The Scooter

By Daniel Dragomirescu, Bucharest 

Foto: D.D.

I don’t know why it had entered my head that I had to go and see the church in Cioropina, a village in the south, on the Argeș valley, spreading on both sides of the highway. I was six or seven back then and it was summer. I could not walk on foot, it was too far, but I had a new scooter, which my father had just bought from Bucharest, where he used to go on business now and then. Yet I did not feel like venturing to Cioropina on my new scooter, as I did not know the way and I was afraid of finding myself wandering through some god-forsaken places and running into trouble. And maybe I would have waited a few years until I grew up, so that my father could buy me a bike and I could have learned the way better, if one of the boys from Blendea’s infamous family, whose name I cannot remember, although this is of no importance, looking wistfully at my new scooter, had not convinced me that he would guide me himself in that pious pilgrimage to the above-mentioned village, where he happened to have some relatives, his paternal grandparents, it seems. I knew this boy by sight as I always saw him pass on our street, ruffled and dirty, and knew that he was repeating the year. Blendea’s boy was the spitting image of the Blendea family, but this I was going to find out later. He asked me for one leu so that he would buy a package of Nationals, he said they were for his grandfather in Cioropina, and warned me not to say a word about our planned trip to my parents, while setting up a meeting for the following morning, down the street, after my father left for work. I was to make sure that nobody would see me leave home, and if I could not keep my mouth shut, he was not going to take me with him and I was not going to see that big beautiful Church, full of painted saints, in Cioropina. He started to walk towards the soda water shop, where they also sold cigarettes, and I stayed on the doorstep, until Blendea’s boy disappeared from my view and I was seized by a certain perplexity, wondering whether I had given him one leu for nothing. The night might have seemed long thinking of the expedition next day and I might have dreamt of scooters and painted churches with one thousand one saints, who deserved the effort of being closely seen and of the leu I had given to Blendea’s boy. Luckily, the dawn broke soon, my father jumped on his wreck of a Russian bicycle and rode to work. I crept outside too, on my new scooter, which was still smelling of fresh paint and started on my way in the other direction. I sped up down the hill, as if I was being chased by demons, rising clouds of dust behind me. Blendea’s boy was true to his word: he was waiting for me bandy-legged, near the soda water shop, smoking a cigarette. ‘Come on, we’re late! Why did it take you so long?’ he started scolding me even from afar, then threw away the cigarette butt in a ditch, jumped on the scooter in front of me, clutched tight at the handle bars and told me to step on it, as the afternoon was approaching. He was standing with both feet on my scooter, while I used only one, with the other pedaling. Luckily the highway was paved with asphalt and although Blendea’s boy had a wrong position and hampered my pedaling, blocking my view, the scooter was driving like an inspection trolley on the railway.

We drove out of our village without my noticing it, we rushed through Cioacele and I have no idea how we got to Cioropina. Yet somehow we had made it. We stopped near the church, which was not a princely cathedral and did not even resemble the Dorobanți church on the hill, run-down, but full of saints and ancient things. Curious, I got off the scooter and went to contemplate the place where the people in Cioropina worshipped God. Blendea’s boy, not at all willing to see the church more closely as I was, with a slight air of boredom, stayed behind on the margin of the highway, clutching at the handles without a word. He had fulfilled his promise by bringing me here and nothing concerned him anymore. I went round the church, counting the saints painted on the walls, but I was not very impressed. At least, not as much as I had expected. The church in my village was bigger and it seemed more beautiful.

It was about noon. While I was still contemplating the church walls, trying to weigh the worth of the painted saints, the rattle of some wheels made me turn my head and I saw Blendea’s boy just as he was riding away on my scooter. Until I was able to utter a word, to ask him what he was doing and where he was going, he had already crossed the highway and went through the gate of his grandparents’ house together with my scooter, closing the gate tight behind him. I stood motionless for some moments, as I did not expect this and I could not understand what was happening. Until then I had had about seven scooters, which I had ruined, yet none of them happened to be taken by somebody, so it had not crossed my mind that something like this would be possible. When I recovered my senses, I thought that Blendea’s boy would come out to give me my scooter back or he would invite me to his grandparents’ house for lunch. A vain hope, as the wretched Blendea’s boy was not coming out. After entering his grandparents’ place, he abandoned my scooter in the middle of the yard, like a kind of trophy and he stood by air with a provocative air, as if saying: “I am now home and this scooter belongs to me”.

I crossed the street and stood before the closed gate. Blendea’s boy was standing next to the scooter, like a guardian, and was looking at me without budging, with the gaze of a Sphinx, under the afternoon sun which was burning both of us. He was looking straight into my eyes, without saying a word. The yard and his grandparents’ house seemed deserted and I waited in vain to see any of them coming out. I did not dare enter that foreign yard, for fear that a dog would jump at me or something else would happen, and after a few minutes of hopeless waiting, I started to shout at the top of my lungs. Blendea’s boy did not react in any way. He stood his ground. Whether he had premeditated his theft or not, one could see that he meant to cling to my scooter and did not want to give it back. Instead, on the previously deserted alley a group of women appeared, some young, some older, who had heard me crying. They gathered round me and asked what had happened to me. Among sobs I told them my story, pointing to Blendea’s boy and my scooter behind the fence. The women appeared deeply impressed by what had happened and one of them, older and more robust, started to swear at Blendea’s boy on account of his cheating, which was apparently not far from his esteemed grandparents either, and then all the women urged him in one voice to give me my scooter back. But the cheat who had swindled me continued to stay behind the closed gate and he had no intention of admitting to his cheat and giving the scooter back. No threat managed to make him step back. Then the robust woman went to her house and came back with her son. A boy that was older and stronger than Blendea’s. He first tried to enter the gate in order to bring back the scooter, but as the gate had been locked he had to jump over the fence. Once on the other side he took the scooter from where it had been thrown, without Blendea’s boy trying to resist him, he went out triumphantly with it through the gate with it and returned it to me, looking to see if Blendea’s boy had damaged it.

I could go back home now, but the women showed their concern and did not let me go back alone, for fear that Blendea’s boy would meet me at the village end and steal the scooter a second time. In Cioropina he was notorious for his bad deeds. They asked the boy who had recovered my scooter to see me off home and we started immediately. When we went out of the village, at a bend in the road, he showed me some back gardens from where Blendea’s boy could have cut my way and told me about his old deeds, well-known to the villagers. We passed by the accursed place without anything happening to us, as Blendea’s boy did not show himself or want to show himself; maybe he was spying on us hidden somewhere, when we went on the highway behind the gardens, but gave it up seeing that I was not alone.

This small history has several endings.

The son of the woman in Cioropina brought me back safe and sound and went back to his village on foot, without asking for anything in return. Of course I kept silent about everything in front of my parents, otherwise they wouldn’t have allowed me to ride my scooter for a long time. A few months passed since that event and life was carrying me forward, when, one day, I met my rescuer again, passing through our village in a cart. We recognized each other as if we had parted the day before, we stopped and talked like two good old friends. Afterwards I did not see him again, yet the event that made me know and appreciate him stayed in my memory.

Twenty or so years passed since then. One day, when I had come on a visit in the village, I found out that Blendea’s boy had just died in a serious accident. He had crashed into a tree with a stolen motorbike at 100 km per hour. The constable had found out first about the accident and went to his parents’ home to give them the sad news. When he saw the policeman on his doorstep, old Blendea, imagining that his son had committed another theft or started a new scandal in the village, without letting the law officer speak first, is rumoured to have welcomed him with this legendary parental enquiry:

“Has my son screwed it up again?! … Beat him up, beat him up!...

The law officer, looking askance at him, shut him up with the following reply:

“How can I beat him up, you blockhead, he’s dead.”

From my scooter, Blendea’s boy had shifted to motorbikes. He never got to vehicles, though.

Yesterday’s confessions for today’s people

By Daniel Dragomirescu 

The day when time stopped in Bucharest

On April 4^th 1944, as a major event of World War II, the British-American air forces bombarded for the first time, the Romanian Capital. Until August 23^rd 1944, two bombardments a day were registered. It was then, that the King decided to set Antonescu aside and withdraw from the Axis (made up of Germany, Italy and Japan). After Rommel had lost the war in North Africa, the allies disembarked in Europe and continued the battle in the territory of its enemy. The Allied Aircrafts were leaving from an airbase in South Italy, they were crossing the Balkan Mountains (both protected by their hunting aircrafts) and not only were they dropping their bombs over Bucharest, but over other cities as well, especially, over Ploiești and over the petroliferous areas. The Eastern Romanian cities were also bombarded by the Soviet air force, but compared to the British-American, the Soviets had a weaker air force and, therefore, the damages had not been that important.
 

Not only were the British-Americans bombarding military objectives, but civilian ones as well – and this was not a simple coincidence, but a deliberate action meant to generate terror among the people (Wikipedia even calls them ‘terror bombings’) and to weaken the troops’ resistance offered to the enemy. And, at that moment, Romania’s sole enemy was the Red Army, that had again occupied Bucovina and was reaching for Bessarabia as well. The Americans were bombing Bucharest during the day (generally at noon), while the British completed the Americans work during the night. Everything very well planned and executed. 

 Bombing on Bucharest, April 1944

My mother was working as a shop assistant at the well-known ‘Sora’ store, the one near the North Railway Station, an area aimed at by the 4^th of April Bombing. Luckily, she was not there when the bombs were released. She faced the disaster the next day, when heading, as usually, towards the store, she could no longer advance because of the disaster provoked by the bombs. In the railway station, there were laying hundreds of Bessarabian refugees who paid, with that occasion, a bloody tribute. They had died, being burnt alive, crushed or turned into pieces on the rails, in the proximity of which they were found, on the platforms or in the waiting rooms. There were old people, women with children that had come to Bucharest in railway carriages, on railway carriages and under railway carriages, in such conditions that were dramatic beyond our imagination, just to save themselves. According to someone’s confession, in this horror journey, a woman travelled for hundreds of kilometres on some wood boards under the railway carriages and she had to see her youngest child dying, crashed by the wheels of the train. We are still mourning the Syrian boy drowned in the Mediterranean Sea and we think that the evil comes from one part only, because we have taught ourselves to judge unilaterally. The Bessarabian refugees feared that if they had remained in the occupied area, the special troops of NKVD, representing the Red Army, (which were similar to the German famous Einsatzgruppen, but more powerful and feared than these, since Stalin was not risking a Nürnberg after the war) would have killed them or would have deported them in cattle railway carriages to the Siberian working camps just because they were Romanians. No western eco-pacifist organization would have protested for their cause. This was also the story of those ten thousands Bessarabians, who could not leave their country. Those who were more successful, almost never came back. All Russians’ actions were hiding a real genocide. The extent of it is still unknown and will, probably, remain so forever. 
 

Sometimes, as soon as the bombings ended, the air crafts did not return to Italy, but firstly, they headed to the Soviet Union, where they were provided with airports for refuelling. Back over the same objectives, they were again releasing bombs, while reaching for South Italy from where, they were coming back to drop even more bombs over Romania. During my childhood, a distinguished old man, who had been working in the USA, but had returned to Romania, had a house on Griviței Street, near to the rail ways that were connecting the North Railway Station to Basarab Railway Station, was showing me a wooden table which he kept in his small yard besides a wall of a destroyed house, telling me that there had fallen a bomb.
 

In 1944, my father’s youngest sister and her fiancée were studying at the Conservatory. Next autumn, she would have probably, become a Music teacher, but on the 4^th of April, she was eating at a students’ canteen near the North Railway Station. When the alarm went off, she and her fiancée found refuge in a closed-by anti-aircraft shelter which they shared with hundreds of other people. But that day, the bombs of Arthur Harris, Marshal of the Royal Air Force, (also known as Bomber Harris or Butcher Harris, 1892 - 1984) worked without mistake and destroyed everything in their way. One bomb was dropped over a building under which laid the anti-aircraft shelter. The remains of that building covered the only air duct of the shelter and all the people hiding there (mostly students) died asphyxiated. ‘Universul’ newspaper published during the next days, lists with the names of the hundreds and thousands of dead people in the destructive British-American raid.
 

Commemorating 72 years that have passed since that event, I have found, this month, some document photos from April 1944. One is downloaded from the Internet and it manages to depict very well the aftermath of the bombing in an area near Herăstrău Park, shortly after the 4^th of April raid. The other one was taken with the occasion of my father’s sister funeral. It took place two weeks later, on April 20^th, close to Bucharest, where she was born. 

 Funeral, April 1944

On the faces of the participants at the funeral – many peasant women and peasants’ children, whose fathers were fighting on the front line, dead, alive, disappeared or taken as prisoners – you could read one thing: Romanians deep lack of hope in an era when the war started shredding the lives of people without any consideration. Even though, they were all saying that they were fighting for people’s sake. 

Traducere de Iulia Andreea Anghel

Universitatea din Bucureşti

 

 

Democracy and Responsibility

    

   Daniel Dragomirescu

The masses of solidary citizens that were participating in a commemorative march for the victims in the Colectiv Club came back last night on the streets of the capital in triple numbers. They marched in front of the most important political institutions, starting with the Parliament and ending with the Victoria Square Palace. They were not silent anymore, they tried to sketch a project for a better country, asking for and obtaining the downfall of some important leaders that were responsible for what does not work in Romania, starting with the Prime Minister, Victor Ponta, who was the hope of the young wing of the former USL.

One question that was asked was: if ‘they’ fall, do we have a better option? The slogan that came back and was shouted by the 30.000 demonstrants in Bucharest – “All parties – the same misery” – says it all: unfortunately, at the moment people have completely lost faith in the existing parties, both those in office and the ones in the opposition, a more or less ornamental one – a fact officially recognized by Ponta himself, who, not long ago, had the bad idea to pride himself on the fact that at present, in Romania, “there is no opposition”. This severe crisis of faith of the Romanians has been obvious for a while, yet no political party made a real attempt to heed the signals and improve its performance on the political scene.

The second question is a logical one, but which, in the tragic context of the events in the Colectiv Club sounds malicious, disrespectful and even provocative. I reproduce it here, quoting the comment of a reader on the site of a national magazine (“Revista 22”): “It’s ok to protest, but it’s better to pay attention to who you vote for! In a democracy you cannot blame anyone but yourself. Who elected Piedone  mayor? Who elected Oprescu? Who elected Ponta and Oprea through the uninominal voting system?” End of quote.

However, things are not as simple as they appear in this subtly partisan way of thinking. Democracy does not mean taking responsibility off parties and politicians and blaming simple citizens for their bad government. Similarly, during the June 1999 Mineriad, the responsibility for the brutalities did not fall on the real miners, but on those who manipulated them. The first to be held responsable in a democracy which is not an oligarchy are the parties, the members of the parliament and the Govern. If you want to rule a country, you have to take responibility for your deeds. You should not make too great demands on the trust and the understanding of the citizens whose legitimate expectations you belie, so that afterwards you can shift the guilt for what you did wrong or just not well enough on them. Only demagogues and their interested or naive allies can say: citizen, you are to blame because you voted for this opportunist or: citizen, you are to blame because you did not care to vote for an opportunist.

It is true that there is no democracy, in the modern sense of the word, without political pluralism. But is also equally true that democracy means the unconditional responsibility of those to whom people delegate power temporarily through their votes.

English Version: CLH Team