s
stories. I think she loved grandfather a lot, because her evocations were
full of admiration. He had been a carpenter, he had had his own
furniture workshop, he earned good money, they lead a plentiful life.
Grandfather’s sudden death, followed shortly by the loss of his son, of
a young age, 17, drowned in the Danube during a nocturnal escapade,
organized by young people his age, made her suffer, but didn’t bring
her down. She remained the same active believer, the same loving
mother and grandmother. Some neighbors found her nagging, we found
her wonderful.
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be arrested and it was just this waiting which transformed his life into
an inferno. The news of the Russian language test to get off the army
and go to Chisinau made him think twice. It seemed like an unexpected
solution. To get away from the impossible atmosphere created in
Ismail, to be among students, to try to rehabilitate in a totally new
environment, to search for a solution, even violent, to prove your true
affiliation, there is a list of plausible arguments. He understood that the
run, in the circumstances of the terror installed, was a utopia, a
sacrifice without sense, without glory. The decision to listen to
mother’s advice brought more confusion than happiness in the middle
of the family. The only one who understood the true reasons was
Valeria. The test was relatively easy, and Mirchea’s knowledge of the
Russian language more than sufficient. The medical examination was
also passed successfully.
A single problem remained: Lucia! How could he explain it to
her?! He suspected that she too had heard certain ‘well-meaning’
rumors. The mission was entrusted to Valeria, who had to tell Lucia all
the truth, but only after his departure to Chisinau. That is how it
happened. Mirchea ended up in the hostel of the natural science
college, while Lucia, unacquainted to the Russian language, remained
in Ismail, consumed by the doubts seeded by Mirchea’s former friends
and slave to the everlasting hope, hope that everything was nothing but
a nightmare, a nightmare she would wake up from. Autumn laid a
golden-red nuance throughout parks, on the streets, transforming the
town into an impressionist painting, an image once so dear to
Ismailians. The schools filled up, and so did the kindergartens. Many of
the little ones heard Russian for the first time, amused themselves and
characterized the noise which stirred up, as cackling. What belongs to
the children, belongs to the children! They returned home noisily,
distorting the newly learnt words, in roars of laughter. The satisfaction
of the teachers and of the authorities was big – the children were
playing, but they were also learning. At high school, better said at the
‘desiatiletca’ respectively, the grades five-ten, the situation was not that
bright. The refusal, more or less masked, to dedicate to the study of the
Russian language, gave the new professors something to think about.
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The roars of laughter raised by the distortions and the grimaces which
accompanied the pronunciation of Russian words, brought about chaos
in classes. Discipline was just a word thrown in the wind, and the
‘ethnic’ solidarity manifested among the children, raised questions
among the ones put to set up the new order.
The attitude of these children came to confirm the general state of
mind which reigned in the people’s houses, an attitude of rejection, of
hostility. The reports which went to the center generated dispositions
which implied the taking of extreme measures. It is hard to suppose
that these things didn’t reach beyond the Danube or the Prut and that is
why it is harder to understand the attitude of misinformation
manifested by the authorities from Bucharest. The soviets were unsure
of themselves, and the harsh measures through which they were trying
to maintain the order didn’t have effects in the ranks of the population.
A visit made by priest Voda at the hospital where Silvia was being
drugged at command, by the chief of the department himself, an
opportunist like many others, made him forget any caution, forget
about the fate of Irinel.
Silvia, closed in a kind of cell for aggressive people, stark naked,
was dancing in front of an imaginary mirror, caressing her breasts and
thighs and calling Volodea with all the gentleness of her being. Seeing
Paul, she stopped dancing and approached the bars of the cell.
- Paul, my dear, why have you come alone? Where is Volodea?
You have let him show me what true love is and now you are not
bringing him to me? How can you be that cruel? Don’t you love me
anymore? With Volodea I felt what I didn’t think existed. I didn’t even
imagine. God, what a man! When you come with Volodea, ask the
doctor to bring us a double bed, so you can stay beside us.
It was too much for Paul. With the roar of a beast he rushed
outside, running like a madman on the streets. Once home, he took a
cold bath, he dressed in his priest frock and headed toward the church,
for the vesper service. Lately, it was the vesper service that brought the
most believers, especially elderly people. He looked calm; he officiated
a beautiful service and he ended with the whole tragic story, lived at
the inquiry at the Consistory. Everyone was listening astounded.
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taste of revenge. Yes, Silvia was avenged, even though she would have
probably never realized that. But he didn’t care for himself. He
experienced hell on earth, he doubted the very existence of God, he had
cursed Him! What could have been worse?! A sole thought frightened
him, the fate of Irinel. What would happen to her? He hoped for
miracle, as did the whole population.
His mother, together with Irinel, managed to lose her trace after
the Bolgrad event. They didn’t keep in touch at all. He trusted the
vitality of his mother, he knew that one day Irinel would find out all the
truth and will approve of his behavior, irresponsible at first sight. Her
mother had been abused; her mother had been avenged by her father.
The morning found him exhausted. As much health as was hiding in
his youth, the fight with the sedatives was unequal. Drowsy, he found
himself taken by two hulks to the shower room, stripped of his clothes
and pushed under the shower. The shock made him jump out of the
shower, but he was forced back, hit by the pressure of two water jets,
‘well’ directed by the two companions.
- If you want to get out in one piece, stay still under the shower. It
will do you good! It will only last for half an hour.
This started to repeat twice a day – in the morning when he woke
up and in the evening, before the lights went out. Being registered by
Mirchev himself at the particularly aggressive ones, Paul’s life took
place practically only in the cell, behind bars. It was there that the
tranquilizer injections were given to him; it was there that he received
the so-called three meals. No visits, no possibility of communication.
The hardest thing to endure was the almost permanent noise which
reigned in the sector of the ‘dangerous ones’. There were serious cases,
real, which manifested in many ways, disturbing the silence with
wailing, weeping, laughter, shouts. At the hour of the visit Mirchev
paid daily, in a big haste, a thunderous voice could be heard coming
from the back of the corridor with the cells of the dangerous ones.
- I want to be tried! I am not sick, I am a political prisoner. Sir
doctor, you are a criminal!
- What a pity for this man! Young, vigorous, he is a big fellow.
He is obsessed he is politically persecuted. The problem is that he has
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- I beg you, for the good of everybody, send the people to their
houses. This is a serious incident, devoid of responsibility, which can
have serious consequences. I personally don’t want to make a big deal
out of this. It wasn’t us who put priest Voda in the hospital; he put
himself in the situation of being isolated. What he told his parishioners,
at the vesper, could cost him more, it could have been considered as an
act of denigration of the soviet power, an instigation. Only the medical
control he was subjected to by doctor Mirchev, whose competence
can’t be doubted, saved him from the firing squad. I repeat the request
of telling the people to scatter. Don’t put me in the situation to take
drastic measures, which would, of course, also affect you. You have a
quarter of an hour at your disposal.
- I too would like not to expose the people to reprisals, but what
is happening at the hospital, in the nervous diseases department, made
its way outside the walls of the hospital and the people have lost any
confidence in the authorities, as well as in your collaborators, who
unfortunately come from the locals. I don’t wish for us to siege the
hospital, I want you to think about what I’ve told you. The population
of this town is docile, it submits itself to the authorities, but can’t bear
being terrorized. Any silence can bring a storm, a typhoon. Why not
prevent it? The church has a great influence over the population and it
would be hard for you to eradicate the faith from the people’s hearts.
Let time decide what is best. Don’t time me, let me speak unhindered,
leave this place, there will be peace, I give you my word.
From the direction of the harbor, ten soldiers on horseback
arrived near the colonel. Things seemed to get more complicated. A
true demonstration of intimidation started. With the help of bridles and
horsewhips, the horsemen managed a true dance of the horses, with
threatening prances. The people started to close up the ranks, stepping
on each other’s feet. Rishcov was looking at the spectacle of horror
smiling ironically.
At a certain moment, someone had the idea of lighting a candle
and raising it above the head. Like a command, a sea of flickering
lights glimmered above the heads of the crowd. An irritated horse
pranced and started a mad gallop downwards, toward the harbor. From
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that moment, no horseman could bridle his horse. The whole troop rode
off on the trail of the scared horse, sweeping everything in its way.
Rishcov didn’t lose his temper and displaying an indulgent smile,
approached father Savatie petrified, as if in a confused state.
- Hey, what do we do? Do you see what it means to leave horses
on the hands of incapables? With such people I have to install the new
order and introduce discipline in the city! What have you decided?
- I maintain my proposition. Leave me alone with these innocent
people and we will avoid an unpleasant situation, which the town
doesn’t need. I guarantee you the closing of this incident, and it’s not a
little. Think of the near future. You can’t rule through force, through
terror. Nowhere in the world did it yield any results! Anyway, you
don’t stand a chance in Basarabia. In the soul of every man on this
earth a history is seeded, a real history, lived by the ancestors, not
written by the historians. There are no nationalities here, there are
Basarabians! You should transplant all of them; replace them with
foreigners in order to have peace.
- If it is necessary, we will! But we’re not talking about this now.
I will retreat, together with my small troop, and you keep your word. If
things come out well, we may talk again, at a glass of vodka. Success!
You will be needing it.
Father Savatie remained perplex! In his mind he didn’t count at
any moment on an agreement with the colonel. Something had
happened, but what? In any case, it couldn’t have been the attitude of
the crowd, nor the ‘boldness’ of his words, or the incident with the
horses. A new attitude of the authorities toward the street
demonstrations, toward the ‘open’ attitudes? New directives from the
center? It was possible, but not reassuring. It was true that you had to
be blind not to see what a gunpowder barrel the population of
Basarabia was turning into. It could also be a new meanness of the
oppressors, who were preparing new forms of intimidation and
punishment for insubordination. The agitation of the crowd brought
him to reality. There was no more time for suppositions; something had
to be done to calm down the people, to avoid causing a catastrophe.
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- We both know that father Voda didn’t commit suicide, and I will
take this ‘sin’ on my part. On the contrary, I won’t be responsible for
the reaction of the parishioners anymore. Peace is more important than
truth, at least in the actual circumstances. It is all I can promise you, it
is all I can do.
- You have convinced me, under one condition – after the funeral,
you will retreat definitively at your monastery; you will not leave it
anymore! I will give dispositions for the releasing of the body. Any
infringement of our agreement will have serious consequences! That
would be all!
The commitment made by the abbot monk seemed over his
powers and nevertheless, the funeral took place according to all the
laws, in an unexpected peace. The words which convinced to silence
were simple.
- Dear people, believers, the most important thing now is
to respect father Voda, not dive headfirst into the
morass of politics!
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as in a fight between drunks. If he gets away, you are dead! What are
you waiting for?!
- Wouldn’t it be better if we brought him here first? Pour some
more vodka down his throat, throw him in the street and run him over
with the car. A street fight can attract attention.
- Fine, do as you think, only rid me of him today. I’ll talk to the
doctor tomorrow. What reliable people!
The next day, in the morning, when in the middle of the street
which led to the house of the hospital attendant, the crippled body of
the ‘drunk’ was found, no one wondered who the culprit was. Terror
started to sift, like the rain, above the town. The people who let
themselves fooled by the deal between Savatie and Rishcov gathered
young and old, in a march in the direction of the monastery.
The heavy gates of the monastery were open. The crowd rushed
through the fruit trees of the renowned orchard, heading toward the
monastery’s little church. Father Savatie, surrounded by a few other
monks, was kneeling in front of the altar and whispering prayers. They
were praying for the soul of father Voda and for that of the hospital
attendant, who in a moment of drunkenness, but also remorse, had told
the truth.
The term of monastery was probably a little pretentious. It was in
fact a domain of the bishopric, with orchards of fruit trees, with best
quality fruit and a variety which covered the whole productive season.
There were also the vines, table grapes and wine grapes, superior sorts
brought from Cotnari, and more recently, from Shaba. An important
parcel was occupied with vegetables. A stable sheltered a few cows,
another a pair of horses, a wagon and some farming tools.
In the middle of the domain lay a modest building, with a porch,
which housed the rooms, the so-called cells, where the monks without
rank, the workers, lived. In a zone further from the bank of the Danube,
there was a neater building, of an immaculate white, with a porch
decorated with flower pots. The abbot’s office was there, a specially
arranged room for the bishop’s visits, and also the rooms where the
monks of priest rank lived.
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A tomb silence fell over the church. All looks fixed on the abbot.
He made himself room to pass and went outside. It was the second
encounter of the same crowd with the same Rishcov, followed by about
twenty gunmen.
- I see we haven’t understood each other, citizen Savatie! Tell the
people to go home peacefully, so we will avoid taking drastic
measures. I will be merciless! Who doesn’t submit, will be arrested and
tried for the disturbance of public order and the undermining of the
soviet order. You have ten minutes to decide!
- Sir colonel, don’t continue with the threats anymore! It is not
the case. You are on a territory of peace here, of faith, a territory sacred
to the population of this town. The people haven’t gathered here for an
anti-state demonstration, they have gathered without being instigated,
they have gathered to pray for the soul of father Voda and for that of
the hospital attendant. The first died as a martyr, innocent, with the
guilt of serving the church. The second died as a result of remorse.
That is why we are not separating them in our prayers; they are now
one next to another, before God. There is no room in this holy place for
the threat of the army or the police. The constitution which you have
imposed on us, guarantees the religious freedom. We are orthodoxies,
as is the large majority of the nations from the Soviet Union. These
people are not rising against the regime, but against the mistakes
committed by the local ruling organs. Don’t mix religion with politics!
You have nothing to win. There is no need to threaten us. After a
commemoration service, everyone will go home. I too was judged by
them, after I was misled by you. Their judgment is fair and there is no
need for a trial. Take your men and leave the monastery peacefully, as I
respect the order not to leave the monastery. May God guide your
steps! Amen!
- None of my men will leave the monastery until everyone
departs, in silence, in groups of three people at most. From this
moment on, the church is closed, any service is forbidden. The
monastery will be taken over by a collective farm, so prepare for
eviction and for handing over, with all papers in order, of course!
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period, didn’t hurry to heal the wounds left by that ill-fated period,
1940-1941, leaving as though intentionally, in a somewhat Polish style,
ruins-memories bearing the inscription ‘do not forget!’.
Although the period was marked by the slogan: ‘all for the front,
all for victory’, slogan which would be revived at once with the
advancing of the Romanian troops westwards, the attitude of the
Romanian authorities toward the suffering endured by Basarabians
under the soviet occupation, toward the human and material losses of
the church in Basarabia, would leave deep traces in the souls of those
who had put so many hopes in Antonescu and Hitler. Nobody was
hurrying with the reparations, everybody was waiting for the outcome
of the war.
The Romanians had surpassed their commitments, Basarabia had
been liberated, but new slogans would appear, like: ‘Transnistria
forever Romanian’ or ‘Romania as far as the Bug’. There is a leap over
time that I make in order to understand certain things, or maybe just
not to understand them. Anyway, true-born Basarabians, not those who
were coming back to feast upon the leading positions, bringing with
them the demagogy of uninterested patriotism, suffered in their own
pride.
The incident at the monastery cleared things up once again. The
direct blunt attack, against the church and its servants, the humiliation
and persecution of intellectuals, the disappearances, the rumors which
were coming from the villages, the apparition of the special unit on the
Tulcheanov domains, proved without doubt, both the intentions and the
methods which would be used in the game of power. The name of
Stalin would bring shivers in the hearts of people. The syntagm ‘pohod
na Sibiri’ was on everyone’s lips.
As bad people expose themselves no matter how much make-up
they use to acquire kindness, the true ‘personality’ of the special unit
chief didn’t take much time to reveal. This time as well, the role of
hazard wasn’t denied. A Jew, tailor, very well-seen in Ismail, happened
to be on the same barricades, in Spain, alongside the new fiend of the
local power. They didn’t meet officially, but life offered him a lot of
details about this mysterious character.
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authentic cult for disks, declaring himself the only one authorized to
use the gramophone.
Yes, this Alexandrov was for me and will remain in my memory,
a wonderful man.
- BobachKa, are your parents home?
- Mother yes, father no. Come in, come in!
- How’s school going?
- We are learning Russian. We are singing patriotic songs all
day… ‘Stalin nasha slava boevaia’1… we still don’t have textbooks.
- This will pass too!
- Bob, who are you talking to?
- Mom, diadia Sasha is here!
- Invite him inside!
- Dear Leolea, I met Hershcovich, the tailor, today. He told me
some news and I came by to tell you as well. He was rather scared and
he asked me not to talk to anyone about this, but you know I can’t have
secrets from you. What do you know about Mirchea?
- Not too much. He sent us a note saying he was fine. I’m afraid
he will do something foolish, you know him!
- Dad is coming, I saw him through the window… he looks upset,
I know him!
- O, visitors!?
- I met Hershcovich and I came to tell you fresh news.
- I met him too, I think you came to tell me about the so-called
special unit and that mysterious Jew. Does this man have a gift to
spread secrets! I don’t care who the commander is, I would like to
know what is going on there, or better said, what is prepared for us
there. I’ve received some news from home. It seems they have taken
Nea Stefan, together with a group of kulaks, to a camp near Odessa.
Nothing clear, only the confirmation that his brother, dead drunk, came
with the ones who arrested him and threatened even mother. The poor
woman got scared and went to my sister, at Tuzla. The bastard, after he
drank all he had, he always asked my parents for money.
- Poor Nea Stefan, only the war could liberate him! If only he
wasn’t sent to Siberia! God forbid!
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- That’s what I’m afraid of too. And I’m also afraid of what
Mirchea could do. In Chisinau, he really lost any control! Yesterday
Iura came by. He told us his folks were still fine, but they are afraid of
the day when they will be kicked out of the vineyard, too. They have
some post guards quartered at the vineyard, in tents, young men from
Transnistria. They get along well, Elena Alexandrovna sometimes
makes them a warm meal, and they bring bread and fresh fish. The
passing of the vineyards to the ‘Red Ismail’ kolkhoz will overthrow
them. The fishermen at least, are already ruined. What they get from
the cherhana is enough just not to die from hunger – nothing has
remained of the fish market. I think we will be living only from
memories! A, I don’t know if I’ve told you about Drachinski? They
took all three of them one night, pushed them into a big van where
other voices came from, and gone they were. Nobody found out
anything about their fate. What a wonderful man! So high-spirited,
always playing tricks, an ambulant collection of jokes! I’m afraid he
told some political jokes and someone denounced him. No one escaped
his jokes, but no one got angry with him. The bishop wasn’t spared,
either! One day, he sent the archpriest Popescu to the pharmacy to buy
him an ointment against baldness. Popescu didn’t know a whit of
Russian, didn’t catch the joke and asked the pharmacist, a very nice
Greek, for ‘gamnolina’. Because there were also other people in the
pharmacy, laughter burst out spontaneously. The pharmacist felt
obliged to reveal the joke, and the archpriest, a man with a sense of
humor, narrated everything the following day, at the Consistory, with
all sorts of flourishes. At the end he told Drachinski: My dear,
Romanians translate the word ‘gamno’ either by shit, or in a more
delicate way, by delight. I figure that if gamnolina would serve me for
my baldness, it could serve you for dessert. Of course no one got angry,
and the two friends hugged. Yes, this was our secretary at the
Consistory, who couldn’t stand seeing someone sad or in a bad temper.
His puns were sometimes shocking, but brought good humor around.
What will happen to their Margarita? An extraordinary girl, beautiful,
talented. She played the piano superbly, being the guest of honor at the
musical evenings in the house of Creisin, where together with his
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body, naked down to his waist, collapsed at her legs, face down. She
bent over him and saw two streams of blood dripping from under his
shoulder blades, on his so well carved back. She uttered a desperate
scream which woke her up to reality. Was it a sign, or only the effect of
what Paul had told her? A state of fear engulfed her, a fear still
unknown, a fear which can only be provoked by the thought of death.
She knew she was over-excited, she knew that the insecurity could lead
her to madness, she felt something extraordinary had to be done.
She went to the kitchen, she lit the small primus used for coffees,
and with shaking moves prepared a big concentrated portion of bitter
coffee. She poured it into a tea cup, added a good drop of cognac and
passed into the living room. She approached the window, and from
behind the pulled curtains, hidden by the darkness of the room, fixed
her look on the sidewalk across the street. Two men, shaking their
hands, were preparing to part. The one who seemed to stay took out
from his chest pocket a little bottle, which he offered to his nocturnal
partner. This one took a gulp, probably of vodka, held out his hand
once again and went away. The one who remained took a few good
gulps himself and slipped the little bottle in his pocket. He took a few
steps, leaned against a tree and fixed his look toward their house. It was
clear, she was being followed.
The question was whether they knew about the visit to Paul, or
whether the story about Nani’s escape wasn’t exactly true. A glitter of
hope arose in her heart, but also a new fear. If Nani escaped, if he
somehow crossed the Danube, then she would become the object of a
permanent observation, maybe of persecutions! The true definition of
the dilemma slipped into her thoughts. Which was the lesser evil?
Nani’s death, or persecution? It was clear that if Nani was living, they
would transform their life into a living hell. Through her, they would
bring him back. According to Paul’s words however, the story about
the escape and the aggression of the guard was a lie! First of all, Nani
wasn’t the man who would expose her. The thought that she had to get
used to the idea that she has lost Nani brought her in a state of despair,
but also fury. The mixture of coffee and cognac put her in a new frame
of mind.
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- Listen here, Mister, go to your boss and tell him I want to talk to
him, to arrange me an audience! If he agrees, come and let me know
and don’t waste your time in front of the windows of my house. I have
no reason and no intention to run. You can leave untroubled.
The shadow remained perplexed! That had definitely never
happened to him. What insolence. Disconcerted, he mumbled a
‘goodbye’, turned around and left in a hurry. Ileana felt she was
wearing boots, not shoes. She didn’t manage to take any steps; she
couldn’t believe she was the one who had talked with the shadow. The
thought that they will arrest her woke her up to reality.
- And what have I solved this way?! I gave myself in, when I was
dreaming of revenge. I think Silvia’s fate awaits me! I’d rather kill
myself!
She hardly tore herself away from the sidewalk which was fixing
her like a magnet and, with slow steps, set out home. She was surprised
that there was no one walking in front of the house. She stopped in
front of the old walnut tree, where Nani had fixed a swing, for her
moments of relaxation, a children’s swing. A vision which lasted only
for a moment made her back off terrified. The two ropes of the swing
merged in one, in the rope of the gallows from her nightmare. She ran
in the house, locked the front door and threw herself on the sofa in the
living room. A sobbing cry shook her; a state of exhaustion
overwhelmed her. When the doorbell rang, she winced as if lashed, not
knowing what to do. Should she open? What if they came to arrest her?
She decided to open, to get it all over with. She realized she had no
chance of fulfilling her desire for revenge and moreover, she didn’t
know anything for sure. What if Nani was still alive? Should she kill
herself with sleeping pills? First of all, she didn’t have the courage to
do it, and second she couldn’t risk sharing Juliet’s fate.
She approached the door fearfully and tried to make out what was
going on in the street. She heard two women voices and calmed down a
little. She opened, keeping the safety chain fixed.
- It’s us, from the church; we have brought you something to eat.
We have found out you have remained alone. We used to confess to
father Ilashcu. Don’t be afraid!
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and confidence in her heart, tormented by questions and fear. The most
unbearable element was the uncertainty. How could she find out the
truth about Nani? This was the obsessing question. Without this truth,
no plan of revenge, no matter how childish, found its motivation.
The fear of a possible ‘inquiry’, the thought of Silvia, of what
could happen to her, didn’t leave her alone. She went to the drug
cupboard, took the sleeping pills bottle, slipped it into the pocket of her
skirt and started to prepare the food brought. She tried to eat
something, but she didn’t manage. A feeling of panic started to engulf
her. She sat on the couch in the living room, trying to relax. She
realized that she didn’t stand a chance and went to prepare a strong
coffee, thinking: at least I’ll be awake and quarrelsome if necessary.
She returned to the living room with the cup in her shaking hand, she
approached the window. No one was in front of the house. This made
her feel even more anxious. The thought that something was in store
for her overwhelmed her. She sipped from the hot coffee and grimaced.
She had forgotten to put sugar.
- What if they come at night?.. Maybe they won’t even come at
all… maybe they just want to keep me under pressure?... What if they
take me directly to the inquiry room? That would mean the end!
The coffee didn’t have the expected effect. A state of somnolence
overpowered her, making her lie on the couch. A deep sleep then
overcame her, bringing the much desired peace. Once again, youth had
done its job. She woke up rested, relaxed, she marveled that it was ten
in the morning, and to her great surprise she felt a strong hunger. She
prepared something to eat from the food brought the evening before by
the two parishioners, made a coffee and sat down at the kitchen table,
unwashed, as Nani would say. The food did her good, the coffee
animated her and the sun, which was generously shedding light in the
living room, brought a little hope. She warmed up the boiler for the
shower and let herself to the hydro massage made by the drops of water
under pressure. She throbbed at the sound of the door-bell, but she
didn’t give up the pleasure brought by the hot water. The door-bell rang
again, making room for a thought of uneasiness. She put her bathrobe
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on, wrapped her hair in a towel and, with fear in her heart, she
approached the door slowly. A hoarse ‘who is it?’ escaped her throat.
- It’s me, Danila, stay calm!
She opened the door with a shaking hand and invited him in.
- Please excuse me for my appearance; I’ve just come out of the
shower.
- Don’t trouble yourself; I’ve come to bring you something from
the archpriest Popescu. You know that after the bishop’s disappearance,
he’s making the interim. That is what the priests have decided. Here is
some money, not a lot, but it will do you good. The money actually
comes from the parishioners of the Sobor. If there are possibilities, you
will get more. These are the only sources of income of the old
Consistory, which continues to run secretly. Do you have any more
news of Ananie?
- I know nothing of Nani. I want to go to the Consistory, to the
commander. I’ve requested an audience, but I haven’t received an
answer. I don’t know, I fear I’m not going to see him again!? After
what they’ve done with the Voda family, I can’t hope for anything
good! I thank you for coming, although I’m afraid it’s not prudent of
you to come by. I am being followed continuously. Thank father
Popescu. Yesterday, two women came, parishioners of the Sobor and
they brought me all sorts of dainties. How wonderful people can be!
How’s your family doing?
- For the moment, they’re doing fine, if something like that can
be said. They are living with the thought of the inquiry which I’m sure
I won’t escape. I wanted to send everybody to my folks, at the
countryside, but my father has been arrested and taken to a camp, near
Odessa. War has remained the only hope. Fine, I’ll let you to your
business and take good care of yourself. God is almighty! We have to
survive for a few months. At least it is rumored so. The agreement
between the Germans and the soviets is a hoax. How can Hitler agree
with Stalin?! Ok, be prudent! When Ilashcu comes back, he must find
you as beautiful as you are.
The gestures of solidarity made both by unknown people and by
close ones, made Ileana feel she was not alone on this earth. The
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- Where are you, Nani? Come home and defend me, and if you
can’t come, come at night in a dream and teach me what to do! I beg
you to come, because if I find out you are dead, I will come after you!
Tired of so much waiting, of the pressure of the insecurity she
was living in, Ileana went toward the window, stopping behind the
curtains. The street was deserted, lifeless. She passed to the bedroom
and sat down next to the radio, a Hornifon brought by Nani from a
delegation in Bucharest, his Christmas present. She stuck her ear to the
speaker, trying to catch a Romanian station. The jamming of broadcasts
practiced by the new rulers made such auditions impossible. Soviet
patriotic songs were heard everywhere, interminable news bulletins in
Russian, or at the best, Ukrainian songs, which, instead of bringing joy,
brought a trace of sadness in the houses of people, characteristic to the
steppe.
She hardly found Bucharest. A speech of Antonescu was being
broadcasted. A lot of chauvinistic phrases, a lot of praises of the Reich,
references to the excellent relations between Romania and Germany
and not a word about Basarabia and the Romanians on the other side of
the Prut. A single allusion to the excellent training of the Romanian
army and to the maneuvers organized in the Oriental Carpathians. She
turned off the radio and stretched her hand out for the photographs
album. She stopped at the last picture taken at the seaside, at Budachi,
a year before. It was her favorite photo. They were both looking great.
It was a time when the new bathing suits, shocking at their first
appearance, came to point out, where necessary, the beauty of the
human body. Nani was looking like a harmoniously developed athlete,
who was not giving away his true profession. She, beautiful and
delicate in the same time, close to Nani, was unostentatiously
displaying her ‘good-looking’ body, as she was catalogued in the circle
of the ‘competent’ men. It was the photo which probably represented
the harmony of this couple best. Yes, they were beautiful, loved by
those around them, natural in everything they were doing.
I remember the strong impression they made on me, then only
seven years old, their appearance in our house. When I saw her, I
remained staring at her speechless. Mother compelled my attention.
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came. He was glad to have escaped the nagging from home and the
cold looks of former friends. He bore in him the burden of an unfair
accusation, of a terrible suspicion. He, a traitor! An unhappy incident
and nothing more, had put him in that absurd situation. He was unable
to prove the contrary, and neither could his friend Iura Stavrov. Iura,
not wanting to leave his parents alone in such a critical time, remained
to face the unspoken accusations of his former colleagues and friends,
even with the risk of being taken in the army. He harbored the hope
that, becoming friends with the frontier guards quartered at their
vineyard, he would find a way to set up a run, together with his family.
One way could have been buying their vigilance with gold. The
risk was enormous, but considering the gloomy prospects at the
horizon for the ex-owners, it could have been the only way of avoiding
deportation. He was staying with his parents at the vineyard and was
trying any way of getting close to the small group of frontier guards.
Because their lives weren’t easy, he offered to do them small services,
to bring them culinary dainties prepared by his mother, to call them for
coffee or tea, in the warm atmosphere of the porch.
There were five of them, among which one was the commander
of the ‘point, all of them very young, all with ten grades graduated,
brought from different corners of the soviet empire. Only one, the
commander, was from around Tiraspol, he was speaking Romanian
fairy well and bragged with one of his great grandparents proceeded
from the old colonists across the Prut. As the food provisions of the
Stavrov family started to run low, the boys set to work and even started
to bring themselves all sorts of dainties: vegetables, poultry, flour,
sugar, oil and even coffee, which truly represented a performance for
those days. Fish was also present, fished by the boys, together with
Iuric, as they used to call him.
Life went on. Because a solution for the immediate co-
operativization of the vineyards still wasn’t found, the problem fell in
the charge of the cherhana. That was, for the moment, the luck of the
Stavrovs, left to take care of their own vineyard. Although they were
confined to the perimeter of the vineyard, being practically separated
from the town, from the old friends, at the vineyard they had the
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feeling they were working at their own house, even though the fruits
would be practically taken, entirely, by the co-operative system, right
from the beginning, ruthlessly. The only news from town were
occasionally brought by Iura, who taking advantage by the good
relations established with the group of frontier guards, managed to
sneak in town and make short visits at us or at the Alexandrovs. This is
how the misfortunes which came daily over the once so peaceful town
reached the ears of the Stavrovs.
The only one with who he shared his intention to prepare a run
over the Danube was Shuric, a calm and dreamy boy, with undeclared
literature concerns – he read a lot and tried to gather his thoughts in
prose and poetry. Hearing his friend’s intentions, Shuric turned pale,
brought up the fate of the ten victims of the temerity of age, brought to
his attention the danger to which the parents would be exposed, as well
as the credulity with which Iura was treating the problem of buying the
vigilance of the young frontier guards.
- Iura, how can you trust some young people, brought up, from
their early childhood, in the spirit of a boundless fanaticism toward the
Soviet Union, in schools with a unilateral preparing in the world-wide
victory of socialism, in unconditional atheism, in the spirit of sacrifice
toward Stalin?! Forget it, my dear, abandon this unrealistic dream, wait
for the change which can’t come too late and spare your folks from an
extra misfortune!
This last discussion, better said, warning, didn’t have the effect of
weakening the decision made, but put him on guard, pushed him
toward greater prudence. Nevertheless, he didn’t want to give up the
advantages offered by a dark, rainy autumn. At us, practically not
having with whom to discuss such problems, his visits were limited to
the gathering of information, to the description, jokingly most of the
times, of the situation which his parents had come to, docile servants,
on their own land.
Iura was among the few visitors who rang at our doorbell. The
most frequent however remained Alexandrov. He was more troubled,
more aged even, but always ready to prove his theories regarding
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grandparents who, in a short and clumsy letter, sent them their blessing
and the invitation to come to Ismail to meet each other. It was in
February 1917, when things were already rather troubled, and the
soldiers were confined to barracks. They were content to answer, to
thank them for their understanding and to explain to them, indirectly,
the explosive situation which was reigning in the big cities.
Spring gave fruit to this love. Pregnant, mother panicked, under
the pressure of the events which were quickly happening. From
Petrograd, they hadn’t received any news of goodwill. The tragedy
would come uninvited in the home of the newlyweds. Red October
brought the first news from Petrograd. The father, killed in street fights,
the mother and sister, slaughtered in their house.
- Lena, you must go to Ismail as fast as you can, to save the baby,
to be with your parents. Nothing good will come from what is
happening! Odessa is a big city, with many soldiers and sailors, with
many workers. Only God knows what will happen to us. You are not
safe here. I might not be able to leave the barracks, or we might be sent
somewhere else.
- No Andrei, I’m not leaving anywhere! As long as you are in
Odessa, I’m going to stay here as well. My hosts are very kind-hearted
and they assured me that they would take care of me. Moreover, she is
a midwife! I don’t think the anarchists will succeed. In Petrograd it is
different. There lies the power they seek to destroy. Russia is not going
to remain without a Tsar! If they move you, I promise I will go to my
mother. Until then, take care of yourself, so you can take care of us.
Our child compels you to live! Put your hand here, to see how he’s
moving. It’s like he agrees with me.
- Lena, I feel a hidden fear for the first time. This peasantry of
ours, so obedient and ignored, seems to be transforming in a road roller
which is going to sweep everything away. Our dear Tsar has remained
too far behind, he let himself badly advised. Russia needed a Russian
tsarina, Russian counselors. Deep down in his soul, he is a good man, a
kind Russian. If he hadn’t been that way, he could have long ago
drowned in blood any insubordination movement. He could have given
up a part of his prerogatives; he could have become a wise monarch,
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loved by this wonderful people. If things had been that way, today
Russia would have been a respected country, but also feared. The
Russians are not made to apply German models, Prussian ones or
Austro-Hungarian, to be taught lessons by the French and English. If
you like Beethoven, that doesn’t mean you should forget Tchaikovsky.
Yes Lena, I am afraid, I am afraid of the swamp we’re sinking in. We
have lived for too long under the domination of privileges and we have
forgotten that at the foundation of Russia’s power lie our peasants. It’s
not them who should kneel before the Tsar, but the Tsar should kneel
before them, leading them with wisdom toward a better life, for the
good of Russia. Peter’s dream, to make Russia the greatest power of
the world has collapsed, probably, once and for all. I find it very hard
to leave you, and maybe that is why I talk this and that. I have to go.
Lena! Don’t cry, please! I would be capable of deserting…
It was the first and the last time they talked about such problems,
it was the last time they stayed one in the arms of the other. The
following morning, a terrifying spectacle appeared in front of the eyes
of the peaceful inhabitants of Odessa. In the Great Sobor square,
hundreds of bloody bodies were brought ostentatiously by workers and
soldiers and thrown in hurrays, on the pavement. They were the cadets
of the military school; they were the officers of the coast regiment,
slaughtered during the night by unleashed revolutionaries. Without
epaulets and without boots, they were lying in all sorts of grotesque
positions, those who hadn’t received yet the supreme order to retort to
the crowd of anarchists. For days in a row, a pilgrimage of the relatives
of those killed spread out among the corpses. They were allowed to
watch, but not to retrieve the bodies of their loved ones.
When Lena knelt before the lifeless body of Andrei, she
understood better the meaning of the words said the evening before,
she understood that Andrei would never have a grave, that the being
who was showing more and more signs of life would never have a
father. She should have followed Andrei’s advice; she should have left
to Ismail, to her mother. In the new circumstances, the journey could
not take place under normal conditions. The nightmare from the Sobor
square would repeat itself, this time in another form, when thousands
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that a lot of things depend on this, things regarding your life and that of
your family, of course! I must warn you that we already have a lot of
information about all this, so there would be no use in giving us
evasive answers. For us, it would only be a control, a routine
confrontation, for you however, it would be a control of your sincerity.
- You are telling me about sincerity and you are the first one to
infringe it. If you are sincere, then tell me where my father is now. He
has been taken from his house and without any trial, he has been taken
somewhere. The cause was the declarations of a notorious drunkard, an
alcoholic. Since then, nothing is known about him. He was a loved and
respected man in his village. What can I tell you about the bishop? It is
already known that he was exiled on the other side of the Danube. Two
days ago, his unmistakable voice was heard on radio Bucharest. He
narrated everything as it happened. What could I tell you about father
Voda and his wife? You know as well as I do that he overcame his fear
and talked to his parishioners in the church, narrating everything that
had happened to him here, at the former Consistory, once considered
the home of God’s servants. What could I tell you about the
disappearances of Ilashcu and Nicolov, or about the fate of Savatie?
Nothing! No one knows anything about what happened to them. What
was I looking for at Ilashcu’s wife and at archpriest Popescu’s houses?
From Popescu I took the money collected by the parishioners to help
Ilashcu’s wife. This is how people react around here, christianly, when
someone needs help. I know that I am in danger, me and my family, but
I also know that if I accepted to write only lies about others, the fate of
me and my family wouldn’t change. You have persecuted wonderful
people, who could have been of great use to you. By destroying them,
you have angered the people who loved and respected them. The
church in Basarabia cannot simply be locked with a key, the church is
in the souls of people and that has been for a long time. If you want to
succeed in Basarabia, don’t estrange them, don’t anger them, don’t
make them your enemies. Don’t hunt down the priests! You will need
them for decades to come…
- I see you are all the same. You know how to talk people’s heads
off, you know how to defend your interests, only that you are not in a
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- You will be staying here. You will wake up when the siren
sounds. Behind the hut there is a washstand and the toilet. You will
come back to the bedroom for the call, and then you will go to the
dining hall, for tea. Then, to work. You will get used to it, if you care
for your life.
Alone next to the distributed bed, the respectable gentleman
Daniil Stepanovich, Nea Stefan Nemtzeanu’s Danila, woke up with the
feeling that he was serving a death sentence. He put the soap wrapped
in the towel under his pillow, he took his shoes off and lay down. The
quietness of the bedroom was intriguing him. He tried to make out
something in the scanning of the spotlights, but the movement of light
was confusing him, rather than helping him. A white night, full of dark
thoughts. When the siren gave a few awaking signals, the bedroom
quickly came to life. It was still half-dark and you couldn’t make out
the faces of the fellow sufferers. Were they thieves? Were they
‘political’ convicts? The answer would come in the dining hall. Tired
figures, sad figures, fixing their looks in the bowl with ‘tea’ and the
loaf of black bread, they were doing everything to keep a total silence,
in order not to irritate the supervisor, a young soldier armed with an
automatic weapon and a far from friendly look. Among the diners,
familiar people, some of them very familiar. Danila found himself
seated next to father Nicolov, who threw him a conspiratorial look,
after which he started to stare at the ceiling. In front of him he saw
Hershcovich, the tailor, pale, ringed, with shaking hands, with a kind
look and with a hardly perceptible smile. Danila answered him in the
same discrete way.
In a small town, you have the impression you know everybody.
He felt this in the dining hall, too. At the other end, he saw father
Savatie, peacefully sipping from his bowl of tea. He had lost a lot of
weight, he seemed hunched, he, the vigorous man! At the gathering
command, everybody left their bowls on the table, some of them with
the tea, as well as the scraps of bread untouched, and headed silently
toward the exit. In front of the hut, they aligned on a single row, one
meter one from the other, which made any communication impossible.
Looking toward the other hut, Danila saw a similarly organized group,
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the eyes of those who dared to resist. The faint was the desired
moment, the expected moment, although a brutal awakening to reality
followed, the cold shower.
To amplify the terror provoked by the treatment applied, at the
inquiry of a convict, two or three others were brought to assist at the
show. Often, the screams came out the throats of these ‘spectators’, to
the satisfaction of the captain who was directing the staging, and an
eventual faint was considered the acme of success. This whole system
of torture with witnesses chosen from the ones who were next, was
based on the certainty that ‘no one would leave alive from here’, so
often repeated by the commander of the unit at the short work meetings
with the in subordinate staff. This was the hall of torture reserved to
men. Here, the exasperating endurance of one or another, ended with a
bullet in the back of the head, pleasure reserved for himself by the ‘son
of a bitch’.
For a long time, it was unknown where the bodies of the ones
killed were disappearing. The hasty retreat of the soviets in the summer
of 1941 would reveal the mystery.
The fate of the detained women was a little different from that of
the men. Women who knew inconvenient things for the invaders were
brought. That is how Ileana arrived in this veritable camp of death,
although later, after the liberation, she wouldn’t be granted the
importance deserved because of the ‘reduced scale’ of the martyrdom.
Reduced scale! And that said by the new authorities installed by the
liberation armies. In a way, the history of 1918 was repeating itself.
Behind the army, an army of functions came, of functionaries from the
Old Kingdom, harboring only thoughts of fortune. Yes, women too
were brought in order not to come out anymore, but what was more
serious, they were brought as offerings to the torturers. That is why the
investigation of women was gentler in appearance, but crueler in
reality.
Although Ileana’s fate had been decided at once with that of
Ilashcu, she was the one who rushed the string of events. Convinced
that Nani wasn’t alive anymore, she decided to face the presumed
killers. From what she had found out from Paul, she started to think
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That is how Ileana ended up at the Special Unit, that is how she
signed her sentence by herself, by hurrying.
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- How can I not want to, Elena Petrovna! Max, too, will be very
happy! We will pay for the lessons, of course. Maybe you could teach
him how to learn the poetry, which, I don’t know why, he doesn’t like.
- With the greatest pleasure, as long as you don’t have any
trouble!? You know, my husband has been arrested and I don’t know
anything about his fate. It is better you know.
- A, it’s good you’ve told me! I will ask Max to take inquire for
the matter and see what can be done. Yes, yes, we will certainly resolve
it! For Max, Marat is everything. You have made me happy! I thank
you!
If for them Marat was everything, for my mother, the Zelicman
family meant a gleam of hope, some money and food, and above all,
the promise to resolve father’s situation. The fact that Marat accepted a
stranger around him so easily, that he started to take his role of pupil
seriously in a record time, that the Zelicmans weren’t disturbed by the
‘political’ situation of the Davidov family, being preoccupied only by
Marat’s progress, strengthened the relations between our families. An
influent man, through his position in town, Max Mihailovich
immediately set out to work.
He made the first visit at the Consistory, to find out the fate of
citizen Davidov. Rishcov, surprised by this intervention, stammered
and stammered, only to stop at a denunciation which was incriminating
Daniil Stepanovich Davidov in the priests’ plot against the soviet
power.
- Let’s be honest, comrade Rishcov! What plot are you talking
about? I understand that you wish to diminish the church’s influence
over the population, but to make the mistake of considering enemies
those who are and aren’t, this I cannot accept, and I think neither the
ones at headquarters can. Come on, really, tell me what you have done
with him. He is an innocent man, whom I personally might need.
- Well, I couldn’t deal with him and I sent him to the Special
Unit, to comrade Rusev. It would be best you talk to him.
- Good, thank you a lot, and may we meet again!
Zelicman knew Rusev very well from the City Council; he knew
that he was a Jew from Romania, but that he wasn’t proud of his
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child, who was everything for the Zelicman family, with all his curious
behavior, started to change rapidly, started not to fear arithmetic
anymore, to diligently learn poems, to progress in school. In his spare
time, he was desperately looking for me, although there were 4 years
between us. Yes, when all seemed lost, a gleam of light, as
grandmother was saying, appeared, sent by God.
A dark cloud remained, however, among father’s thoughts. He
couldn’t forget the ones he encountered at the Special Unit. He was
permanently thinking about father Nicolov, about abbot Savatie, about
Ileana. He didn’t get to exchange any words with them, but their eyes
met permanently, delivering the message of solidarity and hope.
- What will think the ones who remained there when they find out
I was set free? Usually, the ones who are freed are considered traitors.
What will the people at work think? Tomorrow I must go to work; at
least that is what I’ve been told.
- Don’t think about what happened. The people know you; no one
will accuse you of anything. The war is said to start in spring. Who
knows? Maybe we will escape from this nightmare for good! Try to get
a little sleep.
- I don’t think I can sleep, it would be better if we talk. What is
the deal with this Zelicman?! How come he got involved in a matter so
dirty and dangerous, even for him?! And these tenants he is trying to
put the knife in our throat with?! It’s hard for me to understand
anything!
- Zelicman is a nice Jew, kind-hearted and very attached to his
family. His wife is sick; she has very serious problems with her back
and can’t take care of their child, Marat. We were lucky with my sister,
who makes dresses for madam Zelicman. That is how I got in their
house, that is how I started to help Marat, to everybody’s happiness.
Marat started to manage, and well! Zelicman adores the child and that’s
where it all started from. As not to give them any trouble, I told them
you were arrested and that I didn’t know anything about you. That is
how they decided to get involved in this matter and here is the result! I
understood that he occupies an important position and what he has to
say is important. The tenants were also his idea. He told me that this
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way we will be left alone, that he will take care of that, only so I would
take care of Marat. Marat has grown fond of Bob and he is always
looking for him, and Bob humors him. I was lucky with my love for
mathematics! I also help him a lot with Russian and I get some money
and food, which isn’t a little these days.
- Yes, there are good people among them too! I can’t forget
Ileana’s face! She was tired, sad. What a pity I couldn’t exchange a few
words with her! Father Nicolov whispered to me to stay quiet, at least
at the beginning. There are false convicts among them, informers, but
they weren’t identified yet. I don’t think many will escape from there.
At night, muffled screams could be heard, and even gunshots. Who
knows what is going on in Nicolovski’s inquiry room?! God! It was
enough to see his face to say everything he wanted! Commander
Rusev, with typical Jew features, is a hidden man. You can’t come
across his look. He is always looking in a different direction. He is the
kind of man who is permanently obsessed with something. I wonder,
how could Zelicman convince him to let me go?! Or do they want
something else with me?! With these guys, you can never know!
Anyway, I have to be very prudent. And you, be careful not to say
anything to anyone. It was brought to my attention that all I have heard
or seen is a secret of major importance. It is clear that this is a death
unit, and dead people don’t talk!
- I don’t think they kill the people here, they might organize
deportations. What could they do with the bodies here? You see that
both Nicolov and Savatie are alive. Haven’t you seen Ilashcu?
- No, only Ileana, which makes me think that they have got rid of
Ilashcu. They wouldn’t have brought both of them in the same place.
As they punished Voda, they punished all who troubled them. If the
Germans don’t hurry, I don’t know what will become of us, we can’t
count on the Romanians anymore! If they haven’t done anything at the
ultimatum, they won’t do anything now, only if they are under Hitler’s
wing, if he doesn’t engulf them to!? A, yes, I forgot to tell you that
Hershcovich is there too. He looked really knocked up! What do you
know about Alexandrov, about Stavrov?
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And there was something else Danila, the man of the popes, had
to do. He had to warn archpriest Popescu. It was clear that the
authorities meant harm to the clergy, and Popescu appeared to be
imprudent in his actions. The same evening, he called on the Sobor,
entered through the door behind the altar, reserved for the priests and
stopped in the canonicals room, waiting for somebody to appear. After
a little waiting, the sexton appeared, accompanied by the archpriest.
The sexton didn’t hide his surprise, throwing the former chief archivist
a look full of distrust. Popescu however, rushed to Danila and hugged
him warmly.
- How are you, my dear? Good to see you healthy! What have
they done to you, dear?
- They didn’t get to do anything. A fortunate event, if I can call it
that, got me out of hell. But it would be better if I saw you off home; I
feel the need for air!
- Fine dear, we will go right now, although you shouldn’t avoid
our sexton, he is a reliable man, only that he is very prudent and he
doesn’t trust anyone anymore, especially those who disappear and then
reappear. In the actual circumstances, we can’t reproach him something
like that. They managed to seed distrust among us and I must admit
that they know how to wield this weapon very well! Let’s go, Danila!
On the way, Danila acquainted him with the things which were
happening at the Consistory and at the Special Unit. Popescu was
happy to find out that Nicolov and Savatie were still alive, but he
shuddered at the thought that Ileana was also there. He told him the
incredible story with Zelicman, but didn’t express optimism regarding
his liberation, sharing his fear that all could be a masquerade to cover
their true intentions. He knew he would be followed and probably
inquired once again.
- It’s not certain, my dear. They are corrupt and make favors
among themselves, which don’t actually cost them anything. Even if
we will get rid of them, we might never find out the truth about what
they did, and especially about how they did it. There are terrible
rumors regarding the communist practices. The things said by Paul are
the pure truth! A few days ago, one evening, I came across a young
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man, civilian, wearing a cap over his eyes, who asked me to confess
him. I grew suspicious and asked him why he didn’t take his cap off
when he entered the church. He told me he was afraid of being
recognized. He was talking with a typical transnistrian accent and was
begging me with his eyes. I thought it was a challenge, but as I
couldn’t refuse a confession, I accepted. He told me that he was from a
Moldavian village near Tiraspol, that he was raised by his grandmother
with faith in God; that he had to hide this, and that when he was taken
in the army, he was detailed to internal affairs, a special school. There,
he was trained for commando actions, for antiterrorism. He also did a
course of ‘investigators’ where he learned live, all sorts of methods for
treating the ones who were inquired, and also the specific methods
applied to women. I brought to his attention that he was in a confession
and if there was something on his soul, he could speak without fear,
this being indispensable for unburdening from sins and asking God for
forgiveness. He hesitated, and then continued.
- Of course I have sinned, and I might have to sin again. I had the
bad luck of being dragged into this dreadful activity and I don’t know
how I could get away. If my folks knew, I think they would kill me
with their own hands! They are honest and faithful people. Yes, at us
the people are faithful, even though they are hiding. At the inquiries I
am used by a mad commander at the torturing of the arrested, to make
them confess to things they have no idea of, to sign declarations against
some people who they don’t even know, or, worse, against relatives.
This is the system, this is what we have been taught. I have done
horrible things; I have seen people die because of the torture. I have
abused women; I have raped, one by one, daughters in front of their
parents, or wives in front of their husbands. There are a lot of us who
are doing this at orders. The last one who died because of the torture
was one Ilashcu. When I heard he was a priest, I couldn’t find peace!
The boss tortured him, with the hot letcon. When he saw he had died,
he gave an order to shoot two bullets in his back and to write in the
official report that he tried to run away. I don’t know what they did
with his body. Father, pray for me. I can’t tell you my name, but God
knows it! I think I will desert, but I don’t have many chances to escape.
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I don’t want to die so young. Pray a lot for me! Don’t be afraid of me!
Today my bosses are missing, and my other colleagues are all drunk.
The alcohol is the only thing that helps us! Take good care of yourself!
They have something against priests and professors. Know that we all
have civilian clothes for when we go out in town. Thank you for
listening to me. Forget all I have told you!
- Yes, my dear Danila, I should have forgotten everything, as the
rule of the confession goes, but this rule cannot be applied but in
normal times, or that is not the case anymore. We must join forces,
inform each other, try to survive. I am a man of the church, but I
nevertheless join the ones who are waiting for the war! We are living a
nightmare which is overwhelming us and they know this and know
how to take advantage of it. I don’t really trust the Germans either, but
I hope that Antonescu receives Basarabia as a gift for the submission
he is displaying toward Hitler! Now let’s part. If something occurs, I
will send the sexton to call you. Take care of yourself! You might be
followed. We will see each other as seldom as possible. We can also
communicate through other trustworthy persons. If someone from my
part comes, he will salute you with the phrase ‘Praise the Lord!’ If I
somehow disappear, the password is out!
Danila slowly set out to his house, making all sort of detours. He
entered the ‘Roses’ park and, protected by the rich vegetation,
examined the street where he came from. He calmed down seeing that
nobody was following him and resumed his journey, thinking of the
young man’s confession. If that was a set-up, then they were displaying
an uncommon cynicism. The young man had related the atrocities
which were taking place in the inquiries at the Consistory, even
pronouncing the names of the victims and confirming Ilashcu’s murder.
Was it Rishcov’s game to put Popescu to a direct test? It was possible,
considering that he was actually taking the place of the ‘fugitive’
bishop. They were dirty and the fate of the church was sealed. He
arrived home at twilight and saw uneasiness in the eyes of mother.
- Why are you so late? We even have guests. The young people
who will be living at us. I have even prepared the girls’ bedroom for
them. Valeria and Luminitza will be sleeping with grandmother. The
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young people who came, they are very nice, he a handsome man, she a
blonde little girl, very pretty, who says she is twenty, but she doesn’t
look more than seventeen. Come on inside, so they don’t say we are
plotting who knows what!
They entered the living room, where the future tenants, didn’t
cease to praise the white cherry confiture. The young family Batalov,
he Alexei Ivanovici, she Clavdia Nicolaevna, simply Clava, beaming
with youth and high-spirit, were bringing a note of hope in the house,
in an almost lugubrious atmosphere. It was the second proof that even
among the newcomers, people could be found, and not beasts as they
were generally considered because of the authorities’ behavior. The
young people seemed happy that they were going to live in the middle
of a family about which Zelicman, Alexei’s idol, had made only
superlative remarks. The reception my mother organized for them
backed up the boss’ words and Clava asked the permission to address
them with ‘tanti Leolea’ and ‘uncle Dania’.
The premises of a cohabitation, inconceivable until the other day,
were positive. An unhappy event, the arrest of father and a chance, the
visit of a man like Zelicman, set things straight. The days which
followed, would confirm this. Alexei was working a lot, was coming
home late in the evening, when he had to listen to Clava bragging
about what she had learnt from tanti Leolea. In matters of
housekeeping, Clava was an innocent child. She couldn’t cook, she
couldn’t wash, she couldn’t iron. Won by Valeria’s skill, she started
working with diligence. She wanted to charm her beloved husband
with her ability. She seconded Valeria at washing and ironing, and tanti
Leolea at cooking! One day she ventured to go alone to the market and
buy a chicken, which eventually turned out to be an old hen. As nobody
was home, she got to work. She appealed to George to cut off the head
of the chicken and retreated in the kitchen full of enthusiasm. All had
to be done before mother came back from the Zelicman family. She
washed the chicken, whole as it was, introduced it in a pot with water
and put the pot on the fire. After all started to boil, she tested the
tenderness of the chicken from time to time with a fork and prepared a
pair of scissors. After about a couple of hours of boiling, she took the
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chicken out, leaving the juice in the pot, for soup. She cooled the
chicken in order to be able to maneuver it, and prepared for
‘trimming’! All seemed to go well, except for the bad smell which
didn’t make you think to chicken soup. She shrugged her shoulders in
misunderstanding; she opened the window to aerate and got to work.
The trimming of the chicken proved to be much more difficult than she
had imagined. Moreover, the smell was making her sick.
- What if I’m pregnant! That would be terrible! I don’t want to
have a child yet.
Salvation came with the appearance of Valeria and mother.
- Tanti Leolea, it’s so good you came! I wanted to make a surprise
for Alexei and look what happened!
- Clavachca, we have to do these things together once, then you
can set a hand to surprises untroubled. You have to scald the chicken,
to tear its feathers off, to cut it, to clean it of its bowels and everything
that is bad and then you can pass to cook it.
- And what do we do now? Throw everything away?!
- Yes, at the first surprise, we might risk to disappoint the loved
ones. Tomorrow we will do this together. For today, we have enough
food for everybody. Maybe we will make a cake, what do you say?
- Yes, I want to learn, just don’t tell Alexei, please! If he finds
out, I won’t get away from his jokes, especially because in his house,
the cooking was very delicious.
- Don’t worry! At your age, I didn’t know a lot either. All has to
be learnt with patience!
The cohabitation didn’t raise any problems, except for the
crowdedness which was reigning in our house. The winter found Clava
a housewife, full of ideas and good-humor. She became close to us all,
even to Luminitza, whose attitudes toward everything connected to the
soviets and the Russian language, didn’t leave room for any doubts.
Lucia, also present in our house rather often, answering to the request
of uncle Danila, left to Chisinau from where she returned only with the
happiness of having seen Mirchea, but without any information
regarding his intentions. The only thing he expressed rather laconically
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was the belief that spring would bring liberation. He was still in the
phase when his trust in Hitler was unshaken.
The presence of soviet tenants in our house made the visits of
those who once never hesitated to come uninvited, scarce. That was the
charm of the friendship which tied as in a bouquet of flowers without
thorns, a handful of families. The only one who was still showing signs
of life, now and then, was Alexandrov, who was waiting for my father
to get off work and saw him off to his house. He didn’t believe in
Zelicmans, he didn’t believe in Batalovs. He knew, as a former tsarist
officer, combatant wounded in the fights for protecting the Tsar, that
his days were numbered. For him, the bolshevism, the soviet power,
the humanitarian communism, were words which were hiding a
gloomy future for the whole humanity. However, he had a blind
confidence in his good friend, Daniil Stepanich, whose fate he was
worried about. He was also wise and he avoided any discussions
regarding his friend’s period of detention, knowing that these things
were better not talked about.
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gathering of the family clan! How could the young ones understand
something like this?! Not even the newcomers understood it. They
knew from their grandparents or parents what these holidays once
meant, they were hoping to find here, at us, manifestations which
would quench their curiosity.
On Christmas Eve, Clava was gone all day long. In the evening,
we came across her and Alexei, loaded with all sort of packets, rushing
into the big room, searching with their sight the Christmas tree which
they had heard couldn’t miss. Congratulations, hugs and a question
which we didn’t expect.
- Where is the tree? Hasn’t Santa come yet?!
- Clavachca, this year our Santa got lost. But how do you know
he was supposed to come?
- Tanti Leolea, me, as well as Alexei, know a lot from our
grandparents. I will tell you a secret, that only my grandmother and my
mother know. When I was four, my grandmother took me to a church
in a little miserable village and baptized me. Father doesn’t even know.
She also gave me a beautiful present, a necklace with a little golden
cross, which she is keeping, so that father doesn’t find out. There are a
lot of things my grandmother taught me. She is an extraordinary
woman. Maybe she will come visit us someday. She was the one who
actually brought me up. My parents were too busy with work. I thought
we were going to see a real Christmas here. We understand what is
going on and we are sorry. Know that there are still many faithful
people at us, but of course, they don’t show themselves. Grandmother
is convinced things will change.
- you don’t even know what surprise you gave us. I must admit
that we are still very afraid.
- You shouldn’t be afraid of us. We feel like home here and we
also learn a lot of things. We must be grateful to commander Zelicman,
who brought us here. He is a wonderful man, as is his family. He asked
us to wish you happy holidays and tell you he regrets not being able to
pay you a visit. He unofficially gave Alexei a leave of absence. And
now, please, open the presents! It’s not much, but it’s from the heart.
S’prazdnicom!, as we say.
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to start looking for him. On New Year’s Eve, we received the visit of a
civilian who straightforwardly told father that Mirchea was guilty with
the organization of a subversive action and was hiding. The warning
was simple and stereotype – he had to be found from where he was
hiding and denounced, as not to involve the rest of the family. It was a
blow for my parents, who didn’t doubt the truthfulness of the things
alleged by the ‘man of law’.
- Where look for him, Leolea dear? How warn him? First of all,
our every step will be followed.
That is what happened. From the next day on, on the sidewalk
from the other side of the street, the supervisor appeared, shifted every
six hours. He was walking looking ostentatiously toward the windows
of our house. Our young tenants also noticed, but had a personal
interpretation of this fact. For them it was a usual thing. Working in the
military navy, Alexei was used to the various methods of stalking,
either at work, either on the street, on his way home, or everywhere. At
work, he knew he was being followed, but he couldn’t tell who his
shadow was, the informer. The most he could do was guess. He was
prudent, he knew what could be said and what not, he refrained from
enjoying political jokes. The shadow, or better said the shadows in
front of the house, he accounted to himself, to the Davidov family and
even to his commander, Zelicman. It wasn’t possible that Zelicman’s
act of intervening for the liberation of diadia Sasha didn’t raise
suspicion among those put to set up and maintain the newly installed
order.
Men like Rusev and Nicolovski couldn’t not discredit someone
who had the insolence to intervene before them. In order to draw the
attention of the observers, as Alexei liked to call them, as little as
possible, the main entrance, paradnaia, as it was called, from the
Frumoasa street was given up, the gate on the Saint Demeter street,
which lead into the yard of the house, being used with discretion.
Alexandrov was advised to cut down on his visits, and Iura Stavrov, to
give them up completely. In fact, Mirchea was sought after at the
Stavrovs’ vineyard, too. As the young tenants spent the New Year at a
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name it was bearing: Suhoy Liman, meaning dry haven. That was
exactly how the area was, a transit camp for those who were to be
sorted for the great ‘pohod na Sibiri’.
Huts improvised on a perfectly flat surface, devoid of vegetation.
Three fences made from wire, barbed wire, at a distance of five meters
one from another, observation towers equipped with machine guns and
a fold filled with superb canine specimens, ensured the security of
1000 – 1500 ‘political’ convicts. Two fountains of great depth, ready to
drain at any time, assured the water necessity of the colony, as it was
called, under the strict supervision of permanent sentinels. The water
was distributed once a day, in rations of half a liter, this operation
taking up a considerable part of the day. In fact, nobody was working
there, everybody was staying, was waiting. Now and then, groups of
convicts were taken out of the perimeter, at a distance of two
kilometers, in order to dig deeper pits, under the pretext of searching
for new water sources. The work was hard, the earth was hard, and the
tools were few and worn. It was work nonetheless, and the ones chosen
considered themselves lucky.
It was called a transit camp because, about every ten days, a
committee of civilians arrived, at the head of which there was a colonel
in uniform. It was the sorting committee. Not all would take the road of
deportation. Groups of 20 – 25 convicts were taken to work, from
where they didn’t come back anymore. The official version was that
they were sent somewhere else. Those remained in the camp realized
however the cruel truth. The bursts of gunfire which could be heard a
few miles away left no room for doubt. That is what happened with
Mihai Bacauanu too, who found himself in a group of ‘chosen ones’,
together with Nea Stefan Nemtzeanu and other fellow villagers. They
knew that was the end. On the road of Golgota, they started to pray in a
loud voice, to the exasperation of their escorts. This time they were
followed, at a short distance, by the members of the committee, headed
by the colonel.
- Today I am going to offer you a special entertainment. I don’t
know whether you have ever hunted people!? Did I say people?! No,
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these are not people! They endanger the very existence of the Soviet
Union! Slaves to the savage capitalism, as Lenin named it.
These words were unmasked later, after the outburst of the war,
when a member of the committee, tormented by remorse, surrendered
to the Romanian army, in the fights for the liberation of Odessa.
Once at the working place, the colonel explained to the convicts
what they had to do.
At the first revolver fire, you run to freedom. Who escapes, is
free. At the second fire, you will be followed by us and by the dogs and
you will be shot at. There will be no wounded, so don’t collapse at the
first bullet that hits you. You were condemned to death anyway, for
attempt upon state security. This way, you are given a chance, the
chance of luck!
Dread could be read on the faces convicts to death, a shameful
death, unimaginable. An indescribable murmur, a hard to control
agitation. Angered, the colonel gave the first signal. Everyone went in a
different direction. The committee, in turn surprised, was manifesting
in disorder. Taking advantage of this state of panic, on one hand, and
the confusion stirred up in the heads of the ones in the committee on
the other hand, Mihai rolled behind a pile of earth, in one of the pits
dug by the convicts. The disorderly run of the convicts, the tense wait
of the second signal, served him as a screen. When after a hard to
define time, the second fire was heard, the committee, the guards, with
the dogs still in leash, set out in the pursuit of the convicts. The first
gunshots started. Frightened screams mixed with yells of satisfaction
could be heard. People fell biting the dust, desperately trying to rise.
The ones caught up by the blood-thirsty hunters were helped to die
with a bullet in the back of the head.
Madness took hold of these villains, they tasted the pleasure of
almightiness and, as to have more fun, they let the fugitives go further
and, releasing the hounds, they followed them at a gunfire distance.
The massacre was total. When the gunfire ceased, as if afraid by what
had happened, the committee and the guards stopped, not daring to
look each other in the eyes. All were waiting for the decision of the
colonel. No one even thought about any escapee. On an open field,
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something like that wasn’t possible. The colonel addressed the soldiers
from his guard.
- Gather the dogs and let’s return to base. Take two wagons,
collect the bodies and bury them in one of the pits prepared. Fill it up
and level it. I don’t want to hear any comments! This is what happens
to those who organize a run. Let’s go!
It was Mihai’s second fortunate moment. Because all of them left
directly toward the camp, he was allowed to get out of the pit, and
crawling as not to be seen from a distance, he set out northward, going
away from the scene of the crime. When he considered he was far
enough, he looked for a more secluded pit and nestled in it waiting for
the night to set. At one moment, the distant bark of the guard dogs
made his blood run cold.
- What if they counted the dead and set out in search of the
missing one? What should I do? Stay put, or try to go further away? I
risk being spotted from distance. I should better stay put.
That is how Mihai Bacauanu escaped from the inferno, keeping a
terrible pain in his soul, a memory of dread. His only thought was to
see his family again and warn the close ones upon the danger that was
in store for them. With this thought he snuck, very slowly, to the
village, where he told his relatives and some trustworthy friends the
nightmare he lived. That is how uncle Vasile found out about the way
grandfather died, that is how he decided to go to Ismail, to his brother
Danila. He cared much for Danila, he wished to ask his advice. He
wanted to leave Sararia, but he didn’t know how to do it.
- My dear Vasile, I think running away might rush things, you
might get caught, ruin your family. In the current situation it is wiser to
pretend you don’t know anything. Don’t tell anything to anyone, not
even to mother. You would kill her and you would put everyone in
danger. Tell Ananie the same thing. You know how impulsive and
brave he is. I’m always worried about him. He has something of my
Mirchea.
- Danila, I don’t want to stay too long, and I wouldn’t like to be
seen by these soviet tenants either. I don’t trust anybody anymore. It’s
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Zelicman was also seized with panic and was searching for
arguments to convince Sara to listen to his advice. The main argument
was Marat.
- You know, Sara dear, what a war would mean for the civilian
population, for a child?! And where? In a country occupied by us, with
people that hate us and would butcher us if they could. For them we are
ordinary invaders, criminals. It is not about people like the Davidovs.
They have a special wisdom, but that doesn’t mean they agree with the
Soviet Power. Daniil Stepanovich confessed to me that his father was
deported. He doesn’t have any news from him. That is what we have
managed to do here and we still want to feel safe. Antonescu spoke
yesterday evening at the radio. He spoke of the degree of preparation of
the Romanian army, of Basarabia, Romanian land. I pity their army, but
do you think they would speak to the wind like this, if they didn’t have
their backs covered by Hitler? Hitler needs the Romanian oil and
cannon fodder. We, we hurried to interfere where it wasn’t our
business. To keep the mouths of the Danube, you have to be powerful,
and our army is equipped like in the First World War. This is the reality,
not that trumpeted forth by irresponsible politicians, who have never
been on a battlefield treaded by tanks and defended by bayonet. That is
what awaits us and that is why I would like you to understand the
situation and think about Marat.
- You are scaring me even more when you talk like this. It’s like
you are telling me that you must die in Ismail, and I must run with the
child, save myself. Why save myself? Don’t you understand that
without you our life would be senseless?!
- Fine, Sara dear, let’s see what I find out and we will decide
together. Anyway, if the war starts, the authorities will pass to the
forced evacuation of all soviet citizens, I am talking about those who
came here from our great Soviet Union. Let’s wait and see what has to
be done.
- And with Batalov’s shadows, what do you intend to do? Don’t
forget he is your trusted man and maybe you too are targeted.
- Not maybe, I am surely targeted. I don’t realize yet if it’s
Rishcov’s doing, or Nicolovski’s. Rusev is a Jew nevertheless, and I
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this and I don’t have the right to organize surveillances either. Prudence
is needed nonetheless, because cadres of the army are involved. The
cover is that the surveillance of the Davidov family is called for. Our
luck is that Batalov is staying at them, and Zelicman doesn’t step aside
from appearing with them, moreover, he is entrusting his child to them
to be tutored.
- Not a worry! The Davidov family, who are having trouble with
their son in Chisinau, as well as with Davidov’s father, can be followed
in the sight of everybody. The other two, I know how to deal with
them. I would really like to see Zelicman here, inquired properly and
then transferred to you. Tell me, what is it with these rumors about the
imminence of an armed attack from the part of the Germans and the
Romanians?
- If we were to listen to the rumors, we should scuttle away. The
misfortune is that if they take us unexpectedly, it will be hard to erase
certain traces. If we were to retreat even strategically, we would have
to raze everything to the earth. I hope we are prepared for something
like that. If it isn’t so, we will hear a lot about us on the radio stations.
But let’s not think about that and exterminate as many as we can from
those who wouldn’t hesitate to hang us at the first occasion. Good!
We’ve understood each other and I thank you!
- See that you don’t give yourself away in front of Rusev. I can’t
find out at all who this guy has behind him. But you can never know
where trouble comes from. Good! We’ll talk about it, and without
involving Rishcov. He seems to be in good relations with my boss,
with Rishcov.
The conversation with Shevchenko filled the ruthless Nicolovski
with hope. Who entered in his sight, could consider himself lost. At the
Unit, things went by themselves. Rusev was staying out of his
business, and his team was body and soul at his discretion. His great
problem was the complex he was bearing, namely his ugliness. Women
were his great weakness, but the women with whom he had relations
were part of his victims. He was very pretentious, he didn’t content
himself but with beautiful women, who, if refused to submit to his very
fanciful wishes, as not to call them perverse, were given to the group of
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‘investigators’, who had the job to avenge their boss’ failure; and the
boys knew their job very well.
Since he saw Ileana, he remained with a fixed idea – to win her
with kindness, with promises, with presents, to make her give herself to
him with all the splendor of her body. Her face was paralyzing him. He
had found out from Shevchenko how recalcitrant she was, obsessed
with revenge for the murder of her husband. She was thinking of
speculating this aspect. The story with the incurable disease which her
body was hiding appeared to him, from the very beginning, as a bluff.
He could verify this story, giving her on the hand of one of the studs in
the team, but the desire to be her only possessor, stopped him and
saved Ileana too, whom the team fixed their eyes on from the first day.
He drew the attention of the boys to leave her alone and not undertake
anything without his knowledge. It was an order, and his orders were
piously respected. He had the intention of acting with patience. He
wanted her, but he didn’t want to use force. He needed this satisfaction,
especially after Shevchenko’s failure.
The visit at Shevchenko had the expected effect. This is how our
family found itself put under permanent observation, this is how Clava
found herself with a shadow who was accompanying her through town,
discretely, but not discretely enough to be unnoticed, this is how some
signs appeared at the Harbor Master’s Office, that something new had
appeared around Zelicman and Batalov. Nothing palpable, but present
nevertheless. This disturbed the commander and made him take
attitude. He paid Rishcov a visit and started to question him directly,
without beating around the bush. Rishcov appeared sincerely surprised
and promised to investigate and take the measures imposed.
- If Shevchenko did this of his own will, he will answer to me. If
he was suggested by someone above, I will find out, although
something like this would be very very unusual. It would be an act of
undermining toward me and not only would that disturb me, but it
would warn me. We might be in the same situation! Anyhow, I will
keep you informed. We are passing through a critical period and we
can expect everything. We will talk again.
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something like this, send him to me. Tomorrow you might put me
under surveillance too.
Shevchenko left Rishcov’s office smiling, but seething with fury.
He understood that the ‘open’ surveillance of Davidov’s house had to
stop. He thought about paying Nicolovski a visit, but he gave it up.
- Who am I to give him an account of what orders I received, or
what I am going to do?! I will fob him off until he gets bored.
He descended in the inquiry room, opened a paper case with
‘emergencies’ written on it, he skimmed through the list with the ones
put under surveillance and stopped at the name of the construction
materials warehouse chief from the Saint Nicholas’ church. He read
aloud: Alexandr Alexandrovich Alexandrov, ex-officer in the Tsar’s
army, decorated with Saint George’s order.
- Look how the things add up! Alexandrov is a good friend of
Davidov. This Hershcovich had to appear for us to find out the truth
about Alexandrov’s past! A white officer! And Hershcovich! To come
across Rusev here, just when he thought that the ‘save Spain’ episode
was definitely out of his life. Rusev considers him a traitor and the
accidental encounter on the street, in Ismail, when the little tailor
turned his frightened look away hurriedly, filled him with a sincere
happiness. In that moment, Hershcovich’s fate was sealed.
- Yes, yes! Alexandrov must be put against wall!
Meanwhile, life at the Special Unit was following its ‘normal’
course. The convicted men and women were receiving food for
survival, working hard in the same time at the digging of galleries.
While the men were suffocating because of the dust and the lack of any
ventilation, the women were breaking their backs carrying the
dislocated earth, outside the cellar, with the help of buckets. There
were also the systematic interrogatories, led by Nicolovski himself, at
which Rusev never practically participated. It seldom happened that he
entered the inquisitorial investigation hall, shunning the desperate
looks of the ones subjected to the so-called routine interrogatory. His
eyes were always nailed to the ground, he exchanged a few whispered
words with Nicolovski and he left slowly, as a shadow at the playful
appearance of a cloud. They were however relaxation moments for the
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If the men were still ‘inquired’, that was because this was part of
the liquidation program – malnutrition, exhausting work and
inquisitorial inquiries, in which torture took forms hard to imagine for
a normal mind. The women had to participate at the orgies of the team
lead by Nicolovski, with alcohol to the full, with group sex, group rape
actually, with the obliging of women to sexual perversions. The
stubborn ones got something else extra – the presence of their husbands
or fathers. While the women were abused, they had to assist helplessly,
immobilized with cuffs or hanging head down, with the legs fixed in
special cuffs, at the ends of ropes tied to the ceiling. The women
endured such a treatment very little. Exhausted, they were transferred
to the Sanatorium of nervous diseases and liquidated through the
injection of lethal substances. This was the reason why the group of
women had to be renewed with fresh merchandise, a job done by
Shevchenko.
When the group of women Ileana was part of arrived, Nicolovski
had a totally unusual reaction. Seeing her beautiful face, her slim
woman body, Nicolovski felt a special thrill. He didn’t see a convict
with a special destination, he saw a woman! From the very beginning,
he drew Rusev’s attention that it was a case which interested him
personally and that he wanted a free hand. Rusev shrugged his
shoulders, murmuring ‘do what you want’ and smiled with meaning.
He liked to see his subaltern subjugated by personal problems. He
knew very well the complex Nicolovski suffered from, a thing which
he despised, but which he knew how to use. Nicolovski started to bestir
himself in the search of the best way of approaching Ileana, of reaching
his goal – her acceptance of a relationship based on harmony and not
violence. For him this thing was essential. He was fed up with the
hatred in the eyes of the raped women. He wanted to wake in them, in
one of them, a warm feeling, of love.
As not to reveal his tactic, in the first days of detention, he
subjected her to the general regime applied to women. Ileana started to
work shoulder to shoulder with her comrades in suffering, carrying the
earth removed by the men from the new galleries. She was trying not to
infringe in any way the dispositions in force, shunning even the looks
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was no God, that it was all a story, that heaven, hell, saints, or angels
didn’t exist. The priests were presented like liars, who were collecting
money from the people so that they would live in prosperity, without
working. What happened in a kindergarten is anecdotic, but the event
took place, to the despair of parents and especially grandparents.
An educator at a children’s nursery didn’t serve them the
otherwise poor breakfast one day. The children asked for food, at
which the comrade told them to pray to God to send them food. The
children, accustomed to prayers from home, took action in all their
naivety. As the result was null, the educator explained to them: you see
there is no God?! Do you see it’s all a lie?! Now look at comrade
Stalin’s portrait and ask him too. He is our daddy and he takes care of
us all. Try! The children, hungry, took the advice and the miracle
happened. The door of the classroom opened and a few persons from
the nursery personnel appeared carrying trays filled with dainties. The
children started to applaud.
- Well, do you see who takes care of you? Do you see who you
have to listen to and love? God didn’t listen to you, because God
doesn’t exist!
A clever five or six year old boy, expressing confusion, or
disagreement, rose and said: comrade educator, we couldn’t talk to God
because there isn’t any icon in our classroom. Home, we have one in
every room. The educator, caught on the wrong foot, grumbled
something, shouted a ‘sit down!’ and told them to eat and listen to her.
Today something like this seems unlikely, but who lived in those
times, knows that such occurrences were common. Yes, little children
were the first victims of the reeducation process. This was not possible
at the level of the adolescents, of the young people set out in life. For
them there were restrictions, interdictions, intimidation.
It was harder in villages. Our peasant was tied to the family, to
the land, to the faith in God. The peasant didn’t give up the spiritual
values seeded from generation to generation. The law before which
they bow, is the law left by their ancestors. The arresting of priests, the
sealing of churches, or their turning into warehouses, couldn’t shake
the faith of the simple man, from the countryside. On Sundays, the
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in cities, the ‘attention’ turned toward them. For them however, the
matter of deportation couldn’t be considered. They had to be punished
on the spot, liquidated, as the stubborn Romanian intellectuals who
refused ‘collaboration’.
Shevchenko got in touch with Rusev and Nicolovski and they set
out to work. A few things were found out about the atrocities
happening in Shevchenko’s inquiry office, but the number of those
inquired and disappeared could be estimated. The fact that some even
died on the torture table of the sadistic investigator, or were transferred
to the Special Unit, is of no importance. The inquiries organized by
Nicolovski with Rusev’s knowledge, were no gentler than those of
Shevchenko, and who didn’t die of his hand, died either at the Special
Unit, either at the nervous diseases Sanatorium. At Rishcov’s
suggestion, on the list of Shevchenko’s priorities, there were two
names, Silvia and Alexandrov.
With all the misfortunes which came over Silvia, the
schizophrenic declared and supervised by doctor Mirchev himself, this
woman was obsessing the investigator. Her physical endurance
intrigued him, even with the ‘medicinal’ treatment she was being
applied.
- Volodea, this Silvia has to be terminated. I don’t trust what
Mirchev is doing. Let’s do an experiment. Go to the hospital and try to
talk to her, to see if she recognizes you, if her madness isn’t something
else than we believe. She is said to have remained obsessed with you
and to have no clue that her husband died. Tomorrow I want you to
report to me. Don’t tell her who you are. Appear in front of her and
wait for the reaction.
- Understood!
- Sergey, tomorrow you will bring Alexandrov here. You will take
him directly from the church where he is working, at the end of the
shift. You will put a seal on the warehouse. You will keep him a night
in isolation and then you will bring him here.
Volodea went to the hospital at Mirchev and asked to be left alone
with Silvia.
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- Aren’t you afraid of being alone with her? She is generally weak
because of the drugs, but she can also become violent. You can’t even
imagine what a woman can do if she has an attack of nerves. She will
tear you to pieces before you can say knife.
- Leave it to me. Nothing is going to happen. I want to see her in
a separate room, with no witnesses.
- Well at the door however, there will be a man of ours. If
something happens, shout. If she gets nervous, leave her alone. If
something needs to be done, we will deal with it.
Volodea entered the room shown, smiling hardly perceptible. He
was more than curious. He remembered the way he managed to take
her out of her passivity, to make her react like a normal woman, in
normal conditions, not of rape. He had felt the whole splendor of the
woman who was lying in this particularly beautiful exemplar, but filled
with hatred and fear. He had defeated her in rather absurd
circumstances. He had felt a special satisfaction then. The
appreciations brought by Shevchenko placed him on an orbit superior
to that he was generally revolving together with Aliosha.
He was surprised. He wasn’t expecting to recognize her after the
treatment she was subjected to. Naked, Silvia was looking at him
smiling. Her beautiful eyes, bright, didn’t give away by any means the
state of sickness. A little thinner maybe, but with the same harmonious
body line, Silvia approached Volodea, caressed his cheek and told him
whispering:
- Paul, why haven’t you come anymore? And why are you
dressed? Don’t you want to make love? What’s wrong with you? Don’t
you love me anymore? Is it true that Ileana moved to us? What will
Irinel say?
Volodea throbbed. It was obvious that Silvia had gone mad after
what had happened during the inquiry. He experienced a feeling of fear
and maybe for the first time in his life he felt guilty. Silvia stuck to
him, kissed him on the mouth, caressed his hair and started to undo the
buttons from his rubashka. Volodea took her hands and started to kiss
them.
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- Silvia, how can I not love you?! What is this story with Ileana?!
We can’t make love here, it is a hospital, and you are a little sick. I will
take you home soon and everything will be fine again. Trust your Paul,
and only yours. Irinel is sending you kisses and is waiting for you. I
have to leave now, but I will be back as soon as I can. Be good and do
what the doctors say and don’t walk naked like this anymore.
- Why not undress? No one sees me here. The people here are
crazy and they don’t understand anything. I like to dance naked in front
of the mirrors. You know, where I’m staying, the walls are made of
mirrors. Who could understand how wonderful it is to live free, without
prejudices?! I am glad the story with Ileana is an invention. It couldn’t
be different! Ileana is a decent woman and moreover she is my friend.
Go, my dear Paul, and don’t leave me here for a long time. I don’t like
the doctor, the chief. He is always looking at me in a strange way, as if
he wants to undress me. That’s why when he comes, I dress quickly. He
is an unbearable person. Come on, go and kiss Irinel.
Volodea left the room depressed. When the doctor asked him
what he thought, he answered shortly:
- She is crazy, but she is not violent. She took me for her
husband. She talked to me as if I was her Paul. I don’t think she
represents a problem for us.
- Yes, I myself saw that she didn’t recover. It’s better this way.
We’ll leave her alone. She can’t recover, especially because the
treatment continues. Salute comrade Shevchenko from my part and tell
him not to worry.
Volodea felt the need to drink something, to get drunk. For the
first time, he felt a bitter taste, understanding that he too contributed to
the misfortune of this woman. He was overcome with disgust toward
what he was put to do, and an unknown feeling of mercy toward this
beautiful, practically innocent woman engulfed him. He entered into a
more secluded tavern and asked for vodka. He emptied the first glass
breathlessly, asked for another one, and staring at the ceiling, he
thought of Shevchenko. He saw him in another light, going through the
images of what was happening in their inquiry office.
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upon his mind and he couldn’t rid himself of this image. That wasn’t
how he had imagined the sight of a mad woman looked like. She was
serene, affectionate, confident. He knew she was crazy, but the bound
between normal and abnormal was indefinite. In fact, what he was
doing during the inquiries was something normal?! Why was it that
after such scenes they had vodka at their discretion? Was it that in the
words of his grandfather a grain of truth lay? In such a system, what
would happen to him if he took a wrong step? Surprised by such
thoughts, he got angry for good. He opened the cupboard and took a
bottle of the never-failing vodka. He took a big gulp and he lay on his
bed. He fell asleep fast and he plunged into a deep sleep. Youth and
vodka had done their job.
Shevchenko also remained lost in thoughts. Volodea’s empty
words disappointed him. He had expected spicier information. He had
sent Silvia to Mirchev as to get revenge on her for the arrogance with
which she spit on him. He hadn’t thought at any moment that she was
crazy. If she had no idea about what was happening to her, what was
the point in keeping her alive?! This was no revenge. He was hoping
that she would stir up some spicy scandals through her beauty,
involving either the sanitary personnel, or the patients around her.
Knowing Mirchev as a notorious womanizer as well, ready to get
involved with anything which had a woman’s face, he had counted on
his help. No, something wasn’t in order! He had to see her personally
and decide what had to be done. He saw Alexandrov’s file on the table
and called Sergey.
- Have you prepared Alexandrov’s arrest?
- It’s complicated, comrade captain. Alexandrov has suffered a
heart attack and is hospitalized at internal diseases. It seems he is in a
critical state!
- The hell with it! I want Alexandrov alive, as well as all the
white officers. I don’t want him to die in a hospital. We can find out a
lot of names from him. Go to the hospital now, talk to the department
chief and tell him Alexandrov has to be saved. Tell him whatever
passes your mind. I want him alive! When I hear about white officers, I
see red!
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Alexandrov easily entered in the role, especially that the things found
out made him behave ‘properly’ even without sedatives. He was
scared. He knew that they tracked him, that they found out he was a
white officer. For those, there was no escape. They as well as their
families were exterminated. He was profoundly moved by Percheac’s
gesture. He had taken an enormous risk. To save a white officer, meant
to commit suicide. He thought about the poor Hrshcovich. Maybe he
was the one who gave them the information. He was known to be
arrested by Shevchenko’s men and after an inquiry by the book,
transferred to Rusev, at his request. He had recognized him in the street
and he didn’t give up until he gave him on Nicolovski’s hands.
Alexandrov had to be inquired, made to confess and to divulge the
names of other ex-officers.
Before calling on Mirchev, Shevchenko paid Percheac a visit.
- Well, how is our patient feeling?
- Which patient, comrade captain?
- Only one interests me. Alexandrov, and I want him healthy as
fast as possible.
- Yes! He has to be an important character, since you take a
personal interest. Alexandrov is not doing well! I don’t even want to
tell those at home. He suffered a heart attack; the ones at home didn’t
realize his condition and brought him too late. First of all, they
struggled to lay him in bed, they forced him to move as he shouldn’t
have, what’s more they let him get up, go to work. Their only excuse is
that they didn’t have such cases in the family. The second crisis
overpowered him entirely. Anyhow, I’m trying to set him afoot. Only a
miracle could save him.
- Fine comrade doctor; don’t forget I need this miracle!
Alexandrov was a good collaborator and he didn’t end his mission yet.
I will pass here again. I am going to Mirchev now.
Mirchev had found out about Shevchenko’s presence in the
hospital and was waiting for him in his cabinet.
- How are you doctor? How are your patients doing? I passed by
Percheac to see what one Alexandrov was doing. It seems he is dying.
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This disturbs me. I needed one like him some more. Do you think I can
trust Percheac? What if there is a set-up in the wind?
- Percheac? He is a very good and conscientious doctor. If his
greatest enemy was hospitalized, he would take care of him better than
he would take care of the others. I too have someone at him and it
seems he does wonders. Of course, you can’t talk to him like you talk
to me, but in medical problems you can count on his competence one
hundred percent. He is a curious guy, a romantic, who doesn’t live
down on earth.
- Please follow this case nonetheless. I want to be sure I am not
being fooled, and if he is seriously ill, I prefer he dies here or at home,
not during my inquiry. Tell me, how is Silvia doing? In fact, it’s her I
came here for. I thought you would finish with this case. Are you really
convinced she is not shaming? We can’t afford to be surprised! I want
to see her in private.
- I will bring her here and leave you alone. She is not violent, you
can rest assured.
- It’s not violence I’m afraid of. I don’t want to be fooled.
Silvia appeared in the cabinet and threw Shevchenko an inquiring
look.
- You are Paul’s friend, aren’t you? Why hasn’t he come? I think
Paul has told me about you, but I seem to have forgotten your name.
What is your name? Have you come to make love? It is beautiful here.
Look, we even have a sofa. Wait a minute for me to undress.
- Silvia took off her night gown and approached Shevchenko
slowly. Surprised, Shevchenko took a step backwards, without saying a
word.
- Why are you stepping aside? That’s also what Paul did when he
was here the last time. I think he was afraid of the doctor. Paul is an
extraordinary man. You wouldn’t tell he is a priest. Come, undress!
You know that even the doctor wanted to make love, but I didn’t let
him. With you, it is different, you are Paul’s friend. Now I know what
your name is, you are Volodea.
- Silvia, the doctor wanted to make love to you, here in the
cabinet?
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when she was brought for the inquiry. A thought flashed across his
mind:
- But what if Mirchev isn’t treating her according to the deal and
is keeping her to himself?!
If something like that turned out to be true, his fate would be
sealed. Anyhow, he was on the list of the witnesses who had to
disappear at the adequate moment, and the moment was starting to be
seen at the horizon. The messages arrived from the center were clearer
and clearer. You didn’t have to be a great politician to decrypt the sense
of all the dispositions which, not rarely, came one against each other.
The state of panic was starting to settle among the ones who came from
the other side of the Nistru. Under all sorts of pretexts, families were
returning from where they had come from, leaving their husbands at
their duty. Unable to mask the things, the native population seemed to
be reborn. The optimism could be read on their faces. They remained
however prudent, scared of what was happening in the cities and
villages. Each was looking to strain through the sieve which was
selecting the ones destined to perish. In this time, the corruption in the
ranks of the foreigners grew to unthinkable proportions. With the
thought at the imminent departure from this veritable heaven for them,
they were prepared for anything in order to gather as much valuable
things as they could, as much gold and silver. This state of things did
some good to the locals too, who were managing to find out in time
certain things which were regarding them directly and in some cases to
take shelter.
The frontier guards were also part of the category of corrupt ones.
That is why in the middle of the winter, over the Danube blocked by
ice blocks, the ones who could pay the vigilance, with all the obvious
risks, took the road of exile, of risk, of poverty. Some managed to reach
the right bank of the Danube unharmed. Others found their death in the
waters of the Danube they loved so much. The same thing was
happening along the Prut as well. The number of these desperate ones
was of course, rather small. Few had tempting material means in store
and even fewer were the ones who dared to bribe and push their luck.
There were also the young people, who without bribe or other
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with you myself, to get you out of trouble. Any fugitive is a potential
spy. I will guarantee for you, and then I will take you to your aunt, so
that she will take care of you a little. What would you like to do?
- I want to go to Sibiu, to the cavalry officer school. If the soviets
didn’t come, I would be there now.
In Galatzi things went on unexpectedly simple. The commander,
a professional officer, remained surprised by Mirchea’s request, gave
him a temporary identity certificate and armed him with a voucher for
Sibiu. Lieutenant Tanase thanked the commander, and with his
permission, made a detour through Rimnicu Sarat, to entrust him to his
wife. The surprise was big, but Mirchea didn’t abuse the hospitality of
his aunt for too long. He wanted to get to the officer school as fast as
possible, to get ready for the campaign which was looming at the
horizon. To fight alongside the Germans would have been a dream
come true. He had escaped as through a miracle, but he had a mission
to accomplish, to pay back. He had to avenge his colleagues and to
clear his name from the unfair accusations.
In Sibiu things also went on well. After a few interrogatories and
the verification of some accounts regarding the situation of the recruits
in the years 1939 – 1940, Mirchea joined the Cavalry Officer School
and, at the start of the war, asked to go to the front with the first unit
thrown in battle. Until then however, nothing was known at home
about his fate. Mother had lugubrious feelings and was praying to God
as for a dead man. This belief worried her for a long time,
extinguishing her contagious joyfulness, her love of life. The bad
things piled up, and the atmosphere in the house became more and
more tense. The relationship between father and Valeria also
contributed to the increase of the tension. While dad was seeking to
avoid Valeria in direct confrontations, his former little girl was
provoking him at every step.
Her jargon had acquired something trivial, unusual for us, and the
most absurd accusations flung mud at father, ignoring even our
presence, the younger ones, or the one of the tenants. Dad was
withdrawing in himself, coming home from work late, putting an
additional cloud over mother. The only notable change occurred with
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Lulu, who in spite of the impulse she had against the Russian language
and against the soviets, took to Clava, who became Claudia, with
whom she was wandering throughout the town, striving to teach her
Romanian. The same, the relations with the Zelicman family became
closer and closer, and Marat was spending his whole free time playing
at us, with me and Barby.
These demonstrations of mutual sympathy would stay, later, at
the foundation of the accusations brought to Zelicman by the ones who
meant him harm, since the ‘involvement’ in the problems of institutions
destined to set up the new order.
Meanwhile, new bad news reached the ears of my folks. The
Stavrov family had disappeared from the vineyard. As in winter, the
relations between the Stavrovs and the young frontier guards quartered
at the vineyard had become very friendly, with all the inherent risks,
Stavrov set to work and came to terms with the chief of the group
regarding his old plan of crossing the Danube. He took out a part of the
golden coins carefully hidden in the perimeter of the vineyard, gave
them to the young commander and set up a plan of crossing the
Danube, over the ice bridge, before it was dynamited for the freeing of
the ice blocks piled up in a compact mass.
In the night decided, the three Stavrovs, armed with the rest of the
golden coins, hung by their belt in small leather bags, appeared at the
decided place, to cross the Danube on foot, under the protection of
their young frontier guard friend. Unfortunately, they had a surprise.
- I have to search you, so that in case anything happens, I won’t
be in trouble.
The search resulted in the confiscation of the gold, to the despair
of the fugitives.
- What will we do without any money?!
- This is beyond me. You should hurry, if you don’t want to be
caught on our bank. If you get on the other side, you are free to do
whatever you want. After you go far enough, I will fire a few gunshots,
in the air of course! Don’t be frightened, continue your journey. I need
cover, too. And not a word about our agreement! It wouldn’t do good to
anyone! Safe journey!
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The ice bridge didn’t cause them any problems. Neither did the
gunshots which were heard behind them. However, they woke up the
Romanian frontier guards. They warned them, but no incident
happened. At the frontier guard post they had a surprise. Next to the lit
fire, an adolescent was warming up his bones. It was George, the
nephew of Leolea and Dania. The first who recognized him was Iuric.
- How did you get here, George?
- Like you. I crawled on the ice. I left from the monastery ravine.
I got badly frozen, but it was worth it. I followed two frontier guards,
which were drinking vodka. They were rather drunk and I snuck right
by them. It didn’t even cross their mind to look straight ahead. They
were looking left and right and in fact they were hopping on the spot,
in order to get warm.
- Have you come alone?
- Of course! You can have surprises in a group. One sneezes,
another gets frightened and turns back. It is important not to stop. After
a couple of days they are going to blow up the ice, so I took advantage.
My parents don’t even know. I’m going to Bucharest, to my father. He
has wanted to take me for a long time, but I refused. Since the event
with the boys who tried to swim across, I decided to run by myself.
- George, for us the matter is rather complicated. The boy we
came to terms with and whom we paid with old golden coins, searched
us at our departure and took everything we had upon us. We are broke
and we don’t have who to turn to!
- Well, I have some Romanian money and necklace with a golden
cross from grandmother. I say it’s enough for tickets to Bucharest, and
we will see what we arrange there with my father. The main thing is to
get off the formalities in Tulchea.
The journey to Tulchea was made in a military truck, on a terrible
cold. However, the great warmth with which they were received by the
frontier guard commander was beyond expectations. Understanding at
the carrying out of formalities, vouchers for the requested destination,
Bucharest, food for the journey, temporary identity certificates. The
warmth of this behavior brought warmth in the hearts of the fugitives
too. Major Voinescu knew Ismail well. The things narrated exceeded
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again?! With them, we’ll see what we arrange. But first, let’s prepare a
feast and celebrate your successful run. Until tomorrow, we will jostle
somehow, and the day will enlighten us. We have to work it out.
The meal was copious, but the atmosphere wasn’t. Milescu was
curious to hear news from Basarabia, but the things narrated had the
effect of bringing sadness. It seemed from the field of the incredible,
but the things narrated were coming from his son, were coming from
the mouth of people who had lived in the middle of the events. Without
wanting, in his own mind, he congratulated himself for the fact that he
had left this oppressed region, fallen into the hands of barbarians. Not
the soviets, not the communist order were guilty of all the evils, but the
Russians, only the Russians, in their utopian obsessions of expansion.
He was forgetting that his first true love, George’s mother, was a
Russian. In fact, he wasn’t the only one who was thinking this way. It
wasn’t the U.S.S.R, it was Russia!
The morning caught all in verve. The only one who was showing
signs of fatigue, of boredom better said, was the step mother, whom
George was obviously avoiding. As adolescent as he was, so
determined he was not to stick in anybody’s throat and to manage on
his own. He knew the school year was lost, he knew he didn’t want to
work with his father, he didn’t wish to follow him in his profession, he
felt like continuing school and practicing journalism. This was his
vocation; this was what he wanted to do. His plans would disappoint
Milescu, but he encountered in George a ‘stubborn’ young man, who
reminded him of his own youth. He knew from his experience that he
didn’t stand a chance in such a fight, and George was more important
near him, than somewhere far. The future would confirm this.
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good relations with the Davidov family, will certify this mission,
providing information about these people and their relations with the
Zelicmans and Batalovs. No! Don’t be afraid! I don’t need real
information from you. Any trifle can be interpreted as valuable
information which would assure you freedom and maybe the way to
revenge. I don’t care about Shevchenko. I too hate him for his
arrogance. But you must trust me and not act hastily. By the way things
are going, the opportunity might appear soon. So that everything is in
order, you will have to ask the ones with whom your husband worked
to give you something to work, to officially have something to live
from. Practically, I assure you that you won’t be lacking anything.
Think about what I’ve told you and give me an answer. Anyhow, I am
not going to let you die here. You mean too much for me. I trust you
and I will take you out of this inferno. You can run if you wish, but
leaving my protection might throw you back in the arms of
Shevchenko. Now go and think about what we have talked. It’s
premature to make plans with revenge. The primary objective is getting
away from here and that is what I am taking care of. Go in peace.
Ileana retreated astounded. It was about her life, about the
obsessing thought of revenge. The question was, could she trust
Nicolovsky’s words? A villain who had terrified, together with Rusev,
Ismail, and who was offering her an exchange – her life for her body.
At this thought, her body shivered as if overcome with fever. She had
escaped unharmed from the arms of Shevchenko and she had ended up
in Nicolovsky’s cage. She automatically made her way toward the
dormitory-hut pushed by the necessity of relaxation.
She spent a white night distorting the attitude and words of this
villain. Without wanting, she stopped at the thought of the story ‘The
beauty and the beast’ and tried to make a connection with what was
happening with her and this hideous man. She had felt the complex he
was suffering from and considered this fact as an excuse for him. He
was well-built, but he had a terrifying face. However, when he talked
about love, his eyes lit up as those of a child receiving a toy.
- How is it possible?! This man, who is bearing the burden of
crimes committed with cold blood, can pronounce words of love, with
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trust me. No one will do you any more harm, at least while I am where
I am! I promise you that in a few days you will be at your home.
After Nicolovsky’s departure, Ileana lay down on the sofa in the
living room and fell in a deep sleep. She woke up at noon, feeling
Nicolovsky’s jerky breath. He was leaning over her. When she opened
her eyes, Nicolovsky kissed her lightly on the forehead and smiled her
friendly. She discovered in his eyes again that childish look, which
contrasted so much with his appearance. She didn’t sketch any gesture
of rejection, surprising him with this attitude. Nicolovsky straightened
and continued to contemplate her.
- Ileana, you are very beautiful! Know that I couldn’t do you any
harm. I promise I will have a lot of patience with you. I hope we will
defeat the distance that separates us. I know what it is said about me,
but ultimately I am a man too, and like any man, I too can have good
parts, although I have kept them well-hidden. Don’t say anything. Your
behavior has shown me that you are not afraid of me and that means a
lot to me, to that good part in me. You have already done a lot for me
and I am grateful. Tonight I am having a meeting with Rishcov. I want
to speed up your liberation on parole and to obtain his approval. In this
case, Shevchenko will obediently stay at his place. Let’s eat something!
I hope you will regain your appetite and your desire to live.
- You can be sure of that! I feel as hungry as a wolf and I want to
look good when I get home.
In this apparent atmosphere of understanding and mutual trust,
parallel thoughts were working the minds of the two antagonistic,
irreconcilable characters. In the pursuit of her plans of survival for
revenge, Ileana was asking herself how much could she trust this
sinister character? What will come next after the liberation? Will it
really be a liberation? Couldn’t it be a hidden plan – to abuse and then
liquidate her? Was it possible that in the heart of this executioner
human feelings appeared? She was aware of the fact that Nicolovsky
was suffering from a complex which was obsessing him. Was it
possible that this devil-man be well intentioned in the hope of his
liberation from the claws of the complex that was grinding him? She
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villain like me will hardly face the orders that have started to come. We
won’t be staying here for long, not more than six months. We will have
to retreat, and retreating means to settle accounts with those you
consider your enemies, and thank God, we have enough of them! It is a
secret I advise you to keep with sanctity. I have given you a weapon
with which you could finish off both me and Shevchenko. I hope you
don’t use it and trust me.
The things heard baffled Ileana even more, but convinced her that
she didn’t have another way to save herself, except giving herself on
the hands of Nicolovsky. What could happen to her worse than what
could have already happened to her here, in the camp of death? It was
an argument strong enough not to shake her decision. Liberty, the
house and whatever God wants! The next day, Nicolovsky paid
Shevchenko a visit and acquainted him to his plans. He needed his
agreement nevertheless. Shevchenko winced as if lashed.
- Are you mad?! How can you trust her after all that’s happened?
She will bang the big drum in the whole borough like Voda! I am
starting to regret I didn’t finish her here and that I sent her to you. You
might be head over heels about her!? What, can’t you have fun with her
there? No, I do not agree! This woman will only bring us trouble! Give
it up!
- Wait, don’t rush. I could have done it even without consulting
you. Do you really consider me a novice?! Of course I am going to take
all the measures of safety. I am not interested in having fun with her.
She is a finicky woman, good everywhere but in bed. Why haven’t you
had fun with her? I think you too have realized what a non-woman she
is. The action with Zelicman is my main purpose. She will infiltrate in
the Davidovs’ house and to save herself, she will chirp something,
something. I will find out something about Zelicman and Batalov. It
won’t be necessary to follow them in sight, in the light of day. I have
managed to scare her, she is afraid of death, especially a violent death;
she has given up her utopian dream of getting revenge, better said, to
revenge her husband’s death. I explained to her that it was foolishness
to mess with us, that if she remains captive she has no escape. Yes, my
dear, I am asking you to support me and to trust me. Very soon, I will
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serve Zelicman to you on a tray. You will be able to devour him freely.
You have to admit that it was my idea, that the minister agreed, and
therefore, I want to benefit by copyright. As far as Ileana is concerned,
don’t worry. I know what I am doing and in need, ‘suicidal’ is at hand.
Until then, who knows? Maybe we will both have a little fun with her.
In matters like these you know that I am not selfish.
- We have to talk to Rishcov nevertheless.
- Let’s be honest! Since when do you need Rishcov’s approval?!
It’s like I would need Rusev’s approval! What do you want more than
the minister’s agreement!?
- Fine man! Do as you think, but keep me acquainted. If
something happens, I don’t want to be caught unprepared.
- There’s something else. I know you’ve sealed Ileana’s house. I
want the keys, so that she will settle there.
- I have the impression that you really want to make a love nest.
I’ll give you the keys and my blessing, but be careful what you do. If
something happens, don’t come to me!
- Fine, fine! Rest assured! If she needs to be liquidated, we will
have a little fun beforehand. I salute you.
Nicolovsky left in high spirits, rattling the keys of the house with
satisfaction. He wasn’t expecting it to go so smoothly, which put him in
guard toward Shevchenko.
- Who knows what’s in his head?
He called on the unit, took two boys with him and made at stop in
front of the house of his dreams. When he entered, he was stricken by
the unpleasant, stuffy air, specific to unaired houses. He opened the
windows and the doors, made the boys clean up, walked filled with
curiosity and satisfaction through the house and through the garden,
rummaged through the wardrobes and started to arrange the food and
drink brought. He was satisfied and eager to bring Ileana, to hand her
the keys. He felt he was coming close to a big day which would bring
him a radical change in his existence so dry and cursed by others.
When all was finalized, he locked the front door and set out toward the
unit. He went directly to the mechanic workshop and ordered a double
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of the house keys. Armed with this ‘passport’ of hope, Nicolovsky set
out toward the inquiry room and sent for Ileana.
He, the devil, the ‘son of a bitch’ couldn’t find his place because
of the excitement. When Ileana appeared, he greeted her smilingly, his
eyes sparkling with joy. He lifted his hand up, waving the keys in the
air.
- Ileana, I’ve done it! Here are the keys to your house! Today I
will make your papers, and tomorrow I will take you by car. I have
cleaned the house, I have filled the pantry so that you don’t have to
look for anything. I will leave you some money too. I want you not to
lack anything, to try to accustom to your new statute. You are going to
be free! You have my word!
- I don’t know what to say. Anyway I thank you a lot! Money
however, I don’t want you to give me. I will try to find some work.
What forms do you need to make me for the liberation? Will they have
any value in front of Shevchenko? Know that I’m afraid of him!
- No, Shevchenko in turn is afraid of me. Shevchenko will stay
aside, not a worry. He too takes care of his skin, like all of us. It is an
unwritten rule among us and we respect it. The matter with the money
needn’t worry you. I don’t want to buy you! You have lost a lot and
you have all the right to a compensation. This is not money from my
pocket, it is from special funds, for special activities. The forms are
simple. You will sign a formal declaration by which you will agree to
collaborate with us, declaration which will remain at me. If needed, I
will destroy it.
- How could I sign such a declaration? What would the people
who know me say?
- Ileana, I asked you to trust me. I am the one who needs you. I
want to win you, not abuse you. I could have done it without being
hindered. I hope it is clear to you. I want to save you and you must help
me. I can’t do anything alone. Here is the declaration. Please read it
and sign it. In the morning I will send someone to take you out of the
dormitory. Don’t be scared. We have to keep up appearances. The
guard will take you to the car in this convict outfit. In the car, I will
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wait for you with the chauffeur. We will go home together. Come on,
read and sign!
With a shaking hand, Ileana took the declaration and without
reading it, signed. She felt a wave of heat and leaned against the table.
An overwhelming feeling of anxiety engulfed her. She thought of
freedom, she thought of death. She couldn’t know what would happen
next. The dice was truly thrown!
- Ileana, what’s wrong with you? Are you feeling bad? Sit here on
this chair. Shall I bring you some cold water, or maybe you want a drop
of vodka?
- Yes, I want vodka. I also want some cold water.
Nicolovsky brought some cold water, then filled two glasses of
vodka.
- Drink Ileana, for liberty. I will drink for your love, even though
it seems a chimera. Ileana sipped from the glass with vodka, drank
from the cold water and approached Nicolovsky. She stared in his eyes
and with a sudden gesture, kissed him on the cheek. Nicolovsky didn’t
make any gesture. A warm, grateful look, caressed Ileana’s blushed
face.
- Now go and have some rest. Tomorrow will be a tough day.
Liberty will come as a powerful shock. It is not going to be easy to live
up to it in the first days. See you tomorrow.
The scenario prepared by Nicolovsky was respected to the letter.
Ileana couldn’t restrain her emotion when she was woken up and
pushed out the dormitory.
- What will they do with me?!
She calmed down a little when pushed in the car on the back seat,
met Nicolovsky’s beaming look.
- We can go!
The car started off violently practically throwing her in the arms
of Nicolovsky. He helped her straighten, apostrophizing the driver. In
ten minutes they were in front of the house. She descended the car
filled with hesitation and set out toward the entrance.
- You can return to the unit. We don’t need the car anymore.
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Ileana went to the Davidovs, armed with the house keys, he went to
wait for her. The arrival of the night didn’t make him impatient. He
was sure she wouldn’t try to disappear. He had read in her eyes such a
strong wish for revenge, that he was convinced she would try to use
him to reach her goal. He took a tour of the apartment, examined the
family photos with attention, made himself a coffee, drank a large glass
of vodka and sat down on the bed in the bedroom. On the night stand,
the photography of Ileana together with Nani, reigned. They were so
beautiful, that Nicolovski was passed by a cold chill. He resisted the
temptation of throwing the photo, fearing the reaction Ileana could
have had. He sat down in front of the mirror and stared at himself.
- God, how ugly I am!
This thought put him out – how many times? Since he was a child
he had suffered because of his face, which frustrated him from the joy
of playing, of having friends. Adolescence brought new agony. What
could be more painful than the exclusion, the open marginalization he
was subjected to by the girls! The girls in the class were, naturally, less
shy than the boys, who they chased, provoking them. He had to remain
in the shadows, miming indifference, hiding hatred, which took
proportion as years went by. He practiced all sorts of sports, he
achieved performances, but nothing from all this could soothe his
hatred, nor could it attenuate the complex he was obviously starting to
suffer from. The inferiority complex overcame him slowly, but surely,
deforming his character.
He had started to hate his parents, and that in an open way. The
parents, simple people, overwhelmed by every day’s problems, weren’t
granting this attitude too much attention, leaving time to deal with this
unsolvable problem. Like any parents, they weren’t realizing the
tragedy of their son’s haunted soul. They were content that their son
Aliosha was a healthy child, well-developed, obedient, always poring
over books. Yes, he read a lot. Practically, all he could get his hands on.
His desire was to know as much as possible, in all sorts of domains. He
was dreaming of ruling over people, collectivities as large as possible,
of surprising them through his knowledge, of humiliating them.
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women who had always avoided him. What was happening with him
now was something he didn’t understand. He had had enough of the
women he had by force. The apparition of Ileana in his life totally
disturbed him. Incited by Shevchenko’s failure in front of this woman,
he started to dream of something he had given up even from his
adolescence. He wanted with all his being to win someone, to make
himself loved, understood.
He could have had Ileana without too much effort. She was sent
to him, to the unit, to die, no matter how. Won from the first moment
by her beautiful face, by her gentleness, by the perfection of her
woman body, he changed his tactics on the spot. He started to protect
her, to take her out of the destructive environment from the workplace,
from the sight of his subalterns, a group of hulks set only on booze and
parties with women condemned to death. He found out the
circumstances in which Shevchenko liquidated her husband, he
confirmed this, in order to gain her trust, he found out, from her, her
puerile obsession of revenge. He put all his hopes in her. He had to win
her, to make her give in to him at her own will.
This was imperatively necessary for him to escape from his great
complex, the ugliness. For something like this, it was worth to serve
even Shevchenko on a tray. He had become confident, he had obtained
her liberation, but an obstacle which disturbed him appeared. Time!
Time could be too short for the accomplishment of his plans. The war
was knocking on the door, that wasn’t a secret anymore, and the new
circumstances could ruin all his plans. He could receive an order to
liquidate the unit and to evacuate at any time. In such circumstances,
taking Ileana with him was not an option.
The white night, filled with thoughts, with coffees and vodka,
passed unnoticed. He went over the rooms once again and stopped in
the bathroom, in front of the mirror. He shaved with Nani’s tools,
rubbed his face with a lot of cologne and smiled. The grin seen in the
mirror angered him and he spitted disdainfully. The spit oozed out
slowly on the mirror waking him to reality. He washed the mirror
disappointed by his own behavior and set out to the living room. A
knock on the door made him throb. It was Ileana’s shadow, who came
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to report that Ileana didn’t leave the Davidovs’ house. He made him a
sign to leave and went back in the living room. He stretched on the sofa
and fell asleep.
The silence which engulfed the Davidov house, after so many
sterile discussions, was disturbed by an unexpected appearance. It was
George, the one who had disappeared without a trace. Displaying a
guilty smile, George sat down on a chair, in a corner of the room, as if
to atone for a childish guilt. As no one dared to say a word, George
took heart.
- I don’t have time now to tell you everything that happened
while I was away, but things mostly went on like this. I ran to
Romania, I met the Stavrovs at Plaur, we went to Bucharest to my
father, I settled the Stavrovs in a sort of hovel, I didn’t get along with
my step mother, nor with my father’s pretension to become a tailor and
I came back.
- Where is this Giuleshti, dear? Is it far from Bucharest?
- No, tanti Leolea, it’s a street in Bucharest. It’s quite full of
gypsies, but for a start, nothing else could be done. They came empty
handed. The Russian frontier guards with whom they arranged the run
cleared them out of all the gold they had. It’s good they got off alive! I
hope Iura finds some work. It will be hard, but safer than here, and it
won’t even last for long. The war is knocking on the door. I have a lot
to tell you, but not now. How are Mom and Barby doing?
- What, you haven’t talked to Mom?!
- I didn’t want to scare them. You will have to prepare her,
tomorrow morning.
- Hasn’t anyone seen you when you came in?
- I don’t think so. I spied on the shadow in front of the house, and
when it went around the corner, I jumped over the fence. The stupid
Corb was about to give me away. He rushed at me barking. I could
barely calm him down. He started to lick me joyfully. Before leaving
Bucharest, I passed by the redaction of the ‘Curentul’ newspaper and
gave them a reportage about the life in Ismail. They liked it, gave me
some money and I am to write for them some more. Maybe I will
manage as a journalist. For this, I don’t need a faculty, thing which, in
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fact, will be hard to achieve. I can tell the ones here that I’ve been
wandering through Basarabia, after rubbish. What can they do to me?
Take the horses from my bicycle!
- My dear, how could you risk to come back?!
- Uncle, I wanted to be on the spot at the launch of the military
operations. I want to report from the spot these guys’ run. For the job I
dream of, this would be a great start!
You are wonderfully incorrigible! May God help you succeed!
How’s your Dad?
- He’s good. He’s leading a small-bourgeois life, which isn’t a
little these days!
- George, come and eat something and warm up at a glass of
wine. After that, I will lay something here on the floor, so you can rest
until morning.
- Great! It’s like I haven’t even left. In fact, I missed home! My
Danube!
- Slowly, the silence of the night spread as well in the middle of
this family troubled by fear, by the uncertainty of tomorrow. As my
grandfather said – sleep was and will remain the best medicine!
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The great hopes put in the alliance between Antonescu and Hitler
were thrown into the shade by the news that the general had refused to
participate in Hitler’s campaign against Yugoslavia and Greece. Most
people understood that their hopes were betrayed by the man of
‘providence’. Others explained the logic of things basing themselves
on political grounds, referring to the agreement between the dictator,
king Mihai, Maniu and Bratianu, warned by the occidental powers,
France and Great Britain.
The conclusion drawn however, was unique – the absence of the
Romanians in a war for the liberation of the territories ravished by the
soviets meant the marginalization of Romania, if not even its
occupation for the attitude of non-belligerence. It was natural for that
to happen. The Germans hadn’t promised anything precise regarding
the revision of the Vienna Dictate, Romania being seen as just a food
source for the German army and, maybe the most important thing, a
reservoir of petroliferous products.
In the Basarabia occupied and abused, the rumors and implicitly
the hopes mixed like in a fair, being taken into account randomly,
without any logic, following a course of unfulfilled desires.
Nevertheless, there also circulated positive voices, which were
relighting the almost extinguished candles. Daniil Stepanich was one of
these and was exposing his theories even in front of Zelicman!
The alarm given by Ileana’s liberation and by the dispatch of the
Batalov family to Leningrad brought him even closer to Zelicman, this
guardian angel of his family. They met late at night, at Zelicman’s
house, who had remained alone and worried, but determined to use his
position and high-placed acquaintances. It was his only weapon against
people like Rishcov, Shevchenko, Rusev or Nicolovski. He had
obtained the adjourning of the stalking ‘post’ in front of his house and
had managed to draw on his side the ‘shadow’ from the unit, who was
working for Shevchenko. This shadow had deconspired itself by its
own, had confessed to the role it had and, an extremely important
thing, supplied Zelicman with all the data from the plan conceived by
Shevchenko and Nicolovski.
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steppes, they will block them at the crossing of the great rivers, they
will decimate them with the winters the Germans know nothing about.
Of course this is going to cost us enormously, which is exactly what the
United States are after. The democratic Occident can be a loyal ally
neither of the Nazism, nor of the communism! The main interest of the
Occidental powers is the destruction of Germany and Japan, but also
the exhaustion of Russia. Here lies the inevitable reverse of the medal
which Antonescu will choose. Once the war is lost by the Germans, his
dream of liberator of the Romanians, of savior of the Great Romania,
will also shatter. After the war, the world will depend economically and
politically on the United States of America!
- I don’t think that Russia could be conquered, destroyed, either.
You can’t replace a dictatorship with another! And there is something
else – the Russians are as hell of a good patriots and if needed, as
unhappy as they are, they will close the ranks around Stalin and will
fight for ‘Matushca Rodina1’. The communism has easily taught them
to assimilate the chauvinistic slogans and in critical situations, this can
mean a lot.
This is how things were taking place in the house of Zelicman,
where two people belonging to different worlds, harboring different
hopes, different fears, were winding opinions regarding the future that
was awaiting them. Glad that they had escaped the ‘shadows’ in front
of the house, they were ignoring the fact that they were being followed
nevertheless by other shadows, less visible, more feminine, who were
tinkering about where one didn’t expect. Shevchenko was rubbing his
hands in delight, was passing the news on to Nicolovski and, together,
they were devising their diabolical plan for the two.
It wasn’t a matter of state security, of subversive actions. It was
simply a matter of the offended self-pride, the obsessive revenge.
Nicolovski was feverishly waiting for the encounter with Ileana, with
the hope that he would find out something compromising at Zelicman’s
address. In the morning, when Ileana appeared after the night spent at
the Davidovs, the tough Nicolovski received her in her house with all
the things necessary for a breakfast worthy of better times. Ileana
joined his game, showing a good-spirited disposition, displaying
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- After the end of the war they will need us again. Countries like
Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, not to speak about
Poland, will enter our sphere of influence, and for the expansion of
communism, the Jews will play a very important role. The thing is to
survive until then! I’ll be looking for you.
Arrived at the unit, Rusev was apostrophized by Nicolovski.
- Where the hell have you been?! Don’t you realize what we have
to do? Or maybe you think it’s only my business? This time it’s a dirty
work and I don’t fancy getting my hands dirty alone. We have thirty
five men and twenty women to liquidate. Tonight, we have to come up
with a simple and safe plan. We have two galleries ready. I hope they
are big enough. Tomorrow, the work has to be finished without raising
any panic. I’ve thought about taking them in the gallery one by one and
shooting them there. We won’t make any noise and we won’t stain the
inquiry room with blood. Think about it and decide! You are the
commander, the chief!
- I don’t understand why it wasn’t better to deport them!? Why
this order of liquidation? How to liquidate people without leaving any
traces?! If we had a crematory, we could burn the corpses and the ashes
would disappear in the Danube. But like this?! We bury them deep in
the galleries and hope no one comes across them!? The Germans are
experts at this and will rummage through all the places where we had
these special institutions. Sincerely, I think our comrades have started
to panic.
- What panic?! It’s not the first place where something like this is
applied. In full war, who will look for buried dead? The Germans will
rush eastwards until they will reach a dead end, and at their return, they
won’t fancy investigations. When we come back, we will have enough
time to take care of erasing the traces. Those who have known the
Special Unit must die. We have to see what we will do about Davidov
who has escaped from here and of course, about the ones sent to
Bolgrad. Silvia too mustn’t escape. You should pay doctor Mirchev a
visit tomorrow. He must do his job to the end! Afterwards, he can go to
Siberia too.
- And what about Ileana?
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- I will take care of Ileana personally and I would like to ask you
not to get involved.
- This is how the first black night from the spring so awaited by
Ismailiens came. After lights out, Nicolovski summoned the few aids
who assisted him during the ‘inquiries’ and put forth his plan of action
for the night which had just set in. The action started with the women’s
hut. Two of Nicolovski’s aids ran to and fro between the hut and one of
the galleries where the convicts themselves had been working, bringing
with them only one person at a time. The woman was taken over at the
mouth of the gallery by the group of executioners led by Nicolovski
and ‘told’ to undress. Then, pushed toward the end of the gallery she
was knelt and shot in the back of the head. A bullet was enough. There
was no waste of bullets! The first demonstration was made by
Nicolovski himself. The shouts and moans and even the gunshots faded
out in the whereabouts of the wine cellar, without provoking panic in
the perimeter of the unit. Not to mention outside it!
If the first night ‘awakenings’ had no particular effect on the
inhabitants of the hut, such things taking place ordinarily, when some
of the convicts were taken to improvised inquiries which usually ended
in small orgies, not the same thing happened when the dormitory
became half empty. A state of uneasiness, of lugubrious presentiments
overcame the rest of the women. Jostling at the door, shouting ‘call the
commander’, facing the automatic aimed at them by the cerberus at the
door with their bare hands, the convicts managed to exit the hut. A shot
of warning however, made them stop. At the appearance of commander
Rusev, accompanied by two gunmen, the women retreated in the
dormitory. Only one of them dared to address Rusev.
- What is happening to us? Where are the other convicts, who
were taken one by one?
- Stay calm and don’t disturb the silence of the night! Nothing is
going on! We have to carry out some urgent work which you will also
participate in. Don’t make me take disciplinary measures. Until you are
next, stay here and rest peacefully!
Rusev retreated leaving the two comrades to patrol around the
hut. The gunshot and the racket made by the women in the hut drew the
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attention of the men from the other dormitory-hut, but the silence that
set in again made them return to their beds. In this time, the operation
of women liquidation continued in the same manner, at the same
rhythm. Rusev pulled Nicolovski aside and acquainted him with the
things happened in the women’s dormitory.
- This is a dirty work, what we’re doing here! Prepare enough
men for the men’s hut. I don’t want to hear gunshots in the yard
through which to draw the attention of the ones in the surroundings.
Tomorrow, the whole town is going to rumble. The clothes of the
executed ones will be prepared for the new group which is coming in a
few days. Until then, the bottom of the galleries will be covered with a
layer of earth, the one which was taken out from the galleries when
they were dug. Give the boys some more brandy, from that confiscated.
They should get used to this too, because we don’t have any more
money for vodka, and we won’t be getting any either.
- Do you know something I don’t? This attitude makes me
ponder! My men would need more than just brandy, they would also
need a personal example, the example of the boss. And what are you
doing? Washing your hands clean?! Do you know what one of my
idiots did? His hand was shaking and he missed the first shot, then he
fired another three and in the end, shot himself in the mouth. Now I
want you to tell me, what do we do with him?
- This is your fault, not mine! You are responsible for their
training. Let this be clear! And change your tone when you’re talking
to me! I’ve taken you out from where you were, I’ve lifted you, I can
keep you on your feet and only I decide what I should do with my own
hand. Everything must be over tonight! Tomorrow night we are going
to have an even dirtier job. We’ll talk again tomorrow. In the morning,
I’m going to Bolgrad. I will take Mirchev with me. Drink another
vodka, drink another coffee, and don’t let yourself led by resentments
toward me. We both need each other. And how badly!
Rusev retreated without throwing a look inside the gallery where
death had nestled. He sauntered along the streets, wandering
unconsciously. When he found himself in front of Ileana’s house, he
stopped undecided, then made a reconnaissance walk to ensure he
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wasn’t followed, and the house wasn’t supervised. He rang at the door
insistently and calmed down only when he heard the voice of the one in
front of whom Nicolovski wasn’t Nicolovski anymore.
- Who is it?!
- A good man, Ileana! Open without fear! I must tell you
something very important.
He heard the twist of the key, the sound of the safety chain and
saw in the threshold of the door Ileana’s face rummaged by sleep,
fearful but with a look filled with trust, maybe even courage.
- May I come in? We can’t talk in the sight of the night.
Ileana made way for him to come in and carefully closed the
door.
- Something strong please and if it is possible a big and bitter
coffee. I have to get used to the atmosphere so I can talk freely.
Ileana retreated in the kitchen, not before passing through the
bathroom to freshen up a little in front of the mirror. Returning with the
coffee and with a bottle of vodka, she threw an inquiring look, but not
devoid of fear. Rusev filled a big glass with vodka, looked at Ileana
inquiringly, and getting a negative answer, put the glass on the table
and took the hot coffee, from which he sipped noisily.
- Ileana, I know your whole story, and the interest Nicolovski
surrounds you with. Both from him, as well as from Shevchenko, I
know a lot about you. I know you have hurt Shevchenko in his pride, a
thing for which he has thrown you in the arms of Nicolovski to
liquidate you. I know what feelings you have awakened in Nicolovski,
bringing to life an unknown side of his soul. Nicolovski is in love with
you and is trying to free you at any cost, hoping as an adolescent at the
prize which awaits him. I am convinced that he is sincere and that he is
fighting with might and main with this complex of ugliness which has
been following him since he was in school. He is a cruel man, but he
conceals in him an unthinkable, human side. In his job, ours, something
like this is called weakness, and is generally paid for. This aspect of his
life has moved me and that is why I am intervening in your story. Since
he freed you, he has made Shevchenko a fierce enemy. Shevchenko
will try to get revenge. As in town unusual things are happening, more
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than surely he will try to take advantage and I’m afraid you will be one
of his targets. I know you are in good relations with the Davidovs, and
through them with Zelicman. I can’t help the Davidovs, but you should
try to disappear, to hide. To be honest, I don’t know why I’m doing it. I
have been a peaceful man, rather cowardly, soft, and look what I’ve
become! I am in command of a unit of death! I consider that destiny
has been too cruel to me and I’m afraid that the future will be even
worse. If you fall in Shevchenko’s hands once again, no God could
rescue you.
- How could I run and especially where? How could I run without
talking to Nicolovski when he got me out from the clutches of death? I
also think that this man has a grain of good soul, human. I’m not scared
by his physical ugliness which he is making a great fuss about, I am
scared by the villain which lies in him, even though it has a complex of
inferiority at its foundation. And nevertheless, I couldn’t betray him,
leaving aside the fact that I wouldn’t stand a chance. As much of a
Christian I am, I can’t give up the thought, the dream of revenge. I
can’t not want the revenge my husband’s death, and Shevchenko is the
main culprit. I know this is a utopia, but this utopia is keeping me alive.
No, I don’t think I would be able to run. I don’t think Nani would
agree. Anyhow, I appreciate your gesture a lot, as I appreciate the risks
Nicolovski is taking when he set me free, even though he did it with
the thought, declared in fact, of making me accept him in my life. The
only thing which makes me courageous in front of death is that I’m not
afraid of death. Death would put all the torments I have experienced to
an end. If I am afraid of something, then I must admit that I’m afraid of
the physical torture I could be subjected to, of the abuse, the
humiliation. The thought of Silvia is frightening me and Shevchenko
too has felt this thing. Once again, I thank you!
- Not even Nicolovski should find out about this visit. He is too
proud to understand this gesture. Goodbye!
It was three in the morning when Rusev left Ileana’s house, an
hour at which the liquidation of women at the unit had come to an end,
an hour at which Nicolovski, retreated in the inquiry room, staring
somewhere, was thinking of Ileana. He would have given anything to
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be able to stay with her, to look at her, to search for a feasible solution
under the new circumstances, to save her, not to lose her, to get her
closer to him. The black night wasn’t over yet. The second phase
followed, the men.
The episode with the suicide of one of the young executioners
disturbed Nicolovski. It was a premiere. Something like this hadn’t
happened to him before and came with a tint of undermining of his
authority. The blood thirst he had foreseen proved to be an unfounded
hope. His boys’ youth proved to be weaker than the special education
received. He had given in at a totally inappropriate moment which had
to be surpassed at any cost. How good Rusev’s presence would have
been and his direct participation in such an action, from the posture of
commander. Nothing acts more efficient over these children than
personal example. With such thoughts, Nicolovski summoned in the
inquiry room the whole active staff and offered drink at discretion,
including vodka from his personal stock. He knew that the hard part
was just beginning, and the job had to be finished before the dawn.
As far as the self-murderer was concerned, the decision was
taken. He was to be undressed and buried with the convicts, and
officially, he was to be declared a deserter and put into pursuit. What a
fate! Far from home, with qualms of conscience for what he was made
to do. Not long before, on the occasion of a permission in town, he had
snuck into the church and had asked father Popescu to confess and
forgive him. He had done it with a clean heart, thinking of his
grandmother, who had taught him to respect God, when he was a child.
Now he was to be buried together with other innocent people, in an
unknown place, without the chance of being found and especially
recognized. This was however the last thing on Nicolovski’s mind.
What was irritating him the most was Rusev’s absence, this slick Jew,
who was slinking away every time something dirty had to be done.
- One day, he is going to pay for all this! My day has not come
yet!
With such a state of mind, the ‘son of a bitch’ stopped the vodka
break organized by himself and set out to work. He had to solve thirty
five cases and to organize the sealing of the galleries from the former
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Tulcheanov cellars. The work started in the same way as in the case of
the women. At first, the awakenings, one by one, left the convicts who
were accustomed to the nocturnal interrogatories indifferent, but each
was praying to God deep down not to be the one called. Nevertheless,
the frequency with which they were coming to take them one by one
and the fact that those who were taken were not coming back brought
about a state of agitation. The questions for the ones who were coming
directly to the bed of the targeted one remained without an answer.
Sometimes however, a stereotype answer could be heard, hardly
murmured: ‘they are working at the galleries’.
The reality was that the men had fallen, for some time, in a state
of apathy, were refusing to communicate with each other and, in a
discouraging way, were waiting for the end. This state of mind made
Nicolovski’s ‘work’ easier. No insubordination, not to mention revolt.
The abattoir life, where some cattle were led one by one to be
sacrificed. When the last convict stepped in the gallery and was asked
to undress, he turned his eyes to Nicolovski and cursed him.
- Be cursed you, and your whole kind, for all eternity! You
children, I forgive, but never forget what you have done and crush
these antichrists like bugs!
It was like a cold shower for the great executioner.
- Leave him on my hands!
And with his hands he ended what was to be ended.
- Cover with soft earth. Tomorrow, we will wall it up
with bricks and cement.
1 Mother Country
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revolution from 1917 had to come and install the Antichrist, as mother
said, to pass the Nistru and to spread over us too the communist
heaven. With the rumors which are coming from Romania, I’m afraid
they will pass to new deportations and arrests.
- I have come to tell you the latest news. When I left from you, I
found Nicolovski home. I don’t know what to think anymore. He
behaved very nice, he didn’t make any hints at his intentions toward
me, on the contrary, he left the impression he wanted to put me on
guard regarding some events which would affect the already frail peace
of the town, and of Basarabia in general. He told me Shevchenko
received a firm disposition to leave Zelicman alone, but that doesn’t
mean that you will also be left to mind your own business. He didn’t
know anything about the Batalovs’ departure, and because I didn’t
either, I think they are thinking of getting revenge on them. It’s so good
they have managed to leave! They had a great luck with Zelicman. He
told me that he would be away for a few days, that he was caught in a
special mission, that meanwhile, Shevchenko also didn’t have time to
deal with me, and I don’t know what else. It’s clear he is trying to
convince me that he is my protector, he isn’t hiding the fact that I have
become an obsession for him, that he wants to win me, that
Shevchenko is my most dangerous enemy. He is trying to speculate the
fact that I’ve confessed to him that I want to get revenge on the man
who killed my husband, what’s more, he wants to make me believe he
will help me. How can I believe something like that?! He wants me as
a mistress at my own will and is showing an incredible patience for a
man with his reputation. Lena dear, I don’t want to live anymore; I
want to get revenge, better said, to avenge Nani’s death! In fact, I have
died at the same time with Nani! Neither the faith in God, nor the
education received from my parents could stop me. That is why I want
to win Nicolovski’s trust, to have him on my side, in order not to fall
victim to my own credulity and to become an object of abuse, of
entertainment, in the hands of these bastards. I am so confused that I’m
not sure whether I’ve mentioned Rusev’s visit. I came across him in the
middle of the night. I didn’t know what to think!? At a certain moment
I thought that he too set his eyes on me and that he came to take his pay
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- Ileana?! Which Ileana?! Aaaah! You stole Paul from me, didn’t
you? Now you’re coming to give him back? Have you had enough?
What are you doing here? Have they arrested you as well?
Silvia’s eyes were in total contradiction with her words. Ileana
felt this and looked insistently directly in the eyes. Silvia smiled at her
and winked discretely, then whispered at her ear.
- I have overcome the shock, I’m evading the drugs and I’m
imitating in my behavior the truly insane ones. Be careful not to give
yourself away! I want to survive! At any cost!
- Silvia, I’m not arrested, I’ve come to see you and tell you I have
nothing to do with your Paul. People are bad and gossip. You have to
be quiet, obedient, to take medicines according to the prescriptions in
order to get well and return home, to your family.
Silvia hugged Ileana to be able to whisper something more to her.
- I want to live for my daughter. I want her to find out who her
father was. I want to teach her to hate these murderers. Mirchev is
working for them! If he touches me, I will kill him. I am crazy and I
can’t be judged. I’ve assumed this statute and I feel more protected…
You whore! You want to fool me? How come hasn’t Nani left you yet?!
If you come here ever again I will strangle you with my own hands.
Everyone fears me! I’m thinking of sleeping with the chief to see what
he can do. Paul was no good anyway! You’ll see then how everyone is
going to treat me! I must ask him to bring me a bigger mirror, as big as
the wall. I want to see how beautiful I am.
Silvia retreated to her imaginary mirror and started a sort of belly
dance. It was overpowering to see such a scene, even though behind it
a game of survival was hiding. Ileana burst into tears, a convulsive cry,
approached the bars and asked that the door be opened for her. She left
disturbed, deliberately accentuating this state of mind, in order to cover
up Silvia’s game as well as possible. On the way home she found
herself thinking in a loud voice.
- Could what I’ve seen be true?! Is it possible that Silvia has
recovered?! She was so lucid in what she whispered in my ear!? I
should consult a doctor, but whom? Maybe Percheac, through Danila?
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alive. Now leave me with your mother. We have more serious problems
to talk about, which will affect us all.
Valeria exited the room furious, slamming the door.
- Oh! Dania, Dania! When will this foolish misunderstanding
come to an end? I fell I can’t take it anymore! Try to be more
understanding and not answer her challenges. Sometimes I wonder
whether she is really mentally healthy!? And what’s worse is that Lulu
is starting to take after her! What happened to our family? They were
all such wonderful children! What would become of them if something
happens to us? I’m so scared that they will arrest you again. From what
Ileana told me, the situation is very serious. I think that if they don’t
liquidate us on the spot, they will deport us, separating us one from
another. Do you realize what this would mean? They’d better kill us!
- Leolea, don’t you want to go with the children to Tuzla, at my
sister’s? My mother is there too, and I see they haven’t done anything
to them after they arrested and liquidated father. I will try to sneak
among these villains alone. And anyway, if they arrest me, at least save
the children! I know you don’t want to, but there are moments in life
when you don’t have a choice. The only hope is war, and in this case,
you will be safer at Tuzla.
- No! I don’t even want to think about separating! If the war
starts, they won’t deal with us. They will have more important things to
do. The misfortune is that this war has been put off for too long. It was
to start in spring and nothing has happened yet. Time is passing by and
we are getting fewer. People are always disappearing and no one
knows anything about them. But let me give you something to eat. I
think you are starving!?
- To be honest, I’m not in the mood for food. If you want, make
me a coffee, if we have any left.
- Thanks to Zelicman, we still have enough. Nevertheless, you do
have to eat something, as little as you can.
- Do you know I’ve come across George on the street? I didn’t
understand too much about what he’s doing or where he’s hiding, but
it’s clear he’s playing with fire. He asked me not to tell anything to his
mother. He thinks it’s best she doesn’t know anything. There are times
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when it’s better not to have children! Look at what’s happening in our
house; look at what’s happening with Mirchea. Not even a sign from
him! Percheac is scared because of Alexandrov. Shevchenko is
demanding that he releases him from hospital, threatening him that he
will arrest both of them. He wants a certificate stating that Alexandrov
is healthy. I’m thinking of Nicolovski in horror. I don’t think he has
forgiven me! I’m starting to regret that we didn’t try to run with the
Stavrovs. It’s true that we wouldn’t have had what to pay the frontier
guards, and without money, you can’t corrupt anyone! Our fate is in
God’s hands! If only He doesn’t separate us! When I’m thinking of the
Drachinski family, dread seizes me. What a fate!
This tense atmosphere wasn’t something specific to our family. It
had engulfed, under different shapes, almost all the houses. Poverty,
installed where only yesterday a decent welfare had reigned, the terror
induced in the population by the organs of order, through the aberrant
measures applied randomly, the rumors regarding liquidations and
deportations, were bringing a state of excessive nervousness in
people’s attitudes, even in the middle of families. The arguments
among the members of the family had become something common,
something which had filled the life of these disoriented people,
occupying their scarce free time and anesthetizing in a palliative way
the pain of lost hopes.
The repression, the arbitrary, the generalized corruption, induced,
as it was natural, a state of disgust in the ranks of the population in
towns and villages. Losing hope, man also loses his capacity of
waiting. The most sought after medicine was the bromoval, and it
wasn’t easy to find it. A town, with less than forty thousand inhabitants,
couldn’t hide anything from what could cause restlessness. This way,
the noises which were disturbing the peace of the nights, coming from
the precincts of the Jewish cemetery, didn’t escape the people’s
attention. Eventually, the mystery was elucidated by a young man,
better said, by an adolescent, who, in the middle of the night, deceived
the vigilance of the military guard and, climbing the fence of the
cemetery in a darker area, saw at the light of some spotlights, how two
bulldozers were digging some holes. The news circulated fast, and the
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Only the young people believed in their lucky star, which would
lead them one day in the direct fight with the enemy. From there, small
attempts of sabotage, of crossing the frontier, of delivering information
to the newspapers in Bucharest. As far as the old people were
concerned, slowly but surely, they were taking the road of resignation
in front of fate. The phrase ‘God’s will’ was used as the most plausible
excuse. Here and there, small acts of revolt, often taking infantile
aspects, reminded of the existence of this category of age. This is why
it happened that, at the end of May, at the cherhana near Ismail, when
the lipoven fishermen, as a protest toward the miserable life which was
imposed upon them, one night, took the boats to water, tied them one to
another and set them on fire. This wasn’t a matter of a boat or two; it
was a matter of tens and tens of boats, which reddened the sky east of
Ismail. The enormous floating flame was carried away by the current,
slowly consuming the only fortune of the revolted fishermen, stopping
any activity of the cherhana.
Not being a matter of leaders of the revolt, the authorities,
respectively the couple Rishcov – Shevchenko took the only logical
measure, from their point of view, and organized the deportation of the
whole group of fishermen, leaving women and children to die of
hunger, instituting a sort of quarantine around the village. About the
fate of the deported ones, nothing was ever known! They simply
disappeared. It was something normal for those times.
But, as I’ve said before, these protests, these acts of sabotage,
were of a too small proportion to worry the authorities, only offering
them the occasion of manifesting violently toward the population. For
such acts of punishment, the help of the already mentioned bands was
requested. The reappearance in the region of the famous Pantiosha
Bodnarenco, accompanied by names which had become famous, like
Pantea, Koshevoy, Pichinenco or Pileavski, brought dread in villages
and cities. The names of Russian origin of the leaders of these bands
were starting to disturb the Romanians, and not only them. Moreover,
the Jews were starting to be assimilated to the communists, a thing
which would fit like a glove, later it’s true, the Romanian liberators,
who would fall into the net of the Germans and play their anti-Semite
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game, organizing true pogroms, as the one in Iashi, at the end of June
1941.
Yes, the multiethnic basarabian heaven was starting to
disintegrate, foretelling an unimaginable future. The German and
French villages were not considered model villages anymore.
Questions like ‘what are they doing here?’ were starting to appear in
the minds of those who, only yesterday, were admiring them so much.
Slowly, a mutation was arising in the way of thinking of the oppressed
ones. Disunion was taking the place of wisdom, that ‘modus vivendi’
so specific to this corner of the world was disappearing. And this
when?! Exactly when the moment once so waited for was approaching,
the moment of liberation.
‘Divide et impera’ was doing its job. The interethnic disunion
didn’t appear out of the blue, it was cultivated with craftsmanship by
those who wanted to destroy any trace of unity in the ranks of the
population hostile to the new regime. In less than a year, the soviet
power had managed to sneak suspicion in the hearts of people, this
perfidious enemy in the relations between people.
Ileana was experiencing to the full the effects of this atmosphere
which was seizing the town. The neighbors, Nani’s former
parishioners, even some priests from the old staff of the Bishopric,
preferred to turn back rather than face her. Moreover, a certain reserve
was also felt in the attitude of Danila’s family, a family which had
always received her with open arms. She understood this thing, but she
couldn’t ignore the grief she was feeling. Truly, the liberation from a
death unit couldn’t not give birth to questions, reserves, suspicions.
The threshold of the house hadn’t been crossed by anyone for a long
time, with one unhappy exception, Nicolovski. Yes, unhappy, because
this presence couldn’t escape the vigilance of the ones around her.
What is this criminal doing in Ileana’s house? was the big question, a
question which nobody was trying to answer, contenting themselves
with only shrugging their shoulders. Solitude and this isolation were
starting to disturb her. The nights were becoming long because of the
insomnia. Even the fact that Nicolovski had given her a respite of a few
days and had kept his word, was intriguing her.
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- Boys, don’t hurry with the drink! The night is long, the drink is
good and it deserves to be savored. Now I am going to bring you a
good large coffee.
Ileana approached Silvia and caressed her hair.
- Silvia, you want a coffee, or a vodka? Tell me, do you recognize
me?
- You stole Paul from me, and that man, there, left me without
Volodea.
At the same time, Silvia threw herself down, struggling and
salivating abundantly. Shevchenko approached irritated, raised Silvia
from one jerk, slapped her twice sturdily, tore her clothes off and threw
her naked on the sofa.
- Don’t be afraid, boys! She is pretending, but she is all worth it
in bed! I’ve seen her at work with Volodea and with Aliosha. I see she
didn’t forget Volodea, not even in her madness. Meanwhile, drink the
vodka. We will go make the coffee.
The coffee didn’t have the echo expected by Ileana. The boys
drank it with indifference; they made it as an obligation. The vodka
however was having its first effects and it was requested to be doubled.
Ileana submitted to the general request, also discretely provoking
Shevchenko to drink. This bull of a man however reacted to vodka as
others react to water. The noise in the living room was taking
proportion, somewhat proportional to the drink consumed, the boys
still being undecided nevertheless as whether to pass to action or not.
Silvia was continuing to stay crouched on the couch, not stirring with
her nakedness the lusts of these insatiable brutes.
It seemed Ileana’s attempt to save Silvia through the request
addressed to Shevchenko and her mentioning of the attitude toward
mad persons had had an echo over the pack of villains. They were
looking one at another inquiringly, they were shrugging their shoulders
and continuing to sip from the liquid of the devil. On the other side, in
the bedroom, Ileana’s attempts to drug Shevchenko as little as possible
were not showing any results. ‘Colea’, as he asked to be caressed, was
starting to show signs of impatience, becoming more and more
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know what I can offer a man, but I also want a little spoiling. I don’t
think I’m asking for too much!
- Fine! If the boys haven’t set to work, I will send her to the
hospital, and I will tell Mirchev I took her for a confrontation with you.
Did you understand? This will be the motivation of her bringing here.
Until I settle things, make another good coffee and bring some more
vodka. Tomorrow I am going to send you something from everything
and I am going to put men to supervise the house, so that Nicolovski
doesn’t get any ideas. Be careful not to do something foolish! It would
be your last!
- Rest assured, compared to Nicolovski you are an angel of a
man! And there is something else – you are not ugly at all!
Ileana approached Shevchenko and with an affectionate gesture
brought her lips close to his. When Shevchenko entered the living
room, the atmosphere was hot. The boys, well drunk, had gathered
around Silvia, pushing one another toward the couch where she lay
crouched and resigned, sure of what was about to happen next. She
wasn’t trying to simulate a crisis anymore; she wasn’t throwing wild
looks anymore. She was just trying to understand something from
Ileana’s attitude, whose conspiratorial look had managed, at one
moment, to awake a glitter of hope in her heart. Now, a pack of young
men excited by drink and by her nakedness, were inviting each other to
the feast. Shevchenko’s entry scared her even more.
- What could he have done to Ileana?
She shunned the inquiring looks of the one who had destroyed
her life and started to pray in her mind. Only God could do something.
- God, take me at You, alongside my Paul! I am clean! I wanted
to live for my little girl, but I’ve been and I am still going to be too
profaned to be able to look her in the eyes. Protect her, there where she
is with her grandmother!
- Well, boys, I see the drink has completely softened you! You
two, no, you four, dress her and take her to the hospital. Say the inquiry
has finished. It isn’t necessary that you come back! The others, you can
stay, I see you have some more vodka. When you see Nicolovski, you
can thank him for the care with which he has supplied us.
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The boys rushed at the coffees, convinced that Ileana would come
back to them. The scene in the bedroom repeated itself in the living
room, and the screams which followed, multiplied five times, terrified
the one who had arrogated the right of supreme judge, applying
revenge as final judgment. The dream of revenge was coming true.
Ileana waited for the shouts and groans to cease then, shaking as
if with fever, opened the living room door. The spectacle overwhelmed
her. The positions in which she found the five disturbers of the peace of
this patriarchal town made her understand the agony which their youth
had confronted with. She sat down on the couch and closed her eyes.
Unburdening tears, tears of spiritual peace trickled on the hot cheeks of
this delicate face. A tormenting thought pierced through her.
- Could God forgive me for what I have done?! Could Nani agree
with this behavior?! Does a true Christian have the right to the life of
his fellow beings?! How am I better than Shevchenko, or these young
men, tools of evil?! Nani, my dear, I did it out of love for you, for Paul,
for Silvia. God, what have I done?!
At one moment, she heard a groan. One of the young men opened
his terrified eyes. Ileana flinched, approached the one who was still
bearing a grain of life in him, then ran into the kitchen and returned
with a big cup of water. She sat down next to the victim, raised his
head in her lap and tried to pour water through the clenched teeth. The
young man swallowed the drops of water which were slipping through
the teeth and opened his eyes. Ileana met two blue eyes, filled with
gratitude. She shuddered. The young man groaned, then crouched and
remained silent. Death had defeated youth and the last hope of life.
- Still, why did he have to die?! At least he could have escaped!
He was younger than me. And what a handsome boy.
A strong bang shook the sleeping town. Ileana throbbed scared.
- Could the war have started?
Another two, of a lesser extent followed. Hope gleamed in her
soul. However, it wasn’t a matter of any war. She couldn’t have known
that Nicolovski was trying to wash away the traces of his last evil
deeds. Together with Rusev, he had decided to close down the famous
‘Special Unit’. The first measure taken was the blowing up of the
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Tukcheanov cellars, the hidden tomb of his last victims. The big hall
from which the famous wine galleries started collapsed, covering any
access. The galleries with wine barrels, the galleries with the bodies of
the liquidated convicts, disappeared under the pile of fresh earth,
dislocated from the clayey ceiling of the central hall. Bulldozers would
finish the job, razing to the earth the mansion, the torture chambers, the
convicts’ hut, as well as a part of the once famous vines.
Rishcov took advantage of this ‘act of sabotage’ to the full and
making it public, unleashed a series of punishing actions for the young
‘rebels’. As the Special Unit had practically ceased its activity, he gave
up the liquidation of the ‘guilty ones’ and passed on to deportations.
For the explosions at the Special Unit, he arrested a group of ten young
people, among which the son of the unpunished white officer,
Alexandrov. Shevchenko’s absence wasn’t troubling him, being
convinced that he was somewhere, in one of the actions of liquidations
and erasing of traces, according to the things agreed. He used the
services of Sergey, the man good for everything, to the full. Shuric was
taken from the street and together with the group of ‘saboteurs’ took
the road of Odessa.
Nicolovski, in over his head with the matters commanded from
above, restrained his desire of seeing Ileana and, together with Rusev,
set out in the search of a new headquarters, where they could discretely
perfect a plan of future activity. This is how two more days passed
without Ileana undertaking anything, without someone knocking at the
door of her house. Very slowly, she started to coquet with the idea of
not committing suicide, but giving in to Rishcov, or to Nicolovski
himself, in order to receive her punishment and save herself from
another sin.
- Will I resist to the torture they would subject me to? Is my faith
in God strong enough for me to submit to the Christian percepts and
not take my own life?! When I think about what happened, I can’t
believe I have done what can be seen around me. Why isn’t Nicolovski
coming? I’m convinced he would shoot me on the spot and I would
escape from everything and everyone.
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Ileana passed in the bedroom and looked at the one who had been
the terror of the town. He was lying helpless. She lifted the gun and
wondered how it worked. She tried it in all ways until the shot and the
recoil made her drop it from her hand.
- I wouldn’t even know how to use it. What if I only wound
myself? No, poison is simpler, even if you suffer a bit. Maybe I should
go and confess. If I found father Popescu, it would be easier. But would
he understand me? Would he approve of me? No, must I resolve this by
myself, here?
It was four in the morning, when she had an idea. Fire! Fire
would erase many traces, burning, both literally and figuratively, the
events of that fatal night. One thing was worrying her however – what
would the ones who knew her say? What would friends say? A way had
to be found to reveal the truth. She thought of Danila and Lena and
started to write, to narrate everything, without leaving out anything.
She ended with a goodbye filled with desperation: ‘My dears, I am
parting from you with the trust that you would understand all my
foolishness. It was the only way of avenging Nani. For him I punished,
for him I am going to die, with the hope that I will meet him where he
is. I know that my behavior will be hard to understand, but even harder
to understand is the desperation with which I have lived’.
She dressed, she ran to her friends’ house and left the letter in the
box at the door. Then she slowly returned home, as if to postpone the
ending. She put a sober evening dress on, she tidied her hair a little and
started to put her plan into action. She prepared a large portion of
coffee, mixed with rats bane, poured vodka into a few glasses, took the
can with lamp oil out of the pantry and passed in the living room. She
sprinkled the door, she sprinkled the curtains, she sprinkled the boys’
bodies. She passed to the carpets, the arm chairs, the furniture. She did
all mechanically, without thinking about what would happen next. In
the bedroom, she sprinkled Shevchenko’s body, the bed, the curtains,
the carpet.
- God, how many happy days and nights I have spent in this bed
with my Nani! In this bed I am going to die immaculate, because no
one touched me. I must take this filthy body out!
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She grabbed him by the legs and dragged him in the middle of the
living room. She placed the glasses of vodka and the cup of coffee on
the nightstand, sat down on the bed, leaning on a large pillow and
started emptying the glasses of vodka. As the lamp oil had finished, she
went on emptying the glasses of vodka. When she felt the vodka was
starting to take effect, she prepared the matchbox and, with a shaking
hand, threw the lit match on the carpet. At the same time, she
breathlessly emptied the cup with the coffee of death. Without getting
to feel the effect of the poison, she passed out. It seems God took pity
and forgave her!
The flames burst out in all directions, the room illuminated like in
a fairy twilight, the fire made its way toward the living room, sniffing
all that was inflammable. The heat broke the windows, the fresh air
rushed into the rooms, stirring the fire even more. When the fire spread
out of the building, engulfing the roof, the light of the flames drew the
attention of the neighbors. A few neighbors ventured to come out with
buckets of water in order to wet the fences and to stop the advance of
the fire toward their houses. No one showed any signs of approaching
the burning house. It was considered a house of the devil, everybody
accusing the priest’s wife of treason.
- Haven’t you heard what an orgy took place last night? They
surely got drunk as pigs and lit themselves on fire with the cigarettes.
It’s God’s punishment!
When at last the fire truck arrived, nothing more could be done.
The fire had done its job conscientiously. The news spread quickly
throughout the town.
- Father Ilashcu’s house has burnt down.
Inherently, it also reached Nicolovski’s ears, who breathlessly
rushed at the place of the disaster. The house burnt down by flames
was still smoking, spreading a heavy stench of burnt meat. He
remained consternated, not knowing what to believe.
- If Ileana died, I would never forgive myself! For four days I
haven’t found the time to come and see her. I must find out what
happened here. Boys, pour on a lot of water so we can enter through
the ruins. Don’t let anyone come close!
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For Nicolovski, things were starting to clear up. The other woman
could only be Ileana!
- I’ve said that it is Shevchenko’s hand! Let’s go inside, we won’t
catch fire! I for one, am not waiting any longer!
He was the first to set out through the smoking debris, cursing at
every step. When he reconstituted the image of what the living room
used to be, he remained speechless. The ones who were following him
reacted the same way. Among half burnt things, six semi carbonized
bodies were lying in positions which proved without doubt the
torments which had preceded the end. The first one to break the silence
was Koshevoy.
- These are my boys! This type of guns belongs to them. The
army doesn’t have something like this. There has been a party here.
Too many bottles of vodka!
He started to check the weapons, then continued.
- The boys didn’t fire any shot!? Shevchenko didn’t have his gun
on him!? What the hell happened here?!
Nicolovski passed what was the threshold of the bedroom door
and bit his tongue with emotion. On the bed mostly destroyed by
flames, the partly carbonized body of Ileana was lying. Nicolovski
approached Ileana’s body and kneeled.
- I should promise that I will avenge you, but this isn’t possible
anymore. Shevchenko is dead! I promise you will be buried according
to your own custom!
Nicolovski rose, took the gun which was lying on the ground and
checked it. A single bullet was missing. He left the bedroom and
approached Shevchenko’s body. He fired the rest of the magazine in
what had remained of his enemy and put the gun next to the body.
Koshevoy smiled with meaning and left the place of the tragedy.
- I will send the boys to pick up the bodies, the ones of the group
of course! With the rest, do as you think.
Nicolovski approached Rishcov and pulled him aside.
- Shevchenko’s body, if popularized may unleash a pogrom.
Please don’t touch Ileana’s body. I will deal with it, personally. For the
rest, I am at your disposition.
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The only one who understood what happened in Ileana’s house, was
Silvia. She understood Ileana’s conspiratorial look, she understood her
sacrifice and the trick she used to rescue her, she understood the way
Ileana’s revenge was fulfilled. She kept this pain inside her, continuing
to play the role of madwoman and she unburdened only after the
liberation, when she recounted to the close ones and to the Romanian
authorities the terrible truth. Ileana’s tomb became a veritable
pilgrimage landmark.
The news of Ileana’s tragic death had different echoes in the
hearts of the ones who knew her. The ones who had lost faith in her,
accusing her of collaboration with the invaders, thanked God for the
justice done. The few who trusted this woman stricken by fate,
understood her martyrdom and didn’t hesitate to bring, even though
discretely, flowers at her tomb.
In the evening, armed with a lantern, Nicolovski also snuck, and
sometimes spent hours in a row near the tomb of the one who had
charmed him and who had woken hopes in him. He always brought
wild flowers, which he put on the arms of the cross.
- If you had lived, I’m sure I would have become a different man.
Your death will make me even more evil.
Shevchenko’s death set Rishcov going. First of all, he made
Shevchenko a hero, organizing a funeral with military honors. He
obtained the decoration and the post-mortem promotion, and the
naming of Nicolovski in the vacant position. He entrusted him with the
mission of organizing punitive deportations, in sight. Whole families,
armed with only bundles, took the road of exile, on foot, in the
direction of the Nistru. On the other side of the Nistru, the sorting
started, the separation of children from parents and their sending
toward specially organized educational centers, and not rarely, the
separation of married couples. The men were sent to work, usually in
the extraction industry and the women, loaded in goods wagons, took
the road to Siberia. More resistant, through their physical and psychical
structure, many of them survived the extermination regime and, after
the end of the war, brought testimonies about the ordeal of the
deportations from 1941.
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- Where do you have this note from?! Know that this is a bomb in
your hands! It’s better you destroy it and not broadcast it!
- Uncle, it’s too late. I multiplied it all night and now it is
circulating unhindered. I also threw a few copies on the street of the
Consistory, so they too will rejoice a little. Soon they will go home and
will escape our curses! If they were smart, they would leave without
fighting. They don’t stand a chance here!
- May God grant it, but you should disappear! They arrested
Percheac and Alexandrov yesterday.
Antonescu was determined to act on his own. He was not
interested in the opinions of the influential politicians; he was not
interested in the point of view of the royalty. The order addressed to the
army on the 22nd of June, one might say, with power granted by
himself, avoiding communication with king Mihai, in a crucial moment
in the history of Romania, through his almost electoral pathos, stirred a
great enthusiasm in the ranks of the Basarabian population, but also
enough reserves in the world of politicians in Bucharest, in their
majority philo-French: ‘I order you, cross the Prut! Crush the enemy
from the east and north. Liberate from the red yoke of bolshevism your
invaded brothers. Reintegrate in the body of the country the ancient
glory of Basarabia and the voievodal woods of Bucovina, your lands
and fields!’
The phrase ‘The holy war’ inoculated in the hearts of the
Romanian soldiers the sense of duty, of sacrifice. This was necessary.
The military priests had the holy mission of bearing the cross in front
of the battalions. On the Prut, in the period between the 22 nd of June
and the 1st of July, the Romanian troops had as an advantage not the
military and technical training, but the enthusiasm. The fact that the
surprise really was a surprise was proven by the retort given by the
soviets, better trained, better equipped, better endowed with military
technique. If there was something that surprised and in the mean time
baffled them, it was the way in which the Romanians attacked, singing
patriotic songs, dying but not stopping, achieving unexpected for
bridge heads.
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deception, realizing the way how the Germans were treating the
Romanians.
He had dreamt of fighting side by side with the German army and
in just two weeks he realized how devoid of loyalty our allies, his idols
from adolescence, were.
Nevertheless, on the 16th of July, Chisinau was conquered, and
the hopes of the Basarabians were reactivated. The disaster of the
cavalry at Tziganca dissolved them as a unit, those remaining alive
being detailed as part of another regiment, being used in
reconnaissance actions, like in the time of the First World War. Sent
with the new unit to the south of Basarabia, Mirchea managed to
change his way toward home, but arrived too late to meet with his
family. He didn’t have the time necessary to search for Valeria, but he
found out from grandmother about father, sick mother, Bob and Lulu,
taking the road of deportation. George was declared missing, and his
mother and Barby were hiding, from fear of the Russians’ return, in
some acquaintances’ cellar, somewhere in a slum of Ismail.
It was a shock for him, but he kept his trust in the alliance with
Germany and the hope in the destruction of bolshevism. What really
happened? Ismail wasn’t defended by the soviets, but abandoned
without a fight. The reality was that they didn’t even have a military
fleet on the Chilia branch, and the news arriving from Tulchea and
Galatzi were announcing a preparation of the Romanian-German naval
forces for the outbreak of an attack on the Danube.
Mirchea would participate in small actions of attrition, always
escaping as through a miracle, moving after each failure to another
regiment, shattering dream after dream, accumulating deception after
deception, states provided by the behavior of the German ‘colleagues’
toward the Romanian soldiers, on the long road of the war of
liberation. He knew he had lost his family forever and he somehow
regretted the run across the Prut, the abandonment of the family.
Communism was for him the greatest plague of humanity, and he saw
salvation in the German socialism-nationalism. The unfaithful behavior
of the German comrades was giving him extenuating circumstances,
defending his creed with the phrase ‘war’s war!’
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Indeed, Ismail had come out too little rumpled from the so-called
bombardments of the Romanian artillery. The soviets realized that it
was senseless to engage in fights on the Danube, to fight back through
strong counterattacks, the Danube being necessary for the organization
of the evacuation of materials and a certain category of personnel – the
cinovnics. On the other hand, if they did truly deal with something, it
was the organization of the deportations – people, animals, harnesses
and wagons. Everything had to cross the Nistru, where the soviets were
preparing the great retort, for the defense of Ukraine.
The number one man in the organization of what would be
known under the generic name of ‘pohod na Sibiri’ was Nicolovski.
Suffering like a dog because of the things happened with Ileana, he was
extinguishing his pain by causing pain to others. He was known to be a
tough man, unbalanced, but in the eve of events which would
inherently affect everybody, the people were inclined to find, even in
the eyes of the enemy a gleam of understanding. A war is a war and
where it takes place it doesn’t pick victims, it strikes everybody.
One of the shells which fell accidentally in the ‘Roses’ Park put
an end to the lives of two locals and two soviet officers! Chance took
them there, and the war didn’t choose. Maybe in their hearts they were
enemies, maybe in certain circumstances they would have fought to the
death, but there, in the park, they were simple human beings, and the
explosion didn’t make any distinctions. And the acme, they were all
young! That is why, in such circumstances, Nicolovski’s attitude
seemed even more unforgivable. He had got to the point that, in some
cases, as was ours, came personally to take whole families, embark
them into wagons and send them under escort to the gathering point,
usually an old deserted square at the outskirts of the town.
It was the same Nicolovski who was spending hours in a row next
to Ileana’s tomb!
After about a week spent in torment in a wet and cold cellar, with
rats swarming among us, mother’s condition imposed coming out to
light. As the bombardments weren’t too strong anymore, and their
effects even less, we returned home as not to subject to additional pain
the one who was just complaining about the fact that she couldn’t take
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with his head, and together with him, his great ally Antonescu. When
we will reestablish the order, Romania will disintegrate! Good, let’s get
to work. I advise you to calm down the atmosphere; I don’t want to
hear any moans and shouts! It’s for your own good if you want to
remain together. Everything you put in the wagon must be passed in
front of my eyes. Don’t forget the water!
Father was listening speechless, fighting with himself not to
commit a mistake, which could have been fatal.
- Let me explain it to my wife and wake the children up, to
prepare them, so that we can leave in peace.
Mother received her Dania’s words untroubled.
- Be calm and don’t oppose to it. It’s good we all leave together!
Go to the children and explain to them that everything is in order, that
they shouldn’t be afraid because we are going to be together and so we
will escape the bombardments in town. I will get up and gather a few
things. I’m going to tell mother as well. She has to know!
- Let’s take a little mattress as well, so you can stay stretched, and
some pillows. Ask mother to fill two demijohns with wattle, with
water. I’m going to the children.
Me and Lulu reacted differently. Lulu got so scared, that she
couldn’t say a word. I on the other hand, only saw the ‘interesting’ side
of things, a long journey by wagon, like in the holidays at the
grandparents’.
- And the wagon will be only ours? I will take care of the horse
and hold the harnesses. I will even take the whip which grandfather
gave me as a present. You, Lulu, stop weeping! You will be mother’s
nurse. You will have to take care of her all the time.
- Good, Bob, with you at my side I know I won’t be afraid of
anyone!
The things we prepared for the embarkation were put in sight in
the living room, in order to be checked by Nicolovski. He was
following us with his hideous smile, filled with a cynical, cruel
satisfaction. He had the first intervention when he saw the primus and
the little can with petrol.
- This no! Something like this is out of the question!
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- But I have to be able to make the teas for my wife! They are her
only medicine!
- You will be able, during the stops, to light fires, so that you can
make teas. The can with petrol is a veritable bomb in the case of a
bombardment and can also be used in acts of sabotage! You can never
know! No, without the primus!
The loading of the wagon went on in a total silence, without
incidents. This doesn’t mean that behind the curtains, agitated shadows
weren’t following with dread the spectacle of uprooting, so feared and
nevertheless so expected on the background of a fatal resignation. It
was an old wagon, with a beam as for two horses, with a rather good
looking horse harnessed on the right side. The space was less than
insufficient to allow the transportation of four persons, among which
one seriously sick. Neither the aliments, nor the water or the personal
things took up too much space. The largest, but also the most important
were the little mattress, laid on the floor of the wagon, the pillows, and
the few blankets.
Mother stretched on the mattress, having under her head a bigger
pillow, to cushion the jolts. Lulu sat down on a pillow next to mother,
and I sat down next to father, face to face, on a plank covered in a
blanket. I think I was the only one who wasn’t worrying about
anything.
- Sergey, accompany the wagon to the gathering point and hand
them over to the caravan chief. You answer with your head! Remain
near the caravan until it sets out, then come to report. The caravan has
to leave the town when it is dark. What can I wish for you Davidov? To
meet someone who would put a bullet in the back of your head instead
of me. Safe journey!
In an old square in the slum of Ismail, about fifty wagons were
organized in a caravan, in a sort of circle. Horsemen with Asian faces,
armed with automatics and whips, were patrolling around the wagons,
bringing fear in the hearts of those who were waiting for the order of
departure.
- Why this delay?! We should have left an hour ago!?
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to go through and especially hard to bear. The advance was slow, with
all the insistent impulses of the accompanying horsemen.
We found ourselves on the tenth place from the back of the
column and we were integrating in the rhythm imposed by the state of
the road. As this was passing through the middle of the village, without
options of detours, the dawn caught us right in the village, but to the
general surprise, we didn’t stir the curiosity of anybody, the village
seeming deserted. That was not the reality. We weren’t the first caravan
of deportees to pass through this village, and the villagers, accustomed
to this kind of show, were discretely watching from behind the curtains,
praying for us. This apparent indifference didn’t have at all the gift to
raise the morale of the oppressed ones, accentuating the desperation
even more.
On mother’s face the torture of the disease grinding her could be
read, but she knew how to mask it when she met our worried looks,
smiling encouragingly. Lulu, the fragile and spoilt one, had taken her
role of nurse seriously, and defeating her repulsion toward the plague
which had taken over mother’s body, was taking care of her, respecting
the advice received from grandmother and was encouraging her with
words which she wouldn’t have usually used. The less than fifteen year
old girl had matured in a single night, a night of nightmare it’s true, but
nevertheless just one night!
A sunny day of July would add up something to the torture of a
journey by wagon, in the middle of the summer. Sometimes, as a divine
blessing, a breeze of fresh air, slightly wet by the Katlabug lake, came
through from the right side of the road we were crossing. The only
ones who seemed to suffer neither because of the heat, nor because of
the dust which was setting down on their sweaty faces, were the
horsemen who were accompanying us. They were about twenty,
galloping almost all the time around the caravan of wagons, in front of
which the chief of the caravan was riding, an older individual, but
unlike his subordinates, less talkative. The boys were swearing in full
gallop, addressing in a bad Russian urges for respecting the distance
between the wagons. They had fixed this distance at about five meters
and they were setting on that it be respected.
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The luckiest were the ones at the front of the caravan, who were
enduring less the effects of the cloud of dust stirred up. The back of the
caravan on the other hand, was advancing as through fog. Our horse,
Suru at my wish, was going effortlessly at the rhythm imposed by the
caravan, not creating any sort of problems at this start of journey.
The goal pursued was reaching the village of Fintina Zinelor,
passing by Suvorovo, respectively King Carol II, in order to enter on
the main road leading to Chetatea Alba. It was a matter of about forty
kilometers, a relatively short distance, but which proved to be a
veritable overture at the ordeal which would follow. The evening
caught us at about twenty kilometers from Ismail, to the great
dissatisfaction of the caravan chief.
- If we ride like this, we shouldn’t be surprised that the Germans
get to the Nistru before us, and then you’ll see what fun we are going
to have. If you don’t hurry, I will make the automatics spit on you!
Don’t imagine that you will be freed! It’s better we collaborate and
escape with our lives, all of us! I have an order and I will carry it out!
We made a stop not far from a draw well, deserted, without a
bucket, without a chain. The boys improvised a rope from pieces of
harnesses, tied a bucket, put a rock in it in order to gain some weight
and prepared to distribute the water. The first bucket cut the desire of
replenishing the water reserves and of watering the horses. The water
was green, and a few frogs were struggling to jump out. A murmur of
disapproval was heard and a grave, old voice addressed the
commander.
- If you really want to keep us alive, taking into account the
journey which awaits us, then organize halts in villages, where we can
find water and some food. With what we have taken with us, we can’t
resist.
- Who are you to give me advice about how to organize my
business?! Do you want to instigate the people?! Do you think we are
going to a party?! Boys, take him!
The old man, who must have been over seventy years old, was
taken by the boys, under the terrified looks of the convicts, toward a
skirt of reed, hardly perceptible in the shadows of the night. A burst of
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the bastard at the head of the caravan. While he was stroking the
horse’s neck, Suru1, who wasn’t grey at all, he was leaving the
impression that he was begging him forgiveness for what was
happening, but promising him that all would end well. Suru reacted
like he understood, always seeking with his head the hand which was
stroking him, as to kiss it. The relationship man-horse is special, with
nothing inferior to the one between man and dog. I learnt to love dogs
at home, where I enjoyed superb exemplars. I have grown fond of
horses and understood them in the holidays at my grandparents in
Sararia.
For my grandfather, horses were a priority. His care for them was
paternal, a thing which struck the eye. They were beautiful, healthy,
friendly. The same thing was also happening in the households of my
uncles. And nevertheless, an event marked me forever. I was in the
garden of an uncle and was watching the harnessing at the wagon of a
superb stallion, a present from grandfather, bought with big money
from a German friend in Shaba. These specimens were superb, and
were specially bred for selling by the Germans from this famous
village. The horses and the wines in Shaba were the pride of these
hard-working and honest people.
The stallion, Neamtzu, as grandfather had named him, agitated
from nature, feeling the wagon at his hind legs, pranced, then threw a
kick at uncle Vasile, hitting him in the head, near the temple, and them
went directly to the stable. The faint lasted for a few good minutes,
after which uncle rose to his feet dizzily and set out toward the gate.
The cries of the ones home couldn’t stop him. After about half an hour
he returned accompanied by the village gendarme and went directly to
the stable. A gunshot was heard and a profound silence followed.
Everybody was looking astounded toward the door of the stable, where
uncle Vasile was sobbing.
Yes, it was a harsh lesson I received when I was six, about the
relationship between man and animal. In this case, it was about the
relationship between two friends – a man and a horse. I descended
from the wagon and snuck next to my father. I looked Suru in the eyes
and whispered – ‘this will never happen to you’.
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- Bob, get in the wagon and try to get some sleep. Tomorrow is
going to be a hard day. I know these places. If we wander away from
the lake, dust will engulf us, if we come close to the lake, we will sink
into the swamps. I will remain with Suru some more, to make friends
with him. We will need him greatly, and now he is suffering and he
doesn’t understand anything.
I didn’t get to sleep. The command for the departure sounded
prolong in the night. The agitation brought about by the formation of
the column lasted for a while, so the dawn started to break. The same
clear day, the same road full of holes, the same suffocating dust, the
same slowness in the advance of the caravan. The hungry and
especially thirsty horses were showing signs of insubordination. Some
were stopping, nodding their heads symptomatically, provoking
veritable ambushes. The wagons were bumping one into another,
breaking, to the desperation of the horsemen, the directive of the five
meters distance. The journey was appearing to be difficult, both for the
ones led, as well as for the ones leading. The first, couldn’t do more,
the others had to hurry. At a moment, the commander went the rounds
around the caravan, to see what could be undertaken. When he arrived
near us, father dared to address him:
- Comrade commander, I request permission to search for a
doctor in the caravan, or at least a nurse. My wife is seriously sick and
won’t resist a journey without care.
- Where do you think you are, man?! If she’s sick, why haven’t
you left her home? Know that we can leave her here as well. No
problem. We should have carried a pharmacy with us, no?! Mind your
own wagon man, and don’t bump into the wagon in front of you.
Meanwhile, mother’s condition had aggravated, the blisters, from
watery, had become purulent. Lulu had finished the tea prepared by
grandmother for the tamponing of wounds and desperate, started to put
on the wounds leaves of tea taken for the road, damped with water. The
situation became complicated also due to the fact that the water
brought from home was being consumed very quickly.
With great difficulty, the wagons took their places in the caravan
again and set off, stirring the same suffocating dust. Despite all the
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was starting to attenuate. Here and there, some were daring to descend
the wagons and establish contact with the ones around.
Father did the same thing, trying to find someone even just a little
competent in medical problems. Mother’s state was aggravating
quickly, and Lulu was starting to give in because of tiredness. The
attempt resulted in a certain success. Not far from our wagon, father
met someone he knew. It was doctor Percheac’s nurse, together with
her husband and the two children. Misses Maria, as she was called at
the hospital, told him about the arrest of doctor Percheac and
Alexandrov, right in the precincts of the hospital. Willing to help, as
always, she accompanied father to our wagon, which had remained
under my supervision, and at the starlight, feeling with her hands, tried
to make out the condition of the wounds. Using the water brought from
Ismail, she tamponed the infected areas, then disinfected them with a
little methylated alcohol, brought in her little first aid kit. Mother
heartened up, thanked her and smiled at us encouragingly.
Everything took place in silence, under the indulgent looks of the
young horsemen. One of them, arriving next to our carriage, took his
finger to his lips, passing on the advice to silence. It was a gesture
which shed a totally different light on these innocent young men,
educated in a spirit of total submission toward the orders of the
superiors, but probably inoculated with certain rules of general
conduct, in their childhood, at their houses. In my child mind,
grandfather’s words, that people are not bad from nature, were coming
true.
It was the first night from the start of the illness, when mother fell
asleep, with Lulu beside her. Before the break of dawn, the bustle
restarted. The caravan was getting ready for a new stage of the journey.
After a few kilometers, a rather narrow bridge, but strong enough,
allowed the crossing of the river and the setting out of the caravan in
the direction of the main road, the junction being made near the village
of Fintina Zinelor. The crossing of the bridge was carried out slowly, to
the desperation of the caravan chief. Their obsessing fear of the young
‘outlaws’ was making them give up the nocturnal march, which was in
contradiction to the dispositions from the center, regarding the
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ineffaceable memory for the survivors. The planes didn’t come back,
and the beneficiaries of this aerial attack were the convicts who
remained alive.
The horsemen who remained unscathed gave up the sense of
patriotic duty, so inoculated by the soviet order in their young souls,
and, as if at a command, set out galloping eastwards, over the crops,
detouring the road. After long moments of bewilderment, of unnatural
silence in front of the tragedy, in one of the wagons, a silhouette rose,
belonging to a man of medium height, with a small moustache, familiar
to us, who with a determined voice, of a true army commander,
demanded to be listened to. It seemed improbable, but the one who
wanted to speak was none other than Alexandrov, the former white
officer, our diadia Sasha.
Still astounded, father left Suru to me and slipping among the
wagons, climbed at the side of his friend, whose fate he knew nothing
about. Rushing one in the arms of the other, sobbing, the two friends
knelt and aiming their eyes at the sky, thanked God. The scene
contaminated the others too and in an atmosphere of piousness, on their
knees, adults and children started to pray. Among sobs, ‘Our Father
who art in heaven…’ was humbly heard.
Not far from Alexandrov, from another wagon, a tall man rose,
with a cross in his hand.
- I am priest Mihaila from Sofian. I bless you in the name of God!
Great is his mercy! Now, let’s gather our dead and bury them
Christianly, praying!
Murmurs of approval accompanied the priest’s words.
Alexandrov asked for silence.
- It’s wonderful we have a priest among us, as wonderful were his
words too. But in the actual circumstances, we can’t stay still. We must
move, leave this area as fast as possible. We will take the dead with us
and bury them in a safer place. We must abandon the dead horses and
the wagons which remained without horses and gather as we can. I
suggest we head southward, along the bank of the Sasik river, an area
where it’s hardly probable to come across soldiers, of any kind. It’s
neither a zone favorable for an attack, nor for the organization of
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defense. The presence of the planes has shown us that the frontline is
getting closer, or that the road will be the way on which some will
retreat, and our soldiers will advance. If someone knows the area and
wants to take another road, he can certainly do so. The important thing
is not to create any panic and to avoid the frontline. It is important that
we have escaped from deportation. For the rest, only God knows what
will happen! If you agree, let’s get to work. Time is very precious!
A new murmur of approval was heard, the hands waved above
heads and the people, mostly unacquainted one with another, started to
hug. The preparations for the journey started, when a group of five men
approached Alexandrov.
- We don’t know whether it is good, but we are heading back to
Ismail. We are going to detour the main road and hide in the villages
we come across.
- Of course you can take another road. We wish you luck and
strength!
Alexandrov proved to be a good organizer. The preparations for
departure took place without incidents. The people were happy that
there was somebody who would take responsibility, who would lead
them, who would command. The news that Alexandrov had been an
officer in the tsarist army seeded even more trust in the people. A
regrouping of the people in carriages was made, a carriage being freed
in order to transport the five dead, Alexandrov pulled his wagon at the
front of the caravan, the rearguard being assured, whether we liked it or
not, by our Suru, because of his jadery.
The caravan set out toward Trapivka, a small village on the bank
of the lake. Almost at the same time, the five wagons determined to go
in the direction of Ismail, set out. We had to cover about ten kilometers,
on an earth road, full of dust and holes. Father took his role seriously
and, holding the bridle tightly, was pulling Suru after him. He was
exhausted, with his soles pierced and with wounds at his feet. Mother
was enjoying Misses Maria’s care and that of Alexandrov’s wife, but
her condition was continually getting worse. Lulu was also overcome
by the events and was crying in secret. I, the chatterbox in past times,
was as mum as a mouse. I tried to take my father’s place, but Suru
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Trapivka was the first halt made in rather human conditions. The
people in the village, just curious at first, then more than hospitable,
allowed the wagons to enter in their yards, took care of the horses,
giving them water, put on the table everything they had best from the
little they had. The uha, the boiled or fried fish smoothed the brows of
the former convicts, and the maize brandy brought a drop of joy as
well.
The funeral of the ones killed was left for the following day. The
wagon with the bodies was taken directly to the cemetery, where the
close ones also did the vigil. Once again, as the Romanian saying – the
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dead with the dead, the living with the living – proved its validity more
than needed. The weeping and the mourning of the vigil stopped at
about midnight, and the living joined the living, at a glass of brandy.
The dead remained in the wagon, under the sparkling light of the stars.
An unusual attitude, in unusual circumstances. The second day,
everybody assisted at the improvised funeral, as if led from behind by
the thought of departure. Everybody wanted to move away from the
area of the main road.
Alexandrov’s incentive of heading toward the sea, following the
bank of the lake as far as the village of Liman, was received with trust.
As mother’s condition didn’t permit any hazardous roads, father
decided to separate from the caravan, or better said, from what was left
of it, in order to set out on back-roads in the direction of Sararia-Tuzla.
The separation from Alexandrov was difficult. At a certain moment,
chance gave us a hand and we met again unexpectedly. Now however,
nobody could believe in a new chance. Tears and hugs, the only
possible manifestations in such circumstances. Words were
meaningless. Silence and tears, that was all!
- Daniil Stepanich, my dear! If I escape, I’ll come after you, at
Sararia, or at Tuzla, so we would return together to Ismail. Now I have
to take care of these disoriented people, who listened to me. I think I
didn’t make a mistake, I think I have chosen well. It is a dead area for
military operations. May God grant it that I’m right! If you can, don’t
stop until Tuzla. There is a good sanatorium and you must find some
medical personnel and drugs. May God take care of you! Goodbye,
friend!
- Goodbye, Sasha!
- Supplied with fresh water, mamaliga1 and fried fish, with father
holding Suru by the bridle, we set out eastwards, actually north-
eastwards, in the direction of the Caragach village, about seven-eight
kilometers from Trapivka. From the direction of the main road, roars of
artillery could be heard more and more often. Suddenly, a miracle
happened. Suru nodded his head a few times, liberated himself from
the arm which was holding him by the bridle and set out full of energy.
Father was keeping up with him, unable to believe his eyes. After a few
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It was hard to explain what was happening to us. Were we happy? Were
we exhausted? Were we afraid? It was a complex state, a mixture of all
these. Ana’s appearance at the gate brought us to reality.
- Danila, is that you my dear?!
- Yes Ana, it’s me, I mean us! It seems we have escaped from the
nightmare! Is mother alright?
With tears in her eyes, Ana nodded her head and jumped in the
arms of her brother. They were both crying, we were also crying. Only
mother was smiling. There was someone else who was showing signs
of satisfaction. Suru was shaking his head hastily, as if demanding to
be unharnessed. Ana hugged us children, then leaned over mother’s
tormented face and kissed her on the forehead. She rushed toward the
gate and opened it. Suru entered in the yard with a triumphant air and
didn’t stop until he found a haycock. I think it was the supreme reward
for him.
What a warmth in the reception made by these miserable
relatives! How much pain in their words, in the reminiscing of the
events which took place, in these small villages, whose heroes, whether
they wanted or not, were grandfathers, uncles, aunts, cousins. They had
suffered more than us; they had lost more than us. The girl-cousin was
about my age, the boy was just about Lulu’s age. They tried to gratify
our wishes, we being considered the townsmen, the educated ones. Too
much time didn’t have to be wasted to efface this difference of ‘class’.
Children remain children and that is why they are wonderful. No
matter how much pain lies in their hearts, a place can always be found
for moments of joy. Ana, assisted by a nurse from the sanatorium –
there hadn’t been any doctors there for a long time – dedicated
themselves to mother. The hygienic conditions in the house brought the
first improvements in the road to the expected healing. And they also
brought someone else – an eighty year old woman, the village witch
since forever, the village becoming in time a balneal resort. The lack of
medicines imposed this and in addition, the miracles which this old
woman managed to do in desperate cases. Some called her the witch of
Tuzla.
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Her kindness and especially the warmth in her eyes had nothing
to do with the image of a witch. She did have however, a special
authority, which she exerted imperceptibly. The proof was the way how
she took over the hostilities in the fight with the disease, or better said,
with death. Everything was based on a longtime experience, on the
knowledge of plants, on the healing effects of mud. The teas and a
strict diet were the weapons with which she started the fight against the
kidneys. She covered the wounds on the body, especially on the legs,
with a thin layer of pomade, the secret of the composition being kept
piously. One thing we found out nevertheless. At the base of this
wonder-unguent, a mixture of Tuzla mud and Burnas mud was laying.
The old woman stayed day and night at the head of the diseased
one, unable to afford the luxury of falling asleep for any moment. This
‘Baba Yaga’, as the children were calling her, brought in the end light
in our souls and life in mother’s exhausted body. A week later, the
wounds started to cicatrize, and the strict alimentary regimen started to
soften little by little.
In this time, no authority could be seen in the village, nor in the
surroundings. It seemed that both the ones who were running, as well
as the ones who were attacking, had forgotten about this corner, which
was, nevertheless, basarabian land! This was our great luck; this was
also the luck of the ones led by Alexandrov.
On the 30th of July, three mounted soldiers entered on the main
street in Tuzla. A gendarme quarter master, accompanied by two young
soldiers, probably novices, were saluting smilingly, wielding a rifle in
their right arm, the population of Tuzla, who was in front of the houses.
It was a quiet, but warm welcome. A hidden fear, inexplicable, was
holding back the explosion of happiness in the hearts of people. A year,
just a year, was enough to cripple the souls of these people, once so
expansive in expressing their feelings.
At the incentive of the quarter master, the people started to follow
the liberating horsemen. Arriving in front of the former town hall, with
a thundering voice, the quarter master announced: ‘On the 25th of July
the soviets were driven away beyond the Nistru’.
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It was the signal for the crowd’s outburst through cries of joy,
through cheers. An old man appeared with a flag of the Romanian
Kingdom and handed it over to the quarter master, to wave it from the
height of the horse. The people were hugging, the people were crying.
The gendarme, with a strangled voice, read the liberation proclamation,
signed by Antonescu. ‘… The fight for the liberation of the eastern
Romanian land is over…’
A voice from the crowd shouted: ‘Long live King Mihai, long
live Antonescu, long live the Romanian army!’
The people burst into cheers, covering the gendarme’s voice,
better said the post chief, who was trying in vain to make himself
heard. An old woman appeared with a tray on which a mamaliga was
steaming, alongside a salt cellar.
- Forgive us, sir officer, but we haven’t had bread for a long
time…
The new post chief dismounted, took mamaliga with a spoon he
was holding in the pocket at his chest, sprinkled some salt and
solemnly took the spoon to his mouth.
- The mamaliga is good. As mother used to make! There will also
be bread, only that the front moves away from the Nistru, so you can
work in peace.
- What do you think; the Romanian Army will fight beyond the
Nistru as well?
- General Antonescu has already decided this. The Romanians on
the other side of the Nistru, in Transnistria, must also be liberated.
They are our brothers too and they have suffered more than us! It is a
matter of a holy war, against bolshevism. We must walk alongside our
German allies. We must go as far as Bug, as Antonescu agreed with
Hitler. Odessa is going to be a Romanian port! Hitler also promised us
the Transilvania stolen by the Hungarians. Yes, the war isn’t over!
Danila was listening to the gendarme’s words and couldn’t
believe his ears. The Romanians, led in a crusade?! But the time of the
crusades had passed, only the bitter taste in the history books
remaining. Deep down, he was reassuring himself, saying: ‘What does
this gendarme know?’
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Two months after the crossing of the Prut, he took the marshal’s
truncheon and the Iron Cross in his hand. His star seemed to be
shining.
The journey of the Romanian army in the direction of Odessa was
tough, marked by big sacrifices of human lives. Many families were
mourning, and the wounded who returned from the front presented in a
gloomy light the victories obtained by the Romanians at the ‘liberation’
of Transnistria. The army, poorly trained and equipped, was left to
manage on its own by its great ally. The soviets were determined to sell
their lives dearly and to defend the riches which Ukraine was hiding. In
the country, and even in Basarabia and Bucovina, more and more
voices were disapproving the continuation of Romania’s participation
in the ‘holy war’. For Antonescu however, it was a title of glory to set
up Romanian administration in Transnistria. But the most blamable
thing which Antonescu did was, under the pressure of the Germans, the
deportation of the Jews and Gypsies, in this territory.
Anyhow, the marshal was holding on, and the dictatorial regime
set up in the country was keeping the royalty under control.
Although we detoured the main roads, once we were approaching
Ismail, the encounters with the military units which were heading
toward the front, couldn’t be avoided. It wasn’t a proper impediment,
only that the advance by wagon was rendered difficult. We met
wonderful people, who helped us with food – cans, military bread, as I
liked, and others. A military doctor offered himself to consult mother,
assuring us that everything was in order.
Through them we found out that Ismail was liberated without a
fight, that the town was practically untouched by the wave of war and
that life was starting to settle on its normal course. The soviet military
fleet retreated without trying to oppose any resistance, and the
Romanian fleet gave up the attack, just to save the town from
destruction. The terrestrial army also retreated peacefully, which
allowed the Romanians to enter the town in the most peaceful
conditions.
Too bad that this retreat was preceded by an intense activity of
the organs of the internal affairs ministry, which left Ismail deep
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wounds. Innocent people, whole families, took the one way road of
deportations. Rishcov, Rusev, Nicolovschi, committed abominable
crimes, leaving ineffaceable proof for posterity, evidence of
accusations, not only against them, but also for the whole system which
they were blindly serving. It was important that someone would make
use of them. The future would prove the contrary, at least as far as
Romania was concerned.
We made the last halt at Fintina Zinelor. The same hospitable
people, the same warmth in their hospitable behavior. We were
considering ourselves the privileged of fate, because few wagons
managed to take the road back. Many were still hiding in the villages
further away from the main road, distrustful of the events which were
rapidly succeeding.
In the morning, at dawn, we set out to cover the last portion
which was still separating us from Ismail. From a near-by yard, a
wagon had just appeared, similar to ours, which was preparing to go in
the same direction. The surprise was huge, since the driver was none
other than Alexandrov, our good diadia Sasha.
He had managed to lead the caravan of deportees as far as the
Liman village, he had convinced them not to hurry to return, he had
taken care, like a true commander, of the wounded who, the irony of
fate, were bearing in them bullets sent by the raid of Romanian
airplanes. How could a caravan of wagons with deportees, escorted by
a handful of horsemen, have been mistaken for something else, nobody
wanted to understand. The answer given by some was well-known: war
was war!
In fact, it wasn’t the only thing which couldn’t be understood.
There were too many questions, and the times truly were ‘like in war’.
The entry in Ismail was made at nightfall, with innumerable
controls made by groups of frontier guards, with stereotype expressed
bewilderment – ‘How could you escape from deportation?!’ Home,
everything seemed unchanged. Grandmother, my aunt and Barby,
greeted us with tears and thanks given to God.
- Only a divine miracle could snatch you from the clutches of the
red devils, of the antichrists!
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Lenin, and not last, Stalin, read and abjured his creed. Hitlerism, once
put to the wall, was replaced with the soviet communism!
Everything was resolved at once with the arrival of the soviet
armies and the turning of weapons against Germany by the Romanian
army. Sick, he presented himself at the nearest military unit, declared
himself lost and found himself rejected. It couldn’t be a matter of
treason anymore, but a far-sightedness in the change of opinion. His
new creed had an instantaneous evolution. Overnight, if that can be
said, he became the most fervent admirer of everything which was
coming from the east, an intolerant Rusophile. Years passed and my
attempts of coming close to him ended in failure. In fact, not only
mine, but the ones of the whole family.
Valeria oscillated between home and strangers, always leaving
and always returning.
In Ismail, things were starting to reenter on their normal course,
in the limits of what normal could mean in times of war. From the
deported ones, few were the ones who managed to return home.
Generally, the ones who were part of the last echelons of deportees,
escaped. About the tragic fate of many it could be found out from these
privileged of fate themselves.
Digging was done at Tulcheanov’s, at the Jewish cemetery, at the
sanatorium in Bolgrad. People shot in the back of the head, naked,
sprinkled with lime milk. Those weren’t times for proper investigation.
Too few signs of recognition, too little interest from the part of
authorities. The verdict: ‘unidentified bodies’ put an end to these
summary investigations. They were reburied Christianly, at choice, by
the ones who were looking for their dead. Tombs appeared, crosses
appeared, names appeared. This too was a way of ending a chapter in
the tumultuous life of Ismailiens. As in Ismail people were manifesting
a true cult toward tombs, they were created, even though they were
hiding a question mark within them.
The events which took place during a sole year seem incredible,
but not incredible enough to create images imprinted in the mind of an
eleven-year old child.
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Romanians were proud of this new conquest. Even the cultural life was
starting to thrive.
The town was beautiful, even with the wounds brought about by
war, and the restrictions regarding the free circulation during the day
were almost inexistent. It was the first big city I had seen in my life.
The view of the harbor was wonderful, the two hundred steps
impressive, the opera house, something descended from fairy tales. It
was there that I saw the first ballet show in my life. ‘Swan Lake’
enchanted me and maybe it even constituted the first step of the future
music lover. I grew fond of symphonic and opera music and this made
me less vulnerable in front of the vicissitudes of life.
Yes, the lioness did her job and the family remained intact, ready
to face what would come. And the hurricane of the year 1944 came,
stirred up in full spring, in eve of Holy Easter. This time, things didn’t
happen like in ’40. The families of the public functionaries received
orders of evacuation. The front was approaching rapidly, as was the
fear that history would repeat itself. A telegram communicated the
meeting place – Calarashi.
Together with the families Alexandrov and Stavrov, we embarked
on the ship with propelled blades ‘Great Romania’, and to have room,
we set out in the opposite direction, toward Chilia. It was Alexandrov’s
idea and it was salutary. It was also the last voyage made by this old
ship, the navigation on the Danube being endangered by the aerial
attacks of the soviet air force. We were four: me, mother, Lulu and
George. George’s mother refused to leave and remained with Barby
and grandmother, as not to leave the house! We left with two suitcases
and a bag of sponge cakes. From Tulcea, we continued our journey by
train, in goods wagons. Chernavoda followed and then a stop at
Feteshti. It was the time of American aviation bombardments, which
didn’t hit only Bucharest and the oil areas, but also some railway
junctions.
That was also the case in the Feteshti overcrowded with civil and
military trains. In one of these trains Danila Davidescu could be found,
escaped as through a miracle, with the last Romanian ship which
managed to leave Odessa. I found out this thing only in Calarashi, the
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www.darisbasarab.com
2007
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