“We’re constantly changed by events going on in our lives. Sometimes they’re cumulative and chip away at our psyche, like yet another bad day at the office, or another smile from a pretty girl that raises our confidence. But occasionally something happens that alters us in the blink of an eye, and we instantly become a different person, for better or for worse.”
from I Just Had to go Back to Di Island by Anthony Bjorklund
From I’m an Old Commie by Dan Lungu
“Coming home, I took a close look at the block of flats where we live…The block was no longer new like it was when we moved in, deliriously happy. More than 30 years have passed since then and it hadn’t seen so much as a lick of paint in all that time. The walls were peeling, and the corners have been eaten away by the rain. On the wall above a window on the first floor, there was a thick black streak left by smoke. In the winter they’d probably put a wood stove in and stuck the flue out the window. The steps in front of the entrance were chipped and the banisters were bent, rattling to the touch.”
This description took me immediately back to the giant communist era edifices that line Bulevardul Unirii in Bucharest.
We’re preparing to move from the place that we’ve lived at for over ten years. I received an email from the assistant manager of my current place regarding my lease renewal and made an appointment with her to discuss our move out.
Mihaela Zoltany is her name. I think to myself, “Mihaela is a Romanian name”, but I didn’t know about the surname Zoltany. I also suspected that “Mihaela” is probably common in other countries as well.
I went to the appointment and met her. The accent was much more obvious this time. I said, “Mihaela. Is that eastern European?”
“I’m from Romania.”
The coincidences are compelling. I need to go back. And I need to get my DNA checked.
I ride the train to and from work. I don’t usually have much interaction with other passengers. Going to work in the morning I usually sleep. Coming home I usually read or put my earphones and watch something on Netflix.
For a couple weeks now, there has been a new regular passenger that boards the train where I do and rides to Union Station. I’ve seen him every morning, but only occasionally on the ride home. Always friendly, he seemed always to want to chat, which is not usually my “thing”. I have my routine, you know?
After a couple weeks of random good mornings on the platform, yesterday morning we chatted on the platform waiting for our train. I had noticed before that he had an accent of some sort that I couldn’t quite place, so I asked him where the accent came from.
He said….
wait for it….
Oh, you already guessed. “I’m from Romania”, he said ( I hadn’t picked that up at all in his accent)
My jaw dropped open. Figuratively. At least I think it was figuratively.
I told him I had been to Romania twice, and his jaw dropped open. Definitely a metaphor this time…he actually did not seem surprised at all. He asked if I had gone for business or pleasure and I answered that it was neither really ( I was thinking of my first visit which was serendipity more than anything) and told him that I would explain another time when I had more time since our train was pulling in.
Of course, as fate would have it, we found ourselves together on the ride home. We sat at the same table and I told him my story of how I had come to visit his country and he told me some of his story. How he had grown up in Communist Romania and came to the USA some 35 years ago before the Revolution. How he had been prepared to go back and fight at that time. How he had been involved in church missions to go back and help the street kids in Bucharest for some time. We talked about some of the history of his country, the people, the places, and the food. He seemed genuinely surprised that I liked sarmale and mămăligă and promised that he would bring me some the next time he prepared it (or the holidays, whichever comes first).
Before I knew it, we arrived at our stop, shook hands and wished each other a good weekend. I’m sure we will talk again and I look forward to it.
My new Romanian friend.
Something my sister said reminded me of this. Probably the best, and perhaps the only, advice that my father ever gave me about life:
Illegitimi non carborundum
Roughly, “Don’t let the bastards get you down”
Word.
“Did you really believe them when they told you the cause
Did you really believe that this war would end wars
Well the suffering, the sorrow, the glory, the shame
The killing and dying, it was all done in vain
Oh Willy McBride it all happened again
And again, and again, and again, and again”
Will we ever learn?
“He was very fluent and very comic, for he had reached the state when all the world was his friend.”
from Romanian Furrow – ‘Touches the very soul of rural Romania’ by Donald Hall
