Just a Monumental Summer: Girl on the train (15 page)

After a week or two, I settled in to Alin’s place and began to feel at home. The band routine became my own. The band was pretty cool about accepting me as the newest member of the household, which made me feel good.

Am I home?
I started to think maybe I was.

              “Do you have plans for today?” I asked Alin one day, while relaxing on the balcony.

“Nope.” he replied and hugged me happily.

“Let’s go to the beach and meet Vera. We can have lunch later.” I suggested, smiling up at him.

“Let’s be alone this weekend. Only me and you; no band; no other people,” he countered, holding me tighter.

I wanted to see Vera. She only had a couple of days left before she had to go back home. I explained this to Alin, and he agreed. I could tell he was disappointed, though, and would rather have had me all to himself.

We dressed and made our way down to the kitchen, which as usual was full of people. I noticed Vladi’s hair was longer than usual. Geta looked up as we walked in and saw me gawking at Vladi’s hair. She explained he had extensions. “It’s a new thing. It’s real hair strands attached to your original hair, and it looks like it’s yours. It’s cool,” Geta explained, grinning at my confusion.

“I couldn’t sleep the whole night. It’s too tight,” Vladi complained.

“You need to get used to it, baby. You need to suffer in order to look gorgeous.” He sighed, exasperated. They exchanged a sweet romantic kiss.

Ema arrived later in the morning, alone. She looked ready for the beach. She had a baby blue hat and a gorgeous long beach dress. She entered the living room and surprised me with a warm hug good morning. As she hugged me, she whispered, “I have to tell you something.”

I took her into another room for privacy.

“I woke up in the morning, and he was still sleeping.” It was obvious she was speaking about George T. “I gave him the best fuck of his life, last night. In the morning, I left. I packed all my stuff. I didn’t leave a note; I simply left. I can’t believe I did that!” she exclaimed, satisfied.

I was shocked, but skeptical she would stick with it and actually leave him for good.

“Why now?”

“I woke up and looked at him. He was looking old and ugly, His breath smelled. He was snoring. I don’t even hate him anymore. I am done,” she exclaimed triumphantly.

Then she started to cry. I hugged her. She let me. I was relieved. I gave her time. Suddenly, she pushed me away and started to dry her tears. “I never thought it would be so easy,” she told me.

“Ema, leaving him was the easy part. The hard part is about to come,” I warned her.

I went to the kitchen, and I told everyone the news. Although it was morning, we drank beer to celebrate. We toasted Ema’s courage. Jony said emphatically, “And fuck George T.” We all laughed and repeated that. We left for a late breakfast at Dana’s place. She put some tables and chairs together. Dana was crying as she told us one of her stray dogs was poisoned. Worse, she was the one to find him dead under the stairs.

“He never did anything wrong to anyone. Why someone would do something like that?”

We hated to see her suffer, and tried to comfort her.

“People are fucked up sometimes,” Vladi murmured into his glass.

Unfortunately, animal cruelty and torture was not uncommon. The boys would gather in alleyways after catching a stray dog or cat to torture them, egging each other on, continuing until they killed the animal.

I noticed Ema sitting close to Jony. She was leaning over, flirting and whispering to him. He was grinning, enjoying the attention. I was jealous. I watched them covertly; how could she always gets Jony’s attention. Then I stopped myself, disgusted. I reminded myself of my earlier realization about finding my home with Alin. If that was true, what was I doing wondering about Jony?

After our late breakfast, we left for the beach to look for Vera and Giovanni. We found them under an umbrella. Big shock - Vera didn’t seem happy to see Ema – oil and water, those two. I raised my shoulders in a helpless gesture and smiled at her. I motioned to the water with a silent question to Vera. She nodded, so we went splashing into the surf for some privacy. Vera was eager for information, and barely waited until we were alone before asking, “Did you give Jony my number? He is sooo hot.” Without a pause for breath she added “Giovanni likes you; he said you are cool. I told you he would like you.” When she finally stopped talking, I filled her in about Ema getting rid of George T. “I told you.” she replied, smirking.

We left the water and walked back up to where the group was lounging. There were new people gathered around; suddenly our gang was a lot more numerous. Someone had put up a tent and brought some chairs, and the guitars were out. As we approached, Alin grabbed a guitar and started to sing. I liked to watch him sing – it felt like he was singing to me alone; the crowd faded away, and I knew I would never get tired of listening to his voice. He was
my
rock star – my man. He was singing for the group, but he was looking at me. Today was a good day.

***
5 August 1989

My mother worked for a couple of years in a factory located on the outskirts of the city. She was a simple worker, a midline working forty hours a week. My mother's foreman, a “stinky man,” made her life unbearable. My mother was determined to leave and stay home to “raise her three children”, so she finally quit to stay with us. Later, I heard rumors her ex-foreman had tried to make advances toward her. When she refused him, he didn’t leave her alone until she quit.

              My mother was, for me, the most beautiful woman who ever lived. Not because she had Sofia Loren gorgeous eyes, nor because of her emphasized cheekbones. Not her pouty lips, perfect teeth or her long legs. In my childish mind, it was her always neatly painted nails. She always had an aura of taste and elegance, and I had no idea where it came from. How had she learned to be sophisticated and graceful?

But there was a dark side to my mother; she had to know everything about everyone else. She thrived on gossip and was judgmental to boot. Her favorite pastime was to sit on the beach and comment about the people walking there. She was disparaging of everyone else’s manner of dress – if someone had a tacky dress on, she would sigh and roll her eyes: “Look at that peasant woman. She looks like the whole rainbow fell on her dress.” If someone had unpainted or ungroomed toenails, that got a sharp retort from her, “Did you see her toenails? Too long. Disgusting – like horse hooves.”

But back then, I did not understand how cruel those statements were – the lack of compassion – I didn’t know any better. I admired my mom. I absorbed everything she said and soaked it up like the sponge I was. She was the height of fashion and sophistication – she could do no wrong. I learned at her knee that beautiful women could say and do anything and get away with it – no matter how stupid. So often the way she acted was either ignored or emulated. In her case, her direct way and her cruelty were often overlooked by many. Men would dream of her in ways that had nothing to do with gossip; most women were either her best friends or her enemies for life. The men were always disappointed – as far as I know. The women who gossiped with her also gossiped about her, and she about them, so it was a peculiar sort of bond.

              Later, as I grew older, I became disdainful of her pettiness. I don’t know if it was normal teenage rebellion or something deeper, but I started to hate her malice – her way of interfering, ferreting out secrets, and spreading the worst about people all over town. She was very good in putting things together and finding embarrassing tidbits when she wasn’t able to get any gossip details. I began to see her as shallow – limited. She began to represent everything I hated about my town, and I started to actively criticize her. I asked her over and over to mind her own business and stop criticizing people. Gossip was like the cornerstone of my mother’s social life; sitting on the benches on the beach and commenting was her life. She was not perceptive enough to realize she was doing anything wrong.

My mother met with betrayal from her family when I was a child. I remember her pain. She was crying, confessing to my father:

“How could they do that to me? They were my family. You know what hurts the most? The thought of them gathering together and conspiring to betray me. Who would come up with something like that? I was their youngest and poorest sister. If you can’t trust your family, then who can you trust?” She would cry in front of us, without trying to hide it.

My father would comfort her in his own bizarre way. “Trust is the first condition for betrayal to occur.”

I found out later, that when my mother’s mother died, her brothers and sisters decided not to tell her. They gathered together, planned the funeral, sold her land and house and shared the money. My mother found out when it was too late. Her pain was horrendous. She didn’t get to say good-bye to her dead mother, and she didn’t get her cut. She was indeed the poorest one. Her brothers and sisters were well situated. She didn’t speak with all of them for years. Later, her older sister’s husband got cancer. They called her and invited us to his maybe-last birthday party. She accepted in tears, and she cried a lot, before and after we arrived there. Yet, after the call, I heard her confiding to my father, “You see, there is a God out there. They betrayed me. They stole from me. What’s the use of all their land and money when you have cancer? Cancer doesn’t need money. I needed the money.”

Although I was not pampered, my mother took care we weren’t deprived of anything. We were sheltered by her, and she made sure we were no more deprived than the conditions forced us to be. Nothing was in abundance; scarcity was present in every aspect from not enough food, not enough electricity and warm water, and no travels abroad at all. I remember my mother always had to stand in line for milk, meat, flour, and oil. Or for the famous Tismana cacao cooies and the ice cream chocolate parfait. During the summertime, the weather made the city hot, sticky, and unbearable. In the wintertime, the cold was tough. People stood for hours and hours in line to make sure they reserved a seat. Standing in line consumed hours of time – tedious, boring, and always ending in frustration. From morning to evening, women crocheted or braided and would talk and gossip, make friends for life. Men talked about football and tell anti-communist jokes, and children would try to kill time playing, talking; anything to pass the endless tedium while waiting for the freight train to bring supplies to the town.

              My mother sheltered us by never asking us to stand in those endless lines. “You must learn. That’s all you have to do,” she would say to us. We were always grateful for that.

It’s almost impossible to explain what it means to live deprived of basic consumer items, such as butter or margarine, soap that smells nice, or simply an ice cream. It’s hard to understand how unbearable were those queues, how time would stand still. Standing in the line was unbearable, but paradoxically, it was also the easiest part. Because when the freight train finally restocked the shelves, and the line finally started to move, people would Lose. Their. Minds. The whole place would become a human circus. While waiting, people were courteous to each other - they would keep your place when you would need to leave for one or two hours. But when the saleswomen would announce there was not enough merchandise for everyone, things would change. People will turn into animals - shoving, pushing, and trying to reach the front.

That was the moment when my mother would turn into a beast, knowing it was her only chance to buy the food she needed. She would scream, scratch, claw and fight for her space. She would come out of that huge mess disheveled, with broken nails and scratches on her hands. Sometimes she would cry from frustration and anger after someone insulted her. But mostly she was victorious and happy she’d managed to buy what she needed.

              I loved her for sparing us the waiting in the line. I adored her for that. And I felt ashamed I never helped her. We were all aware of her sacrifices. I loved that she allowed us the freedom to do what we wanted. That’s why we were good kids; she never had to raise her voice at us.

Next to the lines in our minds was the boredom and tedium of church. Ceausescu couldn’t ban the churches and the religion. He did something else. Over the years he simply demolished a lot of churches- under different pretexts. Either he needed to build something else in there, either the church was too old, all kind of reasons will give him the authority to destroy them, without making his people angry. People still kept their faith, but only during important events like Eastern, a wedding or a funeral, they will remember they are religious and go to the church.  Thankfully, my mother never forced us to go to church either. All our friends had to attend church – if they didn’t have to go weekly they at least were expected to attend ceremonies like weddings or funerals, but we were spared. No church, no lines, and no visits to the country to see our grandparents, because to go meant to do without electricity and TV.

              I loved my mother during the winter holidays. We would be able to buy oranges and bananas, the only time of the year you could buy them. During those times, she would suddenly remember she didn’t like oranges, only to make sure we will get enough. That was my mother. I was constantly conflicted about her – not much different than most teens, I guess – but I never knew whether I hated her or loved her. When I didn’t love her, shame would crush my soul.  Not being able to bear those feelings, I preferred to not love myself. That was the only way I could hide from that purgatory
.