I Must Betray You (16 page)

The next morning I sat alone in our apartment, alone with my thoughts.

Would the protests continue? Had Mr. Van Dorn read my notebook? Was Dan back in America? What time did the Secu generally come to our apartment?

The phone rang. One ring. The code from Luca.

I ran downstairs to meet him. Oddly, the weather had warmed. Nature was joining our crusade, inviting Romanians to take to the street.

I passed the Reporters, dutifully stationed on their balconied perches.

“University dorms are under surveillance,” Luca whispered.

“Where'd you hear that?”

“Overheard it in the stairwell. The Reporters heard rumors that Beloved Leader will give a TV address tonight.”

“Luca, he's not beloved.”

“Sorry, habit.”

Luca's eyes drifted over my shoulder. I turned to look.

Liliana stood on the sidewalk, staring at us.

“Hey, there's Starfish,” said Luca, pointing in the opposite direction. “See if he knows anything. I'll be around. Call me and use the signal if you hear something.”

I nodded, half listening. My eyes were on Liliana, following her as she walked alone down the sidewalk, away from our buildings. Where was she going?

The dogs, Turbatu and Fetița, clipped behind Starfish. “Got the papers I mentioned. You got the money? I'm only taking Western currency,” he said.

“How many papers and what are they? How do I know they're worth it?”

“Oh, they're worth it. Two sheets of paper, covered in coffee but still legible,” said Starfish. “Lots of big English words.”

“And why would you sell them to me?”

He shrugged. “Don't have to.”

It felt like a trap. “Fine, then don't,” I said. Another English word I had learned that described Starfish: hustler.

Starfish nodded slowly, staring at me. “Your
bunu
. He was rare, one of the few good ones. He was my friend. He'd want these papers, so I figured you would too.”

Starfish was friends with Bunu? I looked at him, skeptical.

“You don't believe me? Your
bunu
told me that I was special. That with one eye I had a unique view of the world. He gave me a book of poetry by some guy named Homer. Said the guy was blind and if he could write beautiful things with no eyes, imagine what I could do.”

That definitely sounded like Bunu. “Did you read the book?”

“Nah, I sold it,” said Starfish. “You want the papers or not?”

“Yes, I want them. You hear anything new this morning?”

“Yeah. A new American ambassador arrived recently. Lots of activity at the U.S. Embassy. Bring the money down. I'll be around for another fifteen minutes.”

A new American ambassador. Dan had told me.

And I had told Paddle Hands.

I nodded to Starfish and started for my building.

Our apartment was empty. I needed the dollar from Cici's locked box. I also wanted the pocketknife she kept hidden for me. I retrieved the box from beneath her bed. Could I pick the lock? And then I remembered—the ring of keys in her sewing basket. She wouldn't mind.

It was easy to determine which key fit the lock. It was smaller than the rest. I opened the box and found my dollar beneath the white tubes she called “tampons.” I also grabbed my small pocketknife. What else did she have? I quickly poked through.

A small bottle of perfume, a wrapped square called “Trojan,” rose-scented soap, a thick envelope, two packs of Kents, and—lightning bolt earrings. Wait, those belonged to the woman from Boston. Why did Cici have her earrings?

And then I saw them.

My fingers went cold.

Loop rings made from the package of BT cigarettes.

The loop rings that Agent Paddle Hands constantly fiddled with during our meetings.

A wave of nausea rolled through me.

No.

I opened the thick envelope. Inside was foreign currency.
A lot
of foreign currency.

American dollars. British pounds. German marks. And something else—

My Bruce Springsteen article.

The one I'd kept hidden in my closet. The one that disappeared. The one that Paddle Hands mentioned.

My hands trembled.

No. How was this possible? The walls slowly began to fold in on me.

Cici.

My beloved sister.

My devoted friend.

She was working with the Securitate.

I carefully returned everything to the box as I had found it, including my dollar. But I kept the knife and pinched some other bills from the thick envelope. I slid the locked box back under the sofa and returned the keys to her sewing basket.

I left the apartment.

My hands shook. I felt frozen straight through.

And then I heard their voices. Below me. Cici was talking to the woman from Boston. I stopped on the third-floor landing, listening.

“
Mersi
. You've been such a help, Cici. I don't know how I would have done this without you,” said the woman.

She's not helping you. She's betraying you. She's betraying everyone.

My head was spinning.

I exited the building, giving a wave to Starfish. He nodded for me to follow him.

We walked, saying nothing. He handed me his pack of cigarettes. Against the pack was a thick square of folded paper. I slid the money inside the cigarette pack and handed it back to him. I kept the square of paper in my closed palm and transferred it casually to my pocket.

“How's your pretty sister?” he asked.

Starfish knew most everything and everyone.

I raised my eyebrows and gave him my best knowing look. “C'mon, Starfish, is she pretty, or pretty sneaky?”

“Both!” He laughed and disappeared between two buildings.

I walked down the rutted sidewalk and joined a line outside the
Alimentara
, killing time, pretending to wait for a stump of bread, so I could think. My mind was full of maybes.

Maybe Cici was blackmailed into being an informer, like me.

The thick envelope of foreign currency—maybe Cici was an agent?

Or maybe Cici was dating Paddle Hands?

Every option disgusted me. Cici told me I couldn't trust Luca. She told me I couldn't trust Starfish. Her cautious nature, always suspicious—was that an act? I thought of my conversation with Bunu on the balcony.

Agents. Informers. Rats. This country is full of them. We're infested. And they keep multiplying. They're in our streets, in our schools, crawling in the workplace, and now they've chewed through the walls . . . into our apartment.

I had thought Bunu was referring to me. Was he actually talking about Cici? Did Bunu know? Cici took the article from my closet. Had she discovered my hiding spot and my notebook? The questions pushed at me:

Did Cici really work at a textile factory?

Did she care about our family?

Did she care about our country?

I felt sick. I felt scared. I felt lost.

I left the line and started walking. If I kept going, could I eventually make it to Timișoara?

I arrived. Not in Timișoara. At Luca's. I knocked on the door.

Luca took one look and pulled me in. “You okay?” he asked.

I shrugged.

“My parents are at work. It's just me and my sisters,” he said.

Luca had four younger sisters. “Hello, Cristian!” They shrieked and giggled when I walked in.

“Your hair,” laughed Dana, the oldest. “Do you use a comb?”

“Nah, I use a hatchet,” I told her.

“Are you shy? My sister says you're shy,” chimed another.

“She didn't say he's shy—she said he's cute!” said the youngest. The girls erupted with swats and laughter.

“Is it worth the stupid medal?” whispered Luca.

With five kids, Luca's mom had received a maternity medal from the State. But five wasn't enough. Ceauşescu wanted women to birth ten kids. If they did, they received the title of Heroine Mother.

“Want to head outside?” he asked.

I shook my head. I motioned as if I was writing.

He nodded. “We'll be doing homework,” said Luca to the girls.

“Liar,” sneered Dana. “It's winter break.”

The electricity was on. Luca's family didn't have a sofa in their kitchen. They had three narrow wooden chairs and a small table with a red-and-black embroidered tablecloth. Luca pulled a pad and pen from
a drawer. He set it down in front of me at the table. He turned on the radio, and then the faucet. Noise decoys.

We sat, saying nothing, me staring at the pad of paper. Could I do this? Should I do this?

I picked up the pen, hesitating. Then I began to write.

First, everything I thought I knew—it's all a lie.

Secu came to school. They knew about the dollar in my stamp album.

You were the only one I had told. I was mad. I thought you informed on me.

I pushed the pad toward him.

He read my writing, eyes expanding. He shook his head.

“No,” he whispered.

“I know that now,” I told him. I grabbed the pad and took a breath. I wrote the word.

Cici.

“No way,” said Luca. He grabbed the pad. I watched him write.

You're paranoid. Everything that's happening, it's making us all crazy.

“Bunu knew. He tried to tell me,” I whispered.

Luca sat back in his chair, eyebrows raised.

I nodded.

My friend shook his head slowly. “There's gotta be an explanation.”

Luca. Kind, patient Luca. I wrote the words and passed the pad to him.

I'm sorry.

He stared at the pad. He gave me a small nod and took the pen.

I knew something was wrong.

Liliana's brother. Could it be Alex, not Cici? I've seen them together.

I shook my head. I didn't think so.

We sat, serenaded by State propaganda warbling from the radio.

How can I help?
wrote Luca.

I took the pad.
Maybe forgive me for being an ass.

“You're always an ass.” He pulled the pad toward him.

The suffering here—it's beyond physical. It's mental stuff. They're messing with you. They do it to a lot of people.

I shrugged.

Luca tore the page from the pad. He turned on the gas burner, lit the paper, and tossed it into an empty pot on the stove. “Stand up,” said Luca. “I can't punch a guy who's sitting down.”

He was going to punch me? I couldn't blame him. I stood up. He raised his fists then quickly wrenched his arm around my neck and rubbed his knuckles through my hair. We laughed and wrestled around the kitchen, like we did when we were young.

I had told Luca that I thought he was an informer.

I had told Luca that I thought Cici was an informer.

But I hadn't told Luca that I
was
an informer.

But the way he said it:
They're messing with you. They do it to a lot of people.
I somehow thought he knew.

I left Luca's apartment and trudged down the stairs. When I got to the front door of the building, someone opened it.

Liliana.

We stopped and stood, staring at each other. And suddenly this crazy feeling emerged, like birds were flapping around in my chest.

“
Bună
,” she said.

“Bună.”
I nodded.

We lingered, suspended in silence. She casually brushed her bangs from her eyes and I saw the outline of something drawn on her hand.

“You were wondering something,” she said.

“Oh, was I?” The birds in my chest, they flapped faster. She was so pretty.

“Yeah. I'm a Pisces.”

How did she know I had wondered?

She smiled.

And then we went our separate ways.

I sat in my dark closet, avoiding family. Could there be an explanation, like Luca said?

Cici sewed for people. Maybe they paid her in foreign currency. Maybe she took the Springsteen article to keep me safe. Maybe she made the loop rings from the cigarette packages herself.

Maybe?

I snapped on the flashlight to read the English pages I had bought from Starfish. They were crumpled, clearly retrieved from a trash bin. And they weren't original. They were multigeneration, poor copies, stapled together.

The words at the top said:

Romania,
Human Rights Violations in the Eighties

First published July 1987,
Amnesty International Publications, London

Amnesty International's Concerns

This report documents the persistent pattern of human rights abuse in Romania in the 1980s, a period in which the authorities have imprisoned their critics and jailed hundreds
of other men and women for wanting to exercise their rights to leave the country. Some prisoners of conscience have been tortured, beaten, and jailed for years after unfair trials. Other critics of the government have been put under house arrest, have lost their jobs, or have been attacked in the street by security thugs.

“Prisoner of conscience.” I made a mental note to research that term.

Torture and Ill Treatment

 . . . It has been reported that political prisoners have been tortured by being beaten on the soles of the feet or being kicked and beaten with rubber truncheons. Two prisoners are reported to have died after torture.

Bunu. That's exactly what happened to Bunu. The descriptions were detailed, listing several names of specific victims. The papers were so lethal, they nearly burned my hands.

“Pui?”
Cici's voice appeared at my door. I jumped, clutching the papers. “
Pui
 . . . Ceauşescu's going to be on TV.”

I couldn't leave my closet. Cici would take one look at me and know I was hiding something. I needed more information first.

“I'm tired. And sick of it,” I told her. “He'll just say the same old thing.”

I was right. Partially. I put my ear to the door and heard our leader's ranting voice. According to Ceauşescu, hooligans and foreign agents were creating turmoil and unrest.

Was I a hooligan?

Maybe.

Was there unrest?

Definitely.

The papers from Starfish were dangerous. So dangerous that I couldn't leave them in my closet. I had to carry them with me at all times.

So I stuffed them into my jacket pocket and finished devising my plan.

I was going to confront Cici.

At the time it seemed straightforward. She was either working with Paddle Hands or she wasn't. I hadn't yet absorbed one of life's universal truths:

Things that seem straightforward?

Often aren't.