For
Irina, who went to the Năvodari camp
One
of the dreams I had cherished for a long time when I was a child was
to go the mountains or the seaside, since in the places I had visited
with my family I had not seen and was not going to see anything more
worthwhile than the hills in Gostinari, across the river Argeș, and
the large Pustnicu lake near the Pasărea Monastery. Yet my father
did not possess the means to make this dream become reality. Neither
he nor my mother had been able to afford, not for as long as they had
been married, to go to the mountains or the seaside. When she was in
a good mood, my mother would dream romantically of a hiking trip in
the mountains with ONT Carpați and sometimes she used to speak about
it with dad, while he was listening and nodding continuously, without
saying either yes or no. The only one who had somehow managed to
go on a trip to the mountains (on a cart to Vidra, and from there by
taking a few local trains) in order to go to Herculane for a
treatment against lumbago had been Granddad, probably after he had
managed to get a discounted ticket from the Pensioners’ Fund.
My
father could not afford a vacation to the seaside, yet by using his
influence as head of the financial office in Vidra, he miraculously
managed to get a place for me in the Năvodari camp, where I was
going to be sent in July together with a group of district students
from the primary school. And also miraculously (for this never
happened again afterwards) he managed to arrange that my little
brother should be sent to the preventorium in Țigănești, even
if this did not mean either the mountains or the seaside. My
brother had caught a severe lung disease and had been hospitalized
for months until he managed to recover, yet he had some sequelae,
which still required medical care. It was a great success! Neither my
stay at the seaside, nor my brother’s would have cost my dad a
fortune, it was a bargain for his poor man’s budget, who dreamt of
being able to buy a motor bicycle in the distant future.
I
have no idea if my brother was enjoying the prospect of being sent to
that preventorium, where he was going to be given shots and pills for
almost three weeks, but for myself, with the image of the Năvodari
camp in my mind day and night, I was ecstatic. My father shared my
enthusiasm, as he was content that at least I would be going to see
the sea, which he had never seen. With an almost childish enthusiasm,
he described the anticipated journey on the train and used to say,
delightedly, that I was going to cross Anghel Saligny’s bridge at
Cernavodă and see from above, from the carriage window, the
blue-waved Danube flowing under the mighty bridge. He did not tell me
anything about the Sea, since he did not know what it looked like in
reality. He had seen the Danube once, in his youth, when he had gone
to Silistra for the conscription and it had left an indelible
impression on him.
My
mum was happy for me, too. As soon as she found out from Dad that I
was going on a journey, she started, thoroughly and thriftily, to
prepare everything she thought I would need for the Năvodari camp. I
don’t think that she ever again showed so much energy, devotion and
resourcefulness as she did during that summer, in order to prepare me
for a trip or a camp, for the simple reason that there was never
again any opportunity to send me on a trip or camp at the end of
school. That was the astral hour of her maternal vocation. A few
weeks before my departure she was ready with a whole travelling
wardrobe, made up of a thousand little things that I could not miss
for the world: pairs of socks, undershirts, panties, handkerchiefs,
T-shirts, sandals, flip-flops, and what not. To protect my head
against sunstroke: a jockey cap with a straight visor and a dark blue
beret with a huge lightning rod. To wash my teeth (although I did not
use to do it): a brand new “Cristal” tube of pink-coloured
toothpaste, and a toothbrush made of pig bristles. To wash my hands
and my face (although, again, I was not quite a fan of doing that): a
blue bar of soap shaped like a goose egg, nice-smelling, the “Azur”
brand, which my father had declared the best from the RPR. It cost a
bit more than the Cheia soap, but it was worth it. I was also endowed
with a round tin box of Nivea cream, which I could hardly find a use
for, a telescopic glass made of plastic rings, which could fit into a
pocket, and even a transparent ball-point pen which my father had
brought from the Sample Fair in Bucharest and a notebook, for when I
was going to get bored. During the few weeks of intense preparations,
my trousseau was completed by my mum, who had taken to sewing since
my grandma had made her a present of her own Gritzner sewing machine,
with other useful clothes, among which a pair of flannelette pajamas
and one of dark coloured shorts made of a new material that had just
appeared on the market and was called ‘anti-dirt’, which was, of
course, useful for somebody like myself, who enjoyed bathing in the
street dust and used to like to pour it on my head, with an evil
pleasure. She also sewed for me a couple of handkerchiefs with
undulating margins, and on all these things, made by herself or
bought before, she took care to embroider the initials of my name and
surname. I can still see her in my mind’s eye, kneeling by the bed
each night, sewing my initials again and again with a blue, brown or
black thread on shirts, panties, socks, handkerchiefs, pajamas and
what not, under the light of a gas lamp, while I was sitting behind
her, watching her sewing. As for my dad, who did not use to sew at
the sewing machine, he did not forget to mention my future trip to
Năvodari on every occasion, whose double climax was represented,
profoundly, by the crossing of the Danube and Anghel Saligny’s
bridge.
The
more I wished to go on that journey, the longer the waiting seemed.
My father’s stories about seeing the Danube, Saligny’s bridge and
everything else were not enough and I was burning with anticipation.
I wanted to see myself on that train once and for all.
The
day I had waited for so long eventually came. The train for Năvodari
did not, of course, leave from the Vidra station, which was close to
us. It was, I think, at that time, a special train for students,
which left from the North Station early in the morning. In order to
get to the North Station in time, I don’t remember whether we left
home at daybreak, with the bus that took the commuters and the
vegetable-sellers to the city or if we left on the evening of the
previous night and spent the night at the place of one of our
relatives in the city, yet this is not very important. What is
important is that on the morning of the Z day, my mum, my dad and I,
loaded with luggage and emotion, were scurrying through the wide hall
of the station, beautifully paved with small square coffee-coloured
slabs and with a stained glass roof that made up a celestial mosaic,
very impressive in the eyes of the provincials that came and left the
capital of the country. We were not late, on the contrary. We even
had time for other things: I ate a Eugenia biscuit from a stall, my
dad smoked a cigarette and my mum cooled herself with a glass of
lemonade. So that I should not be thirsty on the train, my mum took
care to buy and stuff into my pockets a few packets of mints, while
my dad announced me that the moment of my meeting with Anghel
Saligny’s bridge was getting closer. I started running on the
platform, thinking that the only train there would be the Cernavodă
one, waiting for us, yet when I was faced with the tens of engines
belonging to the tens of trains stationed on different platforms and
I saw the bustling passengers who were coming and leaving, I stopped,
disoriented. My mum could not fare better, either, yet my dad had
received exact directions and was able to see us without any
hesitation towards platform one, to the left, where our special train
was indeed stationed. Some groups of students had already got in and
were looking for their seats in the compartments, other groups of
children in pioneer uniforms were getting in or waiting to get into
the carriages, under the care of some supervisors with an
authoritarian air, all dressed up in dark blue tailored suits and
wearing pins in their lapels. Neither I, not my mother had any idea
what our supervisor, the one that promised to take me with her group
to the seaside, looked like. My father knew her, of course, and after
seeing her at the door of a carriage, not far from where we were,
left us at the end of the platform and went to let her know that we
had arrived.
A
deep emotion overwhelmed me then and I could see myself in the train
carriage crossing the Danube on Anghel Saligny’s bridge as in a
heroic apotheosis. A great dream, which had become even greater, was
about to come true. My father, smiling courteously, greeted the
supervisor and started telling her something. Things had been
arranged a long time before my departure for the camp, and I was
waiting for my father to hand me over to the supervisor, wishing me a
pleasant journey and a nice stay in Năvodari. What else was there to
wait for?
However,
fate willed it otherwise. The supervisor, who had promised to take me
in her group to the Năvodari camp, refused to keep her promise, on
the grounds that I was not of school age yet, although she had known
it well before. All my mum’s thorough preparations and my hopes of
seeing the sea were ruined that very morning, but not because of
nature’s blind forces. Only we can be more dangerous than these,
those who possess reason and empathy.
Translation by Roxana Doncu
The author at the Black Sea, 2017
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